Heroes by David Hagberg (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📗

Zossen, even if it means going back to work for Loetz.”

“Yes, sir.”

“First off, I need to be put back on the Summary Line List.”

“There are so many copies coming out of Schellenberg’s office that no one knows where they all go. We can get you included, through this office.”

“At least that way I will have some understanding of what is happening to us. Next, I will need communications. Probably the Class A line to my home could be reactivated.”

“That can be accomplished with no real problem.”

“Finally, I want to set up a meeting with two old friends. But it will have to be done here, in the open, for all to see, and therefore not to be suspected. Our little meeting will have to be set up so that anyone who observes us will believe that I am being granted a sympathy call. A visit to the invalid’s bed.”

Canaris grinned.

Meitner was heartened by the apparent turn-around in his chief’s attitude. He had seen such rapid changes before. Whenever the admiral began planning some intricate operation, he was most happy.

“Who are these two, sir?”

“They’re both lieutenant colonels. Werner Schrader, and Baron Wessel von Freytagloringhoven.”

“Wasn’t the Baron the chief of Abwehr II for a time?”

“The one, but he’s changed,” Canaris said. “I want them here. Very soon. Certainly within the next week.”

The night had come. Canaris was alone. He had managed to lever the bottom section of his office window up a foot or two.

He sat with his legs crossed, facing the window, smelling the damp, earthy odors of the night.

No lights shone in the city of Potsdam. The sky was clear, which meant there would almost certainly be an air raid this evening.

On some nights, when the Allied planes came overhead from the west, they would unload their bombs on Berlin proper, then peel off back to England. On other evenings they would drop their loads here, over Potsdam. It was like the macabre game of Russian roulette.

The Fiihrerbunker would be busy. Communications would be coming and going. Command decisions would be in the process of being made. Exciting things would be happening throughout the night.

God, but he missed it. His entire life had been dedicated to the bitch-goddess military and her ideals and systems. At times he wondered: Had it all been a waste? But mostly, such as at this moment, he felt a great sense of adventure.

A military man studied the past and had a very firm understanding of the present. But it was to the future that his life was directed. When the battle was won or lost, the warrior was expected to comport himself in a manner befitting honorable men.

After all, men worked for honor for happiness” sake, but not for reward, because that would be ambitious. Camaraderie.

Admiration. Even medals. But never monetary gain, to put a finer point on it, though the differences were slight.

The air raid sirens sounded, their mournful wail drifting over the city. Canaris got up, crossed the dark office, and looked across the outer office with its rows of shabby desks.

He shook his head, turned back, poured himself another cognac, then sat down again in front of the window as the first of the evening’s Allied bombers droned in from the west.

It was hot up in the mountains. Much hotter than Schey ever imagined it could be.

These were the Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains. At the lower elevations they rose in gentle slopes that were covered sparsely with scrub pine, low mesquite grasses, and goat droppings—everywhere, goat droppings. Higher up, the slopes became sharper, more jngular with large outcroppings of rock.

He reined in his horse, scanned the bleak countryside, and then whistled once, twice, three times. Afterwards he cocked his head to listen for chance sounds on the breeze. But there was nothing except for the distant call of some large bird.

There were stray cattle up here, animals that had either cut out of the herd or had gotten lost on their way down to the valley around Jemez Springs. It was his job to find them. Now that beef was at a premium, even one or two head of cattle were worth going after.

He followed the natural fold between two hills, the land rising up toward the distant Redundo Peak at more than eleven thousand feet. The snow-capped mountain was still a long way off, at least three or four miles as the crow flew and twenty miles on horseback. He had not been up this far since he had begun his search.

The Romero family had been overjoyed to hire him and Eva as ranch hands. Because of the war, there was no one left except for very old people and drunken bums. Even the bums were beginning to disappear.

An able-bodied man and his strong, willing-to-work wife were blessings that simply could not be questioned.

He and Eva had moved into one of the out buildings behind the old bunkhouse, and they had managed to fix it up so that it was habitable. They took their meals sometimes with the other hands, most of whom were illegal Mexicans, and other times alone in their own place.

From Santa Fe, at the end of February, they had simply checked around with the ranchers in the general direction Schey thought the American atomic bomb laboratory called Los Alamos might be located, finding their jobs with the first ranch they called at, just north of Jemez Springs.

At first he had figured it would be fairly simple to follow the traffic to the laboratory or listen to the rumors that an installation had been constructed in the mountains.

But it had been easier than that. The location of the lab had been published in the newspaper. A local citizens group was convinced that a gigantic submarine repair facility had been constructed in the mountains. How they ever expected the subs to be transported to the sea was anyone’s guess, but they had pinpointed the installation and had even gone up to picket the main gate.

Another group was