Heroes David Hagberg (best motivational books TXT) 📖

Mercedes staff car came up the drive. Canaris recognized Werner Schrader in the back seat. He was dressed in civilian clothes. He seemed very agitated.

Canaris angled down toward the road, the car slowing to meet him.

“Hello, Werner,” Canaris called from the fence.

Schrader jumped out of the car and came across the road. He was sweating furiously. His face was flushed.

“I tried to get you at your office! That fool, Bender, was there. He didn’t want to tell me a thing!”

“What has happened?” Canaris asked. He could feel his heart pounding. Everything Schrader and Freytag-Loringhoven told him at the beginning of the month came back. “Is it Stauffenberg?”

“I think so,” Schrader said breathlessly. “I’ve had three Valkyrie calls, but just as many denials.”

Valkyrie was the code name for the assassination of Hitler.

Freytag had given Stauffenberg a package of captured British plastique explosives. That had been weeks ago. They all assumed the man would assassinate the Fiihrer. But exactly when or where, no one had been sure. Valkyrie was the code word that was to go out to every Army unit within the Reich, signaling the immediate takeover of political key points, such as town halls, as well as all police stations. The rationale to be presented to all the troops was that civil war was imminent. The safety of the Reich was at stake.

“Well, what is it then, yes or no?” Canaris demanded. “Has the fool actually done it?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. I came here hoping that you had heard something.”

“I have heard nothing,” Canaris snapped. He looked back down the road toward the main avenue. If the Gestapo was there, they were well hidden.

He had told them all that Stauffenberg was a fool. The man had contacted the KPD, for God’s sake. He wanted an alliance with the Communists! And he was the one with whom they entrusted the coup d’etat? It made no sense, less than that, it was criminal.

“What do we do?” Schrader pressed.

“Get out of here. Leave me alone. You did not want me included in your plans in the first place; do not bother me now that you do not know what to do next. I cannot answer it for you.”

“But what will you do?”

Canaris answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Friends are coming over. We shall listen to the piano and talk. Such as we often do in the afternoon. I suggest you return to your office, Werner, where there will be witnesses to your loyal behavior.”

“But what if it is true …”

“That Hitler is dead?”

Schrader nodded, afraid even here to utter the words.

“Then he is dead, and your Valkyrie shall proceed. But be careful, Wemer. Be very careful.” Canaris shook his head. He was tired, suddenly. “Now get out of here. It would not do for us to be seen together.”

Schrader practically jumped out of his skin when he realized the implications of what Canaris was saying to him. He turned to go back to the car.

“And Wemer,” Canaris said.

Schrader looked back.

“Don’t return here.”

Schrader’s lips pursed; Canaris turned and continued up the paddock toward the house without looking back. He heard the car door slam and then the sound of the big car turning around and heading back out to the avenue.

Helmut Maurer, his next-door neighbor, was just coming up the walk when Canaris came around from the side. The older man’s eyes lit up.

“Willi,” he said. “Coffee?”

“Uncle Mau, yes, of course,” Canaris said, greeting his old friend. They had known each other for years. Canaris had gotten Maurer a civilian job with the Abwehr III, which these days was under the aegis of the RSHA. He in turn provided Canaris with a lot of day-to-day information about the goings-on downtown.

They shook hands. “What is it, Wilhelm?” Maurer asked, lowering his voice.

“Am I that obvious?”

“Yes, of course you are.”

Canaris took a moment to answer. When he did, it was with the greatest of care. “I could tell you what is bothering me, Helmut, and you would be suitably impressed. But from that moment on, should any questions be asked, you would not be able to plead ignorance.”

Maurer regarded him through widened eyes. “Is ignorance so dear?”

Canaris nodded. “Just now it is.” Maurer sighed. “Then, Willi, we shall go inside and I shall play the piano for us. Perhaps Vladi will join us this afternoon.”

“Perhaps,” Canaris said, and he and Maurer went inside.

*< ?^

Mohammed, Canaris’ manservant, met them at the door with a huge grin.

“Herr Kaulbars is here, sir,” he said, bowing deeply.

“Thank you,” Canaris said. He went into the conservatory, Maurer directly behind him. Baron Vladimir Kaulbars was there, gazing out the French doors.

Canaris had known the old Russian since the early twenties when the former staff captain in the Russian Imperial Army had first surfaced in Berlin.

Kaulbars had worked, on and off, as an interpreter in the Abwehr, and from time to time he played at giving Canaris Russian language lessons. His real usefulness, though, were his British and East European contacts which he maintained through Colonel Juhlinn-Dannfeld, the Swedish military attache in Berlin.

He was much taller than Canaris, and huskier, too. He turned when he heard the two men enter.

“Ah, Willi, I wondered if you hadn’t climbed on your horse and, like a good Cossack, gone for the hills,” Kaulbars said. His German was deep and rich, with a marvelous courtly accent.

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Canaris said, lightly.

“Can you stay for coffee?”

Kaulbars nodded. “Of course. If Helmut will play a little Tchaikovsky instead of Mozart, today.”

“Oh, I think that can be managed,” Maurer said.

Mohammed brought in the silver coffee service as they were settling down; Canaris sat in the large overstuffed easy chair across from the French doors, while Kaulbars perched, as usual, on the edge of the couch and Maurer sat at the baby grand piano.

When the coffee had been poured and small snifters of cognac had been passed around, Maurer began to play a cutting from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in D, and Canaris slid back into his own thoughts.

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