Traitor's Gate (46 page)

If only Chamberlain had stood firm, Hitler would have been dead before the day was out.

The telephone rang in the smoke-filled apartment and there was instant silence. All eyes were on Heinz as he answered. The young men in uniform around him stiffened. Hands clutched weapons.

Heinz’s face was impassive, but there was perhaps a slight drooping of the shoulders as he listened. His face was grim as he turned to face his men.

‘It’s off,’ he said. ‘Hitler has agreed to meet the British Prime Minister in Munich to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia. The British and French have caved in. There will be no invasion of Czechoslovakia. There will be no coup.’

There was an uproar of groans and shouted questions, most of which Heinz was unable to answer.

‘This can’t be true,’ said Conrad.

‘I’m going to talk to Oster,’ said Theo. He got to his feet and squeezed past the crush of people to get to the telephone. A minute later he was back.

‘It is true,’ he said.

‘Can’t we go ahead anyway?’

‘I suggested that to Oster, but he says no. The generals won’t do it and Canaris won’t do it. Oster ordered me to stand down with the others.’

‘But he can’t order me,’ said Conrad.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I am going to the Chancellery right now to shoot Adolf Hitler myself.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘No I’m not. Heinz said it was chaos in there. I know where I can get in. I’m going.’

With that Conrad laid the Schmeisser machine pistol he had been issued with on to the floor and sidled towards the door. He’d never get into the Chancellery with the machine pistol, and his Luger sidearm should be enough to do the job.

Theo followed him. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Heinz calmed his raiding party
and organized them to disperse. A couple of minutes later he realized Eiche and Hertenberg were absent. Someone said he had seen them slip out. Heinz thought for a moment and then telephoned Oster.

Fischer dashed round to the next-door building. He found Huber leaving Heydrich’s office, scowling.

‘Herr Kriminalrat, I have some information about the Schalke case.’

‘Put it in a report and send it to me,’ snapped Huber angrily. He didn’t stop, but walked rapidly towards the stairs.

Fischer hurried to keep up with him. ‘Last night I saw some notes on Schalke’s desk. About a coup. A plan to storm the Chancellery today. The twenty-eighth!’

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Huber, not breaking his stride. ‘Write it down in a report for me.’

Fischer grabbed his superior officer’s sleeve. ‘But if there really is a coup planned for today—’

Huber stopped and glared at Fischer. ‘Get your hands off me!’

Fischer dropped his hands to his side.

‘Kriminal Assistant Fischer, let me make something clear. The Gruppenführer knows about the so-called coup. He believes that it is a fiction. He also knows why Schalke was killed, but for his own reasons he doesn’t want anyone else to know, including Schalke’s own colleagues. The Gruppenführer has made himself very clear on this point, and when the Gruppenführer makes himself clear, it is best to listen. Do you understand?’

Fischer nodded. ‘Yes, Herr Kriminalrat!’

Conrad and Theo walked smartly along the streets the short distance to the Chancellery, two Wehrmacht officers in a hurry in a city full of Wehrmacht officers in a hurry.

Conrad was appalled by what Chamberlain had done. The British Prime Minister had known that Hitler’s days were num­bered. All he had had to do was to show some concrete support for Czechoslovakia and the most evil and dangerous leader in European history would have been overthrown by his own people. But Chamberlain didn’t even have the courage for that.

Conrad thought of all the risks brave, honourable Germans like Ewald von Kleist and Theo and General Beck and countless others that Conrad didn’t even know had taken to enlist the help of the British government. Chamberlain had ignored them all.

Well, Conrad wouldn’t. He would do what he was sure was right.

‘You don’t have to come,’ he said to Theo. ‘This is different to a coup. We are very unlikely to survive this.’

‘I know.’ Theo’s voice was unnaturally hoarse. He coughed, trying to clear his throat. ‘I got you into this, Conrad, and I’m going through it with you. Wherever it leads.’

Conrad smiled at his friend. Theo looked nervous. Nervous and courageous. For all his military ancestry, he had never been this close to death before. It struck Conrad that he and Theo were quite similar after all. With embarrassment he remembered his suspicions of Theo when he had first arrived in Berlin. They had been way off the mark: all the time Theo had been dealing with the violence, cruelty and fear of life under the Nazis. But ultimately, both Conrad and Theo had come to the same conclusion: they would do what they must to stand up to Nazism, even if it meant death.

Theo caught Conrad’s glance and straightened, throwing back his shoulders. ‘Besides which, you’ll need me to get you to Hitler. I can tell the guards I have a message for him from Admiral Canaris.’

Conrad
had
been this close to death before. The fear spurred him on; it felt good to be acting, not waiting. His senses were alive. He picked out the different sounds of the street noises: the rumble and roar of the motor cars; the jangle of tram bells; the swish of bicycle tyres; the subdued click of pedestrians’ heels on the pavements. His nostrils took in the cool sharpness of the early autumnal Berlin air, tinged with petrol fumes and the scent of two smartly dressed ladies whom he and Theo pushed past.

He knew he only had a few more minutes to live, but that knowledge made him walk faster towards the Chancellery and his destiny. Was it destiny? Was it duty? He didn’t know, but he did know that there was no choice but to go through with it. Hitler had ruined so many lives, and taken so many others – including Anneliese’s – and he had only just started. It had fallen to Conrad to do something about it, and he wasn’t going to shirk that responsibility.

He remembered his father describing how he had stumbled towards the German trenches at Passchendaele, knowing he would die, but also knowing that he didn’t want to kill any more human beings before he did so. Well, Conrad had one more human being to kill. His father’s war to end all wars had been a sham. But one death to avert one more world war would be worthwhile.

Three deaths if you included himself and Theo.

They arrived at the Wilhelmplatz in front of the Reich Chancellery. There were plenty of people milling about the entrance. As they watched, von Ribbentrop hurried out, fol­lowed by a small entourage, passing a diplomat in winged collar and morning suit hurrying in. Two black-uniformed SS guards stood at attention watching the comings and goings out of the corners of their eyes.

Conrad glanced at Theo. Once they had walked into that building, they would not walk out alive.

‘Ready?’

Theo nodded.

‘Then let’s go.’

Fischer’s mind span in confusion as he left the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais on Wilhelmstrasse. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Rather than go straight back to Gestapo headquarters next door, he decided to stroll up the street to try to get his thoughts in order.

Huber could say what he liked, but the notes Fischer had read suggested that Schalke took the threat of the coup seriously. So why had Heydrich shut the investigation down? It was clear that Huber didn’t know. It must be a personal reason. Perhaps Heydrich was involved with the coup? Perhaps the SS and the Gestapo were planning to take over the government? But the notes suggested that the Wehrmacht were planning to move
against
the Gestapo, not with them.

It made no sense.

He crossed Leipziger Strasse and passed the Kaiserhof Hotel. He dropped his cigarette stub and was about to turn back towards his office when he saw a face he recognized. Two faces.

They were two men he had trailed on and off for Klaus. Conrad de Lancey and Theo von Hertenberg. And de Lancey was wearing the uniform of an officer in the Wehrmacht! He watched as the two men exchanged words and set off across the road to the Reich Chancellery. Fischer followed them.

Conrad and Theo walked straight past the Chancellery entrance on Wilhelmstrasse and turned into a small courtyard where there were two double doors. These were unguarded, presumably because the guards assumed they were locked. Without pausing, Theo turned the heavy iron handle of one of the doors and pushed. The door moved; Oster’s Foreign Ministry friend had done as he had promised.

The lobby of the building was full of people jostling, pro­testing, hurrying to and fro. The black-uniformed SS guards with their white gloves were busy by the main entrance stop­ping visitors, too busy to notice Conrad and Theo. A small bespectacled man did see them and turned the other way. Oster’s friend, perhaps.

Theo led Conrad to the foot of the grand staircase. Neither of them had been inside before, although both of them had studied the plans Heinz had shown them. There were more SS guards on the staircase, but they were being jostled by anxious-looking officers, diplomats and civil servants rushing up and down the stairs.

Conrad glanced up and saw a figure he recognized bearing down on him: Sir Nevile Henderson, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Germany, looking preoccupied. Conrad lowered his head as he climbed the stairs, hoping that his uniform would confuse the Ambassador. And so it did, until the last instant when out of the corner of his eye, Conrad saw Henderson hesitate on the bottom step.

‘De Lancey?’ the Ambassador enquired in a doubtful voice.

Conrad kept going, trusting in Henderson’s desire not to make an embarrassing scene and his fear of being proven mistaken if he did. It worked.

They hurried along a corridor at the top of the stairs until they reached an opened door, guarded by a tall SS man. Theo barked that he had to see the Führer urgently with a message from Admiral Canaris. The guard waved him into a red-plush antechamber. An impatient crowd was gathered at one end of the room, outside the door to Hitler’s office. An SS adjutant acted as gatekeeper.

‘
Heil Hitler!
’ said Theo, raising his arm. ‘We have an import­ant message for the Führer from Admiral Canaris.’

‘Everyone here wishes to speak to the Führer,’ said the SS officer.

‘But I must speak to him at once,’ said Theo. ‘Tell him the Abwehr has uncovered a British secret-service plot to destabilize the High Command. They are planning to put it into action at any minute.’

The SS officer glanced doubtfully at Theo. ‘Then why doesn’t Admiral Canaris come himself?’

‘He’s trying to deal with the plot now!’ said Theo. ‘We don’t have much time.’

In a day of surprise and counter-surprise, this proposition did not seem as incredible as it might otherwise have done. ‘Very well,’ said the SS officer. ‘The Führer is speaking to Field Marshal Göring now. I will interrupt him.’

Fischer ran across the road and up the steps to the entrance, where he was promptly stopped by the two SS guards. He gabbled his explanation, but they wouldn’t listen. A delegation of Italian diplomats pulled up in a long Mercedes and hurried up the steps. The guards, who recognized them, let them through.

Fischer gave up and dodged into the courtyard to the door he had seen de Lancey and Hertenberg use. It pushed open easily. There was a reception desk in the lobby, and he rushed over to it.

‘There are intruders in the building!’ he said to the harassed SS guard at the desk.

‘Who are you?’

‘They are planning to shoot the Führer.’

The guard raised an eyebrow. ‘I said, who are you?’

‘Kriminal Assistant Fischer, Gestapo.’ Fischer pulled out his Party badge.

At that moment the Italian delegation arrived and launched into a tirade in English, Italian and German at the guard. The guard ignored Fischer’s badge and dealt with the visitors.

‘The Führer’s life is in danger!’ Fischer shouted in frustration.

The Italians ignored him. The guard snapped at him to wait. It took a minute to sign all the Italians in, and then they were on their way.

‘There are two men in the building dressed as Wehrmacht officers,’ Fischer said. ‘I have information at Gestapo head­quarters that suggests there is a plan to overthrow the Führer today. I believe that these men intend to kill him in the next few minutes.’ Now the guard was listening. ‘I must speak to your superior officer at once!’ Fischer urged. ‘If the Führer dies, it will be your responsibility!’

The guard picked up the telephone and dialled a number. Fischer noticed a Wehrmacht colonel slip through the double doors from which he had just come a moment earlier. ‘The adjutant is just coming,’ the guard said, passing the receiver to the excitable Gestapo officer. Fischer decided to ignore the colonel. The important thing was to get through to the guards around Hitler before it was too late.

Two diplomats, a civil servant and a general scowled at Theo and Conrad as they waited. Through the window, Conrad could see the garden behind the Chancellery and the men calmly working on the new building next door, oblivious to the drama unfolding so close to them.

Conrad scanned the two SS guards. Tall, fit, young, inexperi­enced, they were distracted by all the excitement and the hubbub around them. They would respond to a rapid movement, but if he surreptitiously slipped his Luger from out of his holster, they probably wouldn’t notice. There was plenty to keep them occupied.

There was a bustle outside the room and the sound of English being spoken in a heavy Italian accent echoed down the corridor. ‘The Duce wishes me to speak to the Führer now. Now, I say.’

A stumpy man with a short bristle of iron-grey hair and thick-lensed glasses burst into the Red Room and pushed himself in front of Conrad and Theo just as the door to the Chancellor’s office opened.

There, six feet in front of Conrad, listening to the Italian Ambassador haranguing him in English, was Adolf Hitler.

Conrad had never seen the dictator so close. The little mous­­tache and the lock of fine dark hair hanging down over the forehead were instantly recognizable. Lord Halifax had described him as commonplace and vulgar, but to Conrad he was the most powerful and dangerous man in Europe. An air of suppressed tension seemed to surround him, and caused those waiting for him to stiffen in anticipation. Close to, Conrad noticed that Hitler’s skin was soft and pale, and flecked with drops of sweat, as were the bristles of his moustache. His right shoulder twitched in an angry tic. Blue eyes bulging from dark sockets stared at the Italian Ambassador in front of him as his interpreter translated.