Echo of the Reich

by James Becker

  Bronson looked at the roll, butter oozing from all sides and a couple of bits of bacon sticking out of one end. He lifted off the top half of the roll, applied a liberal helping of brown sauce from the encrusted plastic bottle on the table, then picked up the roll and took a bite. It tasted wonderful.

  “Right, Dickie,” he said, and outlined what had happened to him since the two men had last met.

  Weeks sat in silence, listening intently and eating his way through his own bacon sandwich. His eyes widened as Bronson described the events in the Wenceslas Mine, and he even put down his mug at one point.

  “Bloody hell, so Angela shot the bastard? Good for her. Hey, are you two an item again, or what?”

  “More or less, I suppose, but that’s not really too important right now.”

  “Sorry, you’re right. So what do you want me to do? And what happened to the MP5 that German comedian was toting?”

  Bronson nodded toward the sack lying on the floor beside him.

  “It’s in there,” he replied. “In fact, there are two of them, plus three Walther pistols, one of them with a proper suppressor.”

  “You’re selling them?” Weeks asked, his professional interest clearly aroused.

  Bronson shook his head.

  “Help me sort out this mess and you can have them as a gift,” he said.

  “That’s a deal. Now, you’ve told me what happened, but I still don’t know what you expect me—or you, for that matter—to do about it. All you think you know is that this bunch of German thugs will be trying to attack northeast London, probably during the Olympic opening ceremony, which, I’d like to remind you, will be starting in less than twelve hours. But you don’t know what the weapon looks like, or even what it does. It could be some kind of dirty bomb, a straight explosive device, or even—and I really hope you’re wrong about this—a pocket-sized nuke. That’s the worst-case scenario, because the yield from even a suitcase nuke like the Russians developed would be enough to flatten a large part of this area.”

  “You know more about this kind of stuff than I do,” Bronson said. “What was the yield of those weapons?”

  “Nobody knows for sure, but the best estimates suggest around a hundred kilotons, one hundred thousand tons of TNT equivalent. Put one of those babies in the ground floor of Centrepoint and light the blue touch paper, and all you’d be left with would be a bloody great hole about a mile across and full of rubble.”

  Bronson shook his head. “I didn’t know they were that powerful,” he said.

  “But that’s a nuclear weapon,” Weeks reminded him, “designed for use by the Russian special forces, the Spetsnaz. We still don’t know what this Bell thing is supposed to do. Or how big it is, or where they intend to place it.”

  “That’s the trouble. All I do know is that Marcus and his cronies clearly have an agenda, and the core of their plan involves launching a serious attack on this part of London. Before the German who Angela shot in the mine finally died, he told me it wasn’t a terrorist weapon or a terrorist attack they were launching. He described it as a ‘vengeance weapon,’ like the V1 and the V2, and that’s what worries me the most. Whatever the Bell was designed to do, even back in the Second World War, it was still capable of killing people. I told you about this chamber in the mountain, a chamber lined with ceramic bricks—”

  “That could suggest it produced radiation,” Weeks interrupted. “The Nazis might have been experimenting with different materials to try to contain it. And I have a feeling that ceramic materials are used for shielding in some parts of modern nuclear power stations, but don’t quote me on that.”

  “Anyway,” Bronson continued, “we know for a fact that whatever it produced was lethal in nineteen forty-five, and since then this bunch of brand-new Nazis have had about seventy years to get it right, to miniaturize it or increase its yield or do whatever else they wanted. I think we have to assume that this weapon represents a clear and immediate danger to London.”

  “And you can’t go to the police because…?” Weeks asked.

  “I’ve tried,” Bronson said resignedly. “And I got the run-around, just as I expected, because of what’s happened. What the Met wants is to see me sitting in a cell facing firearms charges. Trying to get them to look beyond that is almost impossible. That’s the police mentality, I suppose. Arrest somebody for whatever offense they’re known to have committed, and take no notice of the bigger picture.”

  “So it’s all down to you and me?”

  Bronson nodded. “There are no more strings I can pull, nobody I can talk to who will take me seriously, and even if I knew somebody who had the kind of clout we’d need to get this area thoroughly searched, I haven’t got a shred of evidence to support what I believe is going to happen.”

  “You’re not exactly filling me with confidence here,” Weeks said. “This Olympic site is huge, and the weapon could be anywhere. Oh, and by the way, access to the site is severely restricted, so if you had some idea about getting inside and looking for the Bell there, that isn’t going to happen.”

  “I don’t think we need to get inside the Olympic Park or any of the stadiums,” Bronson said. “Like you said, access is very restricted, and it has been since pretty much the start of the construction. And today nobody’s getting anywhere near it without a ticket, and certainly not in a vehicle. I don’t think that Marcus and his pals would have been able to get a device positioned inside a building on any part of the Olympic complex. Don’t forget, all the reports about the Bell emphasized that it needed huge amounts of power, which would mean more than just plugging it in to a wall socket, and I can’t think of any way that they could have arranged to get the device installed and provide a dedicated high-voltage power supply to it.”

  “Depends on how competent the architects and builders were, I suppose. But on the other hand, the builders would’ve been working to detailed plans, so if the device wasn’t on the plan, it probably wouldn’t have got installed. So you’re probably right.”

  “And there’s another thing,” Bronson went on. “It wasn’t so much something that Marcus said, more the way that he said it. When I was with him in Berlin, I got the distinct impression that the device was on its way here, not already in position, which has to mean they’ll be putting it somewhere outside the complex. That means in a vehicle or they’re going to get it into a building near the site.”

  For half a minute or so, the two men ate and drank in silence, then Weeks glanced out of the window, put down his mug and looked at Bronson.

  “What?”

  “Anybody know you round here?” Weeks asked.

  “Not really. That group I was supposed to infiltrate was based in this area, but that’s all. Why?”

  “Because when we arrived in this exclusive establishment, two men got up and left. One of them is now standing on the opposite side of the road looking this way, but I’ve no idea where the second one’s gone. I’ve never seen either of them before, so it looks to me as if they recognized you, and I wouldn’t mind betting we’re going to have company any time now.”

  Bronson turned round slightly in his seat so that he had a view of the street outside. The figure Weeks was talking about was leaning against the wall of the building opposite, a cigarette cupped in his left hand, staring across toward the café. Bronson had a good memory for faces, and now that he could see the man clearly, he recognized him immediately. He’d never spoken to him, but he’d been one of the group at the warehouse when Bronson’s true identity had made the news.

  Weeks was right. Bronson had no doubt that within a few minutes Georg or some of his men would be arriving, and because of what had happened in Germany and Poland, their response to his presence in the area would be violent, and possibly fatal.

  “Well spotted, Dickie. We need to get out of here, right now. You reckon there’s a back entrance?”

  “Bound to be,” Weeks said, standing up. “There’ll be a backyard or something.”

  The two
men walked across to the counter, lifted the flap and stepped behind it, to the immediate and very obvious irritation of the proprietor, who stepped over to block their path.

  “You can’t go through here. It’s private.”

  “Get the hell out of my way, fat boy, unless you really like hospital food,” Weeks said, lifting a large clenched fist to the man’s face.

  For a second or two, it looked as if the café owner was going to try his luck, but then he shook his head and stepped to one side.

  Weeks led the way through the back room, like the rest of the café a dark and grubby space, the shelves lined with tins and packets, a couple of fridges and a large freezer humming away in one corner, toward the rear door.

  And as he opened it and stepped outside, Bronson realized what should have been obvious to him from the first. The only reason the man would have had for standing in plain view on the opposite side of the road in front of the café was to alert Bronson to his presence, and force him to pick another, less public, way out.

  In fact, the man had been acting like a sheepdog, driving the sheep—Bronson and Weeks—exactly where he wanted them to go: out of the café through the back entrance.

  Because the moment they stepped outside and the door clicked shut on the latch, Bronson saw a group of five men waiting about twenty yards away, covering the only exit from the narrow alleyway.

  48

  27 July 2012

  Bronson knew immediately who they were, not least because the man he knew as “Mike” was standing in the middle of the group, a satisfied smile on his face.

  “You might have fooled Georg, but I had you sussed from the start,” he snarled. “You fed us a long line of bullshit, but all the time you were just another bloody copper. And now you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

  The other four men were carrying short lengths of timber, less obvious weapons than baseball bats, but just as effective in the right—or rather the wrong—hands.

  But before any of them could move, a deep chuckle sounded beside Bronson as Weeks took a step forward.

  “That’s the problem with some of you north London villains,” he said. “You talk too much, and you don’t think things through.”

  Unhurriedly, he reached inside his jacket, extracted a Colt 1911 semi-automatic pistol, cocked the weapon and aimed it straight at Mike.

  Beside him, Bronson took out the Walther and mirrored his actions.

  Mike’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. The other men had frozen in place the moment the pistols appeared.

  “We don’t have time to mess with you today,” Weeks said, “so you’re quite lucky, really. Why don’t you just take your bits of carpentry away with you and do something useful with them, like build a table. But if we see you around here again, we’ll make sure you don’t bother us—or anybody else—ever again. Now get the hell out of here.”

  But as the five men turned to leave, under the silent threat of the two pistols, Bronson raised his other hand.

  “Hang on a minute,” he said.

  The group stopped as one and turned back to him.

  “It’s just a question,” Bronson said. “Do you know what’s going to happen at the opening ceremony of the Games today? What Georg has got planned, I mean?”

  Mike shrugged reluctantly.

  “He’s organized a massive demonstration for this evening,” he said, “right in front of the cameras. That’ll get the message out to the biggest number of people possible. Then he’ll pay us off, and that’ll be it.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  Bronson shook his head.

  “He’s fooled you all. You won’t get paid. In fact, if you’re in this area, you’ll probably end up dead. He’s smuggling a massive bomb here, and he’ll trigger it during the ceremony. That’s what all this has been about, right from the start.”

  “Bollocks,” Mike snapped. “Georg is an environmentalist. He’s making a stand against overdevelopment, and especially against overdevelopment for sport. He’s committed to a nonviolent approach.”

  “Glad to see that you remembered the official message,” Bronson said. “But don’t forget you killed that nightwatchman. That was hardly ‘nonviolent,’ was it?”

  “That was an accident. We didn’t know he had a weak heart. Apart from that, all we’ve done is smash up machines and try to disrupt things.”

  “Just following Georg’s instructions?”

  Mike nodded.

  “What Georg has been telling you is exactly what he thought you wanted to hear,” Bronson said. “You’ve been causing trouble to suit his agenda, and to divert attention away from his real target. If he’d told you that the other part of the group, the people in Germany, were planning on blowing up half of northeast London, you wouldn’t have helped him, would you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, welcome to the real world, Mike, because that’s his actual agenda. What you got involved with is a last gasp of Hitler’s Third Reich, if you like. Georg’s German friends have decided that the London Olympics will provide the ideal opportunity to finish off what the Nazis started with their V1 and V2 weapons. Their aim is to destroy as much of London as they possibly can.”

  Mike just stared at him.

  “Bollocks,” he said again. “You’re making this up.”

  “Why would I bother?” Bronson asked. “I’m just giving you a reality check, and a warning about what’s going to happen.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Deadly,” Bronson replied.

  Mike glanced around at his companions, all of whom looked somehow uncertain, so clearly Bronson’s words had had an effect on them.

  “If you’re right,” Mike said, “if this isn’t just more bullshit, I mean, what the hell can we do about it?”

  It looked as if Bronson had suddenly acquired a somewhat unexpected group of allies. But the reality, he knew, was that there was very little they could do, except keep their eyes open. So that was what he suggested.

  “All we know is that the device they’re intending to position here is probably fairly bulky, and we think it’ll be arriving in a vehicle, possibly to then be unloaded and placed inside a building, just because it’s likely to need a main power supply. So keep your eyes open for anything like that.”

  Bronson jotted the number of Angela’s pay-as-you-go mobile phone on a piece of paper, walked across to where Mike was standing and handed it to him.

  “If you see anything, anything at all,” he said, “call me, and then call the police.”

  Mike looked at him, and nodded.

  “I heard the cops were looking for you—for real, I mean. Is that true?”

  “Yes. Right now, I’m deep in the shit because they don’t believe that there’s any threat to the Games. That’s why I’m dressed like this.”

  Mike nodded again, then turned to leave the alleyway. Then he turned back and looked at Bronson again.

  “I think you ought to know,” he said, “that when Tom spotted you and your mate in that café, we told Georg about it. He told us to rough you up a bit, break one of your legs and leave you here. So he’s probably coming along pretty soon to finish the job. Might be useful, knowing that.”

  Bronson nodded. “Thanks, Mike,” he said. “It is. Now you’d better make yourself scarce.”

  As soon as the men had disappeared from view, Bronson turned back to look at Weeks, who was holstering his pistol.

  “Not exactly what I expected,” Bronson said.

  “What about this Georg bloke?” Weeks asked. “Think he’ll turn up here looking for you?”

  “Probably,” Bronson said, “and that might be as good a lead as we’re going to get.”

  He pointed further down the alley.

  “There’s an open yard or something down there. If you take one of the Heckler & Kochs, you can cover me from in there. I’ll just lie against the wall here, and I’ll have the
Walther right beside me. But don’t shoot unless you have to, because firing that MP5 will alert every copper in the area. This Walther’s silenced, so let me take care of this German bastard.”

  Weeks took one of the MP5s out of the sack, checked it, took a spare magazine, and then walked away down the alley. In seconds he was out of sight, but Bronson knew he would be watching what happened from his hidden vantage point.

  Bronson took the Walther pistol out of his pocket, checked it and then screwed the suppressor onto the end of the barrel. Then he lay at the edge of the alley, resting his back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. He tucked the pistol almost under his right leg, where it would be immediately to hand, but at the same time invisible to anyone passing. Not that they’d seen anyone else in the alleyway—apart from Mike and his cronies—since they’d stepped into it.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  About a quarter of an hour after Bronson had taken up his position, his left leg twisted awkwardly under the right, as if it was broken, two men turned into the alleyway from the adjacent road and walked steadily toward him. Recognizing them wasn’t difficult. The slight figure of Georg was quite unmistakable, and the last time Bronson had seen the taller man walking next to him was in the concrete-lined cellar at Marcus’s house outside Berlin.

  “This is a surprise, Bronson,” Georg said, stopping beside him. “Got a bit of a problem walking, have you?”

  Bronson didn’t reply, just looked up at him. He was actually in some pain, just because of the awkward position of his leg.

  “I think you might have seen Gunther in Germany,” Georg said, gesturing to his companion. “He certainly remembers you. Quite an impressive piece of shooting, he told me.”

  “Just get on with it, Georg,” Bronson snapped. “You’ve got the Laternenträger here already, I suppose, and I’m the last loose end you need to tie.”

  The German nodded, reached into his pocket and took out a small semi-automatic pistol. He took his time, extracting the magazine from the butt and then replacing it before taking a compact suppressor and screwing it on to the end of the barrel. The second man already had an automatic pistol held casually in his hand, but no suppressor.