‘So you will admit the leak exists?’
The field marshal shrugged. ‘Possibly.’
‘And where, if you had to guess, would you say the leak is coming from?’
‘If you ask me, they are the kind of details one hears talked about among the secretaries, of which there are several working in the bunker.’
‘So you think it is one of them?’
‘I’m not accusing anyone,’ snapped Keitel. ‘It’s just a hunch, but one that carries weight if you can see this from the Allies’ point of view.’
‘And how is that?’
‘Whoever they are using for this, if there is anyone at all, is someone they consider expendable.’
‘How so?’ asked Hunyadi.
‘How long did the Allies think they could go on telling bunker secrets before Hitler sent a man like you to find the source? Now have you asked enough questions or are you going to keep me here all day?’
‘No, Field Marshal,’ said Hunyadi, closing his notebook. ‘You are free to go.’
The next man through the door was Hitler’s adjutant, SS Major Otto Guensche. He had come straight from his duties at the bunker and wore a brown, double-breasted knee-length leather coat over his dress uniform. He was very tall, with sad and patient eyes; a man who looked like he was used to keeping his mouth shut.
Hunyadi realised at once that he would get little out of Guensche. After a few, perfunctory questions about life in the bunker, all of which Guensche answered in a slow and quiet voice, as if he was certain that others were listening, Hunyadi sent him away.
There followed a line of secretaries – Johanna Wolf, Christa Schroeder, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge. If anything, these women were tougher than the field marshal. They gave almost nothing away, but from the upward darting of their gazes and the twitching of the muscles in their jaws, it was clear to Hunyadi, from his years of questioning suspects in the dingy, glaringly lit interrogation cells of the Spandau prison, that these women had plenty they could tell. The question was whether they had, and Hunyadi did not think so. Their loyalty ran so deep that it was oblivious to the kinds of political manoeuvrings that other, more highly placed members of the Fuhrer’s entourage might have found tempting.
After the secretaries, Hunyadi interviewed Hitler’s chauffeur Erich Kempka, a rough, sarcastic man, who was himself a victim of the rumour leak. The story of his infidelities had been described more than once by ‘Der Chef’.
Then came Heinz Linge, one of Hitler’s valets, so nervous that he might have uttered some inconsequential detail in his sleep and thereby brought about the downfall of the Reich; his right eye began to twitch uncontrollably and Hunyadi dismissed him earlier than he had planned to out of fear that the man might be about to suffer a heart attack.
After Linge’s departure, Hunyadi glanced at his watch and realised that the day was almost over.
His final visitor was Hermann Fegelein, Himmler’s emissary to the Fuhrer’s court and, judging from the reputation that preceded him, someone universally disliked.
Unlike all the others, Fegelein appeared completely at ease, and it was this which made Hunyadi suspicious.
‘Why am I here?’ demanded Fegelein.
‘The Fuhrer believes that there is a leak of classified information from his Berlin Headquarters. Some of it is finding its way to the Allies, who are broadcasting it from their radio stations.’
‘You mean “Der Chef”?’
‘You have heard of him?’
‘Everybody has, but if that’s why you’ve brought me in I can tell you right now you are wasting your time.’
‘You may be right,’ answered Hunyadi, ‘but I must speak with everyone who has access to classified information in the bunker. And that would include you, Gruppenfuhrer, since you attend the Fuhrer’s briefings every day.’
‘That’s my job,’ he replied.
‘Nevertheless,’ said Hunyadi, ‘we must satisfy the Fuhrer’s curiosity.’
Fegelein slumped down into the chair on the other side of the table. He breathed in deeply and then sighed. ‘So ask away.’
‘I only have one question,’ said Hunyadi.
Fegelein blinked in confusion. ‘That’s all?’
‘If there was a leak,’ asked Hunyadi, ‘then where, in your opinion, would it come from?’
Fegelein thought for a moment before he replied. ‘Somewhere down the line,’ he said.
‘Down the line?’
‘Someone who has learned to slip between the cracks,’ explained Fegelein. ‘A person you see all the time but never notice. But you are wasting your time looking at me, and others like me. My kind of people do not risk our lives on spreading gossip. We have far too much to lose for that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hunyadi. ‘You may go.’
Fegelein stood up and turned to leave. But then he turned back. ‘Why only one question?’
Hunyadi smiled, almost sympathetically. ‘If you were indeed the source of the leak, would you have admitted that to me?’
Fegelein snorted. ‘Of course not!’
‘Precisely,’ said Fegelein.
‘So why bring us in here at all?’
‘Firstly, because that is what Hitler wants. And secondly, so that there can be no doubt, in the mind of whomever is divulging this information, that they are being hunted now.’
Fegelein nodded, impressed. ‘A tactic which might lose you some friends before this investigation is over.’
‘There are no friends,’ said Hunyadi, ‘only the enemies I have already and those who do not know enough to hate me yet. In my line of work, that is an occupational hazard.’
‘If only there were someone you could turn to for help.’
Hunyadi stared at him. ‘Meaning what?’
‘Such a person might be very valuable.’ Fegelein held out his arms and let them fall back to his sides. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘If you are implying that I can request assistance from the SS, I am already aware of that.’
‘The SS is a large organisation which does not take kindly to strangers snooping about in their business,’ Fegelein told him flatly. ‘What you need is someone who can get the job done while still maintaining absolute discretion.’
Hunyadi narrowed his eyes with suspicion. ‘And this person might be you? Is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘It might be.’
Now I know why they hate you so much, thought Hunyadi. ‘And why’, he asked, ‘would someone like you make me an offer like that?’
‘Because I know who you work for, and I have lately found myself on the wrong end of his sympathies. Any gesture I can make to remedy that situation is worth doing. So you see, if I help you, then I am also helping him. All I ask in return is that, when the time comes, you remember who your friends are.’
‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ Hunyadi answered cautiously.
Fegelein handed him a business card. On one side, in embossed letters, were his initials, HF, and on the other side was a Berlin telephone number. ‘This is how to reach me, day or night,’ said Fegelein.
After the man had departed, Hunyadi turned his thoughts to the things he had learned that day. The most useful information had come, not from what his visitors had said, but from what they did not say. Tomorrow, he would go to the bunker, and report his findings in person to Hitler. The news was unlikely to go down well, and Hunyadi wondered if the messenger would be the first to fall.
That evening, after a meal of quail braised in a mushroom and cognac sauce, delivered from the kitchens of Harting’s restaurant on Muhlenstrasse to the apartment of his mistress, Fegelein sat in a high-backed chair made of crushed yellow velvet, smoking a cigar. Lazily, he held the phone receiver to his ear while his master, Heinrich Himmler, grilled him about the meeting with Hunyadi.
‘What did he want?’ demanded Himmler. ‘What is he looking into?’
‘A leak,’ replied Fegelein. ‘A flow of information from the bunker which has been finding its way into the hands of the Allies. Apparently, you can hear it almost every day on that pirate radio station of theirs.’