Fall of Knight by Peter David Page A

brilliant planning for which the Fuhrer was noted. And perhaps…perhaps Wagner was to be a part of it. What a notion. What an honor!
    Wagner had never met the Fuhrer; he’d merely seen him from a distance during occasional rallies. He wondered if the opportunity would be presented him now. He wondered what he would say.
    The walls of the underground passage suddenly rocked from another blast overhead. Wagner staggered, catching himself before he fell over, and he snarled a curse at the oncoming Russian army…not that they could hear him, of course.
    He arrived at a checkpoint in the tunnels and was amused to see a lieutenant sitting at a desk. He had papers neatly arrayed in front of him; amazingly they had not been tossed around by the shaking from overhead. Either that or he had managed to sort them back into order very quickly. He looked as if his presence there in the tunnels, illumination provided by a series of lanterns, was the most natural thing in the world. He looked up quizzically, and said, “Yes?”
    “Heil Hitler,” said Wagner immediately, thrusting out his hand.
    “Heil Hitler,” echoed the desk lieutenant, responding to the salute in a casual fashion. “How can I help you?”
    “Sturmhauptfuhrer Wagner, reporting as ordered.”
    “Ah. Yes.” He glanced at a particular paper on his desk, then reached down and picked up a field phone. He cranked it up for a moment, then lifted the receiver and announced that Captain Wagner had arrived. He nodded in response to whatever was being said on the other end, then replaced the phone and looked up impassively. “Walk down that way, turn right. You will be met.”
    “By Field Marshal von Greim?”
    “You will be met,” was all he said in response.
    Wagner nodded, tossed off yet another salute, got the required response, then headed down the corridor as instructed. Once having turned the corner, he felt another coughing fit coming on. He leaned with his back against the corridor and proceeded to cough so violently that small spots of blood and—he thought—a piece of one of his lungs emerged from his mouth.
    “Are you ill?” a rough voice asked from nearby.
    Wagner began to respond, then he saw who was asking him. It was not von Greim. The man who approached him was cloaked in an aura of death, and wore that cloak proudly. His head was square, his forehead high, and his eyes narrowed into a perpetual squint of suspicion.
    Captain Wagner immediately slammed the backs of his heels together and saluted. “Herr Bormann! They had…told me to expect Field Marshal von Greim…”
    “He is indisposed,” said Martin Bormann, the right-hand man to the Fuhrer himself. “This particular duty has been given me by the Fuhrer himself. Do you understand?”
    “Of course, Herr Bormann.”
    “Follow me, then.”
    As they headed down the corridor, Bormann spoke in a low, gravelly tone. “The Fuhrer selected me for this assignment as a little joke, you see. He knows the one point of opinion from which I diverge with him is on matters of Christianity. So, naturally, he puts me in charge of attending to this…”
    “This what, Herr Bormann, if I may ask. And why me?”
    “The Fuhrer likes your name.”
    Wagner wasn’t quite certain he’d heard him correctly. “My name, Herr Bormann?”
    Bormann nodded. “The Fuhrer was particularly influenced by the Wagner opera Parsifal. When a list of available officers for this particular duty was presented him, your name leapt out at him. It is a method of choice steeped more in superstition than logic, but our Fuhrer has his superstitions, and none can gainsay him on them,” he noted with a shrug.
    “But…Wagner’s first name was Richard.”
    “Actually, Wagner’s middle name was Richard. His first name was Wilhelm.”
    “Oh,” said Captain Wilhelm Wagner, now understanding. Except…he didn’t quite. “With respect,” he said as they continued down a gradually darkening corridor, “I am still a bit confused.