Fatherland by Robert Harris

in their manner, in the casual ruthlessness with which they had disposed of the dog, warned him against it. They had been here before.
    As they came closer, he could make out their ranks. Two Sturmbannführer and an Obergruppenführer —a brace of majors and a general. What matter of state security could demand the personal attention of a full Gestapo general? The Obergruppenführer was in his late fifties, built like an ox, with the battered face of an ex-boxer. March recognized him from the television, from newspaper photographs.
    Who was he?
    Then he remembered. Odilo Globocnik. Familiarly known throughout the SS as Globus. Years ago he had been Gauleiter of Vienna. It was Globus who had shot the dog.
    "You—the ground floor," said Globus. "You—check the back."
    They drew their guns and disappeared into the house. March waited half a minute, then set off for the gate. He skirted the perimeter of the garden, avoiding the drive, picking his way instead, almost bent double, through the tangled shrubbery. Five meters from the gate, he paused for breath. Built into the right-hand gatepost, so discreet it was scarcely noticeable, was a rusty metal container—a mailbox—in which rested a large brown package.
    This is madness, he thought. Absolute madness.
    He did not run to the gate: nothing, he knew, attracts the human eye like sudden movement. Instead he made himself stroll from the bushes as if it were the most natural thing in the world, tugged the package from the mailbox and sauntered out of the open gate.
    He expected to hear a shout from behind him, or a shot. But the only sound was the rustle of the wind in the trees. When he reached his car, he found his hands were shaking.

3

    "Why do we believe in Germany and the Führer?"
    "Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany, which He created, in His world and in the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us."
    "Whom must we primarily serve?"
    "Our people and our Führer, Adolf Hitler."
    "Why do we obey?"
    "From inner conviction, from belief in Germany, in the Führer, in the Movement and in the SS, and from loyalty."
    "Good!" The instructor nodded. "Good. Reassemble in thirty-five minutes on the south sports field. Jost: stay behind. The rest of you: dismissed!"
    With their cropped hair and their loose-fitting light gray drill uniforms, the class of SS cadets looked like convicts. They filed out noisily, with a scraping of chairs and a stamping of boots on the rough wooden floor. A large portrait of the late Heinrich Himmler smiled down on them benevolently. Jost looked forlorn standing at attention, alone in the center of the classroom. Some of the other cadets gave him curious glances as they left. It had to be Jost, you could see them thinking. Jost: the queer, the loner, always the odd one out. He might well be due another beating in the barracks tonight.
    The instructor nodded toward the back of the classroom. "You have a visitor."
    March was leaning against a radiator, arms folded, watching. "Hello again, Jost," he said.
    They walked across the vast parade ground. In one corner, a batch of new recruits was being harangued by an SS- Hauptscharführer . In another, a hundred youths in black tracksuits stretched, twisted and touched their toes in perfect obedience to shouted commands. Meeting Jost here reminded March of visiting prisoners in jail. The same institutionalized smell of polish and disinfectant and boiled food. The same ugly concrete blocks of buildings. The same high walls and patrols of guards. Like a KZ, the Sepp Dietrich Academy was both huge and claustrophobic; an entirely self-enclosed world.
    "Can we go somewhere private?" asked March.
    Jost gave him a contemptuous look. "There is no privacy here. That's the point." They took a few more paces. "I suppose we could try the barracks. Everyone else is eating."
    They turned, and Jost led the way into a low, gray- painted building. Inside it was gloomy, with a strong smell of male sweat. There