Heroes

by David Hagberg

  Valkyrie. Even the word was electrifying. He had been less than honest with Schrader. He hoped with all his might that Stauffenberg had been successful. He personally disliked the baron. He thought the man was a fool. But fool or no, Canaris hoped that Hitler now lay dead on the floor of his Wolfsschanze near Rastenberg.

  Maurer’s music flowed around him—a fine, calming counterpoint to his thoughts. He had a sense of fatalism. What would come would come. Events seemed to be propelling him forward without any effort on his part.

  At first it had been easy to drift with the current. But just lately the tide had seemed to grow very strong, and he was being accelerated faster than he wanted to be toward a fate he had no knowledge of.

  “… asked, more cognac, Willi?” Kaulbars was saying over him.

  Canaris looked up out of his thoughts. “I’m sorry, Vladi; I guess I was drifting.”

  Kaulbars poured some of the fine French brandy, then poured some for Maurer, and finally some for himself.

  Kasper and Sabine, the two dachshunds, raced into the drawing room, their entire bodies wagging in delight that Mohammed had finally let them free.

  “Ah, there we are, my little darlings,” Canaris beamed, forgetting his dim thoughts for just a moment.

  The telephone in the stair hall rang; once, twice, and just at the third ring, Mohammed answered it. Maurer had turned back to the piano and was about to resume playing, but Canaris held him off with a gesture.

  Kaulbars seemed very deeply concerned, but Canaris didn’t really notice.

  They could hear Mohammed speaking, but they could not make out the words. After a moment or two he appeared at the door.

  “It is Herr Sack, Admiral.”

  Canaris jumped up, his heart suddenly racing. Karl Sack, besides being an Army judge, was involved with the conspiracy.

  In fact, it had been Sack who had intervened on Stauffenberg’s behalf when Canaris wanted the man certified as insane.

  After what news Schrader had brought, Sack could only be calling for one reason.

  “What is it, Wilhelm?” Kaulbars asked, getting up.

  “Nothing,” Canaris mumbled. “Nothing.” He hurried out of the drawing room, Mohammed stepping aside for him. In the hall, he snatched the telephone from its alcove. “Yes?” he said.

  “This is Canaris.”

  “Herr Admiral, this is Karl Sack.”

  “Yes, Karl. What is it?” Canaris said. He glanced over his shoulder. Maurer had come to the door.

  “It is the Fiihrer. He is dead. It was a bomb. It exploded during a meeting near Rastenberg.” Canaris said nothing at first. So many thoughts raced through his mind. It was actually so. Hitler was dead. He felt the profoundest sense of relief, mixed with that of a terrible loss, and a feeling of dread.

  Maurer stood in the doorway watching him. Just as the Gestapo were probably watching … and listening.

  “Our Fiihrer,” he stammered softly. “He is dead?”

  “Yes, Wilhelm. I just learned of it.”

  “Dead? Good God, who did it … the Russians?”

  There was a long pause on the line. Canaris could almost hear Sack thinking. The man knew exactly what Canaris had said, and why he had said it.

  “It may be a rumor,” Sack said.

  “God, I hope so!”

  “I don’t know for sure. It is what I have heard,” Sack said.

  “Where will you be later this afternoon?”

  Canaris’ mind was moving rapidly. “My office, I think,” he said. “Try here first, and then my office.”

  “I understand. I’ll see what else I can find out. If you hear anything …” Sack let it trail off.

  “Of course,” Canaris said, and then there was a click on the line as Sack hung up.

  Slowly Canaris put the handset down and he turned. Maurer was white-faced. Kaulbars was behind him.

  “What is it?” Kaulbars asked.

  “It was Karl Sack.”

  “Yes,” Kaulbars said impatiently. “What news does he have?”

  “It was our Ftihrer. Someone has evidently assassinated him.

  In his Wolfsschanze near Rastenberg. A bomb, he said.”

  “My God,” Maurer said softly.

  “Has it been confirmed?” Kaulbars asked. His eyes were wide.

  “Karl thought it had been.”

  The three men stood looking at each other. Mohammed, who had gone back to the kitchen, stood with the Polish cook looking out the door. They, too, were openmouthed.

  “What will you do, Willi?” Kaulbars finally asked.

  “I think I shall go to my office. I may be needed there.”

  “One cannot tell in which way fate will fall,” Maurer said vacantly, almost as if he were in a trance.

  “Thank you, Uncle Mau, I think you are most certainly correct.

  At this moment it is Deutschland I am thinking about.”

  “Uber Allest’ Kaulbars asked gently.

  “Nein,” Canaris replied. “Fur uns, nur fur uns—only for us.”

  Canaris’ driver, Hans Ludecke, drove him down to Eiche as the sun got lower in the summer sky. It would be a while yet before it was dark, but already there seemed to be a strange chill in the air.

  *”*&..

  “Shall I remain, Herr Admiral?” his driver asked at the office building.

  “No, you may return home. I shall call when I am ready.”

  Liidecke nodded. But he did not immediately drive off. Instead, he remained there for a long moment. Canaris looked at him with impatience. There was a lot to do tonight. Many decisions to be made. All before dark.

  “What is it, Hans?” he asked.

  “Is it true, Herr Admiral? About our Fuhrer?”

  “I don’t know,” Canaris said. At that moment he had a very sharply defined sense of history. In one sense he felt somewhat melodramatic, but in another he felt that he was in the midst of a great historical event in the making. Chroniclers would be marking his words, even the simplest of his pronouncements. “We can only pray to God that the right thing for Germany has occurred.”

  “Yes, meiner Admiral,” Liidecke said. He drove off.

  Canaris turned and went into the building, the guard saluting.

  Lights shown from all the Hwk offices, and just inside, Lieutenant Bender was holding court with about three-quarters of the staff. They all jumped to attention when he came in.

  He returned their salute, then charged directly through to his office, Bender right on his heels.

  “We just heard an hour ago,” the lieutenant said.

  “Who told you?”

  “Colonel Schrader telephoned, asking for you. He told me. I told the others … naturally.”

  “Naturally,” Canaris said dryly. “Get me Major Meitner on the telephone. I imagine he will be at Maybach II.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bender said.

  Canaris left the office as Bender was on the phone. He stepped next door to the office of Economic Adjustments, and went in.

  Captain Marks, whom he had gotten to know quite well over the past weeks, was there with his secretary.

  “Herr Admiral,” the captain said.

  “Donni, I need to use your telephone for just a single important call. All my lines are tied up just now.”

  “Of course, Herr Admiral, of course,” Marks said. He jumped up and went into the outer office. Canaris dialed the Zossen operator. “Major Meitner,” he said when the connection had been made.

  “His line is busy.”

  “Break in on him; this is a Reich Priority call.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Meitner was out of breath. “Yes?” he asked.

  “Is it true?” Canaris asked, keeping his voice low.

  Meitner sucked his breath. “No. It is not true. Do you understand?”

  “You are certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Canaris hung up. He had had a feeling about it. A hunch, if you will. Again he had curious feelings at cros
s-purposes; on the one hand, he was sorry that the madman was not dead, while on the other he was deeply relieved.

  He thanked Marks, and back in his own office he took the phone from Bender, told Meitner, who was still holding, that his reports would be late this week, and then he hung up.

  “We will send a telegram now,” Canaris said to his adjutant.

  “Sir?”

  “To our Fiihrer. A telegram congratulating him on his miraculous escape.”

  “Our Fiihrer is alive?”

  “Oh yes,” Canaris said. “Did you ever doubt it?”

  Schey knew it was time to leave.

  The authorities had evidently picked up the man he was supposed to contact, and they knew that someone would be calling.

  They had been waiting for him. Which meant they knew he was here. Which meant they may even have picked up his radio transmissions. It had only been bad luck on their part that the police radio had been going when he called. Bad luck or poor planning.

  The FBI would, of course, know his face from his employment file at Oak Ridge. They also knew something of his method of operation. In fact the more he thought about it, the more he realized that they may have been monitoring his radio transmissions all along.

  He had to go. There was no question about that. He had gotten.

  most of what he had come for. Now he was going to have to get the information back to Germany.

  The question was: What about Eva? He did not want a repeat of Catherine. At this moment he knew, at last, that he loved her.

  Even more than he had loved poor Katy. Eva was a stronger, brighter woman. And yet she, too, had her frailties, her weaknesses. She, too, for all her sometime bravado, needed protection.

  It was dark, and only the bar in Jemez Springs showed any lights as he drove through the tiny town and continued up to the ranch.

  It came down to three choices. He could leave her here; he could just slip away in the night—this night—and never return.

  She would not go to the authorities, of course. But if the FBI was on to him, they’d be on to her as well. Leaving her here would be tantamount to guaranteeing her arrest.

  He could take her with him. On the way down from Washington, D. C., having her with him had not been so bad. But now he was going to be on the run, having her along would be like carrying excess baggage. She would not fit. She would get them both arrested, and they’d end up at the end of a hangman’s rope.

  There was a final option. If he could not leave her here and he could not take her with him, he would have to … kill her.

  Driving the last mile or so through the night, he turned that final option over in his mind. He could not kill her, of course.

  Which meant he was going to have to take her with him. At least part of the way, just until he could figure out what to do with her. But she could not come to Germany with him. That was totally out of the question.

  If he survived, then they’d see what came next, when the war was over. But they were going to have to get out of here tonight.

  There was no telling how fast the FBI would close in.

  He increased his speed, the old pickup truck wheezing up the final hill, the dim green light on the broken speedometer casting an eerie glow in the cab. He had a sudden, terrible sense of urgency. As if he was running out of time and he was going to have to hurry to save his life.

  A few minutes later he turned onto the ranch road, went through the gate, and headed up to the barn, a great sense of relief coming over him when he saw that everything appeared to be normal.

  He hadn’t known what to expect, but he was happy that nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. No one was here.

  There were no flashing red lights. No policemen. No soldiers.

  He parked by the barn, left the keys in the ignition, and walked back down to his place. The lights were on. He took a deep breath, held it a moment to relieve the tightness in his chest, and then let it out slowly.

  At the cabin he glanced back up at the ranch house. There was a light on in the kitchen. George had probably gotten up to have a drink and a cigarette. He often did that.

  Schey opened the door and stepped inside. Eva, still dressed, was sitting at the kitchen table. She was drinking a glass of wine.

  She looked up and shook her head.

  “What …” he started to say.

  A large man stepped out from behind the door. “Robert Mordley? You are under arrest,” he said. He was wearing a large hat.

  Another man came from outside and pushed the door all the way open. He hung back, though. He had a big pistol in his left hand.

  The entire situation was crystal clear in Schey’s brain. They had not been worried enough about his telephoning to make sure the police radio had been switched off, because at the moment he was calling them, they had their people on the way out here.

  It must have given them fits to know that he was on the loose.

  But there would be reinforcements on the way out here now. So he did not have much time to defuse this situation and get the hell out.

  “Evelyn? … Who the hell are these guys?” he demanded.

  He took a step forward. The man from behind the door stepped aside. Schey ignored him. “Are you fuckin’ around on me again? Goddamnit!”

  “Bobby … I,” she said.

  The man inside the shack pulled out his pistol, and he brought it up to bear on Schey. “Hold it right there.”

  Schey turned on him, ignoring the gun. “All right. Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway, coming in here like this?

  My wife alone.”

  “How long have you lived here, Mordley?”

  “A long time, but my name isn’t Mordley, you stupid son-of-a bitch. It’s Stromberg.”

  “Is that your latest alias?”

  “Alias? Christ. Check with Romero up on the hill.”

  “We already did,” the man from outside said.

  Schey glanced over his shoulder. The man had come to the doorway. He looked very nervous. They evidently had a fair idea of who they were up against. Either that or they were very green.

  Schey suspected it might be a little of both.

  “And what did George tell you? Probably that I was a god damned German spy direct from Berlin!”

  The door to their shack opened inward. Schey figured that if he could get the man in the doorway to come inside just another foot and if he could distract the second one, he might have a chance.

  He wheeled around toward Eva, shaking his fist at her. “You miserable slut!” he shouted.

  She jumped up, spilling her wine and screeching. It was exactly what he had wanted her to do. From the corner of his eye he could see that the inside man had turned toward her, bringing the barrel of his pistol around. The one from r outside stepped farther into the cabin.

  Schey reached back and slammed the door, catching the outside man full in the face. He shifted his weight to the left, away from the inside man’s gun as it came around, and he charged.

  His left hand went out to deflect the pistol; his right went to the man’s face. The pistol went off, the roar huge in the tiny space, and Schey’s right hook connected, snapping the man’s head back, his hat flying.

  The outside man had just started to regain his balance, when Schey tore open the door and was on him, his right hand behind the man’s neck, his left on the man’s forehead, and he shoved with all of his might. The man’s neck broke with a loud pop. He fell to the dust as Schey spun around.

  The inside man was up on his knees, shaking his head. The pistol was still held limply in his right hand.

  In three steps Schey was on him, shifting his weight to his left foot and kicking out with his right. The toe of his heavy boot caught the FBI agent square in the chin, sending him backwards, I his head bouncing off the floor. [

  Eva had gone to the bed. She was fumbling beneath it to where I Schey kept the pistol he had taken from the FBI agent in Washington, D.C.

  She tur
ned around, the pistol in her shaking hands.

  “It’s all right,” Schey said, holding his hands out.

  Her eyes flicked from the man in the dust outside the door to the man lying flat on his back across the room. *

  “Oh Christ,” she whimpered. She looked at Schey, the gun I lowering. “Jesus … they’re from the FBI.” I

  “I know,” Schey said. “We have to get out of here.” He pulled the outside man back into the cabin and closed the door.

  Then he turned to the other man who was beginning to come | around. He grabbed the pistol, checked to make sure it was loaded, and then pulled the man’s wallet from his inside pocket and flipped it open.

  Hubert Swanson, his ID read. Albuquerque. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Swanson’s eyes began to flutter. Schey looked up at Eva, who had remained crouched by the bed.

  “Get me a blanket,” he said.

  “Bobby?” she whispered.

  “Now!” Schey roared, and she jumped as if she had been slapped. She brought the blanket over. Schey spread it out on the floor, then rolled the FBI man onto it. He brought the muzzle of the long-barrelled .38 to the bridge of the man’s nose and cocked the hammer.

  “You will answer my questions, without hesitation, or I will immediately kill you,” Schey said.

  Swanson’s eyes were open. He realized he was lying on a blanket. He knew what it meant. He voided in his trousers, a sudden stench rising from him. Schey ignored it. He knew that the man was convinced.

  “Are there others on the way out here?”

  The FBI agent nodded yes so violently that the back of his head banged against the floor.

  “Police? More FBI? Soldiers? Who?”

  “The Bureau,” Swanson squeaked, barely able to talk.

  “Christ,” Schey swore. “How long have you known I was out here?” _

  “I …” the man said, but then he stopped.

  Schey jammed the pistol hard against the bridge of Swanson’s nose. “How long?”

  “Just a day. We picked up your radio transmission the other night.”

  That was it then, Schey thought. There wasn’t the slightest hope that they might have made a mistake. That they might not yet be a hundred-percent convinced. There was only one thing left for him to do now. It was purely a matter of survival. For the Reich.