Chapter 12: Auschwitz
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Heydrich stood up in the front seat of his open Mercedes and surveyed the wreckage. How could this have happened? They let the assassins walk right into Wolf’s Lair with a bomb. And even when they were caught red handed, they still managed to get away. But that wasn’t the most troubling dilemma. There was still the question of why.
Kessler had been in the room with Hitler. He showed him his bomb. They even shook hands. If Kessler’s objective was assassination, then why didn’t he do it? He couldn’t have had a better opportunity. Did he lose his nerve? Was there a problem with the bomb? It didn’t seem likely considering the damage it did to the major’s car.
And what about the major? Was he a willing accomplice or simply Kessler’s dupe? Or maybe the clumsy penetration into Wolfsschanze had an entirely different purpose other than assassination. Maybe the real objective was information. If so, there was little more they would learn here.
Heydrich sat down and ordered Klein to take him back to the bunker. About a hundred yards from the guard post, he noticed a strange set of tracks where a small vehicle had turned around on the dirt road. Not far away a soldier was crawling through the grass.
“Stop!” Heydrich commanded. Klein slammed on the brakes and Heydrich leapt out of the Mercedes, not bothering to open the door. The corporal was badly injured, his ribs broken, his hair matted with blood. Heydrich lifted his head slowly, being careful not to get blood on his uniform.
“What happened?” Heydrich asked. The young soldier opened his mouth to speak but coughed instead, blood and mucus bubbling up over his lips. His lungs had evidently been punctured by one of his broken ribs.
“The car . . . blew up,” he said with some difficulty.
“I can see that, corporal,” Heydrich snapped. “How did they leave without a car? Are they on foot?”
“. . . my motorcycle.”
Heydrich remembered the tracks on the dirt road. A motorcycle with a sidecar. They wouldn’t be too hard to follow. But there were still other unanswered questions.
“Why were they here? What were they after?” The corporal’s eyes rolled over and Heydrich feared the boy would die in his arms before he had a chance to say anything useful. “Corporal!” he snapped again, shaking the boy awake. “Answer me!”
“Forged papers,” the corporal said, his body starting to convulse. “A traitor.”
“Who?”
“The major.”
So Koch was a double agent too. Heydrich found it hard to believe. He’d known the major for many years. How could a spy rise so high up in the ranks? It was impossible . . . unless he had help. Heydrich thought immediately of his archrival and former mentor, Admiral Canaris.
The corporal’s shaking came to an end and his eyes shut. Heydrich lowered the boy’s head and wiped the blood off his hands with his handkerchief. He didn’t know if the corporal was still alive or not, but he wasn’t too concerned. He’d found out all he needed to know.
“Klein, turn this crate back around. We’re going south.”
“And the boy?”
Heydrich looked at the bleeding corporal in the grass. He was still breathing, but only in shallow gasps. If he was treated immediately by a doctor, he might still make it.
“Bah. No time. We must be off. We have traitors to catch,” Heydrich said with enthusiasm and jumped into the car.
Klein gave the dying boy a last pitiless glance and stepped on the accelerator.