always the strongest, for they must be arrived at."
"To bring all this about will result in an enormous loss of life-"
"Initially, yes, but it will pass quickly, be forgotten quickly, and the world will be a far better place. There'll be no massive war, no nuclear confrontations-our progress will be gradual but sure, for much of it is in place already. In a matter of months, governments will change, new laws will be created that benefit the strongest, the purest, and within a few years the useless garbage, the dregs of society who suck us dry, will be swept away."
"It's not necessary to deliver a speech to me .. . Freddie."
"It's all true! Can't you see that?"
"I can't even see you, and you do excite me when you talk like this, like the extraordinary man, I know you are. Please, turn on a light."
"I have a small problem with that."
"Why? Have you changed so much in five years?"
"No, but I'm wearing glasses and you're not."
"I wear them only when my eyes are tired, you know that."
"Yes, but mine are' different I can see in the dark, and I see the gun in your hand. It reminded me that you were left-handed. Do you remember when you decided you should play golf with me and I bought you a set of clubs, only they were the wrong kind?"
"Yes, of course, I remember, they were for right-handed players. . I carry the gun because you taught me never to go to a meeting at night, even with you, without a weapon. You said neither of us could know if you'd been followed."
"I was right, I was protecting you. Did your friends outside know you had a gun?"
"I didn't see anyone. I came alone, without authority."
"Now you're lying, at least in part, but it doesn't matter. Drop the gun on the floor!" Karin did so, and De Vries/jdger turned on a light, a reflector lamp that shone down on a small chapel altar, heightening the gold crucifix on a purple cloth. The new hihrer sat on a prayer stool on the right, in a white silk shirt, opened at the collar, his bright blond hair glistening, his handsome, sharp featured face at its most flattering angle.
"How do I look after five years, wife?"
"As beautiful as ever, but you know that."
"It's an attribute I cannot deny, and one Herr Hitler never possessed. Did you know he was a rather small, pinch-faced man who wore elevator shoes? My looks are a great help to me, but I wear them in brilliant humility, and pretend to be icelike when women make,a point of them. Physical vanity does not become a national leader."
"Others care. I believed they're awed by it. I was .. . I still am."
"When did you people suspect that "Ginter Jager' was the new neo-Nazi leader?"
"When one of the Sonnenkinder broke under questioning. With the addition of drugs, I suspect."
"That couldn't be, I never revealed myself to any of them!"
"Obviously, you did, whether you realized it or not. You said you had meetings, gave speeches-"
"Only to those of us in the Bundestag! All the rest were recorded."
"Then someone sold you out .. . Freddie. I heard something about a Catholic priest who went to confession and taxed the conscience of his confessor."
"My God, that senile idiot Paltz. Time and again I said he should be excluded, but no, Traupman claimed he had a large following among the working class. I'll have him shot."
Karin briefly breathed easier. She had struck the chord she so needed to strike. The name of Paltz came to her from the identifications made from the tape, and the fact that Monsignor Paltz was an old man vociferously disliked by the Catholic hierarchy in Germany, another fact established by a call to the bishop of Bonn. The bishop had not minced words.
"He's a misguided bigot who should be retired. I've said as much to Rome." Karin waited until her unwanted husband calmed down.
"Freddie," she began quietly, in control.
"This Paltz, whoever he is, this priest, said that something dreadful will happen to the cities of London, Paris, and Washington. Disasters of such magnitude that hundreds of thousands will be killed. Is it true .. . Freddie?"
The pitch-black silence from the F4hrer was electric, exaggerated by the pounding rain. Finally Gunter Jager spoke, his voice strained, harsh, sounding like the strings of a taut cello about to snap.
"So that's why you're here, slut-wife. They sent you on the distinctly outside chance that I