by Greg Iles
sensitive mission in 'the history of the Reich. Together we shall prove
yet again what fools they all are!"
Hitler's eyes went cold. "In such times as these, Rudi, we learn who
our real friends are. I'm afraid that some of our oldest and most
trusted comrades may have decided that the time has come to explore
alternatives to the road I have chosen for Germany. They seem to think
my decision to invade at Russia is a symptom Of madness. Imbeciles!
To imagine that thirst neutral I-Adolf Hitler-would invade Russia wi out
f izing England!" th th Hess looked guiltily at e floor. For the past
mon he had subscribed to the very same heresy. Yet the Fuhrer had
obviously had his own peace plan in the works all along. Of course! It
was only natural that the Fuhrer should inspire powerful allies in
England! So many questions thundered in Hess's brain that he could not
decide which to ask first.
Before he could say anything, however, Hitler transfixed him with a
zealot's stare and began to speak with quiet conviction.
"Every man has his hour, Rudi, his time upon the world's stage.
Your hour has come. Some men-men like myself-play their part in public,
like stars flashing across the sky.
Others must play their part in shadow. It is to such a role I call you
now. Take heed, old friend. There are traitors all around us. From
the moment you leave this room you will be in mortal danger.
But you are a soldier, Rudi, the embodiment of the true Nazi. I do not
exaggerate when I say that the very future of the Reich rests upon your
success!"
Hess felt his chest swell with burning pride. He did not yet understand
his role in Operation Mordred, but if the Fuhrer was ready to gamble the
future of the Reich on him, he was ready to lay down his life without
question. What German could do less?
Hess started when, after a perfunctory knock, Reichleiter Martin
Bortnann marched loudly into the salon.
"General Halder has arrived, my Fuhrer," he announced.
As a courtesy, Hitler waited for Hess to dismiss Bormann.
The thickset, unctuous Bonnann was Hess's deputy, after all.
"Dismissed!" Hess barked.
Bonnann saluted and backed reluctantly out of the salon.
Hess felt better immediately. Lately he spent most of his time in his
Munich office, and he had reluctantly come to depend more and more on
Bormann for satisfying the daily whims of the Fuhrer. Bonnann was an
able assistant, but he possessed many traits Hess detested. He was
cruel and merciless to his subordinates, yet fawning and obsequious to
his superiors. No one liked him much@xcept Hitler-but everyone
respected his proximity to the epicenter of power.
"A good man," Hitler said with some embarrassment.
"But it's not like having you around, Rudi. Not like the old days.
Remember Landsberg?"
For a moment Hess thought back to the months in Landsberg Prison, where
he had edited the manuscript of Mein Kampf while Hitler dictated it.
He_s had done his best to force the fevered ideas into intelligible
progressions of words. In those days he had been the apple of the
Fuhrer's eye. it seemed a thousand years ago now. Or it had until five
minutes ago.
"I remember," he said softly.
Hitler crossed to the fireplace, reached up to the mantel, and took down
a long manila envelope. He tapped it against the palm of his left hand.
"On this envelope, Rudi, is written the name of the man I have chosen to
help you carry your mission."
Hitler extended the envelope. Hess accepted it, and held it at belt
level while he read the large blocked letters: REINHARD HEYDRICH:
OBERGRUPPENFOHRER SD.
Hitler had written the words himself; Hess recognized the hand from the
endless nights in Landsberg.. He also recognized the name.
Heydrich was commander of the feared SD-the counter intelligence arm of
the SS-and second-incommand toSS Reichsfiihrer Himmler. Hess
half-recalled an unpleasant story he had once heard about Heydrich-a man
so ruthless that even the brutal SS had christened him the "blond
beast"-but the Fuhrer's voice broke his train of thought.
"Himmler is to know nothing of this," he said. "Heydrich keeps an
office in the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, but you're not to deliver it
there."
"Deliver it?" Hess said incredulously.
Hitler was pacing again, faster now. He spoke as if dictating to one of
his secretaries. "As soon as you get back to Munich, wire Heydrich that
you must see him on a matter of Reich security. Include the word
MordredThis will prevent him from informing Himmler.
Heydrich spends a good deal of time at the SD offices in the
Wilheimstrasse. Deliver it there-not Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. You can
log the trip as another training flight. Make some small talk for a
half hour, then return to Munich." Hitler pursed his lips. "You will
have no further contact with Heydrich, Rudi. But rest assured, he will
be working with you. Besides myself, he will be your only ally."
Hitler paused by the door, his fingers on the handle. "Any questions?"
Hess cleared his throat. "Only one, my Fuhrer."
One question was more than Hitler liked, but he forced himself to smile.
"What is it?"
"When do I leave for England?"
Hitler let his hand drop and walked back to Hess. He reached up, laid a
hand on the powerful shoulder, and gazed into Hess's earnest eyes. "From
the filthy trenches of France," he said softly, "we have risen up and
conquered all Europe. We have avenged the outrage of Versailles- Now we
stand poised to invade Russia itself. Russia itself!" Hitler paused,
his eyes burning. "Such a step is not to be taken without an awareness
of destiny, Rudi- On what day did we begin our glorious westward march
to the Channel?"
Mystified, Hess groped for the date. "The tenth of May, 1940?"
"Yes! And what day is our eastward invasionBarbarossa-to begin?"
"May fifteenth," Hess replied more confidently, recalling the date from
Directive 21.
"No! Our tanks will roll on the fifteenth, but the invasion of Soviet
Russia be ins with your mission, Rudi! On the tenth of May!
One year to the day after we marched on France! Just as before!"
Hess felt a wild thrill of foreboding, a tangible sense of destiny, as
if Fate herself had materialized in the room.
"It is all preordained!" Hitler cried, flinging his arms toward the
ceiling. His mesmerizing voice filled the salon, brimming with the
conviction of a prophet. "On the tenth of May you will secure our
western flank, and on the fifteenth we shall wipe the plague of
communism from the planet! By Christmas of this year, Greater Germany
will extend from the English Channel to the Ural Mountains and it will
be settled by pure German stock!"
Hess's ears roared with excitement. Only slowly did he become aware of
an insistent knocking at the door. It might have been going on for a
full minute. He slipped the manila envelope into his coat pocket as
Hitler opened the door.
it was Bo
rmann again, but this time Hess's deputy hesitated in the
doorway. Hitter smoothed his black forelock and looked into Hess's
eyes. "You will take care of that today, Rudi?"
"Immediately."
"Excuse me, my Fuhrer," Bonnann interrupted, "General Halder is
waiting."
"Let him wait!" Hitler bellowed. "Escort the Deputy Fuhrer to his car,
Bonnann."
"Heil Hitler!" Bormann clicked his jackboots together, turned, and
marched down the hall.
"I'm going up to change clothes, Rudi," Hitler said softly.
"I cannot let my generals see me like this. They'll think they can run
right over me in the conference."
Hitler looked embarrassed by the confidence. Hess grinned and waved him
out. It had been good to see the old Hitler for a few the old spring
jacket and tie could not revoke a the steps they had taken in the
intervening years. T se steps were written in blood and fire, and they
could only be erased by more of the same.
Bormann waited like a Dachshund at the end of the hall.
Hess felt a new and powerful sense of purpose in his tread as he
followed his deputy out of the Berghof. "How are the children, Martin?"
he asked. Just now Hess could not have cared less, but since Bormann
had seen fit to name his offspring after Hess and his wife, he felt
obliged to ask.
"Rudi is strong as a bull," Bonnann bragged over his shoulder.
"And Ilse is the very flower of German womanhood!"
Hess smiled wanly.
Outside, Bormann held open the door of Hess's brown Mercedes.
Hess sensed a kind of animal exultance in him now that the
interloper-Hess-was leaving. Unreasonably irritated, he cranked his
Mercedes and goosed the pedal a few times. The engine roared
responsively.
,is there anything I can do for you, Herr Reichminister?"
Bormann asked.
Hess considered ordering his deputy to call ahead and have his
Messer_chmitt readied, then thoukht better of it. He shifted into first
gear, all the while looking hard into Bormann's eyes. He could see the
arrogance lurking just behind the peasant face. Bormann wore power
clumsily, like all men unaccustomed to it. But the little rat was
learning.
By all reports, he was setting himself up as lord of Obersalzburg,
strengthening his position by acting as sole conduit between Hitler and
the outside world. One of Hess's secretaries had actually heard Frau
Goebbels whisper that Bormann's star had eclipsed Hess's in the Nazi
firmament.
"I see you still haven't finished the construction up here, Martin,"
Hess said breezily. He waved his hand toward a half-finished concrete
bunker.
"The Fuhrer's needs expand every day," Bormann said proudly. "I can
barely keep up with the demand, but I do my best."
Hess forced a smile. 'There is something you can do for me, if you get
the time."
"Anything," said Bormann, with a nod of false obeisance.
With a casual motion Hess reached out of the car and caught Bormann by
the collar. one flex of his thickly muscled arm brought the shocked
Reichsleiter to his knees in the snow. Hess could feel the softness in
Bonnann, the boorish strength dissipated by alcohol and gluttony.
Bormann's piggish eyes bulged in terror.
"Never," Hess said harshly, "never forget who you are, Bormann.
You are my deputy, and as long as I live, that is all you will ever be."
Hess roared away, leaving his stunned subordinate kneeling in the noon
snowmelt. He skidded to a stop at the inner perimeter gate.
"How long to call Munich?" he barked at a surprised SS private.
"We have a direct line, Herr Reichministert" Hess reeled off the number
of his office telephone.
"And the message, Herr Reichminister?"
Hess said nothing. To the sentry he seemed lost in a world of his own,
but the SS man was not about to rush the Deputy Fuhrer of the Reich.
Hess's brain was spinning. All the dark misgivings of the past few
months were lifting from his mind like bad dreams at the coming of dawn.
The road to Moscow would soon be open, and he was the man Adolf Hitler
had chosen to open it! Yet the vision Hess saw now was no epic scene of
conquest, not German legions crossing their Russian Rubicon.
He saw a very small section of a shadowy Munich street, in 1919.
It was on that street, and a hundred others like it, that the seeds of
the Nazi party had battled the communist gangs for control of postwar
Germany. It was to that street that a young Rudolf Hess had returned
one afternoon, to find that a communist gang had reached his local group
headquarters ahead of him. Hess had hidden and watched in horror as
heavily armed Red Guard ruffians loaded twenty of his friends into a
panel truck. Later that night the communists shot all of Hess's
comrades, loyal Germans to a man. A captured communist later claimed
the Reds had lined the prisoners up and sl;of them one by one.
Among all the communist crimes, Hess vowed, this was the one for which
he would exact revenge in Russian blood"Herr Reichminister?" the sentry
asked tentatively.
"What?" Hess looked up. "Oh. The message. To Karlheinz Pintsch: Have
my Messerschmitt fully fueled and ready for a round-trip flight to
Berlin. I want nine-hundredliter drop tanks fitted and filled. Got
that?"
"Jawohl, Herr Reichminister!"
Hess kicked the Mercedes into gear and raced down winding mountain road
as fast as the snow would allow.
I ma God! he thought with exhi aration- I am the n who will seal the
peace with England ... and open the road to Moscow!
With Reinhard Heydrich's help, Hess remembered uneasily. He touched the
envelope in his coat pocket. With a shiver he suddenly recalled the
story he had heard about Heydrich. Apparently the "blond beast"-after
an exhausting night of drinking and whoring-had caught sight of his own
reflection in a lavatory mirror. Wild -eyed and sweating, scum!" then
he had screamed, "At last I've got you, whipped out his pistol and
emptied it through the glass.
Hess felt a cold chill of presentiment, but he quickly shook it off. One
could not pick one's allies in the war against the Bolshevik and the
Jew. Sometimes it took a beast to slay a beast. If the Fuhrer trusted
Heydrich, there was nothing more to be said. Hess had other things to
worry about. A night flight to Britain, for example.
Englishmen who had survived the hell of Hermann Goring's terror bombing
would not mince words if Hess landed alone and unprotected in their
country. They would do their talking with bullets. And that's fine,
Hess thought. I've faced bullets before; I can do it again. The mere
thought of his destination brought a strange quickening to his blood.
England!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
January 7, 1941, The Bavarian Alps Obergruppenfiihrer Reinhard Heydrich,
Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of German @tock and chief of the
SD, landed at Ainring Airport near Berchtesgaden just two hours after
Rudolf Hess delivered Hitler's unexpected message
to Berlin. Like Hess,
Heydrich piloted himself, and upon landing he commandeered a convertible
Porsche from a local Gestapo sergeant. The sergeant professed great
pleasure at being able to help the Obergruppenfiihrer, but inside he
felt only despair. He knew that even if the beautiful car were returned
a burned-out wreck, he could say nothing. Men who angered Reinhard
Heydrich had been known to disappear without a trace.
The open Porsche rocketed along the blacked-out highway, half-sliding
around curves made deadly by a sudden winter shower.
Heydrich drove stonefaced despite the brittle drops that stung his skin
and eyes. The frigid wind would have driven any normal man to groan in
pain, but the young Obergruppenfiihrer prided himself on his ability to
control his human weaknesses. The fact that he was quite mad aided him
considerably in this task.
Unlike most of Hitler's chieftains, Heydrich seemed the incarnation of
the mythical Aryan superman. Tall and blond, blue-eyed, spare and
muscular of frame,.he carried himself with the self-assurance of a crown
prince. A jarring amalgam of opposites, Heydrich put every man he met
off balance. A world-class fencer, he had been asked to join the German
Olympic team, yet tales of his homosexual conquests were whispered in SS
barracks throughout the Reich.
He was an accomplished violinist who not only brought tears to the eyes
of his audiences, but sometimes cried himself during particularly
beautiful passages. Yet his sadistic rampages through Eastern Europe
would eventually cause Czech partisans to christen him the "Butcher of
Prague," and British intelligence to order his assassination. And the
most telling paradox of all: Reinhard Heydrich-the man who had vowed to
"eliminate the strain" of Jewry from the world-had Jewish blood flowing
through his veins.
At the outer gate of Obersalzburg, the SS guards eyed the approaching
Porsche with suspicion. When they recognized its driver, however, they
snapped to attention and waved Heydrich through. The sentries at the
inner gate displayed the same deference, and he soon reached the summit
of the mountain. The Berghof appeared to be under siege.
Most of the High Command had arrived during the afternoon; long black
staff cars overflowed the parking lot and encircled the rear of the
house. Heydrich picked a path through the cars, made his way around to