The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Paul took the piece of paper to Director Steffen’s office. “This was in the bottom of the last box from Romania. Is this book in the archives somewhere?”

  Steffen read the words at the bottom. “Hmm. Göring ordered the book sent over to the bunker. Apparently there was something in the ledger he wanted the Fuhrer to see.” He sat back in his chair, deep in thought, then said, “To answer your question, there’s no way to be sure if it’s here. We must ask several more questions ourselves. First, was the book actually taken to the Fuhrerbunker, and if so, was it there when the Allied forces captured Berlin? Why would Reichsmarschall Göring, the man in charge of all train movements, have this particular book sent over for the Fuhrer’s personal attention? What made this book different from a hundred others you’ve already looked through?

  “Next we must ask if the Soviets and the East Germans actually removed everything from the Fuhrerbunker before they destroyed part of it in 1951. They were under strict orders to bring everything from the bunker here for permanent archiving. Did they follow those orders? If they didn’t, where did some of it go? Were there things accidentally left behind in the Fuhrerbunker, or were things stolen, or were there things so well hidden in the bunker that they were never found? Things that might be there today?”

  With a mischievous grin, he paused for a moment to let his words sink in. “Do you see how complicated your simple question really is? Is the book here? I can give you a simple answer, possibly an accurate one. Let’s see if it was logged into our inventory.” He made several entries on his keyboard.

  “According to the inventory of items transferred to this museum from the Fuhrerbunker – and there were over ten thousand, by the way – book 44-GUT-1411 is not here. If we assume the East German records are correct – and that’s a big assumption – then that book was not delivered to this museum. Where is it? The bunker? Your guess is as good as mine. So many things of the Nazis simply disappeared at the end of the war. Every Allied soldier wanted a souvenir. Some took little things – medals with swastikas, or pictures of Hitler, or books. Some higher-ranking soldiers took more important things such as papers signed by Der Fuhrer and personal articles of Nazi officials. They weren’t supposed to do that, but it was crazy in the occupied countries and everyone was too busy to care.

  “Could someone have stolen this book? Perhaps, although I would say not. As you’ve already seen, the ledgers are bulky and boring, nothing but one handwritten entry after another. If I had to bet, I’d say someone glanced at the book, decided it was worthless and tossed it into the trash. Then again, maybe it’s still in the bunker somewhere. Who knows? I’ll tell you this – there are things yet to be found in the Fuhrerbunker. I’m certain of that. Indulge me until we are there together in person. Then I’ll tell you more legends of Hitler’s bunker!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A month after their initial meeting, Paul and Herr Deutsch, the Minister of the Interior, were at lunch in Berlin. Paul had delivered his part of the bargain; the Munich non-profit the minister suggested was wealthier by one million dollars, funds that would greatly assist its efforts to recover property stolen during the war. Now Deutsch was ready to give Paul what he wanted – access to the Fuhrerbunker. Although he hadn’t specifically said what Paul would be allowed to do, there was a clear inference that nothing would be off-limits.

  “I’m not sure what you’re going to find when you visit the part of the Fuhrerbunker that wasn’t destroyed,” Herr Deutsch explained. “Although I haven’t been there, I’ve read reports about it. I firmly believe there are things still hidden there. Given its vast size, there almost has to be. What that could be, only the Nazis knew. I trust you will enjoy looking around. And I will be most interested to hear if you come across anything that might be significant.”

  That lunch had been two days ago. Today Paul walked down a dimly lit corridor led by Hans Steffen, the museum director who had quickly become his friend. The cool, dank passageway was thirteen feet below a parking lot right in the middle of modern Berlin. Steffen explained that the concrete steps they’d descended and this long, narrow hallway were constructed in the 1970s, years after the partial destruction of the Fuhrerbunker. Electric lights strung along the ceiling cast eerie shadows on the walls.

  The director said, “After the Soviets blew up Hitler’s quarters, someone in the government decided there should be a proper entryway to the remainder of the shelter, so the East Germans built this.”

  “What keeps someone from looting the rest of the bunker?”

  “It’s not a problem. In a moment you’ll see why.”

  They walked a hundred feet and came to a solid iron door as tall and wide as the passage itself. It totally blocked the corridor.

  The museum director didn’t know exactly who this distinguished guest was, but it didn’t matter. The Minister of the Interior himself – Steffen’s ultimate boss far up the line – had personally ordered this tour, including a visit to a place no one was allowed to enter. Steffen himself had never gone further than the iron door where they stood. Today that would change, and he was excited that this VIP visitor would finally give Hans the chance to see what he’d only heard tales about.

  He explained, “The Russians first tried to eradicate the entire bunker in 1947, but it was so solidly built only a few corridors were damaged. There would be another attempt in 1951. With help from the Russian forces, the East Germans finally cleaned out Hitler’s personal quarters in 1959, blew it up, and once again they tried to destroy the rest of the compound. The Fuhrerbunker was so well made and extensive that they gave up, took everything they wanted and installed this massive door. The records from the time indicate there’s nothing behind it except worthless items of no value.”

  He pulled a document from his back pocket, unfolded it several times and spread it in front of Paul. “This was found after the war. Here’s what’s behind the door.”

  Paul saw an architect’s floor plan of the massive Fuhrerbunker system. Steffen pointed to the bottom corner – there was the date March 1944, a swastika and the signature of Albert Speer, Hitler’s master architect. Someone had marked on the plan. There was a black X through the portion of the bunker that was destroyed in 1947, and a series of red Xs marked the area blown up in 1959. The rest of the bunker, a vast area behind the door where they were standing, appeared to be intact.

  The plan showed a series of hallways. If laid out straight, they’d have been maybe a mile long. It was a maze of corridors and rooms. Some rooms had tiny notations in faded German, the words so faint they were almost unreadable.

  Paul touched the heavy door and its two enormous padlocks. “How often has this been opened?”

  “Never. It hasn’t been opened since 1959. It requires a ministerial-level authorization to open it. There’s been a question for years as to where the keys even are. As you can see, the padlocks are far too large for bolt cutters. If they couldn’t be opened, it would require days, maybe weeks with a torch to cut through the thick steel. As far as anyone knows, the keys have been missing for years.”

  Paul was disappointed. “Really? I thought I was going to get to see it…”

  The museum director interrupted him with a laugh. “I’m joking. You were sent to me by a minister, correct? Herr Deutsch, the Minister of the Interior himself, told me to show you whatever you wanted to see. He said you were interested in some archival material from the war. So far we haven’t accommodated your interest very well, have we? Except for the museum basement, you haven’t seen archives. I must correct that immediately. Let’s see if there are some here!” He had a sly grin on his face, like a child waiting to open a birthday present.

  Steffen reached in his jacket pocket and withdrew a rusty key ring a foot in diameter. It could have been a prop from a production of Macbeth. On it was a huge old key.

  “Do you want to see more?” he said with a sparkle in his eye. “I’ve kept this key safely in m
y desk for twenty years, just waiting for someone like you to come along!”

  He’s as excited as I am, Paul thought. “Absolutely!”

  “All right then. I’ve been patient for years, hoping for a time when I could visit this place. I would never be allowed to merely open this door and enter. But you – now that’s another story! The minister himself told me to extend every courtesy. And I’m pleased to be accompanying you!”

  Paul pointed to the iron door. “So what do you think? Do you believe there are things still stored in there?”

  “I doubt it, but what I think doesn’t matter. Today we both will find out for ourselves! According to the stories, we shouldn’t find anything of value. There were many reports from those who were here when this door was built. All of them say the same thing. The Soviets removed everything and imploded the bunker, but they left this part unscathed. They built this door, intending to return some day and finish. One thing or another got in the way, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. One day you look around and whoosh – fifty years have passed since the iron door was last opened. Until today!”

  The man inserted the key into the first padlock and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Just in case.” He grinned, pulling a small can of lubricant from another pocket. He sprayed it liberally inside each lock.

  When he tried again, the key turned and the old padlock snapped open. He repeated the process on the second lock with the same result.

  “Are you ready to take a step back in time?” he asked his American visitor.

  “Ready!”

  “Give me a hand.” They grasped two handles on the door and began to tug. It moved very slowly, its hinges having sat motionless for fifty-five years, but finally it swung open.

  “Now this is exciting! Those damned Russians lied, didn’t they?” The museum director beamed as he looked down the hallway. “I already see more than I ever expected!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The corridor continued, but there was no illumination. They could see only a few feet down the hall, and what they saw was a huge mess. There were boxes, papers and books tossed all around. The floor was littered with debris and broken furniture. It was as though someone had been looking for something specific and destroyed everything while trying to find it.

  Paul didn’t understand the director’s sudden exhilaration. “They certainly left this place a wreck. What do you see that you didn’t expect?”

  “I imagine that will be the first of many.” Steffen aimed his light at a painting lying forgotten against a wall, its frame broken and canvas ripped. “Where there’s one, I’m hoping there are more!”

  He pulled two flashlights from his satchel, passed one to Paul and said, “I feared the lights wouldn’t work after all these years. Shall we?” He waved Paul inside and followed behind him.

  The corridor was wide and had fifteen-foot ceilings, along which ran pipes and cables. There was a musty smell from decades of neglect, and the side walls were slightly damp. Paul knocked on a wall – it was drywall nailed to studs. Every twenty or thirty feet there was a door, many of which stood open. Paul looked inside the nearest one, shining his light around. It reminded him of his college chemistry lab. It was a classroom – there were chalkboards at the front and a lectern next to a long table fitted with a sink and running water. There were a dozen tables for students, each with its own water supply. Test tubes and pipettes sat in racks, and beakers sat over Bunsen burners in wire holders. Except for a thick layer of dust, the room looked ready for class to resume momentarily.

  “How strange,” Paul commented. “Why a classroom here?”

  “There were a lot of classrooms. Hitler made sure everything was prepared. This bunker was designed to house the leaders of the Reich and their families for months – perhaps even a year – if the Allies bombed Berlin into oblivion. If the Third Reich was defeated, Hitler was ready to launch the Fourth. That’s why he hid gold and expensive objects all around. He also intended to see to the children’s educations while everyone was living underground.”

  Paul stooped to pick up the painting. It was roughly two by three feet in size and the canvas had been ripped, perhaps by a knife. He didn’t recognize the artist. It was modern art, which meant Hitler considered it degenerate. Paul heard how Nazi forces barged into the artists’ homes, ensuring they weren’t breaking the law by continuing to paint pictures unsuitable for German citizens to see. Jewish artists were particularly targeted, he recalled, but others had suffered censorship too, including masters such as Vincent Van Gogh.

  He turned the painting over and saw something written on the frame. R2109.

  He showed it to Hans. “Any idea what this is?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t be much of a curator if I didn’t. That’s a Nazi registration mark. This was the two thousand one hundred ninth painting stolen from the Rothschilds in France in 1941, duly noted by some Nazi soldier at the time. Look how badly this one was treated. This artist obviously wasn’t one of Hitler’s favorites.”

  Steffen’s excitement was rubbing off on Paul. “Now that you’ve seen this, are you more optimistic we may find something interesting?”

  “As we’ve discussed, in theory we shouldn’t find anything special. At one time there were many paintings in the Fuhrerbunker – Hitler had his favorites brought here, some straight from the walls of museums. Those were undoubtedly removed. But I told you there are over a hundred rooms still extant; this part is unchanged since it was walled up. This section of Berlin was assigned to Russia in the partition. Soviet troops were here regularly from the end of the war until the barricade was constructed. Most likely they took whatever they wanted.

  “Seeing this castoff painting excited me because it shows that things really were left behind. One man’s trash, as the saying goes, might be another’s treasure. I told you I’d give you more stories about the Fuhrerbunker. One lingering rumor is that troops never finished their search down here. It was simply too big, and don’t forget the tales of hidden rooms! After the war the Allies were involved in rebuilding Germany, divvying up the former occupied countries and restarting the economies of governments that had been overrun by the Nazis. This place wasn’t important enough – and the troops didn’t have enough time – for a scouring. That’s my opinion. Should we find anything interesting? No. Will we? I’ve waited years to find out!”

  Paul’s adrenalin was flowing. He was glad to see the museum director excited over the possibilities. In all his adventures there had been nothing like what might lie down this corridor. He stood at square one of a warren of rooms that might hold treasures of precious metals, lost paintings and sculptures, or perhaps something even more interesting.

  He had to stop daydreaming. There was work to do and little time in which to do it. The minister had given him carte blanche to explore the bunker, but nothing lasts forever. As much as Hans was enjoying this, Paul knew the director couldn’t stay with him for long. After all, his job was to run the state museum. It also wasn’t likely Hans would allow Paul down here unsupervised. Paul had to wisely use the short time he might have.

  After that first afternoon, the director had fixed their lighting issue. Now a five-hundred-foot extension cord snaked down the passageway to a portable LED light on a stand. Although that was a huge help, it mainly served to illuminate the incredible mess the departing Soviet soldiers had left in this part of the Fuhrerbunker. The rooms – offices, dormitories for workers, living suites for officers, kitchens and more classrooms – were in significantly more disarray than Steffen had anticipated.

  “Why would they turn over bunk beds, pull ovens out and tear chalkboards from the wall? Were they simply out to destroy everything, even the furnishings?”

  Paul answered, “I don’t think so. I think they were looking for things. You mentioned there have always been rumors of hidden rooms. Maybe that’s why they tore off the chalkboards – to see if anything was
behind them. Same thing with pulling out an oven – behind there might have been a good place to hide something.”

  Steffen nodded. “You’re probably right. Presuming they didn’t find everything, we have a challenge. With as many rooms as we have here, we could be exploring for the next ten years. I have an idea – it may not work at all, but it’s worth a try.” He pointed at the diagram of the bunker. “This plan wasn’t intended for public viewing, and it was probably what the builders used when they built the bunker. If that’s correct, even hidden rooms might appear on here because they were part of the original construction. There are lots of closets attached to rooms. Not every room has one, but some rooms do. Let’s start there. Using the plan, let’s pick a room with closets and see what we find.”

  The closets in the first three rooms they chose had doors wide open, contents pulled off shelves and thrown everywhere, just like they had seen earlier. So far Hans’s theory wasn’t working. Far down the corridor they came to another room. This one was an office with four desks, some chairs, bookshelves and filing cabinets. As they had seen before, debris was all over the floor.

  Hans looked around for a moment and then consulted his plan. Pointing across the room, he said, “The closet should be right over there.” But there was merely a solid wall.

  Paul walked along the wall, knocking every few inches. It was solid for a while, but then he heard a hollow sound. He continued pounding up and down as Hans directed his flashlight.

  “A stud finder would help,” Paul commented.

  “Tomorrow we will have one!”

  Paul had seen the bare walls behind the destroyed chalkboards, so he knew that every meter there would be a stud. He turned to Hans and asked, “Mr. Director, may I have your permission to kick in this wall?”