Der Schlússel: Hitler’s Key
Hitler’s agent provocateur, Der Schlússel (meaning the key, or Hitler’s key), lays waste to Hitler’s opposition for Lebensraum – expansion of the Fatherland and is charged with his final mission . . . assassinate FDR.
Two young boys come of age . . . one growing up in Germany, the beloved son of a WW I war hero who returns home with a shattered body and a wife who detests the sight of him. The other boy grows up under the love and tuteledge of his hardworking Amish farmer-father. The young German settles with his godless mother, ends up in Landsburg prison in an ajoining cell to an older man with a funny mustache who obviously has important political ties. He is embraced by the older man, taken into German Army after an early release from prison has been arranged and grows to excel in the army rising rapidly. When war breaks out in 1939 he has already spun his web of deadly stealth eliminating one of Germany’s enemies after another – impediments to his Fuhrer’s plan for growth of the Fatherland. He is used by the Fuhrer interchangeably as an assassin and the star character in the Waffen-SS. While Der Schlussel excises one enemy after another earning him a chestful of medals and promotions, his counterpart in the U.S. has learned how to plow the fields behind his two Percherons and lead a life of simplicity and devotion to his family and Amish community. When the war reaches into the countryside of his Indiana farm, a consuming sense of responsibility to aid the country that has blessed his family – he joins the Army but in a non-confrontational role – an MP guarding German prisoners at a POW camp in central Indiana. The paths of the two boys, now young men, cross at the POW camp and lead to a startling conclusion.
Out of the Shadows
The American President covets a second terms in office but his numbers are down. He needs a shot in the arm to boost his ratings and maintain his office . . . and ego. A Nobel Peace Prize is his ticket. He gambles on leveraging peace talks among the IRA, the British, and Northern Ireland as the means to his end. However, there is a stumbling block he is told – an IRA assassin who must be removed. The President counters by sending to Ireland his own Special Ops assassin, Daniel Riley. . . but all the wrong people die.
Riley learns early on in Dublin that the Irish assassin isn’t really the problem. He discovers that a retired British Admiral, now heading MI-5 has a personal axe to grind against the Irish and has, for years has been conducting a personal vendetta using kill squads under the leadership of his personal bodyguard – a huge man who could crush a skull with his bare hands. Riley as the Irish with whom he joins forces unravel the nefarious plot and are shocked at how high it goes in the UK. Bloodied by their confrontation with Jeremy Smythe and his contract Russian sniper, Daniel Riley and his Irish comrades move to put an end to Admiral Hornaway’s plan to retake all of Ireland under English rule.
The author was informed by a taxi driver heading into the city from the Dublin airport that the plot is not a fictional account. . . but reality – a reality not to be published in Ireland or the UK.