“It might be worth your while to reconsider. I might insist that you reconsider.”

“Reconsider… I don’t understand.”

“I am in need of one who does understand and whose loyalty I will never need question.”

“Loyalty… to whom?”

“To me, you fool! Who else!”

“Forgive me,” said the younger man, the word implying no repentance, only that he knew such a tacit apology was expected. “I was only thinking of the Führer.”

“When I speak, the Führer speaks!” rejoined the other. “Loyally to me is loyally to my superior, who is the Führer’s closest associate. Loyalty to me is to the Fatherland and the Reich!”

“Of course.”

“Are you one capable of such loyalty?”

“If you deem me worthy to fulfill the assignment you speak of, then my loyalty will be absolute,” he answered, thinking it best to sound conciliatory.

“Whatever it may require of you?”

The young man nodded. “I am not unaware of the nature of your activities.”

The older man smiled a sinister smile. “The assignment I have will require your relinquishing the uniform you wear.”

“It is a price I could be persuaded to pay….”

His voice trailed off in a significant tone.

“Persuaded?” repeated the other with equally knowing intonation. “For the right price, as it were?”

“I think we understand one another, Herr Korsch.”

“There is no price,” snapped the older man. “If I want you in my service, you have no other options. Do you still not grasp who you are talking to?”

The other merely nodded his consent.

“Yet,” the older of the two went on, moderating his annoyance, “there are, to be sure, certain compensations, as I am sure you must be aware. Power, and the prestige that comes with it, do not always carry financial rewards, and yet… confiscations are occasionally diverted to assist in the funding of our activities. I am in the process of such a diversion on my own behalf even as we speak. Once this conflict is over, however it should turn out—and whatever the outcome, I intend to land on the victorious side—there will be those who will profit handsomely from it. If you are loyal to me, I will see that you are one of them.”

Both men smiled knowingly.

“Additional confiscations in the sector in which I feel you might be most useful can sometimes be extremely lucrative. They do have extensive assets, you know, which are not lawfully theirs.”

“So I have heard.”

“Your friends may be among them.”

“They are not my friends.”

“You are willing, then, to join my efforts to purify the Reich of these seditious lawbreakers?”

“I will follow your command.”

“Good. I knew I could count on you. I know the Führer will likewise be pleased!”

There was a pause.