Christopher Reich - The Runner

“Father proposed that his colleagues join him in a new league of industrialists. Not a luncheon group who would waste their time quibbling about quotas and tariffs over seven-course meals at Horchers. But one that would focus their efforts on influencing the proper political direction of the Fatherland. He had even thought of a name for his secret assembly of coal barons, steel magnates, and iron makers:the Circle of Fire.”

“The Circle of Fire,” repeated Schnitzel, the words rolling off his tongue in a cloud of blue smoke.

Egon’s grateful smile was like a doff of the hat. “Father’s solution was simple. First they would pay the Nazis’ debts. Then, as one, they would travel to Berlin and demand that Hindenburg make Hitler chancellor. The old man was a landowner like them. He would listen. The rest, as they say, is history. Two months later, on 30 January 1933, Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor of Germany. Bach Industries was saved.”

Seyss smiled inwardly, recalling a phrase every schoolboy knew by heart. Wenn Bach bluht, so bluht Deutschland ; when Bach prospers, so prospers Germany. So much for destiny and the will of the people.

“Over the past weeks, we have brought the Circle of Fire back to life,” said Egon. “Friends, colleagues, even former competitors who share our worries have joined us. Why, you ask? For one reason and one reason only. To ensure that Germany remains intact long after our occupiers have departed.”

If Seyss had been alone with Egon, he would have thought the younger man joking.To ensure Germany remains intact. That kind of bluster was his trademark. But when spoken in the company of Schnitzel and Weber, men as hardened by the war as any veteran of the front, his words adopted a gravitas usually denied by his youth.

The Stork laughed and the tension in the room dissipated. “That’s when the answer came to us. Germany must become indispensable to the Americans.”

“Indispensable?” asked Seyss.

“Indispensable,” repeated Schnitzel, smiling. “An ally.”

Seyss smiled, too, but in disbelief. “ An ally? ”

“Yes,” said Schnitzel. “Their soldiers dote on our women and children. Many of their families come from the Fatherland. Why are you so shocked?”

Seyss clamped his jaw shut, eyeing the Stork as if he were mad. “The Amis have just spent the past three years beating the living shit out of us and you expect them to turn around and give us a kiss on the cheek?”

Weber coughed once, a rude honk that passed for a laugh in Prussia. “Of course not. We’ll have to give them a kick in the ass first.”

Exasperated, Seyss raised his hands, then let them fall. “If the German people are to become the Americans’ ally, who’s to be our mutual enemy?”

The three men found the remark humorous, their conjoined laughs rumbling long and low like distant thunder.

“Relations between the Americans and the Russians are touchy,” said Weber, when their mirth had been exhausted. “The Red Army has limited the Americans’ and Brits’ access to Berlin, yet the city is to be governed by all three powers. The first American troops will arrive in two days to take up their permanent station. How long before they are at each others’ throats?”

Schnitzel’s cheeks glowed with excitement. “Stalin has overstepped himself in Poland and Czechoslovakia. He has promised free elections yet he’s seen to it that his puppets are in place in both countries. He has violated the agreement he made with Mr Roosevelt and Mr Churchill at Yalta four months ago. We have it on good authority the Americans aren’t pleased.”

Seyss shrugged his shoulders. “So? Do you expect Eisenhower to cross the Elbe because Stalin has thrown up a few roadblocks and taken a little more land than agreed upon?”

“Of course not,” the Stork retorted. “We expect you to give him a much better reason.”

“Me?”

“ Yes, you ,” hissed Egon, and the room fell silent. “Terminal. It is the Americans’ code name for the conference to be held in Potsdam in a week’s time. There, the provisions governing reparations — measures which will include the settling of our borders and the emasculation of our industrial might — will be settled. The new American president, Truman, will attend, as will Churchill and Stalin. It would be a pity if something should happen to flare the tensions between these three great allies. Personally, I can think of only one thing. And it is a soldier’s job, not a politician’s.”

A soldier’s job.

Seyss stood and paced the room’s perimeter. So there it was: another foray behind enemy lines. He should have known it was something of the kind. Why else single him out? He spoke Russian like a commissar. His English was his mother’s. He’d spent practically the entire war roaming unfriendly territory. Strangely, he felt relieved, the burden of ignorance lifted from his chest at last.

“What exactly do you have in mind?”

Egon Bach drew a cigar from his pocket and lit it. “Sooner or later, the flame of democracy will ignite the cradle of communism. We want you to provide the spark.”

The headquarters of the United States Army of Occupation, Military Government Bavaria, was located in the barracks and classrooms of the former SS academy at Bad Toelz, a sleepy hamlet perched on the banks of the Isar river twenty miles south of Munich. The academy was impressive: a three-storey stone edifice painted a rich cream with steep, gabled roofs that ran in a continuous square around a parade ground the size of Ebbetts Field. Stands of mature poplars stood sentry at each corner of the parade ground. A flagpole rose from its center, the Stars and Stripes snapping to attention in the warm morning breeze.

Devlin Judge hopped from the Jeep as soon as it had pulled to a halt, and followed his driver into the building. Marching up a few stairs, he came to a wide corridor running in either direction as far as the eye could see. The place was as busy as Grand Central Station. A steady stream of soldiers zipped back and forth, as if drawn by a magnetic force. To a man their uniforms were impeccable, their posture equally so. This was Patton’s command all right. “Spit and polish” and “blood and guts”.

Judge walked for two minutes down the hallway. A broad black stripe ran down the center of the flagstone flooring. Every fifty feet, a pair of soldiers knelt low, vigorously maintaining its sheen. His escort turned right, leading him up a broad winding staircase. A different word was painted across the base of each step. Entschiedenheit. Mut. Lauterheit. Decisiveness. Courage. Integrity. Brocades of black cloth were draped like bunting from the walls. Between them, painted in gothic script, were the names of the SS’s elite divisions: Das Reich , Viking , Totenkopf . All over Germany, Allied soldiers were working to eradicate all traces of the Nazi Party from the landscape. The swastika had been outlawed in every shape and form. Yet here, it looked as if Patton were maintaining a shrine to the worst element of the German army: the SS.

At the top of the stairway, the two men turned right again and continued to the end of he hallway where a brace of military policemen in gleaming white helmets and matching Sam Browne belts stood at attention beside an open door. Hanging above the door was a small red flag with four gold stars. Instead of entering the office, though, Judge’s escort continued past it, stopping at the next door down. A hand-lettered sign announced “United States Army of Occupation, Provost Marshal.” He knocked once, then opened the door and allowed Judge to pass before him.

“Get in here, Detective,” boomed the familiar voice. “On the double.” Rising from his desk — all six foot four of him Stanley Mullins crossed the room, arms open in greeting. “Hello, Dev. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Father Francis. A loss to us all.”