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The SS guard, his feet up on the table, grunted. “You mean am I going to choose to live or choose to die? That’s what you’re asking me. There’s nothing left to fight for.”

“They won’t kill us,” said another soldier. “Not if we lay down our arms. They’ll take us into custody. They’ll probably interrogate us about the Führer. They may get rough with us. But in the end, we were merely soldiers following orders.”

“No,” said a third soldier, who looked a bit older and much stockier. “They’ll take no prisoners. They’ll kill us all.” He slammed back a shot of vodka. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

“Hey, what’s for dinner?” one of the soldiers asked the assistant chef, Rolf, the man Bauer once mistook for the Führer.

“I’m sure it will be soup,” said Rolf. “Whatever I can find in the pantry and refrigerator and stretch out into a meal. If I haven’t passed out by then.” He drank from his glass of wine.

“Are you the only cook left?” someone asked.

Rolf raised his glass. “Just me.”

A man in uniform walked into the room. “General!” said one of the soldiers, starting to his feet.

“At ease, for God’s sake, at ease.” The tall and graying officer took a seat. “Just wanted to join you for one drink.”

“That’s Hans Baur,” von der Haas murmured to Bauer. “Brigadier general with the police. He was Hitler’s pilot when he was running for president in 1932. Been with Hitler ever since. Kept moving up the ranks.”

“General,” one of the soldiers said to Baur. “Is it true that the Führer plans to take his life?”

“It’s true.” The general poured himself a vodka from one of the many bottles in the center of the dining table. “He’s doing it for Germany. A leader can’t be seen paraded around, either dead or alive.”

Bauer noticed von der Haas steel himself. The suicide speculation was rampant throughout the Vorbunker. There was open talk of cyanide pellets, which the bunker would offer to anyone who wished, and how quickly one would die, how much pain they would suffer.

The question was not if but when. How much time did they have?

The party, such as it was, never really stopped. Some people never left the dining room. Others came and went for a quick drink. As always, Bauer and von der Haas were careful to monitor their drinking, to participate without overdoing it. They both wandered toward the entrance to the lower bunker from time to time, tried to strike up conversations with the stairwell guards, offer them liquor of any kind, but to no avail. These guards were hard-core loyalists. There was no way to penetrate them or their MP machine guns. They also kept an eye out for Eva Braun, whom they considered their best chance.

There were no hallways per se in the Vorbunker, just a series of interconnected rooms. The closest thing to a corridor or hallway were the middle rooms, of which the dining room was one and the large conference room the other. Past the conference room was a stairwell up to the chancellery garden or down to the Führerbunker.

“Remember the bet,” von der Haas said as he passed Bauer.

Around one in the morning, to much fanfare, Braun appeared in the Vorbunker, curtsying and bowing like a celebrity, dressed in a tight frilly pink dress with several necklaces, beaming as always.

Erich von der Haas grabbed Bauer’s arm. “This is it,” he whispered. “This could be our last chance. So be charming, Bauer, for once in your life.”

118

THOMAS BAUER MOVED TOWARD the crowd gathering around Eva Braun. “Fräulein Braun, hello again,” he said, forcing his hand to her.

“Ah, Henrik!” she said, taking his hand. “It is Henrik, yes?”

“It is, yes,” said Bauer. “Henrik Becker.”

“I never forget a handsome face.” She winked at him.

Apparently you do, he thought, considering you met me back in 1933, albeit in disguise as a Photoplay reporter.

“You’re from OKH, yes?” she asked. “The supply office? Yet every time I come up, you’re here.”

“We are, yes.” Bauer put a hand on his heart. “And fervent loyalists of the Führer. We wish to be here until the end.”

“We?”

“Me and my friend Alfred, Alfred Otto,” said Bauer, as von der Haas walked up. “I was just telling Fräulein Braun, Alfred, how much you and I admire the Führer.”

“First of all,” she said, playfully backhanding his arm, “could we dispense with the ‘Fräulein Braun’? It’s Eva. It’s Eva to everyone.”