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There could be no arguing with that and Bormann nodded. ‘Of course, my Führer.’
‘Then there only remains one more thing,’ Hitler said. ‘You’ll find someone in the bedroom. Bring him in.’
The man Bormann found in there wore the uniform of a lieutenant general in the SS. There was something familiar about him and Bormann felt acutely uncomfortable for some reason.
‘My Führer,’ the man said and gave Hitler a Nazi salute.
‘Note the resemblance, Bormann?’ Hitler asked.
It was then that Bormann realized why he’d felt so strange. It was true, the general did have a look of him. Not perfect, but it was undeniably there.
‘General Strasser will stay here in your place,’ Hitler said. ‘When the general break-out occurs he will leave with the others. He can stay out of the way until then. In the confusion and darkness of leaving it’s hardly likely anyone will notice. They’ll be too concerned with saving their own skins.’ He turned to Strasser. ‘You will do this for your Führer?’
‘With all my heart,’ Strasser said.
‘Good, then you will now exchange uniforms. You may use my bedroom.’ He came round the desk and took both of Bormann’s hands in his. ‘I prefer to say goodbye now, old friend. We will not meet again.’
Cynical as he was by nature Bormann felt incredibly moved. ‘I will succeed, my Führer, my word on it.’
‘I know you will.’
Hitler shuffled out, the door closed behind him and Bormann turned to Strasser, ‘Right, let’s get started.’
Precisely half an hour later Bormann left the Bunker by the exit into Hermann Goering Strasse. He wore a heavy leather military overcoat over his SS uniform and carried a military holdall which held the briefcase and a change of civilian clothes. In one pocket he carried a silenced Mauser pistol and a Schmeisser machine pistol was slung across his chest. He moved along the edge of the Tiergarten, aware of people everywhere, mainly refugees, crossed by the Brandenburg Gate and arrived at Goebbels’ house quite quickly. Like most properties in the area it had suffered damage, but the vast garage building seemed intact. The sliding doors were closed, but there was a small Judas gate which Bormann opened cautiously.
It was dark in there and a voice called, ‘Stay where you are, hands high.’
Lights were switched on and Bormann found a young man in the uniform of a captain in the Luftwaffe and a flying jacket standing by the wall, a pistol in his hand. The small Fieseler Storch spotter plane stood in the centre of the empty garage.
‘Captain Neumann?’
‘General Strasser?’ The young man looked relieved and holstered his pistol. ‘Thank God, I’ve been expecting Ivans ever since I got here.’
‘You have orders?’
‘Of course. Rechlin to refuel and then Bergen. A distinct pleasure actually.’
‘Do you think we stand a chance of getting away?’
‘There’s nothing up there to shoot us down at the moment. Filthy weather. Only ground fire to worry about.’ He grinned. ‘Is your luck good, General?’
‘Always.’
‘Excellent. I’ll start up, you get in and we’ll taxi across the road to the Brandenburg Gate. From there I’ll take off towards the Victory Column. They won’t be expecting that because the wind is in the wrong direction.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ Bormann asked.
‘Absolutely.’ Neumann climbed up into the cabin and started the engine.
There was broken glass and rubble in the street and the Storch bumped its way along, passing many astonished refugees, moved across the Brandenburg Gate and turned towards the Victory Column in the distance. The rain was driving down.
Neumann said, ‘Here we go,’ and boosted power.
The Storch roared down the centre of the road, here and there people fleeing before it, and suddenly they were airborne and turning to starboard to avoid the Victory Column. Bormann was not even aware of any ground fire.
‘You must live right, Herr Reichsleiter,’ the young pilot said.
Bormann turned to him sharply. ‘What did you call me?’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve said the wrong thing,’ Neumann said, ‘but I met you at an award ceremony once in Berlin.’
Bormann decided to leave it for the moment. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He looked down at the flames and smoke below as Berlin burned, the Russian artillery keeping up a constant bombardment. ‘Truly a scene from hell.’
‘Twilight of the Gods, Reichsleiter,’ Neumann said. ‘All we need is Wagner to provide suitable music,’ and he took the Storch up into the safety of the dark clouds.
It was the second part of the journey which was particularly arduous, cutting across to the east coast of Denmark and then up across the Skagerrak, refuelling at a small Luftwaffe base at Kristiansand for the final run. It was pitch dark when they reached Bergen and cold, very cold, a little sleet mixed with the rain as they landed. Neumann had contacted the base half an hour earlier to notify their arrival. There were lights in the control tower and the buildings, a poor blackout. The German occupying forces in Norway knew that the end was near, that there was no possibility of an Allied invasion. It simply wasn’t necessary. An aircraftsman with a torch in each hand guided them to a parking place then walked away. Bormann could see a Kubelwagen driving towards them. It stopped on the other side of the parked aircraft of which there were several.
Neumann switched off. ‘So, we made it, Herr Reichsleiter. Rather different from Berlin.’
‘You did well,’ Bormann said. ‘You’re a fine pilot.’
‘Let me get your bag for you.’
Bormann got down to the ground and Neumann passed him the bag. Bormann said, ‘Such a pity you recognized me,’ and he took the silenced Mauser from his greatcoat pocket and shot him through the head.
The man standing beside the Kubelwagen was a naval officer and he wore the white-topped cap affected by U-boat commanders. He was smoking a cigarette and he dropped it to the ground and stamped on it as Bormann approached.
‘General Strasser?’
‘That’s right,’ Bormann told him.
‘Korvettenkapitän Paul Friemel.’ Friemel gave him a half salute. ‘Commanding U180.’
Bormann tossed his bag into the rear of the Kubelwagen and eased himself into the passenger seat. As the other man got behind the wheel, the Reichsleiter said, ‘Are you ready for sea?’
‘Absolutely, General.’
‘Good, then we’ll leave at once.’
‘At your orders, General,’ Friemel said and drove away.
Bormann took a deep breath, he could smell the sea on the wind. Strange, but instead of feeling tired he was full of energy and he lit a cigarette and leaned back, looking up at the stars and remembering Berlin only as a bad dream.
1992
1
Just before midnight it started to rain as Dillon pulled in the Mercedes at the side of the road, switched on the interior light and checked his map. Klagenfurt was twenty miles behind which meant that the Yugoslavian border must be very close now. There was a road sign a few yards further on and he took a torch from the glove compartment, got out of the car and walked towards it, whistling softly, a small man, no more than five feet four or five with hair so fair that it was almost white. He wore an old black leather flying jacket with a white scarf at his throat and dark blue jeans. The sign showed Fehring to the right and five kilometres further on. He showed no emotion, simply took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it with an old-fashioned Zippo lighter and returned to the car.
It was raining very heavily now, the road badly surfaced, mountains rising to his right, and he switched on the radio and listened to a little night music, occasionally whistling the tune until he came to gates on the left and slowed to read the sign. It badly needed a fresh coat of paint, but the inscription was clear enough. Fehring Aero Club. He turned in through the gates and followed a track, lurching over potholes until he saw the airfield below.
He switched off his lights and paused. It seemed a poor sort of place, a couple of hangars, three huts and a rickety excuse for a control tower, but there was light streaming out from one of the hangars and from the windows of the end hut. He moved into neutral, eased off the brake and let the Mercedes run down the hill silently, coming to a halt on the far side of the runway from the hangars. He sat there thinking about things for a moment then took a Walther PPK and black leather gloves from the attaché case on the seat next to him. He checked the Walther, slipped it into his waistband at the rear then pulled on the gloves as he started across the runway in the rain.
The hangar was old and smelled of damp as if not used in years, but the aeroplane that stood there in the dim light looked well enough, a Cessna 441 Conquest with twin turboprop engines. A mechanic in overalls had the cowling on the port engine open and stood on a ladder working on it. The cabin door was open, the stairs down, and two men loaded boxes inside.
As they emerged, one of them called in German, ‘We’re finished, Dr Wegner.’
A bearded man emerged from the small office in one corner of the hangar. He wore a hunting jacket, the fur collar turned up against the cold.
‘All right, you can go.’ As they walked away he said to the mechanic, ‘Any problems, Tomic?’
‘No big deal, Herr Doctor, just fine-tuning.’
‘Which won’t mean a thing unless this damn man Dillon turns up.’ As Wegner turned, a young man came in, the woollen cap and reefer coat he wore beaded with rain.
‘He’ll be here,’ Wegner told him. ‘I was told he could never resist a challenge, this one.’
‘A mercenary,’ the young man said. ‘That’s what we’ve come down to. The kind of man who kills people for money.’
‘There are children dying over there,’ Wegner said. ‘And they need what’s on that plane. To achieve that I’d deal with the Devil himself.’
‘Which you’ll probably have to.’
‘Not kind,’ Dillon called in excellent German. ‘Not kind at all,’ and he stepped out of the darkness at the end of the hangar.
The young man put a hand in his pocket and Dillon’s Walther appeared fast. ‘Plain view, son, plain view.’
Dillon walked forward, swung the young man round and extracted a Mauser from his right-hand pocket. ‘Would you look at that now? You can’t trust a soul these days.’
Wegner said in English, ‘Mr Dillon? Mr Sean Dillon?’
‘So they tell me.’ Dillon slipped the Mauser into his hip pocket, took out his silver case one-handed, still holding the Walther, and managed to extract a cigarette. ‘And who might you be, me old son?’ His speech had the hard distinctive edge to it that was found only in Ulster and not in the Republic of Ireland.
‘I am Dr Hans Wegner of International Drug Relief and this is Klaus Schmidt from our office in Vienna. He arranged the plane for us.’
‘Did he now? That’s something to be said in his favour.’ Dillon took the Mauser from his hip pocket and handed it back. ‘Doing good is all very fine, but playing with guns when you don’t know how is a mug’s game.’
The young man flushed deeply, took the Mauser and put it in his pocket and Wegner said mildly, ‘Herr Schmidt has made the run by road twice with medical supplies.’
‘Then why not this time?’ Dillon asked, slipping the Walther back in his waistband.
‘Because that part of Croatia is disputed territory now,’ Schmidt said. ‘There’s heavy fighting between Serbs and Moslems and Croats.’
‘I see,’ Dillon said. ‘So I’m to manage by air what you can’t by road?’
‘Mr Dillon, it’s a hundred and twenty miles to Sabac from here and the airstrip is still open. Believe it or not, but the phone system still works quite well over there. I’m given to understand that this plane is capable of more than three hundred miles an hour. That means you could be there in twenty minutes or so.’
Dillon laughed out loud. ‘Would you listen to the man? It’s plain to see you don’t know the first thing about flying a plane.’ He saw that the mechanic high on his ladder was smiling. ‘Ah, so you speak English, old son.’
‘A little.’
‘Tomic is a Croatian,’ Dr Wegner said.
Dillon looked up. ‘What do you think?’
Tomic said, ‘I was in the air force for seven years. I know Sabac. It’s an emergency strip, but a sound asphalt runway.’
‘And the flight?’
‘Well, if you’re just some private pilot out here to do a bit of good in this wicked world you won’t last twenty miles.’
Dillon said softly, ‘Let’s just say I’ve seldom done a good thing in my life and I’m not that kind of pilot. What’s the terrain like?’
‘Mountainous in parts, heavily forested and the weather forecast stinks, I checked it myself earlier, but it’s not only that, it’s the air force, they still patrol the area regularly.’
‘Mig fighters?’ Dillon asked.
‘That’s right.’ Tomic slapped the wing of the Conquest with one hand. ‘A nice aeroplane, but no match for a Mig.’ He shook his head. ‘But maybe you’ve got a death-wish.’
‘That’s enough, Tomic,’ Wegner said angrily.
‘Oh, it’s been said before.’ Dillon laughed. ‘But let’s get on. I’d better look at the charts.’
As they moved towards the office Wegner said, ‘Our people in Vienna did make it plain. Your services are purely voluntary. We need all the money we can raise for the drugs and medical supplies.’
‘Understood,’ Dillon said.
They went into the office where a number of charts were spread across the desk. Dillon started to examine them.
‘When would you leave?’ Wegner asked.
‘Just before dawn,’ Dillon told him. ‘Best time of all and least active. I hope the rain keeps up.’
Schmidt, genuinely curious, said, ‘Why would you do this? I don’t understand. A man like you.’ He seemed suddenly awkward. ‘I mean, we know something of your background.’
‘Do you now?’ Dillon said. ‘Well, as the good doctor said, I find it hard to resist a challenge.’
‘And for this you would risk your life?’
‘Ah, sure and I was forgetting.’ Dillon looked up and smiled and an astonishing change came to his face, nothing but warmth and great charm there. ‘I should also mention that I’m the last of the world’s great adventurers. Now leave me be like a good lad and let me see where I’m going.’
He leaned over the charts and started to examine them intently.
Just before five the rain was as relentless as ever, the darkness as impenetrable as Dillon stood in the entrance of the hangar and peered out. Wegner and Schmidt approached him.
The older man said, ‘Can you really take off in weather like this?’
‘The problem is landing, not taking off.’ Dillon called to Tomic, ‘How are things?’
