“It’s…it’s my orders, Sir,“ the man stammered. “No… no weapons.”
Kruger nodded. He drew the Luger from its holster and jammed it in the guard’s white waist belt. “See that it’s here when I return, won’t you, Corporal? Because you wouldn’t want me to come looking for it.”
Without waiting for a reply, Kruger grabbed the handle of the heavy steel door, jerked it open, and stepped inside. Behind him, the door slammed with an ominous boom, and Kruger felt icy fingers running down his spine. He paused and stared down the long, steep flight of stairs that led down, as a warm, sour stench rose up around him and made him gag. Could this be their Holy Sanctuary? This cesspool? Supermen? More like super-moles, Kruger thought as he forced himself down one stair at a time. When he reached the bottom, he followed the narrow corridors until he reached the Party Secretary’s office. Inside, he came face to face with a plump, brown-shirted clerk sitting behind a small desk. It was piled high with papers, and the man sat behind them cleaning his fingernails with a letter opener. Kruger wanted to rip it out of his fat pink fingers, but the door to Bormann’s inner office stood wide open and Bormann saw him. “Ah, Kruger!” the Reichsleiter called out. “So good of you to drop by.”
Drop by? Drop by! If he still had the Luger, Kruger would have shot both of them on the spot. Instead, he snatched the letter opener from the clerk’s hand and drove it a full inch into the stack of papers. With the thin, knowing smile of a mortician, Kruger turned and stormed into Bormann’s office without saying a word.
Bormann closed the heavy oak door behind them. “Was that necessary?” he asked. “Klaus is one of Himmler’s spies. While he may be as useless as last week’s mutton, it doesn’t pay to antagonize him. That will only draw attention to us.”
“Attention?” Kruger snorted. “Do you seriously think Herr Himmler doesn’t know what you’ve been up to?”
“Perhaps, but he doesn’t know all of it… and you are late.”
“Late? Do you have any idea what I went through to get here?”
“I’m sure it was child’s play for a man of your abilities, Heinz.”
Child’s play? Kruger held his tongue and turned away. Glancing around the tiny subterranean office, he saw how far the mighty had fallen. It was a broom closet compared to Bormann’s cavernous office in the gutted Chancellery upstairs. Still, Bormann had squeezed his most important props in with him: the gaudy, blood-stained “Horst Wessel” flag standing in the corner and a wall of framed photographs. They captured the brief history of the Thousand-Year Reich in grainy black and white. Hitler stood at the center of each, but Bormann’s round fat face was always hovering in the background. He saw the Austrian corporal with his arm raised, taking the oath as Chancellor of all Germany. Another of a massive torch-lit parade in the big stadium in Nuremberg. There, the Führer at a podium, chin out, face flushed, his voice holding a huge crowd spellbound. And Hitler riding triumphantly through Vienna, the city that once scorned him as a country bumpkin. Relaxing on the balcony at Berchtesgaden, smiling and laughing with a circle of old friends as they look out on the Alps in springtime. Hitler strutting past the railway car at Compiegne, humiliating the French and avenging his own generation’s shame. The Führer on the coast of France, staring through long binoculars at the white cliffs of Dover he could see, but never reach. And Hitler surrounded by his generals, leaning forward, jabbing an angry finger at a map. In the next one, he stands in a thick overcoat, watching his big guns blast holes in the drifting snow of the Eastern Front. Like the holes and the army that created them, they would all soon disappear. Finally, a thin old man with dead eyes and trembling fingers pins medals on schoolboys. And in each photo, Bormann is standing there, quietly watching and waiting.
But the Reichsleiter was no fool. He wasn’t waiting for an old man to die. He had seen the inevitable and set his own plans in motion years before. Yes, he might look like a rosy-faced Bavarian barkeep, but of all the old guard, the “Alte Kampfer” from Hitler’s beer hall days in Munich, Bormann was the only one who hadn’t been swept into the corner and forgotten long ago. Always more clever than smart, he’d bested the bankers, the bureaucrats, the generals, and even the secret police through his slavish loyalty to Hitler and his control of the party machinery. That was the boring little job no one else wanted, but control of the party machinery was the true key to power. That was how he crushed Goring, Ribbentropp, Goebbels, and even the great Heinrich Himmler, by deft maneuvering and never leaving the Fuhrer’s side. In the end, after all the others failed him, Hitler would return to his roots, to the Party, and to Martin Bormann as surely as a compass needle would return to north.
"So tell me, Heinz,” Bormann sat back and asked in a self-satisfied tone. “How did the last shipment go? Flawlessly as usual?”
Kruger’s eyes flashed. “Is that why you brought me here? For a damned trip report?” He paused to take a deep breath, then another, forcing himself to tolerate the man’s stupid questions, because Bormann was his ticket out. “No, there were no problems, Herr Reichsleiter, as I’m sure your spies already told you. The striped suits at the Dresden Bank couldn’t have been happier for us to take those embarrassing little ‘problems’ off their hands. We drove the crates to the airfield and they were in Portugal two days ago,” Kruger answered as he locked his angry eyes on Bormann’s. “So why did you order me here? Here, under Hitler’s very nose, for God’s sake!”
“It’s amazing how you see right to the heart of the problem, Heinz.” Bormann clapped his hands in mock relief. “The Führer never leaves the bunker now, and I can’t leave him alone with the others. So there was no choice; you had to come here.”
Kruger slumped back in the chair and shook his head. “All right, what is it this time?” he asked wearily. "What special corner of hell are you sending me to now?”
“To East Prussia, to Königsberg.”
“Königsberg?” Kruger looked up. “The Russians have it surrounded. Do you think they’ll let me walk in on your say so?”
"A relief column broke through this morning,” Bormann answered with a coy smile. "They’re holding the road open, if you move quickly.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Because I found us a U-boat.” Bormann grinned like a large cat with bird feathers still stuck to his chin.
A submarine! With that one word, all the other pieces suddenly fell into place and Kruger found himself smiling along with Bormann, knowing it never paid to underestimate the man. “I assume Admiral Donitz doesn’t know about this?”
“Heinz, Heinz, the Great Admiral has an entire Navy to run. One old fleet boat would hardly be worth his time, would it?”
Kruger nodded, because he did understand. It was all about the gold. Everything Bormann did these days was about his new empire and about the gold.
“Here are your orders,” Bormann said as his short fat fingers pushed an envelope across the desk.
It looked thicker and heavier than usual, Kruger thought, as he picked it up and weighed it in his hand. “You are anticipating some problems?”
"Problems?” Bormann mused as he ticked them off on his fingers. "Well, you have this beastly winter weather to deal with — the worst in a generation. And one cannot forget the Red Army; you’re very high on their ‘Most Wanted List’ now, you know. And of course, there’s our own Navy. I doubt they’ll appreciate a young SS officer commandeering one of their precious U-boats, no matter whose orders he flashes around. Neither will Erich Koch, my Gauleiter for East Prussia. That filthy bastard would steal his grandmother’s purse if he thought he could get away with it. So I suggest you slip in and slip out before Koch learns you’re in town and why you’re there.”
“And if I’m not that fortunate?”
“Then kill him. Just don’t let him get anywhere near that U-boat.”
Kruger’s eyes flashed at the pleasant prospect.
“And I’m giving you a platoon from the SS Leibstandarte to keep you c
ompany. Everyone knows who they work for, and the sight of those black coats and white belts should stifle any awkward questions. If they don’t, I’m also giving you one of my ‘special letters’,” he said, knowing there was nothing this side of hell that Heinz Kruger, a platoon of the Leibstandarte SS, and one of his masterful forgeries couldn’t handle.
Finally, Bormann reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small, gift-wrapped box. “This is for you, Heinz," he said with a smile as he pushed it across the desk toward the young major. “A token of my very sincere appreciation.”
Kruger stared suspiciously at the box.
“It’s not a bomb, Heinz,” Bormann laughed. “Open it."
Kruger remained leery, but he did as he was told and slowly unwrapped the box. Inside lay an elegant silver cigarette case. He picked it up, pushed the hasp, and opened the top. He saw an engraved, wreathed Nazi swastika and the words:
To My Strong Right Arm
Heinz Kruger
From His Grateful Admirer
Martin Bormann
February 9, 1945
For the first time in a long time, Heinz Kruger was truly speechless. “This is… most generous of you, Herr Reichsleiter,” he finally replied, surprised and flattered by the gesture. “It is very… elegant.”
“Consider it your diplomatic passport through the German bureaucracy,” Bormann laughed. “All you need do is open the top and offer a cigarette to any little toad who gives you a hard time, and I guarantee it will strike terror in his heart. But I doubt very many men dare challenge my young steel-eyed Siegfried, do they?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Königsberg
With the U-582 resting safely beneath the thick concrete roof of the submarine pen, Eric Bruckner finally went below. His orders were clear; he was to report to the Port Commander the moment he arrived, and that meant looking presentable. Easier said than done, he lamented as he bent over a tiny washbasin in the U-boat’s last functioning head and attacked weeks of grime with cold saltwater and a bar of harsh lye soap. As he looked into the mirror, a gaunt, unfamiliar face stared back at him. The corners of his nose and mouth were white with caked salt, and his pale skin sagged on his bones. Inside the submarine, the ever-present diesel fumes irritated everyone’s eyes and their skin had the sheen of a well-oiled corpse. With his short, crudely cropped hair, he could pass for a bum, if bums hadn’t been outlawed in the “New Germany,” along with warmth, compassion, humanity, and all those other decadent social vices.
Bruckner donned the cleaner of his two black-wool shirts, a leather sea jacket, and his distinctive white U-boat Kapitan’s hat. Soft and floppy, it had a gold insignia in front and a ring of gold braid above a jet-black brim. Clothes rarely made the man, but that white hat truly did. Most of the men who wore them were now entombed in their broken boats on the bottom of the North Atlantic. Leaving his compartment, he made a quick check through the boat, making sure the work parties had their assignments before he jumped down onto the concrete pier. Land never felt as hard as it did after a long trip at sea, knees bent against the pitch and roll of the boat, hour after hour, day after day. He flexed his legs as he walked to the end of the pier and stepped out the door into the once-proud Navy yard.
He had visited Königsberg several times before the war but he wasn’t prepared for the devastation he saw. Instead of busy construction gangs readying ships for sea, the yard lay deserted. Its workshops and warehouses had been flattened, and the concrete lay-down areas were cratered with shell holes and strewn with piles of rusting scrap metal. What a waste, he thought as he turned his collar to the wind and set off toward the Port Headquarters. Slipping and sliding through frozen mud and ice, he heard the rumble of a large truck coming up behind him. Turning to look back, he gave his friendliest smile and a wave of his hand until the rusting cargo truck ground to a halt next to him.
“Need a ride, Herr Kapitan?” the driver asked, leaning out the cracked window. “This here’s no Navy staff car, but if you don’t mind the ripped upholstry and a few loose springs, you’re welcome to the other half of my front seat.” He was a burly fellow dressed in a hodge-podge of old clothing but Bruckner didn’t care as he quickly climbed inside, glad to be out of the wind. “The name’s Stolz,” the driver said reading Bruckner’s mind. “Don’t mind the clothes. Around here, it’s catch as catch can.”
“No problem,” Bruckner laughed. “I’m just a tourist.”
“A tourist!” The driver roared, his laughter billowing out in thick, white clouds. “Me, too. I’ll tell the Russians I’m a goddamned tourist!”
Bruckner found himself laughing along with the man, laughing for the first time in a long time. “Stolz, you wouldn’t be going near the Port Headquarters, would you?”
“Or what is left of it? That’s not on my one-mark tour, but you sit back and I’ll see if I can get over there.” The big truck drove slowly away, bouncing through the deep, rock-hard ruts of ice. “By the way,” Stolz asked. “Was that your U-boat that came in this morning, Sir? The one with the old Imperial battle flag flying on the mast?”
“You noticed?”
“I’ll wager there’s some red faces over at Headquarters but, lord, it looked good, snapping and popping in the wind as your boat plowed through the waves. Brought back some real memories, I tell you,” he sighed. “Some real memories.”
The truck bounced along from one pothole to another. After a particularly fierce jolt, Bruckner was startled to hear shouts and pounding on the rear window of the cab behind him. He turned and saw a wreath of filthy, matted hair and two angry black eyes glaring at him from the other side of the small pane of glass. When they saw Bruckner’s, they didn’t flinch or back down.
“My God, Stolz! What’ve you got back there?” Bruckner demanded to know.
Stolz laughed. “That’s what Herr Goebbels calls ‘volunteer labor.’ Makes you wonder what they volunteered to get away from, don’t it. For the most part, they’re Russians, with bits and pieces of about everything else tossed in, like a bad hunter’s stew. I guess it was volunteer and be fed or sit in some stinking POW camp and starve.”
Bruckner looked back through the small window again, but the angry black eyes had disappeared. “How many have you got back there?”
“Fourteen at last count, but we get a bit of shrinkage from time to time, if you get my meaning. Here, watch this.” Stolz banged his fist on the wall of the cab and shouted, “You be quiet back there. This officer in the white hat is an SS general, a Commissar!”
Bruckner looked into the dark shadows and saw the dim shapes shrink away. He couldn’t see their eyes or faces, but he felt the fear and the hatred radiating out at him. It made him feel dirty and ashamed, wondering what it took to terrorize a man like that.
“Don’t take it personal, Kapitan. That lot wouldn’t know your white hat from my grandmother’s bonnet, but you saw what happened when I mentioned the SS. Must have been bad back there in Russia. Real bad. And as much as they hate the SS, they hate those Red secret police even worse. Stalin told them any Russian who surrenders instead of dying for his country is a traitor to be shot on sight, no questions and no excuses.”
“That has a familiar ring,” Bruckner quipped under his breath.
“Yeah, the NKVD will have a real problem when they finally take this place. They won’t know who to shoot first.” Stolz threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Them or us.”
“It’s refreshing to find a man who hasn’t lost his sense of humor.”
“Humor? When you’re swirling around the toilet bowl waiting to go down for the third time, a lot of things look funny, Kapitan,” Stolz said with a sad laugh. “By the way, I’ve worked in this shipyard since ’34, and I’ve had a wrench on everything that floats from a cruiser to a U-boat. You wouldn’t be needing a good mechanic, would you?”
“You have no idea what you’re asking for, Stolz. You’ll be one hell of a lot safer right here with the Red Army than out at sea with me.”
They reached the front of a battered warehouse and the truck ground to a halt. “I can’t promise anything, Stolz,” Bruckner relented, knowing a boat can never have too many mechanics. “Stop by and see my chief engineer. If you can convince that old bird you know which end of a wrench is which, I’ll see what I can do when the time comes.”
“Fair enough!” Stolz beamed. “And you won’t need to come looking, I’ll be there.”
Bruckner jumped to the ground. As the big truck drove away, his eyes were drawn to the tattered sheet of canvas draped over the rear cargo bed. It was too dark to see inside but he could feel angry eyes staring out, their hatred washing over him in waves. Yes, this would be a hard peace, he thought. Out there beyond the glow of the watch fires, millions of men with eyes just like these were sharpening their knives, waiting to take their revenge.
When the truck finally disappeared around the corner, Bruckner turned and stepped through the door of what was left of the Port Headquarters. Inside, he saw a jumble of empty desks and filing cabinets and a handful of thin, pale bureaucrats trying to look busy. Like the cockroach, they’ll outlive us all, he lamented. In the near corner, he saw a door marked “Adjutant.” Bruckner stuck his head inside and saw a short, bald Navy Commander in full dress uniform hunkered down behind a metal desk. On its surface lay a pile of forms, a dictionary, a pad of paper, and a row of carefully arranged pencils, all neat as a pin. On his chest, the Adjutant’s uniform bore two thin Nazi Party service ribbons and nothing else. They spoke volumes. The only deck this fellow had seen was in a box of playing cards.
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