The Holcroft Covenant
For Michael and Laura—
A lovely, talented, wonderful couple.
Prologue
MARCH 1945
The hull of the submarine was lashed to the huge pilings, a behemoth strapped in silhouette, the sweeping lines of its bow arcing into the light of the North Sea dawn.
The base was on the island of Scharhörn, in the Helgoland Bight, several miles from the German mainland and the mouth of the Elbe River. It was a refueling station never detected by Allied Intelligence and, in the cause of security, little known among the strategists of the German High Command itself. The undersea marauders came and went in darkness, emerging and submerging within several hundred feet of the moorings. They were Neptune’s assassins, come home to rest or going forth to press their attacks.
On this particular dawn, however, the submarine lashed to the dock was doing neither. For it, the war was over, its assignment intrinsic to the origins of another war.
Two men stood in the well of the conning tower, one in the uniform of a commanding officer of the German Navy, the other a tall civilian in a long dark overcoat—the collar turned up to ward off the North Sea winds—yet hatless, as if to defy the North Sea winter. Both looked down at the long line of passengers who slowly made their way toward the gangplank amidships. As each passenger reached the plank, a name was checked off against a list, and then he or she was led—or carried—aboard a submarine.
A few walked by themselves, but they were the exceptions. They were the oldest, some having reached their twelfth or thirteenth birthdays.
The rest were children. Infants in the arms of stern-faced army nurses, who surrendered their charges to a unit of navy doctors at the plank; preschoolers, and early graders clutching identical traveling kits and one another’s hands, peering up at the strange black vessel that was to be their home for weeks to come.
«Incredible,» said the officer. «Simply incredible.»
«It’s the beginning,» replied the man in the overcoat, his sharp, angular features rigid. «Word comes from everywhere. From the ports and the mountain passes, from the remaining airfields all over the Reich. They go out by the thousands. To every part of the world. And people are waiting for them. Everywhere.»
«An extraordinary accomplishment,» said the officer, shaking his head in awe.
«This is only one part of the strategy. The entire operation is extraordinary.»
«It’s an honor to have you here.»
«I wanted to be. This is the last shipment.» The tall civilian kept his eyes on the dock below. «The Third Reich is dying. These are its rebirth. These are the Fourth Reich. Unencumbered by mediocrity and corruption. These are the Sonnenkinder. All over the world.»
«The children …»
«The Children of the Damned,» said the tall man, interrupting. «They are the Children of the Damned, as millions will be. But none will be like these. And these will be everywhere.»
1
JANUARY 197—
«Attention! Le train de sept heures à destination de Zurich partira du quai numéro douze.»
The tall American in the dark-blue raincoat glanced up at the cavernous dome of the Geneva railway station, trying to locate the hidden speakers. The expression on his sharp, angular face was quizzical; the announcement was in French, a language he spoke but little and understood less. Nevertheless, he was able to distinguish the word Zurich; it was his signal. He brushed aside the light-brown hair that fell with irritating regularity over his forehead and started for the north end of the station.
The crowds were heavy. Bodies rushed past the American in all directions, hurrying to the gates to begin their journeys to scores of different destinations. None seemed to pay attention to the harsh announcements that echoed throughout the upper chambers in a continuous metallic monotone. The travelers in Geneva’s Bahnhof knew where they were going. It was the end of the week; the new mountain snows had fallen and the air outside was crisp and chilling. There were places to go, schedules to keep, and people to see; time wasted was time stolen. Everyone hurried.
The American hurried, too, for he also had a schedule to keep and a person to see. He had learned before the announcement that the train for Zurich would leave from track twelve. According to the plan, he was to walk down the ramp to the platform, count seven cars from the rear, and board at the first entrance. Inside, he was to count again, this time five compartments, and knock twice on the fifth door. If everything was in order, he would be admitted by a director of La Grande Banque de Genève, signifying the culmination of twelve weeks of preparations. Preparations that included purposely obscured cablegrams, transatlantic calls made and received on telephones the Swiss banker had determined were sterile, and a total commitment to secrecy.
He did not know what the director of La Grande Banque de Genève had to say to him, but he thought he knew why the precautions were deemed necessary. The American’s name was Noel Holcroft, but Holcroft had not been his name at birth. He was born in Berlin in the summer of 1939, and the name on the hospital registry was «Clausen.» His father was Heinrich Clausen, master strategist of the Third Reich, the financial magician who put together the coalition of disparate economic forces that insured the supremacy of Adolf Hitler.
Heinrich Clausen won the country but lost a wife. Althene Clausen was an American; more to the point, she was a headstrong woman with her own standards of ethics and morality. She had deduced that the National Socialists possessed neither; they were a collection of paranoiacs, led by a maniac, and supported by financiers interested solely in profits.
Althene Clausen gave her husband an ultimatum on a warm afternoon in August: Withdraw. Stand against the paranoiacs and the maniac before it was too late. In disbelief, the Nazi listened and laughed and dismissed his wife’s ultimatum as the foolish ravings of a new mother. Or perhaps the warped judgment of a woman brought up in a weak, discredited system that would soon march to the step of the New Order. Or be crushed under its boot.
That night the new mother packed herself and the new child and took one of the last planes to London, the first leg on her journey back to New York. A week later the Blitzkrieg was executed against Poland; the Thousand Year Reich had begun its own journey, one that would last some fifteen hundred days from the first sound of gunfire.
Holcroft walked through the gate, down the ramp, and on to the long concrete platform.
Four, five, six, seven… The seventh car had a small blue circle stenciled beneath the window to the left of the open door. It was the symbol of accommodations superior to those in first class: enlarged compartments properly outfitted for conferences in transit or clandestine meetings of a more personal nature. Privacy was guaranteed; once the train was moving, the doors at either end of the car were manned by armed railway guards.
Holcroft entered and turned left into the corridor. He walked past successive closed doors until he reached the fifth. He knocked twice.
«Herr Holcroft?» The voice behind the wood panel was firm but quiet, and although the two words were meant as a question, the voice was not questioning. It made a statement.
«Herr Manfredi?» said Noel in reply, suddenly aware that an eye was peering at him through the pinpoint viewer in the center of the door. It was an eerie feeling, diminished by the comic effect. He smiled to himself and wondered if Herr Manfredi would look like the sinister Conrad Veidt in one of those 1930s English films.
There were two clicks of a lock, followed by the sound of a sliding bolt. The door swung back and the image of Conrad Veidt vanished. Ernst Manfredi was a short, rotund man in his middle to late sixties. He was completely bald, with a pleasant, gentle face; but the wide blue eyes, magnified beyond the metal-framed glasses, were cold. Very light blue and very cold.