‘I get you, but I still don’t see what this has to do with Kammler.’
‘Kammler was the inventor of something called the Bell,’ Ruth explained. ‘A very special and completely unique device, commissioned by Hitler in 1943 or 1944 and built by Kammler’s team of SS engineers and scientists. Not much is known about it, except that it was in development in a secret facility somewhere in Eastern Europe during the final years of World War Two. Whatever it was, it was so potent that it had to be kept locked inside a vault. Witness reports from the time claimed that it had strange powers, interfered with electrical equipment and emitted a weird blue light when it was turned on. Based on what we know about Kammler’s research from leaked information at the time and vague references in some of his correspondence to fellow SS engineers, there’s a very good chance that he was building some kind of Zero Point Energy reactor.’
‘Reactor?’
‘An instrument capable of extracting raw energy from the ether and converting it into usable power. Like electricity, but not artificially generated. Straight from nature. What we can create ourselves is a pale imitation.’ She paused. ‘But when Kammler disappeared in 1945, in the very last days of the war, so did all trace of his invention. Nobody knew where it was, whether it had even survived. US Intelligence spent years searching for it, but never found it. The same goes for his research papers, containing the secrets of his invention.’
‘But you think Steiner found them?’
‘That’s right, Ben. I believe that’s what he found by accident and has locked away – you can easily see why this stuff would be a threat to him. And from what he said that day on the phone to Karl, I think he knows not only the secrets of the Bell, but where it might be – its hidden resting place since 1945.’
‘Let me get this right,’ Ben said. ‘You’re saying that this Bell was a machine capable of drawing the energy out of thin air and converting it into usable power? Like a nuclear reactor, but without the need for fuel, and with no waste products?’
Ruth nodded. ‘The future of our planet.’
‘It’s a little hard to imagine the Nazis as the inventors of a wonderful green technology that could save the Earth,’ Ben said. ‘Especially as they were in the middle of losing a war at the time. I’d have thought they had other things on their mind than green ideology.’
‘There are other theoretical applications. Like the potential to create a super high-speed anti-gravity aircraft. There’s some evidence that the Nazis might have been doing just that. And then there are other things, too.’
‘Such as?’
‘We’re talking about energy, Ben. A limitless force of nature. If you control its release, harness it, you have a safe, clean reactor that can go on churning out endless amounts of power for all eternity. But if you speed up the process and let the energy come pulsing out much more strongly, you have something else altogether.’
Ben’s stomach gave a lurch. ‘A bomb.’
‘Infinitely more powerful than the effect of merely splitting the atom. While the Americans were developing the first nuclear weapons, they had no idea that their enemies were working on something that could potentially have made Oppenheimer’s atom bombs look like kids’ fireworks by comparison. It’s safe to say that when Hitler gave Kammler’s SS Special Projects Division carte blanche to develop this technology, it wasn’t because he cared about the future of the environment. It would have given him the power to obliterate half of Europe. He could have won the war in a day.’
‘So isn’t it just as well that the Kammler research stays safe and secret?’
Ruth shook her head, resolute. ‘No, Ben. The planet deserves it. Whatever dark side there may be to Zero Point Energy, it’s no different from any other natural resource. Take electricity. You can use it to provide light and warmth and make people’s lives better; or you can use it to fry a man in a chair. If we can just control that energy responsibly, we really do have the key to saving the planet.’ Her eyes were bright with excitement as she talked. ‘Think of it. The end of our dependence on fossil fuels. The total breakdown of the evil business empires based on raping the environment.’ She smiled darkly. ‘Including Steiner’s. He has billions tied up in the aerospace and oil industries. Imagine the catastrophic losses he’d suffer if this technology broke through into the mainstream. Greedy capitalist bastards like him, plundering the planet’s natural resources and holding them for ransom, would become as extinct as the dinosaurs.’
Ben now understood why Steiner had lied about the real nature of the documents in his safe, inventing the Holocaust denial angle to put any enquiring minds off the track.
‘I think I get it,’ he said. ‘This is really just about you and him. You wanted your revenge on him, for what he represents to you.’
‘No, Ben. I want what’s best.’
‘Really? That’s why you and your radical friends decided to get tooled up with real guns and start playing at being kidnappers?’
‘It was a long time before we even considered that kind of desperate measure,’ she protested. ‘Years of trying everything we could think of. Like the guy in Manchester I tried to talk to. I’d heard through the grapevine that he was this big Kammler expert. I flew all the way over there to see him, and—’
‘And he never turned up to the meeting,’ Ben finished for her. ‘I know about Lenny Salt. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he’d have been much help to you.’
‘Then I tried to get in touch with this colleague of his called Julia something. Julia Goodman. But she never got back to me. Meanwhile, whenever we weren’t trying to earn our living selling Franz’s art or doing a bit of private science tuition here and there, we were scraping together money to hire equipment and premises to run more experiments. We kept hoping that we’d crack it. But there was something missing. We just couldn’t quite get it to work consistently. One time in twenty, we’d get a positive result, and even then we couldn’t work out why it was happening.’ She sighed. ‘In the end we sat down and realised we had no choice but to get hold of what Maximilian had in his safe. But it wasn’t for lack of trying every other possible alternative. We didn’t actually want to be criminals.’
‘Couldn’t you just have sneaked the keys out of his pocket like all rebellious kids do?’
‘You don’t understand. I haven’t been back to that house for nearly eight years. I’m the estranged daughter, remember?
The crazy one who dropped out of society and went off on some crusade to save the Earth. Why do you think Dorenkamp told you there’d never been any Steiner children? I’m officially disowned, dead and forgotten. All I have is some money that’s left from the Geneva apartment and the allowance they gave me.’
‘You said you were close to Silvia and Otto, though. They might have helped you get inside the house.’
‘Uh-uh. No way would I have done that to Silvia. She’s a bad liar and Maximilian would have sussed her out right away. But I did try to work on Otto.’ Ruth smiled. ‘Poor, sweet Otto. It was about a year ago, I called him on his mobile, managed to persuade him to leave his golf clubs alone for a few hours. We met up for lunch in Bern, and I told him about these old papers of vague scientific interest that I wanted to look at. All he had to do was to go into Maximilian’s study, open up the safe and photocopy them for me. But Otto’s weak. He got cold feet, backed out. The big soft chicken’s totally dominated by his uncle. So that didn’t work either. Like I said, soon after that we realised we were all out of options. We thought, fuck it, go for it.’
‘Dressing up like Nazis – I take it that was just a red herring for the police?’
She shrugged. ‘We’ve all been active in green circles. Half our names are probably down on police files. They’d come knocking on our door pretty fast if a bunch of greenies started trying to take down the likes of the great Steiner. So we figured that with the Kammler SS connection, the best possible front would be to pass ourselves off as something the complete opposite of what we r
eally were, some kind of neo-Nazi terror group. It wasn’t hard to find the swastika badges. There were eleven of us involved, all committed. The first time, we almost got him. We were unlucky.’
‘I heard what happened.’
‘Then the second time, we had an even better plan. We spent ages working out every detail. But, as I recall, someone interfered.’ She shot him a look.
‘I’m glad I did, Ruth. You were risking your freedom, even your life, just because you believed that a bunch of documents written by some obscure Nazi loony almost seventy years ago was the key to saving the planet.’
‘It’s not a question of belief, Ben. These are facts.’
‘I think you’ve been smoking too much of that weed of yours. You’re stacking an awful lot of faith on this mumbo-jumbo.’
‘That’s neat, coming from someone who studied theology. You believe in a god that nobody can prove exists, that nobody’s ever seen, and who never shows himself. I show you something real, and you choose to dismiss it without a second thought.’
‘I don’t know what I saw just now.’
She snorted, glaring at him, her temper rising fast. ‘Yeah, it’s easier just to close your eyes. Anyway, I don’t care if you believe me or not. You wanted to know why we tried to kidnap Maximilian, and now you know. So maybe now you’ll let me go back home.’
‘To do what? To sell pottery? Or to pin your little Nazi badges back on and try to kidnap him again?’
‘We’re not going to stop trying. This is important.’
‘I don’t like what you’re doing. What if someone had been hurt, or killed? You weren’t shooting blanks that day.’
‘It wasn’t meant to go that far,’ she said. ‘I swear it.’
‘You’re throwing away your life.’
‘I don’t need your approval.’
‘You might think you got away because you were clever, well trained and well rehearsed. The fact is, you were just lucky. If I’d been properly in charge of a close protection outfit that I’d had the opportunity to train and equip the way I wanted instead of just having to make do with amateurs, you and your friends would all be in prison now awaiting sentence. And if you keep trying, that’s what you’re going to come up against. You’re going to get caught, Ruth. Ever been in a cell? I don’t think you’d like it. If you thought Steiner was cramping your freedom, wait until you get a load of Interpol.’ She said nothing.
‘And that’s not all,’ he went on. ‘While you’re running around playing your little games and dabbling in things that should be left well alone, people are being kidnapped and murdered for real. Julia Goodman, the woman you tried to contact?’
Ruth frowned.
‘Dead,’ Ben said. ‘Along with another of her colleagues who was heavily into this Kammler stuff, someone by the name of Michio Miyazaki.’
She’d clearly heard the name, from the way she flinched.
‘And have you heard of a man called Adam O’Connor? He’s missing, and so is his young son. Whoever’s out there doing this stuff is armed and means business, and it’s clear that someone is paying them to take an interest in all this.’
‘Someone like who? Maximilian?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I do know that anyone connected with this Kammler research is a potential target. Which includes you and your cronies, too. You’re way out of your depth. You need to back right off.’
‘Thank you for the lecture. But I’ll take my chances. I can look after myself. I’ve done it for long enough. And I’d rather believe in something, and suffer the consequences, than not believe in anything at all.’ She looked up at him hotly. ‘So can I go now? Or am I your prisoner?’
‘I ought to keep you locked up until you see sense.’
‘Fuck you. You’re just as bad as him.’
He could see the look in her eye. The argument was spiralling out of control, and the last thing he wanted to do was alienate the sister that he’d only just found again. He stepped towards her, put his hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You know I’d never stand in your way. If you want to go, go. Call Franz and tell him where you are. Or take the Mini. Here. It’s yours.’ He dangled the keys out in front of her.
She snatched the keys furiously out of his fingers, and he realised he’d already pushed her too far.
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to get some rest, and then I’ll leave tonight.’
He pointed over to the trainee accommodation block. ‘Pick any room you want. The sheets are all fresh.’
Without another word she turned away from him, wrenched open the office door and slammed it shut behind her. He watched her strut angrily across the yard, then powered down the laptop and left the office too.
There was no sign of Storm outside. Ben walked alone to the house, feeling frustrated. He was hoping to find Brooke sitting reading in the kitchen. She was becoming more and more part of the place. But there was no sign of her there, nor in the living room.
Then he heard the sound of someone moving around upstairs. Following the sound, he found the door to his quarters open. Brooke was crouched down on the rug, sweeping shards of glass into a dustpan. He saw that she’d been clearing up the debris. Broken chairs were piled in the corner, and the pictures that hadn’t been destroyed were back on the walls. She’d gathered up the bits of broken glass from the smashed frames and propped them up neatly and safely out of the way against the wall near the sofa.
She hadn’t seen him, and he watched her from the doorway. Kneeling there with her thick hair tied back loosely over her shoulders, she looked so serene and calm. He thought of the last time they’d been here together in this room, that evening spent sitting on the rug eating Marie-Claire’s chocolate cake and drinking wine. It seemed so long ago now.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She looked up, and smiled back.
‘Clearing this place up is my job,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘Something to do while I stayed out of your way for a while.’ She stood up, dusting off her hands. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t as bad as it looked. She didn’t wreck quite everything.’
He walked into the room, closed the door behind him.
‘You look shattered,’ she said.
He sat on the sofa, and she walked over and sat next to him. He leaned back, closing his eyes, and for a few precious moments he was able to switch off and enjoy the soothing atmosphere of her presence. When he opened them, Brooke was watching him with a pained expression, like someone bursting to make a confession.
‘Ben, I have something to say.’
He straightened up. ‘What?’ he asked, suddenly worried.
‘I’ve been thinking – and maybe this isn’t the right time to say it – but I’m not sure I should come here any more.’
He was silent as her words sank in.
‘What I said to you in London. About the way I felt. The way I feel. I shouldn’t have said that. But I can’t pretend I didn’t say it, any more than I can pretend it’s not true.’
‘I don’t want you to stop coming here,’ he murmured. He looked in her eyes. Very slowly, he reached out and stroked her soft cheek. Then, even more slowly, with his heart beginning to thud faster, knowing he was crossing a bridge he couldn’t uncross, he leaned forward and kissed her.
This time, Brooke didn’t pull away from his embrace. They moved closer together. The kisses started off gentle and soft. Then, as their breathing quickened, the kisses became deep and passionate. She reclined back on the sofa, clutching at his clothes, pulling him down on top of her.
And then the door burst open with a juddering crash and two men in black tactical gear carrying silenced Skorpion machine pistols stormed into the room.
Chapter Fifty
In the split second before anything else happened, Ben was already reacting. As he whipped round he locked on to the two pairs of eyes in the black tactical masks and he saw the intent in them. He’d seen that look plenty of times, the deliber
ately unthinking stony look, like the expression of a shark, that passes across a paid killer’s eyes in the instant before he does his job. The clearing of the mind, removing all doubt, all hesitation, any last vestiges of humanity. No prisoners, no discussions. Gloved fingers were on triggers. Actions were cocked, safeties set to FIRE. The fat, stubby silencers were trained right on them.
The silence of the room gave way to a flurry of muted gunfire, like the ripping of corrugated cardboard, as both shooters opened up simultaneously. But by then, Ben had Brooke shielded with his own body and he was kicking out with his legs while hurling his weight against the backrest of the sofa. Bullets thunked into its wooden frame as it toppled over backwards. Their bodies sprawled on the floor as a swarm of splinters and ripped pieces of foam flew around them.
There weren’t many good things about being on the wrong end of a Skorpion Vz61 submachine pistol in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. But even the most effective shooter couldn’t do much about the combined effect of a rapid 850-round-a-minute rate of fire with the limited capacity of its standard ten-round box magazine. One quick dab of the trigger, a flurry of recoil against the shooter’s palm, and the machine would have rattled itself empty. In a shade under three-quarters of a second, it was all over. That made the compact Skorpion an ideal assassination weapon. Walk into a restaurant with one under your jacket, go striding up to the target’s table as he sits there innocently chewing on his steak au poivre, and before anyone knew what was happening the job was carried out and you were walking out of the place with a corpse in your wake. And a quick, clean assassination was exactly what these guys had had in mind for Ben and Brooke.
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