At the brewery, everything was in a state of readiness.
Willi’s nerves were on edge. The Führer’s declaration of war against America suddenly put their plans on the front burner. What was once merely organization and planning was now elevated to action. The kegs they had unloaded off the sub were hidden amid many similar kegs from the brewery that were filled innocently with beer, so that if their truck was stopped they could show it was only a normal delivery. Only they knew which was which. Each had to be handled with the most extreme caution. If opened improperly and spread, the contents of each could kill half the people within a mile radius. They had the plans, the commitment; they’d put in the training. They had met and gone over their roles a hundred times.
All they had waited on was the final go-ahead from back home. And now it had come.
Operation Prospero was to commence.
Germany and America were at war.
All they had been missing for weeks was an unwitting stooge to blame it all on, someone on the ground here who would look like a fitting “dupe” when the investigators looked into it, and now blessedly one had come their way.
He thought he was so smart, Willi and Trudi agreed, with his highbrow education and his vast knowledge of things, but in the end, what would officials find, when they looked into it: no more than an angry and unpredictable young man, someone who had been trampled on by society, denied his own dreams, who had scorn for all. Someone estranged from his wife and now his daughter. A life in ruins. Only a memory of what it once was. Alone.
Willi had to laugh; they couldn’t have come up with a better fall guy for their plans if they had called up Hollywood and gotten in touch with central casting.
“Willi,” Trudi called. She had the maps spread on the office table. She noticed his nerves. “You seem agitated.”
“Just excited, my dear, now that everything is now in work,” he said reassuringly. “I am fine.”
“Good,” she said. “Stay strong.”
Curtis, or Oberleutnant Kurt Leitner as they knew him, in overalls and heavy workman’s gloves, was prying the lids off the new “beer” canisters.
“Be careful,” Willi warned him. “The wrong move and we will all be dying the worst death imaginable.”
“Everything is perfectly secure,” Kurt said. He had been sent here two years before for this very purpose. “But they need to be loaded now.”
“Just be careful, for God’s sake,” Trudi said. “You know what you’re dealing with.”
“I know precisely what I am dealing with,” the oberleutnant said. As a chemical engineer who had once worked at IG Farben, where the contents of the canisters were made, he had been trained for this very task for years.
The phone rang. Trudi went to answer. Very few people had the phone number here, now that the business had closed, so it could only be one of a handful of people.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh…” She nodded soberly. “I see.…” Her color turned gray. “We know what to do then,” she said. She caught Willi’s eyes. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”
She put down the phone.
Willi looked at her, agitated. “What’s wrong, dear?” he asked.
“Have you taken your stomach pills this morning?” Trudi looked at him.
“Of course.” Though he already felt the acid starting to burn. “What is it?”
“Take another then, Willi,” Trudi said. “And get Kurt and Friedrich in here. It seems a situation has developed. It’s time to speed up our plan.”