Harry Turtledove - The Man with the Iron Heart

He’d found his answers. He knew what kind of orders to give. Whether anyone would listen to them…He shook his head and said “Nein” again, louder this time. Some people would always follow a superior’s commands. He could use them to eliminate the fainthearts. No, to eliminate a few of them. That should scare the rest back into obedience. Fear was as much a weapon as an assault rifle.

It all seemed simple and straightforward. Peiper laughed at himself. If everything were as simple and straightforward as it seemed, the Reich would never have got itself into this mess. Well, the job of getting it out had landed on his shoulders. He’d do his damnedest.

When the phone rang, it was the Mothers Against the Madness in Germany line. It usually was, these days. “Diana McGraw,” Diana said in her crisp public voice.

“Hi, Mrs. McGraw. E. A. Stuart here, from the Times, ” the reporter replied in her ear.

“Hello, E.A. How are you?” Diana said. Only the Indianapolis Times, not the one from Los Angeles, let alone New York’s. Well, she lived next door to Indianapolis. And other papers would pick up whatever she said to Stuart. She’d got used to having people all over the world pay attention to what she thought. She liked it, in fact.

“I’m fine, thanks. Yourself?” Unlike reporters from far away, E.A. knew her well enough to chitchat for a bit before he got down to business. He might have thought it would soften her up. And he might have been right.

“Doing all right.” Diana wasn’t lying…too much. Her conscience still gnawed at her for that San Francisco night. She did feel bad about it-and she felt worse because she’d felt so good while it was going on. I was drunk, she told herself. I didn’t know what I was doing. The first part of that was true. The rest? She’d known what she was doing, all right. And she’d gone and done it. And she’d enjoyed it like anything-then. Afterwards was a different story. Afterwards commonly was. She ducked away from the worries: “What can I do for you this morning?”

“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to comment on the death of Reinhard Heydrich.”

“I’m glad the miserable skunk is dead,” Diana said at once. “So many people have called me a Nazi, and it’s a filthy lie. You know it’s a lie, E.A. The maniacs that evil so-and-so led murdered my Pat. If we’d caught him alive, I’d’ve been glad to string him up myself.”

“To hang the Hangman?” Stuart asked.

Diana nodded, which the reporter couldn’t see. “That’s right,” she said. “That’s just right.”

“Okay.” By the pause, E. A. Stuart was likely nodding, too. “How do you think his death changes the situation in Germany?”

Since Diana’d been thinking about that ever since the news broke, she could answer without the least hesitation: “It just gives us one more reason to keep bringing our troops back to America. We’ve been saying all along that we wanted him dead, that we needed him dead, that he was the most dangerous man in the world, and I don’t know what all else. Fine. Now he’s dead. Now the fanatics can’t cause anywhere near as much trouble as they could before. That means we’ve got even less excuse for sticking around. The sooner all the soldiers come home, the better.”

“Hang on,” Stuart said. She could hear him scribbling notes. Even though he took shorthand, she’d got ahead of him. Then he asked, “What would have happened if all the American soldiers were out of Germany before we found out where Heydrich was hiding out?”

Diana scowled at the telephone. Doggone it, E.A., you’re supposed to be on my side. But she didn’t say it out loud. He would have to deny it, and he might have to go out of his way to show it wasn’t true. That wouldn’t be so good.

“Maybe we would have gone back after him. I’ve never said we shouldn’t get rid of him,” she answered. “Or maybe the German police could have dug him out on their own.”

“Mm. Maybe.” Stuart didn’t sound as if he believed it. He tried a different kind of question: “How do you feel about President Truman taking credit for bumping him off?”

“If we’d caught Heydrich right after V-E day, he would’ve been entitled to some,” Diana said tartly. “Now we’re only a couple of months away from 1948. It’s not just about time Heydrich’s dead-it’s way past time.”

“Hang on,” E. A. Stuart said once more, and then, “Okey-doke. Got it. Thanks a lot, Mrs. McGraw. ’Bye.” He hung up.

“So long.” Diana set the phone down, too. She heated up the coffee, took the pot off the stove, and poured herself a cup. It wasn’t as good as it had been when she made it right after she and Ed got up, but it wasn’t too much like battery acid yet. And she was too lazy to fix a fresh pot.

Battery acid. She shook her head. Would the comparison even have occurred to her if Ed hadn’t worked at the Delco-Remy plant since the Year One? How many car and truck batteries did they turn out there every year? Zillions-that was all she knew.

The phone rang again. This time, it was a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He wanted to find out what she thought of Heydrich’s untimely demise, too. She was still all for it. He asked almost the same questions as E. A. Stuart had. Later on, she got a call from the Boston Globe, and one from the Los Angeles Mirror-News.

“Do you feel like you’ve got revenge for your son now?” the reporter from the Mirror-News asked.

That was a more…interesting question than she usually got. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “When it’s your own flesh and blood…No, it’s not revenge, or not enough revenge. I don’t think there can be enough revenge for your own child. I’m still glad Heydrich’s dead, though.”

“You and everybody else. Well, thanks.” The reporter didn’t even say good-bye. He just went off to write up his piece.

In between phone calls, life went on. Diana sliced potatoes and carrots and chopped onions and put them into a pan with a pot roast. If a few tears fell, she could blame them on the onions. Supper went into the oven.

Ed got home about twenty to six, the way he always did. He took a Burgie out of the icebox, drank it faster than he was in the habit of doing, and then opened another one. “You all right?” Diana asked. “You don’t do that very often.” Ever since she got back from San Francisco, she’d watched him more closely than usual.

He let out a wordless grunt and got to work on the second beer. That alarmed her. Everything alarmed her these days-a sure sign of her guilty conscience. That same guilty conscience had made her extra accommodating in the bedroom since coming home. If only it had made her take more pleasure in what went on there.

Doggedly, she tried again: “Everything all right at the plant?”

“Fine,” Ed said. He poured down the Burgermeister.

He opened another one to go with supper. “You’ll get snockered,” Diana warned. She remembered too well what had happened when she got snockered. Ed just shrugged. He killed the beer, and killed one more while she was doing the dishes.

That seemed to get him where he needed to go. While she dried the last fork and put away the dish towel, he sat there waiting. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” he said, sounding sad and resigned at the same time.

“What is?” Her voice, by contrast, was a thin, nervous squeak.

“Us,” he said, and then, as if that weren’t comprehensive enough, “Everything.”

“What? We’re fine! I love you!” The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Diana hadn’t read any Shakespeare since high school. Why did that particular line have to come back to her right now? Why? Because she was protesting too goddamn much-why else?