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Back The Counterfeit Candidate Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Prologue
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. Chapter Forty-Six
  48. Chapter Forty-Seven
  49. Chapter Forty-Eight
  50. Chapter Forty-Nine
  51. Chapter Fifty
  52. Chapter Fifty-One
  53. Chapter Fifty-Two
  54. Chapter Fifty-Three
  55. Chapter Fifty-Four
  56. Chapter Fifty-Five
  57. Chapter Fifty-Six
  58. Epilogue
  59. Author’s Note
  60. Acknowledgements
  61. About the Author

Adolf Hitler raised his left hand and slowly removed the fedora from his head to reveal his features. His right hand held his favourite weapon, a 7.65 millimetre Walther PPK. He glared at the fallen guard, desperately wanting the dying man to know the identity of his killer. The Russian somehow managed to tilt his head upwards and stared back incredulously, focusing his bloodshot eyes on the face of the gunman. Hitler’s words dripped with venom.

“You are part of Stalin’s scum army and, like all your countrymen, deserve to die a painful death for invading my country.”

Hitler crouched down and leaned forward until he was only inches away from his victim’s head. He launched a mouthful of phlegm onto his face and, moments later, fired a third shot that blew away most of the soldier’s skull.

It took Kempka almost fifteen minutes to figure out the intricate workings of the armoured car’s manual gearbox but, eventually, he managed to drive it to the side of the road. Half an hour later, the Mercedes entered the war-torn seaport of Kiel. Awaiting them in the harbour, squeezed between the U-boats and warships, was a small, unimposing cargo boat that Bormann had purchased for five hundred thousand dollars six months earlier. Santa Cruz III had been built in South America and was registered in the port of Río Gallegos on the south-east coast of Argentina. Its twelve-man crew had been paid handsomely to bring it across the Atlantic to moor up in the harbour where, for the previous few months, it had been hidden from sight in one of the huge submarine bunkers. At just over nineteen hundred tons, it was powered by two diesel engines that generated a top speed of ten knots.

A fortnight earlier, Bormann had put in place the final piece of his intricate escape plan. He had instructed one of the navy’s highest-ranking captains to travel to Kiel to take the helm of the pitiful cargo boat. A top-secret assignment that had left Hans Küpper completely bemused. Küpper was one of the German Navy’s most decorated officers and, more importantly, he spoke fluent Spanish: the reason Bormann had selected him for the task. Küpper was to take command of the Santa Cruz III and its South American crew.

In addition to Hitler, Braun and Bormann, there was a fourth passenger.He had arrived separately and was smuggled on board a couple of hours before the three VIPs arrived.