“Only one’s duty, Weiter, only one’s duty,” Dietrich answered solemnly. “That is all Berlin can ask of any man.”
“Berlin! The bureaucrats and accountants are in charge now.” Obviously, Weiter had been on the run ever since they told him an SS full Colonel had entered his compound. "What I would give for five minutes alone with the Führer. If he only knew,” he said, then quickly looked up at Dietrich. “You must pardon me for being candid, Herr Oberführer, you were not sent here from Prinz-Albrecht Strasse were you?” he asked warily.
“Lord, no, man,” Dietrich laughed. “I have the same problems with them as you do.“
“And you did not bring me any new orders?”
“No, we are merely passing through, I am sorry to say.”
“I had been hoping…” Weiter frowned, confused and frustrated as he threw up his hands, clearly disappointed. “What am I to do, Herr Dietrich? First, they tell me to evacuate the camp, but they send me no trucks, no additional guards, no petrol, and no rations. Instead, they send me trainloads of new prisoners from everyone else’s camp, half-dead, diseased, starving, thousands of them, from Auschwitz, Dora, Buchenwald, and all the rest. My God, the bodies are stacking up down there at the rail siding like cord wood.”
“Yes, yes, I see your problem, Weiter,” Dietrich nodded nervously as the Commandant rambled on and on about his little corner of Hell.
“I have become the dumping ground for everyone else’s problems and the stench around here is enough to stop a man dead in his tracks. I even had a delegation from the city in here yesterday. The mayor himself actually pounded on my desk, demanding I get rid of them all. On my desk! Imagine the effrontery, but in truth, who can blame the fellow, eh?”
Dietrich tried to change the subject, glancing at his watch. “I see your dilemma.”
“Oh, no, you do not see the half of it,” Weiter continued, obviously just getting started. “I have 30,000 prisoners in here now — 30,000! — but my camp was built for less than half that number. First, they tell me to move them, and then Reichsführer Himmler personally orders me to eliminate them all. Not one prisoner is to fall into Allied hands. That is what he wrote to me just last week, the very words, and personally! You know what that means, but how am I supposed to do that, I ask you?”
Dietrich stood mute, slowly turning pale.
“I telephoned the Luftwaffe and asked them if they could bomb the place, but those pompous asses actually hung up on me,” he complained bitterly. “Begging your pardon, Captain, but your people will not get any blood on their hands. Oh, no! Perhaps, if they had a shed a bit more English blood, we would not be in this pickle, would we? It does not matter, though. In the end, I shall get the blame. They take the medals and leave the dirty work to the SS.”
“Yes, well…” Dietrich stammered, trying again to change the subject.
Unfortunately for him, once started, Weiter was in no mood to stop. “I would need an infantry battalion to shoot them all. It would take days, and imagine the ammunition it would require. On top of that, I would have a riot on my hands as soon as we began.”
The Chief Inspector began to sweat. Finally, he looked over at Scanlon. “Well, perhaps my aide, Captain Schmitt here, can offer you some suggestions.”
Scanlon chuckled, realizing Dietrich was desperate to get himself off the spot, and the slippery bastard had just succeeded. Scanlon nodded solemnly, as if he was deep in thought pondering the question. “You are indeed in a difficult spot, Commandant, especially with the Americans now less than seventy-five kilometers to the west and heading your way.”
“Seventy-five kilometers! My God, are they that close?” Weiter blanched.
“Those airplanes you see passing high overhead have been taking photographs of everything for weeks," Scanlon added. “So they know exactly what’s been going on here.”
“They do?” Weiter whispered, with a desperate look in his eyes.
“I’m afraid so. I was up in an Me-109 just last week, and I could see their tank columns stretching damn near back to France,” Scanlon answered ominously. “There is nothing to stop them now. In three days, they’ll be here, maybe two.” Weiter’s shoulders slumped and he looked even more desperate. “That only leaves you one way out, Commandant.”
“What is it, man? Tell me!”
“Well, you are the man here on the ground, eh?” Scanlon stepped closer and spoke to Weiter in a soft, conspiratorial voice. “So, if I were you, I would do everything I could to clean this place up and keep these prisoners of yours alive and healthy.”
“Alive and healthy? But Himmler said…”
“I suspect you will see General Patton marching through your gate long before you will ever see the Reichsführer again. I was in France,” Scanlon leaned even closer and whispered. “After that little incident at Malmedy, where the Americans claim their prisoners were gunned down; well, if they find an SS officer now, they just string him up in the nearest tree. They tie the knot very loose, so loose that the poor devil strangles to death very, very slowly. I’m told it can take most of a day to die that way, Commandant.”
Weiter got a faraway look in his eyes.
“I have also heard that they’ve brought in a special unit of Negro troops to hunt down the SS, because of their acute sense of smell, you know, with Jewish officers in command. Once they get on your trail, well… you remember the Olympics, Herr Weiter,” Scanlon shook his head sadly. “Those sprinters Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalf do you remember how fast they ran?" he asked, as the Commandant’s face turned white. “Now, I must admit that these are probably just wild rumors. I doubt they have that many Jewish officers to begin with. However, if they come in here and find more bodies, I would be certain I had one last bullet left in my Luger. At least you could end it quickly.”
Scanlon turned back to the operating table where the two prisoners were bandaging Von Lindemann’s head and his side. “How is our patient coming, Bauerschritt?”
The inmate-doctor cringed at the use of his surname in front of the camp Commandant, but he managed to respond. “The Major has a bad concussion, two broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. Some sedatives and a week in bed would be advisable.”
“No,” Von Lindemann struggled to sit up, his eyes glazed. “We must go.”
Scanlon patted Von Lindemann’s arm and nodded. "The Major is right. We are already behind schedule. You wouldn’t have any sedatives here, would you?” he asked Bauerschritt.
“The SS infirmary across the road has anything you need,” Weiter answered, still in a daze. “I will send for morphine and sulfa."
“Thank you,” Scanlon said with a slight bow to the Commandant. “We appreciate all your help.”
“And I appreciate your… candor, Captain,” the red-faced Commandant replied. “It has been shall we say… original.”
“What about this fellow, Bauerschritt?” Scanlon asked as he eyed the two prisoner-doctors, as if he was bidding on a horse. “He doesn’t look like he’s doing much here. You don’t suppose we could borrow him for a few days until the Major mends?”
“Borrow him?” Weiter glared at the two inmates. “Take them both and good riddance. With everything they heard in this room today, I would have had them shot, anyway. So you will be saving me two spaces in the oven.”
With the Maybach safely down the road and out of sight of the concentration camp, they stopped to transfer Paul Von Lindemann to the truck. They laid him in the rear cargo bed between two wooden crates where he would be more comfortable, and Scanlon told the two doctors to ride with him. The Major was conscious, but he was weak and groggy from his injuries and a shot of morphine. Christina Raeder insisted on riding in the truck with him too, refusing to return to the big touring car with her father and Otto Dietrich.
“Not another minute,” she said.
“But, Christina, your mother made me promise that I would protect you,” her father begged.
“Don’t you dare!” she said through clench
ed her teeth. “I know the truth now.”
“You should tell your daughter what really happened in Berlin,” Dietrich laughed at Raeder, unable to resist the opportunity to inflict more pain.
“You be quiet!” Wolfe Raeder’s voice threatened.
“What does he mean, Papa?”
“Nothing, it is all lies!”
“The official report called it an accidental fall,” the Chief Inspector hinted darkly. "Of course, your friend Göring controlled the Berlin police back then, did he not, Herr Doktor? What an interesting coincidence, eh?”
“Be quiet! I warn you, Dietrich.” Raeder glared at him.
“Your wife had a terrible fall, and out of nowhere you accept his job in Volkenrode,” Dietrich asked with a sadistic grin. “Was that the trade? Göring covered up your little fit of anger, and you designed some airplanes for him, or were you so overwhelmed with grief that you just felt a pressing need to get out of town?“
“I swear, I will kill you,” Raeder said as he lunged at him.
Dietrich laughed as he turned aside Raeder’s awkward charge, knocked the scientist to the ground, and put his foot on Raeder’s throat. “Yes, like Himmler and all the rest of them, Göring can be most accommodating when he wants something. But kill me? I do not think so, Herr Doktor.”
“That’s enough!” Scanlon said as pushed Dietrich back. “The only one who’ll be doing any killing around here is me. You two get back in the car and be quiet.”
“Not without my daughter!” Raeder demanded, suddenly terrified.
“The choice is entirely hers,” Scanlon told him, “and I think she made it.” He shoved Raeder and Dietrich toward the Maybach. “Now, get in the back and shut up.”
“Thank you,” Christina said as she broke into a broad, childlike grin.
“Let’s go. We still have a long trip ahead of us,” he told them, and a dangerous one, he thought.
“By the way,” Dietrich laughed as they walked away, “black sprinters with Jewish officers to hunt down the SS? You really are a man after my own heart, Scanlon.”
“As you said before, the man heard what he wanted to hear. Now let’s go.”
The plan that Bromley laid out back in London was for Scanlon to swing around the eastern outskirts of Munich, run south 70 miles to the Austrian border, go through the high passes into the mountain valleys beyond, and hide out there until the war ends. Ed Scanlon, however, did not intend to follow the British Colonel’s plan and become another “accidental” target for the RAF. His goal was to head for the Bavarian Lake District in Germany, some 40 miles away, and hide out in the mountains above Tegernsee. Allan Dulles told him about valleys and small mountain roads that were not on anyone’s map. Tegernsee was just off the main axis of Patton’s Seventh Army planned route east, so that was where Ed Scanlon headed. That was where he would hole-up and wait.
Seeing the burned-out hulk of a German Army truck lying by the side of the road was a common enough occurrence these days. The same could be said for the two fresh graves Hanni saw in the adjacent field. There was nothing unusual about that either, she admitted grimly. She could not be certain who was in them without digging up the bodies and that was something for which she had neither the time nor the stomach. Still, the truck had Luftwaffe markings on the bumper, this was the right road, and she had that feeling.
She stopped the car, walked into the muddy field, and stared down at the two freshly dug graves. A piece of broken board lay on the ground near them. Someone had used it as a shovel to gouge the two shallow trenches in the soft dirt. Quick and efficient, she thought, with no time for formalities. Still, it was more consideration than Georg Horstmann had gotten, she remembered with a sharp pain. At the head of each grave, she noticed a short section of board had been wedged in to the ground as a makeshift tombstone. Crudely scored onto each in pencil was a name and today’s date. The one on the right said, “Ernst Langebein, Sergeant,” and the one on the left said, “Rudolph Mannfried, Friend.” Well, that was one consolation, she thought. Neither bore Edward’s name.
She went to the burned-out truck. Standing on her toes, she peered over the tailgate into the truck’s blackened rear cargo bed. Little remained except for burned wood and charred paper — lots of charred paper — as if someone was determined to leave nothing behind. Edward, you meticulous bastard, she thought, taking reluctant pride in knowing she was the one who trained him. Apparently, she had done her job too damned well, she realized. If he had been killed here, she would have found the truck wrecked but not burned. It would still be full of papers and blueprints. The airplane engineers would be sitting by the side of the road next to it, not knowing what to do next. Instead, with good leadership, they had taken the time to bury their dead, burn the truck and the rest of the papers, tidy up the place, and not leave a single clue behind. This is exactly what she would have done, which meant he was still very much alive.
The stench of burned rubber and gasoline hung in the air like death itself. It was enough to turn her stomach, which was happening more and more these days. Regardless, Hanni shook the nausea off, reached into the truck bed, and ran her hand through the ashes. They were warm. The truck must have burned this morning, which meant that Edward could not be more than a few hours ahead of her. Hanni looked up the road. Two parallel lines of large caliber bullets had shredded the pavement. An airplane, perhaps two, had found some fat targets on the road and dived down, guns blazing. She saw several sets of black skid marks, one of which ended at the burned truck. It had been caught on the open road, tried to avoid the sudden onslaught, and failed. The truck was German, so the airplanes had to be American or British. Poor Edward, she realized. It took some serious bad luck to have your meticulously laid plans wrecked by your own people, and Hanni had been in this business far too long to believe in accidents or bad luck. Perhaps no one told the pilots, she thought. Then again, perhaps someone back in London wanted Edward to fail and decided to stop him right here, but why?
Hanni shook her head. She was beginning to think like an NKVD officer again, which was exactly the way Moscow Center wanted her to think. Lavrenti Beria would be so proud, damn him. She was seeing conspiracies and double agents under every bed, but the rest of the world did not really act like that; surely, it did not. As she looked at the lines of bullet holes in the pavement and at the burned truck lying on the road shoulder, Hanni knew she could not be sure of anything anymore. Whom could she trust now? It had all become so insane, so twisted, and so dirty. She once heard someone say that truth was the first casualty of war. If it was, then integrity did not lag far behind.
She turned and looked down the long, lonely road to the south and wondered where it would end for Edward and for her. He was somewhere down there. She would find him, or she would die trying.
PART FIVE
THE BAVARIAN ALPS
APRIL 1945
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
From Munich, Ed Scanlon led their small convoy south into the foothills of the Alps, passing through the small mountain villages of Holzkirchen and Gmund, then still higher toward Tegernsee. The slopes grew steeper and the alpine peaks more jagged as they rose to their full postcard splendor. Spring came late to the high mountains. This was only April, but the air was still crisp and cold. The north-and-east-facing slopes and the shaded parts of the valleys remained covered with the last of the deep winter snow; yet where the upland meadows caught the midday sun, they were already filling with bright wildflowers, rushing water, and the smells of spring. In each valley sat one or two stout log houses with steep-pitched roofs and still prodigious piles of logs. Running water was everywhere, cascading down the face of the rocks, then down through the meadows, and finally across the road. It was almost enough to make you forget that there was a war going on, Scanlon realized.
At Gmund, they crossed the main highway that ran west to Bad Tolz and east to Rosenheim and Austria. Bad Tolz! It had been a small, lovely Bavarian village ten years before, until Heinrich
Himmler built the largest SS officer’s training school there, and the S’s holiest of shrines. Now, it was a prime objective of Patton’s onrushing tank columns. The school itself was a huge white-walled fortress built on a hilltop to fit Himmler’s perverse notion of what a medieval castle from the First Reich should look like. American bombers had repeatedly pounded it, but air power alone can never root out entrenched infantry. No doubt, a major battle would be fought there soon, because Himmler’s true believers would never surrender. Their backs were to the wall now, and this was as good a place to die as any. That would suit Patton and his Third Army just fine. They would flatten the place and turn it into loose gravel. When that started, he would be able to hear the big guns many miles away.
They drove through the crossroads and continued south until they came to the small town of Tegernsee. It sat on a cold, blue alpine lake surrounded by thick forests of pine and spruce and by high, snow-capped peaks. On the far side of the town, he saw the narrow gravel road that Dulles had pointed out to him on the map. It wound its way up the side of a hill and quickly vanished in the trees beyond. This was exactly what he was looking for, Scanlon thought as they turned onto it. The road grew rocky and rutted as it rose higher into the mountains until they came to a colorful upland meadow with a stout log cabin and a small lake. It was probably an old, deserted hunting lodge. With the gray-green of the tall spruce and pines, the red and yellow wildflowers, and the vivid blue of a flawless alpine sky, it was the perfect place to get lost and forget, at least for a while.
“What a marvelous setting you have chosen for us, Edward,” Otto Dietrich laughed as he got out of the car and stretched, pretending to admire the view. “But where is little Shirley Temple in her dirndl; and what of the Grandfather and Peter the goatherd? If you want to remake Heidi, you must bring the entire cast, you know.”
Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers Page 26
