Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

He pulled on his shirt and, not bothering with stockings or shoes, walked down the stairs. He took the receiver from his wife.

“Yes? This is Ernst.”

“Colonel.”

He recognized the voice of one of Hitler’s secretaries. “Miss Lauer. Good morning.”

“And to you. I am asked to tell you that your presence is required by the Leader at the chancellory immediately. If you have any other plans I’m asked to tell you to alter them.”

“Please tell Chancellor Hitler that I will leave at once. In his office?”

“That is correct.”

“Who else will be attending?”

There was a moment’s hesitation then she said, “That’s all the information I have, Colonel. Hail Hitler.”

“Hail Hitler.”

He hung up and stared at the phone, his hand on the receiver.

“Opa, you have no shoes on!” Rudy had come up beside Ernst, still clutching his drawing. He laughed, looking at his grandfather’s bare feet.

“I know, Rudy. I must finish dressing.” He looked for a long moment at the telephone.

“What is it, Opa? Something is wrong?”

“Nothing, Rudy.”

“Mutti says your breakfast is getting cold.”

“You ate all your egg, did you?”

“Yes, Opa.”

“Good fellow. Tell your grandmother and your mutti that I’ll be downstairs in a few moments. But tell them to begin their breakfast without me.”

Ernst started up the stairs to shave, observing that his desire for his wife and his hunger for the breakfast awaiting him had both vanished completely.

Forty minutes later Reinhard Ernst was walking through the corridors of the State Chancellory building on Wilhelm Street at Voss Street in central Berlin, dodging construction workers. The building was old – parts of it dated to the eighteenth century – and had been the home of German leaders since Bismarck. Hitler would fly into tirades occasionally about the shabbiness of the structure and – since the new chancellory was not close to being finished – was constantly ordering renovations to the old one.

But construction and architecture were of no interest to Ernst at the moment. The one thought in his mind was this: What will the consequences of my mistake be? How bad was my miscalculation?

He lifted his arm and gave a perfunctory “Hail Hitler” to a guard, who had enthusiastically saluted the plenipotentiary for domestic stability, a title as heavy and embarrassing to wear as a wet, threadbare coat. Ernst continued down the corridor, his face emotionless, revealing nothing of the turbulent thoughts about the crime he had committed.

And what was that crime?

The infraction of not sharing all with the Leader.

This would be a minor matter in other countries, perhaps, but here it could be a capital offense. Yet sometimes you couldn’t share all. If you did give Hitler all the details of an idea, his mind might snag on its most insignificant aspect and that would be the end of it, shot dead with one word. Never mind that you had no personal gain at stake and were thinking only of the good of the fatherland.

But if you didn’t tell him… Ach, that could be far worse. In his paranoia he might decide that you were withholding information for a reason. And then the great piercing eye of the Party’s security mechanism would turn toward you and your loved ones… sometimes with deadly consequences. As, Reinhard Ernst was convinced, had now occurred, given the mysterious and peremptory summons to an early, unscheduled meeting. The Third Empire was order and structure and regularity personified. Anything out of the ordinary was cause for alarm.

Ach, he should have told the man something about the Waltham Study when Ernst had first conceived it this past March. Yet the Leader, Defense Minister von Blomberg, and Ernst himself had been so occupied with retaking the Rhineland that the study had paled beside the monumental risk of reclaiming a portion of their country stolen away by the Allies at Versailles. And, truth be told, much of the study was based on academic work that Hitler would find suspect, if not inflammatory; Ernst simply hadn’t wanted to bring the matter up.

And now he was going to pay for that oversight.

He announced himself to Hitler’s secretary and was admitted.

Ernst walked inside the large ante-office and found himself standing before Adolf Hitler – leader, chancellor and president of the Third Empire and ultimate commander of the armed forces. Thinking as he often did: If charisma, energy and canniness are the prime ingredients of power, then here is the most powerful man in the world.

Wearing a brown uniform and glossy black knee boots, Hitler was bending over a desk, leafing through papers.

“My Leader,” Ernst said, nodding respectfully and offering a gentle heel tap, a throwback to the days of the Second Empire, which had ended eighteen years before, with Germany’s surrender and the flight of Kaiser Wilhelm to Holland. Though giving the Party salute with “Hail Hitler” or “Hail victory” was expected from citizens, the formality was rarely seen among the higher echelon of officials, except from the drippier sycophants.

“Colonel.” Hitler glanced up at Ernst with his pale blue eyes beneath drooping lids – eyes that for some reason left the impression that the man was considering a dozen things at once. His mood was forever unreadable. Hitler found the document he sought and turned and walked into his large but modestly decorated office. “Please join us.” Ernst followed. His still, soldier’s face gave no reaction but his heart sank when he saw who else was present.

Sweating and massive, Hermann Göring lounged on a couch that creaked under his weight. Claiming he was always in pain, the round-faced man was continually adjusting himself in ways that made one want to cringe. His excessive cologne filled the room. The air minister nodded a greeting to Ernst, who reciprocated.

Another man sat in an ornate chair, sipping coffee, his legs crossed like a woman’s: the clubfooted scarecrow Paul Joseph Goebbels, the state propaganda minister. Ernst didn’t doubt his skill; he was largely responsible for the Party’s early, vital foothold in Berlin and Prussia. Still, Ernst despised the man, who couldn’t stop gazing at the Leader with adoring eyes and smugly dishing up damning gossip about prominent Jews and Socis one moment then dropping the names of famous German actors and actresses from UFA Studios the next. Ernst said good morning to him and then sat, recalling a recent joke that had made the rounds: Describe the ideal Aryan. Why, he’s as blond as Hitler, as slim as Göring and as tall as Goebbels.

Hitler offered the document to puffy-eyed Göring, who read it, nodded and then put it into his sumptuous leather folder without comment. The Leader sat and poured himself chocolate. He lifted an eyebrow toward Goebbels, meaning he should continue with whatever he had been discussing, and Ernst realized his fate regarding the Waltham Study would have to remain in limbo for sometime longer.

“As I was saying, my Leader, many of the visitors to the Olympics will be interested in entertainment.”

“We have cafés and theater. We have museums, parks, movie theaters. They can see our Babelsberg films, they can see Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow. And Charles Laughton and Mickey Mouse.” The impatient tone in Hitler’s voice told Ernst he knew exactly what kind of entertainment Goebbels had meant. There followed an excruciatingly long and edgy debate about letting legal prostitutes – licensed “control girls” – out on the streets again. Hitler was against this idea at first but Goebbels had thought through the matter and argued persuasively; the Leader relented eventually, on the condition that there be no more than seven thousand women throughout the metropolitan area. Similarly, the penal code provision banning homosexuality, Article 175, would be relaxed temporarily. Rumors abounded about Hitler’s own preferences – from incest to boys to animals to human waste. Ernst had come to believe, though, that the man simply had no interest in sex; the only lover he desired was the nation of Germany.