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“Good. I have nothing but the utmost faith in your team.” Halstead smiled, nodded to the others, and started for the door with Goebbels in tow.
############“So what is so important, Herr Minister, that you use your cabinet status to fly onto a restricted base to meet me?” Halstead asked with closed eyes directed against the pleasant sunshine as he and Goebbels marched to Block Two with a squad of guards following just out of earshot. “General Leonard Wood has been nominated for president by the American Republican party.” Halstead’s stride broke and faltered, but he kept moving in the direction of the second gray monolith. “That’s quite a bit of a surprise,” he asked with an ill-concealed tremor in his voice. “Who is his running mate?” “A Calvin Coolidge, mein Führer. The Governor of Massachusetts—” “Yes, yes, I know who Coolidge is. ‘Silent Cal’ will not be a problem, though General Wood certainly might be. Any friend of that madman Roosevelt’s is someone to be reckoned with. I was so certain that it would be Harding.” This last sentence was uttered away from his companion, to the thin air above the runway that the two men followed to their destination. “Yes, that is what our intelligence reports might have said, but you, of all people, mein Führer, should know how unpredictable politics may be. If I may be frank, mein Führer, your agitation of the outlying Germans might have tipped things towards a candidate who would be less passive in international affairs.” “What exactly do you mean, Paul?” |