The Seventh Secret

by Irving Wallace

  They were interrupted by the return of the assistant manager. He was carrying a rectangular, orange-covered photo album. "Our identity record of the personnel in room service," he said, opening the album as he handed it to Foster. There were passport-sized head shots of the various room waiters with their names and employment numbers imprinted below. "Go through it," insisted the assistant manager, "and see if you recognize the one who was in Miss Ashcroft's bathroom."

  With 'care, Foster examined the photographs set in transparent plastic pockets in the album. He turned the pages, hoping for a flicker of familiarity. When he was finished, he knew that the assailant was not among these.

  "No go," said Foster, handing back the album. "Obviously he came from the outside by some means and disguised himself as a waiter."

  "I am trying to think of what precautions we can take," said the worried assistant manager.

  The head concierge was leaning across the counter toward Foster. "May I make a suggestion, sir? Basically, I do not believe this is completely a hotel matter. It may require a greater capability."

  "What do you mean?" asked Foster.

  "That this matter must be reported at once to the West Berlin chief of police," said the concierge. "I happen to be personally acquainted with Chief Wolfgang Schmidt. I wish to phone him now, inform him that he must see you immediately. He's the best man to have on your side, a real crime-buster, as American television always says. As for politics, if this assault had political implications as you have hinted, you can be sure Chief Schmidt will become involved. He has an abiding hatred for neo-Nazis. He is always trying to root the last of them out of our society. You know, Chief Schmidt was a hero of the German anti-Nazi resistance—the only important conspirator to survive Hitler's purge after von Stauffenberg's plot to blow him up failed. I will phone him that you are on your way. Please report this without further delay."

  Foster took a taxi directly to the Polizeiprasident of Berlin at Platz der Luftbrücke 6. He had plenty of time before his meeting with Rudi Zeidler, and his first priority was Emily's safety. If the police could not trace the assailant, at least they might find out what had motivated the attack and provide some protection.

  After presenting himself to the security and information office before entering the large lobby of the four-story building, Foster was cleared and guided to a door lettered, DER POLIZEI- PRASIDENT. Ushered into the chief of police's unostentatious office, Foster found Wolfgang Schmidt and his broad desk to be the only large objects in the room. On the wall behind the chief, between two shuttered windows, was a simply framed inscribed photograph of Konrad Adenauer.

  Apparently Schmidt had been notified by the Kempinski concierge of what had happened last night and was ready for Foster.

  Signaling Foster to a pull-up chair, he drew a yellow pad into the writing position and selected a ball-point pen out of a holder.

  "I have a sketchy idea of what occurred yesterday evening in suite 229 of the Bristol Kempinski," said Schmidt. "At eight in the evening, wasn't it?"

  "Give or take a minute or two."

  "Very well," said the chief of police. "I think I'd better hear in your own words exactly what happened. Try to omit nothing, no matter how seemingly inconsequential."

  As Foster spoke in a factual monotone, Schmidt industriously made notes on his yellow pad.

  When Foster concluded his account, Schmidt looked up. "You're sure he brandished a knife?"

  "I have the knife right here," said Foster. During the evening with Emily, he had gone into the bathroom to retrieve the knife from the floor, wrapped it in a hand towel, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. This morning he had transferred the knife to his portfolio. Opening his portfolio, he brought out the wrapped weapon and placed it on the chief's desk.

  Schmidt removed the towel, gingerly took the sharp blade by its tip and held it up. "An ordinary hunting knife, with a common brand name. There must be millions of these in circulation. I'm afraid the brand name won't tell us much. Still, there may be some fingerprints."

  "I could have smudged them. I picked up the knife with my bare hand. I wasn't thinking."

  "Then we'll have to fingerprint you, too, for comparison. Let us hope you left one clear print of the attacker," said Schmidt. "I'll turn this weapon over to be -dusted." He replaced the knife in the towel, and pushed the towel aside. "The assailant? Can you describe him?"

  "Not well, I'm afraid. Everything happened so fast. He was much shorter than I am. Perhaps five feet seven or eight. I threw him over my shoulder, and I can guarantee you he was heavy and muscular. I'd guess one hundred eighty pounds. He had black hair, dark eyes, wide flat nose. Somewhat swarthy."

  Schmidt was writing. "A German, you think?"

  "I have no idea."

  Schmidt put down his pen, and sat back in his low swivel chair. "The intended victim, Emily Ashcroft," the chief said, "can you tell me more about her?"

  "What would you like to know?"

  "If to your knowledge, she has any enemies in West Berlin?"

  "Enemies?" repeated Foster. "She doesn't know anyone here, not really. She's a scholar from England, absolutely harmless. I can't imagine anyone having any reason whatsoever to harm her."

  "So, she's here as a tourist then," Schmidt said offhandedly.

  Foster considered his reply. If he wanted help, he had better be truthful. "No, not really as a tourist," he said. "She and her father were writing a definitive biography of Adolf Hitler together. Her father, Dr. Harrison Ashcroft, was killed in a traffic accident in Berlin—"

  "I thought the name sounded familiar," Schmidt interrupted. "I spoke to his daughter on the phone. I remember investigating the unfortunate accident."

  "—and then Emily Ashcroft came to Berlin alone to follow some leads she had on Hitler's last hours."

  "What more could there be to find out?" Schmidt said with a shrug. "Everyone knows Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in 1945. The Soviets proved it."

  "Well, Miss Ashcroft is a thorough historian. She wants to verify all the details. There is a possibility Hitler survived and got away."

  Schmidt emitted a hoarse laugh. "Yes, I know all those wild rumors. The last one I heard was that Hitler was smuggled out of Germany and taken by U-boat to Japan." He laughed again. "Maybe Miss Ashcroft should go and research in Japan."

  Foster found himself annoyed by the chief of police's mockery. Instinctively he began to dislike this bull of a police officer. "Someone did deliberately try to kill her here in Berlin," Foster said unsmilingly. "I'm told there are still old SS veteran groups around West Germany who worship Hitler and the good old days under him. As you must know, yesterday Miss Ashcroft's photograph appeared in one of your Berlin newspapers. She was seen in the East Zone visiting the site of the bunker. Maybe one of those SS veteran groups noticed her, didn't want any foreigner meddling around with Hitler's heroic finish, and decided to interfere with her search."

  Schmidt's beefy countenance was solemn once more. "It is a possibility, but an unlikely one. True, there is a handful of Nazi dreamers around, neo-Nazis who re-member the glory of the Third Reich. My department is always on the alert to find them. But the diehards are very few, very advanced in years, and totally ineffectual. Still, there might be one lunatic among them."

  "And maybe such a lunatic hired someone to liquidate Miss Ashcroft."

  Schmidt sat straight. "With that possibility also in mind, Mr. Foster, we will continue to infiltrate the neo-Nazi groups in this area and find out whether they are up to anything. But truly, this is not a source I would worry about."

  "What should Miss Ashcroft worry about?" persisted Foster. "Someone did try to kill her last night."

  "What happened sounds like an unmotivated attack by a deranged sadist. However, you are correct. An attack was made on a distinguished foreign visitor, and it is our duty to apprehend her attacker and bring him to trial. I myself will be in charge of the search." With effort, the chief of police heaved himself out of
his seat. "You can assure Miss Ashcroft that she shall receive special protection from this day on. I am immediately going to arrange for the hotel to take better security measures for the length of her stay in Berlin. She will no longer have to fear the recurrence of a similar incident, that I promise." Schmidt stood up. "Meanwhile, I'll have someone meet you at the elevator to take fingerprints. Please inform Miss Ashcroft we will be vigilant."

  "I will. Thank you, Chief."

  But leaving the police station, Foster was still filled with a sense of distinct unease.

  Foster followed Rudi Zeidler through his sprawling well-appointed one-story home located about a half mile west of Grunewald.

  Zeidler, wearing a white sport shirt, white ducks, and tennis shoes, was as tall as Foster, but lankier, bonier, a sprightly man in his sixties. His English was excellent, and he used it to describe various pieces of sculpture and French expressionist painting as they passed through his ultramodern house filled with oiled teak Danish furniture.

  At the rear, they came into an airy studio, awash with the sun that was pouring in through a skylight. Except for a flat-topped desk and several web-backed tubular chairs, the studio was furnished only with tables used for 'pinning down design plans.

  Zeidler took in the room with a wave of his arm. "Part of my work suite," he said. He indicated the tables. "I still keep my hand in with some architectural commissions from time to time." He jerked a chair back for Foster to sit in, and himself went behind the metal desk. Foster noticed that the single piece of equipment on the desk was a green computer.

  "So," said Zeidler, "your book is on German architecture. Do you want to tell me about it?"

  "I'd prefer to show it to you," said Foster, lifting up his portfolio. He handed it over to Zeidler. "You can see it's called Architecture of the 1000-Year Third Reich. What was done and what was planned but never done. You don't have to bother going through the whole book. That's just to give you an idea of what I've got. Also, to give you an idea of what I haven't got."

  Zeidler had started flipping the pages of photographs and drawings in the portfolio. Without looking up, he said, "What haven't you got?"

  "The buildings and designs you contributed to Albert Speer and Hitler, when you were Speer's associate. From what you told me on the phone it must have been a crazy time."

  "Very crazy," Zeidler confirmed, as he remained absorbed in the portfolio. He finished it, closed it, and handed it back to Foster. "Yes, you seem to have everything except what I did."

  "I want this book to be complete, Mr. Zeidler. I need to know what you did."

  "Little enough. But still, of some importance."

  "As far as I've been able to learn, you designed and constructed seven buildings for Hitler."

  Zeidler moved his skeletal head in assent. "Seven exactly."

  "I was not able to find photographs or even designs of any of them in Speer's papers."

  Zeidler wrinkled his pointed nose. "Speer was not exactly proud of them. So he kept no copies. You would not find them anywhere else because they were meant to be secret."

  "Secret? Why?"

  "Because the structures were hidden underground headquarters for Hitler as he moved about Germany during the war," said Zeidler.

  "They were actually kept secret?" Foster asked.

  "Well as much as anything can be kept secret on construction jobs," said Zeidler. "After all, there are always a fair number of people involved in every construction. There are the laborers, although in most cases Hitler assigned each task to slave laborers—Jews, Poles, Czechs—and they were executed after the task was done. Once we were finished, Hitler moved a Wehrmacht general and staff members into each underground. The existence of these subterranean structures was not known to the Reich's enemies until the war was over. "

  "And those are the ones you designed and built?" prompted Foster.

  "Every one of them," said Zeidler with a degree of pride.

  "Do you have photographs of them?"

  "Unfortunately, very few. When built and in use, I remind you, they were secret. As the war was being lost, and Germany overrun, Hitler ordered some of these bunkers evacuated and blown up. Others were discovered by the Russians, British, Americans, French, and destroyed. I may have a few pictures showing the ruins. But they hardly indicate the original architecture. I can send you what I do have. Where are you staying?"

  "At the Kempinski."

  "You shall receive them in a day or two." He had pulled open a drawer of his metal desk, taken out a piece of paper, and jotted a note. Then, feeling around inside the drawer, he removed a white-rimmed yellow Meerschaum pipe and a leather pouch. Filling the pipe, he asked, "You don't mind, do you?"

  From a pocket of his sport jacket, Foster extracted his own worn briar pipe and a packet of tobacco. "I'll join you."

  Zeidler pushed his pouch toward Foster. "Try some of my Dutch tobacco. Quite mellow."

  Stuffing the tobacco into his pipe, Foster said, "If you don't have adequate photographs of your handiwork, perhaps you have the original designs of those seven underground structures?"

  "I was about to mention the designs," said Zeidler with enthusiasm. "Those I do have, all seven of the original blueprints."

  "Well, they would certainly do as well as any photos," said Foster. "That is, if you'll permit me to reproduce them in my book. They would complete my project. "

  Zeidler was having trouble keeping his Meerschaum lighted. At last, he managed. After a few puffs, he said, "No problem. You would like to see them now?"

  "If you please."

  Zeidler nodded. "I can retrieve them from my storage room. Let me see where they are. I have everything inventoried in my computer." He slid his chair along the desk to the computer. "There they are—Underground Bunkers. I'll be able to find them quickly. Give me no more than five minutes." He was already on his feet and heading into an adjacent room.

  Foster sat back, pleased that his search had come to a successful conclusion. Those underground bunkers, properly captioned, would make a dramatic climax for his architectural survey. Briefly, he thought of the strange creature who had ordered this underground string of bunkers built. One could understand the ones that had been constructed in the latter days of the crumbling Reich as protection against Allied bombings. But the others indicated that Hitler had been an animal of the night, a creature of darkness, who wanted to burrow deep inside the earth far from the havoc and destruction he was creating above ground.

  Contentedly, Foster blew smoke rings, awaiting the illustrations for his project.

  In a few minutes, Zeidler returned, carrying tubes of blueprints under one arm. "Here we have them, all seven," he announced. He placed them on his desk. "Come closer. I'll show you what they are."

  Foster jumped up, emptied his pipe into an ashtray, and went around the desk to stand beside Zeidler, as the German removed the first blueprint from a tube and began to spread it out.

  "This is Bunker Doric, fashioned out of a cave in the Eifel Mountains," said Zeidler. "Actually, Speer started the design late in 1939. But Speer disliked it, because Hitler wanted it so plain and uninspired, and so he turned its completion over to me. I finished the design and supervised the construction in 1940." Zeidler's knobby forefinger ran over the blueprint. "Note the many rooms for electronic equipment. That one bunker cost what would have been about two million American dollars in those days."

  Zeidler unwound another blueprint and stretched it over the first. "This is Bunker Felsennest, also in the Eifel Mountains inside Germany, but not far from Belgium. I used a cave again here. We had to clear the bats out before the construction began."

  Zeidler was spreading a third blueprint before Foster. "Bunker Tannenberg," the German explained. "Beneath the Kniebis Mountain in the Black Forest."

  Foster watched, fascinated, as the remaining blue-prints were flattened out and shown to him. Zeidler s commentary continued. "The greatest and most intricate of them all. Bunker Redoubt inside t
he Obersalzberg Mountain at Berchtesgaden. You can see the many offshoot warrens, to house underground the other party bigwigs . . . Here is Bunker Pullach near Munich .. . And finally . . ."

  Zeidler was spreading the last of the blueprints out with evident distaste, ". . . the one of which I am the least proud but which became the best-known of them all. This is the concrete Führerbunker, beside the Reich Chancellery and its garden, where Hitler holed up to the very end. Speer started it in 1936. I redesigned and enlarged it in 1938, using a dependable private firm, the Hochtief Construction Company, to make it foolproof. The Führerbunker was the most constricted and inconvenient of all the bunkers, and parts of it remained unfinished, because we never seriously believed it would be used, never believed Hitler would see Germany crumbling about him and would have to hide in it for his last months. Anyway, Mr. Foster, there you have it, the missing architecture."

  "You said seven designs, Mr. Zeidler. I counted only six.

  "There are seven," insisted Zeidler. "I will show you." He leafed through the blueprints, counting. "Four, five, six." He looked up, puzzled. "You are correct. There are only six here. But there were seven. I remember exactly, and the computer inventory confirms it. One seems to be missing."

  "Maybe you left it in your storage room."

  "Let me make sure." Zeidler quickly disappeared into the adjacent room, and almost as quickly reappeared. "No, it is not there." He stood at his desk, frowning. "I can't imagine what happened to it."

  "Did you ever let these blueprints out of your hands?"

  "I wouldn't have dared. I made one set for Hitler, which he kept, but I'm told he had it burned in the bunker before his death. The single other set that survived is this one, which I have kept with me."

  "Could you have loaned the seven blueprints to someone?"

  "No, I never did. There would have been no reason. I never—" He stopped abruptly, remembering something. "You are right. Yes, I did loan this set out once, I recall. I had word from Albert Speer, through his family, that he was considering doing an architectural book on the Reich similar to your own, more a technical memoir of his work, rather than a picture book such as you have done, and he wanted to review my work for him. Speer was only a year from finishing his twenty-year sentence. Anyway, I took the seven blueprints over to the prison, and left the set for him. When Speer was released from Spandau, he returned the entire set to me."