Colin Forbes - The Leader And The Damned

'Schulz, why have you come here?' Mailer asked. There was a note of exasperation in his voice.

The Commandant was in the front passenger seat of the Mercedes which Lieutenant Schulz was driving up the winding road leading to the famous Eagle's Nest at the top of the Kehlstein. This unique engineering feat built before the war under the direction of Martin Bormann at a cost of thirty million marks had, ironically, not been used by Hitler for years. He had become bored with his tea-house in the sky and had complained of vertigo. It was to this deserted eyrie the two men in the car were going.

'We have a problem…' The pallid, bony-faced Schulz paused while he negotiated another dangerous bend. He spoke slowly, as though stringing words together was akin to handling sticks of gelignite. 'It is so delicate we have to be sure no one could overhear our conversation. By order of the Fuhrer, the Reichsleiter said..'

Muller was uneasy and relapsed into silence. Characteristically, Colonel Jaeger had ignored Bormann's orders and had 'phoned the Commandant warning him Schulz was on his way from the barracks to the Berghof.

'.. a very welcome type of visitor he is. A walking bloody death-mask..

At the end of the ice-bound drive to the Kehlstein they left the car at the base of the mountain. They continued on foot inside the underground passage which had been blasted out of the peak. Muller found himself growing more and more nervous.

Still in silence the two men stepped inside the copper-lined elevator and Schulz, staring straight ahead, pressed the button. The elevator began its 400-foot ascent up the vertical shaft excavated out of solid rock. Muller pulled at his collar with his finger. The elevator stopped, the doors opened.

'Where are the guards?' Muller asked sharply. 'It's a good job I came up here – they're getting slack. Disciplinary action will be taken…'

Schulz had not replied. He led the way through a gallery of Roman pillars, across an immense, circular, glassed-in room and out onto the open terrace. The surface was covered with snow which had an icy, treacherous sheen. Muller noted that Schulz walked firm-footed to the wall bordering the terrace, a wall as high as an average-sized man's thighs. The man had no nerves.

Still with his back to the Commandant, Schulz placed both his gloved hands on the snow-crusted wall and gazed out across the incredible panorama of mountains. Below, the Kehlstein dropped a sheer four hundred feet. Muller joined him, careful not to look down. He also suffered from vertigo.

'Well,' he snapped, determined to put an end to this nonsense, 'now you have dragged me all this way it had better be good..'

'But it is good…' Schulz purred. For the first time he looked at Muller. 'We have located a traitor actually inside the Berghof..'

Muller was stunned. Thoughts raced through his mind, all of them frightening. He was responsible for overall security. There would be an official enquiry. He glanced down and shuddered – whether at the sight of the abyss or the news he had just been given he wasn't sure. He placed both hands on the wall to steady himself.

'Who is the traitor?' he asked eventually.

'The traitor is yourself…'

Schulz moved while he was speaking. His right hand grasped the back of Mailer's overcoat belt. His left hand struck the Commandant a hard blow beneath his cap and above his collar, hitting a nerve centre. The SS man employed all his strength to heave Muller up and forwards. His victim's feet slithered on the ice, increasing the momentum.

The Commandant grabbed at the wall-top but there was no purchase. He dived into space like a swimmer leaving the high board at the side of a pool. His scream came back through the clear mountain air. Schulz saw the falling figure become tiny as it descended four hundred feet. The heavy mountain silence returned.

Schulz went down in the elevator, walked slowly along the passage and headed for the waiting car without going anywhere near the crumpled body. As a matter of interest, he observed the Commandant had hit the ground a surprising distance from the base of the Kehlstein. He started up the motor and drove back to the Berghof to report the accident.

'Most unfortunate,' Bormann commented in reply to Schulz's call telling him of the incident. 'You will return to Berlin at once. Inform Colonel Jaeger that he is to take over the post of temporary Commandant at the Berghof. By order of the Fuhrer…!'

Bormann replaced the receiver and took out his notebook, turning to the page where he had written down the list of problems to be attended to. He put his pen through two words, cancelling out another task successfully dealt with: Commandant, Berghof.

When Rainer Schulz arrived back in Berlin he found his marching orders waiting for him. He had been posted to the Leningrad front. Three days after his arrival he was killed by a rocket fired by the Russian defenders.

It is approximately six hundred miles as a Junkers 52 flies from the Berghof's airstrip to Rastenburg in East Prussia. Bauer's course involved flying over Czechoslovakia, on over Poland and, on the last lap, into East Prussia. The two men chatted about how to fly a Junkers and there was not the slightest hint of tension between them. They were in the same business. Flying.

It was during the late morning of March 14 when the plane was approaching the Wolf's Lair. In the copilot's seat Lindsay tried to flog his cold-numbed brain into some kind of alertness ready for the ordeal when he confronted the Fuhrer. Below they were passing over a desert, a plain of snow, which went on forever. Above loomed another desert – a low ceiling of dense, dirty-grey cloud which threatened further snow. Lindsay's mind went back to the interview in Ryder Street where this crazy scheme he had volunteered to undertake had begun.

Colonel Dick Browne, who briefed him, was not his favourite person. He recalled thinking this when he had sat on the far side of the desk as Browne continued in his clipped voice.

'If you reach Germany..'

' When I reach Germany,' Lindsay corrected him.

'When,' Browne said reluctantly as though it were the most unlikely outcome. 'Your first task is to locate the Fuhrer's headquarters. As your pre-war attitude was known to be pro-Nazi – above all, since you visited Hitler personally – you might just receive a warm welcome.. He extended his hand, offering his pack. 'Have a cigarette, Lindsay.'

He made it sound as though he were granting a condemned man his last request. Lindsay took the cigarette and used the German lighter he was accustoming himself to. He said nothing so Browne, who had hoped for some reaction, was compelled to go on.

' When you arrive at the Fuhrer's secret headquarters, your second task is to discover whether Hitler himself is personally directing military operations – or whether some field marshal is the real brain. If so, what is the identity of this man?'

'From some of the phraseology this sounds to come from pretty high up,' Lindsay observed.

'The origin of the directive is top secret. Having obtained this information – I gather the second bit is what they're really after – you then make your way back behind allied lines by whatever means possible, report your presence to us via the local commander-in-chief. We fly you home…'

'A piece of cake.'

'Really, Lindsay, I do hope you are not going to treat this mission in a flippant manner..

'For Christ's sake, Browne, you expect me to sit here shaking like a bloody road drill?'

'My rank is that of Colonel..

'And mine is that of Wing Commander..

'Which will prove helpful,' Brown said quickly, changing tack as he realized this RAF type might put in a complaint higher up than he dared to contemplate. 'They're bound to check up on you, put you under the microscope. The Allied order of battle documents you'll be taking may bolster your cover…'