BOYER AND HARLOW FOLLOWED THE PRESIDENT AND GRACE AS THE country’s leader showed them the way to the Oval Office. As the residence was under tight security, they saw several Secret Service agents stationed at various points between the ballroom and the office, but because they were with Fulton, none of them stopped or questioned the quartet. By the time they made it to the working wing, the security had seemingly disappeared.
Fulton opened the door to the most famous office in the world, inviting them in with a sweep of his hand. The guests entered, and then the president followed, closing the door behind him.
“I’m honored to show this office to the three of you. Usually, the first time a person comes into the Oval Office, the simplicity of the room shocks them.”
“It hasn’t changed all that much in fifty years,” Grace noted.
“Or even seventy,” Harlow added.
“Looks pretty much like it did when Clinton was in power,” Boyer observed.
A taken-aback Fulton studied the trio for a moment and grinned, the bottom of the top row of his teeth barely showing between his thin lips. “Something tells me the request for a tour was a ruse.”
Boyer looked over to Grace, who smiled and said, “Yes and no. Each of us has been here before. In fact, I’ve been in this office five different times and met four different presidents here. You’re the fifth. In truth, I wanted to meet with you alone because there’s a group who’s not only bent on taking your life but has also pledged to bring a rebirth to the kind of pain and suffering I fought against during World War II.”
“What are you saying?” a disbelieving Fulton asked, his pupils now fully dilated and riveted on the old woman. As Grace sought the words to convince the president of what she knew, Boyer pulled off his tux jacket, tossed away the fake glasses, removed the brown contacts, and started yanking the fake beard from his face.
“Mr. President,” Grace began, “we’re going to present you with proof that many of the most dangerous men who were a part of the SS during World War II are now leading some of this nation’s allies.”
“Mrs. Mitchell,” Fulton cut in, “I have great respect for you and your husband, as well as what you did for this country and the world, but those who were in the SS would be older than you are. If they are alive, there’s no way they could run a short race, much less run a nation.”
“Oh, I may sound crazy,” she readily admitted. “It took me five years to fully understand what my husband discovered. And it’s only been in the last few days I’ve begun to understand how this happened. But I guarantee you, I’m telling you the truth. And I am in my right mind.” She paused, licked her lips, and then continued. “May I ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” the dumbfounded man replied.
“What did you think of Tell Boyer?”
Fulton paused for a moment, looked past Grace to a framed newspaper column hanging on the far wall.
“Mrs. Mitchell, Tell Boyer was one of the brightest men I’ve ever met. He understood the workings of the human mind better than any person I’ve ever known. He was a great judge of character. There’s something he wrote hanging on the wall behind you. It was penned when I was senator. In nine short paragraphs, Boyer destroyed a bill I had put before Congress. I should’ve been mad, but when I read Tell’s dissection of my proposed legislation, I discovered I’d been dead wrong. I’d been influenced by a lobby group that had only its best interest and not the best interest of the American people as its goal. I called Tell and thanked him for setting me straight. From that day, I knew him as one of the few men in the world who would tell me what he thought even when I didn’t agree with him. We became close friends. When he left political writing and moved to entertainment, this nation lost one of only a handful of voices that revealed the unbridled truth without prejudice. So in a nutshell, that’s what I thought of Tell Boyer.”
By the time Fulton finished his comments, Boyer had managed to rip away the last major portion of the fake beard. The exercise had been painful, causing tears to well up in his eyes and roll down his cheeks, but now, even with the graying hair, anyone would know the man’s real identity.
As the president continued to look at Grace, waiting for the old woman to respond, Boyer began speaking from behind the nation’s leader. “Mr. President, I’m honored by what you just said.”
Suddenly recognizing the voice, Fulton literally whirled around and looked into the gray eyes of his old friend. With mouth agape, the president stiffly stood in stunned silence.
“It’s me,” Boyer assured him as the president continued to intently study his face. “I can assure you this is no ghost.”
“But you were killed in a plane crash,” Fulton argued. “I spoke at your memorial service.”
“And I was deeply moved by what you said,” Boyer answered. “If I ever die again, I’ll make sure you’re the one who does my eulogy. But in truth, I didn’t die in the crash, and I’ve survived several other attempts on my life as well. The men who thought they killed me are the same ones Grace just told you about.”
“But how?” Fulton begged. “These men would be too old to even be alive, much less carry out a plot to murder you.”
“We don’t have much time,” Boyer replied. “And I certainly don’t have the scientific knowledge to explain how this happened, but I have documents that should shed some light on the matter.”
Opening the file he had pulled from its hiding place in his coat, the writer laid out five photos on the president’s desk.
“Look at these faces, and tell me who you see,” Boyer said.
A still-confused Fulton moved over to the desk, sat down in his chair, and studied the first one. “This looks like a young Alexander Krekikoff, the leader of Russia. I’ve met him several different times. Of course, he’s older now, but he has changed very little. I know he works out a great deal, and I was impressed with the condition of his body the last time we played tennis.”
The president turned his attention to the next one in the lineup. After a few seconds, he added, “This is John O’Hara, the prime minister of Britain.” A moment later, he continued in rapid order, “And this one’s Pierre Pissier of France, the next Herman Duitsman of Germany, and of course, the last is Provost, my own VP. Hmmm, even as a young man, he had the small scar on his forehead.”
“You’re right on all counts,” Boyer assured him.
“But what does that prove?” Fulton asked. “Any student of recent history could have quickly identified these men.”
The writer didn’t answer; rather, he moved behind the desk, stood beside Fulton, and quickly pulled the black matting from the pictures. Now the entire images showed.
“They’re dressed as Nazi officers,” the president noted in disbelief.
“No, they were SS officers,” Grace corrected him. “I met Provost in Paris before the war. His name then was Johan Burr. A very depraved man, but a good dancer.”
“And,” Boyer added, “Krekikoff’s name then was Reinhold Schmidt. O’Hara was known as André Stassen. Pissier, Herman Herrell. Duitsman kept his first name, just dropped the last n. His family name was Ludwig. And Provost’s name you’ve heard.”
“But they’re only twenty to thirty years older now than they were in these shots,” Fulton argued. “And that’s impossible. These photos probably predate World War II. This has to be some kind of Photoshop trick. And not a very funny one, I might add.”
“It would seem so,” Boyer agreed, “but I can assure you it’s no photo trick. It’s horrific and real.” He paused a moment to allow the president to more closely examine the old black-and-white images.
When Fulton finally looked up, the writer continued, “Let’s go back more than eighty years. That’s when this story really begins. It was then that two German doctors in the twenties began to work on a formula for what I call cybersleep. A decade into the research, one of the doctors, who happened to be Jewish, was forced to flee to America to escape the fate of millions of his people during World War II. The doctor who was left in Germany would’ve given up on the project if Hitler and the SS had not stepped in and funded his work. He perfected it just as the war ended.”
“This still doesn’t make any sense,” Fulton argued.
“Now,” Boyer continued, “I want you to think back to your studies of World War II. You and I have talked enough throughout the years for me to realize you know as much about the European actions as any historian alive. I think you wrote a thesis on the SS in grad school.”
The president shook his head. “They were a very scary group. They lusted for power and had no regard for the value of life.”
Boyer momentarily reflected on Fulton’s assessment and then continued, “The best of the Nazi’s SS, an elite force, was supposedly shot down by Allied fighters over Austria as they tried to escape Germany for South America. Do you recall that incident?”
“Yes,” Fulton answered. “Most consider it little more than a footnote in history. It was hardly noted because Hitler committed suicide a few days later. In fact, the incident has been touched on in just a handful of historical commentaries, and never in detail. I do remember seeing a picture of the downed plane. There was really very little left. They did find the bodies of twenty men in SS uniforms, as well as the flight crew.”
“Have you ever considered,” Boyer proposed, “why men who were trying to escape and start new lives would be wearing uniforms that would identify them to anyone who happened to see them?”
The president shook his head. “I’d never considered it. Most people on the run would not dress as they do on a regular basis. At least one of the top men in Hitler’s power structure was dressed like a woman when he was captured. So in retrospect, that does seem bizarre.”
Boyer shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “More than bizarre. Those on that plane were probably dead before it took off. Prisoners, is my guess. In truth, the SS men were smuggled out of Germany weeks before that crash, and they were all placed in a deep sleep. I’m not sure where they were housed at that time, but some of them ended up in Los Angeles. After a couple of decades, most were woken up to act out a new plan. This one was more diabolical than anything Hitler had ever considered. They were going to take over the world through politics. Imagine, no bombs, no wars, no massive amounts of bloodshed, yet the results of their plan would place the fate of the world, as well as trillions of dollars in resources, in their hands. No one would know either.”
“Who financed it?” Fulton quizzed, still not believing what Boyer was trying to sell him.
“How much of the Nazi loot did we recover after the war?”
“No one really knows,” the president quickly replied.
“Okay, let’s say that we found everything but $10 million. A very small amount in terms of the cost of World War II, but it could finance the rebirth of twenty men. I personally believe the amount to be more than ten times that amount. And I think that’s still a conservative guess.”
“But I know the background of these men,” Fulton argued. “I have not only met with them, worked them, but I’ve read their biographies. They were raised in the nations they now lead.”
“So it would seem,” Boyer agreed. “But if you have read their stories, do you remember any facet of these men’s lives that they share? Do they have something kind of odd in common?”
Fulton thought for a moment, pinching his nose between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. After rolling the memories of the stories in his mind, he noted, “Yes, they were all orphans.”
“And,” Boyer added, “all their school photos and records were destroyed in fires.”
“You’re right,” the president replied, snapping his fingers as he spoke. “In fact, there’s no photo of Provost I’ve ever seen where he’s any younger than in the picture you just showed me.”
“You’re starting to get the idea,” Grace piped in.
“Look at these two group photos taken a few years before the head shots,” Boyer said as he handed the pictures to the nation’s leader. “Can you find them in this pair of shots?”
“I see them,” Fulton acknowledged. “And this man with the scar was Provost’s aide until a week or so ago. His name was Schluter, and he was replaced by this fellow, Wolff.”
“I know Schluter,” Boyer replied. “He was recently killed by a man who was the fourth member of our group, an American agent named Jim Blane. He’s in that group photo as well, third from the right, first row. Jim successfully infiltrated the SS in the 1930s, but was unmasked during the war. He actually knew Grace and Ben. In fact, Ben trained him. He was poisoned in ’43 by Schluter. The Jewish German doctor, who had moved to the U.S. to escape the death camps, put Jim into a deep sleep that lasted until earlier this year. That saved his life. He lived long enough in this century to expose this plot to myself and the two who are here with me.”
“Lived long enough?” Fulton questioned.
“He was killed by Provost’s men last week,” Boyer reported. “When he died, America lost a good man.”
The president considered Boyer’s story for a moment and then asked, “I’m still not saying this is true, but if it is, did we freeze any more of our people?”
“If you mean agents,” the writer answered, “no, we didn’t. In fact, Dr. Gould used his knowledge on only two people total. Blane you know about. The other’s standing with us today. But she was anything but a spy.”
“You?” Fulton asked as he stared at the youngest person in the room.
Harlow nodded her head.
The president studied the beguiling woman for a moment.
“Harlow,” the president whispered. “Jean Harlow. Tell, you hinted that day when we were with Goldy in the hotel suite that you might introduce me to Jean Harlow.” The president got up from his desk, quickly walked over to the movie star, and carefully studied her face. “You are Jean Harlow.”
“I am,” she replied.
Shaking his head, the president found the nearest chair and collapsed into it. “This is too much to take in,” he sighed. “If this is all true”—Fulton again looked up at Harlow—“and it must be, then how can we even start to undo what they’ve done?”
“It’s a great deal to stomach,” Boyer agreed. “Oh, by the way, my photographer that day was Jim Blane. So you met him as well.”
“Incredible,” Fulton sighed.
Boyer gave the man a second for the reality of the unbelievable story to sink in; then he continued, “You asked how we could start to undo what has been done. We can’t. But we have time to stop it. I believe their plan cannot fully come together until Provost becomes president. I think they’ve been funding the various terrorists’ movements around the globe. This has prompted many governments to crack down on immigration and inflamed men and women everywhere to suddenly become polarized by race and prejudice. Because of these staged events, Israel’s fast becoming a pariah in the minds of billions of people. The tiny nation is becoming more and more isolated. Even American Jews are beginning to be persecuted by seemingly rogue bands of so-called patriots who blame the Jewish race for everything from American soldiers dying in the Middle East to the rise in gas prices. You’ve tried to hold things together, to bring peace and understanding to the Middle East, but every time you got close, things somehow got blown apart.”
“That’s true,” Fulton replied. “Countless times I thought we had built the final bridge to understanding. Then someone died, or a bus was blown apart, and it all came undone. I never could understand how this could happen again and again.”
“It was Provost,” Boyer explained, “the only man who knew every one of your moves before they were made. He was pulling the strings. With you out of the way, supposedly assassinated by some Jewish radical, he’d finally have a license to finish the final solution of Nazi Germany. And he’d be able to do it with the full support of our major European allies, because they’re all his men. And finally, a majority of Americans would be looking for revenge for your death, and they’d back anything Provost and his group feed them.”
“My god,” Fulton said. “Are you sure of all of this? It’s just too impossible to believe.”
“And who would?” a voice from the doorway asked.