by Philip Kerr
“It’s a pretty tall order,” he had told Himmler. “To parachute those men into Iran and then risk not being able to communicate with them.”
“Nevertheless, those are my orders, Schellenberg. Unless they receive a clear order from me or the Führer, the mission is not to proceed. Is that quite clear?”
“It’s a good plan,” insisted Schellenberg. “Perhaps the best plan we’ve got right now.”
“That is your opinion. The Führer and I have agreed to your plan thus far only in order to keep our options open.”
“It’s asking a lot of men to risk their lives going all that way for an operation that might be scratched at the last moment.”
“They are SS. They have taken an oath of obedience to me and the Führer. They’ll damn well do what they’re told, Schellenberg, and so will you.” Himmler’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I hope these are SS men, Schellenberg. Waffen-SS, Fourteenth Grenadiers, Galicia Division, I think you told me. I should take a very dim view of you and this whole operation if I ever found out that your team was composed largely of Zeppelin volunteers. Ukrainian nationalist cadres. I trust you haven’t forgotten my speech at Posen.”
“No, Herr Reichsführer, I haven’t forgotten that.”
That was another reason Himmler had to be removed, thought Schellenberg. All those Ukrainian volunteers who, with the exception of a dozen German officers and NCOs, now made up the Special Section. If Operation Long Jump was a success, then no one would ever mention that the team had not actually been German—no one in Germany, at least. But if the operation failed and Himmler ever found out about their true origins, things might go quite badly for him.
Lina Heydrich had agreed. She hated Himmler even more than her late husband had, especially now that Schellenberg had told her how he suspected the Reichsführer of having been complicit in her husband’s murder. Lina’s hatred had hardly been softened by the death of her ten-year-old son, Klaus, on October 24, in a traffic accident in Prague: the boy had been knocked down and killed by a truck in the gateway of the Jungfern-Breschau Castle in Prague.
“I wrote to Himmler asking that Klaus be excused from the Hitler Youth,” she had said. “Remember how I told you I would? But Himmler replied that Klaus’s father wouldn’t have wanted him to leave the youth movement and that the boy should remain. That’s why he was in Prague. He was there on an outing with the Hitler Youth. I never liked it there, when Reinhard was running the Bohemian Protectorate. And Klaus should never have gone back. Not after what happened to his father in Prague. And, by the way, I made some inquiries about Reinhard’s death. You were right, Walter. It was Himmler’s own doctor who treated Reinhard after the attack in Prague. The drugs he used were experimental and should not have been administered.”
Lina so hated Himmler, she even suggested how Schellenberg might bring about his downfall.
“You must go to Rastenburg and see Martin Bormann,” she said. “You must tell him all about Himmler’s secret peace negotiations with the Russians. Bormann will know how to bring the evidence before the Führer.”
The comforts provided by Lina seemed a long way off now, waiting in the cold for an execution to proceed in the main square in Vinnica. At last the truck’s engine turned over, and as it moved slowly away, the six partisans were left dangling from their gibbet. Schellenberg looked away in disgust and turned his mind to Operation Long Jump. If it succeeded and the Big Three were killed, surely the Allies would make peace. But until then he would have to try to facilitate Himmler’s removal, as Lina had urged. From Vinnica, he planned to fly to Rastenburg and, on the pretext of informing Hitler that Long Jump was ready to go ahead, would talk to Bormann.
But Lina had offered yet more advice on how he might protect himself against Himmler. “Those Ukrainians in your Special Section,” she had said. “The Zeppelin volunteers. You’d better make sure that if any of them do make it back from Persia, they don’t ever talk.”
She was right, of course, and the more he thought about her advice, the more he realized that whatever the outcome in Teheran, all of the Ukrainians would have to disappear. It wasn’t just Himmler who might decide to make an issue out of Long Jump. It might also be the Allies. He now thought it best if there were as few witnesses as possible who could ever speak about what he had set into motion.
His driver finally returned to the car. “Thank you, sir,” he said, starting the engine. “That meant a lot, to see those Popovs get their just deserts. Those heads that were in the box, you see. My friends. The Popovs cut off their noses, ears, and lips before they beheaded them. Can you imagine it?”
“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind, Sergeant,” said Schellenberg. “Now get a fucking move on, I’m freezing.”
They drove north along a road busy with German traffic: SMG machine-gun carriers, Pumas, 37-millimeter PAKs, some SdKfz troop carriers, and, most reassuring to Schellenberg, who was not used to being quite so close to the front line, a column of Panzer tanks—with its excellent armor and 88-millimeter gun, the Panzer was probably the best tank in the world. If only there had been more of them. If only they didn’t guzzle so damn much fuel. If only . . .
The country house where Schellenberg’s Special Section was headquartered looked like something from a Chekhov play. Surrounded with cherry trees and a forest of shrubs, the whitewashed wooden house was large and beautiful, with a big verandah and a high mansard roof. As soon as Schellenberg was inside warming himself in front of the fire and enjoying a cup of hot coffee, von Holten-Pflug asked Captain Oster to assemble his men in the ball-room, and under a magnificent chandelier, Schellenberg stood in the center of the room to address more than a hundred men. Among his audience were eighty Ukrainians, twelve German officers and NCOs, and twenty-four Luftwaffe officers who were to fly a combination of transport and bombing missions. It was the first time that any of them, with the exception of von Holten-Pflug and Captain Oster, had been informed of their target.
“Gentlemen,” said Schellenberg. “During the last few weeks you have all been training for Operation Franz. I have to tell you now that Operation Franz has been canceled.”
At this there was a loud groan from the men. Schellenberg raised his voice to make himself heard.
“The fact is, the name Operation Franz has always been a fiction. The task that lies before you is to be called Operation Long Jump. You will still be parachuted into Iran. But your target was never a railway. You have a different target, a target of great historical importance. Perhaps the most important in history. If you succeed, you will win the war. And that is no exaggeration, believe me.
“This morning, via our communications center in Ankara, I received a message from Wannsee. It came from one of our agents in Cairo. The message confirmed that today, November twenty-second, 1943, at nine thirty-five A.M. local time, Franklin Roosevelt landed in Egypt. He will remain there in talks with Winston Churchill and General Chiang Kai-shek for the rest of the week. It’s our reliable information that Roosevelt and Churchill will fly from Cairo to Teheran for talks with Stalin, on Sunday, November twenty-eighth. Tuesday, the thirtieth, is the British prime minister’s birthday, and we expect the British to throw a party at their embassy in Teheran. We intend to make sure that Germany sends a gift to Mr. Churchill. A gift that Marshal Stalin and President Roosevelt will be able to share in.”
At this there was a roar of approval.
“Ninety-five men will leave here today in two Junkers 290s. After a refueling stop in the Crimea, you will continue on to Iran. Half of you will be dropped near Qazvin and referred to hereafter as North Team. The other half will be dropped near the holy city of Qom and be known as South Team. Both teams will be met by friendly Kashgai tribesmen with trucks. They will transport you to your respective targets. All of you will be wearing Russian uniforms. South Team will travel to the Russian army airfield at Gale Morghe, west of Teheran, where, at seven o’clock that evening, you will destroy the enemy’s radar installation. Once that i
s accomplished, you will radio North Team, who will be staying at a safe house in Teheran’s bazaar, about half a mile from the British embassy. North Team will confirm to the Luftwaffe that the targets are in the embassy, and a squadron of four Focke Wulf 200s, each equipped with two radio-controlled missiles, will attack. These planes will be vulnerable to fighter attack, so you can see the importance of knocking out the radar. The enemy will put fighters up, but in the dark it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. As soon as the missiles are launched and the embassy destroyed, North Team will mount an attack and kill any survivors. After the operation is completed, each team will be collected by the Iranian underground movement and transported across the border into neutral Turkey.
“I know many of you will welcome a chance to kill Stalin. But by killing Roosevelt and Churchill as well, you will be hastening the end of this war. Of course, it won’t be nearly as easy as I’ve made it sound. Perhaps some of you are wondering what kind of a fool would dream up a plan like this. Well, I am that fool. And since many of you are Ukrainians, I’d like to remind you of an old Ukrainian saying: Ne takiy ya durniy yak ty mudriy!” Schellenberg waited a moment for the laughter among the Zeppelin volunteers to subside a little before supplying the German translation: I am not as stupid as you are smart.
“And because you are smart,” he added, “you will succeed. Because you are smart you will win. Because you are smart you will come home.”
IT WAS TIME to go to the airport to see off the two parachute teams. Schellenberg rode with von Holten-Pflug, who was to command South Team, Captain Oster, who was to command North Team, and an ex-NKVD officer named Vladimir Shkvarzev, who was in charge of the Ukrainians. Shkvarzev was a heavyset, brutal-looking man with an eye patch and several gold teeth—most of his own had been kicked out by the Gestapo. But Schellenberg had no doubt of Shkvarzev’s loyalty. The Ukrainian knew what would happen to him if ever he was recaptured by the NKVD. The Gestapo were clever like that. They had forced Shkvarzev to torture some of his own comrades to death with a butcher’s knife before releasing other prisoners so that they could return to their own lines and denounce Shkvarzev to the NKVD as a Gestapo stooge. And when at the airport Schellenberg wished him and his Ukrainians good luck, the ex-NKVD man had smiled wryly.
“There’s another Ukrainian saying you might like to bear in mind, Herr General,” said Shkvarzev. “Shchastya vysyt na tonenki nytci a bida na hrusim motuzi. Roughly translated it means, Good luck hangs by a thread, but bad luck on a thick rope.” Shkvarzev made a gesture as if clutching a noose around his neck and, still smiling horribly, got out of the car and walked toward one of the planes.
“Don’t worry about Shkvarzev,” said Oster. “He’s a damn good fighter. They all are. They were at Cherkassy, and before that Belgorod. I saw them in action. They’re a fearsome lot, I can tell you.”
“I heard it was pretty bad there,” said Schellenberg, offering the two senior German officers some cigarettes from the extra packets of Hannovers he had brought from Berlin.
Oster laughed bitterly. “Everywhere’s bad,” he said. “But I fear the worst is yet to come. Not least the cold. It was ten below last night. One of our NCOs, a fellow posted from Italy a month or two ago, was complaining about it, and we all just laughed. By January the glass will be down to fifty below.”
“It will be warmer in Persia,” said Schellenberg. “I can promise you that.”
“Let’s hope it’s not too hot,” said Oster.
“I wish we knew that this wasn’t all a dreadful waste of time,” objected von Holten-Pflug, lighting his cigarette. “I don’t fancy just sitting around with these Kashgai tribesmen and waiting for some fucking wrestler to work up the courage to betray us to the Allies. I hope there’s plenty of gold in that box you brought with you from Berlin. Because I’m sure we’re going to need it.”
“Himmler was quite immovable on the subject, I’m afraid,” said Schellenberg. “You’re to wait until you hear the old shah’s name on the Radio Berlin news broadcast before proceeding with the plan.”
SCHELLENBERG WATCHED the planes take off and wondered if he would ever see von Holten-Pflug or Oster again. He rather doubted it. Even if they did manage to kill the Big Three, the Allies would probably turn Persia upside down to find the assassins. Not so bad if the British or the Americans caught them, perhaps. Not so good if they were picked up by the Russians.
That afternoon, on the plane to Rastenburg, Schellenberg slept better than he had in a long time. There were no air-raid warnings at ten thousand feet, just the dull, monotonous, almost hypnotic roar of the Focke Wulf Condor’s four BMW engines. Hoffmann’s attempt to kill him on the flight to Stockholm was already a distant memory, and, wearing a thick lambskin flying suit and swaddled in blankets against the altitude and the November cold, Schellenberg did not awake until they were on the ground at Weischnuren Airfield, after a three-hour, 500-mile flight. He felt refreshed and hungry, and for once he was actually looking forward to his meeting with the Führer. Not to mention his dinner.
But first there was his meeting with Martin Bormann.
Schellenberg met with the Führer’s personal secretary at his home, less than one hundred yards from his master’s. It was always hard to explain just where Bormann had sprung from. For eight years, between 1933 and 1941, he had been nearly invisible, the right-hand man to Rudolf Hess; and it was only after the Deputy Führer’s abortive peace mission to England in May 1941 that Bormann had started to make himself indispensable to Hitler—first as head of the Reich Chancellery, then as head of the Party Secretariat, and finally as Hitler’s personal secretary. And yet he and Hitler were old friends, the two men having known each other since 1926. Hitler had been a witness at Bormann’s wedding and was also godfather to Bormann’s eldest son.
Schellenberg knew Bormann better on paper, from the details in a secret file in his safe, than in the flesh. Not that anyone apart from the Führer knew Bormann particularly well. But Schellenberg had all the dirt anyone would ever need on Bormann: about the murder he had committed in 1923, for example. Bormann had killed his own former elementary school teacher, a man named Walther Kadow. Then a member of the Freikorps (which was the Nazi SA’s predecessor in all but name), Bormann had been arrested for the murder and sentenced to just one year in jail, having successfully maintained the defense that Kadow had betrayed the Nazi martyr Leo Schlageter to the French occupation authorities in the Ruhr. Only Schellenberg and Bormann himself knew the truth of the matter: that Bormann and Kadow had been rivals for the affections of a woman, and a Jewish woman at that.
Schellenberg also knew of how rich Bormann had made himself. How he had embezzled millions of reichmarks through his control of the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund, which received money from German industry. Schellenberg even possessed evidence that Bormann had been skimming money from the royalties of Germany’s number-one bestselling book, Mein Kampf. And not even Göring had managed to pillage as many art objects from occupied countries in Eastern Europe as Martin Bormann. In his office safe in Berlin, Schellenberg had a letter from one of Zurich’s oldest private banks, setting out the full extent of Bormann’s private holdings. It was one of the young intelligence chief’s many insurance policies, and on the few occasions he had been obliged to deal with Bormann, it always gave him a pleasant feeling to know that he was relatively invulnerable to Bormann’s malign influence. Schellenberg even thought he had an explanation for just how it was that Bormann had managed to make himself so indispensable to the Führer. He believed Bormann was what Bormann’s own father had been, and for that matter what the bull-necked bullying Bormann most resembled in the world: a regimental sergeant-major. Hitler had only ever been a corporal, and it was only natural that the sort of man with whom he should have felt completely comfortable was, temperamentally at least, a senior NCO.
“So,” said Bormann, ushering them both to some armchairs in front of a blazing log fire. Unlike his master, Bormann liked a fire. �
�How are things on the front?”
“They could be better,” said Schellenberg with what he thought was enormous understatement.
“Russians,” sneered Bormann. “They’re like rats. There’s no end to them. How can you defeat an enemy that doesn’t seem to give a fuck for his own casualties? They just keep coming, don’t they? The subhuman bastards. Like the Mongol hordes. They’re the complete opposite of the Jews. The Jews just roll over and die. But the Slavs are something else. Walter, there are times when I think that if you want to understand the true nature of this world you have to go to the Russian front. It’s a struggle for life, like something out of Darwin, I think. Not that your boss would agree with me there.” Bormann snorted with contempt. “According to Himmler, this earth is a sort of fairy land. All that crap about the spirit world and Buddhism. Jesus, Walter, how do you stand it?”
“As a matter of fact, Martin, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Himmler.”
“You know what Himmler’s problem is? He thinks too much. That and the fact that he’s an auto-whatsit. Self-taught.”
“Autodidact.”
“Precisely. He’s read too much shit, that’s all. Educated himself with no real discipline. He’s the living proof that education is a danger. I always say that every educated person is a future enemy. Me, I do my very utmost to live and act in such a manner that the Führer should remain satisfied with me. Whether I shall always be able to do so is an open question. But the key to success is to take your lead from the Führer. To read what he reads.”
“How is the Führer?”
“He’s always quite cheerful, you know. No, really. Cheerful with all his heart. Especially when he’s having tea with his friends, or when he’s playing with his dogs. You would think he hadn’t a care in the world. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.”
