But one day Milton Gloaming popped in to deliver him from his unmoving. Gloaming was just back from a jaunt through the Zone. He’d found himself on a task force with one Josef Schleim, a defector of secondary brilliance, who had once worked for the IG out of Dr. Reithinger’s office, VOWI—the Statistical Department of NW7. There, Schleim had been assigned to the American desk, gathering for the IG economic intelligence, through subsidiaries and licensees like Chemnyco, General Aniline and Film, Ansco, Winthrop. In ’36 he came to England to work for Imperial Chemicals, in a status that was never to be free from ambiguities. He’d heard of Slothrop, yes indeed… recalled him from the old days. When Lyle Bland went out on his last transmural journey, there’d been Green Reports flapping through the IG offices for weeks, Geheime Kommandosache, rumors coupling and uncoupling like coal-tar molecules under pressure, all to do with who was likely to take over the Slothrop surveillance, now that Bland was gone.

This was toward the beginning of the great struggle for the IG’s intelligence machinery. The economic department of the foreign office and the foreign department of the economic office were both after it. So were the military, in particular the Wehrwirtschaftstab, a section of the General Staff that maintained OKW’s liaison with industry. The IG’s own liaison with OKW was handled by Vermittlungsstelle W, under Drs. Dieckmann and Gorr. The picture was further confused by the usual duplicate Nazi Party offices, Abwehr-Organizations, set up throughout German industry after 1933. The Nazis’ watchdog over the IG was called “Abteilung A” and was set up in the same office building as—in fact, it appeared perfectly congruent with—the IG’s own Army liaison group, Vermittlungsstelle W. But Technology, alas, braid-crowned and gold-thighed maiden, always comes up for grabs like this. Most likely the bitching and bickering of Army vs. Party was what finally drove Schleim over the hill, more than any moral feelings about Hitler. In any case, he remembers the Slothrop surveillance being assigned to a newly created “Sparte IV” under Vermittlungsstelle W. Sparte I was handling nitrogen and gasoline, II dyes, chemicals, buna rubber, pharmaceuticals, III film and fibers. IV handled Slothrop and nothing else, except—Schleim had heard tell—one or two miscellaneous patents acquired through some dealings with IG Chemie in Switzerland. An analgesic whose name he couldn’t recall, and a new plastic, some name like Mipolam… “Polimex,” or something….

“Sounds like that would’ve come under Sparte II,” was Gloaming’s only comment at the time.

“A few directors were upset,” Schleim agreed. “Ter Meer was a Draufgänger—he and Hörlein both, go-ahead fellows. They might have got it back.”

“Did the Party assign an Abwehr man to this Sparte IV?”