The Constant Man by Peter Steiner

Author:Peter Steiner [Steiner, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Mind of a Killer

Reinhard Pabst was just thirty years old. He had only been in the Gestapo for a few years, and in a very short time had achieved the rank of Obersturmbannführer, lieutenant colonel. He had been extraordinarily successful in exposing and arresting various enemies of the German people, including a small group of army officers who had been planning a coup d’état, which he had prevented from even getting off the ground. Thanks to Reinhard, three army colonels had been liquidated and two brigadier generals now found themselves crushing stones in Dachau.

This had been a triumph for Reinhard, a man who only a few years earlier had been a confused young man, riven with self-doubt, and trying and failing at one thing after another. And now he had just been put in charge of the Gestapo’s largest ongoing investigation, the pursuit of the serial killer bedeviling Munich and unsettling the entire country.

Since Reinhard was himself the killer, he had thought it urgent that he take over the case so that he could direct the investigation away from himself. And he had been brilliant yet again in accomplishing this objective. Reinhard’s unique combination of gifts – an innocent face, a modicum of intelligence, and an effortless and lethal duplicity – had allowed him to maneuver other more senior Gestapo officers aside to get the assignment.

Reinhard, taking the Führer as his model, had looked into his rivals and then spread the word about their insufficiencies – real or imagined, it didn’t matter. The rumors he started inevitably found their way to Himmler and then to Hitler. When these candidates were interviewed, they suddenly found themselves on the defensive. ‘No, Herr Reichsführer, I did not fail to accomplish the assignment. There was no failure on my part. It was an administrative failure.’ An administrative failure? That was almost like blaming the Führer himself! One by one Reinhard’s rivals were eliminated from consideration.

Reinhard was the last candidate to be interviewed. ‘Thank you, my Führer, and you, Herr Reichsführer, for this opportunity to serve you and the German people.’ Reinhard summed up his accomplishments since joining the Gestapo, being careful to repeatedly give the Führer credit as his inspiration and model.

Reinhard laid out in detail several interesting things he knew about the serial-killer case that Hitler and Himmler were both unaware of. For instance, Reinhard had discovered that someone had been posing as a detective and interviewing people about the case. Reinhard believed that this person might himself be the killer. Reinhard also said he had evidence that the killings were part of a Jewish plot to destabilize the Führer’s regime as a step on the way to Jewish world domination.

Hitler looked at Himmler. Himmler nodded.

‘So, Pabst,’ said Hitler. He clapped his hands together, and smiled. ‘I think we’ve found the man for the job. What will it take to bring this pig to slaughter?’

‘I have a very sharp knife, my Führer,’ said Reinhard. The Führer laughed at the joke. ‘I will formulate a plan of action, my Führer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.