“The oracle,” Kohler said, “exists in the Nebenwelt; we encountered it several times, although there is—we found—no widespread use. It does not appear at all in Abendsen’s book, in the world he depicts.”
“Another difference,” Canaris said thoughtfully. He seemed for a time to chew on this point. “If we were to believe in the oracle,” he said at last, “then we would suppose it to know of the existence of the Nebenwelt, inasmuch [as] it can be found there. Abendsen, I have read, makes use of the oracle; I understand, in fact, he plotted his book by means of the hexagrams. That might account for the resemblance of his fictional world to the Nebenwelt. But consider the hazard involved—the hazard to Germany. The oracle is attempting to inform those who rely on it that…” He broke off, again scowling. “I’m talking about it as if it were alive.”
Goring said, “We did well to ban it in German-occupied territory. I remember how emphatic Dr. Goebbels was on that issue; he foamed at the mouth when that modern composer—what was his name?—declared in print that he used it to develop chord progressions.”
“The Little Doktor foams at the mouth about everything he fails to understand,” Canaris said.
“Who understands the oracle?” Goring asked. “Not even those who rely on it. Except for Pauli’s theory of synchronicity there is no hypothesis for its operation at all. Except the ancient Chinese idea that invisible spirits determine which hexagram turns up.” The subject bored him and he returned to the matter that had brought him here to Albany. “Sacher,” he said briskly, “it is vital to Germany’s internal and external security that the availability of the Nebenwelt be kept confidential. We can’t throttle speculation because Abendsen’s book has already raised the issue publicly; even in Germany most intellectuals are aware of its general outline, without, of course, having read it. Unfortunately it is not necessary to have read it; to know of its existence is enough. You understand what I mean.” For the masses to speculate on another way of life, an existence minus German hegemony—that breached the unconditional identification with the Gemeinschaft, the folk community created back in ‘32 by the party and now half a world wide. The writer Hawthorne Abendsen had, by his book, done great harm, and all the machinery of the secret police, the Sicherheitsdienst, had not managed to keep bootlegged copies of The Grasshopper from showing up in such central Gaus as Berlin itself. In Hamburg especially, knowledge of—and possession of—the book defied the state security apparatus, vigilant as it continued to be.
We should have Abendsen picked up, Goring pondered. Seized by an SD Einsatz Gruppe and brought in for expert interrogation. I will call Heydrich about that, he decided, as soon as I’m out of here. Surprising that the Reichsfuhrer SS has done nothing in that direction already.
Kohler said, “Shall I continue my description of the Nebenwelt, as well as explaining these artifactual documents?” He indicated the heap of items on his and Seligsohn’s table.
“Do so,” Goring said, and bent an ear to listen to the elaborate circumstantial report of another world, a mystifying universe in which the Axis had lost—unbelievably—the Second World War.
TWO
In the mirror-polished Daimler phaeton sedan the SS men who had met Captain Rudolf Wegener at Tempelhof Airfield chatted amiably as the car neared SS GHQ on Prinz-Albrechstrasse, where the crack Black Shirt division, Sepp Dietrich’s Leibstandarte, had bivouacked itself with the expectation of successfully waiting out the great current crisis in domestic German affairs. Now Wegener could perceive the huge Tiger tanks of the division deployed strategically here and there, their 88mm cannons covering each intersection and building.
The show of military strength did not impress him. One tactical hydrogen bomb, lobbed by a Wehrmacht mortar, would erase the division of SS men and Heydrich himself. The Hangman, however, probably felt psychologically secure: The SS mentality thrived on the ostentatious display of finely executed, parade-style maneuvers such as these cordons of gleaming tanks.
When he had been escorted into Heydrich’s big office he found the Reichsfuhrer SS on the telephone.
“We already sent someone to do that,” Heydrich was saying in his harsh, monotonous voice as he stared blankly through Wegener. “He wound up killed in a hotel room in Denver. His throat. Yes, someone slashed it. Yes, he was very close to reaching the Jew Abendsen.” A pause. “No, he wasn’t going to bring him here; why do that? What’s he got to say besides what he said in his book?” Another pause, longer this time. “If you want him brought here,” Heydrich said finally, “you’ll have to tell me why. We’re not an adjunct to the Luftwaffe. Okay, send someone yourself. Bomb him. Good-bye.” Heydrich hung up, jotted a note on a pad of paper, then inclined his head to indicate a leather-covered chair placed before his desk. “The Reichsmarshal,” he explained to Wegener, “all four hundred kilos of him. Sit down. You’re the Abwehr man who’s been in the Pacific States of America.” He spread out fanwise a collection of folios, rummaged, and at last selected one, which he opened. “I’ve been reading about you. Did you enjoy the way the Japs run things? Slipshod, wouldn’t you say? Of course, things aren’t much better here, what with that nasty little crippled gutter rat Goebbels sneaking in as chancellor—temporarily. He’d kill us all in our beds while we slept. That’s why I had you met at the airport.”
“I appreciated it,” Wegener said woodenly.
“In our opinion,” Heydrich rattled away, “Bormann was murdered. So in no regard is Goebbels legal chancellor. Several SS lawyers have drawn up briefs for me to that effect. An election will have to be held, with all party members voting. The new leader of Germany must come from the party ranks, as Hitler originally intended. Goebbels, even if legally appointed, is too old—as are all the Altparteigenosse. I, of course, do not fit in that category.”
“Not in the slightest,” Wegener agreed.
“Did you make much headway as to informing the Japs about Operation Dandelion? Was General Tedeki interested?”
“I—know nothing about it,” Wegener said.
“But you went there to inform the Japanese that we are on the verge of attacking them.” Irritably, Heydrich said in a sharp voice, as if speaking to a foreigner, “Operation Dandelion—the attack on Japan. Your mission; you posed as a Swedish businessman.” He leafed through the dossier. “You left Tempelhofer Field in one of those new Lufthanse 9-E rockets, under the name of Baynes. An SD agent talked with you en route; he gave the name Alex Lotze and pretended to be a painter; you pretended to be in plastics and polyesters. At the San Francisco airport you were met by a delegate from the ranking Jap Trade Mission, a Mr. Nobusuke Tagomi. A day later at his office in the Nippon Times Building the retired Chief of Staff of the Japanese Imperial Army, General Tedeki, met with the two of you and you informed him of the imminent attack on the home islands by the Wehrmacht—a surprise attack that the Japanese secret police, the Tokkoka, had no knowledge of.”
Wegener said, “This is all new to me, this information.”
“Balls,” Heydrich said impatiently. “In fact, during your conference with General Tedeki and Mr. Tagomi, a squad of SD men attempted to force their way in and kill the three of you.” He added, “They failed.”
After a pause Wegener said huskily, “Mr. Tagomi is a good shot. He collects pistols of the U.S. Civil War and practices firing them.”
“We wondered what happened. Bruno Kreuz von Meere, who is the San Francisco head of the SD, theorized that it had been Kempeitai marksmen—the Japanese civil police—who had waited either outside or within Tagomi’s office. Hmm; so Tagomi took care of Kreuz von Meere’s men himself.” He nodded, apparently glad to see the mystery cleared up. “So you betrayed your country. Is the entire Abwehr involved, or was it only you? What about Admiral Canaris himself?”
“He knows nothing about my trip,” Wegener said, wondering if Heydrich had in his possession information to the contrary. The Reichsfuhrer SS seemed to know everything else; why not this?
Heydrich, however
, dropped the point; he turned to another topic. “In the Pacific States, did you encounter that Jew book in which our war effort fails? That Grasshopper book?”
“It’s available there,” Wegener said abstractly.
“You heard me talking to the Reichsmarshal; they want me to snatch Abendsen and bring him here, for reasons they won’t divulge.” Heydrich eyed Wegener intently. “We understand that a joint project exists in Albany, New York, in which your organization and the Luftwaffe are involved. Do you personally know anything about that?”
“No,” he said, truthfully.
“As far as we can determine,” Heydrich said, “this project is operating under the assumption that paralled worlds exist, of which we are one and Abendsen’s world, written about as if imaginary fiction, is another. What success Sacher—he heads the project—has obtained we don’t know. Perhaps none. The premise may be false. Or”—Heydrich gestured—“enough success to prove the premise, but not enough to open actually a doorway to another parallel world.” He ticked the possibilities off methodically, using his fingers. “Or they have found a passageway through, but the other world—the Nebenwelt, I understand they call it—is not that which the Jew Abendsen depicts in his pseudo-fictional book. There are other possibilities.” He reflected. “At most they have been able to reach several other worlds, of which Abendsen’s is one.”
“Hmm,” Wegener said.
“What interests is that all at once the Reichsmarshal is interested in having Abendsen—not killed—but abducted and brought here; brought, specifically, to the Reichsmarshal’s pro tern headquarters at the Luftwaffe base in Miami.” Heydrich studied his extended fingers, then selected one. “This suggests that they wish to interrogate Abendsen regarding his Grasshopper world… which further suggests to me that they have had some luck.” He raised his eyes, regarded Wegener acutely. “Are you sure you know nothing about this? You’re an Abwehr agent, and the Abwehr, we hear, is supplying the agents that Sacher means to—or has already, perhaps—”
“All my recent time,” Wegener broke in, “has been spent in preparation for my visit to the PSA, now completed. There’s no use talking to me; I can’t help you. Up to now I haven’t even heard of this project, presuming, as you say, it exists.” It sounded doubtful to him: more like an imaginative fabrication by the brilliant, deranged minds of the higher SS, Heydrich included.
“Consider this, then,” Heydrich said, folding his hands and tilting his chair back until he rested against the wall behind his desk. “You are legally a traitor to Germany; you deliberately and systematically carried top-secret military information to our enemy, directly to the Japanese general staff. Without a convocation of the Reichsgericht I could have you garroted and hung from a meathook. I could have your testicles crushed first, by means of pliers. I could have a solution of lye forced up your—”
“Your agency,” Wegener said, managing to keep his voice reasonably steady, “can do nothing to an agent of Naval Counterintelligence. If I have to stand trial it will be a military court-martial, presided over by my superiors in the Abwehr.”
“You want to bet?”
Wegener said, “I know for a certainty that your agency, in fact the entire SS, opposes Operation Dandelion. By your own statement you had me followed; you knew what I came for before I managed to meet with General Tedeki; you could have stopped me.”
“We attempted to,” Heydrich said smoothly. “At the Nippon Times Building.”
“What’s your point?”
Heydrich said, “You are, at this moment, at the dead center of the Waffen-SS division Leibstandarte. There is no way anyone, from the Abwehr or the Wehrmacht or the party or all three, could get you out of here. So if you transact any business it must be with me, and I am hard to do business with, which you may have heard. In this dossier on you”—he indicated the papers spread out on his desk—“details and documentation of your treason are laid out. Right now it is a very much open file, but I have the authority, despite all it contains, to make it perpetually inactive. No SD men will show up at 5:00 A.M. and cart you off to a final solution camp; no Nacht und Nebel [Night and Fog] action will ever take place in your direction—I guarantee it. In fact, I will make you an honorary colonel in the Waffen-SS; General Dietrich himself will bestow the citation on you.” Heydrich picked up a phone receiver from his desk and said, “Get me Sepp Dietrich.”
“I’m familiar with the mechanism,” Wegener said. “I’m not interested.” As soon as he became an honorary colonel in the SS he would be automatically under SS jurisdiction, taking his orders from Heydrich or even someone lower down in Heydrich’s apparatus. Over the years innumerable Wehrmacht officers had received such commissions, without being aware of the consequences. Instant SS men, he thought grimly. Created by a stroke of Heydrich’s pen.
Shrugging, Heydrich said, hanging up the phone, “It’s up to you if you want to remain a captain in an organization that probably won’t exist one year from now. Admiral Canaris has been skating over thin ice for years; it’s only a question of time before he falls through… dragging the rest of you down with him.”
“What is it you want me to do?” Wegener asked. “In exchange for letting me out of here?”
“Not merely ‘letting you out.’ In addition, as I explained, we’ll guarantee your continual safety—from reprisals, for example, by your organization. To be protected by the SD is to be virtually beyond reach; you’ll find yourself sleeping at night again, peacefully, and in these times of unpredictable political conflict that will be anomalous. I want you to do this: You will report back to your superiors in the Abwehr and give a report of your mission to San Francisco without mentioning your side trip here. You landed at Tempelhofer; you took a cab to Abwehr GHQ. All uneventful.”
“And from then on,” Wegener said, “I’m to report regularly to you or one of your subordinates about Sacher’s project.”
Heydrich eyed him.
“I may never get near Sacher’s project,” Wegener said.
“You’ll hear talk. We have heard talk, and we have yet to penetrate Canaris’ organization… until perhaps now. I’m not in a hurry; I agree that it will take time. Just so long as the information comes to us eventually. Verstehst du?”
“I understand you,” Wegener said. He pondered, then decided to take a calculated risk. “You won’t kill me,” he said, “because it’s to your advantage that I informed General Tedeki about Operation Dandelion. You’ll make use of this as ammunition to persuade the party not to back the Wehrmacht; a surprise attack is now out of the question, and we all know that even though the Japanese lack the hydrogen bomb, they do have enormous intercept hardware. Even if the home islands are destroyed, their Chinese regions, their Manchukuo colony, the Philippines, the Pacific States of America, their holdings in Latin America—”
“I am familiar with the geography of the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” Heydrich said drily.
“Plus the fact,” Wegener said, “that the guidance systems of our missiles are imperfect—notoriously so. For example, we are familiar with our missile performance in Africa. Several years—”
“The guidance systems have been improved since then.”
Wegener said, “You’ll require my continued existence because I’m the only German national who knows from direct contact that the Japanese general staff is aware of Operation Dandelion. Without me, all that exists is your dossier on me, which could be faked. Or so the Wehrmacht generals will argue. In particular, Rommel.”
“The field marshal is in retirement.” Heydrich added, “And old.”
“It is planned to restore him into service.” The Abwehr had learned this several months ago. “He will, in fact, be made the highest military commander in the operation; as is well known, his unique strategic sense has not since been equaled. And his presence will make the campaign considerably more popular with the people, who regard him an Ubermensch. The only hero of modern times; one would have to go back to Hindenburg.?
??
“Or Adolf Hitler.”
“Hitler’s legendary reputation as a strategist has dimmed. The Wehrmacht knew his failings at the time; most of the German people know them now. As I’m sure you realize. You do keep tabs on such matters.”
“It was the peresis of the brain,” Heydrich said hotly. “If the UrFuhrer had not contracted that disease during his youthful days in Vienna, that Jew town—”
Rising to his feet, Wegener said, “This discussion, as far as I am concerned, is over. I am required to report back to my superiors as to my accomplishments. Guten Tag.”
Also standing, the Reichsfuhrer SS started to speak. But then the intercom system on his desk buzzed. “Yes?” he said, depressing a key.
“General Skorzany to see you, sir,” the intercom said.
“All right. Send him in.” Heydrich folded his arms, rocked back and forth on his heels, reflecting.
A burly, gray-haired man, reasonably good-looking, with wary, intelligent eyes, wearing the uniform of a Waffen-SS general, entered Heydrich’s office. He glanced at Wegener, sizing him up, then turned inquiringly to the Reichsfiihrer SS.
To Wegener, Heydrich said, “Turn my suggestions over in your mind. For a time I will suspend any action vis-a-vis your activities recently in the Pacific States. I’ll be in touch with you before the end of the week and I hope a favorable decision will occur to you. Keep it in mind that your position is not good.”