Alten Kameraden

Marcoing Region, France

24 September 1918

The sky was just beginning to lighten as Kurt Wolff examined the British works, his gaze quickly scanning long stretches of trench then quickly returning to pick out individual features that had become as familiar to him as old friends. He studied his old friends, looking to see if they had changed: The configuration of the endless wire barricades, the four empty tins tossed over the top by some well-fed Tommy, the shattered trees, the gaping craters, the shapes of the trench lines—there. There was a change: A slight rise in the chewed-up ground slightly left of his center that hadn’t been there the day before. In the near dark it looked like earth thrown up by the creation of a nearby crater, but the crater had been there the evening before and the rise in the dirt next to it had not.

The Tommy sniper had killed dozens and knew how to hide. Once he fired, revealing his position, the Tommy would move. Kurt had to smile and give a slight nod in admiration. Everyone would be looking to the works, the sandbagged trench edges, for snipers. It would be insane to take a position forward of his own trench. No one, however, would think to look there. Kurt studied the position as he examined what ifs. The Tommy couldn’t fire, drill his prey, then jump up and flee to the safety of his own trench. If it took him more than a second he’d be ripped apart by a dozen German slugs.

Down into the dirt like a rabbit, that’s how he’d go. The British sniper must have tunneled through the trench wall to his present position, broken through the surface in the dark, spread his dirt-stained blanket overhead, taken his position, and waited—if he was there at all. Kurt didn’t wish to give away his own position, otherwise right now he could pop a round into that rise in the earth. If no one was there, however, it would be a wasted shot and Kurt would have to find a new position himself.

There was a deeper shadow at the edge of the camouflage closest to the German lines. If Tommy was looking at the German trench, that would be where the shot would come from. Kurt glanced back at the slight rise to the rear of his own position. Poorly placed trench. Runners going to and from the rear had to cross that rise, which was why they called it the shooting gallery. A trench was being dug rearward, but it was not yet completed. When they’d come over the rise, the runners would dip and dodge until they managed to drop into the trench. There were exceptions: late at night and very early in the morning. Not so much running and dodging then. That’s what the Tommy sniper was waiting for, some careless fellow going to or coming from regiment, taking it easy before full light.

Again Kurt studied the rise in the soil. The Tommy would be standing in his rabbit hole, nothing but his head and shoulders exposed beneath the blanket. If the muzzle of his rifle was near the edge of the camouflage, his head would be just there. Tommy would be shooting uphill, leaving less exposed. The German eased his right forefinger from the trigger guard to the trigger, placed the crosshairs on the rise where the Tommy’s head should be, and waited.

A murmur of voices from far behind him. A little chuckling, and that guttural “Haw!” the Austrian lance corporal from regimental headquarters always made when he laughed. Kurt and he had both received the Iron Cross First Class at the same ceremony. Another voice—

—The shadow at the near edge of the camouflage changed ever so slowly as the Tommy adjusted his aim. Kurt fired first, the center of the dirt-stained blanket erupting as the Tommy jerked back, his own weapon firing harmlessly wide of its target. Kurt turned from his position, bringing his rifle with him, as a baffling feeling of dread filled him. For a slice of existence it was as though all the world’s dead mounted the edges of their graves at the same time and beckoned him. He couldn’t catch his breath. When he could at last breathe, Kurt rubbed his eyes. Too long on the front, too many kills, and too little sleep; that was what it was, he told himself.

“Wolff, you look white as a sheet,” said Sergeant Zimmerer, both of them on the trench’s step to stay out of the mud and squatting to stay out of the lead rain.

Lowering his hand, Kurt ignored the sergeant and looked back toward the rise. He could see the lance corporal crouching beside a stump, his eyes wide. The runner gave a quick nod and wave in thanks to Kurt, then quickly sprang to his feet and dived for the trench.

Kurt looked at Sergeant Zimmerer, a heavy-set fellow with a red face and graying handlebar moustache. “I need some rest, sergeant. My eyes play tricks on me.”

“They were good enough to make that shot, Wolff. Incredible marksmanship. Turn in for a couple of hours. You earned it. Lance corporal Hitler owes you his life.”

Kurt entered the shelter dug into the ground from the side of the trench, found his bedroll, and stretched out on it. It had been a long night, but he couldn’t sleep. Behind his eyes the dead were still beckoning.

Berlin

30 April 1945

“Herr Wolff? Kurt Wolff? Are you down there, Herr Wolff ? “

The soldier was shouting from the head of the stairs, his bull’s voice barely audible above the din of the Russian shelling. His image was momentarily framed by the flash of an airburst against the night sky, his words chopped short by the explosion. The concussion shook the building’s foundations, raised the dust on everything in the basement, and caused the soldier instinctively to leap through the entrance where he fell on the wooden landing shouting, “My god, Ivan! Enough! Go have a smoke!”

Kurt Wolff, the smoke of the burning city in his scarred lungs, cringed and slid deeper between the old barrels and rubble in the basement. He put his canvas bag of tools and salvaged electrical parts on his lap, reached silently into the bag, and took out the trench knife he had taken from the body of a dead Frenchie on the Somme back in ‘15. Another explosion, then three more in quick succession—much closer. It was like the Great War had never ended—except for the Soviet Katyusha rockets. They screamed through the night like regiments of deranged ghostmakers. They were new. Very new and very close.

The soldier got up from the landing and rushed down the creaking stairs, his solid weight threatening to do to the stairs what the shelling had not. Kurt gripped the knife more tightly.

SS, perhaps, thought Kurt, or some self-appointed son of Siegfried rich with rifles searching for little boys, old men, and cripples to throw beneath the wheels of the Soviet juggernaut.

The man had tracked him here in the middle of the night during the hell of a constant artillery barrage. He looked as though he wouldn’t leave until he’d checked every corner. Persistent. Very thorough. Patient. The fellow was more policeman than soldier.

Kurt started as the beam of a flashlight struck his face, then extinguished almost as quickly as it came on, leaving Kurt momentarily blinded. “Herr Wolff ? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“My god!” The man crossed the floor, his heavy boots loud against the concrete. He appeared to be alone. Kurt renewed his grip on the trench knife. “I’ve been trying to find you since before midnight. You should see what’s going on up there. How many times can Ivan turn over the damned rubble? It’ll take a steam shovel to clean out my pants. Hurry, Herr Wolff. It will be light soon and the Russian snipers are a hungry lot. Why didn’t you answer me?”

“One can never tell who is calling one’s name on the streets these days,” answered Kurt warily.

“Oh.” He cocked his head toward the entrance. “You mean that business hanging from the lampposts. Street corner gauleiters with too much rope to sell. Forgive me, Herr Wolff. I’m Sergeant Balter. I’m with the RSD.”

The Reichssicherheitsdienst; the Fuhrer’s personal bodyguard. After a lightheaded moment of reflection, Kurt’s curiosity got the better of his fear. “What do you want of me?”

“Gotthard Hentschel, Herr Wolff. Do you know him?”

“The engineer at the Chancellery,” answered Kurt. “He has had me find parts for him.”

“He needs you, Herr Wolff. He has a generator with whooping cough, a ventilation system that doesn’t believe in air, and he desperately needs some assistance. There’s a party going on and the smell is spoiling it.”

“Party?” Kurt repeated.

“What?” Balter said, a comic tone in his voice, “You haven’t gotten your invitation? Never mind. Mine was misplaced, as well. The Fuhrer has just gotten married, you see. Champagne and chocolate cake for everyone.”

“Married.”

“To the lovely Miss Eva Braun. She replaces the Fuhrer’s dog Blondi he had poisoned yesterday. She’s much prettier than Blondi, but she can’t fetch worth a damn—” Another airburst illuminated the cellar as a blanket of artillery shells landed north toward Behrenstrasse, shaking dust from the beams and planks above. The sergeant instinctively dropped into a squat and hunched his shoulders. Once the pieces of the city settled, he glanced up. “Come,” said Balter. “Between loads. We must hurry, unless you prefer borscht to wiener schnitzel. The Russian lines are just a few hundred meters from here.”

“How can you tell?”

“The telephone operators in the bunker have been calling numbers street by street. Every so often someone answers “Da?”

“Where are you taking me, sergeant?”

“Hentschel maintains the lights, water, and air for the Fuhrer’s headquarters in the bunkers beneath the old Chancellery.” His head cocked to one side. “Hentschel told me you were in the 16th Bavarian Reserve in the first war,” the sergeant said.

“I was.”

“Astonishing. You know, that’s the Fuhrer’s old regiment.”

“Yes. I knew him then.”

“Then it will be like old times for you. Old comrades swapping stories in the trenches over a tin of mystery meat.” He held out a hand.

“Old comrades,” Kurt repeated to himself. He placed the trench knife in his bag and took the sergeant’s hand. Balter pulled him to his feet. The man was built like a tank. Kurt held his bag in his left hand and followed the sergeant toward the stairs. “So, how is my old comrade doing?” he asked the sergeant.

“You mean Adolph Hitler?”

“Yes. I hear since I knew him he’s been promoted,” Kurt said, his comment swallowed by another explosion. Just as well, thought Kurt. People react badly to humor nowadays. Some jokes are even terminal—especially ones about Hitler. Still, when Kurt caught a glimpse of Sergeant Balter’s face, he was chuckling.

The air on the street was thick with brick dust and that singular reek of a shelled city composed of a mix of fuels: petroleum, rubber, wood, explosives, and human bodies. The day before there had been a body hanging from the lamppost on the corner of Jaegerstrasse and Mauer: a white-haired old woman in a dowdy blue dress. Kurt hadn’t known her. She was just one of the countless dead in Berlin. As Kurt followed Balter through the rubble, he could make out in the light of the false dawn that both the old woman and the lamppost from which she had been hanging were gone. In their place was a crater still smoking from the shell that dug it.

The young man hanging from the watchmaker’s sign on Mauer was still there, however, his left shoe mysteriously missing. The cardboard hanging from his neck by a length of twine proclaimed his sin: “Too cowardly to fight for the fatherland.” This one Kurt had known: the Reinard boy. His father had died in France in the first war, his brother on the Eastern Front in this war, his mother and sister killed in the same bombing. At twenty-two Emil Reinard hadn’t quite mastered reading or speaking. He had very bad eyes and was a bit slow. He had a singing voice, however, that could make a stone weep.

Kurt averted his gaze as he and the sergeant crossed the street at a crouched run. In moments they were in a maze of crumbling walls and smoking rubble, Kurt wheezing as his lungs fought for oxygen. As the dawn light touched the eastern sky, lightening the ubiquitous smoke, they came to the edge of Wilhelm Platz facing the south wing of the old Reich Chancellery. The floors immediately above the massive double doors were missing from a direct hit. Somehow the delicate second floor balcony had survived. The entrance doors were blocked with rubble.

Balter cursed and said, “Over there.” He pointed to the far right of the Chancellery beyond the D-shaped drive with its primordial echoes of horse drawn carriages, liveried servants, marching bands, and sleek black limousines. “Ahead,” said Balter, “between the Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry. Unless Ivan rearranged the rubble since I left, there’s a path.” He looked at Kurt, who was gasping, trying to catch his breath. “You’re not that old, Herr Wolff.”

“Gas,” said Kurt. “Near Wervicq . . . Great War.”

Balter glanced again at the street, frowned, and held out his hand. “Forgive me. Let me carry your bag.”

Gratefully, Kurt handed it over. While he caught his breath, he studied his guide. Sergeant Balter’s thick features and solid build were misleading. He had intelligent brown eyes and an unobtrusive wariness that took in everything. Balter waited until Kurt gave him the nod, then the pair crossed Wilhelmstrasse at an angle, rounded the corner of the Chancellery’s north wing, and entered the narrow alley just as a fresh flight of artillery shells rattled overhead. The alley was piled with rubble, but there was a cleared path winding its way between the mounds of fractured stone and brick.

Kurt rested again, steadying himself against an upended slab of concrete. By the time Balter returned looking for him, Kurt had caught his breath. He nodded and they continued to pick their way through the path until it widened to the left. Parking places, loading docks—it was impossible to tell from the mountain of rubble that covered it. The sergeant led them past that into a narrow alleyway between the still standing walls of the two buildings. It jogged abruptly to the right and a few meters later to the left widening out into a garden, a few delicate flowers poking through the rubble and the splinters of shattered trees.

“In here, Herr Wolff!” called the sergeant, pointing toward a door in the Chancellery building.

“No guards?” asked Kurt.

Balter grinned. “I believe you will find the guards at the bottom of the stairs keeping out of the rain.” The rattle of another flight of shells passing overhead urged Balter to push Kurt toward the door. “And it doesn’t look like the weather is going to improve any time soon.”

They descended a long straight concrete staircase, its arched ceiling, steps, and platforms illuminated only from the middle and bottom. The bulbs in the fixtures at the top of the stairs had been shattered. The lower they went, the more it seemed to Kurt that the weight of the punished city bore down upon them. At the bottom of the stairs was an odor that easily overpowered the stench of the burning buildings and bodies coming from the surface. It was a mix of diesel fuel, sweat, unwashed clothing, raw concrete, mildew, and sewage. There was another smell, as well: Kurt frowned and glanced at the sergeant. “Chocolate?”

“As advertised,” said a smirking Balter.

“What is that sewer smell?”

“Invigorating, isn’t it? The bunkers are at a lower level than Berlin’s sewers. There would appear to be some seepage.” He smiled wryly. “A slight design flaw, perhaps, but be of good cheer. The ventilation system is supposed to be working at this end.”

A few steps from the bottom of the stairs were two soldiers of the RSD. They were older men in their middle thirties and forties. After a word from Balter, the pair at the bottom of the stairs passed them through into the end of a long concrete corridor barely two meters wide. At the far end of the hall was a doorway leading to another exit, probably within the New Chancellery building. A third doorway was on the right halfway down the passage. Next to that door against the wall was a paper-littered wooden table behind which was a seated RSD lieutenant. Two RSD guards armed with Schmeissers stood opposite the door leaning back against the wall. The lieutenant was a slender balding fellow in his fifties wearing rimless glasses. He looked a bit haggard and seemed anxious to be someplace else. Looking up first at Kurt, he shifted his gray-eyed gaze to Balter.

“What have you got for me, Oh Bringer of Victory?”

Balter glanced at Kurt. “My first name is Odin,” he explained sheepishly. Turning to the lieutenant, he said, “This is Herr Wolff.” “Hentschel asked for him to help fix the ventilators.”

The lieutenant’s face blossomed into smiles as he faced Kurt. “Herr Wolff, if you can accomplish that I can promise you the Iron Cross First Class with chocolate bar.” He nodded and held out his hand. “Papers, please.”

Kurt took the old leather wallet from his coat’s inside breast pocket, removed his papers from it, and handed them to the lieutenant. As he did so the remainder of his documents fell from his wallet to the floor. Stooping, he picked them up and replaced them in the wallet, cursing himself for his nervousness. When he stood and looked again at the lieutenant the man was frowning at him. The lieutenant held out his hand a second time. “All of your documents. Let me see your wallet.”

The lieutenant merely glanced at one document, then abruptly came to attention, his heels clicking together. If an officer comes to attention, enlisted racial memory causes sergeants on down to respond accordingly. Not only Balter and the two guards but Kurt, too, all snapped to attention. The lieutenant grinned and held out his hands. “Please, Herr Wolff, I only meant to show respect. Please. No need to stand at attention. Please.” The officer looked at Balter and the two guards. “Brothers, may I introduce to you Inspector Wolff, the fellow who helped the citizens of Hanover to improve their diets.” He laughed at the confused expressions he received. “This is the man responsible for the arrest of Fritz Haarmann.”

“The butcher of Hanover,” whispered one of the guards.

Sgt. Balter looked Kurt square in the face. “Your father is Josef Wolff ? Inspector in Munich until he retired?”

“Yes.” Kurt faced the lieutenant. “You are quite gracious, sir. I am no longer in the police.”

“Former detective Ernst Senger, Herr Wolff. I knew your father from Munich.” He gestured to the two guards and Sgt. Balter. “Schmidtke, Jansen, Balter—we’re all Bavarian Police—just about the entire RSD is.”

Kurt grinned. “I thought you boys seemed familiar.”

“All the flat feet,” joked the guard named Schmidtke. He was tall and rawboned, black hair and blue eyes.

“Your father’s name goes a long way with us,” said Lt. Senger. His face grew somber. “Is your father well?”

“As far as I know, thank you, Lieutenant. He and my mother went abroad in ‘31. And to be quite honest, I didn’t arrest Fritz Haarmann.”

“No,” said the squat lantern-jawed guard who had been identified as Jansen. “You and the Kriminalpolizei from Berlin came down and simply pointed out that Haarmann was a Hanover police informant, which is why the Saxony cops refused to identify him. You broke the case, sir.”

“Terrible pork shortage in Hanover’s black market ever since, though,” quipped Schmidtke.

After a pained glance at Schmidtke, Lt. Senger gathered up Kurt’s documents to replace them in the wallet. As he came to a small brown booklet, he paused. “Your army paybook from when you were in the Great War.”

“Hentschel told me Herr Wolff was in the Fuhrer’s old regiment, the 16th Bavarian,” said Balter.

The lieutenant nodded and glanced up at Kurt. “The Iron Cross First Class.”

“The paybook helps ease my way past the street courts up there,” Kurt said, glancing in the general direction of the surface.

“The mad dogs are running things, Herr Wolff. Only for the present,” said the lieutenant in a lower tone. “We’ll have law and order to protect all of us again someday,” he remarked as he glanced around nervously and handed Kurt his wallet. He faced Balter. “Take Herr Wolff to the engineer.” he glanced at Kurt, “Good luck, sir—with the ventilation system, as well as other things.” He held out his hand and Kurt shook it.

Past the thick gas door, signs and smells to left and right indicated shower rooms and water closets. Straight ahead through another door Kurt saw a long hallway, naked bulbs down the center illuminating a seemingly permanent haze hanging in the air. It wasn’t cigarette smoke. Adolph Hitler wouldn’t tolerate that. It was more a mixture of dust, humidity, and air fouled with diesel fumes. The sound of a massive detonation came from above, shaking the walls, adding to the dust. The lights dimmed momentarily, but the men and women in the hall space seemed hardly to notice.

There was a large table in the center of the hall. On it were trays of food, several open and unopened bottles of champagne, and—as advertised—chocolate cake. Two of them, both half eaten. Farther down the hall, through a dividing partition, there was a man and a woman dancing to a slow tune, the scratchy lyrics in English. The man was in a Luftwaffe uniform, the woman in a black skirt and white blouse. Two beautiful blond-haired children—both girls hardly school age—were looking through stacks of phonograph records next to a makeshift bar made from a metal locker that had been placed on the seats of two straight-backed chairs. On the black and white checkered linoleum floor were drifts of papers. Two men—both SS officers—were arguing loudly at the bar. Their volume had less to do with their subject of discourse than it had to do with alcohol and the background noise consisting of whining ventilators, music, and artillery shells exploding above. The one with a black eye patch was rambling incoherently about Army Group Nine while the other one, who had no hair, defended his side in an unrelated argument about the possible mental effects of Eisenhower’s baldness.

The girls put on another record, one that Kurt recognized: Benny Goodman’s “Down South Camp Meeting.” As the joint began jumpin’ and others looked on from chairs and leaning places, two couples attempted jitterbugging in the cramped space while the original couple continued slow dancing. Kurt glanced at Balter, but the sergeant appeared to notice nothing as he led the way through the children and dancing couples to a closed door in another partition near the end of the hall. Opening the door, he entered first and pulled it shut behind Kurt. Curiously, the music seemed even louder. They were at yet another guard station before the top of a staircase that led deeper beneath the surface.

The small room was illuminated by a single naked bulb. At the table against the left wall was an RSD sergeant in his mid-thirties, blond-and-blue, well built, all polished and sitting in Aryan splendor with a sour expression on his face. He glanced up at the speaker which was blaring out the Benny Goodman selection. “Not exactly Bach’s ‘Air on the G String,’ is it?” he said to Balter.

“Few pieces are, Brinkmann.” He nodded toward Kurt. “This is the fellow I was sent to get.”

Sgt. Brinkmann nodded and waved off Kurt’s offered papers. “Go ahead. Balter, if you run across that idiot Pvt. Apel down in the Fuhrerbunker, please tell him I am still waiting for Dr. Stumpfegger’s aspirins.” He looked at Kurt with an expression of sudden recognition. “Are you the fellow who’s going to fix the ventilation system?”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t let me keep you, then—”

The door to the canteen opened and everyone came to attention as an SS brigadier came in, a tall man with a mournful expression wearing his hat as though it were being held up by his ears. The general turned and held the door as a shorter man entered, carrying the most recognizable face on Earth. Kurt stood as if paralyzed. The last time he had seen the lance corporal was in 1918 at the hospital in Beelitz.

The two sergeants saluted, boot heels snapping together. Adolf Hitler merely nodded in response, his hands clasped together tightly behind him. He glanced briefly at Kurt as he walked between Kurt and the desk sergeant toward the stairs, followed by the general. The Fuhrer paused at the head of the stairs, turned, and looked back at Kurt.

“Wolff ? Can it be? Wolff? My old comrade? Is it you? I thought you died in hospital. They took you away. Is it possible you are still alive?”

Kurt nodded. “It is possible,” he said with an effort at a smile.

“God in Heaven, Wolff!” The Fuhrer smiled, his sad eyes crinkling at the corners. “Come here. Come here and let me have a look at you.”

Kurt walked over to Hitler. “Look at you.” He raised a hand to grasp Kurt’s arm, but it shook almost uncontrollably and he lowered it, clasping his hands in front of him. “We’re a fine pair, aren’t we, Wolff ? My hands shake and look how gray you’ve gotten.” Hitler faced the general. “Mohnke, you should have seen this one back in the war. What an eye. Barely twenty-one and he could part the hair on a fly’s head with that Mauser.” Hitler seemed to chuckle at a secret joke as he glanced down, shook his head once, then looked back at Kurt. “But no one saw you back in ‘17, did they, Wolff? You were the shadow. No one saw him but me. If you had a battalion of men like Wolff, Mohnke, you could hold off the Russians forever.” He frowned. “Is there a problem, Kurt? Why are you here? Tell me.”

“Johannes Hentschel sent for me to help him fix the ventilators.”

“The ventilators?” Hitler frowned a moment almost as though Kurt’s answer hadn’t fit the question. “Good,” said Hitler at last, a touch of disappointment in his voice. He nodded. “Good. Very good to see you again. Come and say goodbye before you leave, Kurt.”

“Yes sir.”

“I insist. I have so few comrades left from the first war. Come and say goodbye. It is so good to see you again.”

Hitler glanced at the general, then turned and walked down the stairs, the general following closely behind. Kurt breathed and looked toward Balter and Brinkmann. Both sergeants stood there with their mouths hanging open. “We both got our decorations—Iron Cross First Class—at the same ceremony,” Kurt explained. “And we were both gassed in the same attack.”

“No one saw you,” said Balter. “What did he mean?”

“I was on the other side of a wall when I got my award. I received mine in private.”

“You were a sniper,” said Sgt. Brinkmann quietly. “Of course; Kurt Wolff. Every recruit hears about the man with over two hundred kills.” He looked at Balter. “Herr Wolff was given his Iron Cross in private to protect his identity. In the last war the Frenchies and Tommys used captured German snipers for target practice.”

“I should go,” he said to Balter.

“Off you go, then,” Sgt. Brinkmann said to Kurt, “and may all the gods of Asgard grant you wisdom, luck, and speed.”

Kurt smiled. “Thank you, Sergeant. And may the quartermaster sergeant grant you aspirin and ear plugs.”

Brinkmann laughed sufficiently to reinvigorate his headache. Holding one hand over his left eye he waved Kurt and Balter on to the stairs.

As they exited from the bottom of the staircase and entered a narrow anteroom through another thick gas door, the odor was stunningly oppressive, the stench of diesel fuel overpowering everything else. It was much deeper, the sounds achieved by Russian artillery much duller in the lower bunker. The music playing over the loudspeaker system persisted with a Louis Armstrong song. Hitler was nowhere to be seen.

Another impact above vibrated the walls and for a moment Kurt could feel the air move as the ventilation system slammed on for a few seconds, then the lights dimmed, the air stopped, and the lights came up once more. “Kurt!” cried a voice from behind. “And not a moment too soon!” A man in his late thirties wearing greasy ochre coveralls came out of the room off the anteroom to the right. He had a great shock of light-colored hair, hazel eyes, and a weary smile. Behind him was a generator making noise, fumes, and barely enough kilowatts. Hentschel reached out a hand, noted how greasy it was, then how dirty Kurt’s hands were. “I suppose it will be awhile before clean hands become normal again.”

“For some of us,” Sgt. Balter cryptically commented beneath his breath.

Hentschel made as if to wipe his hands on Balter’s dove gray uniform coat and the sergeant backed away. “Be nice, Herr Hentschel. I’ve brought you your man. Quite a darling of the Fuhrer’s, too.”

Hentschel nodded. “Thank you, Balter. Now you can go and swill champagne with the rest of the celebrants.”

Balter snorted out a laugh, handed Kurt his bag of tools and parts, and said to him, “When you’re finished, Herr Wolff, always supposing the Russians don’t get you first, I’ll take you wherever you want to go. I’ll either be in the guard quarters or at the front post where Lt. Senger was.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“So,” said Hentschel as Balter left, “the Fuhrer remembers you.”

“It would seem so.” Kurt gestured with his hand toward the generator room. “You’ve come down in the world, my friend. This place stinks.”

“My empire may be small, Wolff, but at least it’s unhealthy and ill-designed.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“The ventilation system in the lower bunker here is down, Kurt. It sparks on for a second or two, then cuts off. It just happened.”

“I noticed.”

“An open circuit, of course. I think it interferes with the front bunker’s ventilation somehow, but the Vorbunker’s fan motor is working. It just doesn’t seem to be pushing any air down here.”

“May I see the wiring schematics?”

Hentschel shook his head. “There are none.”

“No schematics,” Kurt said incredulously.

“You want everything handed to you on a platter? No schematics, no plans, not even anyone who ever worked on the system.” He nodded in response to the look on Kurt’s face. “Stupid would be too kind a term for this state of affairs. But, as it was explained to me, my friend, if there are no plans they cannot possibly fall into the wrong hands.”

“Shrewd,” said Kurt disdainfully.

Hentschel pulled a folded piece of paper from his hip pocket. “I’ve made a rough diagram of the bunker and what vent wiring I know and some I can guess at. It’s a pitiful effort. I’m not even certain I’ve got the floor plan correct, but it’s all I could manage given the circumstances. You can see the fan motor for the Vorbunker is located close to the entrance near the air filters. The bunker down here may or may not have a separate duct system. It does seem to take its power, though, from the other bunker—” The lights began to dim as the motor on the generator slowed. Hentschel cursed, turned, and ran into the generator room, worked a throttle back and forth, then flicked the glass ball of a fuel filter with the tip of his finger and pressed a spring-loaded valve atop the filter. “Air in the line,” he shouted to Kurt over the roar of the engine. “I’m bleeding it out, but I don’t know where it’s coming in.”

Kurt entered the stifling space. “Don’t you have a backup generator?”

“No.”

“Alternate fuel source?”

“My friend,” he shouted at Kurt, “fallback positions prepared by those who never expected to have to fall back are not very well done.” He nodded toward Kurt’s tool bag. “Anything in there for me?”

Kurt dropped the cloth bag on the table and opened it. “A few light switches, receptacles, some fusing wire.”

“I have two switches that need repair. I can use all the fusing wire you have.”

Kurt took the items out and placed them on the table. “Do you have a flashlight I might borrow? My batteries are kaput.”

“Here.” Hentschel handed him a light.

Kurt checked the diagram Hentschel had drawn. His eyebrows climbed. “The electrical panels are next to the showers?”

“This facility was designed by either a dungeon commandant or a suicide, my friend, not an engineer.”

A return visit to the front bunker and three hours of crawling around and tracing cables confirmed that for some inexplicable reason the ventilator power for the Fuhrerbunker came from the air filtration room in the older system, which in turn came from the generator room in the Fuhrerbunker. The canteen party had grown in population, volume, and lubrication. It was near ten in the morning when Kurt moved back through the couples as though he were invisible. In the lower bunker he turned left off the stairs and entered the toilets to try and locate the lower bunker’s fan motor.

As he walked to the rear of the WC, Kurt could hear someone in one of the stalls retching. There was no one in the shower room but the floors were wet. The strong odor of mildew overpowered even the scent of diesel fuel. The door beyond the shower room was slightly open and there was a light on behind it. There was a man in there and he was very, very still. Kurt pushed the door open with one finger and saw the figure of an SS general hanging by his neck from a wire strung from a pipe. His neck and face were swollen and deep red—signs of death by slow strangulation.

“Who is he?” Kurt asked the man retching in the shadows.

“How should I know?” the man answered, his words a mix of anger and nausea.

“Who is he?” Kurt repeated, using the tone he’d used on thousands of suspects in Berlin’s police interrogation rooms.

“That is General Fegelein, Himmler’s deputy. You heard the traitor Himmler tried to surrender the western armies to Eisenhower, haven’t you?”

“I have now.”

“Well, then, let me tell you. Gen. Fegelein had a bundle of loot and was on his way to join his boss to sell out our beloved Fuhrer.” The voice laughed. “The poor bastard paused in his apartment, though, to finish off a couple bottles of schnapps so the Russians couldn’t get them. That’s where they arrested him. Waste not, want not; that’s what the general always said. What do you always say?”

“Get while the getting is good,” answered Kurt without humor.

“Words to live by,” said the voice quietly. “Indeed,” he said more loudly. “Well, I guess the general doesn’t want for anything now. You wouldn’t happen to need a driver, would you?” asked the voice.

“Before that, my friend, I would need a car and then someplace to go. Could you stand some free advice?”

“Write it all off to Fuhrer and Fatherland?” answered the voice.

“The words I would’ve used are simpler,” said Kurt.

“Oh?”

“There is a storm on, son. Shut up, find a hole, get in it, and pull it in after you.”

The anonymous driver chuckled once then fell silent. He was quiet for a long time. At last his voice said quietly, “Gen. Fegelein was married to Gretl Braun—Eva Braun’s sister? He was the Fuhrer’s brother-in-law for almost seven hours.”

“It’s good to know people in high places,” remarked Kurt.

The toilet flushed, a stall door slammed, the echo of a few footsteps, and there was only the steady background rumble of the generator across the hall.

The electrical panel was behind the dangling corpse. It was not like dangling corpses had been anything like a novelty in Berlin lately. Somewhat startling, however, to find out how democratic the hangmen were becoming. “Given enough time,” muttered Kurt, “maybe they’ll start stringing up each other.”

Pushing his feelings aside, Kurt placed his bag on the top of a rickety metal shelf. Putting himself between the hanging general and the electrical panel, he pushed the corpse away from the wall with his back. Once the panel door was open, he let the general swing back. Kurt turned on Hentschel’s flashlight. There were some labels scribbled in pencil on the inside of the metal door roughly corresponding to a set of fusing-wire posts in the main box. None of them referred to a ventilator fan motor. There were only four cables that went up after leaving the main fuse box, and one of them had to power the lower bunker’s ventilator fan. That would be the line that had power but no load. The burned fusing wire should have been the clue, but most of the posts had been wrapped with copper wire, eliminating the need for all those pesky fuses.

Every electrician gets caught with the need to tell if a line is hot but without the proper tool. A quick way to tell if current is in a line is to momentarily short the circuit to ground with a piece of wire or a metal tool. Some hardy souls even use a finger. A quick touch and spark: the line is hot. Kurt preferred the wire or tool. Insulated, too, when one is standing in water.

He turned and looked up at the corpse. Gen. Fegelein was not standing in water. In fact he was standing on nature’s best insulator: air. Kurt turned the corpse, untied the twine binding the General’s wrists, and held the corpse’s sleeve as he directed a lifeless claw of a finger toward a pair of contacts. “Forgive me, general. It’s for the Fatherland.”

There was an open circuit, hot on one side, dead on the other, which meant no load. The cable led to a conduit which angled and led through the concrete ceiling above the rooms on the opposite side of the panel room’s east wall. The fan motor had to be up there and access to it had to be on the other side of the wall. According to Hentschel’s diagram, on the other side of the showers and the WC’s eastern wall were the apartments shared by Adolf and Eva. Leaving his assistant hanging in front of the electrical panel, Kurt went to the generator room and told this to Johannes Hentschel. The engineer took Kurt to see a slender balding fellow with a round face and squinty eyes who was Hitler’s orderly, Heinz Linge. The three of them met in the large conference room in front of the Fuhrer’s office as Wolff explained the problem to Linge.

Hitler’s attendant wore his SS uniform as though he might be promoted to field marshal at any moment. Everything that could shine shined, everything that could gleam gleamed. Not a speck of dandruff anyplace and of his remaining hairs there was not one out of place. Linge half listened to Hentschel, the majority of his attention nervously on the door to the office of Hitler’s personal secretary, Martin Bormann. Kurt sensed momentous things under way against which Linge regarded minor bunker maintenance less than significant.

“It is not a problem,” he interrupted all of a sudden. “At present Miss Braun—Frau Hitler—is visiting with the Goebbels family in the Vorbunker. The Fuhrer is in the map room. You have time.” He faced Kurt. “Will the repairs take long?”

“I can’t tell.”

Linge stole a quick glance at his watch. “As quickly as you can, then.” Hitler’s attendant lowered his wrist, turned abruptly, and went through the door into Bormann’s office.

“I’d best get back to the generator,” said Hentschel. He held his hand out toward Hitler’s apartments. “The place is yours.”

Kurt pulled open the door and stepped in expecting almost anything except disappointment. Hitler’s office was very small, barely room enough for the desk and the chairs behind and in front of it. To Kurt’s left on the wall was a map of Berlin. On the wall behind Hitler’s chair was a reproduction of someone’s painting of Frederick the Great. He saw the painting itself in the next room hanging on the wall above a couch upholstered with a flowered pattern.

As he turned through a doorway to his left, entering a tiny vestibule, Kurt speculated as to why the image of Germany’s founder of religious tolerance bore such a prominent place in the Fuhrer’s apartments. Frederick II also fought a lot of wars and considered himself an artist. “Two out of three,” Kurt whispered to himself as he leaned through the doorway to his right and looked into the bathroom the Fuhrer shared with his wife. There was a tub and shower in the back against a wall on the other side of which Gen. Fegelein still stood watch over the electrical panels. There were two pairs of nylon stockings hanging from the rod supporting the shower curtain and a faint touch of scent in the air.

He looked up at the ceiling. It was painted and featureless. No access. Across from the bathroom was a bedroom, Frau Hitler’s judging by the clothing on the bed and chair. No access through the ceiling. Straight ahead, between the narrow walls of the vestibule, was a closet with its deep red curtain only half drawn across the opening. Kurt swept it aside and turned on the lone overhead light. The shelves along the right side held linens, towels, and sealed pasteboard boxes and crates. Opposite the shelves was a pipe suspended from the ceiling from which dozens of coats and dresses were hung on wooden hangers, again Frau Hitler’s. Kurt looked up. Set in the center of the closet ceiling was an airtight access hatch, its handles dogged down tightly.

It was short work piling up enough wooden crates to reach the access hatch, and several smacks with the hammer from his bag to loosen the handles. He pulled down the door, shined the light up, and could see a chimney with hand and step holes extending up for perhaps a meter. Above the concrete, toward the bathroom side, was what looked like the gray painted housing for the ventilator fan. He could smell the odor of burned insulation. Another crate placed on top of the stack and Kurt climbed up into the chimney, put his tool bag up, and pulled himself into the cramped space above.

He could hear the tunes being played in the canteen quite clearly, which meant the ventilating systems were connected. Unless this particular fan was operating, however, the vents connecting the systems were closed. It was likely that the air in the front bunker was mostly recirculated unless it got fresh air from this system. Getting this fan working would improve both bunkers.

He found the loose connection quickly enough. Where the power line had been wired into the fan motor there was a wiring box. Once the cover was removed the story was clear. One of the lines, properly stripped and bent into a hook, had been placed around the proper screw and the screw tightened. Instead of placing the open side of the hook to the right, however, so that the end of the wire would tighten along with the screw, the mystery installer had placed the hook’s opening to the left, loosening the hook as the screw tightened. Over the subsequent months or years of vibration from fan operation, construction, and exploding bombs and artillery shells, the connection had loosened entirely.

The loose connection had welded and burned itself through, cracked and re-welded itself a number of times from the look of it. A new end was needed on the wire. Easy enough. There looked to be enough slack to trim and strip a new connection. The screw, however, was shot. Its head was loose in the wiring box and the threaded end was where it belonged: still blocking the threads. Another thing: No switch. It was wired in directly from Gen. Fegelein’s electrical panel.

He closed his eyes for a second. It had been a long time since Kurt had slept and the heat in the crawlspace was tempting him. He felt his head nod and nod more deeply.

Faces—the faces of each boy, so many faces, he had seen through his scope before squeezing off a round, watching it slam through another head.

Smoking. So many of them he killed when they were lighting cigarettes. No one in the regiment understood why he used to get angry with his victims. Every army has sergeants, don’t they? They tell you to stay down, don’t bunch up, leave that wounded guy out there until dark, and shield those matches before you light them.

But they never listen. Rules are meant to be broken, aren’t they? What a bunch of old women those sergeants are. Down in the dirt, down in the dirt, down in the dirt! What rubbish. You’ve got to relax once in a whi—

And Kurt watched as another bullet slammed through another young rebellious head. “Die, know-it-all. Explain to St. Peter how you needed another smoke.”

Kurt often wondered if the snipers on the other side got angry at the young German boys they had to kill—

He snapped awake, uncertain how long he had been asleep in the crawlspace. Dust in the air. Must have been an exploding shell up above that awakened him. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he shined the light in the wiring box. There. An unused screw and post in the box. He took the pliers from his bag, the handles wrapped with friction tape, and changed the wire from the screw panel to the motor from the useless connector to the unused one. With his screwdriver he backed off the new screw until he could get a wire behind the head, then unscrewed the clamp holding the end of the power cable in place. Pulling more cable through, he clipped off the burned end with its charred insulation. He touched the wire end against grounded metal to make certain it was hot. After wrapping the handle of his pocket knife with friction tape, he stripped the insulation off the end of the wire. Holding the insulated part of the wire in his left hand, with his right he used his pliers to bend a hook in the bare copper. Open to the right, he hooked the wire onto the screw; there was a great spark, but he held down on the wire, keeping a good contact. The fan motor began with a shudder then settled down to running quite smoothly. Still holding onto the wire, he tightened the screw. Once that was done, he retightened the clamp holding the power cable, replaced the cover, and put his tools back in his bag.

“Now to get the hell out of here,” he whispered.

As he turned out the light and drew the curtain across the closet entrance, Kurt thought he heard voices. He turned and stopped in the entrance to the study. Seated on one end of the flowered couch was a young woman. She was blond and wearing a pale blue dress. She was sitting with her knees pulled up beneath her chin, her skirt wrapped about her thighs, her heels on the couch, hands at her sides, eyes closed, her lips blue and pressed tightly together. Kurt had seen death in a great many forms and that young woman was as dead as Bonaparte.

There was a pistol on the tan cloth-covered table in front of her, what looked like a .25 semiautomatic. Next to the pistol was a small black pill box. It was open and inside it were three glass capsules. Judging from the new aroma in the room, the capsules contained cyanide.

“No more faces, Gunsche. No more pleas,” Kurt heard Hitler say from his office. “Do you understand me, Gunsche?” A brief pause. “Tell me you understand me.”

“Absolutely no one else, my Fuhrer. You have my word.”

“Very well. Give us a few minutes. Then you know what to do.”

“Yes, my Fuhrer.”

The door to the conference room closed. Kurt looked fatalistically toward the right and the door Hitler would enter. When the Fuhrer did enter the man’s face was haggard. He was stooped, frail, his right hand against the doorjamb, his left hand shaking uncontrollably at his side. He had changed his clothes. He was wearing a simple uniform coat over black trousers. Instead of the gold Nazi Party pin on his coat, familiar from countless newsreels, he was wearing his WWI decorations: Iron Cross First Class, Bavarian Military Medal Third Class with Bar, and the Cross of Military Merit for wounds received in action. He glanced at Kurt, nodded uncomprehendingly, then shifted his gaze to the body of his wife of only a few hours. His mouth opened as if to say something, then it closed. He raised his shaking right hand, gestured toward her as if to say, “So there,” and let his hand fall to his side.

“She’s dead,” said Hitler.

“Yes.”

Hitler leaned his right shoulder against the doorjamb, closed his eyes, and folded his arms across his chest. “My hands tremble, Wolff.” He opened his eyes, glanced at the corpse, and faced Kurt. “My hands tremble, she is dead, the Russian is at my doorstep.” Another sad smile. “But I see the ventilators are working.”

“Yes sir.”

“I must congratulate you on being one of the few in the Reich’s employ today who actually accomplished what he set out to do. I usually don’t allow the ventilator to operate when I am in a room. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Gas. In the end they will come at me with gas. Bullets, bombs, nothing works. Gas, Wolff. That’s how they’ll try if they get the chance.”

“The ventilator is on now.”

Hitler shrugged. “I’m not concerned. This is a special day.” Again he waved his hand at Eva Hitler née Braun. “Look at her, Wolff. I’ve dictated my political testament, had the cyanide capsules tested on my dog, said goodbye to my staff, I’ve given instructions to my personal adjutant what to do with our remains—everything figured out down to the very last detail.” He lowered his hand and dropped his gaze to the deep red carpet. “You see how she sits, Wolff. Like a little girl, her feet on the couch. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen her sit this way. Drop on the couch or a chair, pull her legs up at the same time, and every so often tap her chin with her knees. She’d even hurt herself at times. Bite a lip or her tongue. ‘Slow down,’ I’d tell her, ‘and you won’t hurt yourself.’ You know what she’d say to me, Wolff ?”

“What?”

“ ‘Hooey. Hooey phooey, Herr Wolff’—Herr Wolff was her nickname for me, you know. Code name leftover from my party days. You didn’t know we were named the same, did you, Wolff ?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“ ‘Hooey’ and she’d laugh. Next time she sat she’d make an even bigger show of pulling up her knees.” He chuckled ironically. “Such rebelliousness.”

“And this time when she tapped her chin,” said Kurt, “she had a little glass capsule held between her teeth.”

“Indeed.” Hitler moistened his lips, blinked, and nodded. “Getting ready for me, I suppose,” he said. “Did you talk with her before this happened?”

“No. I was up in the crawlspace repairing the fan motor. When I came down she was like this.”

Hitler turned abruptly to his right, pulled out a chair before a small blond wooden desk, and sat down. He looked at what was on his desk. Its surface had a few papers neatly stacked in a corner beneath a magnifying glass. In the center of the desk were two white china plates side by side, each one containing a piece of chocolate cake. Next to each plate was a white linen napkin and a silver dessert fork.

“Chocolate cake,” said Adolf Hitler. “Before you go I have a favor to ask of you, my friend.” He nodded with his head toward a chair to the side of the desk. “But first, sit. Have some cake. The army is starving and we shall eat chocolate cake.”

As he sat in the chair, Kurt burst out with a nervous laugh.

The Fuhrer frowned. “You think that’s funny? The army starving?”

“No. Of course not. It was a joke of my grandfather’s. The way you said that reminded me.”

“A joke.”

“Yes.”

Hitler leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands together in his lap, and said, “Tell me your grandfather’s joke about the German army starving, Wolff.”

Kurt looked at the corpse of the Fuhrer’s wife, realizing as he did so that telling Grandpa Mathe’s joke to Adolf Hitler would reveal all that he had been trying to hide for the past twelve years. He tried to think of another, but there simply wasn’t any other joke to replace it. “Sir, with your new wife—”

Hitler nodded and tapped an impatient fingertip against the edge of the desktop. “I am a man who could use a laugh, Wolff. Tell me your grandfather’s joke.”

Kurt remembered the old man with his wide eyes, wild gray beard, and sweeping hand gestures as he would tell the joke about the Jew and the chicken. And if you’re going to perform, boy, perform.

“Very well.” Kurt stood and said, “A Jew is walking down a country lane and he is leading a skinny little chicken by a piece of string he has tied around the bird’s neck. Along comes this German soldier. The soldier stops the Jew and says, ‘Jew, is that your chicken?’

“ ‘Yes sir, this is my chicken,’ answers the Jew.

“ ‘Jew, what do you feed your chicken?’ demands the soldier.

“ ‘I feed my chicken corn, sir,’ the Jew answers.

“ ‘So, you feed your chicken corn while the German army is starving?’ bellows the soldier, and he beats the Jew within an inch of his life.”

Like Grandpa Mathe used to, Kurt bent over, placed one hand to his back, the other holding the imaginary piece of string. “So the Jew continues down the road leading his chicken until he chances to meet another soldier coming the other way. ‘Jew,’ says the soldier, ‘is that your chicken?’

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ answers the Jew nodding sadly, ‘this is my chicken.’

“ ‘Jew, what do you feed your chicken?’ demands the soldier.

“ ‘Sir, I feed my chicken . . . barley,’ the Jew answers.

“ ‘You feed your chicken barley while the German army is starving?’ bellows the soldier, and he beats the Jew within an inch of his life.”

Kurt bent over even further, his knees bent, one hand still to his back, the other still holding the imaginary piece of string. “So the Jew picks himself up again and continues down the lane leading his chicken until he chances to meet still another soldier coming the other way. ‘Jew,’ says the third soldier, ‘is that your chicken?’ “

Kurt looked about, his eyes rolling, where-oh-where to hide this damnable bird. Hitler chuckled, then laughed out loud. “ ‘Yes, sir,’ answers the Jew, ‘this is my chicken.’

“ ‘Jew, what do you feed your chicken?’ demands the soldier.

Kurt stood upright and shrugged. “ ‘Eh, I give him two pfennigs and let him buy what he wants.’ “

“Haw!” roared Hitler. “Haw!” he roared again. He chuckled twice more, his eyes staring at the plates of cake, his shoulders shaking. “Buy what he wants,” he repeated. He shook his head and stared into an unfathomable distance.

“Wolff,” he said at last, looking up at him. “You are something of a mystery. Always have been. I worked out of regimental headquarters. No secrets from the runner. I knew when you got your Iron Cross Second Class, your fiftieth kill. I knew when we got our Iron Cross First Class awards together. That was for your two hundredth kill. You were quite a hero of mine.” He looked from the cake to Kurt’s face. “And it was right there in your record: You were a Jew.”

“There were a great many Jews fighting for Germany in the last war.” Kurt shrugged, arched his brows, and sat back in the chair, a hand on each knee. “But my grandfather would disagree with you.”

“Disagree?”

“About me being a Jew. ‘Policeman,’ he used to call me like it had a bad taste. ‘Policeman.’ He addressed my father the same. My father was a police inspector in Munich. I followed him into the department.”

“But your grandfather was a Jew.”

“Grandpa Mathe was more Jewish than Moses. He was a rabbi. We always suspected he had his own autographed copy of the Ten Commandments.” Kurt glanced at his host. “There are rumors that your grandfather was Jewish.”

“They’re all lies.”

“Is that why you had your father’s village turned into an artillery range?”

The Fuhrer stared at the chocolate cake, blinked, and said, “Each of us has had to make sacrifices for the Fatherland.”

Kurt held out his hand toward the cake and Hitler nodded. Although his throat was partially blocked by his heart, the cake, after filling his mouth with heavenly moist fragrance, slid effortlessly down Kurt’s throat. “My God, this is incredible cake.”

“Better than those wormy biscuits we used to get in the trenches, eh, Wolff ?” Hitler nodded as he took a bite of his and talked around it. “Constanze Manziarly baked this. She does excellent baking,” he said, “and German chocolate is the world’s best.” Hitler placed his fork on the side of his plate, took his napkin, wiped his mouth, dropped the napkin next to his cake, and stared at it. “About this favor I must ask, Wolff.”

Kurt took another bite of his cake. “You let me live and what do I do?”

“Very simple. You shoot me.” He tapped the right side of his head. “Right here, in the temple.” He faced Kurt. “Not too much to ask of an old comrade, is it?”

Slowly Kurt placed his fork on the plate, waiting for more. There had to be more.

“You look puzzled, Wolff. You were always very smart. You didn’t kill that sniper whose bullet had my name all over it by being slow.” Hitler moved his chair around until he was facing the couch. He nodded toward his new bride. “She was supposed to be sitting at the opposite end of that couch. I was to be sitting where she is. I’m right-handed, you see.”

Kurt studied the scene and returned his gaze to the Fuhrer’s face. “She was going to shoot you with—not with that little .25.”

“No,” said Hitler as he pulled open the desk’s center drawer and withdrew a Walther 7.62. “With this one.” His hand shook as he placed the gun on the napkin next to his cake. “A present from Bormann.”

“She shoots you with the Walther, drops the gun where you might have dropped it had you done the deed yourself, then she crunches down on the cyanide capsule and maybe shoots herself with the .25 in the bargain. It’s got to look like Gotterdammerung, doesn’t it? Twilight of the gods, going out like a hero. But your hand shakes too badly to aim properly and the Valkyries don’t come and collect up heroes who accidentally shoot off their own noses.”

“Said rather mockingly, Wolff, but you have the essence of the predicament.” Hitler nodded, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Yes. Bormann, Linge, Gunsche: they’ll be the first ones in here. If any of them out there live past the end of the war, they’ll be in the history books telling stories about this day.” He waved a hand expansively. “The last days of the Third Reich—’What did you see, Herr Linge?’ “ He looked at Kurt. “What would they answer if all I did was blow off my own nose; shoot off my mustache.” He studied the 7.62 for a moment. Nodding, he pulled the drawer open even further lifting a 9mm Pistole ‘08 from it. He checked the magazine, jacked a round into the chamber, and held out the handle to Kurt. “Perhaps this one is more to your liking. You ought to know how to operate it. You had one back in our war.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

Hitler put the Luger down next to Kurt’s cake. “A Jew giving up a chance to kill Adolf Hitler? It can’t be because you are a coward, Wolff. I saw you in the war. That one assault when the French were coming, our wire all blasted to pieces, and if they caught you with that rifle and scope it would have been all over for you, but you kept at it, shot after shot, taking out officers and noncoms. Twice you sent someone back for ammunition. You aren’t a coward, Wolff. It cannot be because you’re squeamish. A sniper with two hundred ghosts in his pockets? How many heads have you shattered?” He stood, picked up the Walther 7.62 from his desk, and said, “You are ridiculous, Wolff.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“If the French had taken you that day they would have executed you for what you did. We all knew they did that to our snipers.”

“That made them murderers.” Kurt watched as Hitler walked over to the couch and sat next to his wife’s corpse.

“What is the difference?”

“The law,” answered Kurt. “That’s the difference.”

“Policemen and rules, rules and policemen,” Hitler said mockingly. He looked up at Kurt. “Am I a murderer?”

“One of the biggest the world has ever seen.”

“Not by German law, Wolff. Not by German rules. Every death you and the other Jews of the world would charge against me was either legal or not of my doing.” He checked the load on the 7.62 and snapped the clip back into the grip. Resting the hand holding the pistol on his right thigh, he said, “There is one more thing you should consider, Wolff. At this very moment in the main conference room are a dozen or more generals and other advisors of mine who have been begging me for weeks to go to Berchtesgarden and continue fighting the war from the mountains. It makes sense. I could be there in hours and Berlin is militarily indefensible. Even so, look how long we’ve held out. Fifty thousand lives a mile, Wolff. That’s what we’re costing the Bolshies and they hold all the cards. What do you think the price will be in the mountains, eh? I’d have fresh troops, abundant supplies, enough ammunition to keep us for two years, good defensive positions. Consider the price.” He nodded to himself, then fixed Kurt with his gaze. “I tell you this, Wolff: Either do this favor for me or bear the responsibility when I tell my generals to break out for Berchtesgarden.” He tossed the Walther on the carpet by his feet. “You once saved my life, Wolff. The responsibility for it is yours.”

Once again the world’s dead crowded the edges of their graves, reached out their wasted arms, fixed Kurt with their sunken stares, and beckoned.

Hitler turned to his left and let his gaze fall upon his dead wife. Kurt’s mouth was as dry as leather, his hands almost without feeling but with lives of their own. He watched as his hand picked up the 9mm from the desk, the second hand joining the first to steady his aim, and fired, the round striking Hitler exactly in his right temple. The man’s head jerked toward the wall, he slumped forward, and came to rest leaning slightly toward the woman. The sound of the shot still seemed to be rebounding from the concrete walls.

Kurt looked at the smoking gun in his hand, stunned that he had done it. He couldn’t sort it out. The effort made him lightheaded. The portrait of Frederick the Great had Hitler’s blood and brain tissue on it. The entrance wound was clean.

“My god,” he mumbled to himself, the ineptness of his actions glaring at him. He was standing there over a fresh corpse with a smoking gun in his hand.

There was a noise from the office. Kurt turned and rushed back into the vestibule closet, silently pulling the curtain across the opening. So many different thoughts—a panicky craving to breathe hard—a vital need for complete silence—his mind rushing to prepare a defense he couldn’t possibly survive: It wasn’t murder. Assisted suicide; euthanasia, perhaps. Complicity in perpetrating a fraud, certainly. Ending a nightmare in the first degree. And how could he convince an angry drumhead Nazi court that, out of all the devoted followers there in the bunker, shaky old Adolph had picked a Jew to send him to Valhalla?

It seemed to take forever for someone to come. First Kurt heard Heinz Linge call out to someone, “It’s done.”

Kurt peered between the curtain and the right side of the closet door. Linge came into view first. Martin Bormann next, staggering slightly. Kurt recognized the doughy balding man from the newsreels. He was followed by a sad-eyed blond fellow in his mid-twenties wearing an SS uniform. “Gunsche,” Bormann said to the sad-eyed blond man. “You’d better tell the others.”

After Gunsche left, Bormann and Linge stood looking at the bodies. “It is the end of it,” said Bormann. “The end of it all.”

After a few moments, Linge said, “My God.”

“What, Linge?” Bormann sounded just a touch sloshed.

“On the floor. Isn’t that the pistol you gave him when the French surrendered?”

“Yes. And?”

“For God’s sake, Bormann, look at the wound. I know a 9mm entrance wound when I see one.” He picked Hitler’s gun up off the carpet. “This is a 7.62.” He sniffed at it, then held it out. “It hasn’t even been fired!”

“What are you saying, Linge? The Fuhrer is not really dead?”

“Don’t be absurd! Someone killed him.”

“Linge. Linge!” drunkenly insisted Bormann. “So he had a little help. So what?”

“We should tell Rattenhuber.”

Bormann held up both palms. “Don’t be an idiot. Think, Linge. Think. You know how the Fuhrer’s hands shook. It was not certain he could handle a gun by himself. Perhaps he needed a little help.”

“But the man who killed him—”

“What if it was Eva Braun? Are you insane? You want to have an investigation? The world is coming down around our ears, Linge, and you want to wait around, form a committee, hold hearings? Perhaps Marshal Zhukov will be kind enough to preside.” Bormann pushed Linge’s arm. “Go. Get blankets to wrap these bodies. Go!”

“The skin around the wound,” persevered Linge. “There’s no powder burns. You’ve seen people shot at close range—”

“I tend to be elsewhere.”

“Look at the spatter on the wall, Bormann! Look at it! The one who shot him had to be standing right where you are now!”

“Go. Get the blankets. Put this nonsense out of your head and go!” urged Bormann. As Linge reluctantly moved into Hitler’s bedroom, Martin Bormann looked down at the body of his fallen leader. He bent over and looked more closely. He straightened, rubbed his eyes, and slowly turned toward the vestibule, his face in a frown.

Kurt looked down at the pistol in his hand. He couldn’t kill everyone. He placed the weapon on the shelf. Perhaps Hitler was right. Perhaps saving his life did make Kurt responsible for everything that followed.

Bormann walked over to the closet and swept the curtain aside. He frowned, turned on the light, and walked through Kurt as he went to the back of the closet to look behind the clothing rack.

“Bormann?” called Heinz Linge.

“Back here,” he answered. “I thought someone was back here.”

“Well?”

Bormann stood, shrugged, and said, “Nothing. My god, it’s cold in here.” He turned and walked through Kurt as he returned to the living room. Linge handed Bormann a blanket and himself began wrapping Hitler’s body with a second blanket. Bormann straightened out Eva’s legs and covered her.

Linge and someone from the RSD carried out Adolf Hitler’s body. Bormann carried out Eva Hitler’s. Soon they were all gone.

The ghost held his hand up in front of his face and looked through it. Hitler had been right. In that hospital outside Berlin after they’d been gassed in 1918, Kurt Wolff had died. If he had been responsible for the lance corporal’s life he’d saved in 1918, he wondered, would he now be responsible for the lives he saved by killing his old comrade?

Kurt left the apartment and moved toward the stairs to the surface, the pungent odor of tobacco smoke joining the music and other odors in the air. No problem with communications, he mused. Word of the Fuhrer’s death, apparently, traveled swiftly.

Copyright © 2010 Barry B. Longyear