The Heritage Paper

Chapter 59



He looked the same as he did on the poster in Maggie’s room. His thick hair was stylishly parted to the side, and his boyish face was offset by a rock-solid jaw that looked to be carved from stone. He sounded the same as he did on television, with a perfect balance of comfort and passion in his tone. But to Maggie, he didn’t appear to be the same.

He looked at the bickering siblings and smiled. “I’m glad to see you’ve made yourself at home. This is now as much your home as it is mine.”

“This is not my home,” Maggie snapped back. “Where is my mom!?”

He looked her up and down. It made her feel icky. “The dress I gave you didn’t fit? Or if you didn’t like it, I can get you one you more approve of.”

“I wouldn’t like anything you gave me—where is my mom!?”

He smiled with amusement. It was condescending. He was everything she thought he wasn’t. “I know politics is fickle, but yesterday you were wearing my shirt to school, and today you want no part of me.”

“You’re just a typical politician who never listens—where is my mom!?”

“Your mother is fine,” he said and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Maggie snarled.

“It’s just that you remind me of me at your age.”

“I’m nothing like you.”

“They called it stubbornness,” he said, maintaining his smile—the one that always won over the voters. “But since I’m about to be elected president, they now say I have resolve. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.”

“You need a shower, you dirty Nazi,” Maggie shouted at the top of her lungs.

The insult didn’t dent his amusement. “I’ve been on the campaign trail for eighteen months, Maggie, so you’re going to have to do better than that. In fact, I received a letter from the head of a certain terrorist group this morning who called me a Jew Loving Dead Man, and then went into explicit detail of how they were going to behead me. Makes the Cheerios not go down real smooth.”

Maggie seethed. She remembered her mom telling her that sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me, after some kids had picked on her and she came home crying. She really wished she had some sticks and stones right now to throw in Kingston’s face. She wanted to hurt him.

He moved beside Jamie, who had resumed his game. “So how about you, Jamie?” he said and patted him on the head like their father used to do.

Jamie bubbled with excitement. “Xbox, M&M’s, and no school—what’s there not to like!?”

“So what game are you playing here?” he asked.

“It’s Halo,” Jamie stated enthusiastically, “It’s an intergalactic battle in the future. I’m in charge of the good guys, we’re fighting against the Covenant Soldiers—they’re the bad guys. They’re robots!”

“Wow,” Kingston acted interested, “So are you winning the war?”

Jamie sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, it’s been a struggle.”

“A great man once said—those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this eternal struggle do not deserve life.”

“So will you also be quoting Hitler in your acceptance speech tonight?” Maggie asked. “I think it would be fitting.”

He looked impressed. “I didn’t know they are teaching classics like Mein Kampf in school these days.”

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

“She always ruins all the fun,” Jamie interrupted, and handed the future president a controller. “Here—let’s play multi-player. I’m the Master Chief.”

“Until the votes come in tonight,” Kingston joked.

“You get to be Arbiter.”

“Arbiter?”

“The leader of the Alien Elite—they broke away from the Covenant. We are going to fight together to take them down.”

“Arbiter was given the rank by the high prophet because it was a time of extraordinary circumstances,” Maggie added, “You know, he was chosen.”

Jamie became annoyed with the distraction, tapping Kingston on the arm to get his attention. “Your weapons are holstered on your back. You have grenades and a whole bunch of other cool stuff.” Then he had an epiphany, “Oh, I totally forgot, in this version there’s this cool weapon where you can make the enemy believe the wrong stuff. I love tricking people and then taking their stuff. Halo-2 didn’t have that feature.”

“Sound familiar?” Maggie asked.

Kingston didn’t respond, he was too busy being educated by Professor Jamie. “Watch—I’m going to fire my assault rifle at that bunch of grunts.”

The grunts crashed to the ground. “I killed them!”

Jamie noticed on the split-screen that Kingston’s man, Arbiter, was in trouble. “Put up your bubble-shield! Put up your bubble-shield on your vehicle!” Jamie exclaimed. But it was too late. Kingston’s vehicle was blasted to high heaven by the Covenant Soldiers. He wasn’t as good at saving humanity as he was in his commercials.

“You’ll do better next time,” Jamie said in a consoling tone.

Maggie added, “The Covenant Force that fights against humanity is united under the worship of the Forerunners, who believe they are superior to the humans and ordered their destruction … sounds a little like … um … you know … Nazi Germany.”

Kingston looked to his more receptive audience. “Jamie—I’m going to tell you about a similar fight between good and evil back in the 20th century. The good guys were called the Reich and fought against the evil Bolsheviks and the Zionists. But while the Reich soldiers were off fighting to protect their homeland, the Zionists hid within the homeland that they shared and pretended to be loyal, but were really working for the bad guys to cause the Reich to lose.

“The Reich fought back behind a brave, young Master Chief they called the Führer. But by that time, the Bolsheviks and Zionists had grown too strong. A great war broke out, and while the Führer fought courageously, his enemies were too powerful. With the Führer out of the way, the Zionists fought a civil war with the Bolsheviks to gain ultimate control of the world, called the Cold War. And when the Zionists triumphed, and became the world’s lone superpower, they controlled all the money and food, leaving the world at the mercy of the Global World Order they created.”

“So the bad guys won the war?” Jamie asked, confused.

“The war is still going on, Jamie. The Zionists didn’t know the Master Chief of the Reich had planted the seeds of trees that would bring them back from the dead. And the once barren meadow slowly grew into a forest. And today, each beautiful leaf on those trees represents their glorious return.”

Maggie felt sick. “FYI—the reason the Covenant Elite came over to the good side was because they realized that the Covenant had lied and were really the ones who were trying to destroy the world. And they will win in the end, because good always overcomes evil, even the kind that is hidden behind a lie.”

“Did you learn that in school?”

“No, I learned it from my Oma, Ellen Peterson. You know … your grandmother.”

She paused for a moment to let him know she’d put it all together. “I know you are the son of Josef, the one Hitler chose to lead the Reich back. But there’s one thing I haven’t figured out.”

“Which is?’

“Why was your father chosen? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ll explain that to you when you are old enough to understand. Then you’ll be able to fully comprehend your legacy.”

Maggie viewed the branches of her family tree in her head. “I have no connection to you or your father, so I don’t understand what legacy I would have. Our only link is Oma.”

“Ellen is of royal blood, which makes us both part of a royal bloodline. She was a great woman who sacrificed for us all.”

“Oma was some sort of Nazi queen or something?”

“The royal blood chooses you, Maggie, not the other way around. It takes a while to embrace it. I know this because I fought against it for years. But you must understand that people will try to harm you because of your heritage. So you must be prepared to protect yourself.”

“Sounds like more Nazi lies. Who is writing your material … Goebbles?”

Kingston looked impressed at her knowledge of Hitler’s Propaganda Minister. “The fact is my father was killed by these Zionists, as was your father …”

“My father would never be part of this!”

“You’re a smart girl, Maggie, do the math.”

She began running for the door. “I’m calling the police!”

“The police are already here,” Kingston announced, and shouted for Eddie. He entered on command. “What’s the problem now, Maggot?”

“What are you, some kind of SS Officer?”

“Is that anyway to treat your uncle?”

“F*ck you! Is that better?”

“Watch your mouth. These people are just trying to protect you.”

She lost it. She ran to Jamie and took the controller out of his hand and threw it at Eddie. Then the Xbox. Jamie started screaming, but she didn’t care. She picked up the glass dish of M&M’s and threw it at his forehead. It was a direct hit. Eddie was knocked to the ground and candy spilled everywhere. Maggie ran to him and started kicking him with the tip of her crocs. She picked up the M&M’s scattered at the floor and hit him in the face like she were spraying him with bee-bees. Then something made her pause.

Eddie would never let her get away with this. He was pissed, and his forehead was bleeding, but he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t touch her. She was royal blood—whatever that meant—and he was just a working stiff for the Nazis.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place, causing her to stop the candy Blitzkrieg. She’d figured it out, but he hadn’t. They never told him, or more likely they lied to him. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” he asked, half angry, half dazed.

“Rose Shepherd—the one we went to visit today—she’s one of them. They killed your mother!”

Eddie glared at her, stunned. His eyes trailed to Kingston, who looked away like a coward. Eddie’s look changed from surprise to sadness, and then to anger. But there was nothing he could do.

Silence filled the room, until a distraught Jamie shouted, “Maggie, you always ruin all the fun!”