Free The Leader And The Damned by Colin Forbes

cannot do that,' Muller informed him. 'Control at the airstrip have lost radio contact with the pilot. There is a storm north of Salzburg — and the mountains don't help..'
    'Are you telling me you cannot reach the plane before it lands at the Wolf's Lair?' Bormann demanded.
    'Quite possibly, yes!' Muller snapped with some satisfaction.
    'In that case,' Bormann said more calmly, 'put me through to SS Colonel Jaeger. On the private line..
    He waited, his mind in a turmoil. He had not slept for twenty-four hours, the Fuhrer was dead, killed on his way back from Smolensk. The local SS team had cleared up all traces of the catastrophe, the second team from Berlin, the execution squad under the command of Rainer Schulz had arrived and liquidated the local team when it had completed its grisly task.
    Bormann had been so absorbed in attending to the details, the extraordinary arrival of Wing Commander Lindsay had slipped his memory until this moment. And the second 'Fuhrer', Heinz Kuby, was due to land at the Wolf's Lair shortly. He would decide how to deal with the unwanted Englishman later. The fresh priority was solving the problem of Muller, the only man at the Berghof aware of Kuby's existence. A confident voice came on the line.
    'Colonel Jaeger speaking. You wanted something?'
    No respectful reference to Bormann's title of Reichsleiter. At the Wolf's Lair Bormann pursed his lips: he disliked Jaeger and his independence intensely. He would have to handle this bastard.
    'You are sure this line is safe?' Bormann demanded.
    'Unless the Gestapo is tapping the line.' Jaeger sounded very much as though he didn't care one way or the other.
    'Colonel Jaeger! You are the commander of the special Waffen SS unit charged with security at the Berghof..'
    'I'm not a communications expert...' Jaeger now sounded thoroughly bored. 'As for being in control of security here that's a laugh. There's a whole area of the Berghof sealed off from my inspection...
    `Don't let's go into that,' Bormann said hastily. He became more conciliatory. 'I'm phoning to warn you of the imminent arrival by plane from Berlin of SS Lieutenant Rainer Schulz. I have arranged for Schulz to come straight to your barracks. On no account let the Commandant know he is coming.'
    'If you say so..'
    Jaeger replaced the receiver and swore. A tall, well- built man of forty, bluff in manner with thick, dark eyebrows, a neat moustache and a firm jaw, he hated his present assignment. A veteran of all the major -campaigns so far, Hitler had taken a liking to him and had personally selected him to command his private bodyguard.
    The Waffen SS later became smeared by being lumped together with other - less savoury - SS organizations. In fact it was an honourable body of elite soldiers comparable with ,any Guards regiment in the British Army. Its allegiance was strictly confined to the Fuhrer and the Reich - not to Himmler. Its structure was unusually democratic, there being little difference between the officers and other ranks. Jaeger, champing at the bit for more active service, was a typical Waffen SS officer.

    'Schulz, why have you come here?' Mailer asked. There was a note of exasperation in his voice.
    The Commandant was in the front passenger seat of the Mercedes which Lieutenant Schulz was driving up the winding road leading to the famous Eagle's Nest at the top of the Kehlstein. This unique engineering feat built before the war under the direction of Martin Bormann at a cost of thirty million marks had, ironically, not been used by Hitler for years. He had become bored with his tea-house in the sky and had complained of vertigo. It was to this deserted eyrie the two men in the car were going.
    'We have a problem...' The pallid, bony-faced Schulz paused while he negotiated another dangerous bend. He spoke slowly, as though stringing words together was akin to handling sticks of gelignite. 'It is so delicate we have to be sure no one could overhear our conversation. By order