Heroes

by David Hagberg

number belonged to the chief of Berlin operations for the American OSS. It took a while for the connection to be made, but then it was ringing, and a man answered. ‘.

  “Yes?” For a long second or two Canaris could not bring himself to speak. He just held the phone to his ear, listening to the hollowness of the long-distance line.

  “Yes?” the man said again, with no inflection in his voice.

  “I want you to listen very carefully to me,” Canaris said.

  “Who is this?” ‘_*

  “That is what you must determine. You must recognize my voice. You must know who I am. I will not identify myself to i you.” [

  There was silence.

  “There is no one coming for you; this is not a trick. I must meet with a certain party who is your superior in Bern. I must meet with him this very night. Before morning.”

  “Are you defecting?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know.”

  “I am on my way to Lyon. From there I shall proceed by air to a small airstrip near the town of Portarlier. There will be a full moon so no lights will be needed. I will wait there until one hour before dawn.”

  “Impossible. You will have to cross the border.”

  “I cannot. I will have no access to a car. Our border patrol there is very lax. The Swiss are not.”

  “How do we know this is not a trap?”

  “You do not,” Canaris said. “But I give you my word, I merely must talk with … him. This is of extreme importance to us all. Of the highest importance. I cannot emphasize it strongly enough.”

  “It cannot be done so quickly …” the man started, but Canaris hung up. His hands were shaking, his heart pounding, and he was having trouble catching his breath. It seemed as if the walls of the old ice storage room were closing in on him.

  He jumped up, remembered to stub out his cigarette, and left the room, making sure the door was locked before he made his way again to the front of the house.

  “Ah, there you are, sir. Your car is waiting,” the houseman said.

  Von Auenrode appeared at the head of the stairs, and he hurried down. “Herr Admiral, you are leaving so soon?”

  “Yes. It’s time to get back to work,” Canaris said, forcing a calmness to his voice. Despite his extreme anxiety, his palms were warm and dry. He and the major shook hands. Canaris looked into von Auenrode’s eyes. “You are doing a good job for the Reich.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I just wanted you to know that,” Canaris said. “Have a safe trip back.” “You, too, sir,” von Auenrode said.

  Canaris turned, left the house, got into the back seat of his ‘ Mercedes, the dogs all over him, and the big car pulled around the circular drive and headed down the long road out to the main highway. Von Auenrode was joined by his wife on the front veranda, and they both waved.

  It was well after six by the time he made it to the Luftwaffe airfield just outside the Basque seaport of Bayonne, where, if his memory served him correctly, the bayonet was invented. His driver brought him around to operations, where the officer of the day, a young lieutenant, came out and saluted, looking askance at the dogs. A Dornier Do 17F, which had been used as the Germen’s chief reconnaissance aircraft until the advent of the faster Junkers 88, was warming up on the field.

  “They are ready for you, Herr Admiral,” the lieutenant shouted over the noise.

  The driver had climbed out of the car with Canaris* bags. He handed them to the officer who carried them out to the plane.

  The navigator was waiting by the hatch to receive the bags.

  When he had them, Canaris hoisted up the dogs, one at a time.

  “We hope you enjoyed your stay here, sir,” the lieutenant said.

  “Immensely,” Canaris replied with more levity than he felt at the moment.

  The navigator helped him climb up into the belly of the aircraft, and he crawled forward and strapped himself down in one of the observation seats just behind the pilot. The dogs were tethered aft.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” the pilot said. He was a twice passed over captain. Too old for combat. At least for the moment, though Canaris suspected that if the war continued to go as badly as it was, his pilot would be taken as well. “We should be in Berlin in time for a midnight schnapps, unless there’s a raid tonight.”

  “We’ll put down at the depot in Lyon for the evening and continue on to Berlin in the morning,” Canaris said.

  “Very good, sir,” the pilot said without blinking. “It’ll be a hell of a lot less dangerous if we wait.” His name was Erich Hewel. He had been detached to Abwehr service fourteen months ago. Of the pilots Canaris knew, he liked Hewel the best. The man knew how to keep his mouth shut.

  “Let’s go then, Erich; I haven’t had my dinner yet.”

  “Of course, sir,” Hewel said. He and his crew busied themselves with the plane.

  Within five minutes, their preflight checks completed, they were hurtling down the runway and lifting off, the dark Atlantic rising off to the west, his beloved Spain to the south, and the war—his war—to the northeast.

  When they were settled at altitude, Canaris went aft to check on the dogs. Kasper had piddled, the urine running farther aft in a long stream. The dogs were leashed to a bulkhead. An old greatcoat had been laid down for them. They were wild with I excitement that their master was with them.

  He smiled indulgently at his animals as he petted them. “If you were the Fiihrer,” he said to Kasper, “you would not have done such a naughty thing.” He smiled. “Or you, Sabine, you I would have had him before a firing squad.” He laughed out loud at his own joke.

  After a while he strapped down in one of the camera operator’s positions, laid his head back, and closed his eyes. But sleep was a long time coming. His gut hurt from anxiety, and his face and neck were so warm that he began to sweat. The doctor had said he was having trouble with high blood pressure.

  The technical details of Schey’s report were beyond his grasp.

  But overall he well understood what he carried with him.

  The Americans were going to win this war with or without their new super weapon. There was absolutely no doubt of that.

  Within a year, perhaps two, the war here in Europe would be | over. It could take another five years to defeat the Japanese with normal methods. But if the atom-smashing bomb were perfected ‘ and used, it would end the war immediately.

  The bomb was the guarantor of an immediate and decisive victory for whoever possessed it—Roosevelt and Churchill, or the Fuhrer.

  The weather was very bad across the Texas panhandle. As he drove, Schey thought about the honeymoon cottages he and Eva had stayed at. During the day, on the road, it wasn’t so bad, but at night, sleeping on the floor beside the bed, he couldn’t help but see Catherine’s body and hear the baby crying upstairs. It was a nightmare.

  It was the afternoon of their fourth day out of Washington, D.C. They were taking Route 66 the remainder of the way out to Albuquerque. Schey hoped only to make Amarillo tonight, before it got too bad.

  Great plumes of snow blew across the highway, slowed here and there to pile up where snow fences had been erected.

  The Hudson had performed very well for them. The car was heavy, and it plowed through all but the deepest snowdrifts with apparent ease. The only problem it had developed was with its heater, which seemed to give less and less heat the farther they traveled.

  At a service station near Oklahoma City, a mechanic had looked under the hood, but he came out shaking his head.

  “Mister, not only shouldn’t your heater work; this car shouldn’t even run. If I were you, I’d count my blessings and just keep on going. After all, it is wartime.”

  “You can’t fix it?” Schey had asked.

  “No, sir; don’t believe Professor Einstein could fix it.”

  The heater hadn’t gotten any worse, but it was so cold in the car that at times Schey could see his own breath. It dominated their
thoughts.

  “It’s cold enough in here to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” Eva said. They hadn’t spoken for at least an hour, and Schey was startled, but he had to smile. Her language was expressive.

  “We’ll be getting into Amarillo pretty soon,” he said.

  “We’re going to stop there?” she asked. She was bundled up in Schey’s old overcoat, the one he had worn in Washington. She looked small and defenseless in it. Her nose and cheeks were red.

  “We’ll get something to eat and then find a room.”

  Despite the weight of the car, it was difficult driving. The highway was very slippery, and often the big car would lurch sickeningly. He was constantly playing the wheel, his nerves coming to the raw edge, his eyes burning.

  They were silent for a long time. There had been no other cars or trucks on the highway for the past hour and a half. It was spooky.

  “You know, I was just thinking,” Eva said. She glanced over at Schey.

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t we just keep going? Let’s not stop in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. Let’s just say the hell with it and head down to Mexico.”

  “And do what?”

  “Stay there until the war is over. We could live. We have plenty of money, at least for starters. We could get jobs.” She looked out the windshield and scraped away some of the frost with a mittened hand. “At least we’d be warm.”

  Schey could understand her. What she was asking was tempting, in a way. But every time he thought about it, he couldn’t help but see himself walking along Unter den Linden in Berlin, or at the beer halls with his friends in Munich, or a dozen other favorite places back home.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I have a job to do.”

  “The war is lost, you know that.”

  His anger rose. “Don’t say that!” he snapped.

  “It is, god damnit, you stubborn Kraut.”

  It took Schey a moment or two to frame his answer. He didn’t want to come back at her in anger. In the four days they had been together, he had come to respect her. At times she could be a very strong woman.

  “Whether or not the war will be lost, it is not over yet. I have a job to do, and I will do it.”

  “It’s useless, Dieter …”

  “Robert,” Schey corrected. “Robert Stromberg.”

  “Sorry, Bobby, but it is useless.”

  “If we all quit now, it would be useless.”

  “Christ,” Eva said, shaking her head. “What are you going to get for them in Santa Fe? A new Wunderwaffent’

  Schey’s instinct was to lash out at her, but once again he held himself in check. What bothered him more, however, was his reaction—or rather his overreaction—to her. It wasn’t like him, he decided.

  He had not told her about his work in Tennessee, although she knew, of course, that he had been spying on a large government installation up there. She also knew about his radio transmitter concealed in a suitcase in the trunk of the car. But it was better that she didn’t know everything, although if they were captured, they’d both almost certainly be hung as spies.

  In the distance he spotted a large water tower with a light on top of it. He scraped some frost from the windshield so that he could see a little better, and as they got closer, he could see that they were coming to what appeared to be a small town. There was a diner off to one side and a couple of gas stations farther on.

  They passed the sign that said: MCLEAN POP: 879, and went slowly through the pleasant-looking town. There were a lot of cars at the diner, and a number of cars and trucks angle-parked in front of two bars on Main Street. A neon sign was lit on the front porch of a very large house. It said: ROOMS. Several cars were parked in front of the house.

  Some Christmas decorations, still up on the streetlights downtown, were being whipped around by the increasing wind.

  It would be dark within half an hour or so, and then driving would become very difficult.

  “Why don’t we stay here tonight?” Eva asked. “It looks like a nice place.”

  They came around a sharp bend, the snow piled up high on either side of the street. “Maybe we should,” Schey said. He glanced in his rearview mirror, although there wasn’t much to see because of the thickly frosted rear window.

  “Christ,” Eva shouted.

  Schey’s eyes snapped forward. A single police car, its lights flashing, was parked across the highway just at the city limits sign! A uniformed police officer got out and held up his hands as Schey fought to control the car. His first instinct was to speed up.

  But there was no way the authorities could have traced them here, he told himself. Eva sat white-faced and rigid. Roadblocks were not put up in the middle of nowhere, and small-town cops were not sent out to stop German spies.

  Pumping the brakes, Schey finally managed to bring the car to a complete stop. His muscles were bunched up. He thought about the pistol he had taken from Montisier’s body. He cranked down the window, the car instantly filling with the icy wind.

  The police officer came up to them, first glancing at the New York license plate.

  “What’s the trouble, officer?” Schey asked.

  “Long ways from home,” the cop said.

  “Yes, we are. We’re trying to get to California.”

  “You won’t make Amarillo. Not tonight. Haven’t you been listening to the radio?”

  “Not for a while,” Schey said. The cop was staring at Eva, his eyes narrowing.

  “We’ve got us a big storm coming. Your missus not feeling well?”

  Schey leaned a little closer to the cop. “Truth is, officer, she’s frightened half out of her mind.”

  “Frightened?”

  “Yes, sir. By this weather. She’s a Florida girl. Never has seen much snow.”

  “Well, tonight’s not the night to be showing it to her. All the roads out of here are closed.”

  “Even 66?”

  “Even 66. So what I want you to do is just turn right around and get yourself back into town. Perkins will find you a room.”

  “Perkins?”

  “The rooming house. Big place right on Main Street. You passed it on the way through.”

  “We saw it,” Schey said.

  “Don’t believe I caught your name,” the cop drawled.

  “Bob Stromberg,” Schey said. “This is my wife, Evelyn.”

  Eva looked up at the cop and smiled weakly. “We just got married, and this ain’t my idea of a honeymoon,” she said, a slight southern accent in her voice.

  The cop grinned. “Newlyweds. Tell that to Mrs. Perkins, she’ll fix you two up right. Try Danny-Joe’s on the corner. Best eatin’ place in town.” “Thank you,” Schey said. He cranked the window back up as the cop went back to the cruiser.

  “I thought …”

  “You did fine,” Schey said, looking back as he made a U-turn. The cop was standing by his cruiser, watching them. He hadn’t quite bought their story. Schey was almost sure of it.

  “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this …” she said.

  “Don’t fall apart on me now,” Schey said absently. What was it they had done wrong? Why had the cop been skeptical? Or was he that way naturally?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired. We’ll get a room, get something to eat, and get a good night’s sleep. Everything will be better in the morning.”

  “Nothing will be better in the morning. It’ll all be the same!”

  Her voice was rising.

  Schey held his silence until they were parked in front of the rooming house back in the middle of town. Then he turned on her. “If you’re going to be with me, you’re going to have to help. I don’t need an anchor. It could kill us both!”

  “Fine. We’ll split the money and I’ll go my own way.”

  “That’s right,” Schey said. “When we get into New Mexico, I’ll put you on a bus for Mexico City.”

  “Fair enough,” she said stubbornly. “A
t least I won’t have to put up with your Nazi spy bullshit!”

  Schey looked into her eyes for a long time. She was frightened.

  He would have to kill her, of course. He couldn’t let her go off by herself. If she was caught, which was likely, she would be made to tell everything. She knew Schey would be in Santa Fe. It wouldn’t take them long to run him down.

  He wanted to reach out at that moment to touch her cheeks, her lips. He didn’t know, sometimes, how he could go on. There were instances like now when he felt very lost and very much alone.

  “Crap,” she swore. “I’m not going to sit out in this deep freeze arguing all night.” She tossed off Schey’s old overcoat and got out of the car.

  Schey hopped out after her, getting their bags out of the trunk.

  He looked at the suitcase containing the radio transmitter, then glanced up the street toward the west. He took it.

  Together they crossed the street to the rooming house and rang % the doorbell. A short, thin—almost emaciated—woman came to the door.

  “Get in out of the cold before you catch your death,” she twittered, letting them in. “I suppose Willis stopped you on the highway and you’ll be needing a room.”

  “Yes, we will,” Schey said, pulling off his hat.

  “We’re newly weds,” Eva said sweetly.

  “Land o’ Goshen,” the landlady said, clapping her hands.

  “We’ll just be putting you two up in the front bedroom.” She leaned forward. “A little more privacy that way. Not so far to the bathroom.”

  They followed her upstairs where she showed them into a tiny room on the third floor. From one small window they could look down on their car parked in front, and to the west, Schey could see over the tops of the buildings to the highway where the police car was stationed. Beyond that the highway was blotted out with blowing snow.

  It’s going to be a real screamer out there tonight,” the landlady said. “But you’ll be snug up here.”

  They ate dinner at a packed Danny-Joe’s, and from Danny’s private back-room stock, Schey bought a pint of bourbon and a pint of vodka.

  Back in their room Eva refused a drink; she was still angry.

  Instead, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up around her shoulders.