Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

a little before 5:00 P.M. “You’re not going into Berlin, are you, sir?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It’ll be dark soon. There almost certainly will be another bombing raid this evening.”

“There was one around noon, I’m told. What difference does it make?”

“It will be too dangerous, sir.”

Canaris smiled. “Our beloved Fiihrer remains in the city to personally direct the war. And you are worried about me taking an evening drive?”

“May I come with you?”

Canaris had gone around his desk; he opened his briefcase and began stuffing reports into it. “No, Hans,” he said, looking up.

“I have a lot of work to do tonight. I’m going to get something to eat, then go over to my house. There are some items I need.”

“And if there is an Allied raid tonight?”

“They hardly ever come as far south as the Grosser Wannsee or Zehlendorf.”

“But you will take shelter?”

“My house has received only a minimum of damage. I promise you.”

Meitner held his ground..

“If we’re attacked tonight, I promise to scurry beneath the streets like a rat in a sewer.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Call Sergeant Brunner for me, please.”

“Yes, sir,” Meitner said, and he went out to his own office.

As soon as he was out of sight, Canaris opened his desk drawer, extracted the stiff envelope with the photographs, and stuffed it into his briefcase. He closed and locked the clasp.

Dieter Schey was better than any of them expected him to be.

Far better. The drawings, technical readouts, and installation photographs were superb. It could leave no doubt whatsoever that the Americans were on the verge of actually constructing a new, powerful weapon. Worse than that, however, the pages of formulae would surely help the Reich’s scientists with their own research.

Canaris had heard a lot of frightening things about Peenemunde up in the Baltic.

He glanced at the mural, then retrieved his greatcoat from the rack and pulled it on. He put on his hat and gloves.

Before he got his briefcase, he stopped a moment and looked out the door. Meitner was perched on the edge of his desk. He was speaking on the telephone. Beyond him, out in the busy corridor, young people scurried back and forth.

Data still flowed into the Abwehr from agents and listeners all over the world. The material was still collated, its contents and meaning analyzed, and reports were still written and submitted to the Fuhrerbunker three times each twenty-four hours. At 0800, at 1600, and at 2400 hours. Seven days a week. The information flowed in, and the reports flowed out. To a bottomless pit.

Meaningless.

How many dedicated men such as Schey were out there with their lives on the line in a futile effort to win this war? Dozens.

Hundreds. Thousands, in addition to the hundreds of thousands, millions of men and women in the Air Force, Navy, and Army.

It was a lost cause, he thought. A terrible lost cause.

He got his briefcase, then went out to where Meitner was just hanging up.

“Your car will be out front in just a moment. They had to come up with some gasoline.”

“Our supply was pilfered?”

“Requisitioned, sir,” Meitner said glumly.

Canaris put his hand on Meitner’s shoulder. “I may be gone for a few days, Hans. I don’t want you to worry. I’m not deserting the ship. No matter how fast she’s sinking.”

“Spain?”

“Yes,” Canaris said. “I think everything will be all right. I mean, I’ll try to make it back. But if something does come up …”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good luck, Hans. I will see you in a few days. By Wednesday or Thursday.”

Everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket for Schey, and he was becoming increasingly upset.

For three days in a row he had made the rendezvous that had been set up for him. To no result. Either his contact had not checked the letter drop or his contact was no longer in operation.

Either way, he told himself, he was dead without further instructions. Or papers. A cover. His Aration coupons would soon run out; he had used almost all of his gasoline coupons on the five-hundred-mile trip to Washington, D. C., from Knoxville.

His remaining money and coupons would all be gone within thirty days. From that moment he’d be a doomed man.

His initial cover here in Washington was that of a discharged soldier with debilitating wounds. He walked with a limp, slightly hunched over, as if he had been hit in the spine. There were enough scars on his back and on the backs of his legs from boyhood to convince anyone but a doctor that he had been in a war. A war of a different sort, he thought whenever he looked at himself in the mirror. His father had been a harsh disciplinarian.

The rendezvous had been set up for him before he had come over, and that was several years ago, so anything could have happened in the interim. But it was supposed to have been guaranteed safe. His bolt hole. A long-term safety net for him to use if things got bad at Oak Ridge.

He kept seeing Katy’s body lying on the floor. She had been so confused. Her entire world had turned suddenly topsyturvy.

She had charged blindly at windmills. Only she hadn’t merely been knocked from her horse. She had been killed by a nervous FBI agent who had been too quick on the trigger.

Schey wore a long overcoat, threadbare and somewhat dirty. A slouch hat was pulled over his eyes, and he wore buckle overshoes, the buckles undone. They jangled when he walked.

He turned away from the frozen Reflecting Pool and went back up the stairs to the drive that encircled the Lincoln Memorial. He stopped at the top and looked back as if he was contemplating some inner message while gazing toward the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol building at the far end of the mall.

It was a little past six and dark already. A light snow had fallen for most of the afternoon, putting a glistening coat on the old, dirty slush and snow. The world seemed quiet and clean,