She always smiled when she thought of her father. His death, nearly fifty years ago, still hurt.
The chopper banked right.
The site lay just ahead.
Amid a pine forest on the slopes of one of the older mountains, an odd spectacle had been spotted last autumn. Long ago, about fifty larch trees had been purposefully planted so that the seedlings formed a gigantic swastika. With the approach of fall the brilliant yellows and oranges of the dormant larches had stood in stark contrast with the evergreen pines, allowing the obscene symbol to blazon across the landscape. A pilot had spied the memorial and reported it to authorities, everyone amazed that the trees had not been noticed before. The best explanation was that they’d never all gone dormant simultaneously when someone high enough in the air could see. A decision had finally been made to ax them, and Marie realized a good photo opportunity when she heard one. So a campaign stop had been arranged that should garner her a respectable amount of national media coverage.
She stared down at the trees, most of which had already been cleared, the outline of the swastika still there in the open space. A few of the other trees were also to be felled to forever distort the image. A long time had passed since the demise of National Socialism, but remnants of Nazism stubbornly remained. The spectacle below was one of the more benign compared with the ethnic hatred and indiscriminate violence against foreigners that was sadly on the rise again.
She signaled to land, and the helicopter touched down.
She stepped out.
No cadre of aides nipped at her heels. Just her, come to confront the past. A contingent of reporters crowded around. Many of the faces she recognized, regulars to her press detail.
“Quite an odd scene,” a female correspondent from Frankfurt said.
“A forgotten memorial to a horrible mistake.” When it came to the past, she was always careful. “But we must remember Hitler was able to rise not from an abundance of Nazis, but rather because there were simply too few democrats.”
Her usual theme.
Government was the responsibility of the people.
A prudent tactic, considering that her opponent was trying to entangle her in a moral debate over ethnic responsibility. But she’d not served as chancellor for the past sixteen years by nibbling on that kind of bait.
She moved away, and the press followed in her wake.
The woods around her belonged to a variety of national corporations. Some of the area was managed forest, most was land bought long ago for pfennigs. The tree memorial had apparently been planted by a contingent of the Hitler Youth, which once used the Harz region as an outdoor retreat. One of many wilderness camps where young men were indoctrinated with National Socialism through a hypnotic combination of sports, music, and comradery.
She made her way into the grove of evergreens.
Ahead rose a magnificent larch, the last of the offending trees.
It seemed a shame to destroy its beauty. But like Nazism, which stained the hearts and minds of Germany’s best, the trees were a blight on everything beautiful that surrounded them.
And not for themselves individually.
But rather for what they collectively represented. Something she’d once heard came to mind. One Nazi meant nothing, forty were a nuisance, forty thousand nearly ruled Europe.
Her gaze drifted to the forest floor. No undergrowth littered the ground. Again, the symbolism was evident. Nothing had seemed able to flourish in the shade of Hitler, either.
She faced the cameras. “I have something to say.”
Reporters huddled around her.
“My opponent likes to cry, Back to the future. True, he doesn’t actively embrace the past or advocate any of its policies. All he does is remind us of it at every opportunity. He likes to constantly reassert German nationalism. He says that our identity only lies within our borders. On that I strongly disagree.”
She was taking a calculated risk with that denunciation. But as her political consultants had repeatedly advised, Pohl’s campaign depended on Germany’s aging population. Most of his supporters were sixty and over. Pohl himself was nearing seventy, and she was nearly seventy-five. The press had politely dubbed their contest for control a battle of experience. Just a nice way of saying they were old. Interestingly, though, her base came mainly from the young, women, and the college educated. Another basic difference between them: She was Catholic, he was Protestant—and religion meant something to the German voter.
“Are you saying Pohl is too far right?” one of the reporters asked.
“I’m saying he’s too certain as to what afflicts this country. He believes immigration is the root of our problems, that unification has destroyed the economy.” She threw the press a smile. “Diversity is good. For everyone.”
She caught sight of loggers heading toward the larch, chain saws in hand.
She turned her attention back to the press. “We have problems. That’s not in question. Our political parties are losing strength. Unions are fading. Church membership is on the decline. We are the second largest exporter in the world, but possess the highest labor costs of any industrialized nation. Pessimism has become a malady, crippling our desire. My opponent does nothing to soothe any of these afflictions. Instead he uses them, content for the nation to be angry and confused.”
She noticed loggers taking up a position before the tree. They were looking her way, apparently waiting for her to finish.
“Keine Experimente. No experiments. That is my theme. Back to the future is nothing but a blueprint for more problems. My vision is forward.”
She motioned to the loggers.
Chain saws roared to life and blades bit into trunks.
She imagined the scene eighty years ago when eager-eyed youths planted the seedlings with an almost religious care, paying homage to a man they regarded as a god, respecting an ideal none of them understood.
Cameras recorded the action as the aging tree was attacked.
One of the saws bucked as wood caught the chain. The logger yanked the blade free and resumed his assault. She smiled at the tough old tree and thought again about Theodor Pohl’s subtle message of hate.
And hoped the German people were equally as resilient.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cotton sat in the chopper’s rear compartment with Cassiopeia and Danny Daniels. They were flying across Poland toward Germany. Each wore a headset on a closed-circuit loop so no one else could hear their conversation.
“Theodor Pohl has served six terms in the Bundestag,” Danny said. “He’s from the German state of Hesse. He owns a large estate there named Löwenberg.”
Cotton silently made the translation. Lion’s mount.
“Supposedly he’s an ardent anti-communist. I have my doubts, though. He was not deemed a viable candidate for the chancellorship until three years ago, when his party rose to control nearly a quarter of the Bundestag.”
“And whoever has that much of a say in the national assembly is a man to be reckoned with,” Cotton added.
Danny nodded. “He has the voice of a demagogue, the face of a prophet, and his words resonate. He’s a populist. Pure and simple, playing off xenophobic fears. He exploits the new right while keeping his distance from the fanatical elements. Immigration is a sensitive subject in Germany, but he likes to aggravate that open nerve. No pro-Nazi stance, or anything like that. Just a simple nationalistic theme.”