My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin (31 page)

General Krebs slapped Weidling on the back and smiled. The men were ecstatic again.

“But there is one other little unfortunate detail that you should be aware of,” Goebbels continued. “Soviet troops will penetrate this bunker before the final phase of Operation Tristan can be completed in Prague. They will kill all of us.”

General Krebs was shocked. He had assumed that the mobilization of Tristan had saved his life. Instead, the fact that he stayed in Berlin meant that he wouldn’t be around to enjoy the so-called final victory. It was a suicide mission.

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” General Weidling asked. “What about us?”

“For those who wish to try to escape,” Goebbels replied, “I am told that west through the
Tiergarten
is the only feasible opportunity to breach the Soviet lines. If you prefer, I have enough cyanide capsules for everyone.”

As another detonation rang out overhead, Weidling grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and started chugging.

Their time was up.

71

Reinhard Heydrich spent years creating the secret Tristan room within Prague Castle. The Nazi scientists who designed and built it for him were not in attendance; Heydrich had them shot after it was completed to keep the existence of the room a state secret.

The fact that the ancient Teutonic ritual could only be performed after Hitler’s death—which would likely only occur if the loss of the war was imminent—meant that preparations had to be made to allow Operation Tristan to continue after the surrender or departure of German forces from Prague. Heydrich toyed with the idea of creating the room within the underground casemates at Vyshehrad, but ultimately concluded that the best place to hide Operation Tristan was right under the nose of the Czech government.

Similar to Hitler’s bunker, the Tristan room was sparsely decorated; it had only two Nazi flags and a portrait of Frederick the Great. There was one small window, which faced the east. The only furniture in the room was a small metal alloy bed that the Nazi scientists had specially designed to facilitate the transfer of electromagnetic energy. It was nearly identical to the one in Hitler’s bunker, including the pyramids at the top of each bedpost. Heydrich added a few personal touches to the Prague version, however, including a silver swastika footboard and leather restraints that were strategically placed in each corner of the bed.

Eva hissed at the guards as they pushed her down. If her confrontational attitude bothered them, they didn’t show it as they methodically prepared for the Tristan ritual. After tying her down, they placed a silver pentagram pendant around her neck and sprinkled an oily potion over her body.

“Relax, my child. Your future will be glorious,”
a guard whispered as he tightened the restraints on her wrists.

Heydrich entered and paced around the bed, checking each and every detail. When he looked at Eva, he didn’t see a young vampire—he saw victory for the Third Reich manifesting itself through the prophecy. He reflected on how they found her gnawing on a farmer’s corpse in the woods. She slaughtered three of his men before they were able to inject her with the diluted garlic serum. It didn’t kill her, but it kept the young vampire sedated and under control until they could get her back to Berlin, much like morphine would affect a human.

Satisfied that the preparations were complete, Heydrich took his place at the foot of the bed and opened the ancient spell book. “
Thou Evil one, come forth, I command you
,” he chanted.

“
Thou Evil one, come forth, I command you,”
the guards repeated.

“I COMMAND thy Evil one! Come forth! When blood comes not, Demons come not! Thy Evil one, COME FORTH!”
Heydrich shouted as he waved his hand in the air like the deranged conductor of a phantom drum corps. After a few more minutes of chanting and bizarre but animated arm movements, nothing happened. Nothing at all.

The guards got worried. They had risked their lives by staying in Prague. Like all
Waffen SS
, their blood types were tattooed under their arm, for reference in the event that they were wounded in battle. The problem with the theory was that they now had absolutely no chance of blending in with the German refugees that were pouring out of Czechoslovakia. If Operation Tristan did not succeed, the Czech partisans would easily hunt them down and kill them.

When Eva’s body trembled, the guards breathed a sigh of relief. Something, at least, was happening. Relief gave way to concern when Eva’s trembling became violent, like a severe epileptic seizure. When the heavy bed began to bounce up and down, the guards backed away in fear.

Heydrich’s pulse quickened as he watched Eva’s eyes roll back into her head.
It’s working!
He had tried to tell himself that he had always believed Adalgar’s ritual would work. But the truth was, he always had his doubts.

Now, he thought only of revenge against the enemies of Nazi Germany. And he smiled.

72

With the first phase of the Tristan ritual complete, the SS burned the bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun in the garden of the Chancellery as the battle raged around them. Meanwhile, inside the
Führerbunker
, Joseph Goebbels posed an ominous question to General Krebs. “You are fluent in Russian, are you not?”

“Yes, sir,” Krebs replied. “I was stationed in Moscow as a military attaché. I took the opportunity to learn the language.”

“Very good. I have a message for you to deliver to General Chuikov of the Soviet High Command. We are talking about unconditional surrender. Do you understand?”

General Krebs gulped. He was certain that he was being asked to endure the unendurable. “I understand, sir. You want me to offer Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Soviet Union.”

“Not quite,” Goebbels replied with a smile.

One hour later, General Krebs and Colonel Theodor von Dufving drove a staff car through the rubble-strewn streets of Berlin, white flags attached to each side of the car. The men prayed that they wouldn’t be gunned down before they could speak to General Chuikov.

A squad of Soviet soldiers nervously watched the German staff car approach. “Hold your fire!” Sgt. Mikitenko shouted to his men. “They’re not here to fight!”

Fifty meters away from the front line, General Chuikov enjoyed a rare meal of steak,
rassolnik
soup and a good bottle of Chianti
,
compliments of his men who had broken into a wine cellar in the
Friedrichshain
. He ate slowly and deliberately, savoring every bite. He also ate like a child, one food item at a time. He had just finished his potatoes and was just about to take his first long-awaited bite of steak when he heard the commotion.

“General Chuikov! Come quickly! It’s a German general! He is here to surrender!” Sgt. Mikitenko shouted.

The interruption annoyed Chuikov. “Goddamn it! I’m tired of talking to the stupid assholes,” he shouted back. “They all have the same bullshit excuse—we were just following orders. Blah blah blah.”

“I think he is here to surrender Germany,” Sgt. Mikitenko replied.

Germany
? Chuikov put his fork down and wiped his face with a napkin. The steak could wait. The surrender of a high-ranking officer had suddenly become an entirely different matter, one that could permanently engrave his name into the history books. The general anxiously made his way over to the staff car, which was surrounded by ten of his men.

General Krebs called out to his enemy in fluent Russian. “General Chuikov, I have a personal message for you from Adolf Hitler.”

“Where is he?” Chuikov asked.

“Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide in the
Führerbunker
under the Reich Chancellery a few hours ago.”

Chuikov smiled. He had received valuable intelligence already. The Red Army had never been able to ascertain Hitler’s location during the war. Prior to this discussion, they also had no idea there was a bunker under the Chancellery. Now they did.

“I am here to negotiate the surrender,” General Krebs announced.

General Chuikov shook his head. “There will be no negotiations. I am authorized only to accept an unconditional surrender.”

The German officers exchanged worried glances. “I’m afraid that you have it backwards,” General Krebs said. “We didn’t come here to surrender to you. We came here to offer
you
the opportunity to surrender to Nazi Germany. Unconditionally.”

That outlandish statement stunned the Russian contingency. General Chuikov’s jaw hit the ground. He stared at the Germans for a full minute and a half without blinking—he was trying to figure out whether they were completely out of their minds or merely just drunk and belligerent.

Then Chuikov smiled. The verdict was in.
Drunk and belligerent.
Then he laughed. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed and he laughed and he laughed and he laughed, until his side hurt and he had to sit down. He laughed until tears streamed down his face and he laughed until his stomach felt like it had a knife sticking out of it. As Sgt. Mikitenko contemplated calling for a medic, the hysterical Russian general rolled around on the ground and punched himself in the leg to try to stop laughing. After a few deep bruises, Chuikov was able to compose himself.

As everyone looked on in stunned silence, General Chuikov got up and wiped the tears from his eyes. “The Third Reich should have sent a sober general or two to discuss the surrender,” he said. “But this is very, very funny. Very funny, indeed. I have not laughed that hard since I was a boy. Thank you.”

General Krebs cleared his throat. “General Chuikov, this is a serious matter. I am not inebriated and this is not improvisational comedy. On behalf of Adolf Hitler, I hereby demand the unconditional surrender of the Soviet Union. If you do not accept this offer, the Red Army will be destroyed by supernatural means. There will be no survivors.”

When Chuikov realized that alcohol was not part of the equation, he tilted his head like a confused dog. Either the German was insane or the Nazis really did have a supernatural weapon. “But Hitler is dead. You said so yourself.”