Heroes Page 12

  He looked back after he had gone half a block, but the blackout curtains in Maria’s apartment were tightly drawn, so he couldn’t see a thing except the blank windows.

  After a bit, he turned and continued into town, around the still busy square, and then three blocks to the railroad depot.

  Inside, he had to show his ticket to pass through the boarding gate, but his hat was low, the light not particularly good, and several last-minute passengers crowding behind him, so the guard didn’t get a good look at him.

  His ticket was for ordinary third class. The car wasn’t too crowded with people, although there were a lot of crates and burlap sacks filled with goods and piled at one end. Deland found a hard wooden seat toward the middle, shoved his suitcase and radio beneath, and settled back, his hat low over his eyes as if he wanted to sleep.

  He kept seeing Katrina lying on the floor in Maria’s kitchen.

  Mingled with that was the look on Schlechter’s face when he went down. What had they said or done to Katrina from the time he had left until he had returned? That’s what bothered him most.

  She had been dressed only in his sweater. Had they forced her to disrobe in front of them, and then, dress? Had they used her for their own little perverted sideshow?

  He had never really gotten to know Maria, but Rudy Schlechter had been a nice man. At least he had been outwardly warm and friendly. Deland had never been able to trust him, of course, but he would have been happy if it had turned out that Rudy was not Gestapo.

  The train whistle blew, and they moved slowly out of the station.

  The blinds were closed on all of the windows, and only a few dim red lights were lit in the car, making it impossible for anyone to look at a newspaper or to read a book.

  There hadn’t been an Allied bombing raid in these parts for some time now, but Berlin was hit regularly. Trains coming in and out of the city were often favorite targets.

  They gradually built up speed, the car swaying rhythmically, and Deland settled back. No one else was seated with him, so he put his feet up. The car was very warm, but there was a small, very cold draft coming through the window frame where he laid his head. It felt good, although he knew that if he fell asleep with the cold on his head, he’d awaken with stuffed sinuses.

  For a long time he lay there like that, not moving, listening to the sounds of the train, listening to the other passengers talking.

  They passed a crossing, and a bell rang, the Doppler effect raising the pitch of the bell until they passed it, and then lowering it.

  Most train schedules, and all train routes through the Reich were classified, to thwart men such as Deland from making their way easily across the country. But it was a simple matter to do as Deland was doing. Take a train from city to city with no mind for the time or the exact route.

  From Berlin he would travel to Leipzig. From there to Nuremberg, then on to Munich, and finally across the old Alpenstrasse to the Swiss border near Radolfzell, where he would cross on foot.

  He could visualize the route. It would be very dangerous in Berlin, and again in Bavaria, not only because of the German authorities—civil as well as military—but because of the Allied bombing raids, too.

  Wouldn’t it be ironic, the thought crossed his mind, to have come this far only to be blown to bits by an American bomb.

  A blast of cold air swept through the car and Deland looked up sharply. The conductor and two men in dark overcoats and wide-brimmed hats had come into the car. They stopped at the first seats. The passengers handed up something which the conductor took. Tickets, probably, Deland figured. But then the passengers also handed up something to one of the civilians.

  Even in the very dim red light Deland could see they were identification booklets. Probably travel passes and work cards as well.

  The Gestapo could not have discovered what had gone on in Maria’s apartment. Not yet. It was impossible. His heart sank.

  Impossible, unless Katrina had awakened and had called them. If she had, they were looking for him. And they’d know exactly where to look.

  He was going to have to get off the train. Now! He sat up slowly, so as not to attract any attention, and using the toe of his boot, he slid his radio out from beneath the seat. He’d leave his suitcase, he didn’t think he could get out of here unnoticed with it. There was nothing incriminating in it, in any event. But the radio was simply too important to leave.

  The conductor and civilians, who were probably Gestapo, had moved up a couple more rows. Deland started to get up, when someone shouted something.

  One of the Gestapo agents reached down and pulled a young man to his feet, then shoved him out into the aisle.

  The other civilian punched the boy in the chest, sending him sprawling. The first man kicked the boy in the ribs.

  None of the other passengers dared to look.

  “Traitor,” one of the Gestapo shouted. “It’ll be to the East for you.”

  He and his partner dragged the young man down the aisle and out the door. The conductor followed them.

  Gradually the hum of conversation increased in the car, and Deland, whose heart was hammering, sat back in his seat and once again closed his eyes. But there’d be no sleep for him, he suspected. Not this night.

  Berlin had come under attack. Thirty miles away, the passengers on the train could see the flash of the bombs going off— even through the blackout shades on the windows. And twenty miles out they could hear the pounding of the bombs and the heavy thump of the antiaircraft guns.

  They had been stopped well north of the city’s suburbs in Oranienburg for about an hour, until the bombs began to subside.

  Then they were allowed through Reinickdendorft and Wedding, then into the heart of the city itself.

  The train stopped again; this time the rear door opened and the conductor came aboard. It was after midnight.

  “Stettiner Station,” he called. “Stettiner Station.” He ducked back outside.

  Deland got off the train with the other passengers, the odors of smoke and plaster dust very strong. There were a lot of people milling around, most of them apparently waiting to board the trains leaving the city.

  Shouldering his radio and hefting his suitcase, he pushed his way through the crowd at the ticket barrier and started into the depot itself, but barriers had been erected, blocking the way in.

  Several civil police officers were directing the people.

  “Around this way, sir,” one of them said to Deland as he approached.

  “What happened?”

  “Go around! There are a lot of wounded inside!”

  “The bombing raid?”

  “Yes. The bastards hit the station when it was full,” the policeman said, full of disgust.

  Deland shook his head, and followed the crowd along the trackside boarding area to the far side of the building and finally out onto Invalidenstrasse.

  The entire front of the railway station had collapsed inward.

  There was no roof left. A lot of ambulances and Army trucks were blocking the streets, and fire units were spraying water somewhere inside the far end of the building.

  Deland could hear people crying and screaming, men shouting.

  Rubble was everywhere. Big craters pockmarked the street. Glass littering the streets sparkled like a million blood-red rubies in the fires.

  He turned away and headed slowly up toward the Museum of Natural History, parts of which were also on fire, conflicting emotions raging in his head.

  When he was studying mathematics at Gottingen, he and his friends had come to Berlin as often as they could. Several of his classmates had families or girlfriends here, and he’d got to know the city pretty well.

  It was all different now. Horribly different. It made him sick to his stomach. And yet the Germans had brought this on themselves.

  God, what a waste, he thought. What a terrible waste.

  Two Army trucks filled with troops rumbled up Friedrich Strasse, and Deland ducked int
o the doorway of a mostly bombed out building until they passed. Then he continued across to the Museum, and twenty minutes later he found a telephone booth near the Lehrter S-Bahn Station.

  The phone lines were all underground, and if the telephone and postal building hadn’t been hit too hard, there was a very good chance he’d get through.

  He dialed the number he had memorized in Switzerland during his final training before he had been sent over.

  It took a long time to get through, and Deland almost hung up before the connection was finally made. It rang, and a man’s voice answered cautiously.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s David.”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “Perhaps you know my cousin. Edmund Dorfman.”

  “He is a first cousin, or what?”

  “My third, actually.”

  “You’re lucky there was a raid tonight. I’ll come get you.

  Where are you?”

  There were only a couple of times in his life when Canaris had actually admitted to himself that he was frightened. The first was in 1915 in the harbor at Valparaiso, Chile, when he managed to escape from the light cruiser Dresden despite the blockade by the British. The second was January 2, 1935, the day he took over the Abwehr. And the third was at this moment.

  A warm late-afternoon breeze off the Atlantic ruffled the long grasses in the rough along the golf course fairway. A foursome of German officers were finishing play just ahead as Canaris walked his dogs, Kasper and Sabine. He paused and looked back toward the villa outside Biarritz where he had stayed the last couple of days.

  He had tried everything within his power to get back into Spain. But the German ambassador, Hans Dieckhoff, had blocked his move with a flurry of cables to Berlin. KO Spain was having a lot of trouble. The Spanish government was upset. All hell would soon break loose.

  “Not a propitious time for the head of the Abwehr to be visiting Spain,” the ambassador had wired the Reichs Foreign Ministry.

  Not a propitious time indeed! Spain was and always would be open to him.

  The dogs whined and barked, bringing Canaris out of his daydreams. He bent down and the dogs came to him, their entire bodies wagging as he scratched behind their ears and looked into their eyes.

  “Yes,” he said puckering his lips. “If they all were like you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  The dogs loved the attention, and when Canaris stood, they were filled with energy and enthusiasm. They tried to bound off, straining against their leashes.

  Canaris was following the golf course. It had been a lovely day. He could appreciate that, even though the meeting with Dieckhoff’s deputy, Minister Baron Sigismund von Bibra, and the others from the KO’s in Spain and Portugal had gone badly.

  They had ostensibly gathered to review intelligence problems, but Canaris had merely probed for a way to reenter Spain. Once there he had planned on going immediately down to Algeciras, where he would remain.

  Even as he had planned out his moves, he had known deep inside that such a maneuver was outside the realm of possibility for him. As much as he might want to, he could not simply sit idly by while Germany was brought to total ruin by a madman.

  Yet the alternatives to sitting out the rest of the war with the only person on this earth who really meant anything to him were deeply frightening.

  He had brought everything with him that he would need for his alternative plan. It was all back in his room at the villa under lock and key. No one would have disturbed it. There were no Reitlingers here.

  “Admiral Canaris … Oh, Admiral Canaris, sir,” someone called from behind him.

  Canaris stopped and turned back as Major Kremer von Auenrode, the chief of the Kriegsorganisation for Portugal, came hurrying up from the lake.

  The dogs came to Canaris’ side and sat.

  Von Auenrode, a tall, thin, good-looking man, was out of breath. He seemed very troubled. One of the dogs growled.

  “It’s Cartagena,” von Auenrode said heavily. He was trying to catch his breath.

  Something cold clutched at Canaris’ heart. Cartagena was a principal port in Mediterranean Spain—supposedly neutral. British ships called there for fresh fruit. So long as the Germans in Spain did not interfere with the British, the Spanish government turned a nearly blind eye to German intelligence operations. On more than one occasion, however, the local Abwehr operatives had struck against the British in their enthusiasm for the war. It had become a pet peeve of Hitler’s. If Canaris could not control Cartagena, how could he control the Abwehr?

  “What has happened, my friend?” Canaris asked.

  “It just came on the teletype from Zossen.”

  “Another bomb?”

  Von Auenrode nodded. “Another British orange ship. She blew up in the harbor. The Spanish authorities have one of our people in custody.”

  Canaris turned away. He could feel himself shrinking inside.

  This was it, then. It was truly all over. Reitlinger and Brigadier Schellenberg and all the others who had been after his scalp for the past year and a half would finally have their way.

  “Sir?”

  Canaris turned back. The dogs were confused. They could sense their master’s disturbance. “It’s all right now,” he said, reaching down and petting first one, then the other.

  Von Auenrode seemed confused as well.

  “How could they do such a thing?” Canaris said, looking up.

  He could feel some anger deep down. He knew what this meant.

  What it really meant not only for himself personally, and for the Abwehr, but for Germany. “This is quite impossible—now of all times!”

  “We should go back,” von Auenrode said. “Most of the others have already left.”

  Canaris shook his head. “Go if you want, Herr Major. But there is no hurry any longer.”

  “Sir?”

  “Has von Bibra left yet?”

  “He left just after lunch. They all were asking about you.”

  “Leissner?”

  “He left as well. They felt that under the circumstances they should return …”

  “They knew about Cartagena?”

  “No … no, sir. That just came. They left because they felt there … was nothing to be accomplished here. The real work is back in Spain now.”

  “Switzerland,” Canaris said under his breath.

  “Herr Admiral?”

  “Nothing. Perhaps I should return to Berlin, after all.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Perhaps I will leave this afternoon,” Canaris said. He had come to Biarritz with two alternatives in mind. He would either find a way to get into Spain, by which he would be running away, or he would turn and fight with the only weapon he had left at his disposal. “Yes,” he said, shaking von Auenrode’s hand. “It is time we all get back to work.”

  Frau vori Auenrode, a slim beauty, was at the villa, but everyone else had left by the time Canaris and Major von Auenrode returned. Upstairs in his room, Canaris packed his two bags, called the houseman to fetch them, called for his car, and telephoned out to the airfield in Bayonne for his aircraft to be made ready. He was dressed in civilian clothes. He had not bothered to change.

  The houseman came for his bags and the dogs, and Canaris followed him downstairs, but not outside. Instead, he went down the back corridor, past the kitchen, and beyond the receiving dock and service entrance to the small communications room that had been built in what once had been an ice storage room.

  Bread and vegetables were being delivered from a horse-drawn cart. The old Frenchman did not look up as Canaris passed.

  The teletype machine in the communications room was silent.

  Bitner, the KO communications man, was gone. They all had had a busy night. He was probably sleeping.

  Inside, Canaris shut the heavy door and relocked it. Then he stood stock-still, listening to the absolute silence of the narrow, very thickly insulated room. The walls, ceiling, a
nd floor were all rough-hewn cedar. It smelled good.

  He had ten or fifteen minutes at the most before someone would begin to wonder where he had gotten himself to. Von Auenrode was upstairs with his wife; they’d be packing. Everyone else would be sleeping, except for the staff. The houseman would wonder, and so would the chauffeur when he didn’t show up.

  The telephone in this room was secure from the others in the house. No one would be able to listen in on any conversations.

  Yet Canaris found himself reluctant to pick it up. Once he did, he would be committed to a very dangerous course.

  Treason, it would be called—because treason it was.

  He sat down at the desk and lit a cigarette. He stubbed it out almost immediately, picked up the telephone, and dialed for the operator in town.

  “Operator.”

  “This is 87.443,” Canaris gave the telephone number. “Please connect me with the Berlin operator.”

  “I am sorry, sir, but the circuits are restricted to priority traffic at this hour.”

  “This is a Reich war effort priority.”

  “Yes, sir. Your name, sir?”

  Canaris took a deep breath and involuntarily glanced over his shoulder at the locked door. “Auenrode,” he spoke into the | phone. “Major Kremer von Auenrode.” I “Yes, sir,” the operator said. “It will be just a moment or two; will you hold?”

  “Of course,” Canaris said. He lit another cigarette. It tasted terrible. He wished for a drink of schnapps, or perhaps some cognac. I The Forschungsamt would trace this call sooner or later.

  Schellenberg would see to it. If Auenrode were ever arrested and charged with treason, however, Canaris would make sure he got off.

  “This is a Reich war effort priority call,” the operator was . saying. I “Yes. Your number please?” the Berlin operator replied. Her voice was very far away, and scratchy. I Canaris gave the number he had memorized before coming . here. One of Dohnanyi’s staff officers, who supposedly had contact with the German underground, had given it to him. The >