“Where can I take you to dinner, my dear?”
“Didn’t that member of the Japanese consulate invite us for something at their embassy?”
“So you are in the mood for their raw fish?”
The buzz and chatter of several conversations all across the room suddenly died in an instant.
With one hand in his coat pocket, and the other holding several oversized photographs, Adolf Hitler was standing in the doorway.
“You mean she and the Governor General never arrived in Warsaw?”
“No, sir. We were all to meet at his office, but his aide said they never arrived.”
Krafft’s eyes already had a cloudy dullness from lack of sleep and worry. Now this.
“Major Rusk said there were reports of the Polish underground cutting phone lines and destroying train tracks north of Warsaw… it might be…”
“Oh my, no!” Fesel said, acting as if he were worried. “I hope nothing has happened to Elaine and Hans Frank. Polish pigs…” The truth was, Fesel knew exactly where Elaine Krafft was, and what ‘excuse’ Governor General Frank would have when they finally arrived. Fesel also knew of the secret romantic encounter with Krafft and Ewa in the basement of the Polish castle.
Krafft said nothing. Since there was a war on, he naturally feared the worst.
Fesel correctly assessed Krafft’s emotional state and began twisting his manipulative screws.
“You don’t think Elaine and he…?”
“Elaine and he what?”
“I mean, if perhaps something happened to the train, they still might have managed to get off… somewhere.”
“They would have called us in Warsaw, they know we are waiting for them.”
Fesel left the room without a further comment.
Krafft’s mind wandered to all of the Governor General’s suggestive comments about Elaine from Frau Ney’s to their departing on the train station. His thoughts then shifted to guilt when recalling his encounters with Ewa Mann. Fesel’s plan to destroy Krafft emotionally began to take root. After leaving the Swiss astrologer alone in thought, Fesel returned with more news.
“We have called Thorn and they saw them get on the train after a delay. They should be here soon. Surely the Governor General of Poland can not get lost in Poland.”
Krafft was no more reassured, but said nothing further. His heart and mind were a mess.
“Come, the best medicine for worry is work and that we have plenty of it. Shall we get started?”
For the first time in quite a while, what Fesel said made perfect sense. Krafft also shared the theory that the best way to put worry or painful emotions out of your mind is with the needed work at hand.
“How is your English, Karl Ernst?”
“Proficient. Do you have English text as well to go through?”
“Not exactly, we are going to make some. When France falls, the British will be next. Since the British and Americans are so close, we will also have to make a special effort to psych out the Americans so they do not enter the war until we are ready for them.”
Fesel pulled out a stack of magazines that were resting on a shelf labeled ‘U.S.A.’ and placed them on the table before Karl Ernst.
“We found something you might be interested in seeing, it’s what the Americans are doing to you…”
Have you Americans really made that much progress on this underwater radar?” Admiral Payne said quite surprised, but pleased. Catching a U-Boat above the water was greatly enhanced by radar, and to now be able to do the same while these German raiders were underwater would change the war.
“Yes sir, Admiral.” Answered Captain Larry Boyle, the U.S. Navy’s attaché to British Naval Command. “We’ll have it for you as soon as the prototype is refined for production.”
The Admiral breathed a sigh of relief.
Boyle’s arrival to British Naval Command lifted the mood of the entire department, offering hope for England’s precarious situation, and a spark of light for Admiral Payne’s personal uncertainty.
A loud gasp caught the attention of everyone on the patio of the exclusive country club.
“Ella!” General Edward Owens blurted out in complete surprise. “Can you really see all that? Just by looking in my hands?”
“Hands, dear Eddy, are like open books.” The elder woman answered, as if to a little boy instead of to one of the highest-ranking officers of British High command. Lady Ella Hightower was a favorite personality among the higher echelon of military and diplomatic circles.
“Just like your grandfather!” Laughed General Owens.
Her grandfather, Lord Charles “The Grand Magician” Thomas Gordon Hightower, fell at the Battle of Calunga in India. Some say his planning and secret deals with the Gurkha leadership was pivotal in saving the Empire’s interests in India during the tense uprisings in the early 1800’s.
“Never some mumbo jumbo philosophies like the others, always a direct answer.” Owens mused. “Honestly, Ella, how could you see this decision I must make? It’s top secret!”
“See it? Good heavens, Eddy, you have been talking about nothing else all week! How could I not know about it?”
The entire room roared with laughter. “She’s got you on that one, Sir Edward.” A voice echoed from a distant table.
General Owens looked around the room with a shocked look on his face.
“What the…?” Were the only words his lips could manage to push out. “I… uh… Oh, my word!” Owens stammered, then laughed. “Was I really that obvious?” At the next table Sir Edward raised his glass. “Jolly good show, Ella, jolly good… very witty indeed!”
“To Ella, the sorceress! Cheers!” The others in the room chimed in and raised their glasses as well.
The roots of the Hightower family could be traced back to the Celts, and every generation was claimed to have at least one member who passed down a special ‘power’.
Lord Charles “The Grand Magician” Thomas Gordon Hightower’s son, Zigmund, could also create illusions and ‘magically’ manipulate situations that, of course, were also very useful in his own military campaigns and operations while in India.
His regiment was once trapped and surrounded within an Afghan village near Kabul in 1883 when he was just a captain. The Afghan prince had several cannon looking down from the ridges and outnumbered the diminished British force 4 to 1.
The ‘Little Magician’ managed to pull off a daring escaped by covering himself with the intestines of a dead horse, and then, looking like a monster, approached a detachment of Afghans guarding one of the paths out of the mountains.
Thinking they were seeing a personification of death, the terrified Afghans fled and the Captain and his men were able to escape certain death.
“Who is that woman?” The American asked Admiral Payne.
“Lady Hightower?” She is the daughter in a long line of heroes and master tacticians.”
“Will you introduce me?” Boyle said with great interest.
“What? Isn’t she a bit old for you, my boy?” The Admiral joked. “Besides I hardly know her, why is it you wish to meet her?”
“Well,” Boyle said while raising his hand palms up and spreading his fingers. “I’ve always wanted to have my palm read. Let’s see if she can say something about me, after all, she does not know a thing about me.”