The Seventh Secret (46 page)

"Her? Told her?" repeated Foster. "Who do you mean? Who is she?"

"Eva Braun. The real thing. Calls herself Evelyn Hoffmann. But she boasted to me that she's Eva Braun."

"And Hitler?"

"Gone. Dead. Long ago. He and Eva were down here under the city a long time, eighteen years before Hitler died of Parkinson's. She's been running the show ever since."

"Incredible," he said with astonishment. "What do they want?"

"To survive. Not just themselves, but the Third Reich. Look up there."

She came weakly to her feet and led Foster to the mantel.

"Next to the Grecian urn that she worships, that holds Hitler's ashes. Between the urn and Kirvov's Hitler painting. The printed words in the frame are Hitler's."

Foster moved closer. The hand lettering of the framed quotation hung on the wall was in German, but simple. It read:

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES IS INEVITABLE. IT WILL COME. WHEN IT COMES, I MUST BE ALIVE-OR MY SUCCESSOR WITH THE SAME IDEALS-TO LEAD THE GERMAN PEOPLE, TO HELP THEM ARISE FROM DEFEAT, TO LEAD THEM TO FINAL VICTORY.

-ADOLF HITLER

"Je-sus," Foster muttered.

"His actual words once to an SS officer."

"That's what he lived for?"

"And she, too, what she lives for today."

"But how, Emily?" He paused, thinking. "I wonder what they're planning?"

"I don't know. I never heard."

"Then let's find out right now." He drew the Luger from his holster. "Let's pay her a visit. She's in the bedroom?"

"The one adjoining the bedroom Hitler used to occupy. She won't talk, Rex. She'll never tell."

He considered this, then whispered, "The Sodium Pentothal. They intended to use it on you. Do you know where it is?"

Emily nodded. "Schmidt left it in the upper right-hand desk drawer. I heard him say it was good for twenty-four hours."

"Find it, Emily. And take this rope from the couch. We'll need it."

At the desk, Emily held up a plastic bag. "Hypodermic needle, something to use for a tourniquet I guess, and a yellowish solution." She called to him softly, "Sodium Pentothal. Here it is."

"Truth serum." He studied the Luger in his hand. "Show me the bedroom. It's time for the truth."

Fifteen minutes had passed, and now Eva Braun lay stretched on her back on the bed, roped at wrists and ankles to the brass bedposts, and gagged. Her eyes were open, but no longer terrified. They were unfocused.

Sodium Pentothal. Perfect, Foster thought, standing over her.

To this point, it had been easy, actually, Foster told himself. Their sudden appearance and the lights had startled her into an instant awakening. The gun at her head had assured her submission, and then, her silence.

"Okay, Emily, now find her some clothes and have her dress," he said.

When Emily had found the clothes, he had handed her the gun and stepped outside the bedroom door.

Returning to the bedroom, he had found Eva, fully clothed, lying down once more, Emily pointing the Luger at her.

"Step two," he had told Emily. "Give me the gun. Get the rope."

After they had tied her to the bed, he had asked Emily for the Sodium Pentothal.

For the first time, Eva Braun had protested with agitation. "No, no, no," she had begged, but Foster had been able to think only of the six million victims of the holocaust who had used the same words, begged for life and been denied. The monster's wife, herself a monster now, had also to be denied. Foster stuffed the gag in her mouth, and then with deliberation he had prepared to administer the truth serum.

Working from his memory of what he had witnessed in Vietnam, Foster had filled the hypodermic needle with the solution. Then, using the tourniquet, he had sought a good vein in her wrist. With care, he had inserted the needle into the vein, injecting her intravenously.

Removing the needle, he had watched Eva. "Should take effect in less than a minute," he had said to Emily.

Staring down at Eva now, he could see that her eye§ were glazed and that she was groggy.

"Okay, that should last anywhere from an hour to two or three," he said. "I'll give her a booster shot later." He took Emily by the arm. "We can leave her for a few minutes." He holstered the Luger. "We have something else to do."

He hurried Emily out of the bedroom, through the short hall into the sitting room.

Momentarily, Foster was lost in thought. Then he asked, "Emily, any idea how many Nazis are hidden down here?"

"Eva told me, 'There are over fifty of us.' "

"Any idea who they are?"

"She talked about that, too, rather proudly. A handful of Hitler's old circle who were declared missing. Many of the Hitler Youth sent down here before Hitler moved in. Most of them now grown men with families of their own. No children here, no one under sixteen. Pregnant wives are always sent out to Argentina, to bear their children. The wives return alone. The children are raised, taught, and trained by Germans in Argentina. Only after the youngsters become sixteen are they sent back to Berlin to take their places in the bunker."

"But all hardened Nazis."

"More than that. Hardened Nazis, yes, but all of them murderers, trained to kill."

"To kill whom, Emily?"

"To assassinate anyone above ground who might threaten them. She spoke of the necessity to liquidate--her word—antiNazis, prominent Jews, Nazi hunters, and dangerous foreigners like my father." Emily blinked. "She admitted my father's 'accident' had been prearranged. She also admitted that her followers had been responsible for at least two hundred murders in the last twenty years. They'd snuff you out in an instant, if they knew you were here. They're ruthless, Rex, absolutely vicious."

"All right," said Foster. "I have an errand for you. I'm going to get you out of here now. I'm going to show you the way I came in, because that's the way you're going out."

"On an errand?"

"Yes. You'll leave from under the mound, from the
Führerbunker
and through the old emergency exit. You'll wind up in the East German Frontier Zone. Oberstadt's up there. He'll have no trouble taking you through the gate. Get to a phone as quickly as possible. Get hold of Tovah Levine at the Bristol Kempinski. She and Kirvov are standing by. Tell her we've found them all, and tell her to inform Chaim Golding immediately."

"Chaim Golding?"

"Head of Mossad in Berlin. Tovah is one of his agents. He has the personnel and facilities to do what I want him to do. Tell him I want the rats down here exterminated, all of them, at once, tonight."

Emily's eyes had widened. "How, Rex?"

"The way the Hitler gang did it to the Jews at Auschwitz. But more exactly, the way Albert Speer once planned to get rid of Hitler."

"He was going to send gas through the ventilator of the
Führerbunke
."

"That's right."

"And throw in a grenade of nerve gas called Tabun. Absolutely lethal."

"Only this time the Mossad fighters will probably use a far more sophisticated gas, but one equally lethal. Tovah is waiting in our suite. The plan of this bunker is on our sitting-room desk. Golding will know how to go about it. But this bunker must be airtight. You came through the other entrance beneath the Café
 
Wolf?"

"Yes. The guard forced me down some stairs to a steel vault-type door. He unlocked it and pushed me through. "

"Okay. See that the Mossad agents take out the guard in the Café Wolf, and go down and lock that metal door. Then let them pump in the gas. In minutes every last Nazi should be wiped out. Do you have your watch?"

"Yes."

"Let's coordinate the time, Emily. Okay, I have one-twenty in the morning."

"One-twenty in the morning," she said. "Got it."

"Tell Tovah that the Mossad agents are to start pouring the gas in at precisely three in the morning. Precisely three. Now let's get moving. I want to see you out of here, and then I'm going back to give our Eva Braun the third degree. Let me get those klutzy shoes back on ..."

"Hey, Rex, wait a minute. What do you mean, you'll get me out of here, and then stay on to question Eva? What'll happen to you when that gas pours in?"

"I'll be out of this bunker before then, and out of the old Führer bunker, too. I'll meet you at the top. When you've finished with Tovah and Golding, come back to the
Führerbunker
. With your credentials, the East Germans will let you in again."

"I'll be waiting for you."

He took her by the arm. "You'll be waiting for us," he said. "I'll be coming out with Eva."

Emily looked startled. "Why Eva?"

Foster grinned. "We need one survivor to prove that Hitler did not die in 1945, that he got away. We need someone to support the sensational new ending to your biography."

She kissed him. "Crazy man, I love you."

At first, with Emily in tow, he had been worried, but then it had proved easier than the first time.

There had been two Nazi guards in the corridor this time, absorbed in chatting. Plainly one was about to relieve the other on duty, and, in his own swastika-adorned uniform, Foster had been more military in bearing and more intent on business than when he had entered.

He had hustled Emily to the mezzanine door, and helped her through the square hole into the tunnel, telling her where to locate the lantern and instructing her exactly how to exit and what to expect.

And then, alone, he had returned to Eva Braun's bedroom.

After removing her gag, Foster settled on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were open, a bit foggy, fixed on the ceiling. Foster wasn't sure how the truth serum worked, or exactly where to begin his questioning, but back in Saigon he had seen Sodium Pentothal used as a truth serum on Viet Cong prisoners and he felt it would operate in the same way now. He had heard a captain mention that it was like getting someone to talk in his sleep. It removed his inhibitions, swept away any coating of lies, made him speak freely from his subconscious. The thing was to be simple and direct, and if the drug began to wear off too soon, to administer a booster shot to keep her drowsy yet not let her fall asleep or go into shock.

He decided that he would begin with a few easy questions, to get the feel, and then he would plunge right into the heart of the matter and leave before the Mossad agents flooded the bunker with their deadly poison.

"Your name is Eva Braun, is it not?" he began.

Her gaze left the ceiling to try to hold on the person speaking to her. "Evelyn—Evelyn," she started to say, then said, "Eva. I am Eva Braun Hitler."

There was an incredibility about this, an awesomeness, that the notorious woman of so long ago was on the bed identifying herself.

"Eva, do you remember the date April 30, 1945?"

"Yes. It is the date everyone believed we died. But we fooled—deceived them all. We escaped."

"How did you fool—deceive everyone?"

"Using the actor and actress who were our—our doubles. I forget her name—no, I remember—Hannah Wald—and his was Müller, I think, yes, Müller. The two of them were brought to the
Führerbunker
the night before. They were so frightened. I'm sure they suspected. We kept them in our quarters—that day, no, night, they were dressed in our clothes, then Bormann shot Müller and forced Hannah—poor thing—to take cyanide. The bodies were put in the room where the dogs had been, and . . . the next day. . ."

She faltered and drifted off.

"The next day," he prompted her. "What happened the next day, Eva?"

"The next day we, my husband and I, we arranged them on the sofa. Then . . ."

Again, she faltered.

"Then what, Eva?"

"Then from the bedroom we crawled into the tunnel to the new bunker and Bormann—when the others carried the bodies outside—Bormann returned to the bedroom alone, replaced the panel, the slab, and pushed the dresser against it. Then I suppose he left the room."