“We can’t keep walking much longer,” Anja said. “The water is too powerful. We should just let go and allow ourselves to be carried. We will use less energy. We won’t be fighting it. We can just drift.”
“Tante is right,” Nadine said.
Johann felt something brush against his leg. There was now a cascade of solid objects in the water buffeting them.
“That makes sense,” Johann said reluctantly. “Let yourself drift with the flow of the river, but don’t let go—or we will lose each other in the darkness.”
Each of them dropped down into the water, their heads submerged in the frigid liquid momentarily before rising to the surface. Despite the cold, Johann found his brief moment beneath the surface a relief from the din of the tunnel. They gasped from the chill as they resurfaced, the water dragging them forward. They clung to each other tightly; if they lost touch, they would never find each other again in the murky pandemonium. Johann was concerned that the briefcase might slip from his belt, but it appeared to be stable, for the time being.
He reasoned that they had no choice but to sink into the water; it was becoming impossible to walk, and the flood would carry them down the tunnel toward Lehrter Bahnhof. He tried to put his foot down and realized that he could no longer touch the ground. They were at the mercy of a surging torrent of water that continued to increase in ferocity by the moment. Johann could only wonder at the volume of water flooding into the tunnel. The three of them were now being carried along like the pieces of flotsam that they could feel alongside them in the stream.
Johann shivered uncontrollably. The water was so cold that the only part of his body that didn’t feel frigid was his left hand, which was wrapped tightly around Nadine’s. He focused on that task alone. He would never let the girl go. He would hold on to her until the end of the earth if he had to.
The water rose ever higher, the pace of its flow increasing with every additional gallon flowing from the river.
“Where is the station?” Anja shouted. “We should be there now.”
She was right: They had been traveling long enough to have reached the light they had seen before. Johann craned his neck above the waves, but all he could see in the distance was blackness.
Then, suddenly, there in the water beneath them, they saw something—a light of some kind.
There!
Johann twisted and tried to look down.
His heart sank: What he saw was a lone flashlight. Somehow it had remained active, its light still on. Perhaps its batteries were somehow protected within a watertight container? Johann had no idea, but what the beam illuminated filled him with horror—a sign for Lehrter Bahnhof U-Bahn station.
The station they had hoped to escape from wasn’t ahead of them; it was now below them, submerged in twelve feet of water.
Anja must have seen the same thing.
“Oh, my God!” she cried, her voice echoing in the diminishing space above them. It was the first time Johann had heard her express dismay.
Johann cast his eyes around the space they found themselves in. He saw the outline of Anja’s and Nadine’s soaking heads and the vaulted ceiling of the station above as the three of them hurtled forward. He looked for anything that might offer them an opportunity to escape. There were no exits to be seen—all were several feet below the surface of the water. Johann grew even more fraught. There must be something, he thought.
There must be something.…
And then he saw an opportunity careering toward him. A steel support for the tunnel about a foot in width that jutted out from the wall. Johann was almost upon the object when he reached for it. His hand was so cold that, at first, he could barely tell if he had made contact. Then he felt his hand slipping a little and knew that he had purchase. He found a lip on the edge of the beam and felt himself stop moving. As the water gushed against him he summoned his strength and pulled Nadine and Anja toward him.
Nadine came close first.
“Grab it! Grab it!” Johann shouted to the girl, who snatched at the beam, clasping it. Once she had hold of the pillar, Johann moved around to help haul Anja toward them. When she had a grip Johann carefully moved her and Nadine around so that they were upstream of the object—that way they were being pushed into it rather than dragged away from it.
Each of them gasped for breath, the water bubbling wildly around them.
“What’s happening?” Anja asked. Her teeth were chattering.
“It’s fresh water,” Johann replied, trying to get a better grip on the metal frame.
“It must be from the river,” Anja said. “Or the canal.”
“We must find a way up,” Johann said, looking around. He knew that there were ladders built into the U-Bahn that allowed workers to access parts of the track directly from street level. “There must be something nearby.”
“What happens if we just keep drifting?” Nadine asked. “The water must end at some point, mustn’t it?”
Neither of the adults said anything. They had no idea. It was unlikely that they would find themselves washed gently onto their feet; more likely they would be trapped—against a grate, forced into a chamber filled with water—and would drown. The temperature of the water was also a problem. None of them could feel their extremities any longer. Before long their bodies would begin to shut down in order to protect their vital organs.
But there was a more pressing problem. The small amount of light allowed them to get a sense of their surroundings. Johann had realized that they were perhaps twenty feet above the tracks. This did not leave much room for the water to rise. He reached up and his fingertips ran along the damp indentations of tile. They were probably no more than four feet beneath the highest point of the arched tunnel roof now. Before too long their heads would be pressed against the ceiling, sucking the last vestiges of oxygen. After that… Johann figured there was probably a foot or two more breathing room in the center of the tunnel, but the rapid movement of the water would make it impossible for them to hold their position: They would be carried where the torrent took them. They would effectively be stuck in a pipe full of water.
“It’s still rising,” Nadine cried, as if having had the same realization as Johann. Anja looked upward, her chin dripping with water. Her face was resolute, but Johann could see mild panic in her movements, which were twitchy and uncontrolled.
Suddenly the tunnel was filled with a different noise: A scream echoed above the gushing of the water.
It was Nadine.
Johann spun around. Her face: distorted, animated, horrified.
She pushed at the water frantically, summoning a level of intensity that was matched by Johann as he too thrust his hand into the water, pushing whatever it was away from himself and the others. He found his palm pressed against cloth with something firm beneath it. Something hard. Johann shoved harder—the force of the flood was driving the object against them. It pulled away momentarily, before revolving toward them again as it became caught up in the torrent.
It was then that Johann saw what Nadine had seen: the bloated, injured face of a dead man floating above the waterline. The skin on his face was so pale that he looked like an apparition, moving toward the three of them like a ghoul gliding through the dark water.
Nadine screamed again as the corpse nudged her. She went to push the body away farther.
And then, in an instant, she was gone.
It had happened so quickly, and the light was so dim, that Johann couldn’t tell how she had lost her grip on the pillar. All he and Anja knew was that she had been there only a moment before. Now she was tumbling, alone, through the tunnel. Johann and Anja exchanged a look of horror.
“Quick!” Anja said. She reached out to Johann, who took her hand. The two of them plunged back into the surging water in pursuit of their niece. Unidentifiable objects—rubbish, vermin, rocks—struck them as they were driven downstream.
It was as if there was no cohesion to the world any longer; everything had fallen to p
ieces. They were tumbling toward an end that, despite all they had seen over the previous years, they could never have imagined. They were thrown forward into frothing, violent darkness, their fingers gripped tightly to each other, their hearts heavy with hopelessness: How would they ever locate Nadine in this subterranean tempest? Johann held out the hand that wasn’t grasping his wife’s, casting around helplessly with the prospect that he might find Nadine.
Johann looked for her frantically. He could make out the arch of the top of the tunnel and could tell the difference between the curve of the masonry and the water. Suddenly he made out a shape that interrupted the uniformity. After a moment he could tell by the object’s shape that it was human.
“Here!” Nadine shouted. “I’m here.” He couldn’t tell whether she had seen them, or was shouting blindly in the hope that they would hear her.
They came rushing toward her. Johann realized that she could see them, as she was reaching her hand in their direction. He would only have one chance to grab her hand. If he misjudged, then he and Anja would be past in an instant.
He attempted to swim toward Nadine, but there wasn’t time to move as much as he would like. He realized that he needed to stabilize himself and offer Nadine as big a target as possible to grab on to. He tried to keep afloat while reaching over to her.… He had maybe three seconds until he and Anja reached Nadine.…
He felt her wrist. He closed his fingers around it before feeling her do the same to him.
He had her.
He gripped Anja’s hand fiercely and attempted to haul them both toward Nadine. The girl was clinging to a metal pipe that ran up the wall and through the top of the tunnel. Nadine cried out as she struggled to haul them toward her, every sinew of her body straining as if her very being depended on it.
And then, Johann felt a shudder pass through her body.
Something had given way….
She was on top of him now, flailing in the water to find some balance, thrashing to try and get her breath.
The water swept them away again.
Johann clung to Anja and Nadine as the three of them tumbled, helpless and freezing, deeper into the darkness.
28
Dieter rolled over. The floor beneath his back was sticky; he was lying in a pool of his own blood. He remembered now. Johann had done this to him. He pressed his palm to his scalp and felt a gluey residue. It had clotted. He could have it dressed later.
The key.
His hand reached down to his pocket in a flash. It was there.
He pulled out the trophy and examined it. There was nothing distinctive about it: a simple metal object with a number of prongs at one end and a loop at the other. But to Dieter, its value was immeasurable; it signified the end of an eleven-year quest. The riches that Nicolas has squirreled away would be his. From the day Johann had disappeared, Dieter knew that his half brother had walked away with the key. He remembered where Nicolas had kept it in his desk. As an adolescent he had often opened the drawer to examine the object and contemplate its secrets.
Now he held it again.
The briefcase.
His eyes searched frantically around the room. He winced with pain—Johann had taken it. Damn him. Dieter was furious with himself—how had he been so foolish as to let it slip from his grasp again?
He scrambled to his feet and made his way outside to discover that his staff car was buried under a pile of bricks that had fallen from a damaged part of the Führungshauptamt security headquarters. He limped over to a corporal who ran the garage and demanded a vehicle.
“Of course, Sturmbannführer,” came the reply as the man fretfully tried to secure Dieter a car. Eventually a Kübelwagen whose occupants had recently been killed was secured. Dieter sped off, ignoring the slashes in the vehicle made by shrapnel and the blood that appeared to have been sprayed on the seats. There was a thick yellow blanket of smoke throughout most of the government district and little wind, meaning that Dieter had to drive slowly, the wheels of the jeep bouncing off bricks and other obstacles littering the road. Dieter found a rag in the car and cleaned the windshield, which was smeared with something ochre. There appeared to be more troops in the city than there had been only that morning. The last remaining units were being pulled back for the final stand.
There had been little direct talk among the SS officers about the coming days, but it was clear from the manner and individual traits of some that there were those contemplating escape to the south—he had heard many of the Party officials had already fled to Bavaria. Others, of course, would fight fanatically to the end. Those in the latter group had no intention of surviving; they would die defending the city or take their own lives—the prospect of a Soviet gulag was not worth contemplating. Most of the soldiers he saw in the streets were SS units, the most uncompromising of the formerly formidable Nazi war machine. The old men of the Volkssturm and units of the Hitler Youth with their Panzerfäust would make up the numbers.
Dieter would fight. He would kill Bolsheviks with pleasure. There would be no stepping backward until the last minute when he would find whoever was left and join the much-talked-about breakout of Berlin. The Fourth Panzer Army was said to be coming from the south and would enable remaining forces to escape the city. Some would regroup to face the Soviets elsewhere. Others, Dieter included, would head south and lie low until the call came again, as it was sure to.
He needed to focus on more pressing matters and retrieve the briefcase. He knew Johann would eventually head to the station—it was the only exit point from the city. He would capture him there. No, not capture—kill. Even so, he was being pulled elsewhere by an irresistible force.
He pulled up at the bank on Behrenstraße. The façade was pockmarked with holes from flying debris, but the building’s structure appeared sound. He banged on a thick wooden door. There was no answer. It was 3 p.m.; they were supposed to be open. He would need to judge it right. And he would need to have the means to start again. Dieter still marveled at how many of the city’s institutions—the post office, the factories, the civil service—continued to function, despite the collapse of the state. The chaos occurring in government and military buildings was unmatched in parts of the civilian world. Even most banks were still open, although staff was largely going through the motions.
Dieter continued knocking and eventually a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair and a black suit opened the door.
“Come in, sir,” he said graciously.
Dieter walked in and saw a number of women sweeping the floor where some windows had shattered. There was paperwork strewn throughout the lobby.
“I apologize for the mess,” the man said. “We only just came up from the cellar. The last raid was rather a long one and I’m afraid that we suffered some damage. It appears to be largely inconsequential and we are, of course, open for business.”
The bank manager did not seem intimidated by Dieter’s uniform, or the fact that the SS man was smothered with both his own blood and blood from inside the Kübelwagen. The banks had remained largely untouched by the Party, which had been careful not to alarm the population with changes that would cause the public to doubt their financial institutions. A phone rang in the background. One of the women put her broom down and hurried over to pick it up. She answered it as if it were a bright summer day and all was right with the world.
“I have a personal matter to attend to,” Dieter said, producing the key and holding it in front of the manager.
“Very good, sir,” the man said. “Please follow me.” As Dieter proceeded after him toward a metal gate, he noticed pieces of plaster nestling in the manager’s hair. He unlocked the gate and allowed Dieter to pass through. Locking it behind them, the man led Dieter down a marble staircase. The brass on the handrail looked as if it might have been polished that morning. The grandeur impressed Dieter: It was the kind of place where the rich discreetly went about their business, where conversations were held in whispers. It felt entirely cut off from
the collapse that was occurring beyond its doors.
“If I may be so bold, sir,” the manager said, lowering his voice, “you should be aware that, despite the circumstances, we are confident that there has been no decline in the high standards we hold ourselves to. As you can see, we are several meters belowground now. The basement is entirely safe. Should the main entrance become impassable, we have other methods of allowing our clients access.”
“I’m heartened to hear that,” Dieter said.
They arrived in an anteroom, which was lit by several candles.
“I’m afraid that we no longer have electricity down here,” the manager explained.
“It must be a local problem,” Dieter said.
The manager looked at him with disbelief, before correcting himself. “Quite so,” he replied, approaching a desk. “Now, I need the name and number of the account.”
“Meier,” Dieter said. It felt odd speaking his stepfather’s surname as if it were his own.
“And the security identification number?” the manager asked, sliding a piece of paper and a pen toward Dieter, who wrote the four digits. The man compared them to a column of numbers in the back of a ledger and nodded.
Dieter wanted the process to progress more quickly. As sweet as it was to finally have the key, Dieter’s victory was hollow without the briefcase. He knew that Standartenführer Keller would sacrifice him without hesitation if the microfilm was not retrieved.
The manager produced another leather-bound ledger. This one was thicker than the first. He ran his finger along several columns before it hovered over some numbers.
“Right,” he said, then produced a fountain pen and wrote the date in a neatly ruled column. “Very good. Sign here, please.”
Dieter scrawled his name. The man blotted the ink dry.
He left the ledger on the desk and walked toward a thick metal door that had been decorated with fleurs-de-lis. He turned a key twice, and two levered bolts, top and bottom, slid open. The manager pushed the door and the two men walked in.
The Nero Decree Page 31
