“What have you got for me?” Nicholas Everett asked as he lobbed in front of Amy Callaghan’s desk in the FBI library.
“Is it not enough that we are housemates without having to see each other during the day?” she teased.
“I figured you would be missing me since I’ve been playing house after hours with Ellie.”
“How’s that going?” Amy asked. “Are you the father?”
“Very funny.” Nick grinned. He slid down into a chair in front of her desk.
“I’ve got some more information for you on the Fountain of Life program or Lebensborn, just so you know what you might be in for, Dad.”
“Are you talking about the original program in Hitler’s time or their new one Fountain of Life 2?” Nick asked.
“Both,” Amy answered, putting a blond strand behind her ear as she read from the screen. “What do you want first?”
“Give me the gist of the original program first.” Nick sat back.
Amy nodded. “Lebensborn means ‘wellspring of life’ or ‘fountain or life’ and was the creation of Heinrich Himmler in December 1935. Himmler put the program into place because Germany’s birthrate was decreasing.”
“And he wanted to increase the Aryan population,” Nick added.
“Correct. He encouraged SS and Wermacht officers to have children with Aryan women with the belief that those children would obviously grow up to be the future leaders of a perfect Nazi-Aryan nation.”
Amy stopped to answer the phone and Nick closed his eyes and waited. She hung up.
“What’s up? Tired?” she asked.
“Just getting my head around this whole case. The time difference with Berlin makes it tricky too. I was on the phone to Mitch at four this morning.”
“What time was that for him?” Amy asked.
“About ten in the morning.”
“How is he?”
“Good, wired, like he always is in the middle of a case. Wondered how long it would take you to ask,” Nick teased her.
“Shut up.” She smiled. “Want to hear this or not because I’m a very busy and important person.”
Nick laughed. “You are. Yes, go ahead, thanks.”
“I could just print it out for you, like I do for everyone else,” she suggested.
Nick shook his head. “No, if you can spare the time tell me. It gives me a break from the office and reading,” he said.
Amy nodded. “Okay, so we covered Himmler’s objectives. Now, the mission of the program was to give ‘racially pure’ women the chance to give birth in secret and then the SS organization looked after the child’s education and adoption. Both mother and father needed to pass a ‘racial purity’ test—you know, blond hair and blue eyes with family lineage traceable for at least three generations. Only forty per cent of women who applied were actually ‘worthy’.”
“You mean women actually applied and were not forced into it?” Nick asked.
“Oh yes, it was an honor to serve the Fatherland, supposedly. About ten Lebensborn homes were established in Germany, nine in Norway, two in Austria, and one each in Belgium, Holland, France, Luxembourg and Denmark. And you’ll be pleased to know that any of the children born on Himmler’s birthday were considered extra special.”
“Good grief.” Nick exhaled.
“It gets worse,” Amy said.
“It can’t,” Nick said.
“Yeah, it can. They also kidnapped children from their parents if they matched the Nazis’ racial criteria of blond hair and blue or green eyes. Up to 100,000 children may have been stolen from Poland alone. But the saddest thing of all is of the thousands of children sent to Lebensborn centers to be ‘Germanized’, many were taught that they were abandoned by their parents. In the end, many were transferred to concentration camps and died. Some were adopted by SS families.”
Amy stopped and reached for her glass of water.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked.
“Yes, no, I don’t know how anyone could do it, those poor little kids.”
“Want to print me out the report and I’ll get out of here?” Nick asked.
“No I’m okay. In 1945, a day after Hitler’s death when our American troops moved into Germany, several hundred children aged between six months to six years were found abandoned. Of these, most were adopted or returned to the birth families if they could be found. A report says that many were too Germanic to fit in. I don’t even know what that means or what became of them,” Amy said.
“Any idea how many children were born into the program?” Nick asked.
“Roughly ten thousand were actually born from the breeding program,” Amy said. “You have the data we’ve managed to access from the current New Aryan Order—the number of births here to date has been five hundred and seven to be exact.”
“And if they believe Ellie and me, five hundred and eight,” Nick said.
Mitch moved quickly and with authority as though he belonged. Following a young female waiter, he entered the large industrial kitchen at the back of the convention center taking in as much as he could.
“Aprons,” Eva hissed near his ear.
He turned to see a stand of equipment. They moved behind it, selected two aprons and put them on. Momentarily out of sight, Mitch studied what was going on. The kitchen was full of cooks, easily twenty or more busily filling plates with hors d'oeuvres. To the side he saw two chefs working on a more formal meal. About ten plates were set aside and vegetables were being prepared.
“I think there might be a VIP meal being served and the rest of this is going out to the masses,” Mitch whispered.
“So in theory that will be in the Sky Room if it is the most prestigious room … and you want to be in that room?” Eva frowned.
“You got it. But I want to go to the meeting rooms first in case they’ve got their notes and bags stashed there.”
“That’s the next level,” Eva said.
“There are some trays over there,” Mitch indicated to his left. “I can’t see any water.”
“Industrial-sized fridge near the exit,” Eva said. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah,” Mitch said. He moved away from her, grabbed two trays, handed Eva one and opened the fridge to place a half dozen bottles of water on both of their trays.
Mitch moved towards the stairs, acknowledging a male waiter who passed them on the way. He entered a new level with a hallway featuring four large doors.
“They’re all meeting rooms,” Eva said.
“The door to the middle one is open and closest to the stairwell,” Mitch observed.
Outside the room stood a security guard. Mitch moved towards him, said a standard greeting in German and entered the room fully expecting to be stopped. He breathed a sigh of relief on getting past. Eva stopped at the door, greeted the guard and offered him a bottle of water. He accepted and she distracted him with small talk.
Mitch studied the area. It was set up with a round table in the middle, and blank writing pads, pens and mints were placed on the table. A laptop in its case, a briefcase and compendium sat on the table, all sealed and closed. Damn, unless I take the guard out, I won’t have time to look at any of these without drawing attention.
He noticed the guard glance in and in response Mitch removed the opened bottles of water on the table and replaced them with fresh water. Eva entered, grabbed a cloth from a bar in the corner and made a show of wiping down the table.
Think, quick. Mitch glanced to the windows which were sealed from inside; no throwing anything outside. He looked up at the screen which showed what was going on live in the main hall.
“I need to remove the laptop and then bring it back shortly,” he whispered to Eva. “Follow me out and let him know we’ll be back shortly with…”
“Clean napkins?” Eva suggested.
“Perfect.”
Eva’s eyes widened as Mitch reached for the laptop, placed it under his empty tray, pressed both against his body and walked to the door. She followed him out and told the guard they would be back shortly.
Mitch headed down the stairs and outside. He moved to the back of the building, looked around for security cameras and made sure the area was clear. It was six in the morning in Washington D.C., but he placed a call to the I.T. division and Marcus answered.
“I knew you would be on call,” Mitch said, relieved. He slid down into a squatting position and turned the computer on. “I’ve got a laptop with a password on the document files area,” he said, looking at the screen that prompted him to enter the right word. “I need to get into it, put in a code so …”
“Spy code,” Marcus finished his sentence. “Like the way you think. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Open the emails and tell me the email address for that computer.”
Mitch did as directed.
Marcus continued. “Now I’m going to email you a file to that laptop, click on it, download it and run it.”
Eva stood on guard, looking around nervously while Mitch followed the instructions Marcus dictated down the line. A couple came around the side of the building holding hands and, seeing Eva and Mitch, turned back the other way. Eva rolled her eyes at Mitch.
“Is it working?” Mitch asked.
“It will be in a minute,” Marcus confirmed. “Okay, I’m in. Now you need to remove all evidence that you were there and then I’ll start going through it from here.”
Mitch did as Marcus told him and once finished, shut the laptop down.
“Thanks for that, Marcus, top security clearance only,” Mitch said. “Talk later.” He hung up. “Eva, let’s get this laptop back in position.”