by Iain King
The fact that Myles had been a misfit was obvious. Myles had clearly suffered from some sort of high-performing learning disability. The CIA file on him confirmed it. From what Sally could tell about his popular lectures at Oxford, his radical theory about Clausewitz was one of the greatest advances in military theory in almost two centuries. He had certainly been very bright. Very bright indeed.
Sally sometimes felt a bit like a misfit herself, although she guessed she’d been luckier in life than poor old Myles Munro.
But at least there was one thing she could do for this man – although it seemed a bit late: she could prove he’d been made a scapegoat again.
Sally’s logic was simple. Myles Munro had been named as a terrorist on the Mein Kampf Now website – alongside some federal employee called ‘Glenn’. Sally knew both were innocent. She knew because she had quarantined the site, alongside the Humanitarian Pursuit site which had tried to negotiate with them. Both sites had been isolated from the world wide web, so the psychopath’s threats had been read by no-one. Or rather, no-one outside the CIA.
It meant whoever was behind Humanitarian Pursuit must also have been behind Mein Kampf Now. There was no other way the humanitarians could have known about the terrorist threats.
And by uploading Myles Munro’s details onto the Mein Kampf Now webpage, the psychopath had given Sally an important lead. It meant she had a name, so she could order a bug on Mr Munro’s home phone, in Oxford, England, and all the numbers associated with it. When Myles Munro himself had made a desperate call to his partner’s CNN mobile, warning her to stay away from the Reichstag in Berlin, it had given them just enough time to get the message where it needed to go. Enough time to send agents to central Berlin, although sadly not enough time to save Myles Munro himself.
And the other guy? It looked like the psychopath uploading the threats had been someone called Dieter. An easy news search had revealed who this Dieter person was: a radical fascist, brought up a German in Strasbourg half a century after the town was given to France as compensation for World War One. He was an agitator, a rebel, an ideologue who had been jailed for throwing pink paint at a far-right Euro-politician. Dieter had tried to become a new Hitler, but failed.
Dieter had uploaded his own picture to the Humanitarian Pursuit website. He’d tried to claim credit for making peace with a terrorist organisation responsible for all sorts of bad things – from the deaths of senators, to nuclear accidents, to economic depressions and even wars.
So why hadn’t this Dieter guy put it all behind him? Why the terrorist website? Why the bizarre threats, most of them way off in the future? Sally understood: because Dieter believed he could predict the future. It allowed him to claim credit for bad things which happened. So why not try to claim credit for bringing peace?
It was all nonsense. It must be. Nobody can predict the future – it was impossible. Wasn’t it?
What if this dead Dieter person really had found a way to predict the future? Now the tech boys had found the real IP address and the location traces, she knew exactly where in Berlin this man had been. If Dieter had left paperwork – perhaps a machine or something - she could fly over, find it, and try to predict the future herself.
It would be far more interesting than her day job. She had just finished with the most interesting case her job would ever bring. She would close down her computer, only to power it up again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. She was about to leave the office, dissatisfied as ever, only to return the next day…
She went back to the computer screen to re-read the tech boys’ report on locations, but she couldn’t open it any more. Her security status didn’t allow it. Someone had changed the classification – it was now officially too sensitive for her to read. Even the traces from Dieter to contacts in Israel and England had gone. She slumped. No trip to Berlin. She wouldn’t be able to escape her job. She would have to close down her computer, leave the office, and be ready for another day there tomorrow.
As Sally Wotton left her computer and put on her coat, she finally understood how predictable her life was after all.
Sixty-Eight
Berlin, Germany
11.35pm CET (10.35pm GMT)
* * *
Dieter tried to tense his neck muscles to lift up his head, but blood in his hair had congealed to whatever he was lying on. He ignored the pain, and tugged several times until his scalp was free. As his vision cleared, he realised he must have been concussed from the fall.
Blearily, he looked around him. To one side, a paramedic in a yellow bio-chemical protection suit was preparing Myles Munro’s cadaver. Myles’ skin was grey, except for the ugly head wound from which his life had drained away. The paramedic was calmly removing the Englishman’s clothes and wiping the man’s tall body. Dieter allowed himself to smirk. He may have failed to save the last great secret of the Nazis, but he had at least killed the Englishman. And in doing so, he had proved Stolz’s wartime prediction computer – that triumph of Nazi science - was accurate.
He wobbled his head around to survey his own body, which was fixed in place on a medical bed. He realised he couldn’t move his legs. Worse, he couldn’t feel them. He reached his hand down to his pelvis, but there was no sensation at all.
Towards the far end of the sterile white room in which he lay, two men, also wearing full protective suits, stared at him.
‘Help me,’ he uttered. One of the men lumbered towards him.
Dieter hoped the man would treat him, even honour him – after all, he had just saved Germany. But instead of helping Dieter, the man produced a sidearm. Dieter knew the weapon: a SIG-Sauer P229, a handgun favoured by various parts of the US Federal government. Then he recognised the face inside the bio-mask: it was Glenn.
Glenn peered down, and pushed himself right up to Dieter. ‘Where’s the Sarin?’ he snarled.
Dieter glared back, refusing to answer.
Then he motioned towards Myles. ‘Death from a great height,’ he boasted.
Dieter saw Glenn’s non-reaction and laughed. ‘You believed the machine too, didn’t you…’
He grinned. Eyes still fixed on Glenn, Dieter’s fingers delved towards his pocket and found the old enamelled pillbox he had stolen from Stolz. Reassuringly, he felt the famous crooked cross on the cover, and marvelled at the German craftsmanship which had miniaturised the swastika so perfectly. He flicked the box open.
Glenn saw the movement and thrust his gun against Dieter’s temple. ‘Don’t think you can still release it - you’ll be dead before you try.’
But Dieter just smiled. Gently, he lifted the clouded capsule from his pocket into his mouth, carefully positioning it between his teeth.
‘Last chance,’ threatened Glenn.
Dieter replied with just a single word, ‘Führoxia.’
Dieter was just able to bite down on the cyanide pill before a bullet from Glenn’s pistol blasted through his brain, causing death from multiple causes.
And just as Dieter had managed to die like Hitler, he was also remembered like the Nazi-dictator: with no grave, no glory, and no monuments ever built in his honour.
DAY SEVEN
Sixty-Nine
DAY SEVEN
Berlin, Germany
2pm CET (1pm GMT)
* * *
Even though it disturbed his regular daily schedule, Ludochovic did not hesitate to obey the first half of Zenyalena’s handwritten command:
Bring all the Stolz papers to the Berlin embassy immediately, where I will meet you…
The instant he had received the note – contained within a package sent in an ‘Imperial War Museum’ envelope from a postbox on the French-German border – Ludochovic had booked himself on a flight, and made his way to the German capital. An official car met him at the airport, and drove him straight to the Russian embassy. Police cordons and ‘bio-hazard decontamination’ barriers, which had surrounded part of the nearby Reichstag for some twenty-hours, delayed th
e last part of his journey only by a few minutes.
His trouble was: what to do about the second part of Zenyalena’s instructions?
… but if I don’t appear, then publish everything from Stolz.
The problem was Zenyalena had appeared, but not as Ludochovic had expected. Indeed, it was Ludochovic himself who had to receive the sodden body from the German diplomatic policy, identify Ms Androvsky formally, and ensure the death was handled as a consular matter under international protocols, rather than by the national authorities of Germany.
The whole affair seemed very unorthodox to Ludochovic. Just like his now deceased line manager, and the unorthodox international mission she had set up to investigate Stolz. He was sure there was more to all this than he knew – just as there had been when a predecessor of his had received Kirov’s dead body, the Soviet Liaison Officer who interviewed the last Nazi, back in 1945. Like Kirov, Zenyalena had been killed by a single bullet while working with ‘allies’ to investigate Stolz. And why was Zenylena’s body so wet? It was more than suspicious. As Zenylena would have said, ‘this one smells’.
Briefly, he considered visiting the East Berlin apartment where Zenyalena’s body was reported to have been found. He wondered about re-starting the international team with new members, or sending out another demarche to provoke a revealing reaction from the United States, as Zenyalena would have done.
But, as a dutiful servant of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ludochovic understood his job was solely to obey. That meant he had three tasks. First, to repatriate the body of Ms Zenyalena Androvsky for cremation. The service would take place in Moscow, just in case there were any friends, family or loved one who might want to attend, although Ludovic suspected there would be none.
Second, he should put all the facts he knew on file, by writing a complete report about the whole affair. It would be as detailed as the reports from 1945, and archived, just in case it might be needed seventy years from now, as the report on Kirov had been.
And third, out of respect to his deceased line manager, he would carry out the last request he had received from her: he would publish online the material from Stolz.
Meticulously, he gathered all the papers he had, including the latest papers in the War Museum envelope and the documents Zenyalena had faxed through earlier. Even though some had been annotated by Ms Androvsky, and initialled ‘ZA’, he reckoned her handwriting was anonymous enough as to be untraceable. He crossed out the word ‘Secret’, then passed them on to the Information Management Officer at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, alongside the routine request that they be released - without attribution.
The Russian Information Management Officer counted the pages rather than read them. There was far too much for a clever leak, or for the items to be placed somewhere significant. Instead, he just passed them on to the tech team, who in turn posted some of the pages on their ghost blog sites – webpages with small readerships, masquerading as normal blogs, but used for the dissemination of official propaganda.
The instant Stolz’s papers went online, keywords within the documents were picked up by web monitoring software. That, in turn, triggered the automatic publication of other material. Philip Ford’s half-a-million pounds had been put to good use.
In fact, some of the money had been offered as a prize: Father Samuel and the Professor had united to offer a reward to whoever could provide evidence for the most unexpected correlation. Entrants had compared the divorce rate in South Carolina with the American bee population. Links had been found between the number of space missions and sociology degrees awarded. There was even a correlation between the marriage rate in Alabama and the annual death toll from electrical accidents.
Of course, no-one took any of the correlations seriously. They were ‘just for entertainment’, as the press release announced. Father Samuel said they showed that God had a sense of humour. It meant anyone who found Stolz’s papers online would have thought they were a joke too, which was exactly what Father Samuel intended.
Professor Cromhall continued to preach science, now confident he could pretend there was no mystery to the universe. The most dangerous mystery – the bizarre but powerful correlation between the planets and human affairs – had been buried. If necessary, the Professor could discredit and ridicule the link, which would save Cromhall from being discredited and ridiculed himself.
The banker, Philip Ford, could eat his prawns in peace, very content with the return on his small investment of half a million pounds. It had safeguarded a lifetime of financial gains.
And Father Samuel flew back to his monastery, finally satisfied that Stolz’s secret had been hidden again as much as it ever could be - under piles of spurious information, alongside false predictions and fabrications of the original papers, on a remote part of the internet. Even though Stolz’s big secret was secret no more, Father Samuel had discovered the perfect way to hide the truth.
Seventy
Somewhere in Berlin, Germany
10.30pm CET (9.30pm GMT)
* * *
The machine whirred, then buzzed, then started clicking. Mechanical and electrical parts inside, connected by a tangle of wires, did their work. The experts sat beside it, waiting for the machine to spew out its information. They waited on its verdict, and waited, and waited…
Click… Click… Click…
It was the clicking which woke him. Myles found himself inside the large white tube of a full-body scanner. ‘Hello? Is anybody there?’
‘Bleiben Sie bitte still liegen..’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Remain still, please, Sir,’ replied the voice. It sounded official.
Myles waited, until the machine whirred again and his body was rolled out onto a trolley-bed.
One of the experts approached. ‘Mr Munro, you’ll be pleased to know everything seems fine,’ the man smiled, his hands relaxed in the pockets of his white coat. ‘Your head, Mr Munro. Specifically, your brain. No problems at all.’
Myles squinted, confused. ‘You mean… normal?’
‘We wouldn’t use that word, Sir. No damage, and everything else seems healthy. Within the range we would expect.’
Myles frowned. ‘But… another doctor told me I had… part of my brain was the wrong shape, or unusual. Something like that. He said it made me different.’
The medics looked at each other, one of them chuckling slightly. They reacted as if they’d heard the comment before. ‘We’re all different, Mr Munro.’
‘But, my brain…?’
‘Yes, it’s different too,’ confirmed the expert. ‘But nobody knows how the shape of brains affects people. There’s research going on into that.’
‘Yes, they asked me to take part.’
‘Good, Mr Munro. But even if the research allows people with brain scanners to predict what people will be like, we don’t want to label people – people with one sort of brain in one group, people with another sort in another. Sounds a bit like… what the Nazis used to do, don’t you think?’
‘But isn’t that what you medics do,’ suggested Myles. ‘Don’t you label things?’
‘Not brains. We don’t label brains, Sir. It would be too much like trying to predict how people were going to live. And we wouldn’t want to do that. People should decide their own lives for themselves. Don’t you think so, Mr Munro?’
Myles thought through what the medical expert had said.
He was still wondering about it when a man appeared. The figure sauntered over, confident and composed. Their face gazed down at Myles, blocking out the lights in the ceiling.
‘Glenn?’
Glenn rocked his head forwards with a grin. For the first time since Myles had known him, the American had allowed fine stubble to sprout through the toned skin on his scalp. The two medics who’d been viewing Myles’ MRI scan acknowledged Glenn and his senior rank. They left Myles and Glenn alone together.
‘Good to see you again, Myles. You feeling OK?’
Myl
es wasn’t sure. He looked around, realised he was in a hospital, and surmised correctly he wasn’t well. ‘So what’s wrong with me? Sarin poisoning?’
‘There was no Sarin. Stolz left only water in that bottle. It’s just your head got smashed and your knee – usual stuff.’
‘My knee? My knee - again?’
‘Other one this time,’ said Glenn, gesturing to his legs. ‘Although they both need to be fixed.’
Myles gazed down to see both his lower limbs were now in plaster. He was immobile again. ‘How long to heal this time?’
‘Longer than last time…’ Glenn smirked, and checked no-one else was within earshot. ‘… the difference is - now you can work out exactly when you’ll be fit again.’
‘So it’s real? Stolz – he really had worked out how to predict things?’
‘Of course,’ admitted Glenn. ‘Greatest secret of the Cold War.’
Myles was perplexed. ‘You mean, you were pretending all along not to believe it?’
Glenn shook his head. ‘It’s not something to believe or not believe. It just is. And let’s face it – some of it does sound pretty crazy. Hirohito didn’t declare war on Russia because he was born when Neptune was over Moscow? No-one can believe that. You just have to notice it’s true and live with it.’
Myles frowned, determined to argue the point. He tried to sit up, pulling on his headboard, but he strained. Pain surged through his newly-broken leg, which was attached to a wire suspended above the bed. He winced, then kept quiet as he realised one of the medical orderlies was looking towards him.
‘Try to lie still,’ insisted Glenn. ‘Let me know if you want me to get you some pain-killers.’
