“Beria says they have. But I’m not so sure. Still, even if they haven’t all been caught, I don’t give much for their chances. Not in this country. It’s a filthy place. Not at all what I imagined. From what I’ve observed so far, the tap water is hardly less lethal than the stuff that was in the Fuhrer’s carafe.”
“I rather think President Roosevelt sipped some of that water,” said von Ribbentrop. “Before it was knocked from his hand.”
“He seems all right.” Himmler shrugged. “I sent Brandt to enquire after his health-in plain clothes, of course. But it seems that Roosevelt has gone shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Yes, the Russians have set up a shop on the grounds of the embassy. They say it’s for the convenience of all the delegates, so that we don’t have to leave the estate-but, oh, my, the prices! Brandt says they’re astronomical.”
“But what is there to buy?” laughed von Ribbentrop.
“Oh, it’s well stocked with everything that might appeal to an American tourist. Water pipes, carpets, wooden bowls, Persian daggers, silver. Brandt says there is even a box of silk teddy bears.”
“Perhaps Roosevelt is picking out a teddy bear for Churchill’s birthday.” Von Ribbentrop laughed. “Or, perhaps, some sour grapes. The son is here, too, you know. Randolph. It seems that he’s an even bigger drunk than his father.”
“I hear Roosevelt’s son, Elliott, is just as bad. Apparently he and Randolph stayed up late last night getting drunk. There is no greater curse than the curse of a great man for a father.”
“Can you imagine what Hitler’s son would have been like?” von Ribbentrop asked. “I mean, if he had ever had a son. To live up to such a man as the Fuhrer. Impossible.”
Himmler smiled quietly to himself: there were perhaps only three people in the world who knew that Hitler had indeed fathered a son, by a Jewish woman in Vienna in 1913. In Mein Kampf, Hitler had claimed to have left the old Austro-Hungarian capital for “political reasons”; he had even written a version that had him leaving Vienna to escape conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army, preferring to enlist in a German regiment, the Tenth Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, instead. But only Hitler, Himmler, and Julius Streicher knew the truth-that Hitler had an affair with a Jewish prostitute, Hannah Mendel, who had borne him a son. Mendel and her son had disappeared from Vienna sometime in 1928 and not even Hitler knew their final fate. Only Himmler knew that Mendel had abandoned her son in 1915; that she had died of syphilis in 1919; that her son, Wolfgang, had been brought up in the Catholic orphanage in Linz; that Wolfgang Mendel had changed his name to Paul Jetzinger and become a waiter at Sacher’s Hotel in Vienna until the outbreak of war, when he had enlisted in the Third Motorized Infantry Division; and that Corporal Paul Jetzinger had been killed or captured at Stalingrad. Which Himmler had thought was probably for the best. Great men like Hitler shouldn’t have sons, he thought; especially sons who were half-Jewish.
Himmler and von Ribbentrop were in an excellent mood when the drawing room door was suddenly flung open and Hitler stormed in. His face was wreathed in fury as he marched up to Himmler, brandishing a file in front of the Reichsfuhrer’s face.
“Did you know about this?” he yelled.
Himmler stood and clicked his heels together as he came to attention. “Know about what, my Fuhrer?”
“It’s an SD file entitled ‘Beketovka.’”
“Beketovka?” stammered Himmler, and, wondering how on earth Hitler could have come into possession of the file, he colored noticeably.
“I can see you recognize the name,” Hitler barked. “Why was I not shown this before? Why did I have to receive this from the Americans?”
“I don’t understand. The Americans gave you this file?”
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. But that hardly matters beside the fact that I have never been shown the contents of this file.”
Himmler winced, suddenly understanding exactly what must have happened. The Beketovka File. He had forgotten all about it. The file had reached Roosevelt’s hands, as he had ordered it should, and mistakenly, the Americans had simply handed it back to Hitler. As Himmler searched for an explanation, Hitler struck him on the shoulder with the file and then threw it on the floor.
“Do you really think I would have come here, ready to withdraw my forces from Russia, if I had known about this?” he said.
Himmler stayed silent. Knowing Hitler as well as he did, it seemed to him that the question hardly needed to be answered. This was the end of Teheran, he could see that. Plainly, Hitler’s rage, the worst Himmler had witnessed, made it impossible that the Fuhrer could continue to sit at the same negotiating table as the people he would hold responsible for the atrocities detailed in the Beketovka File.
“Thousands and thousands of our brave musketeers and lieutenants have been murdered by these Russian pigs, in circumstances that beggar belief, and yet you would have had me sit down and talk peace with them. How could I look my soldiers in the eye if I made a deal with these animals?”
“My Fuhrer, it was for those soldiers who still remain alive that I thought it best to pursue these talks,” Himmler said. “Those German prisoners still in Russian camps may yet be released.”
“What kind of a man are you, Himmler? Two hundred thousand German prisoners have been systematically starved, frozen, or beaten to death by these subhuman Slavs and you can still contemplate cozying up to them.” Hitler shook his head. “Well, that’s a matter for your own conscience. Assuming you have one. But I for one will not make a peace with the cold-blooded murderers of German soldiers. Do you hear me? I will not shake hands that are dripping with German blood. You’re an unprincipled swine, Himmler. Do you know that? You are a man without values.”
Still beside himself with fury, Hitler marched around the room, biting the cuticle around his thumbnail and calling down vengeance upon the heads of the Russians.
“But what will we tell them?” Himmler asked weakly. He knew that the question hardly needed to be asked since he was quite certain that the room concealed hidden microphones: a large part of his negotiating strategy had been based on the assumption that the Russians would listen to their supposedly private conversations; another sign of good faith, as Himmler had described it to Hitler. But in his anger, the Fuhrer seemed to have forgotten this.
“Tell Stalin that because of the attempt on my life you no longer believe that my safety can be guaranteed and that we are forced, reluctantly, to withdraw from these negotiations. Tell them what you like. But we’re leaving. Now.”
1245 Hours
As soon as Sergo Beria read the transcript of Hitler’s conversation with Himmler and von Ribbentrop, he hurried over to the NKVD villa to tell his father what had happened. Sergo loved his father and was probably the only man in Russia, including Stalin, who wasn’t afraid of the state security boss. Despite Lavrenti Beria’s incessant womanizing, Sergo recognized that Beria had always been a good father who wanted nothing more than to keep his son out of politics, encouraging him to be a scientist. But Stalin favored his security commissar’s nineteen-year-old son, and hoped that the handsome Sergo might one day marry his own daughter, Svetlana, with whom Sergo had gone to school. To this end Stalin had promoted Sergo to the rank of captain in the NKVD, invited him to the conference in Teheran, and personally charged Sergo with briefing him every morning on what the other two leaders were saying “privately” in their respective villas.
Lavrenti Beria was nervous about the apparent high regard in which his son was held by Stalin, for he knew how capricious the old man was and feared the idea of Sergo marrying Svetlana. Stalin might have encouraged a romance between these two young people, but Beria knew that in a year’s time, the boss might think very differently about it, even to the extent, perhaps, of accusing the security commissar of trying to worm his way into Stalin’s family. There was no telling what a paranoid personality like Stalin was capable of.
Arriving at the NKVD villa, Sergo found his father already speaking to Himmler. Their meeting lasted only a few minutes, after which Himmler exited through a secret passage in the basement, leaving father and son alone. Beria stared glumly at his son.
“I can see you already know what has happened,” the older man observed.
“Yes, but the reason I think he gave you-that Himmler no longer believes the Fuhrer’s safety can be guaranteed-that’s a load of crap.” Sergo showed his father the transcript of what Hitler had said to Himmler and von
