by Ward Wagher
“What do you want?” Heydrich asked.
“I decided to visit and determine how we might help you. I do not know if you realize this, or not, but your people are beginning to coalesce into a functioning organization.”
“At some point we must do that, if we are going to take over the government.”
The visitor paused. “True. But you are a very long way away from being ready to run the German government.” He held up his hands, “I’m not saying you can’t do it. Just that I do not think you are ready yet.”
“I understand,” Heydrich replied. “But, as we grow larger, the risk of discovery also grows.”
“What I might suggest, Herr Heydrich, is that you devise a way to hide your people inside of a legitimate organization. There are advantages to hiding in plain sight, as it were.”
“I think you are British,” Heydrich said suddenly, jumping to his feet. “Your speech cadence gives you away.”
“What if I am?”
The other man in the room, Heydrich’s personal guard, pulled his gun.
“So, you can inform on the SS about me.”
The visitor stayed in his seat, apparently relaxed. “If I were going to do that, you would already be in the hands of the SS. You have been in this house for five days. You arrived on Monday at about seven in the evening.”
“You could also be trying to discover the extent of my organization so Rainer can roll it up all at once.”
“Please,” the unnamed man said. “I really thought you were more professional than that. A significant portion of your immediate organization has visited you this week. Your operational security is poor. In fact, I am taking a considerable risk by meeting with you here.”
Heydrich slowly settled back into his chair. He looked at the guard. “We will prepare to leave immediately following this meeting.”
The visitor snorted. “I suppose I should not belittle you, Herr Heydrich. If you can learn from me, then I should not complain.”
“Now that you have finished belittling me and my organization,” Heydrich said dryly, “suppose you tell me precisely how you can help.”
“Very well. Let me tell you how I can help. The Reichsmarshall will soon invite the Reichschancellor to Lechfield to review the first squadrons of a new secret fighter aircraft.”
“The Me262, yes I know about the aircraft,” Heydrich waved his hand dismissively.
“Do you want this or not?” the visitor snapped.
“Oh, go ahead.”
“Herr Schloss will fly into Lechfield in his Condor. We will provide you with access to a truck mounted anti-air battery. We will position it a kilometer or so from the end of the runway. Depending upon the direction the aircraft approaches, you will have a perfect shot as he either approaches or leaves the air base. You will, of course, be responsible for the security of your people.”
“And when will this happen?” Heydrich asked. He was growing excited, in spite of himself.
“Goering has not decided on a specific day, but our source in the Reich Air Ministry says that it will be on or about June 10. Begin lining up your people as well as the means of extraction. As soon as the date is confirmed, I will notify you.”
Heydrich looked at his visitor. “If everything goes as you say, this will give us an excellent chance to rid the Reich of a horrible pestilence.”
“Very much so,” replied Glendower, who was also known as Archibald Menzies of MI6.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
May 3, 1942; 8AM
Kalksee
Near Rudersdorf, Germany
“Thank you for getting away from Berlin for a bit, Darling,” Gisela Schloss said.
“Things have been busy since we got back from Italy and I have learned I need to pace myself,” Schloss said. “A few hours today alongside the lake should help.”
They were sitting in deck chairs on the deck of the small cabin, facing the lake. In early May it was still cool around the lake and they wore sweaters. The steward had come out on to the deck and draped throws over them as well.
“This is very pleasant,” she said. “Peaceful, as well.”
“It allows me to forget, at least for a few moments that half the world is actively trying to murder me,” Schloss said.
“Stop that!” she said, slapping his arm. “After you lectured me on allowing things to get to me, I won’t have you drifting into that.”
“I stand corrected,” he said with a rueful smile. “You are good at catching me at these things.”
The steward came out of the cabin again, and set a tray of coffee and pastries on the table next to them. He silently withdrew into the cabin again.
“This is very nice,” she said.
“This is one of the best ways, I think, to spend time with you,” he said. “Other than in bed, of course.”
“So… when you are not thinking of government…” she said, trailing off.
“I can think of two things at the same time,” he said righteously.
“Yes, I’m sure you can. And one other thing, your sister has invited us over tomorrow night for dinner. She has been complaining about not seeing the children.”
“I would need to check with Kirche, but I don’t remember anything else on the calendar for us tomorrow night.”
“I already checked with Willem, Darling,” she laughed. “I thought perhaps you might forget.”
“Never,” he muttered.
She laughed again. “It is wonderful to be married to someone whose memory is perfect.”
They grew quiet again as Gisela absorbed herself into a book. Heinrich sipped his coffee and watched the lake.
It is pleasant to simply sit here and let my mind slip into neutral. It still amazes me that I have found contentment after falling into this other world, or universe, or wherever it is. I have found the great love of my life. I have children that I delight in. I am making a huge difference in this land. I have not finished the job by any means, but I think I have blocked the advance of a great evil. As time goes on I am finding it difficult to remember the divided Berlin where I grew up. What happened to that city? What happened to Trudy? Did my other persona, the Alter-Schloss suddenly appear in Tempelhof in 1982? And how did he react?
“A pfennig for your thoughts, Darling,” Gisela said when she glanced over at him. “You seem lost in your thoughts.”
And how do I even answer a question like that?
“I was just thinking about how much we have accomplished over the past year. I lost a wife, but I gained a wife. We tossed an old regime on the ash heap of history, to quote Marx. On balance, I think I have experienced great gain. But, where do we go from here?”
“I know you will always treasure your years with Hannalore, as I did with my Willem. Looking back, it seems the years flew by.”
“Time gives an interesting perspective,” Schloss said. “However, in the here and now I have you. And I love you very much.”
“I never thought I would love again after Willem was killed,” she said. “And yet, you are all I could desire. The world is a funny place.”
If you only knew, Gisela.
“I spoke with Emmy. yesterday,” she continued.”
“And how is Frau Goering?”
“She is very thankful for your help. Hermann is doing very well. And he seems very well motivated to continue on this path.”
“I am delighted to see that. He could not have continued in his role much longer, the way he was acting. And he would be difficult to replace.”
“Would you have removed him?”
“Let’s just say I would have had to make some tough decisions.”
She grew quiet. She turned a few pages in her book and then spoke again. “One of the things that I admire about you is that you are absolutely ruthless in the pursuit of the things you believe in.”
“I do not consider myself to be ruthless,” he said. “It’s just that I have learned that it does no one any good when you postpone decisions. The
problems simply fester. It is sometimes painful to make decisions, but if you don’t, then you have to endure the ongoing pain.”
“That is exactly what I mean, Darling. You do whatever you need to do. Both for us, and for the Fatherland.”
“I would do whatever I needed to do to protect you and our family. And, I also have found that I need to be willing to act the same way to protect the fatherland. There are some well-meaning fools out there who could easily destroy all of us.”
“Like Heydrich?” she asked.
“He is one of them,” Schloss replied. “Churchill would be another. And, God help us, Goering is one of them.”
She looked at him in surprise. “But he has supported you.”
“Yes, he has. But, understand that Hermann looks out for himself first of all, then Edda, then Emmy. Then the Luftwaffe”
“And the country?”
“I am not entirely sure that is always in his mind.”
“Then why have you not sacked him?”
“He had a broad following in Germany,” Schloss said. “He is popular. If I threw him out, he would be as likely to join forces with Heydrich.”
“Surely not.”
“The night Himmler died, I told Goering he would support me or I would kill him. And when he returned from his hospital stay, I told him that if he couldn’t stay away from the needle I would see that he succumbed to serious health issues.”
She was quiet again.
He looked over at her. “Did I shock you, Gisela?”
“Shock me? Yes. But you simply illustrated what I just told you. You will do anything to protect the children and me. And the Fatherland. Frankly, I am surprised Goering has lived this long.”
“Goering is a weak character in many ways. As long as I keep the pressure on, he does fine. He requires leadership. By the standards of those madmen who used to rule the country, he was considered effective. But that was mainly because he was following Hitler. In the long run, I fear I may have to make some tough decisions about him.”
“Emmy understands,” she said.
“Emmy understands?” He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“She told me that she wouldn’t have blamed you if you had had him taken out and shot.”
“Emmy said that?” He was truly surprised, now.
“She loves him dearly, and would be devastated if something happened to him,” Gisela said. “But, she also is a realist and knows he is a weak man. She is grateful you have made the efforts to control him.”
Schloss threw the covering off, and stood up. He walked over to the railing and leaned on it, looking out at the lake.
“You know,” he said, “sometimes I wished I smoked. Then I could busy myself with pulling out a cigarette and lighting it as I studied the scenery. Then I could think of something to say. You have left me speechless.”
“Darling, Emmy Goering is probably twice as intelligent as her husband.”
“And that will not make me feel the slightest bit better if I have to kill him,” Schloss said. “Guilt is probably a necessary part of morality, but it is really unpleasant at times.”
She slipped out of her chair and walked over to hug him. “I’m sorry, Darling, but I cannot change my opinion that you are a great man. Perhaps the greatest of this age.”
He stared at her. “How can you say that? I mean, I love what I am doing, but I seem to skate from one near disaster to the next. And, as time goes on, I feel less capable.”
And I no longer have the historian’s vision of what did happen. I changed that history. I can no longer see the future.
“And once again you demonstrate your modesty.”
“Could we talk about something else, Gisela?” he asked, sharply.
She laughed and hugged him again. “Of course, Hennie. What would you like to talk about?”
“Well, something that keeps pushing itself into my thoughts. I wonder if we ought really to consider building an executive residence for the Reichschancellor? I really do not like living in that mausoleum, and I think we need to separate the person of the Reichschancellor from the office.”
“I think I have been a part of nagging you about that, Darling,” she said. “I think you have put your finger on exactly the point. Too much of our history is bound up in the leaders, not the institutions. And we also need to think about reinstating the constitution.”
Schloss looked back out at the lake again. “I haven’t given a lot of thought to the constitution, and I should have. Perhaps I can talk to Speer about the mansion. He has done good work for Goering. I need to think about the constitution.”
“I don’t believe we need to be in a rush, Hennie. But it’s good to talk about it.”
“Would you like to take a walk down to the lake shore?” he asked.
“Is this a change of subject?”
“Of course not.”
§ § §
May 5, 1942; 10PM
Haifa, Palestine Territory
Otto Skorzeny lingered in the shadows of the downtown buildings of Haifa as he observed his quarry. Perhaps quarry was a strong term. He had been following Menachem Begin for a couple of weeks. David Ben Gurion had asked him to make some sense of Begin’s perambulations and to identify those with whom he had meetings.
The little Jew was cocky and self-confident to the point of negligence. He had not once shown any suspicions of anyone following him. The man was clearly plotting, but seemed unconcerned about security.
Skorzeny originally had misgivings about his mission in Palestine. He had quietly eliminated the leaders of the Arab and Moslem factions, which also stopped the organized resistance to the Jewish migration. The change in Nazi party policy had been swift and bewildering. He had gone from rounding up Jews in Poland for execution to executing Arabs and Moslems to preserve Jews in Palestine.
Skorzeny was an opportunist, though. He had admired Hitler, but had never bought into the ubermenschen falderal. So, if they now decided that the Jews were Germany’s best friends, who was he to argue? Plus, he thought it was now easier for him to live with himself.
So when Rainer had asked him to work with Ben Gurion on keeping the Jews from the more radical activities, he had shrugged and carried out his orders. Oddly enough, he discovered that he liked David Ben Gurion. The little man had a gentle manner, an attractive persona, and a soul of steel. And, he also agreed with Ben Gurion that Begin was dangerous. Begin seemed to have no moral scruples to limit his activities. Skorzeny was enough of a realist to understand the irony of someone with his lack of scruples trying to control another. He thought it was funny. He was surprised when he realized that, in his quiet way, Ben Gurion thought it was funny, too.
He had regularly delivered reports to Ben Gurion, naming those who Begin visited. He suggested he could pull those on the Begin List in for some rigorous questioning, or perhaps even have them quietly shot. But, Ben Gurion seemed satisfied just to know with whom Begin was dealing.
The growing excitement of Begin and his cohort alarmed Skorzeny. Something big was in making, and he wasn’t sure he could stop it without taking direct action. He had begged Ben Gurion to allow him to take action, but the man had simply smiled and said he had it under control. Skorzeny fervently hoped so. If Begin accomplished something big as a result of Ben Gurion’s miscalculation, the whole region could burst into flames.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
May 5 1942; 10AM
Office of the Reichschancellor
Reichschancellery
Berlin, Germany
“What have we to discuss this morning, Karl?” Schloss asked as Rainer seated himself across from Schloss’s desk.
They both had the obligatory cup of coffee in their hands as well as a plate of pastries between them.
“How do you keep from putting on weight with all the visitors to your office expecting the refreshments?”
“Don’t start, Karl,” Schloss mock growled “I’m starting to develop a roll around my middle. You
would not believe the pinch Gisela gave me.
“She had something to say about it, right?”
“The lecture was ferocious. So, I no longer touch the pastries. They are for the guests only. So, eat up.”
“Right,” Rainer said. “I need to keep my boyish figure.”
“That’s how you keep the girls on the string, my friend.”
Rainer frowned slightly and cleared his throat. “And that brings us to one of the items we needed to discuss.”
“That sounds ominous. Am I going to have to intercede for you with someone’s angry father?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. As you know, I have been developing a source in the American consulate.”
“Yes,” Schloss agreed. “The Simpson woman. How is that going?”
“Entirely too well, I am afraid.”
Schloss took a sip of his coffee, then looked out the window. He looked back at Rainer.
“Come on, Karl. What is it that I don’t want to hear?”
“I’m afraid I may have compromised my mission, Herr Reichschancellor.”
“Are we now so formal, Karl? How did this happen?”
Rainer set his cup down and leaned forward with his hands folded. “I find that I have become entirely too interested in Fraulein Simpson.”
“I see,” Schloss said.
He leaned back in his chair, then stood up. He walked over to the window nearest the desk and eased the curtain to the side. He looked out at the cityscape for a full minute, then walked back to his chair. He stood behind the chair and leaned his forearms on the back.
“And this is a failure, how?”
“I was supposed to be developing a source with the Americans. I was not supposed to fall in love.”
“It happens, Karl. It happened to me. You have not given her confidential information, I assume.”
“I have been very careful in my trade-craft.”
“And how does the fraulein feel about you, Karl?” Schloss asked.
“Oh,” and he chuckled nervously, “she confessed to the same problem. Herr Smoke is yelling about her lack of professionalism and has been trying to get the government to call her home.”
