Eva (16 page)

“I know.”

“Then what can we use?”

“Me,” Willi said.

They both stared at him.

“I will try to kick it in,” Willi explained.

“The hole is four feet up from the ground,” Eva said.

“That is why I need the
Herr Reichsleiter’s
help,” Willi said. “Will the
Herr Reichsleiter
follow my instructions?”

Grimly Bormann nodded.

“We will stand back to back,” Willi said. “Here. Before the wall. With me facing the hole. Like this.”

He placed himself and Bormann in front of the hole.

“Link arms with me,” Willi said. “And hold on.” They did. “Now,
Herr Reichsleiter,
bend forward. Lift me up on your back.
Frau
Hitler, you steady us.”

Legs spread apart, feet firmly planted on the floor, Bormann positioned himself. Grunting, he leaned forward, swinging Willi up off the ground with his feet in line with the hole.

“Back up just a little toward the wall,” Willi directed. Bormann did, as Eva held on to him.

Willi lifted his right foot. He bent his knee and kicked. Hard. Into the hole. The heavy boot hit the brick forcefully at the end of the hole. Bormann swayed, but he held his position.

Again Willi kicked. And again . . .

And suddenly the brick obstruction broke loose and fell away.

Willi rolled off Bormann’s back. The
Reichsleiter
shone his flashlight through the hole. On the other side the branch sewer looked clear.

Twenty minutes later they had enlarged the opening enough to be able to crawl through. Crouched in the tightness of the small conduit, they moved into it.

They had proceeded only about twenty feet when the drain widened into a large space ringed with a sewer bench. A narrow manhole shaft led to the surface—a ladder of step irons imbedded in the wall.

Bormann shone his flashlight up the shaft. At the top was the unmistakable form of a cast-iron manhole cover.

Willi climbed up the rungs. Holding on to the top rung with one hand he placed the other on the cover and tried to push it up. It moved, but it was too heavy for him. He mounted the step-iron ladder one more rung and put his shoulders to the massive manhole cover. He strained against it. It moved, lifted, and with a clatter slid off his shoulders onto the street above. He straightened up, stuck his head out of the hole—and froze.

Directly in front of him two pairs of black boots were planted firmly on the cobblestones. He looked up, and stared into the muzzles of two Schmeisser submachine pistols held by two SS men, their coarse, mocking faces leering down at him.

But it was the sight on the sidewalk immediately before him that shocked him.

From a lamppost hung a figure. A boy, clad in the uniform of the Hitler Youth. He could be no more than fifteen, although it was impossible to tell from his misshapen face. The rope around his neck had forced his bloated tongue out between the clean, white teeth of youth, and his sky-blue eyes bulged from their sockets in dead terror. Below the lamppost stood an elderly man, hands and feet tied, his eyes riveteted on the dead boy, the blood-red
Volkssturm
armband loose on a scrawny arm. Around his neck was a noose, the rope running up across the lamppost arm above. Several SS men were standing around him. On a large sign pinned to his jacket was scrawled:
VATER UND SOHN! VERRÄTER UND AUSREISSER!—
Father and Son! Traitor and Deserter! And beneath:
Hiding
Instead of
Fighting!

Even as Willi watched, the SS men hauled on the rope, hoisting the man into the air by the noose around his neck. A cheer went up from the executioners as the man convulsed and jerked like a macabre jumping jack as his life was slowly being squeezed from him. He died with a final spasm which violently voided his bladder and bowels. The stench immediately expanded around him. It struck Willi and made him gag.

One of the SS men prodded him with his Schmeisser.

“Get out, you sewer rat,” he snarled. He turned to the SS men at the lamppost. “Get another rope ready,” he called. “We have found some more lamppost fodder.”

E
VA WAS CLOSE TO PANIC.
There was a hard lump in her chest, ready to explode. Numbed with terror, she stood rigidly between Willi and Bormann staring fixedly at the half dozen SS men confronting them. The men were looking at them with vindictive eyes and cruel smiles of anticipation on their lips. She did not understand. These men were not the enemy. They were SS. Germans. Why, then, did they act so menacingly? It had something to do with the horrible sight on the lamppost. But she studiously kept her eyes averted from it. And her mind closed to its ramifications. She shivered. Instinctively she moved closer to Willi.

White-faced Bormann glared at the SS men. He knew what they were. An SS flying court-martial. One of the bands of homicidal ruffians that roamed the streets of Berlin in search of deserters, meting out their own brand of justice—whenever a likely candidate was run to ground. He had seen the reports. “The mad hangmen,” one field commander had called them. He had read the reports, and he had sanctioned them. The idea was to make the cowards and deserters think twice before they abandoned their posts. It had been imperative to keep the Russians from closing the ring.
Every
man counted. A few lamppost warriors, he had reasoned, would keep the rest of them fighting. Buy time. And he had needed that time. Fear, he had thought. A fear greater than the fear of fighting the enemy. Such a fear would keep the cowards and the would-be deserters from laying down their arms and hiding. Such a fear would be provided by a flying court-martial, a pack of ruthless avengers. A pack he, himself, was now facing.

He searched the brutish faces of the men. He knew what he would find. They gave no quarter. He was suddenly painfully conscious of his shabby disguise. A
Wehrmacht
corporal. With the papers to match. How could he ever make those half-wit brutes believe who he
really
was?

He drew himself up. “I demand to see the officer in charge of your detail,” he said brusquely. “I am
Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann. On a special mission for the Führer!”

The SS men roared with laughter.

“
Scheissdreck nochmal!
That’s the best one yet,” one of them guffawed coarsely. “We have had
Generals
and
Gauleiters
—all on special missions, of course. But never a
Reichsleiter!”
He laughed uproariously, joined by his comrades. It was not a reassuring sound.

“Let me speak with your commanding officer,” Bormann snapped. “At once!”

One of the SS men jammed his Schmeisser into Bormann’s stomach. “
Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann,” he taunted. He tossed his head at Willi. “I suppose that one is
Reichsminister
Josef Goebbels!”

The men roared.

Bormann ignored the gun in his stomach. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said curtly. “The man is a nobody. Do with him what you wish.” He glared at the SS man before him, authority glinting in his beady little pig’s eyes. “But the woman goes with me. She is under
my
protection. And that of the Führer. Is that understood?” His eyes bored into the man. “Now. Where is your commanding officer?”

“Shut your trap, you swine!” the SS man growled malevolently. “You won’t be so damned talkative once you swing from a lamppost.”

Bormann’s eyes never left the man.

“I strongly suggest, soldier,” he said, his voice ominously low, “I strongly suggest that you do as I order. Now! It would not be too difficult for the Gestapo to find out who you are should you decide to sabotage the Führer’s vital mission.”

Uncertainly the man looked away. “Arrgh, shit!” he mumbled. He turned to two of his comrades. “Take the bastard over to
Rottenführer
Heiliger. Let him string him up.”

Bormann turned to Eva. “Come,” he ordered. Viciously the SS man stuck his Schmeisser between them. “The bitch stays here,” he snarled. “We shall wait to see what the corporal wants to do with you.” He grinned unpleasantly. “I would not set my hopes too high.” He spat on the ground. “
Herr Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann!”

Willi watched the SS men march Bormann over to the group of men standing around the lamppost with its grisly burden. He was not surprised at Bormann’s actions. He, Willi, was—of course—expendable. If the
Reichsleiter
could pull off his bluster, more power to him. But he doubted it. He, too, had heard of the flying court-martials. The SS thugs engaged in those vicious manhunts were of a vastly different breed from his own comrades in Skorzeny’s units. Small, unimportant men suddenly finding themselves with enormous powers. Powers they could not handle—only mishandle. The most dangerous adversaries of all. Reason would be wasted on them, he thought. But perhaps intimidation? In any case he would keep himself fully alert for any developments. His primary duty was to safeguard
Frau
Hitler.

And the son of the Führer.

If all else failed, should he reveal his mission to the
Rottenführer?
That the woman with him was the wife of the Führer? That she carried his child? It was only a fleeting thought. He, himself, would not have believed it.

He watched Bormann angrily argue with the SS noncom. It was obviously going badly for him. The
Rottenführer
looked at his only identification—his corporal’s
Soldbuch.
He laughed. He gestured suggestively at the two lifeless bodies dangling above him on the lamppost. He threw the
Soldbuch
in Bormann’s face. With his Schmeisser submachine gun he gestured to two of his men to seize the raging Bormann.

At that exact instant a sharp, ear-splitting explosion rent the air. An artillery shell hit the wall of a gutted building, toppling it into the street. Instantly the SS men hit the ground.

Willi pulled Eva down with him. He tried to shield her from the flying debris with his body. In the eternity of a few seconds a thousand thoughts and impressions crowded in on his mind, eerily etching themselves on it in the flickering light from the burning buildings which brightened the night with a fiery glow.

A second shell hit. He saw the SS men at the lamppost scatter to seek cover. He saw the
Rottenführer
turn to race for the protection of an overturned truck, and he saw the bullets from Bormann’s gun rip into his back, instantly cutting him down.

Another explosion rocked the street. Russian artillery, he thought automatically. From the sound of it, fourteen-pound 76.2 field guns. The shelling came from the south. Where was the battery? In the Grunewald somewhere? The 76.2 had a range of almost fourteen kilometers. Was it the same battery that had caved in the sewer?

Explosions blasted the already ruined buildings around them. He saw Bormann start to run toward them. He saw his mouth stretched open in a shout—"Eva!"—but the sound was drowned out.

He saw the SS men hugging the ground near him, awkwardly lifting their Schmeissers to fire at the running Bormann.

He saw the
Reichsleiter
falter, grab his left shoulder, whirl around and race for the nearest ruins in a broken field run, the bullets—spitting in a staccato stream from the erratic SS Schmeissers—pursuing him. And he saw him disappear into the building wreckage.

Another shell hit. Walls came crashing down. The SS men cowered on the ground.

It was now!

Willi sprang to his feet. Roughly he pulled Eva with him, and clutching her arm in an iron grip he ran down the street, away from the SS manhunters, away from the grisly lamppost—and away from
Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann.

The streets were almost deserted. Only emergency personnel was abroad. The citizens of Wilhelmstadt were crowded into their basements and cellars in refuge. Occasional fires lit their way as Willi and Eva ran on. They crossed a broad thoroughfare littered with burned-out vehicles pockmarked with shell craters. Willi quickly oriented himself on his map. Heerstrasse. Ahead lay the Havel Lake.

The houses were increasingly suburban as they neared the lake, but none of them had escaped extensive damage.

At the water’s edge they came upon a gaily painted wooden shed. A little private boathouse. Miraculously the only damage to it was a peppering of shrapnel. A crater gouged out the road close by and a motorcycle had crashed against the door to the shed. The dead courier driver lay entangled with his demolished machine, one arm sticking up stiffly into the air as in a grotesque
Heil
Hitler! salute.

Willi pushed the wrecked motorbike and its rider aside, and, seeking refuge and rest, he and Eva entered the boathouse.

Several blocks to the north Martin Bormann sought refuge in the cellar of a bombed-out house. His breath came in shallow gasps, his heart pounded in his chest. He sank down against a wall and wearily leaned against it, swallowed by the darkness. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rested his head on them.