Dry-throated, Heydrich tried to swallow. He heard another cry. Then a deeper, animal sound began to punctuate the brittle protests of the woman. Heydrich felt his organ move, then stiffen. A nerve tic intermittently closed his left eye. Grinding his teeth, he blocked out the primitive sounds until the spasm ceased. The grunts grew regular. Heydrich no longer heard the woman. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He opened and closed his right fist in synchrony with the groans coming from behind the door. The next sound he heard started the tic again. Only slaps at first—almost playful, echoing lightly—but the deadened thump of solid blows soon followed. Heydrich knew that sound as well as any man on earth. Like an arrhythmic heartbeat it drove him through each hour, each new day of conquest.
The woman was protesting again, but her cries were muffled. A pillow, Heydrich thought distantly. Conflicting emotions struggled for control of his taut body. Anger, revulsion, arousal. He longed to smash open the door, but whether to flay Bormann in disgust or to plunder his share of the woman, he did not know. He did neither. He simply stood facing the door, his body rigid as a steel beam, his brow pouring sweat, and listened. Coupled with his earlier proximity to the Führer, the stress of this violently erotic encounter pushed him into a kind of trance. The sound of the blows deepened, the cries grew closer together, and Heydrich, with Adolf Hitler’s voice still echoing in his ears, waited for the orgasmic groan that would resolve it all. It never came.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Two Months Later
Reinhard Heydrich felt like a god. Seventy days ago, when he had first heard Hitler impose his operational restrictions on Plan Mordred, Heydrich had thought his meteoric rise through the Nazi ranks was assured, but the elation he had felt had stopped dead. To find a way to assassinate not only Winston Churchill but also King George VI, and to do it on a specific day, without leaving a smoking gun in German hands? Ridiculous! Yet, even before he had landed his Fieseler-Storch back at Berlin-Staaken Airport on that frozen January night, the essential elements of a plan had flashed into his mind as if by divine inspiration. The concept was so ingeniously simple that—if brought off successfully—not only would Britain be left with little more than the protection of sporadic small-arms fire, but she would become Germany’s strongest ally!
It had taken the Obergruppenführer SD a further sixty-eight days to determine whether his unprecedented plan could actually be put into operation. Sixty-eight nerve-wracking days of frantic intelligence work, carried out under the lidless gaze of Heinrich Himmler: a dozen trips taken under false pretenses; a hundred agents lied to about the reason for the questions he had asked them; a thousand scraps of information gathered from around the globe and funnelled through the sieve of the SS/SD intelligence complex, each tiny piece sucked out of the system without the knowledge of the ruthless little tyrant who controlled it.
Now, driving back to Obersalzburg beneath a cold, starlit sky, Heydrich knew that he was ready. The leather briefcase on the seat beside him contained his ticket to the most exclusive club in the world. Two months ago he had been a mere subaltern—a loyal centurion charged by his Caesar with nailing millions of Jews to the Iron Cross of the Reich. But now—now the centurion had glimpsed the keys to the palace!
Behind Heydrich’s glacier-blue eyes, a seething blast furnace of all-consuming desire fired his brain. Only one man alive possessed the kind of power he craved, and Heydrich was on his way to see that man now. With him he carried the plan that would prove his worthiness to Hitler beyond doubt, and one day—one day very soon—the mantle of dictatorship would pass to him!
Passing through the Obersalzburg gates, he noted the almost casual attitude of the SS guards. Desultory fighting on all fronts was taking its toll in efficiency throughout the Reich. What everyone needs is another good blitzkrieg to wake them up, he thought. And they’ll get one soon enough. He reminded himself to give the laggards a good dressing down on his way out.
He parked in the garage beneath the Berghof’s enormous picture window and walked around to the front of the house. A sergeant of the SS Liebstandarte barred the door. Before Heydrich’s boot even touched the first step, the guard instructed him to turn around. When he did, he saw the last thing he expected: Adolf Hitler, outfitted in a dark suit, homburg hat, and carrying a walking stick, stood silent in the snow, watching him.
Arc lights silhouetted, Hitler’s harlequin figure. For a moment Heydrich felt as if he were watching a newsreel in a darkened theatre. Then the Führer—for all the world like Charlie Chaplin’s caricature of him—turned and bobbed off across the snow.
“The teahouse,” whispered the SS sergeant.
Heydrich caught up with Hitler forty metres from the Berghof, walking briskly along a deep path cleared through the snow. There was just room for two to walk abreast. Heydrich fell in beside Hitler and waited for a cue to begin his report, but Hitler walked in silence. Heydrich heard dogs barking in the distance—the Führer’s German shepherds, he guessed—but when Hitler stopped and called them, they did not come. Unable to restrain himself any longer, Heydrich took a deep breath and announced: “I have finished my report, my Führer.”
“In the teahouse,” Hitler said tersely, and set off again.
Mystified, Heydrich hurried after him. Another twenty minutes’ silent marching brought them to their destination— the round, rustic building where Hitler liked to hold court after dinner. In contrast to the opulent Berghof, the teahouse had been furnished for comfort. The circular main room was about twenty-five feet across, with a round wooden table and easy chairs. It reminded most people of cosy country holidays before the shadow of war fell across their lives. Heydrich did not even notice the blazing fire. Nothing existed for him in that space save himself and Hitler—two unalloyed souls staring at each other across a gulf of limitless ambition.
“So?” Hitler snapped. “You have brought me my plan?”
“Yes, my Führer,” Heydrich said proudly.
“And it took you only two months. Two months! What were you thinking of?”
Heydrich stepped back in surprise.
“Did I ask you for the impossible, Herr Obergruppenführer? No! I asked you to plan two simple murders! Surely that could not be too difficult for you? They tell me you left Gregor Strasser’s brains on the wall of a Gestapo cell for weeks!”
Stunned by Hitler’s fury, Heydrich waited in silence.
“Is it in that briefcase?” Hitler asked sharply.
“Yes, my Führer.”
“You wrote it down?”
Heydrich nodded uncertainly.
“I am surrounded by fools.” Hitler crossed the room and collapsed into a leather easy chair opposite Heydrich. “Well?” he said finally. “Report!”
Too shocked to do anything else, Heydrich sat stiffly in one of the easy chairs and emptied the contents of his brief case onto the coffee table. His notes, clear and concise, and a stack of eight-by-ten photographs held neatly together by a paper clip.
“My Führer,” he began, “my orders entailed finding a way to remove Churchill and George VI from power on the tenth of May, without leaving any clue that might possibly point to Germany. While this seems—”
“I am aware of the orders I issued you!” Hitler exploded. “I want to hear your plan, not a description of the problem!”
Heydrich’s notes slipped from his clammy palms. Standing erect, he screwed up his courage and locked his blue eyes onto Hitler’s black ones. “Accountability,” he said slowly. “That, my Führer, is the paramount consideration in this operation. Even if Churchill and the king could be killed without leaving a trace of their killers, the finger of accusation would still point to Germany. More than anyone, we have the motive—and in time of war, motive is the only consideration. To avoid making ‘Remember Churchill!’ the new rallying cry against us, we must accomplish two things. First, we must leave no German at the scene of the crime. Second—and most important—we must provide the British with a culprit they cannot ignore.
”
He watched Hitler for a reaction, but the dictator sat sullenly immobile. “So,” he continued, “who to blame? My Führer, the solution came to me that first night as if screamed in my ears! Who besides yourself do the English fear most? The communists. You’ve said it yourself a thousand times: ‘The communists are the enemy of all civilized nations.’ We know the English industrialists share this view. The march of Bolshevism since 1917 has every nation in Europe trembling.” Heydrich drew himself to his full height. “And so, my Fuhrer, the men who assassinate Churchill and the king must be communists!”
Heydrich sensed a stirring in Hitler’s eyes, a heightening of awareness.
“If communist agents were to assassinate Churchill and the king,” he went on, “England would explode into panic. Instead of being united against Germany, every Englishman would begin to fear his own neighbour, his own brother! Communism would become Britain’s new enemy—its new Satan. And what is the source of world communism? Russia! ‘Strike back at Russia!’ will be the new rallying cry in Britain.”
Heydrich raised one delicate finger into the air. “But can they? Bombed and beaten almost beyond rising, England is virtually powerless against a nation so distant and strong. But you are not, my Führer. Adolf Hitler is the most implacable foe Communism has ever known—the whole world knows it! Your nonaggression pact with Stalin means nothing—a temporary alliance of convenience. One look at Mein Kampf will tell the most sceptical Briton that your primary aim has always been Russia. Lebensraum! Expansion eastward into Russia over the bodies of the subhuman Slavic barbarians!”
Hitler opened his mouth to speak, but Heydrich rolled on, caught up in the momentum of his emotions. “And most important, my Führer, every word, every warning ever given by your friends in England will be proved true! Germany will finally be recognized as the last bastion shielding England from the fanatical hordes of the East! Isn’t that what the Duke of Windsor has argued all along? That another war between England and Germany can only end in common slavery under the communists?”
When Heydrich paused for breath, Hitler rose slowly to his feet and folded his arms. “An interesting plan, Herr Obergruppenführer,” he said, his voice edged with excitement. “I myself was thinking along similar lines just the other day. But tell me, who will commit these murders? No Russian communist will attempt such a thing without Stalin behind him. And if a German communist does it, we are lost. To the English, Heydrich, a German is a German. They will not split hairs when they ask America for our blood in revenge.”
“I’ve thought of that, my Führer,” Heydrich said smoothly, his cruel lips cracking into a smile. “There is but one way that this thing can be accomplished—one way that British fury can be turned away from us and directed at Russia.” He paused like a magician reluctant to reveal his last, best trick. “The communists who assassinate Churchill and the king must be British subjects.”
Hitler sat still as stone. “Explain.”
Heydrich frowned. “That is all, my Führer. That is the key. The men who carry out the assassinations must be British subjects—of course I mean British communists.”
Hitler ground his teeth slowly. “Are you about to tell me, Herr Obergruppenführer, that you have devised a way to get Stalin to order his English cadres to execute Churchill and the king at a time and place of our choosing?”
“No, my Führer.”
“I hope not!” Hitler shook his hand in the air. “It’s all I can do to keep Stalin out of my Rumanian oil fields! For a while you were making sense, Now … we shall see.”
Heydrich squinted with a gambler’s concentration. “What I propose, my Führer is not really so far from what you just suggested. But before I can give you the mechanics, I must explain a little recent history.”
The idea of playing history pupil did not please Hitler, but he held a fitful silence while Heydrich laid the foundations of his plan.
“Do you recall the communist takeover of Bavaria in 1919, my Führer? Specifically Munich?”
Hitler scowled. “I fought in it, you fool. With Hess at my side I battled in the streets, and Hess with only his tattered old uniform for clothing!”
“Of course, my Führer!” Heydrich said quickly. “Yes … well, during the final Freikorps assault on the Hauptbanhof—where the communists chose to make their final stand—we had a man inside the building.”
“We?” Hitler said disparagingly.
“The Freikorps, my Führer.”
“I thought the communists in the Hauptbanhof were wiped out to a man.”
“The real communists were. It was a massacre. But one Freikorps spy—a loyal young German who provided critical information during the crisis—managed to escape. With Freikorps help, of course. His name was Helmut Steuer, and he became known among the communists as the ‘Survivor of Munich.’”
“And what has this Helmut got to do with your plan?”
“Everything. But these early details are important.” Heydrich smoothed his thinning blond hair. “After the Party began to assert itself in Germany under your inspired leadership, it was decided, in the interests of security, to infiltrate informers into the communist cadres of our past and probable future enemies—England and France. The agents were sent into whatever countries their language abilities suited them for. It was a primitive program, but quite remarkable considering the state of our security services at the time. A few men were sent to Paris, a few to Marseilles. Those who had no second language stayed in Germany. And a very few were sent to England. Four went to Manchester and Leeds to work in the mills, three to the mines around Newcastle.
Helmut Steuer, however, was a unique case. He had a fair grasp of French, but his real gift was English. He’d worked the Rhine packets on the English runs for most of his life and spoke the language like a London dockworker. With little else but a prayer, Helmut was sent to London.
“Being something of a communist hero after Munich, Helmut was welcomed into the London cadres with open arms. They considered him a great fugitive—a celebrity of sorts. He worked the docks for a few years, always doing his bit for the Party, selling the Daily Worker like a good Bolshevik, but never doing quite enough to bring the British police down on him. He wasn’t really much use to us at that point, but he was ordered to stay. He had possibilities.”
Heydrich felt himself coming into stride. He clearly had the Führer’s attention again now. “In 1936, Helmut did something crazy. He packed a suitcase and set out for Spain with the English communists who went to fight in the International Brigades. And, strangely enough, my Führer, that’s when he became a real asset. He drove an ambulance for the Republicans, all the while passing information to Franco’s fascists and our Condor Legion. No one knew why he was doing it—he hadn’t been ordered to—but I believe that he simply acted out of patriotism. He was a loyal German; he saw the Reich supporting Franco; so he did what he could from the position he was in.
“An excellent man!” Hitler cried. “Why have I not heard of him before?”
I’m not sure, my Führer,” Heydrich said smugly. “Perhaps Reichsführer Himmler never considered Helmut’s reports important enough to bring to Your attention—”
“Ridiculous! I need men with initiative! Like the English commandos! This Helmut sounds like just that type of man!”
“He is better than that, my Führer. After the Spanish War, Helmut returned to England in disfavour with the British government, but an even greater hero to the British communists. It was because then that I suggested the idea which now makes Plan Mordred possible.”
Hitler’s eyes glowed with anticipation.
“I instructed Helmut to organize his own group of communist activists, and to isolate them from the local Party cadres. You know the standard communist procedure: they organize small groups called cells, which are subordinate to various committees and finally the national party executive. Anyway, Helmut did as I asked, and out of genius or by accident he hit upon a remarkable idea. In s
hort order he welded together a small, highly committed group of combat veterans, all rabid communists, all of whom had been wounded either in the Great War or in Spain.”
Heydrich tilted his narrow head forward. “Can you imagine the value of this group, my Führer? While they appeared to be merely a handful of the thousands of English patriots who’d barely survived the Great War, in reality they were dedicated radicals, men so violently disillusioned with their government that they would strike at its foundations whenever they got the chance!”
Hitler sat spellbound; Heydrich breathed harder.
“Helmut started small. He reported the movements of the British Fleet in and out of port, estimated factory capacities, things like that. But I always believed the time would come when his group could do some real damage.” Heydrich held up his arms in admiration. “In Plan Mordred, my Führer, you have created the perfect opportunity to exploit their special talents! Remember, these men are combat veterans trained by the British Army!”
“And this Helmut,” Hitler said, his voice tremulous, “you believe he can talk these Englishmen into carrying out our will?”
“He already has,” Heydrich said exuberantly. “In small ways, of course. A bit of sabotage in the munitions factories, improper packing of ships in London. But with the right cover story—”
Hitler silenced Heydrich with a stab of his right hand.“Why haven’t these men been recalled to duty in the British Army?”
Heydrich faltered a little. “When I said they were wounded, my Führer, I meant it. In Helmut’s signals, he refers to his unit as the Verwunden Brigade—the Wounded Brigade. One of the men has only one leg, another has but one hand. One man is internally damaged. Helmut himself has only one eye. He lost the other at Guernica.”
Hitler’s mouth fell open. “What! You speak of cripples? A one-eyed man leading a rabble of cripples against the British security services? How can they possibly do what is necessary to carry out your plan!”