I don’t know why I didn’t recognize the racial characteristics when I saw him. Evidently I’m easily deceived.
He decided, I’m simply not capable of deceit and that renders me helpless. Without law, I’d be at their mercy. He could have convinced me of anything. It’s a form of hypnosis. They can control an entire society.
Tomorrow I will have to go out and buy that Grasshopper book, he told himself. It’ll be interesting to see how the author depicts a world run by Jews and Communists, with the Reich in ruins, Japan no doubt a province of Russia; in fact, with Russia extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I wonder if he—whatever his name is—depicts a war between Russia and the U.S.A.? Interesting book, he thought. Odd nobody thought of writing it before.
He thought, it should help to bring home to us how lucky we are. In spite of the obvious disadvantages… we could be so much worse off. Great moral lesson pointed out by that book. Yes, there are Japs in power here, and we have to build. Out of this are coming great things, such as the colonization of the planets.
There should be a news broadcast on, he realized. Seating himself, he turned on the radio. Maybe the new Reichs Chancellor has been picked. He felt excitement and anticipation. To me, that Seyss-Inquart seems the most dynamic. The most likely to carry out bold programs.
I wish I was there, he thought. Possibly someday I’ll be well enough to travel to Europe and see all that has been done. Shame to miss out. Stuck here on the West Coast, where nothing is happening. History is passing us by.
8
At eight o’clock in the morning Freiherr Hugo Reiss, the Reichs Consul in San Francisco, stepped from his MercedesBenz 220-E and walked briskly up the steps of the consulate. Behind him came two young male employees of the Foreign Office. The door had been unlocked by Reiss’ staff, and he passed inside, raising his hand in greeting to the two switchboard girls, the vice-Consul Herr Frank, and then, in the inner office, Reiss’ secretary, Herr Pferdehuf.
“Freiherr,” Plerdehuf said, “there is a coded radiogram coming in just now from Berlin. Preface One.”
That meant removing his overcoat and giving it to Pferdehuf to hang up.
“Ten minutes ago Herr Kreuz vom Meere called. He would like you to return his call.”
“Thank you,” Reiss said. He seated himself at the small table by the window of his office, removed the cover from his breakfast, saw on the plate the roll, scrambled eggs and sausage, poured himself hot black coffee from the silver pot, then unrolled his morning newspaper.
The caller, Kreuz vom Meere, was the chief of the Sicherheitsdienst in the PSA area; his headquarters were located, under a cover name, at the air terminal. Relations between Reiss and Kreuz vom Meere were rather strained. Their jurisdiction overlapped in countless matters, a deliberate policy, no doubt, of the higher-ups in Berlin. Reiss held an honorary commission in the SS, the rank of major, and this made him technically Kreuz vom Meere’s subordinate. The commission had been bestowed several years ago, and at that time Reiss had discerned the purpose. But he could do nothing about it. Nonetheless, he chafed still.
The newspaper, flown in by Lufthansa and arriving at six in the morning, was the Frankfurter Zeitung. Reiss read the front page carefully. Von Schirach under house arrest, possibly dead by now. Too bad. Göring residing at a Luftwaffe training base, surrounded by experienced veterans of the war, all loyal to the Fat One. No one would slip up on him. No SD hatchetmen. And what about Doctor Goebbels?
Probably in the heart of Berlin. Depending as always on his own wit, his ability to talk his way out of anything. If Heydrich sends a squad to do him in, Reiss reflected, the Little Doctor will not only argue them out of it, he will probably persuade them to switch over. Make them employees of the Ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.