Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  He'd barely sat down and accepted a schnapps before his questions started. Hoffmann took him through the details, his professionalism overcoming his own hammering heart: fear mixed with excitement, but useful to fuel alertness.

  'Where did it go wrong?' asked Brandau. 'Did the SS - ?'

  'No, they weren't there. Nobody knew.'

  'Then how?'

  Hoffmann spread his hands. 'They destroyed their own chances. I got a call - when? - mid-evening.' He rearranged some papers on his desk, and pulled a blue dossier from the top of a pile. 'Here it is. Thin enough, but there's not much to say. They cabled Berlin the news that the bomb had gone off, but it took three hours for Stauffenberg to fly back here.' He moved his shoulders around to get some of the stiffness out of them. 'Seems the people in Berlin couldn't do a thing without him. He pushed the file across the desk.

  'Nobody here did anything?' Brandau asked.

  'No. Panic? I don't know. Good news for Hitler.' Hoffmann looked at the man. He didn't need to tell him his thoughts. In those three hours the conspirators could have taken the initiative, whether Hitler was dead or not. 'General Fromm just sat on the fence, jumped back into the fold when it was clear the jig was up. Not that it'll help him.'

  Brandau smiled sourly. 'Especially when Hitler finds out he had them executed.'

  Hoffmann said nothing.

  'It was on his orders?'

  'Oh, yes.'

  Brandau twitched briefly at the badge in his lapel. 'What about my people?'

  'The Gestapo? You were represented. Major Schiffer was there before me. Fromm consulted him.'

  'Where did he spring from?'

  'I don't know. He doesn't work for me anymore. He must have been the duty officer.'

  'I'll look into it.'

  'Do we have time for that?'

  'If he was detailed to be there on purpose, he's more important than we thought.'

  They sat, for a moment, in silence.

  Brandau looked at the bottle on the desk. 'Another?'

  Hoffmann shrugged. 'Not me.'

  Brandau looked at the policeman. 'How long have we known each other?'

  'Ten years.'

  'And still you don't trust me.'

  'You're a lawyer.'

  'We're both Party members. Show some solidarity!'

  'You joined in '26 - you're a bloody newcomer!'

  'And you're the bigger fool!' Brandau laughed, poured himself another schnapps after all.

  'We're both fools. We expected great things.'

  Trust wasn't a prime commodity in either of their professions, certainly not now; but they had learnt that a moment would arise sooner or later when it would become indispensable.

  Brandau's lean face was cast into shadow by the light from the desk lamp. He couldn't settle, and shifted in his chair.

  'The place isn't bugged,' said Hoffmann.

  Brandau pulled out a leather case and waved it at Hoffmann, who said no. The lawyer drew out a bent black cigar from it, a Krummer Hund, and lit it. 'I am nervous,' he said.

  Knowing what the lawyer's work involved, Hoffmann understood why.

  'I don't like the idea of waiting,' said Brandau.

  'They've blocked the main roads.'

  'A man in your position - '

  Hoffmann shrugged. 'No good. I'm waiting for a phone call.'

  'Then when?'

  'To move now would be madness. We're trusted.'

  'Do you think so?' Brandau looked at his cigar, and dropped it in the ashtray.

  Hoffmann reassured him. 'They'll put me in charge of the investigation. If there's anything left to investigate.'

  'You personally? You're head of the Criminal Investigation Division.'

  'None better, then.'

  Brandau reached for the bottle again, but changed his mind. 'How many did Stauffenberg get?' he asked.

  'A handful of senior officers. No-one vital. A lot more badly injured. Loss of hands, limbs. We're only getting preliminary reports.' He looked across the desk. 'Not your boss. Not Himmler. None of the top brass. They weren't there.'

  'Well, the objective was to remove the head... '

  'Hitler's fine. The blast blew his trousers off, I gather, but otherwise...'

  Brandau laughed, stood up, walked to the window, looked down without seeing anything. 'All for nothing then.'

  'Yes.'

  The lawyer hesitated before asking his next question: 'What about Hagen?'

  9

  Hoffmann was suddenly quiet. 'Hagen?'

  'He's there, isn't he? At the Wolf's Lair, with the Führer. I'm sorry, Max, but you must have asked yourself the same question.'

  'It's likely,' Hoffmann agreed. He didn't want to think about Hagen now, but he couldn't avoid it. He tried to concentrate on Hitler's headquarters, deep in the East Prussian countryside. The Wolf's Lair. Who thought these names up? The Eagle's Nest - for God's sake!

  Of course Hoffmann knew that Hagen would be there. Where else would he be? Not in Berlin, where the enemy's bombers were making it harder to survive every day. Bit of a wonder he wasn't in Paraguay already. But if there was still money to be made, why should he leave?

  Hagen.

  'He'll have covered his back,' said Brandau.

  'He's a loyal servant.'

  'Long time since I saw Hagen. Still look like you, does he?'

  'Just the same' said Hoffmann. 'Mirror image.'

  'I'm surprised he hasn't got out already,' said Brandau. 'He must know what's coming.'

  'He'll have plans.'

  'Do you know what they are?' Brandau sat down again.

  Hoffmann looked at him. 'I can get good intelligence; but Hagen's inaccessible.'

  'D'you think he might make for Paris?'

  'Why would he do that?'

  'Routes to Spain from there.' Brandau leant forward. 'The Boeselager brothers even got their bloody horse to Longchamps. And with the fucking Tommies already in France! If the Boeselagers could do that ... ' he trailed off, then added: 'It's something to consider.'

  'That was ten days ago. I arranged the travel permits.' Hoffmann said.

  'Took a chance.'

  'They didn't carry my signature. Lifetime ago, anyway.'

  Brandau, thinking of Paris, was on the point of asking another question, but changed his mind. 'I can't bear this waiting.'

  'Everything's in place. Keep calm. We'll choose the moment.'

  'I admire your faith. Personally, I doubt if the moment will be ours to choose after tonight,' snapped the lawyer.

  In the outer office, the phone rang brassily. It rang a couple of times before Hoffmann's secretary picked it up. Had the young lieutenant not been at his desk? Had he been at the door?

  They heard his voice, muffled, as he spoke. A moment later he came in, a slip of paper in his hand, which he gave to Hoffmann. Hoffmann dismissed him, glanced at it, and handed it to Brandau. 'What I was expecting,' he said.

  ***

  It was a short drive from Werderscher Markt to Gestapo Headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. The night had become fresher with the approach of dawn. Hoffmann, in the back of the staff Mercedes, opened the window, and tried to stop his mind from racing. He wished the journey could go on forever, from nowhere to nowhere, always in transit, no stopping, no responsibility. Might it be like that after death?

  The cobbled streets were clear of traffic. The first pencil-lines of dawn were in the sky. A handful of women, shapeless in battered overcoats and headscarves, carrying pickaxes and shovels and marching in a gang, were the only people he passed in the scant kilometre that separated the two official buildings. The women going to clear debris at some bomb-site. Hoffmann looked at them and the ache within him pulled at his body like a torn muscle.

  Hoffmann knew how little he was liked among the people he dealt with. The Gestapo resented anything the Criminal Police had under its jurisdiction, and to keep his department independent and non-political, as far as that was possible, had been a losing battle u
ntil recently, when the Third Reich began to look a little less invincible than everyone had thought. He thought of the other departmental heads, in their black uniforms or dark suits. All younger, all with higher ranks, all filled with mistrust and envy.

  One thing they held against him was that he came from Berlin. Born there. The rest of them were provincials. As for the Führer, he hated the capital, and its people, who'd never turned out to cheer him. That was one of the reasons he planned to bulldoze the place as soon as he could, to make way for the wedding-cake-buildings and grandiose boulevards of his pet architect, Speer. One of the Führer's first acts had been to tear up the lime trees from Unter den Linden to make a broader avenue for his processions. Hitler had always hated Berlin, and one of his first acts was to rob its greatest street of the meaning of its name.

  To begin with, though, Hoffmann had swallowed it all. Well at least the Socialist part of the National Socialist German Worker's Party - that seemed to make sense at the time.

  10

  Hoffmann pondered this as they drove through the hammered streets. He had lived too long since Kara had died. He had lived too long with the two-sided life he'd been doomed to, or chosen. Many had shot themselves rather than go along with the demands of the regime. Few had decided to fight it. Was he a traitor, or was he still trying to be a saviour? It was too late to be the latter, and, unlike many, he'd never seen himself as the former; but there was still unfinished business.

  His car drew up in front of the ornate façade of Number Eight. A well-scrubbed young man, with dark blond hair so heavily slicked with brilliantine that, in the light, it looked black, in a uniform so close-fitting he might have been costumed for a ballet, was standing in the main hall. Greeting him with a brisk salute, this adjutant led Hoffmann along familiar corridors to a massive oak door, on which he knocked, before opening it immediately and standing aside.

  Heinrich Müller's office was a dusty mausoleum of nineteenth-century grandeur, a big as an apartment and far too large for the scattering of furniture it contained, though every effort had been made to make the contents seem imposing. The man himself was, as usual, securely buttoned into his own tight-fitting black uniform. The huge desk was clear except for a blotter and two telephones, but tables surrounding it bore towers of files. At a smaller desk in a corner the inevitable clerk sat in the island of light provided by his desk lamp.

  Müller and Hoffmann faced each other across the room. Both heads of department, but only notionally equals. Hoffmann may have led the Criminal Division, but Müller ran the Gestapo's Anti-Insurgency Group, and, effectively, the whole shooting-match these days. This was a show Müller would be running.

  Hoffmann looked at his opposite number, his face expressionless. Müller, an ex-cop, a bullying little man of vast ambition and fussy, aggressive manners, had always stuck in his craw.

  Today, the Gestapo chief was less sure of himself than usual. He stood up at Hoffmann's entrance, for one thing, and came round the desk with his hand outstretched. 'Max,' he said.

  'Heinrich,' replied Hoffmann, noticing that the little toad had scarcely sketched the Hitler-Salute in the air. Things were bad. Müller waved at an armchair embroidered with hunting scenes in red and green. Müller was always swarthy, but Hoffmann could smell cologne on him and saw that his shirt was clean and his uniform neat. The emergency hadn't interrupted his usual shit-shower-shave routine.

  'No sleep at all,' grumbled Müller, 'Same for you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Cock-up. Fucking idiot Fromm. Schiffer should have stopped it. Did you speak to Schiffer?'

  'Schiffer's not my man any more. And Fromm was the senior officer present.'

  Müller wasn't listening. 'The Führer wanted them kept alive for questioning.' He gave Hoffmann a sidelong look. 'I won't be held responsible.'

  'I don't see how you could be.'

  'It was out of my hands. And yours. Can't blame Schiffer either. Useful man. As you say, Fromm, that fucking shit, was in charge.'

  'Where is he now?'

  Müller looked up sharply. 'In custody.'

  Hoffmann knew how little Müller liked him. They'd co-existed somehow, all these years, colleagues and rivals. Not for very much longer.

  Müller turned his back, and shuffled papers. Then he barked at his clerk, who came over and shuffled some more, while Müller paced in front of his desk. All this was clearly a pantomime, for Hoffmann could see that the document the clerk handed to his boss had stayed on the top of the first pile from the word go. Self-importantly, Müller ruffled it in his hands. Small, pale hands, covered in coarse black hair. 'This is a direct Hitler-Order,' he said, thrusting the grey sheet of paper at Hoffmann. He lowered his voice in theatrical reverence, but he couldn't keep out an edge of jealousy. 'He wants you at the Wolf's Lair at 09.00. Your plane leaves at 05.50. They'll send a car to pick you up.'

  'For a meeting?'

  'What?'

  'Am I coming back immediately?'

  'Of course not! The Führer expects you to carry out a thorough investigation.'

  Hoffmann resisted the temptation to ask what purpose that would serve. Why was he being ordered out of Berlin? Berlin was where any investigation should take place. Or was this another of Hitler's whims?

  'I'll take Kessler with me.'

  Müller smiled unpleasantly. 'I thought you might. It'll be a reunion then. I'm sending Schiffer along too. As an observer for my department.'

  Hoffmann wasn't sure that was good news.

  11

  Things moved quickly then. Hoffmann returned to his office to fill a briefcase with the reports Kessler had put together, before making his way home to pack his own bag (he'd never used a batman), shower (hot, for once, a miracle these days) and change into uniform.

  He stopped the car at an Imbiss to snatch a vile acorn coffee and an even viler Knackwurst sandwich (made of what, for God's sake?), which, hungry as he was, he could barely eat.

  He picked up Kessler and they drove to Rangsdorf aerodrome. There were things to discuss which Hoffmann preferred not to be overheard, and he would still keep some of the essentials from his Number Two. He had never felt that Kessler's loyalty was in question, but at such a time it was better to be discreet, and there was another consideration: he had no desire to hand over any information which could be tortured out of him. Moreover, he knew that Kessler was simply too intelligent to be trusted completely.

  ***

  Kessler looked at his boss.

  The crime was about as significant as you could get. He knew that even with Hoffmann's record as an investigator it would be unlikely that they would find any stones unturned by the SS. They had jumped to it, Kessler had to give them that. Stauffenberg's bomb had gone off, but as the colonel had feared, its effect had been muted. The hut had been wrecked and there was total chaos for some time afterwards, but Hitler and most of the top brass had escaped with their lives. A handful dead, some badly wounded. The Führer was shaken, but, physically, had suffered no more than minor burns and cuts.

  According to the reports, one of the conspirators had managed to relay a message to the Berlin Staff officers involved in the coup by half-past one in the afternoon, but they had just waited another two hours for Stauffenberg to return. By then it was too late. Stauffenberg had done his best to rescue what was rapidly turning into a fiasco, but his efforts to keep the coup alive were in vain.

  All that time, Hoffmann had remained calm and distant. Kessler wondered about that. He knew that his boss hadn't given up whatever battle he was fighting - he scarcely dared give it a name - yet. He knew how tenacious Hoffmann was, but wondered how much longer he could go on. Kessler knew better than to try to get any closer to him, in normal circumstances, than the unspoken limits set between them allowed. He was hungry to ask a multitude of questions, but realised that to do so would drive Hoffmann deeper into himself. Well, experience had taught him that Hoffmann would tell him what he needed to know as and when it became necessary.


  They were all tired. More than tired. Despite his excitement, Kessler felt his mind drift, though when it did, he pulled it sharply back to the here-and-now. There was nothing he could do but wait and see, he told himself, though he could not suppress his impatience. And there was Emma to think about...

  They arrived at Rangsdorf in good time, but the plane had technical problems. The aircrew and the ground-crew were shouting at each other on the tarmac, but no back-up craft was available. The passengers were obliged to sit in a canteen which had nothing to offer them except dry rolls and more ersatz coffee. Kessler's stomach would never get used to the muck. News of the delay had been telegraphed to their destination, but everyone was aware of the kind of temper the Führer would be in when he learned that his schedule would be thrown, today of all days. And Hitler disliked early rising.

  Apart from Hoffmann, Schiffer and himself, there were half a dozen other men on the flight, all in uniform. Kessler was the only one in a suit. He had changed and showered since the previous night, but he was aware that he looked as rumpled as ever.

  ***

  The repairs took half an hour. Hoffmann leaned back in his seat as the JU-52 taxied onto the runway. He glanced across at Kessler. He had been with him for a decade and was now twenty-nine. He had a brilliant mind, and the Führer still recognised the value of such things, especially where they concerned his own security. For all his efforts to shelter him, Hoffmann knew that the young man's life wouldn't have been worth a prayer otherwise.

  As it was, Kessler had made Inspector without ever joining the Party. Interesting man. Straight into the police from school, bypassing university, disgusting his father, a features writer on the left-wing Berliner-Zeitung. Herr Kessler was gone now, of course, long gone. The news of his death had reached Hoffmann in a letter from the chief of police in Wuppertal, where a concentration camp for political dissidents had been established in a disused factory. Hoffmann only learned the truth much later, and kept it to himself.