The great windows of the von Zehntner Syndicate headquarters let in the weak, late-autumn light of Berlin.
It glinted off the marble floors and the dark wood of the table, stretching long shadows across the carved iron crests of conquered companies embedded along the wall.
Erwin von Zehntner stood at the end of the boardroom, flipping through the latest intelligence binder, hand-delivered by courier that morning.
The Arican situation was unraveling faster than expected.
Riots in Kansas City. Martial law in Chicago.
New York radio stations seized by the federal governnt.
Treasury bonds collapsing. Grain futures plumting.
On page 12, clipped neatly into place, was a report from the New York holding firm, one of the countless shell companies buried in the imperial registry under eight layers of misdirection.
It showed how hard the pressure was hitting their assets.
Steel. Oil. Paper. Rail.
Even dia.
All bleeding.
Erwin’s jaw clenched as he turned the page. A red stamp at the bottom caught his eye:
"Provisional seizure: Milwaukee Toolworks Consortium – authorized by Ergency Executive Order 131."
The Aricans had crossed the Rubicon.
He stepped over to the wall-mounted rotary phone, a reinforced field model, matte black, with a brass Reichsadler affixed above the cradle.
He spun the dial carefully. Three rings.
The voice that answered was neither rushed nor casual.
"Zehntner."
"It’s Erwin. I need Father."
"One mont."
A soft click echoed as the line transferred. A brief silence followed.
Then...
"Go on."
The voice ca low and steady, unhurried. Bruno von Zehntner didn’t waste words.
Erwin took a breath and faced the storm.
"The Aricans have begun seizing our holdings," he said. "Under ergency powers. The pretense is national security. Our agents inside State report they’re preparing to shut down access to syndical foreign capital entirely. We’re bleeding across every sector."
A long pause on the line.
"I see."
Erwin stepped back toward the table.
Spread across it were folders and files, so bound in calfskin, others wrapped in ribbon.
Nas like Blackcliff Industries, Fenwick Broadcasting, Red Hill Shipping, and the Mid-Atlantic Fuel Consortium.
"All told," Erwin continued, "we stand to lose nearly a quarter of our overseas value if the seizures continue. If they nationalize what we built..."
"What we built," Bruno cut in, "was never built to last."
The words landed with more finality than any gunshot.
Erwin froze.
"...What?"
"You heard ," Bruno said. His voice was cool iron. "I bought their industries. Their banks. Their newspapers. Not to preserve them. Not to profit. To own them. And when the ti ca, to see them rot from the inside."
Static humd softly on the line. Erwin could hear the faint scratch of a match being struck.
"Father... this is hundreds of billions of marks," he said. "We spent years setting up those shell firms. Decades. The entire postwar infiltration strategy..."
"And now it bears fruit," Bruno said. "Let it."
Erwin was silent. In the distance, the bells of Berlin Cathedral began to toll.
"I did not spend my entire life’s worth preserving the Reich to hoard scraps of foreign treasure like so English rchant baron,"
Bruno went on. "I seized Arica’s foundation so that when the ti ca, we could pour acid down its throat."
"You think this is the ti?"
"I know it is. The Aricans have finally taken the bait. Unlawfully seizing assets with no evidence of foreign ties. What remains of our stranglehold over the Arican dia can now be directed towards undermining the Arican governnt from within."
Erwin turned away from the table.
A gust of cold air swept through the high windows, ruffling the crimson Imperial flag that hung behind the boardroom podium.
"The entire economy may spiral out of control," he said. "We will lose face in the Imperial Bank. Our own shareholders..."
"Our shareholders do not matter," Bruno snapped.
"They obey. Or they vanish. Let the Aricans see fire. Let their citizens tear apart the very engines we gave them. Let their senators pass decrees that only confirm our ownership in secret. Let their mobs burn our factories to the ground, because in doing so, they burn the only tools they had to survive."
Bruno paused, then added coldly:
"And so what if I lose a few billion, Erwin? So what if they seize every asset we left in the open? That was the price of admission. The price for influence. And now... now that their republic has begun to devour itself, we simply step back... and let the banquet finish."
Erwin stared into the wood grain of the table. The figures swam in his head. The projected losses. The decoupling procedures. The liquidation schedules.
And yet...
He flipped through the folder again, this ti running the numbers more carefully. T
he hidden capital. The fallback vaults.
The dostic portfolios in Eurasia. The secured military contracts in the Empire’s inner provinces.
If Arica collapsed tomorrow, they wouldn’t be ruined.
They’d be ascendant.
The Reich would remain untouched, stronger, in fact. Their economic might no longer disguised partially beneath Arican fat.
He closed the folder, spine cracking shut like a rifle bolt.
"...You planned this," Erwin said.
"I prepared for it," Bruno replied.
Erwin’s voice dropped, low and resolute.
"Then let it burn."
Bruno said nothing for a mont.
Then, with grim satisfaction:
"Good."
The line went dead.
Erwin stood for a long while in the silent room.
Below, in the streets of Berlin, life moved on.
Trolley cars rattled. Uniford workers returned ho. Sowhere, music played faintly from a brass-cornered café.
And across the ocean, the United States stumbled toward the abyss.
It wouldn’t take much now.
Just a little more pressure.
Just a little more gasoline.
---
The Reich Chancellery was silent at this hour, save for the low tick of the grandfather clock and the occasional hiss of a telegram delivering classified orders through the wireless networks surrounding the Reich and its borders.
The lamps glowed low, casting long shadows across the map of North Arica stretched across the central planning table.
Pins and colored strings marking critical failures like infected wounds.
Bruno stood in his uniform, collar crisp, hands folded behind his back, watching a silent reel of surveillance footage projected onto the far wall.
The patch audio was taken from the inside of a Washington D.C. office, a senator laughing drunkenly with a lobbyist over drinks, discussing military contracts like auctioneers.
"...They’ll pass the bill regardless," the senator slurred. "Just make sure my son gets the position. He doesn’t even need to show up."
The audio cut. Another recording took its place.
This one from the Supre Court’s private chambers, an aide whispering into a justice’s ear about how to tilt the language of a ruling in exchange for campaign contributions to a family-run trust.
Another cut. The Oval Office. Roosevelt himself.
Calm. Controlled. Always careful.
But not careful enough.
Bruno leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He knew every word by heart and they were music to his ears.
A man stepped forward. Intelligence Director Konrad Reimann, chief of German Military Intelligence. His uniform was clean, severe.
He handed over a thick envelope, bound in a black wax seal with the sigil of the Ministry of State Protection.
Reimann cleared his throat.
"Operation Laertes is fully indexed," he said. "Every recording has been logged, transcribed, and collated... audio, wiretap, and intercept. We have a categorized archive of every cri, every betrayal, every whispered deal dating back to President Hughes’ second term."
Bruno didn’t turn.
"Roosevelt suspects."
"Yes. But he believes the Oval Office is the extent of our reach, and perhaps the Capitol building. He doesn’t know about the Federal Reserve, or the Catholic Conference, or the editorial board of the New York Tis."
Bruno’s mouth curved slightly.
"He still thinks he’s the lion in the cage."
Reimann nodded.
"Shall we initiate selective leaks to pressure certain factions? Or the full collapse?"
Bruno turned at last.
"The full archive."
Reimann blinked.
"All of it?"
Bruno nodded once.
"Leak it. To the public. Every mont of vice, every breath of betrayal, every backroom bribe. Let the Arican people hear, with their own ears, what their governnt really is."
Reimann hesitated.
"We estimate nationwide destabilization within seventy-two hours. Ard uprisings in at least twelve states. The National Guard will be overwheld."
"And their trust," Bruno said coldly, "will be irreparable."
He walked slowly toward the wall, trailing a gloved hand along the map of Arica.
"I gave Hughes the warning years ago. He knew. He tried to contain it. Tried to steer his successors toward a quieter decay. But you cannot steer a corpse. You can only bury it."
Reimann adjusted his glasses.
"And Roosevelt?"
Bruno’s eyes narrowed.
"He gambled on dictatorship. To salvage the flaming wreckage of his own making by iron will and a firm grasp, He has wagered poorly, because he never anticipated the extent I can add fuel to the fire that burns the foundations of his very world."
Bruno’s voice was quiet, yet final.
"Let it be known that this was not sabotage. It was revelation. The world need only hear the truth."
Bruno then took a sip from his flask, whispering to himself his internal thoughts aloud.
"Though I fear revelation can only go so far. If Aricans were half as concerned about truth as they are their own ease and comfort, then by all ans their nation would have collapsed on itself before it ever reached the 20th century. No, I fear all this will do is buy us ti... tir to fortify Europe’s shores for the eventual invasion from the rest of the world."
Reimann gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel, having not heard Bruno’s internal monologue escape his lips.
However, as he was about to depart, Bruno stopped him with a sharp tone.
"Oh, and one last thing, were you able to confirm that thing I asked you about?"
Reimann stopped dead in his tracks, he had deliberately avoided handing the remaining folder in his briefcase over to Bruno, knowing the full horror that would unfold should the truth be revealed.
But in the end he was forced to anyways. Conceding with a heavy sigh.
"I had almost forgotten... Here is the intelligence report you asked for. There is indeed evidence of so kind of weapons testing facility in Alamogordo New xico, but it is barely in its infancy. We suspect they’re trying and failing miserably to build a nuclear weapon."
Bruno’s brow flinched when he heard these words, almost upon instinct, that is until Reimann continued with his evaluation of the threat.
"However, most of their most talented physicists and engineers were absorbed by the Reich ages ago. With what remains... Perhaps in a decade, maybe two they’ll have sothing more functional than re theory?"
Bruno said nothing, he simply nodded his head, giving the officer permission to be dismissed.
And then he stared at the closed folder placed on his desk for a very long ti, contemplating whether or not he should truly read its contents.
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