Free B004U2USMY EBOK by Michael Wallace Page B

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.