by A. W. Mykel
“A chance…hidden,” Elizabeth echoed back, shaking her head at the stubborn optimism. “It could be anywhere now—even on the President’s desk for all we know.”
Honeycut leveled a burning stare at her. “So what? What can the President do about it? We’ve progressed beyond any serious threat of interference now. You know that,” he said irritably.
“You’re right, Irv. But the obstacles could be greater.”
“What obstacles?” Honeycut growled.
“The people. It’s too soon,” Elizabeth answered.
“The people can’t stop it, either.”
“No, the people can’t stop it. But it could necessitate resorting to the ‘old way,’ a way that wasn’t in the plan. It could add years to the final realization of our goals.”
“We were always prepared for that possibility,” Honeycut retorted. “Either way, it’s inevitable that the plan will succeed, whether we get that journal back or not. Besides, we may not have to go that way, if he tells us where he’s hidden it,” Honeycut said.
“Or whom he may have given it to,” she added.
Honeycut looked at her sharply. “It doesn’t matter who has it. We can put an end to any existing threat. There will be no foolish chances taken this time.”
That was Honeycut’s first acknowledgment of the unnecessary risks undertaken by his errors in judgment concerning Pilgrim. Elizabeth had never heard him admit to being wrong in a serious matter. There was a satisfaction in its sound.
Honeycut did not like his position in this discussion. He found himself arguing points contrary to his beliefs to salvage his wounded pride. He knew well that the old way was never a part of the plan that he had so carefully worked out around Niederlage guidelines. He had sold them on his plan, convincing them that it could work—that it would work.
“He’ll never tell you,” Elizabeth said.
“I think he will.”
“And what if he’s done something foolish, like sending it to the Washington Post or New York Times?” Elizabeth asked. “What do you do then?”
Honeycut laughed. “It would certainly make for great fiction,” he commented. “I doubt that either the Post or the Times would take it seriously without first obtaining some supportive evidence. They don’t even have a confirmed source.”
“It’s all there,” Elizabeth said. “Once it hits the public, something could break loose. There are a lot of people in the program. If one of them believes it…”
Honeycut’s smile faded. “We have Pilgrim. That much of the problem is resolved. He can’t hurt us anymore.
“I’m not worried about his telling us where it is,” Honeycut said confidently. “I’m sure that he can be induced to talk—one way or another.”
That disturbing look was on Honeycut’s face again, but Elizabeth said nothing. She could sense the inner desperation, the wall of defensive optimism being constructed within the man. She almost felt sorry for him.
The slow journey back to consciousness was filled with disturbing flashbacks of his last moments with Barbara. The stinging realization of her betrayal burned painfully through Justin, along with the sickening reality and truth of her words that nothing was real.
Nothing was real! Barbara, Ted, Pappy, the agency…even the windchimes. Not real…all for his benefit.
He opened his eye and looked around the room. He was back at Sigma.
He sat up.
His head throbbed, the eye hurt. He was sick and aching inside. It was really over now. It had finally cost him everything.
A strange calmness filled him. There was no fear of the obvious end awaiting him. He had done what he could, all that he could, his very best. He felt proud of never betraying himself or his beliefs against the incredible odds, when it would have been the easy thing to do, to look away and ignore its presence—to remain untouched by it and safe.
He looked at the date on his watch. Two days had passed since being taken. He rubbed the ragged stubble on his face, almost five days’ worth. He thought about shaving. What the fuck for? he wondered. He’d probably never shave again. Never do many things again.
He stretched his arms and noticed the tiny needle marks from where they had injected him to keep him unconscious. He rose from the bed and stretched life into the rest of his stiff muscles, aware that he must be under visual surveillance. The monitors were well hidden, but he knew they were there. He limped a step or two for their benefit and looked around the room. The cane was lying across a small table on the other side of the room. He limped to it. As he walked, a bulkiness made its awareness felt in his back pocket. He reached for it and pulled out a doubly fat wallet. Looking inside, he found a thick wad of cash.
Barbara. The pain was fresh again.
He counted it silently. Twenty-six hundred dollars. Before returning the wallet to his pocket, he took out the metal security card that Honeycut had given him. He limped, with feigned assistance from the cane, to the closed sliding doors.
He pushed the button.
As he expected, nothing happened.
He put the security card into the slot.
Still nothing.
The card was useless now—probably always had been.
He walked back to the bed and sat, bending the card back and forth until it snapped in two. He held the pieces in his hand, staring at them.
The sudden sound of the sliding doors startled him, making him turn to them. Two armed security guards came through the doors. There were two more visible outside in the hallway.
“You will come with us, please,” one of them said, with cold authority in his tone.
Justin looked at them and stood. Without a word, he followed them out, absently putting the broken halves of the ID card into his pocket.
Moments later the two electric carts rolled to a halt in front of the control-center doors. Two of the guards accompanied him to them. The doors slid open, and he was escorted in.
Honeycut and Elizabeth Ryerson were waiting for him.
“Thank you. You can leave us now,” Honeycut said to the security guards. He held Justin’s Mauser aimed carefully at him. Honeycut’s face was ruddy, stiff, an almost hostile urgency across it.
The doors closed behind the security team, leaving the three of them standing in a disquieting silence.
Justin glanced casually at Elizabeth. There was a nervousness in her eyes, but it was unlike the strange tension he had seen in them before. It was a more confident apprehension now.
Honeycut raised the Mauser upward and removed the clip, then ejected the round in the chamber in a gesture designed to gain Justin’s confidence.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened at the unexpected move. For a second, her own confidence waned, replaced by a confused nervousness. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly, in disbelief.
“Sit,” Honeycut said to Justin, motioning to a single chair in the center of the room.
Justin complied limpingly.
Honeycut stared at him in silence. Justin stared back, waiting, willing to remain silent until Honeycut began.
“We know that you’ve found the journal,” Honeycut said finally. “You’ve undoubtedly read it.”
Justin remained silent, staring evenly into the face.
“Now you’re going to tell us what you’ve done with it,” Honeycut said flatly.
Justin said nothing.
“Where is the journal, Justin?” Honeycut asked.
Still no reply, just the even stare.
“Let’s dispense with the games, shall we?” Honeycut said, placing the Mauser and clip on the console in front of him.
The two men locked eyes, measuring one another.
“Where is the journal, Justin?” Honeycut repeated.
“You’re the one with all the fucking explanations. You tell me,” Justin replied.
Honeycut frowned and shook his head, rubbing the back of his reddening neck with his hand.
“This can be easy or it can be difficult—for both of us.
I’ve no wish to use unpleasant means of persuasion on you to get to the answers. However, if you leave us no other choice, we will resort to whatever methods necessary, to get you to tell us what we want to know,” Honeycut threatened.
“That’s not your style—Colorosa,” Justin said.
Honeycut’s face reddened instantly. He squinted pensively at Justin. “I imagine that wasn’t hard to figure out,” he said. “But none of that matters. Where is the journal?” he asked sharply.
“Where’s Barbara?” Justin asked back.
Honeycut stared evenly at him for a long moment. “She’s been reassigned,” he answered.
“Reassigned,” Justin repeated. “How long has she been a part of it?” he asked.
“Since before you knew her,” Honeycut answered. “A little over three years.”
“And Steve? Did he know about all of this Raptor bullshit too?”
“No. Only a very small number of people in the program do, actually,” Honeycut replied.
“The President?” Justin asked.
Honeycut shook his head in response. “The secret is quite secure. Where is the journal?” he asked again.
No answer.
“It will do no good,” Honeycut said. “Nothing you can do will stop Operation Raptor now. Nothing anybody can do will stop it. You may as well tell us, to make it easier on everyone. There’s nothing to gain by your refusal at this point.”
A small disturbing smile broke across Justin’s lips. “That’s not exactly so,” he said.
“Oh, but I can assure you that it is so. The plan is in its advanced stages. It is absolutely impossible to affect it now. So tell us where it is,” Honeycut said.
Justin continued smiling.
“Where is it?” Elizabeth shouted from the side, in a near-hysterical rage, no longer able to tolerate Justin’s cool demeanor.
Justin cast her a cool, nonchalant stare, then looked away, as if to disregard her very presence in the room.
Elizabeth’s face twisted in anger. “You son-of-a-bitch,” she hissed. She could envision no greater pleasure than to see the life drain from the eyes and face of this man, to be rid of him—forever. “You’ll tell us where it is…or…”
“Why don’t you come on over here and try it,” Justin said and smiled at her. “I’ll give you something you’ve been needing for a long time.”
“Where is the journal?” Honeycut asked sharply, drawing the attention of both of them with the severity of his tone.
Justin stared at him defiantly. “Where it will do you the most possible harm,” he answered, mounting a small offensive of his own.
Elizabeth’s eyes stabbed nervously into Honeycut. You see! You see! I told you, they said clearly.
“That’s a very foolish attitude,” Honeycut said. “I’ve told you that there is nothing that you or anyone can do to stop it now. Not giving us that journal will only result in the greatest unpleasantness for you and whoever has it. Tell us where it is, Justin. Tell us now…and you’ll walk out of here alive. You have my word on that.”
Alive!
Elizabeth’s face registered incredible shock at Honeycut’s words. She began to speak, but was immediately silenced by Honeycut’s raised hand.
“Tell us where it is, and you can go free,” Honeycut offered again.
“Do you expect me to believe that?” Justin said.
“You’ll be allowed to walk out of here a free man. I promise you that,” Honeycut repeated. “We’ll take precautions, of course, by fitting you with an explosive implant. We’ll also give you back the eye you lost. As long as you remain silent about what you know, you’ll be permitted to live a normal life. We’ll even help you get started again, say in Australia or New Zealand. The choice is yours.”
“A normal life?” Justin said sarcastically. “In the face of what you represent? There’ll be no such thing as a normal life.”
“It’s not what you think it is, Justin,” Honeycut insisted.
“It’s not? You’re a fucking comedian,” Justin said.
“This is a very different thing, Justin. Listen to me, while I explain a few things to you,” Honeycut said.
“Go ahead. I’ve got nothing but time.”
Honeycut stepped down from the console platform and took a few steps toward Justin. “The basic concepts of National Socialism were good for Germany and would have been for the rest of the world, too, if it hadn’t been handled so poorly.
“They made a great many mistakes, a great many mistakes. It’s easy to recognize where they went wrong, with the facility of hindsight to help us. But that’s what history is for, isn’t it? To study, to learn from? To avoid the mistakes of the past?
“One of their greatest mistakes was their lack of patience. Instead of adopting a hundred-year plan as we did in Operation Raptor, they charged ahead blindly without an adequate plan. The Germans,” he mused, “so methodical, deliberate, and calculating in all things—without a real plan. Oh, they had a plan, their master plan, but a shortsighted one. They could not see beyond the now of things to the real tomorrow. Their plan could have never worked.
“The future of the Third Reich was in the youth of Germany, the Hitler Youth and their children and their children’s children. From that tremendous resource pool should have arisen the leadership to make National Socialism work on a global scale.
“But they rushed madly at the world, wreaking destruction, subjugation, and genocide. They were led by incompetents who rose through the ranks, marginal types with ugly, twisted little brains grown drunk on sudden, unchecked power. They had used terror and violence to bang the beliefs into those slower to grasp the ideology of the New Order in its beginnings. They thought they could continue that way to conquer a world. They were terrible simplifiers.
“They need only have waited this long for the Nazi Youth to come of age, to make their major, lasting gains. Instead, they spent that youth on the battlefields of the world, spilled the blood of the seed-stock of their future, their very best—gone. That is one of the sad things of war, that the best die first, and all sides lose.” There was a sorrow in Honeycut’s eyes as he looked at Justin. The best are lost. How terribly true.
“But that all ended in the ashes of defeat. Operation Raptor is where the plan and the movement are to continue, not with the carefully planned survivors. They are all ‘old’ Nazis, the architects of the ‘old way.’ We have no further interest in them or their methods. They were all spawned from the failure of the past, from the misguided beliefs that led to the catastrophe.
“Their efforts at survival and attempts at revival kept the eyes of the world looking at them, while we began the patient building of our ultimate plan.
“Our greatest resource is to be the children of the generations untouched by the bitter memories of that painful period in world history. The new National Socialism will bear no relation to the old. It will never stray from the guiding principles set down in Operation Raptor.
“As you learned from the journal, we established the five steering centers from which to begin our building efforts. Each was potentially a home for the New Reich—a new Fatherland. But, as time passed, it became obvious that some of these could not aid in the plan. These steering centers were then quickly disbanded, for the security of the others.
“Germany was first, then Argentina and South Africa. Spain went last, only this year.
“You may recall from the journal the mention of Titus. After Wolf’s death, Titus managed to acquire his journal. He tried futilely to gain control, but he never stood a chance. The ‘special action’ Spartan performed, during which he uncovered the journal, removed him.
“Who was Wolf?” Justin asked.
“That doesn’t matter,” Honeycut replied. “It’s no longer important. Someday, when Raptor is finalized, the people will know who Wolf really was. His place in history will be secure,” he said.
“The ‘people’ will know?” Justin repeated. “The superhuman survivors?
The supermen of the human race? Germans?” he asked sarcastically.
“Aryans,” Honeycut corrected.
“Supermen,” Justin spat out. “That’s bullshit.”
“Not exactly,” Honeycut rejoined. “An exceptional race, despite their failings. A race still capable of greatly improving the human species.
“Twice, they rose to challenge the world, nearly succeeding. One tiny nation standing against the world. You can’t deny that they are exceptional. Their resilience is unequalled in human history.”
“So is their record of genocide,” Justin interrupted.
“There have been worse,” Honeycut said. “Did you know that the Russians killed nearly as many in their own death camps? The history books don’t say that. They don’t tell about their atrocities in Latvia and Estonia and many other countries, or of what they did in Poland, attacking from the East as we swept in from the West. The history books don’t show the real numbers of people killed during the Bolshevik revolution, or during Stalin’s bloody rise to power, or in the purge that followed his death. Those figures ‘don’t exist.’ But they are far greater than the fifty-five million attributed to us, to our war. But the history books will someday show the true legend—when we rewrite them.”
“What you say is probably true,” Justin allowed. “But the fact remains that your people did it with a sick logic and a brutal plan. People’s lives meant no more to them than blades of grass. It was done in the name of racial purification, to remove the Untermenschen from the face of the earth, leaving only the supermen, the Aryans. That’s all bullshit.”
Honeycut looked at Justin, his eyes filled with passion. “Look at Africa, at South America, at their inability to advance with the rest of the world. They are inferior. Can you deny that? Those same people choke this country today with their inferior work and living habits. The welfare roles of this country show that clearly. They strangle this economy. They strangle the world.
“There was no welfare in Germany—everybody worked, everybody contributed.”
“So did the slave labor, the Untermenschen,” Justin mocked.
