Стив Берри - The Kaiser's Web--A Novel

She was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a manner. Especially from her husband. “Go to hell, Kurt.”

“I feel like I’m already there.”

His aggressiveness was something new. Which puzzled her. “What is it, Kurt? What troubles you?”

He said nothing.

She wanted to know. “If I repel you so, do you desire separate lives?”

“We already have those.”

“Do you want a divorce?”

“I do not.”

“Then why berate me? Why belittle me? I’ve governed this country for sixteen years. Germany is strong and vital. My leadership is respected around the world. I know precisely what I’m doing. So why not simply leave me alone? Live your life, with your ideas, and allow me to live mine.”

“I wish things were that simple.”

There was a sadness about him that troubled her. Which was also new. Pursuing that, though, seemed a waste of time. She simply did not care anymore. “I want to go to my parents’ grave. Will you please move from the gateway and let me pass. Or do I need to call my security detail?”

“On your own husband?”

“If that’s necessary.”

He remained frozen in place. It would be better for them both if they went their separate ways. But circumstances bound them together.

He retreated out the doorway.

She brushed past him.

He grabbed her right arm and stopped her advance.

Their eyes locked.

“Keep on and you will destroy us all,” he spit out.

She wrenched herself free.

And walked out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

FREE STATE, SOUTH AFRICA

SATURDAY, JUNE 15

12:30 P.M.

Cotton focused his attention out the plane’s side window at the panorama below. He’d rented the two-seater Cessna in Durban, after a long flight from Santiago on the same military transport that had ferried them from Germany to Chile. A call to Danny Daniels had made the overseas flight instantly available. They’d also explained all that happened, including the damaging financial records that had been sent to Germany by Juan Vergara, which could be fatal for Eisenhuth. Danny had indicated he would deal with those records from his end.

The Free State lay three hundred miles west of Durban, in the interior, across some of South Africa’s roughest terrain, the fastest and safest mode of transportation to there by air. According to the navigation chart, they’d passed over the Free State’s eastern boundary a few minutes back. Below spread a rugged terrain of sandstone outcroppings, soaring peaks, and deep river valleys. The sun, white, not golden, lit the rocky earth with the brilliance of magnesium. Eland, grey rhebok, and reedbuck grazed on the mountainsides between lightly forested kloofs. Ahead, he saw hills and trees give way to table-like mesas, grasslands, and more sandstone.

A town appeared.

Compact, with no trees, and shadowless thanks to the searing, vertical sun. Heat pulsated from a tarred road and off the red clay rooftops. On the side of one of the sandstone mounds, beyond the town, a pack of black-and-tan goats leaped over rocks, perhaps spooked by the plane overhead. The scene cast the look of a drained aquarium, and if not for the unique wildlife he would have thought he was flying over the American Southwest.

He followed a curve in the Modder River toward Bloemfontein, the Free State’s sprawling capital. The sky was clear with only patchy, high clouds. The plane’s wings were level, the nose up, the flight smooth. Cassiopeia was reading him more of the letters that Ada had supplied, translating the German text and revealing Gerhard Schüb’s innermost thoughts and feelings. She’d culled through the fifty-three envelopes on the transatlantic flight and had been rereading parts of the ones she considered most interesting.

November 19, 1951

… this land is not a place for vegetarians. It is instead a feast for carnivores. I have learned that steaks, chops, and cutlets roasted outside on the fire and eaten beneath the stars with your fingers taste far better than anything inside on a plate. I have grown accustomed to being outside, though here it can be so unpredictable. Storms break over the mountains with force. Lightning is more vivid than I have ever seen. The thunder cracks like artillery and shakes the earth with shudders. The rain falls in thick sheets, then can end in an instant. After, thousands of frogs rejoice in croaks that are deafening. Oh, Ada, it is a glorious place.

Two days back we traveled to a farm in the south still within the Orange Free State jurisdiction. Luis never ventures far beyond the borders. We were told by another guest to not speak of the Anglo-Boer War. The Afrikaners who lived on the farm suffered humiliating family losses at the hands of the British and still harbored deep resentment. The war has been over for fifty years so I wondered about the warning. Despite our efforts to avoid the topic, our host willingly spoke of the war. How the British rounded up all the white women and children and forced them into camps. Thirty thousand died of disease and starva tion. It was their way of breaking the Boers, forcing the Kommandos into surrendering. Yet it had the opposite effect. The Boers fought harder. It was only when captured Kommandos were enticed to fight against their former compatriots with the promise that their loved ones would be released from the camps that the Boer back was broken. Many accepted the invitation, and it was their treason that eventually cost the Boers victory. Our host had a name for those men. Hensoppers. I asked what it meant and he told me, “Ahands uppers.” Then he spit upon the ground to show me what he thought of them.

March 15, 1952

I have driven north to Johannesburg on my trip to retrieve Luis’s books from the mail slot and obtain what specialties Rikka desires. She has lately taken an interest in crochet. Her finished products are quite lovely, though there is little need for scarves and sweaters here. She seems to craft them simply to irritate Luis, as he berates her constantly for the waste of time. She seems to delight in his discomfort.

Johannesburg is so different from the Orange State. It is a young city, less than sixty years old, full of tall buildings, buses, trams, neon lights, shops, and limousines. Perhaps the strangest sight is the pyramids at the end of the long streets. They are the gold-mine dumps, ore taken from the ground waiting to be processed. They are to here what the Acropolis is to Athens. They draw the eye at every opportunity and symbolize the untold wealth of this region. Luis has invested heavily in the mines and is reaping enormous profits. His benefactors are most generous and he has even shared a tiny morsel of that wealth with me, enough to allow me to purchase an adjoining tract of land and build a home. It is a sandstone building with a clay roof surrounded by a cherry orchard. It also has a stoep where I sit in the evenings and watch the zebra, topi, and gazelle. Indian craftsmen worked the interior decoration. It is my home and for once I am grateful to Luis.

June 23, 1956

Luis has been in an awful mood for several weeks. He has been reading books about the war. In one Goebbels was quoted as having said, “Bormann is not a man of the people. He has not the qualifications for the real tasks of leadership. He is but a mere administrator, a clerk, nothing more.” He fumed that those were bold words from a coward who killed himself and his wife and children, all for the rantings of a crazed man. He speaks horribly of the Führer. He has nothing but contempt for him. He tells me that every political movement needs a revolutionary. Someone to acquire power by whatever means. Yet once it is acquired, that power gradually passes to those more capable of organization and control, those with the ability to administer, and it is they who ultimately rule. “Take pride in being a bureaucrat,” he tells me. “For clerks rule the world.”