by Iain King
‘No, it’s alright. How do you mean, it just ‘is’?’
‘Planets make patterns in the sky, human affairs make patterns on earth, and some of the patterns match up. We’ve dumped billions into NASA, but we still don’t understand how it works. But all we know is that it just does. It’s accurate enough to make predictions which are much better than, say, weather forecasts.’
‘Predictions like when the Berlin Wall’s going to come down?’
‘Exactly.’ Glenn gently eased the trolley-bed along, wheeling it towards a wall. His mouth spoke close to Myles’ ear so he couldn’t be overheard. ‘Ronald Reagan was the President who used it most. Like the eclipse over Iceland in 1986 – eclipses are linked to military victories, so he held the summit in the eclipse zone – to win the Cold War through a deal with Gorbachev.’
‘Just Reagan?’
‘He was the only President to use it knowingly, although it’s public knowledge that we’ve also advised more than one First Lady. For the others, our advice was given through ‘forecasting agencies’ – one of them in Alaska.’
‘Corporal Bradley?’
Glenn nodded. ‘Bradley set it up. With help from Stolz, of course. All our forecasts have to be sanitised, so they seem based on computer models, statistics, agricultural output figures, that sort of thing. It means Presidents always have deniability. We wouldn’t want the public to know their officials were basing decisions on the position of the planets, would we?’
Myles still didn’t understand. ‘But what about Dieter? Wasn’t he putting all this stuff on the web – and making you and I out to be terrorists?’
Glenn grinned again. ‘Yes… sort of… and also, no.’
Myles cocked his head in disbelief.
Glenn felt the need to explain some more. ‘Dieter was using Stolz’s predictions to claim credit for things,’ he said. ‘But they were things which were going to happen anyway. So his terror website predicted nuclear accidents and the death of a senator. When those things actually happened, he hoped people would blame the terror group.’
‘So why didn’t they?’
‘They didn’t see his website. We quarantined it. It was only accessible to a few folks in Langley, and Dieter himself.’
‘And I guess Dieter is now dead?’
Glenn didn’t answer with words, but his face reacted in a way which confirmed Myles’ suspicion.
‘Your guys killed him?’
‘He tried to kill himself, actually.’ Glenn answered with his eyebrows raised. ‘He took a suicide pill – same type as Stolz. He probably stole it one of the times he burgled the old man’s Berlin apartment… although I put a bullet in him, too – just in case his cyanide capsule was some sort of chemical weapon.’
Myles could only vaguely remember fighting with Dieter on the glass dome of the Reichstag.
‘You got concussed.’ Glenn pointed at Myles’ forehead. ‘Then we sedated you as a precaution. You’ve been out cold for almost forty hours. Hence the brain scan.’
Myles lifted his fingers to feel bandages on his forehead. ‘Worse than in Vienna?’
‘Much worse. No inflatable this time. Both you and Dieter were pretty wasted when you fell down – into the authority of Berlin’s American Military Police.’
Myles looked around. He began to realise he wasn’t in a normal hospital. A doctor in fatigues, signs in English, an information poster telling people about veteran’s benefits. He was in a military hospital. ‘I’m under the authority of the American Military Police, too?’
Glenn winked, confirming Myles was right. ‘Allied War Powers Act. You’re in the old American sector of the city.’
‘You know, quite frankly Glenn, I’m glad to be anywhere. I thought I was going to die. And that’s what the machine predicted, too.’
‘The machine was wrong.’
Myles was puzzled. ‘You mean Stolz’s computer doesn’t work?’
‘Oh it works. We’re testing it right now. Pretty accurate so far. No, it was wrong because you gave it the wrong information.’
‘But I only put in the time and day I was born, didn’t I?’
‘Not quite, Myles. When you were born, you Brits were trying some Euro-experiment – living with the clocks one hour forward in winter time. It means the birth time entered into the machine for you was out by sixty minutes.’
While Myles digested the information, and wondered whether being born an hour earlier had really saved his life, Glenn signed. ‘Of course, this stuff isn’t secret anymore - when the Russians got Zenyalena’s body, they posted Stolz’s papers on the web.’
‘So know everybody knows?’ asked Myles, amazed that the Americans could let the secret out so easily.
‘Not exactly ‘knows’,’ laughed Glenn. ‘The information is public now, which is new. But our guys have directed search engines towards false predictions rather what the Russians put up. And all the statistical evidence about the connection between the planets and what people do: there are respected scientists and statisticians rubbishing that right now, because the whole scientific community knows this could blow their intellectual worlds apart. Some experts are dismissing it as a coincidence; others say it’s a joke. People won’t take astrology any more seriously than they did before, so we’re safe.’
Glenn’s tone became more serious. ‘You know, Myles, Heike-Ann’s not going to talk – she’s signed all sort of confidentiality agreements and is just looking forward to her new baby now. The French thought everything finished when Jean-François was killed. And all the public saw about the international team was a fire in Vienna and a rooftop accident in Berlin – they didn’t know we were chasing Stolz’s secrets.’
‘Accident? You mean people thought Dieter and I just slipped off the Reichstag?’
Glenn nodded. ‘And it means you can go back to teaching Oxford students about the past, not telling them how to predict the future. Right, Myles?’
Myles understood the obvious threat in Glenn’s suggestion. ‘Or?’
‘Or, Myles, some very respected people will say you’ve fallen for hogwash.’
Myles relaxed, dismissing Glenn with a shrug and a turn of his face. ‘Threats don’t do it for me, Glenn. I don’t care about my reputation.’
Glenn wasn’t surprised by Myles’ response. He certainly didn’t seem angry. ‘I know. But you will keep it secret, Myles. You’ve seen how dangerous it is. If people knew their future, they’d stop trying. They’d think they were invincible, like Dieter. Or go round doing stupid things. If people in America didn’t believe they could control their own lives, we would have lost the Cold War, and probably the Second World War, too. If you let this secret out, you’ll hurt every human being who ever wanted to make a decision for themselves. You’ll be taking their futures away from them. I know you’re a good man, Myles - you’re not going to do that to people.’
Myles absorbed Glenn’s words. Perhaps the American was right: like nuclear weapons, the power to know the future was just too dangerous to be out there. It had to be controlled, so people could enjoy the freedom to live as they wanted – even if that freedom was an illusion.
‘That’s why you think I’ll keep it secret?’
Glenn grinned. For a moment, Myles wondered if the American was about to pull out a gun, or inject him with a syringe full of poison. ‘Glenn?’
‘I’ve done your predictions, Myles Munro. You’ll be going on another mission in a few months. Probably when your legs are better, because there’s quite a bit of running, the machine said. More military history I think, terrorists with gold, something like that – I don’t know...’
Myles still didn’t understand. Why did accepting one more assignment – and a bizarre-sounding one at that – mean he wouldn’t reveal Stolz’s secrets?
‘…And between now and then, you’ll have other things on your mind.’
‘Glenn?’ Myles frowned, demanding an answer from the enigmatic American, but Glenn just strolled away. He gave Myles
a casual salute from the end of the corridor, nodding his head in respect to the Englishman who had saved his life in Stolz’s bunker two days ago. Then he disappeared.
Myles lay on the trolley-bed, wondering about it all. He was distracted by a commotion – far off in another part of the hospital, but loud enough for Myles to hear.
‘… But I am a relative.’
‘No media, ma’am.’
‘Under US Federal law you have to let me through…look it up…’ It was a familiar voice. A few moments later, flanked by two US marine guards who seemed to be restraining her, Myles saw the television hair he had grown to love being marched towards him. Truly flustered for perhaps the first time since he had known her, Helen was standing beside his hospital trolley. ‘Myles, these men don’t believe we’re engaged to be married…’
One of the marines was about to say something when Myles noticed a ring sparkling on Helen’s hand. It was the first time he’d seen it. ‘That looks nice on you,’ he said.
The military men relaxed a little when they realised Myles really did know Helen Bridle – the woman from CNN wasn’t just there for an interview.
The taller marine tipped his camouflaged hat to Myles, who was still lying down. ‘Sir, this hospital is regulated by federal laws which only allow guests if they are related to the patient. Miss Helen Bridle claims to be your fiancée. Is that true, Sir?’
Myles paused, but only for a moment, looking at Helen as he answered. ‘Yes. It’s true.’
‘Thank you, Sir. Ma’am, my apologies.’ The marines left.
Helen bent down and kissed him. ‘Thank you, Myles.’
‘For saying you were my fiancée, or for agreeing to marry?’
‘Both.’ She kissed him again, then looked at his bandaged head, and his plastered legs.
‘I love you, Helen,’ he whispered, relieved.
‘You won’t be chasing old Nazis anymore, now, I hope?’
‘He wasn’t a Nazi. Stolz was just trying to make sure his secret didn’t go to bad people. That’s why he swapped the Sarin for water, and why he left insulting clues about Hitler. All his life, he kept those records about Hitler dodging the draft and steering clear of the trenches. He could have destroyed them, but Stolz’s second secret was that he hated what the Nazis stood for. Perhaps did during the War, too.’
‘And his other secret was about the planets?’
Myles nodded.
Helen frowned, concerned. ‘You know, I told my editors to do a story on it – on all the amazing coincidences between planets and human events. None of them took it. It’s not going to run.’ She looked baffled, as if a bizarre editorial process had decided to miss out on one of the greatest scoops of the century.
But Myles knew why - he remembered what Glenn had said. Helen’s editors probably understood what would happen to their reputations if they told the truth. ‘Helen, it means people won’t learn how to predict their future from the planets. But is that really bad?’
‘Well, what did Stolz predict for you?’
‘Two days ago, his machine said that, today, my girlfriend would ‘cease to be’.’
Light glinted into Helen’s eyes from the ring on her finger – a ring she had bought for herself, knowing Myles was too much of a misfit to buy it for her. ‘Then, Myles, I guess it came true. I have ceased to be your girlfriend. I’m your fiancée now.’ She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. Then emotion burst all over her face as she realised she was with the man she was going to marry.
Myles put his hand through her hair, letting it rest on her neck. His future was standing beside him, and it was the only part of the future he wanted to know.
Epilogue
Oxford, UK
Seven months later
* * *
Helen was about to press ‘confirm’ when the doorbell rang. She frowned as she checked her watch, not sure who it could be. Standing up, she leaned towards the window, and peered down onto Pembroke Street. There, beaming up at her, sweating and recovering his breath, stood her fiancée.
She smiled back, then shouted down to him, ‘Did you do the whole route?’
He nodded. She raised her eyebrows in admiration, then turned to press the entry buzzer, and listened to his footsteps bound up the stairs, two at a time.
She kissed him as he came in through the door, then made a show of wiping his sweat from her cheeks. ‘Still OK with the leg?’ she asked, noticing a graze on his shin as she said it.
‘That’s just from where I tripped near the lecture hall,’ he explained. ‘They’re both fine.’ He squatted down on his haunches, proving he could stand up again without pain.
‘Good,’ she said, beckoning him over to her computer. ‘So how about trekking through the mid-West for our honeymoon?’
Myles smiled again. ‘Shouldn’t we plan our wedding first?’
She was about to answer when the phone rang. She pulled a face, then picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ She slumped a little when she recognised the voice. ‘OK – he’s right here,’ she said. ‘Simon Charfield,’ she mouthed silently, as she passed the phone over.
Myles took the phone, slightly fazed. ‘Er, hello?’ he said before a pause.
After a few moments he began to concentrate on Simon Charfield’s questions. ‘Ah, well,’ he began answering, ‘It certainly had a great impact. A forerunner to modern chemistry, it led to the discovery of oxygen, explosives… it also caused the death of King Charles the Second, who experimented with it - if he hadn’t died, Britain might not be a democracy.’
Then she saw him frown.
‘Really? Are you sure? They might be faking, you know,’ cautioned Myles.
Helen mimed a question, asking him what it was about.
Myles put his hand over the receiver. ‘Terrorists performing alchemy,’ he whispered in reply, before concentrating back on the phone call.
Then she saw him nodding.
‘Of course, I’m very curious. If someone really can make gold then….’ Another pause, then, ‘What exactly to do you want me to investigate?’
Myles looked at her admiringly as he waited for the answer. Their eyes connected. He winked lovingly. But she knew what would happen next.
‘OK, Simon,’ he said. ‘Tell me more…’
Letter from Iain
Thank you so much for reading Secrets of the Last Nazi. I really hope you enjoyed it.
And, if you’ve got this far, you’ve probably realised both secrets are true. They are.
Hitler really was a coward in World War One - he managed to spend less time in the trenches than almost any other private in his regiment. And, despite all his rhetoric, he ducked out of military service for Imperial Austria at least three times. The Nazis managed to hide these facts for years. Many people were hoodwinked, and some respected journalists in the West even colluded in the myth.
It’s also true that planets can be used to make accurate predictions about human affairs. Like Glenn, I don’t know how or why, but they can. In February 1988, I saw someone use the Saturn-Neptune cycle to explain exactly what would happen to communism the following year – including the precise week that the Berlin Wall would come down. If you say ‘that should be impossible’, then I agree with you, but that doesn’t stop it being true.
Several top Nazis knew this truth, including Himmler, Hess and Goebbels – probably others, too. Unfortunately, my investigation ran dry when I tried to discover more about Nazi research programmes, and what they had found out – the evidence had been destroyed or hidden. I hope the fiction parts of Secrets of the Last Nazi give you some idea about the intrigue around all this. I’m still expecting the evidence in this book to be distorted, and to be attacked and ridiculed personally for presenting it – statistician Michel Gauquelin really was harried to his death for exposing some of it.
Writing can be lonely, and connecting with my readers when the story is told is both enjoyable and important. If you did enjoy Secrets of the Last Nazi and have an op
inion on the story, I’d be delighted to read it in a review, no matter how short. I love reading reviews and always appreciate the fact that people take the time to write them – even if you only put down a few nice words. They also help other readers discover my books for the first time, especially if you are kind enough to give me lots of ‘stars’.
As for Myles Munro, he has more ‘impossible’ truths to discover - The Last Prophecy of Rome is coming soon. If you’d like to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up here:
Iain King e-mail sign up
Thank you so much for your support – until next time.
Iain King
@iainbking
www.iainbking.com
The Last Prophecy of Rome exclusive extract
CHAPTER ONE
Rome, Italy
* * *
It was the wrong place for a holiday.
* * *
The crowds, the hassle, the noise….
* * *
Worst of all: the constant reminders of war.
* * *
Myles wanted a break, but knew he wasn’t going to get one here.
He had read about Rome as an undergraduate: just one term to cover the whole Roman Empire. He’d forgotten most of it now. The lectures, the lecturer and that old history book – it all seemed so long ago.
What he remembered most were the other students. Some of them were very unusual, one of them more than the rest. The one he would never forget…
He looked around and tried to be impressed.
So this was Rome.
He gazed at the magnificent statues: gods, emperors and senators. He saw the Coliseum, where gladiators brawled and died. He studied the city walls which tried but ultimately failed to keep out the enemy. He even visited the old grain stores, Rome’s strategic stockpile of food which kept its citizen’s plump. Stores once filled by harvests from across the sea, until barbarians overran the land which is now Libya...
