“I know,” Clark said, looking down, defeated. “I just keep thinking about Anne, the kids … do what you must, Barney.”
“I’ll see you on the other side, Clark,” and with that, Barney squeezed the trigger and blew a hole in the ambassador’s head. Clark fell down, his skull ripped apart. Behind Barney, the remaining embassy staff screamed. Burney turned, thinking they were screaming at him. He was wrong.
The Waffen-SS troops were coming through the door, firing at the embassy staff, and cutting them down. Barney saw that mostly they were wounding the staff, so they could arrest and interrogate them. He looked down at Clark’s body, and then raised the gun, resting the hot muzzle against his own temple.
A German shouted, “Halt! Put down the gun!”
Barney smiled, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand, flew from grip, landing on the roof a few feet away.
Barney teetered, a hole in the side of his head, his eyes flickering as his senses died. He toppled over, crashed onto the roof, dead, just two feet from Clark’s corpse.
The German Waffen-SS Obersturmführer came rushing over, as though he could save the lives of the two dead men – save their lives so that they could be interrogated.
But he could see that it was too late.
He turned to his men and screamed abuse at them.
These Americans had a secret they wanted to keep to themselves.
Now they would forever.
77
SS-Oberstgruppenführer Röhm received the news from SS-Standartenführer Rauter of the Gestapo with a smile on his face. He looked up as he replaced the receiver and saw Scholl looking at him questioningly. The two men sat in the Oberstgruppenführer’s office in the Polizeipräsidium, Röhm behind the desk, Scholl in front of him.
Scholl said, “What news was that?”
“Good news,” Röhm replied. “In a way.”
“In a way?”
“Gestapo officers have apprehended and killed one of the potential assassins of the Führer.”
“And the other?”
“He somehow managed to evade capture,” Röhm said, “leaving his rifle behind. Unfortunately, it will prove difficult to locate him. We know who he is, but he will have gone to ground by now.”
“But at least the Führer is safe.”
“There was one other piece of news,” Röhm said, “and this is far more alarming.”
“It is?”
“A tunnel was discovered beneath a house in Ostmünchenstrasse. Waffen-SS troops searched this tunnel and came to its end, two kilometres away. It ended at the United States Embassy in Hitlerhofstrasse.”
Scholl’s eyes widened. “I have read intelligence reports that suggest the Americans are actively assisting resistance fighters.”
“And this is proof. Perhaps the Führer will reconsider his plans to talk to the US.”
“I doubt it,” Scholl said. “He is adamant that a successful dialogue can be set up, and an end to the Cold War will be achieved.”
“But with the US assisting the terrorists–”
“They viewed us as an enemy,” Scholl said. “Now, they may view us as a friend.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I think anything is possible, Herr Oberstgruppenführer. And peace is worth any kind of sacrifice – even our jobs.”
“I hope you are right, my friend,” Röhm said, getting to his feet and pulling on his black jacket.
“As I hope you are right,” Scholl said, also standing. “You say that you have scuppered a plan to assassinate the Führer, yet one of the assassins has managed to elude capture.”
“And assassination takes days or even weeks of preparation,” Röhm said, leading his colleague to the door. “They clearly planned to assassinate the Führer from the window of that hotel room. We stopped them. They will never get another chance to assassinate the Führer.”
“You are a confident man, Herr Oberstgruppenführer.”
“I have made mistakes in the past,” admitted Röhm. “I intend to make up for those errors. We must pass information both to the Führer and the Reichsstatthalter of the tunnel leading to the US Embassy. If the Führer is intending to speak with the United States, it would be wise to contact them as soon as possible, before they discover what has happened to their embassy and their staff.”
“What has happened to them?” asked Scholl.
“The staff have mostly been killed,” answered Röhm. “Those who still live have been taken away to the nearest Konzentrationslager. I have instructed my men not to harm them, principally because I knew the Führer would have a vested interest in their safety.”
“That is wise of you.”
Röhm smiled. “At first, I did not want to see an end to the Cold War. I wanted Germany to remain as great and powerful as it had been since the 1940s, since the reign of Hitler. But I can see that times are different now, and it would be foolish to expect to live in the past.”
“Then you must return to Berlin with us and persuade the Vizeführer and SS-Oberstgruppenführer Schaemmel.”
“Gladly,” Röhm said, laughing.
The two men left the office.
78
The Führer entered the Adolf Hitler Denkmalhalle followed by Reichsstatthalter Klarsfeld, SS-Oberstgruppenführer Rohm and SS-Oberführer Scholl, and a number of junior SS officers and government officials. He saw the vast numbers of people lining the massive nave of the building, and walked between them on his way to the statue of Adolf Hitler.
It had been a successful visit to England, the Führer thought. There had been a few television news crews from around the world – CBS from the United States, a team from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, another from the Soviet News Network – news crews whose security had been cleared by the Sicherheitsdienst. The Führer knew that all three film crews had been interested in the events that had occurred in Hitlerhofstrasse, but the SS had kept them away from that part of the city, laying on transport for them to prevent them from wandering where they shouldn’t.
The Führer smiled at the film crews. The last Führer to do that for a foreign film crew had been Adolf Hitler in 1943. But Adolf Hitler had soon stopped being so friendly when he learnt that the US were using those pictures in programmes condemning him as a syphilitic madman. The Führer found that quite amusing, especially since he was now walking up to the statue of that great Führer in the Adolf Hitler Denkmalhalle.
People saluted him as he passed. Ordinary citizens, most probably German by birth as opposed to English. He returned their salutes enthusiastically, and wondered to himself how many of them wished he were dead. He wondered how many of them wanted an end to the German Reich, to German oppression. Most of them, he concluded, if not all.
No, he thought, not all. There were still some Germans who were happy to live in the 1940s, who were happy to watch the German people slowly take over the world, become the master race. The Führer had been like that at one time, especially so when he had taken over from Hitler’s successor, Rodenbücher. He had been full of praise and support for the Nazi doctrines, a loyal party member. But not anymore. He had seen too much of the world, too much of the freedom other nations gave their people. He had seen it, and then had seen the German Reich, the suppressed fear on the faces of his own people.
And he could see that he was wrong, that the German nation was not the greatest nation in the world. There were other nations that were far greater. Other nations who allowed their people freedom of expression and choice. Of course, there were laws in other nations, just as there were laws in Germany, but they weren’t so strict, so unforgiving. The other nations didn’t punish virtually all crimes by the death penalty. The death penalty was supposed to discourage others from breaking the law – it hadn’t worked. The Führer could see that. And he could see that it wasn’t just the ethnic minorities who broke the law. Although the Reich had got rid of all of the untermenschen, the people who were held to blame fo
r Germany’s decline in the 1930s, there were still problems – there were supposedly no more Jews, but some of the ethnic minorities, the English, the French, the Italians, the Spanish, were doing equally as well as, if not better than, their German neighbours. There were supposedly no blacks, no half-blacks, no whites with any black ancestry in them, but there was still street robbery. There were supposedly no more homosexuals or any other kind of deviants, yet there were still violent sexual crimes. Every crime, every rape, murder, robbery and burglary, was just as frequent in Germany as it was in the German States. And the terrorists, the resistance fighters, those existed in every German State. They even existed in Germany. People who laid down their lives for the cause of freedom. Freedom from the German Reich. Freedom from the shackles of Nazism.
The Führer could see that it was no use living in the past. Things had to change. Because if they didn’t, there might be a revolution. And when a nation as large as the German Reich began to crumble, the effects could be catastrophic for the whole world.
The Führer reached the statue of Hitler and looked at it carefully, the way it gleamed and glistened in the artificial light. He looked up to the dome high above his head, at the marvellous painting of the First Führer on the ceiling. How that artist must have struggled to paint that picture.
The Führer turned and looked at the people assembled in the Denkmalhalle. More than a thousand of them, crowded inside, squashed against walls, waiting to hear him speak.
He looked at Klarsfeld and Röhm, and at Scholl, and all the junior officials who were following him. Klarsfeld had advised him to speak to the US as soon as possible, but the Führer wasn’t sure. His position wasn’t secure in Germania. For all he knew, the Vizeführer might already be in charge. How could he hope to bring about peace between the German Reich and the Russo-American Pact when he was facing a Putsch in his own country?
He smiled at the crowd and they fell silent. A podium had been erected in front of the statue, and the Führer stepped up to it. He positioned the microphone at a comfortable angle, and began his speech.
He spoke to the people about the future, about his hopes and his fears. The people clapped, cheered, saluted, and finally, they fell silent again. The Führer looked at them, his expression stern, his blue eyes sparkling in a wrinkled, elderly face. He said to them, “My people, I am your Führer, and everything I do is for the good of the German Reich and for the good of the German people – the united German people. German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese … English. Whatever the ethnic background, we are one. One people, one Reich, one Führer. I have great plans for the future, and they will bring great change for the common German citizen. But they will also bring good – they will bring more freedom, and even, one day, democracy. I want all of these things and more for my people.” He looked at the crowd – he could see surprise in their faces. He couldn’t see anger.
He said grimly, “There are those in Germany, in Germania, our glorious capital, who oppose me. They will endeavour to bring about my demise, so that they can seal the fate of the German Reich for another fifty years. They do not want freedom for the people, and they certainly do not want democracy. I need your support, my loyal people, if I am to be successful in defeating these traitors.” He raised his arm in a Nazi salute. “My people, I fight for the good of Germany, for the good of the German Reich, and for the good of the German people. I fight for you. Will you fight for me?” The crowd cheered enthusiastically. The film crews were recording every minute of the speech, and the Nazi officials started to look rather uncomfortable. Only a handful of them were already aware of what exactly the Führer’s plans for the future entailed – the rest were concerned. The Führer raised his hand in a Nazi salute, clicked his heels together, and bellowed, “Heil Deutschland! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
The crowd chanted along with him, and their shouts filled the Denkmalhalle, much as they hymns of the 1930s had filled it when it had been a place of worship.
The Führer turned to Klarsfeld and nodded his head.
It was time to leave.
79
Ben Fabian ran a hand through his black hair and smiled as he looked down at the street below him. His hair had once been blond, like that of the true Aryan German, and Ben had always despised it. Now, it was black, dyed, and his beard was gone. He wore dark glasses, but as he saw people filing out of the Denkmalhalle almost six hundred metres away, he removed them, laid them on the ground beside him.
It wasn’t actually the ground, he thought to himself as he manoeuvred into position. He was lying on top of one of London’s many skyscrapers, probably more than a hundred metres in the air. Behind him, a narrow tower rose even higher, topped with a carving of the Reichsadler, the Imperial Eagle, and two flagpoles, one either side of the statue, a Hakenkreuz flag flapping from each of them.
He gripped the rifle tightly and stared through the telescopic sights. He could see the entrance of the Denkmalhalle magnified before him, and he could easily see the faces of the men and women who were coming out through the large doors.
The rifle was a Barrett M82A1, a huge .50 calibre monstrosity, a metre and a half in length, semi-automatic, loaded with a clip of 11 Raufoss Mk 211 rounds, armour-piercing incendiary bullets. He could probably take out three or four targets before they got to cover, and each bullet, designed for use not against personnel, but against armoured vehicles, generally exploded on impact when used against a human, showering those around the target with shrapnel. It was a devastating weapon, but Ben only had one target in mind.
The Führer.
Jerome had sacrificed his life so that Ben could lay in this prime position. Ben corrected himself – Jerome had been sacrificed. He hadn’t known he was going to die, but that was unfortunate. Jerome had served the cause, and had paid the ultimate price. Ben knew he had, because it had been announced on the radio – a treacherous assassin had been gunned down by Gestapo officers before he could fire a lethal bullet at the Führer.
Except the Gestapo were wrong. Jerome wasn’t the assassin. The assassin was lying on the roof of the Reichsbank in Reichsbankstrasse, six hundred metres from Denkmalhalle Platz. The assassin was in position, awaiting the Führer.
The assassin’s finger gripped the trigger guard of the rifle tentatively.
Ben licked his lips, blinked away some sweat that had rolled down over his eyelids, and peered through the sights.
He saw the English SS-Oberstgruppenführer leave the Denkmalhalle, with an unidentified SS officer beside him. Then came another bank of SS officers, clearly more junior than the first two. They walked down the steps between two Orpo cordons where people were crowded waiting for a view of the Führer.
A group of men and women in suits came out of the entrance – government officials. They were followed by Reichsstatthalter Klarsfeld. And to Klarsfeld’s left …
The Führer.
The crosshairs of the scope zeroed in on the Führer’s head. Ben only had to move the weapon a fraction of a millimetre. He saw the Führer’s face clearly, as he turned to view the crowd. He saw the Führer’s smile, the blinking of his eyes, the opening of his mouth.
Ben held his breath, waited for one second, then squeezed the trigger.
Something kicked him hard in the shoulder – the rifle’s butt. The sonic boom following the heavy slug speeding from the muzzle filled his ears, echoing around the neighbouring buildings, disguising where it had originated from and frightening hundreds of pigeons from their roosts.
He gathered his senses, looked through the scope. The Führer lay on the steps in a pool of blood. Even from this distance, he could hear the screams of the crowd, the angry shouts of the SS officers. He took careful aim and fired again, pumping a round into the Führer’s chest. He wanted to make sure the Führer was dead – but the first round had exploded on impact, and had removed the Führer’s head and shoulders.
Ben lay down on the roof, resting. Beneath him came the sound of sirens, of shout
ing SS officers. He looked over the edge of the building. They were pointing upwards, towards him. They knew where he was.
That was expected, Ben thought with a wry smile. The whole city was saturated with SS officers. There was no escape. There never was. Jerome hadn’t known that, and Ben could never have told him.
Ben picked up the Browning High Power 9mm pistol that lay on the roof beside him. He had sixteen rounds in the weapon. He could wait for them to burst onto the roof, take a few with him. But he didn’t want to. He only wanted to take out one man – the Führer – and that job was now complete.
Now there was only one more person to kill.
Himself.
He rested the muzzle of the pistol against his temple and closed his eyes, tensed up his whole body. He couldn’t let them capture him. If they didn’t beat him to death, they might beat details out of him. Details he didn’t want to relinquish.
He didn’t want to be tortured, he didn’t want to be beheaded. He wanted to die the hero he was.
The crowd beneath him were still screaming. They were Germans, they were obviously shocked, horrified, disgusted. They would never hail him as a hero.
But Ben wasn’t fighting for the Krauts.
He was fighting for the English.
And he had fought – and he had won.
He pulled the trigger.
die Nachwort
Some said that killing the third Führer of the German Reich had been a mistake.
Liam Lovett was not one of those people.
He couldn’t afford to be. After all, he was behind the operation. If he himself believed that the assassination of the third Führer had been a terrible thing, if he believed that England, as well as the other German States, were far worse off under the fourth Führer, if he believed he had made a grave mistake in sanctioning the assassination, he could never live with himself.
die Stunde X Page 34