Foo Fighters

by Daniel Wyatt

  “Sort of,” Hollinger replied, recalling what Bill Donovan had told him four years ago about the Federal Reserve.

  “You told me yourself that I.S. Filberg was receiving Wall Street loans for their munitions factories. Now, I’ll tell you more. The objective of this group linked into a secret society with other prominent people around the world, is, one, an eventual one-world government. Two, universal army. That’s why the League of Nations sprang up in the 1930s, although it failed, and that’s why there’s talk of a United Nations after the war. Three, a universal tax. And, four, a universal dictator, just as the Bible says. The Antichrist. Hitler failed at that. He wasn’t the right guy for this New World Order. The banking group spawned Hitler to keep Germany from going under after the First Great War, when inflation was soaring, then canned him when he went too far. He was biting the hand that was feeding him. The Jewish bankers didn’t support his mistreatment of their race.”

  “Let it be,” Hollinger said, but not convincingly.

  “You have to think globally, Wesley. Here, I’ll show you something. Take out a dollar bill.”

  “What for?”

  “OK.” McCreedy withdrew an American one dollar from his wallet and waved it in front of Hollinger. “On the other side of George Washington is this symbol on the left side, here. The pyramid and all-seeing eye.”

  Hollinger looked over. “So?”

  “Below it reads a Latin phrase, Novus Ordo Seclorum, which translated is New World Order. Global thinking, my friend, that’s the future. You’ll see. Countries around the world will be so linked by this super-rich race of bankers that when the next wars come along, no one will know who the enemy really is because each country will be financed by the same people on the enemy’s side. Do you get what I’m saying? In fact, a lot of wars might not even start because no country will be operating its own treasury. It will be controlled by foreign investors, as is the case in this war.”

  Hollinger rubbed his face. “Geez, Tom, this is too much.”

  “OK, off topic a bit, who do you think foots the bill for Communism?”

  “Wall Street, too?”

  “You’re right. One of the partners in the Kuhn, Loeb & Company that I already mentioned — his name was Jacob Schiff — was one of the main backers of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. How? He loaned money to Leon Trotsky for his good-will tour of the United States looking for support. As soon as Lenin’s boys overthrew the Czars, all the banks in the country were nationalized, except for a National City Bank in Petrograd.”

  “Rockefeller,” Hollinger said automatically.

  “Then Standard Oil rigs — also owned by Rockefeller — moved into the Soviet Union to set up business. Loans were provided through—”

  “The National City Bank.”

  McCreedy threw his hands up. “Now you’re with me. And I’ll tell you something else, if it wasn’t for Germany’s Junkers Aircraft, there never would have been any Soviet air power in this war. A British company, Lena Goldfields, has been mining ore in Siberia for decades, and using slave labour. American companies are mining Russian manganese and asbestos. Shortly after Lenin took power, the Wilson Administration sent almost a billion tons of emergency food to the Soviet Union or else the country would have starved.”

  “How did we get onto the Communists? Let’s stick to Germany.”

  “OK. Let’s see, when Hitler was looking for support in America during his rise to power, I.S. Filberg, the German cartel, hired the public relations firm of Ivy Lee to help improve Hitler’s image. This was the same firm used by old man John D. Rockefeller, when his very own image went sour. And, you know, this sort of thing went on years ago, even in the Civil War. The Rothschilds bankrolled both and North and South, through an agent they had sent over from England.”

  Hollinger shut his eyes. “Wait, wait! How the hell do you know all this stuff?” he demanded.

  “You have to dig for it. Old newspapers. I know people. Thanks to my government access, which I often abuse, I’ve seen files.”

  Hollinger finished off his glass of wine. The train took a wide turn through a mountain pass, and all he saw, when he glanced over, was a giant wall of dark rock. “What about our present situation? If all this, what you’re telling me, is true, then why are we racing to get to the German scientists before the Russians? I thought we’re supposed to be one big, happy family?”

  “The rich group will still supply a new and bigger enemy than the Nazis along the way, simply because there’ll be huge profits in it for them, financing both sides. Global opposites is profitable for military build-up. Two great forces in the world will both be directed by the same powerful boardroom. Two forces, one master. The war was fought to preserve Communism for their financial benefit.”

  “The Russians?” Hollinger sat up, interested.

  McCreedy waved his finger at Hollinger, and raised his voice, “Who else? They will be the next world power. Hell, they’ve taken half of Europe away from Hitler already. They won’t give it back. An arms race is the next thing. Money has to be made. The same way that they cause wars. The group live by the saying, ‘when there’s blood in the streets, there’s profit in the boardroom.’ “

  Hollinger removed his suit jacket, placing it on the couch beside him. “I wouldn’t mind some sleep before we reach the border.”

  “Too much for you, eh?

  “Yeah,” Hollinger sighed. “Let’s concentrate on our mission. So, it’s all set, is it, at the border?”

  “Yeah. All we have to do is clear through customs, which shouldn’t be much of a problem because Patton’s Third Army is in charge of most border points from here to Austria.”

  Hollinger shut his eyes and wondered whether, if McCreedy was right, the world was going all to hell.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mittenwald, Germany — May 1

  The two OSS agents made it to the Austrian-German border after midnight. There to meet them and take them into Germany was a tall, husky army officer, with a flashlight in his hand and a long cigar in his mouth. Crowded around him was a seasoned detachment of twenty-five gun-toting young men, their uniforms worn from battle.

  “Welcome to Germany. I’m Colonel Burns. 324th Infantry Regiment, 44th U.S. Infantry Division. You must be Hollinger and McCreedy.”

  “We are,” Hollinger answered.

  “You got ID?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hollinger said, flashing his OSS identification the same time McCreedy did.

  Burns shone the flashlight at the cards, and seemed convinced. “You can’t go anywhere dressed like that.” The colonel looked over his shoulder at a junior officer. “Parker?”

  A lieutenant stepped forward. “Yes, sir.”

  “Get these men some army gear and pistols. And find some kit bags for their civvies.”

  “Yes, sir, colonel.”

  “You men do know how to handle hardware, do you?”

  “Yes, we do,” McCreedy answered.

  Burns smiled at Hollinger. “By the way, where do you get your suit? I haven’t seen one like that since I left the States.”

  “Custom-made in England.”

  “Nice tie.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Kind of bright, though. OK, the situation. Over here.” Burns spread out a map on the fender of a jeep. “Help me out with another flashlight, Parker.” Under two lights, Burns explained: “We’re here. Mittenwald. Last we heard, the scientists were at Oberammergau. There. Twenty miles.”

  “A set of army barracks, right?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Hollinger. Guarded by SS troops.”

  “Do we expect trouble?”

  Burns shrugged. “It’s possible, even though it’s now confirmed that Hitler is deader than a hammer. Either they’ll give up or fight to the end for the Fuehrer. Who knows? But we’re prepared for anything.”

  Hollinger glanced around. “It seems you are.”

  “If we need any more men, we’ll get them,” Burns assured the OSS agen
ts.

  Hohenlychen

  Himmler took the dispatch delivered to him by courier from the office of Admiral Doenitz. Himmler read it, then crumpled it in his hand. Dammit. He was dismissed forthwith from all his posts. He removed his glasses and rubbed his sore eyes. Lately, he was prone to stomach cramps, headaches, and terrible dreams. Today was no exception. He stood, slowly, his forty-five-year-old body aching him with every move.

  He strode to the washroom aboard his train and lathered his moustache before the mirror. Through the window, he saw his adjutant and two male secretaries throwing files in the bonfire, the flames shooting eight feet high into the afternoon sky. After all these years, this is what it had come to. Destroy everything. Himmler knew that all German forces had more than likely pledged allegiance to Doenitz. The deposed SS and Gestapo chief didn’t stand a chance now. Without power, and without any verbal contact with the SS guards in Bavaria, his collateral was gone. Never mind the scientists, anyway. Himmler figured that the guards had probably deserted their posts as soon as they heard Hitler was dead. That meant no peace terms with Eisenhower or Montgomery looming on the horizon.

  When Himmler emerged from the washroom, his face was clean-shaven, and he had two vials of instant-acting cyanide in the trouser pocket of his civilian clothing. He found the file incriminating Martin Bormann as Hitler’s messenger of mass murder, and took the sheets out. He walked outside, threw his diary into the fire, then stopped in front of Ludwig Hahn to shake his hand. He only glanced approvingly at the other men. Himmler walked to his limousine, door open, his driver waiting. His subordinates were left to fend for themselves.

  “Switzerland,” Himmler said in a trance to his driver, as he stuffed the sheets incriminating Bormann inside his shirt.

  Berlin

  Martin Bormann was not in the mood to celebrate his forty-fifth birthday. He was the last of the Nazi high command left in the Fuehrerbunker. Only two army generals and some officers remained below. An hour before in the pot-holed Chancellery garden, Goebbels had shot himself, and his wife, Magda, had swallowed poison, their six children already dead from the same batch of lethal cyanide. Like Hitler and Eva, their bodies too were doused with petrol and set aflame. No longer interested in living, the last thing Dr. Goebbels wanted for his family was to be brought up in a non-National Socialist Germany.

  Bormann had other plans for his hide. He had a distinct advantage over the other Nazi brass. Hardly photographed throughout his rise to power on Hitler’s coattails, neither the Russians nor most Germans could identify him on sight, especially now in civilian clothing.

  He and Else Krueger walked up the stairs hand-in-hand to the bunker entrance. On the surface, machine guns rattled and heavy artillery pounded in the night. He stamped out his cigarette on the top stair. The Fuehrer had hated smoking in the bunker. Bormann had already said his goodbyes to his other secretaries, the ones he had fondled at work or slept with over the years. Bormann stopped Else at the second step, and said with passion, “Goodbye, Else. Good luck. Women will not be safe out there.” He kissed her hand with intent. “I always, and I mean always, had the greatest amount of respect for you.”

  They hugged.

  She managed a weak smile. “Goodbye, Martin. Happy birthday.”

  It was the first time they had used each other’s first names.

  “Thank you. Too bad there’s no time to celebrate. Be brave.” He gave her a loaded Luger, and in a soft voice said, “Don’t worry, I have another. Use it, if you have to.”

  Bormann left first.

  As soon as he stepped through the unguarded entrance, he was fired at by a sniper. The bullets pinged off the concrete. He could not tell where the shots were coming from. Bormann ducked off to the right, and dove for a pile of rubble a few feet away. He saw Else leaving, her shadowy figure keeping down, running in the opposite direction, even more bullets pinging at her. Obviously, the Russians were monitoring the bunker. Bormann backed up, squatted down, and ran through the water-puddled Chancellery garden, past the bodies of Dr. Goebbels, Magda, Eva, and Hitler, to the street beyond the crumbled walls, the flames of the still-burning Goebbels family lighting the way. He stopped behind a pile of bricks in front of the subway station, and bent over to catch his breath. There was no electricity in Berlin, but several large fires brightened the sky. He knew this was going to be tough. It would require a lot of luck and a good lot of running to escape the city through the Russian lines. He should have kept in better shape. Maybe some of Hitler’s chocolates would fire him up. Bormann chuckled to himself at that thought. What a time to think of chocolates.

  He slowly entered the subway station. This was his only escape on such short notice. He would crawl through the many tunnels, then, once outside, he would walk along the tracks until he reached the Friedrichstrasse Station, a few hundred yards away, where the only German fighting men left were still holding off the Russian onslaught. They were the three-thousand strong Battle Group Mohnke, a rag-tag outfit of sailors, paratroopers, Hitler Youths, and SS men. A few hundred yards from the station stood the Weidendammer Bridge over the Spree River, and a possible escape through Berlin’s north-western suburbs.

  Bormann withdrew his Luger from his leather overcoat. Holding it waist high, he stepped forward into uncertainty.

  Some birthday.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Outside Schattwald, Germany — May 2

  Magnus Von Braun left the army barracks on a bicycle, riding in the direction of the American army. He spoke and understood the English language quite well, and because of that he was the one chosen from the team of scientists to make contact with the Americans.

  It was a sunny morning, a few clouds in the sky. Magnus peddled for a few miles along a winding, gravel road, thick with pine trees to either side. He heard something. He drew to a halt by the side of the road, a bend ahead blocking his view. They were trucks. Drawing closer. But were they American? Or German? Or worse — Russian?

  He dove for cover in the ditch, taking the bicycle with him.

  * * * *

  In the lead jeep was Hollinger, McCreedy, Lieutenant Parker, and Colonel Burns. Hollinger pointed as the jeep roared around the bend. “Did you see that?” he said, from the back seat.

  “Yeah, I did,” said Parker, behind the wheel.

  Colonel Burns puffed on a fresh cigar in the front. “Me, too. Somebody leaped into the bushes. Pull up here.”

  The jeep’s brakes squealed. All four had their pistols at the ready. Burns held his hand up for the six jeeps behind him to stop.

  “Easy,” Burns said, his voice barely audible, stepping out onto the gravel. “Parker, you go that way to the left. I’ll go right. Hollinger, you go with Parker. McCreedy, you—” Burns didn’t have to go any further. A blonde-haired man popped up from the ditch, slowly dragging the bicycle towards them, coming to a dead stop thirty feet away from the jeep.

  Burns turned behind him and quickly said, “You know German, Hollinger. Tell him to come forward with his hands up.”

  Hollinger slipped out from the others. “Komm vorwarts mit die Haende boch!” He yelled.

  The man dropped his bicycle and raised his hands. “Americans. You are Americans.”

  “You speak English?” Burns asked.

  “Yes, I do,” the smiling man replied, walking up to them. Parker searched him for weapons as he continued talking. “My brother and I have been trying to find you for days.”

  “He’s clean,” Parker said.

  “Why?” Burns wanted to know.

  “We need your help.”

  “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “Magnus von Braun.”

  “Brother to Wernher von Braun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put your hands down.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hollinger smiled at McCreedy. They had hit paydirt.

  McCreedy laughed. “Are we lucky or what? Are you one of the scientists?”

  Magnus nodded. “Ye
s.”

  Hollinger was puzzled. “How did you get away from the SS?”

  “Oh, they took off for who knows where when the news came through that Adolf Hitler had died. I was elected as spokesman, since my English is the best.”

  “It sure is. Where are the rest? We’ve come for you.”

  “We had to split up,” Magnus said. “We were all ordered by the SS to the army barracks at Oberammergau. After a few days, my brother convinced the SS that he and his team should be dispersed so that we wouldn’t all be wiped out in one air strike, should your planes decide to drop bombs on the barracks. They agreed.”

  “So where are they?” Hollinger asked.

  “At Oberjoch.”

  “The SS with them?”

  “I do not know that. But probably not.”

  “So, you don’t know if they’re alive, even?”

  Magnus shrugged. “No, not with any certainty.”

  Burns swung around at his lieutenant. “Parker? Where’s Oberjoch?”

  Parker opened his map on the jeep hood. “Just a few miles from here, along this road. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Are you people in good health?” Burns’s gaze fell on Magnus.

  “Yes, very much so. A little hungry.”

  “We’ll look after you,” Burns promised.

  “Thank you. You’ll have to excuse my brother, though. He’s still healing from a broken arm he suffered when he had to leave Peenemunde. His driver had fallen asleep and banged into a tree.”

  Hollinger had to ask the question. “The blueprints and documents on your research, do you have them?”

  “Yes. At an abandoned mine near Dornten. Two of my brother’s aides hid them there and blasted the tunnel shut.”

  “Where’s Dornten?”

  “In the Harz Mountains.”

  “That’s in Thuringia,” Parker piped up. “Colonel,” he glanced down at the map, “the Russians are moving in that region.”