Of course the majority were Democrats…. Jerry muttered to himself as he went back to his office. Ever since the Depression crashed down, the Democrats had ruled Congress. These days, most people took their comfortable majorities for granted. Jerry didn’t. He thought Germany was a prime way to pry them out of the chairmanships and perquisites they’d enjoyed for so long. He only wished more Republicans agreed with him.
As usual, a fat pile of correspondence awaited him when he sat down at his desk. Actually, two piles: one from within his own district, the other from outside it. Before he made a name for himself about Germany, nobody outside the area that stretched northeast from Anderson and Muncie had cared a nickel for him. That had suited him fine, too.
Now, though, people from all over the country sent him letters and telegrams. Some said he should run for President. Others called him a fathead, or told him he would burn in hell, or said he had to be a Nazi or a Communist or sometimes both at once. And still others-sadly, fewer than he would have liked-were thoughtful discussions of what was going on in Germany and what the United States ought to do about it.
This latest stack of mail from all over would have to wait a while. His district came first. Any Congressman who didn’t get that didn’t stay in Congress long. More people from Indiana seemed to understand what he had in mind. Not only did he know his district, but he’d represented it long enough to let it get to know him, too.
Oh, there were a couple of burn-in-hell letters here, and one unsigned one decorated with swastikas. But you couldn’t make everybody happy no matter what you did. The local mail wasn’t anything that made Jerry doubt he’d win in November.
And winning in November was what he had to do. Once he’d taken care of that, he would look around and see everything else he needed to deal with. But if he lost the upcoming election-well, there wasn’t much point to anything after that, was there?
Reinhard Heydrich didn’t bother with full dress uniform very often. What was the point, God only knew how many meters underground? The other resisters down here knew who he was and what he was and that he had the authority to command them. What more did he want-egg in his beer?
Sometimes, though, he needed to impress-no, to intimidate-people. And so today he wore the high-peaked cap, the tunic with the SS runes on the black collar patch and the eagle holding a swastika on the right breast, the Knight’s Cross to the Iron Cross at his throat, and the rest of his decorations on his left breast. It was all devilishly uncomfortable, but he looked the part of the Reichsprotektor, which was the point of the exercise.
Hans Klein, also in full SS regalia, came in and said loudly, “Herr Reichsprotektor, the scientist Wirtz to see you, as you ordered!”
“Send him in, Oberscharfuhrer,” Heydrich replied.
“Zu befehl, Herr Reichsprotektor!” Klein clicked his heels. They never would have bothered with that nonsense if Karl Wirtz weren’t out in the corridor listening. But they had to make Wirtz and the other captured physicists believe the Reich was still a going concern. And, to a certain degree, they had to believe it themselves.
Klein strode out. He returned a moment later with Professor Wirtz. The scientist looked to be in his late thirties. He was tall and thin, with a hairline that had retreated like the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, leaving him with a forehead that seemed even higher than it would have anyhow.
Heydrich’s right arm snapped up and out. “Heil Hitler!” he barked.
Wirtz gaped. “Er-Hitler’s dead,” he muttered.
“You will address the Reichsprotektor by his title,” Hans Klein rumbled ominously, sounding every centimeter the senior underofficer.
“The Fuhrer may be dead,” Heydrich said. “The Reich he founded lives on-and will live on despite any temporary misfortunes. And you, Herr Doktor Professor Wirtz, will help ensure its survival.”
“M-Me?” If the prospect delighted Wirtz, he hid it very well. “All I ever wanted to do was come home from England and get back to my research.”
“You are home-home in the Grossdeutsches Reich,” Heydrich said. “And we brought you and your comrades here so you could conduct your research undisturbed by the English and the Americans.”
“You want us to make a bomb for you…Herr Reichsprotektor.” Wirtz wasn’t altogether blind-no, indeed.
“That’s exactly what we want, yes,” Heydrich agreed. “With it, we are strong. We can face any foe on even terms. The Americans, the Russians-anyone. Without it, we are nothing. So you will give it to us.”
Wirtz licked his lips. “It makes me very sorry to say this, Herr Reichsprotektor, but what you ask is impossible.”
He was sorry to say it, Heydrich judged, because he feared what the Reichsprotektor would do to him. And well he might. But, though Wirtz didn’t know it, Heydrich had already heard the same thing from several other physicists. All he said now was, “Why do you think so?”
“You do not have the uranium ore we were using before, do you? The ore from which we would have to extract the rare pure material we need for the bomb?” Wirtz said. When Heydrich didn’t answer, the physicist went on, “And you do not have the factories we would need to perform the extraction. The Americans spent billions of dollars to build those factories. Billions, Herr Reichsprotektor! When I think how we had to go begging for pfennigs to try to keep our research going…” He shook his head. “We were fighting a foe who was bigger than we are.”
Again, Heydrich had heard the same thing before. He liked it no better now than he had then. “Can you get the uranium you need?”
“I have no idea where we would do that…sir,” Professor Wirtz said. “We were working at Hechingen and Haigerloch, in the southwest, when the war ended. French troops, and Moroccans with them”-he shuddered-“captured the towns and captured us. Then American soldiers took charge of us and took charge of the uranium we were using.”
Hechingen and Haigerloch were still in the French zone. The French fought Heydrich’s resisters almost as viciously as the Red Army did-no doubt for many of the same reasons. Still, something might be managed…if it had a decent chance of proving worthwhile. “The uranium is all gone? Everything is all gone?”
“Yes,” Wirtz said, as the other reclaimed scientists had before him. But then, as none had before, he added, “Except perhaps-”
Heydrich leaned forward abruptly enough to make the swivel chair creak under his backside. “Except perhaps what, Herr Doktor Professor?” he asked softly.
“When the Amis captured us, we were making a new uranium pile.” The actual word Wirtz used was machine, a term Heydrich had already heard from the other scientists he’d questioned. The physicist continued, “We also had about ten grams of radium. One of the technicians hid the metal under a crate that had held uranium cubes. The Americans took the uranium, of course, but I am sure they did not take the radium. As far as I know, it is still in Hechingen.”
Excitement tingled through Heydrich. Radium was potent stuff. Everybody knew that. Everybody had known that even before anyone imagined atomic bombs. And ten grams! That sounded like a lot. “Can you make a bomb with it?” Heydrich asked eagerly.
“Nein, Herr Reichsprotektor. If you expect me to do that, you’d better shoot me now. It is impossible.” Wirtz’s voice was sad but firm. He understood the way Heydrich thought, all right.