Echo of the Reich

by James Becker

  Weeks smiled at him as Bronson handed back the Glock 17. “Well,” he said, “if the Twenty-six is too rich for your tastes, I’ve only got one other option.”

  “And this is the one I’m not going to like,” Bronson suggested.

  “Exactly. This is the cheap and cheerful option, this week’s special offer.”

  He returned the box to the backseat and this time reached into the pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a small black pistol, pressed the release, which dropped the magazine out of the butt, and then worked the slide. A small cartridge flew out of the weapon and landed in his lap; clearly the pistol had been loaded. Then he passed it over to Bronson.

  For a few moments, he didn’t recognize it. Although it was small and compact, the pistol bore more than a passing resemblance to the venerable Colt Model 1911, for many years the standard sidearm of the American military, albeit scaled down.

  “What is it?” Bronson asked.

  “It’s a Spanish-made Llama XV, chambered for twenty-two Long Rifle.” Weeks held up the ejected cartridge so Bronson could see it, then fed it into the top of the magazine. “It’s not exactly a man-stopper, but it’d probably be enough to win any argument you’re likely to get involved in. Most people who own these guns seem to like them. And it’s cheap, so if you have to throw it away, it won’t matter.”

  Bronson nodded. The fact that it was Spanish didn’t bother him. Decades earlier, Spanish pistols had been something of a joke, badly made Astras and other makes proving unreliable and sometimes as lethal to the person firing the weapon as to whoever it was pointed at. But all that had changed, and modern Spanish pistols—and, okay, the Llama was a few years old—were as good as anything available anywhere. And the Spanish also made one of the best pure combat pistols ever designed, the SPS.

  The .22 Long Rifle cartridge was a little small, certainly a lower caliber than he had hoped to find, but in the right hands it was still lethal. Bronson knew that Israeli assassination teams routinely used weapons in that caliber, because it could be silenced more effectively than full-bore weapons—meaning those of nine-millimeter caliber and above—and as long as the target was engaged with a head shot, the bullet was as deadly as anything else out there.

  He looked across at Weeks. “How much?”

  “For you, my friend, a century, and for that money I’ll throw in a couple of boxes of ammo as well. Bring it back, and I’ll give you sixty for it.”

  Bronson hefted the weapon and racked the slide back a couple of times, checking the tension in the spring and getting the feel of the pistol. He could easily hide it in his clothing—he’d had breakfast with Weeks and walked around the streets for several minutes, and he’d never even guessed the man had the weapon in his pocket—and it was certainly cheap enough. And, he hoped, he wasn’t going to get involved in a firefight. What he needed was a weapon to get him out of trouble, to end a confrontation that he wouldn’t otherwise be able to walk away from. And for that, almost any working pistol, of any caliber, would probably be enough.

  He looked across at Weeks. “I’ll take it,” he said.

  Weeks nodded. “Good choice. It’s clean, as far as I know, and for that money you can ditch it if you have to and walk away.”

  Bronson pulled out his wallet and handed over five twenty-pound notes, which Weeks slid into his jacket pocket before handing over the fully charged magazine.

  Then Weeks gestured to the dashboard in front of Bronson. “The boxes of ammo are in there.”

  Bronson opened the glovebox and looked inside. There were two boxes of twenty-two-caliber cartridges there, along with boxes for a number of other calibres, all the way up to 357 Magnum.

  “That’s kind of my ready-use locker,” Weeks said. “Never know when I’ll need a box of something.”

  “I’m sure,” Bronson replied.

  Keeping his finger outside the trigger guard, he slid the magazine into the butt of the Llama, pulled back the slide and chambered the top round. He pulled it back again, ejecting the cartridge onto his lap, and repeated the sequence of actions until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back. Then he reloaded the magazine, replaced it in the pistol and again chambered the first cartridge, making it ready for use. He set the safety catch and slid the weapon into the pocket of his leather jacket.

  “Thanks, Dickie. I hope I don’t need it, but it’s good to have it, just in case.”

  “Drop you somewhere?”

  Bronson glanced at his watch before replying, then nodded. “Yes, be a help if you could.”

  Moments later, Weeks steered the Range Rover out of the Tesco car park and followed Bronson’s directions, heading back toward Straight Road and his second rendezvous of the day.

  4

  20 July 2012

  The first car arrived early in the afternoon and parked inside the large underground garage that formed part of the basement of the house. Within twenty minutes, two other cars had parked beside it, and three more were standing on the graveled driveway outside the double garage doors.

  The last car to arrive, a black BMW, drove quickly along the ruler-straight Röthen Road to the north of Spreenhagen, a large village to the southeast of Berlin, then slowed and made the right turn off the road, bordered on both sides by thick woodland, and down the driveway leading to the house. The driver was the sole occupant of the car, and he was a few minutes late because he’d been held up by a minor traffic accident en route.

  He parked the car, nodded to the two men who were standing by the double doors, and strode quickly into the garage. As soon as he’d done so, one of the men pressed a remote control and the doors closed behind him with a metallic clatter.

  Inside the property, the man walked briskly, tracing a familiar route. At the end of the corridor leading from the garage was a flight of stairs he took two at a time; then he walked down a corridor to a large formal dining room. But there was neither food nor cutlery on the long polished walnut table, around which half a dozen men in dark suits were seated.

  Apart from the absence of laptops, briefcases and writing pads, it could have been a typical board meeting. It had been their rule from the first that no writing or recording materials of any sort were allowed in the room, and the room itself was swept for bugs at least once a day.

  The new arrival muttered his apologies, then took the last remaining seat.

  “Let us begin,” said the man at the head of the table.

  He was just over fifty years old, slimly built, with fair hair, a pale complexion and light blue eyes. Apart from his height—he was well under six feet tall—he could have been cast from the classic Aryan mold, and he was clearly the dominant personality in the room. That was immediately obvious from the way the other men looked at him and had refrained even from chatting among themselves whilst they’d waited for the last member of the group to make his appearance.

  “Not all of you will be aware of the progress we have made and how close we are to achieving our goal,” the man went on, his voice surprisingly deep and resonant, his German formal and grammatically correct. “Die Neue Dämmerung is on track and on time as I speak, though we do have one problem that I will address at the end of our meeting. First, and to ensure that you are all thoroughly familiar with all aspects of our operation, I would like Klaus to outline what we have achieved so far.”

  The man sitting on his right, a solid-looking, dark-haired individual with craggy features, nodded and sat up straighter in his seat. He had acted as second-in-command to Marcus for the last twenty years, and was just as dedicated to ensuring the success of the operation.

  “Thank you, Marcus,” he began. “I will start with a bit of history. Most of you are aware of the events that took place in Poland at the end of the last war. You will know that the SS Evacuation Kommando—which was, of course, under the command of Marcus’s grandfather—successfully retrieved the device upon which so many of the hopes and dreams of the Third Reich rested. You may also have heard that it was succe
ssfully transported to Bodø in Norway and then flown on to South America to ensure that none of the enemies of the Fatherland could take possession of it. The few scientists deemed essential to the project traveled with the device, and all other people with any significant knowledge of what we were trying to achieve were eliminated.”

  Klaus Drescher looked swiftly around the table. Several heads nodded knowingly. “At that time, the regime in Argentina was sympathetic to our cause, and work was able to continue on the device without hindrance. Great strides were made both in increasing the effectiveness of Die Glocke and in the process of miniaturization, though there remained a number of significant technological hurdles to be overcome. In fact, it took over half a century before a new generation of our scientists was able to create a fully functioning and reasonably portable version of the device. That triumph was finally achieved only five years ago, and we now have six weapons concealed in secure locations here in Germany.”

  He paused for a moment, and then smiled slightly.

  “In fact,” he went on, “that’s not strictly true. We actually only have five weapons in storage, because the sixth one is about to be deployed, and where we position the other five devices will largely depend upon what happens after this first, live test. If we have to take further action, most of the targets are fairly obvious: Paris, Madrid and Rome, certainly, and probably Brussels as well, and that will still leave us with one weapon in reserve. And as you all know, because of our recent activities, the first weapon of our arsenal will be triggered in London. The Olympic Games is simply too good an opportunity to miss.”

  A heavily built man on the opposite side of the table shook his head. “You know there will be reprisals. If the British discover that we were responsible, military action against Germany is possible, perhaps even probable. And the United Nations and America might also become involved.”

  Drescher shook his head, the smile still in evidence.

  “We have taken steps to ensure that that will not happen. The vehicle to be used for the transportation of the device will have no connection to Germany whatsoever, and we are also employing measures to suggest that the real culprit, the author of the atrocity, is a much older and far more dangerous enemy than Germany.”

  He smiled more broadly as he looked around at the other men.

  “It is just possible that our action could rid the world of a contagion that has existed since the beginning of recorded history.” He paused again, and then continued. “Because, gentlemen, we are going to make it clear that the perpetrators of this attack have made their home a long way to the east, on stolen ground. We are going to blame it on the Jews.”

  There was a brief silence, and then another of the men spoke: “How?”

  “The details are not important, but rest assured we can achieve it. Once the attack is over, we will make absolutely certain that the Jews are identified as the perpetrators. The international backlash against the Zionist state should be enough to finish the task that the Führer started.”

  “And what about the effectiveness of the London weapon? What degree of lethality are you anticipating?”

  Drescher shrugged his shoulders.

  “That is very difficult to predict because we do not know how many people will be within the lethal radius when the device is triggered. But the weapon will be activated during the opening ceremony, so we anticipate that at the very least there will be thousands of casualties, possibly tens of thousands, in addition to the long-term effects caused by radiation damage—effects that are, of course, impossible to predict.”

  Klaus glanced back at Marcus, who nodded.

  “Thank you, Klaus.” Marcus now turned to the man seated on his left. “Hermann, can you bring us up-to-date with the situation regarding the vehicle?”

  “Of course. Our people have already identified a suitable organization that will be sending a team to cover the Olympics, and we have our own vehicle prepared. We have agents watching the company, and as soon as they are ready to dispatch their lorry, we will move into position. We do not anticipate any difficulty with the substitution.”

  Marcus nodded again.

  “I have personally overseen the testing of the weapon,” he said, “up to a very low power setting, of course, and it worked exactly as we hoped.”

  “Did you use test subjects?”

  “That was the only way we could confirm its effectiveness. We picked up a handful of vagrants and used them. The results were entirely satisfactory.”

  “Unfortunately,” Klaus Drescher interjected, “there were no Jews available.”

  All the men smiled at that remark, and a couple of them laughed.

  The meeting continued for another half an hour as various members of the group reported on their particular aspects of the operation, and then Marcus moved on to the other matter that he felt they needed to know about.

  “And now,” he said, “we have a small problem that I am in the process of resolving. One of our recruits was discovered attempting to pass information to the police here. Fortunately, he was detected and stopped, but it is clear that we need to know if he was acting alone. My men will start their questioning in the cellar in a few minutes, so we have just got time for a drink beforehand.”

  Five minutes later, Marcus led the way into a subterranean whitewashed room. Four men armed with pistols stood just inside the doorway, their attention focused on a man whose arms and legs were lashed to a stout wooden chair, the legs of which were bolted to the concrete floor. He was blindfolded and gagged, and was tugging frantically at his bonds, but to no avail. The leather straps were pulled tight, and held him immobile.

  Two rows of seats had been placed along one wall of the room and, with the exception of Marcus, the new arrivals walked over to them and sat down. Most were still carrying small glasses of schnapps, and a couple of them had coffee as well.

  Marcus gestured to one of the armed men, who moved across and stood beside the wooden chair, awaiting further orders. When he was satisfied that everything was ready, Marcus nodded his first command.

  Without hesitation, the man leaned down, seized the little finger of the captive’s left hand and in one swift and brutal movement bent it backward. The snapping of the bone was audible to everybody in the room, and was immediately followed by a muffled but agonized howl of pain.

  “That is just the start, my friend,” Marcus said, “just a taster to show you that we are serious. You will tell us whatever we want to know. Every time we think that you are lying or not telling us the whole truth, I will instruct my associate to break another of your fingers. When we run out of fingers, we will begin amputating your toes. It can take you days to die.”

  Marcus glanced at the seated men along the wall. Every one of them appeared eager for the show to begin, their eyes fixed on the bound man.

  “So now we’ll start,” Marcus said. “Take off the gag.”

  The moment the gag was removed, the captive screamed his agony, then began sobbing, his desperation obvious to every man in the room.

  And then the questions started.

  5

  20 July 2012

  Chris Bronson pushed open the door of the pub and stepped inside. He spotted Eaton immediately. He was standing at one end of the bar, deep in conversation with two other men, both of them showing the kind of muscular development that comes from hard physical work, not time spent in a gym somewhere.

  Bronson nodded to them, stepped up to the bar to order a pint and then walked over to the three men.

  Eaton gave him a brief smile of welcome, then turned to his companions.

  “This is Alex Cross,” he said, “or, at least, that’s what he says his name is. We met him at Stratford nick a couple of days ago. I reckon he could be quite useful to us.”

  Bronson didn’t respond, and nor did Eaton’s two companions, who simply stared at him in a faintly hostile manner, looking him up and down.

  The man on his left glanced round the bar and finally
spoke. “John tells me you’ve been doing a bit of damage at the Olympic sites.”

  Bronson nodded and took another sip of his beer.

  “Don’t talk a lot, do you?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s your real name?”

  “Alex Cross’ll do for now.”

  “There some reason why you won’t tell us?”

  Bronson nodded again. “Yes.”

  Eaton grinned. “I told you, Mike. Man of very few words, is Alex here.”

  The man he’d addressed as “Mike” glanced at Eaton, then back at Bronson.

  “Thing is,” he said, “we’re just a small group of people trying to make a difference, and that means we have to trust each other. And if we’re going to trust each other, we have to know who we are. And we definitely have to know about anybody who wants to join us.”

  Bronson shook his head. “I don’t want to join you.” He gestured toward Eaton. “John here thought I might be able to tag along on one of your jobs, but I’m not bothered. You want a CV from me, forget it. Go and find someone else.”

  The three men stared at him, then Eaton gave a short, mirthless laugh.

  “Jesus, Alex, we don’t want your life story. We just want to find out a bit more about you.”

  It was, Bronson thought, almost like the start of a sexual relationship, each party probing the other, showing interest but not wanting to appear too eager, and he remembered an old quote about courtship he’d heard somewhere: how a woman always begins by resisting a man’s advances, and ends up by blocking his retreat. This situation was different, obviously, but the principle was the same, though he had no intention of allowing his retreat to be cut off. As soon as he’d found out enough about the group for “Shit Rises” and the team back at the Forest Gate prison to pick them up, Bronson intended to return to the relative sanity of Tunbridge Wells.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ve done a lot of stuff in the past, been in plenty of different jobs. The longest was in the army. Right now, I’m just a pissed-off citizen, pissed off for a bunch of different reasons, in fact. I’m fed up with the money this city is throwing at these bloody Games, and I’m trying to do something about it. That’s all you need to know.”