Heroes Page 32

  Canaris stopped and looked above the fence, across the stark no-man’s land up the hill, to the guard towers fifty meters to the east and thirty meters to the west, and beyond, to the inviting forests of the Oberpfalzer Wald.

  Freedom, he thought. The term had never sounded so sweet.

  Yet he understood that no one in Germany today was free. They were all prisoners caught between the Americans to the west and the Russians to the east, held here by Hitler’s madness. The end would be horrible. No better than in here.

  He also thought about his career, which had spanned so many years and two world wars—from Kaiser Wilhelm to Adolph Hitler. Were they such different entities?

  Someone called his name from the bunker, but he pretended he did not hear. He knew damned well what they wanted. He had come too near the fence, and he was close to the limit he was supposed to walk within the exercise yard.

  “Herr Admiral,” they called again. They usually called him sailor boy, these days. The rat-faced corporal called him Schweinhund.

  And his official prisoner code name was Caesar. (Stawitzky had let that slip out a week ago.) No one called him Hen Admiral any longer.

  He turned, finally, out of curiosity as a Wehrmacht officer, a colonel, his boots gleaming, his cap low, hurried across the exercise yard. The SS guards by the door stood at attention now.

  “Meiner Admiral,” the officer said, and suddenly, like a blinding flash of lightning, and nearly as painful, Canaris recognized the man.

  “Hans Meitner,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “Gott in Himmel,” Meitner said, taking off his hat.

  Canaris reached out to touch his old friend, but Meitner stepped back a half of a pace and glanced nervously over his shoulder.

  “I am sorry, meiner Admiral, but the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Kogl agreed to this meeting only if nothing passed between us and there was no form of physical contact as well.”

  Canaris managed to smile. “It is good to see you, Hans. It goes well with you?”

  “It was very difficult to get here. I am acting as a messenger for the Fiihrer. He wanted me … he ordered me to Salzburg.

  To speak with our field commanders. But the front is no longer there. I cannot get through.”

  “Is it bad … in Berlin?”

  Meitner swallowed and nodded. “I found out that you were here … I came as soon as I possibly could. My God, you are going to have to leave here.”

  “Tell me about Berlin? Are you still at Zossen?”

  “You must listen to me, meiner Admiral, your diaries have been found.”

  “Yes, I know that. That fool Stawitzky has twenty pages that were in Osier’s safe. He thinks he knows it all. But he can’t prove a thing.”

  “No. Listen to me. There is a lack of office space in Berlin because of the constant bombing, so Buhle moved into your old offices at May bach II.”

  “Walter Buhle?” Canaris asked.

  “Yes. He’s head of Army staff at OKW,” Meitner said.

  “They found your safe. It has been opened, and they have found all your diaries.”

  Now Canaris understood what his old friend was trying to tell him, and suddenly he could feel the chill of the grave. It also bothered him that despite Meitner’s close association with a condemned man, he had been promoted and apparently still held the favor of the Fiihrer himself.

  “General Buhle is a good man,” he said.

  _ “Yes, a very loyal German soldier,” Meitner said. “He was at Wolfsschanze, standing not too far from the Fiihrer when the bomb exploded. He was severely injured. He has no love for you.”

  “What has he done with the diaries? Is he spreading filthy gossip?”

  Meitner looked at Canaris with a new understanding, and a great sadness. “He has turned them over to SS-Brigadefuhrer Rattenhuber.”

  | “I don’t know him. Who is he, Gestapo?”

  I “

  ” Rattenhuber is head of the security force protecting our Fiihrer.

  I am sure he has by now turned them over to the RSHA. Either to Kaltenbrunner or Miiller.”

  Canaris turned away to look again over the fence toward the woods. “This is the end then,” he mumbled.

  “I have come to take you away.”

  Canaris turned back and managed a smile. “You still do not understand, do you?”

  “What, meiner Admiral? What are you saying to me? I think I can get you out of here. But right now, this morning. It will be very dangerous, but what are the alternatives?”

  What indeed were the alternatives, Canaris wondered. And what or who, exactly, was Hans Meitner? If he was a friend here to help, his was a misguided friendship. By now it was too late for help. If Meitner was a spy, reporting Canaris’ every word, then, too, no help was possible.

  Canaris looked beyond Meitner toward the bunker. Perhaps he would be shot down trying to escape. That would eliminate the need for a trial.

  He brightened. A trial. Even Kaltenbrunner could not order the execution of the former head of the Abwehr without a trial.

  “If you want to help me, Hans, you can do one thing.”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Get me an attorney. The best around.”

  “I don’t understand,” Meitner said, shaking his head.

  “If they have found my diaries, then they know that I thought about a Germany without Hitler. But only thought about it. They cannot execute a man for that. A good attorney will get me off.”

  “Herr Admiral, I have come here today to get you away. I have a car, a driver, and two very loyal Wehrmacht soldiers.

  They were in the Brandenburg Division … in the old days. We can get out of here. Perhaps make it to Switzerland. Perhaps we can find an airplane and get to Spain. To Algeciras.”

  “Algeciras?”

  “Yes, if we can find an airplane. But Switzerland will be easier. We can wait out the war there. It will not be much longer.”

  “You would give it up? You would give up Germany?”

  It was Meitner’s turn to look away. He gazed over the fence toward the forest. “Germany is finished. After the war there will be time to return and rebuild.” He looked back. “You cannot know how it is in the Reichs Bunker, Herr Admiral.

  Every day it grows worse. He is a madman. He has deluded himself into believing that somehow God will do a miracle for him. He keeps talking about the parting of the Red Sea. And he’s hatched plots to assassinate Roosevelt and Churchill.”

  “Is there no hope?”

  “For us to win the war? No, of course not.”

  “No, Hans, for me?”

  The question seemed to have a great impact on Meitner. He swallowed hard again and glanced up toward the guards by the bunker. “The car is directly in front. My people are just inside the Kommandantur Arrest. We will walk back together.”

  “What about my guards?”

  Meitner patted his coat pocket. “I have a weapon. Once inside I will pull it out and shoot them. In the confusion I will give you my overcoat; we will step outside, cross the walk, and get into the car. My guards will be right behind us.”

  Canaris was ashamed that he had suspected his old friend.

  “You would do that?”

  “We will be out of the main gate and gone before the alarm is sounded. They will not come after-us.”

  “No, Hans,” Canaris said after only a slight hesitation.

  “No?”

  Canaris shook his head, then turned and started slowly back toward the bunker.

  Meitner came after him. “What is the matter with you, meiner Admiral? They will kill you here.”

  “I think not.”

  “Parts of your diaries were shown to the Fiihrer. He went into one of his fits. It was terrible.”

  Canaris looked at his friend. “What did he say?”

  “He is convinced that there is a huge plot against him and that you are one of its ringleaders. He is certain that you have all stabbed him—and G
ermany—in the back. We would be winning the war now if you and your plotters had not interfered.”

  “We have lost his war for him?” Canaris asked. Somehow the knowledge gave him strength. The Fiihrer was breaking down as fast as Germany. It was as if they were one and the same being.

  He had to smile. He was now coming to the conclusion that Hitler had been teaching his people for years. The people were Germany’s body, and he was her soul.

  “Mein Gott, Admiral, please, you must listen to me. You must save yourself.”

  “If I went with you now, like this. I would be telling the world that I am guilty.”

  “He said the plotters must be destroyed at once. Those were his exact words.”

  “You must do as I ask. There will be a trial, and I will need a very good attorney. The very best in Germany. Preferably seme one with no baronage or link with any title. I think just for the moment there is a mood in Germany that runs contrary to the aristocracy.”

  “I cannot believe this,” Meitner said incredulously. “There will be no trial.”

  “Certainly there will be. We are a civilized nation of laws, Hans, no matter what the Fuhrer has brought us to.”

  “There will be no attorney.”

  “Not if you refuse my request. But there is more.”

  They were getting close to the guards by the door. They stopped again.

  Meitner did not know what to say.

  “I must know what news there is of Dieter Schey.”

  For a long time Meitner just looked at him. But then he hung his head. “The spy has returned.”

  It was a thunderbolt. Canaris could hardly believe his ears.

  “Hitler awarded him the Iron Cross. In gold. He is like a puppy dog at the Chancellery and in the Reichs Bunker.”

  It could not be true. It must not be true. “Did he bring anything back?”

  “Yes. The Americans are building some sort of a new Wunderwaffen.”

  “Then our scientists …”

  Meitner shook his head. “The Fiihrer does not understand it.

  He calls it Jew science. He refuses to believe it could work, so he has blocked it out of his mind.”

  “All the work … all Schey’s years?”

  “Wasted. And I think the poor young man realizes it. From what I understand, he was married over there. His wife was murdered by the FBI.”

  “Yet he returned.”

  “Yes.”

  Canaris reached out and clutched Meitner’s arm. “He must be killed before he can convince the Fiihrer that the miracle has arrived.”

  Meitner pulled away as the two SS guards stepped out from the doorway and approached uncertainly.

  “I am sorry, Colonel,” one of them said.

  “Yes … I understand,” Meitner said.

  “It is time for me to get back, in any event.” Canaris said looking into Meitner’s eyes.

  Meitner looked from the guards to the bunker door and back again.

  “Have a safe trip.” Canaris said.

  Meitner had a wild expression in his eyes. He started to reach for his coat pocket, but Canaris knew what was about to happen, so he stepped between the guards and Meitner.

  “Give my regards to your friend,” Canaris said, and he made a small negative motion with his head.

  Meitner was confused. His adrenaline was pumping. “Friend?”

  “Yes,” Canaris said calmly. “The attorney. You know the one.”

  Meitner started to come down. He was sweating, and his eyes darted back and forth. His hands were shaking. “Yes.” he said.

  “Yes. I will.”

  “Then, aufwiedersehen, Hans,” Canaris said, and he walked back up to the bunker, his guards directly behind him.

  Inside, Stawitzky was waiting in the corridor. He was grinning.

  “A lovely performance, sailor boy.”

  “What?” Canaris said, only half listening. Meitner’s two former Brandenburger troopers were waiting just inside the front entrance. He could see them, their backs turned his way. Four SS guards stood with them by the door. Meitner would never have had a chance.

  He looked back at Stawitzky.

  “First the fence, then the little display of affection with your colonel friend. What did you hope to gain?”

  Canaris shook his head. “I have no idea what you are talking about, you contemptible little toad.”

  Stawitzky’s eyes widened. But then he chuckled. “Your spirit has been renewed by the visit. Old friends do have their uses.

  But we shall soon put that to rights, I suspect.”

  “I suspect not, Herr Kriminalrat. In fact, I will offer you a piece of friendly advice, if you and your rat-faced corporal will only listen to it.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “There will be a trial soon. My trial. I will be acquitted.

  Afterwards I shall go after my tormentors with a vengeance that even you will not be able to believe.”

  “I see,” Stawitzky said. He shook his head and motioned for the SS guards to take Canaris back to his cell. “A toad?” he said.

  Meitner entered the bunker, passed behind Canaris without looking up, and hurried out the front door, his two men with him.

  Stawitzky laughed. “And Kriiger will love his new title—rat-faced corporal.”

  Canaris preceded his guards down the corridor back to his cell and inside, where his handcuffs were placed on him and his ankles were again shackled. They were grinning when they left.

  It would not be long now, he thought, crouching down on the floor and tapping the wall with a chain link.

  Lunding’s reply came almost immediately, and Canaris began telling him about his visit and about his new hope.

  The bombing had started up again at four in the morning.

  Schey had been up in the backyard, smoking, when he heard the first bursts out around Spandau. They were probably going after Staaken Airfield again, although there wasn’t much left out there these days. Hitler wanted to use some of the broad avenues downtown as runways. It would work.

  He could see the flashes far off to the west, and then the dull thumps came as the sound caught up.

  They’d work their bombs up here, and then downtown. This apartment was a few blocks south of the corridor. Very little damage had been done here. Most of it had been confined toward the west and, of course, in the east, around Tiergarten.

  The Fuhrer was talking about his scorched earth policy again.

  Yesterday “rie had actually issued several orders. But Goebbels had taken his mind off the subject with his suggestion about downed Allied fliers. Goebbels wanted them shot. Hitler had agreed. But Doenitz had said, pointblank, that the disadvantages to such a program would far outweigh the advantages.

  It was crazy in the bunker. Nothing seemed to make any sense.

  The Fuhrer had spent more than an hour talking about the use of Indian soldiers. He thought they were a joke.

  “They will not even kill a louse, how can we expect them to defend Germany?” The Fuhrer had laughed. He had strutted around the room. “Give them prayer wheels, and they would work their fingers to the bone.”

  Schey had averted his eyes. Everyone else in the crowded conference room had applauded.

  The Fuhrer stopped at the end of the long table and pounded his fist. “What our real problem is at the moment is concrete.”

  “Sir?” Goebbels had asked.

  “German concrete is simply not standing up to Allied bombs.

  We must be able to do better than that!” Hitler screamed.

  The room was deathly still.

  “It is like our German people!” he raved. “If the German people are to be defeated in this struggle, it must have been too weak; it failed to prove its mettle before history and thus is destined only to destruction.”

  The bombs came closer across Spandau, and Schey flipped his cigarette away. He didn’t know what to do any longer. Just lately he had been thinking a lot about his son, Robert
, Junior. He wished with all his heart that he could look at his face just one more time. But he knew that would never happen. Robert had probably been taken to the hospital in Knoxville. He had been very sick.

  After he got better, he would have been placed for adoption, the records sealed.

  Another thought clamped around Schey’s heart. What if he had not gotten better? What if he had died in the hospital?

  He turned away in a sudden sweat, his heart pounding, his stomach churning.

  Marlene, in her nightgown, stood in the doorway. Her face was white. She was frightened of the bombing. It was getting closer.

  “Dieter?” she called in a small voice.

  “It’s all right,” he said, choking on the words. God in heaven, it was not all right. What had he done?

  “Dieter … oh God, I’m frightened.”

  Schey went across the yard to her, and she grabbed his hand.

  “Let’s go back down,” she cried.

  The bombs were definitely getting much closer now on their macabre way up toward the Reich Chancellery. Any day now the Fiihrer would order his bunker sealed. He would order his select few down in the hole, and the doors would close. The final defense of Germany would be conducted from a rat warren. They would be witnesses not only to the final destruction of Germany but also to the complete breakdown of their Fiihrer.

  A bomb exploded less than a block to the north, the entire earth shaking underfoot.

  “Dieter!” Marlene screamed, and she bodily yanked him down the stairs and into her apartment as three more bombs in rapid succession hit less than fifty yards away.

  He felt wooden. Empty inside. He did not know if he would have the strength to remain in the bunker while his Fiihrer, the man to whom he had sworn an oath, the man he had loved above all else, even his own life, disintegrated, bringing his country and her innocent people down with him.

  They were in the bedroom. Marlene slammed and locked the door, then threw herself in his arms. She was sobbing; tears streamed down her cheeks and her entire body shivered.

  “I can’t stand it!” she cried, her voice muffled in his shoulder.