Shade pushed open the facility’s exit doors without waiting for them to part automatically. As he reached the sidewalk, his car pulled up to the curb. He didn’t wait for the driver to open the rear door, yanking it quickly ajar, he sat down next to Shaffer.
“Take us to headquarters,” he instructed the driver.
“How’d it go?,” wondered Shaffer. “Is it him? Did you take him out? If not, when do we get him?”
“Enough Shaffe! Enough! The guy is 95 years old. He’s non compos mentis!, daft, lost his fac……..”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Shaffer barked. “The old guy is nutty as a fruitcake but so what? If he’s our guy we gotta live up to our motto.”
“Arbeit Macht Frie – Work Makes You Free”, said the man in the suit. “It was written on the entrance to the concentration camp where my grandparents were killed. Yours too.”
“Work Makes You Free,” Shaffe repeated. It’s also our mantra. When we joined the organization and swore to hunt down nazi concentration camp killers, it was that work which made us free. It doesn’t matter if the guy is 95 or a hundred and six. If he’s the guy, he must die. We have to take him out. That’s our job and our work.”
“Listen Shaffe. It’s over. The war is over. It’s been over for more than 70 years. We have to put it behind us. The guy thinks he’s an observer. He thinks ‘Special Treatment’ is saving lives. He doesn’t remember that in 1941 Hitler put him in charge of ‘Special Treatment’ – the extermination of six million people.
Throttling the old man is not going to bring them back. I think that from now on instead of chasing down the last of the old killers, our group should just focus on keeping people aware of what happened. “
“You mean we should forget about the few remaining Nazis, but make sure the world never forgets what happened?” Said Shaffer, bitterly.
“That’s it Shaffe. No more work. No more killing to set us free. Our new motto should be “Remember the Holocaust, Never again!”
Shaffer scratched his head in disbelief and then reached inside his coat. He fingered the Glock in his shoulder holster and wondered whether he should use it twice: once for his partner and one more for ‘The Observer’.
The End