Chapter 11: Wolf’s Lair
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Henrik looked at Neils sitting beside him in the driver’s seat of the tiny Kubelwagen and frowned. He sported a small bandage on the side of his head that concealed eight ghastly stitches in his scalp. The wound had stopped bleeding, but without the bandage, he looked remarkably like Frankenstein’s monster. The British spy put on a chipper front nonetheless.
“Relax, Henrik,” he said encouragingly. “I have all the official documents right here.” He patted his jacket pocket. “A dispatch was sent on ahead to Reich Command through all the official channels. You won’t even have to play dress up this time. Just be yourself.”
“This is ridiculous,” Henrik complained.
“How so?”
“A Uranium fission device, if such a thing existed, would weigh over a ton, maybe several tons. You’d need a cargo truck to transport it. You certainly couldn’t put it in the back seat of a Kubelwagen.”
“They don’t know that.”
“What if they do?”
Neils squeaked abruptly to a stop in front of the guard post. “Trust me. They don’t.”
There was that phrase again. Trust me. When was Neils going to realize that Henrik did not trust him? At the moment, he just had no other choice. Neils swiveled his window open and handed his travel papers to the guard. The portly sergeant scanned the papers briefly and then motioned to his partner in the gatehouse to raise the gate.
“See?” mouthed Neils to Henrik as he took back the forged documents and gunned the little Volkswagen engine.
The trip from Berlin to Hitler’s second headquarters in occupied Poland had been long and uncomfortable, but Henrik managed to get in a few hours sleep along the way. If tonight was remotely like the previous night, he was going to need to be sharp. And from what he knew of Neils’ plan so far, tonight was likely to be a whole lot worse. For some reason, the British commandos never showed up at the designated coordinates. That meant no half-track truck and no backup. They were entirely on their own in beat-up old staff car with a four-cylinder engine.
After the first guard post, the dirt road meandered through a heavily wooded glen for a quarter of a mile before terminating abruptly in front of a sheer bluff over a hundred feet high. At the base of the bluff was an iron wall two stories tall, framed by six feet of concrete on all sides and guarded by a half dozen machine gun placements carved into solid rock.
To the guards behind the MG32s, Neils’ approaching Kubelwagen must have been a comic sight. Henrik doubted that even a Sherman tank would have worried them. The little car stopped in front of the wall, but the guards above made no effort to hail them. Henrik and Neils waited patiently, trying not to dab the nervous sweat from their foreheads. To their surprise, the entire iron wall, which must have weighed several tons, began to rise like a massive garage door.
Neils looked at Henrik. “See?” he said again with cool bravado, but Henrik could tell the British spy was feeling the tension. His fingers were shaking ever so slightly and he kept patting the pocket where he’d stuffed his travel papers. A spy needed more than a stolen uniform to slip into this impregnable fortress, especially when the Fuhrer was in residence.
“You might want to relight that cigarette,” Henrik said coolly. “It went out about a mile back.”
Neils looked at the Turkish cigarette self-consciously, and then tossed it through the open window. As if this had been the cue for an attack, a dozen German troopers armed with FG42 assault rifles and wearing black SS helmets and flack jackets stormed out from behind the slowly rising iron wall and surrounded the little Kubelwagen. They were Wolf Corps, Hitler’s personal bodyguard and elite fighting force. They barked orders menacingly and Henrik and Neils raised their hands.
“Don’t shoot!” Neils implored with just the slightest hint of panic. “I have orders from—” He reached for his travel documents and the paratroopers descended on him like a pack of wolves. Neils raised his hands again. “Okay, okay. I’m not—”
The nearest trooper reached into Neils’ pocket and pulled out the papers. He read them quickly and then nodded to another trooper. None of the guards wore any discernible rank or symbol save for the silver SS death’s head on their black helmets. The guard handed the papers back to Neils and then looked in the back seat of the Kubelwagen.
“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” Henrik said. “Press the wrong button and it’s liable to go off.”
The trooper stepped back in alarm. “Is it safe?” he asked.
“Perfectly, as long as you don’t touch it.”
The trooper looked back at his superior who nodded reluctantly. “Proceed.”
By now the wall was fully raised revealing an enormous cavern that stretched for hundreds of feet into the heart of the knoll. No wonder Wolf’s Lair was said to be impregnable. From above, it must have been completely invisible, just another wooded hill. The RAF could rain down hellfire for months and Hitler would be perfectly comfortable in his secret underground bunker.
With some trepidation, Neils drove the little Kubelwagen under the heavy iron door and into the stomach of the beast. Half a dozen vehicles were parked inside including several escort motorbikes and a black Mercedes convertible with the license plate SS-3. Heydrich was here. Neils’ plan to kill the Fuhrer was looking more and more impractical by the minute. But something else was troubling Henrik. The closer he got to his target, the more he realized the truth of his own feelings.
He didn’t want to kill Hitler.
For years, Hitler had been Henrik’s role model. He had saved Germany from economic ruin, built invincible armies to defend her borders and forged a strong national pride in a people that had all but given up hope after the Great War. Hitler was Germany’s savior. Henrik didn’t believe Neils’ lies about pagan rituals and human sacrifice. They were outlandish fairy tales designed to win his sympathies.
Yes, the labor camps were horrible places. He’d seen that much with his own eyes. And yes, Germany’s policy against the Jews was morally reprehensible. But could Hitler be blamed for all that? Surely he didn’t know the conditions of every work camp or the individual act of every brutal guard or overzealous SS officer. It wasn’t his fault. He was just a politician.
Henrik shared none of these thoughts with Neils. For now he would play along. He needed the spy to find Esther. He had no other choice. Neils parked the Kubelwagen by the other vehicles and got out.
“Showtime,” he said softly to Henrik and then jogged around the car to help him lift the long metal tube out of the back seat. The device was not overly heavy, but it was bulky and awkward with many flashy buttons and switches built into the side of its keg-like shell. The Wolf Corps trooper looked at the two men balancing the bomb between them and pointed towards the steel elevator. Apparently he would not be accompanying them on the rest of their journey into the heart of the Wolf’s Lair. Neils and Henrik waddled into the elevator and slid the cage door shut.
The elevator began descending down the concrete shaft with frightening speed. Henrik had heard rumors of Hitler’s underground bases scattered throughout the Third Reich, but he’d never yet visited one. He was surprised at the sheer size of everything. The elevator car alone was large enough to carry a tank. Neils and Henrik exchanged nervous glances but they didn’t dare speak for fear that they were being monitored.
After several minutes, the elevator came to an abrupt halt and the cage doors opened. They must have been hundreds of feet underground, but the corridor was well lit and roomy. The stainless steel walls gave the place an antiseptic feel like a modern hospital or a scientific laboratory.
“Place it on the carriage,” a deep German voice commanded from an unseen speaker in the corridor. Henrik saw the metal gurney just outside the elevator and gladly placed the bomb on it. Two Wolf Corps troopers with FG42s drawn appeared from behind a hidden door. “Hands up!??
? one of them commanded in the same deep German voice they’d heard over the hidden speaker. Neils and Henrik obeyed immediately.
A white-coated scientist stepped in front of the guards with a Geiger counter. Henrik felt a sudden twinge of doubt and spared a quick glance at Neils. The white-coat pushed his way impatiently past the two beefy troopers, his eyes intent on his clicking instrument. He wore round, coke-bottle glasses that magnified his bulging eyes several times. He was completely bald and his nose was long and pointy like a carrot. Henrik recognized him immediately from the thousands of case-file photos Canaris had given him to memorize. Three years ago he had been one of the assistant professors at the Institute, the one the students called Snowman, but not to his face.
“I am not detecting significant radiation,” Snowman said with some suspicion. “I expected—”
“You expected what?” Neils snapped loudly. “That we would bring a toxic substance into the Fuhrer’s presence?”
“Uranium produces a great deal of radiation. If there is no radiation, this cannot be a Uranium fission device,” Snowman declared, looking up at the Luftwaffe major without the slightest trace of fear. Neils may have been able to bluff his way around a military base, but in a scientific laboratory he was a fish out of water. Henrik knew it was time for him to step in.
“And your name is?” Henrik asked casually.
Snowman stiffened. “Doctor Heineken.”
“Ah, Professor Heineken. You conducted some of the first fission experiments at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, did you not?”
“Yes,” the doctor said proudly. “I worked closely with Doctor Otto Hahn.”
“So then you know exactly how much Uranium 235 is necessary to produce a critical reaction.” This was the moment of truth. If Heineken were still in Heisenberg’s inner circle at the Uranverein, then he would know for certain that the keg-sized bomb in front of him was nowhere near large enough to hold an atomic fusion or fission device. The game would be over and no amount of bluffing would get them out of the Wolf’s Lair alive. But if he didn’t . . .
“Well, nobody knows that,” he said, his mask of arrogant self-confidence slipping just a little. “But Doctor Heisenberg has suggested that it would be—”
“About the size of a pineapple. Yes, I know. But surely you must know how useful lead can be in shielding radiation, doctor.”
“Yes, of course. These walls are lined with lead for just this reason.”
“So too is Heisenberg’s latest Uranium device.”
Heineken eyed the flashing keg. “This is from Doctor Heisenberg?” he asked with more than a little awe.
Henrik smiled. “Of course. Who else would know how to construct an atomic bomb?”
Heineken stood to attention. “I will inform the Fuhrer immediately.” He turned to the beefy troopers and echoed his order. They looked down at him with blank faces.
“But he’s in the chapel.”
“I don’t care where he is, you schweinhundts! Inform him now!”
The guards clipped off a quick “Heil Hitler” and ran down the corridor. Heineken looked back at Henrik sheepishly.
“I hope you will pass on my greetings to Doctor Heisenberg. I realize my work here is important for the Reich, but I do so miss the Institute. These SS Wolf Corps, they don’t let us leave the base. I haven’t seen a sunset in two years.”
“How dreadful for you,” Neils mocked.
Sensing a snub, Snowman stiffened again, but before he could formulate a snide rebuttal, the Wolf Corps troopers reappeared from around the corner marching in double time. They stopped abruptly and the deep-voiced guard grunted, “He will see you in the playroom. This way.” Heineken took a step forward, but the guard stopped him with an upraised arm. “Not you.”
This was the final insult. Heineken looked up at the sneering trooper and his pale face went a dark shade of red. Neils smiled but Henrik only felt relief. The British spy couldn’t have known how close they’d come to being discovered. “And not you either,” the guard said to Neils. “He only wants to see Lieutenant Kessler and his bomb. That’s it. You can wait in the officers’ mess. The corporal will take you there.”
Neils feigned offence and now it was Heineken’s turn to smile. But the truth was, Henrik and Neils had already anticipated this possibility. In fact, they were counting on it. After a brief protest and a little melodramatic play-acting, Neils eventually acquiesced to the guard’s demands and followed the corporal down the hall, while Henrik followed the deep-voiced SS trooper down the stainless steel corridor in the opposite direction, dragging his flashy keg behind him.
After a few twists and turns, Henrik and the trooper came to a large oak door engraved with a cross, oddly out of place in such a modern military facility. Henrik remembered Neils’ story about Hitler’s pagan rituals and wondered what blasphemies awaited him on the other side of this door. The deep-voiced guard knocked timidly and waited. There was the faintest of replies from inside and the trooper slowly opened the door.
“Welcome, Lieutenant Kessler,” Heydrich declared. The obergruppenfuhrer was standing by an enormous hearth sipping a brandy from a crystal goblet. The light of the fire glinted off his leather boots and shadows danced across the starched creases of his uniform making him appear ten feet tall. “You can leave your science project by the door,” he said casually. “I trust it won’t blow us up until after the Fuhrer has finished with the children. Come. Have a drink with me.” Henrik saluted automatically. Heydrich returned the salute and then filled a second goblet with brandy and handed it to Henrik.
Henrik heard the door close behind him and felt suddenly disoriented. He’d stepped from a top-secret weapons facility, into a luxurious Austrian church complete with stone hearth, ornate candelabras, Renaissance murals and stained-glass windows. On the far side, past the ornately carved rosewood cross and shrine to the Virgin Mary, two small children sat on a wooden rocking horse, and beside them stood Adolf Hitler, looking supremely peaceful as he gently rocked the horse to the delighted squeals of the children. So much for Neils’ fairy tales about pagan rituals.
Henrik took a sip of his brandy, but even as the liquor warmed his throat, he felt a deep heaviness descend upon him. How could he go through with his plan now? Murder Hitler in a Catholic church? And what about the children?
“I trust you had a pleasant drive from Berlin?” Heydrich asked.
“Yes.” Henrik took another sip of his brandy. “Well, no.”
Heydrich laughed. “No, I don’t imagine you did. The major’s Kubelwagen is not the most comfortable of vehicles. I’ve been meaning to requisition a better one for him, perhaps a Mercedes. I just haven’t had the time.” He took another sip of his brandy, eyeing Henrik the whole time through the crystal curvature of his goblet. “I was surprised that you had the time to make this delivery. From what I understood from our last encounter, you still had another day’s leave. However did events conspire to bring you here so quickly?”
Although Heydrich was smiling, Henrik sensed a trap. Heydrich was still suspicious of Henrik despite his father’s convincing story. Or maybe he was just angry with Henrik for embarrassing him. Either way, Henrik was no longer in Heydrich’s special circle of trust. Perhaps he never was.
“I assure you, obergruppenfuhrer, I knew nothing about my mission until yesterday. I was called away to the Institute shortly after you left, and then told by Doctor Heisenberg himself to deliver the device to Wolfsschanze immediately. It was a matter of dire urgency to the Third Reich. Until yesterday, I was not even aware that the doctor had competed his fission device.”
“Of course you weren’t, or you would have told me.”
“Of course.”
Heydrich smiled wryly but said nothing more. Henrik took another gulp of his brandy. By now, the warmth had spread through his torso, but the lack of food in his stomach made him feel sick. Henrik wonde
red if the lives of two small children and his own personal piety weren’t a small price to eliminate both Hitler and Heydrich on the same day. After a few minutes, the children dismounted their wooden steed with only a little protest and Hitler took them by the hand over to the waiting officers.
“Gentlemen, I would like you to meet my nephew, Heinz and his little sister, Geli.”
“Heil Hitler!” yelled the boy loudly, snapping his boots together in perfect imitation of a German soldier.
“Heil Hitler,” the officers responded. Henrik didn’t know whether to laugh or salute. The boy was a blond-haired, blue-eyed ten-year-old, dressed in the tan britches and short-sleeved shirt of the Hitler Youth, almost the same uniform Henrik had worn in his teens. The little girl was a few years younger and a good deal cuter with a frilly white and black dress like a little Austrian princess. She too had blond hair and blue eyes.
“Have you ever seen two more perfect examples of the Aryan race?” Hitler said proudly, bending down to ruffle the boy’s blond hair and kiss the little girl’s rosy cheek. “Children are my pride and joy, German children, of course.”
Heinz pointed at the flashy metal shell by the door. “What’s that?” he asked abruptly.
Hitler looked directly at Henrik. “I believe the boy is asking you a question, lieutenant. You may answer him. He really is quite bright.”
Henrik cleared his throat. “It’s a bomb,” he said simply, “a very powerful bomb.”
“How does it work?”
Henrik looked up at Hitler. The Fuhrer nodded his approval.
“There is a little bomb up here.” Henrik pointed at the top of the metal shell. “When it goes off, it shoots a bullet, a super-fast bullet, into another bomb, a very big, very special bomb.”
“It doesn’t look very big,” Heinz said. “I saw a Luft Mine once. It was much bigger.” Henrik felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Even a child knew it was too small.
“It’s large enough,” Henrik explained calmly. “You see, inside there is a tiny thing called a Uranium atom and when the super-fast bullet hits it, the little atom splits apart. This causes a chain reaction like an avalanche in the rest of the Uranium atoms and then there is a very big explosion.”
“How big?” Heydrich interrupted, suddenly intrigued.
Henrik looked up at the officer. “A million times greater than the Luft Mine Blockbuster.”
Heydrich whistled. “So Heisenberg wasn’t just bragging about his Uranium bomb. He actually did it. I thought he was years away yet. Your information must have been valuable to him, very valuable indeed.”
Henrik sensed Heydrich’s disdain for the professor and felt obliged to defend him. “He would have arrived at the same conclusions. My information just speeded up the process.”
“I’m not so sure. The White Jew can be very stubborn.”
“Jews! I hate Jews!” Heinz spat on the tile floor.
“Jews are dirty and they smell funny,” little Geli said with a wrinkled nose. “They are subhuman. I wish they were all dead.”
“I wish they were never born.” Heinz exclaimed, trying to outdo his little sister in anti-Semitic zeal. Hitler laughed and Heydrich quickly echoed him, but Henrik felt his stomach turn.
“Out of the mouth off babes . . .” Hitler rubbed Heinz’s blond hair affectionately. “All right children. Go say your prayers to the Virgin Mary, and then you may return to your wooden horse.”
“It’s my turn,” Geli declared and then raced her big brother back into the chapel to claim her wooden steed.
“Say your prayers first,” Hitler repeated, but his command was softened by laughter.
“Children,” he mused to himself and then turned back to the officers. “My sister insists on bringing them to see their uncle. I know this is not a proper place, hundreds of feet beneath the earth, surrounded by enemies, but I could not say no. My time with them is so precious I covet every second.” His eyes glazed over.
“Well, gentlemen, I must return to my babysitting. I just wanted to check on the progress of my newest Vengeance Weapon personally. I have been waiting a long time for it. These scientists are always long on promises but short on delivery. That’s why I am placing you in charge of this mission, lieutenant. You will personally deliver the weapon to Reichsfuhrer Himmler on the Russian front and see to its immediate deployment in Stalingrad. It will raise that horrible rat’s nest to the ground and then all of Europe will follow.”
Henrik felt his chest tighten. He couldn’t go to Stalingrad. What would happen when he planted his bomb and it didn’t work? Hitler looked at the fake bomb for a long moment and something in his expression seemed to alter. Henrik felt his heart race. The Fuhrer had seen through the silly subterfuge. He would denounce Henrik on the spot as a fraud and a traitor. And then he would be shot.
But this did not happen. Instead, Hitler turned back to Henrik. Fixing him with a penetrating, hypnotic stare, he stuck out his hand. Henrik, still reeling from the terror of his own apprehensions, froze. Hitler glanced over his shoulder at Heydrich with some amusement. “I assure you, lieutenant. The hand is clean.”
The joke was enough to snap Henrik out of his stupor. He shook the small hand eagerly and the tension was broken. The men laughed loudly and Hitler returned to his babysitting with great enthusiasm. Henrik looked at the flashing keg. Could he go through with his plan? Henrik had anticipated some collateral damage. Some of Hitler’s closest generals were likely to be destroyed in the attack, but not a church, and not children. He hadn’t counted on children.
“So, Henrik, what will you do now?” Heydrich finished his brandy and tossed his glass into the fire.
“I guess I will see to the deployment of this Uranium device, and then—”
“And then I will find you.” The words sounded ominous. “I must return to Czechoslovakia to suppress some labor revolts, and then I will find you. You are too valuable a man to be wasted on that White Jew.” Heydrich eyed the lieutenant for a silent moment, and then marched out of the great oak door, leaving Henrik with his bomb.
Henrik looked back at Hitler and the children one last time. They had finished their prayers to the Virgin Mary and now it was Geli’s turn to ride the wooden horse. She squealed with delight. Henrik could never have done it. His plan was doomed. He pushed the metal cart out into the stainless steel corridor and was surprised to see the deep-voiced SS trooper still waiting for him.
“Come this way,” the guard grunted and then marched off down the hall. Henrik obediently followed.
The guard led Henrik to the officer’s lounge where Neils was waiting with a cigarette in his mouth and a haze of smoke above his head. This room was decorated in the style of the grand houses of Austria with Renaissance paintings and hunting trophies of ten-pointed bucks lining the walls and a large portrait of the Fuhrer taking center stage.
“Wait here,” the guard commanded and then marched off.
Neils glared at the flashing keg, but waited to speak until he was sure the guard was out of earshot. “What went wrong?”
Henrik shrugged. “The opportunity did not present itself.”
“The opportunity? Did you or did you not meet him?” Although Neils did not raise his voice above a whisper, there was acid in his tone.
“There were complications. He was in a church and his niece and nephew were with him,” Henrik explained, but even as he said the words he knew they were not adequate. Neils paused to take a puff of his cigarette, his eyes boiling with dangerous emotion.
“I’m sensing that your commitment to this endeavor is somewhat less than consummate. What a shame.” He knocked the ashes off the end of his cigarette onto the marble floor. “Especially in light of what I have discovered.”
“You found her?” Henrik blurted out hopefully, and then immediately regretted it. How could Neils have found her? He’d been cooling his heels in th
e officers’ lounge the whole time. Anything he said was a lie.
“It only took a few inquiries,” he said confidently, and then paused again to breathe in another lungful of nicotine. “Jewish deportation orders are hardly top secret. I simply told the right person that the Jacobs had a numbered Swiss account with thousands of dollars in it. It would be shame to let this money fall into the hands of a Swiss banker. I even offered to split it with him.”
“Who?” Henrik asked skeptically.
“Doctor Heineken. He was in here a moment ago drinking schnapps with some other white coats. But in the end, the information only cost me a pack of cigarettes. Apparently they are running desperately low in Wolfsschanze.”
Henrik wanted to ignore the major, to just walk away, but he couldn’t. If there was even the slightest chance Neils was telling the truth, he had to play along.
“Where is she?”
Neils held up his finger. “Ah, but Henrik, that is not cricket. You simply must play by the rules. You did not complete your mission.”
Henrik reached for his gun. There was no reason behind it. He saw Neils’ eyes widen and knew that this was not what he wanted either. A shootout in the officers’ lounge wouldn’t do either of them any good. They couldn’t hope to maintain their cover, no matter how it went down. But Henrik wasn’t thinking anymore. He was blind with rage and frustration. Neils didn’t care if Henrik ever found his Jewish sweetheart. He was playing him for a fool.
“Drop the pistol,” a voice bellowed from behind. Henrik turned slowly to see the Snowman in the doorway flanked by two SS Wolf Corps, guns drawn. Henrik dropped the Luger onto the marble floor. He doubted he would have pulled the trigger anyways.
“Gentlemen, please,” Neils interrupted. “This is a private matter. I made a rather distasteful remark about the lieutenant’s sister. She is a dancer in Munich and I . . . Well, I apologize, Herr Kessler. It was crass of me.”
Heineken smiled sickly. “Arrest them. Arrest them both.”
Neils took a step backwards. “But doctor, this is absurd.”
“I contacted Heisenberg at the Institute by wireless. He knew nothing about your delivery or a Uranium fission device the size of a beer keg. Your papers were forgeries. And your bomb is a fake.”
Neils took another step back, drawing the FG42s with him. This gave Henrik just enough time to dive for the bomb.
“Stop,” Heineken screamed, but it was too late. Henrik punched three red buttons in sequence.
“Shoot him,” Heineken screamed, but before the Wolf Corps could even cock their rifles, the bomb began to smoke.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Neils said, drawing the gun barrels back in his direction. “The lieutenant is the only one who knows how to diffuse it.”
“Ah, it’s a fake. Shoot him.” Heineken commanded, but the guards hesitated.
“Are you sure?” Neils asked with a wry smile. By now, the other officers in the lounge were abandoning their drinks and making for the exits in a panic. “How much time?” Neils asked Henrik, temporarily ignoring the doctor and his guards. The bomb continued to smoke.
“Two minutes.”
“That may not be enough time to clear the blast radius. Do you have your cyanide pills?”
Henrik nodded. This was enough for the guards. They abandoned the doctor and scrambled back out through the door they’d entered. Before the doctor could follow them, Henrik grabbed him by the collar of his white lab coat and threw him violently backwards onto the marble floor.
“You are mad,” Heineken screamed, his voice rising in pitch. “You will kill us all.”
“Where is she?” Henrik demanded.
“Who? What are you talking about? Release me.” The doctor struggled against his captor but his 120-pound frame was no match for Henrik’s 200-pound, commando-trained body. Henrik lifted him off the ground and threw him against the bomb. Heineken struggled to his feet and stared at the smoking keg in terror.
“Esther Jacobs. She’s a Dutch Jew. Where did they take her? Which camp?”
Heineken held up his open hands, desperate to stop the onslaught of this madman. “I know nothing of this woman. Why would I? I am a scientist, not a prison warden.”
Henrik began to doubt himself, but this only made him madder. He slapped the doctor in the face, knocking off his spectacles and dropping him to his knees. “Tell me where she is or I will make you suffer hell before you die.”
The doctor did not try to rise. He was crying like a child and pleading for his life. “Chelmno? Sobibor? Triblinka? She could be anywhere. Auschwitz.” The doctor became suddenly confident, attempting, a little too late, to bluff his way out of certain death. But he was no poker player. “Yes, Auschwitz. They usually end up there, eventually.”
Henrik had heard that name before. Esther’s father had mentioned it at Peenemunde. Henrik saw the Chancellery map in his mind’s eye. There were symbols by each of these Polish towns and villages. If the doctor were bluffing, why had he chosen Auschwitz? Was there something special about it? Or was it just the farthest camp away from Wolfsschanze? Henrik turned to Neils to see if the name rang any bells with him, but the British spy was gone. There was a sudden loud discharge of smoke from the bomb, and then it went dead.
Heineken looked at it dumbly. “I knew it was a fake,” he said. “Just a loud smoke canister.” As the smoke dissipated, his arrogant confidence returned in full force. He sneered at Henrik, at least until Henrik pulled out his Luger. “No, please don’t shoot me,” he pleaded.
“I guess this is your lucky day.” Henrik raised the gun as if reconsidering murder, and then brought it down hard on top of the doctor’s bald head. The doctor let out a gasp and crumpled to the marble floor, out cold.
Heineken was only half right about Henrik’s bomb. It wasn’t a Uranium bomb, but it wasn’t a complete fake either. In addition to a few smoke cartridges contained in its nose cap, there was also a twenty-pound charge of TNT in the base. The charge wasn’t enough to cause any serious damage to the heavily fortified structure of Wolfsschanze, but it was enough to kill Hitler and everybody else in the room with him. However, by now an alarm was sounding throughout the Wolf’s Lair, Neils had fled, and Hitler had no doubt been evacuated to some safe location far from here.
Henrik considered his options. He could try to shoot his way out of the Wolf’s Lair with the six bullets left in his Luger, or he could do what he did best, and try to bluff his way out. He opted for the latter course. He set the chronometer on the bomb and pushed it out into the hallway. An SS guard stopped him almost immediately, but he simply pointed to the numbers dialing rapidly down on the side of the shell.
“I delayed the countdown, but I can’t stop the reaction.” Henrik yelled over the sound of the alarm. “I have to get it out of here before it blows.” The bomb started to smoke again and the guard took off in the opposite direction. So far so good.
Henrik wheeled the bomb down the stainless steel corridor and into the elevator. Two white-coated technicians looked at the smoking bomb and scattered. Henrik was alone on the ride up, but there was no way to close the smoke valve once it had been opened. By the time the elevator reached the top, the elevator was filled with smoke and he could hardly breathe. Ironically, this added just enough verisimilitude to his little one-man show. The guards trained their FG42s on him, as he fell out of the elevator coughing and choking, but they did not fire.
“It’s going to blow!” he warned in a hoarse whisper. The guards looked at the smoking bomb and fell back for cover behind the row of parked cars.
Henrik had less than a minute to bluff his way out of Wolfsschanze before the last smoke cartridge was expended. He hoped it was enough time. Covering his mouth with a handkerchief, he ran back into the elevator. He must have looked like a hero to the cowering SS as he emerged from the elevator with the smoking bomb in his b
are hands, and then like a complete maniac as he put it in the back seat of the little Kubelwagen.
“The door. Open the door,” he screamed. The SS abandoned their cover and ran off in the general direction of the door, and Henrik jumped into the driver’s seat of the Kubelwagen. It was only then that he remembered that he had no key. He reached under the steering wheel and yanked out the ignition wires. Would he have enough time to hotwire it?
“Are you looking for these?” Neils leaned into the passenger window, a car key dangling from his fingers.
“It’s about time you showed up.” Henrik grabbed the key and shoved it in the ignition. The engine stuttered, coughed and died. By that time, Neils was sitting in the passenger seat, smiling. “What are you so happy about? We failed the mission.”
“No, Henrik. You failed.”
“And you lied.”
“I guess that makes us even. Try a little less gas.”
Henrik cranked the ignition hard. The little four-cylinder engine purred to life. Henrik floored it in reverse, squealing the bald tires on the asphalt. He popped the clutch and slipped it directly into second. The gears crunched, but the little car zoomed along through the cavernous motor pool. As they passed the other cars, Henrik noticed that Heydrich’s black Mercedes was still there. So he hadn’t left yet. Henrik wondered if Hitler and his entourage were also still in the complex, but it was too late to worry about that now.
In front of them, the large iron door was slowly rising. SS Wolf Corps stood on either side with their FG42 assault rifles trained on the approaching car. Just then, the bomb gave up its last smoke discharge and died. The door was only three feet off the ground. They would have to stop and wait for it to clear the roof.
The guards would notice that the bomb had gone dormant. They might become suspicious. They might even detain them long enough to learn that the bomb was a fake. At the very least, they would radio ahead to the gate a quarter mile away. By then, the smoke would have completely dissipated and the bomb would be nothing more than a stainless steel keg.
“Floor it,” Neils said and ducked down in his seat. Henrik did the same.
The Kubelwagen had a removable roof, but there was no time to detach it. Henrik shifted into high gear and put the gas pedal to the floor. With a loud crunch and a high pitched squeal, much like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, the Kubelwagen squeaked under the iron door, leaving its canvas roof and shattered windshield behind.
Henrik and Neils sat up, brushing away the glass, and looked back over their shoulders. Startled SS Wolf Corps appeared in the machine gun emplacements high above, but they did not fire. After another ten seconds, the little Kubelwagen was out of range. Henrik realized he’d been holding his breath the whole time and let out a gasp.
“Well, that takes care of the door, but there’s still the front gate. Any ideas?” Neils asked. Henrik looked over at him incredulously.
“Hey, this is your mission. Didn’t you have an escape plan?”
Neils shook his head. “Never thought we’d get this far.”
Henrik rolled his eyes. The Kubelwagen rounded the corner and the guard post came into view.
“We could run it,” Neils offered, but Henrik shook his head.
“In this thing? We’d fold up like an accordion. We’ll have to play out the hand.”
Neils shrugged. “We’ll be fine. After all, this is a military base, not a prison.”
“So?” Henrik shook the glass out of his wavy brown hair.
Neils rubbed at a small cut on his chin. “The way I figure it, prisons are built to keep people in. Bases are built to keep people out. So getting out of here should be as easy as Worchester pie. They’ll probably just lift the gate and let us waltz on through with a friendly wave.”
Henrik grunted.
The Kubelwagen skidded to a stop in front of the guard post, but the gate did not open. Neils waved, but that didn’t work either. The young guard kept his MP40 trained on the little car, his expression stone-faced. The sergeant was delaying them for some reason, his ear pressed against the radio receiver, his expression growing dire with every second. He put down the radio.
“Halt!” he bellowed.
“But there is a bomb in the back,” Neils explained. “We must dispose of it. Raise the gate. There is no time.”
The sergeant raised his machine gun instead. “Halt! Get out of the vehicle and raise your hands!”
“So much for the friendly wave,” Henrik remarked. Raising his hands slowly, he glanced back at the bomb. “Start counting,” he whispered to Neils.
“Shut up and get out of the car!” the sergeant commanded. Henrik and Neils obeyed reluctantly.
“The bomb has a two-mile blast radius,” Henrik said to the sergeant. “We will all be killed unless—”
The sergeant fired a warning shot close enough for Henrik to hear the whistle of the bullet as it passed over his head. Henrik crouched instinctively and moved forward towards the gate.
“Stop.” The sergeant picked up the radio receiver again and told whoever was on the line that he had apprehended the escapees. Henrik looked at Neils. They were still too close to the car.
“I have papers.” Neils pulled the forged papers out of his pocket, but the sergeant was not interested. All of his attention seemed to be directed to the voice on the radio. Henrik realized what was happening. Hitler was using the NCOs at the guard post as guinea pigs. He figured, wrongly, that the quarter mile between the base and the gate was a safe enough distance to test a Uranium bomb. He didn’t care whether the guards, or Henrik, lived or died. He just wanted to know if his bomb worked. But if Henrik waited any longer, he would be dead. He had to do something now.
“Stop!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “It’s not a bomb. It’s a fake, and this man is a spy.” Henrik pointed at Neils whose eyes widened with surprise. The sergeant took his ear away from the phone.
“What is he saying?”
“It’s him. He’s the spy. He forced me to come here.” Before Neils could react, Henrik stepped forward and pushed Neils to the ground, grabbing the papers from his hand and the pistol from his gun holster.
“What are you doing?” Neils whispered menacingly, apparently unimpressed with Henrik’s version of plan B.
“Drop the pistol!” the guards commanded, cocking their machine guns. Henrik obeyed, dropping the pistol, but slipping the papers under his jacket at the same time.
“He’s the one—the one you’re looking for.” Henrik continued his defense, inching ever closer to the gatehouse. He was still counting in his head, but there was precious little time left. Soon none of this would matter anymore because they’d all be blown to pieces. The sergeant had the receiver back to his ear.
“Yes, commandant. Yes, that is what he said. Yes, commandant, immediately.” He hung up the receiver. “Corporal, put them back in their ridiculous car and drive them back to the bunker.”
“No!” Henrik and Neils said almost in unison.
“Shut up!” the sergeant bellowed, and then the corporal took over, prodding Henrik and Neils into the back seat of the Kubelwagen, one on either side of the bomb. There was no need to count now. They could see the seconds ticking by on the chronometer as plain as day.
“Great plan,” Neils whispered bitterly.
“We’ll see.”
The corporal turned the key in the ignition, but nothing happened. He pumped the gas and tried again. “It’s dead,” he yelled back to the sergeant. Henrik couldn’t help but smile at Neils. As soon as he’d seen that they were not going to be allowed to just drive on through the gate, he’d had the foresight to yank the ignition wire. There was no way he wanted to end up back in the car when it was about to blow up.
The sergeant scratched his head and looked around the guard post. The only means of transportation available now was the guards’ BMW motorcycle parked n
ext to the gatehouse. “Take them in the side car,” the sergeant grunted.
“What about the bomb?” the corporal asked.
The sergeant leaned his head out of the gatehouse to take a closer look at the dormant keg in the Kubelwagen. Henrik held his breath.
“Leave it,” he grunted impatiently. “Come back for it after you drop off these two traitors.”
Neils and Henrik eagerly squeezed into the little sidecar, and in moments they were bombing back down the dirt road towards Wolfsschanze. Henrik counted down the seconds in his head, and then right on cue the little Kubelwagen blew up behind them with a terrific boom.
“Sabotage!” the corporal exclaimed with surprise, looking back over his shoulder at the obliterated car. And then he remembered his prisoners and swiveled his MP40 towards the sidecar. He was a second too late, Henrik’s foot catching him in the ribs and propelling him into the air like a rock in a sling. Neils was quick to grab the handlebars of the rider-less bike until Henrik could jump on.
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” Henrik asked, swinging the powerful bike around with a spray of dirt.
Neils laughed. “I think his brains are pasted to the trunk of tree back there. That was a nice kick. You could play for Manchester United.”
Henrik’s mood soured. He regretted the death of the corporal. He was still a young man. A moment ago, he had his whole life ahead of him—marriage, kids—and now he was food for worms.
“Pick up his MP40 on the way,” Henrik said coldly.
When they reached the front gate, there was little left of it to stop them. The gatehouse was flattened to the ground along with the scar-faced sergeant. The only grim reminder of his post was a pile of burning lumber and a large red stain in the dirt. Henrik didn’t look too hard for the rest of his body, but he could smell burning flesh. In the distance, he could hear the sound of approaching vehicles.
“We better clear out,” Neils said. “Take the tractor trail at the first fork. They’ll be hard pressed to follow us there and it’ll give us a head start.”
Henrik gunned the engine. The heavy tread tires sent up a spray of dirt into the air. The feeling of freedom was exhilarating, especially after the tension of the last few hours. They were alive, and they had transportation—fast transportation. The BMW’s two-stroke engine had more horsepower than the major’s Kubelwagen, and with a full tank of gas it could travel twice as far. But where were they going? They were fugitives now, both of them. He couldn’t return to the Institute, nor did he want to. The doctor had dropped a name that was branded into Henrik’s memory. Auschwitz. It was a desperate hope. Heineken was in all likelihood lying to save his own skin. But it was Henrik’s only hope.
No matter what Neils said, Henrik was going to Auschwitz.
“So where to?” Henrik asked, yelling over the roar of the BMW’s powerful engine. Neils did not look up.
“Up ahead turn right. We’ll make our way north to the Baltic Sea. There’s an RAF drop zone near the coast with a transmitter hidden in an abandoned farmhouse. It’ll be a long drive, but I think we can make it.”
North? That was 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Henrik was sure now that Neils knew nothing about Esther’s location, and even if he did, he would never tell Henrik or help him rescue her. Henrik had failed to kill Hitler. He’d reneged on his contract and put both their lives in danger all because he was too soft to risk the lives of a couple of snot-nosed kids. Henrik didn’t blame Neils. He would have done the same thing in his place. But he wasn’t in his place. Henrik looked down at the corporal’s MP40 dangling from Neils’ shoulder, and then he reached down with his right hand and yanked hard on the sidecar release.
“What the—” Neils exclaimed as the sidecar veered away from the motorbike and tumbled into the bushes. Henrik looked back just as Neils was crawling out of the overturned sidecar, the MP40 still slung over his shoulder. Although Henrik was not yet out of range, Neils made no attempt to fire at the fleeing motorcycle, to Henrik’s relief. At the next intersection, Henrik made a sharp left turn and headed south along an unmarked dirt road.