by Iain King
Myles looked at the other files. Most of them were self-explanatory, but a single page they had received from Stolz’s lawyer was peculiar. Simply called ‘Locations’, it contained just four lines:
Location One: Schoolmate’s Tract. ONB (where the empire began, 15.III.38)
Location Two: See Location One.
Location Three: See Location Two.
Location Four: sealed
He checked the back of the sheet. Nothing – that was it. It was as if Stolz was presenting a riddle of some sort, but with clues no one could solve. Perhaps they had just been reminders to himself, in case his memory failed with his extreme old age.
Frowning, Myles put the ‘Locations’ page to one side, and turned to the three files marked ‘Nuclear’. Myles guessed they would be about Nazi plans for a wonder-weapon – after all, if Hitler had developed an atomic bomb, he could have dropped it on London and Moscow and won the war. The files might contain something secret, maybe stolen from the Russians – or Americans. But instead, he found what seemed to be notes from an enthusiast.
The first page of ‘Nuclear’ was about the Manhattan Project. There was a picture of the site in Los Alamos, then the time, latitude and longitude of the first nuclear reaction:
Event: December 2nd, 1942, at 15.25 (GMT-5 hours)
Location: Chicago, USA
41 degrees and 51 minutes north;
87 degrees and 39 minutes west
Nothing secret here: anyone with an internet browser and a search engine could find it with just a few clicks. The Nazis probably even knew about it before the end of the war, through their US spy network. So why had Stolz kept it?
Then Myles noticed some numbers at the bottom. Numbers which didn’t seem to relate to anything. He furrowed his brow, confused.
9 Gem – 10 Sag.
Below it was a series of dates, each with a short description. It was a set of predictions, some for events which had already happened. Myles started at the top:
August 1945: Nuclear used for show of power
Myles found himself nodding – it was the month when bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force the Japanese surrender.
He read further.
January 1961: Nuclear event causes death
Another accurate forecast: Myles recognised the date of the world’s first fatal nuclear accident, when three power station workers had been killed at Idaho Falls in the USA.
Myles’ eyes rushed further down the list, skimming over predictions for the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters. Every date was correct.
Myles squinted at the page, still bleary, wondering if he could be reading it correctly. Again: Stolz’s predictions seemed to have come true.
Myles looked at the rest of the list:
2015-2016: Faith in old nuclear myths changes profoundly.
* * *
December 2015/ Major Nuclear event (as in
July-Sept 2016 September-October 1957 and April 1986).
* * *
August 2016: Danger of military nuclear loss
* * *
September-October 2027: Shocking nuclear news, then great powers seek to contain significant and fatal nuclear event.
* * *
2049-2052: Nuclear power used for war: time of increased threat/tension
Did it mean those events were sure to happen? Or had Stolz just got lucky in the past – very lucky?
Myles checked the date again. In the corner, in small writing:
2nd Oct. 1949
So – Stolz had carried on making predictions, even once the war was over.
Myles closed the file, bewildered by all the information he had read.
His thoughts were disturbed by a loud knock behind him. Myles called out, ‘Yes, who is it?’
The door opened. It was Glenn. ‘You should keep your room locked,’ he said.
Myles nodded, accepting the point. He’d gone straight to bed, and been too absorbed in Stolz’s mysterious papers to think about locking it since he woke up. ‘Sorry.’
‘Not a problem. You coming down to join us?’
Myles looked up at the clock. 7.15 a.m. Fifteen minutes late for the meeting.
Glenn tipped his head forward with his eyebrows raised, his face confirming, yes, you are late.
Myles scooped up his papers, then limped out of the room. He locked the door in front of Glenn before he followed the bald American downstairs.
Myles was expecting the whole team to be waiting for him in their executive meeting room. But just Heike-Anne was there. ‘Zenyalena and Jean-François late too?’ he asked.
‘Just Jean-François,’ explained the German, as if she was apologising on the Frenchman’s behalf. ‘Zenyalena went to look for him.’
Glenn left to order coffees for the team, then Zenyalena appeared. ‘Still no Jean-François,’ she said, looking flustered. ‘His door’s locked, and he’s not inside.’
Myles and Heike-Ann looked at each other. Myles asked the obvious question. ‘If his door’s locked, how do you know he’s not inside?’
‘I banged his door, and called out,’ said Zenyalena. ‘If he’s still inside, he must have become deaf overnight.’
Myles could imagine just how loudly Zenyalena would have thumped on the door. ‘He’s probably out. For a jog, or at breakfast or something.’
Glenn returned and sat down at the table. ‘So Jean-François isn’t here. Let’s make a start without him.’ Glenn’s posture made clear he was taking charge again. ‘Pigou can join us when he’s ready.’
Myles and Heike-Ann shrugged their agreement. Even Zenyalena – for once – accepted the American’s lead.
‘Good.’ Glenn opened up his file, and placed it on the table. ‘I read through the files I was given. They were interesting. There was stuff about the V1 and V2 rockets, but most of it was public information from the internet or textbooks. All stuff we could find out ourselves if we had an hour in a good library. Except …’ Glenn pulled out one of the papers and spun it on the table for the others to see. It was some sort of map of north-eastern France, with lots of dots, lines and dates laid over the top. ‘… I found this.’
Heike-Ann was stumped. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I thought it showed launch sites for the V1 and V2 rockets,’ said Glenn. ‘Hitler fired them from France into England in 1944 and early ‘45 …’
Myles, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann began to nod, prompting Glenn to carry on.
Then Glenn used a pen to highlight a line on the page. ‘… Except these lines here.’ The line ran almost vertically, north-south down the page, and seemed slightly curved. ‘These lines look like satellite tracks,’ explained Glenn. ‘But the Nazis didn’t have satellites. The first satellite went up in 1957. So why did Stolz plot them? This paper claims to have been written in 1943. It doesn’t make sense.’
Myles could see the team look puzzled - it didn’t make sense.
The American turned to the next file. ‘Then I found this.’ It was from the file labelled, ‘Sarin’. Glenn had circled the date: December 1944. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this paper seems to confirm what before was only suspected – that the Nazis had developed Sarin, and they were planning to use it.’
‘Excuse me,’ asked Heike-Ann, unafraid to admit her ignorance. ‘What is “Sarin”?’
‘It’s a toxic liquid. Super-toxic, a nerve agent – the chemical weapon used on civilians in Damascus in 2013 which turned Syria into a real international crisis ...’ Glenn pointed at the paper. ‘… This paper shows that the Nazis had discovered it, tested it successfully – probably on Jews or prisoners – and were planning to use it if Germany was invaded. Nobody knows how far their plans got. There were searches after the war, but nobody found any stockpiles. To use Sarin effectively you need to disperse it …’
Myles watched – Glenn was talking about something he knew quite a lot about. It confirmed his suspicions: the clean-shaven American had a military background. Either that, or he was something with t
he intelligence services.
‘… The best way,’ continued Glenn, ‘is to spray it from a plane, or strap it to a bomb which explodes high-up …’ Glenn used hand gestures to show something exploding. ‘Explode a half-litre bottle of Sarin, from the top of Big Ben, say, and you’ll kill tens of thousands of Londoners. Except, during the war, all the people in London were carrying gas masks, as a precaution against exactly this sort of attack. Now, from these papers, it looks like the Nazis really did have this stuff.’
Myles took Glenn’s point further. ‘… But when the Allies came in 1945, they found neither the papers nor the Sarin. Which means Stolz must have hidden them somehow.’
Zenyalena suddenly looked concerned. ‘And maybe hidden the Sarin, too. Do the maps show where it is?’
Myles and Glenn shrugged.
Zenyalena decided it was time for her to present. ‘Well, I read my papers too. Some were about the British Empire - mostly just facts from an encyclopedia. But this was the most interesting page.’ She pulled out a paper and put it on the table. It was entitled simply ‘End of British Empire’.
Glenn pulled a face, not sure what to make of it. ‘Looks like it’s just some dates, right?’
‘Yes, three of them,’ confirmed the Russian. ‘But they seem important. The first, October–November 1956, it says “Hubris then humiliation – Empire loses its confidence”.’
She looked at Myles, who understood the date. ‘The Suez crisis, right?’
‘Yes, Myles - when the United Kingdom made a secret deal with France and Israel,’ said Zenylena, clearly enjoying the chance to shame Britain. ‘They attacked the Suez Canal, but President Eisenhower refused to support it. Britain was forced to withdraw, and the Prime Minister resigned in disgrace.’
Zenyalena and Myles both looked to Glenn for a reaction. The American looked sheepish. ‘Hey – don’t blame me. I just follow the President’s orders.’
Myles shook his head. ‘That’s not the point, Glenn. In 1956, your President made Stolz’s prediction come true.’
‘He was trying to get re-elected at the time. I don’t think Stolz would have mattered all that much to him.’
‘Agreed, Glenn. But it means, somehow, Stolz made yet another accurate prediction.’ Myles turned back to Zenyalena. ‘What else does it say about the British Empire?’
‘Well, there’s something about 2024 and 2025, saying a “challenge will rip out national confidence” …’ She pulled a face, as if to say she couldn’t possibly know what that meant. ‘… Then this one: October 1984. He writes “UK power is suddenly undermined by a military shock.”’
Glenn looked confused, raking his memory. Then he began to smile. ‘Ah – he got one wrong. If he means the surprise attack on the Falklands, that was 1982. The UK wasn’t attacked in October 1984, right?’ Finally, Glenn thought he had one over on the dead Nazi.
But Myles shook his head. ‘Correct, the UK wasn’t attacked in 1984. The prediction still came true, though. In October 1984, a terrorist bomb destroyed the hotel being used by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “Suddenly undermined” is a good description: the building was literally blasted away from under her.’
No one answered. Instead, the whole team just stopped and fell silent, as they realised what they had in front of them. Unless he had been using some sort of trick, Stolz really had been predicting the future.
And whether it was a clever hoax, or Stolz had actually made accurate predictions and was genuine, they had to work out how he had done it.
Twenty-Six
St Simon’s Monastery
Israel
8.20 a.m. IST (6.20 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Father Samuel switched off his alarm clock. The alert was unnecessary: he was already awake, thinking through all that might happen following the peculiar events triggered by Werner Stolz’s death. Slowly, he swung his legs out of bed, gathered himself, and picked up his encrypted communicator. One new message. He clicked it open:
Full surveillance of international investigation team in place. See attachment: this is what they have.
Then he clicked on the attachment, to open a very long file made up of 230 pages of information. It was an electronic intercept, taken from a photocopier in the Headquarters of the German Diplomatic Police.
Quickly, he typed a reply.
Good work, My Ally. Keep watching.
Father Samuel felt his heartbeat quicken as he checked the papers as fast as he could.
Krafft, the German mystic …
V2 bombers …
Economic cycles …
Nothing he didn’t yet know – although he suspected it would be news to many people who read it. Would it satiate their curiosity, or fascinate them to find out more? Father Samuel didn’t know, but at least he knew what the international team had.
Until he noticed an obscure one-page document towards the end of the attachment – a sheet which didn’t seem to relate to any of the others. From the single word title, Father Samuel realised it could be more important than all the other information in the attachment put together.
Swiftly, he began his morning prayer, and called on God to make the international team pass over that single page.
Twenty-Seven
Schlosshotel Cecilienhof
Potsdam, near Berlin
8.30 a.m. CET (7.30 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Three loud raps on the door broke the silence. Heike-Ann dutifully sprung to her feet to pull open the heavy door. It was a man from the hotel staff carrying a tray of coffees. Silently, they watched him serve beverages. Only once the waiter had gone, and the soundproof door had settled back in place, did the conversation resume.
Glenn volunteered the first reaction. ‘So, Stolz thought he could predict the future.’
Zenyalena shot back. ‘More than “thought”. He did predict the future.’
‘Oh come on.’ Glenn was pulling his chin back into his face, looking sceptical. . ‘Nobody really believes all this. There’s always a better explanation. It’s just that people love voodoo stuff.’
Heike-Ann seemed to be agreeing with the American, tilting her head as she sipped her water.
Glenn realised the others were only half-convinced. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Stolz’s “predictions” were probably written by a bunch of flunkies – just Nazis trying to impress their beloved Führer.’
Zenyalena shook her head. ‘Then explain how they’re so accurate.’
‘Most likely they were written after the event. Maybe Stolz wrote lots of predictions and just kept the ones which turned out to be true. There are lots of ways he could have done it.’
Zenyalena started to lean her head back and look down at the American. ‘So how do you explain Stolz getting so rich?’
‘Lots of people get rich …’ Glenn seemed to suddenly become aware he was talking to a Russian brought up in the Communist era. ‘… Well, lots of people get rich in the West, anyway. It doesn’t mean they have special powers to predict the future.’
Glenn tried to laugh it away, but the others all looked unsure - as though they wanted to believe Glenn, but the evidence they’d seen in Stolz’s papers was just too compelling.
Still hoping the Englishman was his most reliable ally, Glenn turned to Myles. ‘You teach at Oxford University, one of the world’s top academic establishments, right?’
‘I’m only a lecturer there,’ said Myles.
Glenn made his point. ‘Look at the evidence. People have been trying to predict the future for years. It’s never been done. It’s far more likely Stolz was doing some sort of fast-and-loose magic trick. Maybe he got money for it or something. He couldn’t have really been predicting the future. How could he?’
‘You may be right,’ said Myles, answering slowly. ‘Perhaps this is one big trick. But what if the Nazis really had cracked some ancient science which allowed them to predict the future? They’d keep it secret, wouldn’t they – just like Stolz. A very small number of peo
ple would have protected it – perhaps just him. And if they could, they’d make their fortunes from it after the war, just like Stolz.’
‘He must have written his predictions afterwards,’ huffed Glenn.
‘Then we have to test his predictions another way.’ Myles picked up the papers. He turned to Heike-Ann. ‘We’ve got the originals from Stolz, right?’
Heike-Ann nodded.
‘Then we send them for carbon dating,’ announced Myles. ‘If papers have the date “1942” on them, then we can take a sample and see whether they really were written around that time.’
Zenyalena took up the theme. ‘Is carbon dating accurate?’
‘It’s not perfect,’ accepted Myles. ‘But it’s accurate enough. We should know whether they were written in the 1940s. We just need to check whether they were written before the events they predict. We’ll have to get them sent to a laboratory. It usually takes a few weeks …’
Glenn, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann were silent, absorbing Myles’ suggestion.
Then, Myles remembered: Frank.
‘…although I know someone who could speed it up for us – someone at the Imperial War Museum in London. Is everyone happy with me sending some of the papers to be tested?’
Zenyalena replied stiffly. ‘Russia objects to Britain’s Imperial Wars, but we are OK with the museum testing these papers.’
‘Thank you, Zenyalena. Glenn?’
Glenn rubbed his fingers on his forehead, thinking. ‘I agree, but we need Jean-François’ consent before we send off papers. And we’ve already agreed our work needs to be kept secret. We can’t spread it to too many people.’
Myles nodded, picking up a pen. He started writing a note on the back of one of the photocopied sheets.
Frank – can you have these papers carbon dated, please? Quickly if possible.
