Heroes

by David Hagberg

  Canaris opened the top drawer of his desk, shoved the stiff envelope inside, and closed the drawer. “Show him in.”

  Meitner started to withdraw, but Canaris held up his hand, and Meitner came back.

  “Give us five minutes; then interrupt us. Something important,” Canaris said. He winked.

  Meitner smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said, and he was gone.

  Moments later the door opened again, and Meitner stepped in.

  “Herr Admiral—Obergruppenfuhrer Reitlinger.”

  Reitlinger was at least five inches taller than Canaris, but he was very slight of build. He looked very much like a banker or a very stern schoolmaster with steel-rimmed glasses and very short cropped white hair. He was in his early fifties, Canaris guessed, and from what he had heard, the man had been a simple shopkeeper in a suburb of Dresden before the beerhall Putsch.

  He was wearing a black SS uniform, twin lightning bolts at his collar. He saluted crisply, his heels clicking. “Heil Hitler.”

  Canaris made a vague motion with his right hand and waved for the man to sit down.

  Meitner withdrew, softly closing the door.

  “Coffee, Obergruppenfuhrer? Or something a bit stronger?”

  Reitlinger wasn’t smiling. “Neither, Herr Admiral. This is not a social visit.” His voice was somewhat high-pitched. He took a seat.

  Canaris poured cognac, then sat back. “What brings you all the way down here this afternoon, then?” he said, forcing nonchalance into his voice. It couldn’t be the photographs. Not this soon. Yet he could not help but think of the thick envelope in his desk drawer. Not inches away from his right knee.

  “It’s a delicate matter that I’ve been told to personally attend to.”

  “I see. By whom?”

  “The Fuhrer!”

  Canaris could feel his bowels loosening. He felt as if he was losing his grip on everyone and everything around him. He no longer ran the Abwehr. It ran by some mysterious outside force.

  Unseen hands, just outside his peripheral vision, were pulling the levers and manipulating the controls that made it all run. Agents outside the country or countermeasures here within Germany were mostly alien to him now. He was losing his control. At the same moment, however, at the same time he could blame Hitler for the debacle, he loved his Fuhrer. Loved and feared and respected the man and what he stood for.

  A sly smile came over Reitlinger’s features, and Canaris hated the man very much at the moment. Even before he heard what he was going to be told.

  “Your wife Erika and the children. They are well?”

  The question was totally unexpected. “They are fine,” Canaris answered without thinking.

  “You are devoted to them, I am told,” Reitlinger looked at him slyly.

  Canaris shrugged, trying to hold himself in check. “What exactly is this about?”

  “Just this,” Reitlinger hissed, sitting forward. “The Fuhrer is becoming increasingly perplexed about you, Herr Admiral. Perplexed about your work, perplexed about your … loyalty. But that is nothing besides the hurt he is now feeling. He feels he has been betrayed by you.”

  The atmosphere in the room was very thick. Did they know about Oster and Dohnanyi and everyone else? About the conspiracy? The diaries in the safe here at Maybach?

  “In what way have I betrayed my Fiihrer?” Canaris asked. His voice came from a long way off.

  Reitlinger reached out and turned Erika’s photograph around so he could see it. He smiled as he looked up. There was a gold cap on one of his teeth.

  “Has Erika ever been to Spain?”

  “A few times.”

  “Algeciras?” Reitlinger asked, a note of triumph in his voice.

  Canaris drew a blank.

  “I believe the lady’s name is Dona Marielle Alicia.”

  Canaris leaped up, spilling his drink. He reached out across the desk and grabbed a handful of Reitlinger’s black tunic. A row of ribbons came off as Canaris hauled the man to his feet. “You bastard! You miserable little sneaking son-of a-bitch!”

  Canaris wasn’t a strong man, but he had Reitlinger up on the desk and his hands around the man’s throat when Meitner burst into the room.

  “Herr Admiral!”

  Reitlinger was struggling wildly, all the while mewling like a frightened animal.

  Algeciras. It was the one important secret of his life—the one thing sacrosanct from the German High Command, from even the Fuhrer—but they knew about it. The bastards had trampled all over it; they had handled it, fondled it like perverts, looked at it like dirty voyeurs.

  Meitner was there, and although he wasn’t much stronger than Canaris, he managed to pry Reitlinger away. They both fell back, spittle drooling down Reitlinger’s chin, his eyes wild as Canaris remained hunched over his desk, his entire body shaking.

  “You’re insane!” Reitlinger cried, finally getting his voice.

  “You’re certifiable. You are crazy.”

  Canaris straightened up and came around the desk. It was a real effort just to walk. There was a constriction around his chest that made him breathe shallowly. He knew he was hyperventilating, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Reitlinger stumbled against Meitner in an effort to back away from Canaris.

  “If you show your face around here again, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer, I will have you shot.”

  Meitner had grabbed Reitlinger’s arm to keep the man from tripping over his own feet. Canaris had stopped in the middle of the room, and when the Reichs Chancellery officer realized he was no longer in any immediate danger, he straightened up, pulling away from the captain.

  “You have made a mistake, treating me this way,” Reitlinger said.

  Canaris’ heart was hammering, but he forced himself to slow down. To measure his words. “It is you who have made the mistake. You and your contemptible little bunch of voyeurs.” He turned to his aide. “I want you to call the Fuhrerbunker. I wish to see the Fiihrer this evening, or at the latest “by morning.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Admiral,” Meitner said, coming to attention.

  He was playing the game perfectly. Thank God for that much at least, Canaris thought.

  Meitner turned and marched out of the office. He left the door open so that Reitlinger could hear him on the telephone demanding a circuit to the city, “You have overstepped your bounds, you bastard,” Canaris said. “Whatever you may have heard, I am still the chief of the Abwehr. You have played a little game with my private life.

  Wait until you see what I can do with yours.”

  Reitlinger sidled to the doorway. He didn’t look as certain as he had when he had first barged in.

  “Leave Zossen now, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer. You and I will be in touch again. I assure you.”

  “You’ll soon be cut down a peg or two … you aristocrat,” Reitlinger said, puffing up. He turned and scurried through the outer office, barely glancing at Meitner who was still on the phone, and then he was gone.

  Meitner put down the phone and came into the office with Canaris. ‘ —^

  “Close the door, Hans,” Canaris said tiredly. He went to the curtains behind his desk and pulled them open. There was a mural on the concrete wall depicting a Spanish mountain scene.

  It was not a very good painting, but Canaris could imagine that his office was in the summer mountains.

  “There wasn’t time even to get our own operator,” Meitner said. “Bomb damage …”

  Canaris didn’t turn around. “There is a lot to do now, Hans, but none of it will be much fun.” His voice was soft, his lisp more pronounced than usual. He felt very old. “None of it is much fun any longer, you know. Like in the old days.”

  “What is it?” Meitner asked. He had a real feeling for Canaris.

  Canaris turned around. His color was shocking, almost cyanotic, and there didn’t seem to be any muscle tone in his face.

  Meitner rushed across to the sideboard, where he quickly splashed some cognac in a fresh gl
ass. He looked over his shoulder at the admiral. He expected the man to collapse at any moment.

  He brought the drink over. Canaris sipped it, his hands shaking so badly that Meitner had to help him hold the snifter.

  “The war is lost, you know,” Canaris said.

  “I know that, Herr Admiral. We all know it.”

  Canaris looked up at him. “Save yourself. Your family. Go to Switzerland, or Portugal. It won’t be long before it’s over.”

  Meitner shook his head.

  Canaris smiled sadly. “You, too?”

  “No matter what has been done, it still is my Germany. And you are still my admiral.”

  “The Abwehr will probably be dismantled before long.

  Schellenberg and his people have become very powerful.”

  “Why don’t you return to Algeciras?”

  “No. There is too much to do here.”

  “The war is lost. You said so yourself. What else is there to do?”

  “Make sure it’s not prolonged.”

  “Sir?”

  Canaris had gotten control of himself. He straightened up, put his drink down, and adjusted his tie. His dark uniform looked bedraggled. The cuffs and collar were threadbare, and there were several undefinable stains on the lapels.

  “Have Sergeant Brunner bring my car around, would you, Hans?”

  Meitner looked at his watch. It was a little before 5:00 P.M. “You’re not going into Berlin, are you, sir?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “It’ll be dark soon. There almost certainly will be another bombing raid this evening.”

  “There was one around noon, I’m told. What difference does it make?”

  “It will be too dangerous, sir.”

  Canaris smiled. “Our beloved Fiihrer remains in the city to personally direct the war. And you are worried about me taking an evening drive?”

  “May I come with you?”

  Canaris had gone around his desk; he opened his briefcase and began stuffing reports into it. “No, Hans,” he said, looking up.

  “I have a lot of work to do tonight. I’m going to get something to eat, then go over to my house. There are some items I need.”

  “And if there is an Allied raid tonight?”

  “They hardly ever come as far south as the Grosser Wannsee or Zehlendorf.”

  “But you will take shelter?”

  “My house has received only a minimum of damage. I promise you.”

  Meitner held his ground..

  “If we’re attacked tonight, I promise to scurry beneath the streets like a rat in a sewer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Call Sergeant Brunner for me, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” Meitner said, and he went out to his own office.

  As soon as he was out of sight, Canaris opened his desk drawer, extracted the stiff envelope with the photographs, and stuffed it into his briefcase. He closed and locked the clasp.

  Dieter Schey was better than any of them expected him to be.

  Far better. The drawings, technical readouts, and installation photographs were superb. It could leave no doubt whatsoever that the Americans were on the verge of actually constructing a new, powerful weapon. Worse than that, however, the pages of formulae would surely help the Reich’s scientists with their own research.

  Canaris had heard a lot of frightening things about Peenemunde up in the Baltic.

  He glanced at the mural, then retrieved his greatcoat from the rack and pulled it on. He put on his hat and gloves.

  Before he got his briefcase, he stopped a moment and looked out the door. Meitner was perched on the edge of his desk. He was speaking on the telephone. Beyond him, out in the busy corridor, young people scurried back and forth.

  Data still flowed into the Abwehr from agents and listeners all over the world. The material was still collated, its contents and meaning analyzed, and reports were still written and submitted to the Fuhrerbunker three times each twenty-four hours. At 0800, at 1600, and at 2400 hours. Seven days a week. The information flowed in, and the reports flowed out. To a bottomless pit.

  Meaningless.

  How many dedicated men such as Schey were out there with their lives on the line in a futile effort to win this war? Dozens.

  Hundreds. Thousands, in addition to the hundreds of thousands, millions of men and women in the Air Force, Navy, and Army.

  It was a lost cause, he thought. A terrible lost cause.

  He got his briefcase, then went out to where Meitner was just hanging up.

  “Your car will be out front in just a moment. They had to come up with some gasoline.”

  “Our supply was pilfered?”

  “Requisitioned, sir,” Meitner said glumly.

  Canaris put his hand on Meitner’s shoulder. “I may be gone for a few days, Hans. I don’t want you to worry. I’m not deserting the ship. No matter how fast she’s sinking.”

  “Spain?”

  “Yes,” Canaris said. “I think everything will be all right. I mean, I’ll try to make it back. But if something does come up …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Good luck, Hans. I will see you in a few days. By Wednesday or Thursday.”

  Everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket for Schey, and he was becoming increasingly upset.

  For three days in a row he had made the rendezvous that had been set up for him. To no result. Either his contact had not checked the letter drop or his contact was no longer in operation.

  Either way, he told himself, he was dead without further instructions. Or papers. A cover. His Aration coupons would soon run out; he had used almost all of his gasoline coupons on the five-hundred-mile trip to Washington, D. C., from Knoxville.

  His remaining money and coupons would all be gone within thirty days. From that moment he’d be a doomed man.

  His initial cover here in Washington was that of a discharged soldier with debilitating wounds. He walked with a limp, slightly hunched over, as if he had been hit in the spine. There were enough scars on his back and on the backs of his legs from boyhood to convince anyone but a doctor that he had been in a war. A war of a different sort, he thought whenever he looked at himself in the mirror. His father had been a harsh disciplinarian.

  The rendezvous had been set up for him before he had come over, and that was several years ago, so anything could have happened in the interim. But it was supposed to have been guaranteed safe. His bolt hole. A long-term safety net for him to use if things got bad at Oak Ridge.

  He kept seeing Katy’s body lying on the floor. She had been so confused. Her entire world had turned suddenly topsyturvy.

  She had charged blindly at windmills. Only she hadn’t merely been knocked from her horse. She had been killed by a nervous FBI agent who had been too quick on the trigger.

  Schey wore a long overcoat, threadbare and somewhat dirty. A slouch hat was pulled over his eyes, and he wore buckle overshoes, the buckles undone. They jangled when he walked.

  He turned away from the frozen Reflecting Pool and went back up the stairs to the drive that encircled the Lincoln Memorial. He stopped at the top and looked back as if he was contemplating some inner message while gazing toward the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol building at the far end of the mall.

  It was a little past six and dark already. A light snow had fallen for most of the afternoon, putting a glistening coat on the old, dirty slush and snow. The world seemed quiet and clean, at peace. The radio broadcasts and newspaper headlines said otherwise, but for the moment here, there was beauty.

  It reminded Schey very much of Munich with its monuments and Greek-inspired buildings, which served all the more to make him feel like the alien intruder he was. Germany never seemed so far away, so unattainable to him as it did at this contemplative moment.

  The contact window was from half past five until six every evening, once the indicator was placed at the letter drop. That was nothing more than a short chalk line, a check
mark actually, of the kind an inspector might make, on the far southeastern piling of the Frederick Douglass Bridge from the Naval Annex.

  Perfectly visible day or night from a car appoaching on Anacostia Drive.

  He had made the mark Monday morning. When his contact hadn’t shown that evening, he had not been overly worried. The mark could have been missed. He was still thinking more about Catherine and the baby than anything else. It hurt so terribly.

  He went back to the bridge on Tuesday morning, to make sure his mark was still there. It was. But again that evening his contact did not show. Nor had he shown this evening.

  There had been a man and woman down by the Reflecting Pool. They joined Schey at the head of the stairs, and they too stopped to look east toward the Capitol.

  He glanced at them. They had been deep in earnest discussion when he had shown up a half an hour ago. He hadn’t thought they were aware of his presence. But the woman looked at him and smiled.

  “Do you have the correct time?” she asked. “In England?”

  Her escort turned around. “If you hadn’t been so clumsy with my watch, I’d have the time for you,” he said to her.

  Schey was startled. What the woman had said. It was the code.

  Christ! A woman!

  “I think it’s late,” he said, fumbling with the sleeve of his coat.

  “Of course it’s late,” the man said.

  “Just how late, can you even guess?” the woman asked.

  Her lips were red and moist. She wore a version of a tricorn hat with a feather. Her escort, a husky older man, didn’t seem too happy.

  “I have just a bit past twenty-three hundred,” Schey said.

  “Greenwich time?”

  “Yes, Zulu time,” Schey said, using the military term for GMT. And then he stared at her. She was his contact. Her escort, who seemed about ready to take a poke at someone, apparently was just a cover. But now what the hell was he supposed to do?

  “Thank you, sir,” the woman said, and she turned, her arm still linked in the man’s. “Come along, Bernard,” she said.

  They headed up toward Bacon Drive either to catch a bus or cab or to retrieve a car.

  Schey let them get halfway around the circle; then he started after them. Almost immediately he spotted the matchbook in the snow. He stooped to pick it up, then held it up to the street lamp.