by Greg Iles
Martin Bormann opened the door and stood there stubbornly, ignoring
Heydrich. "You asked me to inform you when the generals finished their
dinner, my Fuhrer."
"So I did, Bormann, thank you. Dismissed."
Bormann reluctantly closed the door. Hitler folded his arms and peered
closely at Heydrich. "Do you foresee difficulties, Herr
Obergruppenftihrer?"
"None, my Fuhrer," Heydrich replied automatically.
Hitler raised his chin and smiled. "That is why I selected you for this
mission. The word impossible is one you never learned. If my generals
had the same attitude, we would be in Moscow by now."
Heydrich inclined his head briefly.
"I am going you give you a name, Heydrich. You will never repeat it.
You will never write it down. This is t e Englishman you may contact if
there is vital information you cannot obtain by any other means.
Churchill's likely. whereabouts, such matters as that. His name is
Robert Stanton@' "Lord Granville?" Heydrich ejaculated. He reddened.
"I apologize for the interruption, my Fuhrer, but "But he is the last
man you would have guessed to betray his king?" Hitler smiled wickedly.
"That is good. Just remember, you will never use his name@nly his code
name.
Lord Granville is Mordred."
While Heydrich's brain raced, Hitler said, "I'll go downstairs first.
You follow in a few minutes. I don't want MY generals to know of our
meeting. On the eleventh of May I shall present them with afait
accompli, just as I did with my 1939 pact with Stalin. That should
stiffen their resolve when they cross into Russia!"
,It should indeed, my Fuhrer!"
"The operation must take place on t'he tenth of May, Heydrich.
Other wheels are already in motion. When your plan is ready, call
Bormann and say the word Mordred- He'll set up another meeting."
Hitler reached for the door handle, then paused. "By the way, about
those files you have compiled on potential traitors. is Hess among
them?"
Heydrich nodded solemnly.
"Burn his file."
"The moment I return to Berlin, my Fuhrer-" Hitler saluted smartly.
"Guten Abend, Herr Obergruppenfiihrer." the closing door.
In Heydrich's "Heil Hitler!" died against spite of his pounding heart,
he resumed his cross-legged position on the edge of the bed. He sat
absolfately still, and before five minutes passed, his throbbing pulse
had returned to a point of equilibrium that most men of eighteen would
be hard put to equal at rest. He stood deliberately, passed a slim hand
over his blond hair, and walked into the hallHalfway down the stairs, he
heard a ftirtive noise behind him. Eva Braun again? Bener to let it
pass, he thought. But he could not. His predatory instincts were too
strong. With the stealth of a leopard, Heydrich turned and crept back
up the stairs.
He arrived on the second floor just in time to see the round-shouldered
back of Martin Bormann disappear into the bedroom opposite the one Eva
Braun had leaned out of.
Heydrich heard the shallow tinkle of girlish laughter, and as the door
closed he glimpsed a swatch of unclad flesh. For a moment he stood
still. Then, @most as if pulled against his will, he moved up close
against the door.
He heard the laughter again, like cheap crystal. First teasing, then
hysterical, it had a lilt of drunkenness in it. Then a sharp cry of
pain pierced the door. Dry-throated, Heydrich tried to swallow. He
heard another cry. Then a deeper, animal sound began to punctuate the
brittle protests of the woman. Heydrich felt his organ move, then
stiffen. A nerve tic intermittently closed his left eye. Grinding his
teeth, he blocked out the primitive sounds until the spasm ceased.
The grunts grew regular. Heydrich no longer heard the woman.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He opened and closed his right fist
in synchrony with the groans coming from behind the door. The next
sound he heard started the tic again. Only slaps at first-almost
playful, echoing lightlybut the deadened thump of solid blows soon
followed.
Heydrich knew that sound as well as any man on earth. Like an
arrhythmic heartbeat it drove him through each hour, each new day of
conquest.
The woman was protesting again, but her cries were muffled. A pillow,
Heydrich thought distantly. Conflicting emotions struggled for control
of his taut body. Anger, revulsion arousal. He longed to smash open
the door, but whether t@ flay Bormann in disgust or to plunder his share
of the woman, he did not know.
He did neither. He simply stood facing the door, his body rigid as a
steel beam, his brow pouring sweat, and listened.
Coupled with his earlier proximity to the Fuhrer, the stress of this
violently erotic encounter pushed him into a kind of trance. The sound
of the blows deepened, the cries grew closer together, and Heydrich,
with Adolf Hitler's voice still echoing in his ears, waited for the
orgasmic groan that would resolve it all.
It never came.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Two Months Later Reinhard Heydrich felt like a god. Seventy days ago,
when he first heard Hitler impose his operational restrictions on Plan
mordred, Heydrich thought his meteoric rise through the Nazi rarc assas
mate hie by had been stopped dead- To find a way to s not only Winston
Churchill but also King George VI, to do it on a specific day, and
without leaving a smoking gun in German hands? Ridiculous! Yet e@en
before he landed his Fieseler-Storch back at Berlin-Staaken Airport on
that frozen January night, the essential elements Of the plan had
flashed into his mind as if by divine inspiration. The concept was so
ingeniously simple that, if brought off successfully, not only would
Britain be neu with little more than sporadic small-arms rue, but she
would become Germany's strongest ally!
It had taken the Obergruppenfiihrer SD a further sixty-eight days to
determine whether his unprecedented plan could actually be put into
operation. Sixty-eight nerveracking days of frantic intelligence work
carried out under the lidless gaze of Heinrich Himmler: a dozen trips
taken under false pretenses; a hundred agents lied to about the reason
for the questions he had asked them; a thousand scraps of information
gathered from around the globe and funneled through the sieve of the
SS/SD intelligence complex, each tiny piece sucked out of the system
without the knowledge of the ruthless little tyrant who controlled it.
Now, driving back to Obersalzburg beneath a cold, starlit sky, Heydrich
knew that he was ready. The leather briefcase on the seat beside him
contained his ticket to the most exclusive club in the world. Two
months ago he had been a mere subaltern-a loyal centurion charged by his
Caesar with nailing millions of Jews to the Iron Cross of the Reich.
But now-now the centurion had glimpsed the keys to the palace!
Behind Heydrich's glacier-blue eyes, a seething blast furnace of
all-consuming desire firrd his brain. Only one man alive possessed the
> kind of power he craved, and Heydrich was on his way to see that man
now. With him he carried the plan that would prove his worthiness to
Hitler beyond doubt, and one day@ne day very soon-the mantle of
dictatorship would pass to him!
Passing through the Obersalzburg gates, he noted the almost casual
attitude of the SS guards. Desultory fighting on all fronts was taking
its toll in efficiency throughout the Reich. What everyone needs is
another good blitzkrieg to wake them up, he thought. And they'll get
one soon enough.
He reminded himself to give the laggards a good dressing down on his way
out.
He parked in the garage beneath the Berghof's enormous picture window
and walked around to the front of the house.
A sergeant of the SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler barred the door.
Before Heydrich's boot even touched the first step, the guard instructed
him to turn around. When he did, he saw the last thing he expected:
Adolf Hitler, outfitted in a dark suit, homburg hat, and carrying a
walking stick, stood silent in the snow, watching him. Arc lights
silhouetted, Hitler's harlequin figure. For a moment Heydrich felt as
if he were watching a newsreel in a darkened theater. Then the
FUhrer-for all the world like Charlie Chaplin's caricature of him-turned
and bobbed off across the snow.
"The teahouse," whispered the SS sergeant.
Heydrich caught up with Hitler forty meters from the Berghof, walking
briskly along a deep path cleared through the snow. There was just room
for two to walk abreast.
Heydrich fell in beside Hitler and waited for a cue to begin his report,
but Hitler walked in silence.'Heydrich heard dogs barking in the
distance-the Fuhrer's German shepherds, he guessed-but when Hitler
stopped and called them, they did not come. Unable to restrain himself
any longer, Heydrich took a deep breath and announced: "I have finished
my report, my Fuhrer."
"In the teahouse," Hitler said tersely, and set off again.
Mystified, Heydrich hurried after him. Another twenty minutes' silent
marching brought them to their destination
the round, rustic building where Hitler liked to hold court after
dinner. In contrast to the opulent Berghof, the teahouse had been
furnished for comfort. The circular main room was about twenty-five
feet across, with a round wooden table and easy chairs. it reminded
most people of cozy country holidays before the shadow of war fell
across their lives.
Heydrich did not even notice the blazing fire. Nothing existed for him
in that space save himself and Hitler-two unalloyed souls staring at
each other across a gulf of limitless ambition.
"So?" Hitler snapped. "You have brought me my plan?"
"Yes, my Fuhrer," Heydrich said proudly.
"And it took you only two months. Two months! What were you thinking
oP."
Heydrich stepped back in surprise.
"Did I ask you for the impossible, Herr obergruppenfiihrer? No!
I asked you to plan two simple murders! Surely that could not be too
difficult for you? They tell me you left Gregor Strasser's brains on
the wall of a Gestapo cell for weeks!"
Stunned by Hitler's fury, Heydrich waited in silence"is it in that
briefcase?" Hitler asked sharply.
"Yes, my Fuhrer."
,you wrote ii down?"
Heydrich nodded uncertainly.
,I am surrounded by fools." Hitler crossed the room and collapsed into
a leather easy chair opposite Heydrich"Well?" he said finally.
"Report!"
Too shocked to do anything else, Heydrich sat stiffly in one of the easy
chairs and emptied the contents of his brief case onto the coffee table.
His notes, clear and concise. And a stack of eight-by-ten photographs
held neatly together by a paper clip.
"My Fuhrer," he began, "my orders entailed finding a way to remove
Churchill and George the Sixth from power on the tenth of May, without
leaving any clue ' that might possibly point to Germany. While this
seems@ "I am aware of the orders I issued you!" Hitler exploded.
"I want to hear your plan, not a description of the problem!"
Heydrich's notes slipped from his clammy palms. Standing erect, he
screwed up his courage and locked his blue eyes onto Hitler's black
ones. "Accountability," he said slowly. "That, my Fuhrer, is the
paramount consideration in this operation. Even if Churchill and the
king could be killed without leaving a trace of their killers, the
finger of accusation would still point to Germany. More than anyone, we
have the motive-and in time of war, motive is the only consideration. To
avoid making 'Remember Churchill!' the new rallying cry against us, we
must accomplish two things.
First, we must leave no German at the scene of the crime.
Second-and most important-we must provide the British with a culprit
they cannot ignore."
He watched Hitler for a reaction, but the dictator sat sullenly
immobile. "So," he continued, "who to blame? My Fuhrer, the solution
came to me that first night as if screamed in my ears! Who besides
yourself do the English fear most? The communists. You've said it
yourself a thousand times: 'The communists are the enemy of all
civilized nations.' We know the English industrialists share this view.
The march of Bolshevism since 1917 has every nation in Europe
trembling." Heydrich drew himself to his full height.
"And so, my Fdhrer, the men who assassinate Churchill and the king must
be communists!"
Heydrich sensed a stirring in Hitler's eyes, a heightening of awareness.
"If communist agents were to assassinate Churchill and the king," he
went on, "England would explode into panic. Instead of being united
against Germany, every Englishman would begin t@ fear his own
neighborhis own brother! Communism would become Britain's new enemy-its
new Satan. And what. is the source of world communism?
Russia! 'Strike back at Russia!' will be the new rallying cry in
Britain."
Heydrich raised one delicate finger into the air. "But can they?
Bombed and beaten almost beyond rising, England is virtually powerless
against a nation so distant and strong.
But you are not, my Fuhrer. Adolf Hitler is the most implacable foe
Communism has.ever known-the whole world knows it! Your nonaggression
pact'with Stalin means nothing-a temporary alliance of convenience. One
look at Mein Kampf will tell the most skeptical Briton that your primary
aim has always been Russia. Lebensraum!
Expansion eastward into Russia over the bodies of the subhuman Slavic
barbarians!"
Hitler opened his mouth to speak, but Heydrich rolled on, caught up in
the momentum of his emotions. "And most important, my Fuhrer, every
word, every warning ever given by your friends in England will be proved
true! German' will finally be recognized as the last bastion shielding
England from the fanatical hordes of the East! Isn't that what the Duke
of Windsor has argued all along? That another war between England and
Germany can only end in common slav
ery under the communists?"
While Heydrich paused for breath, Hitler rose slowly to his feet and
folded his arms. "An interesting plan, Herr obergruppenftihrer," he
said, his voice edged with excitement. "I myself was thinking along
similar lines just the other day. But tell me, who will commit these
murders? No Russian communist will attempt such a thing without Stalin
behind him. And if a German communist does it, we are lost. To the
English, Heydrich, a German is a German. They will not split hairs when
they ask America for our blood in revenge."
"I've thought 'of that, my Fuhrer," Heydrich said smoothly, his cruel
lips cracking into a smile. "There is but one way that this thing can
be accomplished-one way that British fury can be turned away from us and
against Russia."
He paused like a magician reluctant to reveal his last, best trick.
"The communists who assassinate Churchill and the king must be British
subjects."
Hitler sat still as stone. "Explain."
Heydrich frowned. "That is all, my Fuhrer. That is the key.
The men who carry out the assassinations must be British subjects-of
course I mean British communists."
Hitler ground his teeth slowly. "Are you about to tell me, Herr
Obergruppenfiihrer, that you have devised a way to get Stalin to order
his English cadres to execute Churchill and the king at the time and
place of our choosing?"
"No, my Fuhrer "I hope not!" Hitler shook his hand in the air.
"It's all I can do to keep Stalin out of my Rumanian oil fields!
For a while you were making sense, Now ... w@ shall see."
Heydrich squinted with a gambler's concentration. "What I propose, my
Fuhrer is not really so far from what you just suggested.
But before I can give you the mechanics, I must explain a little recent
history.
I The idea of playing history pupil did not please Hitler, but he held a
fitful silence while Heydrich laid the foundations of his plan.
"Do you recall the communist takeover of Bavaria in 1919, my Fuhrer?
Specifically Munich?"
Hitler scowled. "I fought in it, you fool. With Hess at my side I
battled in the streets, and Hess with only his tattered old uniform for
clothing!"
"Of course, my Fuhrer!" Heydrich said quickly. "Yes ...
well, during the final Friekorps assault on the Hauptbanhof-where the
communists chose to make their final stand-we had a man inside the
