by Daniel Wyatt
“Good evening, Professor.”
Haushofer smiled and nodded at the man who had risen from a World War I veteran-turned-student to such glorious heights in the last twenty years. “Good evening, Rudolf. Chilly night.”
“That it is. Thank you for coming.”
“You are very welcome.”
Haushofer started the ignition. He waited until he drove onto the road before he asked with a note of anxiety, “Are you still going to attempt your mission?”
“Yes, of course I am. All is ready.”
“Must you? The North Sea in spring can be awful. You are heading right into the jaws of the enemy. Let diplomacy decide the fate and process of peace. Albrecht is still making contacts. He thinks it’s wrong to fly to Britain, regardless of the English position and their recent military defeats.”
“I know. Your son has told me. But Albrecht can’t seem to break through.”
Hess stared into the darkened night as the professor roared over the open road. Hess had never doubted his mission before and he wouldn’t now. Two nights before he had dreamt he entered an old country castle carrying a briefcase, and proceeded down a long, high corridor lined with oil paintings of Scottish and English country settings. It seemed so real at the time, as if he had been there before. The dream meant one thing to him. It confirmed the importance of completing his mission. And the only way to do that was to appear before the British group. In person.
“The Fuehrer is using you. You’re his sacrificial lamb.” The professor could always talk freely with Hess, without reprisals. “The others,” he went on, “Goering, Himmler, Goebbels, do not care at all. Albrecht knows the British. He has been to the Isles. He can vouch for them. Give him a chance.”
“I know your son’s views, professor,” Hess said, cutting his friend short. “He hates any war, this one especially. But what tangible progress has he made with his own peace feelers? Nothing! I have to reach the appeasers myself.”
“When?”
“Any day. Two, three weeks at the most.”
Haushofer was horrified. “Mein Gott!”
“Professor, all I want is your support. It’s my decision to fly to Great Britain. My mind is made up. Please, there is nothing else to say on the subject.” Hess stared into the night, as the car raced over the road. “How is your dear wife?”
SEVEN
Near Eaglesham, Scotland — April 4
Wing Commander the Duke of Hamilton strolled the gardens of his Dungavel Castle country estate in the moors, as the sun poked through the surface mist that had rolled off the Firth of Clyde at dawn.
The handsome and wealthy Royal Air Force Commanding Officer in charge of the aerial defence of Scotland and northern England greeted his visitor Simon Brenwood with a firm handshake. A former amateur boxing champion, the duke was now closing in on forty, not a tall man, but wiry. A one-time member of the House of Commons, he was internationally known for being the first pilot to fly over Mount Everest in 1933.
“What brings you here, Simon?”
“See for yourself, Douglo,” Brenwood said, using Hamilton’s nickname.
Hamilton read through the long, decoded Enigma II message handed him. It was from Rudolf Hess to Brenwood, identified not by their surnames but by their appropriate codenames of Deputy and Lion.Now it seemed that Hess would be using the new codename of Falcon. And there was also a new name for the undertaking — Operation Night Eagle. Hamilton read on, then stopped.
“I’ve seen enough. He can’t be serious. Can he?”
“I’m afraid he is, Douglo.”
“How did he know about Dunhampton in the first place? Who told him? You?”
Brenwood looked insulted. “Of course not. I don’t doubt that German intelligence is up on these things.”
Hamilton gave the creased sheet back to Brenwood without bothering to read the final part. “I suppose the group expects me to give him free passage all the way in now.”
“Yes, we do. You have the means to do it for us.”
“I might have the means, but has anyone thought of the risks? We’ve gone from an unknown Luftwaffe pilot dropping a mere package on a secluded North Sea beach, to the Deputy Fuehrer flying across Scotland and landing with peace proposals from Adolf Hitler. Anything could go wrong. Anything! It was my understanding that I would not appear connected with the group in any way other than allowing the airplane’s safety along the length of the beach. Now he wants to land? Germans are a strange lot. He’s got to be mad!”
“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Brenwood conceded. “I want this whole mess to be over with myself. My nerves are on edge.” He sighed. “I was thinking on the way here. Hess must feel that his ME-110 landing at Dunhampton would not seem that peculiar, seeing as it is an aerodrome for captured German aircraft. Besides, we’re forgetting something.”
“We are? What?”
“Hess must be bringing some very important papers with him, papers that he couldn’t trust anyone else with.”
Hamilton shook his head. His silence spoke volumes to Brenwood. They walked further into the garden, away from the stone house. They came across a brick path and followed it past roses in early bud. Brenwood looked up at the famous officer who was nearly a head taller than he was. He knew Hamilton was a moody individual, a hard person to get to know, almost as if he were two people. Behind his watchful face loomed a complicated man.
“We’re in this too far to stop now,” Brenwood said. “The good of Britain is the vital thing here. Churchill’s policies are ruining us. The bastard wins every debate, while our fighting men lose almost every battle. Rommel is whipping our boys in North Africa and he’s threatening the Suez. The German U-boats are sinking more than their share of our supplies coming over from Canada and America. Furthermore, if the bombing in London keeps up, there won’t be anything left of it in another year or so. If Hitler is offering us a generous peace, we should take it. Why keep fighting him?”
Hamilton stopped and faced the businessman. “And what about your own interests? Obviously you don’t want anything to happen to them if Hitler expands into new territory.”
“That’s not the only matter on my mind. I am an Englishman first; loyal to my country.”
“Oh,” Hamilton replied, his eyes telegraphing that he was unconvinced of Brenwood’s outward sincerity.
“What else can we do? All the other attempts at peace have failed. We’re in too deep. The group and Hess want to know if you can secure a safe flight and landing at Dunhampton.”
Hamilton weighed the suggestion. “On one condition.”
“And that is?”
“I never meet Hess. I told you before I don’t want anything to do with him. Conduct the negotiations without me.”
“Yes and no. Dunhampton is twenty-four miles away. You see, for convenience sake, we were thinking of using your castle for the negotiations.”
“Oh, no.” The colour drained from Hamilton’s face. “Certainly not.”
Brenwood showed Hamilton the final portion of the message. “It’s all here in the last part of the message. I’ll look after everything, and I’ll pay off your servants for the day so they are not around.”
“My word. Bring Hess to my house! You’ve really done it now.”
“If not, we may be forced to call the flight off.”
“Then call it off.”
“We can’t because we need more suitable and less hostile surroundings to confer with Hess. Another thing, I will provide the interpreter. The last time I met Hess he spoke very little English.”
“You’re going to provide the interpreter. Now there’s a load off my mind.”
“Please, Douglo. We need your cooperation.”
“Oh, do it then,” Hamilton finally agreed, after a long interval. “I won’t be here. I’ll make damn sure I’m on duty.”
“That’s quite all right with me, my good man. Just let him fly in safely. We’ll do the rest.”
* * * *
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br /> Bletchley Park — April 5
Colonel Lampert thought it unusual that a cluster of men and women were under the porch at Hut Nine, smoking and shielding themselves from the light rain, when they should be inside. He steered the car over to the shoulder of the gravel road, got out, and closed in on the crowd.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Spencer Winslow greeted the colonel. He puffed on his cigarette, flipping up the collar of his trench coat.
Lampert stared oddly at the group, then at the butts on the gravel. “What the devil is going on? What are you doing out here in the rain?”
“New rules, sir.”
“It’s more like the beginning of a reign of terror,” said an elderly woman in the back, who Lampert knew as Grace Dealey, a secretary transferred from another hut to handle the extra Enigma II load. “I’ve never been so embarrassed.”
Lampert’s eyes fell on Winslow. “What’s the meaning of this? What new rules?”
“Since yesterday there is a total smoking ban inside Hut Nine.”
“Who made such an asinine rule like that?”
“Our American cousin, sir,” Dealey spoke up.
Lampert carefully pulled out his pipe, pushed some tobacco in the end, lit it, then dropped the match to the gravel. “We’ll see about this.”
“They’re starting to refer to him as the Tyrant of Hut Nine,” Winslow said, an amused curl on his upper lip.
“I wonder why?” Lampert said, entering the building and slamming the door behind him.
Dealey tapped Winslow on the shoulder. “That’s it for our new boss. Lampert will eat him up and ship him back to Washington.”
“I wouldn’t take bets on it, Grace.”
Lampert removed his coat inside the hut and tucked it under his arm. Right off, he saw two hand-written NO SMOKING signs in extremely large letters pinned to the walls in the bare lobby. Livid, he stomped the length of the hall to Hollinger’s office, where he expected to see the standard stark furniture. Instead, to his amazement, the office had been outfitted with a new desk and chairs, and a dartboard, of all things, on one wall. Lampert went over to Hollinger’s desk and fingered a pair of steel-rimmed sunglasses, which he took to be an American make, similar to the type worn by the American pilots in the RAF.
“Why, colonel.”
Lampert spun around to see Roberta Langford at the door.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” she said. “Welcome back.”
“Welcome back, my eye. Where’s Hollinger?”
“I believe he’s in the workroom, sir.”
“Take me to him this instant.”
“Yes, sir. Follow me.”
Langford led the colonel to a large room at the extreme rear of Hut Nine. Inside were four or five-inch-high stacks of paper neatly arranged on long benches. Hollinger sat beside one of the benches flipping through one of the stacks, the sleeves of his monogrammed shirt rolled up.
Lampert approached the youngster. “Hollinger, what’s the meaning of this ridiculous rule of no smoking in the building?”
Hollinger stood slowly and cautiously, glancing over at Langford. “Why don’t we go over to my office, sir, and discuss it?”
“Your office? That’s another thing. Good God man, where did you get all that furniture? It must have cost a king’s ransom. And a confounded dartboard? Do you have that much time on your hands? We’re not running a country club here!”
“The dart board is a pressure release, sir,” Hollinger replied.
“I’ll vouch for that, colonel,” Langford said, keeping a straight face.
“As for the furniture,” Hollinger continued. “When I was appointed your understudy at Committee B, I was told that I could make any improvements that I felt were in the best interests of the Secret Service. Therefore, I decided that if I was to spend considerable time with visitors and work associates,” he nodded at Langford, “then I should make use of more comfortable furniture. I also outfitted Langford’s office. She needed new chairs badly. The old ones were falling apart.” Langford smiled at Hollinger, but turned away when Lampert shot a glance at her. “As for the ‘no smoking’ signs, well, sir, you can’t knock my reasons. Two days ago we nearly had a fire in here from a dropped cigar ash. Some people are far too sloppy for their own good when it comes to smoking. There are far too many important papers in this room and the entire hut. We do not want any setbacks due to human carelessness, do we now, colonel? With that in mind, I banned smoking in the whole hut. If anyone has to light up,” he went on, staring at Lampert’s smouldering pipe, “then he or she will have to do it outside in the cold.”
Lampert didn’t know what to say as a rebuttal. It was radical, but his reasoning too sound to argue with. Hollinger had him. He took the pipe from his mouth and banged the tobacco into an empty waste-paper bin, watching the ashes until they burned themselves out.
“Thank you, colonel.”
“Anything new since the last time we spoke?”
“No, sir,” Hollinger answered. “The computer and the mathematicians are still breaking the cipher variables down. If Langford is bang-on with her discovery, we’ll know any day.”
“We hope,” Langford added.
“The minute you get anything, I want to know. And, I want any ciphers with the destination of Stockholm brought to me in person.”
“Why Stockholm, sir?”
“Never you mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want them as fast as you can drive them up to me. But I still want them in one piece. Don’t kill yourself racing them to London.” Lampert began to suck on his pipe, then looked at it strangely, suddenly realizing it was not lit. He quickly yanked it from his mouth. “And I do not want you to discuss the contents of these Stockholm intercepts with anyone else. Understood?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Hollinger replied. “Got that Langford?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Carry on.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Lampert turned for the door, Hollinger gestured a stiff thumbs-up to Langford across the room. All she could do was frown and mouth you’re lucky.
EIGHT
Berchtesgaden, Germany — April 8
Martin Bormann, Rudolf Hess’s Chief of Staff and Adolf Hitler’s constant companion at Berghof, appeared at the door to Hitler’s reception room. It was a magnificent room, containing the largest picture window in Germany. Lining one wall was the Fuehrer’s collection of rare and tropical birds. Bormann found Hitler feeding a brightly coloured toucan with orange and apple slices.
“That’s my boy. You won’t die like the others, will you, Frederick,” Hitler said softly, dropping the fruit pieces inside and closing the cage. He wore his most common attire today, a wrinkled grey coat and baggy black trousers, his World War I Iron Cross pinned to his breast. Hitler was especially fond of the Central American toucan, enjoying the way it would jab at the fruit with its long beak. Visitors over the years had brought foreign birds to Hitler at Berghof as presents, but many of them had died in the harsh mountain air. Two years before he received his first toucan, which had lived for barely three weeks. So far, Frederick, which Hitler had named after the Prussian leader, Frederick the Great, had made it through two months with no ill effects.
“Excuse me, mein Fuehrer.”
Hitler brushed his hand across the bars of the cage to catch the toucan’s attention. It jerked its head and looked up. Hitler mimicked the bird by nodding his head at it. “That’s my boy. Yes, Bormann, what do you want?” Hitler asked sharply, his eyes on the bird.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, mein Fuehrer. But Reichmarshall Goering is on the telephone from Karinhall.”
“I’ll be back, Frederick.” Hitler looked over at his heavy-set, round-faced confidant. “I’ll take it on the scrambler.”
“Yes, certainly, mein Fuehrer.”
Hitler trotted into his study, hands behind his back, and sat down at his desk. A metal box rested beside him. It was about two fe
et square with a series of wires and contact plugs connected to the desk telephone. Hitler turned to his left and punched a button on the side of the phone, engaging the scrambler.
“Goering?” Hitler’s voice was now split into five smaller garbled bands that raced through the telephone lines and reassembled at the receiving telephone.
Hitler listened as the Reichmarshall opened the conversation.
“Yes, Goering. You heard it correctly. It’s true,” Hitler said, as he reached into his coat pocket for a chocolate. “I want the modifications to Hess’s aircraft approved. Yes, whatever he wants. Do it. Never mind about Croneiss,” he said, referring to Theo Croneiss, the Messerschmitt technical director at Augsburg. Hitler listened, nodding. “Yes, it was proper for him to follow the chain of command and call you. But I want it done.”
Hitler waited to hear Goering’s itemized list of changes. “Why all those you ask? Because Hess will fly to Great Britain.” There was no reply on the other end. “Goering, are you still there?”
* * * *
Dolln See, Germany
Hermann Goering dropped the receiver into the cradle and folded his arms over his loud, medal-garnished Luftwaffe uniform. He would soon be off to Berlin, two hours driving time from his lavish Karinhall chalet on the Schorf Heath, a picturesque Prussian terrain of forests and lakes that stretched to the Baltic coast.
The Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief laughed heartily. Goering hated intellectuals like Hess; an abstainer, a vegetarian, a man who prided himself on such culturally elite subjects as geopolitics. The two had loathed each other for years, and were often separated at party rallies to prevent any confrontation that would embarrass the High Command. Goering recalled Hitler’s general order forbidding all Nazi leaders from piloting their own airplanes for obvious reasons of safety. How had Hess been getting away with it? Hess had to be a fool. The whole thing had to be his idea, the buffoon, not the Fuehrer’s.
