"Do not bother with that, Lothar," the old man had said.
He sat down on the sofa, careful to first brush it free of crumbs.
"I'm sorry," Lothar said with a timid half shrug.
He felt as if he was apologizing for his entire life.
"Do not apologize," the man said. "Never apologize for that which you cannot control."
Lothar almost said he was sorry again but stopped himself. He nodded his understanding to the man.
"Good." The man sat straight on the battered sofa. His back was as rigid as a board. He spoke without preamble. "Lothar, did you ever wonder where your father got his money?"
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Surely this flat cost your father money? The rent, Lothar."
Then Lothar knew. This was the landlord. He knew his father paid someone so that they could continue to live there. His young mind raced. He had no money. His father had died the day before, and this man was going to evict him today.
The old man saw the look of fright and immediately sought to ease his fears. He explained that he and his friends had been helping his father out for quite some time. It was a debt, he said, they owed to their past. And their future.
It made sense. Though his father never seemed to work much, there was always food on the table and clothes on his back. Lothar had never thought of it before, but the money must have been coming from somewhere.
"We are a network of friends," the old man had said. "There are more of us than anyone imagines.
We help other friends when we are able. In your case, we weren't as much helping your father, but the grandson of a friend. A great man."
"My grandfather was a member of the Gestapo."
The man seemed surprised. "Your father told you this?"
"I learned some on my own. Some from my father."
The old man smiled. "Then you appreciate his greatness."
"My grandfather was a murderer."
Now there was shock on the visitor's face. "Lothar, you are mistaken."
"I am not," Lothar said. "My grandfather was a murderer. And my mother, as well." His neck and cheeks grew red as he spoke.
"Is this what the drunkard told you?"
"It is the truth."
The old man shook his head resolutely. He tried to explain to Lothar the old ways. He tried to tell him that, though his father was an aberration, he had come from a great family. His mother and grandfather had served the Fatherland well. As their heir, he had earned the help of the old man and his friends.
The orphaned boy was horrified.
Everything he had, everything he knew, his entire life had been purchased with the blood of those poor dead women in that grainy black-and-white photograph he had seen a year before.
The old man offered to continue assisting Lothar, but he no longer heard him.
Lothar left his father's apartment that night for the last time.
He lived for a time on his own. Scrounging for food, working odd jobs here and there. Some of the Americans stationed nearby felt sorry for him. They gave him food, clothing. In the winter, someone gave him an old pair of service boots. It was never enough.
Most times he had barely enough to eat, and more times than he cared to remember he went to sleep hungry.
Not even one year had passed before he sought out the old man.
He was hungry, dirty and frightened. He justified his decision by repeating to himself that, though he didn't agree with what these people had done in the past, he would be foolish to refuse their help in the present.
The old man didn't scold. When his jaundiced eyes settled on Lothar Holz, the old man seemed curiously unsurprised. He smiled warmly at the ragged, emaciated boy.
Lothar returned to school.
He was housed with other boys in similar situations to his own.
For the first time in months, he was able to eat on a regular basis.
Lothar vowed at first to leave as soon as he was able to survive on his own. But that day never came.
As the years went by, his grandfather's friends secured him a position at the German PlattDeutsche.
Though he didn't merit advancement, he found himself moving inexorably up the corporate ladder. And why not? The primary stockholders in the company were all somehow involved in the group that had helped him out years before.
This group eventually consolidated its operations in the small village in South America. This was not long before Lothar Holz—with his flawless command of the English language—was sent to the firm's American plant to oversee the development of the Dynamic Interface System.
Lothar never realized he had been victim of the most subtle kind of indoctrination. What he despised in his youth he learned to accept as an adult. He rationalized that there would always be disagree-ments of opinion in the world and he merely held a different world view from others.
He often argued with his comrades that a different view was not necessarily a superior one. They were always shocked when he said this. It was Lothar's way of holding on to the shreds of his idealistic youth. To harken back to those few brief months when a warm bed and a hot meal did not matter to him. He felt it made him somewhat of a rebel, but the sad truth was that Lothar Holz justified his life the same way his mother had justified her misdeeds back before Lothar had been born.
Lothar Holz had heard the story of the Master of Sinanju during his youth in Bonn. It wasn't something that was public knowledge, but it was known to the men who controlled his group.
The aged Korean was notorious for an act he hadn't even committed. But the cowardly suicide of one man had dispirited his leaders, forcing them underground for half a century. It had been a crushing defeat. And the House of Sinanju was linked inexorably to that defeat.
Now it might be possible to use the same man to create a victory more far-reaching than any previously hoped for—lasting maybe for millennia.
It was all attainable. Right now.
But Lothar Holz was disappointed to find his hopes stifled by bureaucratic inaction.
44You must le t me do something, Adolf," Holz pleaded into the phone.
"No. You will let the doctor continue his experiments."
"The doctor can complete his experiments with or without them," Holz said, using the same argument von Breslau had used against him an hour earlier.
"We have an opportunity here. We should begin to act now."
"I am open to suggestions," Adolf Kluge said.
"What is it you wish to do?"
Holz stammered as he searched for words. The truth was, he had nothing concrete in mind.
He had hoped that Kluge would suggest something. And Holz assumed that his experience with the interface technology, coupled with his imprisonment of the men of Sinanju, would make him more valuable to the organization. "Surely something..." he said. "We could go to Berlin."
"And?"
"The government there is never strong. We could foster insurrection. We could even assassinate the new leader."
Kluge laughed. "Insurrection in Germany. Lothar, my friend, there is always insurrection in Germany.
at least the threat of it. You will have to do better than that."
"I do not like this feeling of impotence."
"The scientists are at work, and you feel left out,"
Kluge said sympathetically. "Do not worry, Lothar.
You have done well. There are forces already at work that you do not know of. Having the services of Sinanju at our disposal is valuable to us in many ways.
Your success here will not be forgotten by me."
Holz felt his chest swell with pride. Adolf Kluge said his goodbyes and severed the connection.
Kluge had practically promised him a higher post-ing. It was long overdue. He was stagnating here at his current job.
Today was the beginning of his inexorable climb up the inner command structure. And tomorrow?