North Reich (54 page)

      
“Did anyone shoot the horse?”

      
“Of course not and, besides, it wasn’t mine.
 
No, I just had to grin and bear it, although I didn’t do much grinning for a couple of weeks.”

      
Tom groaned.
 
Doctor Crain had re-evaluated Tom’s injuries and pronounced them debilitating but not life-threatening.
 
He’d been given a week off to feel sorry for himself and Crain had taught Alicia how to wrap his chest.
 
Other than that, he’d said, there wasn’t anything that could be done.
 
Crain added that Tom should avoid all contact sports, such as football and hockey, and should also try to stay out of wars.

      
Alicia had seconded that opinion.
 
She was sick and tired of him getting hurt, and had even broached the idea of him either leaving the army or getting out of a potential combat arm.
 
When he reminded her that there was a war on and that millions of young men didn’t have any choice as to their fate and future, she’d turned away and cried softly, which hadn’t helped matters at all.

      
“I don’t care if you get another medal or even get promoted to generalissimo.
 
I just want you safe and sound.”

      
“Which is exactly what I want, but there are so many things that are beyond our control.
 
I don’t like to think we’re just pawns, but I sometimes feel that’s exactly what we are.
 
And so are people like Roosevelt and Marshall.
 
They’re just pawns with bigger offices.”

      
She got off the bed, took off her bra and stepped out of her panties.
 
Her lithe body shined with sweat.
 
“Crain didn’t specifically say not to do this, but he did say I should watch out for any unusual swellings,” she said as she began to caress him.
 
“Oh, look, there’s one now.”

      
“Is this going to hurt?” he said, gasping as she aroused him despite his injuries.
 
Lord, she had learned quickly.

      
“It might, but you’ll never admit it.”

Henry Wallace was fifty-six years old and the thirty-third Vice President of the United States.
 
He had held a number of government positions before being tapped by FDR to be his running mate in the 1940 election.
 
He’d replaced John Nance Garner, who had managed to mightily annoy FDR.

      
Prior to that, Wallace had served as Secretary of Agriculture.
 
He had, however, offended many who found his views on the Soviet Union to be naïve and utopian.
 
Even though the USSR was an American ally, many felt that they and Stalin could not be trusted.
 
Further rumors had developed alleging that he’d dabbled in strange religions in his younger days.
 
As a result, the handwriting had been written large and clear on the wall.
 
Henry A. Wallace would not be FDR’s running mate in the fall of 1944.
 
That dubious honor belonged to Harry Truman, the obscure senator from Missouri.
 
There were real fears that Roosevelt would not live until the next election in 1948 and that Henry Wallace was much too radical to be president should something happen to FDR.

      
Wallace’s term in office had been boring.
 
His predecessor, John Nance Garner, had compared being vice president to a bucket of warm piss.
 
Wallace would not argue.
 
FDR clearly felt he didn’t need anyone but himself to run the nation.
 
In Wallace’s opinion, the president was both devious and a liar, often pitting people against each other to keep them off balance.
 
Even his most trusted advisors often had no clear idea just what he wanted.
 
Nobody knew that much about Truman either, except that he was not controversial.

      
Well, he thought, come January twentieth of the New Year he would be free to pursue private activities like the one he’d just attended.
 
He’d been asked to speak to a group of farmers about the future of American corn in the rebuilding of Europe once it was liberated.
 
Of course, that was a long ways down the road.
 
First, the U.S. had to liberate Ontario and that, from all that he could see, was not even beginning.

      
There was a knock on his hotel room door.
 
Normally, his wife would answer it, but she’d stayed at home.
 
Since the dinner and speech making were scheduled to go well into the night, he’d gotten a room for himself.

      
He padded across in his socks.
 
He didn’t like the idea of anyone seeing him dressed so casually, but wasn’t about to get dressed again for what was likely a hotel employee.

      
“Who’s there?” he asked through the closed door.

      
“U.S. Army,” was the muffled response.

      
What now, he wondered as he opened the door.
 
Two army officers stood before him.
 
Before he could say anything he saw the two pistols they had pointed at him.
 
They pushed their way in and shoved him onto a chair.

“Don’t say a word,” one of them said.
 

They stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth and quickly bound him with ropes.
 
They pushed a couple of pillows against the side of his head and fired twice.
 
The pillows muffled the sound, but did not stop the bullets from blasting Wallace’s brains all over the carpet.

      
Stahl and Krenz nodded.
 
It was a job well done.
 
They put the weapons back in their attaché cases, and, after lifting Wallace’s wallet and watch, left the room and walked down the hallway to the stairwell.
 
Wallace’s suite had been on the eighth floor.
 
They walked down to the fifth and took the elevator to the ground floor from there.

      
Once out on Sixteenth Street, they felt free to stop and catch their breath.
 
Neither could believe that it had been so easy.
 
The only security for the vice president had been the middle-aged and overweight hotel guard who was currently lounging in front of the check-in area.

      
“They might not find him before morning,” Krenz said and laughed.

      
“At which time I’ll be back in my apartment and you’ll be asleep in Baltimore.”

      
“And what shall we do for our next assault, Herr Stahl?”

      
“I’m thinking something higher,” he answered.

      
“Wonderful,” said Krenz.
 
“The only person higher than Wallace would be Roosevelt himself.
 
With him out of the way, the next president would be the Secretary of State, the sick and senile Cordell Hull.
 
Hitler will rejoice if we can pull that off.”

      
Stahl was not at all certain that Hull was senile, but did not correct Krenz.
 
Decapitating the leadership of the United States could certainly have a favorable impact on Germany’s war against the Jews and the communists.

      
The two men had worn American army uniforms they’d bought at a surplus store, and they had made them almost invisible.
 
In Stahl’s opinion, it had been a stroke of genius.
 

The idea of taking Wallace’s wallet and watch would make the Americans hesitate as to the motive.
 
Was it a simple robbery or an assassination?
 
They would not be certain, which would leave the door open just a crack so they could use the same technique again.

It was imperative to him that the Fuhrer know that it had been the two of them who had killed Wallace.
 
He would have to contact Neumann in Toronto.
 
Using a short wave radio would be risky but worth it, far better than attempting to use a telephone.
 
Lines to Canada were still open, but who knew who might be eavesdropping.
 
The Reich had to know the blow he and Krenz had struck.
 
Heil Hitler, he thought exultantly.

Tom and the others who’d gone to New York after the Wall Street massacre did not go to the hotel room where the vice president’s body had been found.
 
FBI agent Richard Dunn had said he’d allow it if they insisted, but that there was nothing to be seen besides bloody furniture and a body missing much of its skull.
 
They’d quickly concurred.
 
They were not cops and would add nothing to any criminal investigation.
 
Instead, they met in a small, dingy conference room at the FBI’s headquarters in the Department of Justice Building.
 
The FBI wanted its own headquarters building and it was easy to see why.

      
Dunn looked at the small group.
 
“Okay, let’s have a show of hands.
 
How many think this was a robbery?”
 
Not a hand went up.
 
“Great.
 
That makes it unanimous since nobody in this building does either.
 
This was almost like a mob hit, except it wasn’t.
 
Just to clear up that point, the Mafia and others had no reason to shoot Wallace, which is confirmed by the few people we have as snitches in their organizations.
 
We’ve even received phone calls from mob leaders professing their ignorance and innocence.”

      
Incredible, thought Tom.
 
“So I suppose the press release that it was a burglary emanated from your office?”

      
“Of course and it’ll hold up.
 
There is a war on and the press will cooperate.
 
Maybe a few decades from now some muckraker will find out something, but nobody’ll care.
 
One way or another, the war will have been over and a dead vice president won’t matter.”

      
It was Alicia’s turn.
 
“So who did it, Agent Dunn, Stahl?”

      
“We firmly think so.
 
Several people at the hotel vaguely recall two army officers in the hotel around midnight.
 
We showed them pictures of Stahl, and the hotel detective thinks he might have seen him enter the building.
 
He didn’t think they were carrying weapons, although they clearly were, and he didn’t recognize any unit designations on their uniforms.
 
Showing up in plain sight is a great disguise.”

      
“So what’s their next shot, no pun intended,” asked Downing. “With the success they’ve been having, I can’t see them running back to Berlin anytime soon.”

      
Dunn nodded solemnly.
 
“We’ve given it a lot of thought, and the only idea that keeps popping up is that they’ll go for a bigger target.
 
They’ve already upset the line of succession and now the Secretary of State is the acting vice president and next in line.”

      
Jesus, thought Tom.
 
He grimaced from the pain his ribs were causing.
 
“Back at the Pentagon, we thought the Nazis would go after either Marshall or King, but killing FDR would make a very ill Cordell Hull the President.
 
God only knows what kind of trouble that sick old man might get us into before the next election.”

      
“Agreed,” Alicia said.
 
“So we can assume that Roosevelt will be guarded more heavily than ever?”

      
Dunn laughed.
 
“Believe it.
 
And further believe that no one, including anyone in uniform, is going to get even close to him.
 
Can we assume that the military will cooperate in the fiction?”

      
“Of course,” said Downing, slightly annoyed at the question. “We will be busy, you know, with the coming invasion of Ontario.”

      
“And just when will that happy event be?” asked Dunn.

      
“Sooner than many people realize,” was the answer he got.

FDR was well aware of his own mortality and the shaky line of succession.
 
Like most normal people, he dismissed his own physical problems as trivial, but was concerned that Cordell Hull was now the de facto number two man in the nation.
 
He was confident he could handle his own problems with his heart, but not Hull’s increasing weaknesses.

      
He found it annoying that there was no provision in the constitution to replace a dead vice president.
 
That would have to be corrected, he thought.
 
Instead, the succession fell to the Secretary of State, and that man was the failing Hull.
 
Hull would have to be replaced, but by whom?
 
Damn it to hell, he thought as he twirled and then sipped his special martini.
 
He knew that a lot of his guests didn’t care for the concoction, but he did and that was all that mattered.