the Valhalla Exchange (v5) Read online

'Hello, the wall,' Ritter called. 'Is General Canning there?'

  Howard stayed back in the shadows. 'What do you want?'

  'Herr Strasser would like a word with General Canning. He has a proposition to put to him.'

  'Tell me,' Howard called.

  Ritter shrugged. 'If that is your attitude, then I can see we are wasting your time. Thank you and good night.'

  They turned to go and Hoover whispered, 'Sir, this could be important.'

  'Okay, Harry, okay.' Howard leaned forward into the light. 'Hold it. I'll see what he says.'

  A moment later he was speaking to Canning on the field telephone. 'It could be a trap, sir.'

  'I don't think so,' Canning said. 'They must know they'd be cut down in half a second, those two, at the first sign of trouble, and I don't think they'd make that kind of sacrifice, not if Strasser is who Jackson says he is. No, drop the drawbridge and have them in. Send Strasser up here to me. Keep Ritter with you.'

  A few moments later, the drawbridge started to descend with a rattle of chains. Ritter said softly, 'So, the fish bite. Are you always so correct in your prophecies?'

  'Only where matters of importance are concerned,' Strasser said, and as the drawbridge thudded down into place, they walked across together, Hoffer following.

  The judas opened and Howard peered through briefly. He stepped back and they moved inside. As he closed the gate and barred it, Howard said to Hoover, 'Take Herr Strasser up to the north tower. General Canning is waiting. You, Major,' he continued to Ritter, 'will have to put up with my company until he gets back, I'm afraid.'

  Strasser moved off, without a word, following Hoover. Hoffer stood, back to the gate, stony-faced. Ritter took out his case, selected a cigarette, then offered one to Howard.

  'I must warn you. They're Russian, an acquired taste.'

  Howard took one and leaned back against the wall, the butt of his Thompson braced against his hip. 'So, here we are again,' he said.

  When Hoover knocked on the door and led the way into the upper dining hall, only Canning and Justin Birr stood by the fire. Strasser paused nonchalantly in the centre of the room, hands in the pockets of his leather coat, slouch hat slanted over one ear.

  'Good evening, gentlemen.'

  Canning nodded to Hoover. 'You can wait outside, Sergeant. I'll call you if I need you.'

  The door closed. Strasser crossed to the fireplace and spread his hands to the blaze. 'Nothing like a log fire to take the chill off. It's cold out there tonight. The kind that eats into your bones like acid.'

  Canning glanced at Birr and nodded. Birr crossed to the sideboard, poured a generous measure of brandy into a glass and returned.

  'Just to show how humanitarian we are. Now what in the hell do you want, Bormann?'

  Strasser paused in the act of drinking some of the brandy. 'Strasser, Herr General. The name is Strasser.'

  'Strange,' Canning said. 'You look exactly like the man I saw in Berlin in 1936 standing on the rostrum behind Adolf Hitler at the Olympic Games. Reichsleiter Martin Bormann.'

  'You flatter me, General. I am, I assure you, a relatively unimportant official of the Department of Prisoner of War Administration.'

  'I have difficulty in imagining you as a relatively unimportant being. But go on.'

  'Let us consider your situation here. There are twenty-four of you in this garrison, twenty-six if we count the ladies. Most of your men are reservists who have never fought or cripples who can barely lift a rifle.'

  'So?'

  'We, on the other hand, have almost forty battle-hardened shock-troops to call upon. Men of the Waffen-SS, and whatever you may think, General, however much you disapprove, that means the best in the world.'

  'Get on with it,' Justin Birr said. 'Just what are you trying to prove?'

  'That if we decide to move against you, the consequences will be disastrous - for you.'

  'A matter of opinion,' Canning said. 'But accepting that what you say is true, what do you suggest we do about it? I mean, that is why you're here, isn't it? To offer us some kind of alternative solution. I mean before you try slipping a couple of men across the moat just before dawn to blow the drawbridge chains.'

  'My goodness, somebody has been busy,' Strasser said. 'All right, General, it's simple. We have Dr Gaillard, whom we found at the Golden Eagle in Arlberg attending to the landlord's sick son. Sad, how good deeds can so often prove our undoing. However, if you and Colonel Birr will hand yourselves over, we'll be content with that and let the ladies go free.'

  'Not a chance,' Canning said.

  Strasser turned to Birr. 'You agree?'

  'I'm afraid so, old stick. You see, we don't really trust you, that's the truth of it. Terribly sorry, but there it is.'

  'And the ladies?' Strasser said. 'They have no say in this?'

  Canning hesitated, then went and opened the door. He spoke briefly to Hoover, then returned. 'They'll be here directly.'

  He and Birr lit cigarettes. Strasser turned to survey the room and immediately saw the great silver bowl of scarlet winter roses on the piano.

  'Ah, my favourite flowers.' He was genuinely delighted and crossed the room to admire them. 'Winter roses. Like life in the midst of death -they fill the heart with gladness.'

  The door opened and, as he turned, Claire de Beauville, Madame Chevalier and Earl Jackson entered the room. Strasser smiled at the American. 'We missed you for supper.'

  'Sorry I couldn't stay.'

  Strasser turned to Canning. 'An explanation of one or two things which were puzzling me. I was beginning to think you were a wonder-worker. It's nice to know you're just a man, like the rest of us.'

  'Okay,' Canning said. 'I've had just about enough for one night. You wanted a word with the ladies - well, they're here, so make the most of it.'

  'I can't imagine what you could possibly have to say to me that I would be interested in hearing, Monsieur,' Madame Chevalier said. 'Thankfully, I can use the time to some advantage.'

  She sat down at the piano and started to play a Debussy nocturne. Strasser, not in the least put out, said, 'I have offered you ladies your freedom, guaranteed it, on condition that the General and Colonel Birr come quietly and with no fuss.'

  Madame Chevalier ignored him and Claire simply walked across to the bowl of roses and buried her face in them.

  Strasser said, 'I should have known. Above all flowers, they need delicate hands and infinite patience in their rearing. Your work, Madame?'

  'Yes,' she said. 'So, as you can see, I am fully occupied and cannot leave at the present time.'

  Canning moved in. 'You heard the lady.'

  Strasser selected one of the blooms, snapped the stem and placed it in his buttonhole. 'Ah, well, it was worth the trip. You like winter roses, General?'

  'Whatever it is, if Madame de Beauville cultivated it, I like.'

  'Good,' Strasser said. 'I'll remember that at your funeral. One gets so bored with lilies. A single scarlet winter rose should look very well. And now, I think, I will bid you goodnight. There is obviously nothing more for me here.'

  He walked to the door. Hoover glanced at Canning, who nodded. The sergeant led the way out.

  There was a heavy silence and Madame Chevalier stopped playing. 'I must be getting old. Suddenly I feel cold - very, very cold.'

  Strasser stepped through the judas, followed by Hoffer. As Ritter moved out Howard said softly, 'I'll be seeing you.'

  'When?' Ritter said. 'Under the elms at dawn? Six paces each way, turn and fire? You take it all too seriously, Captain.'

  He followed the others across. As they stepped on to the bank, the drawbridge lifted behind them.

  'Are you satisfied?' Ritter asked Strasser softly.

  'Oh, yes, I think so. Jackson should be well enough entrenched now. The rest is up to him.'

  He started to whistle cheerfully.

  It was just after midnight, and in Berlin at his office in the bunker Bormann worked steadily, the scratching of his pen the
only sound, the noise of the Russian shelling muted far away. There was a light tap on the door. It opened and Goebbels entered. He looked pale and haggard, the skin drawn tightly over his face. A dead man walking.

  Bormann put down his pen. 'How goes it?'

  'Goebbels passed a flimsy across the desk. That's the radiogram I've just dispatched to Plon.'

  GRAND ADMIRAL DoNITZ (Personal and Secret)

  To be handled only by an officer.

  Fuhrer died yesterday, 1530 hours. In his will dated 29 April he appoints you as President of the Reich, Goebbels as Reich Chancellor, Bormann as party minister...

  There was more, but Bormann didn't bother to read it. 'Paper, Josef. Just so much paper.

  'Perhaps,' Goebbels said. 'But we must preserve the formalities, even at this desperate stage.'

  'Why?'

  'For posterity, if nothing else. For those who will come after us.'

  'Nobody comes after us. Not here -not in Germany for many years to come. Our destiny lies elsewhere for the time being.'

  'For you, perhaps, but not for me,' Goebbels said, his voice flat, toneless.

  'I see,' Bormann said. 'You intend to emulate the Fuhrer?'

  'No shame in ending a life which will have no further value to me if I cannot stand at his side. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life running round the world like some eternal refugee. Preparations are already in hand. The children will be given cyanide capsules.'

  'What, all six of them?' Bormann actually smiled. 'Thorough and painstaking to the end, I see. And you and Magda?'

  'I have already detailed an SS orderly to shoot us when the moment comes.'

  Bormann shrugged. 'Then I can only wish you better luck in the hereafter than you've had here.'

  'And you?' Goebbels said.

  'Oh, I'll try my luck in the outside world, I think. We should be all right here for the rest of today. I'll make a run for it tonight with Axmann, Stumpfegger and one or two more. We intend to try the underground railway tunnel. That should get us to Friedrichstrasse Station all right. Mohnke is still holding out there with a battle-group of 3,000. SS, sailors, Volkssturm and a whole batch of Hitler Youth kids. They seem to be holding their own.'

  'And then?'

  'With their help we'll try to cross the Weidendammer Bridge over the Spree. Once on the other side, we should stand an excellent chance. Not many Russians in the northwestern suburbs yet.'

  'I can only wish you luck.' Suddenly Goebbels sounded very tired indeed. He turned to the door, started to open it and paused. 'What comes afterwards, if you get away?'

  'Oh, I'll make out.'

  'Come to think of it, you always did, didn't you?'

  Goebbels went out, closing the door. Bormann sat there, thinking about what he had said. I have no intention of spending my life running round the world like some eternal refugee. He shrugged, picked up his pen and resumed his writing.

  Jackson lay on the bed, waiting in the dark in the room they'd given him. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. It was twenty past midnight - ten minutes to go. He lit a cigarette and drew on it nervously. Not that he was afraid - simply keyed up. A brilliant suggestion of Strasser's to tell them he was the Reichsleiter. Coupled with Strasser's personal appearance, it had effectively clouded the entire issue. He was certain they'd accepted him completely now.

  He checked his watch again. Time to go. He got up and padded to the door, and when he opened it, the passageway was deserted, a place of shadows partially illuminated by a single small bulb at the far end. He caught a brief glimpse of himself in a full-length gilt mirror. He was wearing Hesser's best uniform and it fitted rather well. He moved on, past one oil painting after another, blank eighteenth-century faces staring down at him. He turned the stairs at the end, paused by the white door on the small landing and knocked.

  The door opened slightly and on the instant as if the occupant had been waiting. 'Valhalla Exchange,' Jackson whispered.

  'Good - everything's ready for you,' Claire de Beauville said.

  Jackson stepped into the room. On the washstand was plastic explosive, detonators and a Schmeisser. He put the explosive in one pocket, the detonators in the other and picked up the machine pistol.

  'Anything else?' she said. Her face was pale, unnaturally calm.

  'Yes. Some sort of hand-gun. Can you manage that?'

  'I think so.'

  She opened the drawer of the bedside locker and produced a Walther. Jackson checked that it was loaded, then pushed it down into his waistband at the small of his back under the tunic.

  'I like an ace-in-the-hole, just in case things go wrong. Amazing how often even an expert search misses that particular spot. Have you spoken to him on the radio again since he was here?'

  'Twenty minutes ago. Everything is arranged exactly as planned. They wait on you. You'll need a greatcoat and a cap to get you across the square unnoticed. There are men working out there. The small staircase at the end of the passage takes you to the main entrance hall, you'll find a cloakroom at the bottom, and the room that houses the drawbridge mechanism is first door on the left in the gate tunnel.'

  'You've done well,' Jackson grinned. 'Well, mustn't stand here gossiping. Once more into the breach, dear friends ...' and he picked up the Schmeisser and slipped out.

  In the dining hall, Canning was standing alone in front of the fire when Hesser entered. 'Cold,' the German said. 'Too cold. Schneider said you wanted a word.'

  'Yes. Let's say that drawbridge falls and the gates blow, what happens then?'

  'They'll come in at full speed in those halftracks, I should imagine.'

  'Exactly. Armoured troop carriers and we don't even have anything capable of blowing off a track unless someone gets lucky and close enough with one of your stick grenades.'

  'True, but you have some sort of solution, I think, or you would not be raising the matter.'

  'We've been together too long, Max.'

  Canning smiled. 'Okay - that cannon in the centre of the square. Big Bertha.'

  Hesser said. 'She hasn't been fired since the Franco-Prussian War.'

  'I know, but she could still have one good belt left in her. Get Schneider on the job. You can soon make up some sort of charge. Prise open a few cartridges to make touch powder. Stoke the barrel up with old metal, chain, anything you can find, then have the men haul her down to the tunnel. Say twenty or thirty yards from the entrance. It could knock hell out of the first vehicle to come out of there.'

  'Or simply explode in the face of whoever puts a light to the touch-hole.'

  'Well, that's me,' Canning told him. 'I thought of it, so I'll stick with it.'

  Hesser sighed. 'Very well, Herr General, you command here, not I,' and he went out.

  13

  Jackson went down the rear staircase quickly and paused at the bottom, staying well back in the shadows, but his caution was unnecessary for the hall was quite deserted. He opened the door on his left, slipped inside and switched on the light.

  As Claire de Beauville had indicated, it was a cloakroom, and there was an assortment of coats and caps hanging on the pegs - even a couple of helmets. He hesitated, debating, then selected a field cap and heavy officer's greatcoat. He and Hesser were, after all, the same build, and it was a reasonable assumption that in the darkness he would be mistaken for the colonel by anyone who saw him.

  When he opened the front door, snow filtered through. He moved out quickly and paused at the top of the steps to get his bearings. Most of the courtyard was in darkness, but in the centre a group of German soldiers, supervised by Howard and Sergeant Hoover, worked in the light of a storm lantern on Big Bertha.

  Jackson went down the steps to the left and moved into the protecting dark, following the line of the wall towards the main gate. He paused at the end of the tunnel. It was very quiet except for an occasional murmur of voices from the men in the middle of the courtyard, and a sudden, small wind dashed snow in his face.

 
It was as if he was listening for something, waiting, he wasn't sure what for, and he felt a shiver of loneliness. Suddenly, in one of those instant flashes of recall, he was once again the fifteen-year-old minister's son, standing in a Michigan snowstorm at one o'clock in the morning, despair in his heart. Home late and the door locked against him for the last time.

  And from that to Arlberg - so much in between and yet in some ways so little. He smiled wryly, moved into the tunnel. First door on the left, Claire de Beauville had said. He held the Schmeisser ready and tried the handle of the iron-bound door. It opened gently, he pushed it wide and stepped inside.

  The place was lit by a single bulb. Gunther Voss, Gaillard's ertswhile guard, sat in helmet and greatcoat on a stool by a small woodstove, back towards the door, reading a magazine.

  'Is that you, Hans?' he demanded without turning round. 'About time.'

  Jackson pushed the door shut with a very definite click. Voss glanced over his shoulder, his mouth gaped in astonishment.

  'Just do as you're told,' Jackson said, 'and everything will be fine.'

  He stepped lightly across the room, picked up Voss's Mauser rifle and tossed it on top of one of the bunks, out of the way.

  'What are you going to do?' Voss asked hoarsely. He was absolutely terrified, sweat on his face.

  'You've got it wrong, my friend. It's what you're going to do that counts.'

  A cold breeze touched Jackson on the back of the neck, there was the faintest of creakings from the door. Finebaum said, 'That's it, hotshot - you're all through.'

  Jackson turned in the same moment, the Schmeisset coming up, and Finebaum shot him through the right arm just above the elbow. Jackson was knocked back against the table, dropping the Schmeisser. He forced himself up, clutching his arm, blood spurting between his fingers.

  'What are you bucking for, a coffin?' Finebaum demanded, and he nodded to Voss. 'Search him.'

  Voss emptied Jackson's pockets of the plastic explosive and the detonators. He held them up without a word and the door was flung open and Howard and Hoover rushed in.