deposition yesterday morning. As his physical therapist, she spent a great deal of time with him and saw nothing that would indicate surgery of any kind had been done.”
“The symptoms of a man recovering from a stroke,” Osborn mused, “were caused not by a stroke at all, but by recovery from a phenomenal surgical procedure.” He looked up at McVey. “Is that what the tape is about?”
“What the tape is about is between you and me and the fencepost. If anybody says anything at all, it will come from Washington or Bad Godesberg.” McVey picked up a remote and handed it to Osborn. “This time, Doctor, nobody does anything on his own. Personal reasons or anything else. I hope you understand that because there are
For a moment the two men stood facing each other in silence. Then McVey abruptly opened the door and walked out. Osborn watched him cross an outer office and push through a wooden gate. Then he was gone. Like that, he’d taken him off the hook and let him go.
158
OSBORN SAT for a long moment in silence, then raised the remote, pointed it toward the VCR in the cart under the TV and hit “play.” There was a click and a whirring sound, then the television screen flickered and an image appeared. The scene was a formal study with a straight-backed leather chair prominent in the foreground. A large desk was to the left with a wall of books to the right. A window, only partially visible behind the desk, provided most of the light. Several seconds passed and then Salettl walked in. He was wearing a dark blue suit and had his back to the camera. When he reached the chair, he turned and sat down.
“Please excuse this primitive introduction,” he said. “But I am alone and am operating the video camera myself.” Crossing his legs, he sat back and became more formal. “My name is Helmuth Salettl. I am a physician. My home is Salzburg, Austria, but I am, by birth, German. My age, as of this taping, is seventy-nine. When you view this, I will no longer be living.” Pausing, Salettl’s gaze into the camera sharpened. Seemingly to underscore the seriousness of what he had to say. The idea of his own death seemed to have no effect on him.
“What follows is a confession. To murder. To fanaticism. To invention. I hope you will excuse my English.
“In 1939 I was a young surgeon at Berlin University. Optimistic and perhaps arrogant, I was approached by a representative of the Reich chancellor and asked to become a member of an advisory council on advanced surgical practices. Later, as a member of the Nazi party and a group leader in the Schutzstaffel, the SS, I was promoted to the office of commissioner for public health. Some of this you may be aware of because it is public record. More detailed information can be found in the Federal Archives at Koblenz.”
Salettl paused and reached for a glass of water. Taking a sip, he put the glass down and turned back to the camera.
“In 1946,1 was put on trial at Nuremberg, charged with the crime of having prepared and carried out aggressive warfare. I was acquitted of those charges and soon after located to Austria, where I practiced internal medicine until my retirement at age seventy. Or, so it appeared. In truth, I continued to be a minister of the Reich, even though it had officially ceased to exist.
“In 1938, under the direction of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary, and later deputy
“It began with a costly, elaborate, and highly detailed socioeconomic and political projection of the future. Commissioning a wide range of experts who were told little or nothing about what they were working on or toward, Bormann was able, within two years, to make a highly speculative, yet, in hindsight, remarkably accurate forecast of the world situation from 1940 until the year 2000.
“Without going into detail, I will say, simply, that the work predicted the defeat of the Reich by the Allied armies, followed by the partition of Germany. The rise of the superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and the inevitable ‘Cold War’ and arms race that ensued. The development of Japan as an economic might, powered by a worldwide demand for superior automobiles and advanced technology. Included in this were four extremely important elements that would take place over nearly five decades: the ascent from the ashes of war of a West Germany that would become an industrial and economic bulwark with perhaps the most solid economy in the Western Hemisphere; a realized necessity of economic cooperation between the European states; the reunification of Germany, and lastly, that the arms race would bankrupt the Soviet Union and cause not only it, but the entire Soviet Bloc built in its wake, to crumble. In those studied assumptions, vastly oversimplified here, the seeds for the secret preservation of the Third Reich were sown.
“A clandestine organization—that always remained unnamed and is peopled by members in countries all over the world—was formed by a handful of wealthy and powerful German businesspersons, patriots and expatriates alike, who were resolutely dedicated to the Nazi cause but who had never been exposed. Over the years the Organization grew, its members carefully screened.
“The movement was to emerge slowly at first, as a small trickle within the German political right. Nationalism was its key word. The terms
“And Germany was not all. For years we had been working covertly with singular, sympathetic movements inside the established governments of the European community. From France were to come the first rumblings. Others, similarly seeded, were to follow at our instruction.
“To show what we, as leaders, were capable of—done at first as a uniting point for ourselves, and then later, at the right moment when we chose to reveal it, for the rest of the world—we began on a highly ambitious technological program of our own.
“Constructed during the war was an experimental medical facility hidden deep beneath the city of Berlin. Structurally safe from Allied bombers, it was called The Garden. It was there, at
Suddenly Osborn stopped the tape. His heart was pounding. He felt lightheaded, as if he were in a swoon and about to faint. Consciously he started breathing deeply, then got up and walked across the room. Turning back, he looked at the TV as if it had been playing a trick on him. But all he saw was a gray-white screen and the red glow of the VCR’s ready light.
Salettl’s words hung like acid smoke in the quick of his mind. It wasn’t possible! It couldn’t be! He had to have heard incorrectly. Salettl must have said something else. Going back, he sat down and picked up the remote. Pointing it at the VCR, his thumb found “rewind.” The machine whirred. Immediately he hit “stop.” Then, taking a breath, hit “play.”
Osborn’s thumb slipped off the control and the picture froze where it was.
His mind flashed to the Jungfrau. He saw Von Holden standing above him, the machine pistol pointed at his chest. He heard himself ask the why of his father’s death and then heard Von Holden’s reply.
