Hitler's Secret (26 page)

When Otto opened his eyes he felt a momentary surge of panic. The sun was shining brightly in his eyes and for a brief but terrible moment he wondered if he was dead. He sat up quickly, throwing off an afghan, and found himself in the back of a large limousine. He was alone, it was blindingly hot, and his shirt was soaked with sweat. Only it wasn’t his Hitler-Jugend shirt, but a man’s linen shirt without a collar. He pushed the door lever and clambered out.

Three figures were standing in a copse by the bank of a river. He started towards them, a sharp pain shooting up his right calf. He glanced down at the fresh bandage. A spot of blood had made it to the surface from the gunshot wound. His hand was throbbing, but it, too, had been re-dressed. As he walked, the events of the last hours came back to him, beginning to make sense. He remembered running and running,
scrambling down the mountain track, and meeting MacPherson and a beautiful woman with a machine gun who said her name was Durand, then an injection in his arm and the pain floating away.

He reached the copse. A slight breeze came from the river. MacPherson and Leni were watching Durand lay a series of large, flat river stones over some freshly dug earth.

“And may God have mercy on her soul,” said MacPherson, ending the makeshift service.

Leni’s eyes were red from crying. Otto desperately wanted to take her hand. But he didn’t.

MacPherson stepped across to Otto and patted him gently on the back. “You’ve got some color back in your cheeks, old chap,” he said quietly.

“How are you feeling?” asked Durand.

Otto nodded. “I’m all right, really,” was all he could manage before his throat became hot and tight.

MacPherson nodded. “Well done. Well done, both of you.”

But Otto could see the disappointment in the admiral’s eyes. He watched MacPherson and Durand walk back to the car, then looked at the anonymous grave. He couldn’t believe Angelika was really lying under there, dead. Just like that.

“Did he tell you who she was?”

Leni shook her head. “He thinks we don’t know.”

They stood there in silence, while the grasshoppers scratched out their call.

“He must think we’re idiots,” said Otto. He started to walk towards MacPherson.

“Otto? What are you doing?” Leni hurried to catch up as he reached the admiral. “Don’t … Otto.”

“Time we left, I think,” said MacPherson briskly.

“We know who she is — I mean, who she was,” said Otto, correcting himself.

“Well, you may think you do, Otto,” MacPherson said soothingly.

“No, we do, don’t we, Leni?”

Leni was now beside him. She nodded.

“I see. Well, that was very enterprising of you both, but —”

“What were you going to do with her?” Leni interrupted.

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything else. I have my orders, too.”

“You’d have ruined her life, destroyed it.”

“Young lady, you are a very brave girl and you have been through a lot in the last forty-eight hours. But that does not mean you know what is right. There is a war going on, a world war, and if we lose this war — and we are doing so right now — then evil will prevail and many millions of innocent people will die. So if you ask me if the sacrifice of the life of that child, a child who could have conceivably stopped or shortened this terrible conflict, is a price worth paying, I am afraid I will tell you it is.”

“The end justifies the means,” said Otto.

“Yes, it does,” said MacPherson.

“Well, let me tell you something.” Otto was fighting to control the hot ache at the back of his throat, to keep his voice level. “She saved my life, not once but twice, and she sacrificed her own to do it. She wasn’t just the daughter of someone, a tool to be used by you or the Nazis. She was a good person, a brave person.” He stopped. “You wouldn’t understand.” He returned to the grave, with Leni following him.

“May I remind you both,” called MacPherson, “that you are subject to the Official Secrets Act and that …” He trailed off.

“You sound like an ass,” Durand said. She was leaning against the Rolls, smoking.

“I beg your pardon?”

“A pompous ass.”

MacPherson stared at her, then slowly nodded. “I do, don’t I?” He took out his pipe and lit it. “They’re right, of course. Every innocent life is sacred. And the minute you forget that, you’re on the slippery slope to hell.”

At the copse, Otto kneeled down and picked up one of the stones, smashing it on another so it split into shards. He took one shard and scratched something on the largest of the flat stones covering the grave. When he’d finished, he let Leni see what he had written.

It was a simple inscription: A
NGELIKA — 1931–41
— A
N
A
NGEL
.

Leni carefully set the stone at the head of the grave and they both stood up.

“You know, I really think she was,” said Leni, and there was a catch in her voice.

But it was time to go.

The sun was still high at this altitude, almost ten thousand feet, but it was bitterly cold for the three men trudging up the mountain in their summer-weight clothes. Heydrich, Müller, and Straniak had been climbing for seven hours since the disaster at the rope bridge, and they had finally reached the ridge that marked the border between Switzerland and the Third Reich. It was a little after four in the afternoon.

“Five minutes,” said Heydrich, calling a halt.

The two other men sank down into the snow to rest their aching limbs. Heydrich raised his binoculars and trained them down on the valley below. It was covered in shade and there was no sign of further movement. Certainly there were no units from the Swiss Army. Soon after midday, when they had stopped for a rest, he had observed through the binoculars the Rolls-Royce driving away across the meadow.

Since then there had been no further activity. Clearly, whoever had met the two survivors had not been inclined, or perhaps not been able, to mount any pursuit. Not with the bridge knocked out. The secret would be left on this mountain.

Müller joined him now. “Can we make it down by nightfall, sir?” he asked. He looked exhausted and his shoulder was caked with dried blood.

“Of course,” replied Heydrich. “Keep up your courage. The mountain regiment will already be halfway up the north face by now. They will carry you down, if necessary.” His words brought a look of relief to the man.

Straniak struggled to his feet. “Herr Heydrich, might I have a word in private?”

“As you wish, Herr Straniak. Müller, you may start the descent.”

Müller needed no urging in the matter and quickly dropped down over the ridge, back into the German Reich. Straniak waited until he was out of earshot.

“I am not a young man anymore and I fear that I may not make it down the mountain,” he said.

“Nonsense, Herr Straniak, it is a straightforward descent and tomorrow is the summer solstice. We will have light until ten o’clock tonight.”

Straniak waved away the words of encouragement. “Nevertheless, if I should suffer an accident, there is something I wish to speak to you about now.”

“Then speak.”

“When the Führer asked me to assist you in this matter, he informed me of the child’s identity in the strictest confidence. I assume you were also informed.”

Heydrich nodded. “Of course.”

“Well, last night at the inn, I performed a simple psychic exercise to confirm that identity.” A gust of wind sent a swirl of snow gusting around the two men. “It is a straightforward but foolproof test. All that is needed is an odic picture of the girl and one of the father.”

“I’m not familiar with that term.”

“
Odic
means a personal object, in this case a photograph that has been charged with the energy and spirit of the individual. Normally once the pendulum is set over the child it will start to spin, coming to a halt when it is placed over a picture of the father.”

“I see,” said Heydrich. But he could feel something else coming. “What is your point?”

“My point is simple. When I placed the pendulum over the Führer’s picture, it did not stop. It continued to spin.”

Heydrich frowned, apprehension building in the pit of his stomach.

“Therefore we can say with absolute certainty that the Führer is not the father of that child.” Straniak was staring at Heydrich with the zeal and conviction of his peculiar profession.

“Not the father?” Heydrich let it sink in. Had this whole thing been a wild-goose chase?

“There is, however, one exception to this.”

“Go on,” said Heydrich intently, oblivious to the cold mountain wind whipping at his hair.

But Straniak was saying nothing more. “The matter is now in your hands if you wish to pursue it.” He stepped past him hastily, suddenly anxious that he had said too much, and began his descent.

Heydrich watched him go. Another secret best left to the mountain, perhaps? Clearly whoever Straniak was proposing was the girl’s mother was either too dangerous or possibly too scandalous for him to dare to express it out loud to Heydrich. He suddenly felt a new sense of curiosity about this strange man and remembered there was still one thing that had been nagging at the back of his mind since he had met him.

“Herr Straniak,” Heydrich called after him.

Straniak stopped and turned.

“When you shook my hand …”

“What of it?” said Straniak.

“You looked at me in a certain way, as though …” Heydrich almost couldn’t believe he was saying this. “As though … you saw something.”

Straniak stared back for a long moment. “I saw you in Prague, in a car, in the early morning. That is all.” He turned and started his descent once more.

Prague? Prague? Heydrich shook his head. Then he felt a chill cross his heart. Perhaps, like the other matter, there was something more to his vision that Straniak would not speak of.

It was well after midnight before Heydrich was summoned to an audience with the Führer. He had sped back as fast as he could to the Berghof, but other more pressing matters had apparently prevented the Führer from seeing him immediately.

During the hours since his arrival, Heydrich had taken a hot bath, shaved, and replaced his torn and tattered uniform with a fresh one. He had eaten an excellent dinner, though he had little appetite. He remained in a state of anxiety, conscious of his failure. Now he paced outside the Berghof map room, waiting. Despite the late hour there was intense activity all around him, with secretaries coming and going and dozens of
Wehrmacht
and SS officers entering or leaving the room constantly. He nodded to those that he knew but did not engage in conversation. He had no intention of arousing anyone’s curiosity through polite chitchat.

At last, just before two o’clock, he was admitted into the room. He marched straight across to the Führer. Hitler was standing, gazing over a vast map lit by pools of light.

Heydrich came to attention, saluted, and said, “I am sorry, mein Führer, but I have failed you. I do not expect you to show any clemency or mercy in this matter, and I accept any actions
you wish to take for my failure.” He had spent the last hour rehearsing the form of words he would use.

Hitler stared at him for a long moment. He looked tired, still dressed in his habitual white shirt and thin black tie, but seemed strangely elevated.

“Let me show you something,” he said, beckoning Heydrich forward.

Heydrich came and stood next to his Führer, and looked down at the map. It showed the whole of the western continent: Europe, the Soviet Union all the way to Siberia, Mongolia, and China. The current border between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich was marked by a thick red line. Behind that line, from the Baltic coast to the Caucasus, had been arranged scores of small wooden blocks, of various shapes and colors. Each one represented a different element of the mighty Wehrmacht and SS fighting machine.

The two men gazed at the map in silence. Heydrich waited.

“The order I have just given will change the course of human history forever.”

“Yes, Führer.” Heydrich stared at the expanse of land stretching all the way to China.

“Five million men will create a new Fatherland for us that will last a thousand years.” Hitler scanned the map. “How did Hess think by betraying his country with the secret of one little child he could possibly alter this fact?”

Heydrich remained silent.

“Today was her birthday.” Hitler took off his reading glasses. “Tell me, was her death quick?”

“Yes, Führer.”

He looked back at the map, then glanced back distractedly at Heydrich. “Thank you, Reinhard, for your service in this matter.”

“But, Führer —” Heydrich began.

Hitler held up his hand. “The child was not supposed to exist. And your real work will commence now.” He glanced up at the wall clock. It was 2:15
A.M.
“Operation Barbarossa has begun.”