Lightning

Valhalla.
    He wanted to kill Stefan Krieger personally, not only because that would win
der Führer's
favor but because Krieger
was
the Aryan ideal, blond and blue-eyed, every feature truly Nordic, and from fine breeding stock. With every advantage, the hateful Krieger had chosen to betray his
Führer
, and that enraged Klietmann, who had to labor toward greatness under the burden of mongrel genes.
    Now, with little more than two minutes left before the research team would return through the gate from 1989, Klietmann looked at his three subordinates, all dressed as young executives of another age, and he felt both a fierce and a sentimental pride in them so strong it almost brought tears to his eyes.
    They had all come from humble beginnings.
Unterscharführer
Felix Hubatsch, Klietmann's sergeant and second in command of the unit, was the son of an alcoholic lathe operator and a slattern mother, both of whom he despised.
Rottenführer
Rudolph von Manstein was the son of a poor farmer whose lifetime of failure shamed him, and
Rottenführer
Martin Bracher was an orphan. In spite of coming from four different corners of Germany, the two corporals, the sergeant, and lieutenant Klietmann shared one thing that made them as close as brothers: They understood that a man's truest, deepest, and dearest relationship was not to his family but to the state, to the fatherland, and to their leader in whom the fatherland was embodied; the state was the only family that mattered; this single bit of wisdom elevated them and made them worthy fathers of the superrace to come.
    Klietmann discreetly dabbed at the corners of his eyes with his thumb, blotting the nascent tears that he was not able to suppress.
    In one minute the research team would return.
    The machinery clicked and hummed.
4
    At three o'clock, Friday afternoon, January 13, a white pickup entered the rainswept motel lot, came straight to the rear wing, and parked next to the Buick that bore a Nissan's license plates. The truck was about five or six years old. The passenger-side door was dented, and that rocker panel was spotted with rust. The owner was evidently refinishing the pickup in a patchwork fashion, because some spots had been sanded and primed but not yet repainted.
    Laura watched the truck from behind the barely parted drapes at the motel-room window. She held the Uzi in one hand at her side.
    The truck's headlights blinked off, and its windshield wipers stopped, and a moment later a woman with frizzy blond hair got out and walked to the door of Laura's unit. She rapped three times.
    Chris was standing behind the door, looking at his mother.
    Laura nodded.
    Chris opened the door and said, "Hi, Aunt Thelma. Jeez, that's an ugly wig."
    Stepping inside, hugging Chris fiercely, Thelma said, "Well, thanks a lot. And what would you say if I told you that was a monumentally ugly nose you were born with, but you're stuck with it, while I'm not stuck with the wig? Huh? What would you say then?"
    Chris giggled. "Nothing. 'Cause I know I've got a cute nose."
    "Cute nose? God, kid, you've got an actor's ego." She let go of him, glanced at Stefan Krieger, who was sitting in one of the chairs near the TV set, then turned to Laura. "Shane, did you see the heap I pulled up in? Am I clever? As I was getting in my Mercedes, I said to myself, Thelma—I call myself Thelma—I said, Thelma, isn't it going to draw a hell of a lot of attention at that sleazy motel when you pull up in a sixty-five-thousand-dollar car? So I tried to borrow the butler's car, but you know what
he
drives? A Jaguar. Is Beverly Hills the Twilight Zone, or what? So I had to borrow the gardener's truck. But here I am, and what do you think of this disguise?"
    She was wearing a kinky blond wig glittering with droplets of rain, horn-rimmed glasses, and a pair of false dentures that gave her an overbite.
    "You look better this way," Laura said, grinning.
    Thelma popped out the fake teeth. "Listen, once I turned up a set of wheels that wouldn't draw attention, I realized that I'd draw some attention myself, being a major star and everything. And since the media's already dug up the fact that you and I are friends and have tried to ask me some pointed questions about you, the famous machine-gun-packing authoress, I decided to come incognito." She dropped her purse and the stage teeth on the bed. "This getup was for a new character I created in my nightclub act, tried it about eight times at Bally's in Vegas. It was