Three Tales From the World of Cotton Malone Page 7

“The sex. Tell me,” he demanded.

  “A boy.”

  Had he heard right? “Truly?”

  “You sound amazed.”

  He recovered his emotions. No one must know what he thought. “I only speak of the joy he will bring to the mother.”

  “It is good to have a son.”

  The midwife turned her attention back to Braun as the afterbirth was expelled. He stepped away. A son. Hitler’s son. He recalled what his former supreme leader had told him after Braun had revealed in the Führerbunker that she was pregnant. There had been no anger, no joy. Just a placid acceptance. But Hitler had wanted the baby to survive, harboring a dream that his issue would one day resurrect the movement. So he released Bormann from his duty and instructed him to ensure that both Braun and the baby survived. Bormann had accepted the charge only as a way of escaping the death sentence that was Berlin. He hadn’t wanted to stay in the first place and had urged Hitler to flee south to the Alps. The fanatical idiot refused. Hitler had actually thought that he could rally enough military might to thwart the advancing American and Russian armies.

  He glanced down and noticed that the midwife had tied the umbilical cord and cut away the tissue. The infant started to cry, and the woman swiped the tiny face with a wet rag.

  “He is a beauty,” the midwife said.

  “No flaws?”

  “None I can see.”

  Not what he wanted to hear.

  “Give him to me.”

  The woman laid the screaming baby in his arms. Sparse wisps of black hair matted the scalp. He wondered what Adolf Hitler would have thought to be here, holding his son, admiring what he and Eva Braun had conceived. Most likely he would have felt nothing. Hitler had been drawn to children, but only because they represented the perfect canvas for his political image.

  He laid the baby beside a still-unconscious Eva Braun.

  He then removed the Luger he’d carried since leaving the Führerbunker and fired one bullet into the midwife’s skull.

  The fat woman’s body slammed to the floor.

  Eva Braun never moved. Exhaustion claimed her. She would be told that the baby died at birth and the midwife was killed for incompetence. There would be no argument from her. Why should there be? They were now bound together. Their lives forever intertwined.

  And that was fine.

  She wasn’t altogether unpleasant, and he realized that his ability to enjoy female companionship in the years ahead would be limited. He must be careful. He’d watched how a woman could undo a man. That was not going to happen to him. Eva Braun would do as she was told or he’d plant a bullet in her skull, too.

  He carried the infant from the room.

  Outside, in the shade of a porch that jutted from the front of the farmhouse sat a man. Bormann walked over and handed him the baby. “Raise him as your own.”

  The man’s eyes were misty with pride. “He is his?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I heard a shot.”

  “The midwife’s duty.”

  The man nodded. “There can be no witnesses.”

  “Just you and I, old friend.”

  “I will raise him well.”

  “It is of no matter to me any longer. I have done my duty.”

  A lie. He was supposed to raise the child himself. But he wanted no more reminders of Adolf Hitler.

  The man rose from his chair and said, “Live long, old friend.”

  “I plan to.”

  And Bormann watched as his visitor headed for a car parked under the shade of a sprawling elm, the infant in his arms.

  Schüb finished his story.

  Voices broke the silence.

  From behind where they stood.

  Schüb ignored the sound and stepped forward, grasping a rope handle for the door.

  They entered what appeared to be a funerary chamber, the spacious room lit by sconces. A far wall was lined with bookcases, illuminated by ceiling-mounted floodlights. The shelves teemed with odd-shaped volumes packed tight in rows. But what dominated the room were two sarcophagi, each flooded in a pool of blue-white light. The exteriors were of marble, one gray, the other pink, the pair similar in size.

  “The pinkish tomb contains the mortal remains of my mother,” Schüb said. “Eva Braun. The other is Bormann’s.”

  “Your brother was Bormann’s son, born in Africa,” Wyatt said. “You, though, were the baby born in Spain. You are the son of Adolf Hitler.”

  Schüb’s face had a sad remorseful mien.

  Then Wyatt saw the gold bars, stacked five feet high, at least six piles on pallets. “There must be several hundred million dollars’ worth of bullion there.”

  “A fraction over a billion actually.”

  “This is Hitler’s Bounty?”

  “What is left of it.”

  He’d never seen so much raw gold.

  He stepped over and lifted one of the bars. Maybe thirty or so pounds. He studied the top, half expecting to see a swastika etched into the surface. But there was nothing.

  “No links to Nazis remain,” Schüb said. “Those traces were removed long ago.”

  “This is from the Reichsbank robbery? What was stashed in the Alps at the end of the war?”

  “Some. Some more from the bounty. Other parts from unspeakable sources. Bormann took control of all those caches.”

  He recalled what Isabel had called Bormann.

  A quetrupillán. Mute devil.

  “This is the devil’s gold?”

  Schüb nodded. “A good way to describe it.”

  “How did Bormann get it all here?”

  “Simple, actually. Much of what was buried in the mountains were bags of iron bars and plain paper. The actual gold and currency was moved farther south into Austria, where it stayed for many years. The man who raised me from birth personally supervised its eventual transportation here in the early 1950s. It took several years to accomplish, but it was accomplished.”

  “How was all that kept secret?”

  “There were men who still believed in the Reich. They did their job and took what they knew with them to their graves. They understood their duty. But of course each one realized that he, or his family, would be shot by the others if he revealed anything.” Schüb paused a moment, grabbing a breath. “They were but a few of those men, and eventually they all died. Bormann, though, survived. He possessed a great hatred for the follies of man, and all who knew him, like the real Gerhard Schüb, were aware of that fact. No tolerance for frailty or passion, no pity for those who’d done him harm. He wished his enemies to hell, and put them there in his heart. He was, quite simply, a man of wrath.” Schüb paused. “Or a devil, as you put it.”

  “Yet men served him.”

  Schüb took a disconsolate stroll around the stacks of gold bars, eyeing the gleaming metal in the cool glow of the light fixtures. “That is true.” He motioned to bookshelves. “Toward the end of his life Bormann and my adoptive father communicated more frequently. Bormann started writing down his thoughts. He did this while serving Hitler also. He was obsessive about note taking. ‘The savior of the administrator,’ he would say. He created meticulous journals. Textbooks, he called them. Before he died he gave the journals to my brother. Braun, too, maintained private dairies, which Bormann gave to him for safekeeping. I’ve read all of them. Her thoughts were of Hitler, Bormann, and what fate had prescribed for her. Bormann’s journals are far more extensive. I have read those, too. That is how I know what I know.”

  Wyatt glanced at the shelves, the volumes in varying shapes, sizes, and colors.

  “My brother stored them carefully. They have been here, underground, many years. I assure you, each is authentic and can sustain any test an expert cares to impose.”

  He turned his attention back to the tombs. “Why are the bodies here?”

  “My brother believed that they did not deserve an anonymous grave in Africa. They are his family.”

  “But not yours.”

&n
bsp; Schüb stepped to the smaller sarcophagus. Eva Braun’s. And lightly stroked the exterior. “She would be appalled.” The older man went silent for a moment. “Strange how she never saw either one of her children.”

  He again heard voices from beyond the door.

  “Our final visitor has arrived.”

  He turned and watched as Chris Combs was led into the chamber at gunpoint. He hadn’t spoken to Combs since the administrative hearing, and they really hadn’t talked then. Combs had simply sold him out through his sworn testimony while he sat and listened. After, he intentionally made no contact. That day would come, he’d told himself many times.

  A tinge of relief entered Combs’ eyes as he spotted Wyatt. “Are you their prisoner, too?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then what is this?”

  Finally, Combs noticed his surroundings, particularly the gold. “Holy Mother of God. It does exist.”

  “That it does,” Schüb said.

  “I knew it. I knew it all along. I’ve searched the records for years. Hoping. Finally, I found leads.” Combs faced Wyatt. “That’s why I came down here. To check them out.”

  “Two people are dead thanks to you,” Wyatt said.

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No,” he said. “You just gave others a reason to do it.”

  A puzzled look came to the liar’s face. Then Combs asked Schüb,

  “Who are you?”

  Wyatt decided to answer for him. “He is the son of Adolf Hitler.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I’m afraid he is,” Schüb said. “I am genetically linked to an unfathomable evil, though I abhor even the mention of anything remotely related to National Socialism. Where some have the audacity to preach the good in Nazism, while rejecting the bad, I have nothing but revulsion for all that it was.”

  “Why have I been brought here at gunpoint?” Combs asked. “I’m an American intelligence operative. Surely you know that.”

  “This man, Wyatt, has come to kill you. Do you know that?”

  “That true?” Combs asked him.

  He nodded.

  “Come on, Jonathan. That was eight years ago. I had to do it. You know that. I had to let you go. If I’d stuck with you at that hearing, we would have both gone down. I planned to take care of you afterward, and I did.”

  “I didn’t want to be taken care of. I wanted you to keep your word.”

  “Two men died in that warehouse. You ordered them in there.”

  “It’s the risk we all take. I was under fire. Malone was under fire. We needed their help. That’s their job. But you sold me out to protect yourself.”

  “I know. I know. It was a tough call for us both. But that board was going to find against you no matter what I said. I knew that.”

  “If you’d told them that you, as my supervisor, had no problem with what happened, the outcome could have been different.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We’ll never know, thanks to you.”

  “Why not Cotton Malone? Why aren’t you pissed at him? He brought the charges.”

  “I haven’t forgotten that.”

  “Look, Jonathan. I made sure you got plenty of contract work thrown your way. I know you’ve done well from that. I can make sure plenty more comes.”

  “I wanted my career.”

  Combs stood still and silent.

  Schüb said, “In this room, Herr Combs, is everything you sought. This was my half brother’s estate. The final keeper of all secrets. He concealed the last remnants of the Third Reich. I despised him all of my life, as he did me. We were forced together since we shared the same mother and a common heritage. The difference being I hated that past. He worshiped it.”

  Combs stood near the larger sarcophagus, the one that held Bormann. “History will have to be rewritten.”

  Schüb reached beneath his jacket and produced a pistol.

  The old man aimed directly at Combs and fired three times.

  Bullets sent Combs staggering back toward the wall of journals. Schüb then planted two more rounds into the skull. Combs said nothing, the attack coming too quickly for him to react. His eyes simply went blank as the life left him, and he dropped to the floor.

  “That is the second man I’ve killed today,” Schüb said.

  A flick of his hand and the two men who’d brought Combs left.

  Wyatt stood silent.

  “When it came to the moment,” Schüb said, “I sensed that you may not have killed him. You speak of revenge, but your anger is more subtle. More private.”

  “I’ve killed.”

  “In the heat of battle, of course. But this battle is eight years cold. Could you have done what I just did?”

  He thought about the question.

  True, he’d killed, but not in cold blood.

  Could he have done it?

  “It’s time for you to go,” Schüb said. “Somebody has to know about all of this. Somebody has to know the truth. I chose you. But please know that I was no Nazi. I did not ask to have Hitler’s blood course through me. My brother longed to be me. He told me that many times. I longed to be someone else. That is why I assumed Gerhard’s name. My feeble attempt at salvation.” He went silent for a moment. “This Christopher Combs forced a final confrontation between brothers. Someone had finally found us, after all these years. My brother dreamed of glory. I hoped for anonymity. It is true that the world has changed, but in many ways it remains the same as seventy years ago. Hate still exists. Bigotry can be manipulated. The masses are gullible.”

  The comments were colored by sadness and regret.

  He understood. “It’s over for you, too.”

  Schüb’s hands gripped the marble of Eva Braun’s tomb in a tight embrace. “It has been for a long time. I am the son of Adolf Hitler. Do you know how many would relish that fact? I would be their idol.” Schüb surveyed him with an insolent look. “Even you, Wyatt. When you look at me, you think of him, don’t you?”

  He could not lie. “I do. But you’re not him.”

  “Few will make that distinction. I will forever be his son. A product of Eva Braun, the disgusting whore who resides right here, beneath this marble. And make no mistake, that was what she was. A whore, pure and simple. She profited from the blood of millions, all the while professing love for a maniac. I have no desire to harbor her genes, either.”

  Schüb still held the gun, his face a shifting kaleidoscope of intense emotion.

  He could sympathize.

  There comes a time when everything must end. Eight years ago it had been his career. Ever since, he’d harbored a bitterness for Chris Combs.

  Now that was gone.

  It was Schüb’s time to purge.

  “Good luck to you,” he said.

  “You, too. My men have been told not to disturb you. They will deal with all of this. The house will be burned. I’m assuming they will keep the gold, which seems appropriate. With all that was done to amass this wealth, it ends up meaning nothing, carried off by insignificant souls.”

  Wyatt left and walked through the twisting galleries to the base of the spiral staircase leading up.

  The past few hours had certainly been eye opening.

  A shot thudded, like a balloon popping beneath a blanket.

  He envisioned the scene. Gerhard Schüb had done exactly as had his natural father. He’d ended his life with his own hand. But where Hitler died a coward to avoid the repercussions from what he’d wrought, the son took his life in an act of desperation. Normally suicide would be deemed a weakness, the result of a sick mind or an abandoned heart.

  Here, it was the only means to stop it all.

  Everything had a conclusion.

  Which brought him to the question Chris Combs had posed. Why not Cotton Malone? Why aren’t you pissed at him? Combs was right. Malone had brought the charges.

  Could he have killed Combs?

  Definitely. Sch
üb simply saved him the trouble.

  Then the old man had done what needed to be done.

  Just as he must.

  Cotton Malone?

  A job waiting for him back home might well provide the means to finally repay that debt. Another director, Andrea Carbonell of the National Intelligence Agency, had called, wanting to hire him. She’d offered big money and told him enough about the assignment for him to sense an opportunity.

  Chris Combs.

  One down.

  Cotton Malone.

  One to go.

  The Admiral’s Mark is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A 2012 Ballantine Books eBook Original

  Copyright © 2012 by Steve Berry

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-53440-8

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Cover design: Marc J. Cohen and Scott Biel

  v3.1

  Contents

  Master - Table of Contents

  The Admiral’s Mark

  Title Page

  Copyright

  First Page

  EIGHT YEARS AGO

  Cotton Malone hated funerals. The only thing worse was a wedding. Both events involved an expected display of emotion, and both sparked memories better left forgotten. He’d attended only a handful of either since leaving the navy six years before and working full-time for the Justice Department. Today’s funeral was further complicated by the fact that he hadn’t particularly liked the man in the coffin.

  Scott Brown had been married to Ginger, his wife, Pam’s, sister. Scott had never held a real job, was always pitching some risky venture to investors, most of the schemes borderline illegal. Two years ago Malone had to intercede with Texas authorities and smooth over one that involved a few hundred thousand dollars and a lot of angry ranchers. Luckily, Scott still had the money and its return made everything go away.