Free Himmler's War-ARC by Robert Conroy

dead. Rumors, she said were flying. He told her he didn’t know. He hated lying to his daughter, but he couldn’t take the chance that she might say something to a schoolmate that could get back to the damned Gestapo.
    When she was done eating, Margarete kissed him on the forehead and announced that she had studying to do. Magda then informed her husband that he was filthy and it was time for him to clean up.
    Varner grunted and went to the bathroom where he filled a tub with hot water, stripped, and lay down in it, letting its warmth cleanse him in more ways than one.
    He toweled down and walked naked into the bedroom. He was mildly annoyed that Magda hadn’t brought any underclothing to the bathroom. His annoyance ceased when he saw her lying naked on the bed, her long blond hair undone and strewn across her pillow. He grinned wickedly. “Is it Christmas?”
    She smiled and beckoned to him. “No, but you can open your present anyhow.”
    They made love with an intensity that had been lacking in the last few weeks as his job had overwhelmed and exhausted him. Magda was no longer the slender student he’d married almost two decades ago, but he thought the slight plumpness she’d gained in certain areas of her body was highly desirable. He proved the point by caressing her intimately, in preparation for a second time. She moaned and sighed. “Magpie will hear us,” he said.
    “I think she understands.” They caressed each other with their lips, fingers, and tongues until he again entered her and they climaxed, totally spent.
    Later, they lay side by side, sweaty and sated. Varner felt it was time to bring up an unpleasant decision he’d made. “You and Magpie must leave Berlin. When the bombs were falling and I was cowering in some filthy stinking basement and trying not to shit myself, all I could think of was the two of you and what danger you were in. And when I helped pull that boy out of the rubble, I thought I would weep in despair. We have no defense against the Allied bombers, and the next raid, or the one after that, could easily kill you.”
    Magda was not surprised. In fact, part of her welcomed it. She wanted to be by Ernst’s side in Berlin, but she also wanted to protect their daughter. And she was not too proud to admit that the bombings, an almost daily ritual now, terrified and horrified her. She counted it a blessing that, so far, the sirens hadn’t sounded this night.
    “Now that I’m assigned to von Rundstedt’s staff, I can get authorization for you to go to your sister’s place.”
    Magda’s sister Bertha and her husband Eric Muller lived in a village near Hachenburg, many miles farther west and near the Rhine. To her knowledge no bombs had fallen there, although Hachenburg itself had been hit.
    “Agreed,” she said, “and there is another problem that would be solved. Do you remember Volkmar Detloff?”
    “Of course. Pure Aryan from a totally Nazi family, he’s a fanatically Nazi Youth, and thinks he’s a new god even though he’s only, what? Sixteen?”
    “Well, he told Margarete that if she wanted to be a good young Nazi, she should let him fuck her. For the glory of the Reich, of course.”
    Varner lit a forbidden cigarette. He’d borrowed a couple at the Chancellery. “Did he actually use those words?”
    “Yes, but don’t think our precious Margarete hasn’t heard them before.”
    “I don’t care. Young Volkmar certainly has a way with words. A shame he is going to die violently at such a young age.”
    Magda giggled. “She told me she told him she’d rather lose her virginity to a frog.”
    Varner’s anger faded. He knew he would do nothing about Detloff. The boy’s father was a fairly high ranking member of the Nazi Party and the SS, and a minor aide to Himmler. “I think an immediate move to your sister’s at Hachenburg would be good. How do you think Magpie will feel about this?”
    “She’ll go. She’ll miss some of her schoolmates, but she comprehends