Heroes by David Hagberg (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

once again that the film canisters he had taken from beneath the courier’s car were still there. The film in the canisters he had passed to Major Whalpol was blank, as if it had been accidentally exposed to light after the photos had been snapped.

Of course, some of the blame would fall on the major’s shoulders, and Canaris’ would be the most strident. But it would not take the SD lab long to put things together.

He closed his eyes against the bomb damage. Senseless, he thought. On the very morning they had crossed into Poland—it seemed a century ago, but incredibly it had only been a few short years ago—he had foreseen this end. Yet the Fuhrer had been so certain, so assured of victory, of the Thousand Year Reich. God in heaven, where would it all lead? And what had happened to his own resolve so many times before when he had decided to go along with Oster and the others, to get rid of Hitler?

The memories were painful to him, and frightening. There were still too many loose ends. If and when Schellenberg and the Gestapo ever got hold of even one of those threads, they’d follow it until the entire spider web was exposed. At the center of any of those investigations, of course, was the Abwehr. Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris. Fifty-eight. Sick to death of the destruction.

Frightened of what he was seeing around him, and even more frightened by what Schey’s report indicated would be in the photographs.

“We are being followed, Herr Admiral,” Sergeant Brunner said, breaking into Canaris’ thoughts.

Canaris opened his eyes, but he did not sit up and turn around.

“What kind of a car?”

“A Mercedes, sir.”

“How many men?”

“A driver, a passenger.”

“No one in the back seat?”

“No, sir,” Sergeant Brunner said. This had been happening with increasing frequency over the past few months. They had not followed him to Spain, but of course they had had Whalpol to do their work for them.

“Recognize either of them?”

“No, sir. Haven’t seen either of them before. But they are Gestapo.”

“Oh?” Canaris said. “How can you tell, Karl?”

“Their license plate. I have a friend in Abteilung III. She looked up the Gestapo’s special numbers for me.”

“A very dangerous game.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Brunner said glumly. “But what do the Schweinhunds want with you? What in Christ’s name do they expect from you that you haven’t already given them or done for them?”

His sergeant’s loyalty touched him, yet Canaris could not help but make a quip. “Probably walk on water, Karl. I haven’t done that yet.”

Canaris’ office was in Maybach II at Zossen, which was an outer ring of steeply pitched A-frame buildings built of thick slabs of reinforced concrete to withstand bomb blasts. Army headquarters had been moved out of Berlin last year, in the spring, and most of the Abwehr’s functions had followed soon after.

The building was dark, very closed-in, and cold—like a tomb, Canaris thought, fingering the thick cardboard envelope on the desk in front of him.

Someone knocked at the door and he looked up as his aide, Captain Meitner, poked his head in.

“There is an Obergruppenfuhrer here to see you, Herr Admiral,” Meitner said softly.

Canaris got to his feet, his mouth suddenly dry. “From the SD?”

“No, sir. He is from the Reichs Chancellery. Reitlinger.”

Canaris opened the top drawer of his desk, shoved the stiff envelope inside, and closed the drawer. “Show him in.”

Meitner started to withdraw, but Canaris held up his hand, and Meitner came back.

“Give us five minutes; then interrupt us. Something important,” Canaris said. He winked.

Meitner smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said, and he was gone.

Moments later the door opened again, and Meitner stepped in.

“Herr Admiral—Obergruppenfuhrer Reitlinger.”

Reitlinger was at least five inches taller than Canaris, but he was very slight of build. He looked very much like a banker or a very stern schoolmaster with steel-rimmed glasses and very short cropped white hair. He was in his early fifties, Canaris guessed, and from what he had heard, the man had been a simple shopkeeper in a suburb of Dresden before the beerhall Putsch.

He was wearing a black SS uniform, twin lightning bolts at his collar. He saluted crisply, his heels clicking. “Heil Hitler.”

Canaris made a vague motion with his right hand and waved for the man to sit down.

Meitner withdrew, softly closing the door.

“Coffee, Obergruppenfuhrer? Or something a bit stronger?”

Reitlinger wasn’t smiling. “Neither, Herr Admiral. This is not a social visit.” His voice was somewhat high-pitched. He took a seat.

Canaris poured cognac, then sat back. “What brings you all the way down here this afternoon, then?” he said, forcing nonchalance into his voice. It couldn’t be the photographs. Not this soon. Yet he could not help but think of the thick envelope in his desk drawer. Not inches away from his right knee.

“It’s a delicate matter that I’ve been told to personally attend to.”

“I see. By whom?”

“The Fuhrer!”

Canaris could feel his bowels loosening. He felt as if he was losing his grip on everyone and everything around him. He no longer ran the Abwehr. It ran by some mysterious outside force.

Unseen hands, just outside his peripheral vision, were pulling the levers and manipulating the controls that made it all run. Agents outside the country or countermeasures here within Germany were mostly alien to him now. He was losing his control. At the same moment, however, at the same time he could blame Hitler for the debacle, he loved his Fuhrer. Loved and feared and respected the man and what he stood for.

A sly smile came over Reitlinger’s features, and Canaris hated the man very much at the moment. Even before he heard what he was going to be told.

“Your wife Erika and the children. They are well?”

The question was totally unexpected. “They are fine,” Canaris answered without thinking.

“You are devoted to them, I am told,” Reitlinger looked at him slyly.

Canaris shrugged, trying to hold himself in check. “What exactly is this about?”

“Just this,” Reitlinger hissed, sitting forward. “The Fuhrer is becoming increasingly perplexed about you, Herr