“Most of it was shipped out a long time ago,” she told them. “But we lost the Suicide Exhibition.”
“The what?” Sarah said.
“When the war started, we had a dilemma,” Elizabeth explained. “On the one hand we had to keep the exhibits and artifacts we held safe. On the other, it would have been bad for morale to close the museum. So the Suicide Exhibition was devised.”
“It was impressive,” Davenport told them. “Unless you knew, you wouldn’t guess, but it was made up of things that the museum could afford to lose.”
“Some were duplicates. I don’t mean copies, but spares if you like. Some were artifacts that simply aren’t that rare. There were a few facsimiles, but not very many. Hence ‘Suicide Exhibition.’” Elizabeth gave a wry smile. “Well, perhaps calling it that was tempting fate. And fate intervened when the incendiaries fell. So now we really are closed for the duration.”
“But we’ve got to the point where that hardly affects the nation’s morale,” Davenport said.
“The fact you’ve taken a hit might even help,” Sarah pointed out. “Like with Buckingham Palace.”
“But you haven’t been moved out,” Guy said. “I’m afraid I don’t even know what you do.”
“Whatever she likes,” Davenport said.
“Thank you, Leo.” Elizabeth led them out of the burned-out shell of the exhibition area and down a flight of steps. “The museum’s artifacts are grouped into departments. Most are geographical, like ‘Greece and Rome,’ and some are thematic, like ‘Prints and Drawings.’ I am the curator of one of the departments.”
“Which one?” Sarah wondered.
“The one that handles things that don’t fit into any of the others, or which no one else wants. The artifacts I care for are defined as Unclassified.”
“Which is rather ironic,” Davenport added, “since the department itself is certainly classified. Very few people know of its existence.”
“Why is that?” Guy asked. “Why keep secrets in a museum?”
“Best place for them,” Davenport said.
They had arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Elizabeth Archer led them down a narrow corridor and into a large room. It was so cold in here, despite the summer heat outside, that their breath misted the air. The room was unfurnished, but one whole wall was taken up with what looked like a huge metal filing cabinet. More than a dozen large drawers, each with a sturdy handle, were labeled with simple combinations of letters.
“Why’s it so cold?” Sarah asked.
“Because these drawers are refrigerated,” Elizabeth told her.
She had taken out a small key, and unlocked one of the drawers at about waist level. It was marked “TQ.”
“The reason my department is kept secret,” she said as she pulled open the drawer, “is because we store and examine artifacts like this one.”
The drawer squeaked as it pulled out under the weight of whatever was inside. Cold mist rose like steam, obscuring the contents. The drawer was long, sliding out six feet or more. Elizabeth lowered a strut from beneath it which then acted as a prop to support the weight. The sides of the drawer were hinged and she unclipped them and folded them down.
The drawer was now a shelf or slab, covered by a gray cotton sheet. Guy could already guess what lay beneath. He could make out the shape through the material. Despite the cold, he could smell it—reminding him of the day he went to Ipswich. Burned flesh.
Davenport helped Elizabeth fold back the sheet, revealing the body that lay beneath.
It was charred almost beyond recognition. Like a statue carved out of coal. One leg had shattered and broken away. The arms were twisted in front of the chest, hands bunched into fists, fingers fused together by the heat.
Sarah gasped, and turned quickly away. Davenport, who must have seen it before, looked pale. Guy felt sick, forcing himself to look. Only Elizabeth seemed unaffected, regarding the corpse with the same studied interest with which she probably inspected any artifact.
The face was like something out of a nightmare. The skin had drawn tight over the skull, blistered and pitted, lined and weathered. The eyes were sunken pits. Cracked teeth clung to the gums of a lipless mouth. The ears had burned away and there was no hint of hair.
“Some of the uniform is in evidence on this side,” Elizabeth said. “German, of course. SS, or so I’m told.”
“Where was he found?” Guy asked. He could hear the strain in his own voice.
“He washed up in Shingle Bay, after the incident.” She evidently expected them to know about the “incident.”
“Shingle Bay?”
“Middle of nowhere,” Davenport said. “Just north of Ipswich.”
That made sense, Guy thought.
“It’s horrible,” Sarah said. She had turned back, but was not looking at the body. “But dozens of soldiers and flyers must have been burned to death. Hundreds, probably. Why are you keeping this one?”
“Because this isn’t just any burned body.” She gestured for them to look at the shattered leg. It looked like a brittle, snapped tree stump—jagged and ridged. “It’s pretty damaged, of course. But the internal structure of the body is … interesting. Do you know anything about anatomy?”
“Not a lot,” Guy admitted.
Sarah shook her head.
Elizabeth asked to borrow a pen from Davenport, then to his disgust used it to prod at the broken end of the corpse’s leg.
“These filaments here, you see?”
Guy nodded. “I assume they’re blood vessels.”
“That’s a very reasonable assumption. But they’re not. Perhaps they used to be, but not any more. And I don’t mean because of the fire.”
“Then what do you mean?” Sarah asked. Her voice was regaining its confident tone, but she still looked pale.
“We opened one up—look.”
“Oh God,” Sarah gasped, stepping back. Guy stepped back too, instinctively putting his arm round her shoulder. Once it was there he didn’t like to remove it, so they stood together, in a loose embrace, forcing themselves to look down at the grisly scene.
Elizabeth had run the tip of the pen up the burned leg, lifting back a wide section of burned skin that had been cut away. She folded it back, exposing the tissue beneath. The burning was less extensive inside the body, and the internal structure was revealed—bone and muscle, flesh and tissue.
The color was what surprised Guy. The inside of the upper leg had an orange tinge. There were areas of more pronounced color, like patches of moss growing in a lawn. Elizabeth prodded at one of these with the pen.
“This is not normal.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sarah said.
“In fact,” Elizabeth went on, “it’s more like plant matter than human tissue. The veins are full of the same material.”
“It seems to have grown into the body,” Davenport said. “I’m no expert, but this substance is apparently rather akin to a fungus.”
“Inside someone’s body?” Guy said. “While they were alive?”
“Undoubtedly. Though whether they were alive in the sense we usually mean, who can tell,” Elizabeth replied. “This fungus, or whatever it is, gives extra strength to the body. It’s incredibly resilient. Fire is about the only thing that could destroy it short of ripping the whole body apart.”
“Is it an infection?” Sarah wondered.
“Quite possibly. In fact, I think this fungus has grown through the man’s body over a long period of time. Certainly weeks, possibly months or even years. It strengthens the body, but it also looks as though it mirrors the nervous system, perhaps making the host’s system redundant and replacing it.”
“Host?” Guy repeated. “You mean this stuff is a form of, what—a parasite?”
“Yes, I think so,” Elizabeth agreed. She flipped the folded skin back into place and handed Davenport back his fountain pen.
Davenport took it rather gingerly, hesitating before returning it to his ja
cket pocket.
“This material takes over the body, providing its own internal systems. We have no way of knowing how or if it affects the brain. But kill the human host and the secondary systems would just keep going.”
“Like ivy growing through a tree,” Davenport said. “The tree might die, but the ivy isn’t directly affected.”
“And you think this is a German secret weapon of some sort?” Sarah said.
Elizabeth and Davenport exchanged a look.
“Not exactly,” Davenport said. “Though the Germans obviously have some degree of involvement. As Elizabeth said, he was wearing an SS uniform.”
“If they had an army of near-indestructible soldiers like this,” Guy said, “then we’d surely know about it by now. So this must be a one-off.”
Sarah stepped away from Guy to look closer at the body. “A body that keeps going long after it should be dead,” she said. “Is this connected with last night?”
“It’s a very real possibility,” Davenport said.
“The man who attacked me was ancient,” Elizabeth said. “His features were decayed, his face little more than a skull.” She leaned forward slightly, looking straight into the blackened face of the charred man. “Apart from burns, he looked rather like this.”
CHAPTER 22
Station Z occupied most of the first floor of the building. From what Guy could gather, the ground floor was taken up with some sort of army administration group, while the upper floors of what had been a large Regency townhouse were given over to the storage of files and a few logistics staff.
Davenport led Guy and Sarah through a door into the set of offices that comprised Station Z. There was one large room furnished with four desks. Miss Manners sat at one, surrounded by telephones and piles of papers. The wall beside her desk was papered with maps and charts showing all of Britain and most of Europe. Guy saw that a map of the Soviet Union was pinned up on the adjacent wall, and he guessed it was a new addition.
“There’s a small kitchenette through there,” Davenport told them, pointing to a side door. He nodded toward another door at the end of the room. “Brinkman’s office.”
Miss Manners peered at them through her spectacles before standing up and coming over to greet them.
“I’ve had desks brought in for you,” she said, indicating the two desks nearest the door. “Decide between you who gets the window and who gets the draft from the door.”
“What about that desk,” Sarah said, pointing to one further in the room.
“Sergeant Green sits there.” She glanced at Guy. “You might outrank him, Major, but the sergeant and I need to be within shouting distance of Colonel Brinkman. His shouting that is, not ours.”
“And I guess the sergeant was here first,” Guy conceded, smiling to show he wasn’t too bothered.
“Indeed.” Miss Manners did not smile back.
“Don’t you get a desk?” Sarah asked Davenport.
“Lord no,” he laughed. “What would an interloper like me do with a desk? If I need to do anything cerebral I’ll take a room at the Atlantean Club thank you.”
“Where the tea is no doubt rather better,” Miss Manners added.
“The brandy certainly is.”
The area was bigger than it at first appeared. As well as the small kitchen area, the side door also led to a conference room and two more offices. Davenport took them through to the conference room where they waited for Colonel Brinkman to join them.
“Is this all the staff he has?” Guy wondered. “A colonel commanding a sergeant, a secretary and an actor?”
Davenport smiled. “He’s got a major and a pilot now too, don’t forget. But no, Brinkman can commandeer resources as and when he needs. Green’s got half a dozen soldiers on call, but when he doesn’t need them they do normal duties at the barracks in Knightsbridge. And then there’s Dr. Wiles out at Station X, who you’ve already met, of course.”
Brinkman joined them, Sergeant Green just behind him. Miss Manners entered a few moments later, carrying a notepad and pencil.
“I take it you’ve seen the body from Shingle Bay,” Brinkman said, starting straight in. He made no effort to introduce anyone or set an agenda. “So—thoughts?”
There was an uneasy silence before Guy and Sarah realized he was expecting them to respond.
“Bizarre,” Sarah said at last. “Unpleasant. Worrying.”
“All of those,” Guy agreed. “But we need to know more about it. I mean, is he something the Germans created. Some sort of experiment. Or a freak of nature—what?”
Brinkman drummed his fingers on the table. “You’re here, both of you, because it’s easier and probably safer to have you with us rather than against us. But if you’re going to stay, you need to prove your worth.”
“And how do we do that?” Sarah demanded. “We don’t even know what you do here, let alone what you expect of us.”
“None of us knows what we do here,” Davenport said quietly. “Which is why, although the colonel won’t admit it outright, we need help from people like you. People who will worry at a thing until they understand it. People with tenacity as well as insight.”
Brinkman sniffed and folded his arms. He leaned back in his chair. “You probably know almost as much as the rest of us already. But to spell it out in simple terms, we believe there is a third force in this conflict. I don’t mean the Soviets, I don’t mean the Italians. But I don’t know who I do mean. Maybe it’s some faction of the German forces with access to technology the rest of the Wehrmacht doesn’t have; certainly the Germans are utilizing their resources, although only to a limited extent. But whether as allies or through acquisition…” He unfolded his arms and leaned forward again. “Whatever the case, there is a potential threat. Our job is to analyze that threat and then neutralize it.”
“The threat being that burned soldier, or people like him?” Sarah said.
“That’s part of it. Then there are the UDTs.”
“I’ve heard the term. But what exactly are those, sir?” Guy asked.
It was Miss Manners who answered. “An Unknown Detected Trace, called a UDT or an ‘Unknown’ is just that. You probably know that the government publicly admitted just a few days ago that we have a radio-detection system that warns of incoming enemy aircraft.”
“RDF,” Guy said, to show he was aware of it.
“We call it RADAR now, apparently, but yes,” Brinkman acknowledged. “Sometimes it picks up aircraft that don’t fit the pattern of an incoming raid or reconnaissance. Usually they turn out to be aircraft anyway—our own, or something unexpected like Hess’s flight back in May.”
“Oh yes—Hess…” Guy wanted to ask about how Hess was involved.
But Brinkman waved the question away. “We’ll discuss him later. I was in Glasgow, quite by chance because his plane was originally flagged as a UDT.”
“The plane I saw,” Sarah said slowly. “If it was a plane.”
“Another reason you’re here. You are one of the few witnesses actually to have seen one of these things. The three Hurricanes we scrambled when it showed up got there too late, there was no sign of it. As usual. But you actually saw the thing.”
“I saw something. As I described to the sergeant and Miss Manners.”
“And we are working on the assumption that there is a connection between these UDT craft and the body from Shingle Bay?” Guy said.
“We are assuming nothing,” Brinkman told him. “But neither can we rule anything out. Both remain unexplained, which is enough of a link for now.”
“So what is Shingle Bay?” Sarah asked. “How did the body end up at the British Museum?”
“Shingle Bay was the site of an invasion,” Brinkman said. “Or at least, an incursion. We received information that the Germans intended to put ashore a small force that would include what they referred to as an ‘Ubermensch.’”
“Ubermensch?” Guy interrupted. “That’s what the German soldier in the hospital said.”
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“It’s a term we’ve come across before,” Miss Manners told them. “In Ultra traffic originating with the SS, specifically from Himmler’s command.”
“Ultra?” Sarah asked.
Brinkman ignored the question. “The point is, we have reason to connect the word with the UDTs. They’ve been referred to, albeit in different terms, in communications that also reference Ubermensch. We assumed it was a code word.”
“Is it?” Sarah wondered.
“It’s German for ‘super man,’” Guy said. “In the way that Hitler thinks the Aryans are the master race. Superior, better than the rest of us. So what exactly happened at Shingle Bay?” he asked Brinkman.
Brinkman nodded to Sergeant Green, who told them: “Several small boats were launched from a U-Boat off East Anglia. But thanks to information received, we were waiting. We had a couple of large fuel tankers concealed on the cliffs above the beach, and ran pipes out into the bay. We had no idea what sort of force we were up against, not much time to react, and under the circumstances it would have been difficult to get cooperation from other units.”
“You burned them,” Guy said quietly. He could remember the charred wreck of the man in the hospital bed. The awful stench of his blistered flesh.
“We did,” Green admitted. He didn’t sound proud or remorseful, it was a statement of fact. “When we saw the boats coming in, we pumped fuel out into the bay. It floated on the water and we ignited it with a flare gun.”
“The whole sea was burning,” Sarah said quietly. “Like some Biblical catastrophe.”
“Sorry?” Brinkman said.
“Something one of the other ATA girls said. She was describing what she saw below her on a delivery flight. That was somewhere on the Suffolk coast I think. Was this late last summer?”
“There was a plane,” Green said. “We were afraid it would scare off the boats. Anyway, afterward, we collected up the bodies.” He looked down at the table. “Not a very pleasant job. They were all normal, though badly burned of course. All except the one that Mrs. Archer has in her care.”
“And just the one survivor?” Pentecross asked.
The Suicide Exhibition Page 15
