Hitler's Secret (22 page)

They were completely lost. That was the only thing Otto was sure of. Since takeoff, the wind had got stronger and the clouds darker, and the glider had climbed higher and higher. The altimeter was at nine thousand feet and all of them were shaking with cold. The glider was being buffeted by crosswinds and Otto had to battle all the time to try to keep it level. Luckily they’d managed to strap themselves in and as there were three of them, they were wedged in tight in the open cockpit. But that was small compensation.

What made it truly frightening was being in the clouds. They were encased in thick, freezing fog and completely blind. Leni was shouting something at Otto but the roar of the wind made it impossible to hear. He clung to the control stick, his feet on the rudder pedals, flying by instinct. He knew that
at any moment they could fly into the side of the rock face and be splattered across it. Angelika, squashed in front of Leni, had tucked her head into her knees.

Leni kept shouting above the howling slipstream. Otto finally distinguished her words. “We have to land!”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he yelled back.

Suddenly another updraft sent them shooting straight up and then they burst through the top of the clouds into the blinding blue above. It was like going from night to day. The glider bumped along the top of the clouds like a speedboat on a choppy sea. For a moment everything seemed perfect. The glider was slicing through the air now, the only sound the wind whistling through the gliders’ wires. And then Otto looked ahead. A mountain peak was right in front of them and approaching fast.

Angelika shouted, “It’s Piz Buin!”

“What are you talking about?” Leni cried.

“It is in the Silvretta range, ten thousand feet high with a glacier on the south side,” she recited at the top of her voice, like a talking encyclopedia.

“So what?” yelled Otto back, failing to see what she was so excited about.

“Look at the cross on the top, look!”

Leni and Otto stared at the summit of the mountain. Just visible was a wooden cross driven into the rock.

“It marks the border! Once you get on the other side —”

“We’re nearly free!” Leni interrupted. She screamed with excitement.

“Are you sure?” said Otto, suddenly doubtful. Patches of flinty gray rock were pockmarking the snowcapped peak.

“Yes! My favorite book in the library. It was about the Alps. I can recognize all the different mountains, I swear.”

Otto looked across to Leni. Maybe it was the wind, but her eyes were streaming.

He watched the peak coming closer, knowing they’d have to somehow get over it and crash-land on the southern side. He had absolutely no idea how to do that. Perhaps the mountain would be forgiving, he thought, then realized how silly that sounded. He leaned forward to check the instruments. Still heading due south. If he could just keep it steady, just keep control. He glanced out to the left. Heard something. An engine perhaps. Surely not. He looked all around.

“Do you hear that?” he yelled.

“There!” shrieked Angelika, but this time she wasn’t pointing to the mountains.

A wingtip peeked through the cloud cover to their left. For a moment, Otto hoped they were all imagining it, then it flicked up again. The top of it was white, the underside a very pale blue. On both sides were the black-and-white crosses of the Luftwaffe. Otto felt a terrible quickening in his belly. It
couldn’t be …

The plane exploded up through the clouds. Leni and Angelika screamed. Otto yelled just as loudly. The plane was a Fieseler Stork, a light, incredibly agile reconnaissance plane, ideal for mountain flying.

Otto forced himself to look at the cockpit. Just as he feared, Heydrich was staring back at him from the pilot’s seat. Behind him were the strange man with the glasses he had seen at the inn and an SS officer. The SS officer was pointing a submachine gun at them. The glider was already filled with holes, one short burst and it would be a flying colander. The machine gun coughed into life. But the bullets went high.

Heydrich jabbed his thumb, indicating for them to go down.

“It’s a warning shot!” Otto shouted. “He wants us to go down.”

“Well, he can forget that.” Leni pulled the pistol from her waistband, leaned across Otto, and fired six shots. With her eyesight, she was unlikely to hit a single thing.

“Are you crazy?” Otto yelled.

The muzzle of the officer’s submachine gun spewed flame just as Otto threw the stick forward and they shot down into the cloud. Down and down, like an elevator with snapped cables.

Otto had about five seconds to react as they broke through the cloud base.

The first thing he could see was that the glider was heading straight at a sheer wall of ice. But to the right of it was a U-shaped opening between Piz Buin and the next peak. Beyond that lay Switzerland.

He kicked his feet on the rudder pedals and pulled the stick to the right. Leni had wrapped her arms around Angelika and hunched forward, braced for the fatal impact. The glider was on its side, losing altitude rapidly and sliding across to the gap.

“We won’t make it,” shouted Leni, and struggled to grab the stick.

Otto shoved her back and kept hold. The glider’s wing was now practically vertical to the ground. At the last possible moment, the craft almost touching the frozen snow, they shot through the gap and Otto wrenched the stick back, leveling the glider out and dropping down onto the southern side of the mountain. There was a glacier about one hundred feet below them and Otto took the risk, dropping the nose even steeper, till they were diving for the snow.

“Here we go, here we go!” he shouted at the girls, and Leni curled herself even more tightly around Angelika. Seconds later, they slammed down onto the glacier, bounced up into the air briefly, then crunched back down again. The glider’s left wing tipped down, the edge slicing into the ice. With a terrible rending sound it was torn off and the glider started to
spin down the mountainside. After a few dizzying revolutions, the right wing caught a rocky outcrop and was ripped away, too. Now they were heading straight downhill, gathering speed, bulleting along like a bobsled. They all held on for dear life, but just when it seemed they would be airborne again without wings, the sheer slope flattened into a plateau and the remains of the glider bumped to a halt.

The three of them sat in silence, their hair and eyebrows encrusted with snow. Slowly Angelika leaned across Leni and scooped a handful from the side of the glider.

“Snow,” she said, and gingerly took a mouthful. She chomped on it, letting the melted water dribble out from the sides of her mouth. “Delicious!” she said, and she laughed.

Leni laughed, too, and unbuckled her seatbelt. “See? You can fly,” she said, giving Otto a prod.

He was sitting stock-still, his hand welded to the control stick. “We did it, we did it,” he said.

Leni helped Angelika out of the cockpit. Behind them the summit of Piz Buin was now shrouded with clouds. They had landed on the south side and were facing west, the sun behind them. A long snowfield, peppered with ridges and ravines, led down to the tree line. Beyond that, maybe six miles away, Leni could make out two villages. If Angelika was right, then at this very moment they were safely over the border.

“We’re in Switzerland!” She yelled it out at the top of her
voice and the word
Switzerland
echoed round the mountain. “We’ve made it!”

As the echo died, Heydrich’s Stork appeared above them.

Otto shot out of the cockpit. “Quick, over here,” he yelled.

There was an outcrop of rocks to the left of the glider and the three of them crouched behind it. Leni raised her pistol but Otto grabbed her wrist. “Don’t waste the ammunition.”

The plane dropped lower and the three of them waited for Heydrich to open fire. They curled up tight but nothing happened.

“Why aren’t they shooting?” asked Angelika.

Otto poked his head out and the Stork swooped over their position. He ducked down again instinctively. Moments later, first one, then two, then three gray canisters, the size of tins of beans, thudded into the snow around them. Red smoke started to billow out. “He’s marking our position,” said Otto.

“What for?” asked Angelika.

“I don’t know,” said Leni.

The Stork flew straight down the mountain towards the valley. Then above them came the deep growl of a heavier aircraft. The cloud was clearing and, as they looked up, a transport plane burst over the summit.

“There’s the reason, Angelika,” said Otto.

The three of them watched as tiny white figures started to spill out of the rear door of the plane, strands of cord attached to them. Within a minute there were thirty or
so mushroom-shaped parachute canopies floating down towards them. Paratroopers.

“What do we do now?” asked Angelika.

There was only one thing to do.

“Run!” shouted Otto.

Heydrich kept the plane in a steep descent. His right thigh was starting to ache now from working the heavy rudder pedals. He glanced down at the bullet wound. It was superficial, a slicing cut through the top of the muscle, but it had soaked his breeches with blood and the cold mountain air made it burn. That young girl was either a crack shot or had the luck of the devil. The side of the mountain suddenly loomed large in front of him and he pulled the stick back, increased the throttle. The plane climbed sharply.
Concentrate!
he told himself.

He looked ahead, then banked the plane, hunting for a suitable landing place. Below the tree line, the hillside leveled out onto the valley floor. A mountain river ran through the valley, copses of trees growing along its banks. He decided there was just enough space and level ground to put down. The extended landing gear that gave the plane its distinctive name,
Stork, absorbed the hard and bumpy landing, and the plane rolled to a halt.

Heydrich unstrapped and jumped out. “Give me the radio and get me a field dressing.”

General Müller nodded and handed down the radio’s microphone to him. Heydrich had taken the precaution of bringing Müller, his most trusted subordinate, the head of the Gestapo itself. If anyone could help Heydrich finish the job it was he. He was a heavyset man, with jet-black hair, dark eyes, and thin lips set hard.

While Müller attended to Heydrich’s order and also unloaded their weapons, the third passenger in the plane gingerly climbed out. It was Straniak, now looking even more nauseated and fearful. He leaned against the plane’s fuselage and took long, slow breaths.

Within minutes Heydrich was confirming that Alpine paratroopers had deployed on the mountain. He considered contacting the Führer at the Berghof but decided against it. Better to wait until he had successfully completed the mission than bring false hope.

Müller handed him a dressing and bandage, and Heydrich quickly and expertly applied it to the wound above his knee. It had stopped bleeding and the throbbing pain acted as a stimulant to him.

“Hand me the glasses,” he said to Müller, who passed him a pair of high-powered binoculars. Directly in front of him was
a pasture and a mountain track that led up towards a ravine. He could make out the track winding through the rocks and up to the tree line. Above that the mountain rose up.

If he climbed fast it would take no more than a couple of hours to reach the snowfield, by which time the paratroopers would have chased their quarry into his waiting arms. He struck out for the track.

Müller and Straniak fell in behind him. Müller had the submachine guns in his arms. Several grenades poked out the front of his tunic. He passed one of the submachine guns to Heydrich, who racked the slide.

“Perhaps you do not need me anymore?” said Straniak weakly.

“Nonsense, Herr Straniak, these children are like quicksilver. Until I have my boot on their throats I will not be confident of success.”

Herr Straniak appeared to deflate some more.

“Remember, Herr Straniak, there is no higher honor than to serve the Führer. Now, let us finish this business.”