The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  “Malignancy,” he lamented, “is rife.”

  To be sure of the poison, he retreated to the surface and watched as a capsule was administered to his favorite Alsatian. The dog’s quick death seemed to satisfy him. The Führer then descended into the bunker and presented his two personal secretaries with capsules, commenting that he wished he could have provided a better parting gift. They thanked him for his kindness and he praised their service, wishing his generals would have been as loyal.

  Earlier, everyone had been summoned to the bunker. Hitler appeared with Bormann. His eyes carried the same hazy glaze of late, a lock of hair plastered to his sweaty forehead, and he shuffled in what appeared a painful stoop. Dandruff flecked his shoulders, thick as dust, and the right side of his body trembled uncontrollably. The German people would have been amazed to see the weakened condition of their Supreme Leader. The staff was assembled in a line, and the Führer proceeded to shake each of their hands.

  Bormann watched in silence.

  Hitler muttered as he departed, “All is in order.”

  The end was near. This man, who by sheer personality had so completely dominated a nation, was about to end his life. So much relief spread through the people present that they hurried to ground level and held a dance in the canteen of the Chancellory. Officers, who days before would not have even acknowledged those beneath them, shook hands with their subordinates. Everyone seemed to realize that postwar Germany was going to be greatly different.

  By noon the news was not good.

  Russian troops occupied the Chancellory. The Tiergarten had been taken. The Potsdamer Platz and Weidendammer Bridge were lost.

  Hitler accepted the dismal report without emotion.

  At 2:00 PM he took lunch with his secretaries and cook. His wife, Eva, who normally ate with Hitler, was not there. Their marriage was little more than a day old. Such an odd wedding. The din of battle. The concrete walls. A humid moldy aroma that stained everything with a stench of confinement. Both declared that they were of pure Aryan descent and free of hereditary disease. Goebbels and Bormann served as official witnesses. The bride and groom barely smiled.

  A queer sort of fulfillment amid overwhelming failure.

  After lunch Hitler and his wife appeared together, and all were summoned again. Another farewell occurred with little emotion, then the Führer and Eva Braun returned to their quarters.

  Within minutes a single gunshot was heard.

  Bormann was the first into the room. A smell of cyanide smarted the eyes and forced a retreat while the air cleared. Hitler lay sprawled on the left side of the couch, a bullet hole the size of a silver mark in his skull.

  Eva Braun lay on her right side.

  A vase filled with tulips and white narcissi had fallen from an adjacent table, spilling water on her blue dress. There was no sign of blood upon her, but the remains of a glass ampule dotted her lips.

  A woolen blanket was produced, and Hitler’s body was wrapped inside. The Führer’s valet, Linge, and Dr. Stumpfegger carried the body to ground level. Bormann wrapped Eva Braun’s remains in a blanket. He shouldered the corpse and carried her from the room. One of the guards called to him, and he halted in the passageway. There was a brief discussion, and Bormann laid the body in an adjacent anteroom. He dealt with the guard, then passed Eva Braun’s corpse to Kempka, who in turn passed her to Guensche, who then gave her to an SS officer who carried the body up to the Chancellery garden.

  The two corpses were laid side by side, and petrol was poured over them. Russian guns boomed in the distance and someone mentioned that Ivan was less than two hundred meters away. A bomb exploded and drove the mourners into the shelter of a nearby porch. Bormann, Burgdorf, Goebbels, Guensche, Linge, and Kempka watched as Guensche dipped a rag into petrol, lit it, then tossed the burning fuse onto the bodies.

  Sheets of flames erupted.

  Everyone stood at attention, saluted, then withdrew.

  “All that they destroyed,” Schüb said. “All who died. And it ended just like that.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters a great deal. For you see, when they laid out Eva Braun’s corpse, something was different. Something no one at the time noticed. But who could blame them. So much was happening so fast.”

  He waited.

  “Her blue dress was no longer wet.”

  Within hours of Hitler’s suicide, Bormann donned the uniform of an SS major general, crammed papers into a leather topcoat, and fled the Führerbunker. On the Weidendammer Bridge he encountered bazooka fire, but managed to flee the scene with only minor injuries. He commandeered a stray vehicle and drove to another underground bunker constructed in secret by Adolf Eichmann, equipped with food, water, and a generator. He stayed there a day, then slipped out of Berlin and headed north, dressed as a forest warden.

  Across the Danish border he found a rescue group stationed there weeks before. He had prepared himself for the journey months earlier by burying two caches of gold coins, one in the north, the other in the south. He’d also secreted away banknotes and art treasures that could later be converted into cash. His political position gave him access to Lufthansa, cargo ships, and U-boats, and he’d utilized that privilege in the early months of 1945 to transport out of Germany all that he might need in the years ahead.

  By the end of 1945 he was in Spain. He stayed there until March 1946. His face remained obscure until October 1945 when, after he was indicted for war crimes, his picture was posted throughout Europe. It was then he decided to leave the Continent, but not before dealing with Eva Braun.

  They were in many ways similar. During the war she was intentionally kept in the background, denied the spotlight, forced to remain in the Bavarian Alps. Only those in Hitler’s innermost circle were familiar with her, so it was easy for her to meld into the postwar world.

  She’d returned to Berlin against Hitler’s orders on April 15 to inform him she was pregnant. Hitler took the news calmly, but delayed fourteen days before finally marrying her. During that time he arranged, through Bormann, for her escape. By April 22 Hitler knew that he would never leave the bunker alive. Braun objected to surviving. She wanted to die with Hitler.

  But he would not hear of it, particularly with her being pregnant.

  A female SS captain was chosen by Bormann, one who possessed a build and look similar to Braun’s. The woman was proud of the fact that she would be with the Führer in his final moments. She entered the bunker on April 30, an hour before Hitler and Braun were to lock themselves away for the final time. In the confusion of the day no one noticed her. People were routinely coming and going. With Bormann watching, she bit down on a cyanide capsule and ended her life. Her body, clothed in a blue dress identical to the one Braun would be wearing, was kept in an adjacent anteroom.

  Bormann was the first to enter the bedroom after Hitler died. He sheathed Braun’s body on the pretense of protecting her dignity. He realized all focus would be on Hitler, and he was correct. Braun’s task was to lie still and be dead. It was Bormann who carried her from the bedroom, and after being called by a guard he momentarily deposited her body in an anteroom. That was not prearranged, but it provided Bormann an easy opportunity to make the switch, leaving Braun hidden in the anteroom while her substitute was burned with Hitler in the Chancellory garden above. In the chaos that followed, Braun, her physical appearance altered and dressed as the SS captain who’d arrived hours earlier, left the bunker.

  She was flown out of Berlin to Austria on one of the last flights. From there she traveled by train to Switzerland, no different from thousands of other displaced women. Her journey, using new identity papers and money provided by Bormann, was easy.

  Eventually, she made it to Spain, and there they stayed until the spring of 1946, under the protection of a local fascist leader. Transportation to South America was arranged on an oil transport by a Greek sympathizer, so they traveled to Chile. Nazis had congregated there since the war, most in heavily
fortified estancias south of Santiago. Bormann felt crowded, so he and Braun settled near the Argentine border in the lake district until the lure of Africa drew him back across the Atlantic.

  “Bormann never let Eva Braun forget that she owed him her life,” Schüb said. “He loved to retell the story of her survival, and the part he played. It was his way of asserting superiority, making sure she knew that he was the only reason she still breathed.”

  Wyatt was amazed at what he was hearing. History had never been a great interest of his, but it was hard to ignore the impact of what Schüb was saying.

  “They were married in Africa.”

  “Why?”

  “She was pregnant again, and he wanted the baby to be legitimate.” The older man paused. “Theirs was a difficult relationship. Her dead husband, the man she truly loved, told her to rely on Bormann. She tried to follow Hitler’s will, but Bormann was difficult. It helped that, before the war ended, their initial disdain of each other had somewhat faded. Bormann was the one who provided her with money. Took care of her needs. She respected his power.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “Strange was his personality,” Schüb said. “Capable of murdering millions, yet concerned that his offspring would be called a bastard.”

  “What happened to Hitler’s child?”

  “Braun gave birth in January 1946. The baby was robust and healthy. That occurred while they were still in Spain. They did not arrive in Chile until early 1947. The child did not make the journey. Bormann took the baby at birth. He was tasked by Hitler with taking care of Braun and the child. But that never happened.”

  He understood. Once Hitler was dead, Bormann made the rules.

  “Eva Braun bled to death giving birth to Bormann’s child. That was in 1954.”

  A muffled sound filled the air overhead, like a breeze. He glanced up to see birds, not a hurried or confused flight, but a pilgrimage, their shadows flitting across the moon.

  “The night is their refuge,” Schüb said. “They will return at dawn.”

  He continued to watch until the last of the shadows faded into the blackness. He faced Schüb and said, “Did you kill Isabel and the book dealer?”

  There was hesitation while the old man caught his breath.

  Then Schüb swiveled his head like an owl and said, “Be patient, Mr. Wyatt, and I will tell you everything.”

  He wondered if that was a good thing.

  I will tell you everything.

  Why?

  These secrets had stayed buried a long time. Why share them now? Particularly with someone who could repeat them.

  Which made him wonder.

  Was the next bullet to the head his?

  “Christopher Combs has become a problem,” Schüb said. “He fancies himself a treasure hunter. Did you know that about him?”

  He shook his head.

  “He’s also a Nazi enthusiast. He has quite a collection hidden away.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “I sent men to steal a look.”

  “Is Combs investigating you?”

  Schüb chuckled. “I should say not. No, he’s after the gold.”

  He listened as Schüb explained how, in the last days of the war, the Berlin Reichsbank was emptied, its contents transported south to the Alps and the National Redoubt, the supposed last stand of the Third Reich. Those assets came by railway from Berlin to Mittenwald. The American army wasn’t far away, and time was short. There were gold bars, boxes of bullion, bags of coins, and millions in foreign currency. It was supposed to be buried in mountain caches. Some was, by a special army detail. But only a fraction of that loot was found after the war.

  “There is a great debate over exactly how much was actually buried,” Schüb said. “Later investigations indicated that American soldiers may even have discovered some of the gold and kept it. I’ve read FBI reports from the time, after they were called to Germany to investigate. The results were inconclusive. But if Americans did find the Reichsbank assets, it was still only a portion of the total that the bank held.”

  Schüb reached beneath his jacket, produced a piece of paper, and handed it to him.

  April 28, 1945

  Delivery of the Reichsbank assets occurred without event in Mittenwald. An inventory was performed that revealed the following:

  364 bags of gold (2 bars each for a total of 728 bars)

  4 boxes of gold bullion

  25 boxes of gold bars (each containing 4 bars)

  2 bags of gold coins

  11 boxes of gold weighing 150 kilos

  20 boxes of gold coins

  All banknote printing plates were disposed of in Lake Walchen per original orders. Cache locations were chosen on the north-facing mountain slopes at elevations varying from 100 to 200 meters and burial holes prepared during the night. Disposal occurred over the course of April 25 and 26, completed by the 27th.

  “That is an English translation of a German memoranda from the time. Many call the Berlin Reichsbank the largest bank robbery in history.”

  Wyatt motioned with the paper. “Why is this not in German?”

  “Because you do not speak that language.”

  He was impressed. “What else do you know about me?”

  “That you have been tracking Combs. He betrayed you eight years ago and cost you a career. I’m assuming you came here to kill him.”

  “You know a lot about me.”

  “You did your job, and you did it well. You asked little besides loyalty and respect. Those I understand. You, of course, received neither from Combs.”

  The pieces were beginning to fit. “Combs came here and started asking questions. He located Isabel and the book dealer. He was probing into something that you wanted to remain secret.”

  “Not just me. There is another. You asked me a moment ago if I killed Isabel and the book dealer. I killed neither. But the book dealer, Gamero, was going to sell Combs certain documents, like the one you hold. I tried to dissuade him, but he was far too greedy. Isabel. God bless her. She was bitter and angry and talked too much. Unfortunately, my brother was not as patient as I.”

  “He killed them?”

  “He is a difficult man. He attacks our common problem in a different manner. Killing is easy for him. He is much like his father.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Martin Bormann. He was the child born while they lived in Africa.”

  He had another question but held it for the moment.

  “My brother became heir to the family fortune. During the war, Bormann controlled the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund of German Industry. Or, as history as labeled it, Hitler’s Bounty. The moneys came from German industrialists. Some paid willingly, others required encouragement. It was the price the wealthy paid for the privilege of profiting from the Reich. Bormann ruled that fund, and many believed that he diverted much of those assets into foreign accounts. They were right. Gamero’s file cabinets contained records of those transfers.”

  “A bit stupid, wasn’t it? Keeping records.”

  Schüb smiled. “Such was their fallacy. Nazis loved to write things down. Like that memo you hold. It records the transfer of much wealth at a time when it would have been far better to say nothing.”

  He could not argue with that.

  “Gamero was the son of a German immigrant. His father, along with countless others, filtered into Chile after the war. Some had relatives in the area, descendants of the original German émigrés who came, with the encouragement of the government, into central Chile during the 19th century. Gamero’s father had been a high-level diplomat in the foreign service, blessed with living abroad during the war, capable afterward of denying, with impunity, any involvement with war crimes.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, truly wanting to know.

  Schüb stared at the fire, still sitting slouched in the chair. “I am a man who bears a heavy burden. I think you can understand that, can’t you?”

&nb
sp; “I came here to right a personal wrong. I don’t care about your problems.”

  “I wish mine were as simple as yours.”

  Silence passed between them.

  “My brother is dead,” Schüb said. “I killed him myself a little while ago.”

  “Why am I still alive?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  He followed Schüb across the grass, back into the woods, and onto a wide path. After ten minutes of walking, during which his host said nothing, he spied the citadel, the long ponderous edifice clinging to the mount of a sharply rising slope, its gray walls splashed with a sodium vapor glow.

  They found a paved lane and followed the incline up to the main entrance. A solitary guard stood outside the wall, armed with a rifle.

  “My brother’s castle,” Schüb said. “My guard.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Not here.”

  He surveyed the burg and its assortment of buildings, the walls dotted with mullion, dormer, and oriel windows. They walked into an inner courtyard. Several cars sat idle. Some of the windows above glowed with light, but most loomed dark and silent.

  A lighted entrance seemed the way in. They started across the cobbles, passing the dark cars.

  Inside was opulent, German, and medieval. Exactly what he would have expected.

  “My brother clung to his heritage.”

  Schüb led them upstairs to a sleeping chamber. Wyatt noticed the enormous bed with bulbous Jacobean legs. Above its head hung a massive oil painting that depicted the archangel Michael with his sword directing anxious wayfarers toward heaven.

  Then he noticed the panel. On the far side, in an alcove.

  A slab of stone, hinged open.

  They walked over and stepped inside. Stone stairs lined with a red carpet runner wound down in a tight circle. They slowly descended and finished standing on a polished gray slate floor, staring at a Nazi uniform. The dry air was clearly climate-controlled and humidified. The coarse stone walls, plastered and also painted gray, bore evidence from when they were hacked out of the bedrock. The chamber cut a twisting path, one room dissolving into another. There were flags, banners, even a replica of some SS altar. Countless figurines, a toy soldier set laid out on a colorful map of early-20th-century Europe, helmets, swords, daggers, caps, uniforms, windbreakers, pistols, rifles, gorgets, bandoliers, rings, jewelry, gauntlets, photographs, and a respectable number of paintings signed by Hitler himself.