by Daniel Wyatt
“How did you know?”
“I have my ways.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
She looked around. No one within earshot. “I came to pass on Bormann’s final message. The V-4 prototype will be spared. Hidden. Some of the radio models will be blown up to appear that they all were destroyed.”
“Why?”
“Because the SS — Heinrich Himmler — is still technically in charge of security outside the compound.”
“I know that. So, what of it?”
“Something has to be done to put on a big enough show to the other Germans, including Himmler.”
“And the files?”
“Safely put away by a member of von Braun’s staff. You find von Braun, you find the files.”
“Another waiting game.”
“It won’t be too long. The Third Reich is finished. Also, I came to say goodbye. My involvement in this has come to an end. With the war drawing to a close, you can deal directly with Bormann and the scientists. OK, Yank?”
Hollinger took a long time to answer. “Yeah.”
She held out her hand. “No bad feelings.”
He didn’t budge. If she wasn’t so beautiful, she’d be pathetic. “I’m a one-woman man, Johanna. I’ll send you a picture of my first born. My wife is due next month. I’m also a loyal American. But... you. I still don’t understand you.”
“What’s to understand, Mr. Hollinger?”
“Whose side are you on?”
“I told you before: on the side that wins, or in other words on the side of sound finance.”
“Hah! You mean both sides then. Everyone knows the Germans still have a stash hidden in this country.”
She spun around to leave. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “A time is coming, in a few years, when there will be no sides.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’ll all be one. Don’t count on it.”
Hollinger watched her walk across the lobby and disappear through the revolving doors to the street. She was talking as crazy as McCreedy.
TWENTY
Southern Germany — April 5
General George Patton took the call inside his country command post at three in the afternoon.
“General?” the frantic voice said over the telephone line.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Matt.”
Patton had a special place in his heart for General Manton Eddy, one of Patton’s Third Army commanders whose soldiers were the first to cross the Rhine only a few weeks before, ahead of British General Montgomery. “Yeah, Matt? What is it?”
“General,” Eddy blurted, out of breath, “you’re not going to believe this. It’s too damn near incredible.”
“Slow down. What won’t I believe? By the way, where the hell have you been all afternoon?”
“I’m at a salt mine near a village called Merkers.”
Patton went to his map on the wall. Merkers was in Werra, in the Thuringia Mountains, a short driving distance away. “What the hell you doing there?”
“Checking out a couple stories. First, we found a cave with, hell, there must be a billion dollars in German money in it. A billion dollars!”
Patton had been briefed by a member of Eisenhower’s staff in March that, according to rumours, the Nazis had hid their gold somewhere in southern Germany. Was this it? “Piss on the paper money. Did you find the damn gold?”
“No. At least not yet. But I think I know where it is. Or where it might be.”
Patton was growing impatient. “What the hell you talking about?”
“Listen, General. There’s a big steel door down there in the mine.”
“Well, open it, Matt!”
“We can’t.”
“Why the hell not!”
“Sir, it’s this way. We found two men of the local Reichsbank. They claim they don’t have the keys. They say the only way to get in is blow the door open.”
“So, blow it open. What the hell’s the problem?”
“You say so.”
“Anyway, what’s the second story?”
“We found another cave. A few miles away.”
“Well?” Patton shouted into the receiver.
“Sir, we found some of the strangest aircraft you ever did see. About half the size of regular fighter. And there’s no room for a pilot. Somebody said they look radio-controlled. The place is deserted. No Jerries. Everybody must have flown the coop. You gotta see these things, general. Oh, by the way, there’s also a bigger version of the funny aircraft. Just one. It was under some camouflage netting. Hell, this thing is something right out of Buck Rogers or... Superman... I don’t know.”
Patton sighed, and said, “I better call Ike.”
Bern, Switzerland — April 6
Hollinger woke up from a deep sleep. “Hello,” he grouched into the receiver, flicking the light on inside his third-floor hotel room.
“Wesley?”
“Yeah, who is this?”
“The Bern office. Did I catch you in bed?”
Hollinger recognized the fatherly voice of OSS Director Allen Dulles. “Well, sir,” he said, sitting up, squinting at his wrist watch, “it is four in the morning.”
Dulles chuckled. “Someone will be coming to your door. He has a grey suit, dark hair.”
“But, sir—” Hollinger wanted to ask how soon he should expect the visitor, but heard nothing except for the dial tone. The OSS agent barely had time to throw a night robe over his pyjamas before he heard a soft knock. “Holy, hell!” He stumbled slowly to the door, rubbing his eyes.
Another knock.
“Hollinger.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on.”
“Let me in.”
Hollinger opened up. It was the man in the grey suit, dark hair, about thirty or so. “Yeah?”
The man brushed past, stopped, smiled, and said, “You want to meet General Patton?”
Hollinger shrugged. “Sure, why not. Who wouldn’t?”
“Be ready in thirty minutes. I’ll wait. Mr. Dulles wants me to escort you to the airfield.”
“You mean I really am going to meet him?”
The man nodded. “Damn right. Come on, hurry up.”
Hohenlychen, Germany
Colonel Geinns thought it pitiful how Heinrich Himmler had been reduced to working out of a cramped compartment aboard a train that Himmler called his Steirmark Headquarters.
Geinns entered the room stacked to the ceiling with files and saluted his boss. “Heil Hitler.”
Himmler stood up. “Heil Hitler.”
“You sent for me, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“So, Herr Colonel, word tells me that the Luftwaffe tried to destroy the V-4 aircraft. Is that true, colonel?”
Geinns cleared his throat. “Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer, that was a rumour. It doesn’t matter. The Americans came down on us too soon. We all had to flee.”
Himmler grunted and said, “That’s the least of our problems right now. I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Where is your group of scientists?”
“A resort in the Harz Mountains, ordered there by the Fuehrer.”
“You mean ordered by Bormann, do you not?”
“Sir?”
“Never mind. How close are the Americans?”
“Last report, twenty miles from the barracks. But the Americans are moving away from them. They’ve veered north for the moment.”
“Do the barracks have phone service?”
“Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer. A lot of static, however.”
“I want you to run a wiretap on the phone lines, and I want you to search all letters.”
“Of all the scientists, Herr Reichsfuehrer?”
“No, just one. Karl Zeller.”
“Zeller?”
“Yes, Zeller. I want you to call me as soon as you find out he has made any contact with Herr Martin Bormann. Dismiss. Heil Hitler.” Himmler turned and sat dow
n, as Geinns left through a side door.
Himmler smirked to himself, making a notation in his diary. How lucky he was to find the information in a stashed away file, one of those that had been moved in a hurry from his last headquarters at Birkenhain with the Allies closing in. So, it seemed Zeller knew the Kiss-Ass’s family. Was this a coincidence?
TWENTY-ONE
Berlin — April 12
Hitler listened to his elated Minister of Propaganda Dr. Josef Goebbels over the static of the telephone connection running into the Fuehrerbunker.
“Mein Fuehrer, I congratulate you,” Goebbels gasped. “The Jew American leader Franklin D. Rosenfeldt has just died. It was written in the stars by our astrologers that an important event would come in the second half of April. Don’t you see, this is the turning point for Germany.”
The Fuehrer could only nod and say, “That is good Goebbels. But it is too late.”
“Don’t say that, mein Fuehrer.”
“But it is too late. I have been betrayed. By Himmler. By Goering. By the German people. They are not worthy of me.”
“I have not betrayed you, mein Fuehrer. I shall be by your side. To the end.”
Hersfeld, Germany
Generals Eisenhower, Eddy, and Patton discussed President Roosevelt’s death as they made their way to the depths of a mine shaft aboard a creaky elevator.
“Shit, how old is this thing,” Patton said with an uneasy grin, referring to the elevator, to change the subject. “I hope it doesn’t come loose before it hits the bottom.”
“Shut up, George,” Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower said, unimpressed.
“You know, if we all died here,” Patton kidded, “there would be a few instant promotions in the Army.”
Eisenhower grunted. “Quit it, George! That’s not funny.”
Then, with a mighty jerk, the elevator stopped. They were 1,500 feet below the surface. They walked into a huge hall measuring approximately seventy-five feet by a hundred and fifty feet. What they saw could have been right out of an epic Hollywood movie. Covering the floor were thousands of opened cotton bags containing gold coins and bars, all numbered on the outside. Loose paper money lined the left wall.
Eisenhower let out a whistle. “What’s the tally? Has anybody counted the stuff?”
“We sure have,” Eddy answered, pulling out a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket. “At least we’ve started. Seven thousand bags of coins, weighing twenty-five pounds each. We still haven’t counted all the valises along the far wall. But they hold gold and silver eyeglass frames, watches, wedding rings, gold and silver fillings, and such.” Eddy lowered his voice. “These, I’ve heard, are from the concentration camps, sir.”
“What else you got?” Eisenhower said, solemnly.
Eddy’s eyes concentrated on his sheet. “All told, two hundred and fifty tons of gold. All the European paper currencies are here, sir. Almost three billion Reichsmarks. Ninety-eight million French francs. And there’s the works of art, looted from the famous galleries of Europe. We estimate about 400 tons of artwork alone.”
Eisenhower turned to Patton. “George, what are you going to do with all this?”
“Well, I’ve got that figured out, Ike.” Patton rubbed his chin. “I’m going to melt down some of the gold so that every man in the Third Army would own a medallion of the European campaign. Most of it, I’d wait until those Congress bastards in Washington hold back our military funding. Then I’ll just come down here and we’ll have all the money we need for new weapons.”
Eisenhower put his head down. “I never should have asked. Let’s go, George. I want to talk to you.”
Patton and Eisenhower returned to the elevator. As the machine began the ascent, Eisenhower said, “It’s about those funny aircraft you showed me this morning.”
“What about them, Ike?”
“You’ll see. Wait until we get to the top.”
The two didn’t speak again until they reached the surface, and stepped off the elevator.
“George,” Eisenhower said, “I want you to meet someone. Remember that young man in civilian clothes you saw before we went down the shaft?”
“Yeah. You mean that fellah over there?” Patton pointed across the rocky clearing. He wondered why the superbly dressed man wasn’t in uniform.
“That’s him.” Eisenhower waved for the man to come over.
Wesley Hollinger was nervous. It seemed like an eternity before Eisenhower and Patton had popped to the surface. “Yes, sir,” he croaked.
“George, meet Wesley Hollinger.”
Patton shook hands with the agent. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hollinger.”
Hollinger cleared his throat. He was surprised at how high Patton’s voice was. “The pleasure is all mine, General Patton.”
“So what’s up?” Patton asked, his eyes darting from Eisenhower to the American civilian. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“General... sir... those strange aircraft you saw recently...”
“Yeah?”
“I have been asked — no... ordered — to tell you that you are not to divulge that you saw them or even heard about them. They do not exist.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because the whole thing is out of your hands. It is not a military matter.”
“How the hell could that be? They’re obviously military aircraft! What gives, Ike?”
“Shut up and listen to the man, George.”
“General Patton,” Hollinger continued, braver by the second, “I have a communiqué here from Washington handing over all authority — anything regarding these aircraft — to my department. We are also asking you to lift the Third Army guards from the area once we move in.”
“Let me see the letter,” Patton demanded, hand out, his eyes glaring at Hollinger.
“Of course, sir.” Hollinger dug for the evidence in his suit jacket.
Patton read the paper quickly. “Son of a bitch! So, you’re with the OSS. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Well, I’ll be a—”
London
She read the dispatch delivered to her Secret Service desk with disinterest. It didn’t say much, only that Wesley said he was still in good spirits and well fed. But still no word on when he was coming home.
Roberta rose from her chair to remove a file from her cabinet. It was near the end of the workday. It was then that it hit her... a crippling pain in her stomach that doubled her over. She dug her nails into the arm rests to pull herself back to her chair, catching her breath at the same time.
Was this it? A month early? And with Wesley so far away?
Berlin — April 14
Bormann laughed to himself when Goebbels arrived that day at the Fuehrerbunker. Dr. Goebbels kept his word with the Fuehrer. And it only took two days. He would stand by Hitler’s side. To the end, if need be. What a fool Goebbels was. They were all fools.
“I will tell the Fuehrer you are here, Herr Goebbels,” Bormann notified the limping Propaganda Minister, stopping him in the hall with a cold stare.
Goebbels bowed his head slightly, his wife and six children standing off to the side. “Thank you, Herr Bormann. But the Fuehrer knows I’m—”
“Stay here. The Fuehrer may be resting.” Bormann turned into Hitler’s office.
“Why do you let that grotesque man bully you?” Goebbels wife, Magda, whispered.
“Hush, my dear.” Goebbels leaned on his cane.
Dr. Josef Goebbels was a forty-eight-year-old dwarf of a man. He hated Jews more than any other Nazi leader. As a result of osteomyelitis, an inflammation of the bone marrow as a child, his left leg was four inches shorter than his right. He was cursed with a permanent limp and little strength to his left side. When the Nazi movement began, he had sworn absolute loyalty to Hitler. And now he wished to be Hitler’s most noble of knights. At work, Goebbels was the leading Nazi propagandist, the cultural dictator over domestic German life. At play, he was known to have many affai
rs with high-class German women.
Bormann returned quickly. “The Fuehrer is ready to receive you now, Herr Goebbels.”
London
Roberta was sitting up, fully dressed, when Colonel Lampert arrived at the hospital early next morning.
“I came as soon as I could.”
“Thank you.”
“How are you?”
“False call,” she sighed.
Lampert shook his head. “You must take better care of yourself, Roberta. You are working too hard. You only have a month to go. See here, I should tell you that I have made arrangements for someone else to do your paperwork for the next few months.”
“But, sir.” She pouted. “I’ll go crazy. I’ve nothing to do.”
“Now, now. Let’s not have any of that. You’re to stay home until your time comes. It’s already been taken care of. No arguments.”
“Yes, sir,” she relented.
“Have you cabled Wesley?”
“No, I haven’t, colonel.”
“Why not?”
“I... don’t want him to worry. He must have enough things on his mind at the moment, whatever they are.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He moved towards her. “Here, my dear, let me help you to my auto. You don’t look well.”
“Thanks, colonel.”
TWENTY-TWO
Wustrow, Germany — April 17
Himmler held the cable from Geinns in his hands, inside his latest headquarters at Ziethen Castle on the Baltic Coast, east of Lubeck. It had taken Geinns most of that week to dig up the dirt on scientist Karl Zeller. One wiretapped telephone conversation between Zeller and Bormann was the proof. Himmler looked down and read.
B: They were not destroyed. Why?
Z: No time. Patton’s army found them.
B: Intact?
Z: Yes.
B: The blueprints, are they safe?
Z: Yes.
B: Goodbye.
Z: Goodbye.
