Hitler's Secret (19 page)

“Hold your fire, all of you!” Heydrich shouted.

Otto stared down at Heydrich, his black uniform framed in the white light of the searchlight. He looked like the Grim Reaper come to collect another soul. Slowly Heydrich raised
his arm. What the hell was he doing? wondered Otto. He felt dizzy with confusion and nausea and fear. It was as if the whole world was falling apart around him. He just wanted everything to stop …

Heydrich dropped his arm.
“Angreifen!”

Attack!
Before Otto could react, there was a terrible explosion, and the wooden shutter he was hiding behind was torn off the wall, hurling him across the hayloft. Smoke began to fill the air — thick, white, impenetrable smoke — followed by another deafening
boom-boom
.

Otto pulled himself to his feet. His ears were ringing but he couldn’t hear anything else. The smoke filled the loft so completely that he was not only deaf but blind. It was like being in a cloud. He couldn’t tell up from down, left from right. He stumbled forward and a pair of hands grabbed him. A fist drove into his stomach and he doubled over, then something hard hit him on the side of his head. And white turned to black.

Otto drifted in and out of consciousness as he lay on a cold steel floor that was moving. He must be in a vehicle. Sometime later, it might only have been seconds, it pulled to a halt.

“Get him out,” he heard Heydrich bark.

Otto was hauled up and held upright by a pair of soldiers. It was just as well; he had no strength in his legs. He watched through a haze as other officers joined Heydrich. They must be telling him there was no sign of the girls in the barn.

“Take two companies into the woods behind the barn. Send another company to the west side of the woods to join up with the others. If you need more troops, call them in. Even if they left a couple of hours ago, they can’t have got too far away.”

“What about you, sir?” asked one officer.

“Leave me my Mercedes, six men, and two motorcycle units as messengers. That will be sufficient for the night.”

Heydrich turned to Otto, surveyed him for a moment. “Take him to the inn and clean him up. As soon as I find out from this youth where the others are heading, I will contact you. Now be off!”

The third man from the flying machine hurried across.

“I will have them clear a room in the inn for you, Herr Straniak,” Otto heard Heydrich say. “Perhaps you can tell me the whereabouts of the other children faster than that young man is going to. Though I doubt it.”

At that moment Otto realized he was going to be interrogated by the most feared man in the Third Reich.

The soldiers dragged him into what must be the inn, through a corridor to a back room, and dumped him onto a hard chair. He closed his eyes from the sudden glare of the electric lights. Someone tied his torso to the chair with rope. His ankles were bound in a similar fashion.

“Well, that’s better.”

Otto slowly raised his head. Heydrich was sitting on the edge of a table in front of him. The place was empty except for a few tables and chairs, and a bar along one wall. On the walls were pictures of skiers and climbers and prize cows.

Heydrich was staring at him with a mixture of malice and curiosity.

“You have some color back in your cheeks. I was worried.”

Otto noticed that Heydrich’s eyes were too close together for his long face. It was unnerving.

“What is your name?” Heydrich’s voice was slightly higher than normal, too. He hadn’t noticed that when he was speaking through the loudspeaker.

“Otto Fischer,” said Otto.

“Otto?” Heydrich’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever interrogated a child before,” he said casually.

Otto looked Heydrich straight in the eye. “I’m not a child.”

“No, that’s right. You are almost an adult and I must treat you as such.” He tapped his finger against his chin a couple of times. “So, Otto Fischer, perhaps you’d like to explain to me what’s been going on.”

“I’m visiting my godmother in Bregenz.” Otto was glad his head had stopped throbbing, but his tongue felt huge and puffy.

“Your godmother.” Heydrich nodded. “Let me guess, this would be your fairy godmother?”

Otto shook his head.

“Oh, I see. She’s real, is she?”

Otto nodded this time.

Heydrich got off the edge of the table and pulled a chair closer to Otto. He turned it around and sat with his legs on either side, his arms resting on its back.

“You are an interesting young man. The British secret service was indeed lucky to find you. And on such short notice. I shall be interested to discover who you and your colleague
really are. But wait …”

He got up, as though he’d suddenly remembered something, and walked across to the small bar. There was a rack of wine bottles behind it and a single brass beer tap jutting out from the bar top.

“You must be dying of thirst.”

Heydrich selected a tall glass and set it on the counter. Then he reached underneath the bar and lifted up a block of ice the size of a shoe box. He turned to the back of the bar and found the implement he was looking for. An ice pick. A steel needle seven inches long, pointed at one end and with a round grooved handle at the other.

“You know, I used to love this drink when I was your age.”

He began to stab at the block of ice, splitting off small shards before scooping them up and dropping them in a tall glass. When the ice fragments had reached the rim he added a generous measure of orange syrup.

“Now, this is the secret.” Heydrich glanced conspiratorially at Otto, then popped the porcelain stopper on a bottle, filling the glass up. “Sparkling lemonade, not soda water.”

He carried it back and set it down in front of Otto. Otto looked at the glass in front of him, the ice floating on the top, the bubbles rising to the surface. He had never wanted a drink more in his life.

“Now then,” Heydrich continued, “it will be so much easier and quicker for both of us if you tell me where your colleague and the girl are heading.”

Otto said nothing.

“Quickly now, and then you can have a drink. You can drink all you want.”

Otto pressed his lips together and remained silent.

“Cat got your tongue?” Heydrich let the silence build between them. “Are you a Jew?”

Otto hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

Heydrich stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed — a short, hard, humorless laugh. He picked up the glass and took a sip. “That tastes very good.” He glanced back at Otto “You are no Jew. You are a German — good, strong Aryan stock. From Bavaria, if I’m not mistaken. I wonder, Munich?”

Otto nodded. There was no harm in admitting he was from Munich, he thought.

“A beautiful city. Well then, a fine German boy like you should be serving the Fatherland, not betraying it. Please, I ask you, one German to another, consider where your duty lies, to whom you owe your loyalty. Help me, help the Führer. Help Germany.”

Otto looked down at his feet. They had taken his family, he kept saying to himself. They were not Germans. They were Nazis. Nazis, Nazis. He didn’t see the blow coming. Heydrich hit him hard across the face. The pain exploded across his skull. He cried out.

“Enough. I have tried to be reasonable. Where are the two girls? Where are they going?”

Otto shook his head, his eyes watering from the pain. Then he realized he was crying. “I don’t know.”

“Liar.” Heydrich hit him on the other cheek, full force. “We can do this all night.”

“I swear, I don’t know.” But Otto could feel his will giving way already. If Heydrich broke him now, would Leni and Angelika still have enough time to get to the border?

Heydrich leaned forward and pulled Otto’s chair right up to the side of the table. He undid the rope around his right wrist, took hold of his hand, and slammed it down on the tabletop. He dropped the ice pick he was still holding next to it. “Last chance before I take a less gentle approach. Where are they going to cross the border into Switzerland?”

Otto closed his eyes. Tears were running down his cheeks, which were burning from Heydrich’s blows. “I haven’t a clue,” he sobbed.

There was a rap on the door.

“What is it?” asked Heydrich sharply, still holding Otto’s hand on the table.

“Herr Straniak wishes to speak with you, sir.” A soldier was standing in the doorway.

“I will come immediately.” Heydrich straightened up. “Just in case you get any ideas about leaving …” In one quick, sudden movement, he rammed the ice pick through Otto’s hand, pinning it to the table.

Otto let out an anguished howl. The pain was agonizing, sending bright white stars across his vision. He felt instantly sick.

Heydrich walked across to the bar and picked something up. He tossed the object across and it landed on the table, spinning around till it stopped by Otto. It was a steel corkscrew.

“Do you have any idea what it feels like if one of these is inserted into an elbow or a knee joint?” he asked.

Otto, gulping for air, was unable to respond.

“I’ll take that as a negative,” Heydrich said. “But unless you answer my questions, you are going to find out.”

The door was slammed shut and a key turned in the lock.

Otto knew he was in shock. But there was only one thing he could do. His other hand was still tied to the arm of the chair. He leaned forward and closed his teeth around the handle of the ice pick. He bit into the wood and pulled and pulled and pulled. But Heydrich had driven the spike through his hand and right into the oak table. He closed his eyes from the pain, sobbing again, trying to get his breath. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold out when Heydrich came back.

He heard something. He opened his eyes, stared around. Someone was knocking on the back window. And then he saw a face. As he tried to make it out, a fist wrapped in cloth punched through the glass and turned the window catch.

“Leni?” Otto whispered. His voice cracked and he thought he would start crying again, but this time with happiness.

Leni pulled herself through the narrow window and crossed the room in a couple of strides.

“Don’t say anything. We have about one minute.” Then she saw his pinioned hand and winced. “Oh, God.” A pool of blood was forming under it.

“Pull it out,” whimpered Otto.

She took a breath. “This is going to hurt, but you can’t make any noise, understand?”

Otto nodded dully. She unwrapped the cloth from her hand, shook it hard to make sure it was free from any glass shards, then stuffed it in Otto’s mouth. Then she put two hands around the ice pick and yanked. At the second attempt she got it out. She was right: It was agonizingly painful. Otto yelled, the veins standing out on his neck, but the cloth muffled the sound. She sliced through the ropes around his torso, ankles, and his other wrist, and helped him to his feet.

“Leni … you came back,” began Otto weakly. He was still in shock. “You came back for me.” He wanted to hug her, kiss her in gratitude.

“Don’t talk … we have to move fast.” She helped him towards the window. A telltale trail of blood spotted their progress. “You’d have done the same for me. Besides, it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting. Quickly now!”

Otto wrapped the cloth around his injured hand and, with Leni’s help, managed somehow to pull himself through the window and drop down to the ground outside.

They leaned against the back wall of the inn.

“Where’s Angelika?” he asked.

“Right here.” Angelika appeared out of the shadows, her face etched with worry. Otto managed a smile and hugged her.

“Your hand!” she gasped. The blood was soaking through the cloth.

“Don’t worry, Angelika, it’s not too bad,” Leni said as she tightened the cloth and tied it in a knot.

“How did you get past the soldiers?” he said.

“That’s just it, there’s only about half a dozen soldiers out there at the most. It was easy to slip around to the back of the inn in the dark. I guessed this was the only place they could hold you.” Leni was talking fast. She pulled some grenades from her pack.

Otto’s hand throbbed. He tried to forget the pain. “What’s the plan?” he asked.

“We have to get away, of course.” She handed him a grenade. “Can you handle that?”

He nodded.

“Right, this is what we’re going to do …”

After leaving Otto, Heydrich had marched down the corridor to the front of the inn. The terrified-looking innkeeper told him that Straniak was in a small bedroom on the second floor, and Heydrich had hurried upstairs.

“Please, just one moment, I am double-checking the reading. It is strange.”

Heydrich waited as Straniak’s pendulum did its work. He glanced at his watch, wondering how far the other two children had got. “I can get this information out of the boy faster. He is at breaking point already.”

“The boy will lie, you mark my words.”

As before, the pendulum stopped dead.

“So, where are they?” Heydrich hurried forward.

Straniak was frowning, uncertain. “I don’t understand … it must be a mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“The girl is here. Right here, in the village.”

“What are you talking … ?” said Heydrich. Then the lightbulb went off and he was out of the room and running for the stairs. He reached the ground floor and tore back along the corridor, fumbled for the key to the back room, jammed it back in the door, and wrenched it open. The boy was gone. Spots of blood led to the small window, which was wide open, the pane smashed.

Heydrich picked up the glass of orange lemonade and hurled it at the wall. Then he ripped his pistol from his holster.

“Guards!” he roared, and raced towards the front door. “Guards …”

A deafening explosion drowned out his voice, the pressure wave blowing the door in and lifting him off his feet, slamming him against the wall. The floor was covered in shattered glass, the curtains on fire.

He staggered to his feet as staccato machine-gun fire cut through the night. More explosions shook the building. He made his way to the front door, his pistol still in his hand. His ears were ringing.

Straniak was staggering down the stairs from the second floor, his nose bleeding, his wire-rimmed glasses cracked. “Help me,” he croaked.

Heydrich couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he didn’t care anyway. He pushed Straniak aside and stepped over the shattered door.

In the main street, flames were lighting up the darkness, throwing shadows against the wooden houses. His Mercedes was upside down, engulfed in flames. A couple of soldiers were lying in the street, clearly dead. The handful of other troops he had kept with him were running about, some vainly attempting to extinguish the flames with buckets of water from the village well.

“Find them!” Heydrich shrieked, spittle flying from his mouth, just as the fuel tank on the Mercedes exploded in a massive orange fireball, blowing three of the soldiers through the air like rag dolls. Heydrich was lifted up once again and dashed down onto the hard stone cobbles. He lay there for a moment or two, the wind completely knocked out of him, a sharp pain in his chest each time he tried to breathe. He hoped nothing was broken.

Then came the roar of an approaching vehicle. It was one of the BMW R75 motorcycle combinations he had kept back, and it was traveling towards him at fifty miles an hour. Heydrich had one second to roll out of the way before it plowed straight into him. As he moved he caught a glimpse of a girl, no more than fourteen, sitting astride the motorbike, her head down over the handlebars. He squeezed off two shots before she was lost in the darkness.