CapturedbytheSS (13 page)

“Score,” I whisper. I hurriedly slip them on. I already feel
warmer.

I rise up on my knees, so I can pull open the middle drawer.
I find several white t-shirts neatly rolled along with several pairs of
underwear. Out of curiosity, I stand to check out the top drawer. There are
several pairs of black leather gloves on one side. On the other side, there’s a
felt-lined tray.

The tray is filled with stickpins and cuff links. There are
also some medals and a watch as well as several rings. I pick up and examine
one of the rings. Like most men’s jewelry, it’s heavy and bulky. Almost all the
pieces have either a swastika or the SS Sig Runes on it. Everything looks more
like service awards to me.

My jewelry box is also filled with similar rings, pendants
and medals, except my pieces bear either a bald eagle or an American flag. A
twinge of pain hits me as I remember that small wooden box in my modest
military quarters. It’s not that I miss my jewelry box. It’s just that…I’ll
probably never set foot on US soil again.

Yes, there was
one
spy swap. But that doesn’t mean
anything. By now, my family has probably been informed that I’ve either been
captured or killed. My arrangements are most likely pending. I shake my head
slightly as I swallow hard. There is absolutely nothing I can do, so there’s no
point in torturing myself about this.

I go back to looking through his jewelry instead. I find a
gold ring that looks like a wedding band. It even has a date engraved inside
,
7-7-2001.
No name though.

After putting the ring back, I close the drawer. My eyes
sweep across the top of the dresser. There’s a small mirror, a brush, a hair
dryer and some styling products. Out of curiosity, I shuffle toward the closet.
My delicate chain leash lightly drags across the hardwood floor. I slide open
the closet door and immediately find several black tunics and matching trousers
hanging neatly inside. The uniforms are clean and meticulously pressed. They’re
hanging with the red armband facing out. There are also some white and tan
dress shirts, which are also crisply pressed, as well as several black ties.

Three pairs of boots are lined up on the closet floor while
four hats are perched on the top shelf. After rolling open the other side of
the closet, I find a few civilian-type clothes along with two pairs of
sneakers. Some of the more casual garments are stained with paint while others
look like work-out clothes. There are books stacked up on the top shelf, but
they’re too far back for me to see any titles.

I retrieve one of the chairs by the table to stand on.
Toward the back of the shelf are several language books, which are stacked up
nearly to the ceiling. Most of the books are on the phased-out
languages—Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, French…just to name a few. I
retrieve one of the language books, Russian, and eagerly flip it open.

I find it interesting the world was once broken up in so
many different nations and countries, each with their own language and culture,
their own leaders, flags and anthems. As I flip through the pages, I stop from
time to time and read something. I try to speak some of the words, but I have
no idea how Russian is pronounced, so I’m just guessing. Shrugging, I put the
book back.

There are some books on Italian and Japanese as well, but
they’re not technically phased-out languages. Although German is the primary
language in the empire, both Italian and Japanese are approved second languages
that are taught extensively in school. No one really speaks either language
anymore, but Italian operas are popular in the empire as are kabuki theaters
and geisha houses. Both Italian and Japanese are commonly taught and referred
to as
the languages of the arts.

As a trained agent, I’m fluent in both Italian and Japanese,
as any educated citizen of the empire would be, but I’ve certainly never had
time to go to an opera or pop into a geisha house.

There’s also a shoe box on the same shelf. Always the spy, I
retrieve the mysterious box, eager to look inside. Much to my disappointment
though, it’s only some black shoe polish along with a brush and several rags.
There’s also a bottle of metal polish.

Putting the shoe box back, I spot a black book lying flat on
the shelf next to the high stack of language books. It’s back toward the wall
and was hidden earlier behind the shoe box. I quickly retrieve it. Flipping it
open briefly, I realize it’s a photo album.

Oh, this could be interesting. I carefully step off the
chair, not wanting to trip on my leash, and then walk to the table.

I set the book down before settling into the other chair at
the table. I flip open the album and quickly scan through the pictures. It’s a
wedding album. I close it again and look at the cover. Like the wedding band,
it’s also dated
7-7-2001.
There’s a raised, gold emblem above the date.
It’s an eagle with outstretched wings holding a wreath-encircled swastika. I’ve
seen the image before.

I flip the book open and study the first picture. It’s the
bride and groom. My captor is the groom. He doesn’t look that different back
then than he does now. His black uniform is a little different in the picture
though. Instead of a sidearm, he has a saber. He also has several pins and
medals on his tunic and a red sash draped sideways across his chest. The
uniform looks more ceremonial than functional.

The woman he’s standing next to is pretty. Blonde, early
twenties. Her white wedding dress is lacy. The pictures are very typical of any
wedding. There are several pictures of the bride and groom, pictures of flowers
and guests. Some of them even have several SS officers standing together. By
the look of it, the ceremony was clearly a VIP event.

Vaguely, I wonder what happened to my captor’s wife. There’s
no trace of her in the closet, aside from this album. Flipping through the
pages, I take in all the pictures, trying to figure out who my captor is. I
come to the end of the book. Unfortunately, I don’t know much. All I know for
sure is that my captor married a blonde woman on July 7, 2001. But I don’t know
if he’s divorced, widowed, separated or still happily married.

I flip through the pages again, convinced a wedding
invitation has to be tucked in somewhere, but I don’t find one. I’d kinda like
to know my captor’s name, but it doesn’t look as if I’m going to find out from
this album.

Frowning, I put the album back and then scoot the chair back
under the table. Walking across the room, I look around. I decide to check out
the nightstands by the bed next. After kneeling by one, I find two of the
drawers are empty while the third only has a pencil in it.

I walk around the bed to the other nightstand. Opening the
top drawer, I expect to find his black bag, which I know was there the night
before, but it’s not now. He must have moved it before he left. I open the
other drawers and come up just as empty-handed. Damn, who is this guy?

Wanting to explore everything, I shuffle to the bathroom to
look under the sink. I find some extra towels, a bottle of soap, body lotion,
shampoo, some disposable razors, toilet paper and two brand-new toothbrushes.
If I really wanted to, I could probably break the blade out of one of the
disposable razors…but I gave him my word I wouldn’t hurt myself. Sighing, I stand
up.

I open the medicine cabinet. Unlike the other medicine
cabinet in the guest bathroom, this one is empty. Either he never had any
medications in here or he cleaned it out before he left. I’m assuming the
latter. I guess he didn’t want to take any chances. He probably would have
taken out the razors too if he’d thought of it.

After emerging from the bathroom, I walk to the bed. I kneel
down and look under it but find nothing. As a last resort, I run my hands
between the mattresses, looking for anything tucked in between. Nothing.

Wanting to test the limit of my chain, I walk toward the
door. I have just enough slack to make it to the door but not to the hall. I
shuffle back to the bed. Feeling a bit defeated, I sit down.

I grudgingly resign to the fact that I’m going to be cooped
up for the day. I decide to take a long bath. I retrieve one of the razors and
draw the water. Soaking in the tub, I use the razor to shave my legs and
underarms. I wash my hair and simply try to relax. After draining the water, I
wrap myself in a towel. I open one of the new toothbrushes I found earlier
under the sink and then take my time brushing my teeth. After tidying up a bit,
I make use of the lotion under the sink and coat my face and body with a thin
layer.

I slip on the same dress shirt and socks before shuffling
back to the table by the window. I nibble on some almonds and start looking at
the books he left me. Most of them are biographies. One is about a playwright
I’ve never heard of while another is about a playwright I have heard of.

One is about a native German scientist named Aaron Sedon. I
know who he was. He was in charge of a rogue nuclear fission program from 1938
to 1943. With almost no funding and little support from the Third Reich, he and
his group essentially put together the rough blueprints for constructing a
nuclear bomb.

The book contains a lot of technical details I don’t
understand, things like
critical mass
and this and that about plutonium,
as well as complex formulas and cryptic-looking drawings. There’s a picture of
Aaron Sedon with Adolf Hitler on the back. The picture is dated July 19, 1944.
I blink at the date. Jeez, this picture was taken the day before Hitler’s
assassination.

I set the book aside a bit indifferently. The language is
too technical for me to read for enjoyment, though I could probably memorize it
if I had to. I know many historians argue the Allies may have won in the
mid-forties if Germany had never developed the bomb. But…I don’t know. I can’t
even imagine a world without the Third Reich in it.

If anyone did care about my opinion, I’d say Hitler’s
successor, Klaus Marcel, was smarter than Hitler. I think all Hitler cared
about was
the Final Solution
and the eradication of the Jews while
Marcel had more of a vision of a
truly
united empire. I’ve read that
many German officers saw Hitler’s assassination as a gift to the Reich.

In my opinion, Marcel was smart enough to rally Italy and
Japan under the German flag in 1944, as opposed to having three separate Axis
powers. It was the first step to creating the empire…the first of many steps
that led to the topple of nation after nation.

Of course, I don’t think it took a lot of rallying after
August 1, 1944. That was the day Germany shocked the world by dropping the
first atomic bomb in history on Moscow. Not only did it push the Red Army back,
but it scared the hell out of the Allies. After that, I don’t think any nation
wanted to be on Germany’s bad side.

Personally, I’m just grateful the major fighting ended in
1966 with a type of odd truce between America and the Third Reich. With both
nations capable of nuclear retaliation, everything just settled into a cold
war. The conflict became more about espionage than anything else. I know some
people don’t like it, especially the older generation, but I’m grateful I grew
up in a relatively peaceful world.

I think the generation before mine is still kinda pissed off
about losing Alaska and Hawaii in the summer of ’65. And the generation before
my parents is even more pissed off.

For the love of God, don’t ever ask my grandfather what he
thinks about the Nazis. The answer will be very long and sprinkled with several
obscenities. According to him, America should be blowing up every city, town
and nation that belongs to the empire and
damn
the threat of Nazi
retaliation…even if the Third Reich turns the Midwest into a smoldering nuclear
crater.

My grandfather was a fighter pilot back in the ’40s, and he
thinks espionage is for pussies. He doesn’t say that to be mean to me. After
all, he doesn’t know I’m a spy. He’s just from a different generation. But if
you ask me, I think cloak and dagger is a helluva lot better than nuclear
holocaust.

I retrieve the book about the playwright I have heard of and
start reading it from the beginning. I snack on the apple and the almonds as I
read. After I finish the apple, I read several paragraphs aloud. It’s a habit,
really. I used to do that back in the States to practice my German.

Curious about the time, I glance at a clock. Much to my
disappointment, it’s only a little after noon. This is going to be a long day.
I decide a little exercise will help clear my head and pass the time. Starting
with some stretching exercises, I slowly stretch my muscles before doing
several lunges and kicks.

As I go through my routine, I come to an exercise I usually
do with the aid of a chair. Between my lunges and kicks, I’m now farther away
from the table and two chairs by the window, but there’s another one by the
bed. It has his discarded uniform from yesterday draped over it, except the
belt is missing. The spy in me demands I rifle through the pockets, which I do,
but I don’t find anything. Shrugging, I go back to my exercises.

I place my hands on the chair’s back, bend over and then
gracefully lift my leg. My face comes within inches of his tunic and t-shirt as
I bend over. His distinct and clean scent invades my nostrils. Almost
immediately, wetness pools between my thighs. I immediately straighten up, a
bit surprised his scent is causing such an intense reaction from me.

Not at all able to stop myself, I slowly pick up his t-shirt
and take in his scent. The memory of his hands and warm breath on my flesh
invade my thoughts.

While clutching his t-shirt, my other hand brushes over the
black tunic. Its texture is familiar. Feelings of shame immediately crash down
on me, and I hurriedly put the t-shirt back down where it was. Frozen in place,
I can’t stop my other hand from stroking the tunic. Suddenly angry at my
actions, I yank my hand away as if the uniform is on fire.