Thus he had reconsidered his plan of action. More was at stake than his feelings for her. He must think of his country and do what he could to get it out of this insane war, and he had decided to allow her to proceed with her mission, believing herself still undetected. Like Konrad’s two spies, unaware that they were playing into his hands, he would use Victoria Grayson as a funnel to channel top secret information to assist the Allies in bringing Hitler to his knees.

But he had to be even more careful to protect his position that in turn would protect Victoria. Derrick had pursued this intent since September 1, 1939, when the Waffen SS massacred two hundred Jews at Będzin, Poland, along with some members of the nobility who were lifelong friends of his family, including Derrick’s beloved godfather. Derrick’s father, disgusted by his son’s misguided but patriotic decision to join the Waffen SS, had declared, “The Nazi Party’s establishment of a thousand-year reign is the delusion of a raving lunatic. The Third Reich is nothing but a castle built on sand within sight of the oncoming tide. Germany is doomed unless something can be done to stop that madman.”

Derrick, highly decorated, awarded the Knight’s Cross by Hitler himself, and well regarded within military circles, had come to agree with his father’s view, but it was too late to withdraw from the Waffen SS without raising suspicion of his loyalty to the Führer. Not only would he be arrested for treason, but Himmler would go after members of his family, their titles unable to save them.

Originally, Derrick had hardly thought about his decision to join. The SS was formed to save the German people from its enemies. It was the elite organization of the Nazi regime. Reared in a world of elitism, it was only natural that he take his proper place in the highest echelons of the German military.

How naïve he had been! Plucked from the regular army of the Wehrmacht before he barely had time to serve, he had not been indoctrinated into the mind-set of the SS. He had been spared having to attend Bad Tolz, the SS officers’ training school that required Hitler’s paramilitary “elite” to renounce belief in God, kill their parents if required, desensitize themselves to human suffering, and overcome every moral inhibition.

But he had played his part with the worst of them, and he, too, would burn in hell for the atrocities in which he had participated, even if the laws of men did not catch up with him first.