She leapt up from the beach and into the water, swimming toward him. He met her in the middle of the pond where she wrapped her legs around him and kissed him on the mouth. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “Why did you come?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  Eva turned to glance over her shoulder. “He is supposed to come down here to check on me. He wants to make sure none of the guards are peeking on me while I swim.”

  Price kissed her on the mouth, the chin, the neck, consumed with her, but forced himself away to say, “Listen to me! I need to tell you something.”

  She pressed her finger to his lips, “Berchtesgaden is not safe for us. Meet me in my room tonight and we can talk about anything you want.” She turned again and gasped at the sight of a german shepherd coming down the path. Hitler would not be far behind. She grabbed him by the top of the head and pushed him underwater, “Go down, you must vanish!”

  Price forced himself back up, “Don’t take the pills! No matter who gives them to you. Promise me!”

  “Whatever you say, my love. Now go! Go!” Eva pushed his head back down below while he was still talking and Price choked on water in the darkness before he vanished.

  ***

  Albert Einstein stood in the empty conference room, waiting. He had been squeezing his right hand shut for so long he could no longer feel his fingers. The air crackled with static electricity and Sean Price shimmered into existence, standing naked on the floor in front of him.

  Einstein held up his hand to stop Price from speaking. “Don’t tell me. I want to see it for myself.” The Professor slowly uncurled his fingers and looked down at the small silver coin in his palm. “You did it, my boy,” he whispered. “You did it! Tell me what happened!”

  “Ten seconds ago, I gave you that coin and told you to hold it for me until I came back. You told me to say hello to your future self.”

  Einstein stared at the coin in wonder and laughed, “Well, hello then.”

  ***

  “What is the time?”

  “Three in the morning.”

  “Ah. Won’t your friend be angry that we are waking him up at such an unusual hour?”

  Price pressed “Wild Bill” Donovan’s doorbell and said, “Nah.”

  Footfalls came down the staircase inside the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun racking. Donovan opened the door with the barrel aimed at Sean’s face. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Obviously, I came to kill you. That’s why I brought Albert Einstein with me and rang the doorbell.”

  Donovan swiped his hand through his hair and said, “Christ. Come on in. This better be important.”

  The sat down in the study, and Donovan listened quietly while they explained Einstein’s theory of time-travel. He nodded his head several times, but did not speak. “So what do you think?” Price said.

  Donovan crossed his legs and tightened his robe, taking a deep breath before he said, “I think you have to kill him when he’s a kid.”

  “Come again?” Price said.

  “No, no, no,” Einstein said, shaking his head. “That is incorrect. I have a perfect plan. Omega can break into Lansberg Prison while Hitler is imprisoned there. He can make it look like a suicide.”

  “By then it’s too late. You’ll only make him a martyr. I have the perfect opportunity!” Donovan got up from the chair and went over to the study’s closet. He bent down and lifted a pile of clothes that covered a safe at the bottom. “I held onto a few things from OSS. Didn’t know who to give them to, to be honest. I’m sure that cross-dressing freak Hoover would love to get his hands on this, but since he didn’t ask, I’m not volunteering.”

  Donovan removed a file stamped TOP SECRET across every inch of it. He spread the files contents across the coffee table, displaying dozens of photographs of Hitler. Price picked up the one that showed the Fuhrer, surrounded by swastikas, smashing his fist against a podium.

  Donovan pointed to a family portrait that showed a different stern-faced man sitting next to his wife, with two young boys and an infant female between them. “This was taken in Leonding when Hitler was seven years old. Right before Adolph was born, three of his older siblings had already died. The little boy next to him was named Edmund. He died four years later of the measles. It’s said that after that, Adolph changed.”

  “Is that his father?” Price said.

  Donovan nodded, “That is Alois Hitler, Sr. Fond of the drink. Used his wife as a punching bag on regular occasions.”

  Einstein picked up the photograph and said, “It must have been very difficult to grow up in that environment.”

  Price looked sideways at the Professor, “It happens to a lot of people. They don’t go committing genocide as a result of it. Anyway, this was your plan to begin with.”

  Donovan dropped the family photo on top of the others and said, “That family was used to loss. With all the death and disease happening to the other siblings, it won’t raise an eyebrow if the kid doesn’t wake up one morning.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Price said.

  “Keep it simple.”

  “Pillow over the face while he’s asleep?” Price said.

  “Just like the old days. I like it,” Donovan said.

  “This is outrageous!” Einstein said, jumping to his feet. “We are talking about the murder of a little boy and you discuss it as easily as if you were ordering dinner. All I wanted to do was spare the lives of innocents.”

  “This will,” Donovan said.

  “This is immoral, and I will not be part of it,” Einstein said. “I come to you to prevent one crime against humanity and you answer me with something equally horrific. I will not allow you to do this.”

  “How’s that, Professor?” Donovan said. “Who are you going to tell and really, what would you tell them?”

  Einstein’s fists shook in frustration before he turned and stormed out of the house. Price called out the Professor’s name and got up to go after him, but Donovan stayed him. “Let him go, Sean. The world needs idealists like him and it needs people like us.”

  “And what kind of people are we?” Sean said.

  “The ones who make it possible for the idealists to exist.”

  ***

  1899

  Swastikas decorated the monastery’s entrance. They were carved into the building on either side of the door and repeated at each window. Price ducked in the bushes outside of the building and peeked into an office widow. “Perfect,” he whispered.

  He materialized inside the office and snatched a long priest’s robe from a hook behind the door. No sooner had he slid his arms through it when a young boy came barging through the door and stopped abruptly. Price looked down at his bare feet peeking out from the robe and then back at the boy. “Was it you?”

  “Was it me, what, sir?” the boy whispered.

  “Who stole my pants and shoes,” Price snarled. His Austrian was rusty. “You look like the type to do such a thing.”

  The boy did not, in fact, look like the type. He was a small, thin creature with shaggy brown hair that probably walked around with his nose stuck inside a book all day, Price thought. He kept up the menacing gaze. “Did you see who took them?”

  “No, sir,” the boy squeaked.

  “Very well,” Price said. “Run along.”

  The boy turned to leave, but stopped when he saw another priest approaching. “Hello, Father,” he said.

  “What are you doing over here, Adolph? Father Linser is waiting for you at choir practice.”

  “Yes, Father,” the boy said.

  The boy raced out of the office and down the hall, huffing as his small feet pounded the marble floors. The priest looked at Price standing in his office in surprise, “Hello? Can I help you, Father?”

  “Schett,” Price replied. “I have been sent from Baden to observe your methods, as we are opening our own school and have heard only great things about the work you are doing.”

  “Oh, in that case, you are welcome to stay and observe as much as you like…” the priest stopped speaking as he looked down at Price’s bare feet.

  Price wiggled his toes and said, “I always come in the most humble fashion into a new house of the Lord. It is my custom. Tell me, who was that young man I was just speaking with?”

  The priest looked back down the hall and frowned, thinking it over. “Hitler, I believe?”

  “And he is a member of the famous Father Linser’s choir? I simply must see them practice.”

  ***

  Price looked down from the monastery’s attic window down at the village. He watched the main street below where thick women strolled between stores and hard looking men with long, billowing mustaches stood in the sunlight and smoked. Some of them watched the women pass and called out to them, smiling broadly when it actually drew their attention.

  A young man exited one of the stores wearing a new-looking coat that he stopped and showed off to the first person he saw. Price could see shoes and shirts through the store’s windows. Within seconds he vanished, moving down through the attic floor, falling through each level until he reached the basement. Price checked the street through the basement window and saw that the path was clear. No one noticed the brief appearance of a naked man running for several steps before vanishing again.

  Price appeared in the rear of the store, staying low so the clerk could not see him. He grabbed a shirt and pants from a bin on the floor and snatched a pair of worn boots from the shelf, getting everything on before the clerk raised his head and said, “Pardon me! I did not see you come in.”

  “I came in when you were selling that young man the fine looking coat.”

  “I have more for sale if you would like to see them?”

  Price patted the pockets of the pants he was wearing and said, “I was just looking.”

  ***

  The church bell rang and children marched out of the monastery’s front door in single file, keeping perfect formation under the watchful eye of a black-robed priest. Price spied young Adolph in the line and began to move with them. The priest watched the boys walk out to the road, then went back inside the church. As soon as he’d gone, the children broke out running, all of them laughing and pushing one another until they reached the street.

  The boys stopped to wait for a horse-drawn carriage to pass. Some of them joined hands to cross. Adolph took the hand of the child nearest him and they skipped across the dirt road, making dust trails with their shoes.

  The children scattered in different directions as they reached the other side of the street, but Adolph walked directly into the main door of a two-story apartment building. Price looked up for signs of movement in the windows. There was nothing.

  Moments later, Adolph emerged, holding the hand of a smaller boy. The younger one ran ahead, shouting, “I want to be Old Shatterhand this time!”

  Adolph hurried after him. “All right, Edmund. I will be the Indian Chief first and you can kill me.”

  They ran into the woods around the side of the building, chasing one another through the trees. They ran by hopping like they were on horseback, while Edmund fired an imaginary rifle at his older brother and Adolph clutched his chest dramatically and fell to the ground. “You got me, Old Shatterhand. I am finished.”

  Edmund giggled and danced around the fallen Indian Chief. “I killed you!”

  “Yes, Edmund. It was an excellent shot.”

  The boys played for over an hour, talking turns being the Cowboy or the Indians. Adolph stopped playing to turn and look at the sky, measuring the distance of the sun from the horizon. “Time to go, Edmund.”

  “I don’t want to!”

  “Father is going to be home soon and we must get cleaned up for dinner.”

  One of the windows above them on the second-floor opened and a thin, pleasant looking woman said, “Adolph? Edmund! Time to come up.”

  “See?” Adolph said. He cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and bellowed, “Coming, Mother!”

  “No!” Edmund took off running into the woods and vanished between the wide oak trees.

  Adolph called for the little boy to come back. He crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently, “Edmund. Stop playing this instant. This is not very funny.”

  There was no response.

  “Edmund? Okay, you had your laugh. Where are you?” Adolph headed into the woods, calling his brother’s name.

  Price appeared on the second floor of the building in the hallway, directly outside of the Hitler’s apartment. He pressed his ear to the door, listening to the sound of banging pots and pans in the kitchen. Mrs. Hitler did not look up from the sink as Price crept past her and headed for the bedrooms. There were only two. Both of them, exceptionally clean.

  The boys’ room had one small bed and a sparse amount of furniture. On a single bookshelf crammed with children’s books, were several volumes by James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May about America’s Wild West. Price picked up a beaten-up looking copy of The Adventures of Old Shatterhand thumbed through the pages while little Adolph called for his brother outside.

  Price put the book back and picked up a pillow off the bed, holding it with both hands. He imagined two little boys sleeping in the bed as he stood over them. He pictured Edmund rolling over to find his older brother dead beside him. Price heard Adolph, still yelling, “Edmund! Edmund! Where are you?”

  There was alarm in the boy’s voice. Price looked down from the window to see the older brother catch up to the younger and grab him by the shoulder. Adolph scolded the boy with one finger while dragging him toward the apartment building.

  Edmund did not seem to mind. He slid his hand inside his older brother’s and the two of them walked home.

  Price looked back at the bed. He threw the pillow on it and vanished.

  ***

  1946

  J. Edgar Hoover sounded like he was choking in his sleep when he snored. He muttered incoherently while Sean Price picked up the handgun from Hoover’s dresser, unloaded it, and tossed it into a clothes hamper. He stood over the FBI Director’s sleeping form and stuck his hand over Hoover’s mouth.

  Hoover’s eyes flew open and he convulsed in the bed in terror, trying to claw Price’s hands away from his mouth. His hand flew to the nightstand, scrambling to find his gun. Price simply waited, keeping Hoover pinned to the mattress until he stopped struggling.

  “Where’s Donovan?” Price said. “I went to his house but there were different people living there. Did you people kill him?”

  “Get your filthy hands off of me, you freak!” Hoover hissed. “Donovan left Washington after the war ended. He’s a civilian now. Where the hell have you been?”

  Price stepped back and regarded Hoover in the dim moonlight. His skin was splotchy with liver spots. His hair was now brittle and thin. There were deep wrinkles in his face. “Five years ago?” Price whispered. “Something went wrong when I tried to come back. I don’t know why I came so far ahead.”

  The Director grimaced at him, “You son of a bitch. First you lied to us, then you abandoned us!”

  “Lied to you?”

  “We searched all of Gazala and there was nothing there.”

  “Did I say Gazala?” Price said.

  “Get the hell out of my home,” Hoover shouted. “You are done. You hear me? Done. You don’t exist anymore. The United States Government no longer has need of your services. Get out!” Hoover realized he was shouting at an empty room.

  He cursed and pulled the lamp string on his nightstand, fumbling around for his glasses. He bent to the phone and carefully dialed a number that only three people in the country knew. The phone rang only once. “Get me the President.”

  ***

  The frigid winds of Antarctica cut through his heavy coat and the layers of clothing beneath it, making his skin sting. Price lifted his gloves to block the pellets of ice from striking his glasses, barely able to see as he forced himself up the glacier. The seasons were just beginning to change and all of the South Pole was covered in dim purple light.

  Price bent forward to remove the map from his heavy backpack, using his body as a shield against the wind. He checked his compass against the map and continued walking.

  An hour later, Price collapsed into the snow. He stayed there long enough to catch his breath and wiggle out of the two-hundred pound backpack. He checked his compass once more to verify, then pulled out a shovel from the backpack to begin digging.

  By midnight, there were mountains of ice and snow built up on either side of his pit. It was impossible to tell the time of day by the light in the sky because it never changed. He’d dug twelve feet down until he struck a solid layer of ice that was hardened enough to bend the blade of his shovel. Price climbed out of the hole and opened his backpack to remove a bundle of dynamite wrapped in plastic. His lighter refused to work in the wind. Price flicked it again and again until final he’d lit the fuse, then tossed the dynamite into the hole, picked up his backpack and started to run.

  ***

  Price woke up and opened his eyes, recoiling from the sun’s harsh glare reflecting from every inch of the ice hole.

  He picked up his shovel and inspected it, deciding it was too worn to be of any continued use. He tossed it fifty feet into the air, sending it soaring up to the land’s surface. There were a dozen others up there with it, a cemetery of bent metal and broken wood. Price slammed his ice pick a foot into the ground in one thrust. His long beard was frozen stiff, so heavy that it pulled the skin of his face like someone was pinching him.

  He pulled out the last remaining shovel from his backpack and started to dig out the loose ice, when the tip of it struck something hard.

  Now that was not ice, he thought.

  Price lit a torch and bent down, getting close enough to see a large swastika engraved on the lid of the long metal chest buried just below his feet.

  “Found you.”

  ***

  A black limousine pulled up to the front entrance of the vacant building that once served as the Headquarters for the Office of Strategic Services. Its former director, William “Wild Bill” Donovan got out of the back of the limo and told his driver to wait. He walked up the steps and reached for the door handle, but it was already open.

 

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