The Seventh Secret (27 page)

"This is Bunker Doric, fashioned out of a cave in the Eifel Mountains," said Zeidler. "Actually, Speer started the design late in 1939. But Speer disliked it, because Hitler wanted it so plain and uninspired, and so he turned its completion over to me. I finished the design and supervised the construction in 1940." Zeidler's knobby forefinger ran over the blueprint. "Note the many rooms for electronic equipment. That one bunker cost what would have been about two million American dollars in those days."

Zeidler unwound another blueprint and stretched it over the first. "This is Bunker Felsennest, also in the Eifel Mountains inside Germany, but not far from Belgium. I used a cave again here. We had to clear the bats out before the construction began."

Zeidler was spreading a third blueprint before Foster. "Bunker Tannenberg," the German explained. "Beneath the Kniebis Mountain in the Black Forest."

Foster watched, fascinated, as the remaining blue-prints were flattened out and shown to him. Zeidler s commentary continued. "The greatest and most intricate of them all. Bunker Redoubt inside the Obersalzberg Mountain at Berchtesgaden. You can see the many offshoot warrens, to house underground the other party bigwigs . . . Here is Bunker Pullach near Munich .. . And finally . . ."

Zeidler was spreading the last of the blueprints out with evident distaste, ". . . the one of which I am the least proud but which became the best-known of them all. This is the concrete
Führerbunker
, beside the Reich Chancellery and its garden, where Hitler holed up to the very end. Speer started it in 1936. I redesigned and enlarged it in 1938, using a dependable private firm, the Hochtief Construction Company, to make it foolproof. The
Führerbunker
was the most constricted and inconvenient of all the bunkers, and parts of it remained unfinished, because we never seriously believed it would be used, never believed Hitler would see Germany crumbling about him and would have to hide in it for his last months. Anyway, Mr. Foster, there you have it, the missing architecture."

"You said seven designs, Mr. Zeidler. I counted only six.

"There are seven," insisted Zeidler. "I will show you." He leafed through the blueprints, counting. "Four, five, six." He looked up, puzzled. "You are correct. There are only six here. But there were seven. I remember exactly, and the computer inventory confirms it. One seems to be missing."

"Maybe you left it in your storage room."

"Let me make sure." Zeidler quickly disappeared into the adjacent room, and almost as quickly reappeared. "No, it is not there." He stood at his desk, frowning. "I can't imagine what happened to it."

"Did you ever let these blueprints out of your hands?"

"I wouldn't have dared. I made one set for Hitler, which he kept, but I'm told he had it burned in the bunker before his death. The single other set that survived is this one, which I have kept with me."

"Could you have loaned the seven blueprints to someone?"

"No, I never did. There would have been no reason. I never—" He stopped abruptly, remembering something. "You are right. Yes, I did loan this set out once, I recall. I had word from Albert Speer, through his family, that he was considering doing an architectural book on the Reich similar to your own, more a technical memoir of his work, rather than a picture book such as you have done, and he wanted to review my work for him. Speer was only a year from finishing his twenty-year sentence. Anyway, I took the seven blueprints over to the prison, and left the set for him. When Speer was released from Spandau, he returned the entire set to me."

"The entire set minus one," Foster reminded the German.

"No question this is incomplete. The seventh bunker plan is missing. Speer may have returned six to me and misplaced the seventh, left it behind in Spandau. Conceivably with his friend Rudolf Hess, whom he sometimes consulted. That appears to be a possibility." He began rolling up and securing the blueprints on his desk. " I can have these six copied for your book. As for the seventh, I suggest you go to Spandau Prison and inquire—" He stopped and held up his desk calendar. "Wait for three days before you go there. Spandau continues to be supervised by the four victorious powers, which rotate control of the prison. The Russians are in charge now. But in three days they turn it over to the Americans. The Russians won't even see you. I can't speak for the French or British. I do know for certain that the Americans will be friendly and cooperative. You go and ask them whether they have that seventh print around. If they have it, and chances are it is somewhere in the prison, you can recover it and that will give you the complete set for your portfolio. Here, let me write you a note giving you permission to pick up the blueprint."

Zeidler dashed off a note, and handed it to Foster.

After thanking him, but before leaving him, Foster had one more question. "Do you remember anything about the missing seventh bunker?"

"Not too much, but I do remember this much. I had done one other underground fortress, Bunker Riese, next to the spa town of Charlottenborn. It was the most costly, at least sixty million in your money at the time. It was the biggest bunker of them all. Hitler did not like it and never used it. He had it destroyed, along with the blueprint. But then, I think it was in 1943, he had second thoughts and decided to duplicate it for location elsewhere. It was to be called Bunker Grosse Riese. But I was never ordered to build it, so only the plan exists, the design, not the bunker."

"It would still be valuable for my book."

"Then go to Spandau in three days, and see what you can find.-

T
ovah Levine had been so eager to be on time for the arranged appointment with her superior, that she had arrived at Im Café Carre fifteen minutes early. She hadn't minded being early because the outdoor Café
 
off Savignyplatz, somewhat removed from Berlin's business district, offered a peaceful retreat and a degree of privacy. The steel chair she had taken at the white table in the graveled courtyard was completely hidden from the street by a high green hedge. Tovah enjoyed the cloistered feeling and was somewhat startled when Chaim Golding suddenly sat down across from her.

He offered a brief good morning and ordered himself an ice cream soda. Since it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, Tovah, despite the fact that she disliked ice cream, ordered the same.

Golding occupied the next minutes with emptying out his jacket pockets and examining his notes.

Seated opposite him, Tovah was struck more forcibly than at their first meeting by the fact that Chaim Golding looked more like a perfect German Aryan than like an Israeli who was director of the Mossad operation in West Berlin.

As their ice cream sodas were being served, Tovah took in Golding, who had risen briefly to remove his seersucker jacket. The first time that she had met him, upon her arrival in Berlin, he had been busy behind his desk. Perfunctorily, he had clarified her assignment to become acquainted with a new arrival in Berlin, the historian Emily Ashcroft, and learn more about the clues she possessed that Hitler and his wife had survived the fall of the city.

Now, having requested this second meeting, Tovah was able to get a better impression of Chaim Golding. He appeared to be about five feet eleven, with a sinewy, hard, athletic physique; his facial features were deceptively Nordic, with their clear gray eyes and straight nose. As he seated himself once more, she could see that he was relaxed, more at ease than he had been in the Mossad office during their initial meeting.

"So," he said softly, skimming the heap of whipped cream off the top of his vanilla soda, "you have met Miss Ashcroft of Oxford at the Kempinski hotel."

Tovah was taken aback. "Oh, you know."

"My business is to know," he said without a smile. "Do you like her?"

"Very much."

"Does she like you?"

"I believe so. We've even had dinner together."

"Along with the Californian, the architect Foster."

"So, as usual, you know everything."

"Not enough." Golding met Tovah's eyes. "I want to know more. What is she after about Hitler?"

"You saw the picture of her at the mound of the bunker in BZ?"

"Of course," said Golding. "She wants to dig. But dig for what?"

Economically and precisely, as she had been taught to do during her Mossad training, Tovah related all that she had heard from Emily Ashcroft, and about the two clues that might prove that Hitler and Braun survived. Tovah went on. "She learned that one of the dental plates that the Russians identified as Hitler's was not the real thing. She learned, also, that Hitler always wore beneath his tunic a carved ivory cameo bearing a likeness of Frederick the Great. That's what she hopes to dig for. To find the real dental plates and cameo in the debris of the East German Security Zone. If they are not there—it would be some indication that Hitler and Braun got away."

"Who gave her these clues?"

"I don't know, Chaim. It was one detail Emily would not reveal. I'm surprised she revealed as much as she did, spelling out the two clues." Tovah leaned closer to the director. "Chaim, I'm breaking my promise to her. She trusts me implicitly."

"Well she may. Just as you can trust me." He sipped at the straws in his soda. "I will repeat none of this." He was silent momentarily. "So, Miss Ashcroft believes that Hitler and Braun used doubles, that the doubles were cremated, and that the Russians fell for it."

"Exactly. I offered her research assistance. I was intrigued by the whole idea of Hitler's employing a double. I told her I wanted to look into it. Do you think there is even a possibility that it could be true?"

With a neutral movement of his shoulders, Golding replied, "The suspicion of a double is one of the favorite fantasies of the conspiracy-minded."

"You don't believe in it then?"

"I could. Historically, the theory has plenty of support. The use of doubles by world leaders and lesser celebrities has not been uncommon. King Richard II of England was supposed to have had a double. President Franklin D. Roosevelt definitely had a double. So did Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein—a former actor and a look-alike named Lieutenant Clifton James. There is some speculation that Napoleon had a double. As to the Third Reich, there is a belief that Rudolf Hess employed a double. I've never heard that Adolf Hitler had one."

"Nevertheless, I'm looking into it."

"What have you found?"

"Nothing yet. I've skimmed all the biographies of Hitler in the State Library in the Cultural Center near the Tiergarten. I drew a blank. But I may find out something yet. This morning I talked to Emily Ashcroft. She suggested I see a very knowledgeable and cooperative reporter at the
Berliner Morgenpost
, a fellow she knows named Peter Nitz. I'm meeting with him in about an hour."

"Good luck."

Tovah studied the director's face for any sign of approval or disapproval. "Chaim, am I being silly?" she asked earnestly. "Am I wasting my time?"

He paid the check and stood up. "Don't stop, Tovah. Keep going, and keep in close touch."

T
he glass-and-steel Axel Springer Verlag high-rise building, at Kochstrasse 50, towered over this corner of West Berlin like a Brobdingnagian in the land of the Lilliputians. Here were housed the offices of the Berliner Morgenpost, as well as other newspapers, and here Tovah Levine entered at her appointed time for her session with Peter Nitz.

Inside the doors, the walls of the vast lobby were covered by maple paneling. Security guards screened Tovah, and requested her Israeli passport. When the passport was returned to her, it came with a pink slip that allowed her to proceed to the elevators.

In the narrow corridor outside the elevator, on the sixth floor, Peter Nitz was waiting to welcome her. He led Tovah to his office in the
Morgenpost
—six unoccupied work desks, each supplemented by a second desk holding an electric typewriter, shelves of books, a small refrigerator, a television set—and invited her to be seated at the worn desk nearest the door, his own.

Receiving her as a fellow journalist and a friend of Emily Ashcroft, Nitz was immediately cooperative. Listening to Tovah's request for information on a Hitler double, Nitz admitted that he'd never written of one nor even heard of one. Still, he said, it was worth pursuing further, to learn whether anyone else had written about the subject and might provide Tovah with a lead.

"If you'll excuse me for a minute," said Nitz, rising, "I'll go down to our archival section and consult the files of clippings."

After he had gone, Tovah waited beside his desk, then restlessly occupied herself by studying the shelves of reference books on the wall across the way. After a short period, she was aware that Nitz had returned carrying a manila file folder. She hurried back to her place as he sank down in his chair behind the desk, an unhappy expression on his face. He opened the folder. "Not much, I'm afraid. This is a very thin file."