Chapter 716: The Price of Fire
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 American situation was unraveling faster than expected.
Riots in Kansas City. Martial law in Chicago.
New York radio stations seized by the federal government.
Treasury bonds collapsing. Grain futures plummeting.
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 media.
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 Emergency Executive Order 131."
The Americans 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 moment."
A soft click echoed as the line transferred. A brief silence followed.
Then...
"Go on."
The voice came low and steady, unhurried. Bruno von Zehntner didn’t waste words.
Erwin took a breath and faced the storm.
"The Americans have begun seizing our holdings," he said. "Under emergency 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, some bound in calfskin, others wrapped in ribbon.
Names 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 me," 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 time came, to see them rot from the inside."
Static hummed 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 some English merchant baron,"
Bruno went on. "I seized America’s foundation so that when the time came, we could pour acid down its throat."
"You think this is the time?"
"I know it is. The Americans have finally taken the bait. Unlawfully seizing assets with no evidence of foreign ties. What remains of our stranglehold over the American media can now be directed towards undermining the American government 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 Americans 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 time running the numbers more carefully. T
he hidden capital. The fallback vaults.
The domestic portfolios in Eurasia. The secured military contracts in the Empire’s inner provinces.
If America 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 American 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 moment.
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. Uniformed workers returned home. Somewhere, 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 America 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 Supreme 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 crime, 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 Times."
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 moment of vice, every breath of betrayal, every backroom bribe. Let the American people hear, with their own ears, what their government really is."
Reimann hesitated.
"We estimate nationwide destabilization within seventy-two hours. Armed uprisings in at least twelve states. The National Guard will be overwhelmed."
"And their trust," Bruno said coldly, "will be irreparable."
He walked slowly toward the wall, trailing a gloved hand along the map of America.
"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 Americans were half as concerned about truth as they are their own ease and comfort, then by all means their nation would have collapsed on itself before it ever reached the 20th century. No, I fear all this will do is buy us time... timer 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 some kind of weapons testing facility in Alamogordo New Mexico, 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 something more functional than mere 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 time, contemplating whether or not he should truly read its contents.