The Isis Covenant

Dust and death. Living — no, it could not be called living, let us instead say existing — in cramped cellars where the air was so foul that you chewed on other men’s shit and drank their sweat, while you waited for the katyusha mortar strike that would bury you alive. Red, swollen eyes staring blindly from below steel helmets and Hitler Jugend caps in the flash of an exploding artillery round. Rats’ eyes, only they weren’t rats, they were the worn-out husks of human beings. Men and boys who hadn’t slept for a week clinging by a thread to what remained of their sanity. A shout. ‘Ivan kommt!’ Jackbooted feet charging for the doorway. Hanging back as long as you could as Hauptsturmführer Fenet led those crazy Frenchmen past with their ’fausts and their magnetic anti-tank mines, but not for too long because, SS or not, the kettenhunde military police liked nothing better than to string up a shirker from the nearest lamp post. The breathless, heart-pounding dash through streets choked with the remains of bomb-shattered buildings and piles of rubble that stank of festering corpses. Halt. Disperse for ambush. Crouching behind a burned-out Mercedes staff car, ears straining for the telltale tortured shriek of tank tracks on concrete. Hands shaking as they clutch the warm steel of the new banana-magazined Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle that marks you as SS as clearly as the lightning-flash runes on your collar or the blood group tattoo on your arm. There it was! A nerve-fragmenting clatter of diesel engine. Savage shouts in the demonic language of the barbarian. Wait. Wait. Be invisible. Let them pass. They are careless. As exhausted as you are. They think they are already the victors, their minds on the fat fräuleins and the unlimited vodka and schnapps that will be their reward for all the years of struggle and sacrifice. Vermin. The first sight of a creeping figure in a soot-stained brown uniform, then the gun barrel that heralds the silhouette of the tank. A T-34, thank Christ, and not the Stalin with its thicker armour. Wait. Don’t let them see you. This is not your time. This is not the way it should be. A flash, instantly followed by the distinctive thump of a panzerfaust and the takatakatak rattle of fully automatic fire. Nerveless fingers find the composure to throw a stick grenade. A scream you realize is from your own throat mingling with the shrieks of the wounded and the dying; the big rifle bucking in your hands as you seek targets by sense among the shadows in the thick smoke from the burning tank. Enemy or friend, in the madness of battle it is impossible to tell. All that matters is it’s not you. Two figures rolling on the ground in a welter of grey and brown. Bright blood spurts in short jets from a punctured throat, like a scarlet rose flowering in a monochrome landscape. A child’s face is frozen for ever in a final moment of terror. The Ivan rises snarling from his victim to be dispatched by a short burst from the MG-44. In the odd oasis of calm that follows, Vaulot, the tank killer, sprints past with a funnel-shaped H3 magnetic mine in his hands, hunting a second T-34 that no one else has noticed. Another explosion. More firing. More screams. A whistle: the signal to withdraw. Back to the cellar, only there is a lot more space now. Berlin, April 1945. And always at your heels, like a faithful hunting dog: Hartmann.

Hartmann with his rat’s face and his rat’s cunning. Slim and agile and quick as a circus acrobat. The hands, too delicate for a soldier, with long fingers made for playing the piano. Hartmann the thief. Once a thief, always a thief. I should have remembered that.

Hartmann came to the unit in late ’43, with the smell of the jail still on him. Nineteen, but looking years younger, he’d been in an SS uniform for less than a month and at first he was in awe of the veterans around him. But he was good, and being good made him popular. When he crouched before a safe, he found an inner stillness that was almost beyond human. When his fingers worked the dials he was like a great conductor directing an orchestra.

But Hartmann would always be an outsider. The veterans of Geistjaeger 88 had served in the east. We had seen things that had changed us. The unit was always under pressure from Himmler to deliver and often that meant taking extreme actions to extract information. Sometimes, I suspected Hartmann was too squeamish for the job, but, as we lost more men to the Ostfront, he became part of the G88 inner circle.

We all saw the end approaching and had made our own arrangements, but the final collapse came so quickly that the men of Geistjaeger 88 were taken by surprise. We had been carrying out research and interrogations at Auschwitz in late January when the Russians broke through. Events pushed us north and west, towards Berlin, where we were forced to present ourselves for assignment at SS headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. At first, our written orders from Himmler kept us safe. Geistjaeger 88 made its home in a fine requisitioned apartment on Wilhelmstrasse and spent Germany’s dying weeks cataloguing the Reichsführer’s personal art collection and counting on its leader to get them out of the shit. But one day in early April, Ritter disappeared and Geistjaeger 88 went to war. A mere fifteen strong, we joined Battle Group Charlemagne of SS Division Nordland, tasked with the defence of Sector C as the Red Army attacked across the Oder. We were reluctant soldiers, Hartmann and I, unlike most of our comrades. For us it was fight or die, because those unwilling to fight were strung up on every corner with placards round their stretched necks. In those last days, I thought of nothing but escape, but there was no escape as we were forced street by street towards the city centre. All I knew was that, somehow, I had to get to the Crown and use it for the purpose the gods had intended.

Early on the morning of the 29th we were ordered back to the bunker. The shattered remnant of Battle Group Charlemagne staggered through flurries of artillery, ignoring the deadly hail as if it was a summer shower. Black smoke billowed from the upper storeys of the Reichschancellery as we carried our wounded past the guards. The main entrance to the complex lay behind a reception hall and the first thing that struck you was the silence. For the first time in ten days there was no sound of Russian shells, no snap of tank fire, no buzz-saw rasp of machine guns. No sudden death waiting to take you before the next heartbeat. Just the groans of the wounded and the snarls of harassed staff officers trying to create some semblance of order among the chaos of the Third Reich’s Armageddon.

‘SS-Sturmbannführer Dornberger and Battle Group Charlemagne reporting on the orders of General Krukenberg.’ The adjutant at the desk smiled disbelievingly at the snap of heels and stared at the thirty grimy, bloodstained scarecrows crammed into the stairway, barely eight or nine of them unwounded, before checking a sheet on the metal desktop.

‘I have no orders for you yet, Sturmbannführer,’ he said dismissively. ‘You will have to wait.’ He turned back to his papers.

I drew my pistol and placed it on top of the file he was reading. ‘My men need food. They haven’t eaten for three days.’

He looked from me to the four stone-faced guards who stood with machine pistols pointed directly at my chest. A moment of doubt, before he decided he had better things to do than kill insubordinate SS officers.

‘Take these men to the dining room,’ he told an orderly. ‘See that they’re fed.’

‘And somewhere to sleep.’

He shrugged wearily. ‘Shoot me if you must, but I’m afraid you’ll have to take your chances. You’ll see.’

The orderly led us through the gas-proof door.

Imagine the Seventh Pit of hell and the Last Judgement combined, but in a dank, concrete tomb where only the stifling, over-used air gave a semblance of warmth. The upper bunker had been partitioned into thirteen or fourteen rooms, with accommodation for Goebbels and his brood in two rooms to the left and the guest and guard quarters to the right. It had a wide central corridor that doubled as a dining room and a conference area. Somewhere in the labyrinth must have been a kitchen and storerooms. An unkempt horde of uniformed men and women crammed the rooms, some of the men drunk and the women less than half-dressed. Others slumped by the walls as the younger Goebbels children played around their outstretched feet, untroubled by the all-pervading stink of sweat and fear. And defeat. We looked in astonishment at the food and drink piled all around: champagne being drunk direct from the bottle; meats, cheeses and bread filling the tables that weren’t being used for more carnal purposes. The men of Charlemagne exchanged glances before frenziedly diving on the food. I liberated a bottle of pilsner, a loaf and some ham and found a place by the wall; Hartmann joined me, laying his machine pistol at his side. The last thing I heard before I plunged into a dreamless sleep was his whisper.

‘How the fuck are we going to get out of here?’

For all I knew it might have been an eternity, but what seemed like only minutes later I was prodded awake by someone kicking my foot. I opened my eyes to find a man standing over me in the uniform of an SS general and automatically leapt to my feet. Hartmann stayed where he was, but I could tell he was awake.

‘So Heini’s removal men are here for the grand finale,’ Gruppenführer Johann Rattenhuber sneered. ‘Which is more than you can say for der treue Heinrich. I wouldn’t be trumpeting your loyalties around here. Your boss has sold out to the Americans and is trying to save his skin. The Führer would have him hanging from a meat hook if we could lay our hands on him.’

I kept my eyes on the far wall and my mouth shut. If the head of Hitler’s personal bodyguard wanted me to speak, he’d tell me.

He studied my uniform. ‘Sturmbannführer, eh? You must be Dornberger. Come with me, I have work for you. You too, trooper. You can stop pretending to be asleep. And bring your weapons.’

Hartmann got to his feet like a scalded cat and together we followed Rattenhuber to the far end of the bunker, while the drunken throng parted in front of him as if he had the Angel of Death on his shoulder.

‘Swine,’ he spat contemptuously. ‘Have fun while you can. The Ivans are welcome to you.’

A blond child of about four stepped in front of him as we reached the end of the conference room and he bent to pat her head. ‘Ach, Heidrun, liebling, where is your mama? You must find her and tell her Papa wishes to talk with her.’ A second older girl appeared and took her sister’s hand.

‘I will, Uncle Johann.’

‘Thank you, Helga.’ They stepped aside and Rattenhuber shook his head and sighed.

Beyond the conference room lay a second gas door. He stopped in front of it and turned to us.

‘Through this door, you hear nothing, see nothing and say nothing. Understand?’

Without waiting for a reply, he pushed past four SS guards and down two sets of stairs that led to a long hallway. In the centre of the far wall was another door, with yet more guards. We waited while it was opened and I could sense Hartmann’s growing fear. We had heard rumours about Hitler’s final refuge; the last thing we had expected was to be invited to share it. Beyond the first door was a second, which led in turn to a broad corridor with rooms to right and left. Compared to the fevered atmosphere above, this was like entering into a monastery. Officers walked between offices without giving us a glance, speaking in muted whispers that were drowned by the low hum of the generator.

Rattenhuber knocked on the second door to the right.

‘Enter.’

The man behind the desk wore a pristine brown uniform and had a moon-shaped scar on his forehead. He looked like a provincial butcher with too much liking for his own pork. At a smaller desk in the corner of the room a slim, dark-haired secretary sat with a pencil and notebook in her hands. She sniffed as she caught the scent of unwashed bodies and her eyes widened at the filthy uniforms and unshaven faces of the intruders.

‘What’s this?’ the man demanded.

Rattenhuber nodded towards a steel door at the rear of the room and Reichsleiter Martin Bormann glared. ‘Get on with it then.’

The general drew his pistol and pulled a key from his pocket.

He turned to us. ‘Ready.’

I unshouldered my assault rifle and heard a rattle as Hartmann did the same.

The door swung open to reveal a tiny cell and a dishevelled, defeated-looking man sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and his head down. The prisoner’s hands were manacled in front of him and he wore the remnants of an SS uniform, from which every insignia of rank had been torn, leaving a few threads hanging. When he looked up, his eyes were glazed and red-rimmed. I could see that he recognized me and my heart stopped as he opened his mouth to say something.

‘The prisoner will remain silent,’ Rattenhuber barked. ‘Get up.’

Hermann Fegelein used the wall to help himself unsteadily to his feet.

‘Bring him.’

Bormann did not look up as we pushed Fegelein out of the office and turned right into the corridor. Fegelein had always been Himmler’s favourite, tall and handsome and reputed to be one of the finest horsemen in the Third Reich. Now he looked like a football with all the air kicked out of it. He staggered like a drunk and his clothing stank of stale urine. As we walked, he muttered to himself, but the only word I could identify was ‘betrayed’, repeated over and over again. I recognized all the signs, but I could feel Hartmann’s confusion. He looked at Fegelein and saw an SS Obergruppenführer: a general of cavalry and holder of the Knight’s Cross. Nazi aristocracy; the husband of Eva Braun’s sister Gretl. All I saw was a dead man walking.

We continued into a long conference room, again with doors giving access to both sides, and from one of them emerged a stooped figure in dark trousers and an olive-green jacket.

‘Where is Greim?’ the familiar harsh voice demanded.

General Rattenhuber froze and his arm shot out. ‘Heil Hitler.’

Adolf Hitler turned to look directly at us. Dark eyes glared from a pale face, the flesh puffy with fatigue. He took in our filthy clothing at a glance and he began to shake with fury. ‘What …?’ He stumbled to a halt as he recognized Fegelein, turned on his heel and disappeared back into the room he’d come from.

‘Get him out of here,’ Rattenhuber hissed. ‘The stairs at the end of the corridor. Quickly.’

I prodded the prisoner with the barrel of my MP-44 until we reached the stairway. ‘You go ahead,’ I ordered Hartmann. ‘We don’t want him making a run for it when we get to the top, do we?’

The stairs rose in steep flights as if we were in some sort of tower. Halfway up the rattle of boots confirmed that General Rattenhuber had returned.

‘Move, we don’t have all day. Use your rifle butt if you have to.’

When we reached the top, Hartmann was waiting, his rifle covering Fegelein as the condemned man climbed ahead of Rattenhuber and I. He backed out of the doorway and we followed into an open space surrounded by walls and the rear of the Old Reichschancellery. The ground had once been laid out with paths and shrubbery but it was churned up by shell holes. In the centre stood an ornamental turret that doubled as a ventilation shaft for the bunker.

‘Right, let’s get this over with,’ Rattenhuber said.

‘No, please …’ Fegelein’s voice shook as the general pushed him back against a wall and covered him with the pistol. An artillery round exploded somewhere nearby, but no one even flinched.

‘Hermann Fegelein, you have been found guilty by court martial of cowardice in the face of the enemy, leaving your post without orders and high treason. The sentence of the court martial is death by firing squad. Do your duty.’

This last was to Hartmann and I. I raised the Sturmgewehr to my shoulder, but Hartmann froze like a rabbit in a hunter’s spotlight.

In his final moments Fegelein straightened to his full height and looked directly at Rattenhuber. ‘I swear by almighty God, this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf—’

‘Fire!’

The first rounds from the assault rifle took the Nazi party’s former golden boy in the lower stomach and he jack-knifed forward into a stream of steel-jacketed bullets that slammed him backwards against the wall. The torn body slumped sideways, leaving a bright smear of scarlet on the concrete. Fegelein’s leg was still twitching spasmodically as Rattenhuber marched up to him.

‘Pig. A pity you didn’t remember your oath to the Führer when you were trying to run away with your mistress.’ He aimed his pistol and put a bullet into the already shattered head. ‘You,’ he pointed at Hartmann. ‘Since you don’t appear to be good for much else, get rid of this filth.’

Hartmann looked from the body to me. Fegelein had been a big man, and well set. I shrugged.

‘You heard the general. There’s a gardener’s hut across by the wall. Find a shovel and bury him in the corner.’

While Hartmann dug the grave, I sat on a nearby bench and lit a cigarette. Odd how peaceful it could be in the spring sunshine even with the Devil’s orchestra of distant battle competing with the sound of birdsong. An idea formed.

‘Will this do?’ Hartmann looked up worriedly from the shallow scrape he’d created. Sweat dripped from the narrow nose and his black hair was plastered across his forehead. He always had been a lazy little bastard.

‘Deeper,’ I ordered.

It was another ten minutes before I was satisfied. By now the sound of nearby artillery had intensified and the two guards had retreated inside the shelter of the bunker’s rear entrance.

‘All right, get him.’

He dragged the body across to the grave and it flopped in with the legs up one side and the boots still visible.

‘You’ll need to get in and sort him out properly,’ I pointed out.

Hartmann gave me a schoolboy’s look of petulant rebellion, but reluctantly obeyed. I waited until he was in the grave before I picked up the Sturmgewehr and cocked it. He froze when he heard the familiar sound.

‘You didn’t think you’d live through the war, did you, Hartmann? What a foolish notion, that with all these millions of men dying you of all people would survive. It was always part of the plan to get rid of you, only a matter of when.’

He looked up at me and the dark gypsy eyes were without fear. It struck me that he was actually quite brave. But then a lot of people I’d had in this situation had been quite brave. ‘I did everything you told me to. We were a team.’

I shook my head. ‘You were never part of the team, Hartmann. The team mascot, perhaps, but times change. It’s your misfortune that, apart from me, you are the only man alive who knows about the Geistjaeger 88 retirement fund. That is about to change.’

‘Fuck!’

‘Indeed, Hartmann.’ I threw the cigarette aside and lifted the assault rifle. He cringed as his body anticipated the storm of bullets, but I made him wait for a few moments. The artillery had been getting closer. The next barrage would cover the sound of firing.

The first round fell about two hundred yards away, the second a hundred. My finger tightened on the trigger.

When I regained consciousness the sun was in my eyes and the taste of blood on my lips. A gentle hand raised my head and someone poured warm liquid into my mouth. It took a few moments before I realized where I was. A weary-looking medical orderly dabbed at my skull with a bandage that was already soaked with blood.

He saw my panic and grinned. ‘You know what they say about head wounds. You’re lucky it was a bit of stray concrete and not a shell splinter or I’d be picking up your brains with a shovel.’

I tried to raise my head, and it was like being struck by lightning.

‘Take your time. Ivan is having his lunch.’

‘Hartmann?’

The orderly shrugged. ‘When the barrage stopped you were on your own, apart from the poor bastard in the hole over there.’

My head felt as if it had a fairground ride inside it, but my blood turned cold. Hartmann was gone. The Crown? No, I’d kept it well hidden. Hartmann couldn’t know about the Crown. Still, I couldn’t afford to take the chance. I waited for my head to clear before struggling to my feet. ‘He must have gone back to the unit. I need to find him.’

‘Sturm,’ the orderly said, ‘you’re in no fit state to go anywhere. Come inside and sit for a while.’

‘Just patch me up. You know how it is. You serve with these men. I can’t leave them now, just when they need me.’

He looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘Suit yourself.’ He began wrapping a linen bandage round my head. When he was satisfied, he turned to go. ‘Look after yourself, Sturm. Nobody remembers a dead hero.’

It took me almost an hour to get back to the apartment on Wilhelmstrasse, moving from house to house and dodging shells and military police patrols along the way. Deserters hung like ripe fruit from every lamp standard and tram pylon. The strangest thing was that some of the shops were still open for business, selling whatever stock remained before Ivan came and stole it. The apartment was on the first floor and the solid oak door was locked, I shot out the lock and kicked my way inside. Stacked all around the main room were the things that would have drawn Hartmann here. Cases of fine wine and French brandy rubbed shoulders with tins of foie gras and caviar, hams, bread and whole cheeses. Berlin might eat shoe leather, but the men of Geistjaeger 88 would only go hungry when the rest had starved. I checked the room where Hartmann had slept, but it was empty. It was then that I felt the first real stirrings of panic. The Crown. The little shit knew about the Crown. I charged upstairs to the room where I’d hidden it. Hartmann must have heard me and he had barricaded himself inside, but I fired a long burst that shattered the door and hit what was left with my shoulder. I looked frantically to the wood panelling where I’d cached the Crown and fear froze me for an instant when I saw that it had been ripped out. A glint of gold to my left. I whirled, with my finger on the trigger, but the bolt clicked on empty after just three shots. Hartmann was crouching by the window, staring at me with desperate eyes. Roaring in fury, I charged towards him with the rifle raised like a club to crush his skull. But Hartmann had always been a slippery little bastard. He dropped the Crown and threw himself backwards through the window with a crash of splintering glass. Fumbling with the new magazine I ran to where he had disappeared and loosed a burst at him as he staggered away from the mound of sand that had broken his fall. Only then, with a surge of relief, did I turn to the Crown of Isis — to find that although I still possessed the Crown, the Eye was gone. Hartmann had the Eye of Isis.