The Perfect Corpse

by Giles Milton

  ‘It’s incredible, really. True bravery. Ferris Clark deserves every bloody medal under the sun. Deserves to be in all the history books. He must have known he was going to be killed. And he must also have known that the outcome of the war depended upon the D Day landings. And so he tricked Hans Dietrich.’

  ‘They get the forecast. They kill him. And once he’s dead - ?’

  ‘Stage two of the mission. Hans Dietrich’s plan is to fly to Nevada in his Blohm and Voss plane. Land on the lake. Kill the scientists.’

  ‘But how come he’s carrying Ferris Clark’s address?’

  ‘They’d done their research. They knew what they were doing. We’re talking about the elite of the elite. Hans Dietrich was intending to use the house as his base, I’m sure of it. It makes sense. He knows Ferris Clark’s dead. He knows he has no brothers, no sisters, no parents. There’s every chance the house in Green Diamond will be empty.’

  There was a pause. Karin poured herself another glass of wine. ‘But he never made it,’ she said. ‘Hans Dietrich never made it.’

  ‘No. He never made it. He ended up in the Greenland ice. Naked. Frozen. And perfectly preserved.’

  ‘So how d’you account for that?’

  Jack thought for a moment. ‘D’you remember me telling you about the Arctic frog? The way it protects itself in winter? Releases glucose into its body, like anti-freeze.’

  She nodded slowly then smiled. ‘You’re telling me that Hans Dietrich is an Arctic frog?’

  ‘Not exactly. But everything points to the fact that something similar happened. He must have taken some sort of chemical, I don’t know what. It’s the only possible way his organs could have been protected in the way they were.’

  Karin nodded. ‘It still doesn’t answer why he was naked.’

  ‘No. That’s the missing link.’

  ‘But that’s why they got you to Nevada in the first place.’

  Jack got up from his chair and walked over to the window. Then he turned back to face her, placing his hands around her waist.

  ‘This is what I can tell you,’ he said. ‘Hans Dietrich didn’t commit suicide. I’m sure of it. And he didn’t drown. He was dead when he landed in that freezing water. But he wasn’t murdered either. There was no struggle, no cuts, no bruises. So what does that leave? An accident. It was some sort of weird freak accident. It’s almost like he tumbled into the water, already dead, already frozen, and was then sealed into the ice.’

  ‘But naked?’

  ‘But naked,’ repeated Jack. ‘But naked. But naked. It’s the question that keeps going round and round in my head, but I still can’t get the answer. To be honest, the only way I’ll ever find out why Hans Dietrich was naked is by winding back the clock. And that’s something I can’t do.’

  GREENLAND, 3am, JUNE 5, 1944.

  Clic-clic-clic-clic-

  He was dimly aware of a high-pitched clicking noise coming from somewhere outside. His eyes were blurred to a dark mist and his heart was thumping in his throat.

  He felt mud run through his innards and then his bowels emptied themselves onto the floor. There was an acid feeling in his throat. He wondered if he had been sick.

  Clic-clic-clic-clic-

  There it was again. He knew that sound. Even though the hypothermic shock was blunting his brain, he had some vague sense that the roof top anemometer was spinning wildly out of control, its little metal cups snatched by the Arctic gale.

  Clic-clic-clic-clic-

  And then, as he lifted his eyelids a fraction, he got a sudden jolt into the here and now. Towering over him was a man with steel blue eyes and a face that could kill.

  *

  Hans Dietrich had been staring down at Ferris Clark for the better part of ten minutes. He had been almost unconscious when they’d dragged him inside, his breathing coming in faint gasps. But now the stifling fug of the cabin was beginning to stir him.

  He pulled a packet of Epstein cigarettes from his jacket pocket, drew one into his mouth, lit it with a cool blue flame. Then he breathed out a long cloud of smoke. He watched the eyelids tremble, noticed the fingers clench tightly in on themselves. He knew from experience that the pain would only get worse. Soon his organs would be stabbed with frostbite and his brain would expand into the casing of his skull.

  He knelt down slowly, hitching his trousers at the knee. And then he took his half-smoked cigarette and held it, very deliberately, next to the exposed flesh. It sizzled and there was a piercing scream.

  ‘I see we understand one another.’

  Ferris Clark writhed in pain, twisting his head from side to side. And then his lips began to tremble. Hans Dietrich turned to Streckenbach, snapped an order. ‘Pen. Paper. Get it down.’

  Streckenbach crouched on the floor and listened intently. As he did so, he started making notes.

  Ferris spoke faintly and in gasps, yet he was curiously coherent. The information seemed to spill from him like an automaton. Force Eight. Pause. Low cloud. Pause. Visibility poor.

  While Streckenbach noted the information, Ulrich was attempting to reset the frequencies on the radio transmitter. He knew how it worked. A Timson Model HT5, battery operated, single tube. At first it produced no noise at all, but as he twisted the dials and shifted the frequency towards 2410 kcs it started to emit a series of high-pitched whines.

  ‘It’s coming.’

  The whine became a solid whistle.

  ‘Getting it. I’m locking onto the Tirpitz. Hallo - hallo - Sturmhauptführer Joachim Ulrich hier - SS Panzer Division Totenkopf.’

  A crackle from the transmitter then a faint voice from the receiver.

  ‘Ja! Herr Ulrich, we hear you. Heil Hitler! Funker Eberhardt, battleship Tirpitz.’

  Streckenbach pulled up a chair and began reading out the weather information. Ulrich meanwhile transmitted it down the line, requesting that Eberhardt repeat it back to him so he could be sure it was noted correctly.

  ‘Urgent, Eberhardt. Stop. Top secret. Stop. Inform Berlin. Stop. Inform the Kriegsmarine. Stop. Inform Army Group Three. Stop. Heil Hitler.’

  Hans Dietrich glanced out of the cabin window. The snow had stopped and the sky was the colour of slate. It was almost dawn.

  *

  The Blohm and Voss seaplane lifted sharply from the ice field, its nose tilted high towards the sun. Hans Dietrich gazed down on the purity below. He could see the glacier stretching to the sea, its shafts of ice translucent in the sunlight.

  The trace of a smile curved across his face as he relived the events of the previous few hours. Streckenbach and Ulrich had bound Ferris Clark, gagged him, tipped him shrieking off the icy cliff top. He’d bobbed up and down in the frigid blue water, once, twice, then sunk like a stone.

  As Hans glanced out of the cabin window he was struck by the immensity of it all. The land far beneath was a vast sheet of bluish steel stretching into infinity. Even the horizon, warped convex by the earth’s curvature, was icy-white.

  He swallowed three capsules of Pervitin and followed it by drinking off some of the glucose, thinking of Doctor Fiedler as he did so. Wonder drugs, huh. Good as useless. Had they really prevented frostbite? More likely it was their Arctic gloves and boots.

  He groped his way down to the rear of the plane, twisting the handle to the cabin-cupboard at the rear. On the top shelf he saw the three piles of American clothes, neatly stacked and ironed. Dressed in those, they’d look like regular Yankees. Nevada would never know.

  He started to undress in the confined space of the cabin, pulling off his fur-lined Stromso jacket and knocking his arms against the shelf as he did so. He had to twist his knees upwards in order to remove his trousers. Pervitin. Alright then, he’d see if it protected him from the cold. He pulled off his vest, catching a glimpse of his tattoo in the mirror as he did so. He noticed that he wasn’t shivering, even though it was freezing. Perhaps Fiedler was right after all. Bastard. He removed his Arctic stockings, socks and underpants. And then he was naked. />
  He was about to reach for the jeans when the plane gave a strange shudder and then lurched violently to the right.

  *

  Strapped into the cockpit, Streckenbach and Ulrich were wrenching at the controls, struggling to bring the seaplane back under control. The bank of storm had appeared from nowhere. One moment they were flying through smooth clear sky, the next there was a blurred white mist advancing towards them at incredible speed. It enveloped the sun, turning its light to a dirty fuzz. The sky was stained the colour of tea, the land below snatched away.

  Ferris Clark. They both spat out his name. He’d forecast fine weather for their entire route southwards. A tail wind over Greenland, that’s what he’d said. High pressure stretching far to the south. He’d not mentioned an Arctic storm.

  Another block of freezing air smacked hard at the plane, tearing the nose and pushing them upwards from behind. They plunged into a moment of free fall and their stomachs were sucked into their throats. Bastard Ferris Clark. And then the plane was dashed into a dense wall of freezing air.

  *

  If only he could get his clothes on.

  Hans Dietrich was gripping at the shelf, hanging on with both fists. He cursed Ulrich up front and then reached once again for the jeans. But as he did so there was a far more serious jolt that lifted the plane out of the clouds. Everything was momentarily weightless. Then it was rammed so hard into a bank of air that the propeller shuddered and screeched. There was a shredding noise, like metal being ripped in two, then a sickening rattle as the propeller was torn to splinters. Shards of wood and metal were studded into the cockpit and tail.

  Assaulted by the storm, the plane was punched through the snowstorm, fuel draining into the sky. Hans Dietrich was jammed on his side, naked, wedged against the exit, fighting to get himself onto his feet.

  And when it all happened, it did so in a split second. There was a sudden flash of light as the door gave way beneath him. Next thing he knew, he was plunged into a knife-blade of ice, falling through the void at incredible speed, spinning, twisting, tumbling headfirst through freezing emptiness.

  He had a vague notion of the white sheet below him, a dim awareness that his feet, legs, arms had locked to steel. A tremendous blast of air from beneath him halted his free fall for a moment and held him suspended in the void. His last thought was of the mission he had failed to complete. Then there was white in his mind and white in the sky. When he plunged into the glacial waters below, he was unaware of anything, past or present.

  FINIS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Giles Milton is a writer and historian. He is the internationally bestselling author of the following books:

  Non-fiction

  Nathaniel’s Nutmeg

  Big Chief Elizabeth

  Samurai William

  White Gold

  The Riddle and the Knight

  Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922

  Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War

  Russian Roulette

  Fiction

  Edward Trencom’s Nose

  According to Arnold

  Giles’s books have been translated into twenty languages. White Gold is currently being piloted as a major Channel 4 series.

  He has also written three children’s books, two of them illustrated by his wife, Alexandra.

  Giles writes a regular history blog: http://surviving-history.blogspot.co.uk/

  He lives in London.

  If you have enjoyed the book, do please consider leaving an online review where you purchased it. It helps to spread the word.

  http://www.gilesmilton.com

  @SurviveHistory

  PRAISE FOR GILES MILTON

  ‘To write a book which makes the reader, after finishing it, sit in a trance, lost in his passionate desire to pack a suitcase and go, somehow, to the fabulous place – that, in the end, is something one would give a sack of nutmegs for.’ Philip Hensher, The Spectator (Nathaniel’s Nutmeg).

  ‘Giles Milton’s research is impeccable and his narrative reads in part like a modern-day Robert Louis Stevenson novel.’ Martin Booth, The Times (Nathaniel’s Nutmeg).

  ‘This book is a magnificent piece of popular history. It is an English story, but its heroism is universal. This is a book to read, reread, then, aside from the X-rated penultimate chapter, read again to your children.’ Nicholas Fearn, The Independent on Sunday (Nathaniel’s Nutmeg)

  ‘In an exceptionally pungent, amusing and accessible historical account, Giles Milton brings readers right into the midst of the colonists and their daunting American adventure... there’s no question that Mr Milton’s research has been prodigious and that it yields an entertaining, richly informative look at the past.’ Janet Maslin, The New York Times (Big Chief Elizabeth).

  ‘Milton has a terrific eye for the kind of detail that can bring the past vividly to life off the page. He revels in the grim realities of the early colonists’ experience. There’s disease, famine, torture, cannibalism and every kind of deprivation imaginable. Compelling reading.’ The Spectator (Big Chief Elizabeth).

  ‘Giles Milton is a man who can take an event from history and make it come alive... He has a genius for lively prose, and an appreciation for historical credibility. With Samurai William, he has crafted an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining.’ Matthew Redhead, The Times (Samurai William).

  ‘Giles Milton has once again shown himself to be a master of historical narrative. The story of William Adams is a gripping tale of Jacobean derring-do, a fizzing, real-life Boy’s Own adventure underpinned by genuine scholarship.’ Katie Hickman, The Sunday Times (Samurai William)

  ‘A sheer pleasure to read.’ Susan Chira, The New York Times (Samurai William).

  'A romping tale of 18th-century sailors enslaved by Barbary seafarers and sold to a Moroccan tyrant. It has all the usual Miltonian ingredients: swift narrative and swashbuckling high-drama laid on a bed of historical grit. Benedict Allen, The Independent (White Gold).

  ‘Milton’s story could scarcely be more action-packed and its setting and subsidiary characters are as fantastic as its events... Milton conjures up a horrifying but enthralling vision of the court of Moulay Ismail.’ Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Sunday Times (White Gold)

  ‘Milton brings the past alive in this vivid, detailed and poignant book.’ Adam Le Bor, Literary Review (Paradise Lost)

  ‘It is the lives of the Levantine dynasties that form the focus for Giles Milton’s brilliant re-creation of the last days of Smyrna ... Milton has written a grimly memorable book… well paced, even-handed and cleverly focused.’ William Dalrymple, The Sunday Times (Paradise Lost)

  ‘Idiosyncratic and utterly fascinating.’ James Delinpole, The Daily Mail (Wolfram)

  'Milton has synthesized and filleted a mass of material - old memoirs, official archives and newly released intelligence files - to produce a rollicking tale... which explains the long war against Russia with verve, wit and colour. It reads like fiction, but it is, astonishingly, history.’ Michael Binyon, The Times (Russian Roulette).

  ‘Readers will find themselves as gripped as they would be by the very best of Fleming or Le Carré.’ The Sunday Times (Russian Roulette)

  'Milton is a compulsive storyteller whose rattling style ensures this is the antithesis of a dry treatise on espionage. And unlike 007, it's all true.' The Daily Express (Russian Roulette).

  For Alexandra

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am grateful to the late David Howarth whose book The Sledge Patrol, a colourful account of Greenland during the Second World War, was the genesis of this book.

  Thank you to my literary agent, Georgia Garrett; to my French publisher, Vera Michalski; to Rob Kraitt at Casarotto, Ramsay and Associates.

  Many people have helped me along the way: thanks are due to Tony Saint, Christine Kidney, Jeremy Trevathan, Nat Jansz, Masha Bozunova and Mark McCrum.

  Thanks to Laura Bamber for designing the cover, and t
o Danny Gillan and Jane Dixon-Smith for the layout.

  A heartfelt thank you to Marie Lossky for ensuring that the American characters speak like Americans and to Rita Gallinari for copyediting the book so thoroughly. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

  Lastly, a huge thank you to Alexandra for the excellent advice and constant encouragement.