The Normandy Club

by Bill Walker

  Jack laughed. “All right, then. Where to?”

  Denise frowned, trying to remember something.

  “Kruger’s first stop will be to see Field Marshal von Bock, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then that’s where we go.”

  “But where? It’s not like we can go and look him up in the phone book!”

  “Why not?”

  Jack began to speak, stopping suddenly. Denise laughed at the silly picture he made with his mouth hanging open.

  He shrugged and smiled. “Why the hell not? Stranger things have happened. Why don’t you zap us crosstown? I don’t feel like walking out onto the street just now.”

  “Now you’re using your bean, Dunham.”

  She grasped his hand, and seconds later they appeared inside another building.

  “Where are we?” Jack said.

  “Tempelhofer Field.”

  “The airport? Why?”

  “Seemed like as good a place as any. Besides, it was the only place I could think of.”

  “It’ll also be one of the places Streicher will look for us.”

  “You’re forgetting something else,” she said coyly.

  “What?”

  “Airports have phone booths.”

  Just as they pushed open the door, an elderly gentleman dressed in wing collar and a homburg hat strolled in. He glanced at Denise, looked at the sign on the door that read HERREN, and turned back to them, a haughty glare in his eye. He appeared not the least intimidated by their uniforms. He pushed by in a huff and disappeared into one of the stalls.

  “Guess he had to go,” Jack said.

  “So do we,” Denise said, pointing down the hall into the main terminal. He could see a group off SS soldiers rousting people for their papers.

  “Do you think they’re looking for us?”

  “Maybe not,” she said, looking past the group of SS men to the bank of phone booths against the far wall. “They don’t look anxious enough. Don’t forget, I’m just an impostor who slugged a fellow officer. They might not know you’ve escaped yet.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t comfort me.”

  “Too bad, Dunham. Let’s go.”

  Careful to look as if they belonged, they marched down the hall and into the crowded terminal, even going so far as to check the papers of a few citizens. They made the requisite noises and let their expressions of grave concern strike the proper amount of terror into the already-fearful travelers, then moved on. The other contingent of soldiers ignored them, thinking they were involved in other business.

  Snaking through the crowd, they found all of the phone booths occupied. Soon a meek-looking man in round, horn-rimmed glasses turned and saw them staring at him. He quickly mumbled something into the phone and bolted from the booth.

  Denise went inside while Jack stood guard, trying his best to look menacing. The MP40 submachine gun made the job a lot easier.

  “Shit,” Denise said under her breath.

  Jack kept his eyes on the people in the terminal but inclined his head back toward the booth.

  “What?”

  “There are about twenty von Bocks in the Berlin area.”

  “The man’s name is Fedor. F-E-D—”

  “I know how to spell, for cryin’ out loud. There are three of those.”

  “Three? Where are they?”

  “Two are in the Tempelhof District and one is in Dahlem.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If you were a field marshal in the Wehrmacht, would you be living near a noisy airport?”

  “You got a point.”

  He heard the page ripping and a second later he felt her standing next to him. “Back to the men’s room?” he asked.

  “No, this time let’s go to my place.”

  The car they’d chosen, a timeworn BMW from the pre-war years, backfired constantly. Its gears refused to mesh smoothly, causing an annoying screeching sound every time he shifted. Denise cursed Hitler, Kruger, BMW, and her own lousy luck with cars.

  “Couldn’t we have just popped in?” Jack asked, exasperated. “Do you find joy in hot-wiring cars?”

  Denise held the map in her hand, keeping one eye on the road and trying to steer with the other. It made shifting gears even more impossible. “Just because I know the address doesn’t mean we’ll pop in at the right place. Besides, look for yourself. Anyone walking in this neighborhood would stick out like a sore thumb.”

  She was right. The houses stood far back from the road behind tall fences or hedges, remote and forbidding. The neighborhood never would feel homey and inviting; the very air said: “Keep your distance. Better yet, Keep Out.”

  “And that’s another thing. What keeps us from materializing inside a wall or something?”

  Denise frowned, flipped the map over, and cursed.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting the map in his face. “Take this and make yourself useful.”

  “How about answering my question?”

  “I don’t know, Jack! Maybe it has something to do with animate matter and inanimate matter repelling each other as in like-poled magnets. Shit, I’m not Chessman. I didn’t discover Spatial-Temporal Teleportation—I just do it. Now will you shut up and find out where the hell we are, or have you got any other intellectual inquiries?”

  “Take a left here,” he said.

  Denise spun the wheel and the old BMW groaned as it turned onto Hüttenweg.

  “Take the next left onto Gelfertstrasse. It should be three houses down on the right.”

  Denise took the next corner slower, keeping her foot on the gas so as not to backfire. The street, though foreign-looking in some respects, reminded Jack of several tree-lined roads in Connecticut. The majestic-looking elms stretched their boughs across the road, forming a living arch through which the sun dappled their faces. With a shiver, Jack realized the area reminded him of another, more familiar place. The road leading to the Normandy Club. A moment later, he forgot his uneasiness when von Bock’s house came into view.

  Jack pointed. “That’s it.”

  Denise eased up on the gas and pulled over. Staring through the wrought-iron gate, she examined the house, taking in the ornate details of its architecture while studying it for ways to gain entry.

  “Chances are he’s got nothing in the way of security,” Denise said. “He either has dogs or thinks himself safe enough to do without anything. After all, who would take the time to kill a general without a command?”

  Jack looked at her with undisguised annoyance.

  “You don’t mean we’re going to break in?”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “Yeah. Let’s wait for him to come out.”

  “What if he’s already gone with Kruger?”

  “Then what good will breaking in do?” Jack asked, smiling triumphantly.

  “You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”

  She slammed her hand against the steering wheel and bit her lip, her eyes focused on some point a million miles away. Jack touched her shoulder and she flinched, shaking him off.

  “What is with you, anyway? Ever since we got out of Gestapo Headquarters, you’ve been acting weird. I thought you were happy to see me.”

  She turned to him, a tear rolling out of her eye.

  “I was—I am.” She sighed, shook her head, and continued. “When Streicher said you’d been executed, my whole world fell apart right then. I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d be alone...”

  “But I’m okay.”

  She fell silent.

  “Come on, what is it? Tell me.”

  She shook her head, wiped away her tears, and looked at him long and hard. Jack thought he would scream.

  “I’m pregnant, Jack. Until I see a doctor, I won’t know for sure, but I feel it—I know it.”

  For a moment Jack felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under him. He sat there, stunned.

  “Well, say s
omething.”

  “ALL RIGHT!” he screamed. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Denise pushed him away, her tears flowing fully.

  “Damn it, Jack! Listen to me!”

  “Now what?”

  She hesitated again. Jack felt a sickening dread.

  “You’re not going to tell me it’s—”

  “No, there’s no one else,” she said, waving the thought away.

  “Then what? What?”

  “There’s a good chance that any child I have will... not be right. Spina Bifida runs in my family. My sister died from it. God, Jack! I couldn’t live if that happened to my— Why the hell do you think I told you I wouldn’t marry you?”

  “Because you like to swing both ways. At least, that’s what you said.”

  “Yes, I said that, but—”

  Jack took her face in his hands and kissed away the tears. “But nothing. If we get out of this mess alive, I’ll support whatever decision you want to make. Have it, not have it... whatever. Okay?”

  She smiled back at him, her eyes shining.

  “Okay.”

  The sound of a car’s engine startled them both. Looking out the windshield, they saw a sleek Mercedes limousine glide through the gates of von Bock’s estate. It turned left and passed them, picking up speed.

  “It’s them!” Jack said.

  Before the field marshal’s car had traveled more than half a block, Denise had slammed the car into gear, made a U-turn, and followed a discreet five car-lengths behind.

  “I’ll bet you Rubles to Reichsmarks they’re headed for the Chancellery,” Denise said.

  “No takers on that one.”

  They fell silent keeping pace with the Mercedes. Whoever drove the field marshal’s car evidently felt there was no need to follow speed limits. He treated the city streets as if they were on the newly completed Autobahn.

  “Christ. If this guy doesn’t ease up, he’s either going to wrap us around a pole or get us pulled over.”

  The suburban atmosphere quickly gave way to a more urban feel, forcing both cars to slow to a tedious crawl. They were into the height of Berlin’s morning rush. Even still, that had not slowed them. Everywhere they looked, rubble littered the streets. Old women and men, along with very young children, trudged along, sometimes cutting in front of them. All of them had a haunted, hungry look, their clothes torn and patched.

  “Look at that!” Jack said.

  Two policemen ran after a horse as it darted through the traffic. One of them halted, raised a P38 pistol, and fired. The horse dropped to its knees then fell over dead. Instantly, several of the civilians set upon the corpse and began butchering it, ripping pieces of the steaming flesh away and running off.

  “Oh God. How awful,” Denise said.

  “Some people would think it’s what they deserve.”

  “Not the people, Jack. It’s monsters like Kruger and Hitler who deserve it.”

  Passing by the impromptu slaughter, they turned onto the Potsdammerstrasse. In the distance, Jack spotted the Chancellery smack in the middle of the Potsdammer Platz. Even from this far vantage point, it sent a chill up his spine. In both timelines it had existed as the cornerstone of Adolf Hitler’s grandiose plan to rebuild the center of the city. His head throbbed as two versions of history clashed in his mind. In one, the Chancellery lay in ruins, the large Reichsadler on its roof dynamited by Russian troops. In the other, dozens of towering edifices, like the thousand-foot-high dome of the new Reichstag and the four-hundred-foot-high Arch of Triumph, dwarfed it. Still, it assaulted the senses in all of its pompous splendor.

  The traffic thinned, allowing them to catch up to von Bock’s Mercedes. The Chancellery took up an entire city block, and since underground parking did not yet exist, they had to drive more than half a mile before they found a place to park clear of bomb debris. It really didn’t matter where they parked, for they had no intention of coming back to the car.

  “All right,” Denise said. “Chances are really good that the word is out on us, so I don’t think we should walk the streets.”

  “Fine, let’s go,” he said, grabbing her hand.

  “Hold on. Not so fast. Where would Hitler receive them?”

  Jack tried to remember what he’d read and what he knew from his work in the Propaganda Ministry. The Chancellery existed in the 1990s much as it did now, kept as a shrine to Hitler.

  “In my timeline, Hitler didn’t hit the Bunker until January nineteen forty-five. He’ll receive them in his private office.”

  “The one off that huge conference room?”

  “That’s the one. Between the two is Bormann’s office. He’s the one they’ve got to get beyond.”

  “If they’re here, they already have. Ready?”

  Jack nodded, and Denise closed her eyes. The familiar tingling washed over him. He blinked and discovered they stood behind a huge, fluted column nestled in the corner of the gigantic lobby. Footsteps echoed around them; workers and bureaucrats scuttled back and forth across the marble expanse, intent on urgent errands. The air smelled faintly of ammonia, as if someone had mopped the floor recently.

  “You okay?” Denise whispered. She crushed up against him, trying to stay in the shadows.

  “Yeah. I’m going to take a look.”

  Keeping his body as flat against the huge column as he could, Jack crept around it until he could see the front entrance. Dozens, maybe tens of dozens of people in every uniform imaginable dashed every which way. He didn’t see how he would pick out Kruger in all of this. Maybe they’d already passed this location and he and Denise waited in vain, missing their one and only opportunity. Jack ducked back around, frustrated and annoyed.

  “Too many people. I couldn’t see them if I wanted to.”

  Denise took it in stride. “All right. Then let’s go upstairs.” She grabbed his hand and they both disappeared.

  The driver held open the door for von Bock and then Kruger. Feeling the occasion warranted it, von Bock had dressed in his best uniform, every crease perfect—the gold trim gleaming. Kruger now wore the SS Feldgrau he had stolen from the dead guard at Gestapo headquarters. Bock had bristled upon seeing him in it but kept quiet. The gravity and urgency of the current situation mitigated any disapproval.

  “Wait here for us,” von Bock told the driver.

  The man nodded curtly and turned off the motor.

  Kruger’s pulse quickened when they mounted the wide stone steps. He craned his neck and followed the lines of the building to their apex, where the Reichsadler sat perched, overlooking all with its fierce stone eyes. In front of them were the massive bronze doors, guarded by two spit-and-polished guards from the Leibstandarte-Adolf Hitler.

  I am finally here, he thought. Finally able to make history in the fashion he believed his destiny entitled him. Checking his watch, he saw that it was just past 0900. The Führer expected promptness, and Kruger intended to be there precisely at the appointed time. No doubt the man would keep them waiting. That was his way, the way of all-powerful men who used power to intimidate. But Kruger had time on his side, all the time that could be counted. He would wait as long as needed, cool as ice.

  They crossed the lobby and took the stairs to the second floor. Though the outside of the building measured over four stories, the interior held only two. This gave every room the grand dimensions and aura Hitler demanded. Speer had given it to him in spades.

  Kruger studied the field marshal as they marched down the long corridor to the rear of the building. The old man looked steely-eyed, vital—ready for action. He no doubt saw this as an opportunity for reinstatement, possibly as a replacement for Rommel.

  After walking for what felt like days, they approached two huge doors that stretched nearly to the ceiling, a dizzying two stories. Covered in a vibrant crimson leather, each door had a gilded Reichsadler set in it at eye level. Two more black-uniformed guards of the Leibstandarte-Adolf Hitler Regiment stood by, their Mauser 98k rifles at parade rest. At Kruger
’s and von Bock’s approach, the guards each reached for one of the doors and pulled it open. Kruger marveled at the engineering required to let one man open a door that must weigh at least a ton. Looking beyond the doorway, Kruger saw the anteroom to Hitler’s inner sanctum, a large room that ended at the desk of Martin Bormann.

  Bormann did not look up from his work when they approached, waiting until the last possible moment before acknowledging anyone. It was a behavior calculated to annoy, and it succeeded. Kruger saw von Bock’s temper flare as Bormann turned the page of a lengthy report. Kruger used the moment to study the man. Stocky and of medium build, Bormann’s head was broad and flat, making his face resemble that of an experienced pugilist. The scar on his cheek and his cold, beady eyes completed the picture of a street thug who’d made good. But the physical man belied the fierce intelligence within.

  “You are early,” Bormann said, still poring over the report.

  Kruger flicked his gaze to von Bock, whom he saw had turned a pale shade of pink.

  “Jawohl,” he said, the word slicing the air like a knife.

  “Well, the Führer is in conference. You may wait over there.” He pointed past them to two chairs at the opposite wall, over forty feet away. Von Bock bristled, fighting for control.

  “Danke, Reichsleiter.”

  He fired a piercing look at Kruger, turned on his heels, and marched over to the two chairs. Kruger followed, his feelings decidedly mixed. Though Bormann was an egomaniac, he was no fool. He knew very well why they were here, and still chose to treat them with undisguised rudeness. Either the man could not help it, or he was maneuvering, waiting to see how the chips would fall and then swoop in to take advantage of the moment.

  Kruger joined von Bock, who sat stiffly on the small chair, his field marshal’s baton across his lap. Even through the black leather gloves, Kruger could see the man clenching his knuckles. Kruger sat down and marveled at how uncomfortable the chairs were. A sort of Teutonic Louis XVI, the upholstered seat and back remained unmoved by their weight. He felt like some blithering idiot perched on a dunce stool.

  Kruger stared at Bormann, watching his every move, a sly smile playing across his face. He knew this bastard’s game and enjoyed throwing a wrench into it by not showing the slightest discomfort. The man glanced their way for a fleeting moment and caught him staring. Kruger didn’t move a muscle.