Blood of the Reich

by William Dietrich

  So she pivoted and squeezed behind a middle-aged shopper who had her cart nearly athwart the aisle in that worst-of-Safeway rudeness. Now Mrs. Dumbo could unintentionally run interference while Rominy headed for the cash register. The fast-checkout lane, eight-item limit be damned.

  Escape! But, no, Mr. Frosty appeared again, the front of his cart cutting in her direction like the prow of a battleship, his look anxious and his pace quicker. Would he make a scene? Where was pepper spray, or self-defense kickboxing training, when she needed it? Or was this klutz just socially inept, like so many men?

  Calm, Rominy. Just another of your countless admirers.

  As if.

  But then his jacket opened slightly and she gave a start. There was something black on his hip.

  Let the ice cream melt. She abandoned her cart, squeezed by the rump of another overfed matron tapping password numbers into a debit card reader, and headed for the door. Sorry, Safeway. No sale.

  Rominy’s experience (which included more than a few dead-end dates as excruciating as an IRS audit) was that intriguingly eccentric men turned out to be . . . weird. Politeness only encouraged them. Avoidance was a mercy.

  Nor could she call for help.

  Please, a man with a grocery cart is looking at me.

  But instinct screamed that something was wrong.

  Rominy had dropped some overdue bills in the mailbox at the lot’s outer limits, so her car was parked a good fifty yards away. The vehicle was her pride and joy, a silver 2011 MINI Cooper scrubbed bright as a new quarter, suddenly as distant as a football goalpost. It had taken the trade of her ancient Nissan, a diversion of funds that should have gone into her 401(k), and the commitment to four years of monthly payments to buy the runabout, but my, how she loved its cuteness and handling. Now it represented refuge. She knew she was probably hyperventilating about Abominable Snowman, but she’d never had a grocery guy track her relentlessly as a cruise missile without first attempting a friendly hi.

  “Miss!”

  He’d come out of the store after her. Rominy quickened her pace toward her car. This clumsy come-on would make a snarky text message for her girlfriends.

  “Wait!” Footsteps. He was starting to run, fast.

  Okay. Get in the car, lock the doors, start the engine, engage the transmission, crack the window, and then see who this lunatic was. If harmless, it would be a story to tell the grandchildren.

  So she ran, too, purse banging on her hip, low heels hobbling her speed.

  “Hey!”

  His footsteps were accelerating like a sprinter. Wasn’t there anyone in the lot who would interfere? Run, Rominy, run!

  Her MINI Cooper beckoned like a castle keep.

  And then without warning the creep hit her from behind, sending her sprawling. Pavement scraped on hands and knees. Pain lanced, and she opened her mouth to scream. Then his weight crashed fully on top of her, a body slam that knocked out her wind, and the bastard clamped his hand over her mouth.

  This is it, she thought. She was going to be raped, suffocated, and murdered in the broad daylight of a Safeway parking lot. Frozen food guys, it seemed, were psychopaths.

  But then there was a boom, the ground heaved, and a pulse of heat rolled over them. Her eardrums felt punched. She lay pinned, in shock. A cloud of smoke puffed out, shrouding them in fog, and then there was the faint rattle of metal pieces clanging down all around them.

  Her beloved MINI Cooper had blown up. She still had thirty-nine months of payments, and its shredded remains were bonging down around her like the debris of some overextended Wall Street bank.

  Her assailant put his mouth to her ringing ear and she winced at what he might do.

  But he only whispered.

  “I just saved your life.”

  3

  Berlin, Germany

  March 21, 1938

  National Socialism is based, Herr Raeder, on the inevitable conclusion one must take from modern biological science: we are locked in Darwinian evolutionary struggle.” Himmler took the tone of pedantic lecturer adopted by men who have risen so high that none dare disagree. “Just as species vie with one another in nature, and individuals struggle within those species, so are the human races locked in eternal conflict. This is the lesson of all history, is it not?”

  Raeder knew this interview could be a path to promotion. “So the Führer teaches, Reichsführer.” He felt like he was squatting, looking up at the big desk.

  “The Aryan race has continually been in competition with the Slavic, the Asiatic, and the Negroid,” Himmler said. “Rome was invincible until it allowed itself to be polluted by the inferiors it conquered, and then was defeated by our ancestor Arminius in ancient Germany. And the Germanic tribes were invincible as long as they kept to themselves behind the Rhine, and vulnerable once they became mongrelized. Ultimately, there can only be one evolutionary winner, and the Aryan can win only through purity of blood. It is about breeding, Untersturmführer—breeding. Take it from a chicken farmer.”

  The dogma was nothing Raeder hadn’t heard in the tedious SS classes that half the membership skipped—the men wanted action, not eccentric pedantry—but the reference to chicken farming startled the explorer. There were jokes about Himmler’s brief unhappy experiments with animal husbandry, but he’d never dreamed the Reichsführer would bring up this past. “Your scholarship is reflected in the teachings of the Schutzstaffel,” he managed.

  Himmler’s smile was thin as a razor. “You think I don’t know the disparagement of my agricultural background? I know everything, about everyone.” He tapped the files. For a horrible moment Raeder thought the reference was directly to him, and he furiously wracked his brain for when he might have mocked the head of the SS. Was this meeting a prelude to a concentration camp?

  “I hear all the jokes,” Himmler went on. “About our Führer, about me, about Göring, about the lot. Do you think this makes me angry?”

  Raeder was beginning to sweat. “I swear I’ve never . . .”

  “Listen to me, Untersturmführer. The powerful act, and the powerless make jokes about them. Better to be the superior who is the butt of a joke than its minion teller, trust me. This is how society functions. This is how life functions. Struggle.” He held Raeder’s gaze. “Yes, I raised chickens and learned life is breed against breed, and the holy mission of the SS is to purify our race and raise mankind to a new level. Our mission is scientific. It is mystical. It is evolutionary. And when we’re done, the planet will be a utopia unknown since the ancient days of Ultima Thule when our ancestors came down from the stars.” He nodded, as if affirming the point often enough would ensure its truth.

  Raeder finally managed a shaky breath. “Why are you telling me this, Reichsführer?”

  “Because you’ve been called to duty by God as I have,” Himmler said calmly. “I, to purify. You, to apply your expertise in Tibet toward the National Socialist cause. You’ve been there twice, have you not?”

  “Yes.” He exhaled, realizing he was here for his experience, not some indiscreet remark. “Two exploratory zoological and anthropological missions.”

  “Hunting. With a rifle.”

  “To collect specimens.”

  “A Mauser M98, .375 Magnum, on expeditions with American funding and led by Dr. Benjamin Hood of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.” Himmler was reading from the folder. “Four months from Nepal to the Himalayas in 1930, and six from China to eastern Tibet in 1934. You wrote a book, High Himalaya, and used classification and preparation of the bird and animal skins to win your doctorate from the Berlin Academy. Adventure combined with science, and notoriety before you were twenty-five. An alpinist as well, with some notable first ascents. An exemplar, one might say, of the new Germany.”

  “I had some good fortune.”

  “And the swastika is an ancient symbol of good fortune in Tibet, is it not?”

  “Yes, Reichsführer. You see it everywhere.”

  “Have yo
u ever wondered why?”

  “An Eastern invention, I suppose.”

  “Or an Aryan invention, and a connection between our Aryan ancestors and the inhabitants of Tibet. It is a symbol of the god Thor. Fifty years ago Guido von List made it a symbol of the Thule Society’s neo-pagan movement. A key to our racial past in the high Himalayas, we could speculate.”

  “You think the Tibetans are Aryans?”

  “Their royalty, perhaps, are our cousins. There are theories.” Himmler bent to the folder and summarized its contents. “Invited to hunt with Air Minister Göring, lectures in London and Heidelberg, a lovely young wife”—the Reichsführer paused, looking at Raeder over the rim of his glasses—“who you killed.”

  Now the sweat again. “Accidentally.” He felt continually off-balance in this interview. Was that purposeful?

  “Bitter tragedy. Hunting, was it not?”

  “I was swinging a shotgun on a flight of ducks and stumbled on another loaded weapon on the bottom of our boat. It went off. Lotte died instantly.” That was the official story. His tone was hollow, remembering the horror, guilt, and relief. Her blood had pooled to the floorboards. Her brains had spattered the water. He’d felt trapped by Lotte’s family, which had grown suspicious of his needs. And now? “It was inexcusably clumsy.”

  No, it wasn’t. Did the Kripo, the criminal police, suspect?

  “The kind of cruel memory that can only be expunged by new experience,” Himmler said briskly, flipping a page. “By returning, perhaps, to Tibet, but this time without the Americans. Returning with men from my organization’s Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, the Ahnenerbe, which studies our Aryan past. Are you hard enough, committed enough, to lead an SS team there, Raeder?”

  The zoologist swallowed. Here was what he’d hoped for, dreamed of, now offered despite—or was it because of?—the bitter memory of Lotte’s death. “If called on by the Fatherland, Reichsführer.”

  Himmler snapped the folder shut. “You have ample reason to desire a change of pace, to forget the past, to put all your energies into a mission for the Reich. Germany has a bright future, Raeder. If you succeed, it will make any lingering questions about the end of your marriage irrelevant. If you fail . . .”

  He swallowed. “I understand.” His heart was pounding, which annoyed him. Control.

  “Did you have apprehension about today’s visit, Untersturmführer?”

  “Any man would be nervous at meeting so august a personality . . .”

  “Any man would be frightened.” Himmler waved his hand to acknowledge the obvious. He enjoyed the fear, Raeder realized. He drew strength from it. He reveled in the black uniforms. Himmler had longed to serve in World War I, missing by a year. “And yet tell me, Raeder, am I really that intimidating? I, a man who only wants to secure the future of the German Reich?”

  “I appreciate . . .”

  “I am direct because I have to be. I mentioned the unfortunate death of your wife because I don’t like things unsaid, sticking to the corners of normal conversation. I do unpleasant things for our Führer, blunt things, direct things, so that he can fulfill his destiny without their burden. He sees what ordinary men cannot. He leads our purification.”

  “The Führer is a remarkable man.” He felt like Hitler’s picture was looking down on them.

  “ ‘Why Tibet?’ you wonder. Does the chicken farmer Himmler want more bird skins from Asia?” He gave that thin smile. “No, more than that. Much more, Raeder, more than you’ve ever dreamed in your life. So I want you to visit me in my SS headquarters near Padenborn, the new center of the world.”

  “Center of the world?”

  “I’m inviting you to be my guest at Wewelsburg Castle. I want you to understand the full meaning of your mission in the place I’m making the true heart of our organization. Bring your maps of Tibet, Raeder.”

  “And my goal, Reichsführer?”

  “To help conquer the world. Bring your maps, in one week’s time.”

  4

  Seattle, United States

  September 4, Present Day

  Frozen foods guy rolled off Rominy and hauled her upward with arms around her rib cage, breasts lifted, delicacy ignored. “I tried to warn you but you kept moving away,” he said. “I feared they’d try this.”

  “What happened?”

  “You almost died.”

  A contact had popped out. People were beginning to shout and run. In the distance she could hear sirens. Christ, it was downtown Baghdad. Her head, hands, and knees hurt and the bastard had just about crushed her torso. Her purse had spilled. “Who are you?” Rominy’s voice was thick.

  “At the moment, the only friend you have.” He pulled on her arm. “Come on.”

  She shook loose. “Let go of me!”

  He grabbed her again, persistent and impatient. His fingers hurt as they clamped. “Come on, if you don’t want us both to die!”

  “My purse.”

  Holding her by one arm with an iron grip, he stooped to scoop things into her handbag and brought it up, tucking it under his arm. “Good catch. We don’t want to give them more information than they already have.” Then, dragged by his pull, she began to stagger away from the wreckage of her car. People hung back, bewildered. Someone’s cart had spilled and bright oranges spotted the pavement. The air didn’t just have a smoky smell, it had a chemical taste, and she realized her teeth ached from clenching. Her assailant, or savior, was pushing her toward a banged-up Ford pickup that was nothing like her late, lamented dream mobile. She clutched her arms to her aching torso. All her energy had been sapped by the shock of the explosion.

  “Are you abducting me?” she asked dully.

  “I told you, I’m rescuing you.” He shoved her into the cab, pushing on her butt without apology, and the door slammed shut. She looked at it foggily, trying to decide if she should flee. Her body felt sluggish.

  “Rescuing me from what?” she asked as he climbed in the driver’s side.

  He threw her purse into her lap. “Don’t you mean from whom?” He started the engine. The pickup was a stick shift like her MINI Cooper. Everything was a dream.

  “Wait.” She looked outside. Blue lights were coming fast. “Police!”

  He pulled away from the curb. “They can’t help.” He sounded grim.

  The pickup swerved to let a fire truck pass and then accelerated. It was old enough to have locking knobs on the door by the window, but hers was missing. Had he locked her in? She tried the door handle and her heart sank. The lever jiggled uselessly. This was her worst nightmare. She was an idiot, a victim.

  “Listen, I know you’re freaked out,” Frozen Foods said. “I am, too. I didn’t know they’d go this far. This whole thing is a royal mess. I just want to give us a little space in case the skinheads are hanging. Look behind. Are we being followed?”

  Rominy looked out the dirty rear cab window. There was a gun rack behind: classic rural Washington. Was her rescuer, or kidnapper, from some gawd-awful backwoods Deliverance den like Twisp or Mossyrock? There was a chrome toolbox that spanned the width of the pickup bed, and surely there’d be a chain saw inside. Or maybe Leatherface here kept it back home in his creepy cabin.

  “How would I know?” She had a headache.

  “Any tough-looking guys with shaved heads?”

  She looked. Following windshields seemed opaque. No, there was a driver . . . but with big hair, as puffed as a TV anchoress doing a storm report.

  “No.”

  Her head was beginning to clear, and she was in the one place she’d vowed never to be, locked in a vehicle with a stranger hurtling toward god-knew-where. She had no weapon, no clue, no . . . wait.

  She did have her purse again. Frozen Foods guy had made a mistake. Hallelujah. Cell phone, car keys—now useless, she realized with sorrow—Tic-Tacs, a tissue packet, lipstick she rarely used, ChapStick she did, compact with mirror, business cards of her own, business cards of boring software clients she’d imm
ediately forgotten and had failed to file, a packaged condom with an embarrassingly old shelf date, a wallet with thirty-two dollars (she had been going to get twenty more on her debit card at Safeway), forgotten souvenir wristband from a Dave Matthews concert, glasses . . .

  She popped out her other contact and put on the spectacles. Her sight hadn’t been lost after all. Somewhere in there was a comb with a wicked pointed handle. Nail clippers. Loose earrings with a tip; she had inserted studs for shopping and brought along the others in case Erica texted about Happy Hour.

  A veritable arsenal.

  Frozen Foods glanced at her. “You wear glasses.”

  “Duh.”

  “They look nice.”

  She regarded him with disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No, I mean . . .” He looked impatient but also somewhat intriguingly frustrated. Was he frightened, too? “Look, we’re going to be friends, okay?”

  “The pickup door won’t open.”

  “It’s an old truck.”

  “Stop and let me out.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “I can’t even roll down the window.”

  “Give me a chance, Rominy.” It was a plea, not a threat.

  She took a breath. “Tell it to the cops.” She pulled out her cell phone. How did he know her name?

  “If you dial that, they’ll track us.”

  “Who will track us?”

  “The guys who blew up your car.”

  “And who are they?” Her finger was poised.

  “Men who are looking into your past like I have.”

  “I don’t have a past worth looking into.”

  “I’m afraid you do. I’m an investigator.”

  “Is that why you have a gun?”

  “What? I don’t have a gun. Wish I did, right now.”

  “I saw it on your waist. In the grocery store.”