Stoll said. “I have to start playing the game and get to different screens, different landscapes.” “Why don’t you download it to Op-Center?” “Because what I’m doing is just what they’d do,” he said. “I’m writing a small modification to the MatchBook program so it can read images from the T-Bird. Then it’s in the lap of the gods. If I don’t screw up too much, the background images will keep scrolling along. I’ll get a ping when there’s a match.” Stoll finished typing, then sucked down a deep, deep breath. He booted the game. “I can’t say I’m going to enjoy this thing. It’s a lynch mob.” Nancy had walked over while he was speaking. She knelt behind him and gently put her hands on his shoulders.
“I’ll help you, Matt,” she said. “I’m pretty good at these.” Hood regarded them for a moment. The way she’d touched Matt made him jealous. The way her hands floated down and came to rest like falling flower petals filled him with longing. And the way he was feeling filled him with disgust.
Then, with perfect timing, Nancy turned slowly and looked at Hood. She moved slowly enough so that he could have looked away if he’d wanted. But he didn’t. Their eyes hooked and he tumbled right into them.
It took the thought of Hausen to snap Hood from Nancy’s spell. His unfinished business with the German was more pressing.
“Herr Hausen,” Hood said, “I’d like to talk to you.” Hausen looked at Hood expectantly, almost eagerly.
“Of course,” he said. The German was obviously excited by what was happening, but for which side?
Hood put his hand on the German’s shoulder and led him toward the river. Ballon followed several steps behind.
But that was all right: this involved him too.
“That call I just had,” Hood said. “It was from Op- Center. There’s no delicate way to ask this, so I’ll ask it directly. Why didn’t you tell us your father worked for Dupre?” Hausen stopped walking. “How do you know that?” “I had my people look into German tax records. He worked as a pilot for Pierre Dupre from 1966 to 1979.” Hausen waited a long time before answering. “It’s true,” he said. “And it was one of the things Gerard and I argued about that night in Paris. My father taught him how to fly, treated him like a son, helped teach him to hate.” Ballon stopped beside the men. His face was just inches from Hausen.
“Your father worked for this monster?” the Colonel said.
“Where is your father now?” “He died two years ago,” Hansen said.
“There’s more, though,” Hood said. “Tell us about your father’s political affiliations.” Hausen took a long breath. “They were corrupt,” he said. “He was one of the White Wolves, a group which kept Nazi ideals alive after the war. He met with other men regularly. He…” Hausen stopped.
“He what?” demanded Ballon.
Hausen composed himself. “He believed in Hitler and the goals of the Reich. He viewed the end of the war as a setback, not a defeat, and continued it in his own way.
When I was eleven”— he breathed deeply again before continuing— “my father and two of his friends were coming home from the movies when they attacked a rabbi’s son on his way home from synagogue. Afterwards, my mother sent me to boarding school in Berlin. I didn’t see my father until years later, after Gerard befriended me at the Sorbonne.” “Are you trying to tell me that Gerard went to the Sorbonne just to become your friend and bring you back?” Hood asked.
“You must understand,” Hausen said, “I was a force to be reckoned with from an early age. What my father had done revolted me. I can still hear him calling me to join them, as though it were a carnival sideshow I mustn’t miss.
I can hear the young man’s moans, his attackers’s blows, the way their shoes scraped against the pavement as they moved around him. It was disgusting. My mother loved my father and sent me away that night to keep us from destroying one another. I went to live with a cousin in Berlin.
“While I was in Berlin I formed an anti-Nazi group. I had my own radio program when I was sixteen and police protection a month later. One of the reasons I left the country to go to school was to get away from the death threats. I was never insincere about my convictions.” He glared at Ballon. “Never, do you understand?” “What about Gerard?” Hood asked.
“It isn’t much different from what I told you earlier,” Hausen said. “Gerard was a rich, spoiled young man who learned about me from my father. He viewed me as a challenge, I think. The White Wolves had failed to stop me through intimidation. Gerard wanted to stop me through argument and intellect. The night he killed those girls he was trying to show me that only sheep and cowards live inside the law. Even as we fled he said that the people who change the world operate by their own rules and make others live by them.” Hausen looked down. Hood glanced at Ballon. The Frenchman was angry.
“You were involved in those killings,” said the Colonel, “yet you did nothing except to run and hide. Whose side are you on, Herr Hausen?” “I was wrong,” Hausen said, “and I’ve been paying for it ever since. I would give anything to go back to that night and turn Gerard in. But I didn’t. I was scared and confused and I ran. I’ve been atoning, M. Ballon. Every day and night, I atone.” Hood interjected, “Tell me about your father.” Hausen said, “I saw my father twice after the night he attacked the Jewish boy. Once was at the Dupre estate when Gerard and I fled there. He asked me to join them and said it was the only way I could save myself. He called me a traitor when I refused. The second time was the night my father died. I went to his side in Bonn and with his dying breath he called me a traitor again. Even on his deathbed I wouldn’t give him the acquiescence he sought. My mother was there. If you’d like, you can call her on Mr. Hood’s telephone to confirm it.” Ballon looked at Hood. Hood continued to look at Hausen. He felt the same way he did on the jet. He wanted to believe in this man’s sincerity. But there were lives at risk and despite everything Hausen had said, there was still the hint of a doubt.
Hood took the phone from his pocket. He punched in a telephone number. John Benn answered.
“John,” Hood said, “I want to know when Maximillian Hausen died.” “The suddenly ubiquitous Nazi,” Benn said. “That’ll take a minute or two. Do you want to hold on?” “I do,” said Hood.
Benn put him on hold. Hood regarded Hausen. “I’m sorry,” Hood said, “but I owe this to Matt and Nancy.” “I would do the same,” said Hausen. “But I tell you again, I despise Gerard Dominique and the New Jacobins and the neo-Nazis and everything they represent. If it hadn’t smacked of Nazism itself, I might have turned in my own father.” “You’ve had some difficult choices to make,” Hood said.
“That I have,” said Hausen. “You see, Gerard was wrong. It takes a coward to operate outside the law.” John Benn came back on. “Paul? Hausen the Elder died two years ago next month. There was a short obituary in a Bonn newspaper— ex-Luftwaffe pilot, private pilot, etcetera.” “Thanks,” Hood said. “Thanks very much.” He hung up.
“Again, Herr Hausen, I’m sorry.” “Again, Mr. Hood,” said Hausen, “there’s no need to—” “Paul!” Hood and Hausen looked at Stoll. Ballon was already running over.
“What’ve you got?” Hood asked as they followed Ballon.
“Bupkis, ” he said. “I mean, however I poke and prod it, my machine isn’t fast enough to do an analysis before 2010. I was about to call Op-Center for help when Nancy found something better.” She rose and said to Ballon, “In other Demain games you can skip to the next level by pausing the game and pushing the arrows on the keypad in a certain sequence— down, up, up, down, left, right, left, right.” “And?” “And we’re already on level two of this game,” she said, “without having played level one.” “Would Dominique really have been stupid enough to put the same cheat codes in one of these games?” Hood asked.
“That’s just it,” Nancy said. “It’s already in the computer. It has to be removed, not put in. Somewhere along the line somebody forgot to delete it.” Ballon was standing very tall and looking toward the factory.
“How about it?” Hood asked the Colonel. “Is that good enough for you?” Ballon snatched the radio from his belt. He looked at Matt. “Did you save the game on your computer?” “The jump from level one to level two has been copied and stored,” he said.