At midday Eastern time on Monday, February 6, 2012, BBC World News did something it had never done before. Without any warning whatsoever, it ditched its rolling news coverage. Amanda Carter appeared on-screen and delivered an opening piece to camera that shook the nation to its core.
“In the next hour, we are going to show you incontrovertible proof that John Franklin, Republican candidate for the post of president of the United States, is not the man he claims to be. He is, in fact, the grandson of the most evil man in history – Adolf Hitler. Irrefutable evidence has come to light …”
Hembury and Vargas sat on the sofa in Carter’s flat, glued to the live transmission. They had their laptops open and followed the development of the story online as the internet went into complete meltdown. Within two minutes the Google search engine showed over fifty references to the story that hadn’t existed moments earlier and that figure grew exponentially. Fifteen minutes into the broadcast, just as the first clip from the black-and-white 8mm footage was being shown, the figure had grown to over ten thousand. Ten minutes later, the story chain had exceeded a million and “Hitler” became the most searched for word in the world on both Google and Yahoo. Every news broadcaster across America followed the story and began ripping clips from the BBC broadcast, even though it was still transmitting. The story went global and was the lead on news networks in over one hundred and twenty countries.
At the precise moment Amanda went live, John Franklin was in his office at campaign headquarters, working on his latest rally speech. He was still basking in the afterglow of the press conference, which had triggered his personal ratings to soar. They were up by an incredible fifteen points. The Republican candidate now held a massive lead over the incumbent of the White House. His inbox was overflowing with supportive emails and the national press and television stations were lauding the generosity of his actions. In addition, the revelation of his father’s tragic suicide had gained him a huge sympathy boost from female voters. A nice bonus.
Even though his office door was closed, he could normally hear the general hubbub generated from over a hundred staffers working outside in the huge open-plan area. He suddenly realised all he could hear was his own thoughts and the distant murmur of a TV. Something was wrong and, as he stood up to investigate, he caught sight of one of the giant wall-mounted televisions in the distance. As he focused on the screen featuring two headshots, his brain felt an instant surge of panic and disbelief. He was looking at a picture of his own face next to one of Adolf Hitler.
Everyone in the office appeared hypnotised by the transmission and, as he opened the door, a four-way split came up showing shots of the Argentinian ID cards for Gerald and Ronald Franklin, alongside grainy photos of Hitler and Bormann. Although his mind was now submerged in a murky fog, he recognised the voice of Amanda Carter, the reporter who had interviewed him many times for the BBC World News. Suddenly, he found himself running through the office at breakneck speed, heading for the bank of lifts. Weirdly, he felt as if he were moving through quicksand and was conscious that all eyes in the office were glued to him. As the lift doors closed, he felt a brief moment of respite and he breathed out for the first time since seeing the TV images.
A few minutes later, he was driving out of the underground car park into the busy morning traffic. His mobile, which was resting on the dash, appeared to be having a seizure, as it manically vibrated with incoming calls and messages. He flicked it on to silent and floored the accelerator. Instinctively, his reflex thought was to call his dad, and then, a millisecond later, he remembered he couldn’t. He felt alone and desperate and needed some time to think. The unimaginable had happened and now he had to find a way to process and deal with it. He caught a glimpse of the read-out on his iPhone and saw six missed calls from his wife, along with over twenty others. He couldn’t bear going home to face the inevitable questioning, and he pictured a hunting pack of reporters and cameramen waiting outside his house to assault him. Instead, he headed for the sanctuary of his father’s mansion in Pacific Heights.
Amanda Carter’s wrap-up was perfect in every way. It was delivered in an authoritative tone, combining the sensational and grave aspects of the story.
“The man who many of us believed could be the next president of the United States is an impostor – a counterfeit candidate. From the day he was born, he was groomed by inherently evil people, obsessed with world domination and the creation of a super race. I want to end this report with the grotesque words of Adolf Hitler, a vile monster who we now know escaped justice and planned to build a new dynasty. ’The sacred mission of the German people is to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements and raise them to the prominent position.All who are not of a good race are chaff.’ These are the words of John Franklin’s grandfather, Adolf Hitler.”
John Franklin sat in the kitchen in his father’s house and flicked through the messages on his phone. He had muted the TV and was using the remote to hop through the news channels. There was only one story in play. He was in free fall and everyone was deserting him. The only person left he felt he could trust was Cathy, who had also been chasing him down. He called her and she picked up instantly.
“John, what the fuck? Everything has gone to shit. The party is about to announce your deselection as their official candidate. Donors and supporters are dropping us like a stone and heading for the hills. I know this story can’t be true, but the evidence looks compelling. Tell me what the hell’s going on?”
Franklin suddenly saw live shots of the front gates of his father’s house appear on Fox News. Someone must have spotted his car on the drive and a huge media crowd was gathering outside. He felt like a rat caught in a trap.
“Cathy, of course it’s bullshit. You need to issue an instant denial and set up a live press conference for me to publicly rebut the allegations.”
Cathy knew Franklin well enough to know, instantly, that he was lying to her. She paused for a moment before cutting her losses.
“John, it’s over.”
Caroline Franklin was shell-shocked. She sat on the bar stool in her kitchen watching CNN, transfixed by the breaking news. She had missed the initial BBC broadcast but it was impossible to avoid the blanket coverage revealing her husband’s true identity. Her life lay in tatters, shattered by the incredible revelations. Her marriage to the presidential candidate had been exposed as a sham. He was not the man he made himself out to be. Her mind flooded with questions. Could the revelations possibly be true? Was John’s grandfather actually the most reviled man in history. The questions kept coming, but she had no answers. She glanced down at the copy of Vogue lying open on the breakfast bar and bit down on her lip. The exclusive double-page spread displayed a stunning photograph of her posing in her bedroom, wearing a gorgeous ten-thousand-dollar Armani trouser suit. She stared at the headline: Is This the Next First Lady?
Caroline stood up, walked out of the kitchen and made her way into the large breakfast room as though in a trance. Her twelve-year-old son didn’t sense her presence, as he was totally absorbed in the Tomb Raider Legend game he was playing on his Xbox. She came to a stop a few feet behind Bill and stood there, frozen to the spot, just staring at him. There was only one question now dominating her thoughts: was she really the mother of Adolf Hitler’s great-grandson?
Franklin was struggling to catch his breath and felt as though he was experiencing a distorted nightmare. He glared at his mobile for a few seconds as if it had betrayed him, then snapped back to reality and placed it back inside his jacket pocket. He knew he had to buy himself some thinking time and that meant getting out of the media glare. His father owned a secluded sea ranch in Carmel that very few people knew about. It was situated on the beach and enjoyed spectacular one-hundred-and-eighty-degree views of the Pacific Ocean.
He’d stayed there many times with his own family and remembered his father kept a set of keys for it on a wooden rack in the main hallway. He grabbed them and made his way through the house to an internal door that led to a large triple garage, positioned to the side of the property. Inside were a Rolls-Royce, an Aston Martin convertible and a black Range Rover. He knew the keys for all three would be resting on the passenger side sun visors and opted for the relative anonymity of the Range Rover.
The mansion had a rear entrance, which he hoped the media scrum out front weren’t yet aware of. He gunned the four-litre engine into life and used the remote on the dash to open the garage door. A minute later, he hit the code for the rear electric gates and headed south on the coastal road to Carmel.
The one-hundred-and-thirty-mile drive took just under three hours and, during the journey, Franklin worked his way through more than twenty local radio news stations, desperately trying to escape the relentless media coverage of the BBC revelations. By the time he parked up on the drive outside the sea ranch, his mood had severely darkened and he was desperate for the sanctuary it offered.
As soon as he was safely ensconced inside, he helped himself to a large tumbler of his father’s favourite bourbon, and it took him less than an hour to drain the bottle. The alcohol started to kick in and, as his mind began to become slightly cloudy, his thinking became more confused. He wondered if he had the mental strength to emulate his father and take his own life, but realised he wasn’t brave enough. He decided he would try and reach out to Cathy once more. If he could get her back on side, he had a chance of mounting a fightback. He tried her continuously for the next hour but, every time, her voicemail kicked in.
Franklin found a second bottle of bourbon inside the antique walnut drinks globe and poured himself another glass. He stood in front of the curved floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out at the sheer vastness of the ocean. The tide was in and the sea was rough but he suddenly felt an irresistible urge to be down on the beach, to be closer to the water.
Fifteen minutes later, he found himself, fully clothed, wading waist-high through the crashing waves. In one hand he held a bottle of bourbon and, in the other, a plastic bottle of barbiturates he had found in the medicine cabinet in his father’s bathroom. A wild wave stopped his momentum, knocking him over, and he went under for the first time. When he emerged, he struggled to regain his balance, but after a few seconds he managed to stand upright and stare straight-ahead, out to sea. He held his position for a few seconds and then began walking.
By the time Amanda signed off, hundreds of millions of people around the world were coming to terms with a new reality. Hembury and Vargas were stunned by the display of sheer journalistic brilliance they had just witnessed.
“Troy, she nailed that bastard to a giant cross. There’s no coming back from this. I can’t believe it’s finally over.”
“What are you going to do now, Nic?”
Vargas sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes. “I don’t know about you but I feel like I want to sleep for a week. I really need to get back home and help Juan and the team as they work their way through the car crash I left behind.”
“Listen, Nic, before you go back and catch up on your sleep, I have an idea. How about not sleeping and pulling an all-nighter in Vegas?”
Vargas’s face broke into a huge smile. “Bring it on. Who needs sleep?”
Six thousand miles away in a small city in Patagonia, an old lady sat up in bed and watched events unfold live on TV. She glanced away from the screen and stared at the small white plate on her bedside table with its slice of birthday cake. Next to it sat a tiny green onyx jewellery box. Her bony fingers slowly prised open the lid and fumbled around inside until she found what she was searching for. Her grip was pitifully weak but she managed to lift the glass vial out of the box, balancing it between her forefinger and thumb. She used her tongue to help position it between her back teeth and then crunched down, releasing the cyanide.
In the afternoon of her one hundredth birthday, sixty-seven years after she had first faked her own death, Eva Braun finally took her own life.