Fox On The Rhine by Douglas Niles, Michael Dobson Page A

the news to SS command. The bridge has been burned--the phrase still echoed in his mind. Neutralizing the SS was crucial to a successful coup, and that meant Himmler needed to die. Fuller knew that his own death would follow quickly thereafter. It is too bad that Stauffenberg couldn’t have gotten them both together , he thought regretfully.
    Slowly, with mechanical precision, he drew his automatic and raised it toward the reflective reichsführer.
    Himmler blinked, the only expression of his surprise. Two shots thundered in quick succession, resonating in the confined office.
    The impact of the bullets hurled General Fuller backward, smashing him into the closed door before he slumped to the floor. His eyes were wide, staring in an expression of astonishment.
    “Well done, Colonel Bücher,” Himmler observed quietly as a second SS officer emerged from behind a wall partition. The scent of gunpowder followed him as he trained his Luger carefully on the lifeless Fuller. The general’s blood looked black in the shadowy room.
    The fierce-eyed SS colonel looked at the dead man with a cold, contemptuous stare, allowing himself the shadow of a smile. The dueling scars that had slashed both his cheeks blazed redly, the only sign of his emotions. As Fuller’s life ebbed away, his passing was marked only by the sharp degrading smell of his bowels releasing.
    “Quickly!” he commanded, throwing open the door. “Get this offal out of here!” SS troops rushed in to drag out the corpse. Bücher was sorry only that he would not have a chance to interrogate him. Soon, he was left in the darkness with Himmler once again. Only a little of the odor of Fuller’s death remained in the room, and that was tinged with the smell of gunpowder.
    “Herr Reichsführer,” the tall, lean officer said, “I must confess that I found it hard to believe you when you said an SS general would turn against you. And is it true--the führer is dead? This is a black day for the Fatherland.” Left unstated was the two men’s realization that Göring was now destined to become führer--and both men shared the same low opinion of the Luftwaffe head.
    “Indeed it is, but from these ashes we will yet come back to life,” Himmler said. “I didn’t expect the attack against the führer at Wolfschanze; I thought the conspirators would wait until the führer and I were together. Still, I have made plans against this day. Only the SS can save Germany now. And as for you--my special thanks, General Bücher.”
    Before the loyal officer could frame a reply, Himmler absently gestured for the phone, and Bücher hastily handed him the receiver.
    “Commence Operation Reichsturm.” The SS reichsführer spoke these three words into the telephone, nodded dismissively at Bücher, and sat back in his chair with an expression of pensive satisfaction. Bücher’s last image of him was Himmler as a black shadow, even darker than the surrounding night.
     

OPERATION REICHSTURM
    July 21-31, 1944
     
    Rockefeller Center, New York, United States, 21 July 1944, 0655 hours GMT
     
    Chuck Porter crushed his cigarette into the overflowing ashtray and lifted his weary body out of his swivel chair. It was a dull night on the early out of New York, where he was the supervisor of the newsroom, and the minute hand was creeping so slowly toward three o’clock in the morning that he thought it was stuck. It was so boring that he’d spent the last hour doodling variations on the letters “cheAP,” which reflected his opinion of the Associated Press pay scale.
    It was hard enough making the change from North Carolina to Manhattan culturally without the additional shock of the living expenses. The payoff was supposed to be prestige, but the title wasn’t prestige enough to compensate for the lack of money.
    Worse, he had recently passed his thirty-fifth birthday. His hair was thinning and his waistline was expanding. He’d never been a handsome man, but he had possessed an