Ice Reich, page 24
Hart gently put Greta down. He didn't want her to get hurt.
"Jürgen, please," she entreated, still leaning on Owen. "Just let us go."
"You lied to me, Greta. You lied about the locket. You lied about running away."
"You told me Owen was dead," she countered. "Said his plane was missing."
"I truly thought he didn't make it, and was quietly glad. But it appears the joke is on me. How long have you known he was alive?"
"A day."
"And that quickly you decide to leave me?"
She looked at him unhappily. "I never had you, Jürgen. That's been the problem. You never let anyone have you. You never let anyone get inside… your spore coat."
He started at her choice of words and examined Hart more curiously then. "You knew what I was like," he objected, obviously thinking about more than that. Clearly, the wheels were turning. He looked Hart up and down. "How did you survive the disease?"
"The antibiotic worked," Owen said, shrugging. "Greta was right. You should have had more faith, Jürgen. You might have saved all of us a lot of pain."
Jürgen nodded thoughtfully. That calculation again. "Perhaps I can learn from my mistakes." He looked at Greta. "That slime was effective then?"
"Evidently," Greta said, impatient with the discussion. What did any of that matter now?
"And this organism. Could it have been reproduced? Manufactured?"
Greta seemed puzzled by his intensity. "We'll never know."
Hart glanced about. The bombing had stopped and the sirens were sounding an all-clear. Emergency workers were spraying water into the burning apartment building and Berliners were emerging from the underground stations. "Look at this mess, Jürgen," he said. "Berlin is a charnel house. Why don't you just put that pistol down and come with us? I'll fly you out too. It's time for everyone to start over."
Drexler looked at him with amazement. "Fly away with the adulterers?"
"We're not adulterers!" Greta protested. "We just— "
"Shut up!" Drexler roared. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Greta looked like she had been slapped.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" he hissed, struggling to control the volume of his voice so his men could not hear. "Do you think I don't know your dreams have been filled with this ghost come back to life? And now I'm to go with you? Abandon my country and my career, shake hands and let this man steal my wife?" He shook his head. "Listen to me, Greta. You've betrayed me. Betrayed me. If not physically then mentally: many, many times. As a result, the days of my being the proper husband are over. Over! Understand? From this moment we have a new relationship, a relationship defined by the needs of the state. Both of you are in my power now. The Reich's power. Your only chance— your only chance— is to obey every command I give you."
There was a momentary silence while Hart shot Greta a look. It said: stay calm.
Drexler drew a few steps closer to the couple. "So… now that we understand each other, I have a question for you, Hart."
"Only one?"
"If you were well," the SS colonel said, scowling, "why didn't you fly back to the Schwabenland ? Why didn't you come off the island?"
"I was trapped in the damn cave. By a cave-in probably caused by your erasure of the Bergen. By the time I got out, you'd left. I flew, and stumbled on the Norwegians."
Drexler looked at him with genuine surprise. "You were in the cave when that avalanche occurred?"
"And so was Fritz. He died. And if you triggered the collapse, then you killed him."
"That's absurd. I had no idea anyone was in the cave to begin with. You can't blame that on me. And what the devil were you doing there?"
"Getting out of the storm."
"My God." Drexler shook his head. "The ironies of history. And now the cave is sealed, cutting off the source of the wonder drug. Pity." Suddenly his eyes narrowed. "But there's a problem with your story, Hart. You're here, after the avalanche. How did you get out of the cave?"
The pilot started to answer and then stopped. Now it was his turn to calculate. "Indeed. How did I get out, Jürgen?"
Drexler studied the pair speculatively. More police were arriving. With them was a bleeding and wincing Otto Kohl. His complexion was gray.
"Ah, the man who betrayed his daughter," Drexler greeted. His gaze swung to the agents. "We're discussing a matter of state security," he addressed them. "Leave him here a moment. I'll be with you shortly." Reluctantly, the men backed away.
Kohl looked at the ground. "I'm sorry, Greta. They made me tell them where you'd be." His voice was subdued. "They went to the farm and found the plane."
"It's all right, Papa." A tear ran down her cheek. "Jürgen learned that you were in Berlin from me. You did your best in the shelter."
"Throwing away money." A wry grin. "That was hard, for me."
"How touching," Drexler interrupted. "Otto, we were just discussing the fate of your family. The question, it seems, is whether I should put all of you up against that wall, hand you over to the Gestapo, or find a use for you."
"You'll do what you wish. We all know that."
"Exactly. That's why you've always been useful, Otto. You're a man who grasps reality."
"And the reality is that the war is lost. Everyone knows that. So take me if you must but let those two go. Let someone salvage something."
"That's where you're wrong, Otto. Victory can still be ours, I'm beginning to think. If you help."
He looked suspicious. "What do you mean?"
"You remain, I believe, a close personal associate of Reichsmarschall Göring, isn't that correct?" The title reflected Göring's military promotion.
"Our formal relationship has been in abeyance…"
"And your informal one?"
Kohl bit his lip.
"Don't think I'm unaware my father-in-law was a key facilitator in Göring's shopping expeditions in Occupied France. Two patriots, united by greed. And because of that, Otto, you may still be of some use to me. Because I need your help to see the Reichsmarschall again. Now. An emergency. He'll listen to you?"
"Possibly."
"You can get me to him?"
"I don't know. You remember he was less than satisfied with our expedition. But that was a long time ago. Why should he see you now?"
"Because the expedition he was disappointed in may turn out to have held promise after all. Promise at a critical juncture of the war."
Kohl looked skeptical. "And what do I get for this help?"
"Your life."
He barked a bitter laugh. "My life? Here? To do what, learn Russian?"
Drexler gave a thin smile. "And an exit. You can leave as you wished."
"With my savings, of course."
"No, that part is gone. Your property is now the property of the state."
"What! That money is mine! I'm an honest German businessman— "
"Nonsense!"
"That's my life's work, Jürgen. My life's work! I'm not going to surrender that now. I'd rather be shot."
"You may not have the luxury of being shot!"
"You may not have the luxury of getting to Hermann Göring."
They stared at each other, Drexler heated, Kohl implacable. Finally Jürgen grimaced. "All right. You can have back what we seized. If everyone cooperates. Including your daughter."
"Cooperates with what?"
"That's what we're going to talk to Göring about." He raised his voice to speak to the nearby soldiers. "Johann! A holding cell for each of these!" He pointed to Owen and Greta. "And Abel!" The man came over quietly and Drexler bent to whisper to him. "Get me in touch with Maximilian Schmidt."
Hart looked at him curiously. "What are you up to now, Jürgen?"
"Why, Owen! Didn't I tell you once that from crisis comes opportunity?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Karinhall seemed to have crawled under a blanket, hiding from the sky. Its gingerbread rooftops were tented by camouflage netting, the disguise supported by stripped firs and a spiderweb of cables like the rigging of a circus tent. Hermann Göring's aerial armada had been dissipated in a thousand far-flung battles and now the onetime lord of the air had to pretend his castle had sunk into the ground, lest Allied warplanes find it. The lawns around the great house had been torn up by the treads of military vehicles and its trees shaded a protective camp. Antiaircraft guns nested in sandbag emplacements, barrels jutting upward. With this humiliation had come the evaporation of much of the Reichsmarschall's influence in Nazi Germany. Hitler's designated successor was only rarely summoned to councils of war.
As Germany's fortunes worsened, Göring's mind had escaped to a habit of mindless acquisition as distracting as drugs. Accordingly, it wasn't that difficult for one of his mercantile agents, Otto Kohl, to get through to the Reichsmarschall once again. Otto, back from oblivion! The reminder of heady plundering in France! And so the German facilitator once more came to the estate at dusk, Karinhall's lights hidden now behind blackout paper. Drexler and Schmidt shared the rear of the staff car attired in full-dress SS uniforms. Kohl was in a business suit retrieved from his farm outside Berlin, his forehead still bandaged from the scuffle in the air raid shelter. The promise of his eventual escape from Germany was shadowed by fear that Drexler would somehow betray him once they saw Göring. He was trying desperately to guess Jürgen's game, displaying a bluff heartiness he didn't feel.
"So here we are again!" Kohl exclaimed as the staff car grated to a stop in the gravel outside the entrance, the door flanked this time by sandbagged sentry posts with machine guns. "It brings back memories of a happier time."
Drexler looked out at the huge dim house. "It brings back memories of how far we've fallen, Otto," he replied. He was in no mood to reassure his father-in-law. "We're in desperate times. So you're going to have to charm desperately: for your daughter's sake."
"If it was up to me she'd be out of Germany and safe by now."
"If it was up to you I'd be cuckolded by an American flyboy living on the loot you plan to pirate out of Germany!"
Kohl sulked. "A fine mood you're in on this critical evening."
"The eve of Götterdämmerung," interjected Schmidt to break off the squabbling. "The Twilight of the Gods. Time for the unsheathing of the sword."
Kohl looked skeptically at this somber companion. "I'd no idea you were a man of literary allusion, Max."
"I'm not a man of literature, Otto." The doctor extinguished his cigarette before stepping out of the car. "I'm a man of will."
Guard dogs produced a volley of ferocious barking as the men stepped from the vehicle, prompting the trio to hesitate at the bottom of the steps. Then a harsh command silenced the animals and a Luftwaffe captain trotted down the granite to greet them. They were escorted into Karinhall's shadowy foyer where sentries briskly checked for weapons. There was no apology. The bomb attempt on Hitler's life the previous summer had tightened security procedures throughout Germany.
"This way, gentlemen," the Luftwaffe captain directed.
The large banquet table was covered by white sheets, suggesting it hadn't been used for some time. Oil paintings and tapestries had been taken down from the walls, leaving ghostly imprints. The pictures were stacked next to wooden crates for shipping to underground safety. All of Germany was burrowing.
The library was less changed, its books no more read now than they'd been six years before. A fire burned and they could see a figure in a high-backed chair, his back to them. "Your guests, Reichsmarschall."
Göring waved over the top of the chair. "Yes, bring them in." He sounded slightly impatient. "Come, come, gentlemen. No ceremony here."
They stood before him. Göring was in a silk dressing gown, one slippered leg up on an ottoman. "The damn gout." He'd aged, his face lined and pale, his eyes sunken, and he appeared to have lost some weight. His presence had shrunk as well; he no longer seemed to automatically dominate the room, let alone an empire. Still, the Reichsmarschall's gaze retained a cold gleam of calculation. He studied his guests with a half smile, taking in the uniforms and the folder under Drexler's arm. "Very military." He gestured to three chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of his own. "Please, please, be seated. Memories of '38, no?"
"I'm honored you remember, sir." Drexler bowed.
"Oh, I remember. How we had to put a lid on the entire affair."
Drexler hesitated. "And now may be the opportune time to unwrap it."
They sat.
"It's good to see you well and safe, Reichsmarschall," Kohl offered.
"Yes, and you too, Otto." He grinned impishly at his old friend. "And what have you brought me this time?"
"Just myself, I'm afraid. I narrowly escaped from France. Just me and my… friends, here. With their interesting proposition."
Göring grunted his acceptance. "Well, you did splendidly in France for as long as you could. This champagne," he said, pointing out the bottle to the two others, "was in a shipment Otto shopped for me. The man has extraordinary taste." An orderly stepped forward and began pouring. They sipped. "Do you agree?"
"Otto has always known how to live," Drexler noted. "Who to know. And how to please them."
"Indeed! And now instead of Impressionist paintings or vintages from Bordeaux, he brings me you two. And I do remember our little mission to the bottom of the world. What an opportunity you had!" He shook his head. "Ah, the promise of that time, now lost. It's tragic, no?"
Hesitantly, his visitors nodded.
"What depresses me about the march of events is that I am at heart a builder, not a destroyer. A builder! What dreams we had of what we would build in our new world! Now I have to hide under that vast damned blanket overhead and bear insults and complaints from oafish idiots like that bunker worm Bormann. Even the Führer mocks me! Well. It wasn't I who decided to take on the entire world at once." He sipped again.
"Do you still believe in victory, Reichsmarschall?" Drexler finally asked.
Göring regarded the SS officer with small, dark eyes. "Of course, Colonel Drexler. My belief in the Führer and his destiny is unshaken. The superweapons, our secret plans. It's only a matter of time. God will not desert us in the end, no?" It was a rote affirmation.
"Perhaps he's already sent us a miracle."
"Really?" Göring drained his glass.
"Yes. Which is why we're here, Reichsmarschall. Why we asked our friend Otto— my father-in-law— to expedite our visit."
"You're related!"
"Yes. I'm married to Otto's daughter, Greta, the woman who accompanied us to Antarctica."
"Ah. I remember her. Lovely girl. I always remember the women!" He barked a laugh, stopping when no one joined him. "Then I heard nothing more. But of course, you'd claimed her and hid her away! Well, here's to happy marriage!"
Drexler smiled thinly and lifted his glass. "Indeed."
Kohl studied the fire.
"And your miracle?"
Drexler leaned forward. "From an unlikely source we suspect we've found a potential key to victory. It's a long shot, I admit, far from assured. But desperate times deserve desperate remedies, no?"
Göring looked skeptical. "Not if they drain away valuable resources."
"One submarine," Drexler said. "One submarine and I— we— can win this war. Or at least force a favorable armistice. But we need your backing to do it, Reichsmarschall. And if we succeed you'll be the leader who saved Germany."
Göring laughed. "You're going to win the war with one boat? It's too bad you didn't join the navy in '39 and save Admiral Dönitz a lot of trouble!"
Drexler smiled. "We only need the U-boat for transport. To return to Antarctica and fetch something potentially powerful enough to reverse our fortunes."
"Ah. You're referring to your microbe again."
"Yes, Reichsmarschall. You remember our discovery. A weapon so powerful, so swift, so deadly, that it will force our enemies to sue for peace. A weapon easy to multiply and easy to deliver in these difficult times."
"But we knew of this weapon in 1939 and didn't return for it. As I recall, it was deemed far too hazardous to fool with. Plus, the war intervened."
"Correct. But circumstances may have changed in our favor." Drexler turned to Schmidt. "Doctor, can you review for the Reichsmarschall exactly what this microbe is capable of."
The Nazi doctor sat straighter at this cue. "First, it appears to be highly contagious, needing no third organism like a rat or a flea or mosquito for transmittal. It develops in the lungs and is spread by coughing, sneezing, even breathing. Second, in its dormant state it's extremely stable. It encases itself in a coating, or shell, that allows it to survive extremes of temperature, humidity— even a disturbance such as the detonation of a shell or bomb. This hardiness makes it easily deliverable. Third, it can kill with unprecedented swiftness. In as little as twelve hours from infection, individuals become incapacitated. Death of virtually one hundred percent of those exposed follows in a couple days. It's far more lethal than the more familiar bubonic or pneumonic plagues or anthrax. In all my years as a doctor I've never seen anything like it."
Göring pursed his lips in consideration and then slowly shook his head. "Which is why trying to harness it would be opening a Pandora's box. When you play with a witches' brew like plague, it can bounce back at you." He nodded significantly at Drexler. "As those mountaineer troops of yours learned too late."
Drexler put up his hand. "Conceded. But I discovered something else on that island, Reichsmarschall. An underground organism which some on the science team speculated might neutralize the microbe's effects."
"How is that significant?"
"Because when opening Pandora's box, one must possess immunity from its effects, as the Spaniards did from the European diseases that destroyed the Aztec and Inca empires."
"Obviously," Göring said impatiently. "So if you found a cure, why didn't you bring it back with you?"
"The expedition was in crisis. Men were dying, the ship in danger. The antibiotic's effectiveness on humans had not been fully demonstrated. After a futile effort to reach the SS squad during which our small supply of the antibiotic was depleted, the cave where the substance was found was blocked by a cave-in. For safety reasons we had to destroy the microbe as well; with the limited containment equipment we had, there was no way to ensure nonexposure. But now— "
