“I wish we knew that this wasn’t all a dreadful waste of time,” objected von Holten-Pflug, lighting his cigarette. “I don’t fancy just sitting around with these Kashgai tribesmen and waiting for some fucking wrestler to work up the courage to betray us to the Allies. I hope there’s plenty of gold in that box you brought with you from Berlin. Because I’m sure we’re going to need it.”
“Himmler was quite immovable on the subject, I’m afraid,” said Schellenberg. “You’re to wait until you hear the old shah’s name on the Radio Berlin news broadcast before proceeding with the plan.”
Schellenberg watched the planes take off and wondered if he would ever see von Holten-Pflug or Oster again. He rather doubted it. Even if they did manage to kill the Big Three, the Allies would probably turn Persia upside down to find the assassins. Not so bad if the British or the Americans caught them, perhaps. Not so good if they were picked up by the Russians.
That afternoon, on the plane to Rastenburg, Schellenberg slept better than he had in a long time. There were no air-raid warnings at ten thousand feet, just the dull, monotonous, almost hypnotic roar of the Focke Wulf Condor’s four BMW engines. Hoffmann’s attempt to kill him on the flight to Stockholm was already a distant memory, and, wearing a thick lambskin flying suit and swaddled in blankets against the altitude and the November cold, Schellenberg did not awake until they were on the ground at Weischnuren Airfield, after a three-hour, 500-mile flight. He felt refreshed and hungry, and for once he was actually looking forward to his meeting with the Fuhrer. Not to mention his dinner.
But first there was his meeting with Martin Bormann.
Schellenberg met with the Fuhrer’s personal secretary at his home, less than one hundred yards from his master’s. It was always hard to explain just where Bormann had sprung from. For eight years, between 1933 and 1941, he had been nearly invisible, the right-hand man to Rudolf Hess; and it was only after the Deputy Fuhrer’s abortive peace mission to England in May 1941 that Bormann had started to make himself indispensable to Hitler- first as head of the Reich Chancellery, then as head of the Party Secretariat, and finally as Hitler’s personal secretary. And yet he and Hitler were old friends, the two men having known each other since 1926. Hitler had been a witness at Bormann’s wedding and was also godfather to Bormann’s eldest son.
Schellenberg knew Bormann better on paper, from the details in a secret file in his safe, than in the flesh. Not that anyone apart from the Fuhrer knew Bormann particularly well. But Schellenberg had all the dirt anyone would ever need on Bormann: about the murder he had committed in 1923, for example. Bormann had killed his own former elementary school teacher, a man named Walther Kadow. Then a member of the Freikorps (which was the Nazi SA’s predecessor in all but name), Bormann had been arrested for the murder and sentenced to just one year in jail, having successfully maintained the defense that Kadow had betrayed the Nazi martyr Leo Schlageter to the French occupation authorities in the Ruhr. Only Schellenberg and Bormann himself knew the truth of the matter: that Bormann and Kadow had been rivals for the affections of a woman, and a Jewish woman at that.
Schellenberg also knew of how rich Bormann had made himself. How he had embezzled millions of reichmarks through his control of the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund, which received money from German industry. Schellenberg even possessed evidence that Bormann had been skimming money from the royalties of Germany’s number-one bestselling book, Mein Kampf. And not even Goring had managed to pillage as many art objects from occupied countries in Eastern Europe as Martin Bormann. In his office safe in Berlin, Schellenberg had a letter from one of Zurich’s oldest private banks, setting out the full extent of Bormann’s private holdings. It was one of the young intelligence chief’s many insurance policies, and on the few occasions he had been obliged to deal with Bormann, it always gave him a pleasant feeling to know that he was relatively invulnerable to Bormann’s malign influence. Schellenberg even thought he had an explanation for just how it was that Bormann had managed to make himself so indispensable to the Fuhrer. He believed Bormann was what Bormann’s own father had been, and for that matter what the bull-necked bullying Bormann most resembled in the world: a regimental sergeant-major. Hitler had only ever been a corporal, and it was only natural that the sort of man with whom he should have felt completely comfortable was, temperamentally at least, a senior NCO.
“So,” said Bormann, ushering them both to some armchairs in front of a blazing log fire. Unlike his master, Bormann liked a fire. “How are things on the front?”
“They could be better,” said Schellenberg with what he thought was enormous understatement.
“Russians,” sneered Bormann. “They’re like rats. There’s no end to them. How can you defeat an enemy that doesn’t seem to give a fuck for his own casualties? They just keep coming, don’t they? The subhuman bastards. Like the Mongol hordes. They’re the complete opposite of the Jews. The Jews just roll over and die. But the Slavs are something else. Walter, there are times when I think that if you want to understand the true nature of this world you have to go to the Russian front. It’s a struggle for life, like something out of Darwin, I think. Not that your boss would agree with me there.” Bormann snorted with contempt. “According to Himmler, this earth is a sort of fairy land. All that crap about the spirit world and Buddhism. Jesus, Walter, how do you stand it?”
“As a matter of fact, Martin, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Himmler.”
“You know what Himmler’s problem is? He thinks too much. That and the fact that he’s an auto-whatsit. Self-taught.”
“Autodidact.”
“Precisely. He’s read too much shit, that’s all. Educated himself with no real discipline. He’s the living proof that education is a danger. I always say that every educated person is a future enemy. Me, I do my very utmost to live and act in such a manner that the Fuhrer should remain satisfied with me. Whether I shall always be able to do so is an open question. But the key to success is to take your lead from the Fuhrer. To read what he reads.”
“How is the Fuhrer?”
“He’s always quite cheerful, you know. No, really. Cheerful with all his heart. Especially when he’s having tea with his friends, or when he’s playing with his dogs. You would think he hadn’t a care in the world. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.”
All the time he talked to Schellenberg, Bormann clutched a small black leather notebook in which he took down all the Fuhrer’s queries and orders. During meals with Hitler, Bormann was forever making notes that might result in a reprimand for one officer, or a death sentence for another. Not for nothing was Bormann regarded as the most powerful man in Germany, after Hitler. At the same time, the impression gained by Schellenberg on the few occasions he had been in the Fuhrer’s presence was that, not infrequently, Bormann passed on as firm orders from Hitler what were really no more than casual dinner-table remarks, or, worse, Bormann’s own ideas to serve his personal ends.
“But,” said Bormann, “you wanted to talk about Himmler, didn’t you?” He opened the notebook to reveal a pencil that was as short and stubby as one of his own fingers: the impression of a butcher about to write down some housewife’s order might have made Schellenberg smile, but for the obvious dangers of what he was doing.
“Doubtless you are aware that it was me who took the Fuhrer’s letters to Stockholm,” said Schellenberg.
Bormann nodded.
“And that I have a good idea of the nature of those letters.”
Bormann kept on nodding.
“What you are not aware of, perhaps, is that Reichsfuhrer Himmler has also been feeling out the Allies with a view to a change of regime. Following a meeting in the Reich Ministry of the Interior on August twenty-sixth, an old acquaintance of Himmler’s, Carl Langbehn, traveled to Berne to meet Allen Dulles, the station head for the American intelligence service.”
At last, Bormann started writing.
“Is he the chiropractor?”
“No, that’s someone else. Langbehn is a lawyer. I believe his daughter goes to school with Himmler’s daughter, on the Walchensee. You may even remember that it was Langbehn who offered to defend the Communist leader, Ernst Torgler, at the time of the Reichstag fire. Now, I have a spy within the Free French in Switzerland, and thanks to him I am in possession of a copy of a telegram, sent to London, which says, and I quote, ‘Himmler’s lawyer confirms the hopelessness of Germany’s military and political situation and has arrived to put out peace feelers.’ Naturally I will furnish you with all the documentary evidence you need of the Reichsfuhrer’s treason in this matter. I did not act until I was quite sure, you understand. You do not go up against Himmler unless you are sure.”
