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Halstead laughed, forcing a smile from his subject. “Well, no one can blame you for that. What of your mother?” “German, through and through. My father left just before the war started. My mother refused to go with him, and she and I stayed behind in Cologne.” Halstead stared at her for a moment, his mouth covered by a hand set atop an elbow on the table between them. “And are you glad you stayed in Germany? In the country that lost, that suffered through so much?” “Yes, mein Führer, yes,” the woman replied emphatically. “I love my Fatherland.” Halstead stared into her eyes with his burning set, and reached down and out to place a hand on those set atop a skirted and crossed leg. “How much do you love your country?” Alabaster swallowed once more. “I’ll do anything for the Fatherland.” She took his hand in hers. “Anything.”
############Halstead set his hands firmly across both of the corners at his end of the table in the Chancellery which now witnessed the first meeting of the new dictator and his “Cabinet.” “I want to thank all of you men for gathering here on this beautiful first day of spring.” Halstead slowly removed his hands from the stained oak and rose to his full height above the seated ministers of his government. “A spring day, and a Monday at that, is an excellent metaphor for the new beginning the German nation is embarking upon.” Halstead stepped away from his end of the table and began pacing the room with his hands held tightly behind his back. “The first order of business is to make Germany strong economically once more. Doctor Schacht.” |