39
FROM HIS POSITION A block away from the Brown House, Fritz Gerlich came alert as he saw the three bursts of a flashlight coming from the Propylaea.
The signal from Helldorff. Bauer had made it inside.
Gerlich staggered forward, barely able to keep his balance, or at least seemingly so.
He crossed the street and ran his hands along the Brown House fence, catching the attention of two guards coming around to the front.
He started tugging on the locked front gate.
“Open up!” he shouted in his best impression of a drunk.
“What business do you have here?” asked one of the guards.
“I want to… join your party!” Gerlich shouted, slurring his words.
“You want to join the National Socialists?”
“Yes!”
“It’s after midnight, comrade. And you look—and smell—like maybe you’ve had a few too many pints.”
Gerlich had spilled several beers on his coat for just that reason. He shook the gate. “Let me in! I want to be a part of the Socialist National—I mean the National—”
“Come back tomorrow! The building is closed and you’re drunk.”
“That, sir, is a defamatory statement! Let me in, I say! Let me in!”
Another pair of guards hustled around from the side of the building. “What’s going on?” one of them called.
“This fellow wants to join the NSDAP! Right now, at half past midnight!”
The guards got a good chuckle out of that. The door to the front entrance opened, and several guards got a look at Gerlich, who was struggling to stand up.
“This is an outrage!” he cried, thrusting his finger in the air. “I demand to join your party at once!”
While the guards’ attention was diverted, Bauer snuck up the back stairs, reaching the top floor.
He peeked into the hallway, red and black with a patterned tile floor, Nazi crests and photos of Hitler everywhere.
He saw nobody, heard nothing. He jogged on the balls of his feet to minimize footfalls, passing the grand staircase that led from the ground floor to this top floor, lit by an impressive chandelier.
Soon he reached the large office in the corner.
There was no name or title on the door; it was nothing but a standard stained oak door.
He thrust the key inside the lock. It turned. He entered the room.
The lights were off, but the windows overlooking the Konigsplatz offered decent illumination.
In one corner, Hitler’s primary desk and work area, though he couldn’t make out details especially well.
A small table with a lamp and vase of flowers stood in the middle of the room.
The other corner featured a sofa and chairs.
Bauer shrugged off his backpack with considerable effort and pain.
He removed his flashlight and shone it around the room until he found the radiator, tucked behind a wooden panel beneath a portrait of Frederick the Great, the Prussian king whom Hitler idolized.
He removed a set of tools from his bag and placed them by the wood panel, every step taking longer than he preferred because he was doing everything with his left hand.
Keeping the flashlight low, he walked along the carpet—in Nazi blood-red—toward Hitler’s work desk. Behind it was a bureau with a door in the front that, according to Emil Maurice, contained Hitler’s safe.
Bauer squatted down and opened the front panel door. Inside was a two-foot-high rectangular safe made of iron or steel, with a manufacturer’s crest and a combination lock with rotating dial.
Maurice had given him the combination: eight to the right, eleven to the left, twenty-three to the right, 8-11-23, the eighth of November, 1923, the date of the Beer Hall Putsch. Maurice had learned it from Geli. As far as he knew, she was the only person Hitler had ever told.
The latch popped open. He shone the flashlight into the interior of the safe.
A handful of envelopes. Bauer swept all of them into his leather bag, closed the safe, and got to his feet.
He heard something outside. Footfalls. Not directly near the office.
More distant. A heavier echo to them. The grand staircase leading to the top floor.
Someone was taking the stairs up. Surely it was a patrol and nothing more.
The guard would walk the floor, see nothing, and move on.
Hitler’s office was dark; there was no indication of an intruder’s presence.
But Emil Maurice had told him that patrols within the building were rare, that most of the guards just stayed near the front station while they took turns patrolling the exterior. So who was coming up?
Bauer pulled off his black sweater, forcing his right arm to operate, the pain so agonizing that his eyes watered. Underneath the sweater was the same Reliable Service uniform he’d worn earlier.
The footsteps grew closer, headed in his direction. Not slow, just-patrolling-the-halls casual. The footsteps were purposeful. They had a destination.
Bauer reached the table in the center of the room.
He turned on the lamp light, not wanting to draw attention from the outside but needing cover in case someone entered.
It would be hard to explain away why he was working in a completely dark room.
At the radiator, he unscrewed one, then another bolt from the wall.
Bauer’s heartbeat raced. He reached into his bag and removed the Walther PPK 9-millimeter and shoved it into his left pant pocket.
The footsteps stopped, just outside the office door. Without hesitation, a key was inserted into the door. It popped open.
His heartbeat drumming against his chest, Bauer reminded himself to stay cool. Cool was the way to play it, if possible, before it turned ugly.
The flick of a switch, and suddenly the room was awash in light from the overhead.
“Whoa,” he said, shielding his eyes, trying to sound casual.
“What—who exactly are you?” a man demanded.
Bauer took a moment before blinking hard and turning to the man.
The Führer, Adolf Hitler.