Read Online Eva by Ib Melchior - Free Book Online Page B

the German people,” he shouted. “You! Greim! Arrest him! See to it that he doesn’t succeed in his treachery!”
    With burning, bloodshot eyes he stared at Greim, his look going through the man and beyond.
    “The Russians are about to assail the Reich Chancellery,” he rasped. “You must leave the Bunker as quickly as you can.”
    Abruptly he turned and stalked toward the door.
    “Report to me as soon as you are ready,” he ordered.
    And he was gone.
    Time had run out. There were other pressing matters that had to be attended to.
    Now!
    Feldmarschall Ritter von Greim looked down at his bandaged foot. The wound was far from healed. He swung his leg out over the bed. Painfully he stood up, supported by Hanna Reitsch.
    The Führer had given him an order to be carried out.
    It would be done.
    The coldly penetrating, unblinking eyes of Frederick the Great watched the two men sitting in Hitler’s study.
    There is a resemblance, Bormann thought. It is in the eyes. You cannot escape them. He wondered what it was the Führer had wanted to talk to him about so urgently. Im strengsten Vertrauen —in the strictest confidence. Somehow he felt vaguely uneasy. The Führer had summoned him personally, seeking him out in the Bunker. There was an air about the man he had never seen before. The Führer seemed uncharacteristically stoic, as if he were looking at the world with the eyes of a man already dead. That was it, he thought. It was undoubtedly the fact that death by his own hand was imminent. He dismissed his uneasiness.
    Hitler fixed his deputy with a steady gaze. “It is time,” he said quietly. “It is time I told you, Bormann, that I know.”
    Bormann stiffened, his instinct for self-preservation instantly alert. “Know what, mein Führer?” he asked guardedly.
    Hitler sighed.
    “Argentina.”
    Bormann sat bolt upright. The shock exploded through him. Hitler’s eyes never left him. “Your plan to escape the Bunker and the Russians,” he said. “Your secret plan, Bormann, your preparations. Made long ago.”
    Bormann’s mind raced. Adrenalin pumped its reinforcement to every nerve end in his body. How had Hitler found out? Um Gottes Willen! —how? Who had talked? It was impossible. No one could. He had seen to that. He suddenly felt a cold shudder twitch through him. Fegelein! SS GruppenFührer Hermann Fegelein. Married to Eva Braun’s sister, Gretl. Himmler’s special liaison officer to the Führer himself. Only hours before, his execution, ordered by Hitler, had been carried out. Fegelein had left the Bunker clandestinely. Hoping to escape. He, too, had had an escape plan. But the Gestapo had caught up with him. And he had been shot. He, Bormann, had been present when the bullets from the firing squad cut the poor devil in half. Was this what Hitler had in mind for him?
    He was suddenly acutely aware of his Walther 7.65 in its holster on his belt. His beautifully ornamented Ehrenwaffe —Honor Weapon—presented to him by the Führer himself. Could he kill him? And claim the Führer had shot himself? Everyone knew he intended to take his own life. He quickly rejected the idea, however tempting. There was no way he could get away with it in the power struggle that would follow. Wait. He would wait. Wait to see what would develop. Use the Führer’s own axiom: As long as one lies in wait like a cat and takes advantage of every moment to deal a sudden blow or make a sudden parry, one is not lost. Possibilities will always arise. He threw up his hands.
    “ Mein Führer,” he protested. “I do not . . .”
    Hitler impatiently waved him to silence.
    “Stop it, Bormann,” he said. “There is no time for empty denials.” He placed both his hands on the table. The left one shook uncontrollably. He leaned toward Bormann. “I know,” he said flatly. Accept it. I have known for some time. About the old abandoned sewer system. The hidden supplies. The disguises. The suddenly missing workers. All of