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schedules.
    Insanity!
    But still
he
, the Reichsminister of Armaments, could control this calamitous inconsistency as long as he was convinced it was just a question of time. A few months; perhaps six at the outside.
    For there was Peenemünde.
    The rockets.
    Everything reduced itself to Peenemünde!
    Peenemünde was irresistible. Peenemünde would cause the collapse of London and Washington. Both governments would see the futility of continuing the exercise of wholesale annihilation.
    Reasonable men could then sit down and create reasonable treaties.
    Even if it meant the silencing of
un
reasonable men. Silencing Hitler.
    Speer knew there were others who thought that way, too. The Führer was manifestly beginning to show unhealthy signs of pressure—fatigue. He now surrounded himself with mediocrity—an ill-disguised desire to remain in the comfortable company of his intellectual equals. But it went too far when the Reich itself was affected. A wine merchant, the foreign minister! A third-rate party propagandizer, the minister of eastern affairs! An erstwhile fighter pilot, the overseer of the
entire economy!
    Even himself. Even the quiet, shy architect; now the minister of armaments.
    All that would change with Peenemünde.
    Even himself. Thank
God!
    But first there
had
to be Peenemünde. There could be no
question
of its operational success. For without Peenemünde, the war was lost.
    And now they were telling him there
was
a question. A flaw that might well be the precursor of Germany’s defeat.
    A vacuous-looking corporal opened the door of the cabinet room. Speer walked in and saw that the long conference table was about two-thirds filled, the chairs in cliquish separation, as if the groups were suspect of oneanother. As, indeed, they were in these times of progressively sharpened rivalries within the Reich.
    He walked to the head of the table, where—to his right—sat the only man in the room he could trust. Franz Altmüller.
    Altmüller was a forty-two-year-old cynic. Tall, blond, aristocratic; the vision of the Third Reich Aryan who did not, for a minute, subscribe to the racial nonsense proclaimed by the Third Reich. He did, however, subscribe to the theory of acquiring whatever benefits came his way by pretending to agree with anyone who might do him some good.
    In public.
    In private, among his
very
close associates, he told the truth.
    When that truth might also benefit him.
    Speer was not only Altmüller’s associate, he was his friend. Their families had been more than neighbors; the two fathers had often gone into joint merchandising ventures; the mothers had been school chums.
    Altmüller had taken after his father. He was an extremely capable businessman; his expertise was in production administration.
    “Good morning,” said Altmüller, flicking an imaginary thread off his tunic lapel. He wore his party uniform far more often than was necessary, preferring to err on the side of the archangel.
    “That seems unlikely,” replied Speer, sitting down rapidly. The groups—and they were groups—around the table kept talking among themselves but the voices were perceptibly quieter. Eyes kept darting over in Speer’s direction, then swiftly away; everyone was prepared for immediate silence yet none wished to appear apprehensive, guilty.
    Silence would come when either Altmüller or Speer himself rose from his chair to address the gathering. That would be the signal. Not before. To render attention before that movement might give the appearance of fear. Fear was equivalent to an admission of error. No one at the conference table could afford that.
    Altmüller opened a brown manila folder and placed it in front of Speer. It was a list of those summoned to themeeting. There were essentially three distinct factions with subdivisions within each, and each with its spokesman. Speer read the names and unobtrusively—he thought—looked up to ascertain the presence and location of the three leaders.
    At the far