Threads of Despair: The Parallel Nazi - 6 Read online

  Schreiber laughed. “That was delicately put, Hennie.”

  “I am going to have to think about next steps, unfortunately.”

  “I think the rest of us will stand behind you on this. Everyone has seen how Milch can head down the wrong trail. He does it repeatedly.”

  “Thank you, Peter. Perhaps we can sit down sometime tomorrow and talk about what to do. I’m afraid we will have to take some kind of action.”

  Schloss was delighted to see Peter Schreiber beginning to take an interest in events again. Everyone grieved over Renate’s death, but hopefully, Peter was starting to function normally. Schloss suffered as well, but he wondered how it would feel if he had indeed known Renate his whole life, as had the Alter-Schloss. Peter actually had known her longer than he. But in the short time Schloss had been in this world, it seemed as though he had known her his whole life.

  Gisela wrinkled her nose and stood up. “Your daughter needs changing, I think.”

  Frau Marsden rumbled into the room to take the baby from Gisela. “I can take care of this, I think.”

  Gisela giggled. “I wouldn’t gainsay you in this case, Frau Marsden. However, I will go with you. I need all the practice I can get with our little one on the way.”

  As the women left the room, Peter smiled sadly at Schloss. “Gratia is all I have left, you know. That makes her doubly precious.”

  “Peter, I really don’t know what to say to that. I suspect Gratia will grow up to be a perceptive and wise young lady.”

  “I think so, too. But, mein Gott, Hennie, what a world we have to bring her up in. What are we going to do about the Russians?”

  Schloss picked up his coffee cup and sipped at it. “Bah. It’s gotten cold. And I will not disturb Frau Marsden right now. But, we will do whatever we have to do. Our defeat in Poland notwithstanding, I think we have played a very smart war against the Russians, so far.”

  “Erhard Milch, notwithstanding?” Peter raised an eyebrow.

  “Ha! I simply must pay closer attention to him. As I said, he is a good logistician, but Guderian listens too much to him. I trust Schneller Heinz’s instincts. Between him, Rommel, and Model, we have tied the Russians in knots. Any sane opponent would be looking for a way out of the mess right now. But, I think Stalin is in a corner, and he is not entirely sane.”

  “But the question remains, Hennie; can we ultimately beat them?”

  “I think so. We just have to keep them at arm’s length and keep hitting at their weak points. Sooner or later, something must break. But we must remind ourselves not to let them get into close combat with us. That is where they excel.”

  “It still amazes me that you see things so clearly,” Peter commented. “It’s like you have a God’s-eye view of what is going on and what will be.”

  “I truly wish that was the case.” And you have no idea how I wish I could still see the future. The future has changed, and I have changed it. And I have no idea where it is going.

  Gisela walked back into the room. “Frau Marsden has managed to get Gratia down. Hans and Anna-Lisa need to be home, Hennie.”

  Schloss stood up. “Peter, I will see you tomorrow. Try to get some sleep.”

  Peter stood up and embraced Gisela and shook Schloss’s hand. “I am sleeping more than I was, I suppose.”

  They walked over to the door into the foyer, where Frau Marsden appeared with the children. They were in their overcoats and ready to go home.

  “Thank you, Onkel Peter,” Hans-Friedrich said. “I always like coming back to our old house.”

  Peter laughed and patted the boy on the head. “You are always welcome here. And you, too, Anna-Lisa.”

  The Mercedes limousine waited at the curb when they walked out of the house. The return to the Reich Chancellery was quiet as the children were tired. Anna-Lisa fell asleep along the way, and Schloss carried her to the apartment.

  With Frau Marsden now occupied with Gratia’s care, Schloss had hired an au pair to help Gisela with the children. Frieda was a single woman in her middle-fifties and had spent her life raising children in one family or another. She seemed very competent.

  When they walked in the apartment door, Frieda immediately took Anna-Lisa off Schloss’s shoulder and carried her to the bedroom. He patted Hans-Friedrich on the shoulder.

  “Off you go, Hans. See if you can be ready for bed by the time Frieda comes to your room.”

  “Of course, Poppa.”

  Schloss helped Gisela with her coat and removed his. A Luftwaffe steward wordlessly accepted the garments from them and left the room to hang them up. They walked over and slid on to the sofa, where they intertwined hands. A few minutes later, the steward re-entered the room with a cup of coffee and a glass of sparkling water on a tray.

  “Thank you, Klaus,” Gisela murmured. “You spoil us.”

  “You are welcome, Frau Schloss. We are honored to serve.”

  Schloss took a sip of the coffee and set it down on the side table. He watched as the Luftwaffe steward silently left the room.

  “You know. Klaus brews a fine cup of coffee. It’s better than Willem can manage, but it is not quite up to Frau Marsden’s standards.”

  “Shame on you, Hennie. I believe Peter called you a coffee snob one time.”

  “He has called me that on numerous occasions.”

  “It is apt.”

  He shrugged. “I enjoy my coffee.”

  “And you drink entirely too much.”

  “We have had this conversation before.”

  They sat nestled together for some time, enjoying the quiet apartment. A little while later, Frieda walked into the room.

  “The children are down for the night, Herr and Frau Reich Chancellor.”

  Schloss nodded. “Thank you, Frieda. That will be all for the evening, then.”

  She nodded deeply, almost a bow, and left the room.

  “I’m glad we could give her the evening off, Darling,” Gisela said. “The children wear her out.”

  “I think if I had to chase the children around all day, I would be worn out. She deserves a few moments of quiet.”

  She snuggled in closer, and they talked in low tones for a couple of hours before retiring.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  November 8, 1943; 10 AM

  The White House

  Washington, DC, USA

  “Is this legit?” President Harry Truman asked.

  His inner circle of advisers was gathered around the Oval Office desk as Truman looked at the communique.

  “Mr. President, why should we even care? Whether or not the message actually came from the Japanese, it doesn’t change our ultimate objective.”

  Truman looked up at the Director of the OSS. “No, it does not, Colonel. But it certainly would give us a view into the workings of the Japanese government.”

  “Of course it does,” William Donovan said. “Forgive me, please, Mr. President. I completely missed that one.”

  Truman waved a hand indicating it was of no matter, but he smiled to himself. It was not often that Donovan slipped up like that. It was nice to know that he was human.

  “Assuming this represents the legitimate government of Japan,” Cordell Hull said, “how should we respond?”

  “That’s two questions, Secretary Hull,” Truman responded. “Does anyone care to disagree that the message itself is genuine?”

  “It came from the Swiss embassy,” Donovan said. “They seem to think it’s real.”

  “I agree,” Hull stated. “It came from Japan. Next, we need to decide if it came from a faction in the government, or it represents the government itself.”

  “If we take it at face value, then it came from Yamamoto,” Frank Knox said. The Secretary of the Navy sat in one of the sofas with his legs crossed and drinking a cup of coffee. “We have evidence he was not enthusiastic about the war in the first place.”

  Truman shot him a warning look. That information had come from radio traffic the U.S. Navy had intercepted a
nd decoded. The fact that the United States had broken the Japanese code was probably the most important secret of the war. Not everyone in the room was privy to it. Knox, who was very perceptive, quickly looked down at his coffee cup and said nothing more.

  Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, and General Marshall, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were in the room. Stimson sat across from Knox with his cup of coffee. General Marshall stood against the wall next to the bust of Abraham Lincoln. Donovan also caught Truman’s concern and glanced around the room. Brigadier General Lesley Groves was not cleared for Magic, the code name for knowledge of the Japanese ciphers. And Donovan wondered what he was doing in the room.

  Groves was running something called the Manhattan Project and reported directly to the President. Donovan had only the faintest idea of what the project involved but knew enough not to ask. But he was curious as to why the head of a weapons program was in a meeting like this one.

  Also in the room was Alben Barkley, the senior senator from Kentucky. It was an open secret that Truman intended to put him on the ticket for Vice-President in the 1944 election. Donovan did not think that Barkley was on the list for Magic either. He was in the room as Truman’s political advisor.

  “Consider with me, please, the consequences of this note,” Truman mused. “If we reject this approach out of hand, the war will likely continue for several years. Not even considering the national treasure we are pouring into this war, we must look at the American lives that we will lose in that long march to Tokyo. Do we have a moral right to reject this?”

  “What has changed, Sir?” General Marshall asked.

  Truman held up a finger. “That is exactly the question. We know that the war party has been transcendent in Japan. Yamamoto would not have the freedom to initiate something like this. Frank, are you hearing anything from the Japanese specialists?”

  “Yamamoto has been reshuffling his generals and admirals. The emperor has been a strong proponent of the war. The only way the Prime Minister could do something like this was if the emperor acquiesced, or if Yamamoto engineered a coup.”

  Truman studied Knox for a while and then looked around the room. “There is not a lot of information to go on, Gentlemen. What do you think?”

  “What do we have to lose by talking to them?” Donovan asked.

  “The British will be unhappy if we don’t bring them in,” Hull said. “Our relationship with them is still a bit fragile.”

  “That’s their problem,” Barkley spoke up. “We’ve been carrying this war by ourselves until they decided to help us out in the Indian Ocean.”

  “That is not exactly true, Senator,” Knox said. “If they hadn’t been in the IO, we wouldn’t be in Hawaii. The Japs had to honor the threat and pulled out of Pearl. It gave us an opportunity.”

  “I think we just got lucky there.”

  “With all due respect, Senator, losing four carriers in the Bay of Bengal was not lucky. We paid for the diversion in American blood, not to mention what the Brits lost.”

  “Gentlemen,” Truman said softly.

  Knox subsided, although Barkley still looked mutinous. Truman looked around and wondered how he could control all of the egos in the room.

  “Secretary Hull,” Truman said, “please share this with the British ambassador. We will need to have them involved in this. But, the question remains, Gentlemen; how do we respond?”

  “We need some assurances,” Stimson said. “If we get this war stopped, what will keep the Japs from trying it again in five years, or ten. And what about all the civilians they killed in Hawaii and Australia? And who knows what they have done in the Philippines?”

  “Therein lies the rub,” Donovan commented. “After what they have done, I wonder what the American people will do to us if we don’t smash the Japs into the ground.”

  It grew quiet in the room as the men pondered the question.

  “We would need some assurances,” General Marshall said. “We would need to insist that the murderers be brought to justice.”

  “Including Yamamoto?” Barkley asked. “He’s as guilty as the rest of them. He engineered this war for the emperor. I can’t see letting him get away scot-free.”

  The discussion continued for the next hour when Truman finally halted it.

  “We are starting to repeat ourselves,” he stated. “This is something I need to think on. I will likely consult with you individually before I come to a decision.”

  “What are you thinking at this point, Mr. President?” Donovan asked.

  Truman sighed. “I think we may need to meet with them. We will likely lose a quarter-million American lives if we fight this thing through to a conclusion. Alben, please stay behind for a few minutes. General Groves, if you could wait outside?”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” they both murmured.

  Understanding the meeting was at an end, the men filed from the room. Barkley watched them leave and then strode over to where he faced Truman and folded his arms.

  “There is a political risk to this, Mr. President.”

  “I understand that, Alben, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I need to win the election next year, so I can finish the job that Roosevelt and Wallace handed me. The transition to a new administration would kill us in the Pacific.”

  “You may be underestimating the skill of some of our Republican friends. I think any of the potential candidates could do the job if we worked hard to bring them up to speed.”

  “But, can we risk that? Besides, I really want to finish this.”

  “Then I will need to get some sense of the Congress for you, Mr. President. And I probably should talk to Sam Rayburn. The house will be more volatile.”

  “And you know to keep this quiet, right?”

  “Mr. President,” Barkley laughed, “it’ll be an open secret in Washington by lunchtime tomorrow. You should know better.”

  “Yes, I do. I just don’t want to see it in the Chicago Tribune the day after tomorrow. They may have hated Roosevelt, but they don’t like me much better.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “I know you will.”

  Truman took the opportunity to visit the lavatory next to the Oval Office. When he came out, Groves stood by the door.

  “Have a seat, General,” Truman waved him into one of the sofas. He took the opposite one.

  “I’d offer you a drink, but Bess frowns upon me if I touch it before lunchtime. Would you like some coffee?”

  “I am about coffeed out, Mr. President.”

  “Very well. Let’s get down to business. My schedule is a little tight today.”

  “I am at your disposal, Sir.”

  Truman nodded and gathered his thoughts. “I read your report on the progress of the project. I wanted to look you in the eye when I asked questions. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, Sir. If I happen not to know any of the answers, I can get them for you quickly.”

  “Your scientists claim they can create a bomb from what they call fissionable materials. Do you concur in that judgment?”

  “Sir, there is remarkable unanimity in that opinion among the scientists, so I would have to agree. I think we can build it. But, the engineering requirements would be formidable.”

  “How so?”

  “We are approaching this from two angles, Mr. President. We can refine enough Uranium to make a bomb, or we can use a less highly refined form of Uranium in an apparatus that manufactures Plutonium.”

  “Separating the Uranium 235 from the Uranium 238 presents special challenges. We are dealing with two forms of the same element. U238 is not fissionable, and it is, by far, the largest component of Uranium ore. The portion of U235 is under one percent.”

  “Two forms of the same element?” Truman asked. “How can you tell them apart?”

  “We convert the Uranium to a gas and either run it through extensive filters or past electromagnets. The gas is extremely corrosive. And w
e have never done this before.”

  “And the other approach?”

  “The Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago is building a test machine, which, if it works, will give us information to build a far more powerful machine. The fission or splitting of the U235 atoms generates neutrons. The U238 atoms absorb the neutrons, transforming them into Plutonium 239, which we can also use for weapons. Probably.”

  “You sound a little unsure, General,” Truman said, pointing his finger at the other man.

  “As I said, the scientists believe it is possible. They have proven the mathematics. But we are engineering something that has never been done before. That is why we have selected two approaches. In case one fails, the other may still be able to produce something.”

  “This project is becoming very expensive, General.”

  “Yes, Mr. President, it is. That is why I personally watch the expenditures. If you have some people you trust to audit the project, I think that would be a good thing.”

  “I appreciate your diligence and honesty,” Truman replied. “I shall consider that. As much money as we are throwing at this war, there is going to be some waste. I know that. There will also be those who succumb to the temptation to let some of that money line their own pockets. We need to minimize that.”

  “Without compromising the security of the project.”

  “Absolutely,” the President said. “This city has too many people with big mouths. General Marshall has had to deal with several flag officers who didn’t understand this. Surprisingly the lower ranks don’t seem to suffer the same problem.”

  “Probably because they are the ones with their fannies hanging out in the breeze when everything hits the fan.”

  Truman laughed. “That is true. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Have you determined which processes are going to work?”

  “That remains to be seen, Mr. President. We constructed our first pile in Chicago, and it was operational at the end of last year. It proved the concept. We are now scaling that up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. We are close to beginning operations on the Uranium refining in Oak Ridge. In the end, I believe both will work. We are just not sure which will be more practical.”