by Iain King
None of them could be a traitor – unless he was missing something. There had to be some other explanation.
Myles raised his voice. ‘When we left Munich, we all agreed not to tell anyone about this location. Yes?’
All four of the others agreed.
‘So, did anyone mention this location to anyone else?’
Glenn and Pascal shook their heads looking straight back at Myles.
‘Heike-Ann? Zenyalena?’
‘No,’ explained Heike-Ann. ‘I told my husband I’d be going to France, but I didn’t say where.’
Zenyalena gave a fuller answer. ‘I gave a report to Moscow, but that was about what we found in Munich. Not about this.’ She saw Glenn was still sceptical. ‘There’s no way Moscow could do this… even if someone intercepted my report, they wouldn’t know about this place.’
Myles tried something else. ‘So, maybe someone has found a way to follow us.’
Pascal raised a query. ‘Would that be possible? Even if someone tracked us here, setting up the machine guns would take time. We’d see them do it. And if they did, why use remote controls?’
Myles accepted Pascal was right. Even if someone was tracking them, it wouldn’t explain what had been happening. He was about to ask what they do next, when the quiet of the forest was interrupted by a faint noise. Something was coming down the gravel path. Footsteps.
Myles’ eyes alerted the rest of the team to the danger. Without words, he pointed to the trees, urging them to leave the track. Silently, Pascal and Glenn carried Heike-Ann into the undergrowth. Zenyalena ran back towards one of the machine guns. Myles crouched behind a tree, resting his supported leg on the ground as silently as he could.
He listened carefully. The footsteps were getting closer. It sounded like a single set of footsteps: just one person? Zenyalena also guessed whoever was coming was alone. She indicated to Myles she was ready with the gun.
But Myles recognised something odd about the steps. It wasn’t the sound of a normal person walking. The footsteps came in pairs - someone walking with an uneven gait.
Myles allowed his head to emerge from behind the tree. He could see the silhouette. He recognised it instantly, as he heard a familiar voice call out.
‘Myles? Myles, are you here?’
Myles allowed himself to stand up. In full view, he stepped out and walked back to the main track. Then he approached the man he had known for twenty years. He went to shake hands with his old pal. ‘Frank – Frank, why on earth are you here?’
As ever, Frank was sweating, but his face opened up when he saw his university friend. ‘Myles. Good to find you.’ The museum curator let his walking stick rest on his hip while he searched for an envelope in his bag. ‘I came to give you the carbon-dating results – you said they were urgent,’ he explained.
Then he realised Myles was not alone. First Pascal appeared, then Glenn. Heike-Ann sat herself up, wincing in pain as she did so. They looked at him, accusingly. Frank obviously couldn’t understand why.
Glenn made the first comment, his tone hostile. ‘So, Myles: was it you who told someone about this location?’
Glenn and Pascal stared at Frank, blaming him for the machine guns.
Myles knew he had to stand up for his old friend. ‘Yes, I did. I told my partner, Helen.’
Frank gathered Myles was in some kind of trouble and tried to back him up. ‘Er, yes, that’s right. And it was Helen who told me.’ Nervously he felt the need to say more, trying to sound positive. ‘Helen Bridle – she’s with CNN, you know.’ The museum curator held up the envelope. ‘I came to give Myles these - carbon-dating results.’
Glenn snatched it away.
Quickly, Pascal grabbed Frank’s walking stick. ‘Is this a real walking stick? Or is your limp just an act?’
‘It’s childhood polio, Pascal,’ said Myles, defending his colleague again. ‘Frank’s had a limp for years. And in case you’re wondering - could Frank have set up those machine guns? The answer’s no.’
Frank’s eyes looked scared, as if the danger he sensed in the people around him was suddenly very real. ‘Machine guns? The ones we had stolen from the museum over night?’
Myles was about to point to them when he felt his body recoil again.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat…
They all ducked as another explosive clatter of gunfire burst around them.
The bullets stopped. Myles turned to see. It was Zenyalena: she was holding the German machine gun, and had just fired a burst of bullets above their heads. ‘All of you: stay there. Myles: you lied. You told someone about this place, then tried to keep it secret.’ The Russian stood up, her hands still on the firing mechanism. ‘And in Vienna – that fire. You were behind it.’
‘No.’
‘Come on. It all points to you. The gas attack in Berlin – you did that yourself, didn’t you….’ Zenyalena’s voice had a sarcastic tone to it. ‘...And Munich. Now I understand. The grenade didn’t go off because you didn’t want it to. That’s why Pascal had to do it.’
‘Oh, Zenyalena, come on.’
‘Be quiet. Traitor.’ Zenyalena was lifting up the gun, pointing it towards him. It was heavy – she could only just manage, and she was keeping her fingers away from the barrel, probably because the recent shots had made it too hot. Myles saw the belt of ammunition was almost finished. If she did shoot, she’d only manage one or two bursts of fire. But then, that was probably all she’d need to kill him – perhaps to kill them all.
Zenyalena staggered back to the gravel track, her eyes warily scanning Frank, Glenn, Myles, Pascal and Heike-Ann in turn. ‘We’ve worked out there must be a traitor. Now we know that the traitor is the Englishman. And he was working with this man.’ She eyed Frank, sceptically looking at his weak leg. ‘What I don’t know is whether any of you were also involved. Pascal, Heike-Ann, Glenn: do any of you want to admit something?’
Glenn, Pascal and Heike-Ann looked at each other – confused and defenceless.
Glenn tried to calm the Russian. ‘Zenyalena, I think you’re wrong.’
‘Well, I think I’m right,’ she replied, curtly. ‘Myles has a past which he has refused to mention: his involvement with terrorists from Africa. Any denials, Mr Munro?’
‘The newspapers had bad information,’ offered Myles.
‘Not good enough, Myles,’ dismissed Zenyalena. ‘We’ve always known you’re a misfit. Now, you’ve tried to kill us. To kill me. Which means, I should kill you.’
She steadied the heavy gun on her hip, preparing to fire.
Pascal shook his head. ‘Zenyalena, don’t do this. There must be some explanation.’
‘No.’ She stared back at Myles. ‘Myles: go over there.’
She was directing him to stand apart from the others. To stand next to the trench, where his body would tumble after he’d been shot.
Myles stared at the gun. Obey or resist?
Zenyalena shook the weapon in her hands, making sure the ammunition belt was hanging loose, ready to feed into the firing mechanism. Her eyes were open wider than ever. Myles knew she wasn’t bluffing.
The Russian spoke deeply and firmly, giving directions he had to obey. ‘Go. Now.’
Very slowly, his palms open and pointing down to show he was following her instructions, Myles started to walk.
Then Glenn called out. He had opened Frank’s envelope. ‘Wait. Zenyalena.’
‘What?’
‘The carbon-dating stuff. It looks genuine.’
Zenyalena didn’t seem convinced. Muscles on her face twitched: she was deciding between asking for more details and shooting Myles immediately.
Frank called out. ‘Yes, they’re genuine. I checked all the papers.’
‘And who are you?’
‘I’m the curator of the Imperial War Museum in London.’
‘Prove it,’ Zenyalena demanded.
Frank looked at her gun. ‘Er, that weapon. It’s an MG 08/15 air-cooled German machine gun. Nicknamed
a ‘Spandau gun’, because it was manufactured in Spandau, near Berlin. The model you have dates from 1917. Check the serial number – it’ll prove I’m right.’
But Zenyalena refused to check. Instead she just curled her lip. ‘That just proves you know something about this ambush.’
She prepared to fire on Myles. ‘Mr Munro. You’re about to die. Anything we should know before I kill you?’
Myles thought about rushing her. Knocking her over, pushing the gun into the air… It might work, but it probably wouldn’t. She’d pull the trigger before he got close.
Instead, he’d have to convince her. ‘I told my partner, Helen, where we’d be, and I shouldn’t have, Zenyalena. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry for setting up the machine guns?’
‘No, that wasn’t me. But there’s one more place we have to look. Maybe it’ll explain everything.’
Zenyalena’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where? We’ve checked out all of Stolz’s locations. Vienna, Munich, now here. Where else is there?’
‘There were four locations, remember.’ Myles breathed out. He started talking to the others as much as Zenyalena. ‘And the fourth location must be in Berlin.’
‘Berlin? Come on, we’ve already been there.’
‘No. The bunker in Am Krusenick street. Stolz’s last location - it must be underneath his old basement flat.’ Myles looked at Pascal. ‘Pascal: would you come?’
Pascal’s eyebrows rose. For a moment he was open-minded, then he decided. ‘Yes, Myles, I will come.’
‘Good. Thanks Pascal. Glenn?’
Glenn paused thoughtfully before he replied. ‘No, Myles. We’ve looked enough. This search has got crazy. I say we call it off now…’ The American turned to the Russian. He didn’t have a weapon, but he spoke as if he did. ‘And Zenyalena, put down that gun. Nobody gets killed. Heike-Ann needs to go to hospital. We should all just leave.’
Zenyalena swivelled her gun towards Glenn. ‘Glenn: get in that vehicle. Take the driving seat, please.’
Glenn raised his hands above his head, in an ‘if you really want me to’ gesture. He opened the door to the minibus and climbed inside. ‘Where are the keys?’
Zenyalena used her eyes to indicate the keys were in her pocket. ‘Pascal, Heike-Ann, Myles and you, Mr Imperial Curator…’
‘Er, Frank. My name’s Frank.’
Zenyalena just waved the Spandau gun towards him. ‘All of you. Get in the back.’
Pascal helped Heike-Ann into the minibus. Frank limped in after them, with Myles helping his old friend on board. Myles followed them in.
Zenyalena waited until they were all inside. Then, still clutching the heavy machine gun to her waist, she strained with the weight of the passenger door and heaved it shut. Leaving her captives in the vehicle, she walked back into the road. With one hand, she picked up the bottle of nerve agent liquid. Carefully, she placed it through the open window onto the seat next to the driver.
Glenn looked at the bottle of nerve agent, scared. Myles saw the danger, too. If Zenyalena fired at the bottle, they’d all die within seconds.
Zenyalena was several metres away from the bus now, standing in front of it. She could fire on the bottle with ease. She could kill all of them.
Instead, the Russian quickly searched the area. She picked up the papers from Stolz’ ammunition box. Then, checking around her again, she ran back towards the minibus, and climbed into the seat next to Glenn.
Glenn pointed to the glass bottle. ‘You be careful with that.’
Zenyalena nodded. She manoeuvred the machine gun onto the floor – there was barely enough space for it – then picked up the bottle. ‘I’m going to carry this…’ She turned round to make eye-contact with Myles, Pascal, Frank and Heike-Ann, all sitting in back. Her eyes sized them up. ‘…So if I die, we all die.’
Then she pulled out the keys for the minibus and handed them to Glenn. ‘Drive. Back to Berlin,’ she ordered. ‘Back to Stolz’s apartment block in ‘Am Krusenick’ Street. We’re going to discover what the old Nazi was hiding once-and-for-all, even if every one of us dies finding it.’
Glenn understood. He turned on the ignition, and started the vehicle rolling along the track, away from the forest and towards the highway.
Fifty-Four
1.20pm CET (12.20pm GMT)
* * *
Dieter lifted out his smart phone with one hand, turned it on, waited, and kept it low.
There was a new message from Father Samuel.
Twin devices, not one. Sorry. Still alive?
So the fat man had set him up – two machine guns not one. He smirked – just as globes in the underground cavern had predicted for him.
No need to reply - better to play dead, he thought. He already had the money. He wouldn’t need to contact his old paymaster again.
Instead, without looking at the screen, he began to type.
The world is about to change. This change will start in Berlin.
He pressed his thumb on the bottom of the screen.
‘Send’
Hiding the glow of the phone with his jacket, Dieter typed on.
…This change will be broadcast live on CNN…
He supressed a grin.
There will be no talks. Humanitarian Pursuit – the answer is ‘no’.
Prepare for terror! Prepare for the return of the Reich!
He remembered Stolz’s list – the two US Senators, the European Prime Minister and the pop star – and the dates they were due to die.
On these dates I will kill these people…
In a single motion, he pressed ‘send’ again, as he palmed the phone into his hand.
Then he bent down to slip the device back into the strap on his ankle, as if he was tying his shoelaces.
Dieter settled back in his seat, and turned to look at the scenery of eastern France as it passed his window. The international team were so, so dumb… they still hadn’t worked out how their prize information was leaking to the Mein Kampf Now website…
He was still invisible. Still unnoticed. Still in disguise…
And he knew his latest upload– specific individuals with clear dates when they would die – was his best yet.
Within seconds, his upload appeared on a computer screen three thousand miles away.
Sally Wotton jolted up in her seat. It was another message.
Frantically, she scanned through the names of the people being threatened.
Then she hovered her cursor over the names, copied the list, and pasted it into an email she began to type.
Urgent: Immediate Federal Protection required for named individuals....
Sally knew she had to act fast. She hoped her email would save some of the people named on the website. Perhaps the psychopath behind Mein Kampf Now would be caught as he tried.
And she also saw: the tech boys were finally making progress. The latest upload had come from the east of France, somewhere near the historical town of Compiègne.
But it made Sally wonder. Was this really a lone psychopath, as she suspected, or was there a group behind the Mein Kampf Now website? How was someone in France or Germany going to kill Senators based in the US?
She had always imagined a single loner was behind the threats – a common terrorist profile: male, educated, and with a motive to hate. But this suggested there might be a network.
What sort of conspiracy was Sally dealing with?
She didn’t know, but she knew she was close to cracking it.
Fifty-Five
Driving to Berlin
3.50pm CET (2.50pm GMT)
* * *
Myles knew going to Am Krusenick had only bought them time. Nothing more. They would never find Stolz’s secret – certainly not in the old Nazi’s Am Krusenick flat, because there couldn’t be a bunker hidden under Stolz’s apartment in East Berlin.
It was well-known that Hitler had built huge tunnel systems, mostly dug by slaves. These subterranean caves had stored stolen art and protecte
d Nazis like Stolz from the Allied bombing campaign. But Myles remembered the newsreels: Soviet soldiers in May 1945 – the victorious Red Army in a destroyed Berlin, which hunted down snipers left fighting after their Führer had killed himself. When the Red Army had doubted Hitler was really dead, they had searched every room in every building. They had found thousands of German girls and women hiding underground, terrified of being raped, but not the Nazi dictator. Myles recalled the famous picture of Churchill from July of 1945: the British warlord inspecting Hitler’s bunker during a break from the Potsdam Conference, trying not to gloat. Then during the Cold War, and especially after 1961 when the Berlin Wall sealed off half the population, everywhere had been surveyed again. Berlin’s unique history meant the city had been searched for underground spaces many times over several years – and by very committed Communists. How could any remain secret?
Myles reckoned that whatever had been in the Am Krusenick Bunker, it would have been ransacked by Red Army soldiers in 1945. The ‘scientific equipment’ Stolz wrote about was probably destroyed. And that meant, when they got to Berlin, when they searched Stolz’s flat again, they would find nothing. They would be back where they had just been: to Zenyalena making accusations, to Myles being accused, and to the Spandau gun being pointed at him again.
He thought of Helen, wishing he could escape to be with her.
He looked around the minibus. Pascal was tending to Heike-Ann’s wounded forearm - their German translator was still losing blood. Myles sensed the Frenchman was eager to strike back. Glenn was driving, carefully and silently, still very self-contained. Myles could tell the American was wondering whether to call Zenyalena’s bluff. Myles tried to make eye-contact with Glenn through the rear-view mirror, but the man didn’t want to engage. Not yet. He wondered: if Zenyalena held Myles at gunpoint again, would Glenn allow Myles to be shot?
Myles didn’t trust the American. He sensed Glenn had some other agenda, although he couldn’t yet work out what it was.
