a mental note to see his doctor soon; if this was a sign his senses had started to slip, he wanted to know about it right away. He preferred to think that his inattention was the residue of the excitement he was feeling, and nothing more.
“You’ve contacted HARBOR and BOREALIS?”
“Yes, sir. Their offices are closed at the moment, due to the lateness of the hour.” Given all of Skorzeny’s high-tech toys, what the old man wanted with this sort of thing was beyond him. Still, one of the ways Skorzeny was able to keep absolute communications security was through a network of microsatellites, which had been launched into geosynchronous orbit from high-altitude airplanes, so weather balloons probably had some practical use that he could not see. In any case, Pilier’s job was to execute, not wonder.
“Thank you.”
He tried not to let his excitement show, tried to control his emotions, even when they were responding to the beginning of the realization of his lifelong dream.
Ambition in a child is fueled by many things—parental expectation, want, force majeure, disaster—but Emanuel Skorzeny’s ambition was born of Sippenhaft : collective responsibility for actions of a family member. In the wake of the failed attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life on July 20, 1944, not only the conspirators suffered, so did their families. Some were executed, most were separated and sent to special camps, where the mothers died but where their children’s identities were expunged, where all memories of the sins of their fathers were extirpated, where they were allowed to live, albeit with new names and new souls. Emanuel Skorzeny was one of those children.
Skorzeny’s father died twisting at the end of some piano wire, but he himself was spared and sent by reason of Sippenhaft to purdah or, in his case, a camp near Dresden. On February 13, 1945, the jewel of the Elbe was liberated by “Bomber” Harris of the RAF, with American support, and the camp was demolished. He was in, of all places, the outhouse at the time of the attack and thus survived when the barracks took a direct hit.
There were those who whispered that he was the illegitimate son of Otto Skorzeny himself, the great Standarten-führer who had rescued Mussolini from the partisans. He let them think that: it made the story of his life so much more…redemptive.
Pilier strapped himself into his seat as the plane went into a steep descent. “Sir?” he reminded.
“In a moment, Monsieur Pilier.” Skorzeny’s fingers flew; for an old man, thought Pilier, he could handle himself around technology like a teenager. As Pilier watched, Skorzeny put on a headset to eliminate the noise of the plane’s engines and began to speak softly. Pilier couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he knew whom he was talking to: Amanda Harrington, who should be waiting for them in Paris.
Skorzeny finished his conversation and shut down the system. One of the conditions he was forced to accept when he bribed the French minister of the interior was to switch it off in French airspace. No matter how well shielded it was, it would not do to be discovered, and not wishing to annoy a duly appointed official of his host country, especially given his special needs within that host country, Skorzeny had reluctantly agreed. He prided himself on keeping his word.
“Do you read the Bible, Monsieur Pilier?”
Where that question came from, Pilier didn’t want to know. He braced himself for a new and strange line of inquiry. “You know I don’t, sir,” said Pilier. He was a good French Catholic, which meant that he never attended mass.
“What about the Apocrypha? The Gnostic Gospels? Surely, Revelation?”
Where was the crazy old coot going with this? “No, sir.”
“The vision of St. John, a masterpiece of speculative superstition that some mistake for dogma. A book of visions, signs, terror, and wonders. Of the End Times. ‘And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed
“You’ve contacted HARBOR and BOREALIS?”
“Yes, sir. Their offices are closed at the moment, due to the lateness of the hour.” Given all of Skorzeny’s high-tech toys, what the old man wanted with this sort of thing was beyond him. Still, one of the ways Skorzeny was able to keep absolute communications security was through a network of microsatellites, which had been launched into geosynchronous orbit from high-altitude airplanes, so weather balloons probably had some practical use that he could not see. In any case, Pilier’s job was to execute, not wonder.
“Thank you.”
He tried not to let his excitement show, tried to control his emotions, even when they were responding to the beginning of the realization of his lifelong dream.
Ambition in a child is fueled by many things—parental expectation, want, force majeure, disaster—but Emanuel Skorzeny’s ambition was born of Sippenhaft : collective responsibility for actions of a family member. In the wake of the failed attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life on July 20, 1944, not only the conspirators suffered, so did their families. Some were executed, most were separated and sent to special camps, where the mothers died but where their children’s identities were expunged, where all memories of the sins of their fathers were extirpated, where they were allowed to live, albeit with new names and new souls. Emanuel Skorzeny was one of those children.
Skorzeny’s father died twisting at the end of some piano wire, but he himself was spared and sent by reason of Sippenhaft to purdah or, in his case, a camp near Dresden. On February 13, 1945, the jewel of the Elbe was liberated by “Bomber” Harris of the RAF, with American support, and the camp was demolished. He was in, of all places, the outhouse at the time of the attack and thus survived when the barracks took a direct hit.
There were those who whispered that he was the illegitimate son of Otto Skorzeny himself, the great Standarten-führer who had rescued Mussolini from the partisans. He let them think that: it made the story of his life so much more…redemptive.
Pilier strapped himself into his seat as the plane went into a steep descent. “Sir?” he reminded.
“In a moment, Monsieur Pilier.” Skorzeny’s fingers flew; for an old man, thought Pilier, he could handle himself around technology like a teenager. As Pilier watched, Skorzeny put on a headset to eliminate the noise of the plane’s engines and began to speak softly. Pilier couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he knew whom he was talking to: Amanda Harrington, who should be waiting for them in Paris.
Skorzeny finished his conversation and shut down the system. One of the conditions he was forced to accept when he bribed the French minister of the interior was to switch it off in French airspace. No matter how well shielded it was, it would not do to be discovered, and not wishing to annoy a duly appointed official of his host country, especially given his special needs within that host country, Skorzeny had reluctantly agreed. He prided himself on keeping his word.
“Do you read the Bible, Monsieur Pilier?”
Where that question came from, Pilier didn’t want to know. He braced himself for a new and strange line of inquiry. “You know I don’t, sir,” said Pilier. He was a good French Catholic, which meant that he never attended mass.
“What about the Apocrypha? The Gnostic Gospels? Surely, Revelation?”
Where was the crazy old coot going with this? “No, sir.”
“The vision of St. John, a masterpiece of speculative superstition that some mistake for dogma. A book of visions, signs, terror, and wonders. Of the End Times. ‘And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed
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