Prussian Blue

SIXTY-FIVE

Holding the flashlight, I pocketed my gun and escorted my manacled prisoner back through the tunnels. As soon as he was on his feet and moving he began offering me a deal.

“You really don’t have to do this, Commissar Gunther,” he said. “You could just let me go. I have plenty of money. Back there in the caves, I have at least a thousand reichsmarks in the lining of my loden coat. And there are also some gold coins in the belt on my trousers. It’s all yours the minute you agree to turn me loose. Just don’t hand me over to these Nazi bastards. You know exactly what they’ll do to me. They’ll starve me half to death like they did to that poor bastard Brandner and when they’ve finished doing that they’ll chop off my head.”

“You’re going to need that money.”

I don’t know why I said that—habit, probably. I didn’t think there was one lawyer in Germany able to save Johann Diesbach from the guillotine. Clarence Darrow couldn’t have persuaded the People’s Court in Potsdamer Platz that Karl Flex’s murderer deserved anything less than a haircut. Not that I cared very much. As soon as Diesbach was safely in police custody in Saarbrücken, I could return to Obersalzberg and organize Brandner’s immediate release from the RSD prison in the Türken Inn. It was his fate I was concerned about. I was even hoping that Martin Bormann might be so grateful to me that he would agree to commute the death sentence on the two Gestapo men from Linz. And once my business with Bormann was concluded, I would work on getting Gerdy Troost to introduce me to brother Albert; only then might it be possible to acquaint Albert Bormann with the full extent of Martin’s corruption and the blatant simony of the Obersalzberg Administration.

Diesbach now turned threatening.

“You’d better watch out, copper. After what you told me back there I could land you in a lot of trouble. Just see if I’m wrong.”

“How’s that?”

Diesbach grinned. “Maybe I’ll tell the Gestapo how you told me you hate the Nazis,” he said. “Maybe I’ll tell them that, copper.”

“If I had five reichsmarks for every dumbhead like you who’s threatened me with the Gestapo, I’d be a rich man. Don’t you think they expect people like you to say that kind of thing? To accuse cops of talking treason?”

“I bet you’re not even a Party member. In which case it might strike a chord with them. Of course, if you let me go—”

I took hold of him by his jacket collar. We were nearing the exit and, after taking a great deal of trouble to capture him alive, I hardly wanted Diesbach to get shot by a man who was scared of the dark.

“Zander? It’s me, Gunther. Prussian blue, okay? Do you hear me? Everything’s fine. I’ve got the man in handcuffs. And we’re coming out, do you hear? We can go back to Obersalzberg now. Prussian blue.”

“I hear you, Gunther,” said Zander. “Prussian blue. Right. I’ve got that. No problem. Come ahead.”

I pushed Diesbach forward. A moment later we rounded the corner of the tunnel and stepped into the gray daylight. Zander was standing where I’d left him. He threw away his cigarette, lowered his gun, and sneered.

“So this is the damn Fritz who’s caused all the trouble, is it?”

“This is him.”

“Congratulations, Gunther,” said Zander. “I must say I admire your courage, going into the caves like that. Even with a flashlight I couldn’t have done what you just did. I’m claustrophobic just standing here in the entrance. I’m actually finding it hard to believe I ever went in there as a boy. Yes, you’re quite a fellow. I can see why General Heydrich thinks so highly of you. Now and then one just needs a useful and probably expendable man like you who can get things done, the hard way. In any normal circumstances you might expect to get a police medal for this. For bravery, I mean. It’s just unfortunate for you that these are not normal circumstances. A promotion would be the very least you could expect out of this.”

“I can live with it,” I said.

“Yes, I’m sure you can live with it, Commissar. But I’m sorry to tell you that Martin Bormann can’t.”

The next second Wilhelm Zander lifted the Walther from his side and shot Diesbach three times without even blinking. In the cave entrance it sounded like the metallic roar of some modern Minotaur. He collapsed onto the ground, his blood draining onto the sand as he died.

For a moment I just stood there, frozen to the spot, not least because the gun in Zander’s hand was now pointed very squarely at me.

“I wanted him alive,” I yelled.

“Maybe you did. But no one else did.”

“There’s a proper way of doing things,” I said. “Otherwise the law is as bad as those who break it. Don’t you see?”

“How old-fashioned you sound. And how very naïve. Can you really be so stupid? This unfortunate incident—namely Karl Flex’s murder—never happened. For obvious reasons. After all, it would hardly do if the Leader were ever to find out that someone had been shot on the terrace of the Berghof, would it? That would be bad enough, don’t you agree? But if other people found out, that would be even worse. I mean, if Flex could be shot on that terrace, anyone could be shot on that terrace. And can you imagine what they’d do with a story like that in the foreign newspapers and magazines? It would give all sorts of people ideas. Bad ideas. It would be open season on the Leader. Democratically minded English sportsmen with hunting rifles arriving in the area for the ultimate prey. Hitler himself.”

“I might have known you’d pull something like this, Zander.”

“This certainly wasn’t done on my own initiative. Martin Bormann ordered me to kill him. So don’t get all high and mighty with me, Gunther. Killing’s not my thing at all. I’m just the button that Bormann pushed back in Obersalzberg before we left. Anyway, if you ask me, I’ve done the poor bastard a favor. They would only have chopped his head off and that’s not a good way to die. From what I’ve heard, they’ve stopped sharpening the blade on the guillotine at Plötzensee on Hitler’s personal orders. Just to make the whole execution process last a bit longer. By all accounts it can take two or three drops of the falling ax before the head is actually severed. Christ, I bet that makes your eyes water.”

“So what happens now?” I asked, carefully watching the gun in Zander’s steady hand and more particularly his trigger finger. I knew there were at least four shots still left in the Walther’s magazine. There was no trace of nerves in the little man’s demeanor, which surprised me. It’s not every pen-pushing German bureaucrat who can murder a man in cold blood. “Can we go home now? Or does Bormann want me dead, too?”

“My dear Gunther, Bormann doesn’t want you dead. But I do. And so do several of my colleagues in Obersalzberg. People like Dr. Brandt, Bruno Schenk, Peter Högl. I suppose a fellow like you just leaves the rest of us feeling rather embarrassed by our own dishonesty. You see, as you’ve probably gathered, we’re all in the same racket that Karl was. The ten percent racket. All of us have been skimming off what Bormann has been making from his stewardship of Hitler’s mountain. Well, that seemed only right, given that we were the ones he detailed to collect his various tributes. Not that it seemed particularly dishonest, I have to say. Bormann’s been making a fortune since he came to Obersalzberg. And if it’s all right for him, well—not that you could do much about our racket even if you wanted to. If you exposed us, you’d have to expose Bormann, and he wouldn’t like that. But why take the risk? At least, that’s what we’ve all concluded. You’re a loose end, Gunther, and being shot while trying heroically to arrest Johann Diesbach ties that up rather nicely. One problem cancels out the other. It even makes a nice bow and, under these circumstances, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you get that police medal after all. Albeit posthumously. Those are the Nazi heroes that Dr. Goebbels likes the best. The ones who are not around to gainsay what he—”

There was nothing clever or ingenious about what happened next. You couldn’t even have said that I outwitted him. A typical Nazi, Zander was still giving me this long, self-serving speech when I simply turned tail and ran away, back into the Schlossberg Caves. Usually running away is best. Cowardice only looks that way when there’s someone watching closely and from a position of comparative safety. Most brave men are cowards on any other day of the week.

The next moment there was a loud bang. A piece of quartz beside my face flew off as Zander’s first bullet missed me. With my head buried in my shoulders I kept moving. Another loud explosion followed and it was as if some angry cave-dwelling insect had bitten the back of my right hand. I grimaced with pain, made a fist, and ducked into the sanctuary of the darkness. Two more shots ricocheted off the wall behind me, like the blows from some invisible miner’s pickax. But only silence pursued my last-minute escape. Silence and the sound of my own feet stumbling across the sandy floor. I guessed Zander was probably reloading the Walther and this prompted me to stop for a second before I managed to run into one of the walls, and to switch on my flashlight, and then to go on with all speed. I hoped Zander’s fear of Martin Bormann wouldn’t overcome his fear of the dark and his claustrophobia. I was counting on that. I had two loaded guns in my coat pockets, but I was never much of a shot with my left hand; my right hand was already numb and I could feel blood between my fingers, which is no way to take careful aim, even with a long-barreled Luger. I paused for a second behind the cover of a wall and switched off the flashlight for a few moments so that I might draw a breath in comparative safety. It was as well that I did; a moment later the darkness was lit up in a series of brief gunpowder flashes as Zander fired six shots into the caves. They were the wild, speculative, hope-for-the-best kind of shots that men used to let off in the trenches when they got bored, but they were still dangerous if they hit something and I threw myself on the ground until the tiny bombardment was over. The air reeked of cordite and I realized he’d already tried his very best to murder me. Six in the dark had been it. If he’d had what it took to enter the caves and kill me he’d have conserved his ammunition until he had a clear target. For a moment I thought about shooting back, but I couldn’t see any better than he could and, in truth, I had no wish to earn the enmity of a figure as powerful as Martin Bormann; killing his messenger wasn’t likely to play well back in Obersalzberg. But I was already feeling safer. Under the circumstances it hardly seemed probable that Zander would mention trying to kill me to his master. Now all I had to do was find another way out of the caves and with nine levels to choose from, I had a pretty good chance of making good my escape. After that I had no idea what might happen beyond a cigarette and an immediate trip to the local hospital to get my hand fixed, and perhaps my jaw as well.