The Day After Tomorrow

158

OSBORN SAT for a long moment in silence, then raised the remote, pointed it toward the VCR in the cart under the TV and hit “play.” There was a click and a whirring sound, then the television screen flickered and an image appeared. The scene was a formal study with a straight-backed leather chair prominent in the foreground. A large desk was to the left with a wall of books to the right. A window, only partially visible behind the desk, provided most of the light. Several seconds passed and then Salettl walked in. He was wearing a dark blue suit and had his back to the camera. When he reached the chair, he turned and sat down.

“Please excuse this primitive introduction,” he said. “But I am alone and am operating the video camera myself.” Crossing his legs, he sat back and became more formal. “My name is Helmuth Salettl. I am a physician. My home is Salzburg, Austria, but I am, by birth, German. My age, as of this taping, is seventy-nine. When you view this, I will no longer be living.” Pausing, Salettl’s gaze into the camera sharpened. Seemingly to underscore the seriousness of what he had to say. The idea of his own death seemed to have no effect on him.

“What follows is a confession. To murder. To fanaticism. To invention. I hope you will excuse my English.

“In 1939 I was a young surgeon at Berlin University. Optimistic and perhaps arrogant, I was approached by a representative of the Reich chancellor and asked to become a member of an advisory council on advanced surgical practices. Later, as a member of the Nazi party and a group leader in the Schutzstaffel, the SS, I was promoted to the office of commissioner for public health. Some of this you may be aware of because it is public record. More detailed information can be found in the Federal Archives at Koblenz.”

Salettl paused and reached for a glass of water. Taking a sip, he put the glass down and turned back to the camera.

“In 1946,1 was put on trial at Nuremberg, charged with the crime of having prepared and carried out aggressive warfare. I was acquitted of those charges and soon after located to Austria, where I practiced internal medicine until my retirement at age seventy. Or, so it appeared. In truth, I continued to be a minister of the Reich, even though it had officially ceased to exist.

“In 1938, under the direction of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary, and later deputy Führer, a man who believed as Hitler believed that God will only help a nation that does not give up, set about doing just that—preserving the Third Reich. To that end he both created a program and a means to carry it out.

“It began with a costly, elaborate, and highly detailed socioeconomic and political projection of the future. Commissioning a wide range of experts who were told little or nothing about what they were working on or toward, Bormann was able, within two years, to make a highly speculative, yet, in hindsight, remarkably accurate forecast of the world situation from 1940 until the year 2000.

“Without going into detail, I will say, simply, that the work predicted the defeat of the Reich by the Allied armies, followed by the partition of Germany. The rise of the superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and the inevitable ‘Cold War’ and arms race that ensued. The development of Japan as an economic might, powered by a worldwide demand for superior automobiles and advanced technology. Included in this were four extremely important elements that would take place over nearly five decades: the ascent from the ashes of war of a West Germany that would become an industrial and economic bulwark with perhaps the most solid economy in the Western Hemisphere; a realized necessity of economic cooperation between the European states; the reunification of Germany, and lastly, that the arms race would bankrupt the Soviet Union and cause not only it, but the entire Soviet Bloc built in its wake, to crumble. In those studied assumptions, vastly oversimplified here, the seeds for the secret preservation of the Third Reich were sown.

“A clandestine organization—that always remained unnamed and is peopled by members in countries all over the world—was formed by a handful of wealthy and powerful German businesspersons, patriots and expatriates alike, who were resolutely dedicated to the Nazi cause but who had never been exposed. Over the years the Organization grew, its members carefully screened.

“The movement was to emerge slowly at first, as a small trickle within the German political right. Nationalism was its key word. The terms Reich, Aryan, Nazi were never used. It was to be done quietly and with careful calculation, driven by enormous wealth and popular influence across the broadest spectrum of German society, from left to right, from the elderly to the vibrant youth, from the successful businessperson to the intellectual to the displaced, to the uneducated and the unemployed. Then, as Germany reunited, the beat would become louder, a little more distinct, exploiting the confusion of reunification, the haves of the West against the have-nots of the former Communist East. A growing atmosphere of mistrust and anger would be fueled by a vast wave of immigrants pouring into Germany from the shattered remnants of the Soviet Bloc.

“And Germany was not all. For years we had been working covertly with singular, sympathetic movements inside the established governments of the European community. From France were to come the first rumblings. Others, similarly seeded, were to follow at our instruction.

“To show what we, as leaders, were capable of—done at first as a uniting point for ourselves, and then later, at the right moment when we chose to reveal it, for the rest of the world—we began on a highly ambitious technological program of our own.

“Constructed during the war was an experimental medical facility hidden deep beneath the city of Berlin. Structurally safe from Allied bombers, it was called The Garden. It was there, at der Garten, we would develop our fountainhead. The program was given a top-secret code name, ‘Übermorgen,’ ‘the day after tomorrow,’ symbol of the day the Reich would reemerge as a terrifying and dominant world power. This time our strength would be economic, the military would be used merely as a police force.”

Suddenly Osborn stopped the tape. His heart was pounding. He felt lightheaded, as if he were in a swoon and about to faint. Consciously he started breathing deeply, then got up and walked across the room. Turning back, he looked at the TV as if it had been playing a trick on him. But all he saw was a gray-white screen and the red glow of the VCR’s ready light.

“Übermorgen!” The day after tomorrow!

Salettl’s words hung like acid smoke in the quick of his mind. It wasn’t possible! It couldn’t be! He had to have heard incorrectly. Salettl must have said something else. Going back, he sat down and picked up the remote. Pointing it at the VCR, his thumb found “rewind.” The machine whirred. Immediately he hit “stop.” Then, taking a breath, hit “play.”

“—der Garten, we would develop our fountainhead.” Salettl came to life. “The program was given a top-secret code name, ‘Übermorgen! the day after tomorrow.”

Osborn’s thumb slipped off the control and the picture froze where it was.

His mind flashed to the Jungfrau. He saw Von Holden standing above him, the machine pistol pointed at his chest. He heard himself ask the why of his father’s death and then heard Von Holden’s reply.

“Für Übermorgen! he said. “For the day after tomorrow!”

If that part of his experience had been a dream, an hallucination, how could he have known those words? By Salettl’s admission, they were top secret. Known only to the Organization and zealously guarded. And so the answer was, he wouldn’t. Unless—Von Holden had actually told him. And for Von Holden to have told him, Osborn would have had to have experienced a true out-of-body journey.

Remmer had said the dogs found him. And he’d seen Vera in the station after his rescue. Yet, either in dream or reality, he was certain she’d been on the mountain. Could she have gone out there and then come back before the police arrived? And how could she have found Von Holden even if she had? Osborn’s mind swirled. Could it have been possible? His thumb touched “replay” and he watched Salettl again. And then again. And again. Übermorgen was the deepest secret within the Organization and had been for fifty years. How could he know about it if Von Holden hadn’t told him? The more he thought about it, the more things became real and less a dream.

Unnerved and energized, Osborn looked to the screen once more. His thumb hit “play” and again he saw Salettl come to life.

“The rebirth of the Reich from the dead was to be symbolized by our own manipulation of life’s process,” he Continued. “Transplants of human organs had been performed or years. But no one had transplanted a human head. That’s what we set, out to do. And finally, what we did.

“The critical juncture came in 1963 when eighteen males were selected from thousands unknowingly tested. The criterion was that they be as close a match to the genetic fingerprint of Adolf Hitler as possible—personality characteristics, physical and psychological makeup, et cetera. None had any idea of what was happening to them, some were allowed to rise, as Hitler rose, from obscurity to power, others were left on their own so that we might observe their growth in the natural scheme of things. Their ages spanned more than a decade, thereby giving us time to experiment, to fail and then to make adjustments. Ten days after a subject reached his fifty-sixth birthday, he was injected with a powerful sedative. His head was severed and deep-frozen, his body was cremated. Very soon afterward his family—” Salettl paused, and one could see his personal hurt surface, then he collected himself and went on. “—his family, or anyone closely allied with him, either died in an accident or simply disappeared, thereby removing any connecting traces.

“As I have said, many experiments failed. Then, with the man you know as Elton Lybarger, we were successful. The celebration at Charlottenburg is to be a demonstration of that success. And the faithful of the party. The highest ranking, the most committed, all fully aware of the history of “the plan, are to attend.

“To reach this fantastic pinnacle took fifty years. Over that time, many innocent people who unknowingly helped us were put to death because we dared not leave a trail. We hired professional murderers to kill them and then our own security killed the killers. We had an enormous number of ordinary people working for us. Some who peripherally believed in the Aryan cause, others who were bullied or beaten into working for it, still others who were on legitimate business payrolls and had no idea what they were doing. The process, as I have said, took fifty years. And when at last we succeeded, the time was ripe for the second phase of Übermorgen.

Second phase? Osborn’s heart skipped a beat. He slid his chair closer to the screen.

“We had raised two young men, twin brothers. We sent them to the finest academic institutions and then, in the years just prior to reunification, we sent them to the Eastern sector’s elite College for Physical Culture in Leipzig. Genetically engineered, pure Aryan from birth, they are today among the finest physical specimens alive. At age twenty-four, each is ready and eager to make the supreme sacrifice.

“The presentation of Elton Lybarger at Charlottenburg will be a scientific and spiritual affirmation of our intent. Proof of our commitment to the rebirth of the Reich. At the end of the festivity, a second ceremony is scheduled to take place in the mausoleum on the palace grounds in the company of only the most select guests. There, one of the two boys will be chosen to take Lybarger’s place and become the messiah for the new Reich. At the moment of choosing, Lybarger is to be killed by the chosen boy who will then be prepared for the surgical operation that will, within two years, make him our leader.

“Myself, Erwin Scholl, Gustav Dortmund and Uta Baur are the elder members of the inner circle. We are the ones who carried on after Nuremberg, after Martin Bormann, Himmler and the rest.

“In fifty years Scholl, Dortmund and Uta Baur have grown rich and powerful, while I have stayed in the background to oversee the experiments. In fifty years they have become old and, as we neared fruition, exceedingly cruel and filled with conceit.

“The success of the Lybarger transplant enabled Scholl to pick a date for his presentation at Charlottenburg. That left seven of those originally selected still alive but no longer needed. It was Scholl’s directive to kill them in the manner of the others but instead of cremating the bodies to leave them scattered across Europe. Their families were, left unharmed to suffer in anguish, while the media had a, field day covering the gruesome murders for the public. It was disdain at its highest flung in the face of the world. Human life became nothing when it no longer served the Organization. To Scholl it was a glorious echo of the past. One, he was certain, that would soon come again.

“In fifty years, I have had time to reflect on what we have done. What we are doing. What the future holds. We attempted the impossible and succeeded. That very fact is “testimony to our skills. Working in almost total isolation from the rest of the world we developed a process of atomic surgery utilizing a supercold technology unheard of in modern medicine or modern physics. Its purpose was to show our brilliance. Our ingenuity. That in a world craving more and more technology, no one could match us. Not the Japanese. Not the Americans. The marketplace would be ours without question. And that this was only “the beginning.”

“But—” Abruptly, as if a shroud had suddenly fallen, Salettl became pensive and somber. In a matter of seconds he seemed to age a decade. “The objective behind what we were doing was the same that led to the death of six million Jews and to the deaths of uncountable millions more on a thousand battlefields and in a thousand towns under falling bombs. The same machination that left the great cities of Europe in ruins.

“I stood in the dock at Nuremberg in 1946 surrounded “by many who had caused it. Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Von Papen, Jodl, Raeder, Donitz—once proud and contemptuous, they were now old, dreary and muddled men. Standing with them, I remembered a warning I received not to go to the Vernichtungslager, the extermination camps. Don’t go because you will not be permitted to describe what you have seen there. Well, I did go. To Auschwitz. And the warning was correct. Not because I was not permitted to describe what I had seen but because I could not describe what I had seen. The piles of glasses. The piles of shoes. The piles of bones. The piles of human hair. I thought that I had never seen the kind of thinking that did this, that I had never seen this kind of reality. Not in movies, not in theater. Yet it was real.

“And here was I, a key member of a secret underground, plotting, even before its demise, its rebirth. It was hideous. Impossible. But had I spoken out or tried to leave, I would have been shot and it would have gone on anyway. So I decided to say nothing and let it grow into adulthood, at the same time raising myself to a rank above suspicion. Then, at the proper time, I would destroy it.

“The German writer Günter Grass has said that we, as Germans, must understand ourselves. We are perhaps the finest technical craftsmen history has ever known. We are capable of making miracles. But nothing we ever do can escape Auschwitz or Treblinka or Birkenau or Sobibór or any of the others, because they are ours, they belong to us—they are in our soul, and we must know what they are, and understand why, and never—ever—allow it to happen again.

“By the time you view this everything we have created will have been destroyed. The new Reich will have been ended. At Charlottenburg. At der Garten. At the station in Switzerland, hidden in the recesses of the glacier beneath Jungfraujoch.

“There will be no Übermorgen.”

With that Salettl simply stood, walked past the camera and out of sight. A moment later the screen went black.