Although Alistair knew the exact dates, everyone in the smallish and well-furnished room knew just as well that a war would break out soon. It was enough to glance at their plans to realize that several large-scale invasions would be neccessary. Hitler was in an irritable mood, so everyone was extra polite and extra friendly in his direction. Everyone except Alistair, even in Nazi Germany his presidential aura prevailed. He sat and mused about the plans himself, his head balanced on his knuckles, his eyebrows pulled together in thought. Hitler sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded over his chest. In the past hour he'd gotten up several times to pace the room and speak to his comerades, usually in a loud and almost hectish tone.
"There's no going around it, Adolf." Goebbels said, he sounded tired. "They will declare war on us if we invade Poland, France, any other country."
"I know. It's not about the war..." What it was about to their Führer nobody knew. It almost looked like he was calculating something, building something inside his head. "It's obvious that they won't give us everything easily, that's alright...so be it then."
"Well," Alistair started, breaking the momentary silence and drawing all eyes excpet Hitler's to himself, "your military is in a good shape, your working on Plan Z (plan to make a Navy able to crush the british one) even your Luftwaffe is one of the best in the world. I would say your not unprepared for war."
"Of course." Hitler answered, casting a glance at his American visitor. "Our army is the best in the world. But we still need to do it carefully, to plan everything in a way that will give us time. We'll need time to focus our strength on each target seperatly, then our success will be guaranteed."
What Hitler said made sense. Alistair ran through the files of historical events he'd memorized for university. Was there an idea he could pitch which might make the German Reich fall quicker? Was there anything he could do to make them change their minds about invading Poland? But there was no logical reason that he could think of. Alistair felt helpless.
"If anyone will pose a threat it will be the CCCP..." Hitler grumbled. "Not because they are particularilly great, but they have resources and millions of people..." He looked up at a man Alistair didn't recognize who was standing next to him. "Any updates?"
"It's going well, Mein Führer, today we brought another few people in. People who didn't listen." The puzzled look on Alistair's face caused Hitler to explain.
"He's talking about 'political opponents' Alistair, in Russia you might call them 'enemy of the people'."
"And where are they going?" Alistair asked, knowing he didn't really want to know.
"To Dachau." Hitler responded with a smile, "thank you for telling me," he added, turning back to the messanger, "and please send me a list of their names, then I'll see how large my smile is allowed to be." Hitler could tell that Alistair looked uncomftorable, but he couldn't tell why.
"If your prove your loyalty to me, Alistair, and continue to benefit us as you have I might even name a Camp after you." Alistair felt sick to the stomach as Hitler proposed the idea. But from the twinkle in his killer eyes Alistair could tell he meant it as a joke. But it still rattled him. Was he really an asset? All he did was help translate, work on some idea, sometimes give a bit of a heads-up. But not enough to earn a name for himself, let alone let a concentration camp be named after him. Or maybe, it wasn't what he'd done yet that Hitler was playing on. Maybe the Führer could tell that he knew something more, maybe he suspected him of espionage, or perhaps just of a very smart man who understood the world today as if he'd already heard all about everything...
"I'd rather a street." Alistair answered only a second after Hitler had pounced his idea on him. "Bowmore Strasse, doesn't sound so bad, does it?" His pitch made Hitler laugh which caused little echoes of laughter to jump out of the other men's mouths.
Little did Alistair know how highly the German Staatschef thought of him. He could sense the regalty in Alistair Bowmore, could sense that the man had power, or at least, used to have it. He was cut out for more, whatever that was. Hitler liked to surround himself with successfull people, people who were going somewhere. At the same time the American was still modest, he didn't try to flaunt what he knew and he accepted that in Germany he wasn't the biggest and best man. Hitler had meant it quite seriously about naming a camp after his new aquaintence, if only he could get whatever it was out of the man that he knew would benefit all of Germany...
"This meeting is over, it's late," Hitler said and rose off of his chair. "Thank you for coming, and Alistair, I would like to talk to you in private for a few minutes."
The men filed out of the Zimmer, until only Hitler and Alistair remained. Adolf leaned forwards, over the map spread out on the table in front of them. The map of Europe, where, up till now, only ghosts of ideas were drawn. Lines that were no larger than the borders of the countries. "I have a question for you..."