The motorcade moved through Lower Manhattan like a funeral procession for a hated king.
Jason sat in the back of the armored Packard. Alta was next to him, reviewing a ledger. The glass was thick, bulletproof—a prototype from the chemical division.
Outside, the city was boiling.
It was the summer of 1919. The soldiers were home, but the jobs weren't. Prices were up. Wages were down. And everyone knew who had all the money.
Thump.
Something hit the window.
Jason flinched. A brick. It bounced harmlessly off the reinforced glass, leaving a smudge of red dust.
Alta didn't even look up. She turned a page.
"The quarterly earnings are up forty percent," she said. "The German acquisition has stabilized the mark. We own the patent on synthetic nitrate now."
"They're throwing bricks, Alta," Jason said, watching a man in an Army uniform scream silent curses at the car.
"Let them throw bricks. We own the brick factory too."
The car pulled into the underground garage of 26 Broadway. The Standard Oil Building. The fortress.
The air inside was cool, filtered, and smelled of lemon polish and old money. It was a different universe from the street.
They took the private elevator to the Penthouse Boardroom.
The doors opened.
John D. Rockefeller Sr. sat at the head of the massive mahogany table. He looked ancient, his skin like parchment paper stretched over a skull. He was eating a bowl of milk and crackers.
"Ezra!" Senior chirped. "My boy! The hero of Versailles! Come, sit. Tell me about the Kaiser. Did he cry when he signed?"
Senior was happy. Senior was rich. Senior had no idea the city outside was ready to eat him.
Jason sat. "We have a problem, Senior. The public sentiment is turning."
"Posh," Senior waved a spoon. "They always hate success. Then they buy the kerosene."
"Father is right," a soft voice said.
Junior stepped out from the shadows of the corner. He wasn't smiling.
He placed a thick folder on the table. It landed with a heavy thud.
"The public hates us because we have lost our way," Junior said. He looked at Jason with eyes full of pious disgust. "We used to sell oil. Now we buy governments. And we fund... abominations."
Junior slid the folder toward Senior.
"What is this?" Senior asked, chewing a cracker.
"An audit," Junior said. "Ezra has been diverting company funds. Millions. To a laboratory in Princeton."
Jason's heart hammered against his ribs. The Einstein Project.
"It's R&D," Jason said, keeping his voice level. "Physics. Energy research."
"It is alchemy," Junior spat. "I have read the reports. Curving space? Splitting atoms? It is nonsense. God's creation cannot be split, Ezra. You are burning shareholder money on science fiction while the workers riot for bread."
Junior leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the table.
"I propose we shut down the Princeton facility immediately. Liquidate the assets. And perhaps... Ezra should take a sabbatical. The war has clearly affected his mind."
The room went silent.
This was the attack. Junior wasn't trying to fire him; he was trying to declare him incompetent.
Senior looked at Jason, then at the folder. He hesitated. Senior cared about profit. If Jason was wasting money, that was a sin.
Alta stood up.
She walked over to the folder. She didn't open it. She placed her hand on top of it.
"The Princeton facility stays open," she said.
Junior blinked. "Alta, look at the numbers—"
"I don't care about the numbers, Junior. I care about the stock price. If we fire the 'Hero of Versailles' two days after he returns, the stock drops ten points. Ezra stays."
She looked at Jason. Her eyes were cold daggers.
"But," Alta added, her voice dropping an octave. "No more secret accounts, Ezra. Every penny goes through me from now on. If I find one more unauthorized transfer, I will let Junior have you."
Senior nodded, satisfied. "Good. Settled. Now, who wants pepsin?"
Jason felt the noose tighten. Alta had saved him, but she had also jailed him. He was a prisoner in his own company.
Jason needed air. Real air.
Two hours later, he slipped out the back entrance. He wore a plain coat and a flat cap, pulling it low over his eyes. He didn't take a company car. He took a taxi.
Destination: Greenwich Village.
He needed to check on his investment. His wildcard.
Adolf Hitler.
Jason had paid for the art school. He had paid for the apartment. The plan was simple: keep the angry little corporal happy, painting bad landscapes in New York, so he never went back to Munich to start the Nazi party.
The taxi dropped him off at Washington Square Park.
The neighborhood was alive. Bohemians, poets, socialists. The air smelled of roasted nuts and cheap tobacco.
Jason walked toward the address he had for Adolf's studio.
The door was unlocked.
He pushed it open.
The studio was empty. No easel. No paints.
Instead, the floor was covered in paper. Pamphlets.
Jason picked one up. The ink was fresh, smudging on his thumb.
THE SLAVERY OF CAPITAL.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE AGAINST THE OIL BARONS.
Jason's blood ran cold.
He heard shouting from the park down the street. A roar of a crowd.
He ran toward it.
A crowd of three hundred men stood gathered around the fountain. Irish dockworkers. Italian bricklayers. Veterans in torn uniforms. They were angry. They were holding signs that said BREAK THE TRUST.
And standing on a wooden crate in the center of them was Adolf.
He looked different. The toothbrush mustache was gone, shaved clean. He wore American suspenders and a newsboy cap. But the eyes—the burning, hypnotic blue eyes—were the same.
He wasn't painting. He was speaking.
And he was good. Terrifyingly good.
"They tell you the war is over!" Adolf shouted. His voice cracked with passion, projecting without a microphone. "But who won? Did you win? Did you get a factory? Did you get a castle?"
"NO!" the crowd roared.
Adolf punched the air. "The Rockefellers won! Prentice won! They sit in their tower of gold while you starve in the mud! They buy Germany, but they sell you out!"
He leaned forward, whispering now, drawing the crowd in.
"There is a parasitic class in this city. Men who produce nothing but misery. We must cut them out. We must take back what is ours!"
The crowd cheered. A frenzied, violent sound.
Jason backed away, hiding in the shadow of a tree.
He felt sick.
He had stopped Hitler from becoming a Nazi. But he hadn't stopped him from being a monster.
He had just changed the target.
Hitler wasn't blaming the Jews. He was blaming the Capitalists. He was blaming Jason.
The algorithm of history was correcting itself. A charismatic leader was rising from the chaos. And Jason had paid for his ticket to New York.
Jason didn't go back to the office. He went to the safe house.
A small apartment on the Lower East Side. Sarah's apartment.
He burst through the door, locking it behind him.
Sarah was sitting at the small kitchen table, cleaning a cut on her arm from the ship. She looked up, startled.
"Jason? What happened?"
He was pacing. Hyperventilating.
"I broke it, Sarah. I broke everything."
He grabbed a glass of water and downed it.
"Junior knows about the money. Alta has me on a leash. And Hitler..." He laughed, a manic, terrified sound. "Hitler is organizing the unions. He's turning the city against me."
Sarah stood up. She grabbed his shoulders.
"Jason, stop. Breathe."
He looked at her. "We have to leave. Now. Tonight."
"And go where?" Sarah asked. "You're the most famous man in the world. They'll find us."
"We go to Mexico. Or Brazil."
"No," Sarah said firmly. "If we run, Junior seizes the Einstein lab. He shuts it down. The research is lost. Or worse—he sells it to the Army."
Jason stopped. She was right.
If he left now, Junior would own the atomic bomb.
"I can't run," Jason whispered. "And I can't stay."
"Then you have to fight," Sarah said.
Jason looked at her. The fear in his chest began to harden into something cold. Something sharp.
He reached into his coat pocket.
He pulled out a thick envelope. It was sealed with red wax.
"This is the deed to the Princeton Institute," Jason said. "And the bearer bonds. It's everything. The exit strategy."
He pressed the envelope into Sarah's hands.
"Hide this. Somewhere Alta will never look."
"Jason, what are you going to do?"
He walked to the window. He looked out at the burning city. He could see the smoke from the harbor.
"Junior wants a war," Jason said softly. "I'm going to give him one. I'm going to make him destroy himself."
He turned back to Sarah. His eyes were dark.
"I'm going to let Junior leak the blackmail. I'm going to let him think he's winning. And when he strikes... I'm going to burn the whole company down around us."
"That's suicide," Sarah whispered.
"No," Jason said. "It's a hostile takeover."