Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

driver stuck his head out the window.

“What is it?” he shouted in Spanish, the car still moving. It was Kurt.

Canaris raised his hand in greeting and started forward onto the road, but Whalpol leaped past him, his right arm raised, a pistol in his hand. He fired two shots before Canaris could react, at least one of them hitting Kurt. The car swerved to the opposite side of the road and down into the ditch. The engine immediately died.

Whalpol and the others scrambled across the road and down into the ditch, where they yanked Kurt’s body out of the car.

Canaris glanced down toward the frontier crossing, his breath constricting in his throat. The customs men had to have heard the two shots. But no one had stepped out to investigate.

He looked again at the car. Whalpol had shot Kurt in cold blood. But why? What had he hoped to gain by such a senseless killing of a mere courier?

His fingers still curled around the grip of the Walther in his pocket, he hurried across the road to where Whalpol’s men were searching Kurt’s body and his luggage in the back seat. One of them was looking under the hood; the other had opened the trunk.

The major was hopping from one foot to the other. He was very agitated.

“It’s not here,” he shouted. “It has to be!”

“Why did you do this?” Canaris asked, trying to keep his voice even.

Whalpol just looked at him.

“Orders, Herr Major? From Colonel Hansen? Or perhaps even Brigadier Schellenberg?”

Still Whalpol held his silence, although Canaris could see that the man wanted to blurt out something.

Canaris walked around the car, watching what the men were doing. Whalpol had gone back up to the road to look down at the ; border posts. At the rear of the car, out of Whalpol’s sight for just a moment, Canaris got down stiffly on one knee and with his left ; hand groped up beneath the fender, his fingers searching a small area at the top of the wheel well. He found a section of thick tape, which he pulled aside and opened a small hole into the well, giving access to a dead space in the body. There were two film canisters wired to a short cross member. He quickly undid the wire, withdrew the canisters, and pocketed them as he stood ‘

up-Whalpol was there above him. “You found them, Herr ‘, Admiral,” he said. He still had his Luger in his right hand. Although it was pointed down, the threat was unmistakable. ]

“Yes,” Canaris said. His throat was dry. He wondered how much of his inner turmoil was showing on his expression. “We have to get away from here now, before the real Guardia shows ‘ up.” ‘.

“If you will just give me the film, I will make sure it gets to the laboratory for processing.” ‘

The men had stopped what they were doing, and they all watched the drama. Twenty years ago creatures such as Whalpol would never have advanced this far. And for his actions this evening, against a superior officer, he would have been shot.

Canaris considered it, but he was not a murderer. And although Schellenberg was a reasonable man at times, there were others who were not. He was skating on very thin, very delicate ice at this moment. Except for the killing, he had expected Whalpol to act the way he had this evening, and he had come prepared.

He stepped away from the car. “Take the man’s money, watch, and ring,” he said to the men. “We’ll make it look like a highway robbery.” He turned back to Whalpol, pulled out a pair of film canisters from his pocket, and handed them over. “I want these developed by IG’s chief himself.” He stepped up to the road and hurried across to the car, Whalpol coming after him, a huge grin on his face as he strutted across the road.

It was very cold in Berlin by contrast to southern Spain, and a wind-driven snow stung Canaris’ cheeks as he climbed down from the Junkers at Gatow Luftwaffe Base and trudged across the tarmac to his waiting car. The Allies had come through again last night on a bombing raid. From the air this morning he had seen hundreds of fires below. What the Luftwaffe had done to London months ago, they were powerless to prevent now … not only here in Berlin, but elsewhere. Hamburg, Kaiserslautem, Dresden, a dozen cities. Disasters on every front.

Until recently, however, most Germans had held up well.

But the latest humor going around was different: “What’s the shortest joke in the world?”

“I don’t know, what is it?”

“We’re winning!”

Treason, but the gallows humor tended in a small measure to alleviate the helpless frustration they all were feeling. When Canaris had heard the joke, he had thrown back his head and roared to keep from crying.

Major Whalpol and his troops got off the aircraft and hurried away in the opposite direction; the troops climbed into a waiting truck, and Whalpol into his own Mercedes.

Canaris smiled tiredly as he climbed into the backseat of his car. The ruse would not last very long, so he was going to have to work rather quickly.

Sergeant Brunner, his driver for the past three years, looked wan and tired. He managed a smile, nevertheless. “Did you have a good flight back, Herr Admiral?” His voice was guttural.

“Tolerable. Looks as if you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“No, sir. The bastards were at it until just before dawn when the front moved in and clouded us over.” Sergeant Brunner pulled away from the lee of the hangar where he had waited.

“Home, Herr Admiral, or back out to Zossen?”

“Is Captain Meitner working out?”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said. He looked into the rearview mirror. “A good man, sir.”

“Take me to the office,” Canaris said, sitting back in his seat.

He pulled a cigar from his inside pocket, lit it, and then stuffed his left hand in his coat pocket, reassuring himself