The Berkut (20 page)

Petrov turned his light to the lip of the drop-off, but found nothing.

"Listen to me," he said quietly. "I want you to get down on your knees carefully, then back into the shaft. Don't touch the floor with any more of your body than you can help."

"Is there a booby trap?" Gnedin asked nervously. "Tell me when you're in the shaft."

"I'm in the shaft," Gnedin reported with a grunt. "Hit my back on an edge," he complained. "Now what?"

"Use your light. Start at the base of the vertical drop and tell me what you see."

"Nothing. "

"Look again," Petrov said from above, adding his light to the bottom.

"There's nothing here," Gnedin said, annoyance in his voice. "Just some dust, like elsewhere."

"Dust, good. What else? What's the dust like? Describe it to me as if you were performing an autopsy. Remember what I said about seeing." He watched Gnedin lean out of his shaft below to look.

"So far as I can tell, it's nothing special. Dirt, some small hairs. Nothing."

Petrov smiled and dropped a cloth to his companion below, its fluttering arrival startling the doctor. "Pick up as many of the hairs as you can find and put them in the cloth, then wrap them carefully." Gnedin did as he was told, muttering over the difficulty in capturing the tiny hairs in the poor light.

"All right, I've got them." "How many?"

"A dozen, maybe more. Hard to say. They're minute."

"All right, take my hand," Petrov said. "I need your eyes up here." Back at the dead end, they combed the area on their hands and knees. Like Petrov, Gnedin saw nothing that gave a clue of an opening. Finally, the doctor crossed his legs, leaned against a wall, lit a cigarette and coughed.

"The smoke will interfere," Petrov said.

"I don't care, I need one now. It will give me time to think." Gnedin had set his flashlight down, light first, and as he started to lift it he stopped. "Look," he said, pointing to the metal below his legs.

Petrov leaned over and studied the area under the light. "Almost invisible."

"Scratches," Gnedin announced. Backing off, they discovered small scratches in the pattern of a wide are, incontrovertible evidence that something had swung inward. The wall before them
opened in, not out.

"Stay here," Petrov said. "In ten minutes I want you to start striking the wall with the butt of your light at fifteen-second intervals."

"For how long?"

"Until I tell you to stop."

Petrov backtracked, was helped down from the ceiling by Bailov and led him up through the airtight and watertight metal entry hatch into the tunnel that went under the Chancellery. Only then did they notice the metal plates in the walls. They were painted the same color as the smooth wall and blended so well that it was difficult to see them until one looked closely. Stopping at the first one outside the bunker entrance, Petrov used his knife to loosen the screws and lift the panel. Inside was a metal canister marked "Water."

"Storage bins," Petrov said. He began walking slowly down the corridor, pausing often to listen. They were midway down the second long hall when he halted. "Hear it?" he asked Bailov, who didn't.

Continuing on, they finally isolated the sound, which was surprisingly well muffled. Petrov unscrewed the plate and lifted it. A coiled fire hose was inside. The metallic sound was louder now, directly on the other side.

"This is it," Petrov announced. "This is how they did it." Using his hands, he located the single screw in back of the box and loosened it as the pounding continued. "Get back," he shouted to Gnedin, then said to Bailov, "I can't reach it; my arms aren't long enough. Push; it swings in."

Bailov grunted and under his effort the back of the storage compartment gave way, quietly swinging open to reveal Gnedin, who sat calmly smoking a cigarette, a big smile on his face. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," he said happily to his colleagues.

24 – May 14, 1945, 5:00 P.M.

If the duct indeed was the escape mechanism, then those who used it had to get in it and out of it from the hall. Petrov saw that this had been the flaw in the plan. He ordered re
-
interrogations of all the captured Chancellery guards, reasoning that because all the Nazis in the bunker seemed to be in general agreement about what had occurred, perhaps someone on the periphery had seen something of interest. He wouldn't rest until interviews were done again, and Bailov and Gnedin were assigned to conduct them.

It was Gnedin who got the break during the second interrogation of Sergeant Gustav Rudolf, and Petrov was summoned immediately.

The leader of the Special Operations Group entered the room and spoke directly to Gnedin in Russian. "What is it?"

"I want you to hear something," the doctor told his leader. He turned to the German. "Tell us again about your final shift on guard in the Chancellery."

Rudolf told his story. Hider and an SS colonel had come along the hallway where he was posted and told him to move to another location because the guard there had disappeared.

"He forgot to tell us about this during the initial interview," Gnedin told Petrov in Russian.

"Was it unusual to see Hitler outside the bunker?" Petrov asked in his precise German.

"Yes, very unusual at the end. We didn't see him much toward the last."

"And you changed your post because Hider asked you to?" "Hitler didn't ask. He told me to change. It was a direct order. Wouldn't you have done what he said?"

Petrov ignored the rhetorical question. "Did you see Hider often?" "At the end, no. Before that, yes. Not every day-more like every week, sometimes more often."

"But not at the end?"

"Some at the end, just not as much as before. He used to go back and forth between the bunker and the Chancellery for meetings."

"What was the date of this final encounter?"
"April thirtieth."

"You're certain of that date?"
"Of course."

"What is today's date?"

"I don't know," Rudolf said, astonished. "You keep me locked in the dark. There are no calendars, no docks. How would I know?"

"But you are certain of the date you met Hitler."

"Sure. We were all aware of the time then. It was running out." "When did you see Hitler before this last time?"

"A few days before."

"More precisely."

"I can't say; I don't know exact
ly." "But you remember the last
time."

"Sure, April thirtieth." Rudolf was exasperated. "I'll bet every one of us who was there at the end can remember specific things. We were all frightened. You couldn't help thinking that in a few hours you were going to be dead. I remember April thirtieth because that nig my captain told me that Hitler had killed himself in the
aftermath.
When I heard that, I thought I was g
oing to die too. Only, I didn't.

Gnedin smiled.

"Tell me the story again," Petrov ordered. Rudolf did as he
w
told, and there were no differences in the details.

Petrov talked in Russian to Gnedin. "I think we need more deta from this one. Can you hypnotize him? Is there a drug to help us?

Gnedin considered. "Hypnotism would be better. What drugs, have are rather crude. I doubt if they'll help. Drugs are more use
fu
l for extracting gross information."

"Give it a try."

Gnedin grinned. "Leave me alone with him. Ten minutes, twen
ty
at the outside. If I can't put him under in twenty minutes, I won
't
able to do it at all."

Petrov and Bailov waited outside the door; Petrov used the till to think about what the German guard had said. A tightness in t
he
stomach told him that this might be another important break.

In precisely ten minutes Gnedin opened the door and called the inside. Rudolf was still seated on a stool, but his eyes were closed at he looked relaxed.

"Relatively easy," Gnedin explained. "You can ask your questio
n
now. He's expecting them."

"Sergeant, tell us once more about your meeting with Hitler." Rudolf told the story again, but this time there were more detail Petrov's heart was pounding as he waited for the man to finish. Whc Rudolf was done, Petrov began. "Hitler handed you your greatcoat; "Yes."

"With which hand did he give it to you?" "I don't understand."

Petrov's eyes narrowed. "His left hand or his right?"

Rudolf's brow creased momentarily. His hands, which had bee
n
hanging at his sides, lifted slightly. "Left hand."

"You're certain it was his left hand?" "Yes, his left."

"How can you be certain?"

"Because as he handed me my coat, he saluted me." "Show me."

Rudolf lifted his right arm stiffly in the Nazi salute and reached forward with his left arm to Petrov, as if he were handing him something.

"You always salute with your right hand?"

"Always with the right hand," Rudolf said solemnly. "And he gave you the coat with his left hand?" "Yes."

"At the same time he was saluting you?" "Yes."

Petrov's eyes were burning coals. He glanced at Gnedin, who nodded, as if to say, "This is the truth you're hearing."

Petrov returned his attention to Rudolf. "Hitler came from the direction of the Chancellery. Is that correct?"

"Yes, from the Chancellery."

"Did you see him earlier? Did he pass you going the other direction?"

"No, just coming from the Chancellery. That's the only time I saw him."

"Were you asleep at any time in your shift?"

Rudolf shook his head briskly, his eyes still closed. "If the Fuhrer had found me asleep, he would have had me shot. I wouldn't take stupid chances, not this late in the war."

Gnedin smiled, Bailov stifled a giggle and even Petrov offered the

hint of a grin.

"What time did you go on duty?" "Eleven hundred hours."

"And what time were you to be relieved?" "Fifteen hundred hours."

"A four-hour tour of duty?"

"Yes."

"And after you were off, how long before you were to come on

again?"

"Eight hours."

"The entire security force was on a four-on, eight-off cycle?" "Everyone. "

"What time did you see Hitler?"

"At two. I had just looked at the time. There was an hour left in my watch."

"You saw Hitler coming toward you from the Chancellery at precisely two o'clock?"

"First I heard him. You have to learn how to use your ears, and then how to see out of the corner of your eyes. That's how we were trained. They didn't want us staring at the big shots."

"First you heard him coming, then you saw him from the corner of your eye, and then he reached you. And you saw him directly?"

"He stood right in front of me." "And he told you to change posts?"

"Yes." Rudolf grimaced. "No. The colonel told me first, then the
Fü
hrer."

"How did Hitler look?" "I don't understand."

"Was he moving slowly, quickly? Did he have difficulty walking?" "He looked normal."

"No limp."

"I didn't see one."

"But you knew he had a limp?" "Everybody knew that."

"And it didn't occur to you that it was odd that he wasn't limping?" "Sir?"

"You knew his health was bad?" "Yes."

"And you knew his right leg was impaired." "Sure
. I'd seen it before. It looked
painful." "How do you account for the limp being gone?"

"I don't. Perhaps he was getting better. He had lots of doctors." "You're sure there was no limp?"

"He walked perfectly, just like me." Rudolf began to stand, but Petrov touched his shoulder as a sign for him to remain seated.

"He stopped and talked to you?" "Yes."