Heroes

by David Hagberg

  Schey put his arms around her thin shoulders and held her close. “It’s all right,” he said soothingly.

  More bombs were falling outside, but farther away now. They would be safe this morning.

  “They’re bombing this neighborhood now,” she babbled.

  “They’re coming here. They’ll be invading next. The soldiers will be here. Russians. They don’t take prisoners. They rape the women and then slit their throats. Oh God …”

  “It’s all right,” Schey said. But, of course, it wasn’t all right.

  What she was saying rang of truth. He had seen the reports coming from the eastern front. In fact, it would be much worse than she feared.

  They parted and he dried her tears with his fingertips. The bombs were very far away now. He cocked an ear. “See?” he said. “It’s safe now. They are away from here.”

  She too listened to the distant thunder toward the Tiergarten, and gradually her shivering subsided, and she began to wilt, her strength fading as her adrenaline cleared.

  “Dieter?” she said, looking up into his eyes.

  He kissed her, and this time when she melted into his arms, he could almost believe that she was Catherine or-Eva, and he responded as he did each time he played the little delusion on himself.

  The destruction downtown was awesome, worse than Schey had ever seen it after an air raid. Fires seemed to be burning out of control at every corner. Downed buildings made driving next to impossible. The Kurfurstendamm was completely blocked in half a dozen places, and Wilhelm Strasse was totally unapproachable except from the south, although the square around the

  Brandenburg Gate was still open. Unter Den Linden was completely denuded of trees. It made him sick to see it.

  His driver had not shown up. The man had either been killed in the raid or had deserted as so many others were doing just now.

  Schey had driven up from Charlottenburg, picking his way as best he could through the mess, circling around, and at other times doubling back when the way seemed completely blocked.

  There were a lot of Wenrmacht soldiers around this morning. As the front shrank from all directions the troops became concentrated in a smaller and smaller area.

  Many of the officers had deserted. Schey had heard the reports.

  Most of them had apparently headed west or southwest, toward American lines, where they were giving themselves up. Very few talked about heading east to the Russians, although he had heard that some of the scientists from up north had done just that.

  A couple of months ago such things would have been unthinkable to him. But lately he too had wondered about desertion. He wouldn’t go to the Russians, of course. Stalin, from what he understood, was just as bad as Hitler. But he couldn’t head to the west, either. He had been a spy. A hero of the Reich. He had killed civilians back in the States. The coastal watcher in Maine.

  The FBI agent in Washington, D.C. The cop in Texas, and the two agents in New Mexico, as well as those in the train station in New York City. Back in the States he would certainly be hanged as a murderer.

  Suddenly he reached up and unclasped the Iron Cross from around his neck and tossed it aside on the seat. He couldn’t even look at it.

  In school this business seemed so romantic. Dropped on enemy soil. Working with danger constantly around you. Never safe. On your guard always.

  But God, the reality of it. The grinding, crushing, day-to-day business of it. And then, even when you found a safe warm hole where you could hide, at least temporarily, you still had yourself to deal with.

  The nearer he came to the Reichs Bunker, the more complete the destruction was, and the more soldiers were in evidence.

  He was stopped on Prinz-Albrecht Strasse, as he turned onto Wilhelm Strasse, by four SS-guards. A sandbagged machine-gun emplacement had been set up.

  “Guten Morgen, Herr Standartenfiihrer,” one of the guards said respectfully. He saluted. “Your papers, bitte.”

  Schey handed across his papers, including the special Fuhrer Bunker pass he had been issued several days ago.

  When the guard spotted the distinctive seal, he came to ramrod attention. He handed the papers back and saluted again.

  “Alles 1st in ordnung"

  “What is happening here, Sergeant?” Schey demanded, pocketing his papers.

  “Why … the defense of Berlin, sir.”

  “Here, on this street corner?”

  The SS sergeant seemed surprised. “On every street corner, sir.”

  Schey looked at the man. He was young, probably in his early twenties. His eyes were clear, and although he was nervous, it was obvious he knew that what he was doing was the correct thing. His superiors had ordered him to do it, and if they didn’t know, who would?

  -“Vielen dank” Schey said, saluting, and he headed up Wilhelm Strasse, Gestapo Headquarters behind him.

  There was another checkpoint in the next block, but he was not stopped, nor was he stopped around the corner from the Kaiserhof Subway Station on Voss Strasse.

  The Fuhrer had puffed up in rage when Schey had relayed the scientists’ request that their research apparatus be dismantled.

  He had railed for nearly ten minutes about how all of Germany was deserting him at this hour. A man did not have to sell secrets to an enemy to be a traitor to Germany. A man could easily be a traitor by merely turning a blind eye to the traitorous acts of others. Or he could be a traitor by not giving his all to the effort.

  Hitler had screamed: “I will not give my permission for the scientists, or for any other man, to turn and run. They will remain in their laboratories. They will redouble their efforts. The tools for the destruction of our enemies are at hand! Nothing must impede progress toward their development!”

  Schey had remained in the bunker that afternoon. The Fiihrer had sent a messenger across to the subway station, and Schey had put it out of his mind until now.

  The gaunt ruins of the Reich Chancellery were just up the block. There was a lot of activity there this morning. At least a half-dozen troop trucks were parked in front, and it looked as if the engineers had come in to do some repairs.

  There was rubble everywhere. The streets here were much worse than elsewhere in Berlin, nearly impassable. Smoke hung thick in the air. It looked like defeat. Everyone acted like defeat.

  A large group of women loaded wheelbarrows with brick and pieces of concrete from the street and dumped their loads off to the side. But at the rate they were going, Schey figured it would take them months to clear the road.

  He parked in front of the subway station and picked his way on foot over what once had been the broad sidewalk, but now was a hillock of broken brick.

  The main entry door had been blown half off its hinges. Schey hesitated a moment at the top.

  It was unreal. No one considered this to be an emergency. Not actually. This was business as usual. Almost routine. The destroyers came in the night, and in the morning Germany awoke and picked up the mess. They were like punch-drunk fighters, reeling from the blows raining down on their heads but too numb and senseless to simply lie down. If they did, it would stop. That was the pity of it.

  He shoved the door off to the side and stepped down into the front entry hall. It was dark. There were no lights burning, and the windows had been mostly covered by debris. Evidently the power had failed again. It was no wonder.

  Schey went downstairs to where the one-armed lieutenant should have been stationed at his desk. But there was no one there this morning.

  At first Schey thought the building had been deserted. Perhaps the Fuhrer’s message had gone unheeded and the scientists had dismantled their equipment and had left in the middle of the night.

  He stepped a little closer, when he spotted a pair of boots jutting out from behind the desk.

  “Verdammt,” he swore under his breath. He knew what had happened.

  He opened his holster flap and withdrew his Luger. As he stepped around to the side of the desk, he levered a roun
d into the firing chamber and clicked the safety off.

  The one-armed lieutenant lay on his back, his head in a puddle of blood. A single shot had been fired into his face at pointblank range, entering just below his right eye and blowing off a large portion of the back of his skull.

  He had been dead for hours. His body was locked in rigor mortis.

  Someone shouted something from below, and Schey nearly jumped out of his skin, bringing the Luger up as he spun around.

  There was a crash of metal, and then everything was quiet.

  Deathly still.

  He glanced back at the body. The lieutenant’s Luger was still in its holster. He had not suspected he would die. He had not been prepared.

  Schey turned again, paused at the head of the stairs to the lower level, and then started down. Only a very small amount of light filtered down from the open doorway on the street level, but it rapidly became evident that light was coming up from the tunnel as well.

  At the bottom he flattened himself against the wall and just eased to the corner.

  The tunnel was empty, but from the direction of the laboratory he could definitely see lights, and he could hear the faint hum of an electric subway car in idle. Evidently the underground electrical service had not been interrupted.

  He stepped away from the stairwell and hurried through the shadows near the tunnel’s curving walls to the access walkway that led a few hundred feet to the old car maintenance area. In the distance, down the track, he could see the back of a subway car.

  There seemed to be a lot of activity down there. But what the hell was it? _

  Tightening his grip on his Luger, Schey made his way along the walkway, crouched over and keeping close to the wall. At the far end of the walkway, four steps led down to the level of the * siding on which the cars could be run into the maintenance hall. |

  Schey stopped just within the shadows of the tunnel. Most of the cyclotron had already been dismantled, and the parts were being loaded aboard four subway cars connected together on the main track. [

  File cabinets and large cases apparently containing blueprints were being stacked at the edge of the tracks by the scientists, while other men loaded the things aboard the cars.

  There was an air of feverish activity in the great hall. Most of the lights had been turned off, and no one was doing any loud _

  talking. The only noises were the shuffling of feet echoing in the chamber and an occasional knock as a metal case or part was dropped too heavily.

  Some of the men loading gear aboard the train were wearing some son of uniform. In the dim light he could not recognize it.

  But something chilly played at the back of his spine.

  Standing off to one side of the massive concrete base on which the cyclotron’s heavy magnets had rested, was a knot of half a dozen men. One of them was in the odd uniform, while the others were civilians. One of them he thought he recognized as the scientist who had done most of his recent debriefing and who had asked Schey to pass on his message to Hitler.

  All of them seemed extremely nervous. Even from where Schey hid, he could see that they kept looking around as if they expected someone to be coming at any moment.

  But the uniforms … what the hell was going on here?

  Schey debated going back up to the street and commandeering some of the SS or even the Wehrmacht soldiers and bringing them back down here. But he decided against it. The scientists were damned near finished. They’d be leaving very soon.

  The scientist Schey remembered only as Bertrand stepped aside, giving Schey a clear frontal view of the man in the brown uniform. He wore several medals on his chest. A red star adorned his hat.

  He was Russian! The others in uniform were Russian! Here, in the heart of Berlin! These were the atomic secrets Schey had brought back from the States. The scientists had sold out to the Russians.

  Without thinking further, his brain numb, Schey stepped away from the protection of the walkway tunnel, raised his Luger with both hands, squeezed off a shot, then a second and a third. The Russian officer fell backwards, his arms flailing. Schey’s scientist stumbled and went down, and everyone else in the room scattered.

  A bullet ricocheted off the concrete wall just above Schey’s head, but still he fired at the scientists and the soldiers by the train.

  “Traitors!” he shouted.

  Something like a very large fist slammed into his chest just below his collar bone, driving him backward against the rail and nearly flipping him over onto the tracks four feet below.

  Other shots were fired, chips of concrete flying, bullets whining off down the tunnel.

  Schey felt terribly weak and sick to his stomach, but he managed to regain his balance and he turned and hurried down the tunnel.

  At the far end, he turned and fired two shots down the walkway, then pulled himself up the stairs.

  Marlene. He could only think of Marlene now. He needed help.

  The sun shone on the sparkling water, while across Algeciras Bay the great rock pile of Gibraltar stood as a mighty stalwart against the Atlantic. Canaris had stopped his car and gotten out so that he could enjoy the view. Somehow, though, he could not seem to find a way to get back into the car. It was maddening.

  He could see Dona Marielle Alicia at her little house behind the church. He could almost reach out and touch her. He could see the tears in her lovely eyes. Her lips were moist. She was calling to him.

  Canaris awoke. He was drenched in sweat. It was early morning.

  The sun was just coming up, and he felt stiff and old and very used-up.

  He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment, in an effort to recapture his dream. But it had already begun to fade, and by the time he sat up and swung his thin legs over the edge of his narrow cot, he had already forgotten exactly what it was he had dreamed about. —

  He got up and splashed some water on his face, then combed his thinning white hair as best he could without a mirror.

  Lunding tapped his recognition signal on the wall next door.

  Canaris glanced toward the foot of his cot. The wall there was scratched from his tapping. Kriiger knew damned well what was going on here. So far nothing had been done about it, though.

  Canaris suspected that Stawitzky monitored their conversations.

  It didn’t matter somehow. Not here”.

  He crouched down at the end of his cot, his chain dragging across the floor, waited for a break in Lunding’s code, and then tapped out his own recognition signal: “Good morning … C.”

  Lunding’s code seemed erratic this morning. Over the weeks they had come to know each other fairly well, and now Canaris was certain that his friend was excited about something.

  “Slow down; I am confused,” he laboriously tapped, letter by letter.

  “There will be a trial,” Landing signaled. “Here. Very soon.”

  “For whom?”

  “You. Oster. Sack. Others.”

  Canaris sat back on his heels. His trial. But Meitner had not sent up an attorney yet. He could not go to trial without counsel.

  They’d have to understand that.

  Lunding was tapping something else, but Canaris interrupted.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Kogl knows. Trustees. Rumors.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  Someone was in the corridor and suddenly at Canaris’ door.

  He tapped the danger signal then just managed to scramble back to his cot when the door swung open and Kriiger and another SS corporal entered.

  The one hung back while Kriiger unshackled Canaris’ ankles and then released his handcuffs.

  “Where is my breakfast?” Canaris demanded.

  Kriiger didn’t bother looking up until he was finished; then he got up and pulled Canaris to his feet.

  “My breakfast,” Canaris said. His voice was very weak, and his stomach was churning with the thought that his already meager rations would be cut further.
>
  “Put on your shoes,” Kriiger snapped.

  “What is happening here …” Canaris started when Kriiger yanked him around.

  “Forget the shoes,” he shouted, and he propelled Canaris out into the corridor.

  The other corporal came behind them as Kriiger led Canaris down the corridor and then into the interrogation room. Stawitzky wasn’t there yet. Kriiger roughly tied Canaris to the chair in front of the table, and then he and the other man left.

  Canaris’ heart was beating rapidly, his breath came in ragged, shallow gasps, but he was unable ta control it.

  The worktable was loaded with knives and pliers, with needles and things that looked like files or rasps. Many of the tools were covered with blood; others, laid out like instruments at an operating room table, were gleaming.

  The door opened and Canaris jerked.

  “Good morning, sailor boy,” Stawitzky said breezily as he came around in front of Canaris and leaned against the worktable.

  Canaris looked up at him. He knew that his lips were trembling; he could not control that either.

  “What’s the matter this morning; has the cat got your usually very sharp tongue?” Stawitzky asked. Casually he reached behind him and plucked a pair of bloodied pliers from the table.

  With a great effort Canaris drew himself up, willing himself toward some semblance of self-control. “There will soon be a trial, and then we shall see.”

  Stawitzky smiled. “Yes, there will be a trial,” he said. He leaned forward. “But tell me, Canaris, how did you know this?

  Who told you? Your colonel friend?”

  Canaris actually managed a slight shrug. “You forget that I was once head of the most powerful secret service in the world.”

  “Was, sailor boy, but no longer.”

  “Where is my breakfast?”

  “In good time, my dear fellow, all in good time. Meanwhile, there are a few things I would like to get straight. Just for the record.” Canaris said nothing.

  “Does the name Hans Gisevius mean anything to you?”

  Canaris’ eyes narrowed. This was old ground. It had been covered at Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. What was the man trying to accomplish now?

  “Of course I know the name,” he said.