Fatherland.”
“Some might question your patriotism, that
it’s a front to hide your Dutch ancestry. To prove that you are
more German than the Germans.”
“I am aware of that interpretation,
Reichsführer. I reject it.”
“An excellent answer. Perhaps a little too
excellent, in fact. Everything about you is a little too perfect.
Perhaps it is an affectation.”
Himmler gave a half-smile and Hoekman could
see a grudging respect. Also, a touch of caution. Hoekman had
often seen such caution before—how to deal with such a
strong-willed, unbending man as Hans Hoekman?—but it still
surprised him to see it in a man as powerful as the Reichsführer.
If that caution turned to fear, Hoekman’s life would be in great
danger. He was aware of that.
“You look very German,” Himmler continued,
and his tone made it clear that this was a high compliment. “Your
actions, of course, were correct in every way. Even down to the
extreme measures taken with this Wehrmacht captain.” Himmler
passed him a photo of the captain in his uniform. The young man
looked arrogant, untouchable in the photo. He had worn a very
different expression by the time Hoekman had finished with him.
“Of course your captain looked very Aryan, too, but we have done
some digging into his background and discovered a Polish
grandmother. Sometimes it just takes a drop of impurity to
contaminate the whole.”
“Polish. I did not know that,” Hoekman
answered truthfully. Was this a dig at his own family background?
An animal exploded onto the path. It was a
magnificent stag, with an enormous rack that looked almost too
heavy to carry. The two men drew up short, Himmler letting out a
startled gasp at his side. For a long moment, the two men and the
stag stared at each other and then the animal was bounding into
the meadow on the opposite side of the path.
“And to think,” Himmler said in a rueful tone
after it had disappeared into the woods beyond the meadow, “I’d
unloaded my gun.”
“It is probably for the best,” Hoekman said.
“You might have killed it and that would have been a loss, I
think. Those antlers look better on a live animal than hanging on
your wall.”
The Reichsführer turned and fixed him with a
frown that turned first to a smile, and then to a chuckle. “You
know what, I think you might be right. Well said, Lieutenant, well
said.”
#
Six days later, Hoekman received a promotion.
The papers were signed ‘H. Himmler.’
Within ten months he had risen to the rank of
Reichskriminaldirektor—a Gestapo colonel.
It was curious that he had come upon another
case relating to gold coins. The government would be very
interested; even the smallest amounts of confiscated gold would be
sent directly to Berlin. Apart from the satisfaction to be gained
by rooting out another conspiracy against the Reich, it was not
lost on Hoekman that another big find might propel him to new
heights in the SS hierarchy.
But this gold rooster now pinched between the
forceps, heating in the lamp flame, was it the only one? Nothing
more than someone paying Ostermann gold for black market goods? Or
was there some sinister connection with the events in Marseille
and the small cache he’d discovered? He was intrigued by the
possibilities.
“Now,” he said to Roger Leblanc. “Is there
anything else you would like to tell me before we continue?”
“I told you everything I know.”
“Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t. We shall
find out. Lieutenant, drop his pants. Underwear, too.”
“Me, Polizeiführer ?” the clever one
asked, his tone reluctant.
“Yes, you,” he snapped. “He is not going to
sodomize you, look at him, he is helpless.”
One man held the boy by the neck while the
other stripped him naked from the waist down. They both looked
revolted.
Hoekman felt a very different emotion than
his two lieutenants.