Dawn of the Unthinkable (17 page)

But mostly he thought of the world in
general now and his part in it. He was thirty-five, slender but
sinewy, and good looking in an All-American, Jewish kind of way. He
wore his bushy hair in a mop, and was well liked by mostly everyone
who came in contact with him. Several fine young princesses had
taken it upon themselves to try to run him to the ground. Though he
appreciated the attention, he resisted all such attempts. His
life’s work was not compatible with a nice family life. It was
fairly easy to discourage the attention; he told people that he
still worked for the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish
Education, though he had recently resigned. But the cover allowed
for him to travel frequently, which was a necessity.

He was a professional hunter. A hunter of
people who had caused the need for this museum; the old Nazis, many
of whom continued to live in comfort here in the United States and
around the world. True, most were too old to be of much danger now,
but the need to bring them to justice beat strongly in the hearts
of himself and his colleagues at the Simon Weisenthal Center. He
worked closely with the Justice Department’s Office of Special
Investigations, which brought the cases against these former
concentration camp guards and officers who concealed their past to
illegally enter the United States after WWII. He had personally
made the cases that had run fifteen of the monsters out of the
country, which, unfortunately, was about all you could legally do
to them. The public’s appetite for jailing fading old men was
small; so many ex-captors evaded what would have only been a proper
end for them. Then again, death was taking many of them, and he
hoped that maybe there was some measure of justice awaiting them on
the other side.

What was occupying more of his time now was
chasing the new breed of Nazi, the ones who recruited members over
the Internet and turned impressionable young minds to their cause.
It was amazing the passion that these people had for Hitler after
all these years. While most people viewed him with disgust, young
Nazis almost fainted from excitement when they saw a film of him
ranting. Even when they could view the facts that he led his
country to defeat, they still felt that his was the true vision and
that it gave them the right to plan the eradication of anyone not
just like them.

Now he knew there were all kinds of tyrants
and despots around the world for whom the killing of their own
people was a big part of their day. But Hitler was more despicable
in his mind by turning it into an industry, practically automating
it, and convincing a whole culture that this was the proper thing
to do.
How was he able to do that?
He guessed that the
butchers in third-world countries were probably half insane when
they hacked people apart with machetes, but to build giant gas
chambers and ovens, well, that took
rational
thought from
engineers, architects, construction workers, whatever.
How did
all those people buy into that?
He knew group mentality was
strong and the threat of being jailed or killed was very powerful,
but wasn’t there one courageous guy in the whole country that could
have said, “Stop! This is wrong!” Maybe that one voice would have
been enough, like a slap in the face. But sadly, that didn’t
happen, and six million people perished.

The whole sorry mess had always affected him
more than other kids ever since his grandmother had showed him her
tattoo from Auschwitz and told him her experiences. She told him,
“The thing that bothered me the most was the prison guards using
the ashes of her dead comrades to gain traction in the snow, which
to me made their deaths a never-ending thing. How could they rest
in peace when they were being trod upon by their killers?”

Her sadness and rage became ingrained in
him, and he vowed to fight these people with all his might. To this
end, he became somewhat of a loner, friendly enough when
approached, but more often buried in some obscure text or another
with facts about the Reich and its people. Not exactly the most
popular of topics for young Jewish Americans. So he never really
fit in well and kept to himself. But what he did do was prepare
like a maniac for the life he chose. In fact, he tried to emulate
his fiction hero, Sherlock Holmes, who had raised the science of
detection to an art form. Holmes declared that he tried to rid his
mind of facts that did not directly pertain to his work, and in
many ways, Dornstein had done the same thing. He knew more boring
trivia about Nazis than many knew themselves, but he had found that
more often than he could have imagined, one or two of these facts
would come in handy.

One of his outlets for energy not consumed
by his work was practicing the Israeli Martial Arts known as Krav
Maga. His parents had sent him to karate lessons when he was a
youth, but he was not happy rehearsing a precise set of moves that
he was not sure would flow easily in a real confrontation. Krav
Maga was developed by a commander in the Israeli Army to handle
real life situations, that is, being attacked blindly, fighting
after being knocked to the ground, or in the dark, or when
exhausted. It emphasized winning the battle as quickly as possible
by whatever means possible, fair or otherwise. He would go to his
gym and practice with a few other guys, striking from his back,
seated, whatever. He had achieved master status a year ago and now
felt fairly comfortable that he could handle most types of bad
situations. He had already used it to fend off a group of thugs in
Munich, leaving one guy with a broken cheek and another with a
severely bruised set of testicles. They had been upset over his
presence at an Aryan race rally they were attending and thought
that a little attitude adjustment would be to his benefit. They
were very surprised when he left them on the ground in an alley,
nursing some rather painful injuries.

He also enjoyed the philosophy behind the
program, which was traditional martial arts theories of pride in
self, confidence developed through training, and quiet
peacefulness. It was in keeping with his personality and not as
Eastern-oriented as the Asian martial arts. Much of their
philosophy was difficult for a Westerner to feel totally
comfortable with as they were raised in a different culture. Krav
Maga was more current, being less than a hundred years old and
developed by a European turned Israeli Jew. So there was less
having to act like Kwai Chang Kane in
Kung Fu
.

He got up off the bench he was sitting on
and headed off to the Metro. He loved the subway system in
Washington, having bounced around on his hometown of Philadelphia’s
ancient cars for too long. He had ridden their subway system to go
to college in cars that were sixty years old all that time ago.
They had bare bulbs for light and worn out straps to hang onto
while riding. He also rode their elevated system, which drove along
above the roofs in the summer heat without air conditioning. The
cars would often get to be over 100° and fresh air was hard to come
by. So the quiet hum of the Metro was a joy, and he used it
regularly to get around. His work took him to all corners of
Washington, as information was there if you knew how and where to
look for it. That was because, whatever other faults they had, the
Germans were anal about record keeping.

Many of the victims’ deaths were documented
in journals and ledgers with a date and a place of execution.
Sometimes the commanding officer of the death squad would be listed
too, but they were more careful about that. More often, he would
have to first find then pore over duty rosters and make educated
guesses as to who was doing what. They did manage to destroy many
records before the allies arrived, but then again, when you’re
talking about six million people, that’s a lot of records. They
were much more careful about covering their tracks now, but some of
them were out there with websites and the people that logged on to
them could be tracked. He and his center had turned into very
careful record keepers, and they had over a million files on
suspected Nazis throughout the world.
Two hundred thirty
thousand of those reside right here in the good old US of A
.
They were mostly young, uneducated white males who were looking for
answers to their own unfulfilled lives. The leaders were people who
had learned the gift of infectious oratory ability so that they
would have influence beyond that which should be commandeered by
their personality. So mostly, the group was not much of a worry.
Their rallies usually turned out more people protesting against
them than they did member attending. Dornstein wished that people
would just ignore them instead of feeding the amazing amount of
hate these people could generate.

The cases that Dornstein was assigned to,
besides the geezers, were the new leaders that were starting to
appear along with the parade leaders. There were hints and rumors
of a quiet underground of well-educated, highly placed and
influential Aryans throughout the government and industry. Their
leanings were not known at the current time, as they were
supposedly waiting for just the right time to launch the Fourth
Reich.
Could these people really think there would be another
point in history where their method of running things would be
acceptable?
He shuddered to think of what would happen to his
people if they got back to power. Of course, Jews were much more
able—and willing—to defend themselves now, but they were also
hopelessly outnumbered. And who knew if they could really count on
their allies if the chips were down. Too many to count had sat on
their hands while the Holocaust was going on. The Catholic Church
was just now getting around to mending fences and admitting they
did nothing or even helped their tormentors during WWII.

So it was better that a group of dedicated
specialists like himself kept searching for, identifying, and
ultimately disabling the new menace. Like Krav Maga taught him, win
the battle by any means.

Ryan made about fifty copies of his article
once the Copyright Office approval was returned. That had been
cool. Kathy had got it first at home with the mail and had fussed a
little about the fee but still seemed impressed with such an
official recognition of his ramblings. She had read the finished
copy and thought that his heart was in the right place, but that he
was, of course, insane. The very thought of doing without money
horrified her, even when he explained that she would be able to get
everything she needed just by going to get it.

“Honey, I have to know how serious you are
about this. I need to know if there is going to be backlash from
this because people think you’re a crackpot.”

He hadn’t been paying attention to her as he
assembled his mailings. “Huh, what?”

“You! This! People are going to think you’re
nuts. Are you sure you really want to send this to all these
important people? It’s one thing to scheme about things from your
living room. It’s quite another to mail craziness to the
President!” she said as she picked up the envelope addressed to the
White House. She did not like the idea of her friends and relatives
finding out that her husband was trying to save the world. He took
the envelope back from her.

“I have to, Kath. I feel like this is
bursting out of me, and it’s such a good idea I have to share it. I
don’t have enough guts to stand out in public and preach about it,
but
this,”
he gestured to the envelopes, “is something I can
do. I hope you can support me in it.” He looked at her, not sure he
wanted to hear the answer.

She sighed. Supporting your spouse sometimes
meant going along with ideas you really didn’t like, and she
abhorred any type of spotlight being focused on her young family.
But at the same time, she admired his resolve in trying to fix
things, even when no one asked him to. “Okay, well I know you’re
going to do this whether I like it or not, so let’s see where it
goes. Kids, Dad needs help getting this stuff into envelopes.”

He had chosen his list to mail to with care,
as the postage and copying didn’t come cheap. He had never sent
anything to any magazine or elected official before, so he didn’t
have a clue as to what would grab their attention. He wrote what he
thought to be a catchy cover letter summarizing the high points of
the article and invited them to contact him for further
information. The little family sat around the kitchen table,
laughing, licking, and stuffing. It was fun, but Ryan was nervous
for the outcome. What he was proposing was akin to treason, and he
was sure that what he felt was somewhat similar to what others
about to betray their country felt. He took the completed packages
and dropped them in the mailbox, then sat back and waited for the
offers to pour in. And waited. And waited some more. Nothing.

And then it happened! His wife called him on
the phone while he was at work with an excited voice. “Hey, there’s
something for you from The White House!” she said with awe and
disbelief in her voice. Was her lovable crackpot really on to
something?

“Probably an invite to dinner with the
president and a few secretaries and what not, no doubt,” he said in
his most pompous voice. “Is my tux back from the cleaners?” he
asked in a bored voice, as if correspondence from The White House
was a routine thing.

“You don’t own a tux,” she giggled, and then
asked excitedly, “Can I open it?”

“Sure,” he said trying to keep the
excitement out of his own voice but desperately wanted to know what
it said. He could hear the tearing of an envelope in the
background, then the mumbling of her voice as she read it to
herself. He could hear stray words of what she was reading, such as
“appreciate,” “contribution,” “will keep,” but not the whole thing,
which was maddening.