Free The Wolf's Hour by Robert McCammon Page B

what they say to that? Mein Führer-they always say mein Führer in those voices that make you sick as if you’d eaten too much sugar-our anti-aircraft guns need more shells. Our trucks that haul the anti-aircraft guns need more fuel. You see how their minds work?” He blinked again, and the other man saw the understanding settle back in like cold light. “Oh, yes. You were with us at the meeting this afternoon, weren’t you?”
    “Yes, mein… Yes,” he answered. “Yesterday afternoon.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “It’s almost one-thirty.”
    Hitler nodded absently. He wore his brocaded cashmere robe, a gift from Mussolini, and leather slippers, and he and Bormann were alone in the administrative wing of his Berlin headquarters. He stared at his handiwork, at the houses built of unsteady lines and the landscapes with false perspectives, and he dipped his brush into a cupful of water and let the colors bleed out. “It’s a portent,” he said, “that I’m drawing a wolf without even knowing it. That means victory, Martin. The utter and total destruction of the Reich’s enemies. From without and within,” he said, with a meaningful glance at his secretary.
    “You should know by now, mein Führer, that no one can defy your will.”
    Hitler didn’t seem to hear. He was busy returning all his paints and brushes to the metal box, which he kept locked in his safe. “What’s my schedule for today, Martin?”
    “At eight o’clock, a breakfast meeting with Colonel Blok and Dr. Hildebrand. Then a staff meeting from nine o’clock to ten-thirty. Field Marshal Rommel is due in at one o’clock for a briefing on the Atlantic Wall fortifications.”
    “Ah.” Hitler’s eyes lit up again. “Rommel. Now there’s a man with a good mind. I forgave him for North Africa. Everything’s fine now.”
    “Yes, sir. At seven-forty this evening, we’ll be accompanying the field marshal by plane to the coast of Normandy,” Bormann continued. “Then on to Rotterdam.”
    “Rotterdam.” Hitler nodded, putting his box of paints into the safe. “I trust that work is going on schedule? That’s vital.”
    “Yes sir. After a day in Rotterdam, we’ll be flying back to the Berghof for a week.”
    “The Berghof! Yes, I’d forgotten!” Hitler smiled, dark circles under his eyes. The Berghof, Hitler’s mansion in the Bavarian Alps above the village of Berchtesgaden, had been his only true home since the summer of 1928. It was a place of bracing wind, vistas that would have stunned the sight of Odin, and memories that lay easy on the mind. Except for Geli, of course. He’d met Geli Raubal there, his one true love. Geli, dear Geli with blond hair and laughing eyes. Why did dear Geli burst her heart with a single shot? I loved you, Geli, he thought. Wasn’t that enough? Eva would be waiting for him at the Berghof, and sometimes when the light was just so and Eva’s hair was brushed back, Hitler could squint his eyes and see the face of Geli, his lost love and niece, twenty-three years old when she committed suicide in 1931.
    His head hurt. He looked at the calendar, the days of March, on his desk amid the clutter.
    “It’s springtime,” Hitler realized.
    From beyond the walls, out over the blacked-out city of Berlin, came a howling. The wolf! Hitler thought, his mouth opening in a gasp. No, no… an air-raid siren.
    The noise built and moaned, felt more than heard behind the walls of the Reich Chancellery. In the distance there was the sound of a bomb exploding, a crunching noise like the smashing of a heavy ax against a tree trunk. Then another bomb, two more, a fifth and sixth in rapid succession. “Call someone!” Hitler commanded, cold sweat sparkling on his cheeks.
    Martin picked up the desk telephone and dialed a number.
    More bombs fell, the noise of destruction swelling and waning. Hitler’s fingers gripped the desk’s edge. The bombs were falling to the south, he believed. Down near Tempelhof airport.