The Berkut (5 page)

The Fü
hrer's secretaries, Frau Christian and Frau Junge, were relieved that he was in a contemplative mood. The two women, both in their mid-twenties and attractive, had their own worries. Events during recent hours made it increasingly clear that the end of the Third Reich was at hand, and each of them
wondered what lay ahead. The Fü
hrer's fate was no secret; he'd made his intentions quite clear.

Junge felt abandoned. Her husband was dead, killed by the Russians the previous year. She took pride in his death for the Fatherland, but now she was more concerned about her own survival than anything else. For months the gossip among the bunker's small retinue of women had focused on the brutality of the dreaded Ivans. One night, Frau Goebbels, who was privy to such information-indeed, seemed to relish it-spent the better part of two hours explaining in anatomical detail how the Russians ravaged captive women. She made a point of telling the other women that neither she nor her daughters would be taken by the Russians; she would kill herself and the girls rather than allow the Ivans to use them. Frau Junge had given a great deal of thought to the ordeal ahead and reached a different decision. She would not commit suicide, no matter what happened, but neither would she surrender. She felt trapped between two options, with no alternatives in between. Hitler's uncharacteristically serene mood served only to heighten her own fear.

Christian was a widow too, of sorts. With her soft blond hair and eye-catching looks, she was used to attracting and holding the attention of men. Her husband's cowardice sickened her. There had been no need for him to return to his unit, but he had made clumsy excuses and abandoned the bunker, with fear displayed in his every movement. He was saving his own skin, and hers be damned. Though not a violent woman, she had started having dreams of finding him and killing him. She deserted men; not the other way around. She had made up her mind; when this was over, she would divorce the bastard. Given the mood in the room, she felt no desire for food. But Hitler was attentive to such details and if she didn't make at least a minimal show of eating, he would certainly lecture her on the need for good nutritional habits.

Neither woman spoke. They were unaccustomed to having the burden of conversation on thei
r shoulders. The Fü
hrer was renowned as an orator both publicly and privately. As a self-proclaimed expert on every imaginable subject, he used mealtimes to expound at great length, and often inaccurately, on a wide range of subjects. All of those who had to live with him learned early on to leave his rambling pronouncements unchallenged, and to deal with his idiosyncrasies by simply ignoring them. There was no other way to remain sane. What they were not accustomed to was having to cope with a silent Fiihrer, a new role, which he now played by looking up from his food every few moments with a blank smile. Both women wished he'd finish his food and leave, but they knew from experience that he would eat at his own speed. Everything in Germany moved at Hitler's speed.

Behind the three di
ners, Constanze Manzialy, the Fü
hrer's personal cook and expert in his favorite vegetarian preparations, sat on a stool minding her own business. She kept her mouth shut and the others ignored her, which was how she liked it. Manzialy was a tiny woman,
and neither smart nor worldly. Most of what she heard inside Hitler's closest circles was meaningless to her. She had only one interest now: to get out of the bunker and return to her mountain home near Innsbruck. She hated being trapped underground in the bunker; she preferred her mountain aeries. While she found it difficult to think, she knew that her ability to understand what was going on now could later save her life, so she concentrated on listening to the others. Some kind of ending was approaching, and there was a lot of talk about leaving. She wanted to know as much as possible about what the others were going to do so that they couldn't ignore her. It galled Manzialy that they treated her like a piece of furniture. If they were leaving, she was leaving with them, even if it meant a confrontation with the Russians. She had heard the stories about what they did to German women, and she had already decided that if captured she'd quickly tell the Ivans that she was Austrian, not German; it never occurred to her that maybe they wouldn't care about the difference. She shuddered at the thought of one of those huge hairy men forcing her to submit to him. She'd tried sex a few times, and it wasn't much even when it was by choice. What would it be like if it was forced? She wanted to cry.

A guard, a corporal, also was in the room, but like the cook, he stayed away from the others and did his best to be inconspicuous.

At about 2:00 P.M., Hitler finally scraped the final bit of food from his plate, burped quietly without covering his mouth, rose and left without a word.

The two secretaries stared at each other. "He ate everything," one of them said incredulously.

"He always eats everything," the other one said sarcastically. Then she added, "I'm surprised he didn't want his cream cakes. He sneaks them, then gobbles them like a pig."

In their private quarters Hitler found Eva Braun sitting on the edge of her bed wearing a shimmering satin slip from Paris. It seemed more silver than white as it moved on the curves of her body.

"Dress well," the Fü
hrer said quietly. "We have to show them the proper way. Always we must set the standard." He went off to one of the other rooms.

Eva Hitler felt surprisingly calm. He was right, of course. The others would be watching her, as always. She liked b
eing watched by them. As the Fü
hrer's wife, she would
s
how them how a loyal German woman should behave. They would not find her performance wanting.

Standing in front of her wardrobe, she felt small pangs of self-pity. Never again would she be able to wear her fine silk dresses and furs, or the expensive jewelry that had come her way. These are earthly things, she reprimanded herself. She had more important matters to consider. Her final mark in life would be not her high style or soaring spirit but something far more lasting. In the end, it would be she, Eva Braun, the one woman among millions of German women who had captured the ultimate prize. The marriage made it official, and it had come as a complete surprise, the kind of gesture he had made often at the beginning of their relationship. She had taken great pleasure over the years in watching other women claw each other to catch his eye. They looked at her with lethal envy, wondering what it was like to bed the most powerful man on earth. Were the whispers about his sexual habit
s true? She smiled. With the Fü
hrer, everything was true and everything was false; all things were both possible and impossible. It took a special kind of woman to please him. Many had tried and failed. Only she had endured, and now she had her reward. For years he had ignored her, coming in and out of her life only when it suited his convenience. At first she had worried that she would be discarded, but after their first sexual experience she knew he would return. Accepting his unusual desire
s rather, encouraging them,
was her ultimate power, the final lock that bound them together. He might experiment with other women, but he would always come back because she performed without question or judgments, and as she came to enjoy their secret life she began to dominate the man who could not be dominated.

She selected his favorite gown, a black dress that fitted snugly, then sat on the edge of the bed and slid her feet into some tiny handmade Italian shoes, a gift from Mussolini and his woman. She checked the time. She hoped that everything would be over quickly and that nothing would interfere. It wouldn't be fair, she complained to herself. But he had a way of changing his mind suddenly and unalterably; above all else, the thought that he might switch courses now terrified her. She wanted it to be over,

When Eva had finished dressing, she checked herself in the small wall mirror and splashed herself with a heavy pe
rfume. He did not like perfume,
or makeup, for that matter-at least not on her. But now she was feeling gay and powerful, and she knew that he would overlook her little
transgression. Paradoxically, the Führer had not allowed certain factories making
cosmetics and perfumes to manufacture war materiel, maintaining that German women needed these vanities and that the Third Reich could find other ways to produce weapons.

She went past the bathroom into their small living room. In the anteroom between her and the corridor, Hitler was talking to Heinz Linge, his personal valet. On a table in front of the small blue couch two pistols were laid out beside two small black metal tubes, the size of lipstick containers, encasing cyanide ampules. The cylinders had narrow blue bands around them and looked almost elegant.

In the outer room she heard her husband tell Linge, "Wait a full ten minutes after the door is closed for the final time and after all is quiet." Linge acknowledged these instructions in a tone of voice that told her that they would be executed precisely. It was Linge's way.

8
-
APRIL 30, 1945, 2:10 P.M.

Getting into the Chancellery had been relatively simple. Brumm had found a single guard at the entrance; after enticing the man into a nearby room, he had killed him with his knife, then dumped the body outside near a pile of rubble. Once inside they had expected to have an easy time of it, but unexpectedly they had encountered another guard, this one in the subterranean corridor that led to the bunker. Using the Alpha's appearance, they had informed the man that the outer security post was unmanned and sent him up to cover it. The man was reluctant at first, but the Alpha proved to be a powerful inducement and he had gone. If he harbored any doubts about changing posts, Brumm wanted to urge him along, and so he quickly followed the guard. As he approached a turn in the hall, Brumm heard footsteps moving away from him at a fast clip. As he had expected, the man had paused to have another look, but Brumm's approach had sent him scurrying. The colonel knew the sergeant wouldn't turn back again. It would have been better to kill him, but down here there was no place to put the body. Ordering him out of the area would have to suffice.

They had to act quickly, before there were any more intrusions. This was the critical moment. At intervals along both walls were storage bins behind metal plates, each a meter square. Behind them were fire hoses, gas masks, canisters of emergency water and small portable gas-run generators. Brumm counted six down from the guard station. Using his dagger, he removed the two lower holding screws and pocketed them. The upper part of the plate was hinged, and he pulled it up like a trapdoor, surprised both at the weight and at the easy movement; the fit was excellent. Inside, the compartment was shallow; it held a flat fire hose wrapped around a small metal wheel. At the bottom of the back panel was a small strip of metal with a single flat-head screw. There was no apparent use for the strip; nevertheless, it looked like an integral part of the internal structure. The screw was of a special design; it was spring-loaded, and whether it was loose or tight, it always looked the same. Brumm loosened the screw, gave a hard shove to the back of the compartment with the heel of his hand, and the back swung away, revealing a black crawl space.

The Alpha stood behind Brumm, twitching nervously, looking up and down the hall.

"All right," the colonel said. He formed a step by joining his hands.

"Step up." The Alpha stared at the hands, not seeming to comprehend. "Put your foot here and step up there," Brumm said forcefully. "There's a false back. Crawl in far enough to leave room for me. And keep quiet," he added.

The man's foot shook badly. Brumm grabbed it, pulled him forward and boosted him into the opening. Footsteps were coming from the Chancellery as Brumm climbed in, turned himself around and pulled the metal plate down, letting it slip the last little bit. It hit with a soft metallic sound, which he hoped wouldn't be heard. He pulled out his revolver, checked the silencer to be sure it was tight and waited. The footsteps passed without slowing. They were in.

Brumm was sweating heavily; he wiped his brow and crawled into the metal cavern behind the Alpha. He carefully closed the swinging door, making sure it was snug, then sat back to catch his breath. Even if someone noticed that two screws were missing from the outside panel, the inside structure would look perfectly normal. Given the shelling from Russian guns, a few missing screws from a metal door would be perfectly understandable. Now that he was inside, he was feeling much better and far less tense. From here on it would be easier going. He rested his head on his arm and checked his watch. It had concrete to the right of the section and directly into the top. There were two loops on the sides. Brumm lifted one carefully and peered down through the crack at a bed below. A light was attached to the cut section of the duct, and he knew that from below it looked like all the others in the bunker; it had been designed that way. Satisfied with what he had found, he backed up.

"All right, it's time," he told the Alpha. "Take off your coat and boots." The man did as he was told, and Brumm removed all of his own outer clothing and gear. He'd need only his dagger and the flashlight. "We'll back in," he told the man. "You first, then me."

Within minutes they were in position. He checked his watch again: three-twenty. So far, so good. Soon there should be a shot.