Brinkman laughed. ‘Hello, son. You looking after Mother for me?
‘I’m growing carrots for tea.’
‘Good.’
‘Are you staying at home now? Is the war over?’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’ Brinkman extricated himself from the boy’s embrace, and crouched down so he was at eye level with the three-year-old. ‘But I hope it won’t be long, and then I’ll be home for good. But until then you have to be brave and you have to be the man of the house, all right?’
James nodded. ‘All right,’ he conceded, disappointed.
Brinkman stood up and ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Good man. Now you get back to your digging while I have a chat with Mummy.’
‘Yes, sir.’ James attempted a salute, then ran back to retrieve his trowel.
Brinkman was aware of Dorothy standing behind him in the doorway, watching them both. He put his arm round her shoulders. She had taken the apron off, and the bulge of her stomach was more noticeable now.
‘It must be hard,’ Brinkman said. ‘It’ll be even harder with two of them to look after.’
She nodded. ‘I know. So you’d better win this war pretty damn quick and come home to help.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ he assured her with a smile. But beneath the smile he wondered which of the wars he was fighting would be the harder to win – the one against the Nazis, or the one against the Vril?
* * *
‘I’m not at all sure how I can help,’ the old man said. His thinning hair was still dark, though his moustache was grey. ‘Some propaganda thing, is it? You want me to write a piece for a newspaper, perhaps?’
‘Nothing quite like that, sir,’ Sarah said. It had been her idea to come, but she hadn’t realised how old he would be. Perhaps Guy was right and they were wasting their time.
‘You could reprint passages from The Rights of Man, of course. Funny how your opinions change and develop, isn’t it?’ he mused.
‘In what way?’ Guy prompted.
‘Hmm? Oh, thirty years ago – twenty even – I’d have said that eugenics was a good thing, broadly speaking. Impractical, of course, but generally a way to advance the human race through selective breeding. Now of course, I’m arguing that it restricts the rights of the individual – as we can see from what’s happening on the continent, and in the United States before that.’
‘Yes, actually,’ Sarah said, ‘we were hoping to talk to you about one of your novels. About where you got the ideas for it, whether any specific research helped.’
‘You know, last year, I said in my preface to the new edition of The War in the Air that my epitaph should be “I told you so, you damned fools”. So if you’ve come to tell me I was right, it’s not exactly news.’
‘It was actually The War of the Worlds we wanted to ask about,’ Guy said.
Mr Wells blinked. ‘Really? Never really rated that one myself. Wasn’t all that successful until that other Mr Welles did his radio show of it a few years ago in America. And people believed it was actually happening.’ He shook his head. ‘I should write something about human credulity.’
‘So where did the idea come from?’ Sarah asked.
‘Where do any ideas come from? Blessed if I can remember now.’
‘But it’s a very imaginative idea, isn’t it,’ Guy pressed. ‘What made you think about beings from another world invading us?’
‘Well they had to be from a more advanced civilisation, that was the point. There was no more advanced civilisation than ours on this world, so I had to look further afield.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘It’s not actually a book about creatures from another world, you know. No, no, no – it’s about imperialism. It’s about the hardship wrought on nations and peoples that are unwillingly absorbed into a larger, foreign empire.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps it’s too imaginative – no one seems to understand what the book is saying. Still, that’s the thing with books, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’ Sarah said.
‘You can always write another one.’ He leaned forward suddenly, fixing Sarah with a steely look. ‘Why are you interested?’
‘Um, well, it’s an interesting idea for a book.’
‘I mentioned The War in the Air just now. People suddenly became interested in that because the fiction became fact. Because it was suddenly and unpleasantly relevant. So let me ask you a slightly different question – have the ideas behind The War of the Worlds, the notion of invasion from another planet, have those ideas suddenly become unpleasantly relevant?’
Guy glanced at Sarah before he answered. ‘I’m afraid we can’t discuss our interest in detail. But you said yourself, the novel is about one culture being conquered by another more advanced civilisation and the consequences of that. I believe there is relevance to what is happening now, perhaps not here in Britain, but across Europe. The German war machine is even now crushing the relatively backward peoples of the Soviet Union.’
‘So any insight you can offer us that might help in the fight against them,’ Sarah said, ‘would be appreciated.’
Wells nodded. ‘I’ll give it some thought,’ he promised.
* * *
‘Disappointed?’ Guy asked as they made their way back from Regent’s Park to the Station Z offices.
Sarah nodded. ‘All our clues at the moment are coming from myths and stories. I just thought here was another one that seems to fit, and the author is actually still alive and we can ask him. I guess it’s just coincidence.’
‘Probably. Or he may remember something – something he read or that he was told, which might help.’
‘We keep chipping away at things, but I don’t know if we’re getting any closer.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Guy agreed. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it? But something will happen soon enough. Too soon, probably.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I’m not. Not really. But it just seems like things are coming to a head. Reaching boiling point. The manuscript from France, the axe and the Ubermensch in Los Angeles. I just feel that something’s about to happen, and we have to be ready. Don’t you feel it?’
‘I do, yes. But how can we be ready?’ Sarah demanded, her exasperation coming out in her angry tone. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen.’
‘No, but we are making progress. Maybe…’ He stopped. ‘Yes, that’s possible.’
‘What is?’
‘I was just thinking – perhaps Rudolf Hess knows what’s going to happen. He seemed pretty informed before he clammed up and refused to say anything more.’
‘I thought Alban said MI5 got everything out of him that they could,’ Sarah said.
Guy nodded. ‘Brinkman spent some time with him too. He wanted me in on it, except he couldn’t get me clearance. And you’re right, Alban has had a team going to town on Hess, for all the good it did. But how much of what he says can we believe anyway? From what Leo and Miss Manners say, he’s a narrow-minded, credulous occultist. Even Crowley agrees. Anyway, like you said, he won’t talk to us. But,’ Guy went on, ‘maybe he will talk to someone he thinks actually understands and appreciates what he has to say.’
‘You mean Crowley? I don’t trust Crowley, and I doubt Brinkman would let him near Hess.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of Crowley,’ Guy told her. ‘I was thinking that Rudolf Hess might talk about an imminent invasion from another world to the man who wrote a future history of just such an event. I was thinking he might talk to H.G. Wells.’
CHAPTER 14
A cork board had been fixed to the stone wall. It was covered with paper: handwritten notes, typed reports, drawings and maps. There was an order to it all, Hoffman saw. The papers were arranged in clusters, grouped together. Lines drawn across the board, from one cluster to another, or sometimes to several others.
Hoffman’s eyes were immediately drawn to a pencil sketch – a drawing of the artefact he saw in his dreams and whenever he closed his eyes. He made an effort not to react.
; ‘You have been busy in the last few days,’ Heinrich Himmler said. He waved his hand at the cluttered board. ‘All this comes from Streicher’s notes and files?’
The third man in the room was tall and lean, with thinning grey hair. He was older than Himmler, probably in his fifties, Hoffman thought. His voice, like his manner, was confident and assured.
‘Much of it, Reichsfuhrer,’ SS Standartenfuhrer Ritter Nachten said. ‘But a lot I have also gleaned from other sources.’ He stepped forward, standing in front of the board, like the university lecturer he had been before the war. ‘I see connections. That is how I operate.’
Himmler nodded. ‘And what connections have you seen that you believe warrant my attention?’
‘Isolated incidents. Reports and information that on their own mean nothing, but when connected and taken together…’ Nachten turned to examine the board.
Hoffman sensed that the man might circumnavigate the subject for a while if left to his own devices. For all their sakes, and spurred by his own impatient curiosity, he walked up to the board and tapped the drawing that interested him most.
‘This would appear to be the centre of your web of connections,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could explain to the Reichsfuhrer and to myself its significance?’
‘Of course.’ Nachten cleared his throat.
Hoffman glanced at Himmler, and was rewarded with a thin smile and raised eyebrows. ‘Proceed, Standartenfuhrer,’ Himmler murmured.
‘The drawing was part of a report forwarded to Berlin by our embassy in Lisbon. The drawing is apparently of an ancient axe-head, and was provided by an Englishman who gave his name as…’ Nachten crossed quickly to his desk on the opposite side of the office and leafed through papers until he found the report he sought. ‘Here we are – Rutherford. He now has the codename “Thor”.’
‘And it is significant for what reason?’ Hoffman prompted.
‘Rutherford did not know. Or he did not say. The Abwehr’s people in Lisbon clearly felt it was irrelevant. The covering letter that accompanied the report of Rutherford’s visit to the embassy was apologetic. But it is clear from what Rutherford did say that the British are extremely interested in this artefact.’
‘Why?’ Himmler asked sharply. The light glinted on his glasses as he stepped forward to examine the drawing.
‘We don’t know,’ Nachten admitted. ‘But they clearly see it as important. According to Rutherford, they dispatched personnel to the United States, to Los Angeles, to recover this axe-head.’
‘Los Angeles?’ Hoffman said.
Nachten traced his finger along one of the lines from the drawing to a news clipping pinned further along.
‘Los Angeles, where a rare and ancient native artefact was stolen from a private collection on the day it was opened to the public. It made the newspaper as one of their own reporters was apparently killed in the incident.’
‘Stolen by whom?’ Hoffman asked.
‘The report is vague. But from my own researches, it seems this axe-head is a close match to two others described in antiquity.’
‘And where are they?’ Himmler asked.
‘One was thought to be connected to the Black Forest region. I am not sure about the other.’ Nachten traced another line, to a set of papers fanned out at one side of the board. ‘I thought this might provide the answer…’
‘And what is that?’ Hoffman asked.
‘Reports from the Gestapo, of an enemy incursion into a monastery outside Paris. It seems the spies who went there were interested in the monastery library, which is noted for its collection of ancient texts.’
‘You think the texts mention these axe-heads?’
‘That was my first supposition. I sent one of my best men to obtain further information. He came back with this.’
Nachten gestured to a side table standing in an alcove. Three leather-bound books lay on it. They were all clearly old, with thick parchment pages. The leather was as scuffed and faded as the pages were curled and yellowed. Nachten opened the top book. It creaked as he turned the pages.
‘This was the book that the spies examined. The others were next to it in the library, but are unrelated.’
‘And this book describes the provenance or history of one or more of these axe-heads?’ Hoffman asked.
‘So I thought. But no. There is nothing.’
‘You are saying there is no connection after all?’ Himmler said.
‘Yet without a connection, the British interest in the monastery library makes no sense. The library itself is in the building which the local Gestapo use as their headquarters. Clearly to risk an operation there it must have been vitally important.’
‘And the spies told the Gestapo nothing of their intentions?’ Himmler demanded. ‘Where are they now?’
‘It seems they escaped, killing the Gestapo chief and perhaps the Abbot of the monastery in the process.’ Nachten shrugged an apology. ‘There is some confusion about what actually happened.’
‘Some anxiety to avoid blame, most likely,’ Hoffman said.
‘Most likely,’ Himmler echoed. ‘How do we know that is the book they were after?’
‘One of the arresting officers identified it as the volume they were consulting when they were taken.’
‘Identified it how?’ Hoffman asked. ‘Did he recognise a particular page or the title?’
‘No, but he remembered where it was on the shelf. Hauptsturmfuhrer Grebben took the books either side as well, in case the man was mistaken. I have examined them too.’ He sighed. ‘Nothing.’
‘What is the connection between the three books?’ Hoffman wondered.
‘The other two are Latin translations of older texts. This one is an account of a journey through the Holy Land made in the eighth century by a French monk. There is no connection.’
Hoffman looked at Himmler. ‘There are three possibilities that I see here.’
Himmler nodded for him to go on.
‘First, there is some relevance to one or all of these volumes that has so far escaped us. I assume that is unlikely?’
Nachten nodded. ‘I would have found it.’
‘Then the second possibility is that the information the British spies were seeking has nothing to do with these axes at all.’
‘Possible,’ Nachten conceded.
‘And the third possibility?’ Himmler prompted.
‘The most likely in my opinion,’ Hoffman said. ‘Simply that the British did not find what they were hoping to, any more than the Standartenfuhrer did. They were searching in the wrong book, or more likely it was not there to find. Their information, whatever it was, was wrong.’
Himmler nodded slowly. ‘The monastery is a dead end,’ he decided. ‘Leave it. Concentrate on other leads. Find out about these ancient axes and why they interest the British.’
Nachten clicked his heels. ‘Of course, Herr Reichsfuhrer.’
‘With your permission,’ Hoffman said to Himmler, ‘I shall do some research into the axe supposed to be associated with the Black Forest.’
‘An excellent idea, provided it does not interfere with your other duties. Nachten,’ Himmler ordered, ‘you will provide Sturmbannfuhrer Hoffman with all the information you have. Then on your return we shall see what collectively we have discovered.’
‘One other thing,’ Hoffman said. ‘The Englishman, Rutherford…?’
‘He is keen to help the Reich all he can,’ Nachten said. He hurried back to his desk to retrieve the full report.
‘Of course.’
‘Lisbon put him in touch with an agent in London. I have arranged with Admiral Canaris’s office for any information he provides to be forwarded immediately to me…’ He leafed through the typewritten pages. ‘Here we are. He is to make contact with one of the Abwehr’s best agents, apparently. Her codename is Magda.’
* * *
It was a disappointment but not a surprise that Sarah was not permitted to sit in on the meeting. Brinkman apologised, and prom
ised to brief her immediately afterwards.
‘It’s a good idea,’ he told her. ‘But to be honest, I doubt if anything will come of it. I was there when they interrogated Hess last year, and he clammed up like a corpse.’
‘Was that at the Tower of London?’ Sarah wondered.
‘No, this was before they took him to the Tower. It was in a place on the Brompton Road, used by the Royal Artillery as a base for all their anti-aircraft operations. It’s above a disused tube station, so I assume it’s easy to evacuate. But Alban’s spent time with Hess since he was moved, and got precious little out of him. For all his schoolboy humour and looks that man could get blood out of the proverbial stone, believe me.’
Brinkman’s reservations turned out to be justified. He called Sarah in to his office when he returned from the meeting and gestured for her to sit down.
‘I’ll brief everyone properly later, though there’s not much to tell.’
‘But something?’ Sarah asked hopefully.
‘Hess was his usual helpful self. He’s worried, but how much of that is because of his knowledge of the Vril, and how much is just down to being a prisoner of war and the way the tide is turning against Germany…’ Brinkman shrugged. ‘There were just the three of us, I insisted on that. I translated, as Mr Wells doesn’t speak German.’
‘And did Hess appreciate speaking to him?’
‘Hard to tell. He’d read some of Wells’s books, which was a help. They discussed colonialism as much as anything. Hess believes, if what he says is true, that the Vril are essentially imperialists.’
‘That all makes sense,’ Sarah said. ‘In fact it’s pretty much what we’d concluded already. But did he give any reason why they have been here for so long?’
Brinkman shook his head. ‘I had Wells suggest to him Elizabeth Archer’s theory that they have been waiting for civilisation to reach a stage where it’s useful to them. But Hess didn’t seem to have any thoughts on that. He sees the Vril as creatures of darkness, lurking underground, and interested in causing death and destruction for its own sake. Conquest as a means in itself.’
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