Chapter 10: Duty
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Henrik put on his most winning smile and answered the door. “Herr Heydrich, this is a pleasant surprise. I was only just making a cup of coffee. Will you join me? I’m afraid I’m not fully—”
“No, no. That will not be necessary, Herr Kessler. This is not a social call.” Heydrich slapped off his leather gloves menacingly.
“Not a social call? I thought you were the one who had arranged my two-day leave from the Institute. Things have been going so well that I haven’t had a moment’s rest since I arrived in Berlin, and I really am quite tired.” Henrik yawned.
“Yes.” Heydrich smiled warily. “I’m sure you are. Been busy tonight?”
“Why, obergruppenfuhrer, whatever do you mean?”
The loud squeak of a rusty door hinge interrupted the conversation, and then Henrik’s father appeared at the top of the stairs, fully dressed in his Luftwaffe colonel’s uniform. “Greetings, obergruppenfuhrer. What brings you to my home so early on a Sunday morning?” he said grandly.
Heydrich stepped boldly into the living room, not bothering to wipe the mud from his boots. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Colonel, but I have a matter of dire urgency. Apparently there has been an act of sabotage at one of the Fuhrer’s most secret weapons testing facilities.”
“How unfortunate, but I fail to see how this concerns me and my son.”
“It concerns you, Herr Kessler, because the infiltrator was wearing a Luftwaffe uniform.”
“But surely there are many uniforms—”
“A colonel’s uniform with World War I medals on it, your medals to be precise.”
There was an awkward moment of silent tension, which was eventually broken by the sound of Kessler Sr.’s gruff laughter. “So you think that I broke into this building in the middle of the night, a retired senior officer of the Third Reich?”
“No, Herr Kessler, not you. The man described by the guards was much younger, much too young to have medals from World War I, in fact. The traitor was your son dressed in your uniform.”
Henrik felt his heart race. He looked for a weapon, but he had left his father’s Luger in his room. Heydrich was armed and there were probably at least two armed SD agents waiting just outside the door. And here he was standing in his living room in his bathrobe and slippers, completely helpless. Why hadn’t he at least kept the pistol in his pocket?
“Preposterous!” Henrik’s father exclaimed as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “This is my uniform.”
“Yes, I can see that, but surely you have another.”
“Why would I have another? Look. Here are my medals. Would I have another uniform with an extra set of medals on it? Preposterous.”
Heydrich seemed a little taken aback. He hadn’t counted on meeting the old Luftwaffe colonel fully dressed in his uniform, a uniform that should have been missing at the very least. Henrik, on the other hand, was completely baffled. The uniform that he had stolen from his father’s closet was still stashed safely in his bedroom downstairs. He hadn’t had time to return it to his father’s bedroom. How did the old man get it? Did he really have an extra uniform with an extra set of medals? It didn’t seem likely. Heydrich’s accusation was beginning to look a little flimsy, even to Henrik who knew for a fact that it was completely true.
“Perhaps your son was able to return the uniform before you—”
“Into my bedroom? Without waking me? Did you not hear the door squeak? That door has squeaked for fifty years. It is my personal burglar alarm. No one could enter or leave my bedroom without the world hearing about it.”
“But your auto, it is still warm.”
“Of course it is warm. I had my servants start it up this morning. Why do you think I am in my uniform on a Sunday morning?”
Heydrich shook his head. He really did not know.
“Church, Herr Heydrich. I always wear my uniform to church. My poor Mercedes, she looks beautiful, but she won’t drive more than a few miles without being warmed up for at least half an hour before hand.” Kessler Sr. paused for a moment, relishing the beauty of his own lie. “I have an idea, Herr Heydrich. My son is not dressed, but you are. Will you not join me this morning?
Heydrich was puzzled. “Join you?”
“At church, Herr Heydrich.” Henrik’s father smiled eagerly. “I would be delighted to have someone of your stature as my guest. The sopranos are always so awed by a man in uniform. You read tenor, do you?”
Heydrich seemed to shake with the thought. “I’m sorry, Herr Kessler, but I have pressing matters to attend to.” He looked at Henrik as if he were a bug needing to be squashed. “Enjoy your leave, lieutenant. I will deal with you later.” The obergruppenfuhrer turned sharply on his boot heels and stormed out of the house.
“Father, how did you . . .?”
“How do you think I filled your Christmas stockings at the end of your bed without you hearing me?”
Henrik thought for a moment. “The coal chute?”
Kessler Sr. held up his hands. They were covered with soot. The coal chute connected each of the four fireplaces in the house through a central passageway. It was only about three feet wide, but Henrik’s father wasn’t a fat man. The old colonel looked at his son triumphantly and then his smile quickly faded.
“Why did you leave the Luftwaffe?” he asked.
Henrik was stunned. The question had come completely out of the blue. He thought about skirting the issue. So much had happened in the last eight hours what did it matter? But it had been like a wall between them for so long, Henrik wanted to answer it.
“It was my duty,” he said.
“Your duty?” Kessler Sr. took the monocle out of his one good eye and blinked. “A fighter pilot risks his life every time he enters the cockpit. He defends the skies over our heads, the very German air we breathe. What higher duty could there be than to fight for your country in time of war?”
His father’s face had gone bright red. In his youth, Henrik had feared that color in his father’s cheeks because it usually preceded a lightning strike from the back of his father’s hand. But those days were over. The old man would not strike him, and Henrik did not fear him. Henrik waited silently for the color to drain from his father’s face, and then he spoke.
“Father, you are a great man, a courageous man. For years I dreamed about following you into the air force. I wanted to fly airplanes and prove to you that I, too, had courage, that I was truly my father’s son. But I was wrong to think this way.”
“Wrong?” Kessler shook his head in disbelief. “Wrong to follow your father? Wrong to value courage? Do not tell me that you were afraid, Henrik. No Kessler has ever been a coward. This simply cannot be. It is not in our blood.”
“Truly, father? But I have been afraid—afraid of losing my future, of losing my chance at glory, but especially afraid of losing your respect. And if I had stayed in the Luftwaffe, it would have been for one reason, and one reason alone—fear. You taught me that there was no greater virtue than courage.”
“There is not.”
“And what of duty, father?”
“They are the same.”
“Duty to mankind, to God.”
Kessler became agitated. “Don’t speak to me of religion.”
“Not religion, father. Humanity. Basic human decency.”
Kessler looked at his son, suddenly at a loss for words. “Son,” he said at last, “I do not understand you. Perhaps I never understood you. You go to far. You are a soldier and a Kessler. It is enough for you to serve your country. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t think you’re a traitor. If I did, I would shoot you myself.” He looked at Henrik with hard eyes. “I suspect you are still chasing your heart. I’m afraid it will get you killed someday.”
Kessler Sr. took off his helmet and headed up the stairs.
“But dad, what abo
ut church?”
He grunted. “You know I haven’t been to church in years—not since your mother died.”
Henrik waited until his father was nearly at the top of the stairs before he spoke again. “It’s true,” he said softly. His father stopped but did not look back. Henrik continued in a steady, quiet voice, “The rumors about the labor camps and the Jews, they’re all true. I saw them, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They live in horrible conditions. You would not believe.”
“I do not believe,” Kessler Sr. said over his shoulder, still refusing to look back.
“But I saw them.”
“You were sleeping in your bed all night. It was a dream, nothing more.”
Henrik searched for the words to explain what he had seen, to convince his father of the truth, but it was too late. The bedroom door squeaked loudly shut and his father was gone.
An hour later, Kessler Sr. still had not emerged from his bedroom. Henrik wondered if he’d ever come out. Henrik changed into his civilian clothes, a pair of denim jeans he had not worn since before the war and an old rugby jersey that smelled of mothballs and detergent.
Henrik wondered why his father had kept them all these years. After all, until a few weeks ago, his son was considered missing in action. Why not give them away to a needy German child. There were certainly enough of them around. Or burn them. Why punish yourself with the memories? A lost wife. A lost son. Lost glory. But there they were, still in his bedroom drawer as if he’d never left.
Around 11:00 a.m., the old colonel rang for his servants to deliver his noon meal to his bedroom, and Henrik despaired that his father would ever have the courage to face him today. He could no longer wait. He finished off a bite of cold chicken that the servants had prepared from the pantry, and headed outside to spend his last day of his two-day leave in solitude. And that was when he found the blue feather on his doorstep.
Did Canaris know of the conditions at the labor camps? Surely he must. And why then had he done nothing to stop it? Did he too think the Jews were worthless, somehow less than human? Henrik was determined to find out. He no longer cared what the admiral thought of him. He would push the issue and this time he would not stop until he knew everything that the admiral knew.
Henrik slipped his father’s Luger into his pocket. If Canaris wouldn’t talk, he would make him talk. Henrik headed down the garden path in just this state of mind, but this time it was not the wily old admiral that he found waiting for him at the duck pond. It was a British spy.
“Henrik, my friend, why are you dressed like a farm boy?” Neils asked pertly.
“Shut up!” Henrik snapped. “How long have you known?”
His eyes narrowed. “So it was you. They’ve been talking about it all morning. A mysterious Luftwaffe colonel slipping into a top-secret weapons testing facility and then just vanishing. It has prompted a full-on search for a mole. I guess you could say you’re big news.” His British gloat returned in full force. “So now do you believe me?”
Henrik blanched, suddenly ashamed. “Yes,” he said, and then looked away. The ducks were gathering in expectation of another tasty meal, but Neils had brought no bread and neither had Henrik. “I found Esther’s father, Eli Jacobs. He’s sick and . . .” Henrik balked, unwilling to recount the horror of what he’d seen. He turned back to face Neils, suddenly making up his mind. “I’ll take you there. You can blow the whole place up. I don’t care. Just help me get him out of there.”
Neils shook his head. “There’s no time. Just give me the coordinates. I’ll pass them on to SIS. They can send in the RAF.”
“And then what? They bomb the place? What about Esther’s father?”
“I’ll order a night raid, strategic bombers only. They’ll just hit the V-2 factory. Professor Jacobs will be safe in bed at the labor camp and in a week or two we can scoop him up. You’ll see.”
“Safe in bed? Have you seen those camps? Do you even know what you’re talking about?”
Neils took a step back towards the gathering ducks. He seemed a little surprised by Henrik’s passion. Maybe he hadn’t seen the camps. Maybe he’d made the whole thing up just to manipulate Henrik into helping him. But he was right. In fact, he hadn’t gone far enough. Esther wouldn’t last 45 days. She wouldn’t last another week, if she wasn’t dead already.
“How did you get here?” Henrik snapped. “How did you know about the blue feather and the duck pond? Are you in contact with Canaris? Whose side are you on?”
Neils took another step back, wetting his shoe in the pond. He looked down at his muddy shoe and then stepped around Henrik towards the path, reaching under his jacket at the same time. Henrik had anticipated this move. He whipped out his father’s Luger and placed the cold barrel up against the British spy’s forehead before Neils could withdraw his hand from under his jacket.
“Still have a fondness for the Beretta?” Henrik asked coldly. “Let it fall.”
Neils dropped the silenced Beretta into the mud. The ducks pecked at it vainly and then scattered.
“Look. Things are not what they appear.”
“No? How do they appear? A British spy in league with the former head of the German secret service? Or is it the other way around?”
“It’s not like that. Canaris told me how to contact you, but he is no more a spy for us than I am a double agent for Germany. There’s a lot going on here that you simply don’t know about.”
Henrik waved his gun. “Enlighten me.”
Neils looked perturbed and maybe a little embarrassed. This was the second time he’d gone up against Henrik, and both times he’d ended up at the wrong end of the barrel. “There are certain high-ranking German officials, like Admiral Canaris, who have taken a long view of things. They have looked into the sands of time and seen Germany losing this war.”
“Do they have a crystal ball? Because that’s not the way I see it. Our armies have swept through Europe practically uncontested. Rommel’s Panzers are winning victory after victory in North Africa. And now with Japan . . .”
Neils shook his head. “Japan had a great victory, yes, but their failure to completely destroy the American fleet at Pearl Harbor has left the Axis powers vulnerable to defeat. It is a simple matter of logistics. America has more factories and more capital to make more factories. And they are virtually unreachable on their lonely continent across the ocean. Germany won’t lose this war on the field of battle, but in the steel mill and the coalmine and in the weapons factories. Many of Germany’s generals understand this. Unless Hitler can pull an ace out of his pocket, he will go down in flames, bringing all of Germany with him. I believe Admiral Canaris is working behind the scenes to head off this tragic end to the country he loves. But he is no British spy.”
“Good for him. But if he won’t help, then what good is he to me? And the same thing goes for you.” Henrik pointed the Luger at Neils’ head again.
“Hold on. I will help you. I’m trying to help you. Just hear me out.”
“Gather your commandos. We’ll raid Peenemunde tonight.”
Neils shook his head and Henrik cocked his gun. “There’s no time.” Neils hurried to explain. “Hitler is heading to Wolf’s Lair in occupied Poland. If you can get us in there, we can take him out. With the Chancellor gone, the generals will take over the government. They’ll sue for peace. This whole war could be over by next week.”
“I don’t care about your war. How many times do I have to tell you that? I’m through playing your games. Either you help me save Esther’s father tonight or I blow your head off right now.”
“But Wolf’s Lair is where they—”
Henrik pressed the trigger. The shot echoed out over the water and the ducks took flight in a squawking panic. Neils cradled the left side of his head where the Luger’s bullet grazed his skull. Blood leaked out between his fingers.
“
Okay,” he said, biting down the pain. “I’ll go with you tonight.”
“That’s better.”
“But he won’t be there. After your little stunt last night, they will have transferred him. I can find out where, but it will take some time.”
Henrik clicked back the hammer again. “I won’t miss a second time,” he warned.
“You kill me and Esther is as good as dead,” Neils snapped back, the pain making him bold. “What’s more important, Esther or her father, because we may not be able to save them both? There’s not enough time. All prisoner transfers are documented and copies sent to Reich Archives. One of those archives was in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The other is in Wolfsschanze, Hitler’s most heavily fortified headquarters on the Eastern Front. We have one chance to slip in there and it’s tonight.”
“Why tonight?”
“Stalingrad.”
It was amazing how that name could say it all. Germany’s invasion of Russia, or Operation Barbarossa, as it was called by Reich Command, began a year ago with great promise. The Blitzkrieg rolled through the Soviet defenses capturing city after city, and for a while it looked as if Hitler would succeed where Napoleon, and every other foreign invader since Genghis Khan, had failed.
But then the Russian winter hit and Germany’s forces bogged down. With fresh troops, Hitler’s armies redoubled their efforts and began their final assault on Russia’s eastern-most city this side of the Ural Mountains—Stalingrad. If Stalingrad fell, Hitler would complete his utter dominance of continental Europe. Only the lonely British Isles would remain insolently defiant.
“I will tell you frankly, Henrik, and that is something I rarely ever do. Europe is in a state of utter chaos. Hitler is insane. There is no other way to put it. He is obsessed with a vision of Aryan conquest, which spans the entire globe. He would see all other races annihilated to make room for the German Uberman. He prays to pagan gods, worships the sun and moon. He conducts human sacrifices and consults astrologers to predict the future. He is mad. If even a fraction of his malevolent plans were to come to fruition, it would be a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Henrik thought of von Braun’s rockets and Heisenberg’s uranium bomb. Henrik didn’t want to believe it, but what if it was true? What would a man like that do with such weapons? Could there be any other purpose for atomic bombs than mass destruction and national annihilation?
“We could do this, Henrik,” Neils continued hopefully. “We could slip in there, kill Hitler and find out where Esther Jacobs is, where the whole family is. And then it would be just a matter of waltzing into their camps with the right papers, forged of course, and scooping them up. There’s no point in us throwing our lives away on another ill-conceived assault on Peenemunde. You just need to trust me.”
Trust him? Who was he kidding? Nevertheless, Henrik felt his resolve weakening. Neils had been right about the Chancellery Archive. Maybe he was right about Wolf’s Lair. Henrik had heard of the place before—a massive underground bunker capable of withstanding a full-scale bomber assault without so much as a scratch. They’d be better off trying to break into Peenemunde again.
“How do we get in there?”
Neils pulled a red handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the wound on the side of his head. It wasn’t serious, but it must have stung like the dickens. Neils had more grit than Henrik had given him credit for. “You just let me worry about that.” He looked at the blood on the handkerchief and swore. “You’ll have to change out of your farm boy outfit and into your uniform.”
“My uniform?”
“Yes, your own uniform this time. We’ll meet the paratroopers on the way. I’ll need a few stitches. Can you do that?”
“Yes. There’s a needle and thread at the house, but it’ll hurt.” Henrik looked at the gun in his hand sheepishly. “Hey. I’m sorry about—”
“Save it. You may be dead by tomorrow and I don’t want to have anything good to say about you.”
“Fair enough.” Henrik put the Luger back in his pocket and turned back up the garden path.