As a younger man he’d been an ardent supporter of Hitler and an early member of the Nazi Party, which had, in part, helped him reach his current rank at the age of thirty-eight. Of course, being a legitimate hero and combat veteran who’d seen action in both France and Russia hadn’t hurt, either. His wounds suffered fighting the Russians were still healing and it was decided that he would serve better as a staff officer and aide to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the army’s Chief of Staff and a man Varner had come to realize was little more than a spineless toady. Keitel would not question Hitler’s orders no matter how preposterous they were. And many of them were well beyond preposterous. The chief of operations, General Alfred Jodl, was even worse. Both would simply nod and send men out to die.

Varner had been told he’d soon be promoted to general, but now wondered if it was worth it if he had to suffer working for fools like Keitel and Jodl.

Varner reached for a cigarette and recalled that he had given up smoking at the insistence of his wife, Magda, and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Margarete. They said it was a disgusting habit. Varner agreed, especially since the only cigarettes available in wartime Germany were absolute shit rolled in paper. He’d picked up the smoking habit to contain stress while fighting the Red Army outside Stalingrad. Now he needed to combat the stress of listening to Hitler.

“Here,” said a voice from behind.

Varner laughed and took a cigarette from a fellow staffer, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. They had met in the hospital while being treated for their respective wounds. The darkly handsome Stauffenberg had lost his left eye, right hand, and two fingers on his left hand when his vehicle had been strafed in North Africa. Varner had been wounded in his upper left arm and shoulder, and doctors were still trying to remove shrapnel that moved and sometimes caused him great pain. Varner was shorter than the lean and aristocratic Stauffenberg. He was stocky, like a tank. This was serendipitous since Varner’s specialty was armor. His dark hair was thinning and he was thankful that Margarete got her pixy looks from Magda, a woman he thought was far above him. Varner would never be mistaken for a blond and blue-eyed Aryan superman.