She looked at him as if to say, “Who?” “Felix Richter,” Manfred told her.
Karin’s expression didn’t change. It rarely did. But she was surprised. She didn’t expect to speak with him tonight at the rally in Hanover, much less talk to him before then.
She handed Manfred the rifle she was holding. Without a word, she made her way to the driver’s side of the van, climbed in, and shut the door. Manfred had left the phone on the seat. She picked it up and hesitated.
Karin disliked Richter. It wasn’t just the old rivalry which made her feel that way— his political movement versus her military movement. Both were different means to the same goal, the realization of the dream that had been launched when Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany in 1933: the establishment of an Aryan world. Both knew that this could only come about through formidable nationalism followed by an economic blitzkrieg against foreign investments and culture. Both knew that these goals would take more organization and diversity than each now possessed.
What troubled her about Richter was that she had never been convinced of his devotion to Nazism. He seemed to be more interested in making Felix Richter a dictator of anything, it didn’t matter what. Unlike Karin, who wanted Germany more than she wanted life itself, she always felt that he could be content ruling Myanmar or Uganda or Iraq.
She killed the mute button. “Good afternoon, Felix.” “Karin, good afternoon. Have you heard?” “About what?” “Then you haven’t or you wouldn’t ask. We’ve been attacked. Germany has. The movement.” “What are you talking about? By whom?” “The French,” said Richter.
The word alone was enough to blacken her day. Her grandfather had been an Oberfeldarzt, a lieutenant colonel in the medical troops in Occupied France. He was killed by a Frenchman while caring for German soldiers wounded during the fall of St. Sauveur. Growing up, she would lie in bed and listen as her parents and their friends swapped tales of French cowardice, disloyalty, and betrayal of their own country.
“Go on,” Karin said.
“This morning,” said Richter, “I met with Dominique’s emissary to Chaos Days. He demanded that I fold my organization into his. When I refused, my club was destroyed. Burned.” Karin didn’t care. The club was for degenerates, and she was happy to see it gone. “Where were you?” she asked.
“I was led out at gunpoint.” Karin watched the parade of her Feuermenschen as they made their way through the trees. Each soldier bore a symbol of the Reich. Not a one of them would have run from a Frenchman, gun or no gun.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
“I’ve just arrived at my apartment. Karin, these people intend to build a network of organizations to serve them.
They imagine that we will be just another voice in their chorus.” “Let them imagine that,” she said. “The Fhrer allowed other governments to imagine whatever they wished. Then he forced his Will on them.” “How?” Richter asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “He did it through his will. Through his armies.” “No,” Richter said. “He did it through the public. Don’t you see? He tried to overthrow the Bavarian government in the Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923. He hadn’t enough support and was arrested. In jail, he wrote Mein Kampf and set forth his plan for a new Germany. Within ten years he was in command of the nation. He was the same man saying the same things, but My Struggle helped him to win over the masses. Once he controlled them, he controlled the Fatherland. And once he did that, it didn’t matter what other nations thought or did.” Karin was confused. “Felix, I don’t treed a history lesson.” “This is not history,” he said, “this is the future. We must control the people and they’re here, Karin, now. I have a plan for making tonight an evening history will remember.” The woman did not care for Richter. He was a conceited, self-serving fop who had the Fhrer’s arrogance and some of his vision, but very little of his courage.
Or did he? she wondered. Could the fire have changed him?
“All right, Felix,” she said, “I’m listening. What do you propose?” He told her. She listened carefully, her interest high and her respect for him rising slightly.
The glorification of Germany and Felix Richter permeated his every thought, his every word. But what he had to say made sense. And though Karin had undertaken every one of her thirty-nine missions with a plan, a result in mind, she had to admit that part of her responded to Richter’s impulsive idea. It would be unexpected. Daring.
Truly historic.
Karin looked out at the tents, at her warriors, at the artifacts they were carrying. This was what she loved, and it was all she needed. But what Richter had suggested gave her the opportunity to have that and strike at the French.
The French… and the rest of the world.
“All right, Felix,” she said. “I agree that we should do this. Come to my camp before the rally and we’ll arrange it.
Tonight, the French will learn that they can’t fight Feuer with fire.” “I like that,” Richter said. “I like that very much. But one of them will learn it before then, Karin. Definitely before then.” Richter hung up. Karin was sitting, listening to the dial tone, as Manfred wandered over. “Is everything all right?” “Is it ever?” she asked bitterly. She handed him the phone, which he placed in his windbreaker. Then she got out of the car and resumed the work she really enjoyed, putting arms into the hands of her followers, and fire in their hearts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thursday, 3:45 P.M., Hamburg, Germany
Hood and Stoll had spent the early afternoon outlining their technical needs and financial parameters to Martin Lang. Later, Lang brought in several of his top technical advisors to find out how much of what Op-Center needed was doable. Hood was pleased, though not surprised, to discover that much of the technology they needed was already on the drawing board. Without an Apollo space program to underwrite research and development work and create the spinoffs, private industry had had to carry the load. These undertakings were costly, but success could mean billions of dollars in profits. The first companies to snare patents for important new technology and software would be the next Apple Computers or Microsoft.
The two sides had been closing in on costs for the Regional Op-Center technology when a loud gong resonated through the factory.
Hood and Stoll both jumped Lang placed a hand on Hood’s wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I should have prepared you. That’s our digital bell tower. It chimes at ten o’clock, twelve o’clock, and three o’clock and signals break time.” “Charming,” said Hood, his heart racing.
“We feel it has a pleasant Old World feel,” Lang said.
“To create a sense of fraternity, the bell rings simultaneously in all of our satellite factories throughout Germany. They’re linked fiber-optically.” “I see,” Stoll said. “So that’s your little Quasimodem, the bell-ringer.” Hood frowned deeply at that.
After the meeting and a half-hour ride back to Hamburg proper, Hood, Stoll, and Lang head three miles northeast to the modern City Nord region. Within the nearly elliptical, encircling Ubersee Ring roadway were over twenty public and private administration buildings. These sleek structures housed everything from the Hamburg Electricity Works to international computer firms, as well as shops, restaurants, and a hotel. Every weekday, over twenty thousand people commuted to City Nord to work and to play.
When they arrived, Richard Hausen’s neatly groomed young male assistant Reiner showed them right into the Deputy Foreign Minister’s office. Stoll took a moment to stare at the framed stereogram hanging on the assistant’s wall.
“Orchestra conductors,” Stoll said. “Clever. I’ve never seen this one.” “It’s my own design,” Reiner said proudly.
Hausen’s Hamburg office was located at the top of a complex in the southeastern sector, overlooking the 445- acre Stadtpark. When they entered, the Deputy Foreign Minister was on the phone. While Stoll sat down to have a look at Hausen’s computer setup, Lang watching over his shoulder, Hood walked over to the large picture window. In the deep gold light of late afternoon, he could see a swimming pool, sporting areas, an open-air theater, and the famed ornithological facility.
As far as Hood could tell from looking at him, Hausen was once again his strong, outspoken self. Whatever had been bothering him earlier was either taken care of or somehow had been back burnered.
Hood thought sadly, If only I could do the same. In the office, he was able to manage pain. He kept Charlie’s death from getting to him because he had to be strong for his staff. He’d felt bad when Rodgers told him about the hate game in Billy Squires’s computer, but there had been so much hate back in Los Angeles that it didn’t shock him very much anymore.