The Nostradamus Traitor: 1 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  “Then back to the Abbey?” Herbie asked.

  George gave an affirmative. Back to the Abbey and the news. The scope of the op. Herbie wanted all that in detail. The days with Fenice and Leaderer. The nights with Ramilies. The whole thing. All that he could remember.

  George talked for a long time, and Herbie was nearing his deadline with Girren. Reluctantly he brought it to a close. “Enough for one night, George. It’s fascinating. Just what I need.” Patiently he let it be known that he needed a couple of really long sessions to fill in all that had happened on the operation and after. “Take a couple of days. Lot of concentration. But… if you can spare the time…”

  Of course, George agreed. It was interesting to go back over it. Good mental exercise.

  Two days. Two full days and they’d do it. George begged off Monday morning, but said he’d book himself out of the office from the afternoon until Thursday morning. “I presume you want it here and not in the hallowed halls?”

  Herbie thought his flat best, thanked George profusely, and saw him to the lift. “You can’t imagine what a help this has been, George. You know how careful I must be….”

  “As long as I get the final result.”

  Returning, Herbie pulled back one of his living-room curtains, went through to the kitchen, turned off the tape machine. In the living room be started the Mozart from the beginning again.

  With a very large brandy in his hand, he sat down to await Girren, his mind going over the latter part of the conversation with George. Tomorrow he would listen to the tape, just to get the details in his head—a George-eye view of the prophecies, and the full scope of the operation that had led to occupied Paris, face to face with both his contact and a pair of SS officers.

  Girren arrived looking sour and worried. He was a small, thin, earnest man in his late twenties: ideal background for the new team and, as Herbie had already discovered, a minor authority on the West German security organisations and their personalities.

  He talked very fast and did not even notice when Herbie offered him a chair or a drink. To start with, the woman. Schnabeln had told him that there was evidence she had been in England before under the name Gretchen Weiss? Yes. The Weiss woman was dead. This was not Weiss.

  Herbie remained patient. He knew that. This was the Weiss woman’s sister.

  “I knew Gretchen Weiss.” The tone suggested that Girren had not liked her but would not speak ill of the dead. “She worked for the Americans. She was also hand in glove with the BfV.”—Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: the mailed fist of the BND.

  Schnabeln, Herbie prompted him, had suggested that he had marked one of the heavies leeching the Fenderman woman.

  Indeed he had. Both of them now. They were a good team. Inactive for a while. Probably a sabbatical. Had not been seen around the German haunts for some time. Nachent, that was the name of the senior one. A watcher, a minder: general-purpose operative. Hans Nachent. Thirty-six years old and bloody good. His teammate was a man called Billstein. Markus Billstein. Thirty-one. Same trade as his partner in crime. Both highly qualified BND field men of the more unpleasant and subversive kind.

  There was no doubt in Girren’s mind that they were minding the woman, Fenderman: and she knew it. Whatever the object, the whole thing was a Federal Intelligence Service ploy.

  Herbie thanked him with great courtesy, checked that Schnabeln was working, and said he would be in touch.

  When Girren departed, head poked forward and in an eternal hurry, Herbie poured himself another huge brandy, put on the Mahler Second Symphony—“The Resurrection”—and tried to concentrate his mind. Towards the end of the work he became both greatly moved and worried. Enough to warrant another brandy, which he drank quickly. It would help to bring sleep. Tomorrow, George Thomas on tape. Limited appearance only.

  Herbie’s sleep was deep and comforting. No nightmares until the telephone started ringing and, as he grabbed for the instrument, he saw that it was ten-thirty on Sunday morning.

  Girren spoke urgently into his ear. “The police and Special Branch are here. Think you should come over. Some idiot took a pot shot at the Fenderman woman as she was leaving the hotel.”

  “When?”

  “Fifteen—twenty minutes ago.”

  “Our friends?”

  “Gave chase, but they’re back. Not making contact with the authorities. The place crawls with press and police.”

  Herbie said he would be right over.

  16

  LONDON 1978

  BIG HERBIE WAS NOT a man given to taking precipitate action. Later, he decided this was a classic case of double-think combined with brandy.

  He was actually in a cab, heading for the Devonshire Hotel in Bayswater, when he realised the error of judgement. Girren—and by now maybe Schnabeln—was watching out. So were the pair of BND men.

  As far as Frau Fenderman was concerned, Herbie Kruger was a civil servant working with the Public Records Office. He carried ID which would get him through any police cordon, but recognition was inevitable—if not by the aforementioned Nachent and Billstein, certainly by Frau Fenderman. There would be much explaining to do, and he was not yet ready to blow cover on this one.

  He redirected the cab driver to drop him in the Bayswater Road, and walked to the nearest telephone kiosk. The instrument had been vandalised, which added another ten minutes’ walk to find a machine that worked. Consulting his small pocket directory, he dialled Worboys’ home number.

  The young man was unhappy: “I’m not on duty…” he began, and would have continued if Herbie Kruger had not cut him short, pointing out that you didn’t have to be on duty to be called out, and that refusal would mean a short and sharp interview with both Tubby Fincher and Sir Willis at the first opportunity.

  Worboys turned up twenty minutes later, looking sleepy and unshaven. Herbie gave his instructions fast. Flash your card at any coppers, see whoever’s in charge, find out who is handling it from the SB, get the story and leave. Come straight back—oh, and find out Frau Hildergarde Fenderman’s story and condition.

  While waiting for Worboys, Herbie had made a second call. Schnabeln and Girren were invigilating from the first-floor front directly opposite the Devonshire Hotel. Their cover was modest and satisfactory, which meant the opposition—if there was opposition—could blow them in an hour flat with both hands tied. Mid-European immigrants doing shift work as porters at Heathrow. In emergency they could be reached at the guest-house call box, open and insecure in the main hall.

  Herbie rang and talked to Schnabeln, who had come back on the trot as soon as Girren flashed him directly after the incident.

  The conversation was double-talk, but Herbie had the gist of the affair before Worboys even arrived.

  The law was having a field day in Deveron Road—in which the Devonshire Private Hotel was situated. There were Special Patrol Group landrovers parked at either end. All cars had been checked, and nobody was being allowed near until the investigating team from the local nick, plus the SPG boys and, within fifteen minutes, the Special Branch, had made heroes of themselves. No, Schnabeln did not recognise the SB super who’d arrived in a flurry with a souped-up Rover.

  As for Frau Fenderman’s minders, they had been using a Mini Clubman, also souped up by the look of what happened. They had given chase and returned to find the road sealed. They were now on foot, mingling with the inevitable crowd at the western end of Deveron Road. Yes, Girren had taken pictures. No, they hadn’t made the driver who’d taken the pot at the lady, nor the number of his Cortina—except that it had a J registration. Maybe it would show on the pix when processed. They were watching and listening out. Herbie apologised for not bringing a walkie-talkie with him. It had all been a bit quick.

  By noon, Worboys was back, and they sat in his car as he went through the tale.

  Shortly after ten, Frau Fenderman had come down into the hotel lobby. On the previous evening she had mentioned that she would be going
to church. She left the hotel at around ten past ten and walked west. She had gone less than ten yards when a yellow Cortina pulled out from parked traffic on the far side of the road (which put the driver on her side). He slowed slightly, did not lean out of the window, but fired at her four times.

  There were two eyewitnesses who heard her scream, and watched as she dodged up the steps of a private house. The police had the car registration, and already knew that it had been stolen from the street, either in the night or early morning, in the West End—from outside some luxury flats off Park Lane.

  Frau Fenderman was in shock, but unhurt, and could throw no light on why anyone would want to kill her. It must be some dreadful mistake was the quote of the day.

  Two of the bullets had been recovered, and were on their way to forensics, though one of the SB men would stake his reputation on them being old-stock nine mill.

  The SB officer in charge was a Superintendent Vernon-Smith. “Public school and very how’s-your-father,” said Worboys.

  Herbie grinned the stupid grin, and began to extricate himself from Worboys’ little VW, telling him to hold it. Worboys could give him a lift home and, if he behaved himself, he might even get a coffee.

  The sun, which had been shining coldly from the moment Herbie left the St. John’s Wood flat, went behind heavy cloud as he entered the phone box yet again. By midafternoon there would be more rain, but that wouldn’t matter because by then he’d be snug and listening to George Thomas on tape.

  He dialled the Devonshire Hotel and asked for the super. “Rachet,” he said when Vernon-Smith’s fruity voice came on the line.

  “Christ,” said the Special Branch man, “one of your leash hounds has been sniffing around already.”

  “Rachet Soap.” Herbie identified himself personally. Rachet being the department ID; Soap being his own ID contact word for the SB. It was a small joke perpetrated by the Director, who remembered his father, or grandfather, reciting a piece of Boer War doggerel which went

  Poor old Kruger’s dead;

  He died last night in bed.

  He cut his throat with a bar of soap;

  Poor old Kruger’s dead.

  There was irony also, for Herbie was conscious that his work and life were concerned with truth, and often its distortion. Soap was also the in-house argot for hyped-up sodium pentathol: SO-PE.

  “Cute as lace pants,” chortled Vernon-Smith, who was well up on all the departmental gossip, but not so hot on classified stuff. If truth were known, as a policeman “Vermin” Vernon-Smith (schoolboy nicknames often follow us to the grave) did not like the “Friends.” “I suppose you want hands off?” He pronounced it like the composer—Orff.

  “Be obliged.”

  “Pleasure, as long as I don’t have to carry the can.”

  “We have been looking after her for a while.”

  “Didn’t do a very good job this morning, did you?”

  “Most unexpected. Be grateful if you could leave one man in view to scare the crows and rabbits.”

  “Done.”

  “You going to make the shootist?”

  “Nobody saw the face. Might make the weapon if you’d care to call tonight or tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be in touch tonight. Copy of your report to me. Oh, and how is she?”

  “Shock. Even sounds real—as though she can’t think why anyone would do such a thing.”

  “Let you into a secret.” Herbie was not smiling now. “Neither can I think why, and I know more about her than you do. Thank you for the help.”

  “For this relief much thanks.”

  “You’re not that cold, or sick of heart. I will call.”

  Rachet Soap closed the line and went back to Worboys’ VW, which sagged visibly as he bent himself into the passenger seat. The young man asked if it was straight home and Herbie nodded, distracted.

  He didn’t like any of it. A German national comes to London with a tale about her husband of two weeks having been executed as a spy at the Tower of London in 1941. His name shows up on files connected with a PW operation which blew up in France and Germany. She could be of help in the future. Routine riffle through the files, and up pops a senior officer of high calibre. The Yanks are cagey, and she now seems to be hand in glove with the West Germans—very cape and shiv. Then here, on a sunny spring morning, she sets off to church and some cretin in a stolen motor tries to blow her head off with four nine-millimetre bullets.

  Herbie gave Worboys a coffee and hardly spoke to him, making the young man both puzzled and uneasy. If he had known Herbie better, he would have identified distraction as the cause, for the big man hardly noticed him leave.

  Where was the connection? Here and now, with the past only a coincidence? Or was Hildegarde Fenderman’s current visit linked strangely to the past—to the Stellar network, Nostradamus, and what happened afterwards? She had lied to him, that was for sure; but so had his BND contact at the German Embassy. Among other things, he would need a word with that gentleman. Tomorrow. Also fix a meeting with Frau Fenderman soon. Today. Fix it today for Thursday evening. Make sure she couldn’t fly. By Thursday night he should have heard all of George Thomas’ story in detail.

  The rain had set in, heavy and hard, with a light wind splattering it against the windows, by the time Big Herbie had eaten, lugged the reel-to-reel tape deck through to the living room and linked it with his own stereo. Then, provided with a large jug of coffee and a spiral notepad, he ran through the tape to find the long section in which George had spoken about his studies of Nostradamus and the prophecies, back in late 1940 when every night the Luftwaffe sent out its Heinkel 111s and Dornier 17s to bomb London.

  17

  LONDON 1940

  MICHEL DE NOSTRADAME. BORN, Provence 1503. Died 1566. Another legend in his own lifetime. A seer. A man who could predict—to all accounts did predict—things which occurred during his own era. A man who claimed to have foretold the major events which would take place from his time until the ending of the world.

  “Six weeks, I think.” George coughed on the tape. “Six weeks the Rammer had me holed up in that flat in a side street between Covent Garden and the Aldwych. The Rammer. He certainly rammed me—crammed me—Downay’s book, the bloody prophecies, horoscopes. But mainly those endless prophecies of Nostradamus.”

  The welter of predictions that flew from the old doctor’s pen claimed to cover a vast period. Yet, being essentially a survivor, Michel de Nostradame took great care to cover his tracks.

  He knew as well as anyone else, said George, that bearers of evil tidings are not always the most popular people. Often they fall victim of their own news. So, he wrote the predictions in four line pieces which often seem unintelligible; then he shuffled them.

  Each snippet of precognition was coded into a quatrain and then arranged on the rough basis of one hundred quatrains to a century. Ten centuries: approximately one thousand quatrains, and the whole shooting match muddled and dealt without order or thought of chronology.

  “You probably know it all, but there were not, in fact, a full thousand quatrains, because one of the centuries had a heavy short-fall. That was very useful later.”

  George maintained that, when he began the fevered journey into this unknown territory, he had great scepticism. Only later, on reflection, did he come to realise that Nostradamus and his prophetic verses began, even then, to spin a strange web of fascination.

  “Ramilies had already mentioned the Hitler reference.” At first it seemed to George the only relevant thing. Nostradamus had called him Hifter, if you used the old spelling. Hifter. Hister. Hitler—

  Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers,

  The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hifter.

  He will drag the leader in a cage of iron,

  When the child of Germany observes no law.

  For an obscure doctor in the sixteenth century it wasn’t a bad guess. “Give a monkey a Leica and one thousand frames of film a
nd he should, by the law of averages, get a couple of good pictures. Yet even there, in the claustrophobic, chi-chi atmosphere of that flat, I think I glimpsed that Nostradamus was no monkey.”

  At first sight, the verses appeared to be almost gibberish, particularly when some read like:

  More than eleven times the Moon will not want the Sun,

  Both raised and lowered in one degree;

  Put so low that one will sew little gold,

  After famine and plague the secret will be discovered.

  George had committed those which seemed of greatest interest to memory—a long train of strange verses to be heaped into his skull.(Listening to him talk all those years later, Herbie wondered at the fact that George could still quote the quatrains verbatim.)

  “I spent a whole afternoon, for instance, thinking about the quatrain with which the old boy hit the jackpot. The one about the death of Henri II of France, late lamented husband of Catherine de’ Medici herself.”

  The verse ran:

  The young lion shall overcome the old,

  In warlike field in single fight;

  In a cage of gold he will pierce his eyes

  Two wounds in one, then die a cruel death.

  Nostradamus was already a favourite with the royal court when he wrote that one. The king even took greater care because of it. But it happened—came to pass, in biblical language—on a summer day in 1559. A day of celebration. There had been peace treaties between England, France and Spain, plus a couple of good marriages in the offing for two of the princesses.

  Part of the regal cavortings included some dangerous jousting in the lists, and the king, who liked his sport, took on Montgomery—captain of his Scottish Guard.