Re: Blood and Iron - Chapter 620: The Empty Wall

Chapter 620: The Empty Wall

The mountain light spilled into the breakfast room, scattering across silverware and the steam rising from the coffeepot.

Outside, the air was sharp and clean, but within the Zehntner palace, the fire and the scent of fresh bread kept the winter at bay.

Bruno sat at the head of the table, leisurely stirring cream into his coffee, papers stacked neatly at his elbow.

Heidi entered without ceremony, her robe drawn tight, hair still unpinned. She glanced at the papers, then at him, a knowing smile on her lips.

“So,” she began, taking her seat, “how exactly do you intend to handle the little snare our dear Roosevelt thinks he’s setting for you in Bern?”

Bruno looked up from his cup, one brow arching. “You’ve been reading the cables I leave lying around again.”

“I don’t have to,” she said, reaching for the bread basket. “I know you’ve been buying up American industry for months, steel, shipping, machinery, and I know Roosevelt’s clever enough to think it’s leverage. What I don’t know is whether you plan to cut through his rope… or let him hang himself with it.”

Bruno’s mouth curved faintly. “That depends on how much rope he brings.” He set down the spoon and leaned back in his chair. “He believes Bern is his stage. That he’ll draw me into a neat little corner, force me to concede on whatever his advisors think is worth a headline back home.”

Heidi sipped her tea, watching him. “And will you?”

“Concede?” Bruno shook his head, amused. “No. I’ll give him something small, something inconsequential but dressed in enough ribbons to look like a victory. He’ll take it, thinking he’s bled me for a pound of flesh, and I’ll smile as if I’m relieved to be done.”

“And the real game?”

“Will be happening elsewhere,” Bruno replied. “Every contract his Navy signs in the Pacific, every ton of steel they melt, every ship that leaves their yards, I’ll have a hand in it. Quietly. Indirectly. By the time he understands that, he’ll find his ’trap’ has three walls instead of four… and one of them is wide open, on my side.”

Heidi tilted her head, eyes narrowing with quiet amusement. “You almost sound as if you want him to think he’s won.”

Bruno took a slow drink of coffee. “I do. Nothing makes a man careless faster than believing the hard part is over. The Americans have suspected for the better part of a decade that I’ve bought influence across their country. They know it, I know it, and we pretend like we don’t. But it’s not a matter of what they know; it’s a matter of what they can prove. And I intend to give them just enough ’proof’ to hang themselves with…”

Heidi rolled her eyes. The two of them had known each other their entire lives and had been married for the majority of it.

Bruno didn’t need to say exactly what he was planning; she could already read it in his words, his tone, and the small, deliberate curve of his smile.

—

The city was quiet under a thin veil of snow, the kind of cold that clung to stone and metal.

Inside the American legation, Franklin Roosevelt sat behind a polished desk, his aides arranged around him like a semicircle of attentive hawks.

A courier had just delivered Berlin’s reply, short, polite, and utterly devoid of commitments. Roosevelt read it twice, his thumb tapping against the page.

“Non-committal,” one aide murmured. “But they agreed to meet. That’s something.”

Roosevelt smiled faintly, setting the paper down. “It’s more than something. If he’s coming here, it means he can’t refuse the conversation. And if he can’t refuse the conversation, it means he’s vulnerable somewhere.”

One of his younger advisors leaned forward. “Sir, if we push the right points, press him on his American connections, the men and firms he’s been buying up, we might force him to burn those ties just to keep the talks moving.”

Roosevelt’s eyes gleamed. “Exactly. If we can cut away his collaborators in our industry, we not only weaken his hand abroad, we remove his levers here at home.”

There were nods around the room, the scent of confidence thickening in the air.

Outside, the snow kept falling, indifferent to the plans of men.

—

The conference room was designed for neutrality.

Pale walls, clean lines, nothing that could be mistaken for symbolism.

Outside, the Alps loomed, jagged and white, like a crown of stone.

Bruno arrived without fanfare. No entourage of diplomats trailing him, no press. Just him, Wilhelm, and a small attaché case carried by a silent aide.

Roosevelt was already seated at the far end of the polished table, aides flanking him like chess pieces in their starting ranks.

“Your Majesty,” Roosevelt began smoothly, in the kind of voice meant for fireside radio, “I appreciate you making the journey. The world has much to gain from frank dialogue between our nations.”

Bruno didn’t sit immediately. “Dialogue is best when it’s honest, Mister Roosevelt. I hope you’ve brought some with you.”

The American aides shifted in their seats. Roosevelt’s smile held, but it thinned. “I think we can both be honest about the fact that your influence in the United States has… grown. And that influence, certain relationships, complicates matters for both of us.”

Wilhelm leaned back, watching like a man at the theater. Bruno finally took his seat, sliding the attaché case onto the table.

“You want my ’relationship,” he said evenly. “The men you believe work for me. The firm you think I’ve infiltrated. You believe that cutting them away will make you safe.”

Roosevelt’s eyes narrowed just enough to betray interest. “If we’re to have a stable understanding, then yes, I need to know who is acting on your behalf inside my country.”

Bruno opened the case. Inside neatly stacked were dossiers, names, photographs, connections. A heavy offering, presented without hesitation. He slid them across the table.

“These,” Bruno said, “are the collaborators you’re looking for. Take them. Remove them. You’ll find your industrial and political halls a little… quieter afterward.”

Roosevelt’s aides pounced, flipping through pages. One murmured, “This is more than we expected.”

Roosevelt allowed himself a small, triumphant nod. “This will do. Perhaps more than do.”

Bruno leaned back, hands folded loosely in his lap. “Then our work here is finished.”

They shook hands. Cameras flashed outside the chamber. To the world, it looked like a rare moment of German-American accord.

Only Wilhelm, walking beside Bruno toward the waiting car, knew better. “They’ll think you’ve gutted yourself,” the Kaiser murmured.

Bruno’s eyes stayed forward. “By the time they realize those names were obstacles to me, not assets, I’ll already own what they’ve left unguarded.”

—

The White House press room was standing-room only, the air thick with cigar smoke and the soft clatter of typewriter keys.

Flashbulbs popped as Franklin Roosevelt, fresh from Bern, took his place at the podium.

The President looked positively buoyant, jaw high, voice steady, a man who had returned with something tangible to sell the American people.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice carrying over the hum of the press corps, “today marks a turning point. The concern over foreign influence in American industry has been addressed directly. I have personally secured assurances and information that will ensure our markets, our politics, and our people remain free of such interference.”

More flashes. A reporter shouted, “Mr. President, can you confirm that you received specific names?”

Roosevelt’s smile deepened. “I can confirm that I have received the necessary information, yes. My administration will act swiftly, decisively, and with full transparency.”

The room erupted into the staccato clicking of newsmen hammering out their headlines.

“Roosevelt Strikes Blow Against German Influence” was already writing itself in headlines.

New York City – Two Days Later

Far from the cameras, on the thirty-fourth floor of an unassuming Midtown building, the real work was being done.

A mahogany conference table gleamed under the dim light, its surface covered in contracts and stock certificates.

A single man in a dark suit, one of Bruno’s oldest operatives in America, methodically signed the final pages of a series of acquisition agreements.

Steel mills in Pennsylvania. A shipping line in New Jersey. A machinery firm in Chicago. And direct control over the Norfolk shipyards.

Each deal had been stalled for years, blocked by the very men whose faces now adorned the dossiers Roosevelt had carried back from Bern.

Outside the room, the elevators opened and closed in a constant hum.

Couriers brought in fresh documents; lawyers in crisp suits moved like clockwork between offices.

In less than seventy-two hours, Bruno’s network had swept in to claim every asset that had been “suddenly” left without its old guardians.

Washington D.C. – The Next Morning

Roosevelt, flanked by his cabinet, stood in the Oval Office reviewing the first reports of arrests and resignations.

His aides were smiling, some even laughing at how easily the “German network” had been dismantled.

No one noticed that in the fine print of the market bulletins, a web of holding companies, all with forgettable names, now controlled key slices of American industry.

It was the same pattern that had fooled every president before Roosevelt that Bruno had dealt with. And once more, nobody saw the thread connecting them all back to Tyrol.

Tyrol – That Same Night

In his study, Bruno poured himself a quiet drink, the firelight glinting off the glass. Heidi entered wordless and took the chair opposite.

He didn’t have to explain. She’d already read the European financial papers.

“Three walls instead of four,” she said simply.

Bruno raised his glass. “And one of them wide open.”