The Seventh Secret (44 page)

Suddenly there were powerful beams of light from behind him. Oberstadt was at his heels, handing him a large fluorescent lantern, retaining the other, then reaching back to one of his men to take a canvas sack of hand tools and the saw.

"Ready when you are," said Oberstadt.

"Let's go," said Foster.

"Watch your step," Oberstadt cautioned him.

Foster led the way, as he perched precariously on the first smashed step, one hand on the wall, then eased downward to the next one, and the next, each one partially broken, but after that he could see that the caked treads were in good condition. With his lamp in front of him, Foster descended, and he could hear Oberstadt right behind him.

Down and down they went, the full four flights. Forty-four steps, Foster remembered, and when he had counted the forty-fourth, he knew it was right, that he was at the bottommost level of the original
Führerbunker
 
.

Here, in this lower labyrinth, fifty-five feet beneath the point he had entered, it was stifling. It was difficult to breathe. He took a step, and the dust eddied up, making him cough.

"You all right?" Oberstadt's voice sounded and resounded.

"Okay. Let me make sure where we are."

He knew the design of this lower command bunker. There would be eighteen cramped rooms stretching forty-five feet ahead, and this nine-foot-wide central corridor with its low ceiling led to all of them. But now, his mind on Emily, Foster was interested in only six of the rooms, Hitler's and Eva Braun's private suite, but mainly he was interested in two of the rooms, Hitler's living room and personal bedroom.

Foster held out his lamp and tried to take in the condition of this lower bunker. It was a mess, intact but a mess. The once clean rust-brown ceiling and corridor walls were black with dirt and age, and spider webs hung everywhere. Here and there, before him, there were pools of stagnant water, and areas of crusted mud.

Walking a few tentative yards farther, Foster called back, "The door should be right around here, on the right. Let me see."

Then he saw it, through the shell of what had once been a waiting room, the thick fireproof steel door that he had read about, the one that led into Hitler's bunker living room.

The handle of the door was there, badly rusted, and Foster hoped that it was still workable and that the door could be pushed open.

Balancing his lantern, he found the door handle. It was cold. He clamped his hand on it, and turned it. With a groan of protest, the lock gave way. Foster leaned against the door to shove it open with his weight, but the pressure was not necessary. Creaking, the door slowly moved aside.

For long seconds Foster remained immobile, as if unable to bring himself to leave the present and enter the past. Then he stepped forward into history. As he swung his lamp around, the black pit mushroomed to life in its bright gleam, and seconds later it was doubly illuminated by the reinforced brightness of Oberstadt's light beside him.

The image so long in his mind had furnished the ten-by-fifteen-foot living room and prepared him for what to expect. There would be a desk or writing table to one side holding a framed photograph of Hitler's mother. On the carpet there would be three old chairs and directly ahead a small round table and the blood-stained blue sofa upon which the Führer and his bride Eva Braun had slumped in death.

But the image was dissipated by reality, and Foster realized that this was forty years later and that he stood in the present. Although the
Führerbunker
 
had been quarantined by the Russians to keep out Red Army troops and the curious public, some souvenir-hunting Soviet medical personnel and soldiers had gone down below the first two or three days. They had been scavengers, seeking either mementos or furnishings for their devastated homes in Russia.

Foster squinted about, wherever the lantern beam gave him light, The carpeting had been ripped up and carted away. Two of the three chairs were missing, and the third broken in parts so that it resembled kindling wood. The round table was gone. All that remained of the past were Hitler's desk on one wall and the moldy, filthy sofa on another.

But Foster was searching for something.

"Hold your light on the desk," he ordered Oberstadt.

He moved ahead, and with one hand pulled the desk away from the concrete wall. He peered behind it, at the wall, then dropped to his knees and felt along the wall. It was smooth, dirty but smooth.

Standing, he said enigmatically, "Not here. Let's go into the next room. That should be Hitler's private bedroom."

The wooden bedroom door was stuck. Foster yanked at it a couple of times, and at once it flew open, fanning up a curtain of dust. Foster covered his nose and mouth, waiting for the dust to settle. Then he stepped inside the bedroom, with Oberstadt close behind him.

This room was smaller than the living room. There was a single bed, narrow as an army cot, and it was stripped down to the frame. Even the mattress had been removed. Foster guessed that there had been a nightstand and lamp beside it once. Now they were missing. All the other furniture, whatever pieces there had been, had long ago been confiscated. But across the room a four-drawer bureau, too bulky to be taken away, still stood sturdily against the wall.

Foster examined the bedroom walls and ceiling. They were concrete, and there were cracks everywhere.

"Odd," said Foster. "Cracks here but not in the living room. Yet the same concrete."

Oberstadt was playing his fluorescent lamp against a wall, studying a crack. "I don't understand. None of this should have cracked." He had found a screwdriver and was prying into a crack. "You know, somehow I don't think these fissures happened naturally. They might have been man-made."

Foster agreed. "Simulated," he said quietly. "A form of camouflage."

"A what?" asked Oberstadt, puzzled.

"To make everyone ignore the real thing. You'll see. Here, help me move aside the bureau."

They both set down their lanterns, took the sides of the bureau, and pulled it away from the wall.

"Let's bring it nearer the center of the room," Foster said. "Okay, now take your lantern and shine it on the wall behind the bureau."

Oberstadt did as he was told, and Foster was on his knees closely studying the wall that had been hidden behind the bureau. He ran his forefinger along four parts of the wall. "Yup, just what I suspected. Hand me your screwdriver, Andrew."

Oberstadt gave him the screwdriver, and Foster pried away at the slits he had detected. Soon an outline in the wall took form. It resembled a rectangular panel Tour feet wide and three feet high.

Foster got to his feet. "Just what I was looking for," said Foster.

"What was that?"

"Andrew, I've been an architect for a long time. I can't imagine anyone building a windowless room like this without some kind of interior escape hatch to supplement the door."

"But there is an emergency exit. We just came down through it."

"No, I'm speaking of a private exit. There was none on the plan of the
Führerbunker
 
.
I couldn't believe it. Therefore, I reasoned, one must have been added afterward. By Hitler himself. A secret exit."

Oherstadt's ruddy features showed disbelief. "That's a secret exit?"

"I think it is."

"But why? You mean in case of a gas attack?"

"In this case, something more. A means of getting out of here undetected."

"You mean he ... ?"

"We'll know soon enough. You have your saw?"

"I sure do."

"Okay." Foster pointed at the four lines on the wall. "Let's go at it. I'm expecting it to be a slab that will come out. Let's see if it does."

"You bet!" said Oberstadt enthusiastically. He set down his lantern and bag of hand tools, and picked up his saw.

As Oberstadt went to the wall, and lowered himself to his knees, his saw poised, Foster said, "I hope it's not noisy."

"It's noisy but it will be quick. If this is only a slab, then it has been cut to fit the opening and I won't be going through solid concrete. That looks like mortar that you've dug out. It should he easy as putty, and no louder than humming." He paused. "What's the difference anyway? I thought this was an escape exit."

"Still could be. Depends—where to, and what's on the other side."

"What is on the other side?"

"I won't be sure until you finish."

"All right, here goes."

Oberstadt triggered the saw, and it gave out a low, steady hum. He set the blade against one of the lines on the wall, and immediately the noise became a metallic whine.

Holding his own lantern up higher so that Oberstadt could see better, Foster was surprised at the progress the saw was making. It was going through the lines as if they'd been drawn on a piece of cake.

Oberstadt paused only once. "You're right. It's a slab—wire mesh covered by mortar inside—and it should come out soon."

Ten minutes later he shut off his saw and laid it down. His fingers dug into a side of the slab and rocked it slightly.

"It was freestanding to begin with," Oberstadt said. "It's been lightly mortared in place, but now it is completely loose. Want to give me a hand?"

They each took one side of the slab, and began to tug at it, gradually pulling it out of the wall.

"Not too heavy," grunted Oberstadt, "because it's not solid concrete. Feels like no more than a hundred pounds." They slipped it to one side, and leaned it against the solid wall of the bedroom.

Quickly, Foster, on his knees, moved toward the hole in the wall, raised his lantern, and looked inside. He backed away. "Just what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"A tunnel like the ninety-foot one Speer constructed earlier, running from the Old Chancellery underground to the New Chancellery. Only Speer didn't build this one. I'm positive this one was built by Hitler's slave laborers. "

"Now what?" Oberstadt asked.

Foster smiled. "Now we part company. I have to go in there to see if I can find someone."

"Someone? You'd better let me come along."

"No, Andrew. In this case two's a crowd. One person can do it more quietly. This had better be done as quietly as possible."

Oberstadt was doubtful. "You're sure you want to go alone?"

"I think I better do it my way." He stuck out his hand. "Thanks, my friend. You'd better get back up top. If I need you, I'll call you."

"You're the boss," Oberstadt said, rising.

"I'll keep this one lantern," Foster said. "And—well, you might leave me a chisel and hammer."

"Chisel and hammer. You've got them." Oberstadt passed them along, took hold of his own lantern and tool bag. Leaving Hitler's bedroom, he turned once. "Good luck, wherever you're going."

Foster stuck the tools in his trouser pockets. He considered the rectangular hole in the wall. There was no question now. Hitler and Eva had gone out of the
Führerbunker
this way, had managed to have the slab replaced with the help of confederates, who also moved the bureau back against the slab in the wall.

And then Hitler had fled through the catacomb, under the city, to where? Foster suspected he knew where, and he suspected that Emily might be there now and certainly not alone.

With care, Foster, gripping the lantern tightly but pushing it ahead of him, crawled through the hole.

Emerging from the hole into the tunnel, he took the lantern by its handle and then stood upright. There was room enough. The tunnel rose to an arched ceiling four inches above his head. Beyond the range of the light beam, there was darkness.

He checked the luminous dial of his wristwatch. Then, holding the lamp out before him, he began to walk slowly. He placed one foot in front of the other cautiously, and on his rubber-soled boots noiselessly.

It was a long, clean tunnel, no cobwebs, no dirt. Just concrete on all sides, his beam of light shooting ahead, and darkness beyond its reach.

On and on he walked.

He checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes on the move. At least a thousand yards covered. To what end?