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Garden of Beasts

Garden of Beasts

Titel: Garden of Beasts Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jeffery Deaver
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quickly.”
    “Gunni at my child-school and I ran a race from the oak tree to the porch and he’s two years older than I but I won.”
    “Good, good. Then you will enjoy the afternoon. You’ll come with me and you can run on the same track that our Olympians will race on. Then when we see the Games next week you can tell everyone that you ran on the same track. Won’t that be fun?”
    “Oh, yes, Opa.”
    “I have to go now. But I’ll return at noontime and pick you up.”
    “I’ll practice running.”
    “Yes, you do that.”
    Ernst walked to his den, collected several files on the Waltham Study, then found his wife in the pantry. He told her that he would pick up Rudy later that day. And for now? Yes, yes, it was Sunday morning but still he had to attend to some important matters. And, no, they couldn’t wait.
    •   •   •
    Whatever else they said about him, Hermann Göring was tireless.
    Today, for instance, he’d arrived at his desk in the air ministry at 8 A.M. A Sunday, no less. And he’d had a stop to make on the way.
    Sweating furiously, he had marched into the Chancellory a half hour before that, making his way to Hitler’s office. Itwas possible that Wolf was awake— still awake, that is. An insomniac, the man often stayed up past dawn. But, no, the Leader was in bed. The guard reported that he’d retired about five, with instructions not to be disturbed.
    Göring had thought for a moment then jotted a note and left it with the guard.
    My Leader,
    I have learned of a matter of concern at the highest level. Betrayal might be involved. Significant future plans are at stake. I will relate this information in person as soon as it suits.
    Göring
    Good choice of words. “Betrayal” was always a trigger. The Jews, the Communists, the Social Democrats, the Republicans—the backstabbers, in short—had sold out the country to the Allies at the end of the War and still threatened to play Pilate to Hitler’s Jesus.
    Oh, Wolf got hot when he heard that word.
    “Future plans” was good, as well. Anything that threatened setbacks to Hitler’s vision of the Third Empire would get the man’s immediate attention.
    Though the Chancellory was merely around the corner, it had been unpleasant to make the trip, a large man on a hot morning. But Göring’d had no choice. He couldn’t telephone or send a runner; Reinhard Ernst wasn’t a competent enough intriguer to have his own intelligence network to spy on colleagues but any number of others would be delighted to steal Göring’s revelation about Ludwig Keitel’s Jewish background and hand it to the Leader as if it were their own discovery. Goebbels, for instance, Göring’s chief rival for Wolf’s attention, would do so in a heartbeat.
    Now, close to 9 A.M. , the minister was turning his attention to a discouragingly large file about Aryanizing a large chemical company in the west and folding it into the Hermann Göring Works. His phone buzzed.
    From the anteroom his aide answered. “Minister Göring’s office.”
    The minister leaned forward and looked out. He could see the man standing to attention as he spoke. The aide hung up and walked to the doorway. “The Leader will see you in a half hour, sir.”
    Göring nodded and walked to the table across his office. He sat and served himself food from the heaped-high tray. The aide poured coffee. The air minister flipped through the financial information on the chemical company but he had trouble concentrating; the image that kept emerging from the charts of numbers was of Reinhard Ernst being led from the Chancellory by two Gestapo officers, a look of bewilderment and defeat on the colonel’s otherwise irritatingly placid face.
    A frivolous fantasy, to be sure, but it provided some pleasant diversion while he scarfed down a huge plate of sausage and eggs.

Chapter Twenty-One
    In a spacious but dusty and unkempt Krausen Street apartment, which had been in existence from the days of Bismarck and Wilhelm, a half kilometer southeast of the government buildings, two young men sat at an ornate dining room table. For hours they’d been engaged in a debate. The discussion had been lengthy and fervent because the subject was nothing less than their survival.
    As with so many matters nowadays the ultimate question they’d been wrestling with was that of trust.
    Would the man deliver them to salvation, or would they be betrayed and pay for that gullibility with their lives?
    Tink, tink,

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