GOLDEN REICH

by Mark Donahue

  GOLDEN REICH

  Lester’s War

  Copyright © 2020 Mark Donahue

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator”, at the web addresses below.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7349711-3-2 (paperback)

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.

  Front cover design by Marsha Donahue

  Published in the United States of America by

  Donahue Literary Properties, LLC, 2020.

  www.DonahueBooks.com

  Dedicated to

  Tom; for all the adventures we never went on. Yet.

  “He didn’t know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, how to comb his hair, and she felt embarrassed for him as he shouted about restoring jobs and national honor, about a better and splendid Germany. The mob applauded, shouted. Did people really believe that he wanted what was best for Germany?”

  — Ursula Hegi, Children and Fire

  PROLOGUE

  Scottsdale, Arizona Public Library

  Ben Smith and his daughter, Samantha, known as Sam to family and friends, were giving a presentation at the Scottsdale Public Library on local Indian culture. “You don’t have to have Indian blood in your veins to realize the connection between the Earth, the sky, and the things we feel or sense as human beings. It’s just that my Navajo ancestors cultivated those feelings more than the white man did. You know what they say, ‘use it or lose it.’” Ben said.

  An audience of about fifty local attendees leaned forward in their seats and hung on Ben’s words. While her father spoke, Sam operated a computer-generated overhead projector that showed images of the Indian culture of which Ben spoke.

  Off to one side of the large well-lit room, a plainly dressed woman in her eighties hugged a tattered leather binder against her chest while she sat quietly and listened. She also watched as Ben and Sam smiled patiently as they spent nearly an hour responding to a myriad of questions from the rapt audience.

  After the last question had been answered, and the audience gone, the father/daughter team gathered their presentation materials and did not at first see the old woman who approached cautiously.

  “Mr. Smith?”

  “Yes ma’am, please call me Ben. You have a question?”

  The old woman hesitated. “Well, I read about you and your daughter and how you study the history around these parts and wanted to talk to you about something my husband left me.”

  As she spoke, Sam noticed the old woman wore a faded blue cotton dress with a worn leather belt that was cinched tightly around her thin midsection. The woman’s gray hair was pulled up in a bun, and her tanned leathery hands tightly gripped the binder that contained faded yellowed papers sticking out haphazardly from its edges.

  “I guess Sam and I could be called local amateur historians. What did your husband leave you that you wanted to chat about?”

  At first it appeared the old woman was going to walk away. Sensing her discomfort, Sam approached her. “Hello ma’am, my name is Samantha Smith, but you can call me Sam. If you’d like to sit down, my dad and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.”

  The old woman appeared relieved, smiled warmly at Sam, pulled out a chair, and sat down at a large circular oak table. Sam and Ben sat on either side of her. In a clear strong voice, the old woman said, “My husband, who disappeared over thirty years ago, left me this here book. It’s kind of a diary, I guess. I can’t prove everything he wrote in this book is true, but I know one thing, he weren’t no liar, and he weren’t one to make up no tales neither. I think maybe you two might want to take a look at it. At my age, I could drop over tomorrow, and no one would ever see this and try to figure out what it all means.”

  The elderly woman slid the binder to her right toward Sam, who gently accepted what was clearly very old and precious to the gray-haired octogenarian. The binder was worn and brown with age like the old woman’s hands. The papers that stuck out were ragged, and some were torn at the edges. The binder smelled old.

  Carefully, Sam opened the binder and began reading while Ben and the old woman chatted. As she slowly turned the pages, Sam’s eyes narrowed in concentration, the space above her nose furrowed, and her cheeks flushed.

  After several minutes, she turned to Ben and said, “Oh my God, Daddy, you’ve got to see this. We were right!” Ben rose from his chair and made his way to the seat on Sam’s right. Sam moved the binder in front of him and said, “Look at the dates.”

  As Ben gently turned the pages, he too became immersed in what he was reading. For the next hour, Ben and Sam pored over the old binder, entranced by the tale that unfolded in front of them.

  Finally, Sam and Ben looked back at the old woman, ready to ask her a thousand questions. Maybe a million.

  She was gone.

  Chapter 1

  Berlin, Germany—1940

  The blue wooden sandbox in which four-year-old Ari played was littered with the small steel toy trucks given to him by his older sister Anna as Hanukkah gifts months earlier. When Ari drove them over imaginary roads, he vibrated his lips and made motor sounds that caused spit to drop onto his red cotton shirt forming a wet six-inch teardrop pattern below his chin. His dark brown hair was matted with sweat from his focused efforts in the midday sun. His beige shorts, white socks, and canvas shoes were covered with fine gray sand.

  Ari looked up from his diligent work and squinted in the sunlight when he heard the rumble of three tarp-covered military trucks pulling up in front of his parent’s large Tudor-style home in an affluent neighborhood outside Berlin.

  While the truck engines idled, Ari excitedly bounced up from his sandbox and ran toward the large swastika-emblazoned vehicles, his favorite red toy truck clutched in his right hand. When he crossed over the circular driveway and approached the front gate, he was intercepted by his mother who swooped him up on a dead run. When she turned back toward the house, Ari wailed in protest and dropped his toy truck in the grass. “Mama, mama, truck, truck!”

  His mother, Rebecca, a slender, attractive, raven-haired twenty-six-year-old, ignored her son’s protests. Instead she ran toward the garage where her husband David held the side door open. Inside the cool garage a dark blue 1937 Cadillac sedan sat in the shadows. After David slid in behind the steering wheel, Rebecca moved into the passenger seat. She held their only son who had grown quiet sensing his parents’ curious emotions.

  David pumped the accelerator pedal twice, turned the ignition key, and the V-8 roared to life. He reached for the driver’s side door handle to go open the garage door. But Rebecca grabbed his right arm and held him back.

  “Rebecca, we must leave now! Out the back gate, there’s no time!”

  “David, where can we go? Where can we hide?”

  “We can…we can go to my brother’s house; he will hide us!”

  “And who will hide him, David?”

  “But we can’t stay in here or we’ll…”

  “When they take us, they will separate us, like they have all the others. Let’s stay together. Just the three
of us…here.”

  For several seconds, amid the low murmur of the V-8, David pondered Rebecca’s meaning. “What about little Anna?”

  “My sister will understand and watch over her. You know how Anna loves her and they’ll be safe in Zurich.”

  “But…are you very sure we should…?”

  “Staying together is best, David.” Rebecca slid next to David and placed her head on his shoulder, with Ari on her lap. Ari appeared confused. He looked between his mother and father for some kind of explanation. Instead, David rolled down the driver door window and kissed his son’s forehead. He wrapped his arms around his wife and child.

  Ari was still confused. “Papa?”

  “We love you, Ari.” David explained.

  Exhaust fumes rose from the Cadillac and within minutes the car was enveloped in a dense gray fog. From outside the garage, smoke could be seen seeping from the bottom of the garage door and floating skyward in a series of specter-like wisps.

  Inside one of the trucks waiting in front of the house, a young German soldier grew concerned. “Sergeant, they aren’t coming out of the garage. Should we go get them?”

  “Private, you’re too impatient. They make our job easier. Relax, we have plenty of time. The Jews go nowhere.”

  Inside the Cadillac, Rebecca, Ari, and David appeared asleep in each other’s arms. Thirty-minutes later, a hulking young German soldier, a handkerchief held over his nose, opened the door and entered the smoke-filled garage. He made his way through the gray haze until he could see the Cadillac’s left rear bumper. He felt his way along the side of the car, found and opened the driver’s door. He reached over three bodies and turned off the ignition.

  After he left the garage and allowed the smoke to clear, the soldier returned several minutes later to “clean up the mess,” as his sergeant had ordered. He pulled David and Ari from the car and haphazardly dropped them to the floor of the garage. He turned back to reach for Rebecca and saw her dress hiked up. The soldier could see her smooth thighs and white panties visible in the half light.

  For several seconds, the soldier was entranced by Rebecca’s sad, lifeless eyes, still moist with tears. Unable to take his eyes off her, he slid into the seat next to the dead woman. After a full minute, he reached out and tentatively fondled her right breast with his left hand, as if in fear she would awaken and slap him for such temerity.

  When she did not, he moved his hand down to her thigh. Then between her legs. All the while he gaped at her large dark brown eyes in fascination. He began to breathe heavily and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked through the narrow back window of the Caddy and the open garage door. He saw no one. Why not? He shrugged his shoulders and unhooked his belt. But seconds later he heard sounds from the front yard. Cursing the noises and a lost opportunity, he rehooked his pants, pulled Rebecca from the front seat of the Caddy, and tossed her on the floor of the garage next to Ari and David.

  The soldier slid back into the Cadillac’s front bench seat and sat behind the wheel of the high-priced American symbol of luxury and affluence. He stroked its fine leather seats and ran his hands over the shiny black steering wheel, imagining a drive in the massive car to his girlfriend’s house near Munich. His thoughts about his newfound respect for American engineering and design were interrupted by an impatient sergeant. “Private, I told you to move that rubbish out of here and pull that car into the driveway. General Eck has made a request for that make and model. Make sure it’s cleaned inside and out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After the soldier removed the bodies from the garage, six more men entered the large three-story home. They began their systematic task with the care of professional movers. That was partly due to the fact that four of the men had been professional movers in civilian life. Yet they had never experienced as much work as they now had. Nor had they moved people and furniture from such grand homes.

  At the bottom of the stairs leading from the large veranda-style front porch, the sergeant inspected the loads carried by his men. He made detailed notes in a thick notebook that included a description of each item confiscated. He also listed the names and addresses of the Jews who had donated to the Führer’s cause. He wanted to make sure all the Jews in the neighborhood had an opportunity to pay their fair share. He also had a message for his men. “After we’re done here, I’m going to search each one of you, and if I find you’ve taken anything for yourself, you’ll get a year in solitary.”

  A strapping young soldier presented a large jewelry case made of mahogany. “Sergeant, I found this in a closet.”

  “Let me have it.”

  Opening the box, the sergeant saw several rings, bracelets, gold watches, and other pieces of jewelry. After he made his notes in the binder, he lifted the contents from the box, and placed them in a large wooden barrel that sat by the side of the stairs. However, the sergeant did reward himself for work well done by palming an elegant man’s gold Rolex. After checking to be sure he could not be seen, he slipped the timepiece into his pocket. “Thanks, Jew boy. You had good taste.”

  The soldiers methodically emptied the house except for specially requested items that were on a list provided by the next inhabitants of the Tudor home—a Nazi general, his wife, and three small children. In addition, they searched the grounds, the garage, and the storage bins around the house for valuables. One soldier found a red toy truck in the grass and tossed it in one of the barrels at the bottom of the stairs.

  By the next afternoon, the Nazi general’s children were playing in their new blue sandbox. In it they found a small brown canvas shoe and two toy trucks.

  Chapter 2

  Berlin, Germany—1943

  SS Colonel Kurtis Rolle looked older than his thirty-three years. It wasn’t just his close-cropped hair, receding hairline, and pale skin that prematurely aged him; it was the way he carried himself on his six-foot-two-inch frame. He emitted an air of self-confidence that made him appear at least ten years older.

  However, it was more than his mature appearance that had garnered Rolle the attention of the senior leadership of the Nazi Party. He also had a solid academic background and had worked his way up the Party ladder by doing good work and keeping his mouth shut. Most importantly, he displayed an almost maniacal loyalty to the Führer, even for a Nazi.

  Sitting in a straight-back red leather chair in SS General Heinrich Becker’s waiting room, Rolle appeared at attention. His back was rigid, his cap was in his lap, and his eyes were riveted on something. After ten minutes, Becker’s secretary approached. “Colonel, the general will see you now.”

  Without speaking to or looking at the attractive young woman, Rolle rose from his chair and followed the secretary into Becker’s lavish cherry wood paneled office. Rolle’s first impression of the office was its smell. It reeked of cigar smoke and expensive men’s cologne. The odor and fragrance fought each other for supremacy.

  As he stood at attention in front of Becker, Rolle noticed how the general’s desk and chair were raised several inches off the floor. He also noticed Becker was a small man—a small, distasteful, rude, and vain man. Rolle immediately disliked him before Becker said a word.

  For nearly five minutes, Becker ignored Rolle while he read some paperwork his secretary had placed on his desk when she had brought Rolle in from the waiting room. Rolle remained at attention and stared straight ahead while he waited to be recognized. Finally, Becker looked up at him, a smug smile on his face, as if he had won some sort of competition. “Colonel Rolle, it is a pleasure to meet you. You are well, yes? Please be seated.” Becker pointed to a large soft-cushioned chair that forced the occupant to look up at him. Rolle sat.

  “Thank you, I am well. How may I be of service?”

  “Your reputation for getting to the point is refreshing, colonel. Very well then, to the point. What I am about to discuss with you is to be kept in strictest confidenc
e. Breaking that confidence is a crime punishable by death, is that clear?”

  “General, the information I see every day is of the utmost sensitivity. I am quite familiar with such responsibility.”

  For several seconds, Becker stared at Rolle, then rose from his chair, turned his back and looked out his ten-foot high window onto a small park surrounded by government offices. The gray buildings were being pelted by a cold, heavy rain that turned their color a slate black.

  Without being asked to, Rolle left his chair and joined Becker. The two men looked out across the street in silence. In the park they saw an old woman with a gold star pinned to her worn wool coat. She pulled a child’s wagon that carried her food rations for the week. After another minute of silence, Becker said, “Colonel, the war is lost. Eventually, the Allies will march into Berlin and everything we have worked for and dreamed of will be gone.”

  “General, I am aware of the realities we face. Everyday our resources ebb, and soon we will have nothing to fight with. The bravery of our men is not enough.”

  “Yes, it is an unfortunate truth.”

  As the men continued to look out into the pouring rain, three teenage boys entered the park and saw the old woman as easy prey. They knocked her to the ground and viciously kicked her in the head until she stopped moving. The boys took her food but instead of running away, they casually stood over her body and ate from her basket of groceries. Becker and Rolle saw what had happened but did not speak of it.

  “Colonel, with the war lost, we must now redirect those limited resources you spoke of in order to further the Führer’s vision.”

  “How can I help that cause?”

  Becker turned back to his desk, picked up a thin report, and handed it to Rolle.

  “Take responsibility for this.”

  Rolle took the report and saw OPERATION REBIRTH stamped in red ink across the top. In the middle of the page, “TOP SECRET” was written in thick block letters with the Nazi seal at the bottom of the cover.