Agent of Death
Authors: John Drake
© John Drake 2016
John Drake has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
How I know what happened when I wasn’t there:
After the war I met many former enemies, including Herman Goering, whom I interrogated for the Nuremberg Trials and who was charming and charismatic, showing just how well the devil makes his own.
I also met many allies and I was aboard USS
Saint
Mihiel
when the body of Lieutenant Junior Grade Melvin Felix Deutsch, USN, Medal of Honor (posthumous), was recovered and later committed to the deep.
In total I met hundreds of people who all told me their stories, some of which are in this book.
David Gavriel Landau,
26 July 2015
Princeton
,
New
Jersey
,
USA
Thursday
21 November, 2.35 a.m.
‘Einstein, God damn it, it’s
Einstein
!’ said Pritchett, shuddering in horror, ‘His wife just phoned in hysterics. It’s something awful but she wouldn’t say what.’ Pritchett groaned and uttered his worst fear, ‘D’you think it’s the sailboat? D’you think he’s finally killed himself in that goddam sailboat?’
Mrs Pritchett gasped, hands going to mouth. ‘He never wears a lifejacket,’ she said.
‘And he can’t swim,’ said Pritchett, ‘And he won’t learn how, and he won’t even look at a damned compass let alone a chart.’
Professor Louis Charles Pritchett, Director of Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, trembled. Albert Einstein was the star of stars, the jewel of jewels, the greatest scientist in history, and the institute existed only to house him. Among the pseudo-gothic colleges of Princeton, it stood out as an oddity, having no undergraduates, no fraternities, no sport, and no degrees. It was an intellectual monastery designed to keep Einstein’s genius safe and warm in the USA, and not stolen away by selfish, jealous, wicked rivals in Cambridge, Zurich, Brussels, and all the others that hungered and thirsted after Einstein, and that fawned upon Einstein, and that grovelled on their bellies to try to lure him away.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Einstein himself was famously unworldly and careless of his own safety, as exemplified afloat in his sailboat
Tinef
, which he constantly capsized or ran aground. Consequently, Einstein was in Pritchett’s care. He was in Pritchett’s personal care, and Pritchett knew, because he’d been assured of it by his superiors, that if America lost Einstein, or if anything happened to Einstein, then America would never, never,
never
forgive Pritchett.
‘Go,’ said Mrs Pritchett, pushing her husband out of the house to where Collins the chauffeur was waiting, hurriedly crammed into his uniform and holding open the rear door of the Pritchett’s’ Buick 8-90 Sedan. ‘Go on!’ said Mrs Pritchett, and her husband and his chauffeur scrambled into the car, and the 8-cylinder 5.6 litre engine bellowed into life, sending the glossy black monster lurching forward with grinding gears, blazing headlights, and whitewall tyres hurling grit into the night.
Minutes later, the Buick sped down the wide avenue of Mercer Street, with its fine trees and bright gardens, and skidded into silence outside number 112: a wooden, two-storey house, white-painted with green shutters. There was big veranda at the front, with five steps leading up to the porch, and Pritchett saw that Mrs Elsa Einstein was there and ready and waiting for him.
‘Herr director!’ she screamed as Pritchett – the patrician, ponderous Pritchett – threw open a door before his chauffeur had time to touch it, leapt out, and lumbered at such breathless speed as he could muster through the neat gate and across the lawn to the house.
‘Mrs Einstein,’ cried Pritchett, ‘Madame!’ And he staggered as Elsa leapt forward and threw herself into his arms and the two middle-aged people wobbled and clung. In that moment Pritchett knew that Einstein was dead and that he, Pritchett, was finished, undone, ruined, and broken; jerked out of his fat-paid job, never to hold academic office in any state of the Union, not ever again. He wouldn’t get a job picking cigarette butts out of the student urinals. He knew this because nothing other than Albert Einstein’s death could have made Elsa Einstein behave like this. Normally the woman was iceberg and steamroller combined; formidably composed and undemonstrative.
‘Oh, God Almighty,’ groaned Pritchett, and such was his despair that he hugged the corset-less mass of woman flesh to his bosom, ‘When did it happen?’ he said.
‘Yesterday,’ said Elsa Einstein.
‘What?’ said Pritchett, pulling back, ‘Why didn’t you tell me then?’
‘It not so bad …
nicht
so
schwer
… at first.’
‘What wasn’t?’
‘The letter. The letter come yesterday. From the same man, it come …’
‘Oh, oh, oh!’ said Pritchett, his voice rising in an agony of hope and his fingers pinching black bruises in Elsa Einstein’s arms, ‘Are you telling me he’s alive?’
‘
Was
haben
-
sie
gesagt
?’ said Elsa Einstein. ‘What do you say? Of course he’s alive!’
‘Oh … oh …’ said Pritchett, and shut his eyes and gave thanks to Almighty God, and squeezed wet drops of water into his flannelette shorts, so great was his relief. ‘Take me to your husband,’ he said, when he’d mastered his emotions, ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be so bad as all that.’
Einstein’s study was on the first floor: a hugely untidy room dominated by a long window, now looking blindly out over the black garden. Bookshelves covered two walls. Portraits of Faraday and Clark-Maxwell hung on another, plus the one, sole, and only diploma that Einstein displayed from all the host awarded: his prized membership of the Berne
Naturforschende
Gesellschaft
. Einstein himself was sitting facing an enormous, low table in the centre of the room. The table was covered with books and papers and he was dressed in a slovenly mixture of pyjamas, pullovers, socks, and slippers.
‘Dr Einstein!’ said Pritchett.
‘Professor Pritchett,’ said Einstein, and the world-famous face looked up and tried to smile. He’d been weeping. His eyes were red and his moustache was wet with tears and mucus. He looked shrivelled and miserable. Pritchett was shocked. He blinked. He gaped. Perhaps it was as bad as all that, after all?
‘Albert,’ said Elsa Einstein, attempting to take charge, ‘
Du
muss
mit
mir kommen…
’
‘
Nein
!’ said Einstein, sharply, and raised a hand in emphatic refusal. Pritchett gulped. Elsa did everything for Einstein. She put on his coat; she took it off. She served his meals; she cleared away. She put him to bed; she got him up: everything. Pritchett had never known him refuse her anything. ‘
Ich
muss
…
ich
will
…’ said Einstein, and frowned and concentrated. ‘I must talk. I must talk to somebody,’ he said, pointing at Pritchett, ‘and here is the good director.’ He smiled a dreadful sad smile. ‘Herr Professor, will you sit and talk?’ Pritchett nodded to Elsa and then towards the door. Elsa took the hint and left.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Pritchett, finding a chair, ‘but I can’t speak German.’ Guilt struck Pritchett. Einstein wasn’t happy in English and even the president himself – Franklin D. Roosevelt – had courteously spoken German the whole evening when he received Einstein for dinner at the White House.
‘A pity,’ said Einstein, and rubbed his face with his hands, tried to sit up and be business-like, and reached for a letter among the papers on the big table. ‘Here,’ he said and handed it to Pritchett. It was in German, beautifully handwritten on both sides of a single sheet. More than half of it was mathematical notation.
‘Oh,’ said Pritchett, feeling worse.
‘You
read
German?’ said Einstein.
‘No.’
Einstein stared at Pritchett, whom he knew to be an academic politician who had skilfully outmanoeuvred all rivals for his present post, including those who
did
speak German. Einstein sighed.
‘You are a historian, yes?’ said Einstein. ‘A historian and a scholar of the Italian Renaissance poets?’
‘Yes,’ said Pritchett.
‘So you must be fluent in Italian, and I believe you have Latin and Greek, also?’
‘Yes,’ said Pritchett, ‘and French and Spanish,’ he added, and smiled weakly.
‘So much,’ said Einstein, and he spread his hands in a generous gesture of respect for Pritchett’s learning. ‘But no German and no mathematics?’
‘No.’
‘Ah,’ said Einstein, ‘no matter. Sometimes it is good to explain to the educated layman.’ He shut his eyes and concentrated his thoughts. Then, ‘So,’ he said, ‘Herr Professor? Will you be my educated layman?’
‘I will certainly try.’
‘And I will equally try, to be clear.’ Einstein took a breath. ‘There are matters, here, of nationalism. And nationalism is like measles, Herr Professor. It is a disease of the immature! And thus it afflicts the
Deutsche
folk
– the German people – who are immature. They are immature because for centuries they have been indoctrinated by schoolmasters and drill sergeants. Thus they learn well and they learn deep, but they are drilled into slavish submission, and into military routine, and into brutality.’
‘Oh,’ said Pritchett, who had no idea where this was leading. He did know that since the Nazis had won the German Federal elections the year before last, Einstein had vowed never to set foot again on German soil. But Einstein was a gentle and civilized man who’d never spoken out against nationalism. Not
it
or any other ‘ism’. Not ever.
‘Then comes this,’ said Einstein. ‘There comes this letter, and others from the same man.’ He sighed and fell silent, as despair enfolded him.
‘Yes?’ prompted Pritchett, and Einstein continued.
‘You know something of my work?’ he said.
‘In a general sense,’ said Pritchett, nervously.
‘Never fear, Herr Professor, this is not a
viva
voce
examination. But you know of my theory of relativity?’
‘Hmm …’ said Pritchett, struggling. ‘Your theory which predicted that light can be bent, and which … er … had to do with gravity. Is that it?’ Einstein managed a small laugh.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that, and more. And you know of my equation of the interchange of mass and …’
‘E equals mc squared,’ declared Pritchett promptly.
‘Excellent!’ said Einstein and paused again, and sighed. ‘And do you know of the mountain that I cannot climb? My obsession? My failure?’
‘No,’ said Pritchett.
‘The unified field theory. A theory that will link gravitation, quantum mechanics, light, and much else. My best work was done over twenty years ago, and I have not moved onward. I have no unified field theory.’ He leaned forward and snatched the letter from Pritchett’s hand. ‘I have no unified theory, but I think this … this creature … may have one, or at least is capable of developing one.’
‘Really?’ said Pritchett, clearly out of his depth and wondering if the great scientist was simply consumed with envy, ‘Who is he?’
‘No! Not
who
! You must ask
what
is he? He is an evil-minded animal. He rejoices in race and spite, and he mocks me!’ Einstein stabbed a finger at a line of mathematics in the letter, ‘You see this? Would you believe it possible? He leads me a certain way. He raises great hope. He raises magical hope and then he shows what a fool I was to follow that path. He
mocks
me with mathematics. I am a mouse that is lured to the cheese and then crushed as the trap springs!’
‘But …’ said Pritchett.
‘This was his fifth letter,’ said Einstein, interrupting, ‘I replied to the others. I replied even though he is a German. His letters are posted from Switzerland but he is a
Deutscher
: he writes a beautiful, old-fashioned German with polite words.’
‘What does he want?’ said Pritchett, ‘Does he want your advice? Your guidance? People write to you all the time, from all over the world.’
‘Huh!’ cried Einstein, bitterly. ‘He asks me nothing. He
tells
me. He tells me how clever he is, and he mocks my work, and he plays with me. He fills me with disgust and then he shows me a little … and never enough … he shows me a little of his thinking … his magnificent thinking … and he tempts me.’
‘What?’ said Pritchett as a vast and ghastly concept hove up over the horizon. ‘Are you telling me that he is … he is …’ Pritchett could not say it. He could not put the thought into words. But Albert Einstein, valiant and faithful unto truth, said it for him.
‘His intelligence is greater than mine. I am a dwarf beside him. His mathematics is the music of Beethoven and mine is a village band. And – if you can believe it – he is only fifteen years old! Mathematics is advanced by young minds, but never before by one so young. He is a prodigy, like Mozart, but a monster. He has the holy blessing of genius, but this precious gift sits within the mind of a child, and a bad and spiteful child that loves nothing else than himself. And he has a constant, cunning humour: like a lightning flash, but cruel.’ Einstein shook his head in wonder. ‘And this he expresses in mathematics. I would not have believed it possible.’
‘You said he tempts you?’ said Pritchett. Mathematics was beyond him, but temptation was not.
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
Einstein sighed heavily. He gathered up the letters in front of him. He looked at them and he spoke slowly.
‘He says … he says to me … that in a world of lesser intellects, mine still shows promise.’