North Reich (61 page)

      
“You could bomb it,” Morgenthau said with a hint of desperation that made Marshall uncomfortable.

      
“Auschwitz is eight hundred and fifty miles from London and, yes, a B17 could fly there and back.
 
However, we have no forces in England.
 
Even if we did, the bombers would have to fly much of the way without shorter range escorts and they would be slaughtered by the Luftwaffe.
 
Despite the propaganda, the so-called Flying Fortress is far from invulnerable.
 
And, if the bombers actually did make it to Auschwitz, they would have a devil of a time finding either the city or the camp as Polish maps are worse than primitive and aircraft navigation is still a rough science.
 
Are you aware that our planes flying from New York State sometimes can’t find Toronto and that some German planes flying from Europe couldn’t find London?”

      
“I was not,” Morgenthau said softly.

      
Marshall continued.
 
“And even if they did find the death camp, what would they bomb?
 
If they hit the camp itself, they’d be killing the inmates.
 
Despite what you might have heard about certain technological achievements like the Norden bomb sight, our bombing is still highly inaccurate.
 
Nor could they accurately hit the railroads leading to the camp and, even if they did, the Germans would repair them overnight.”

      
“What about the Russians?
 
Can they do something?”

      
“The Red Army is about to re-conquer Stalingrad after climactic battles near the Urals.
 
Unfortunately, Stalingrad is about twelve hundred miles from Auschwitz and both sides will need to catch their breath and re-supply after the enormous blood-letting that is taking place.
 
As the Reds advance, they will inherit the logistical problems the Germans are now facing. Even under the best of circumstances, it could easily be a couple of years before the Red Army reaches the death camps.

      
“Are you saying the cause of the Jewish people is hopeless?”

      
“For those in Poland and Russia, yes.
 
I’m sorry, but they are doomed.
 
Nor would it surprise me in the least if an exhausted Germany and an equally exhausted Russia signed a peace accord that would seal the doom of any surviving Jews.
 
Nor can I conceive of the United States invading continental Europe, at least not without major allies, and that won’t happen if Russia and Germany sign another peace treaty.”

      
“What about Great Britain?”

      
“She is a mere shell of herself.”

      
“You paint a dismal picture, general.”

      
“I didn’t think you wanted me to lie.
 
If I were you, I would concentrate on some way of getting the Jewish people out of those nations where the exterminations haven’t begun, such as Italy and France.
 
Perhaps the Nazis will release Jews if they had someplace to send them.”

      
“Well, they won’t come to the United States,” Morgenthau said wryly.
 
“They’ve been refused entry before.”

      
“Perhaps times have changed.
 
If the world is aware of the realities in Europe, perhaps deals can be brokered.
 
In the meantime, I am as helpless and frustrated as you are.”

      
“General, I want Germany destroyed, dismembered, so she cannot wage war again.
 
The monster that we call Germany is less than a hundred years old.
 
It must be broken up and heavy industry prohibited,” Morgenthau said stridently.

      
Morgenthau’s wish to radically transform Germany was another reason why FDR wouldn’t talk to him.
 
Such possibilities were so far down the road that they weren’t worth mentioning.

      
Disappointed but not surprised, Morgenthau left the Pentagon and returned to the Treasury Building at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.
 
He was proud of his position as Secretary of the Treasury and, as an American, proud that parts of the Treasury Building pre-dated the Civil War.
 
His driver left him off at a side entrance on 15st.
 
It enabled him to enter without being noticed.
 
He was too depressed to feel like talking to anyone, although Marshall had planted the germ of an idea.

      
Deep in thought, he didn’t notice the two District of Columbia policemen walking towards him until they were only a few feet away.

      
“Can I help you?” he inquired.
 

      
“Are you Morgenthau?” one, the older, asked sternly.

      
The impertinence of the question surprised him.
 
“I am.”

      
The policeman pulled out his revolver and fired twice into Morgenthau’s chest.
 
“Jew,” he spat out.

      
As consciousness faded, Morgenthau heard screams and other shots.

Patrolman Dennis Murphy had been a D.C. cop for more than ten years.
 
Working in the nation’s capital gave him an interesting perspective on his world, along with a spreading gut that his wife said he should work off.
 
He learned early on to recognize the rich and powerful, the better to keep himself out of trouble. As his fellow cops would say, careers could be ruined by inadvertently insulting some raghead sultan from the Middle East. Thus, when he heard the gunfire and saw a man grabbing his chest in pain and horror, he immediately recognized the victim as the Secretary of the Treasury.
 
What totally perplexed him was that he was being shot by fellow cops.

      
Seeking to either help or straighten out what was obviously a mess or a mistake; he drew his own revolver and raced towards the three men.
 
He was close enough to hear one of the men call Morgenthau a Jew, which puzzled him.
 
Of course Morgenthau was a Jew.
 
Everybody knew that.

      
“Police,” Murphy yelled to alert the two other cops.
 

Instead of acknowledging him, the two men turned and began shooting at him.
 
Murphy dropped to his knees.
 
He was totally confused.
 
Why were his fellow officers shooting at him?
 
Something hard slammed into his chest, staggering him.
 
Morgenthau was flat on the ground, blood gathering in puddles around him.
 
They were killing him, which meant they weren’t real cops.
 
For the first time in his career, he began shooting, foolishly emptying his revolver at one target.
 
The man he was shooting at turned and crumpled, while the second shot again, hitting Murphy in the eye.
 
He was dead before he hit the ground.

With both Tom and Colonel Downing up north along with Truscott, Alicia found herself in the uncomfortable position of being the army’s temporary liaison in the investigation of the attack on Henry Morgenthau.
 
Once again she found herself looking down on to the pale features of a corpse.
 
At least this one hadn’t been terribly mangled.
 
Her stomach couldn’t handle that.
 
A second corpse lay on another slab, but that one belonged to an innocent cop who apparently stumbled on to the assassination attempt and died for his efforts.
 
He’d get a posthumous medal and a great funeral, but that wouldn’t help his wife and two kids.

      
She couldn’t help but notice that more jurisdictions were involved.
 
The Treasury Department headed up the Secret Service, and, since the attack had occurred on a city street by men using phony uniforms, the District of Columbia police were also interested.
 
Both groups seemed to resent the presence of a woman, even one wearing an army officer’s uniform.
 
They seemed only slightly mollified by the Purple Heart she’d thought to pin on.
 
Fortunately, FBI Agent Dunn had used J. Edgar Hoover’s name and gotten others to back off.
 
The FBI would be running things.

      
“How is the secretary?” Alicia asked.

      
“As well as any old man with two bullets in him could be,” Dunn said.
 
“The docs think he’ll pull through, but it will be a long time before he returns to work.”

      
Alicia turned her attention back to the dead man.
 
He’d been shot several times in the back and chest by the dead D.C. cop who’d been a little ways away and had run to the attack.
 
It had taken the real cop a few seconds to comprehend that something was terribly wrong and, when he’d announced himself, witnesses said that the two phony cops had turned from trying to murder Morgenthau and shot at him.
 
They’d killed him, but not before the cop had killed the man lying before her.
 
The second gunman had run off and a manhunt was underway.

      
“He’s not Stahl, is he?” Dunn asked.

      
“No and you knew that,” she answered.

      
Dunn shrugged, “Just had to make sure.
 
We’re checking his fingerprints, but that’s going to be long, tedious, and ultimately fruitless.
 
I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that he’s on record anywhere.
 
My guess is that he’s a German who sneaked in a while back and set up house without anyone noticing.
 
Based on rough descriptions, we think he might be the one who led the attack on the New York Stock Exchange.
 
There we might have better luck with fingerprints.”

      
“Was the other man Stahl?” she asked.

      
Dunn pulled the sheet back over the dead man’s face.
 
“We think so.
 
The bastard got lucky again and got away, although he didn’t kill Morgenthau.
 
Stahl may just be all alone now, and that might just make him desperate.”

      
“Where did they get the police uniforms?”

      
“Easy as pie.
 
They bought them at a shop that sells them to cops.
 
Nobody even asked to see their ID.
 
The badges they made out of cardboard covered with tinfoil and the guns they either already had or they stole."

      
“So where is Stahl now?”

      
Dunn grimaced.
 
“I wish to hell I knew.
 
He plans ahead, so he probably has changed out of his uniform and into something else, so I don’t think the manhunt is going to net us anything. This Stahl guy has to be stopped.
 
He’s come too close to really damaging this country.”

Detective Sam Lambert walked down the street with Sherry Piper on his arm.
 
He hoped they looked like two lovers out for a stroll, which, in a way, they were.
 
Their relationship had ripened and they were starting to use words like love and even discuss long range plans.
 
Neither of them was quite ready to use the marriage word, but that was likely inevitable.

      
First there was a war to win and a nation to be freed from the clutches of Nazi Germany.

      
They stopped and joined the crowd watching a long line of trucks and ambulances bringing German wounded back from the fighting at Niagara and the Port Maitland beachhead.
 
Even though sedated, many wounded still moaned and cried out in pain.

      
“They really aren’t supermen, are they?” Sherry said.
 
“Some of them look like lost little boys.”

      
“Don’t even think of feeling sorry for them until after they’ve surrendered.
 
Some of the ones crying the loudest might be guilty of some of the worst crimes.”

      
“I keep forgetting you’re a cop,” she said, squeezing his arm.
 
“And sometimes I almost succeed in forgetting what the Germans did to my brother and me.
 
But I really don’t want to lose track of the fact that I am a human being and not an animal like the Nazis.”

      
“That’ll never happen,” he said gently.
 
It warranted another arm squeeze along with the pleasant feel of her breast against him.

      
“So what do we do next to help destroy the Nazis?”

      
“I’m to meet with some people, probably OSS types, and we’re going to talk.
 
There’s a bunch of cops like me who’d like to hit the Germans, but we’re primarily concerned with freeing the people they’ve taken prisoner so they can’t be used as hostages.”