For All Nails #133: The Mancunian Candidate
by Johnny Pez
- Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
- 22 October 1974
Defense Minister Horst Voth lived in an unpretentious two-story house in the middle-class Berlin suburb of Potsdam. Interior Minister Hans Steiner had never had any occasion to go there before, and as far as he knew he still had no reason to go there. There was the constitutional crisis, of course, but constitutional crises had become so commonplace since Chancellor Markstein's assassination that they hardly rated the word any more. Constitutional dust-up, say, or constitutional breu-ha-ha. FN1
The current one had been precipitated by the defection from the governing coalition of half a dozen members of the Peasants Party over the administration of agricultural subsidies. Two weeks of trying to rebuild the Germany Party-led coalition had failed (due in no small part to Voth's intransigence), and yesterday Exterior Minister Joshua Merkel had broken with Voth and led some fifty of his own followers out of the Party and into an alliance with the Democrats, who were expected to form a new coalition today.
Parking his loke in the street outside, Steiner climbed three steps to the front door and rang the bell. The door immediately opened to reveal Voth dressed informally in a plaid smoking jacket and khaki trousers. Darting suspicious glances out towards the street, Voth said, "Hans, I'm glad you could make it. Come in, please."
Steiner did so, and followed Voth up a set of carpeted stairs to a room on the upper floor. A wooden desk that had seen better days faced out of a window with a view into the property's back yard. The walls were lined with mismatched bookcases, above which hung photographs of airmobiles and warships. This was the room, Steiner guessed, from which a thousand defense policies had been launched.
Voth gestured for Steiner to sit behind the desk. Steiner did so, while the Defense Minister remained standing. Steiner waited patiently for his host to speak.
"Hans," Voth said, "how long have we known each other?"
Just like that, Steiner was put on his guard. Enough men had used the "how long have we known each other" ploy on him for Steiner to know that something bad was going to follow.
"Eleven years," Steiner answered simply. He and Voth had both been elected to the Imperial Diet at the same time, and had shared the experience of being freshman back-benchers during Markstein's first full term as Chancellor. FN2
"Eleven years," Voth echoed. "That's a long time, long enough to get to know a man very well. Would you say that you know me well, Hans?"
This, Steiner decided, was going to be a real piss-cutter. FN3 "As well as I know anyone," he replied, which had the virtue of being true.
"And would you say that I'm given to flights of fantasy?"
That, thought Steiner, was a tough one. Voth was generally level-headed, but there were occasional moments of wishful thinking, like Operation Bullseye. That particular bout of wishful thinking could easily have led to an atomic war with the Scandinavians, who had turned out to have a good many more Kramer bombs than anyone in Germany suspected. The people of the German Empire, Steiner felt, owed a profound debt of gratitude to those sailors and airmen who had quietly sabotaged Bullseye by deliberately failing to locate all the Scandie subs. It was a shame you couldn't hand out medals for that sort of thing.
Still, wishful thinking wasn't quite fantasy, and Voth certainly wasn't given to flights of it. Steiner settled for saying "No" with one or two unspoken qualifiers.
That seemed to satisfy Voth. "I'm glad to hear you say so, because what I've got to tell you now will be difficult to credit. It concerns Herr Grauer." FN4
Ah, here we go, Steiner thought with some satisfaction. Now we're going to find out what all this rigamarole FN5 is all about. "What about Herr Grauer?"
"It's well known," Voth began, his voice and gestures those of the university lecturer he had once been, "that Grauer served in the Air Arm during the Global War, and that he was captured by the British in 1944 and interned by them for six years." FN6
Steiner nodded. Given the Democrats' stated policy goal of reducing military expenditures, it was essential that they not be seen as weak-willed pacifists. Grauer's service record spoke for itself.
"It is less well known," Voth continued, "though well documented, that the British carried out medical experiments on German prisoners during and after the war, in flagrant violation of the Paris Accords." It was less well known, Steiner knew, because Germany's own violations of the Paris Accords FN7 had been so flagrant that the British medical experiments had paled to insignificance; one more cruel policy initiated by the Madman Bruning, and by no means the worst.
"What is not at all well known," said Voth, "is that those experiments included attempts at mesmerism aimed at subverting the prisoners' loyalties and converting them into unwitting spies for the British. It was only last year that documents on the so-called Manchester Project were released to the public under the Twenty-Five Year Rule." He leaned forward now, the lecturer quizzing a student. "And do you know where Grauer was held prisoner?"
"In Manchester?" Steiner guessed.
"Exactly!" Voth barked, pounding a fist into his hand for emphasis. "Right in the very heart of the British mesmerism project, right when it was going on!" There was a gleam in Voth's eye that Steiner recognized from four months earlier, when he had first announced Operation Bullseye. The Defense Minister began to pace back and forth across the study. "Naturally the British haven't released the names of the prisoners who were subjected to mesmerism. And if you study the documents carefully, you see that they never give a termination date for the project." He ceased his pacing and turned to fix his gaze on Steiner. "That's because the Manchester Project was never terminated! That's because it's still going on!"
Steiner thought he could see an obvious flaw in Voth's reasoning. "But, Horst, if this thing were still going on, the British would never have released those documents."
"Ach, Hans, that's what's so diabolically clever about all this. That's just what they expect us to think! Hide in plain sight, that's what the British say, and they're doing it now! Release the documents so that everyone thinks it's all just ancient history, so that nobody will guess the terrible truth. They're fiends, I tell you, fiends!" Voth was panting now from the exertion of speaking.
Steiner tried one more time to reason with the Defense Minister. "Horst, even if you're right about all this, you have no proof that Grauer was even mesmerised, much less that he's a British spy. It's all pure speculation."
"But, Hans, we dare not take the risk!" Voth was openly pleading now. "If there's even a chance that Grauer is under mesmeric influence, he can't be allowed to gain control of the government. The consequences for the Empire would be catastrophic!"
"So what are you proposing that we do?" Steiner had a pretty good idea of what Voth would say, but he preferred to hear it spoken out loud.
Voth now stood next to Steiner and placed a hand on his shoulder, much to Steiner's annoyance. "Hans, you're the Interior Minister, and I'm the Defense Minister. Between us, we control the police and the army. We can keep the Democrats from taking over the government, arrest Grauer, get the truth out of him. We have to do it, Hans, don't you see? We can't risk letting the Empire fall into the hands of a British agent." Steiner could see that Voth was wound up tighter than a rubber string on a toy airmobile.
"Horst, you may be right." Steiner was relieved to see the tension leave Voth's body. "The situation is far too critical to leave to chance. Grab your coat and hat, we're going to the Interior Ministry."
Steiner followed Voth from the study and down the stairs, then waited while the Defense Minister dressed himself for the outdoors. He had an uneasy moment when Voth paused by the passenger door of his loke and said, "Wouldn't it be better if I went straight to the Defense Ministry by myself?"
Shaking his head, Steiner said, "We have to coordinate our response, and the Interior Ministry is the place to do it. It won't be necessary to call out the army until after we've rounded up Grauer and his supporters."
Voth nodded and said, "Yes, of course, Hans, good thinking, good thinking." The two men got into Steiner's loke.
As he pulled away from the house, Steiner felt sad for his colleague. Ordinarily, the Defense Minister would never have fallen for such an obvious lie. Ach, Horst, you and your wishful thinking!
Forward to FAN #134: Rocky Mountain Way.
Forward to 26 October 1974: En Vivo de Martinica.
Forward to Germany: Where Are They Right Now?
Return to For All Nails.