Once inside the building, which was gloomily lit and drearily inst.i.tutional, the predominance of immaculate black uniforms, gleaming boots, and blond hair made it obvious that this was SS headquarters.
One of the female prisoners started weeping and a man crossed himself, but Wilson, as he had done that morning, took it as a good sign that he was in the hands of the SS, which he had wanted, and not the Gestapo.
The prisoners in handcuffs were led away. Wilson and the others were told to sit on the wooden benches lining the walls of a gloomy corridor. A golden-haired SS sergeant took their ident.i.ty papers, disappeared through a door, and returned shortly after to lead Wilson away from where he had been sitting, between the dark-eyed Jewish woman and the unshaven Frenchman who had constantly murmured to G.o.d for deliverance. Glad to be rid of them, Wilson was even more pleased when he was escorted into an office and made to stop before the desk of a man he recognized from his many photographs in the newspapers: the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.
He did not raise his head when Wilson was escorted in, but continued to study the papers on his desk. Wilson recognized his own handwriting and the technical sketches he had included with his lengthy letter, and smiled, feeling pleased with himself, until Himmler looked up at him.
Wilson immediately removed the smile from his face and looked deeply respectful.
Himmler sighed, as if weary. He had bland, decent features, a neatly trimmed moustache, and gray-blue eyes whose mildness was emphasized by his glistening pince-nez spectacles. He was a man without vanity or cruelty or l.u.s.t, but Wilson knew, the minute he saw those eyes, that he was also quite mad.
It was what Wilson needed.
"So," Himmler said, "you are Wilson John Wilson an American citizen."
"Yes, Herr Himmler," Wilson replied in perfect German.
"Reichsfhrer," Himmler corrected him mildly.
"Sorry, Reichsfhrer."
"You"ve been living in Germany, under an a.s.sumed name and with forged German identification papers, for the past three years. This is correct?"
"Yes, Reichsfhrer."
"And as this fict.i.tious German citizen, you"ve been doing important research work on advanced gyroscopic controls with the subsonic wind-tunnel at the Zeppelin Works in Friedrichshafen."
"Yes, sir."
Himmler offered a slight, chilling smile. "You realize, Herr Wilson, that these are criminal offences that you could even be labelled as a spy and executed accordingly."
"My purpose isn"t spying, Reichsfhrer, as the notes and drawings I sent you clearly prove."
"Ah, yes... the notes and drawings." Himmler adjusted the spectacles on his nose and glanced down at Wilson"s papers. When he raised his eyes again, he was still smiling in that slight, chilling manner. "What these notes prove, Mr Wilson, according to my aeronautical advisers, is that you are an extraordinarily brilliant physicist and engineer. What they fail to prove is that you are not here on behalf of your government. In other words, as a spy."
"I have no reason to love the American government and my only interest in life is my work. That"s why I"m here."
Himmler stared steadily at him, with a cold curiosity, then smiled bleakly and indicated the chair in front of his desk. "Please," he said. "Be seated. Can I fetch you some tea?"
"No, thanks," Wilson said as he sat down and studied the powerful, soft-faced lunatic across the desk. "I drink as little as possible."
"And hardly eat, so I"ve been informed. Does that explain your remarkably youthful appearance?"
"It helps," Wilson said, not forgetting for a moment that Himmler, former fertilizer salesman and chicken farmer, was quietly obsessed with all kinds of esoteric theories, including astrology and runes, the secret of the pyramids, the spirit of the eternal Wandervogel, Horbiger"s world of ice and fire, and, of course, the magical properties of certain diets. "I eat and drink only the bare minimum," he clarified, "though I find that the odd gla.s.s of white wine can be beneficial."
"You speak flawless German," Himmler said. "When and where did you learn it?"
"I learnt it here, in Germany, Reichsfhrer."
Himmler raised his eyebrows to display his scepticism.
"Here, Mr Wilson? In the Fatherland? In a mere three years? I would think that even a child, let alone a man your age, would have trouble in being so fluent in our difficult tongue after such a short period."
"I have a retentive memory," Wilson explained, "and I learned it in three years. We didn"t even learn French in Iowa, let alone German. I"ve learnt it since coming here."
He was impatient with the question, since languages came easily to him. He had never experienced difficulty in learning anything, so could not abide ignorance. And languages, compared to mathematics or science, were merely child"s play.
"Ah, yes," Himmler said, forgetting the vexing question of language. "Iowa! The heartland of America. Which is where you came from."
"Yes," Wilson confirmed, remembering the rolling plains, the cold winters and long hot summers, his parents working in fields of corn between sunrise and sunset while he, who could never stand the place, searched the distant horizon. He looked back with no emotion, simply recalling it from his mind, and retained no more feeling for that landscape than he did for his parents. He remembered them treating him kindly, but that didn"t mean much to him.
The past was a dead place.
Himmler nodded judiciously, glanced down at Wilson"s papers, picked some up and let them fall to the desk again, then spread the fingers of his delicate, almost feminine hands over them. "Naturally we"ve checked the details you gave us about your background and found them to be exactly as you stated. You"re a remarkable man, Mr Wilson, perhaps even extraordinary which would only make you all the more dangerous, should you not be what you say you are."
"I"m a scientist, Reichsfhrer. I want to get on with my work. I can"t do what I want to do in America, so I came here, to Germany, where I know that my particular kind of talent is much in demand. It"s as simple as that."