In The Presence Of My Enemies

Susanna wished she hadn't thought of it that way. She wanted to like Buckliger, wanted to trust him, wanted to believe him, wanted to reckon him a new star in the Nazi firmament. He was different from anything she'd ever known. But did that make himreally different? Did it make himbetter? Hitler, after all, had been dead for years before she was born.

She shook her head. The longer Hitler stayed in charge of things, the more power he'd gathered into his own hands. Buckliger seemed to be going in the opposite direction. He hadn't quashed Charlie Lynton for proclaiming his allegiance to the first edition, the democratic edition, of Mein Kampf. He'd even talked about it himself.

And so?Susanna wondered.The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. Shakespeare wasn't quite medieval English. When the quotation occurred to her, she had to look it up to see which play it came from. She shivered when she found it. It was from The Merchant of Venice.

When Heinrich Gimpel found something he could sink his teeth into, he worked like a man possessed. His surroundings all but disappeared, leaving nothing but the numbers he was manipulating, his right hand dancing on the calculator or the keypad of the computer keyboard, and the figures going up on the screen.

The only reason he looked up from this particular blitz of calculations was to take another sheet full of raw data out of his in-box. When he did, he saw the office full of SS men in camouflage smocks, assault rifles at the ready. All the guns seemed to point straight at him.

He froze, the sheet of paper still between thumb and forefinger.

Willi Dorsch burst out laughing. A couple of the SS men grinned, too. "What's the matter, Heinrich?" Willi said. "Didn't you even notice them come in?"

"Uh, no," Heinrich said sheepishly.

Willi laughed some more. "I didn't think so. The way you were working there, the world could have ended, and you'd never have known the difference."

What went through Heinrich's mind was,Oh, thank God. Maybe they haven't come for me, then. He took another, less horrified, look at the big, blond, hard-faced men. When he didn't see them with eyes full of terror, the muzzles of their assault rifles pointed every which way.

"Uh-" He still couldn't avoid that dismayed stutter. "Whatare they doing here, then?"

Before Willi could answer, Heinz Buckliger strode into the room.

Along with everybody else at a desk, Heinrich sprang to his feet. He drew himself up as straight as he could. His right arm shot out. "Heil Buckliger!" he bawled at the top of his lungs. He remained in place, frozen like a statue.

Casually, the Fuhrer returned the salute. Even more casually, he waved to the men in the analysis section. "Relax," he said, sounding much more like a human being than an icon. "This isn't anything fancy. I'm here to pick somebody's brain, that's all." He peered down at a piece of paper, then up, then down at the paper again.It's an office plan, Heinrich realized.He's comparing the plan to the room. And then, to his amazement, Buckliger's eyes met his. "You're Gimpel,nicht wahr?" the Fuhrer said.

For a mad moment, Heinrich wanted to deny it. Clearly, that wouldn't do. He managed to mumble, "Uh, ja, mein Fuhrer."

Heinz Buckliger seemed used to people mumbling and stammering when they spoke to him. "Good," he said. "I want to talk with you about the Americans." He snagged the chair by Heinrich's desk with his ankle, pulled it closer, and sat down in it. "By how much can we reduce their assessment to let their economy breathe a little easier and still keep ours going?" Noticing Heinrich still stood at attention, he waved him to his chair. He also waved to the rest of the people in the office. "Relax, I told you. Go back to work. Pretend I'm not here."

With those trigger-happy SS guards eyeing everybody, that wouldn't be easy. Heinrich dizzily sank into his seat. Of itself, the calculating part of his mind engaged the Fuhrer 's question. Even as another part of him wailed,This can't be happening, he heard himself saying, "Well, sir, a lot of that depends on how much the Americans think they can get away with not paying if you let up on them. They're looking for signs of weakness."

"I don't want to be weak," Buckliger said. "I do want the Reich to be able to stand on its own two feet without being propped up so much from outside. That sets a bad example, and it sets a bad precedent, too, don't you think?"

He cocked his head to one side. Heinrich realized he really was waiting for an answer.I want the Reichto grow like an onion-with its head in the ground. No, he couldn't very well say that."Ja, mein Fuhrer," was less truthful but much safer. As for the numbers…His right hand, flying on automatic pilot, cleared the figures he'd been working with and started entering the ones that would let him answer Buckliger's question.

"You have the data at your fingertips," the Fuhrer said approvingly. "That's good. That's very good. Efficient."