Stormfuhrer (13 page)

Wild men insane with anger will cross the
                            rivers,

The largest part of the battle will be
                                          against Hister;

In steel armor they will make their great
                                          attack,

As Germany's child heeds no one.

Krafft looked up from the thick, heavy book and toward the enormous globe.  Through the lens of history, he knew that the “wild men insane with anger” could easily be the Russians from the East or the advancing Americans and British from the West—or both.  He thought on Hitler’s stubborn refusal to accept defeat until the very end, spending his last days in a Berlin bunker, even while the Red Army approached from only a few kilometers away.  Krafft looked at the propaganda minister.

“So.  You want me to find out what happens to Germany by reading this?  Doesn’t look good, but the words seem pretty elusive.  Could be taken to mean anything.”

The Reichsminister looked disappointed.  “I want you to find Germany’s victory in that book and publish it.  I will distribute what you publish to the masses.  It will help the war effort.”

“And if it says that Germany will fall. . .”

“
It won’t because you won’t let it.”

“
Do you believe what this book may actually be saying, that there may be actual truth in here?”

Goebbels again looked disappointed.  “It doesn’t matter what it says, only what you can
make
it say.  Do I personally believe that Nostradamus was an accurate predictor of future events?  Not really.  His words are too nebulous and his images too blurry to be of any real use in that regard.  Neither matters.  What matters is what you can make others, who are gullible enough to take a side, believe what you want them to believe.  Mr. Krafft,   I have the tendency to think you an absolute fraud, a dangerous prevaricator, an enemy of Germany and possibly a man with detailed knowledge regarding the highest levels of resistance against National Socialism in this country and maybe even abroad.  But you convinced our Fuhrer of your veracity, and thus barely saved your life.  I can use a man who can do that.  At the same time, your reactions to certain points of our discussion paint you as naive, an innocent and simple-minded man with powers, if he had them, that he couldn’t begin to use to the Reich’s advantage.  Thus, I choose not to take a side with you, Mr. Krafft, one way or the other.  I only wish for you to work for me here in the Ministry of Propaganda.  You will interpret Nostradamus, convincingly, as one who, four hundred years ago, predicted the rise and thousand-year perpetuity of the Third Reich.  As you read through this book, what you might think this occult prophet may have actually meant in any particular line is completely immaterial.”

Soon Krafft was led to a small office where he was confirmed in his new role as secretary to the Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.  Alone, and under constant surveillance, he would work to find in the stanzas of Nostradamus a glowing future for Germany and its Third Reich.  His new cell in the old Leopold Palace now had tall windows, a wide desk, and a clean, waxed floor.

CHAPTER 8

Summer 2023

As if life could continue as before. 

Before . . . before was what?  What was there before?  There was nothing before the game, nothing that Richard could fathom as anything nearly worth obsessing over, aside from an estranged family that did not care to contact him--though he had made his own attempts, in a way.

Fraulein came to his knee and licked it as he sat on the couch; he surfed the cable channels on his giant flat-screen, wondering what sorts of channels he was actually paying for.  He remembered that he was on a minimum plan with regard to his cable channels—a term applicable now to pretty much all of life’s required exertions and expenditures, except with regard to the Game.

He patted the dog on the head and switched channels.  She gave a low whine.  Apparently, she wanted something.  He flipped to the local news, always amusing on those rare occasions that he watched it.  There would be rain, lots of it, coming in from the Gulf of Mexico.  It was still only a tropical storm, but it was sitting in warm water, building strength, had been for a day or so.

Richard's water boiler in the kitchen clicked off, and he got up to make some tea.  Grabbing a canister from the kitchen area shelf, he pulled out a packet of generic green tea and opened it, placing the tea bag in a yellowing German
bierkrug
that he used for pretty much all hot drinks.  Another part of him remembered that he hated tea, especially green tea.  Tea gave him nausea and bad dreams, particularly if drank it right before bed.  It was 3:17 A.M. and he knew he’d be sleeping soon.  But didn’t he always drink green tea before bed?

Letting the tea steep in the boiled water, Richard Hayes fed his dog with a mixture of kibbles and dry cat food.  Adding cat food was the only way he could get Fraulein to eat right away.  Otherwise, the dog food would sit there until extreme hunger brought her to it.  He scooped a good portion of the mixture from a lidded 20 lb. trash can into her metal bowl.  She trotted immediately to it, sniffed it, and looked up at him, staring as if he had done something wrong.  Her left eye was blue.  Richard was startled at this and then was instantly startled that he had been startled.  When did the eye change color?  Hadn't one of her eyes always been blue?  No, he would, of course, have remembered.  He leaned against the counter, watching her.  She eventually walked back to the couch and jumped on it, looking in his direction, as if a remaining glance might get him to change his mind about the food.

He sipped the tea again and winced.  A succession of five electronic beeps followed, and he remembered that he had put a frozen dinner in the microwave, though he couldn’t remember what kind.  Swedish meatballs, he finally recollected. 

Hadn’t one eye always been blue?

The futon brought a welcome sleep, and he awoke the next morning at 10:05 with the realization that today was Saturday.  It was October, and Richard heard and felt the wind against the side of his A-frame house.  The compression of it made the floor shake lightly.  Fraulein looked up from the foot of the futon to sniff the air.  She whined briefly and lay her head on the cover, raising one eyebrow and then the other as she looked past Richard and out a small, round window at the top of the wall, just above the beast of an aircon unit.

Now what.  Nothing came to mind for Richard this windy Saturday but thoughts of the game.  He thought of Savina, safe . . . if the word could apply, healing in a concentration camp on the other side of the world and over three-fourths of a century ago.

Mr. Farash hadn’t seen his wife in weeks.  He practically lived at the high school after school hours, and an occasional late night phone call to his classroom would always result in an answer from the man, though one short and laconic.  Amala even came to see him a few times, always calling first.  He was always alone, and always absorbed in thought.  He was doing “research,” the kind requiring a tremendous amount of computing power, something they couldn’t afford in their modest apartment just above a store in town that sold flowers, mums, high school spirit shirts, and various birthday party supplies. 

This, however, had been the longest time that he had been gone.  Weekday mornings he woke up, showered in the locker room near the gym, got dressed from the clothes hanging in a locked metal cabinet in his room, taught for the day, and then when the workday was over, he would sneak into one of Hayes’ completely enclosed cardboard cubicles and return to the Game. 

There was a time when he had to look out for his colleague, as Hayes himself would sometimes spend a night in his classroom.  Lately, though, Richard Hayes had been staying away from his classroom outside of school hours.  He no longer came on weekends.  In fact, he’d even started to use his sick days regularly, once or twice a week.  Mr. Farash was thus nearly free to play the game just about whenever he wanted.  He had even obtained a copy of the master key from a coach down the hall.  Hayes wouldn’t care.  Farash figured that Richard was just as addicted to the game as he was—probably more.  If he happened to find Farash in his room, he’d understand.  Farash would make him understand.

Finally, Farash had decided to “borrow” a computer from Hayes’ classroom, rather than continue his clandestine visits under the cover of late hours.  Farash had timed visits to Richard’s classroom during different periods of the school day in effort to determine which computers weren't being used.  He rarely complained about his students anymore.  They were merely . . . friendly visits involving occasional questions regarding the vertical alignment strategies that the Social Studies department had set up for the year.  In this way, Farash had determined that a few of the computers against the outer wall remained unused throughout the day.  They were extras.  None of Hayes’ classes contained more than twenty-two students.  Farash could remove a computer from a desk console and the loss would remain unnoticed unless someone tried to turn the thing on. 
That
would only happen if one of the other computers malfunctioned somehow.  But these computers were tanks.  Aside from one catching fire some time back--which was the fault of the storm, not the unit itself--they never seemed to need repairs, as far as Farhat Farash could tell.  It was no more than a matter of removing four screws from the metal plate in the back; detaching the relevant cables and wires; sliding out the gray brick of wires, fans, cable ports, and processors; then replacing the plate and screws.  He also grabbed a pair of studded interactive gloves and an extra helmet from the back cabinet, bringing all back to his apartment in a cardboard box that once held reams of paper. 

He set the gray brick in a shoebox upon a small desk, stacked with books  in the corner of the second bedroom.  It was referred to as the “junk room,” though Mrs. Farash certainly didn’t like the term, filled with boxes of clothes and nicknacks, most piled onto a twin bed.  It was where the baby would sleep, were one ever to materialize.  Farash made a small nook by piling up the boxes and books into two makeshift walls, hiding himself and his precious boon in the corner, away from the incurious eyes of his beloved wife.  This was now his sacred “place of meditation.”  Namaste.

February 1940

“Well?”  Goebbels seemed more friendly than usual during their morning walk amongst the snow-laden trees around the former Leopold Palace courtyard.
 
A statue of General Leopold stood in the center while SS men could be found at nearly every building corner and on every rooftop in the vicinity.  Only designated officials were allowed near the Ministry building.
 

“
I have several quatrains that may interest you.  This one foreshadows the Fuhrer’s successful takeover of Britain.”  Farash as Krafft began:  

The grand empire will quickly be reduced

To a tiny area, which shall soon after                                           expand;

An unsavory place in a small country,

In the middle he will come to lay down his                             scepter.

The Reichsminister walked quietly, thinking, looking into the surrounding Linden trees that, undisturbed, might continue to grow for centuries.  “I see,” he remarked.  “Britain is the 'grand empire,' which shall be 'quickly reduced' by the armies of the Third Reich.  But what I don’t understand is what makes the 'small country' unsavory?  And, in what way will our Fuhrer lay down his scepter?  Isn’t that more an image of defeat?”

Farash was silent.  Both kept walking.  The snow crunched beneath their boots as they slowly strolled along the edge of the courtyard. “As you say, a man can paint a place as savory or unsavory, meager or powerful.  ‘A mind is its own place, and can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.’”  Farash was quoting Satan from John Milton's
Paradise Lost.
  The irony was apparently lost on Goebbels.

“
And how would you do this?”

“
England will be reduced by our bombing campaign.  When we have destroyed it and made it ‘unsavory,’ we shall then expand its potential by making it our jumping off point for an invasion of the western hemisphere.  The scepter will be laid down by the Fuhrer--perhaps a giant statue of a man holding a burning scepter on the westernmost point of England, showing that we have taken all of Europe and will soon shine the light of National Socialism across the Atlantic.”

“
That could work,” Goebbels remarked.  “Or it could be interpreted as our creating a historical prognostication after the fact.”

“
Isn’t that what we’re doing? I . . .”

“
No.  Your job is to look into the quatrains for events that are occurring now and could not possibly have happened as a consequence of conscious interference, of merely creating events to coincide with Nostradamus’ four-hundred year old predictions.”

The two were silent.  His remaining ideas involving the quatrains surrounded just that--events that could be created to
seem
as if they coincided with Nostradamus’ esoteric words, not events that were currently in play--or even would be.

The clouds over this section of Berlin were growing especially dark.  In his corner of the junk room Farash could feel in his blanketed corner the chilling stillness of the morning air—though late night surrounded him in his apartment.  Farash himself took snatches of sleep only when he knew he would pass out otherwise though he had always needed very little sleep, even as a child.

Farash had been told by his guard detail, the SS men who interminably stood outside his office door, that, occasionally, Krafft would awaken from a nap, having no idea where he was or for whom he was working.  Thus, Farash made it clear to orderlies and the SS guards that the cause of this behavior was as unknown as the sources of his extraordinary abilities, that during such bouts of amnesia he was to be physically restrained, gagged, and kept detained in his office, and that under no circumstances, while he was in that state, were he to be told anything regarding why he was there or what his duties might be.  He was not even to be allowed to speak until he gave a specific hand signal, indicating that his rational self was back in control.  They had accepted all of this without comment.

When Farash was not Krafft, Krafft slept on a cot unfolded from the wardrobe opposite his desk.  Farash kept the physical body of Krafft exhausted through his continuous playing, so managing that Krafft actually slept during these three or four hour stretches of time wasn't a problem.  Whenever Farash as Krafft went anywhere, which was rare, he was accompanied by armed SS guards.  Farash had actually insisted on it.  Of course, Goebbels also knew of Krafft’s strange amnesic episodes, but thought it merely part of the game a self-styled mystic might play, one who clearly wanted desperately into the Leader’s inner circle.  Farash knew this to be the Reichsminister’s thinking, so he downplayed his powers whenever he could manage not to blurt out some historical fact that only a seer--or a man from the future--could possibly know, in the interest of impressing his boss.  Primarily, he must be what Goebbels wanted of him--that was all--while perhaps still attempting to grind away slowly at the man’s incredulity.

For Farash, the real problem with making any prediction and seeing it actually come to pass involved time.  It took time for a significant event to play out once he had predicted it.  Some events might be scheduled to happen only days after a prediction, but these seemed always to be something anyone might derive from a general knowledge of their preceding events, their causes.  Other correct but highly sensitive predictions might be too risky, making the incredulous listener soon question the man’s sources, background, secret political connections.  And how did one reveal things that the Reichsminister himself could have (or should have) known without stinging the man’s ego?  The egos of evil men are fragile, for they operate against the whispered conscience of their upbringing, which experience and self-deception can never wholly extinguish.

“
You are wasting valuable time.  This war will last as long as resources last--men, machinery, raw materials.  The nature of consumption is that it involves using up what cannot immediately be replaced.  We need a message that will make Germans work harder for the Fatherland, dig deeper for iron, and accept greater sacrifices as the scarcity of basic necessities  increases.”