rabble, screaming at one another, slaughtering one another, no better than animals in a jungle. Well, we'll get rid of the animals and restructure the state, selecting and rewarding only the purest to serve it. The dawn of a great new day is upon us, my wife, and as soon as it is understood, the truth of its force and the force of its truth will sweep across the world."
"The world will point to and remember the brutality of the Nazis, won't it .. . Freddie?"
"Perhaps for a while, but that will pass when the world sees the results of a cleansed state under strong, benign leadership. The democracies constantly extol the righteousness of the bailor box, but they could not be more in error! Ballots are fought for in the gutter, for that's where the majority of votes are. And bless the Americans, they don't even understand their own Constitution as it was conceived two hundred years ago. Originally, only the landowners, the men who had proved themselves successful and therefore superior, were to be permitted to vote. That was the consensus of the Constitutional Convention, did you know that?"
"Yes, it was an agrarian society, but I'm surprised you know it.
History was never one of your strong suits, my husband."
"All that's changed. If you could see these shelves .. . they re lined with books, new ones brought in every day. I read five or six a week."
"Let me see them, let me see you. I've missed you, Freddie."
"Soon, my wife, soon. There's a certain comfort in the darkness for I 'see' you as I prefer to remember you' The lovely, vivacious woman who took such pride in her husband, who brought me secrets from NATO, a number of which I'm convinced saved my life."
"You were on NATO's side, how could I do otherwise?"
"Now I'm on a greater side. Would you help me now?"
"It depends, my husband. I can't deny that you're extremely convincing. Having heard your own words, I'm very excited for you. You were always an extraordinary man, even those who disapproved of you said as much-"
"Such as my friend, my former friend, Harry Latham, who is now your lover!"
"You're wrong, Freddie. Harry Latham is not my lover."
"Liar! He was always fawning on you, waiting for you to show up, asking me when you would."
"I will repeat my statement to you, and we lived together too long for you not to know when I'm telling the truth. It's your profession, after all, and you've heard me tell a hundred lies on your behalf.. .. Harry Latham is not my lover. Shall I repeat it again?"
' "No." The single word echoed off the unseen walls.
"Then who is he?"
"Someone who's assumed Harry's name." 6"Why?)@
"Because you want your friend Harry killed, and Harry doesn't care to be killed. How could you, Frederik? Harry loved you as a-a younger brother."
"It was not of my doing," said the disembodied voice of Gunter [email protected] quietly.
"Harry penetrated our headquarters in the Alps. He was part of an experiment. I had no choice but to agree."
"What kind of experiment?"
"A medical thing. I never fully understood it. Traupman, however, was very Enthusiastic, and I could not go against Hans.
He was my mentor, the man who put me where I am today."
"And where are you, Freddie? Are you really the new Adolf Hitler?"
"It's odd that you mention him. I've read and reread Mein Kampf, and all the biographies I could get my hands on. Have you any idea how parallel our lives are, at least our lives before we joined the movement? He was an artist, and in my own way, I'm an artist too. He was unemployed, as I was about to be. He was rejected by the Austrian Artists League, as well as the Architectural Academy, for a supposed lack of talent-an ex-corporal with nowhere to go. In my case, the same. Who employs someone like me? And we were both penniless; in his case he had nothing, and I sold all my diamonds to save my life.. .. Then someone in the twenties saw a street-corner radical screaming passionately, convincingly, against the injustices of social conditions, and years later someone else watched the oratory of a superb, former agent provocateur who had fooled even them. Such men are valuable."
"Are you saying that both you and Adolf Hitler backed into your awesome positions?"
"I'd put it another way, my wife. We didn't find our causes, our causes found us."
"That's obscene!"
"Not at all. The convert's convictions are