The Nuremberg Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  She stood, looked at her watch. She’d come back to check on him in fifteen minutes. She headed down to the kitchen, looked outside. Everything in the garden was wet from the rain that had been pouring all afternoon. The apple tree looked sad, bedraggled. She looked at their Aga. There was nothing cooking on it. If Sean had been here, they’d have started their Sunday supper by now. Perhaps they’d be eating that new Italian pasta, with that new Sicilian sauce.

  She went to their double door fridge, took out the bottle of Chardonnay, unfinished from the night before, undid the cap, which was supposed to keep it drinkable, sniffed at the bottle, then poured the remains into the sink. The Sunday paper caught her eye but she couldn’t concentrate. Memories of her grandfather kept coming back. Had he been murdered?

  It was time to check on Alek again. No change. When she got back to the kitchen she turned on her laptop, went to the Der Spiegel website. They had the most up to date news on what was going on in Germany.

  When she’d spoken to Henry Mowlam, he’d assured her that the situation there was a health emergency that few people outside the immediate family or friends of those who’d died were likely to get infected. She’d told him that Sean was there. The news didn’t seem to surprise him. Mowlam asked her to call him if Sean didn’t arrive back when he was supposed to.

  That part of their conversation should have reassured her. But still she’d checked a half dozen websites covering the situation in Germany. Every one of them had said that the only people who’d been infected so far were refugees. One site had speculated that it was an Ebola-like disease that had been brought in from Rwanda.

  A few comments under that article suggested that relatives of those infected should be forcibly quarantined. One commenter had pointed out that anyone in contact with infected refugees should be considered a possible carrier of the infection, as it had killed dozens already in Germany.

  She would ask Sean to go straight to the doctor when he got back, get blood tests done, have a full check-up. Perhaps they should disinfect every item of clothing he was wearing, and throw out that stupid backpack he was using. Can you get hazardous waste disposal service at home, she wondered, like they have in hospitals?

  In twenty-four hours he’d be home. He was going to be safe. They didn’t need any more problems. They needed him back.

  He knew how difficult Alek could be, especially at night. His occasional wails, when he had a nightmare reminded her of the horror movies she’d loved as a student, which she could no longer watch.

  She made a cup of Camomile tea to calm herself, sipped at it, stared out into the garden. She would go up again in a minute, check on Alek. Then she had to do some work.

  A Chinese dissident had sent them over a gigabyte of documents, which he claimed were Communist party records of corruption allegations made against senior officers of the Party that had not been acted on. Not only had she limited time to verify that the documents were genuine, matching them with samples they had access to, both for their content and for their file structures, but she would also have to deal with emails from U.S. bloggers, who had got wind of the leak.

  All of this had come at exactly the wrong moment. She needed to get it out of the way quickly. She looked out the window, as the screech of a car coming to a halt reached her. Visions of Eleni laughing, but now dead, made Isabel hold herself tight. She prayed that whatever Eleni had got herself caught up in would stay well away from Sean and that he wouldn’t bring any bad news back with him.

  She stood and walked to the window. A light had gone on in an upstairs room in the house that backed onto theirs. It went off again. She tightened her arms around herself. Why the hell couldn’t Sean stay out of trouble? He attracted it like bloody meat attracts sharks.

  Some witch had said to her when she’d married him, that there are people who collect trouble all their lives, they just can’t help it. It’s to do with the star sign they’re born under. She didn’t believe in astrology, but it was looking as if the witch was right.

  She closed her eyes and said another prayer to the God she barely believed in.

  Was that her phone ringing? It was. She walked fast to it, found it on the table by the front door.

  Sean’s number. He must be psychic. He was calling to reassure her.

  She smiled, wide.

  She picked up the call, listened. All she heard was one word, spoken softly, before the line was cut.

  “Help!”

  Captain J.P. MacAllister, U.S. 7th Army, 45th Division, 3rd Battalion – Nuremberg April 24, 1945.

  Field Report 45/4/21/7A/4 Status: Top Secret/LEVEL 1

  This report covers classified activities at Nuremberg, after the surrender of the city April 20, by a Colonel Wolf, at that period / in command of the German units defending the city / 11:00A.M..

  ORDERS

  I received a radio order to investigate the site below Nuremberg Castle. The objective – Burg 13/26.

  REPORT

  Along with two staff sergeants, assigned from the special investigations team, we entered a basement at the lower end of the street, to which we had been directed by O.C. Colonel Wolf. We used explosive charges to open a basement office door.

  Inside were boxes of files lined up against each wall.

  Items of special interest in the basement are detailed in the list attached. One item, which I was asked to notify General Patton of immediately should I find it, was not in the basement.

  A metal box, containing letters, bearing various seals was found. The box is under 24hr guard. Please notify the undersigned directly if there are any further orders regarding these letters.

  CONCLUSION

  All orders regarding handling of items as detailed previously 45/4/21/7A/2 have been followed.

  //I wish it noted that one of the staff sergeants, a Sergeant O’Connor, made a sign of the cross when he saw the seals on the above mentioned letters.

  :ENDS/

  33

  Sean said nothing as his wallet was searched. The man doing it was dressed in black. His pale blue eyes, visible through small holes in a ski mask, glanced up at Sean occasionally. His sidekick was pointing a dangerous looking mat-black pistol at Sean. It had the letters - HK - embossed in orange on its side. He spoke fast to his colleague as the other man examined Sean’s wallet.

  The first man grunted as he looked at the credit cards. Then he pushed the wallet back towards Sean and motioned him forward.

  Cold steel pressed into his side. He moved. The man who’d searched the wallet inserted a key into the door in the church wall. It swung inwards. The guard went through. Sean followed, after another vicious poke from the gun in his back.

  They were in a hurry.

  A vein throbbed in his neck. Cold sweat slipped down his back. What were they planning to do with him? He glanced around, hoping that someone might be passing, that they might see him. His effort was met by a clip from the Heckler & Koch on the side of his head and another hard push forward. Sparks of orange and white flickered in his vision as pain sliced through his head and down his back.

  He put a hand to his forehead.

  “Bastard,” he hissed.

  “Mund halten,” said the man behind him.

  Sean went through the door.

  The first man walked ahead along the stone-flagged basement corridor. He went down the spiral staircase Sean had seen from the window. Sean got a poke in the back and another comment in German as he hesitated at the top of the stairs. He followed down. The stone walls around them were damp in patches. In places, green slime slid under his fingers when he touched the wall.

  He glanced back. Might he be able to pull the bastard down on top of them and send them all falling down the stairs together?

  There was a grunt behind him. The man had stopped. He was pointing his gun at Sean.

  He kept going down.

  Why hadn’t they searched him properly up above? Then it came to him. They had to get him away from being seen or heard
by anyone outside the church. He slowed, felt for his phone in the zipped pocket on the outside of his leather jacket, pressed on it, while it was still in his pocket, then slipped it into his hand. He reached to the side with his other hand, held the wall, hoping to distract the man behind him. His phone was in front of his chest. He pressed at it with the same hand that held it.

  He glanced down. Why wasn’t it responding? Was he down too far to get a signal? He coughed, held the wall, bent forward as if he was ill. His other hand was pressing at his list of recent phone calls.

  And then it was connecting. He didn’t hold it to his ear.

  Isabel’s name appeared on the screen.

  “Halt!” came a shout behind him.

  The line connected.

  “Help!” he said.

  The back of his head exploded in pain. He reached for the wall.

  A clatter echoed as the phone fell onto the stone stairs and bounced from step to step. He slumped. The pain was intense, as if a nail had been driven into his head. He groaned. His head was spinning. He was going to fall.

  “Schnell,” came a shout from the man below.

  He stumbled down, clutching at the wall. The stone was cold. Had Isabel heard him? A rush of guilt poured through him, then a surge of hope. She’d call the police. They’d come looking for him.

  But had she heard him?

  At the bottom of the stairs, there was a circular area with stone block walls. Heavy wooden doors were to the left and straight ahead. Both were closed. His phone was on the floor, in pieces. The glass front was shattered. The guard who’d been in front of him stamped on it as Sean reached the last step. Plastic and glass scattered across the floor.

  The man reached down and collected the larger pieces, slid them into his pocket.

  He motioned for Sean to raise his hands. “Hande hoch.”

  Sean complied.

  The sidekick patted him down, slowly, examined the change in his pocket, the room card from the hotel. Then the other man patted him down a second time, ran his hands tight against his skin. What were they looking for? Sean’s head was thumping fast with pain. He pressed a hand to his forehead. It felt wet. He took his hand away. It was stained with blood.

  A dull shuddering noise had started up, as if an electric motor had been turned on nearby. The guard who’d stamped on his phone knocked on a wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. A shout in German came from beyond the door.

  The door opened. A long stone corridor could be seen beyond it. It was dimly lit. A smell of damp and something rotten came out of it. A similarly dressed guard was behind the door. He muttered something when he saw Sean.

  The shuddering noise grew louder. It sounded as if a truck was running up ahead. Cold steel poked into his back again. He followed the first guard down the corridor. Near the end, the guard pushed open a door and they entered a square stone-roofed room. The stone was darker here, much of it stained black and green near the floor.

  Small niches had been cut into the walls. A raised stone area at the far end looked like an altar. A Star of David in the stone floor had been attacked at one time with chisels or other implements. Most of it was missing and only a mark in the underlying stone showed where its outline had been.

  Four men in black were standing around a hole in front of the altar area at the far end of the room. They were looking down at someone else who was in a hole in the floor, and whose head only could be seen, wearing a red helmet. The yellow upright of a drilling machine could also be seen in the hole. It was moving, banging up and down.

  A shout went up as Sean arrived. The drilling stopped. A man without a ski mask, with slicked back hair, exchanged words in German with the guard who’d led Sean down.

  Sean didn’t get near the hole, or see what they were drilling for, but he did hear something strange before the drill started up again. The sound of running water. Then he was pushed towards a smaller door in the far corner. He went through it with the cold muzzle of the gun pressed into his back. Now they were in what looked like the basement area of a medieval house. There were dark wooden joists above their heads and each wall had faded whitewash on it, from when it had been painted a long time ago.

  In one corner there was a wooden staircase. Under the stairs there was pile of what looked like dead rats. The smell in the room was a sickening combination of mustiness and fear.

  He put a hand to his nose. The drilling had started up behind them. He was pushed hard towards the stairs and for a horrible second he thought the guard might push him into the mound of rats.

  But he didn’t. He pushed Sean up the stairs. As he went up he could see what was under the stairs. It wasn’t dead rats. It was something sicker. Dead animals with shiny skins. Possibly river snakes.

  He shivered, looked away.

  The noise of the drilling stopped as he neared the top. A shout echoed, as if the men in the other room behind them had found something. The cold muzzle pressed into him again, deep into his side. Now he was at the top of the stairs going through a door. They were in what appeared to be the basement of a butcher’s shop. There were bright lights in the ceiling and steel tables and hooks hanging from a rail attached to a low roof. Rows of different sized knives hung on a rail attached to the wall.

  Giant steel vessels stood together along the far wall.

  He looked around. This would be a great place to finish someone off. After you got your victim here, you could chop him into small pieces, before disposing of the blood and bones and mixing the body parts into some grisly concoction.

  Fear comes in many forms. For Sean it came in the tightening of his muscles from his knees to his stomach and down his arms and a sickening churning sensation.

  A large blue container stood by one wall. The guard pointed at it.

  Sean shook his head, slowly. He wasn’t getting into that.

  The guard pointed again. Sean’s was breathing fast. A huge mincing machine gleamed, where the guard was pointing, its giant circular maw ready for its next batch of meat.

  The guard raised his gun, pointed it straight at him.

  “You will do what I say, Herr Ryan, understood.”

  Sean took a step towards the man, looked him in the eye.

  “Fuck you.”

  34

  Isabel pressed the phone tight to her ear. The same message kept repeating in a chirpy tone. “The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.”

  “No!” She wanted to throw the phone across the room.

  Instead, she fished inside her bag, resting it on one of the kitchen chairs, and pulled out Henry Mowlam’s card from the bottom. Sweat prickled on her brow. She went to the front door. She had a strong urge to leave straight away, find a flight, look for Sean. Now. But she knew that was crazy.

  She tapped in Henry’s number. He wasn’t going to be happy, getting a call at seven thirty on a Sunday night, but she didn’t care.

  She stood near the door, as she waited for the line to connect. What would she do if she couldn’t get him? She walked up the stairs, distracted. What time was the next flight to Nuremberg? She stumbled on a toy.

  “Mrs Ryan, what’s up?” Henry’s voice. Thank God, and it sounded as if he’d sensed something was wrong.

  “It’s Sean. He’s in trouble. He’s in Nuremberg. He just rang me. Two minutes ago. I’ll kill him, I swear. Can you help him, please, Henry?” Half sobs choked in her voice. She breathed in, steadying herself.

  “Mrs Ryan. Slow down. Tell me what happened. Just the facts, please.”

  She told him all about Sean’s call, about her fear that something had happened to him.

  She ended with, “I should go there, tonight. I have to.”

  “No, Mrs Ryan. You don’t have to. We have people on the ground in Germany. They can liaise with the police there. We’ll put in a request for his phone to be tracked. You’ve got your son to look after.”

  “That was a statement, Mr Mowlam, not a request.” She bit her lip.
She wasn’t going to be treated like an idiot. “I can’t do nothing, while you liaise. I’ve seen what happens to international phone tracking requests. They can take days. I’m not going to wait here.”

  Henry sighed. “Does he have a location tracking app on his phone, Mrs Ryan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll find him. What’s his number?”

  She gave it to him, regretting as she did that she hadn’t got around to connecting Sean’s phone to hers, so she could track it.

  “You might remember I was an experienced field operator in Istanbul for the British consulate. I know the way things work, Mr Mowlam.”

  Mowlam, sighed. The noise was deliberately loud; she was sure of that. “Mrs Ryan, I am not casting doubt on your ability. But it is years since you were involved in any active service, even if you have kept your skills up to date. And you don’t speak German, do you? Leave this to us.”

  He said that so definitely she felt anger rising inside.

  “Will you provide assistance, that’s all I need to know? Will you tell me if they find out where his phone is?”

  Mowlam sighed, even louder this time. “When are you going?”

  “I’ll be on the next flight from Heathrow. I’ll know what time that is as soon as I get to a computer.”

  “Hold on.” There was a pause. The sound of keyboard clicks came down the line. Henry’s voice came back on. “There’s a flight at seven-thirty in the morning direct to Nuremberg from Stansted. Can you make that?”

  “There’s nothing earlier? Nothing tonight?” The sweat on her face was turning cold. She wanted to do something now.

  She heard the sound of keys clacking again. “You could fly to Berlin tonight, then get a train. You’d probably arrive half an hour earlier then flying in the morning, after being up all night. Is that what you want?”

  “No.” It was her turn to sigh.

  “I advise you not to go at all, Mrs Ryan. Think of your son.”