Blind Reason
by Patricia Griffon
Category: Fiction

Blind Reason is the intricate tale of the most ambitious and insidious global conspiracy since the Third Reicha tangled web of insatiable greed, hidden agendas, rogue spies, deception, betrayal, lost dreams, and personal tragedies. It begins with the Allied nations' bombing of Berlin in February 1945, which destroyed the Reichsbank, and the subsequent discovery of an abandoned salt mine in southern Germany, where an incalculable stash of gold bullion, currency, and precious art and antiques has been stored for the express purpose of financing the continuation of the Nazis' thousand-year reign. Maya Warwick is an enigmatic and reclusive author living in a mountain community outside Denver. When she discovers that her best friend, Thea Rousseau, has committed suicide, her only clue is an empty bottle of Euphorin, the latest Prozac-like "mood brightener" touted as a panacea for anxiety and depression. Maya is no stranger to bad drugs slipping through the FDA approval process. Ten years earlier, she wrote a best-selling book on another pharmaceutical that was implicated in dozens of grisly tragedies, including the murder-suicide of her parents. Fearing that Thea's actions were a side effect of the medication, Maya uses the Internet to research Euphorin and its manufacturer. She discovers that FetcherBurkeWinslow is a subsidiary of VB Pharmaceuticals (referred to as the "poison machine of the Third Reich") and that VB was the maker of the psychotropic drugs used in mind-control experiments at Auschwitz. She now suspects that Euphorin has a more sinister intent. From there, her investigation leads to various neo-Nazi websites where she learns that Baron Alexander von Brandt, president of VB Pharmaceuticals, is the reputed leader of a burgeoning Nazi party and the son of a former Third Reich minister. In her outrage, Maya innocently posts her conspiracy theories on various Internet bulletin boards alleging that the Nazis are trying to wrangle the bleating herds into a planetary corral, attracting the attention of a couple of CIA lurkers who have been monitoring certain websites since the 9-11 terrorist attacks. She is lured into an online relationship with one of the lurkers and eventually meets the man in charge of the infamous CIA experiments known as Project MK-Ultra. Riggs Haywood ardently recruits Maya into Operation SHADOWHAWK, a black project set up to entrap Baron von Brandt into disclosing his plans for advancing the new Nazi party. More importantly, Riggs wants to know how von Brandt intends to access the vast sum of money and gold that was stashed in Credit Suisse by his father before the collapse of the Third Reich. The Schweizerische Bundespolizei want to know the same thing. Once recruited, Maya is assigned a new name and identity and is sent to Munich to be squired to Baron von Brandt's lavish Christmas extravaganza by a nefarious CIA sleeper named Horst Freundlich. It then becomes her mission to ferret out von Brandt's intentions. After several meetings, he discloses his vision of a future world comprised of genetically engineered people whose lives are enhanced by pharmaceuticals that induce neurochemical bliss. Several attempts are made on her life before Harry Langdon, one of the lurkers who helped ensnare her in this diabolical plot, rescues her. Both he and Maya seek asylum in Switzerland under the auspices of Swiss intelligence. Most of the action takes place in Munich, but also includes scenes in New York; Provence, Switzerland; and Colorado. In the end, each of the characters finds the will to overcome the events that have shaped their lives and reclaim their right to find real love and personal happiness in a world that seems fraught with illusion.