Günter Jäger … Adolf Hitler! Heil Hitler … Heil Jäger! Even the syllabic rhythm fitted the man. More and more, Jäger assumed the less public trappings of his predecessor: the absolute chain of command; the select few designated as his personal aides and through whom all appointments were made; his disdain for physical contact save for abrupt handshakes; his apparently genuine affection for young children, but not infants, and, finally, his asexuality. Women could be admired aesthetically, but not in a lascivious manner; even off-color remarks were unacceptable in his presence. Many ascribed this puritanical streak to his previous ecclesiastical duties, but Traupman, a physician to the brain, did not. Instead, he suspected a far darker explanation. Observing Jäger in the presence of women, he thought he discerned brief flashes of hatred in the new Führer’s eyes when a woman was provocatively dressed or used her physical charms to flatter men. No, Günter Jäger was not driven by a sense of purity, he was—like his predecessor—pathologically obsessed by a fear of women, by how much their wiles could destroy. But the surgeon quite wisely decided to keep his speculations to himself. The new Germany was everything, and if it took a charismatic figure with a flaw or two to bring it about, so be it.
The doctor had asked for a private audience this night, for events were taking place in the field that Jäger might not be aware of. His aides were intensely loyal, but none cared to be the bearer of disturbing news. Traupman, however, knew he was on safe ground, for he had literally plucked the mesmerizing orator from his enraged church and pushed him into the front ranks of the Brotherhood. In the final analysis, if there was one man left who could push him back, it was the celebrated surgeon.
He secured his boat, and awkwardly, painfully, climbed up on the dock only to be greeted by a heavyset guard who emerged from the shadows of a riverbank tree. “Come, Herr Doktor,” called out the man. “The Führer is waiting for you.”
“In the house, of course?”
“No, sir. In the garden. Follow me, please.”
“The garden? A cabbage patch is now a garden?”
“I myself planted a great many flowers and our staff cleared the riverbank. They placed flagstones where there were only reeds and debris.”
“You’re not exaggerating,” said Traupman as they approached a small clearing on the edge of the Rhine, where two lanterns were suspended from tree branches, the wicks now being lighted by another aide. Around the short flagstone patio were several pieces of outdoor furniture, three upright lawn chairs and a white wrought-iron table. It was a pastoral enclave for private meditation or confidential meetings. And seated in the far chair, his blond hair catching the irregular light of the lanterns, was Günter Jäger, the new Führer. At the sight of his old friend, he rose and held out his arms, immediately lowering his left and extending his right hand.
“How good of you to come, Hans.”
“I requested the meeting, Günter.”
“Drivel. You don’t need to request anything of me, you simply say what you want. Sit down, sit down. Can I get you something, a drink perhaps?”
“No, thank you. I want to get back to Nuremberg as soon as I can. The unintercepted messages keep my telephone ringing.”
“Unintercepted?… Oh, yes, the scramblers.”
“Exactly. You have the same.”
“Do I?”
“Different channels perhaps, but whatever I learn you should know also.”
“That said and agreed to, what is so urgent, my good doctor?”
“How much do you know of the recent events in Paris?”
“Everything, I trust.”
“Gerhardt Kroeger?”
“Shot to death by the Americans in that mess at the Hotel Inter-Continental. Good riddance; he never should have gone to Paris.”
“He felt he had a mission to complete.”
“What mission?”
“The death of Harry Latham, the CIA officer who penetrated the valley and was exposed by Kroeger.”
“We’ll find him, not that it matters,” said Jäger. “The valley no longer exists.”
“But you’re convinced Gerhardt Kroeger is dead.”
“It was in the report forwarded to Bonn Intelligence by our embassy. In those circles, it’s common knowledge, although they’re burying it because they don’t care to throw a spotlight on us.”
“A report, if I’m not mistaken, that originated at the American Embassy.”
“Presumably. They knew Kroeger was one of us—how could they not know? The stupid pig started shooting up the place believing he could kill this Latham. However, the Americans didn’t learn anything, he died on his way to their embassy.”
“I see,” said Hans Traupman, shifting his body in the chair, only sporadically glancing at Günter Jäger as if he were pained to engage his new Führer’s eyes. “And our Sonnenkind, Janine Clunitz, wife of the American ambassador?”
“We hardly needed our penetrators to learn what happened, Hans. It was in all the newspapers in Europe and America and everywhere else, confirmed by witnesses. She narrowly escaped an ambush by Israeli extremists out to kill Courtland over what they called an ‘Arabist’ State Department. He was wounded and, unfortunately, our Sonnenkind Clunitz survived. She’ll be dead in a day or so, I’ve been assured of that.”
“Finally, Günter—mein Führer—”
“I told you before, Hans, between us that’s not required.”
“I require it of myself. You are far more than the gangster from Munich ever was. You are highly educated, historically grounded, and ideologically positioned by what is happening, not only in Germany, but in all countries. The ill born, the unworthy, and the mediocre are assuming positions of power in governments everywhere, and you understand that this destructive trend must stop. You can bring this about … mein Führer.”
“Thank you, Hans, but you were saying? ‘Finally’—what?”
“This man Latham, the deep-cover Central Intelligence officer who penetrated the valley and was exposed by Gerhardt Kroeger—”
“What about him?” interrupted Jäger.
“He’s still alive. He’s better than we thought.”
“He’s only a man, Hans. Flesh and blood and with a heart muscle that can be stopped, punctured with a bullet or a knife. I’ve authorized two units of Blitzkrieger to fly to Paris and accomplish the task. They won’t fail. They dare not fail.”
“And the woman he lives with?”
“The De Vries whore?” asked the new Führer. “She must be killed with him—or before him, preferably. Her sudden death will unnerve him, cause him to be more vulnerable; he’ll make mistakes.… Is all this what you’ve come to tell me, Hans?”
“No, Günter,” said Traupman, getting up from the chair and pacing between the shadows and the glare of the two lanterns. “I’ve come to tell you the truth, as I’ve perceived the truth through my own sources.”
“Your own sources?”
“No different from yours, I assure you, but I’m an old man whose training is in the nuts and bolts of surgery, and all too frequently patients skirt around their symptoms, frightened by my diagnoses if they were totally honest. Eventually, you learn to understand a degree of self-deceiving falsity.”
“Please be clearer.”
“I shall, and I’ll support what I say by my own inquiries.… Gerhardt Kroeger did not die. I suspect he’s alive and a prisoner in the American Embassy.”
“What?” Jäger shot forward in his chair.
“I sent one of our people to the Inter-Continental hotel, with official French identification, of course, to interrogate the surviving clerks. They all speak English, and they said they distinctly heard two of the guards on the balcony shouting that the ‘maniac’ had been shot in the legs, but was still alive. They took him away and put him into an ambulance. I repeat, still alive.”
“My God!”
“Next, I had our people examine the so-called witnesses to the assault on the American Embassy, where the ambassador was s
everely wounded and his wife supposedly survived. These witnesses could not understand the subsequent reports on television and in the newspapers. They told our people that the woman’s upper chest and face were flowing with blood.… ‘How could she have lived?’ they asked.”
“So our people did their work. She’s gone.”
“Then why are they keeping it quiet? Why?”
“That godforsaken Latham, that’s why!” cried Jäger, the hatred returning to his ice-cold eyes. “He’s trying to fool us, to pull us into a trap.”
“You know him?”
“Of course not. I know men like him. All corrupted by whores.”
“Do you know her?”
“Good God, no. But since the legions of the pharaohs, the whores have always corrupted armies. They follow in their covered caravans, sapping the soldiers of their strength for a few minutes of unholy pleasure! Whores!”
“As accurate as that judgment may be, Günter, and I do not dispute it, it’s not particularly relevant to what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying, Hans? You tell me that things are not as they’ve been reported and I reply that you may be correct, that our enemies are attempting to entrap us as we lay traps for them. There’s nothing new in this—except that we’re winning. Assess the circumstances, my friend. The Americans, the French, and the British are finding us everywhere and nowhere. In Washington, senators and congressmen are suspect; in Paris we have twenty-seven members of the Chamber of Deputies shaping laws to our benefit, and the head of the Deuxième in our pocket. London is ludicrous; they find an ineffectual adviser in the Foreign Office and overlook the first associate to the foreign secretary, who’s so furious over the black immigration that he could have written Mein Kampf!” Jäger stopped briefly as he rose from his chair and stood on the flagstone patio, looking over a flowered hedgerow at the calming waters of the Rhine. “Yet for all of that, our work in the lesser areas is even more impressive. An American politician once said ‘All politics is local,’ and he was right. Adolf Hitler understood that; it’s what gave him the Reichstag. You pit one race against another, one ethnic group against another, one economic class against another seemingly drained by it, you provoke chaos, wherein lies a vacuum. He did it from one city to another—Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Mannheim; troopers everywhere spreading rumors, sowing discontent. Finally, he rushed into and took the political Berlin; he could not have done that without the erratic but consuming support of the outlying areas.”
“Bravo, Günter,” cried Traupman, applauding. “You see the landscape so clearly, so perceptively.”
“Then what bothers you so?”
“Things you may not know—”
“Such as?”
“Two Blitzkrieger were taken alive in Paris and flown to Washington.”
“I was not told of this,” said Jäger, his words frozen in ice.
“It’s true, but it’s of no significance now. They were shot in a safe house in Virginia by our Penetrator Three at the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“He’s a moron, a clerk! We give him twenty thousand American dollars a year to tell us what the other departments are researching.”
“He now wants two hundred thousand for carrying out an order he believes would have been issued to him if he were higher on the ladder.”
“Kill him!”
“That’s not a good idea, Günter. Not until we learn whom he may have spoken to about us. As you pointed out, he’s a moron; he’s also a braggart.”
“That swine!” roared Jäger, turning from the glare of the lantern, his face in shadows.
“A swine who did us a considerable service,” added the doctor. “We’ll live with him for a while, even elevate him. The time will come when we can deal him other cards and he’ll become a grateful slave.”
“Ach, my dear Hans, you are so good for me. Your mind is like your steady surgical hand. If my predecessor had had more men like you around him, he would still be giving orders to the British Parliament.”
“In that spirit, I hope you will listen to me now, Günter.” Traupman took several steps across the patio; the two men were face-to-face in the flickering shadows.
“When haven’t I listened to you, my old friend and mentor? You are my Albert Speer, the precise analytical mind of an architect replaced by the precise analytical mind of a surgeon. Hitler made the mistake of ultimately disregarding Speer for the likes of Goering and Bormann. I shall never make such a mistake. What is it, Hans?”
“You were correct when you said we were winning the battle of nerves with our enemies. You were also accurate when you stated that in certain localities, especially in the United States, our Sonnenkinder have performed admirably, creating schisms and discontent.”
“I’m impressed with my own assessments,” interrupted Jäger, smiling.
“That’s the point, Günter, they are merely assessments based on current information.… However, the situation could change, and change rapidly. Right now could be the pinnacle of our strategic success.”
“Why the pinnacle?”
“Because too many traps are being set for us that we can’t know about. We may never be in such an advantageous position again.”
“Then what you’re really saying is ‘Invade England now, mein Führer, do not wait,’ ” interrupted Jäger once more.
“Water Lightning, of course,” said Traupman. “It must be moved up. Six Messerschmitt ME 323 Gigant gliders have been retrieved and are being reconditioned. We have to strike as soon as possible, and set the panic in motion. The water reservoirs of Washington, London, and Paris must be poisoned the moment our flying personnel have been trained. Once the governments are in a state of paralysis, our people everywhere are prepared to move into positions of influence, even power.”
The woman on the stretcher was carried out of the American Embassy in full view of the strollers on the avenue Gabriel. A sheet and a light cotton blanket covered her body; her long dark hair was swept back over the small white pillow, and her face was concealed beneath an oxygen mask below gray silk blinders that protected her eyes from the Paris sun. The rumors spread quickly, aided by several embassy attachés who circulated through the gathering crowd, answering questions softly.
“It’s the ambassador’s wife,” said a woman in French. “I just heard it from an American. Poor dear, she was hurt last evening during that terrible shooting.”
“Crime here has become intolerable,” said a bespectacled slender man. “We should bring back the guillotine!”
“Where are they taking her?” asked another woman, wincing in pity.
“The Hertford Hospital in the Levallois-Perret.”
“Really? It’s called an English hospital, isn’t it?”
“They say their equipment is the most advanced for her wounds.”
“Who said so?” broke in an indignant Frenchman.
“That strapping young man over there—where is he? Well, he was there and that’s what he said.”
“How badly is she hurt?” asked a teenage girl, her right hand gripping the arm of a young male student, his canvas shoulder bag filled with books.
“I heard one of the Americans say it was extremely painful but not life-threatening,” answered yet another Frenchwoman, a secretary or a minor executive who carried a large, thick brown envelope under her arm. “A punctured lung that makes it difficult for her to breathe. She was wearing an oxygen mask. Such a shame!”
“It’s such a shame that the Americans are so meddle-some,” said the student. “She has trouble breathing and one of us who may be seriously ill is shoved aside to make her life more pleasant.”
“Antoine, how can you say that?”
“Very easily. I’m a history major.”
“You’re a thankless dog!” cried an elderly man with a small Croix de Guerre emblem in his lapel. “I fought with the Americans and marched into Paris with them. They saved our city!”
“All by themselves, old soldier
? I don’t think so.… Come, Mignon, let’s get out of here.”
“Antoine, really! Your radicalism isn’t only passé, it’s boring.”
“Little fuck-up,” said the aging soldier to anyone who would listen. “ ‘Fuck-up,’ it’s a term I learned from the Americans.”
Upstairs in the embassy, in Stanley Witkowski’s office, Claude Moreau was slumped disconsolately in a chair in front of the colonel’s desk. “Fortunately,” he said in a weary voice, “I do not need money, but I shall never be able to spend what I have in Paris, or even France.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Stanley, lighting a Cuban cigar, his expression one of self-satisfaction.
“If you don’t know, Colonel, you should be granted what the American military calls a Section Eight.”
“Why? I’ve got all my marbles and I’m doing what I’m pretty damned good at.”
“For God’s sake, Stanley, I’ve lied to my own Bureau, to the hastily summoned committee of the Chamber of Deputies, to the press, to the President himself! I’ve literally sworn that Madame Courtland survived, that she didn’t die, that she received excellent treatment from your clinic!”
“Well, you weren’t under oath, Claude.”
The Apocalypse Watch Page 50
