‘Yeah, what the hell was that all about?’ asked Cathy.
‘Are you sure you really want to know?’ said Pauli and in response to Cathy’s vigorous reply he continued. ‘The FBI reckon that because the aircraft is operated by a local company and is always flitting around DC, nobody gives it a second glance. They think the plan was for Novak to take you guys away to a pick-up spot – not right in front of the amphitheatre, they think that was a late change of plan – put you in the back and then… well, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. I can’t think Novak’s people would have let the pilot survive either.’
James was momentarily lost for words. ‘Christ. Talk about a lucky escape,’ he said at last. ‘And who was the guy in the helicopter, the one who got shot?’
‘We know he was the one who hijacked it, that much was on TV, but the Feds are sitting tight on the full story,’ said Pauli. ‘I’ve still got one or two friends at court, so to speak, and they’re saying he was probably one of Vince’s two bogus FBI agents who were working the IT guy from your office, Cathy.’
‘There’s still one thing I need to know,’ she said. ‘What was in the letter that Reiss sent to Lisa?’
Pauli’s features darkened once more. ‘I was hoping you weren’t going to ask that. Amongst other things it told the truth about who Anton and Emma Pauli really were.’
Cathy shot a glance at James. ‘We’d worked that much out ourselves,’ she said. ‘But did it explain why the Hitlers were on the same ticket out of Berlin as the two scientists?’
Pauli looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Can’t you guess?’ he asked.
‘Sure. The Hitlers get to stay alive, the Manhattan Project gets two people it needs.’
Pauli nodded. ‘Close enough,’ he said.
‘But it’s not even scratching the surface,’ said Cathy. ‘Who put the deal together? Who signed off on something like this? I mean, even today, what if the Russians find out the two bodies they found outside the bunker weren’t the right ones?’
‘At a guess,’ said Pauli, ‘even today there’d be a diplomatic shit-storm with the Kremlin and the reputations of a whole bunch of people who thought they were acting for the best would get flushed down the can.’
‘And?’
‘And I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. When you’re up and about we’ll discuss it in more detail.’
‘No dice, Eric. Show me the letter and I promise not to mention the Hitler angle. You try and sit on it and I’ll blow the lid off the whole story, Arnie Hillman, your parents and all.’
Pauli smiled and sat back down next to the bed. ‘OK, you win,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘And I promise I won’t even think about putting a contract out on you.’
***
The following morning, Cathy was discharged from hospital and at Janet Pauli’s invitation, they spent the day with her, grateful for her husband’s Secret Service detachment who kept the TV crews at bay.
At eight o’clock that evening, they stood in the wings of the auditorium with Janet. Cathy noticed a tear in her eye when her husband stepped up to the microphone, greeted by thunderous applause and a volley of camera flashes. In contrast to the tired, drawn figure that everyone was used to seeing on the campaign trail, Pauli looked refreshed, confident and at ease. He spoke clearly and kept the speech brief.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you are no doubt aware, my former chief of staff was shot dead three days ago while trying to take two members of the public hostage at gunpoint. Unbeknown to me, Vince Novak had been misappropriating campaign contributions and using the money to fund a series of murders and other crimes in the USA and in Europe. I can assure you I had no knowledge that he was engaged in any form of criminal activity. What I do know is why he did it.’ Pauli stopped to take a sip of water and an expectant hush fell on the packed auditorium. ‘He did it in the mistaken belief that he was protecting me.’ A gasp of amazement went round the room and Pauli held up his hand for silence. He continued. ‘About eight years ago, during my first term as a senator, I came across my late mother’s diary. Until that time I had good reason to believe that she and my father had been imprisoned in Auschwitz by the Nazis. The diaries made it clear that not only was this untrue, but my parents were in fact war criminals of the worst sort and came to the USA under stolen identities. Rather than admit these facts publicly, I chose to be dishonest and to conceal them in order to avoid the possibility of public censure for crimes that I did not commit. I was wrong to do so. Furthermore, I shared this information with a man, who at the time, was my trusted friend and confidant, Vince Novak. I sought and heeded his advice but the ultimate decision to hide the truth rests with me.
‘When recent events threatened to bring the truth about my parents to light, he robbed, murdered and cheated – did anything and everything he could – in order to prevent the revelation of facts which would have been harmful to my candidacy. I do not believe he acted out of loyalty, but rather out of ambition: had I been elected and his crimes gone undetected, he was certain to achieve high office. But as Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” These crimes were committed on my watch and therefore the burden of vicarious responsibility is mine and mine alone. It is for that reason that I hereby announce my resignation from the US Senate, a fine institution that my behaviour has disgraced, and I wish to make clear that I am standing down as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency. I will not take questions, and all I would ask is that you respect my family’s desire for privacy while we come to terms with these terrible events. Thank you.’ Pauli turned and walked purposefully towards Janet, head held high. As he disappeared from view into the wings, the sound of the standing ovation rang through the hall.
Out of sight of the crowd, the Paulis embraced. ‘That was great,’ said Janet, arms draped over his shoulders and looking up into his face. Then she turned to Cathy whom she also hugged. ‘I can’t begin to thank you enough,’ she said. ‘Eric’s told me what the two of you have agreed. I know…well, I don’t know, but I can have a good guess what a story like this would’ve meant to your career.
Cathy smiled, ‘Hey, even if I choose to leave a few bits out, it’s still one hell of a story.’
‘And a lot of good men’s reputations will be preserved – better men than me, that’s for sure,’ said Pauli.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Cathy and James sat on the terrace of the Lodge, gazing at the view they both loved so much. ‘OK, hot shot,’ she said. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Oh, you know, I’ve got one or two ideas,’ he replied.
She nestled closer to him and put her arm around his shoulder. ‘And what do they involve, these ideas of yours?’
‘What do they involve? Well they involve total nudity on your part and a family-sized bottle of baby-oil – ’
She slapped him playfully on the leg. ‘You know that’s not what I meant…but now you mention it, it does sound fun.’
‘So what did you mean?’ asked James, gazing deeply into her eyes.
‘Us.’
‘Well, I start the new job next week and – ’ he stopped and looked out over the darkening garden to the headland of Start Point and the Channel beyond.
‘And what?’ Not a breath of wind stirred the summer flowers and the afterglow of the heat of the day radiated from the flagstones beneath their feet.
‘And I’d like it if you’d stay.’
‘I’d like that too,’ she murmured softly, leaning her head against his shoulder.
‘Wouldn’t you miss Washington?’
‘Yes, but it’s not a million miles away when we want to take a trip back. If the traffic’s bad it can take almost as long to drive down here from London.’ They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the bats hawking for insects. ‘I’m glad you want me to stay,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything until I was sure you did, but I’ve been offered a job in London with Associated Press. D’you think I should take it?’
> ‘Yes I do,’ said James, pulling her tightly to him.
THE END
Author’s note
I wrote The Manhattan Deception in 2010 and the idea for the plot came from watching a US TV news bulletin on Obamacare. Protestors were getting carried away and making ridiculous comparisons between the President and Hitler: others were trotting out the tired old accusations that Obama wasn’t really American. I was just about to change channels to be rid of the shouty idiots when my brilliant wife, Wendy, took the remote control from me.
‘There’s your next book,’ she said, triumphantly. As usual, I was several steps behind and had to have it explained to me. ‘Hitler in the White House,’ Wendy said. ‘Well maybe not Hitler, but his son.’
‘Er, great idea,’ I replied. ‘But how do we get him there?’
‘No idea. That’s up to you, you’re the author.’
As anyone with a passing knowledge of the period will have seen, I’ve taken historical events and given them a bit of a twist. In truth, the Nazi atom bomb project was nowhere near producing a viable weapon. Many of Germany’s best scientists had either fled the country or been drafted into the army. However, at the time, the Allies believed the prospect of a Nazi Bomb to be a reality, and, as the war in Europe drew to a close, a race began between the Soviets and the western powers with each side trying to grab scientists and nuclear technology from the wreckage of Hitler’s thousand-year Reich. The Manhattan Deception mentions some of the operations by the Alsos Mission (Alsos is ancient Greek for groves, a pun on the US General’s name) which captured a number of German scientists, including my two fictional characters, Standfluss and Reiss, who were interned at Farm Hall in England, where listening devices were hidden in every room.
The Soviets had their successes too. Not only did they capture German scientists, like Gernot Zippe, whose design for an uranium-refining centrifuge bears an uncanny resemblance to that developed by Georg Reiss, but they were aided by a spy ring at the heart of the Manhattan Project. It may seem odd to modern eyes, but from the 1930s to the early 1950s, Stalin’s brand of communism was seen by idealists in the west, many of them old enough to know better, as the perfect antidote to the capitalist nationalism that, in their eyes, had caused the two world wars. The reality of the Gulag, the summary executions, the millions murdered or starved to death was unknown or ignored by such ‘useful idiots’ as Fuchs and Hall, who betrayed nuclear secrets to the Rosenberg spy ring, thus allowing Soviet Russia to develop atomic weapons far sooner than the West had feared.
The real saviour of the Manhattan Project was of course Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant, but deeply flawed individual, who acted as orchestra leader and ringmaster over some of the finest minds in physics to rescue a project that had become mired in technical difficulty and in-fighting. American fears of millions of GI losses in an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have become reality without Oppenheimer and his team.
For a wonderfully absorbing biography of Oppenheimer, I can recommend Sherwin and Bird’s, American Prometheus. The book paints its subject as a volatile mixture of genius, showman, inspirational leader, idealist and egotist: a man whose liberal views and pre-war dalliance with Communism (it seems certain he never inhaled) led to his persecution during the McCarthy witch trials of the 1950s. After all he had done for his country, he was trampled underfoot by the thundering charge of what today would be called political correctness. If there’s one lesson to be learned from America’s treatment of Oppie, then to paraphrase JFK, it’s, “don’t ask what your country can do for you, but worry about what your country can do to you.”
Simon Leighton-Porter
London, March 2013
***
If you’ve enjoyed The Manhattan Deception, you might like to try The Seven Stars, a thriller spanning two thousand years where a deadly secret from the first century Roman empire is still worth killing for today. Here’s the first chapter:
Chapter One
Patras, Greece. AD 60
Gasping for breath, the Galilean dashed between the market stalls, pulling down awnings, lines of washing and baskets of produce as he ran. Anything to buy time, anything to slow them down. To the left a narrow opening between the mud-brick walls, partially hidden by a curtain: he pulled it aside, moving from bright sunshine into the cool depths of the passageway beyond. Now in his fifties and overweight, he knew he couldn’t out-run them; he would just have to try and lose them in the warren of lanes and alleys surrounding the port. As he ran, lungs bursting, he heard once more the sound of pursuit closing in: they had seen him. A bend in the passage hid him from sight and at the end, emerging into the sunlight once more, he turned right and forced his unwilling legs uphill towards the acropolis. It would take him away from the port, in completely the wrong direction, but perhaps they might not expect him to head that way. Perhaps.
Glancing behind, he never saw the outstretched arm which caught him across the throat like a rope, slamming him down onto his back. Winded and in pain, he tried to ward off the kicks that seemed to be coming from all directions: a vicious blow to the ribs and then rough hands pulling him upright. ‘Not planning on leaving us so soon, Andreas?’ said a short, wiry young man who had pushed himself to the front of the crowd. ‘Aegeas would like a little word with you first.’ A fist caught him flush on the side of the head.
He struggled but there were too many of them; thirty or more, the usual band of dockside toughs, marshalled by five Roman soldiers who looked on in contempt as more blows rained down.
The soldiers dragged him, bloodied and groaning, into the presence of Aegeas. Tertiary syphilis had rendered the Roman governor of Achaea’s face a hideous mask and had twisted his mouth into a permanent rictus grin. He stood up from behind his desk and, using his cane for support, hobbled round to Andreas. ‘Release him,’ he said.
The soldiers obeyed but the Galilean’s feet went from under him and he slumped down onto the cold marble floor. He looked up at Aegeas in supplication and through lips swollen from his beating, tried to speak. ‘I can explain –’
The Roman moved closer and one of the soldiers bent to pick Andreas up. ‘Leave him,’ said Aegeas, gesturing them away. They stepped back at once: Obedience to Aegeas was instinctive; a life-preserving reaction. For a moment he stood over Andreas, saying nothing and then struck him across the face with the heavy cane, causing his victim’s hands to come up in an effort to protect himself. After ten, maybe a dozen blows he stopped, caught his breath and then spoke as though they were discussing the price of olive oil.
‘If there’s one thing I cannot abide, it’s disrespect, Andreas.’
‘Please sir, let me explain –’
‘No, please, kindly allow me. Interrupt again, Andreas,’ he said without a trace of emotion, ‘and I’ll have your tongue cut out. Now, talking of tongues, it’s your stupid tongue that’s landed you in this mess, isn’t it? Answer me, man.’ As his voice rose, his disfigurement caused the words to run into a menacing cobra’s hiss.
‘Yes, sir, it has.’ Andreas spoke as though every word was an agony.
‘Yes.’ Another venom-laden hiss. ‘I very politely asked you to stop preaching sedition. Nero himself has made it clear that filling the plebeians’ heads with nonsense about your imaginary Jewish god and about Christ and his stupid conjuring tricks, is punishable by death. I’ve been lenient with you, Andreas, I could’ve had you crucified but I gave you a chance, didn’t I?’
Andreas tried to shift position, but the pain from a broken rib caused him to cry out. ‘But you don’t understand, sir. I serve a higher authority –’
‘A loose tongue and a disrespectful one. You disobeyed an order from the Emperor, you turned down a polite invitation to come and speak to me and then had the discourtesy to try and leave my province without permission. And then when you are brought before me, you fail to remain standing in my presence.’ He gestured once more to the guards. ‘Pick him up. I want to make sure he hears this.’ They
heaved Andreas to his feet and Aegeas hobbled towards him, so close that the Galilean could almost taste the foul odour from the governor’s rotting gums. ‘Together with your friends, the boatmen, you will be scourged and crucified tomorrow on the beach. For you, however, we have a little treat. No nails, just ropes. And before you thank me, understand that it will take you twice as long to die. Get him out of my sight.’
Expressionless, Aegeas watched the soldiers drag him away, his pleas for mercy echoing down the corridor. Once they were out of sight he returned to his desk and picked up a folding bronze frame no bigger than a man’s hand. On each interior face was a layer of hardened beeswax. With a stylus he carved two simple figures: A.X. Pulling the leather strap tight around the frame, he applied his wax seal and shouted for his personal slave. ‘Tell the captain of the guard,’ said Aegeas, ‘that he is to deliver this into the hand of the emperor himself. He will be expecting it.’
The slave disappeared at a trot down the same corridor, closing the door at the end. A few moments later, Aegeas was joined by the young man who had spoken to Andreas from the crowd. The governor turned to greet the new arrival. ‘You did well, Josephus.’ he said. ‘The emperor will be most grateful.’
‘A pleasure as always, sir.’ he replied, his slightly accented Latin betraying his Judean origins.
Andreas’ fate was sealed and with his execution, the newly-fledged Christian church would have its first martyr – Saint Andrew. Few but Josephus knew the crimes of which Andreas was guilty: and for Josephus this was personal.
More details about The Seven Stars can be found at
The Manhattan Deception Page 35
