On Desperate Ground (7 page)

Guderian’s voice trailed off as he stared into the bright firelight. Flame snapped and leapt up from the logs. He saw red everywhere.

* * *

The
Führer
briefing the next day began quietly enough. Guderian presented Gehlen’s intelligence findings, all pointing to a massive Soviet offensive before the end of the month. Hitler argued with details of the report, seeking to frame them in a positive light. Guderian, one of the few generals who would stand up and argue with Hitler, would not give in. The dispute became heated.

Faust had never seen anything like it. Hitler screamed into Guderian’s face, his veins pulsing red and sweat beading on his pale skin. Faust felt a sense of frustration as the clash between the two men halted any serious discussion of how to stop the Russian advance. He longed to be back at Foreign Armies East, where he could strike back instead of standing silently by. Strike back at those who ruined his life, who killed Anna. He felt the familiar agony and anger rise in his throat. Coldly, he put aside these thoughts, knowing they would still be there, later, when he was alone.

Faust listened as Guderian sighing loudly in frustration, tried to get Hitler to focus on the report one more time.

“My
Führer
, if you will just look at these reports from Gehlen, there can be no doubt…”

“Nonsense!” Hitler swept the report off the map table and slammed his fist down. Colored pencils danced across the map of Germany. “Those responsible for this report should be placed in a lunatic asylum!”

“If Gehlen is crazy then so am I,” shot back Guderian. “My
Führer
,” he began again, motioning to Faust to step forward. “Listen to this officer. He comes to us directly from the front. As you can see he is a highly decorated soldier. The hero of the Maas River Bridge is not one given to flights of fancy.”
 

Guderian watched as Hitler took in Faust and his decorations. He knew that he could not persuade the
Führer
, but hoped that a combat veteran fresh from the front might win him over.

Hitler’s demeanor changed instantly, no longer argumentative, but solicitous.
 

“Faust, isn’t it?” Hitler asked. Faust snapped his heels and did a slight bow.
 

“Yes, my
Führer
. I had the honor of receiving my Oak Leaves from you in 1942.”

“Of course, yes. I remember the occasion well. So, they have you counting Bolsheviks now. Do you share General Guderian’s opinion that all is lost?”
 

Faust quickly understood how both Hitler and Guderian had maneuvered him. He sought for an answer that would please both men. An idea flashed in his mind as he glanced at the map. It was a bold, simple move. Perhaps too simple? He decided to wait and think it through.
 

“The numbers General Gehlen presented to General Guderian are correct,” Faust began, quickly adding “but numbers are not everything in this struggle. With your leadership and the iron will of the German soldier, we will turn the Soviets back.”

Hitler spread his arms and turned to Guderian, gesturing towards Faust.
 

“How little faith in me you generals have! The younger men believe where you do not. Guderian, remember, our reserves in the east have never been stronger. Soon we will have jet aircraft and other wonder weapons rolling off the assembly lines. Hold on at the Oder River!”

“How can we hold?” Guderian responded. “There are no useful reserves; less than 12 divisions along a 1200 kilometer front!”
 

Hitler did not hear the figures. Faust’s answer had allowed him to rebuild his wall of disbelief. He looked to the end of the table, where SS
Reichsführer
Heinrich Himmler sat quietly, having not moved or spoken throughout the briefing. Himmler looked up at his
Führer
, ever obedient and eager to please. The
Reichsführer
, the second most powerful man in the Third Reich and head of the dreaded SS and Gestapo, was possessed by a pathetic need to please Adolf Hitler and was in physical agony simply being in the
Führer’s
presence when he was contradicted.
 

“So,
Reichsführer
, what do you think of this so-called Soviet offensive?”

Knowing exactly what his
Führer
needed to hear, Himmler affected indifference to the threat. He shrugged his shoulders as he removed and polished his prince-nez glasses. Putting them on calmly he looked into Hitler’s eyes and finally spoke.

“It is all an enormous bluff, of course.”

The briefing was over.

* * *

“We failed, Freytag.”
 

Guderian slumped into his chair in front of the fireplace once they returned to their quarters following the briefing.
 

“No, you made the best possible argument, General.”
 

Freytag turned to Faust who, along with several other staff officers, provided an informal debriefing audience.
 

“But you, Colonel, what did you expect to gain with that drivel about leadership and iron will?”

Faust ignored the statement, and instead commented on Freytag’s response to Guderian.

“It could not have been the best possible argument, since it did not convince the
Führer
. Therefore you are correct. It was a failure.”

The room was silent, as Guderian leaned forward in the chair and turned his head to look at Faust. He gave a short, sharp laugh and said, “Our friend from the east speaks the truth. Unfortunately.”

“
Herr
General,” Faust stepped forward in front of Guderian. “I could have helped earlier in the discussion if I had been prepared. First I was instructed by Major Freytag not to offer any opinions during the briefing, and then I was thrown in as a last-ditch attempt to change the
Führer’s
mind. It was already too late.”

“What do you suggest, Colonel?” asked one of the junior officers, a bit defensively.
 

Faust carefully considered his answer. He needed time to think his idea through quietly. He needed to be alone, to develop it with all the help the demons could give him.
 

“I am not yet ready to make a concrete suggestion. However I do know that extreme measures are called for to save the Fatherland. I also know that any plan must acknowledge the greatness of the
Führer
. Nothing will be accomplished by questioning his strategic vision and inferring his troop dispositions are faulty.”

“In other words, make him think it is his plan.” Freytag said cynically.

Faust had been looking straight at Guderian and held his gaze as he answered.

“Yes.”

Guderian shrugged, dismissing the topic.

Faust’s mind wandered. He thought about Russian fur caps, wondering where the Brandenburgers were right now. They held the key to the plan churning through his mind, and he would need them, if enough of them were left alive.
 

CHAPTER FIVE

16 January 1945

SHAEF Headquarters

London, England

Captain Matthew “Mack” Mackenzie sat motionless in the back seat of the black cab as it stopped in front of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) Headquarters. He looked at the stone steps leading to the front door, flanked by sandbags and sentries with Thompson submachine guns at the ready. The wind blew intermittent raindrops, thick with sleet, across the sidewalk and against the guarded entrance.

“Here you are, Guv,” said the cabbie as he rang up the charge on his meter.
 

He turned to look at Mack, who continued to sit, staring at the building.

“You all right, are you Guv?”

Mack flinched suddenly, as if he had been slapped. He fished some coins out of his trench coat pocket.
 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Here you go.”

Mack got out of the car, grunting as stood up stiffly. He felt the pain and strain on his back from the worst of the shrapnel wounds, then a moment of dizziness as he steadied himself as the cold rain pelted him. The doctors at St. Alban’s had proclaimed him fit for duty yesterday, after he had received his sealed orders to report to SHAEF HQ within forty-eight hours. Mack knew the two events were not coincidence, and that if SHAEF required it he would have been delivered here bandaged and bleeding.
 

Damn
, he thought to himself. He tried to improve his own attitude with a smile for the MP as he handed him his orders. The MP Sergeant, half-frozen in the hard rain, was not receptive to Mack’s charm.
 

“Okay, see the lieutenant at the desk inside. Straight down the main hall.”

“Yeah, Sarge. I’ve been here before. I know the drill.”
 

The lieutenant at the duty desk reviewed his orders, logged him in on the HQ roster, and directed him to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Prescott. Prescott worked for the SHAEF Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 (Intelligence), and was responsible for liaison with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services and numerous Allied committees that analyzed and interpreted intelligence data.
 

Prescott was a BIGOT, the code name for those senior officers who had access to one of the greatest and best-kept secrets of the war. The Allies had broken the Enigma code and had been decoding and reading German radio transmissions since the start of the war. The Enigma device coded messages before they were sent and decoded them at the other end. Due to the complexity of this powerful computing engine, the Germans had complete faith in the security of their coded radio transmissions. They were dead wrong. An Enigma device had been smuggled out of Poland in 1939, brought to Great Britain, and studied by a brilliant group of scientists at Bletchley Park.
 

Hitler had by-passed the Enigma system in favor of written orders for his Ardennes Offensive, due to his mistrust of the General Staff. Without Enigma data, the Allies were taken totally by surprise in the Battle of the Bulge and dealt a near deadly blow, which was not lost on Colonel Prescott as he watched the movement of Allied forces move into German territory.
 

Mack had never heard of Enigma, and knew nothing of Prescott’s ultra top-secret BIGOT designation. He did know that Colonel Prescott was highly informed and connected with multiple intelligence sources. Mack was also certain there was a highly placed Allied spy somewhere in the German High Command. Prescott did nothing to dissuade him from that notion.
 

When Mack first arrived in Algiers in 1942, he was directed by Eisenhower himself to work with Prescott to uncover pro-German enemy agents among the Vichy French officials left in place after the Allied invasion. The rats-nest of conflicting loyalties among the French—some maintaining allegiance to the collaborationist Vichy regime, some hating the British, and some desperate to fight with the Allies to free their homeland—presented a challenge to the Americans, who were new to Old World politics and the multitude of competing factions represented in French Northwest Africa. But The Bronx had been a good training ground, and Mack dug into the few clues available and unearthed a spy ring feeding information back to Vichy, which in turn informed the Germans. Prescott had thought Mack was too headstrong, relying on instinct instead of a steady accumulation of evidence. But he’d gotten the job done, and Prescott used him whenever he needed a sharp mind, a strong right hook, and a steady aim.
 

Mack’s only problem with that was his opinion that Prescott used him too often, giving him all the dangerous jobs, keeping him away from anything even hinting at the legal system. He had hoped to make valuable contacts among the Judge Advocate General’s office, contacts that would help him build the kind of career his father had planned for him; a career he’d always expected would be his. But now, nearly everything he’d done in this war was stamped top secret, nothing to put on a resume or an application to law school. His father kept trying to get him transferred, but even a federal judge with political connections had very little clout at SHAEF.

With several years of history and a grudging respect, or at least a truce, between them, Mack and Sam Prescott faced each other across Prescott’s paper-strewn oak desk. Mack sank into a comfortable leather chair. A large, detailed map of Germany was hung on the wall. He avoided looking at it, hoping it was not a sign of his next destination.

Prescott glanced at the clock on the mantle over the fireplace, where a low coal fire glowed, warming the room against the January chill and gloom.
 

“Nearly 1700 hours, Mackenzie. How about a toast to your return?”

“Excellent idea, Colonel. Still drinking Bushmills?”

 
“Got a fresh bottle of Black Bush right here,” said the Colonel, pulling an unopened bottle and two glasses from a bottom drawer. Prescott poured for each of them and handed Mack his glass. He looked up to the map and held his glass out.

“To the endgame?”

“To the end of the war, Colonel,” Mack said coldly.