by Glenn Meade
“Because if he was one of those who swore his allegiance, you might know something more than you’re telling. And that something may even put you in danger.”
“That’s not the truth completely, is it, Joe? It was because you didn’t trust me, and you wanted to see my reaction when you told me. And you still don’t trust me, do you? Even though you’re telling me all this. You look into my eyes, and I know you’re searching for answers. You’re searching to see if I’m telling the truth or lying.”
“I want to believe you, Erica.”
She said nothing for a long time, then she looked at him. “I’ve hidden no secrets from you, Joe. And I know none of my father’s. If I was one of Kesser’s people, why would I have come to you in the first place? Why would I have wanted you to investigate Rudi’s death? Why, Joe? Why would I have done these things?”
He had no answer and he knew it.
“Joe, I hardly knew my father. I never believed in his ideals. You must believe this. The fact that my father was in Berlin at that time—I never knew of this until you told me.”
He looked at the blue eyes watching his and remembered the warm body and the hands touching him in the darkness and how close he had felt to her. Looking at her now, he wondered how he could doubt her.
Her hand came up to his face, touched his cheek, and her voice was soft, almost pleading. “Prove that you trust me, Joe. Please.”
“How?”
“Just believe me. And take me with you to Berlin. After what happened to you and Ivan Molke’s men, I’d feel safer. Will you take me, Joe?”
He hesitated, aware of the blue eyes looking into his face.
He didn’t notice the two men sitting in the parked car in the distance, observing them through the bare winter trees.
43
KAALBERG MOUNTAIN, BAVARIA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 11:58 P.M.
Meyer saw the lights of the small Tyrolean villages in the valley below as the Mercedes growled up the steep mountain road.
A sprinkling of snow dusted the thickly forested slopes, and as he came around the bend the headlights swept over the closed metal barrier gate. A sign was attached, the words EINTRITT VERBOTEN! in bold red lettering.
Meyer halted the car and switched off the motor. He flashed the headlights three times before dousing them completely, then pressed the button to roll down the electric window.
The scent of pine gum wafted into the car on the crisp, cold air, and he saw one of the guards come out from the wooden guard hut that was hidden behind the trees.
The man had a Heckler & Koch machine pistol draped across his chest. He shone a flashlight inside the Mercedes, before he nodded for Meyer to proceed.
Another guard appeared and unlocked the barrier gate. Meyer started the Mercedes, and the car slowly moved forward.
• • •
Kesser and Meyer crossed the gravel driveway together to the flat concrete building. Kesser opened the double dead bolts on the gray-painted steel door with a key from the bunch in his pocket. Once inside, he flicked the switch, and the room was flooded with light.
The interior of the building was ice-cold, but the contrast with the bland, functional exterior was stunning.
A wedge-shaped steel gantry stood in the center of the room. A metal launchpad cradled in the gantry held the gray-painted warhead at a 45-degree angle. Below the gantry was a concrete pit measuring three yards by three yards, the bottom and sides of the concrete lined with matted asbestos sheeting, and Meyer knew it was to damp the launch burn-off.
Two metal sliding doors were set in the flat roof, and the building walls were painted military gray. To the right of the gantry stood the IBM mainframe, its chassis a yard wide and a yard deep. A console screen and a standard keyboard stood on top, two swivel chairs set in front. A galvanized-alloy conduit ran to the bottom of the gantry, carrying the cables that would control the missile launch.
A gray telephone sat on top of a wooden desk beside the mainframe, and Kesser’s briefcase was open, next to it a computer printout.
Kesser led the way past the gantry to the computer and sat in one of the chairs. He tapped the keyboard and the screen flickered and turned blue, lights flashing on the panels.
Kesser said, “I ran the program. It’s fine. No bugs.”
“Is it safe?”
“Of course.”
Meyer looked alarmed, but Kesser shook his head.
“The warhead hasn’t been activated.” He pointed to the computer. “The program’s simply loading up. It takes about a minute.”
Meyer saw the computer screen go blank, then become blue again as a series of unintelligible figures began scrolling rapidly across it. Finally the scrolling stopped, and a white cursor blinked on the top left corner.
“Now the program’s loaded,” said Kesser. He pointed to the screen. “Watch.”
He tapped in a series of commands, and the screen blanked again, then showed a graphic, white against blue. Meyer saw the grid map of Germany, gray lines crisscrossing the blue screen.
Kesser hit another key, and Meyer heard a sound like thunder overhead. The metal doors set in the concrete roof began to roll open on their steel runners. An icy blast of air gusted into the building; Meyer shivered as the cold night sky came into view, stars glittering.
When Kesser tapped the keyboard once more, the electric whirr of the stepping motor filled the room. Meyer saw the gray-painted missile twitch in the gantry until it assumed its programmed angle, and then the whirr of the stepping motor died and there was silence again.
Kesser said, “Now look at the center of the screen.”
Meyer saw a white image in the shape of a tiny circle appear.
Kesser said, “Locked on target. The middle of the circle is the epicenter. I can expand the scale if you want to see the exact point in Berlin, but you know how it works. Right now the target center is between the Brandenburg Gate and the southern side of the Reichstag building.”
Meyer took a deep breath. The air in the dark concrete building had become incredibly chilled; the metal doors above were still wide open. He pulled up his coat collar, felt a shiver run through him again. Cold or fear? He couldn’t tell which.
Kesser said, “Of course it will never come to a confrontation. They will all back off—the Americans, the British, the others—once we tell them of our intentions, won’t they?”
Meyer didn’t reply. Suddenly the telephone by the console buzzed, the shrill noise echoing throughout the building. Kesser leaned across and lifted the receiver, listened, spoke briefly, then turned to Meyer.
“There’s a call for you. Priority.”
• • •
They took a taxi from Berlin’s Tegel airport. Volkmann told the driver to wait while they checked into the small hotel off the Kurfürstendamm, then half an hour later they pulled up outside the lakeshore house.
It was one of the old, prewar properties that ring the Nikolassee shore, painted brown and white, the clapboarded windows shut to keep out the freezing blasts of Baltic wind that race across the lake in winter.
It was bitterly cold as they stepped from the taxi, dark clouds drifting across the moonlit water. Volkmann again asked the driver to wait.
A porch light came on, and an elderly woman appeared behind the glass door. She rubbed her hands to combat the cold, and waited until they came up the path before sliding open the door.
“It’s kind of you to see us so late, Frau Richter.”
The woman smiled at them both. “Please, come in.”
The house was warm and she led them into a study that faced the lake. The walls were lined with shelves of books, and Volkmann noticed that most of them were on the subject of the Third Reich.
He introduced Erica, and the woman shook their hands and told them to sit down.
Hanah Richter was tall, with a face that was more handsome than pretty, her graying hair tied back, emphasizing her high forehead. But her eyes were bright Nordic blue and they sparkled
with enthusiasm.
She excused herself, disappearing into the kitchen for a few moments, before she reappeared carrying a tray with three steaming cups.
“Hot chocolate,” Hanah Richter explained. “It’s my nightly ritual. I thought it might warm you both before your journey back.”
She sipped her chocolate and looked at both of them, her keen eyes searching their faces. “So what’s so special about this photograph, Herr Volkmann?”
“It’s of a young woman, taken on July 11, 1931—”
Hanah Richter interrupted gently, “Perhaps you can show it to me?”
He removed his wallet and handed the picture across: the photograph of the blond young woman smiling out at the camera, the mountains behind her, the sun in her eyes, the unseen hand linking hers. Hanah Richter put down her cup and took the picture in both hands. She stared down at the image, and after a brief moment, she looked up.
“You said it was taken on July 11, 1931?”
“That’s what was written on the back of the original. But I’m afraid we’ve no way of knowing for certain if the date is correct.” Volkmann paused. “Why?”
Hanah Richter shook her head as if dismissively, then squinted down at the image once more as she reached into her pocket and removed a pair of reading glasses, then placed them carefully on her nose.
Her face showed a blank expression as she stared at the photograph for a long time. The wind gusted and whistled outside, lightly shook the clapboarded windows, but the historian didn’t look up.
Volkmann said finally, “Do you recognize the woman in the photograph?”
When she looked up, Hanah Richter said, “Yes.”
PART FIVE
44
BERLIN. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22
“Her name was Angela Raubal.”
Hanah Richter looked down at the photograph again as a gust of wind rattled the clapboarded windows.
“She was Adolf Hitler’s niece. The daughter of Hitler’s half sister, also named Angela Raubal. But the young woman was called Geli, to distinguish her from her mother.”
Volkmann stared at the historian. “There’s no doubt in your mind that it’s the same person?”
Hanah Richter shook her head. “Absolutely none whatsoever. During my academic career, I wrote several papers on the period from 1929 to 1931, describing how it influenced Hitler’s personal life. Geli Raubal figured largely in that period. I researched her background as thoroughly as possible. It was a very difficult time for Hitler. He was plagued by all sorts of problems, personal and otherwise. And this young woman was one of them.” She looked at Volkmann. “May I ask where you got this photograph? I’ve never seen it before.”
“From South America.”
She raised her eyebrows for a moment. He thought she was going to question him further, but then she seemed to change her mind.
“You don’t look very convinced, Herr Volkmann. About the identity of the young woman, I mean.”
Volkmann glanced at Erica. She looked at him silently, then over at the photograph. He turned back to Hanah Richter. “It’s a question of certainty. We need to be absolutely sure.”
“If you won’t take my word for it, I can show you several other photographs of the same young woman. Would that help?”
“That would help greatly, Frau Richter.”
She crossed to a bookcase, where she searched along a shelf and finally selected two books, then came back. She laid the books side by side, then moved one under the reading lamp. Slips of yellow paper, reference markers, stuck out between the covers.
“These are fairly standard books dealing with the period. This first is Toland’s biography of Adolf Hitler. The man’s an absolute expert on the subject. This second book I wrote myself.” She smiled. “My one brief moment of literary glory.”
She opened the first volume, leafed through the plates of black-and-white photographs inside, and finally found what she was looking for. Her finger pointed to a snapshot of a young, dark-haired woman standing against a black Daimler. From the look of the car, Volkmann guessed it was a mid-1920s model. The woman stood with one foot on the running board, one hand on her hip. She wore a pale, sleeveless summer blouse and a darker skirt to knee length.
“This particular photograph was taken sometime in the summer of 1930.”
Volkmann and Erica examined the image closely. The woman was dark-haired and pretty, her face square-jawed but attractive. A lighthearted young woman but trying to look serious for the camera. There was only a faint likeness to her in Volkmann’s photograph.
He said to Hanah Richter, “She’s not blond?”
The historian smiled and glanced briefly at Erica before looking back at him.
“It was common practice then as much as now for girls to dye their hair. Peroxide may change appearances, but the facial structure remains the same. She often changed her hair color. But if you look closely, you’ll see it’s definitely the same person.”
Hanah Richter opened a drawer in the desk and took out a magnifying glass, handed it to Volkmann. “Please, be my guest.”
Volkmann held the glass over the image. The basic facial structure of the young woman in Hanah Richter’s photograph was without doubt the same: square-faced, high cheekbones, pensive eyes, thin, wide mouth.
“You see a resemblance?”
When he nodded, Hanah Richter said, “But you’re still not convinced, are you? Perhaps it’s the color of the woman’s hair?”
“That, and her figure.”
The historian smiled. “True. In this photograph, she looks much thinner. In yours, she appears quite plump. Let me show you another, taken in the spring of 1931.”
Hanah Richter opened the second book. Midway through was a collection of photographs, and she found the one she was looking for and pointed to it.
The scene was a Bavarian restaurant. Four people sat at a table: two men, two women. Both women were blond, one young, one middle-aged. The younger of the two women definitely resembled the image in the Chaco photograph. Her features were fuller and remarkably similar, her hair blond and done in plaits in the style of young German girls. She wore a traditional Bavarian costume with lace collar. She smiled at the camera, as if someone had just made a joke.
Two of the people seated with her around the table Volkmann recognized at once. To her left, Adolf Hitler, his arms folded, a trace of a smile on his thin lips. Opposite sat the diminutive, grinning Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. The older blond woman seated next to him had her arm linked through his.
Hanah Richter said, “The young woman with Hitler is Geli Raubal. This time with blond hair. The woman with Goebbels is his wife, Magda. And in this photograph there’s something very interesting. A clue that relates to your photograph. Pass me the magnifier, if you would be so kind.”
Volkmann did so, and Hanah Richter placed the Chaco photograph beside the one in the book.
“Now look closely, please.” She positioned the glass over the new photograph, and Volkmann held it. The focus swam and settled. Erica leaned in closer and Hanah Richter said, “If you look at her right wrist, I think you’ll see something interesting.”
A faintly glinting bracelet. Hanah Richter shifted the glass to Volkmann’s photograph. Again, clearly visible, was a metal bracelet on the young woman’s right wrist.
Hanah Richter said, “The bracelet was a gift from Hitler to his niece, in October of 1929, when he took her to a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. It was made of solid white gold with rubies and sapphires. Hitler mentioned it in a letter he wrote to a close friend. A white-gold bracelet that Geli Raubal later always wore on her right wrist.” Hanah Richter looked up at them over her glasses. “Even besides all that, the facial features in your photograph are unmistakable, I assure you. It’s definitely the same person—Geli.”
Volkmann took the magnifying glass again, held it over the photograph as Erica stood beside him, comparing the two snapshots. The same cheekbones. The same eyes.
The same-shaped face. He looked at Erica. She stared at him blankly before she addressed Hanah Richter.
“I realize the hour, Frau Richter, but can you tell us about her background? You said she was one of Hitler’s problems. How was she a problem?”
“Because she committed suicide.”
“When?”
“Almost two months after your photograph was taken. After a blazing row with Hitler in his Munich apartment, Geli shot herself through the heart. You see, the two had been lovers for a long time.”
When Volkmann and Erica stared at her in disbelief, Hanah Richter said, “I’m afraid you’ve aroused my curiosity. Is this very important?”
Volkmann said, “It may be.”
“Would you care to tell me why?”
“It has to do with a criminal investigation. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.”
Puzzlement sparked in the historian’s face. “When you say ‘a criminal investigation,’ what do you mean? To do with the young woman?”
Volkmann said, “Not her. Someone else.”
“But what has Hitler’s niece got to do with it? She died such a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
Hanah Richter frowned, her disappointment evident. Then she sat back and said, “Very well, what is it you wish to know?”
Volkmann said, “Everything you can tell us about Geli Raubal.”
• • •
Hanah Richter pushed the books aside.
Volkmann sat forward. “You said she and Hitler were lovers. Can you tell us about that?”
The historian nodded. “Certainly there was a relationship between them. One that went far deeper than a normal uncle-niece relationship. You see, she lived in the same house as Hitler for a time, and they became very close. In 1927, when Hitler moved to his berghaus in the mountains at Berchtesgaden, his stepsister moved in with him to act as his housekeeper. Hitler distrusted many of those around him, so his half sister was an obvious choice. She tended to his housekeeping needs, organized his meals, his clothes. And with her came her daughters, Friedl and Geli.”