Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

Hunyadi waited patiently for Hitler to finish his tirade.

A faint flush of colour brushed across his cheeks, but now it drained away again, leaving his face even more bloodless than before. He slumped back into his chair. ‘I see that you do not share my enthusiasm, Hunyadi,’ he muttered.

‘You cannot arrest everyone,’ stated the detective. ‘We do not have the time to pursue so many suspects.’

‘And why not?’

Because, Hunyadi thought but did not say, by the time I have questioned them all, both you and this city will belong to Joseph Stalin. ‘The first thing we have to do is stop the leak,’ he said, ‘before it grows too big to control. After that, you can start thinking about punishment.’

Hitler nodded slowly. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but how do we accomplish that?’

‘With respect,’ said Hunyadi, ‘I suggest that we don’t even try.’

‘What?’

‘Do nothing,’ replied the detective.

‘Nothing!’ Hitler’s breath erupted into a long gravelly laugh that finished in a spasm of coughing. ‘But why?’

‘Because you must understand this leak for what it is,’ said Hunyadi. ‘As far as we know, it exists as nothing more than a distraction, to make you second-guess the loyalties of those around you. In this, it has already achieved its objective.’

‘I am perfectly aware of that,’ said Hitler. ‘What worries me is not what I’m aware of, but that which I strongly suspect.’

Hunyadi sighed and nodded. ‘There is a path we can pursue.’

‘Go on.’

‘The information seeping from this bunker is smuggled out of Germany the same way it’s smuggled back in.’

Hitler narrowed his eyes. ‘You mean by radio?’

‘Precisely, and since there has been no interruption to the flow of information, we can assume that messages are still being transmitted from an illegal wireless set. And if we can locate it . . .’

‘And how big are these wireless sets?’

Hunyadi shrugged. ‘The smallest of them can be hidden in a briefcase.’

Hitler shook his head. ‘And how do you plan on finding such a tiny object?’

‘I have an idea,’ answered Hunyadi, ‘but it will require you making an announcement at your next briefing.’

‘What sort of announcement?’

‘One that is incorrect,’ Hunyadi told him, ‘and yet which would prove irresistible to whomever is causing the leak.’

‘You mean some shred of bunker gossip?’ asked Hitler intently. ‘A sordid affair? A child born out of wedlock?’

‘No,’ said Hunyadi, ‘because even if those details might get passed along to the Allies, they are not truly matters which concern us.’

‘I see,’ Hitler murmured, touching his fingernails against his lips. ‘So it must be something bigger. Something of real significance.’

‘A military secret,’ suggested Hunyadi, ‘and yet one which the Allies would be unable to confirm, at least not for a few days.’

‘A few days?’ echoed Hitler. ‘Is that all?’

‘If I am correct that the radio operator is still transmitting messages, we should not have long to wait.’

Hitler breathed in deeply, then let his breath trail out. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, as Hunyadi’s plan took shape inside his brain. ‘I think I know exactly what to say.’

‘And from this,’ continued Hunyadi, ‘we will be able to locate not only the radio operator, but also to confirm whether information of strategic value, rather than just parlour chat, is being funnelled to Der Chef.’

‘We’ll do it!’ Hitler clapped his hands together, the sound like a gunshot in the confined space of the room. But then he paused, and his hands drifted down once more on to the wooden armrests of the chair. ‘But that still does not explain how you plan to catch this radio operator?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Hunyadi, ‘which brings me to my final request.’

‘Name it and it will be granted if such a thing is possible.’

‘I might need to disrupt the power grid.’

‘Which power grid?’ demanded Hitler. ‘The one to the Chancellery? To the bunker itself?’

‘No.’ Hunyadi paused. ‘I mean the whole city.’

Hitler stared at him blankly for a moment. ‘You’re going to shut off the power to Berlin?’

‘Possibly.’

Hitler puffed his cheeks and looked around the room. By the time his gaze returned to Hunyadi, Adolf Hitler was smiling. ‘By God, Hunyadi, you can plunge us into darkness for a decade if you think it just might work!’

‘Gentlemen!’ said Hitler, rising from behind the table in his briefing room.

Across from him, members of the High Command waited expectantly for his announcement. They stood shoulder to shoulder, crammed into the little space like commuters on the metro.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Hitler, ‘I am pleased to report that the Diamond Stream device is now fully operational, and is currently being installed in all V-2 rockets.’

‘How long will it take before launches commence?’ asked Fegelein, who stood at the front of the jostling crowd.

‘It is imminent,’ replied Hitler. ‘Tell that to Himmler when you see him.’

‘At once!’ barked Fegelein, cracking his heels together.

That night, lying on the bed in the apartment of his mistress Elsa Batz, Fegelein drank cognac from a bottle, stark naked except for his socks. He had decided to wait until morning before driving to Himmler’s headquarters with news of the Diamond Stream device. Bad news Fegelein usually dispensed by telephone, but good news, such as this, he preferred to deliver in person. Himmler normally went to bed early and any benefit Fegelein might have derived from heading out immediately to Hohenlychen would be cancelled out by having woken up his master.

‘The idea of it!’ huffed Fegelein. He paused to take another swig of cognac.

‘Of what?’ asked Elsa. She was sitting at a table by the window, wearing a white dressing gown, and casually filing her nails. Elsa was a round-faced woman with platinum-blonde hair and rosy cheeks, who had formerly been employed as an exotic dancer at the ‘Salon Kitty’ on Giesebrechtstrasse. Available solely to high-ranking members of the military, Salon Kitty was one of the only nightclubs allowed to operate in Berlin, for the reason that it was secretly run by the SS. What went on there was filmed by members of Rattenhuber’s Security Service, to be used later as blackmail or as an excuse for arrest.

From the first moment Fegelein saw Elsa Batz, one night back in the summer of 1944, he had known that their lives would somehow become entwined. From her languid movements, up there on the stage, and the sleepy sensuality in her eyes, Fegelein perceived a strange familiarity about her from which he could not walk away. This fact brought him no joy. He knew, from all the other mistresses he had kept over the years, exactly how complicated and expensive this was going to be. With equal certainty, he knew that the physical attraction he felt for Elsa Batz had nothing to do with whether or not he would actually like her. In fact, in a very short time, he might well grow to despise her. But that had nothing to with how badly he needed to possess her.

Fegelein was well aware that Salon Kitty was nothing more than a honey trap. He even knew where the cameras were located and the names of men who had, when confronted with the evidence of blackmail, chosen to end their own lives rather than end up like dogs on Rattenhuber’s leash.

That was why, in a very short space of time, he persuaded Elsa to quit her job and then set her up in this luxurious apartment on Bleibtreustrasse.

It was here that he spent several nights a week, at times when his wife, Gretl, would assume that he was up at Himmler’s headquarters at Hohenlychen, north of the city. The fact that Fegelein kept a mistress, in spite of the occupational hazard associated with marrying Eva Braun’s sister, did not come as a surprise to anyone who knew him. Fegelein felt fairly certain that even his wife was aware of the apartment on Bleibtreustrasse, although she never mentioned it. His wife, it seemed, neither knew, nor cared to know the details. In marrying a man like Fegelein, contending with a mistress was inevitable.