Free The Bleiberg Project (Consortium Thriller) by David Khara Page A

class passengers the sight of the plebeians cramped in the back of the plane. Unfolding his knees when they arrived in Switzerland would demand a superhuman effort.
    Meanwhile, he’d focus his anger on the brat poking his tongue out at him while playing on his video-game console.

DAY 3

CHAPTER 15
    Landsberg Prison, Bavaria, December, 1924.
    S ecuring an appointment had proved complicated. The prisoner’s agenda was full to overflowing. To think he was serving a sentence for an attempted putsch in Bavaria. It was more like he was leading a rally in the middle of Munich. Too much!
    Wide-eyed, Christian Delmar peered at the visitors standing in line. Everything seemed to indicate that his organization hadn’t chosen to send him to see this man by accident. Delmar exchanged an incredulous smile with his Spanish acolyte, who had the unpronounceable Basque name Adamet Epartxegui. The two emissaries had met for the first time ten minutes ago and once their mission was accomplished would probably never see each other again. They shared complete mastery of the German language and veneration of a common ideal. Furthermore, both were in their early twenties and concealed their youth under hats and behind mustaches.
    After they had waited patiently for an hour, a guard asked them to follow him. He was considerably taller than both visitors. Christian felt uncomfortable facing this mountain of muscle, made inoffensive only by the hooded eyelids signifying limited cerebral capacity. Adamet—Christian had given up trying to remember his last name—instinctively drew closer to his superior. The crowded jail, harsh lights and rancid odor of soup gave the emissaries nausea. A labyrinth of gray hallways and iron gates led them to the building’s third west wing. With every step, the cold began to pinch a little more.
    The guard stopped outside cell No. 7. To Christian’s amazement, he knocked on the door. A long silence followed. Then a barked command came from inside the cell. The voice carried a natural authority that accentuated the surrealism of the scene. A man with incredibly bushy eyebrows and a square, thrusting jaw opened the door, standing ramrod straight before them.
    “Hess!” That was a typically German way of introducing himself, with his last name and no preamble or beating around the bush.
    “We have an appointment with Herr Hitler. We are Delmar and Adamet.” The Basque didn’t balk at the use of his first name. It seemed to Christian that remaining anonymous suited his colleague.
    “Please come in, gentlemen. Adolf Hitler is expecting you.” With a military gesture, Hess ushered the visitors into the cell. Christian was no longer surprised to discover that “cell” was hardly the right word. Against the left wall stood a large desk with two vases filled with flowers whose name escaped him. To the right, under the double window facing the door, was a perfectly made-up white iron bed. Either Hitler had fond memories of his military years, or the prison authorities provided him with a chambermaid. Delmar stifled his undiplomatic urge to laugh. On the table next to the bed, there was an Art Deco lamp, and a rug lay on the floor. The warmth of the room contrasted with the pervasive icy cold in the rest of the penitentiary and the whole of Bavaria, for that matter.
    His head propped in his hand, an average-sized man leaned on the windowsill, observing the horizon through the gray bars. The sling supporting his left arm was a legacy of the authorities’ brutality at the moment of his arrest. Logically, Hitler should have been a dead duck after his putsch failed. What was happening could only convince the prisoner that his future was bright.
    Christian stared at the immobile figure. Hair shaved over his ears and nape and flopping over his forehead, neatly knotted tie and crisply ironed collar, uniform pants and black suspenders. Adolf the putschist looked like an accountant, insignificant and featureless even. The