by Iain King
Zenyalena responded quickly. ‘How would we decide who gets what?’
Glenn gently pushed the list towards her. ‘Which files would you like to look through?’
Zenyalena wasn’t sure how to react. Then she scowled. ‘If I choose, does that mean I won’t get to see the others?’
Myles tried to defuse the issue. ‘We could photocopy all the papers. We all get a copy of everything. Then we divide up the workload.’
Only Glenn was hostile. ‘Do we really have to photocopy them all?’ He said the word ‘all’ in an American drawl, as if photocopying large quantities of paper was a European fetish.
Jean-François raised his eyebrows towards Heike-Ann. ‘Heike-Ann – can you handle the copying?’
Heike-Ann didn’t feel humbled by the request at all. ‘I can get everything photocopied within a day. It is no problem,’ she said.
The team split up for several hours, until Heike-Ann called them back together in the early evening. They returned to the hotel’s executive meeting room to find several stacks of paper. ‘There were just 230 sheets in total,’ she declared. ‘Not too many.’
Jean-François was gracious. ‘I hope you didn’t have trouble carrying them,’ he apologised, referring to her pregnancy, as he flicked through the pile of papers. They were neatly ordered, almost perfectly so. Numbered stickers on cardboard separator files divided each subject. Different translations were on different coloured paper: white for the German original, green for English, pink for Russian and light blue for French.
Glenn and Zenyalena eyed the stacks around the room, checking they were identical. They certainly looked the same. Zenyalena, though, wanted to be sure. ‘This looks very good – thank you, Heike-Ann. And you’re sure this is a copy of all the papers we have?’
‘Correct – yes. It was easier than it looks: the computer which did all the translations also did the photocopying.’
Glenn followed up on Zenyalena’s theme. ‘But, Heike-Ann, do you think there could be any others?’
Heike-Ann looked confused by the question. She thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know.’
Myles was the only one of the team who found the computer translations awkward – and not just because they would be hard to carry with his injured leg. To him, they seemed too neat. Too bureaucratic. It was an odd way to summarise the lifetime’s work of Werner Stolz – the grey man had become a set of multi-coloured papers.
Heike-Ann raised another sheet in the air, waving it for the team to see. ‘I also had this translated for you. It’s the police report about Stolz’s apartment.’
She was about to put the paper down, but Zenyalena peered closer. ‘What else does the police report say about the property?’
Heike-Ann scanned it again, half-shaking her head, as though it was all trivial. ‘Dates of previous incidents.’ She pointed to a small table on the paper. ‘Three break-ins, all reported by Mr Stolz. Here are the dates, and the action taken by the police.’
Myles realised these were probably the most significant facts in the document. ‘Well, how did the police respond?’
‘Er …’ Heike-Ann was reading from the list. ‘First time … they interviewed the occupant – Mr Stolz. Stolz confirmed nothing had been taken. They advised the occupant on household security. Second time … the same. Third time … they interviewed Mr Stolz, again. This time, Stolz said he had to leave his apartment while the burglar was there.’ Heike-Ann scanned the document to make certain there was nothing else. ‘Yes. That’s all.’
Myles tried to understand what they had just learned. ‘So here’s Stolz. Very rich, but living in a ground floor apartment that gets broken into. Did he put on new locks after the first break-in, as the police recommended?’
Heike-Ann couldn’t find the answer on in the police report.
Jean-François tried to help. ‘I noticed the locks on that apartment. There were several. All different. Looked pretty strong to me. Most of them must have been new … The main one on the front door was very shiny.’
Myles absorbed the information. ‘So it can’t have been a normal burglary. The thief or thieves were looking for something, and they probably knew what it was. And they came back – twice. So they didn’t get what they were looking for.’
Heike-Ann checked the dates on the police report. ‘I think it was about a week after this third break-in that Stolz left for the nursing home.’
Myles tried to put his thoughts together. Stolz was able to escape from a
determined burglar, then two weeks later he checks in to a nursing home.
‘Stolz didn’t go to the nursing home to be looked after. He went there for protection,’ he said. Now it made sense. Myles was beginning to understand what Stolz had been thinking. The old man wasn’t senile at all. Quite the opposite. He was trying to protect himself – and whatever it was the burglar had tried to find.
Myles looked at the others around the table. Zenyalena and Jean-François were wondering the same thing. Glenn obviously seemed to think it was less significant. He had already started reading through his papers.
Jean-François decided to call time on the meeting. ‘Again, thank you, Heike-Ann. This is excellent. Glenn, Myles, Zenyalena: let’s all read through our files, and meet again tomorrow morning. Each of us will report on what we’ve learned. Is that accepted by us all?’
Myles, Glenn and Zenyalena all indicated it was fine. All three were now looking at their files. It was already too interesting for them to put down.
Myles had quickly become absorbed in the documents. The first file was a translation of a government brief. Dated May 1940, it had been written for one of the top Nazis at the time - probably Himmler or Hess.
All human civilisations have searched for meaning in the sky. This search has taken many forms. It has led science and generated many ‘myths of the heavens’, myths which feature in almost all religions. The fact that these have survived so long indicates one of two things: either they contain an essential truth, or humans are naturally inclined to believe them. Both possibilities create important opportunities for the Third Reich …
Myles remembered Himmler’s obsession with the ‘Holy Lance’ – the spear thought to have pierced Jesus’ side when he was on the cross. The artefact – or at least, a piece of wood sanctified as the relic by a medieval Pope – was recovered from Nuremberg after the war.
… Our Führer has already decreed that the Reich shall defend itself by controlling the resources of Europe – both natural and super-natural. This means we must study whether the state of the heavens really does impact on human affairs. If it does, we must find and understand this.
He scratched his head. Could this really be true?
He read some more. The next page was entitled, ‘Interrogation of Karl Ernst Krafft, November-December 1939’.
Reichsminister Hess,
* * *
You are aware of the written prediction from Karl Ernst Krafft, that our Führer was vulnerable to ‘assassination by explosive material’ between 7th and 10th November 1939. Following the fatal bombing on 9th November, when Providence saved our Führer by the tiniest of chances, Krafft was interviewed nine times over the coming six weeks. The Gestapo is confident that Krafft had no direct knowledge of the bomb plot, and no association with the bombers. Krafft was able to explain his prediction through other means.
* * *
We are now employing Krafft to make further predictions about the course of the war.
Myles was suspicious. Krafft may have anticipated things. But did that mean he really predicted them?
People had been trying to predict the future since civilisation began. Shamen, wizards, and holy men - they all claimed to know what was about to happen. It gave them power. Some of them were right, but they could have been right by accident.
Maybe there had been ten Nazis like Krafft. They could have made ten different predictions. If only Krafft’s came true, the other nine would be
forgotten. It doesn’t mean Krafft did anything special.
Myles turned the page. The next paper was a graph. The bottom axis was labelled ‘Jahre’, which a post-war clerk had translated as ‘years’. The timeline seemed to run from 1620 to the year 2000. But what were the two wavy lines above it, rising and falling together? Myles turned the paper, trying to understand, but it still made no sense.
He read the box of text on the side:
By checking more than three centuries of data, we identified a natural event which rises and falls tightly with the number of war deaths. We calculated the probability this correlation was pure chance as less than one-in-a-million-trillion. It enables us to anticipate the future course of this war, and how much blood will be spilt in the coming battles …
Both lines on the graph plunged down for the bloody War of the Spanish Succession, around 1700, and there were other falls for the Seven Years war of the 1750s and during the bloodiest years of the Napoleonic era. Then there was a huge drop between 1914 and 1919, for the Great War, and another fall, in the early 1940s, until one of the lines stopped. From about 1944 to 2000, there was just one line on the graph.
He realised one line must be war deaths over the last centuries – the line which ran through until 1944, the last year for which the Nazis had data. But what was the other line? What ‘natural event’ had the Nazis found which correlated so accurately with casualty rates over all those decades?
Myles suddenly became aware of himself. He looked up: Glenn, Jean-François, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann had all gone to their rooms. Awkwardly, he gathered his papers back into the cardboard box, and lifted it. His knee still restricted by the brace, he manoeuvred the limb out from under the table and hobbled towards the steps. His mind still swirling with thoughts about Krafft and the lines on the graph, Myles made it into his room, slumped onto the bed, and fell swiftly asleep.
Twenty-Three
11.55 p.m. CET (10.55 p.m. GMT)
* * *
Dieter allowed himself to smirk, knowing it would humiliate his prey. ‘Now, try to think if there’s anything else I might want ...’
By tilting his head, Dieter was able to maintain complete eye-contact with the person he was watching. He slowly moved his face towards his victim’s, drawing out his tongue to slurp blood from the man’s chin. ‘Hmmm. Salty – like rare beef,’ he said, smacking his lips as though he was savouring a fine wine.
He sauntered back to his original position, still grinning, and began strolling around the room. As he circled, he mocked the man with his footwork. ‘I’m guessing you used to like dancing,’ he said. ‘Go on – try it now. Don’t feel shy,’ he offered, looking at his own feet. ‘Try to … relish this experience.’
He read the man’s expression. There was something there, something besides pain and the other side-effects of a drawn-out death. ‘You’re thinking,’ he said. ‘That’s good – keep doing that.’
Dieter took out his smartphone, checking the in-built flash was enabled. He lifted it up, and framed the image in front of him. ‘… Smile, now …’
He waited for the man to react, but it was clear he wasn’t going to cooperate. So Dieter took the picture anyway, then checked it. A good image – perhaps even good enough for the webpage …
Dieter polished the smart phone with his thumb, wiping away a smear as he admired the technology. Drawing out the moment, he turned the device over, examined the back of it, and felt the weight in his hand. ‘They make them very well nowadays,’ he remarked. ‘All sorts of clever apps – some of them cleverer than you, even,’ he said to the man before him. Very carefully, he slipped the smartphone back into his pocket, and tapped it.
Dieter pondered as the man dangled. Persuading the man to wear a noose of piano wire had been fun. All achieved so simply, just by holding the man at gunpoint. How easily people could be fooled into cooperating with their own demise …
‘You’re wondering about the wire, aren’t you,’ he mused. ‘I don’t think it will slice completely through your neck. But someone did a test with a guillotine in 1905, and found heads can remain conscious for half-a-minute without their bodies. So if you are decapitated, you’ll know. For thirty seconds. That’s nice, isn’t it?’ Then Dieter thrust his face forward again, staring into the man’s popping eyes. ‘So, is it just these papers? There are no more?’
There was some reaction – a little twitching, and an attempt to speak from behind the tape. The man was trying to say ‘yes,’ and it was convincing.
For Dieter, it meant there was no more reason to keep him alive. He observed how the wire cut into the man’s neck, and how the interrupted blood flow gave the man an involuntary erection. The man’s pulse rate had been quickening fast but was now starting to fall away. He waited a few moments. Firing the bullet through Stolz’s head had given Dieter a surge of euphoria. But this killing was a disappointment – except for the thrill of beating the hotel’s CCTV system.
Dieter turned to look at the papers. He flicked through the stack, deciding where to start. He was beginning to understand what Stolz’s secret might be, and why his paymaster thought it was so valuable. It might be valuable to him, too.
Dieter’s plan allowed him two-and-a-half hours to read through the documents – when he had scheduled another disturbance to the digital CCTV recording, which would give him a ninety-nine-second window to leave.
He sensed the hanging man was trying to communicate.
Finally …
Dieter went towards him and ripped the tape from the man’s mouth. But only saliva mixed with blood oozed out. The man’s tongue, like the rest of his body, soon fixed in place.
Dieter pushed the corpse to watch it swing, to-and-fro, above the hotel bed. Then he swaggered away to concentrate on the secrets.
DAY THREE
Twenty-Four
DAY THREE
Smolenskaya Square
Moscow
6.15 a.m. Moscow Standard Time (3.15 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Even though his new line manager was away, Ludochovic didn’t conceive of altering the disciplined routine which guided his every working day. Perhaps because he was approaching retirement from the Russian Foreign Service, he now respected his responsibilities earnestly, taking them much more seriously than he had in middle age. What were once chores had since become the rituals which gave purpose to his life.
And so, just before the sun rose on a foggy Moscow dawn, Ludochovic completed the complicated processes which readied the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of European Affairs for the day ahead. He scanned the overnight security sheet for incidents – there were none – checked the seals on the main cabinets, wafted the electronic surveillance monitor around a few of the desks to detect any eavesdropping devices – none of those, either – and cranked up the mainframe computer to which all the personal terminals were connected. Then he completed the checklist of tasks near the door, finishing it off with a very precise signature, and checked his watch while he started the coffee percolator.
Finally, still alone in the office, Ludochovic prepared to gather the information he would need for the day ahead. As ever, his in-tray contained envelopes from the Foreign Ministry night team and the intelligence analysts: the usual reports. He opened his desktop terminal and set it to download emails, and walked over to check the fax machine. His last check was little more than a habit; hardly anyone in the Russian Foreign Ministry used faxes anymore as the technology was slow, cumbersome, and much less secure than properly encrypted email, so Ludochovic was perturbed when the machine suddenly switched itself on. Even more surprising was the covernote: a page scrawled in large handwriting, directing him to keep safe the 230 sheets which were to follow.
Instead of a signature, there were just two letters at the bottom of the sheet: ZA, the initials of his line manager, Zenyalena Androvsky.
Twenty-Five
Schlosshotel Cecilienhof
Potsdam, near Berlin
6.30
a.m. CET (5.30 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Sunlight began streaming in through the bedroom window. Blearily, Myles woke, realising he had gone to sleep without closing the curtains. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and papers were sprawled across the bed – some floated onto the floor as he stirred and sat up. He tried to gather them together, checking what they said as he put them back in the file.
Reichsminister Hess,
Krafft reports that the war will proceed excellently for Germany throughout 1940 and most of 1941. However, he believes the prospects for the Reich look much worse from 1943 onwards. He advises, therefore, that the Reich should seek a peace with Great Britain in 1941, once the easy gains have been made …
Myles scratched his head. Could Rudolf Hess – Hitler’s deputy at the time – really have believed this stuff?
Myles knew that Hess flew to Scotland in a Messerschmitt Bf110 in May 1941, on a one-man peace mission. But Winston Churchill refused to negotiate, so Hess was interrogated by British intelligence. They concluded Hess believed all sorts of ‘mumbo-jumbo’, and that he had been deluded by Nazi fortune tellers. The whole episode was bizarre, and was never properly explained – other than that Hess was mad, which was Hitler’s official line too.