As voices and laughter throughout the place had grown livelier and more raucous, the tones of four men occupying a table in one corner had become more subdued. The contents of the steins in front of them had become warm and flat. They had not been touched in more than thirty minutes. In the glowing orbs of these faces burned a fire whose light originated from an altogether different source than the dull twinkles of inebriation showing from the eyes of the villagers who had come for no other purpose than to make merry with their comrades after the day’s work—and to drink as much as their laboring bodies could tolerate while still maintaining consciousness.

One of the men at the table was clearly older than the other three, though he himself was not quite thirty. The black leather overcoat draped over his shoulders was more for effect than for warmth, for though fall was well on the way, the weather was yet mild. He clearly enjoyed the prestige inherent in his calling—and the amenities that went with it. When Korsch had selected him for this secretive recruiting assignment, he had hardly been able to believe his good fortune, and now he was playing the role with these three country lads to the hilt.

He knew his kind were feared. It added to the thrill. What better motivator could there be? Fear drove their cause.

It was either fear or be feared. There was no middle ground these days. Everyone would ultimately wind up on one side of the fence or the other. Those on the topside of the equation of fear would occupy the posts of power and would dominate all those below them.

These words Korsch had driven into the brains of his followers. And just such a demented sermon of intimidation and conquest the black-clad young zealot, one of Korsch’s favorites, was now giving these wide-eyed protégés in his turn, whom he would proselytize for the cause. His words fell on eager, hungry ears. For like sought like, and in the economy of national socialism, those natures who frequented the low places of what was intended to be their manhood naturally found one another and banded together. Truly the last had become first. The nation was more and more being controlled by such as these, the roots of whose beings drew nourishment, not from the springs of life planted within them by their Father, but rather from the evil, dark, and most sinister places within their fallen humanity.

“By proving your allegiance at any cost,” he was saying, in response to a question posed by one of the others.

“But how?”

“Every situation varies. We are looking for those who are, shall we say, creative, and whose loyalties to the Reich are unquestioned.”

“What can we do?” asked one, a boy of sixteen or seventeen.

“Information is always useful.”

“Information? What kind of information?”