Zero Hour, Chapter Four by Duty and Honor
Gottfried Emmerich lit a cigarette whilst slouching on a chair at his home’s breakfast table. He sifted through the papers inside a manilla file folder documenting the autopsy of a middle-aged man. The folder also contained photographs of the decedent’s face. The darkness outside was slowly turning dark blue hues before the sun rose. Closing the folder and readjusting his posture, he glimpsed at his watch as Christoph entered the kitchen. “You’re late,” Emmerich said, putting out his cigarette in a glass ashtray. “What took you so long to get here?”
“We got lost on the return trip,” Christoph explained, setting the attaché case on the table, and opening it to reveal the dossiers. “My comrades and I almost got killed earlier all because of these dossiers. What makes them so important that somebody needs to hire mercenaries?”
“You’ve read the dossiers?” Emmerich mused, exhaling tobacco smoke through his nose.
Christoph nodded, shutting the attaché case. “And now I want answers.”
“This may sound like paranoia,” Emmerich voiced, “But there are hidden political forces plotting against the Party and this new nation. As you probably know, the old United States was run by a triumvirate between the Democratic-Republican Party, the US Military-Industrial Complex, Corporate America and Wall Street. It has been that way since the First World War.”
He continued. “What troubles the Party and I are not the well-known ones, the ones behind the insurgencies orchestrated by different partisan groups. Rather, it is the ones who disappeared before the Zero Hour–before the war’s end–and assumed new identities for themselves postwar. More specifically, the ones whose loyalties remain open to question.” Emmerich got up from his chair, reopened the attaché case, and proceeded to sift through one of the dossiers. “Ever heard of somebody named ‘Robert Gray Winterson?’”
“The prewar American Communist Party leader?” Christoph recalled.
“Yes,” Emmerich answered. “His loyalties to us and other American Communists were almost always suspect. He claimed to be aligned with us and the victors, yet we found evidence of him spying on behalf of the Jeffersonians. He then claimed that he was a triple agent for the Soviets and Chinese, except nobody in Moscow or Beijing can verify the veracity of his own statements.”
“So, before you or the GAFP could find out more,” Christoph pondered, “He committed suicide through cyanide poisoning as reported by the US media?”
“We thought as much until a recent autopsy proved that the cadaver is not his,” Emmerich replied. “It was a double, a decedent who happened to bear his likeness.”
“What made you say that?” Christoph pondered.
Emmerich handed him the autopsy report and its attached photographs. “See for yourself.”
Christoph studied the documents and photos. The man did bear an uncanny resemblance to Winterson, save for two notable discrepancies according to the notes left by the medical examiner. “‘The liver’s appearance indicated that the subject was a heavy drinker,’” Christoph read aloud. “‘Bits of metal fragments–possibly shrapnel from an artillery shell–was lodged between the subject’s ribs. If one of those fragments were to puncture his internal organs, it would have killed him, but the actual cause of death here was cyanide poisoning.’”
“Winterson never drank,” Emmerich voiced, “And he never had any metal fragments lodged between his ribs. There is no mistake about it, Christoph: this is a convincing double. Our fear is that Winterson is still alive, hiding under an assumed identity, and is plotting to take power in the FAU through the upcoming elections. We suspect the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Federalist American Union (CPFAU), James Dougherty, is him.”
“But why assume that the CPFAU’s General Secretary is in fact Winterson?” Christoph questioned. “What if Winterson did die during the war and we have yet to recover his remains? What if this Dougherty is who he claims to be and he just rose to postwar prominence?”
“As much as I would like to believe that Winterson is dead,” Emmerich replied, “I have every reason to suspect that he has some unresolved affairs with me, the GAFP, and the victors. He and I had some…‘ideological differences’…on what postwar America should be and what the FAU is capable of achieving in these times.”
Emmerich went on to describe his and the GAFP’s long-term concerns about Winterson. “The man is an advocate of national reunification through a long-term plan of aggression and coercion, arguing that the postwar American States should be annexed by the FAU. It does not matter if such actions will bring us into conflicts with the Germans, Soviets, Chinese or the Japanese. He wanted to style himself as an Anti-Imperialist, yet his actual views resemble those of a Social Imperialist. What Lenin would describe as ‘Socialism in words, Imperialism in deeds.’”
“How do you know all this?” Christoph wondered.
“He told me what his actual views were before he ‘died,’” Emmerich explained. “Remember, there were too many doubts regarding his loyalties. We still don’t know if there is enough evidence to prove Winterson’s taking his orders from known Democratic-Republicans.”
“And you’re thinking Winterson’s the one who hired those mercenaries?” he added.
“It’s possible that he wanted to tie up loose ends, eliminate anything that might undermine the CPFAU’s chances at taking power,” he said. “My daughters will help you find Winterson. In return, all I ask at this point is that you kids do not arouse the CPFAU’s suspicions. Don’t let them find out the GAFP and I are conducting a non-governmental investigation into their leadership. Letting them know will only harm the GAFP’s electoral chances.”
Christoph turned away from Emmerich. “I’ll try my best not to.”
***
The de-facto capital of the Federalist American Union, Philadelphia, grew vibrant in advance of the upcoming elections. All the major registered political parties had their headquarters established in parts of the downtown area. Each sent vans full of teenagers and college students to cruise the downtown streets and nearby suburbs, escorted by the reorganized police force to plaster billboards and posters encouraging people to vote directly at their workplaces. Radio and television stations filled the airwaves with the parties’ campaign advertisements. Party rallies unfurled at major landmarks and parks by various party-affiliated organizations.
Lena and Edith were members of the GAFP’s youth wing, the Young Federalists, who volunteered to help the Party’s campaign. At their father’s behest, they took Christoph and his comrades around downtown Philadelphia to witness the political campaigns. Arriving with the others at a newly constructed bus stop near Rittenhouse Square, Christoph walked toward the posters on the walls of the shelter. The two biggest posters belonged to the GAFP and the CPFAU.
The GAFP poster recaptured the spirit of the old Federalists by depicting yesterday’s American Revolutionary War soldiers as tomorrow’s workers of steel mills and gristmills. Quoting the Founding Father Benjamin Rush, its slogan read: ‘The Revolution is not over!’ Vote GAFP!
The CPFAU poster, influenced by Soviet-style Heroic Realist posters, invoked the legacy of the infamous Haymarket Massacre in 1886. These people died for our freedom, it declared. Vote CPFAU to demand Labor Day be moved to May 1!
Competing against both posters were smaller ones posted by the other parties. They represented the lesser ideological tendencies from various parts of the world. Christoph overheard Andreas speaking to Lena. “Is this where the CPFAU’s supposed to be convening their rally?”
“Of course,” Lena replied.
“What’s going on over there?” Max whistled at the large crowd congregating in front of a column of CPFAU members. “There’s no doubt about it, Andreas. We’re in the right spot.” Behind them was a platform, atop of which was a man addressing the crowd from a podium.
“Can we cross the street?” Edith yawned. “I don’t want to keep standing here.”
Everyone plodded across the street, passing through one of the entrances to Rittenhouse Square. Leaning against one of the trees, Wilhelm pulled out a pair of binoculars, studying the face of the man behind the podium.
“Wilhelm,” Christoph asked. “Is that Winterson?”
“Based on those autopsy photos you showed us,” he answered, “It’s got to be the CPFAU’s General Secretary. You know, James Dougherty.”
“Don’t you mean Robert Winterson?” Max corrected him.
“Whatever,” Wilhelm quipped, “It’s definitely the same person, Max.”
“You’re certain that Winterson didn’t change his appearance recently?” Andreas mused.
“Nein,” Wilhelm replied, “Why would he? It’s not like anyone other than us and Emmerich who suspects that he had survived the war.” He passed the binoculars to Christoph.
“But how do we know that this is Winterson?” Christoph asked Lena and Edith, observing Dougherty through a pair of binoculars. “Your father is inclined to assume that himself and Winterson are complete opposites.”
Lena responded with her own question. “How familiar are you with Vladimir Lenin’s ‘On the Question of Dialectics’ from The Philosophical Notebooks?”
“Sort of,” Christoph retorted.
“Well,” Edith elaborated, “There’s a Unity of Opposites at play between Winterson and our dad. Our dad lets other prominent party leaders in the GAFP take the stage, so he can focus on the internal matters of the Party. Winterson, on the other hand, liked taking direct approaches, delivering speeches, and staging rallies in the streets. What we’re looking at here is a mundane matter for somebody like Winterson.”
“Not only that,” Lena added, “They also believed that the FAU would be the key to building a more perfect Union after the Zero Hour. Where they differed is how the FAU should achieve that aim and what its relations with the new postwar American States could be.”
“Going by Lenin’s logic,” Andreas recalled, “There’s probably mutually opposing perspectives that cannot be reconciled despite them being the two halves of one coherent whole.”
“That’s right,” Edith said. “Dad thinks that the FAU should follow the European example of a powerful State leading the rest of its continent through an intergovernmental organization.”
“As for Winterson…,” Lena chimed, “He’s more interested in the FAU annexing the other postwar American States through military conquest and economic coercion.”
Christoph froze for a few seconds. “What?” He turned toward Lena and Edith.
“Oh yeah,” Edith said. “Winterson was adamant that, if the US were to fragment into several independent States, each one would become the puppets and protectorates of foreign powers. Since neither Canada nor Mexico have the wherewithal to prop up those regimes, the only logical assumption must be one or all the victors.”
Wilhelm chortled, shaking his head in bemusement. “Let me guess: Winterson questions the Soviet territorial claims over Alaska or Imperial Japanese ones over Hawaii?”
“It’s definitely more than that, Wilhelm,” Andreas added. “If what Lena and Edith are saying is true, then it stands to reason that Winterson would like America to be reunited again. An America free from all foreign influences as one great power among many.”
“Andreas,” Christoph questioned, “Why are you trying to play devil’s advocate? Don’t you realize what would happen if a CPFAU led by Winterson were to win the elections?”
“Why should we be making these old wartime assumptions?” Andreas replied. “We should give Winterson the benefit of the doubt. It’s plausible that what we know about Winterson could be the personal fears of your uncle, who either cannot accept the possibility that Winterson is dead or–if Dougherty is alive–can change his views on this topic.”
“I thought we established that the person behind the podium is Winterson?” Max mused.
“For all we know,” Andreas said, “This could be a case of mistaken identity. It’s not too far-fetched for different, unrelated people to slightly resemble each other.”
“Then how do we account for those mercenaries who tried to kill us last night?” Christoph pondered, crossing his arms. “You were there when we saw them at that toll booth.”
“They may not be ‘mercenaries,’” Andreas snapped. “They might have been those insurgents that we were warned about. If those mercenaries were hired by Winterson, why aren’t trying to kill us right now? We’re in the middle of open ground and there’s plenty of windows and bushes around here for them to get a clear shot at us.”
Wilhelm eyed Lena and Edith. “What are you two thinking about all this? Max and I are too sure if we supposed to be taking sides in their conversation.”
“Andreas might have a point,” Edith said. “Maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions and feed into our Party’s paranoia. Things are not always what they seem to be, I suppose.”
“Besides,” Lena chimed, “I feel that we should give Winterson, Dougherty or whoever his name is a chance. We should hear him out and get the truth before running off and letting our dad know. Who knows, maybe Winterson did not change and he’s secretly a National Bolshevik trapped in a postwar reality without a Neoliberalism to rage against.”
Max spoke to Andreas and Christoph. “Let’s find a way to speak with Winterson in person before we jump to any more conclusions.”
“Agreed,” Andreas acknowledged.
“If you say so,” Christoph quipped.