Wegener said, “This is all new to me, this information.”
“Balls,” Heydrich said impatiently. “In fact, during your conference with General Tedeki and Mr. Tagomi, a squad of SD men attempted to force their way in and kill the three of you.” He added, “They failed.”
After a pause Wegener said huskily, “Mr. Tagomi is a good shot. He collects pistols of the U.S. Civil War and practices firing them.”
“We wondered what happened. Bruno Kreuz von Meere, who is the San Francisco head of the SD, theorized that it had been Kempeitai marksmen — the Japanese civil police — who had waited either outside or within Tagomi’s office. Hmm; so Tagomi took care of Kreuz von Meere’s men himself.” He nodded, apparently glad to see the mystery cleared up. “So you betrayed your country. Is the entire Abwehr involved, or was it only you? What about Admiral Canaris himself?”
“He knows nothing about my trip,” Wegener said, wondering if Heydrich had in his possession information to the contrary. The Reichsfuhrer SS seemed to know everything else; why not this?
Heydrich, however, dropped the point; he turned to another topic. “In the Pacific States, did you encounter that Jew book in which our war effort fails? That Grasshopper book?”
“It’s available there,” Wegener said abstractly.
“You heard me talking to the Reichsmarshal; they want me to snatch Abendsen and bring him here, for reasons they won’t divulge.” Heydrich eyed Wegener intently. “We understand that a joint project exists in Albany, New York, in which your organization and the Luftwaffe are involved. Do you personally know anything about that?”
“No,” he said, truthfully.
“As far as we can determine,” Heydrich said, “this project is operating under the assumption that paralled worlds exist, of which we are one and Abendsen’s world, written about as if imaginary fiction, is another. What success Sacher — he heads the project — has obtained we don’t know. Perhaps none. The premise may be false. Or” — Heydrich gestured — “enough success to prove the premise, but not enough to open actually a doorway to another parallel world.” He ticked the possibilities off methodically, using his fingers. “Or they have found a passageway through, but the other world — the Nebenwelt, I understand they call it — is not that which the Jew Abendsen depicts in his pseudo-fictional book. There are other possibilities.” He reflected. “At most they have been able to reach several other worlds, of which Abendsen’s is one.”
“Hmm,” Wegener said.
“What interests is that all at once the Reichsmarshal is interested in having Abendsen — not killed — but abducted and brought here; brought, specifically, to the Reichsmarshal’s pro tern headquarters at the Luftwaffe base in Miami.” Heydrich studied his extended fingers, then selected one. “This suggests that they wish to interrogate Abendsen regarding his Grasshopper world. . . which further suggests to me that they have had some luck.” He raised his eyes, regarded Wegener acutely. “Are you sure you know nothing about this? You’re an Abwehr agent, and the Abwehr, we hear, is supplying the agents that Sacher means to — or has already, perhaps — ”
“All my recent time,” Wegener broke in, “has been spent in preparation for my visit to the PSA, now completed. There’s no use talking to me; I can’t help you. Up to now I haven’t even heard of this project, presuming, as you say, it exists.” It sounded doubtful to him: more like an imaginative fabrication by the brilliant, deranged minds of the higher SS, Heydrich included.
“Consider this, then,” Heydrich said, folding his hands and tilting his chair back until he rested against the wall behind his desk. “You are legally a traitor to Germany; you deliberately and systematically carried top-secret military information to our enemy, directly to the Japanese general staff. Without a convocation of the Reichsgericht I could have you garroted and hung from a meathook. I could have your testicles crushed first, by means of pliers. I could have a solution of lye forced up your — ”
“Your agency,” Wegener said, managing to keep his voice reasonably steady, “can do nothing to an agent of Naval Counterintelligence. If I have to stand trial it will be a military court-martial, presided over by my superiors in the Abwehr.”
“You want to bet?”
Wegener said, “I know for a certainty that your agency, in fact the entire SS, opposes Operation Dandelion. By your own statement you had me followed; you knew what I came for before I managed to meet with General Tedeki; you could have stopped me.”
“We attempted to,” Heydrich said smoothly. “At the Nippon Times Building.”
“What’s your point?”
Heydrich said, “You are, at this moment, at the dead center of the Waffen-SS division Leibstandarte. There is no way anyone, from the Abwehr or the Wehrmacht or the party or all three, could get you out of here. So if you transact any business it must be with me, and I am hard to do business with, which you may have heard. In this dossier on you” — he indicated the papers spread out on his desk — “details and documentation of your treason are laid out. Right now it is a very much open file, but I have the authority, despite all it contains, to make it perpetually inactive. No SD men will show up at 5:00 A.M. and cart you off to a final solution camp; no Nacht und Nebel [Night and Fog] action will ever take place in your direction — I guarantee it. In fact, I will make you an honorary colonel in the Waffen-SS; General Dietrich himself will bestow the citation on you.” Heydrich picked up a phone receiver from his desk and said, “Get me Sepp Dietrich.”
“I’m familiar with the mechanism,” Wegener said. “I’m not interested.” As soon as he became an honorary colonel in the SS he would be automatically under SS jurisdiction, taking his orders from Heydrich or even someone lower down in Heydrich’s apparatus. Over the years innumerable Wehrmacht officers had received such commissions, without being aware of the consequences. Instant SS men, he thought grimly. Created by a stroke of Heydrich’s pen.
Shrugging, Heydrich said, hanging up the phone, “It’s up to you if you want to remain a captain in an organization that probably won’t exist one year from now. Admiral Canaris has been skating over thin ice for years; it’s only a question of time before he falls through. . . dragging the rest of you down with him.”
“What is it you want me to do?” Wegener asked. “In exchange for letting me out of here?”
“Not merely ‘letting you out.’ In addition, as I explained, we’ll guarantee your continual safety — from reprisals, for example, by your organization. To be protected by the SD is to be virtually beyond reach; you’ll find yourself sleeping at night again, peacefully, and in these times of unpredictable political conflict that will be anomalous. I want you to do this: You will report back to your superiors in the Abwehr and give a report of your mission to San Francisco without mentioning your side trip here. You landed at Tempelhofer; you took a cab to Abwehr GHQ. All uneventful.”
“And from then on,” Wegener said, “I’m to report regularly to you or one of your subordinates about Sacher’s project.”
Heydrich eyed him.
“I may never get near Sacher’s project,” Wegener said.
“You’ll hear talk. We have heard talk, and we have yet to penetrate Canaris’ organization. . . until perhaps now. I’m not in a hurry; I agree that it will take time. Just so long as the information comes to us eventually. Verstehst du?”
“I understand you,” Wegener said. He pondered, then decided to take a calculated risk. “You won’t kill me,” he said, “because it’s to your advantage that I informed General Tedeki about Operation Dandelion. You’ll make use of this as ammunition to persuade the party not to back the Wehrmacht; a surprise attack is now out of the question, and we all know that even though the Japanese lack the hydrogen bomb, they do have enormous intercept hardware. Even if the home islands are destroyed, their Chinese regions, their Manchukuo colony, the Philippines, the Pacific States of America, their holdings in Latin America — ”
“I am familiar with the geography of the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” Heydrich said drily.
“Plus the fact,” Wegener said, “that the guidance systems of our missiles are imperfect — notoriously so. For example, we are familiar with our missile performance in Africa. Several years — ”
“The guidance systems have been improved since then.”
Wegener said, “You’ll require my continued existence because I’m the only German national who knows from direct contact that the Japanese general staff is aware of Operation Dandelion. Without me, all that exists is your dossier on me, which could be faked. Or so the Wehrmacht generals will argue. In particular, Rommel.”
“The field marshal is in retirement.” Heydrich added, “And old.”