Heroes by David Hagberg (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📗

with great difficulty managed to get it back up onto the highway.

The front fender was bent into the spokes. Deland pried it away and carefully looked over the machine. There didn’t seem to be much damage. Some dents, paint scraped off, and the handlebars slightly askew. But the odor of leaking gasoline was very strong.

The motorcycle started on the third try, its engine roaring into life, its headlight coming on.

He adjusted the rearview mirror, pulled the goggles down over his eyes, and slowly accelerated down the highway.

The courier’s orders were to deliver a dispatch to the commander of the air base at Luckenwalde, directly south of Berlin.

Deland skirted the ruined sections of Potsdam and stopped beside the road twenty miles away, to go through all of the courier’s papers. Besides Luckenwalde, the courier also had travel passes for bases and supply depots covering half of Germany.

South, beyond Erfurt, Deland figured his risks would rise. But no one stopped couriers who obviously were in a hurry on a very important mission.

Once south of Stuttgart, making it the rest of the way to the Swiss border and then across would be fairly simple. He hoped.

By morning he would be in Bern, he thought, putting the bike in gear. Definitely, he would be having a Swiss breakfast. And for him the war would be at long last over.

It was late morning, only a few minutes before noon, Canaris suspected. There were no clocks in his bedroom. He would not allow them. Here is a place for sleep, he maintained; for rest, where time does not matter.

He still wore his dressing gown as he paced back and forth while sipping his coffee.

He stopped at the window and looked out across the paddock.

Motte and one of the other Arabians were romping along the fence line. They seemed happy. Unconcerned.

Canaris let his eyes lift to the sky. During the night the weather had turned sour. An overcast had blotted out the stars, threatening to bring rain. It was cooler now, too.

There was a strangeness to the very atmosphere, he decjded, that could not be entirely explained by the overcast. When Jesus Christ had been hung on the cross, the afternoon was said to have turned odd. The radio was comparing the Fuhrer’s escape with the resurrection. And in a way Goebbels’ people were right.

Adolph Hitler was the God of the German peoples. It was right that he should rise, Phoenixlike, from the terrible flames and ashes of Rastenberg. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be calling his Wolfsschanze Calvary.

Someone knocked at his door, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He turned as Mohammed came in.

“Good morning,” Canaris said. His voice sounded weak, even to his own ears. It had been a long, trying night at his office in Eiche. There had been so many telephone calls.

“Major Meitner is downstairs. He says it is urgent.”

“Send him up. And bring more coffee.”

“Yes, sir.”

Canaris knew exactly why Meitner had come. And he knew exactly what he was going to say to his old friend in reply. But there was still work to be done, loose ends to be picked up.

He put his coffee down and took a cigar from the humidor on the fireplace mantle. He had just snipped the end and was lighting it when Hans Meitner, in uniform, came in.

“Good God, I thought you would be ready to leave by now,” Meitner said. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. There were circles under his eyes, and his skin was sallow.

“You should get more sun, Hans. Really, you are looking terrible.”

Mohammed came with more coffee, and poured Meitner a cup. He withdrew, closing the door behind him.

“All hell is breaking loose, you know,” Meitner said.

“All across Germany, I suspect.”

Meitner nodded. “There has been a steady stream to Prinzalbrecht Strasse. It will grow.”

“There will be many arrests before it’s over, Hans. I know that.”

“Yours?”

Canaris shrugged. “One can only hope for the best.”

Meitner hit the side of his leg with his hand in impatience. He was enough of an old school officer not to say something impatient. “Then you are planning on leaving? Will you go to Algeciras?”

At the mention of the city Canaris’ heart clutched. “Algeciras,” he said the word half to himself. He would never see Algeciras, or his love … never. He had known that for some time now. He shook his head.

“What, then? Surely, meiner Admiral, you are not going to remain here and simply do nothing?”

“That’s correct.”

Meitner seemed relieved, but Canaris’ next words dashed any hopes he might have had.

“I am staying, of course, but there is plenty to do. And of necessity, you are going to have to run my errands.”

“But, sir …”

Canaris had to smile indulgently. “Let’s have no double standards here, my old friend. If I were to tell you to leave, would you?”

For a moment Meitner resisted. Finally he shook his head. “No, meiner Admiral. I will remain to the end. And beyond.”

‘#~&

Canaris nodded. “In the meanwhile, there are two things you must try to do for me.”

“I will try, but it has become very difficult now with all the arrests. Everyone is being watched.”

“Do what you can,” Canaris said.

“Yes, sir.”

Canaris put down his cigar and went to his small writing desk in the corner by one of the windows. He wrote a series of four numbers on a slip of paper. He turned back and handed it to Meitner.

“It looks like the combination of a safe,” Meitner said.

“Exactly,” Canaris said. “Start left.”

“Where?”

“Behind my old office at Maybach II. There is a central storeroom.”

“Yes, I know it. The place has become a scrap area for discards.”

“The safe is there. Inside, on a middle shelf, are three leather bound volumes. Black. No markings.”

“What are they,’ sir?”

“Diaries.”

It took a moment for the significance to strike Meitner, and when it did, he turned very pale. His hand shook. “Gott im Himmell Why did you leave them there, meiner Admiral?”

A mistake, Canaris thought. A blunder. “There was no time,” he