The Black Sun

by James Twining

  They analyzed the photos again, looking for further discrepancies that might provide some sort of clue. But, disappointingly after their breakthrough, there were none. In 358 james twining

  every other detail the painting had been faithfully reproduced, even down to Bellak’s signature and the date, just about visible in the bottom left corner.

  “I just don’t get it.” Tom shook his head in frustration. “They must have left some way of breaking the code, otherwise why bother going to all this trouble to hide it?”

  “Maybe one of the other stolen Bellak paintings had the last piece of the code?”

  Dominique suggested.

  “Maybe,” said Tom. “Hang on, what’s that?” He pointed at a small section of wall below the stained-glass window that Archie had caught on the edge of one photo. “Can you enlarge it?”

  She clicked a few buttons and zoomed in on the area Tom was pointing at.

  “It’s the dedication plaque. ‘In loving memory of Eva Maria Lammers,’ ” she translated. “ ‘Taken from us on 13 November 1926.’ ”

  “Nineteen twenty-six?” Tom frowned. “That can’t be right. I’m sure Archie told me she’d died in the nineteen fifties.”

  “What if it’s a deliberate mistake?”

  “How would that work?”

  “Well, the date could be the ring settings—thirteen, eleven, twenty-six,” said Dominique, trying not to allow herself to get too carried away.

  She selected rotors three, five, and two from the tin and then set the first one to thirteen, the second to eleven, and the third to twenty-six. Then she lifted the machine’s lid, inserted them, and closed it again so that only the top part of the rotors poked through the narrow slit. At that moment Archie and Viktor walked in carrying food and drinks.

  “Any progress?” asked Archie in a mournful tone.

  “Maybe,” said Dominique.

  “We’re just about to try something,” Tom explained. “Dom noticed that there were differences between the painting and the window that might suggest the rotor selection.”

  “And the date on the dedication plaque underneath doesn’t tally with when you said Lammers’s

  wife

  died.”

  She

  pointed

  the black sun 359

  at the magnified image of the plaque that was still on the screen. “So we used the dates to set the ring positions.”

  “Well done,” Viktor said, squeezing Dominique’s shoulder. “So now all we need is the starting position of the rotors.”

  “What?” Dominique asked in dismay. “I thought we had everything we needed.”

  “You see those little windows on the top of the machine?” Viktor indicated three small holes next to the rotors. “The rotors have to be moved until you can see the relevant starting letter through the window.”

  “How about EML?” Tom suggested.

  “EML? Why those?” Archie asked with a frown.

  “They were her initials.” Tom pointed at the plaque that was still on screen. “Eva Marie Lammers. Or at least, that’s the name he put on there. He could have made it up to suit the code.”

  “Worth a go,” Dominique agreed, moving the rotors so that the letters could be seen through the openings.

  “So is that it?” asked Archie.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” said Viktor, with a nod at Dominique to continue.

  She pressed the first letter— A. Z flashed up on the light board. Then L. W appeared. Then X: O was illuminated.

  “ZWOLF.” Archie’s voice cracked with disappointment once they had deciphered the whole word. “That’s not a word. That’s not even the beginning of a word. We must have got it wrong.”

  “It’s not a word in English,” Tom reminded him. “But this message would have been encoded in German, remember? Zwolf is German for twelve.”

  Soon a second word emerged: funf—five. Then sieben— seven.

  “Twelve, five, seven,” Archie murmured, as if saying them again would help reveal the hidden meaning.

  Dominique continued, Tom translating each number as it emerged, although with no punctuation it was sometimes difficult to make out where one number ended and the next began. It ended, however, with two familiar words. Archie read Tom’s scribbled translation

  back

  out

  loud.

  360 james twining

  “Twelve, five, seven, three, six, nine . . . Heil Hitler . . .” He paused. “What do you think it means?”

  “Aren’t map references given with six numbers?” Dominique asked no one in particular.

  “It would certainly be the logical way to pinpoint a specific location,” Tom agreed.

  “And we already have a map,” Archie reminded them, pulling the railway map out of the leather pouch and unfolding it on the floor.

  Tom followed the grid reference with his finger, first locating the correct horizontal position, then the vertical one. His finger came to rest at a point on the outskirts of a small Austrian village. A village whose name they all recognized as being the final place the Gold Train had passed through before having to turn back.

  A

  village

  called

  Brixlegg.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  NEAR BRIXLEGG, AUSTRIA

  January 12—3:32 p.m.

  Tom knew this part of Austria well, although the snow and ice that blanketed the pastures and weighed down tree branches like a heavy blossom made it almost unrecognizable. His previous visits to the Tyrol had been in the spring, climbing holidays with friends, or more often on his own, when bright green mountains had plunged dizzily from snowcapped peaks to the frenzied tumult of rivers half drunk on meltwater. Brixlegg itself was a fairly ordinary little town just off the A12 motorway that Tom had not been to before. Huddled in the shadow of muscular tree-lined mountains on the banks of the river Inn, it was a hodgepodge of traditional Tyrolean buildings and more modern concrete construction, built to accommodate the ever-growing demand for living space. There was a church, of course, its steeple clawing above the surrounding rooftops like a hand reaching desperately for the sky.

  The spot indicated by the coded grid reference on the painting lay a short distance off a distinctive kink in the railway line that snaked along the valley floor, roughly following the

  path

  of

  the

  river.

  It

  was

  reached

  by

  turning

  into

  a

  362 james twining

  narrow road before the village itself, and then following it up a shallow incline, past several chalets that appeared to be on the cusp of being swallowed up by the encroaching forest.

  The track ended in a gate, the steadily falling snow having already hidden its top edge under what looked like a thick layer of cream. Tom stopped the car and killed the engine. In the rearview mirror he saw Viktor do the same behind him and turn off her headlights. For a few seconds they sat there in muffled silence, the car suddenly deathly still.

  “Are you worried about her?” Dominique asked.

  “Should I be?” said Tom.

  “I told you what I saw the other night. She was giving instructions to those three men. It looked like they were planning something. Maybe it was a mistake bringing her along.”

  “It’s not like we had much choice, is it?” Archie reminded them. “How else were we going to get out here without being seen?”

  Tom nodded. Archie was right. Viktor’s offer to smuggle them on her private jet to Salzburg and to provide two cars at the other end had been their only option. The price had been bringing her and her three men with them to, as she put it, protect her investment. And even though they’d flown out on the first takeoff slot Viktor’s bribes could secure, they’d still had to delay their departure until that morning.

  “I think I trust her,” sa
id Tom. “But we should keep our eyes open. Maybe try and split them up.”

  “Well, we’re going to struggle to find anything under that lot anyway.” Archie nodded disdainfully at the snow-cov-ered mountains that towered above them. He lit a cigarette and cracked the window open an inch to blow the smoke out.

  “That’s if Renwick hasn’t already beaten us to it,” said Tom. “He’s had almost two days’ head start, minus however long it took him to decode the painting.”

  “Well, we’re here now,” Dominique chimed, ever enthusiastic. “I say we go and take a look, at least.”

  Tom zipped his coat up and opened the door, the snow billowing in through the crack like

  a

  fine

  spray.

  The

  air

  was

  the black sun 363

  crisp and cold, especially compared to the soporific blast of the car’s heating. He stepped out of the car and walked toward Viktor, who was at the back of her car, leaning over the open trunk with her three men—Grigory, Piotr, and Yuri—clustered around her.

  “Viktor?” Tom called.

  She turned, a snub-nosed Beretta pointing straight at him. Tom froze.

  “Here—” She threw it toward him. Tom snatched it out of the air. “You might need that,” she explained.

  “I don’t like guns. Never have.”

  “I don’t like them either,” she said. “But I’d prefer to have one and not need to use it, than not have one and need it.”

  As if to emphasize her point, she reached into the trunk again and took out an AK–47

  rifle, its polished wooden stock and under-barrel grip dark and shiny. She held it with an immediate familiarity that suggested a long and intimate relationship, the feel of it seeming to ease the tension in her shoulders.

  Tom knew she was right. From what Turnbull had told him about Kristall Blade, he knew that Hecht and his men, assuming they were still with Renwick, would be armed and would have no qualms about opening fire on whoever got in their way.

  “Argento!” An unfamiliar voice echoed through the air. Viktor dropped the rifle back into the trunk and slammed it shut. Tom stuffed the Beretta into his pocket before turning to see who was there.

  An old man, a dog leash looped in one hand like a lasso, had appeared at the doorway of one of the chalets and was calling to a large German shepherd who was studiously ignoring him, alternating instead between chasing his tail and trying to bite the snowflakes as they drifted past his nose, both activities accompanied by a series of excited barks and yelps.

  “Argento!” the man called again, before shutting the door behind him and trying to grab the dog’s collar as it pranced around his feet. The dog, however, caught sight of Tom and the others and broke free, sprinting out onto the track. Tom 364 james twining

  knelt, grasped the dog’s thick leather collar as it came toward him, and held on as the dog licked his face furiously.

  “Danke,” the old man said gratefully as he walked up to Tom and clipped the leash to the collar. “Argento always gets very excited when we go for a walk.”

  “You’re welcome,” replied Tom in German. “He seems quite a handful.”

  “Oh, he is. Keeps me young.” The man looked down and patted the dog’s head lovingly as it lunged at the snow, then peered at Tom quizzically, his eyes almost lost under the brim of his hat. “Are you with the others?”

  “The others?” Tom frowned.

  “The men who came a couple of days ago. They said some others might come, so I assumed . . .”

  “Oh right, yes.” Tom nodded. “We’re with them. I wonder, can you show us where they’ve gone? My phone doesn’t seem to work out here and I can’t get in touch.”

  He unfolded the map from his pocket and opened it for the man. After a few seconds of trying to find their current location with his gloved index finger, the old man pointed to a spot on the map.

  “That’s it.”

  Tom frowned. It wasn’t the spot indicated by the coordinates decoded from the painting. “What’s there?”

  “The old copper mine, of course. I told your colleague that he was wasting his time, but he had the right paperwork so I had to let him through.”

  “Paperwork?”

  “To open the mine up. Diggers too. Big yellow things. He’s been at it nonstop. In this weather—can you believe it? But he’s wasting his time. There’s nothing there.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I used to play in it,” the man said simply. “Of course that was a long time ago now, before the war, but it had long since dried up, even then. We used to play hide and seek. I remember my mother was always terrified it would collapse and kill us all.” He gave a wistful smile.

  “And it got blocked up?”

  “There

  was

  an

  explosion

  one

  night

  toward

  the

  end

  of

  the

  the black sun 365

  war. A stray bomb or something. The whole thing just collapsed.”

  “So what’s here?” Tom pointed at the spot indicated by the painting. The man squinted closely at the map, then looked up with a shrug. “Nothing, as far as I know. Unless . . .” He looked at the map again. “Unless . . . yes, it must be . . .”

  “Must be what?”

  “The other entrance.”

  “There are two entrances?”

  “Oh yes. You see, there used to be two mines until they were joined up. That one was the smaller of the two, slightly lower down and around the side of the mountain a bit from the main one. It’s right next to a ruined cottage. But the entrance has been filled in too.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Tom shook his hand. “By the way,” he asked as he turned away,

  “when did the others get here exactly?”

  “Hmmm. Let me see. About three days ago.”

  “Three days ago?” Tom frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes . . . Yes, I’m sure.” The man nodded solemnly. “Because it was a Wednesday, and I always take Argento to town on a Wednesday.” The dog’s ears pricked up at the sound of his name.

  “Okay.” Tom smiled gratefully. “Thanks for your help. Enjoy your walk.”

  “We will. Come on, Argento.” The man clicked his tongue and they both set off, the leash snapping taut as the dog strained to run ahead.

  Tom turned to face Archie, Dominique, and Viktor’s expectant eyes.

  “There’s an old copper mine here,” he explained. “Apparently the main entrance was sealed toward the end of the war. Three days ago some men turned up here with mechanical diggers and made their way up there. The painting, though, points to another, smaller entrance to the mine.”

  “Three days ago?” Dominique frowned. “That’s not possible. Renwick only got hold of the painting two days ago. He couldn’t have known about this place until then.”

  366 james twining

  “Exactly,” said Tom. “Put that together with the hit men in St. Petersburg that we know Renwick didn’t send, and the murder of Maria Lammers, and it all starts to add up.”

  “It does?” Viktor asked. “What to?” Archie added. “It tells us Renwick isn’t the only one who’s been trying

  to stop us finding this. Whoever these people are, they got here three days ago. And they didn’t need the painting to find it.”

  “Who?” asked Viktor. “If I had to guess . . .” said Tom, “the same people who hid it here in the first place.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  4:14 p.m.

  Tom was armed with a compass, but it soon proved superfluous. The route up to the mine was easily identifiable even in the fading light, a narrow path that hugged the side of the mountain on a shallow rise, the ground plunging away sharply to their left. Even so, Tom checked their progress every so often, his CIA field training from what seemed like two lif
etimes ago filtering back into his memory.

  Although not steep, the path was hard going, the snow icy in some places where it had been melted by the sun and then frozen by the moon. Elsewhere it was soft and deep, and their ankles disappeared into the powder that had long since swallowed up any tracks that might have been made by the diggers that had preceded them up the mountain. They walked on in silence, the only sound the crunch of their feet and the wind whistling past their ears, its pitch growing in intensity as the altitude increased. Occasionally, a particularly vicious gust would spray loose snow up into the air, and then it would ghost around them, spiraling and skipping along the path, until the wind dropped and it would faint gracefully back to the ground.

  Eventually the path began to level out. At that moment they heard voices, faint echoes carried

  to

  them

  on

  the

  wind,

  368 james twining

  and then the sound of a powerful engine and the dull throb of steel striking stone.

  “Quick!” Tom shepherded them off the path, and they half fell, half slid into the trees that lined the steep incline that lay beneath it.

  “According to the old man, that’s the main entrance up ahead,” Tom whispered to the others as they crouched around him in the trees’ shadows, their trunks thrusting above them like black marble columns. “From the sound of it, that’s where they’re trying to get in.”

  “How are we going to get past them?” Viktor asked.

  “You’re not,” Tom said firmly, sensing that his opportunity to split Viktor from her men had arrived. “Archie and I will go round to the other entrance and see what we can find there. You and Dom stay out of sight and keep an eye on these guys, in case they decide to try the other entrance too.”

  “Niet.” Viktor flashed him an indignant look. “If you’re going over there, then so am I.”

  “Me too,” said Dominique, flashing Viktor a supportive glance.

  “This is our mess, not yours,” Tom insisted. The last thing he needed right now was Dominique being difficult.

  “It became my mess when my club got shot up and six of my men killed. We’re partners in this, remember? Either we all go or we all stay.”