The German delegation sat in the anteroom of the Palace of Versailles.
They looked like condemned men waiting for the hangman.
Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the German Foreign Minister, was shaking. He knew what was waiting for him in the Hall of Mirrors. Humiliation. Dismemberment. The end of Germany as a great power.
The door opened.
It wasn't a French guard.
It was Jason Underwood.
He walked in alone, carrying a thick sheaf of papers. He closed the door behind him and locked it.
"Who are you?" Brockdorff-Rantzau demanded, standing up. "We are waiting for the Allied supreme council."
"The Council is busy drinking champagne," Jason said in fluent German. "I'm the man who paid for the champagne."
Jason threw the papers onto the table in the center of the room.
"This is the Treaty of Versailles," Jason said. "Or rather, the revised version."
The Germans gathered around. They read the summary.
Their eyes widened.
"No war guilt clause?" one diplomat whispered. "No territorial concessions in the Rhineland? The reparations... paid in full?"
Brockdorff-Rantzau looked up, suspicious. "This is a trick. Clemenceau wants our blood. Why would he agree to this?"
"Because I bought his anger," Jason said. "I paid your debt, Count. Standard Oil wrote a check to the Bank of France this morning for fifty billion gold marks."
The Count staggered back. "Fifty billion? Why?"
"Because a bankrupt Germany is bad for business," Jason said. "I need a stable Europe. I need a Germany that can buy my oil and build my machines."
He pointed to the second section of the document.
"However, there is a price."
Brockdorff-Rantzau read the fine print. His face went pale.
"Equity transfer," he read. "Standard Oil to acquire controlling interest in IG Farben, Krupp Steel, Siemens, and the Deutsche Reichsbahn... effectively immediately."
He looked at Jason with horror.
"You aren't liberating us," the Count whispered. "You are buying us. You want to turn the German Reich into a... a branch office."
"I want to turn it into an engine," Jason corrected. "If you sign this, your economy stabilizes tomorrow. No hyperinflation. No starving children. Your factories open next week, under my management. Your workers get paid in dollars, not worthless paper marks."
Jason leaned in.
"Or you can refuse. You can walk into that Hall and let Clemenceau strip you naked. Your economy will collapse. Your people will starve. And out of that starvation... something terrible will rise. Wolves will come to eat the sheep."
He was thinking of the brownshirts. The swastikas. The screaming crowds in Munich.
"The Golden Handcuffs, Count," Jason said softly. "Or the guillotine. Choose."
Brockdorff-Rantzau looked at his colleagues. He looked at the document. It was a surrender of sovereignty, yes. But it was a lifeline for his people.
"We become your employees," the Count said bitterly.
"You become my partners," Jason said. "And partners get rich."
The Count picked up the pen. His hand trembled.
"God forgive me," he whispered.
He signed.
The Hall of Mirrors was silent as the ink dried on the final treaty.
Clemenceau looked smug. He had his money.
Wilson looked relieved. He had his League of Nations (which Jason supported, as it was good for global trade).
The Germans looked defeated, but fed.
Jason stood in the back of the room. He watched the history of the 20th century rewrite itself in real-time.
There would be no stabbed-in-the-back myth. No economic ruin to fuel the Nazi rise. Germany was now the industrial heart of the Standard Oil empire.
He felt a presence beside him.
He looked up at the gallery.
Sarah was there. She was leaning on the railing, looking down at the ceremony.
She met his eyes.
She didn't smile. But she nodded.
It wasn't approval. It was acknowledgment. He had stopped the monster. He had saved the future.
But he had done it by enslaving a continent to a corporation.
Two weeks later. Munich.
The city was cold and grey. Discharged soldiers roamed the streets, angry and aimless. But the factories were opening. The dollar was flowing. There was food in the shops.
In a small, cheap apartment, a young man sat on his bed.
He was thin, pale, with intense blue eyes and a small mustache. He wore a worn army uniform.
Adolf Hitler stared at the rejection letter from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. It was crumpled in his fist.
He felt the rage building. The hatred. The need to blame someone. The Jews. The capitalists. The traitors who lost the war.
There was a knock at the door.
Hitler opened it.
A man in a sharp suit stood there. An American.
"Herr Hitler?" the man asked.
"Ja?"
"My name is Smith. I represent the Prentice Foundation for the Arts."
"I have no money," Hitler spat.
"I'm not asking for money," Smith said. "I'm offering a scholarship."
He handed Hitler an envelope.
"We've reviewed your portfolio. We think you show... unique promise. Not as a realist, perhaps. But in architectural design."
Hitler blinked. He took the envelope. Inside was an acceptance letter to a prestigious art school in New York. And a ticket for a steamship.
"New York?" Hitler whispered. "But the Jews..."
"New York is the city of the future, Herr Hitler," Smith said smoothly. "Skyscrapers. Monuments. A man of your vision could build great things there."
Smith pulled out a stack of cash.
"Full tuition. Living stipend. An apartment in Greenwich Village. All you have to do is paint. And leave politics to the politicians."
Hitler looked at the money. He looked at the ticket.
The rage in his chest flickered. It didn't go out, but it dimmed.
He had always wanted to be an artist. He had always wanted to be recognized.
"I... I accept," Hitler said.
"Good," Smith smiled. "Pack your bags. The ship leaves on Tuesday."
Smith turned and walked down the stairs.
Jason Underwood stood in the shadows of the alleyway across the street. He watched Smith emerge.
Smith nodded once.
Jason exhaled.
The corporal was gone. He would spend his life painting mediocre watercolors of the Brooklyn Bridge. He would die an unknown artist in 1970.
The Holocaust was cancelled.
Paris at night was beautiful.
Jason and Sarah stood on the balcony of his suite at the Ritz. The Eiffel Tower glittered in the distance.
Sarah held a glass of wine. She looked healthier. The color had returned to her cheeks.
"You did it," she said softly. "I checked the newspapers. The Nazi party... it doesn't exist. There are no rallies in Munich. The Weimar government is stable."
"It's the Standard government," Jason corrected. "But yes. It's stable."
"You saved them," Sarah said. She looked at him with a strange expression. "You saved the Jews. You saved the Gypsies. You saved the world from the camps."
"I just changed the management," Jason said. He took a sip of his drink. "War is inefficient, Sarah. Genocide is a waste of labor. Peace... enforced, corporate peace... pays better dividends."
Sarah shivered. "Is that really all it is to you? Dividends?"
"It has to be," Jason said. "If I start feeling it... if I start thinking about the morality... I'll hesitate. And if I hesitate, the wolves come back."
He turned to her.
"I built a cage, Sarah. A golden cage. The world is safe inside it. But I hold the key."
Sarah looked out at the city. She saw the peace. She saw the prosperity returning.
She knew the cost. She knew that democracy was now a shadow puppet show run by Jason's checkbook.
But she also knew that 60 million people would live to see their grandchildren.
"Maybe the world needs a zookeeper," Sarah whispered.
She reached out and took his hand.
"What now, Jason? You own the oil. You own the peace. You own the future. What's left?"
Jason looked at the stars. He thought about the glowing vial of radium in Einstein's lab in Princeton. He thought about the atom.
"We own the earth," Jason said.
He pointed up.
"Now we buy the fire."