D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

a joyous abandon and a practiced hand. She was what his old Wehrmacht comrades would have called a Nerz, after the libidinous weasel-like mammals farmed for their luxurious pelts. That she also loved to wear mink coats was an irony not lost on Rainer.

They were married after a short engagement, and the wedding made the society pages of all the major papers. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it “a zestful and elegant affair.” But what surprised nearly every one of those invited to the ceremony was that Ilse was an intelligent, well-bred woman who had a great sense of humor, and knew how to throw a party.

Now, after two years of wedded bliss, Rainer was beginning to wonder if he would be able to keep up with her for much longer. Their lovemaking the night before had been as strenuous and as deeply satisfying as always, but now he felt like a pugilist’s punching bag: bruised and pummeled. He sighed, thinking that if she killed him with her appetites it would not be such a bad way to go.

Smiling again, he walked to the window, wincing when the muscle in his back spasmed yet again. He stifled a groan and focused his attention on the black Mercedes idling just inside the gate of his estate. Including the man in the house, and the two roamers on the grounds, the two men in the car brought the number to five. He’d hired them after the first of his old comrades had died mysteriously six months before. That crime remained unsolved, a seemingly random mugging.

Oh, these bastards were clever, he had to give them that. They were meticulous in making sure that every death appeared to be the work of a common criminal or the cruel hand of fate. Kleisner was only the most recent, and the most personal. He’d been a close and dear friend. Rainer had kept in touch with the others in Der Weisse Adler only sporadically. They never held reunions. Their secrets were still feared by many in power. Now, it looked as if their existence would no longer be tolerated.

How long could he hope to elude them? How long could he hope to remain alive?

He forced those questions from his mind, turned from the window, and limped into the bathroom, his bare feet slapping against the rose-colored Tuscan marble that covered the four hundred square foot expanse. He examined himself in the full-length mirror, appraising his physique with a critical eye:

Waist a still trim thirty-four inches.

Hair still full, though now a luxuriant white.

No ugly wattle under the chin.

All in all, not bad for nearly seventy.

He turned and stepped into the multi-nozzle Swedish shower and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature to just this side of scalding, and let the spray sluice over his aching flesh. It felt like a tiny bit of heaven.

While he lathered his body with the scented soap his wife insisted he use, he went over his schedule for the day: 9:00 meeting with his board of directors, 10:00 conference call with the Wehrmacht Veterans Association to help gain additional funds for disabled soldiers, 11:00 meeting with the engineers planning the new robotic production line, Noon lunch with Ilse. He smiled, remembering her lusty cries from the night before and felt himself growing hard.

Not now, you old fool.

Then again, why not? Men of his age had to count themselves lucky they could perform at all.

Rinsing off the soap lather, he turned the water cold, not surprised to find the old cold shower cliché had the desired effect. He toweled off and dressed in one of his charcoal gray double-breasted suits, accenting the robin’s-egg blue shirt with a yellow paisley “power tie.” He laughed at the American expression. Power had nothing to do with one’s tie, and everything to do with one’s actions.

He then snuck past Ilse’s still sleeping form and took the wide curving staircase down to the ground floor.

The house man, a thuggish-looking Westphalian named Rudi, sat at the kitchen table thumbing through the newspaper, a steaming cup of black Turkish coffee resting on the table next to his Hechler & Koch MP5K machine pistol with integral silencer. Rudi raised his dark eyes as Rainer entered the room and started to stand up. “Please, sit down,” Rainer said, motioning with his hand as he moved to the walk-in larder. “And please put the gun away. If we are attacked by marauding hordes, I think you will have time to draw it.”

“Sorry, Herr Rainer,” he said, slipping the “Hech” back into a shoulder harness.

As he did every morning, Rainer fixed himself a simple breakfast of Muesli cereal and hot black coffee. He joined Rudi at the small circular table and they conversed while he ate, each talking about the other’s experiences. Rainer nodded at the tiny demitasse cup filled with the acrid Turkish brew. “How can you drink that, Rudi? It tastes like something a camel spat up.”

Rudi shrugged, an easy smile softening his rough features. “Got used to it when I lived in Istanbul. Now, I can’t drink anything else.”

“You’re lucky there’s a Turkish contingent in the Fatherland, now. Otherwise, I’d think it would be hard to come by.”

Rudi nodded, his face suddenly clouding. “Maybe so, but I wish they’d stay home. Too many of ‘em here now.”

This last comment disturbed Rainer, not only because the young security man seemed like a pleasant fellow, but because it sounded exactly like the neo-Nazi drivel that so many of the young were spouting these days. Didn’t history teach them anything? Then again, perhaps it was human nature to trivialize the advice of one’s elders. Either way, it amounted to the same thing. Hate was making a comeback. Rainer decided to change