by Iain King
Glenn and Zenyalena immediately started looking in opposite parts of the Upper Reading Room. Pascal went back towards the door, obviously looking for someone to help.
Heike-Ann turned to Myles, who had started searching around the room, wondering where the files might be. His eyes soon gazed upwards: the Upper Reading Room had a small raised level which seemed more promising. The only way up seemed to be via an old cast-iron staircase. Together, Myles and Heike-Ann started to climb.
At the top, they split in opposite directions, and took several minutes to check the tall ranks of shelves for anything which might look like old Vienna police records. Myles sensed this part of the library was rarely visited. It was also quite enclosed, almost hidden, making it the ideal place to store sensitive papers, or – if Stolz had more sinister intentions – to set a trap.
‘Hey,’ Heike-Ann beckoned Myles over.
Myles limped towards her, and the German woman pointed to something beyond her reach. Myles stretched up and took the little-used box file from the shelf. Heike-Ann checked the label on the side and confirmed it was the one Stolz had meant, then, with a sense of ceremony, slowly opened the lid.
On top was an inventory: the list of papers the file contained. She lifted it up and passed it to Myles.
Underneath was a formal certificate of some sort. ‘It looks like an official document,’ whispered Heike-Ann, as she touched it with her fingers, unsure whether to handle it. The paper was faded and the ink pale. The old Germanic typeface confirmed it was from another age – from before the First World War.
Myles stared at the rubber stamp in the corner. ‘Police?’
Heike-Ann began reading the German and nodded. It was a copy of a police report from 1913. Underneath were near-identical reports from 1912, 1911 and 1910. She began to go through them. ‘Er, these are from the Vienna police …’ She scanned through them. Apart from being very old, they seemed unremarkable - detritus of a long-gone imperial bureaucracy. ‘… Something about conscription – “all Austrian men are required to register for military service”. These are reports about someone who didn’t turn up as they were required.’
Myles made sure he understood. ‘You mean it’s about a draft dodger?’
‘Yes …’ Then something she read struck her. She pulled back. In an instant of revulsion, she put the papers back down.
Myles tried to console her. ‘What is it? Are you alright?’
She was, but she seemed shaken. ‘This isn’t a normal record. Look at the name …’ Heike-Ann pointed back towards the sheet, drawing Myles’ attention to two words near the bottom but refusing to touch them. ‘… Adolf … Hitler. This is a summons for him …’
Heike-Ann’s eyes up gazed up at Myles for a reaction. ‘That’s why this is so important,’ he said. ‘This is evidence that the dictator – a man who often boasted about his military record as a young man, a man who forced millions of others to fight – tried to avoid serving in the army himself. It’s proof that Hitler was a draft dodger. The Gestapo tried to get hold of these documents in 1938, when Hitler took control of Austria. Looks like they managed it. They must have been given to Stolz for safe keeping.’ Then Myles saw another document underneath. ‘What does this one say?’
Composing herself, Heike-Ann took a short pause to translate, then started pointing at the page. ‘It’s another police report, again from 1913. It logs a “Mr Adolf Hitler” as guilty of the minor crime of vagrancy – sleeping rough. In Vienna, 1913.’ She frowned, not sure what to make of the report.
She was about to reach for the next page when they heard metallic clangs: someone was climbing the iron staircase. She glanced at Myles, wondering whether to hide the papers.
Myles said nothing, but just raised his hand: they would wait silently to see who it was.
More sounds; and then they saw a bald scalp come up to their level, and relaxed as they greeted Glenn. ‘Have you found it?’ he called out.
‘Depends what “it” might be,’ replied Myles. ‘Can you fetch the others?’
Glenn accepted, and went back down to find Zenyalena and Pascal. A few minutes later all five of them were back together, in the most enclosed and isolated part of the building. They all stared down at the box file.
The next paper in the box was a page torn from a book – page number 113 on one side and 114 on the other, with printing in a gothic font. Someone – presumably Stolz – had underlined a few sentences.
Heike-Ann lifted it out, hesitantly. ‘So, er, I’ll translate …’ She started reading. ‘It reads, “The longer I lived in that city, the stronger became my hatred for the promiscuous scum of foreign peoples, and the bacillus of human society, the Jews. I hoped I could devote my talents to the service of my country, so I left Vienna in Spring 1912.”’
Heike-Ann put the page down, glad to be rid of it. She turned to her team leader. ‘Myles, you know what this is from, don’t you?’
Myles checked his assumption was right. ‘Bestselling book of the 1930s?’
Heike-Ann nodded, but Zenyalena, Glenn and Pascal still needed her to explain. ‘It’s from Mein Kampf,’ she revealed. ‘Hitler’s manifesto and autobiography.’
Pascal still looked confused. ‘I thought that book had been banned.’
‘You’re right,’ said Myles. ‘But, there are still lots of copies of Mein Kampf around. The Nazis printed millions of them. Newlyweds got them as a “wedding present” from the state, which allowed Hitler to skim off millions in royalty payments. But the question is: what’s so special about this page?’
Glenn picked up the single sheet, and checked both sides. A normal page from a book, it looked completely ordinary. He tried to see a pattern in the sentences which had been underlined. ‘Myles? Can you make sense of it?’
Myles wasn’t sure. He turned to Heike-Ann. ‘So in Mein Kampf, Hitler writes, “I left Vienna in Spring 1912” – but it contradicts the police report.’ Then he worked it out. ‘It means Hitler lied in Mein Kampf, and Stolz had the evidence.’
Glenn was still puzzled. ‘But Stolz was a Nazi, right? He loved Hitler. Adored him. So why offer proof that Hitler lied?’
Myles acknowledged the point – something didn’t make sense. ‘Is there anything else in the box?’
Heike-Ann turned over another sheet of old text. Underneath she saw some much fresher paper. ‘This isn’t from 1913.’
It wasn’t. Printed on bright white paper, probably using a modern computer, was a single line of text. The words were simple:
Zweiter Ort: wo es geschrieben und er fett wurde – minus 32 Meter
Heike-Ann scowled as she translated. ‘It says, “Location Two: Where it was written – and he grew fat - minus thirty-two metres”. Does that make any sense?’
Myles peered over. ‘It must mean “Location Two”. It’s directions to Stolz’s next hiding place …’ Then he became confused. ‘… But Wittgenstein wrote his book all over – in trenches all over the Eastern Front, in a military hospital after an injury, then in a prisoner of war camp in Italy. The Tractatus wasn’t written in a single place.’
Zenyalena smirked. ‘And was Wittgenstein fat?’
‘No. In all the photos I’ve seen, he looks very thin. He was always thin.’
Glenn turned the paper towards him. ‘Is that really all it says? Is that it - exactly?’
Heike-Ann was sure. She pointed at the letters. ‘ Minus 32 Metre’ – you see, minus thirty-two metres, or thirty-two metres below. That’s what it says. Those are the exact words.’
Pascal tried to be logical. ‘So if Wittgenstein wrote only one book, and he wrote it in lots of places …?’
Glenn rattled through some ideas. ‘Where he started writing it? Where he finished writing it? Did he always write it in bed, or at a desk – so we look for the desk? But “minus thirty-two metres” … What could it mean?’ The American was running dry.
Myles tried a new tack. ‘Are we sure Stolz means the Tractatus? Could he mean another book?’
Zenyalena was starting to get frustrated. ‘Well, what other book could it be? Come on – we’ll try to crack that one later. What else is in the folder?’
She leaned over and removed the page about ‘Location Two’ to reveal an older sheet. It looked like one of Stolz’s papers from the lawyer’s office – some predictions made during the Second World War. The date confirmed it: 1942. And the title of this one needed no translation.
USA.
Glenn grabbed it quickly. ‘Let me see that.’ Glenn scanned it, half-hoping he could stop himself if he found something he wanted kept secret. But it was no use. He soon realised he could only understand the dates and numbers. The words were still in German.
USA – 4. Juli 1776, 17.10 Uhr (WEZ-5),
Philadelphia, USA
(39 Grad 57 min. Nord, 75 Grad 10 min. West)
Glenn held the paper where Heike-Ann could see, and invited her to translate.
Heike-Ann’s eyes took in the words and tried to summarise. ‘It’s more predictions. It says, “War undermines US Power in the following months”. Then it lists August 1814; April 1968; May 2004; and then also April 2059, September 2059, February 2060 and December 2060 ...’
Myles recognised some of the dates. August 1814 was when the British burned down the White House. In April 1968, America was tied down in Vietnam, and in Iraq in 2004.
Heike-Ann was translating to herself, coming towards the end of the page. ‘… The conclusion is “The next anniversary in this 83-year cycle comes in the first week of June, 1944. Within this week, the moon cycle suggests the most likely date for a large-scale, seaborne assault on Reich-territory is on the 5th or 6th of June 1944.’’’
Myles and Glenn shared a glance. They both understood what they had before them. One of the greatest secrets of the war – the timing of D-Day – had been predicted by Stolz.
Pascal, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann looked at each other. Like the perfect magician, Stolz had left them amazed.
Glenn held the paper, stunned. ‘How did he do it? How did he predict these things?’
Nobody had an answer.
Pascal pointed at the file box. ‘Is there anything else in there?’
Glenn pulled back the USA paper. Underneath was a thin set of papers in a cardboard cover. He looked at the title, unable to read the German, then passed it to Heike-Ann for a translation.
Heike-Ann took hold of the file and immediately began nodding. ‘This is it. It explains it – how he made his predictions. The title reads “Ein Ratgeber über den Mechanismus für das Voraussagen der Zukunft” – which means “A practical guide to the mechanism for predicting the future.”’
All eyes watched as she began to open the pages.
But it was Myles who sensed something beyond the paper itself. ‘Does anybody else smell that?’
Zenyalena and Pascal both sniffed the air. ‘Smoke?’
Myles turned around: flames had burst from one of the book racks. The library records were burning fast. He tried frantically to locate a fire hose or spray canister, but there was nothing in sight.
Pascal advanced towards the fire. Covering his fingers in his sleeve, he pulled out one of the burning racks and let it fall onto the floor. Then he tried to stamp out the flames. It worked, but the rest of the bookshelf continued to burn. ‘This fire’s spreading,’ he shouted.
Glenn and Heike-Ann checked the exits. There only seemed to be one escape, which was back down the stairs. Glenn called to the others. ‘Come on – it’s not safe to stay here.’
Pascal ignored him, still battling the fire, while Zenyalena was trying to protect the documents. She’d gathered all the papers and squashed them back into the box file.
Finally Myles found a fire alarm: a square of glass surrounded by red plastic. He took a book from a nearby shelf and jabbed it in. The glass shattered.
An alarm started ringing, and water started falling down from sprinklers in the roof. But the instant it showered onto the flames Myles realised it wasn’t water at all – the liquid caught fire.
Almost instantly, the whole room exploded into a fireball.
Thirty-Four
St Simon’s Monastery,
Israel
11.15 a.m. IST (9.45 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Father Samuel allowed his fingers to trace the mosaic embedded in the oldest wall of the monastery. He marvelled at the bright yellow and orange tesserae, crafted by some long-dead artisan, and arranged in the shape of a comet. Heathens on the edge of the artwork all gazed at the heavenly body, their mouths open in fear and foreboding. Only the saintly figure in the middle remained unperturbed by the display above. Father Samuel tracked the saint’s halo, which was aligned with the comet’s tail … It was a message from the past which he needed to remember now.
Then he let his fingers move down to his belt and gripped his secure receiver hard, making his fingers turned pale. Slowly, he lifted it to type out the next message.
This international investigation must stop.
But as he pressed ‘send’ he realised it wasn’t enough. Not even close.
He typed again.
Their information goes to me, no one else. Confirm this.
Again, he pressed ‘send’.
There was no reply from his handheld machine. He couldn’t even be sure it was working. Even if it was, he had lost all faith in his accomplice. The man he had hired was adept at technology, and his ruthlessness was useful – sometimes. But he was far too unstable to be trusted, and Samuel now accepted it was a mistake to think he could control the man through money.
Furious, he hurled the device at the mosaic. Metal and plastic parts exploded off the communicator, showering around the chamber and onto the floor. But the mosaic was undamaged, and the hallowed saint remained as beatific as ever, still gazing up at the comet. Then he saw the communicator was intact, too – damaged, but still serviceable.
Father Samuel understood fate was against him, now. He needed something else to preserve the secret. This matter wouldn’t be determined by men with guns, secure receivers or spy equipment. It was about something much, much bigger. Huge forces might be unleashed, which meant huge pressures would be needed to contain them.
He fixed his eyes on the mosaic: this was not the first time the heresy had challenged his creed. Christianity had survived before. The same methods might even work now, in these godless times …
Father Samuel realised he needed some very powerful allies. It was time for him to fly back to Europe and establish an unlikely friendship, all for the greater good.
Thirty-Five
National Library of Austria,
Heldenplatz, Vienna
8.50 a.m. CET (7.50 a.m. GMT)
* * *
Myles called out over the blaze and the piercing sound of the alarm. ‘Someone’s put gasoline in the sprinklers.’
The team tried to protect themselves as heat exploded all around them. Glenn shouted to them over the noise. ‘All of you: get out – now!’
He directed Heike-Ann to the stairs, then called back to the Russian. ‘Zenyalena – come on!’ Glenn tugged her by the arm, trying to haul her to safety. But this made her drop the box of papers, which splattered open on the floor. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Zenyalena was drawn back to the documents, but Glenn heaved her down the stairs.
Pascal tried to see Myles through the smoke which was rapidly filling the room. ‘Myles?’
No answer.
The Frenchman called again. ‘Myles – where are you?’
Myles emerged, and noticed Pascal’s clothes were wet with liquid from the sprinklers. Petrol – if he got too near the flames he could catch light. ‘Pascal, you need to get down.’
Pascal understood. He moved towards the stairs, with Myles close behind. Quickly they descended back to the lower floor of the Reading Room – Myles hobbling with his limp as fast as he could – where they met up with Glenn, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann.
Glenn i
mmediately started asking questions, shouting above the noise of the fire. ‘What happened?’
Heike-Ann shook her head, concerned that everybody was safe and trying to remain calm for the sake of her unborn baby.
But it was Zenyalena who was most shocked. ‘The papers. Where are they?’ She looked at Pascal, expecting the Frenchman to have brought them down, but he hadn’t. Stolz’s documents were still upstairs, about to burn.
The team members looked at each other, realising the confusion.
Pascal immediately started taking off his wet jacket. ‘We’ve got to get them.’
Glenn squinted in disbelief. ‘You’re going back?’
‘Someone’s got to.’
Glenn, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann stood aghast while the Frenchman started climbing back up the stairs. He bent his forearm to cover his face, coughed, then took in a deep breath.
Only Myles – ignoring his injured knee – was brave enough to follow. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he shouted.
Pascal turned back with a grateful smile as he reached the top.
The smoke was now much thicker, making it hard to see in which direction they needed to go. As Myles reached the upper level, he tried to point over to the Frenchman. ‘Over there – the papers. They’re over there …’
Pascal was already edging towards them.
Then Myles felt a sudden rush of air. A tall shelf was falling towards him. Instinctively, he tried to dodge it and the shelf crashed down just behind him, but books, files and papers had scattered everywhere, making it even harder to get around. Some started to smoke and burn. Myles realised that the fallen shelf had landed over the stairs, blocking their way down. Their exit was gone.
He tried to see through the smoke, wafting it from his face. ‘Pascal – have you got the papers?’
The Frenchman came back with the box file under his arm. ‘They’re here. But how do we get out?’