and he didn't want her to overhear the venom dripping from his words. Perhaps she
Gretel could have saved Doctor von Westarp. She'd known all along what was coming, but had refrained from saying anything. The doctor had died simply because she wanted him to. Or because she couldn't be bothered to care.
The OKW was furious. The Fuhrer had raged for days on end upon receiving the news. Doctor von Westarp's genius had been the axle about which the Reich spun its plans for further conquests. But now he was gone, his body scattered to the winds, along with his plans for expanding the Reichsbehorde. Deprived of the second- generation Gotterelektrongruppe he'd promised, the Reich was scrambling to revamp its entire strategy for the war.
Gretel had put everything on precarious footing. Yet nobody confronted her. Nobody dared.
The simplest questions colored every interaction with the mad seer: Is this what she wants? Am I doing her bidding? Has she seen this moment? Anticipated it?
Will I upset her?
Now everybody feared Gretel the same way Klaus did, though he didn't hate her as the others did. How could he? She was his sister.
Reinhardt continued, “Anyway, who cares? I don't. This trip is a farce.”
“We have our orders,” said Klaus. He couldn't muster the energy to infuse the words with conviction. He hated this recruitment drive as much as Reinhardt did, though for utterly different reasons.
“We should be on the front, tearing our enemies apart.”
“Just the three of us? How long do you think we'd last, outnumbered ten thousand to three?”
Reinhardt spat into the mud. “I'm wasted here.”
“This is important work,” said Klaus. “Valuable work.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Klaus. Maybe you'll start to believe it.”
“The farm will need volunteers once the doctor's work has been reconstructed.” Klaus shuddered, remembering the new machines. Machines for disposing of failed subjects.
The LSSAH men deemed the toppled supply truck to be in suitable shape for driving. Klaus and Reinhardt rejoined the small convoy as the trucks growled back to life, belching black smoke and diesel exhaust.
As Reinhardt climbed back into the cab of his truck, he said, “We're all that's left, Klaus. We're all there will ever be.”
They entered Stuttgart at sunset. Klaus watched the glow of streetlamps move in a wave across the city as the setting sun plunged the valley into shadow. Handbills advertising the Gotterelektrongruppe's demonstrations had been pinned or pasted to every public notice board their small convoy passed.
The mundane troops joined the local Waffen-SS garrison for the night. Klaus, Reinhardt, Kammler, and Spalcke were hosted by the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart. Birdlike Herr Strogan received them as honored guests, plying them with food, drink, and an atmosphere of strained goodwill. Yet throughout their dinner—roast duck, trout from the nearby Neckar river, white asparagus, and sweet wine from the local vineyards—his eyes wandered to Klaus's missing fingers, or Reinhardt's self-igniting cigarettes, or the wine dribbling down Kammler's chin.
The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes grew tighter, too, as Reinhardt charmed the young Fraulein Strogan. The mayor couldn't mask the look of impotent despair on his face each time his daughter laughed at one of Reinhardt's jokes, or gasped at his wildly exaggerated war exploits. Klaus wondered what Lord Mayor Strogan had been told about these strangers from the little-known Gotterelektrongruppe.
That night, Klaus and Reinhardt slept in adjacent rooms. Klaus wrapped a pillow around his head to drown out Reinhardt's snoring and the fraulein's weeping.
There had been a time when he'd been accustomed to sleeping while others wept. What had changed? Reinhardt had grown more brazen with his appetites. That was it, Klaus lied to himself. The problem was Reinhardt.
When he did sleep, Klaus dreamed of blackbirds and a hay wagon.
They performed their first set of demonstrations in Stuttgart on the Schlossplatz, before the New Castle, the next morning. The Neue Schloss, the former residence of the kings of Wurttemburg, was an expansive construction of late baroque design. It was draped in so many flags that when the wind blew, it seemed the castle had been consumed in a red tide. Banners fluttered overhead (GREATNESS IS OUR DESTINY! YOU ARE THE FUTURE OF THE FATHERLAND!) while a gramophone blared the Deutschlandlied and the Horst Wessel song across the plaza. All this in the shadow of Concordia (the Roman goddess of unity, fittingly enough), whose statue watched from a perch high atop the marble Jubilee Column.
The morning smelled of fresh-baked bread from the nearby bakeries. Vendors sold fragrant Mandel- Halbmonde from pushcarts. Klaus tried to buy one, but received it free with the baker's compliments. Honey, sweet and sticky, coated his fingers.
The spectacle drew a large crowd. Mostly fathers and mothers too old or weak to be of use, or children too young. But here and there, interspersed throughout the throng, teenagers and preteens watched the show with undisguised adoration. The members of the local Hitler Youth had turned out, and they watched the proceedings with expressions of rapture.
The Lord Mayor watched from the wings. His daughter was not in attendance.
The spectators
Klaus and the others took care to keep their wires hidden. They had learned in Munich that the prospect of brain surgery dampened people's enthusiasm.
Thirty-four men and women—some little more than boys and girls, others adults who had until now opted to support the war effort in civilian roles—lined up to sign the roster afterwards. They received armbands marking them as cadets of the Gotterelektrongruppe while parents smiled and a puddle of iron crackled. Parents and spouses received impressive stipends, plus the assurance that they were doing the Fatherland the greatest possible service.
Thirty-four. Back in the old days, Klaus knew, one or two of them might have survived the first round. He wondered how the reconstructed version of Doctor von Westarp's accelerated program would work, and if the survival rates would be any higher. But then he remembered the lime pits, and the ovens, and doubted it.
After all, if the procedure had been perfected, they wouldn't need to recruit civilians. Instead they'd take in trained soldiers. But only if it were reasonably quick, and the attrition rate low.
Spalcke took the roster of new volunteers. He signed it, stamped it, folded it, sealed it into an envelope, then stamped the envelope for special courier back to the Reichsbehorde. The REGP would arrange buses to collect the volunteers and distribute the stipends.
The crowd dispersed while the mundane troops disassembled the risers, pulled down the banners, and struggled with crowbars to pry up the iron slag. Klaus leaned against the base of the Jubilee Column, munching on another almond crescent. He felt disinclined to help speed along their next demonstration, which was scheduled across town at the Wilhelma botanical gardens that afternoon.
“Sir? Herr Officer?”
Klaus turned. A girl of perhaps fourteen or fifteen years stared up at him with wide blue eyes.
“Is it too late? I'd like to sign the roster.”
Klaus looked across the plaza. Spalcke was busy cursing out Kammler. He hadn't yet handed off the envelope containing the roster.
It would be a trivial matter for Klaus to pluck the roster from inside the sealed envelope, add a name, put it back. Doing so was his duty.
He looked back at the girl. She put him in mind of Heike, staring at nothing with her eyes of Prussian blue while Reinhardt had his way with her body.
“Go home,” he said.
