Chasing Aquila

by James Hume

  Cian bent down and pulled Tommy fully under the bridge. He noticed the gun lying on the ground and kicked it into the river. That made it more even, he thought. Tommy moaned and tried to sit up. He pulled the half bottle of whisky from his pocket, opened it, held Tommy’s nose closed and poured the whisky into Tommy’s mouth. Tommy spluttered as he swallowed. He gave him more whisky the same way.

  He leaned over Tommy. ‘Where’s your wife? Where’s she gone? Tell me and I’ll let you go.’ He shook Tommy’s head. ‘Tell me.’

  He held Tommy’s nose again and poured more whisky into his open mouth. Tommy spluttered and opened his eyes.

  ‘Tell me. Where’s your wife?’

  Tommy snarled, ‘Bugger off.’

  He held Tommy’s nose and gave him more whisky. Only a few drops left now. ‘Where’s your wife?’

  Suddenly Tommy’s hands came up around his neck, though not as tight as before. He punched Tommy in the face, which pushed him further down the bank. Tommy’s head lay only an inch from the flowing water. He stretched out and grabbed Tommy’s neck. ‘Where’s your wife?’

  Tommy tried to punch him in the face, but the movement changed Tommy’s body position and it slid down the bank into the river. Cian reached over, tried to grab Tommy and hold him back from going under, but couldn’t get a proper grip, and Tommy gently slipped under the surface. Bubbles came up from his mouth.

  Cian watched in dismay as Tommy floated slowly away. He pushed the whisky bottle into the river and got onto his knees. Then he clambered up, leaned against one of the bridge supports and tried to calm himself,. His whole body shook and shivered with the emotion and effort he’d put into saving himself.

  He stood for a while in the darkness, recovering, then scrambled up the grassy bank to the road and staggered over the bridge to a bus and tram stop. A few minutes later a bus came along going to Glasgow. He signalled it and got on.

  He brushed dirt off his coat with his hands and fixed his tie. All that effort and time wasted. Shit, what would he do now? And he’d have to tell G he’d failed. This spying business was harder and more dangerous than he thought.

  ***

  He staggered into the hotel, after a long walk out the Great Western Road from the city centre. He hadn’t dared take a taxi in his condition.

  Annika jumped out of her seat as he entered the room, came rushing over to him and threw her arms around his neck. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’ She stepped back and looked at him. ‘Oh, mijn God. Let’s get your coat off.’ She helped him struggle out of his coat. ‘This’ll need a good brushing. What happened?’

  ‘I was in a fight.’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘A man called Tommy.’

  ‘Is this the man you want to find his wife?’

  ‘Yeah. And I still don’t know where she is. Someplace called burg – and it might have to do with a trial. It’s all I’ve got. And G won’t be happy. He’s spent all this money to find her, and I’ve failed.’

  ‘Don’t get too downhearted. Burg sounds German. Let’s check it out tomorrow. What happened to the man, Tommy?’

  ‘He drowned – in the river.’

  She stared at him with her mouth open. ‘What?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  She looked at the floor, and choked. ‘Oh, Jezus Christus.’

  ‘Well, it was either him or me. Kill or be killed. He attacked me with a gun.’

  ‘So, you defended yourself. Did anyone see this?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. And self-defence would be difficult to prove.’

  ‘Is he still in the river?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, he won’t be found until it’s light. Eight o’clock at the earliest. We’ll get out of here early. Catch the first train to London. We can sort out where we go from there.’

  ‘Right.’

  He began to realise the enormity of what had happened and his stomach leaped. He dashed into the bathroom, knelt in front of the toilet bowl and spewed his guts into it. After a few minutes he scrambled to his feet and took a drink of water, then staggered back to the room, slumped into an easy chair, put his head back, and fell asleep within minutes.

  ***

  He sat in the middle of a long row of seats in the middle of Central Station. Everything seemed normal. The noises of the station echoed around him. The men on a high platform updated the destination boards. The seven o’clock train to London Euston was indicated for Platform One.

  He could see Annika at the ticket window, her bright blonde hair a startling contrast to those around her. As usual, she wore her new Kleppermantel, a long, hooded, rubber-lined German raincoat with a shiny grey cotton surface that shimmered and rippled as she walked, such a contrast to the short, dull utility clothes around her. She looked super-attractive, and several men turned and admired her as she walked past. He just wished, this morning, she’d have been a bit less conspicuous.

  She sat next to him, and the man on her other side got up and left a newspaper behind. She picked it up and held it towards him, The Glasgow Herald. ‘Do you want this?’

  He shook his head. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except to get away from here.

  She started to flick through the paper, then stopped and read an article on page three. She leaned over to him and murmured, ‘You need to read this,’ and passed him the paper folded at the relevant article.

  ‘Hess Says Loss Of Memory Was Hoax

  Pretence Adopted for “Tactical” Reasons

  Prepared Statement Read to Nuremberg Court

  Nuremberg, Friday

  The War Crimes Tribunal this evening heard an extraordinary declaration from Rudolf Hess that his loss of memory had been simulated for “tactical” reasons, and that, together with his comrades, he wished to face the verdict of the court.

  Lord Justice Lawrence, the President, with an astonished glance at his fellow Judges, hastily adjourned the Court until tomorrow.’

  The article went on to give details of the events, including the reactions of prosecuting counsel for Britain, the United States and Russia.

  She leaned over to him again. ‘Didn’t you say she translated German to English?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s what Brown said.’

  ‘Well, there must be a hell of a lot of translation required there. I think that’s where we should head.’

  Chapter 4. Porritt

  By the time Porritt arrived in his office on Thursday morning, he’d more or less worked out what to do. He picked up the phone and asked for the number.

  ‘Ja. Direktor Wolff.’

  ‘Hans, it’s Jonathan Porritt at the Palace of Justice. How are you today?’

  Silence for a moment. ‘Ah, Jonathan. Good to hear from you. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m looking for some police help, and would like to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Do you mean real police help?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Mein Gott. Of course. Anything to get me out of this crazy limbo.’

  Porritt knew lots of Germans felt the same way about the Occupation – stoic tolerance at best. He wondered how he’d feel in the same situation. ‘Good. Do you want to come over here or should I come to you?’

  ‘What is it you say? It would set too many rabbits running if you came here. I’ll come to you. In about twenty minutes or so?’

  ‘Thanks, Hans. See you then.’

  Porritt liked Hans Wolff, head of KriPo, the detective branch of the State Police in the Nuremberg area; a broad-shouldered man with a round face, ready smile and twinkly eyes that belied his profession. He’d met him a couple of times at receptions. They had a lot in common, swapped stories of real cases, and treated each other as equals. Porritt thought he could trust him and get his support if he told his story the right way. Anyway, he couldn’t bring his own people over from Britain because of the language problem. So, he didn’t have much choice. He had to make it work. He also thought it a lot
more exciting than his rather false job in Nuremberg.

  He’d had to organise everything from translators and stenographers to food, transport, accommodation and security for the British judges and lawyers at the Trial. But he also had to work alongside his equivalents from the other occupying countries, and that wasn’t easy. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when the first Trial – the International Military Tribunal for major war criminals – had started on 20th November.

  Porritt felt his own little world in Nuremberg mirrored the national picture. After the German surrender in May, the Allies had divided Germany into four military occupation zones, where each of the Allied countries – France in the southwest, the UK in the northwest, the USA in the south, and the Soviet Union in the east – had full sovereign authority in their respective zone. The German people had no say on any matter.

  Porritt asked himself how the hell Germany could possibly recover from such a defeat? He answered, from his experience so far, their best chance was to exploit the fact the victors couldn’t speak with one voice.

  The overall direction for Germany was set by the Allied Control Council, in which senior members of each occupying country acted together to deal with nationwide problems. But while they issued a series of laws and directives, the real power rested within each zone, which had its own separate agenda, and often limited the Control Council’s actions. The French wanted to grind Germany down so it would never reappear. The Americans thought this crazy, because Europe could never survive economically with a hole the size of Germany at its heart. The Brits, as usual, were somewhere in the middle. And the Russians only wanted control of everything east of Hamburg.

  In Nuremberg, Porritt was the main driving force to get things done. But he wasn’t a natural diplomat, and got frustrated at the separate agendas of his equivalents. Once he realised Jed Baker, the tall, laid-back Texan who headed the US group, had a natural flair for convincing the others, the two of them joined forces and drove through much-needed changes. Provided Sergei, their Russian equivalent, could have more than the Americans, and set the rules, he was happy. In much the same way, if Pascal, their equivalent from France, could veto any power to any German, and ignore any rules set by Sergei, he was happy. That way they all reached a consensus.

  The next big battle Porritt and Baker faced was over transport. Each of the groups had a fleet of Mercedes cars, and they all turned up in the main courtyard in front of the Palace, morning and evening. The whole place became totally grid-locked, and Porritt needed a strong, multi-language figure to impose a solution. But he or she could not be French or German, because neither would take orders from the other, and so he’d proposed they find a Dutch or Swedish person for the role, as they would be acceptable to everyone. But his recommendation got bogged down in trivial arguments about access – everyone wanted set down or picked up at the front door – and Porritt wished the others would all just go away and leave him to get on with it. Then he got the call Polizeidirektor Hans Wolff had arrived, and so he now had to focus on this meeting.

  Wolff shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. ‘So, Jonathan, how’s the Trial going, now you’ve got started?’

  Porritt thought for a moment. ‘Maybe a bit slow to start. Everyone has to find their feet. But I think it’s now going well. What do you think? What’s the word out there?’

  Wolff pursed his lips and shrugged. ‘It’s your show, Jonathan. Our views don’t matter.’

  ‘Well, I’d still like to know what you think.’

  Wolff paused for a moment. ‘There’s a view out there the Trial’s just a very fancy and very expensive lynching party.’

  Porritt knew Wolff had worked for a while in Chicago between the wars and it showed in his English. ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s fair. We examine all the evidence of war crimes rather than just opinion. So, it’s not a lynching party.’

  Wolff pointed out the window. ‘Evidence? Have a look over there. Just to the left of the steeple. That’s our evidence of a war crime.’

  Porritt looked out the window and frowned. ‘I don’t see what you mean.’

  ‘Exactly. There’s nothing there now. Used to be our historic old town, full of bars and restaurants, where people went to enjoy themselves. And now obliterated by your bombers. Thousands killed. That’s what we call a war crime, Jonathan.’

  Porritt nodded and sighed. ‘I know, Hans. It’s the same in our country. Cities flattened, thousands of our people killed by your bombers. And neither of them were right. They didn’t progress the war one iota, except maybe our people became more determined to fight.’

  ‘And that was the difference, Jonathan. Your people in Britain and America had a free press. They knew the big picture – how the pieces all fitted. We haven’t had a free press for over ten years. Our people only knew what the Nazis wanted them to know – how great we were – blah, blah. They didn’t know the truth. These things coming out at the Trial – concentration camps – gas ovens – we never knew about them. You obliterated our beautiful old town. We knew about that. But why? What had we done wrong? Baffled and confused. We couldn’t make sense of it all.

  ‘But,’ he shrugged, ‘at the end of the day, we’re just policemen, Jonathan. We uphold the law and help people as much as we can. Hence why I’m here. How can I help you?’

  ‘I understand, Hans. I’d probably feel the same in your shoes. But, to business. I have a problem, and I’d really like your help with it. I believe one of my girl translators here could be targeted by a man because of information she has about an incident during the war. I’d like you and your team to help me catch him. Here’s his photo.’ He passed over a copy of the picture Sandra had sent from Glasgow.

  Wolff studied it for a moment. ‘Sure, but what makes you think that?’

  ‘Her ex-husband drowned in Glasgow, Scotland, on Friday night, and we think it was part of an attempt to find out where she now lives.’

  ‘Can you give me some background?’

  ‘One morning, about two and a half years ago, at the height of the war, we found a man unconscious on a beach in England. He carried German ID papers.’

  Wolff’s eyebrows raised.

  ‘We took him to hospital and I got called in to find out more about him. The man spoke only in German, so I used Jane, one of our translator girls, to help with the interrogation. To cut a long story short, the man escaped from our custody, but took the girl translator with him under duress, because he fancied her.

  Wolff guffawed. ‘Jeez! How stupid was that?’

  ‘Yeah, right. Anyway, during their journey, the man had an accident and died, and the girl alerted the authorities.

  ‘We recovered his body, and he turned out to be part of an undercover spy group that used Irish people with German sympathies.

  ‘So, now the war’s over, I think someone from the group – or maybe from the man’s family – wants to find out what happened to him, and the only way he can do that is to talk to the girl. I’d like your help to find him.’

  Wolff stroked his chin. ‘Right. So, let me just clarify this. You don’t really want to protect the girl as such, you want to find out who’s behind this threat?’

  ‘Well, I want to protect the girl, of course, though I’m pretty sure she’s not in danger. I think whoever’s behind it wants to find the person who ultimately caused the death of the man and destroyed their carefully built undercover organisation in the UK.’

  ‘And who’s that?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You? So, you want to use this girl as a lure to put yourself in danger?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want put in danger, but essentially, you’re right.’

  Wolff shook his head. ‘You’re a brave man, Jonathan.’

  ‘You mean brave or stupid, you don’t know which.’

  Wolff snorted. ‘Right. Tell me about the girl.’

  ‘She’s Jane Thomson, one of my senior translators. She’s over here with her mother and two kids. They have a local nanny duri
ng the week. She has an apartment in the new town.’

  ‘Does she have a car?’

  ‘She has the use of a pool car and driver.’

  ‘Okay, so what do you say if we replace the driver with one of our men to act as a sort of bodyguard, and have a team of two follow her as well? And we also put a team of two to follow the kids – they could be a vulnerable target. A total team of six, including me. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds fine.’

  ‘Will you pay separately, or just want billed through your organisation?’

  ‘I’m happy to pay separately.’

  ‘Do you mean in Reichsmarks or the new Allied Occupation Marks?’

  ‘Which would you prefer?’

  ‘To be honest, neither. Reichsmarks aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, and the Occupation Marks are a joke.’

  ‘Okay, what would you suggest?’

  ‘We have lots of problems out there you never see, Jonathan. Our adult food ration is less than half what you give your British soldier, and that’s not much. And now it’s winter, we can’t keep ourselves warm. There’s no coal, and everybody scrabbles around to find firewood. If you could pay us in food and fuel, it would be a godsend.’

  ‘Okay. Tell me what you’d like, and I’ll see if I can do it. I might even get the Americans to help, since we’re in their zone.’

  ‘Great, Jonathan. When do you want it set up?’

  ‘As soon as possible.’

  ‘Will do. I’ll get back to you in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Fine.’ They stood up and shook hands.

  Two hours later, Wolff called back.

  ‘Jonathan, how about this? Our six men, who would work on this job, have twenty-five direct dependants between them, including themselves, wives and children, parents and siblings. How about if you provided the equivalent ration you’d give one of your British soldiers to each of these twenty-five, plus enough firewood per day to heat six houses? Plus some fuel for three cars. What do you think?’

  Porritt thought for a few minutes. He’d already talked with Jed on the American side, who had agreed to help. In the circumstances, the barter economy made sense. He could probably negotiate it down a bit, but hell, let’s leave the man with some dignity. And the proposal seemed reasonable. ‘Okay, Hans, I agree, provided we put a time limit on it – say until we catch him – or until the end of March, whichever comes first.’