Eric Norden - The Ultimate Solution

“The significance is double, Herr Kohler. We started out to hunt down the last remaining Jew on earth, and that is still our purpose. It is, I admit, one that affects me emotionally, personally, on a deep human level. I am certainly not prepared to see a lifetime spent cleansing the world of this filth frustrated and mocked by even one survivor.” The blue vein on his forehead began to pulse, then quieted down as he perched on the arm of a black leather recliner next to us and continued in a staccato rush of words. “But even I, personally involved as I am in this matter, recognize that there are higher issues at stake in the world than the extermination of one more Jew, however desirable that may be.” He crossed his spindly legs and one battered slipper plopped onto the floor, but von Leeb didn’t seem to notice. His toe nails were long, yellow and cracked. “Don’t you realize what has fallen into our laps in the course of this affair?”

Kohler looked completely baffled and I wasn’t far behind him, but von Leeb didn’t wait for an answer.

“Of course you don’t, and that is excusable because your kind of job does not prepare you, either of you, to take an overview on such matters. But let me tell you, gentlemen, that by seeking to capture the Jew for their own propaganda purposes the Japs have handed us a weapon of incalculable power.” He stabbed a yellow finger at us. “They have given the Reich, gentlemen, a casus belli. A cause for war.” He repeated the words, and his smile was almost beatific. “For war.”

“Professor,” Kohler interjected, “I don’t think I follow you. Our concern here is this Jew, not…”

“Our concern was the Jew.” Von Leeb jumped up again and started pacing the room, the robe billowing out behind him. “Oh, we will still find him, Herr Kohler. We must find him, because we must keep the Japs on our trail. Surely you grasp the significance of that? ”

Kohler shook his head.

“Professor, our purpose in seeing you was to get the Japs off our trail.” There was a trace of desperation in his voice. “Lieutenant Haider here was almost killed last night, any of us could be next.”

Von Leeb waved a hand in dismissal.

“You Gestapo men always worry too much about your own skins. There is more at stake here than our lives, more at stake than even the life of this miserable Jew.”

He wandered over to the French windows again and stood looking out across the horizon, apparently lost in his own thoughts. When he swung around his face was intense, his voice tight with passion.

“I have seen all the dreams of a lifetime fulfilled, Herr Kohler. I have seen Europe fall to our armies, followed by North and South America, the Mid-East and Africa. I have seen the Jewish pestilence scourged, the black baboons bred as domestic animals, the Slavic untermenschen reduced to a race of docile slaves. I have realized all my dreams but one.” He paused, his eyes flickering with some distant vision. “We do not yet rule the world. We have subdued or eliminated the sub-men, we have even reached the moon and someday the stars shall be ours. But a third of the globe lies under the control of the Japanese Empire, a third of this earth festers under the rule of our racial inferiors, from the Home Islands across the Pacific to the Hawaiian Federation, from China to Siam, from India across the entire subcontinent of Eastern Asia.” Now the vein was hammering in earnest, a tiny blue snake rippling across his forehead. “And everywhere the Japanese Empire rules you find the same corrupt and debilitating concepts of so-called humanism and personal freedom that we sacrificed three million men to destroy forever. They tolerate Christians, they encourage liberal thought and philosophy, they even tried to protect the few Jews in their territory until we forced their extradition at the threat of war.” His monkey paws were shredding the lapel of the dressing gown. “Gentlemen, I am eighty-one years old. I will not die until I see this foul race of yellow scum wiped from the face of the earth!”

Toward the end his voice had risen to a scream, and now he braced himself with both arms against the wall, trembling, breathing heavily, sweat streaming down his wizened face. Well, there was no longer any doubt the old man was a Contraxist, but what the shit that had to do with the present mess was beyond me. Kohler shot me a quick, worried glance, and then he spoke, slowly, soothingly.

“Professor, Lieutenant Haider and I couldn’t agree with you more. We both think the Axists are cowardly traitors, weak-kneed pacifists afraid to face up to the Empire.” He was a good ass-licker, I’d give him that. “But for now, isn’t our immediate purpose to pursue this investigation in the safest and most efficient manner, to…”

“No, no, no, Herr Kohler.” Von Leeb shook his head wearily, as if at a backward pupil. “Our purpose now is very simple. We have one Japanese corpse in a morgue at Gestapo headquarters, already identified as a Komeito agent, and that in itself is almost enough proof. Under the Singapore Treaty, the Empire pledged a policy of total non-interference in the domestic affairs of the Reich. We may not be able to prove they blew up Grauber’s plane, but we can prove they attempted to kill Lieutenant Haider, a man working under the direct orders of Reichsminister Heydrich. That alone would be enough to indict them for a breach of the Treaty, and all that entails. But we shall prove more, far more.” His words were tripping over each other, his eyes glowing. “You and Haider will continue your investigation, you will place yourselves directly in the line of fire, you will encourage assassination by Japanese agents.” He smiled again, like a paper cut. “With one difference, comrades: You shall capture the next assassin alive, and produce him for trial in Berlin.” I hoped I was dreaming all this, but either way it was a nightmare. “This could not come at a more opportune time for us. The Contraxists are gaining strength steadily within the Government and Party, but there is still resistance to a confrontation with the Empire. This trial, producing irrefutable evidence of Japanese subversion and murder within the Reich —murder and subversion we shall prove to be on behalf of a Jew —will irrevocably turn the tide.”

He clutched each of us by the arm. “Kameraden, you are bait for a trap that will lead to the destruction of the Japanese Empire.” Tears gleamed in his eyes, and his voice shook. “When the first atomic bomb hits Tokyo, you will be responsible.”

We left the elevators in a daze and headed straight for the hotel bar. It was barely eleven o’clock and we were the only ones there except for a hungover hooker who looked too beat to hustle us. We ordered double martinis and sat in dull silence for a moment after the first chill, therapeutic belt.

Finally, I said it.

“He’s insane. Ed, he’s nuts, if he wasn’t an OPC he’d have been loboed years ago. My God, we’re putting our lives on the line for a stark raving madman!”

Kohler just shook his head wearily.

“I wish it were that simple.” He held up two fingers for another round and hitched his stool closer to mine. “Bill, von Leeb is sane, and there’s a horrible logic to everything he said. Horrible for us, anyway…”

The second martinis arrived and I took half of mine in one gulp.

“Yeah,” I said, waiting for a glow that didn’t come, “it’s horrible all right. The guy wants us to be sitting ducks for him, just so he can indulge some freudy fantasy about triggering a war with Japan. And all the time he’ll be sitting on his scrawny ass in that penthouse contemplating the aesthetics of the Manhattan skyline. Shit, Ed, we’d be crazier than him if we went along with it.”