The Berkut (3 page)

Ezdovo nudged Bailov, and the two men smiled. The doctor would learn as they had-or else.

5 -
APRIL 29, 1945,
4:00
A.M.

The colonel moved out into the sulfuric haze that clung to the city. He checked the machine pistol slung across his chest. His fingers fondled the selector. Semiautomatic, safety on, he told himself. No accidents tonight. In a gesture of reassurance he touched his jacket pockets where the extra clips were stored.

He had parachuted into the city shortly after eight o'clock the previous night and worked his way south from the suburbs. Choosing a route through the rubble had been difficult, but he found that he could keep a fairly strenuous pace as he jogged along. Every now and then he had to stop and think his way through, around or over a tight space. He had little trouble seeing; Berlin seemed to be baking in a hot orange fire. Russian artillery fell on the city in fifteen-minute storms every thirty minutes. In between barrages, flights of Soviet bombers or solitary fighters dropped bombs or flew low over the debris, strafing randomly. It seemed that everything in Berlin that could burn was already on fire, but he knew better. War of this scale was always beyond a single man's senses or comprehension. From above you might think you had burned everything and killed everyone, but if you flew away, the fires would go out, the sun would rise and people would crawl out of their holes to begin figuring out how to get through the new day. Such was war, and now it had come to Berlin. It looked dead, but he knew that it still teemed with life: Berliners were survivors.

Brumm realized that he was in one of the most sustained and ferocious attacks in military history, but he was not intimidated. He had been on the receiving end before in fighting the Russians. He was a professional. All of his adult life had been spent in situations different from this only in extent. This war, he knew, was lost. It had been lost a long time ago, and with it the Third Reich. All that stood in the way of the Ivans now were a few thousand prepubescent Hider Youths and their maniacal leaders, some old men, and perhaps a handful of elite army units trying to operate at token strength. Everything he saw told him that the Russians could enter the city now and have it for their own. But he knew they wouldn't; first they would stand outside, inflicting punishment from afar, trying to crush the population. Partly it was a practical decision: Why crawl into the enemy's lair? Partly it was vengeful, a response to what the Nazis had done in their drive across Russia. The Russians always returned what they had received.

As he moved steadily along, Brumm found his mind wandering.

This .
..
the Mission of the Great Wolf.
I
am the anointed one.
I
alone am the future.
Over and over the words repeated in his mind and took on the cadence of a chant. His heartbeat increased and his pace quickened.
The
Mission.
Around him, cringing in hiding, were thousands of Germans, reduced to sets of eyes staring up from the darkness of cellars, waiting for daylight and deliverance. Only he remained above, moving with intent, the hunter, the sole remaining German predator.

He needed to cover a distance of several miles before dawn and, if possible, to cross the River Spree. There were subway tunnels under the river, and even with Russian advance units in the city, the underground tubes would be safe. Herr Goebbels had seen to that very nicely through his Ministry of Propaganda. The ministry's experts had deftly planted the notion that in the event of a Russian invasion the Nazis had a plan to lure the enemy into the tunnels, then flood them with water from the Spree. He knew the Russians would believe this and stay above ground for as long as possible. The Ivans have dark souls, but they don't like the darkness, he told himself. In any case, Brumm was not concerned. There were many potential routes over or under the river, and he had studied them all. Eventually he would get across.

Ahead the rubble ended, opening into the spacious Friedrichstrasse. Looking southward, he fixed his position, using the remains of a steeple. He was not far from the river, he realized, perhaps less than a kilometer. He would move southwesterly to the Schiffbauerdamm and near there descend through one of the monkey holes used by rail inspectors for access to the Berlin tube. Once underground the new battery-powered torch in his pack would light his way and he could move quickly. The immediate task was to get to and under the river without interference. More and more people seemed to be moving around as he got further into the city, and he felt his nerves begin to tighten. Moving to the edge of a small side street, he crouched to make sure his route was clear. There were several vehicles on their sides, gutted by fire, twisted as if dropped and discarded by an angry giant. The road seemed clear of people, though back on the main
Strasse
groups of civilians were moving northward, away from the heart of the city.

He estimated that he had about ninety minutes until the beginning of morning twilight. By the time the sun was up he hoped to be on the other side of the river and safely into his sanctuary. Once across the river, there would be little need to go above ground. He could move all the way to the Chancellery through the mole runs built by bureaucrats.

It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the dam and find the entry hatch, a thick concrete disk .with a metal wheel for an opening device. He tested the wheel; it was stuck. He stripped off his pack and tried again, but even with his considerable strength he couldn't coax a response from it. He knew it wasn't locked; Germans were not vandals, so there was no need for locks on such devices. Obviously it had been some time since the tube had been entered for an inspection; now it was probably corroded or jammed by the lack of proper maintenance and lubrication. He needed a lever.

He trotted quickly across the cement walks to a bombed building. Inside, he moved from flat to flat; what he needed was a steel rod from one of the walls, and he knew it was just a matter of looking until he found one. In the back of the building, in a flat with hideous yellow wallpaper covered with dancing satyrs, several rods were bent out of a long gash in the wall. Chunks of rock and mortar were scattered around the floor, but the rods were all still anchored in cement, so he would have to break away the bottom to release one. He moved out of the apartment to search again, this time for a tool. In a front flat on ground level, he found a mallet with half its handle broken away. The bead was cast metal and heavy. He could make do with it.

Realizing that the unplanned demolition would take some time, the colonel worked at a brisk pace. He struck the base of the wall to a count, exhaled, inhaled and struck again, over and over, like a machine, never tiring. Mostly the concrete ricocheted away in flakes, but occasionally a more substantial piece would fall heavily to the floor. From time to time he stopped to twist the steel bar ·with his hands. It was beginning to loosen. Outside it was beginning to grow light, and a new Russian barrage seemed to be under way. Aircraft screamed low along the river, and antiaircraft fire from German batteries was sporadic.
They were running out of either
ammunition or nerve, he told himself. Perhaps the gunners were afraid to fire for fear
of giving away their locations. Whatever their reasons, the wall of flak that once defended Berlin had evaporated.

It took Brumm precisely an hour to free the bar. But the effort was worth it; the bar was stiff, strong and nearly straight, the perfect lever. In no time at all, he congratulated himself, he'd be under the river and the first leg of his journey would be nearly complete. He turned to leave, and found himself staring directly into the muzzle of a machine pistol. The eyes of the young woman holding the weapon were gray, the color of sky just before a snowfall. Where the other Berliners he'd seen were gaunt ghosts, this woman was solid and muscular and had a well-fed, alert look about her. His instincts warned him that he was in extreme danger, and he exhaled to calm himself.
"Guten Morgen,"
he said gaily, nodding his head slightly, hoping to take control of the situation.

"
SS
," she observed. "Your unit number, please." "
Am I a prisoner?" he asked, his
voice challenging. "I haven't decided yet."

"I crossed the river a week ago to reconnoiter Russian positions and movements. Now I can't get back. I tried to go under the river through an access tube, but the hatch is frozen. I need a lever." He held up the steel bar to show her.

"Where are the Russians?" she asked.

"Close. Tanks should be here soon, if they have the courage to come in."

"No hope?" she asked.

"There is always hope, Fraulein," he said gently.

Her grip suddenly tightened on her weapon and it thrust toward his head. "Don't bullshit me,
SS
man; I'm not your ordinary German
Frau.
I am the new German woman. I no longer lie in my bed waiting to be fucked. I fight like any man to defend my
Fü
hrer and my Reich."

He saw his opportunity. "Then stand aside and let me pass. I have a mission to complete and you're interfering. Out of my way!"

S
he smiled. "Herr Colonel, you look and act like a man who is accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. Only, I wonder what such a person would be doing here at this time. There are many
SS
trying to le
ave the city, to abandon the Fü
hrer."

"Who are you?" he demanded.

She smiled and said nothing. Her eyes sparkled. Her lips were wet. Finally she said slowly, "An avenger of German honor. Our Führer has been betrayed by his generals. The men are deserting their positions. They abandon Germany to the Russians. My dear colonel, we hunt traitors to the Reich. We apply justice in the name of our Führer, Adolf Hitler. I think, Herr Colonel, that you are one of the men we seek."

"We?"

"There are six of us."

"And you believe that I am a deserter?"

"Is it not possible? Where are your orders, your papers? An SS colonel without a weapon, cowering in a bombed building?"

Her words angered him. "Move out of my way, girl. Don't play at the soldier's game. It will cost you your life."

"We play no game," a voice said from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. There were two more women, both wearing men's clothing and in the same remarkably good physical condition as the first one. One held a machine pistol aimed at him; the other swung a hefty rope at her side. Neither looked friendly.

"Shoot him, Gretchen, and be done with it," the one with the rope said impatiently.

"I'll handle this," the first woman snapped. "The Führer has ordered activation of the Werewolves."

The colonel laughed. "You consider yourselves Werewolves?" The one called Gretchen looked hard at him. "When the Russians come here, we will go underground. We have safe places. After a while they will relax. Then we will rise from our lairs and strike. There are thousands of us and we are waiting for them."

The colonel thought about what she had said. Hitler had issued an edict to organize the Werewolves, a guerrilla group, and had ordered every city and town to be defended to the death. In some areas, there undoubtedly would be resistance, but if he knew his fellow Germans, most would opt to save their skins. When the Russians arrived, Hitler would no longer exist. As for the Werewolves being a real force, they weren't. Like many of the Führer
’s
final orders, this one had been largely ignored and unimplemented. These women were pathetic, nothing more than ignorant adolescents turned fanatic. Still, they might prove useful.

"Where did you learn about the Werewolves?"

"An officer told us," one of the women behind him said. "A genera
l
"

"Who is he?"

"Was
he, you mean? We hanged the bastard," Gretchen boasted. "We caught him running away with an Italian whore, so we tried him and executed him as a traitor. He told us a lot before he died."

"There are no Werewolves. It was only a plan, an idea that never took root," Brumm told the women. "There is no massive resistance. There are just you six and whatever stubborn soldiers that are left when the Russians finally arrive in strength. Just us, we few who continue to fight. I don't have time for games," he said. He walked toward the one called Gretchen, moved the machine pistol off-line and brushed by her.

As he passed she struck him across the back of the head with her weapon and sent him sprawling into the hallway. As soon as he hit the floor the barrel of her weapon was pressed tightly against the base of his skull. "On your feet," she said. He did as he was told, rubbing his head as he tried to stand.

They took him out of the building, on a snaking course through piles of building stones into what remained of a thick red brick edifice, then pushed him inside, down a hallway to the head of stairs. "Down, Herr Colonel." At the bottom there was a heavy metal door. "Inside," one of the women said, and he felt a blow across the shoulders and was driven through the door.

He stared, unbelieving. The room was lit by candles-huge ones as thick as arms, probably from local churches. Near the door was another woman, a new one, also armed. In a corner was a young boy, very thin, wearing an immaculate Hitler Youth dress uniform. He was bound hand to foot in a tight bundle and gagged; his body gyrated slowly as he struggled against his restraints. Brumm could see that he was in pain.