by P. W. Child
“I love you, Nina,” Sam chuckled. She had to be healing. That kind of wit belonged to the healthy, sexy, angry historian he so adored. “Alright, first off, let me just tell you the names of the men these voices belong to and what their parts in this are.”
“Okay, go,” she said, looking focused.“Oh, God, this is going to be a brain wrecker, so just ask if there is something you don’t understand…”
“Sam!” she growled.
“Alright. Brace yourself. Welcome to Babel.”
Chapter 26 – Gallery Of Faces
Under the meager lights with dead moths in the bellies of their thick glass shades Lieutenant Dieter Werner accompanied Captain Schmidt to where he would be debriefed on the happenings of the next two days. The day of the signing of the treaty, the 31st October, was upon them and Schmidt’s plan was almost due to come to fruition.
He had informed his squad of the rendezvous point to ready for the onslaught he was the architect of – an underground bunker once used by the SS in the area to accommodate their families during Allied bombings. He was about to show his chosen commander the hot point from where he would facilitate the attack.
Werner had not had any word from his beloved Marlene since that hysterical call from her that had revealed the factions and their participants. His cell phone had been confiscated to prevent him from alerting anyone, and he had been under the strict supervision of Schmidt around the clock.
“Not too far now,” Schmidt told him eagerly, as they took the umpteenth turn down a small corridor that looked the same as all the others. Still, Werner tried to find identifying features where he could. Finally they came to a safe door with a digital keypad security system. Schmidt’s fingers were too quick for Werner to memorize the code. Within moments he thick steel door had unlocked with a deafening clang and opened.
“Come in, Lieutenant,” Schmidt invited.
As the door closed behind them, Schmidt switched on the bright, white overhead lights from a lever against the wall. The lights flickered rapidly a few times before staying on and revealing the interior of the bunker. Werner was astonished.
Communication devices lined the corners of the chamber. Red and green digital numbers flashed monotonously on the panels, in between two flat computer screens with one keyboard between them. Upon the right screen Werner saw the topographical rendition of the strike zone, the C.I.T.E. headquarters in Mosul, Iraq. Left of that screen was an identical monitor with satellite surveillance.
But it was the rest of the room that told Werner that Schmidt was dead serious.
“I knew that you knew about the Babylonian Mask and its makings before you even came to report to me, so that spares me all the time it would have taken to explain and describe all the “magical powers” it possesses,” Schmidt boasted. “I know by some reach of cellular science that the workings of the mask is in fact not magical, but I’m not interested in how it works – just that it does.”
“Where is it?” asked Werner, pretending to be psyched up by the relic. “I’ve never seen it? Will I be wearing it?”
“No, my friend,” Schmidt smiled. “I will.”
“As who? With Prof. Sloane dead you’ll have no reason to assume the face of anyone involved with the treaty.”
“It’s none of your concern who I will be impersonating,” Schmidt responded.
“But you know what will happen,” said Werner, hoping to discourage Schmidt so that he could get his hands on the mask himself and get it to Marduk. But Schmidt had other plans.
“I do, but there is something that can remove the mask without incident. It is called The Skin. Regrettably, Neumand did not bother to lift this very important accessory when he stole the mask, the idiot! So I’ve sent Himmelfarb to breach air space and land on the secret strip eleven clicks north past Nineveh. He’s to procure the Skin within the next two days so that I can remove the mask before…” he shrugged, “the inevitable.”
“And if he fails?” asked Werner, amazed at the risk Schmidt was taking.
“He will not fail. He has the coordinates of the location and…”
“Excuse me, Captain, but did it occur to you that Himmelfarb could turn on you? He knows the worth of the Babylonian Mask. Aren’t you afraid that he will kill you for it?” asked Werner.
Schmidt switched on the opposite light from the side of the room where they stood. In its glare Werner was met with a wall full of identical masks. Turning the bunker into what looked like a catacomb, the wall of masks hung in their skull-shaped likenesses.
“Himmelfarb has no idea which one of these is the real one, but I do. He knows that he cannot claim the mask unless he takes his chances while applying the skin to my face to remove it, and to ensure her performs I’ll have a gun to his son’s head all the way in Berlin.” Schmidt grinned as he admired the pieces on the wall.
“You made all these to confuse anyone trying to steal the mask from you? Genius!” Werner remarked sincerely. With his arms folded across his chest he slowly walked along the wall, trying to find any discrepancy between them, but it was practically impossible.
“Oh, I did not make them, Dieter.” Schmidt abandoned his narcissism momentarily. “They were attempted replicas made by the scientists and designers of the Order of the Black Sun sometime in 1943. The Babylonian Mask was acquired by the Renatus of the Order while he was deployed in the Middle East on a campaign.”
“Renatus?” Werner asked, not familiar with the rank system of the clandestine organization, as very few people were anyway.
“The leader,” Schmidt said. “Anyway, discovering what it could do, Himmler immediately ordered a dozen to be engineered in similar fashion and experimented with it in the Leonidas Squad of the KG 200. They were supposed to attack two specific units of the Red Army and infiltrate the ranks by means of assuming the identities of the Soviet soldiers.”
“These very masks?” Werner marveled.
Schmidt nodded. “Yes, all twelve of these. But it proved to be a failure. The scientists who had replicated the Babylonian Mask miscalculated or, well, I don’t know the details,” he shrugged. “The pilots instead became psychotic, suicidal and crashed their machines into various Soviet unit camps instead of performing the mission. Himmler and Hitler could not give two shits, since it was a failed operation. So the Leonidas Squad went down in history as the only Nazi kamikaze squadron ever.”
Werner took it all in, trying to formulate a way in which to escape that same fate, while deceiving Schmidt into dropping his defenses for a moment. But quite honestly, with it being two days before the plan went live, it would be nearly impossible to avert catastrophe now. He knew a Palestinian pilot in the W.U.O. flying core. If he could reach her, she could stop Himmelfarb from leaving Iraqi airspace. That would allow him to concentrate on sabotaging Schmidt on the day of the signing.
The radios crackled and a big red spot appeared on the topographical map.
“Ah! There we are!” Schmidt exclaimed happily.
“Who?” asked Werner curiously. Schmidt patted him on the back and led him to the screens.
“Us, my friend. Operation Leo 2. You see that spot? That is the satellite lock-on of the C.I.T.E. offices in Baghdad. Confirmation for the ones I am waiting for will pinpoint the lock-on for The Hague and Berlin, respectively. Once we have all three in place, your unit will fly to the Baghdad point, while the other two units of your squadron will attack the other two cities simultaneously.”
“Oh my God,” Werner muttered, as he watched the pulsing red button. “Why those three cities? I get The Hague – the summit is supposed to be held there. And Baghdad is self-explanatory, but why Berlin? Are you priming the two countries for mutual counter attacks?”
“That is why I chose you as commander, Lieutenant. You are a strategist by nature,” Schmidt said triumphantly.
The commander’s wall mounted intercom speaker clicked and a sharp, agonizing tone of feedback ripped through the airtight bunker. Both men plugged their ears
instinctively, wincing until the noise subsided.
“Captain Schmidt, this is Base Guard Kilo. There is a woman here to see you, along with her associate. Credentials say she is Miriam Inkley, British legal liaison of the W.U.O. branch in Germany,” said the voice of the gate guard.
“Now? Without an appointment?” Schmidt shouted. “Tell her to get lost. I’m busy!”
“Oh, I would not do that, sir,” Werner urged convincingly enough that Schmidt believed he was dead serious. Under his breath he advised the captain, “I heard she works for Lieutenant-General Meier. It’s probably about the murders Löwenhagen committed and the press trying to make us look bad.”
“God knows, I don’t have time for this!” he replied. “Bring them to my office!”
“Should I accompany you, sir? Or do you want me to make myself invisible?” asked Werner, scheming.
“No, you have to come with me, of course,” Schmidt snapped. He was annoyed with the interruption, but Werner remembered the name of the woman who’d helped them divert attention when they needed the police off their backs. Sam Cleave and Marduk must be here then. I must find Marlene, but how? As Werner trudged along with his commander on their way up to the office, he wracked his brain to figure out where Marlene could be held and how he could get away from Schmidt undetected.
“Hurry, Lieutenant,” Schmidt ordered. Every sign of his previous pride and cheerful anticipation had now vanished and he was back in full tyrant mode. “We don’t have time to waste.”Werner wondered if he should not just overpower the captain and raid the chamber. It would be so easy right now. They were between the bunker and the base, underground, where nobody would hear the captain’s cry for help. On the other hand, he knew by their arrival at the base that Sam Cleave’s friend was upstairs and that Marduk probably knew by now that Werner was in trouble.
However, if he overwhelmed the chief they might all be exposed. It was a difficult decision. In the past, Werner had often found himself indecisive because the options were too few, but this time there were too many, each with equally difficult outcomes. Not knowing which of the pieces was the actual Babylonian Mask posed a genuine problem, too, and time was running out – for the whole world.
Too soon, before Werner could make up his mind between the pros and cons of the situation, the two of them had reached the stairs of the lightly-manned office building. Werner ascended the stairs by Schmidt’s side, with the occasional airman or administration staff member greeting or saluting.It would be stupid to pull a coup now. Bide your time. See what opportunities present themselves first, Werner told himself. But Marlene! How will we find her? His emotions wrestled with his reasoning while he kept a blank face in front of Schmidt.
“Just play along with whatever I say, Werner,” Schmidt said through clenched teeth as they neared the office where Werner saw the reporter woman and Marduk waiting in their disguises. For a split second he felt free again, like there was hope to cry out and subdue his keeper, but Werner knew he had to wait.
Glances between Marduk, Margaret and Werner were brisk, hidden acknowledgements away from the keen senses of Captain Schmidt. Margaret introduced herself and Marduk as two aviation lawyers with extensive experience in political sciences.
“Please sit down,” Schmidt offered, pretending to be pleasant. He tried not to stare at the strange, old man who accompanied the stern, extroverted female.
“Thank you,” Margaret said. “We wished, actually, to speak to the real commander of the Luftwaffe, but your guard said that Lieutenant-General Meier was out of the country.”
She struck that offensive nerve elegantly and with a deliberate intent to rile the captain up just a bit. To the side of the desk Werner stood stoically, trying not to laugh.
Chapter 2 7 – Susa or War
Nina’s eyes were frozen on Sam’s as she heard the last of the recording. He was afraid at one point that she had ceased her breathing as she listened, frowned, concentrated, gasped and cocked her head throughout the entire soundtrack. When it had finished, she just kept staring at him. In the background, Nina’s TV was on the news channel, but mute.
“Fucking hell!” she exclaimed suddenly. Her hands were riddled with needles and tubes from the day’s treatment, otherwise she would have buried them in her hair in astonishment. “You mean to tell me, the guy I thought was Jack the Ripper is actually Gandalf the Grey and my pal who slept in the same room as me and traveled miles with me was a coldblooded killer?”
“Aye.”
“Why didn’t he kill me as well, then?” Nina wondered out loud.
“Your blindness saved your life,” Sam told her. “The fact that you were the only person who couldn’t see that his face belonged to someone else must have been your saving grace. You were no threat to him.”
“I never thought I’d be happy to be blind. Jesus! Can you imagine what could have happened to me? So where are they all now?”
Sam cleared his throat, a trait Nina had by now learned meant that he was uncomfortable with something he was struggling to formulate, something that would otherwise sound insane.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she exclaimed again.
“Look, this is all a long shot. Purdue is busy rounding up a group of hackers in every major city to interfere with satellite broadcasts and radio signals. He wants to prevent the news of Sloane’s death from spreading too fast,” Sam explained, not having much hope in Purdue’s plan of stalling the global media. He was hoping, however, that it would considerably impeded, at least, by the vast network of cyber spies and technicians Purdue had at his fingertips. “Margaret, the woman’s voice you heard, is still in Germany right now. Werner was supposed to notify Marduk when he managed to get the mask back from Schmidt without Schmidt’s knowledge, but they had not heard from him by the deadline.”
“So then he’s dead,” Nina shrugged.
“Not necessarily. It just means he hasn’t been successful in getting the mask,” Sam said. “I don’t know if Kohl can help him get it, but he looks like a bit of a flake to me. But because Marduk had not heard from Werner, he went with Margaret to the Büchel base to see what is happening.”
“Tell Purdue to speed up his work with the broadcast systems,” Nina told Sam.
“I’m sure they are moving as fast as they can.”
“Not fast enough,” she contested, nudging her head at the television. Sam turned to find that the first major broadcaster had obtained the report Purdue’s people had been trying to stop.
“Oh my God!” Sam exclaimed.
“This is not going to work, Sam,” Nina admitted. “No news agent will care if they unleash another world war by spreading the news of Professor Sloane’s death. You know how they are! Careless, greedy humans. Typical. They would rather scramble to get the credit for tattling than to consider the consequences.”
“I wish I could get some of the big newspapers and social media posters to cry hoax,” said Sam, frustrated. “It would be a ‘he said- she said’ for long enough to hold off actual calls to war.
The image on the television disappeared suddenly and some 80s music videos came on. Sam and Nina wondered if it was the work of the hackers, taking what they could get in the meantime to procrastinate more reports.
“Sam,” she said at once in a gentler, sincere tone. “What Marduk told you all about the skin thing that can remove the mask – does he have it?”
He had no answer. He had not thought to ask Marduk more about it at the time.
“I have no idea,” Sam answered. “But I cannot risk calling him on Margaret’s phone at the moment. Who knows where they are behind enemy lines, you know? It would be a daft move that could cost everything.”
“I know. I was just wondering,” she said.
“Why?” he had to ask.
“Well, you said that Margaret had this idea about someone using the mask to take on the guise of Professor Sloane, even just to sign the peace treaty, right?” Nina recounted.
“Aye, she did,�
� he affirmed.
Nina sighed hard, contemplating what she was about to bring to the table. Ultimately it would serve a greater good than just her welfare.
“Can Margaret get us in touch with Sloane’s office?” Nina asked, as if she was ordering a pizza.
“Purdue can. Why?”
“Let’s set up a meeting. The day after tomorrow is Halloween, Sam. One of the biggest days in recent history and we cannot let it be run into the ground. If Mr. Marduk can get the mask to us,” she explained, but Sam started shaking his head profusely.
“Absolutely not! There is no way I am letting you do that, Nina,” he protested vehemently.
“Let me finish!” she cried as loud as her sore body could handle. “I’ll do it, Sam! It is my decision and my body - my fate!”
“Really?” he shouted. “And what about the people you will leave behind if we don’t manage to get the mask off before it takes you from us?”
“What if I don’t, Sam? The entire globe descends into the fucking World War III? One person’s life…or the whole planet’s children under air raids again? Fathers and brothers on the front lines again and God knows what else they will use technology for this time!” Nina’s lungs were working overtime to get the words out.
Sam just shook his bowed head. He didn’t want to admit that it was the best thing to do. If it were any other woman, but not Nina.
“Come on, Cleave, you know it’s the only way,” she said, as the nurse came rushing in.
“Dr. Gould, you cannot exert yourself like that. Please leave, Mr. Cleave,” she demanded. Nina did not want to be rude to the medical staff, but there was no way she was leaving this matter unresolved.
“Hannah, please let us finish this discussion,” Nina implored.
“You can hardly breathe, Dr. Gould. You are not allowed to excite your nerves and send your heart rate through the roof like this,” Hannah reprimanded.