‘So Walter Brohm was part of Paperclip?’
Sara shook her head. ‘Not officially. Paperclip was spawned by a couple of earlier freelance operations involving the Special Operations Executive. It looks as if Brohm and the others were part of that experiment. What bothers me is that they just vanish from the record. Sure, a lot of these guys disappeared to Argentina and Brazil after they arrived in the States, but we know that they reached there. Maybe Brohm handed over his big secret and they gave him a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires, but if he did, what happened then?’
She turned, expecting an answer, or, if not an answer, at least a theory, but Jamie had his head back with his eyes closed and was snoring gently.
‘Bastard,’ she mouthed, and turned to stare at the clouds, failing to notice the Chinese man in the business suit who had been studying them from the aisle seat three rows behind.
Munich’s Franz Josef airport is a vast modernistic barn of a place fifteen miles north of the Bavarian capital. Only the language rapped out by the hard-faced security men differentiated it from a hundred other charmless landing places in a hundred other cities. When they’d cleared passport control, Jamie hired a Volkswagen at the airport’s Europcar desk. Before they set off they decided to have a coffee and a pastry at one of the cloned chain restaurants clustered in the glass-roofed shopping centre that connected the two main terminals.
Sarah finished her drink quickly. ‘I gotta go powder my nose and make a phone call.’
He smiled. ‘I won’t go anywhere without you.’
‘Just see what happens if you do.’
Jamie was sipping his coffee when the Oriental who had been on the plane sat down uninvited at the table. He rose to his feet, but a second man put a hand on his shoulder, and he felt a third, running professional hands under his arms and over his chest, before he was pushed back into his seat. He looked around, but no one appeared to have noticed what was happening.
‘Please excuse my companions, Mr Saintclair.’ The man spoke precise language school English and his tone oozed reason, but Jamie allowed himself to ease into what Matthew described as combat mode. Instinct told him that this striped bespoke suit represented a greater danger than any gun. ‘I see your Himalayan adventures have not put you off foreign travel? But, please, that is in the past. My name is Lim, and I am a rather lowly representative of the People’s Republic of China.’ Mr Lim had dark, soulful eyes and a cheerful smile that might have been painted on his broad face. Without moving his lips he passed a message to one of the two men accompanying him, and the bodyguard went off in the direction Sarah had disappeared. He continued: ‘I would have prevented it if I was able. There has been far too much miscommunication. Would it surprise you if I said that two of my colleagues exceeded their authority in London, leading to your unfortunate . . . accident? No? Of course, it does not make us friends, but perhaps the fact that I am prepared to give you this information will help us trust each other.’
‘After my experiences in Tibet, I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw your minders, Mr Lim. Perhaps you could get to the point, if there is one.’
Mr Lim’s smile grew appreciably wider. ‘Certainly. You have proven yourself very resourceful and very persistent. My superiors felt that you were an obstacle to us, but I have persuaded them otherwise. I believe you will find what you are looking for. This object rightly belongs to my government.’
‘I think the Dalai Lama might have something to say about that.’
‘But the Dalai Lama is no longer of consequence, Mr Saintclair, and what you call Tibet is, and always has been, part of China. What is of consequence is that my country is currently home to 1.3 billion people and that despite our best efforts this will rise to 1.5 billion in the next thirty years. In a few years we will overtake the United States as the world’s largest energy user. My people are hungry for power, Mr Saintclair, and will only grow hungrier. We are spending unthinkable amounts on alternative sources of energy, but in the long term there is only one solution: nuclear fusion. We are already many years ahead of our rivals – it is even possible that we have outstripped the progress made by your Walter Brohm.’
Jamie froze. ‘He’s not my Walter Brohm.’
‘Oh, but he is, Mr Saintclair. Why else would you have pursued him halfway around the world? But to return to my point, we are close to having the technology, but we need the return of the Sun Stone to ensure the project’s success. As I said, I believe you will find this object. When you do, my country is prepared to pay a large bounty to get it back.’
‘We don’t need your bounty, Mr Lim.’
‘No? Then the matter would go before the German courts.’ He shrugged. ‘I can assure you that we have an extremely strong case and those courts will rule in our favour. But even in that event, I believe we would be honour bound to recompense you for your efforts. As you see, Mr Saintclair, we wish to proceed in a civilized manner.’ He placed a card on the table. ‘I implore you to call this number when you find the Sun Stone. If you do not, I fear you will place both your lives at risk. Do you want to be responsible for putting Miss Grant in danger?’
Jamie fought the urge to take Mr Lim by the throat and shake the smile off his face. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘You misunderstand me, Mr Saintclair.’ Lim shook his head sadly at the wickedness of the world. ‘You must be aware by now that we are not the only party with an interest in the Sun Stone. Others may be less inclined to negotiate. If there is a threat, it is from those who do not have the same concern for your welfare as my humble self.’
He rose from the table. ‘When your companion returns, perhaps it would be wiser not to mention our conversation. She appears to have a great deal on her mind already.’ Jamie stared at the large envelope the Chinese had left on the table. ‘Call that a down payment. Please, open it.’
Jamie peeled back the flap. The envelope contained two 8x10 black-and-white photographs.
‘I could have had them done in colour, but I felt monochrome suited our particular situation so much better,’ Lim explained cheerfully. ‘I’m sure Mr Le Carré would be impressed.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Jamie stared at the top picture. It showed three men talking on a country path. One of them was a slight figure in an overcoat that was too large for him.
‘Oh, I think you understand most clearly, Mr Saintclair. You will note the dates.’ Lim lifted the photograph, so Jamie could see the second picture. A shot of the same two men sitting in a car outside a house that was instantly familiar. Jamie’s heart lurched as he recognized the closer of the two as the man he’d found in his grandfather’s lounge.
‘As I say, a down payment. To receive the second instalment all you have to do is call the number I have given you at the appropriate time.’
Sarah reappeared a few moments after the Chinese had left. ‘You look thoughtful?’
He tried a smile that didn’t quite make it. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
Their route took them from the airport past the north of the city. Jamie tried to keep his mind on the road, but as he drove it was difficult to keep Mr Lim’s reasonable voice out of his head. The claim that there was no threat was less significant than Lim’s presence, which, of course, was a threat in itself. It struck him that it might have been the Chinese, rather than Frederick and the Vril Society, who had been responsible for Simon’s murder, but he immediately dismissed the thought. He suspected that while Mr Lim was perfectly capable of the killing, he would have been much more subtle in its execution. What mattered was that every word the man spoke had been like a gentle touch on the rudder to steer him in a certain direction. He had felt like a horse on a light rein just waiting for the sting of the whip. And then it came, in the form of the photographs. The photographs that appeared to show old Stan with the men who had almost certainly murdered him and the same two men outside the house where his grandfather had died. The implications of that turned his vision red and his hands tightened on the wh
eel. He willed himself to stay calm. Hadn’t he always suspected? His grandfather’s missing walking stick. Two deaths linked by the past in such quick succession? An unfamiliar gloom settled over him. He could take the pictures to the police in Britain, but on their own they proved nothing. They were circumstantial evidence at best. He opened his mouth intending to tell Sarah what had happened, but something stopped him. She has a lot on her mind. Like everything else that had been said, the cryptic sentence held a warning and a message. He just hadn’t yet worked out its significance.
Sarah must have caught his mood, because she was uncharacteristically silent. The sun broke through the clouds and they had a view across the city to the mountains beyond. Neither of them mentioned the signpost they passed for the little town of Dachau. It seemed nowhere in Germany was free from the shadow of the war. Sarah kept her eyes on the stunning panorama to the south. ‘Nice place. But it gives me the creeps.’
He drove on until he came to the outer ring road and after a few miles he picked up the exit for Augsburg and turned north-west.
‘I still don’t understand why we aren’t heading directly for the Swiss border,’ Sarah said. ‘You know more or less where they crossed? It would save time.’
‘Because I want to see this unfold through Matthew’s eyes,’ he insisted. ‘Or as much as it’s possible after sixty years. Maybe these final pages of the journal hold the key to the Sun Stone and maybe they don’t, but the best way to understand them is to take the journey with my grandfather and Brohm. I want to get as close to him as I can.’
They by-passed Augsburg and the multi-laned highway carried them swiftly through a thickly wooded area that the map told them was the local nature reserve. ‘Hey, we just crossed the Danube,’ Sarah announced. ‘I thought the Danube was in Hungary or Romania?’
‘I suppose it has to start somewhere. We turn south around here.’
She consulted the map. ‘Looks like we should wait until we get past Ulm. What makes you so certain Matthew came this way?’
‘I’m not certain. But Bad Saulgau is our next reference point and we have to get there somehow. I suspect most of these roads didn’t even exist during the war.’
She looked again. ‘To get to Bad Saulgau we take the B30 after Ulm and turn left after about an hour, at Schweinhausen.’ She paused. ‘Look, Jamie, I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch since we got back from Tibet. I think maybe it’s a delayed reaction to all those poor guys being killed. Tenzin would still be alive if he hadn’t run into us. Simon too.’
‘Simon didn’t deserve what happened to him,’ Jamie said bitterly. ‘At least Tenzin died for what he believed in. He thought the war he was fighting mattered and that his cause was worth dying for. When he found out what we were mixed up in he decided that was worth dying for too.’
‘Do you think it’s worth dying for?’
The question took him by surprise. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘For me, this is more about my grandfather than the Sun Stone. Can you understand that? All that stuff about the end of the world is just an abstract. Matthew Sinclair is real. If, by discovering who he is, we find a way to track down the Sun Stone then I’ll do everything in my power to fulfil my promise to Tenzin, but if I can’t I just hope we can walk away alive and unscarred. We’re just two people caught up in events that are too big for us, Sarah. We can’t be held responsible for everybody on the planet. Maybe once a year I’ll burn a juniper branch and raise a glass to Tenzin’s memory, but then I’ll get on with my life.’
‘What if Tenzin is wrong and Walter Brohm was right?’
At first he wasn’t sure if he’d heard her correctly. ‘Sorry?’ He shot her a glance, but her eyes never left the road ahead.
‘Tenzin believed the Sun Stone had the potential to destroy the world, but that belief was based on an ancient myth passed down through a hundred generations from a culture that thought the best way to defend themselves against it was to cut the throats of seven innocent people and sprinkle their blood over it. By that logic we should still be burning witches every time the milk goes sour.’
‘Mike said much the same thing and I don’t think he’s into human sacrifice.’ He tried to keep his voice even, but he was confused at the turn the conversation had taken.
‘I know that, but he also said the chances were about fifty million to one. We’re talking about something that could solve the world’s energy problems for ever. No more burning up the planet’s irreplaceable resources. No more global warming. No more famine. Isn’t that worth taking a chance on? And we could find it, Jamie. Us. Not some faceless corporation, corrupt government or bunch of crazies like Frederick and his storm troopers.’
He shook his head, remembering Mr Lim’s benign certainty. ‘You’re talking about Walter Brohm’s legacy, Sarah. A discovery that is tainted by blood and greed. You’ve read the journal. Do you really believe the world would benefit from something a man like that had a hand in? Yes, we could find it, but for how long could we control it? That was Tenzin’s warning. We can’t trust anyone. The moment we lay our hands on it we become a target for every big-time crook and international terrorist, every lunatic dictator and religious fanatic. It would only be a matter of time before we were begging someone to take it off our hands. Your government or mine? Which would you trust? No, if we do find it, we have to destroy it or put it somewhere it will never be found.’
She smiled sadly. ‘That might be more difficult than you make it sound.’
‘We owe it to Tenzin to give it our best shot.’
LIII
‘THEY FLEW INTO Munich this morning and hired a car. Current location unknown, but it looks as if they are following the route taken in the journal, so we know where Saintclair will end up and we’ll be waiting for them.’
The man with the ponytail listened to Sumner’s explanation with increasing irritation. ‘Not good enough. Your report states that Saintclair paid a visit to his mother’s solicitor?’
‘That’s right, but despite repeated attempts by our sources the lawyer refused to reveal why our man went there.’
‘Yet within hours of attending that meeting Saintclair discovers a sudden renewed interest in the journal. That means he has new information, or he’s been given something that has made him re-evaluate the information he already has. Somehow, the journal is still the key to the Sun Stone. Saintclair is the key to the journal. I want him found.’
He put down the phone and pressed a key on the intercom on his desk. ‘Have the plane prepared. We’ll be flying to Europe first thing in the morning.’
Jamie turned off the autobahn and on to a much narrower road that took them through a patchwork of heavily cultivated fields. Small agricultural communities flashed by the windows and within ten minutes they were on the outskirts of Bad Saulgau, which was a much larger town than Matthew’s journal had hinted. Clearly it had prospered and expanded in the years since the war. They negotiated their way to the centre and parked.
‘Where do we go from here?’ Sarah asked.
‘I’d like to see the site where they were ambushed and Matthew won his Military Cross.’
She looked sceptical. ‘I don’t see how we’re going to find it. We have no idea which road they took out of this place. How will you know?’
‘I’ll know.’ He took the map from her and studied the country to the south-west. ‘This is the most direct route to Blumberg, the next place mentioned in the journal.’ He traced his finger along the line of a road leading south-west towards the town of Ostrach. ‘There are a couple of places that might have been nothing but a few scattered houses back then. What we really need is a nineteen forties map.’
‘We have one.’ Sara grinned and retrieved the silk escape map from the rucksack, along with the journal. She opened the journal at the page recording the ambush. ‘I could see the snowcaps of Switzerland shimmering in the distance. They hit us just after dawn between Saulgau and some one-horse hamlet that wasn’t worth a name,’ she read a
loud, comparing the silk map with the modern road map. ‘Look, you’re right, there are a few places that fitted the description back then.’
Jamie drove slowly from the outskirts of town, studying the terrain around them. It was raining again and where the Alps should be there was nothing but filthy grey murk.
‘If we’re looking for a forest we’ve come to the right place,’ Sarah said helpfully, as they passed yet another broad stretch of woodland.
He ignored her sarcasm. ‘These are conifers, evergreens, Matthew said the wood where they were ambushed was beech. At this time of year the leaves will be bright, emerald green.’
‘You mean like that,’ she said a few moments later.
He drew to a halt and studied the copse she had indicated. It didn’t look much. The trees were mature enough to have been growing for more than sixty years, great broad trunks and wide canopies, but there didn’t seem to be enough of them to be called a wood. Behind the stand of beeches another conifer plantation spread into the distance. A couple of miles up the road stood a few isolated buildings that might have fitted the description some one-horse hamlet that wasn’t worth a name.
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