We flew for another long stretch and landed in another field and refueled. I tried to remember the range of this helicopter. It was probably two to three hundred miles. We were going a long way, but since all our flying was in the complete darkness and there was no moon, I couldn’t get my bearings with the stars. I had no idea what direction we were flying. It wasn’t getting warmer, and we hadn’t hit an ocean. So my guess was we were going east. Why we would be going east was beyond me. I, like the others, was along for the ride, hoping I’d have the wits to make all this come out right. But now I had no backup at all. No army of BKA to storm the meeting and arrest everyone. The last thing I wanted was to create the perfect meeting for all the world’s Nazis and let them go back to their countries with the new weaponized version of the Nazi virus.
Finally, at what must have been two o’clock in the morning, the helicopter slowed and began descending. We settled to the ground, the engines spooled down, and the blades came to a stop. We were ushered out. I looked around quickly. A field surrounded by woods with nothing else visible except for three waiting buses. This entire thing had been planned with remarkable attention to detail.
We boarded the buses, which drove slowly over the uneven field until we reached a smooth dirt road. After a few hundred yards we rounded a corner and turned onto a paved road. We drove for about a mile. I could make out lights and vague shapes in the darkness. I was sitting in the front seat with Jedediah, with the driver slightly below us and to our left.
I could make out fences and dark, thick shapes. But the shapes were in odd formations that looked overgrown or disassembled or built into the sides of hills. As we got closer I could see the lights more clearly. There were spotlights and floodlights with other general lighting. The spotlights were illuminating something I could not yet make out. We drove through a fence and a gate into what appeared to be a compound.
It suddenly struck me where we were. The Wolfsschanze. The Wolf’s Lair. Hitler’s eastern headquarters in the forests of eastern Prussia, present-day Poland, where he conducted the war against Russia that he launched in 1941. Operation Barbarossa. Hitler often referred to himself as Wolf, or The Wolf. He saw it as a reflection of his destined greatness, based on the old High German combination of words Adal and Wolf, that led to the name Adolph. Noble Wolf.
The Wolf’s Lair was mythical. It was where Hitler spent hundreds of days from the summer of 1941 until it was overrun by the Russians. It’s where Hitler spent most of his time at the height of his power. It was where he planned the destruction of Russia that would give Germany access to the natural resources necessary to feed the German economy and arsenal, and where he would resettle German soldiers after the war and achieve the lebensraum, the living room, that Germany needed.
As our buses pulled up, men dressed in the now recognizable Eidhalt Nazi uniforms opened the large gates to the fence surrounding the Wolf’s Lair and directed us into the compound. I could see massive chunks of stone and concrete as big as houses that used to make up the impressive bunkers of the Wolf’s Lair. As we made our way deeper into the compound, I saw more men dressed in Nazi uniforms. It was like a flashback to the forties, except all of the vehicles were modern, as were the weapons. Mostly AK-47s, and some I didn’t recognize. It was a heavily armed compound. How did these men even get here? How did they take over the Wolf’s Lair? I didn’t even know it was still standing. I had assumed, like most of Hitler’s places, it had been torn down and ripped apart to avoid this very kind of thing. The Wolf’s Lair was probably so well constructed that it didn’t justify the amount of dynamite necessary to destroy it. It looked like most of the buildings had been destroyed, but not the massive bunkers. The forest had grown right up to the edge of the Wolf’s Lair and it gave it a concealed feeling. Even at the peak of it’s use, the Wolf’s Lair was considered to be in the middle of nowhere, even by Hitler. He said of all the places for the generals to pick to place his headquarters, they had picked the most out of the way, near nothing, mosquito-infested swamp they could find.
And what better place to start a new war? And of course, it was here that Hitler had shown his immortality. It was here in 1944 that Operation Valkyrie came to a head and colonel Von Stauffenberg placed a bomb under the table where Hitler stood during a meeting in one of the non-concrete bunkers. The bomb blew up, killing four and injuring Hitler, but not killing him.
The buses stopped and we were escorted to a central area. Eidhalt welcomed us and directed us toward a low-lying building. It was part of a small hotel that was run on site by a Polish couple. We filed into the building. The couple sat bound and gagged in the corner with their eyes wide open. The room was a small café. The sixty of us crowded in, standing around not quite sure what to do. There were sandwiches and coffee waiting, and small pastries. We’d been traveling for hours and were famished, so most made for the tables with the trays of food. Some went straight to the coffee in an attempt to load up on caffeine.
The room was smartly decorated with modern tables and chairs that you might see in a new European café, with industrial carpet all over the concrete floor. The walls were painted a pale yellow and there were several inexpensive photograph replicas framed on the walls with recognizable European scenes.
I stole another glance at the couple in the corner. The contrast between the laughing men fresh out of the helicopters in their SS uniforms, the common Nazi soldiers with their Nazi helmets, and the couple bound and gagged in the corner was stark. Some sat at the tables and some stood eating sandwiches and conversing. Eidhalt walked over to Jedediah and me. “I trust your travels were comfortable.”
“I didn’t expect to be here tonight,” I replied.
Eidhalt smiled, proud of himself. “I doubt anyone did. I bet most didn’t even know this place was still accessible. They tried to destroy most of Hitler’s places, but this one was indestructible. Surprisingly it is a minor tourist spot, but it is out of the way. Nobody comes here. Which makes it perfect for our purposes. I think you will enjoy tonight’s festivities, and I look forward to unveiling die Blutfahne.” He looked at his watch. “We begin in twenty minutes. I will want you with me at the back of the stage.”
“Stage?”
“Yes. I have had a platform erected on top of the highest bunker. We will be flooded with light and speak through the most powerful PA system in Poland. The power of the Reich will begin again tonight.”
Jedediah and I sipped coffee as Eidhalt walked to others and conversed briefly with them, making sure he knew each person by name and their country now that each was in an SS officer’s uniform. I had to note that the uniforms, just like in World War II, were incredibly impressive. They were probably the best looking and most intimidating uniforms ever designed. I realized I was wearing Hugo Boss shoes; the same designer who made many of the SS uniforms in the thirties and forties.
A man approached us in one of the SS uniforms and said quietly, “He would like you to come with me now, to the back of the stage.”
We followed him around to the back. As we walked toward one end of the compound, I saw the stage. It was a large wooden structure erected on top of one of the intact bunkers, an arc of impenetrable concrete overgrown with vines. Massive speaker stands stood beside it, both at the level of the stage and at the ground where we now walked. There was a large screen at the back of the stage and lower down on both sides of the bunker. There were long red Nazi banners hanging next to the screens. Lights illuminated the banners, the bunkers, and the people.
We walked around beside the bunker to the stairs that had been built up to the top. We headed up the stairs. Eidhalt was waiting for us at the top, as were several other men I didn’t recall seeing before. Eidhalt turned to me, “So what do you think? Good setting?”
“Stunning,” I said. “Well done. No better place to reveal die Blutfahne.”
He grinned. “Danke. And we have some other surprises in store for tonight. This is the beginning!” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes. Prepare the flag. Take it out. I have prepared the perfect standard for it. It is identical to the one used by Hessler the last time the flag was seen.”
Jedediah opened the case and pulled out the Blood Flag. Jedediah went to push the case aside, and realized it was still heavy. He looked up at me with a knowing glance, which I returned without expression. He moved the case carefully aside where it wouldn’t be kicked or moved. We carefully unfolded the flag and put it on the standard with a Nazi Eagle on top of the wooden pole. Jedediah leaned the flag over on the pole to me while he adjusted his tight SS tank top. His tattoos and the iron cross on his throat made him the perfect Aryan.
We followed Eidhalt up the stairs to a platform that was elevated above the main platform and out of sight. In the center, directly underneath the screen, was a wide series of steps with railings that led down onto the stage. It was made for a dramatic entrance as everyone emerged below the screen into the spotlights. You could also see through the screen to the crowd beyond. Others had assembled for the ceremonies. In the darkness the spotlights cast eerie moving shadows on the trees.
Suddenly, the lights on the stage went up to full bright and music blared over the massive PA system. The German National Anthem again, then the “Horst Wessel Song.” Then silence. Finally Eidhalt, with two of his men on either side, marched down the stairs and out into the center of the stage in front of the microphone. There were high-definition cameras on stage and in front of the stage taping everything.
He stood at the microphone looking out over the group of newly dressed SS officers and his numerous Nazi soldiers that surrounded all of them. There had to be two hundred men, maybe three hundred. All dressed in black. All illuminated indirectly by the spotlights that highlighted the banners climbing to the sky and the Nazi emblems everywhere. Eidhalt spoke, “Fall in!”
No one knew what to do, but the Nazi soldiers guided them. Each line on the right was designated and one man was told to stand there at attention. Others fell into each person’s left, forming eight or so lines deep. They were all at attention.
Eidhalt yelled, “Dress right, dress!”
Some who had been in the service knew what was meant and extended their left arms out while looking to their right to make sure they were lined up to the person to their right. The others copied and the lines quickly formed in perfect symmetry.
“Ready front!”
They dropped their left hands and turned their heads toward the front, toward him.
Eidhalt paused, looked around, and yelled, “Sieg—”
They all got it. “Heil!”
As soon as he said Sieg he raised his hand to the middle of his chest and when they said Heil, he extended his arm fully with his hand out flat in front of him in the traditional Nazi salute.
“Sieg.”
“Heil!”
“Sieg.”
“Heil!”
It was a chilling sight. The international leaders of the neo-Nazis were relishing their chance to play Nazi. The soldiers behind them and around them and behind the stage and in the woods all matched the Nazi salute.
Eidhalt spoke, “The Fourth Reich begins tonight! We have waited for this moment. The whole world waits for this moment. Those who now follow us wait, and those who live in fear and frustration and anger, wait. Those who can’t identify the source of their discomfort, wait. Those who have fought against oppression their whole lives, wait. And they all wait for us. They wait for vision, leadership, energy, determination, and justice! The things we bring!” The world Nazi leaders burst into thunderous applause. There had been hesitation on whether they were bound to stand silently like soldiers at a lecture, but that was gone. They could not contain their enthusiasm and energy. I could see him looking toward us. He had a strong powerful voice. He had watched enough Hitler videos. He knew how to pause. He knew how to raise his voice in anger and yet subside in humility. He was powerful, and would be a powerful adversary.
“Why now? Why us? Because the time has come and we have waited long enough. Events have come together. What events? Many of us are from Europe, and Europe is on the verge of collapse. They made the foolhardy decision to make one currency! They allowed the drunkards from Greece and Spain and Italy to have the same borrowing power as the great Germany. They will pull us all down and we will all drown in the miscreated ‘European Union.’ The currency will collapse, and it will be like Germany in the thirties! Money will have no value, governments will be in a panic, and people will look for answers. That time is nearly upon us. One year, maybe two. We will be prepared.
“But more importantly, people have now understood what we have understood. The only way forward is security. The curse of progress is mongrel immigration.
“But what about the Jews? The scourge of the thirties, the scourge of history. The Jews are easy, we need not concentrate on the Jews. They will always be there. We can always go after the Jews. People are not focused on them like they were at one point. Today’s Jew? Today’s Jew? Today’s Jew is the Muslim!
“It is Islam that is Satan’s hand, ruining the world. It is Islam that has tried in the past to take over Europe militarily, and is now taking over all of our countries and most of yours by immigration, forced imposition of sharia law, and terrorism! Our governments do nothing! They cower and cry ‘multiculturalism!’ They quiver and shake under the pointed finger of the Imams, who stand behind political correctness to keep us from even criticizing Islam. It makes Jewish Bolshevism child’s play. Islam demands spiritual allegiance. Islam demands obedience at the point of a sword. Islam takes over countries and eliminates all other religions and ways of thinking. Islam determines what is right and wrong for itself. Lying for Islam is acceptable.
“They hate everything that we stand for. They hate everything about us and yet they continue to immigrate like rats to our countries. Muslims make up over twenty percent of France. Turkish Muslims make up fifteen percent of Germany, and the number is increasing every day. Pakistani Muslims are taking over England! Mohammad is the most common baby name in England today! This is a disgrace!
“This is our rallying cry. We will do what our governments are afraid to do! We will take on Islam. We will fight these rag-head terrorists! We will throw them out! We will push them back to where they came from. We will establish the Fourth Reich and the dominance of white rule!”
The crowd burst into screams of “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
Eidhalt raised his hand again. “But we and those who are with us are men of action. We will not stand by and watch the Western world collapse under financial irresponsibility. We will no longer allow our governments to borrow away our future and our children’s futures and welcome a take-over from Islam. We will not allow our countries to degenerate morally and spiritually under pressure from the Jews and Muslims. We will no longer prostrate ourselves in front of the oil-rich Arabs who use oil to choke us to death. Once we take over our countries’ governments, we will establish an international oil cartel whose prices will be determined by us. That will allow for thriving economies without extortion from Islamic rats who never created or did anything! They own the oil wells through no effort of their own! They were all developed and run by Western companies!
“To all of those who know we are coming, the wait is over. It is time to rise up! To take on the forces arrayed against us. To throw out the immigrants from the Middle East. To reestablish the sovereignty of our countries. To reestablish financial stability, and racial purity. Mongrel nations fail. Pure nations thrive! Sieg!”
“Heil!”
“So where do we go from here? We will have elections. But inside our party I have made temporary assignments of authority. It will be by region. I will be the Führer. I take that only because of my experience and, frankly, my finances. I’m able to do this, and I’m able to finance all of you. Each of the rest of you will be the head of your country’s Nazi Party. We will all wear the same uniforms, we will all swear allegiance to the same constitution. We will all begin our efforts to rally the people in our countries who agree with us. And we will do it with action.
“You will see action tonight. In just a few minutes, you will see something that will shock you and will inspire you. We strike in every country at the same time in the same way. We will strike the mosques, we will strike the markets, and we will strike television stations. In particular, we will strike everything owned by Muslims. You remember Kristallnacht? It was on this very day seventy-one years ago! November 9th and 10th, 1938! People rose up against the Jews in Germany. Thousands were arrested. A thousand synagogues were burned! Jewish shops were destroyed! Glass from the shops covered the streets! Crystal everywhere! Crystal Night! November 9th! But for us, today? The same thing? No. Not the Jews. Not yet. For us it is the Muslims! I want ten thousand Mosques burned all around the world! I want fire bombs, Molotov cocktails, assassinations, looting! Mayhem and pandemonium on the Muslims! And every day thereafter until the revolution is over.”
He waited while the applause died. He continued, “Tonight, I have another surprise. Perhaps one of the greatest moments in all of Nazi history will be before you tonight.”
Eidhalt turned to us and gestured. Jedediah lifted up the flag and we walked to the front of our platform and prepared to go down the stairs. He continued, “Tonight, as I promised, we have with us the most important piece of Nazi history in existence. I challenged each of you to do something to prove your worthiness to be here tonight. And each of you did. But one group rose above the rest. The American Southern Volk achieved what I thought was unachievable! And they have brought here something that I did not know existed any longer.
“Gentlemen, what holds the blood of the first Nazi martyrs? What accompanied Hitler on his beer hall putsch ninety-six years ago today?” He paused and waited. “Die Blutfahne! The Blood Flag!” He turned and gestured for us to come down.
Jedediah began walking down the stairs with the flag out in front of him, low enough to get under the screen. The “Horst Wessel Song” began again, but at a lower volume. As soon as Jedediah cleared the screen he raised the flag straight up, and it swayed in the light breeze.
Eidhalt spoke over the song as Jedediah walked. “We dug up the bodies of the first Nazi martyrs and matched their DNA to this flag. This is it! Rally to it, men! Rally to it!”
Jedediah stood just to his right with the spotlight focused on him. The flag now lowered slightly so that it draped down and could be seen. The men below started screaming and yelling. “Sieg Heil! The Blutfahne! Long live Nazism!”
They were nearly in a frenzy. He waited, encouraging them to continue their outpouring of shock and joy. He said, “Die Blutfahne! Our rallying point! We will keep it safe! We will display it! Each of you will touch it tonight and take the blessings of this talisman with you back to your countries! Begin your own flag tradition based on this night! And one week from Monday, show your flags! Put them on your cars! Put them in your windows! Leave them at the scenes of the fires! Tell people who we are!”
Eidhalt waited as the men cheered and roared. He spread out his arms, waiting for more. Encouraging them, yet more still.
“Sieg!”
“Heil!”
He raised his hand to quiet them down, but they would not, they carried on and on, screaming their support for the Blood Flag. Expressing their energy, their anger, and their enthusiasm.
He raised both hands and they quieted. “The Blood Flag. We have built the bridge from the founding of the Nazi party to today. We have retrieved the first and most important symbol of Nazism and are prepared to carry it forward into the future. Tonight it begins. But we must show the world we are serious. Dead serious. This is not some club. This is not a debating society.” He looked around with his arms out to his sides. “What is the threat?”
He waited. There was no immediate response. He yelled, “What is the threat?”
Finally, a few yelled out. “Islam!”
He yelled back, “Islam! They hate everything we stand for! They have invaded our countries, they have crippled and intimidated our governments, they have killed our people, and they will never rest.” He paused. “Neither will we!”
Suddenly, I felt a rustle of people to my right as three or four men’s boots clattered up the stairs past me. They were four Nazi-uniformed soldiers dragging a man whose hands were handcuffed behind him and who had a hood pulled completely over his head so he couldn’t see. He was struggling and fighting. The men holding him were too big and strong to give him any room. They forced him down the steps and out onto the stage.
Eidhalt looked at them and motioned for them to stand to his left out on the front of the stage. “And here, here is our first message. This is where it starts. Men, I bring you a terrorist. A man who has sworn the destruction of the Western world. A man who was sent to infiltrate anti-German groups and finance them, to create even more difficulty in our country.
“This is Mohammed al-Hadi! This virus, this Muslim pile of shit, is from al Qaeda, the bacteria that infects everything and ruins everything. Just like the Jewish bacteria did in the twenties and thirties, it must be stopped. And the stopping begins here. And it starts here tonight! Why him? Because he is the one who killed Germans in Munich and Berlin! He is the one who is responsible for the bombings of the subways! And what have our security forces done about it? Nothing! How is it we have him and they don’t? Because we have better intelligence than they do! We are better informed! And we are more effective!
“Answer this: How many Westerners, how many Europeans, how many of your people have been killed by al Qaeda? How many have been murdered and beheaded on the Internet? Well, we can access the Internet too. Let’s see how they like it.”
He stepped back and nodded to one of the guards holding Mohammed. The guard undid the rope around his neck and ripped off the hood. Mohammad shook his head and blinked at the bright spotlights that shown on him from multiple angles. Two cameramen approached closely. One from below the stage. The other climbed up on the stage and stood three or four feet away, focusing the camera directly on his face.
Eidhalt yelled, “They want beheadings on the Internet? They shall have one. One of their own! And if this angers them? All the better! We are coming after them. They will never know where to find us. They will never know who we are! This man’s death will be posted on the Internet in hours. And we will disperse from here and make our way out of Poland and disappear. They will never find us. I will operate from an undisclosed location, but I will be easy to communicate with. I will tell you what to do next. Let it begin!”
He stepped back as two of the guards forced Mohammad down onto his knees. The other two removed large hook-shaped knives from sheaths in their belts and pulled Mohammad’s head back. One took his right hand and dug the point of the knife into Mohammed’s neck. Mohammed began screaming and fighting, which caused the point of the knife to go deeper into the neck. Blood ran down the knife point and dripped onto the stage. Mohammed screamed and fought. The guard dug the knife deeper.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were going to cut this man’s head off right on the stage in front of us as he screamed through his death. The very man I had been tracking. It seemed suicidal to pick a fight with al Qaeda, but I also noted its brilliance. If Eidhalt and others could operate in an area outside of the ability of al Qaeda to find them, al Qaeda would attack the countries where these men came from. They would attack Germany and England and America. And if the attacks had any degree of success, they would cause panic and anger at al Qaeda. If the attacks were even marginally effective, they could shut down entire sections of cities for days at a time. One bomb in one pizza parlor in New York City would create havoc for days. They were begging al Qaeda to attack, to cause the very panic that they wanted to take advantage of. To impose “security and discipline” they were going to take on Islam directly.
And if Eidhalt was even half right, that Europe was on the brink of financial disaster and economic decline, if depression was around the corner and the populations felt insecure because of al Qaeda attacks, he might very well have success in creating the fertile soil necessary for Nazism to rise again. It was completely rational and frightening.
Mohammed screamed as the knife plunged deeper as his head tilted slightly to the left. I didn’t see any arterial blood yet, but I was sick from what I was seeing. Jedediah stole a glance at me.
Suddenly from behind me, I heard an outburst of gunfire. I couldn’t see clearly but I saw lights from vehicles. Then I saw the flashes of police lights on top of the vehicles. The Polish police. They were at the gate demanding entrance. But the Nazi guards were having none of it. They fired their automatic weapons directly at the police through the fence as other Nazi guards raced toward the gate, assault rifles ready. Hundreds of rounds flew back and forth. Eidhalt told the guards on the stage to stop as he walked up the stairs underneath the screen and looked back toward the gate. He yelled some commands in German and several men ran toward the gate. Three of them had RPGs. At least fifty more Nazi’s unflung their automatic weapons and ran toward the fight. In seconds dozens of automatic weapons were unloading on the Polish police as others opened the gate. Those with the RPGs knelt and fired on what I could now see were Polish SWAT vehicles. They exploded in seconds and fireballs illuminated the area. I could see at least ten policemen dead on the ground. The Nazis opened the gate and rushed through. In less than a minute, the entire fight was over. The Polish police lay dead and their vehicles burned in the darkness. One Nazi guard was dead leaning against the fence, but I saw no other casualties. Eidhalt saw what I saw and returned to the microphone.
“Our time has now come. We have been discovered and now go into our operational plan. We will finish this video elsewhere and put it on the Internet tonight. For those of you who came with me in the helicopters, it is time to go!”
The men looked around.
“We will not be heading back to Munich.” He could see the look of surprise on the faces of those in front of him. He held up his hand to pacify their concerns. “But you may trust me. Our plan all along, has been to go back a different way than we came. He yelled into the microphone, “To the helicopters!”
The crowd headed toward the buses.
Jedediah lowered the flag and headed to the back of the platform. He quickly removed the Blood Flag from the pole and folded it. I knelt down and opened the case. He knelt down next to it and began placing the flag inside. He looked back over his shoulder and then looked at me with concern. “So what’s the freaking plan? We’re going to let them all just fly out of here on helicopters?”
I also looked around. “I thought we’d be in Munich, and we’d have the BKA to help. We’re on our own now. At least we can get the leaders for murder in a Polish court.”
He looked at me in amazement. “They’re not going to be found. You heard him. He’s got some place set up where no one will find them. And the other people, what did they do? They just came here and listened to a speech. They didn’t do anything. We can’t even get them arrested.”
“I know. We’ve got to stop them.”
Jedediah snapped the case shut. “Right. How?”
I stood up and held the case. “Depends on where we end up. Let’s wait and see what all this brings.”
“Well, what was your plan in Munich? Even if we had help.”
“I have some things with me that could take care of a lot of issues.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I replaced the lead in this case with C4. Enough to blow up a lot of things.”
“And what did you plan on doing with it?”
“You know how to disable a helicopter?”
“You want to shut them down here?” He looked around. “In Poland?”
“Where better than where they murdered a bunch of Polish police? These guys will be in jail forever.”
“Maybe. But by the time we get to the helicopters the blades will be turning. I know how to disable them, but I’m not getting up there with spinning blades. That would disable me.”
“I’m not letting them just fly off into anonymity and hiding.”
“Then you better think of something else fast.”
“We’ve got to end this.”
We went down the stairs of the platform to the bus that waited to take us to the helicopters. “If your plan is to just get them arrested and slapped on the wrist in Germany, then I don’t know what I’m doing here. That’s not my objective. I’m here to end it. Are you not?”
“I am. But I’m not a murderer.”
“Killing in war is not murder.”
“There’s no war.”
“Really? What do you think those Polish police think of that? Soldiers in Nazi uniforms with automatic rifles? Shooting the police force and blowing up their van with RPGs? That’s not an act of war?”
I nodded. “It is. But it doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want. We have to see how this plays out,” I said.
“Cut it as thin as you want, but we’re going to have to take drastic action. Are you ready to do that? ’Cause if you’re not, give me what you have and I’ll do it myself.”
We climbed on to the bus and I stopped talking. Jedediah looked at me with blazing eyes. He saw the intensity of my own look and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
As Jedediah predicted, by the time we got near the helicopters the engines were racing and the blades were turning. The three helicopters took off quickly when the last person hurried aboard. As we flew over the compound, we could see everything being dismantled. We saw Nazi soldiers removing their uniforms and leaving them on the ground. We saw others pulling motorcycles and bicycles out of hiding behind trees and riding off. The lights went out as the dark helicopters stayed low and flew north.
After fifteen minutes we passed over a small town and into a patch of vast blackness. I suddenly realized we had headed north, to the Baltic Sea, the sea north of Poland that extended past Germany to Denmark.
We stayed low. I couldn’t estimate the altitude. The Polish military would certainly have radars to detect airplanes but at our altitude we were likely to evade detection. I was sure we were also EMCON, no electronic emissions at all. They couldn’t be traced by the Polish Air Force or any other air defense network by their electronic signature. They’d have to find us by raw radar hits, which is nearly impossible so low over the water.
We’d been flying for an hour when I felt the nose of the helicopter come up and our forward speed slow. I tried to look out the small window next to our seat but saw nothing but darkness. The rotor grabbed more air as the slowing helicopter began to hover and descend gently. I couldn’t imagine that we’d made it across the entire Baltic, to Russia or Finland. And I was quite sure we hadn’t gone far enough to get back into Germany. My guess was we were still at sea.
We settled down gently, went into a short hover, and then dropped the last three or four feet. I still couldn’t see what we were landing on. The weight came off the rotors, and the helicopter settled. The engine RPM decreased as the engines were shut down. Red cabin lights came on and the door to the helicopter opened into darkness. A man climbed up the steps with a flashlight and motioned for all of us to get out of the helicopter. We unbuckled, stood up, and moved to the door then down the steps. When we emerged, I saw that we were standing on the deck of a substantial ship. I looked behind us and saw the other two helicopters on their own spots, with their blades just feet apart. It was a magnificent demonstration of flying capabilities by the pilots who landed these helicopters on the ship. The ship was completely dark except for the landing area.
The landing lights went off and the regular ship’s lights came on. The man with the flashlight indicated for us to follow him. He stepped inside the ship’s superstructure and led us down several ladders to the main deck. We followed him down the passageway and into the ship crew’s dining area. It was cramped, but all of us ultimately fit. Jedediah was right next to me and clung tightly to the case.
Eidhalt entered the room. He stood with his hands behind his back like a general waiting for his troops to be quiet. Finally everyone was quiet. He said, “I am quite sure that none of you expected to be on a ship in the Baltic when you came to my castle in Munich yesterday evening.” He smiled.
He continued, “Sometimes the unexpected is pleasant. I hope you find your stay on this ship exactly that. We have staterooms for each of you, sleeping in groups of two. If you would like to change out of the uniforms, we have provided additional clothing for you to use. In fact, you may discard those uniforms for now, as new ones have been sent to your home addresses. It could be somewhat inconvenient for you to be seen ashore today or tomorrow with an SS uniform on.” He chuckled and others joined in, many happy to relieve the tension.
He continued, “So what happens next? I will tell you. We are heading west in the Baltic, as an ordinary merchant ship. We look like a container ship, and we have erected large structures over the helicopters which will look from any distance of more than twenty feet like stacked containers. It will not be possible to tell that they are not, even with a very high-powered camera lens. If they have infrared, it might be more difficult, but we do not anticipate that there will be any military out here looking for us. Perhaps the police are looking for us. But that’s about all. And I really doubt they’re looking for a ship. We believe we are completely safe and will remain undetected. After sunrise, and the next daytime passes, you will all be taken to different locations in small but powerful boats that will meet us at a rendezvous point. Each destination will be different. Each of you will travel differently, and none of it will be traceable back to us. Some will go to Germany, some to Denmark, some all the way to Norway and even Sweden. As I told you, I have now nearly unlimited resources and want to share much of it with you in the building of the next Nazi empire. This is a small first step as we will be providing each of you with first-class tickets back to your homes when you debark from your boats.
“And now, I have a special treat.” He nodded to one of his men in the back who dimmed the lights on the mess decks. Suddenly a screen was lowered behind Eidhalt, and a video began. It was of the ceremony just completed in Poland, but from a distance. You couldn’t recognize anyone in the video. The picture changed, and instead of pageantry was filled with a man fighting for his life.
I tried not to gasp. It was al-Hadi. Before anyone could say anything the room was filled with al-Hadi’s screams as men off-screen dug knives into his neck and blood began to run. I watched horrified as they continued to cut. I looked away, trying to appear disinterested and trying not to throw up. I looked around the room at the faces illuminated by the light reflected off the screen.
Al-Hadi continued to scream. Several of the neo-Nazi leaders in the room smiled as they watched, a couple even cheered. Others like me looked away. I glanced at Jedediah who was watching every second of it. Al-Hadi stopped screaming and all I could hear was a gurgling and cutting. I looked at Jedediah again as I heard what sounded like a head falling to the ground. He nodded. My heart raced as I fought the impulse to imagine what it looked like on the screen.
In the dim light Eidhalt spoke again. His voice sounded different. Gruffer. Meaner. “Will anyone in the world think we are something to be trifled with after this? Will anyone dare challenge us? This is just the beginning! This man, Mohammed al-Hadi, was an al Qaeda financier! He came to Germany, to fund those who agreed with their objectives. He came to me! Because he said we shared the same objective of havoc! Of wrecking the country! He didn’t know who he was dealing with. I played along. I took his money—lots of it. Millions of dollars. And told him we would create havoc like he had never seen. But it won’t be what he hoped for. We hate him and everything he and al Qaeda stand for! And we’ve shown it tonight!”
There was a splattering of applause.
Eidhalt was dark and swollen. His eyes were barely perceptible in the shadows, but his teeth glistened as he contorted his face. “The world will never be the same,” he whispered. “This video will spread throughout the world like wildfire within forty-eight hours. It is our declaration. We throw down the gauntlet to al Qaeda and all of Islam who intend to destroy our countries. We will destroy them. We will destroy all of Islam. This is the beginning. Our war begins in earnest on Monday! On Monday, before midnight, as I said at the Wolfsschanze, I want ten thousand mosques burning. I want twenty thousand Muslim shops burned to the ground! I want the world to wake up on Tuesday to a different world!”
Many of the men nodded, although the horror of seeing the man who had been in front of them beheaded on videotape caused one or two to pause.
Eidhalt finished, “We have commissioned each of you with the Blutfahne, we have shown you who we are, and what we are made of, and that we are not to be trifled with or taken lightly. Return to your countries, strengthen your organizations, and begin the attacks as scheduled. You may retire to your staterooms, and each of you will be contacted and told your route, and where you will go after the rendezvous approximately eighteen hours from now. Thank you. Sieg Heil!”
“Sieg Heil!” Everyone said back.
One of the crew approached Jedediah and me and handed us keys to our stateroom, which had the number on them. He also handed us a map of the ship so that we could find it. He said, “You should be able to find it without any difficulty. If you can’t, let one of us know, and we will help you.”
I nodded.
I looked at Jedediah and said, “Let’s go.”
I knew how ships were put together and how to find a stateroom. I walked right to it, used my key to open the door, and stepped inside.
Jedediah asked quietly, “So what’s the plan?”
I shook my head, put my finger to my lips to show him what I expected from him, and said, “I’m too tired for much of anything; let’s just get some sleep.” I shook my head indicating that’s not what I had in mind at all. I looked around and he watched me as I held my hand to my ear and indicated that almost certainly this cabin was bugged and our conversation would be recorded. We stepped out through the door silently, and I closed it behind me. Anyone listening to the tape would assume that we had walked in, had a two-sentence conversation, and then closed the door behind us and gone to bed. If they listened carefully, they’d hear silence rather than the sounds of men undressing, but I’d hoped they wouldn’t be listening for some time. We walked down the passageway. I carried the case in my hand. We turned a corner and headed outboard. We walked to the bulkhead and I stopped. I nodded to him.
“When I have a chance, I’m going to go up on deck and pull out my cell phone. I’ll alert the BKA to where we are.”
“May not have the range.”
“I agree but it’s worth a shot. Plus I have something else in mind.”
“What?”
“I want you to get topside and disable those helicopters. Think you can do that?”
“Don’t you think they’ll be guarded?”
“I doubt it. He thinks they’re among friends. I think everybody is going to go to bed, get up, eat breakfast, and wait for the big rendezvous.”
“If there are any guards I can disable them in fifteen minutes.”
I nodded as I contemplated what I had in mind. I didn’t know if it would work, but if it did, it would be the end of the beginning of neo-Nazism, as Churchill might have said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”