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Heinz bowed his head. “The honor was mine, mein Führer.”

“Joseph, Martin—we’ve already spoken. I am eminently grateful for your service.”

“As we are grateful to have had the opportunity to serve you, mein Führer,” said Goebbels.

“Come, Eva,” said Hitler. “It is time.”

Hitler held his wife’s hand as she lay on the floral sofa in the sitting room. “Do not be afraid, my darling,” he whispered.

Though she had remained unusually composed over the last twenty-four hours, she now began to tremble. “It will be painless, you said?”

“Of course. Painless and nearly instantaneous. I will be sure of this, Eva. In the highly unlikely event that you should suffer, I will use the pistol, as I plan to do on myself.”

“No, Wolf, I told you—I don’t want to be shot. Not in the face.”

“Only as a last resort, Frau Hitler.”

She brightened at the sound of those words, a smile creeping onto her face. “How I’ve longed to be called that. You will hold my hand until it’s over, Wolf?”

“Of course, Frau Hitler.”

She slipped the cyanide pill into her mouth and bit down on it. She closed her eyes and leaned back against a cushion. “Frau Hitler,” she whispered.

Soon she was gagging, coughing, wheezing, struggling for air as her internal systems shut down. Hitler turned his head away, hardly able to bear the sounds of death. But he never let go of her hand, no matter how much she bucked and squirmed. The sounds grew more violent, choking and gasping, before she heaved one final, raspy exhale and went silent.

He held her hand for one more moment. Then he placed both her hands together on her chest. He looked at her face, contorted from the poison’s effects, one last time.

Then he gathered his cyanide pill and Walther pistol.

He put the cyanide pill in the pocket of his suit coat. He stuffed the pistol in his pants pocket.

“Heinz!” he called out.

A moment later, the door cracked open. “Are we ready, mein Führer?” Heinz asked from behind the door.

“Yes, we must move with haste.”

A moment later, the door thudded open. Heinz dragged in the dead body of the cook, Rolf, wrapped in a wool blanket.

“Joseph, Martin—you can be trusted to wrap Frau Hitler in the wool blanket?”

“Of course, mein Führer,” they said, nearly in unison.

“I am sorry to leave you this task, gentlemen, but you understand the need to keep the circle small. Heinz and I must now take leave. Nobody is to come to my quarters until Heinz has returned. Come, Heinz, it will be dark soon.”

Hitler and his valet walked up the stairs to the emergency exit into the chancellery garden. The garden had been cleared of people, again, out of respect, until the two bodies could be brought up for the ceremonial burning.

Hitler pulled his homburg hat low as they walked through the empty garden. When they’d left the chancellery grounds, they walked north on Cora-Berliner-Straße, then Ebertstraße, hearing artillery fire in the distance and some not far away at all.

The city was in tatters. The streets were pockmarked from bombs, in some spots blown completely open, leaving giant craters. Lampposts had fallen onto sidewalks or into the streets. The buildings looked withered and unstable, their roofs caved in, the sidewalks covered in their glass. An abandoned Panzer tank was positioned sideways on Ebertstraße.

They soon reached the Brandenburg Gate, the magnificent eighteenth-century monument supported by two rows of Doric columns that towered over Pariser Platz, which thus far had survived the Allied bombing.

“I see it,” said Heinz. “I see the plane!”

They turned west down the Ost-West-Achse, the East–West Axis that had been converted into a runway through the Tiergarten, toward the plane—the tiny, light gray Fieseler Fi 156 Storch plane, holding no more than three passengers, traditionally used for reconnaissance but repurposed during the war to transport officials to meet the Führer in his bunker.

“It’s running!” Heinz shouted. “Hans has it ready!”