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“But how—” Halstead cut off the perplexed voice with a wave of his hand. “Do not ask how I know all about you. Only know that I have come to bring justice to an unjust world.” Halstead took a step toward his host and leaned forward so that their views were only a pair of feet apart. “And you, my good friend, will be my right hand man on the path of justice!” The guest stood erect and looked down at his host’s left leg. “You were not born with a club foot: you contracted osteomyelitis when you were seven.” Halstead took a step back to stand stock still in the center of the room with his hands crossed on his chest and to return the younger man’s stare. “I do not pretend to imagine how it must have felt that autumn of Nineteen Fourteen to have watched all the other men march off to war, and to be left behind to live a life of frustration. I imagine you almost wished you had been able to die in the trenches, to have been able to escape a fate worse than death, a life of quiet dying.” Halstead leaned forward once more, his hands on his thighs. “I know you want to be a writer. I know you’re planning to write an autobiographical novel once you finish school. Come with me to Munich and write for me. I need a man such as yourself.” Goebbels, his eyes still staring at the man before him, took two limps to the door, then turned in its direction. “Let’s leave now. I’ll tell my mother.” Halstead laughed to himself in the center of the silent room. |