A Time To Every Purpose

by Ian Andrew

  As he ate breakfast in the quiet and refined atmosphere of the Mess dining room he also reflected on the strange sense of satisfaction he had felt when the Reichsführer’s staff had been every bit as efficient and professional in meeting his needs the previous evening. He had been chauffeured from Prinz-Albrecht-Straße to the barracks in a little over twenty minutes and was told a car was available at his request. He had been pleasantly surprised to find they had rung ahead and on his arrival his room had been prepared for him, as had an evening meal. He had told the driver that he wouldn’t need him for the rest of the evening and that he would like an 07:15 pick-up.

  At the designated time he walked out between the four draped pillars of the main entrance and sure enough the Horch staff car was waiting, purring a clear white exhaust vapour into the early morning briskness. Heinrich’s breath clouded in a similar fashion as he approached the car. He noticed it was a different driver to last night but obviously his itinerary had been passed along because as soon as he closed the door and settled into the rear seat the car pulled away. The driver, a female SS-Unterscharführer, merely glanced in the rear-view mirror and said, “Good morning Sir. I’ll have you at Oranienburger Straße in half an hour.”

  It was nearly six years to the day since Heinrich had been in Oranienburger Straße. His tour of duty had run from 2011 though to 2014 and he didn’t expect any of the uniformed personnel to be the same for this visit. However, he had assumed a lot of the civilian archivists would still remain and a few phone calls yesterday evening had confirmed his hopes. As he walked toward the front entrance of the domed building he gazed upwards at the grand old facade that had been preserved despite the building having once been a Turner Church. He was met by Jutta Gesele and his old language instructor Albrecht Dollman.

  “Heinrich, my lad. It’s so good to see you again. You haven’t changed a bit. Has he Jutta?”

  “Well perhaps a little more distinguished in his hair colour?” Jutta teased and looked towards Heinrich’s head.

  “Well thanks a lot!” Heinrich feigned an offended look. “I come all the way over from a warm and pleasant London, to a cold, if not freezing, Berlin and all I get is that I have a few more grey hairs? Charming is all I have to say on the matter. Of course it is good to see you at least, Albrecht.” He winked at the two of them and held out his arms to Jutta who walked forward and gave him a hug.

  “Hi you,” he said to the short, dark haired, thoroughly bookish looking young woman. She was dressed as modestly as ever in flat shoes, a long skirt and simple plain blouse. Her hair was in the still preferred, but not often seen, plats and apart from being heavier than the perfect Aryan specimen she worked hard to fit the Party’s ideal image of a fräulein. Her only departure from the demure norm was the gothic tattoo on her right wrist;Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.

  “Hi you too!” she beamed up at him, slipped her arm in his and turned to follow Albrecht.

  Jutta had been working in the Archives in one capacity or another since graduating high school. By the time Heinrich was posted to Oranienburger Straße she was a fresh-faced graduate straight out of the University of Posen. Armed with a newly minted Bachelors Degree in Ancient History she had been assigned back to the place she adored on the direct recommendation of Albrecht. Throughout the three years Heinrich had worked with her he had been singularly impressed with her ability to understand the subtleties and nuances so often present in the ancient writings. Despite not having gone on to do a Masters or a Doctorate she was nonetheless acknowledged as an expert in the rise of the eastern religions and their embodiment into the Turner ideology. He also knew two more significant details about Jutta Gesele. She had an unrequited crush on him and she was potentially the most fervent and zealous member of the Nazi Party he had ever met.

  “So what’s happening with you?” he asked.

  “Same old, same old. We still argue almost weekly with those deranged Ahnenerbe idiots who want us to move all of our records over to Dahlem. We keep telling them we don’t want anything to do with them. They keep making crazy theories up and we keep doing real work,” she effervesced enthusiasm and talked non-stop. “I had quite a coup last year that was pretty good. I found the key to one of the Buddhist translations. It was brilliant. It showed up one of their old monastery hideaways. We rounded up three hundred and sixteen of the weird orange freaks in one go,” she giggled.

  Heinrich smiled back at her and said, “Well done Jutta, good work. Did we learn much from them?”

  “Oh well, it was up in Malay so we let the Imperial Army take the lead. You know what our little Japanese friends are like. They had decapitated most of them on site before we could convince them to take some down to Changi for a chat. Even then we got little new information before they checked out. But, it was an interesting experience.”

  “Proud of you,” said Heinrich and fought to control his revulsion. She continued to babble away as the three of them proceeded through five separate security checkpoints to the level known as the Inner Library.

  Heinrich gazed around the room where he had spent almost three years of his life. It was a large open space lined with floor to ceiling book shelves crammed full of thousands of bound books. The floor was dotted with multiple further shelves arranged in chevrons across the space. Between these were a dozen stand-alone reader tables. Each of these had a return desk attached at right angles that was equipped with a PC with twin screens. The room was flooded with natural light coming through the central ceiling dome so beautifully supported by exposed wrought-iron stanchions. In the rear wall was a safe door that led through to the Sensitive Archive Room, casually know as the SAR.

  Albrecht ushered them into a small crew room that was set off to the side of the main floor and poured coffees for all of them. Once settled he asked, “Now Heinrich, what can we do for you?”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t really tell you what it’s all about,” Heinrich said truthfully. “It’s all rather hush-hush but I just need to get some time with The Scribes of the Sons of Jacob. Can’t tell you why but as you can imagine, it is quite important.”

  “Is it to do with the Minister’s death?” asked Albrecht rather nonchalantly.

  Heinrich gaped at him.

  “Come, come now Heinrich. Don’t look at me with such incredulity. We hold the secrets that cannot be spoken about and I am the grandson of a former Gestapo diplomat. Is anyone going to be better placed to hear whispers in the corridors of power and better capable of keeping them a secret?” he removed his glasses and huffed on them before intricately cleaning each lens. As he placed them back on he looked at Jutta and then at Heinrich, “What? Did I say something out of turn?”

  “Albrecht!” Jutta mockingly scolded him. “You can’t put Heinrich into such an awkward position. You know he can neither confirm nor deny such a scurrilous rumour.”

  Heinrich held his hands up in submission. “Okay you two. I feel like I’ve been ambushed. What on earth have you heard?”

  “Oh nothing much to be honest,” said Albrecht. “You know my eldest nephew is employed at the Reichstag Museum? Well his new boss is an ex-Hauptsturmführer in the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Turns out he heard from someone else that the Justice Minister for GB had committed suicide in Edinburgh.”

  Heinrich almost laughed but managed not to. “Even if that were true, and I am not saying it is. How or why would that bring me here?”

  This time it was Jutta, “Oh because he left a note saying that God had made him do it and then included another line written in ancient Greek, or Aramaic, or one of the two.”

  This time Heinrich did laugh. “You know it never ceases to amaze me how we ever manage to keep anything safe in the Empire. If someone isn’t spilling our national secrets then someone else is making up better theories and just putting them out there regardless.”

  “Well that’s all well and good, but, are we close?” Albrecht asked with a twinkle of mischief.

  Heinrich looked between his tw
o tormentors, sat a little straighter in his chair, placed his coffee mug deliberately on the table and said with a fake Berlin bourgeoisie accent, “I cannot possibly comment on the nature of unfounded rumour. However,” and he paused for effect, “if a senior Minister was to have become deceased and if there was perhaps a religious overtone then it would be reasonable for a fairly senior member of the investigative services to perhaps require access to some archive material.” He coughed with a false formality.

  Jutta smiled coyly at him across the table. “Would that senior investigator be a full Reigierungs-und Kriminalrat Direktor?” she asked, using as she always had done Heinrich’s equivalent Gestapo rank.

  “Might do.”

  The three laughed at their own joke and finished their coffees.

  As they stood up it was Albrecht who asked more seriously, “So Heinrich, what is it that we can do for you?”

  “I’m very conscious that with you and Jutta helping me I could probably get what I need in a fraction of the time. But, I really can’t. This is an Eyes Only matter and I’m here with the authorization of Reichsführer-SS Friedrichand. I just need a few hours in the SAR with some of the old scripts. You both do understand the restrictions?”

  They nodded and Jutta held out her hand in a sweeping ‘after you’ motion for him to take the lead across the Library floor. When they arrived at the door to the SAR she swiped her security card and held her right palm on the bio scan pad. Albrecht then stepped forward, swiped his card and leaned in to allow the retina scanner to scan his left eye. The last stage of their elaborate security dance sequence required both of them to key in a 9-digit personal code. Heinrich waited patiently and then heard the ‘Grade-6’ Security door mechanism give a small chirp. He handed over his ForeFone to Jutta. “The exit code hasn’t changed Heinrich. It’s still five zeroes to get out. Good luck and happy hunting.”

  The tight rubber seal sucked apart and the heavy, solid door, finely counterbalanced, swung with a light push from a single hand. Heinrich stepped into the SAR. It was officially titled the Wiligut Room but regardless of nomenclature its role was clear. It formed the inner sanctum of the Reich’s Religious Archives.

  As he shut the outer door behind him he waited for the locking mechanism to engage and for his eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting. Directly in front of him was a metal walkway bridging a metre wide gap in the floor that ran the circumference of a thirty metre diameter inner island structure. Set in the middle of the island was a twenty metre square room imaginatively called the Central Depository. Completely isolated from natural light, shielded from electronic signals by a tempest cage and temperature controlled by in-floor and in-wall thermal couplings the room held the Reich’s most sensitive and fragile documents relating to religions, sects and cults.

  Heinrich walked across the metal bridge and then swivelled it onto the inner island to bar the access point. He went in to the Central Depository through another airtight door that was secured with a manual lever lock. Having made sure the door was firmly shut behind him he flicked on the special wavelength lights designed to be as gentle as possible on the ancient documents. The room had two long tables, a few chairs, a small stack of pencils, a sheaf of plain paper and a dispenser for white cotton gloves. Around the walls were floor to ceiling shelves and some banks of deep drawers but unlike the Inner Library the storage spaces were by no means full. Also unlike the Library they held no bound books but rather had scrolls and papyrus, delicate wafers of paper and thin slates of stone.

  He donned a pair of gloves, quickly retrieved the Scribes of the Sons of Jacob and opened it to Deuteronomy and the page that contained Mary’s quote. Or at least the quote he had told the Reichsführer about. He reached for a pencil and some plain pieces of paper that were the only recording devices allowed and made some scribbled notes. Scattering a few of these across one of the tables he retrieved a few more old manuscripts, opened them to random pages and placed them carefully next to his notes. Satisfied that it looked like he was being busy he stopped and began to scan the deep drawers set into one of the walls. It took less than a minute to retrieve the documents he wanted. Gently and carefully he placed the Jesus Gospel down on the other table before laying out various fragile whispers of papyrus. Despite his best efforts he noticed that his hands were trembling. He turned his head away from the documents and breathed deeply. And again. And again.

  Finally, when he felt relaxed enough to focus he looked down onto the oldest surviving maps of Capernaum and the Holy City of Jerusalem. Maps that had been drawn by surveyors assigned to the office of the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea; Pontius Pilatus.

  Chapter 38

  07:25 Wednesday 20th May 2020 - London

  Leigh walked across the car park, pulling her cardigan closer to combat the morning chill. Entering the Prisoner Holding and Interrogation Facility, she made her way to Peter Vogel’s office. At precisely 07:30 she rapped on the door and got an immediate, “Come in.”

  “Good morning Doctor Wilson,” Peter said as he was rising from his chair.

  “Please, Peter sit. And good morning to you too. Are you well?” she said as she swept into his office and took a seat.

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  Leigh couldn’t help but be both pleased and horrified that this young man was calling her Ma’am. In one way it marked that she had progressed to a position of authority and in another reminded her of how old she was getting. Although she still considered herself about twenty-one, she knew that the officer in front of her would see a women in her mid-thirties and therefore almost ancient. She could inform him that she held an actual SS rank and he should use it but she couldn’t bring herself to even acknowledge it.

  She shrugged it off and took a breath. “Thanks for meeting me so early. Now, I need to conduct an interview with the prisoner as part of the Thule protocols. It’s imperative we properly assess if she had any idea that she was being observed. I know you’re probably up to speed on all of this. I’m sure Standartenführer Steinmann briefed you in. Yes?” she had just surprised herself as to how easily she had lied her way through that rubbish.

  “Umm, yes Ma’am. He mentioned something along those lines. Do you need to see her now?”

  “No time like the present. You know the Reichsführer-SS is personally interested so I suppose I shouldn’t keep him waiting. Come along,” Leigh said with a matronly flourish and half rose from the chair.

  “Yes Ma’am. Of course. But, um...”

  She sat back down, gave him a rather stern look and said, “Yes Peter?”

  “Well, it’s just, I mean... We need to get her up and move her into an interview room. I can get my staff on to it but…”

  “Nonsense!” she cut him off, “There’s no need to fuss about moving her. I’ll speak to her in her cell. That will be more than sufficient. You can just let me in for now and I shall carry on from there. All good?” she paused momentarily and Peter hesitated, teetering on the brink. She needed to make him react rather than think. “Peter?” she said in as brusque a manner as she could manage and the Untersturmführer visibly twitched in his chair. “Are we all good?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  Leigh almost laughed. “Right, well if you can show me her cell I’ll proceed with my chat. Lead on Peter.” With that she stood and Peter Vogel almost leapt to his feet. She placed both her hands into the pockets of her cardigan, led the way out of his office and then let him lead the way into the central corridor and down to Reid’s cell.

  “I’ll call you when I need you Peter, I already have your duty number in my phone. Thank you.”

  “Yes Ma’am, certainly.”

  As Leigh eased into the small cell Mary Reid seemed to be asleep on the cot. The breakfast tray that had been placed in the cell was empty so she had obviously been awake earlier. Leigh pushed the cell door shut behind her and nodded to Peter through the small observation window that all was well and he could leave. He threw the lock and walked away.


  “Hello Mary.”

  Without moving or opening her eyes Mary said simply, “Hello. Who are you then?”

  “I’m Leigh.”

  “Hello Leith.”

  “No, it’s Leigh.”

  “So you said. But I’ll call you Leith. I think it suits you better. Now who are you, what do you do and what do you want?” as she spoke Mary unwound her long frame from the cot and sat up.

  Leigh sat down on the plain chair, kept her hands in her pockets and looked down at the ground before she spoke, “My name is Leigh Wilson. You don’t know me and I won’t be telling you what I do. What I want will become clear. You can win small victories by getting my name wrong or you can win bigger victories,” Leigh raised her head and looked at Mary, “by not being a cunt.”

  Mary’s face registered a look of surprise at Leigh’s expletive. She recovered quickly and said, “Charming! You kiss your mother with that mouth?”