Dennis Wheatley: They Used Dark Forces

THEY USED DARK FORCES

There, alone at the long narrow table, Bormann was sitting. Fixing his cold steely eyes on Gregory, he asked, 'Herr Major, is it true that you predicted the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen by the Americans a week before it occurred?

'Jawohl, Herr Parteifьhrer,' Gregory replied promptly

Bormann stood up and said, 'The Fьhrer requires an explanation of how you obtained this intelligence.'. As he spoke he pushed open a door on his right and signed to Gregory to go through it. A moment later Gregory found him­self face to face with Adolf Hitler.

Author's Note

In obtaining the factual background of the progress of the war, the conspiracy to blow up Hitler and the detailed account of the last weeks of his life, I consulted many books, but I wish to express my indebtedness particularly to Sir Winston Churchill's The Second World War (Vols. IV, V and VI), Chester Wilmot's The Struggle for Europe, Milton Schulman's Defeat in the West, General Westphal's The German Army in the West, Gerald Reitlinger's The S.S., Alibi of a Nation, The Yon Hassell Diaries, Fabian von Schlabrendorff's account of the July bomb plot, Kazimierz Smolen's Auschwitz and H. R. Trevor Roper's The Last Days of Hitler.

In my account of the attitudes and actions of Hitler's personal staff I have taken only one liberty. At a certain point in the story I have had Obergruppenfьhrer Fegelein, Himmler's liaison officer at Fьhrer H.Q., relieved by Obergruppenfiihrer Grauber. But my description of Grauber's attempt to save himself, and what followed, is exactly what happened to Fegelein.

D.W.

A LETTER FROM GREGORY SALLUST

My dear Dennis,

I don't much like the idea of it becoming publicly known that for the best part of two years I was closely associated with a Satanist, but I appreciate that you cannot chronicle my adventures during the latter part of World War II without disclosing that.

It is very understandable, too, that as over eighteen million copies of your books have been sold, and nine of those books are about myself, many of your faithful readers should continue to demand that you should let them know whether my beloved Erika ever got free from her hateful husband, what happened to beautiful, wicked Sabine, and if my old enemy Gruppenfьhrer Grauber met with his just deserts.

There are, of course, plenty of well-authenticated accounts of those terrible last days in Berlin; Goering's dismissal, Himmler's treachery and Hitler's savage attempt to involve the whole German people in his own ruin; but, although the faith he placed in astrologers is well known, no-one has yet described how his belief in supernatural guidance influenced his final decisions.

How much Malacou and I contributed to his committing suicide it is impossible to say; but Malacou was unquestionably a disciple of the Devil and, knowing your capabilities, I have no doubt at all that in recording those unforgettable weeks that I spent with Hitler in the bunker you will write a spy story to top all spy stories. So let me down lightly and go ahead.

Yours ever,

P.S. Knowing your usual kindness in replenishing my cellar whenever you use my material, I may mention that I have developed a particular liking for the Moet et Chandon in the Dom Perignon bottles. No doubt you, too, have found it quite outstanding.

By Dennis Wheatley

Novels

The Launching of Roger Brook

The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

The Rising Storm

The Man Who Killed the King

The Dark Secret of Josephine

The Rape of Venice

The Sultans Daughter

The Wanton Princess

Evil in a Mask

The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware

The Irish Witch

Desperate Measures

The Scarlet Impostor

Faked Passports

The Black Baroness

V for Vengeance

Come into My Parlour

Traitors Gate

They Used Dark Forces

The Prisoner in the Mask

The Second Seal

Vendetta in Spain

Three Inquisitive People

The Forbidden Territory

The Devil Rides Out

The Golden Spaniard

Strange Conflict

Codeword Golden Fleece

Dangerous Inheritance

Gateway to Hell

The Quest of Julian Day

The Sword of Fate

Bill for the Use of a Body

Black August

Contraband

The Island Where Time Stands Still

The White Witch of the South Seas

To the Devil A Daughter

The Satanist

The Eunuch of Stamboul

The Secret War

The Fabulous Valley

Sixty Days to Live

Such Power is Dangerous

Uncharted Seas

The Man Who Missed the War

The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Star of Ill Omen

They Found Atlantis

The Ka of Gifford Hillary

Curtain of Fear

Mayhem in Greece

Unholy Crusade

Dennis Wheatley They Used Dark Forces

The Ace up Hitler's Sleeve

BY MIDNIGHT the aircraft was far out over the North Sea. She was a Mosquito, fitted with extra fuel tanks for the long flight to the Baltic coast of Germany. It was there, in about two hours' time, that Gregory Sallust and his companion were to be dropped. They were lying on their backs,, side by side in the narrow bomb bay. It was pitch dark down there, yet too cold and uncomfortable for any hope of sleep. As the 'plane droned on and the minutes crawled by, many thoughts drifted through Gregory's mind.

He was thinking of the last time he had come in secret to the Continent. It was now May and that had been in the previous August. He had been sent on a mission to Budapest to assess the possibilities of drawing Hungary into the war on the side of the Allies. A number of Hungary's leading magnates had shown willingness to commit their country, provided that an Anglo-American force should land that autumn in France and thus occupy such first-line German units as were not engaged in Russia.

But Gregory had not got back to England until the end of September. During -his absence Churchill had persuaded the Americans to accept instead his plan for occupying French North Africa. By then every available division had been committed to Operation `Torch', so the negotiations with the Hungarians had had to be abandoned and in due course Germany had forced Hungary to declare war on the Allies.

The delay in Gregory's return had been caused by his having had the ill-luck to run into his old enemy Gruppenfьhrer Grauber. By the skin of his teeth and with the aid of the lovely. Sabine Tuzolto he had got away; but he had had to come home via Turkey, and a journey down the Danube concealed in a barge is a far from speedy means of transport.

Yet, as he thought again now of those lost, sunny, autumn days chugging slowly down the great river, he smiled. For a few hectic weeks in 1936 Sabine had been his mistress. When they met again in wartime Budapest, no less a man than Ribbentrop had become her lover. That had led to complications. But, as a result of the Grauber episode, she too had been forced to escape from Hungary. Had they not shared a cabin on the barge, they would not have been human.

In a beauty contest the judges might well have hesitated between the dark-haired, magnolia-skinned loveliness of the Hungarian Baroness and the golden, blue-eyed, Nordic perfection of Erika von Osterberg. But for Gregory there had never been any question of choice. Between him and Sabine it had been no more than physical attraction and enormous fun; although fun that he had had to pay for dearly when he had got his entrancing Hungarian mistress back to London. Erika whom, for a score of qualities that Sabine lacked, he truly loved, had learned of his brief infidelity and he had come within an ace of losing her for good.

Sabine, too, had caused him one of the worst headaches he had ever had in his life. He had brought her to England in the innocent belief that he was saving her from the vengeance of the Gestapo. Where he had slipped up was in never having visualized the possibility that Sabine, convinced that Germany would win the war, had agreed to Ribbentrop's suggestion that, to rehabilitate herself with the Nazis, she should make use of Gregory to get into England as a spy for them.