“Something terrible has happened,” Schiller began, his chest heaving as he rested one arm against the doorway for support. “I came looking for Chief Technician Müller, and heard an argument within. I heard Reichsleiter Bormann screaming something about ‘abominations’ and ‘insults to The Führer and The Party’…” he paused to take another few laboured breaths. “Then the shooting began…” he shook his head jerkily, as if he were partially in shock. “There was already fire at the other end, and by the time I got this door open it was too late…”
“Let us investigate, Mein Herr,” the senior guard volunteered, placing a reassuring hand upon the officer’s shoulder and using it to gently draw him away from the scene that had obviously caused him such understandable distress. Once Schiller was standing clear, the NCO raised his weapon to the ready and moved quickly inside, ducking his head to avoid the thickening clouds of smoke that was starting to pour out through the top of the opening.
“Werner…!” The second guard bellowed back across the grass to a third man standing twenty metres or so away and surveying the proceedings. “Get one of those bloody fire trucks over here now! We’ve got a flare up down here at the stables…!”
The first guard was out again a moment later, the shaken expression on his face an indication that he’d seen quite enough. He seemed noticeably uncomfortable as he approached Schiller once more, as if unsure what to say.
“Herr Generalleutnant,” he began slowly, pausing again as he considered his words carefully. “I must regretfully advise that I’ve found the body of Chief Technician Müller inside the first room on the right. He appears to have been shot several times.” He paused again and swallowed deeply. “I couldn’t get all the way down the far end because of the spreading fire, however from what I could see, it appears Reichsleiter Bormann was indeed inside, along with Generalfeldmarschall Göring, Deputy Führer Hess and another man I believe may be Direktor Zeigler. Herr Bormann’s sidearm was drawn… it appears there was an argument between them…” He took a deep breath. “There was a prisoner being held here also… a Jewish scientist, I think. I checked everywhere I was able, but could find no sign of him… he must have escaped… it’s impossible to tell whether before or after the incident inside.”
The raging fire now burning in those stables would soon destroy any evidence as to what might’ve really happened, leaving just the testimony of eyewitnesses as a record of the event. The man standing before him was one of the senior guards on the HQ staff — a man with a wealth of experience who knew his job well — and this highly credible witness had just swallowed the tale Schiller had dreamed up hook, line and sinker. The guard had mistakenly deduced the scene inside exactly as he’d staged it to appear, and there’d soon be no physical evidence left that might contradict that version of what had transpired. For the first time that night, Schiller felt as if something was finally going his way, and it was difficult for the generalleutnant to keep an evil smile from flickering across his face.
Director Oswald Zeigler had been a careful and thorough man his entire life. He’d not become a multi-millionaire in Realtime — or survived as long or as successfully as he had in 1930s Nazi Germany — by being the kind of man to make mistakes, or leave loose ends untied. Of course, there was always the occasional possibility of random chance or the unpredictability of others, a perfect case in point being the circumstances of that night ultimately leading to the rather inconvenient fact that he was now quite definitely deceased. All the planning in the world couldn’t have prepared Zeigler — or anyone else for that matter — for such an unlikely event as being shot to death by Generalleutnant Albert Schiller.
One thing Oswald Zeigler had taken into account, however, was the possibility of betrayal by others in the cabal he’d formed… the very same cabal that’d now been summarily destroyed by Schiller’s bullets. Göring, Bormann and Hess were very powerful men, and he’d needed all of their support and complicity for the goal he’d laid out before them: bringing down Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters. That being said, although it was true he needed their alliance, it would’ve been another thing entirely to have said he trusted them… he most certainly did not, and with good reason.
Beneath the supreme and unassailable position of Chancellor, politics in Nazi Germany were and always had been a quite unpleasant, dirty, and exceptionally underhanded business that quickly drew in the weak or virtuous and either destroyed them utterly, or corrupted and assimilated them completely. One was required to be both cunning and duplicitous by nature to survive in such an environment, and high-ranking dignitaries like Göring, Hess or Bormann hadn’t reached such heights without becoming hardened, cold and calculating in their both their actions and with whom they formed alliances or whom they betrayed.
Zeigler, himself accustomed to the cutthroat battlefield of 21st Century European boardrooms, had fully expected one or all of them would seek to betray him at some later time, and as such he’d made sure he put some simple but effective precautions into place. Admittedly, those same precautions hadn’t been enough to prevent his murder — that hadn’t been their intention after all — however their implementation would nevertheless have a significant, if somewhat delayed influence on world affairs long after the name Oswald Zeigler had since vanished into obscurity.
At the same moment the four conspirators had quietly entered the stable that evening, Dieter Strauss had already secreted himself in a hidden and prepared position by one of the barred windows on the far side of the building. To his back lay nothing but open fields and darkness, and the usual patrols were completely preoccupied with trying to bring the chaos of the burning HQ under control, leaving Strauss alone and unchallenged. Peering carefully through the corner of the open window, he’d watched as his colleague had led them all inside and they’d continued their meeting. While one hand grasped the window sill for support, the other held up his prized iPhone-4 and recorded the entire conversation in high-definition video, the brightness of the device’s touch-screen dimmed as far as was possible so its illumination wouldn’t give away his presence or position.
At the time they’d originally arrived in the past from Realtime, Strauss couldn’t have given any legitimate reason why he’d insisted on bringing the iPhone. He’d known full well the device would be completely useless for communications in a world that was still a good fifty years away from cellular mobile phone technology, yet he’d also carried his entire music collection stored within its 32GB internal memory, and he could argue that in that sense alone it had been in some way useful. The truth of it really was that he’d loved using the device in the 21st Century, and hadn’t wanted to part with it simply because it’d become his one personal, intimate link with the world he’d left behind. As it turned out however, the compact little phone had eventually come into its own as a very useful tool, and had justified its presence many times over.
As they’d sat talking in Reuters’ briefing room before the attack, Strauss had smiled and listened along without saying a word, and none of the others had noticed the very tip of the iPhone projecting from the top pocket of his suit jacket the whole time. Just enough of the device had been exposed to allow its rear-mounted, five-megapixel camera to record the entire discussion in quite high resolution. No one of that era could possibly have guessed at the capabilities of such a tiny device, and that fact worked perfectly in its favour as Strauss captured the entire event for posterity and the protection of the New Eagles’ Board of Directors, should any of the others present decide at a later date to renege on their agreements or try to sell the others out.