Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

to your rendezvous …” He held up his hand before Deland could speak. “No, I do not wish to know about your escape plans either.”

Deland looked at his watch. It was after midnight. “Is this place safe?”

“For now, yes. But not for overnight. It will be checked,” Dannsiger said.

“Why didn’t you do it?” Deland blurted.

The others turned away suddenly and shoved the barn door the rest of the way open. There were two motorcycles in the shadows.

They pushed them outside. They evidently planned to ride two to a machine.

Dannsiger looked at him for a long time. “Good luck,” he said, and he started to turn away. But Deland went after him.

“Goddamnit, I asked you a question. What’s the matter? Why didn’t you just go in and kill him when you had the chance? It would have been so much easier than dragging me all the way back here. What’s the matter … is he some kind of a superman?”

Dannsiger turned on him. One of the others had his gun out.

“Dieter Schey is a hero! A German, just like me!”

“A Nazi.”

“A decorated man! He has the Iron Cross! He has given his soul for Germany! Can’t you see that, you bastard? You heartless bastard!”

Dannsiger turned again and hurried out of the barn. This time Deland did not try to stop him. He felt like such an insensitive fool. Although it was the answer he had expected, it was the one he had feared most.

Fifteen minutes later he heard the sounds of the two motorcycles starting up, but it came from a long way off. Possibly on the other side of the village.

He looked at the map again, then folded it up, switched off the battery-operated lamp, and tossed them in the car. At the barn door he looked outside, but there was nothing to see. He was on his own now, in more ways than one.

Deland entered Berlin proper on the Hamburg Highway past Spandau, barely slowing down for the first two sandbagged checkpoints, but then he came to the barrier across the road, and he pulled up.

There were a lot of soldiers here, most of them Wehrmacht, but the commanding officer and at least two others were dressed in the black SS uniform with twin lightning bolts at the collar. It was the first Deland had heard of an Army unit mixed with SS.

Two Wehrmacht soldiers approached, and when they realized it was an SS colonel behind the wheel, they came to attention. An SS captain came from around the barricade, a Schmeisser machine pistol at his chest.

He came to attention and saluted. “Your papers, bitte, mein Herr,” he said respectfully, but firmly.

Deland eyed the man, then slowly opened his door, got out, and deliberately took off his gloves. He glanced up toward the barricade, then back at the SS officer and the two Wehrmacht soldiers.

“Wie heissen She, Hauptmann?” Deland snapped.

The captain sucked in his gut. “Wolner, Hen Standartenfuhrer.

Hans Wolner.”

“Ja, well, Wolner, look back up there to the north and tell me, what do you see?”

The captain looked nervously over his shoulder. “Why, forest, sir. Trees.”

“And what is in the forest, Hauptmann Wolner?”

“I … I do not know, sir.”

“No, I suspected as much. An entire Soviet division could be hiding there, you idiot!” Deland screamed. “See that the forest is swept and posted! Or I will see that you are shot as an incompetent who is unfit to wear the uniform!”

“Sir!”

Deland allowed himself to calm down; then he took out his Fuhrer letter and handed it to the captain. “I assume you can read?”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenfuhrer …” the captain started to say. But he had begun to read the letter, and he suddenly realized what it was. He paled. He looked up. His lower lip quavered, and his hand shook as he handed the letter back. He was speechless.

“Gott in Himmel,” Deland said, half to himself. “And this is the defense of the Fatherland?” He shook his head, pocketed the letter, and before he got back in the car, he glanced at one of the Wehrmacht soldiers. “Your button is undone,” he said resignedly.

The soldier nearly fainted.

By the time he had the engine started, the center row of the thick steel spikes had been rolled back, and he drove through. Sweat was pouring down his side beneath his tunic, and his legs were so weak that his foot shook on the clutch when he changed gears.

Deland knew Charlottenburg fairly well, so it was easy for him to find the proper street. He drove past the building, then around the corner and continued another block, before he parked his car.

He walked back the way he had come. Nothing moved in the city. The fires he had seen outside of Nauen were still burning.

They made the entire horizon to the east and northeast red and pink. The bombing raid had definitely hit Tiergarten, and probably Wedding. Perhaps Mitte as well.

At number 37 he carefully opened the gate so as not to make any noise and went down the stairs to the basement apartment.

He unsnapped the flap of his holster, withdrew the Luger, and made sure a round was in the firing chamber and the safety was off. He held the weapon out of sight at his side as he reached out with his left hand and knocked at the door.

“Colonel Schey,” he called. “Are you there?”

Deland thought he heard someone moving around inside. But then there was silence.

“Colonel Schey,” Deland called again. He knocked. “I am Colonel Hessman. I have come to talk to you. On der Fuhrer’s behalf. He has sent me. I have a letter.” There was continued silence.

Deland reached out and tried the knob. The door was not locked. He shoved it open, but then stepped aside.

He could smell coffee.

“Colonel Schey?” he called. There was no answer, and Deland rolled left into the apartment, stepping quickly back to the right and crouching low, the Luger out in front of him. “Schey?” he called softly.

“I am not a deserter,” Schey