Re: Blood and Iron

The Tsar’s message left a somber atmosphere across the room. He had announced that within a year at the latest he would be dead. And his son would succeed him as Emperor of Russia.

It was a monumental statement to his family who hadn’t the slightest clue of his condition. And Bruno himself stayed silent for the rest of the gathering.

Whatever festivities were had with a brief reunion were thoroughly stifled by the Tsar’s speech.

And there in the silence, Bruno realized what was happening. He was getting older, and he was witnessing that even titans of history cannot emerge victorious against death itself.

Franz Ferdinand had been dead for a decade. Svetozar had lived just long enough to be given a funeral worthy of his service.

Hindenburg was on death’s list, and so was Kaiser Wilhelm II in just a decade he would pass. And now Tsar Nicholas II within the year.

Men who had forged an era whose legacy Bruno had preserved in a defiant battle against fate itself.

And one day, he too would be interred in the ground. Would he be given another life then? Like he had the first time of his passing?

Would he be welcomed by Saint Peter through the pearly gates as a reward for his faith, and serviced to God and fatherland?

Or would he face eternal damnation for the blood he had shed in the act of preserving the world as he felt it should have been?

When death finally came for him, would he too have such a chipper attitude, like Nicholas appeared to maintain even now, knowing his time was ticking by with each passing second?

It was a question he could not answer, no… he could only drink. Drink to numb the pain of having forsaken the chance to personally become close to the men he idolized.

Drink to dull the senses so that he might forget what he had learned here today even for the briefest of moments. And Drink so that he would not have the wherewithal to think about it for a second longer.

And as he reached for the fourth glass of vodka of the night, Heidi stopped him, grabbed the bottle from his hand and hugged him tightly.

“I know it’s hard for you right now… It is for all of us, but that bottle is only going to make things worse….”

Bruno gazed into Heidi’s sky-blue eyes, and then down at the liquor which called to him, seducing him to drown himself in its numbness. And then there was nothing.

No whispers, no chants, no influence. A sudden sense of sobriety overcame him as he realized what he was about to do, and instead smiled bitterly as he held his wife in his arms tightly.

“Thank you…”

Nothing more needed to be said between them. But the sight of not drinking excessively to cope with the news had inspired several others in the room who witnessed the scene, and had similar habits of dealing with negative emotions, to emulate Bruno’s behavior.

They put their bottles down and instead chose to not mourn the night. But enjoy the time they had left with Nicholas.

Bruno decided that rather than talk about strategy, economics, politics, and vision with the man. That he would take him aside and instead dwell on less important matters.

Bruno and Nicholas wandered off to the Tsar’s personal office. There they fetched not alcohol, but coffee, and salted nuts, an attempt to sober themselves as they spoke in privacy.

Nicholas thinking that perhaps Bruno wanted to ask about his future plans and was quick to interrupt.

“I understand that you might be a bit anxious about this sudden announcement, but with all do Respect Bruno, I would rather keep things lighthearted as can be tonight. So if you will excuse me, I think I will have to pass on a sudden strategic meeting.”

Bruno however stopped the Tsar with his words as the man was reaching for the door behind him.

“You know, in all the years I have known you, I never asked… Is it really true?”

Nicholas turned back as his hand touched the handle, his fingers wrapping around the gilded brass knob, as he saw Bruno smirking at him.

“Is what true?”

Bruno took a sip from his coffee with a mischievous grin as he asked the question that had been bugging him for years.

“Come on, Nicholas, don’t play coy with me. Tell me about your visit to Japan when you were a young man, and how you managed to police your own personal police escort so much the man tried to kill you. I have heard many theories over the years, but have never been able to discover the truth. enlighten me.”

Nicholas simply chuckled and shook his head, looking at Bruno as if he had discovered a new part of the man he had thought he figured out so many years ago.

“This? This is what you wish to ask me? I will be dead and buried in a year, and you want to know about what happened in Ōtsu all those years ago?”

Bruno chuckled his voice far softer and less grim than it was before when he first heard of the Tsar’s impending doom.

“Well, yeah… With all due respect Nicholas, I Know so many things about you, but this… This is one thing I am dying to know. So, please, enlighten me.”

Tsar Nicholas couldn’t help but smirk as he stared at Bruno’s pleading gaze.

“What happened in Ōtsu…. Is between me, George, and our heavenly father above. Perhaps when I see you in the next life, I’ll tell you then.”

After saying this Nicholas left the room, and in doing so leaving Bruno by himself as he simply smirked and sipped his tea in silence save for one lonesome word.

“Tease….”

—

The United States Markets had begun to make a turnaround.

And it wasn’t Herbert Hoover or his administration that had stabilized the value of the dollar. It was the overwhelming amount of cash flowing into the country from Tyrol.

Bruno had acquired enormous swaths of the American Market.

And in doing so, consolidated control over collapsing businesses, many of which were previously economic titans, splitting them up, merging them into new corporations, and just sometimes gutting them entirely for what little value they offered him.

Or I should say that Erwin had done this under Bruno’s orders. And he had done it masterfully at that.

By 1931, a quarter of all United States businesses and the intellectual property they owned were under Bruno’s indirect control.

Erwin had established proxies, shell companies, and puppets installed across the board.

On paper, there was a trial a mile long that led the ownership of these corporations to anywhere but Germany or another hostile nation.

This meant that there was feasibly no way for the United States to prove a quarter of its economic strength was entirely under German control.

And that number could be as large as 50% in certain critical industries.

Even if they had a suspicion that these were shell corporations that led to the House of Zehntner, litigation would be an impossible feat, and there would be no way to seize the assets without first proving that a hostile state actor, and not a private citizen of a foreign nation that the United States was at war with, was the one in possession of them.

Whether it was in accordance with the United States, International, and the law of every country Erwin had established false paper trails to.

There was no legal loophole on this planet that the United States government could use to seize the assets he had acquired for his family by taking advantage of the stock market crash and the great depression.

And if they did it illegally? There was an army of lawyers on retainer ready to sue the United States Federal and State governments into oblivion.

But the United States did not know this, and those who suspected it never voiced their opinion. Because it would be political suicide to do so. T

The United States economy had begun to recover far earlier than in Bruno’s past life.

The worst had never occurred, but things had gotten bad enough that the American people would turn on any politician who dared to try to undo the progress that had been made these last two years simply because it may have been a conspiracy by some Machiavellian mastermind in a foreign country.

The people would rather have a shelter over their head, heating in the winter to keep them warm, and food in their bellies than hear the truth.

President Herbert Hoover had suspected for some time that Bruno was behind the stabilization of the stock market, but he had yet to find the slightest proof.

And he knew that if he dared to pursue it further, his re-election was on the line.

His presidency was quite popular right now… The people believed as always that the President was responsible for all the boons and woes a country received. And the people also had short memories.

From their perspective, Herbert Hoover had saved the American Economy, and that was what ate at the man the most as he sat in the oval office, staring at the carpet in front of him.

He hadn’t done a damn thing. The economy was stabilized because someone bought up a lot of shares and pumped a bunch of money into the country and its redevelopment. It wasn’t him.

His programs had been a drop in the hat compared to the money that had purchased standard oil.

There was only one man in the world who could afford to buy the majority shares of America’s foremost oil cartel. But he had no proof.

On paper, it said the investments had come from all over the country and the world.

Except conveniently enough the countries that could feasibly lead to seizure of assets in a time of war against the German Reich and its allies.

Because of this, Herbert Hoover sat there in silence until finally his cursing echoed across the oval office like a ghostly wail.

“Damn you…”

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