'I'll try not to,' he replied with a smile and a wave, before stepping outside and closing the door behind him.

Waiting on the pavement in the morning's brightening light for the jeep that would transport him to Stadelheim Prison, he could not shake off his recollections of the past fifteen months and realized why he was losing Ingrid's love, even as his pride was being destroyed. He had become a policeman, the emissary of butchers, and as his resistance was eroded and his pride subtly destroyed, Ingrid's respect for him, the basis of her love, was also being eroded.

The Third Reich was driving a wedge between them, just as Ingrid had said it would.

The jeep that Ernst had been waiting for turned the corner at the bottom of the street, came toward him and pulled in to the curb. As his fellow officers, Willi Brandt and Franck Ritter, both lieutenants, were taking up the rear seats, Ernst sat up front with the driver not without noticing that the normally ebullient Brandt was looking gloomy, while Franck was clearly excited.

'So,' Ernst said, as the jeep moved out into the almost deserted road and headed for the Prinz Albrechtstra.s.se, 'another early-morning call for the elite. It's so nice to be wanted.'

'It depends what they want us for,' the gloomy Brandt said, 'since that may not be nice.'

'I always enjoy the early-morning calls,' Franck said, sounding as excited as he looked. 'It usually means some kind of action.'

'I like action in the cinema,' Brandt replied. 'I don't like to be part of it. Not when it involves arresting people and throwing them into that prison.'

'They deserve what they get,' Franck said. 'If they didn't, we wouldn't arrest them. They're the dregs of society drunkards, gypsies, communist traitors and Jews and what we do is for the good of the country, which is why I enjoy it.'

'You'd enjoy torturing or shooting them even more,' Brandt said in a remarkably careless outburst, 'but that doesn't make it right.'

'Those are the words of a traitor!' Franck snapped. 'I could report you for that!'

'If it gets me off this duty,' Brandt responded, 'please be my guest.'

Unnerved by the conversation, Ernst told them both to shut up, then he glanced at the awakening city through which they were moving. It was a warm Sat.u.r.day morning and already the news vendors were out, selling the propaganda to be found in the Ill.u.s.trierte Beobachter and Frankfurter Zeitung while the Brownshirts took up their positions on the pavements, preparing for another day of insults, beard-tugging, and other carefully planned humiliations.

An average weekend in Berlin, 1934.

Ernst felt even worse when the jeep pulled up at the main entrance to the grim Gestapo headquarters in the Prinz Albrechtstra.s.se. He was startled by the number of SS jeeps and troop trucks lined up along the pavement, and even more startled when, inside the gloomy building, he found that it was packed with heavily armed SS troops.

'This is no ordinary working day,' Brandt whispered, looking even more upset. 'What the h.e.l.l's going on, Ernst?'

'Something big,' Ritter exclaimed, his eyes gleaming with excitement. 'I knew it! I knew it!'

Even as he spoke, the door behind them opened again and more SS troops hurried in.

'They've arrested Roehm!' someone whispered.

'Hitler himself did it!' someone else added.

'It's us or the SA,' another voice said. 'And today will decide it.'

Hardly able to believe what he was hearing, Ernst led his two comrades up the stairs and along some packed corridors, until he came to the office of his superior, Gruppenfhrer Josef Dietrich. As Ernst stopped in the doorway, Dietrich barked orders to a group of SS officers. When the officers left, all looking anxious, Dietrich waved Ernst inside.

'Heil Hitler!' he snapped automatically, then added more reasonably: 'Prepare yourselves, gentlemen. Operation Calibra has begun. You are in for a busy day.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Ernst said, 'but I'm not familiar with that code name.'

'No, Lieutenant, of course not. Only the most senior officers were informed. It came to our attention that Roehm was planning a putsch and the ultimate destruction of the authority of the army and SS. However, early this morning, our courageous Fhrer, in the company of Goebbels, flew to Bad Wiessee and personally arrested that disgusting pervert and the nest of h.o.m.os.e.xual traitors he calls his stormtroopers, at the Pension Hanselbauer, near the Tegernsee. According to my reports, most of the pig's men were still in bed when the raid took place many of them caught in flagrante delicto with fellow SA troops or local youths. One's stomach churns just to think of it.' Here the Gruppenfhrer shook his head in disgust. 'Nevertheless,' he continued, 'they were all rounded up and are at this very moment being transported back to Berlin to be incarcerated, with Roehm himself, in the Brown House, prior to being quickly tried and judged. Today, gentlemen, we will wield our long knives so prepare to shed blood.'

Ernst's soul plunged into despair but he found no escape.

At ten hundred hours that warm Sat.u.r.day morning, he was informed that the cells of Stadelheim Prison were already packed with SA leaders. Those still in the Brown House, including Roehm, had demanded to see the Fhrer, but were refused and, instead, transported to Stadelheim in an armoured car. There, Roehm was put in a solitary cell, not far from the one he had occupied after the Beer Hall putsch.

Shortly after learning of Roehm's incarceration, Ernst was called to the office of Gruppenfhrer Dietrich, who told him that the purge was beginning.

'I personally,' Dietrich proudly informed him, 'have been put in charge of the executions of the SA men being held in Stadelheim Prison. Meanwhile, you're to go with Lieutenant Ritter to the home of General von Schleicher and once there put him to death. You understand?'

'Yes, sir,' Ernst replied, burning up with shock and disbelief. He was being ordered to kill the former chancellor of Germany. 'I just think '

'Don't think, Lieutenant, just obey. And when you've completed your task, drive straight to Stadelheim Prison to receive further orders. Now good luck and Heil Hitler!'

Unable to believe what he was hearing, but forced to accept that this was real, Ernst soon found himself seated beside the hated Franck Ritter in one of the many police cars that were careening and screeching through the streets of Berlin in the great roundup of enemies of the Reich. As if caught in a dream that was turning into a nightmare, he saw one unit, the troops wearing steel helmets, armed with rifles and submachine guns, surrounding von Papen's office. Hearing the sound of gunfire, savage and frightening, Ernst felt sick to his stomach, too hot, unreal. He briefly closed his eyes but opened them again to see a similar unit closing in on Roehm's opulent residence on the Tiergartenstra.s.se.

Sirens wailed in the distance.