Hitler's peace

“Actually, I suppose that with overload fuel it might be possible to extend the range,” admitted Milch. “With a light bomb load, such as you describe, maybe. Perhaps.”

“Erhard, if we manage to kill the Big Three, we could force the Allies to the negotiating table. Think of it. Like Pearl Harbor. A decisive strike that completely changes the course of the war. Isn’t that what you said? And you’re right, of course. If we kill the Big Three there won’t be an Allied landing in Europe in ’44. Perhaps not at all. It’s that simple.”

“You know, things are not so good between myself and Goring right now, Walter.”

“I’d heard something.”

“He won’t be so easy to persuade.”

“What would you suggest?”

“That perhaps we should work around him. I’ll speak to Schmid at the Kurfurst.” Milch was referring to the intelligence arm of the Luftwaffe. “And to General Student in airborne.”

Schellenberg nodded: it was Student who had helped Skorzeny plan the air assault on the Hotel Campo Imperatore on the Gran Sasso in the Apennines.

“Then let’s drink to our plan,” said Milch and ordered another bottle of champagne.

“With your agreement, Erhard, I propose to call this plan of ours Operation Long Jump.”

“I like that. It has an appropriately athletic ring. Only this will have to be a world record, Walter. As if it were that black fellow from the last Olympiad in Berlin doing the long jumping.”

“Jesse Owens.”

“That’s the one. Marvelous athlete. When were you thinking of carrying out this operation of ours?”

Schellenberg unbuttoned his tunic pocket and took out his SS pocket diary. “This is the best part of the plan,” he grinned. “The part I haven’t yet told you about. Look here. I want to do this exactly eight weeks from tomorrow. On Tuesday, November thirtieth. At precisely nine P.M.”

“You’re very precise. I like that. But why that day in particular? And at that time?”

“Because on that day not only do I know that Winston Churchill will be in Teheran, I also happen to know that he’ll be hosting his own birthday party that night, at the British embassy in Teheran.”

“Was that also in agent Cicero’s information?”

“No. You see it’s obvious just from the location of this conference that the Americans are out to accommodate the Russians in whatever way they can. Why else would a president who is also a cripple be prepared to fly all that way? Now, that will discomfort the British, who, as the weakest of the three powers, will be looking for ways to try to control the situation. What better way to do it than to host a birthday party? To remind everyone that Churchill is the oldest of the three. And the longest-serving war leader. So the British will give a party. And everyone will drink to Churchill’s health and tell him what a great war leader he has been. And then a bomb from one of your airplanes will land on the embassy. Hopefully more than one bomb. And, if there is anyone left alive after that, my Waffen-SS team will finish them off.”

A waiter arrived with a second bottle of champagne, and as soon as it was open, Milch poured two glasses and raised his to Schellenberg. “Happy birthday, Mr. Churchill.”

IV

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1943,

BERLIN

AMT VI (Department 6) of the SD had its offices in the southwest part of the city, in a curvilinear, four-story modern building. Constructed in 1930, it had been a Jewish old people’s home until October 1941, when all the residents were transferred directly to the ghetto at Lodz. Surrounded by vegetable gardens and blocks of apartments, only the flagpole on top of the roof and one or two official cars parked outside the front door gave any clue that 22 Berkaerstrasse was the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Section of the Reich Security Office.

Schellenberg liked being well away from his masters in the Wilhelmstrasse and on Unter den Linden. Berkaerstrasse, in Wilmersdorf, on the edge of the Grunewald Forest, was a good twenty-minute drive from Kaltenbrunner’s office, and this meant that he was usually left alone to do much as he pleased. But being alone in this way was not without its own peculiar disadvantage, insofar as Schellenberg was obliged to live and work among a group of men several of whom he considered, privately at least, to be dangerous psychopaths, and he was always wary of how he enforced discipline among his subordinate officers. Indeed, he had come to regard his colleagues much as a zookeeper in the reptile house at the Berlin Zoo might have regarded a pit full of alligators and vipers. Men who had killed with such alacrity and in such numbers were not to be trifled with.