Baron Friedrich von Hauser had watched the progression of Ezra's war on several fronts with the cold, interested eye of a master watching a highly involved and fascinating game of chess. From the comfort of his prison, he had all the news he desired. He read the American papers announcing the sparkling success of the brand-new "Guardian" attack planes in Korea. He read Sullivan's reports on monitoring of the thorn-in-their-side detective Frank Donovan. And he listened with a trained, assessing ear, to Ezra's own rising rages.
He saw his chance. The American colossus was stretched thin, his attention divided between a cold war in Asia, a political war in the capital, and a private, personal war with a ghost of his youth. Ezra Prentice, with all of his god-like power, was only a lone man. It was time for Von Hauser to call in the interest on their faustian contract.
At one of their typical meetings, upon hearing Ezra recount the overt confrontation with the detective, the Baron could not restrain himself and snickered with superior amusement.
"Strong stance, Mr. Prentice, but brittle," he noted, voice smooth, cultured drawl. "You're attacking on too many fronts at once. A basic strategic blunder. You're trying at once to be the top general, the field general, and the grunt at the front line. It is... inefficient."
He stood up and walked, stride smooth and fluid, captive predator getting back its stride. "You cannot yourself manage every detail of this vast and growing empire. You cannot order the development of a jet motor in the morning, rig a senator in the afternoon, and plan the counters of an off-street detective in the evening. You must have a deputy. A chief of staff for your dark kingdom."
Ezra gazed at him, his face expressionless. "And I guess you have someone in mind?"
The Baron turned away and ended his pacing, looking at him with eyes that sparkled with cold, ravenous ambition. "I have satisfied you as counselor, have I not? My choices have been sound. My ideas, I hope, have seemed worthwhile. But my talent, my entire ability, is being wasted within this golden jail. I am good wine being wasted as cooking wine."
He took one step closer, his voice taking on a conspiratorial edge. "Release me, Mr. Prentice. Give me some freedom of action. Make me more than a sounding board. Make me your tool."
The proposition hung suspended in mid-space, daring and intimidating.
"Leave the European intelligence network in my hands," von Hauser continued, his words cutting and seductive. "I know the continent, the operators, the leaks. I can build for you an army of informants and spies that would be the counterpart of anything the greenhorn Central Intelligence Agency can muster. And let me taken care of the 'Donovan problem.' It is something best resolved with a scalpel, not an ax. It consists of an aspect of subtlety and plausible deniability that you, as the person at the very foundation, cannot afford."
He broke off, eyes revealing ugly self-awareness. "I can be the iron hand that won't allow you, with your new American conscience, to be. All great leaders have had that kind of man. A man responsible for the dirty work that must be done behind the scenes. Augustus had Agrippa. Bismarck had spies. Your new Reich... it requires its own Heinrich Himmler to your Albert Speer."
The comparison was macabre, but, in all cold rationality, it had integrity. Ezra was caught. Pushed, indeed, to the breaking-point. The very mental effort of directing his huge and variegated business was becoming monumental. The urge to relegate the shadowy, obnoxious side of things to a man of von Hauser's proven genius was too great.
But it was an extremely deep risk. Allowing functional power to the Baron would be putting the devil on a leash. It would be entrusting his deadliest opponent with weapons and liberty to possibly build his own fiefdom under the protection of Ezra's kingdom. It was the ultimate faustian deal.
Ezra, always thinking like a strategist, opted for a test. A controlled experiment to determine the Baron's loyalty and, more importantly, his usefulness.
"There is a development in France," stated Ezra, his voice as a cold, measured challenge. "The new government is considering nationalizing some strategic industries, including a chemical firm by the name of Synthèse-Chimique. That firm, through subsidiary, holds some patents on heavy water production that are... of interest with regard to our atomic energy program. I want that nationalization bill blocked. But I need any direct political or economic pressure on American interests to backfire and inflame French nationalism. Come up with an strategy for defeating the bill. Subtly."
The Baron's face lighted. It was no theoretical puzzle; it was an actual, involved puzzle. "As you wish," he answered.
Ezra did not hear anything during the next couple of weeks. Then, an enormous political scandal erupted in Paris.
A illustrious and groomed French cabinet minister, Resistance leader, and only flag-bearer of the nationalization measure, was suddenly and splendlously exposed in the papers. Some anonymous tipster had left diverse incriminating, unmistakable papers at Paris's most influential newspaper. The papers were wartime German papers of the occupation era, and they confirmed that the minister, far from being a Resistance leader, had maintained clandestine contact with the Nazis, feeding the Gestapo tips in return for lucrative contracts for his parents' company.
The proof was laborious, definitive, and undeniable. It took the form of signed letters, transfer documents of banks, and reports of Gestapo informants. The scandal involved the French government. The minister was libeled and forced out of office. His political party was shattered. And in the midst of the furore, the controversial nationalization measure was quietly set aside and forgotten.
Ezra sat in his study, perusing the cable from his Paris contact describing the response. He knew, with absolute certainty, where the "anonymous leak" had originated. The news was too good, too accurate. It could only have sprung from the photographic, revengeful memory of a man who had sat at the very hub of the Nazi war industry. Baron von Hauser had telephoned in from his refuge room in America and, with some finely tuned words spoken in the correct corners, had severed the head of the political platform of an alien government.
The next time they met, the Baron did not need to say a sentence. He stood with an air of silence, triumphant anticipation on his face. He had made himself in the most brilliant way imaginable. He had demonstrated that he had the capacity of being an asset of unimaginable proportions.
Ezra gazed at this man—who was this brilliant, amoral, and absolutely merciless being? He understood that he was at the edge of the abyss. He might keep waging his war alone, with all the danger of weariness and exposure on numerous fronts. Or he might forge with the devil himself an honest bargain, and of distributing in exchange for it the terribly powerful and terribly efficient deputy, the creature who would dirty his hands at things at which he himself had long lost stomach.
It was between the protection of his empire and saving whatever part of soul was left. And for a man such as Ezra, it was no decision at all.
"You'll have your network, Baron," stated Ezra, his voice low. "And you'll handle the Donovan matter. Report only to me."
The devil's bargain had been struck. And Ezra would swear the room cooled off by a few degrees.