“That is crazy,” Cassiopeia said.
“Maybe so, but the information Cress delivered says that Braun and Bormann were ordered to leave the bunker. Their task was to ensure that Hitler’s child survived.”
“Why didn’t Hitler leave himself?” Cotton asked.
Danny shrugged. “I have no idea. Nor is any explanation offered in the materials that were delivered.”
“Was that child born?” Cassiopeia asked.
“We don’t know. The information we have is silent on that. But there is this.”
Danny removed a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. Cotton opened it.
He and Cassiopeia studied the information.
“That’s Theodor Pohl’s birth certificate,” Danny said. “He was supposedly born in Hesse on December 23, 1952, to Wilfrid and Cornelia Pohl. Yesterday some experts quietly analyzed the records. There are discrepancies. Possible forgeries. He may not have been born there.”
“How old is Pohl?” Cassiopeia asked.
“His bio says sixty-nine.”
“So we’re not talking about Theodor Pohl being Hitler’s child,” she said.
Danny shook his head. “Not at all. But with the information we have, he might be Martin Bormann’s son, born almost a decade after the war.”
Cotton now saw the implications. “That’ll win an election for Eisenhuth and her party.”
Danny nodded. “Exactly. Now you know why she’s so interested.”
“I get it,” Cotton said. “But it’s a bit far-fetched.”
“Maybe not, again considering what happened in Chile a few years ago. Jonathan Wyatt seems to have had quite an experience. His report describes a mansion filled with Nazi trinkets, two coffins beneath the house that supposedly held Braun and Bormann, the deaths of Gerhard Schüb and another American agent, Christopher Combs, and a hoard of Nazi gold. Stacked five feet high on six pallets, according to him. Stephanie says the information was hard to ignore, so a team was sent to investigate and they found the house exactly where Wyatt said. It was supposedly owned by Schüb’s brother. Not true. It was owned by an elderly couple who live in Ecuador. It had also recently burned to the ground. Not a speck of anything left but ash. Nothing Wyatt reported was there.”
“I remember Chris Combs,” Cotton said. “CIA deputy director. He disappeared.”
“And has not been found to this day,” Danny said. “According to Wyatt, Combs was killed by Gerhard Schüb.”
“Wyatt is a bull in a china shop,” Cotton said. “But he’s not a liar.”
“That’s what Stephanie said, too. Hence another reason why I’m here. From our standpoint, all of this was forgotten. An anomaly that really didn’t matter. Now we’re not so sure. There could be more to this.”
Bormann. Braun. What really happened in the Führerbunker at the end of the war? Hitler’s child? Bormann’s son? Cotton had to admit, it was all quite tempting.
“England is gone from the EU,” Danny said. “The far left has sent Greece into economic chaos. In Hungary a neo-Nazi party has pushed the government to an extreme. The greatest mass arrival of immigrants since World War Two has strained the resources of nearly every EU country. Sweden, Italy, Hungary, and Austria have all drifted to the right. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain are nearly bankrupt. Couple all that with near-zero economic growth for the past ten years, and the fact that Russia is becoming stronger by the day, and the European Union is a powder keg waiting to explode.”
None of which sounded good.
“Germany is the strongest economy and the most populated country in Europe. How it goes is how the EU will go. But recent opinion polls indicate that a quarter of German voters are unsure and the rest are split between Eisenhuth and Pohl. It’s a skintight race.”
“So anything could tip the scale,” Cotton said.
“You got that right. Anything. Even unsubstantiated rumor, however far-fetched. We can’t allow Theodor Pohl to claim the Chancellery.”
“Why isn’t Washington on this?”
“They are,” Danny said. “But Fox managed to make an enemy of Marie Eisenhuth really quick. He’s even hinted publicly at support for Pohl. It’s another reason why I need your help. We have to ensure that Eisenhuth wins. And, full disclosure, there’s no money here to pay for your time. This is a freebie. A favor to me. I’ll owe you both.”
Cotton liked being owed favors.
“There’s more to tell you,” Danny said. “But to know that you have to get off the pot or crap. It’s your call.”
He glanced at Cassiopeia, who shrugged in that cute way of hers that said, I’m good if you are.
The chopper bucked a bit, as if agreeing, too.
“We’re in,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
This is my recollection of a visit with Martin Bormann in the summer of 1955. The occasion of our meeting was to celebrate the birthday of his son. The boy was three, and we enjoyed cake and beer during a party with neighbors. Bormann asked me about Nuremberg and the war trials, which had long since ended. He was amused at the notice the Allies ran in the newspapers notifying him of his conviction in absentia. A death warrant still existed, but he is not the least bit concerned. As to Gerda, his first wife, he lamented about her death but not with the sadness of a man longing for his lost love, more in the tone of a fugitive disappointed at failure. He was aware of her death from cancer in March 1946. Her conversion to Catholicism was particularly repugnant to him, as was her consignment of their children to a Catholic priest. He wondered about his children but realized they, like everyone else, believed him dead. His focus now is his new family and the responsibility with which he has been entrusted.
Before he died, Hitler executed a last will and testament. After the war that document enjoyed worldwide publication, and its pronouncements are well known. Bormann was the named executor of that will. During our conversation he was quick to quote from its text. He told me exactly what Hitler wrote. I die with a happy heart aware that there will spring up the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National Socialist movement. Bormann scoffed at such a dream. He harbored no desire to renew the Nazi movement. He was pragmatic in his declaration that Hitler’s idea had been ill conceived and poorly executed. Of course, he said, the benefit of hindsight had made clear all of the mistakes. It was strange to hear him speak in such a manner. Hitler had been a witness at his wedding to Gerda. His firstborn was named Adolf, in honor of his godfather. He served Hitler with the obedience of a guard dog, becoming a willing participant to everything he did.
I asked whatever did he mean and he explained that National Socialism was dead. Communism would not fare any better, he noted. It was inevitable that all of the puppet regimes in Eastern Europe would fail. Hitler foretold that outcome and Bormann agreed. The West would dominate the world, of that he was sure. He did not necessarily concur with such a result, only that politics and history had already determined the victor. He liked to say that any government that must force its citizens to stay within its borders is doomed from the start. Again, another strange comment from a man who helped exterminate millions, many his own countrymen.