Colin Forbes - The Leader And The Damned

He put the safety on and stared ahead. They were nearly at the end of the cul-de-sac. Now he saw a garage was open. The car slid inside, stopped. The chauffeur jumped out, closed the doors. Nobody said anything as he climbed out on to a concrete floor and an overhead light came on. A stench of petrol.

The figure in the Astrakhan coat and hat walked round the car and stared at Lindsay. The same height as the Englishman, the wearer's voice was abrupt when it asked the question.

'The mission was to collect you. Who was the girl?' 'A German secretary of Hitler's. Without her help

I would not have been there for you to collect.' ' C'est la guerre

…

The figure removed the Astrakhan hat, revealing thick blonde hair, a well-shaped nose and chin – strong bone structure – and greenish tinted eyes. Lindsay was staring at a girl. She would be about twenty-seven, held herself very erect and was extremely attractive.

'I'm Paco,' she said. 'Now all we have to do is get you back to the Allied lines. Simple? Yes? No?'

'We establish a battle headquarters! Its sole objective – to track down the two fugitives! I shall take personal command..'

Bormann, clad in his normal uniform, his trousers thrust inside jackboots, his squarish face flushed, stopped in mid-sentence as the Fuhrer made a gesture of disagreement.

'Really, Bormann,' Hitler commented mildly and with some amusement, 'we are not fighting Zhukov and his Soviet divisions. Not here, anyway. We are talking about two people.'

It was a muddle and the Reichsleiter had caused it. What should have been a military conference had been side-tracked by Bormann bringing up the problem of Lindsay and inviting the wrong people to attend the meeting. Eight men were seated in the huge living room with the famous picture window at Berghof.

Keitel and Jodl sat side by side on a sofa, scarcely bothering to conceal their annoyance. The other four were Colonel Jaeger with his deputy, Schmidt; the Gestapo representative, Gruber; and Gustav Hartmann of the Abwehr.

'I understand, mein Fuhrer,' Bormann agreed hastily.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his short, stocky legs as the phone began ringing shrilly. Bormann practically leaped on the phone and pressed the receiver to his ear.

'Yes, Mayr, this is Bormann. You have caught them?'

There was a pause while he listened and Hartmann, watching his expression, felt certain he knew what had happened. He was also dying to light his pipe but there could be no smoking in Hitler's presence. Still, Bormann's face was a picture…

'Mayr, this is impossible,' Bormann protested. 'I made no call to you about any Lindsay rendezvous with an Allied agent. What's going on here? Why didn't you check back? Wait a minute..'

He cupped a pudgy hand over the speaker and stared at the seated men. 'Someone here at the Berghof impersonated me when they called Mayr.' His gaze rested on Keitel and Jodl.

Keitel, his chin perched on the point of his baton, looked into the distance as though Bormann did not exist. Jodl folded his arms and regarded the Reichsleiter with a saturnine expression. The atmosphere was tense. Bormann continued the call.

'Listen, Mayr!' he exploded. 'You say someone pretending to be me told you about this rendezvous, that you acted on the information, that Lindsay did turn up – so presumably you have now got him… All right, go on..'

The other men in the room remained silent. The Fuhrer studied his fingernails with a bored expression. Hartmann kept his face blank, enjoying the whole incident.

'This morning, you say…' Bormann sounded incredulous. 'Wait a minute,' he repeated. He stared at the others. 'There has been a massacre outside the Frauenkirche, soldiers killed.'

' Give me the phone! ' Hitler snapped.

His passive manner changed in one of his unpredictable switches of mood. He stood very erect, the phone pressed to his ear.

'The Fuhrer speaking. This is taking too long. Tell me in a few words what happened..'

Hitler listened intently, occasionally acknowledging what was being said to him with a simple 'Yes' or 'No'. This was another myth about the Fuhrer, Hartmann reflected as he reached for his pipe and put it in his mouth without lighting it. The myth that Hitler could never listen. When he was intrigued by a subject, the Fuhrer was one of the world's most attentive listeners.

'Do what you can, Mayr,' the Fuhrer said eventually. 'Spread a massive dragnet as you suggest. The Englishman must not leave Germany. I prefer he should be taken alive. Report regularly to Bormann about your progress. Do your best, Mayr.'

He put down the phone and began pacing the wide spaces of the room in an agitated manner, hands clasped behind his back. It was several minutes before he spoke.

'There has been a terrible accident. Christa, Lundt, my favourite secretary, has been shot dead.'

'By the Englishman, Lindsay. Bormann jumped in.

'No!' Hitler glanced at him with a look of contempt. 'I would greatly appreciate it if you could keep quiet until I have finished speaking. And you may be interested to hear Christa was shot by a member of the SS..'

Hartmann looked at Colonel Jaeger and actually saw the blood drain from his face at the news. One by one, the Fuhrer was using the event to unnerve almost everyone present. He stopped in front of Gruber who started to rise to his feet.

'Sit down!' Hitler snapped. 'Apparently on the basis of information received a trap was laid this morning. The Gestapo were conspicuous by their absence. They don't seem to know what is going on even in Munich…'

He turned on his heels and stared down at Hartmann. The Abwehr officer stared back, his unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. Hitler's mood changed again with the same startling abruptness and he addressed Hartmann in a calm manner.

'Did the Abwehr have any knowledge of this – something to do with a rendezvous in the centre of Munich?'

'Not a word, mein Fuhrer. Otherwise you would have been the first to hear…'

Which was not, strictly speaking, necessarily true – but the opportunity to score over Gestapo and SS was too good to overlook. He watched as the Fuhrer nodded – as though to say that is exactly what I would have expected. Hitler made a dismissive gesture.

'Deal with it in any way you like, Bormann. I leave the whole sorry business in your hands. Make sure flowers and condolences are sent from me on my behalf to Christa's relatives. I am going to my room to rest.'

It became a battle royal after Keitel and Jodl followed Hitler out of the room – with two organizations fighting for supremacy in the struggle to hunt down the Englishman. Gestapo and SS – Gruber and Jaeger – confronted each other while Hartmann sat listening.

It was a typical ploy of Bormann's – learned from the Fuhrer – to set different power groups competing against each other. Bormann laid down the ground rules by phoning Mayr again to issue fresh instructions.

`Mayr, the Englishman, Wing Commander Lindsay, is a spy and is to be shot at the first sighting.

Understood? By order of the Fuhrer!'

He slammed down the phone and Hartmann almost expected him to give the Nazi salute. He made one of his rare interventions.

'Reichsleiter, that order is wrong. Hitler himself told Mayr, "I prefer he should be taken alive.'

'That was earlier,' Bormann snapped. 'Later, when he became aware of what had happened he specifically told me to deal with it in any way I liked. You, also, are involved. You interrogated Lindsay, you know the man. From now on you will devote all your waking hours to locating this English spy. You will pursue him – to the ends of the earth if need be..'

'Then I'll need a lot of money,' Hartmann said quickly.