by Eddy Shah
'Where the hell have you been?' said Tucker.
'Have you seen...?'
'Yeah. They're both in Trimmler's room. His wife's in there, too. You look like you've been in a marathon.'
Adam grinned, his breath short and the sweat running down his face. 'I got left behind.'
'So where've you been?'
'You know damn well where I've been. Watching Trimmler drowning his sorrows. Our friend Goodenache just told him about Mitzer.'
'Well, that, and the booze, should keep him in his room. I'll take over now. You rest up.'
'Okay.'
'Did nothing else happen out there?'
'No.' Adam decided not to mention the watchers downstairs. It would only alarm Tucker. And there was another way of dealing with the problem.
Adam caught the lift down to the lobby.
'Hello, chaps,' he greeted the two in his best laid back English as he entered the coffee shop. He pulled up a chair and joined them.
'Well, what you doing here, boy?' asked a surprised Fruit Juice.
'I stay here. What about you? This is a bit out of your province, isn't it?'
'Everybody needs new space. Even those who ain't got no use for this earth.'
'I see you've got a new hairstyle.'
'Street cut. The other's for the tourists.'
Adam signalled the waiter over and ordered a coffee.
'I don't wanna appear pushy,' said Fruit Juice, 'but this was a private meeting.'
'But I paid a thousand dollars.'
'That was yesterday, boy. You gotta start again.'
'Another dollar, another day?'
'Something like that.'
'Heya, you could be the snake this time,' interjected a leering Goat Face. 'Just slide into that nice warm pussy. Hot and steamy. That what you looking for?'
'I tried that. I was watching the same sex show you were. Saw four people performing on a stage on Bourbon Street. Naked. About an hour ago.'
'Weren't me,' Goat Face replied as a quick look of concern passed between the two black men.
'Don't be embarrassed about it. We all do these things, have a need for the seamy side of life.'
'I said it weren't me.'
'I know what I saw. There were two of us there. Me and an older chap. Grey haired, German. Left with a blonde in pink satin hot pants. Remember him?'
'You got the wrong man,' shrugged Goat Face. 'But then, we all look the same to you, don't we?'
'Time to go,' said Fruit Juice, standing up. 'You sure got bad manners, boy. Private means private.'
'Sorry chaps. My misunderstanding. Why don't you stay and have another coffee. On me.' Adam knew they wouldn't stay. Whatever mischief they had planned, probably to rob Trimmler, was blown now.
'Keep away from what don't concern you, boy. This ain't a town you wanna get into trouble.'
He turned and started to walk away with Goat Face a few steps behind.
'Keep away from the dirty shows,' Adam said to their disappearing backs. The big clock overhead the lobby clicked past nine forty five.
Tucker was positioned back in the hallway outside Trimmler's suite. Adam decided not to warn him again about being an obvious target. You could give them a handkerchief, but you couldn't blow their noses for them.
'I'm going to have a workout, then something to eat,' he said. 'I'll take over about twelve.'
'Billie was looking for you.'
'I'll be down there if she wants me.'
He went to his room, changed and took the lift down to the fitness centre. It was empty and he settled down to his series of exercises, warming his muscles first with gentle movements before entering his strenuous and punishing schedule.
When pain came, that point when muscles cramp in torture and refuse to be driven any further, Adam, as always, turned to Marcus. He drew from his strength, knew it was Marcus who drove him on to cross the barrier. He could feel him, somewhere deep inside, giving him that extra power that lifted his mental and physical being above most others.
The pain eased, his strength grew, and Marcus filled his vision, his senses, his whole being. The two became one, fused in their life and death inamorata.
Ch. 44
Dresdener Heidi
Dresden
Germany.
The black Mercedes 300 SL, chauffeur driven by a Stermabeitalung in a dark grey suit, bounced up the Strasse Otto Buckwitz. One of the main roads leading northwards towards the airport, the Strasse Otto Buckwitz was like many of the thoroughfares in what was once East Germany. Occasionally potholed, heavily cambered and uneven in construction, it was, in essence, a boneshaker.
In the back, like any two ordinary business men, sat Peter Frick and Helmut Kragan. They were on their way to a meeting, but their business was anything but ordinary.
'Did you contact all the members of the Council?' asked Frick.
'Except Lieder. He's on a skiing holiday in Val d'Isere. But I've made arrangements for him to be reached and flown back for the meeting.'
'Good. Have we had any comments from them?'
'About Mitzer. Nothing.No. I expect they will comment at the meeting.'
'We must keep them under control. Especially the older ones. Now is not the time for panic.'
'They're the ones least likely to panic. They've waited a long time for this.'
'I meant that my position must be protected. Mitzer was a romantic, a dreamer of the past. But he had influence. His contacts in the business community were second to none. He will be difficult to replace. The others know that. Somehow, I must reassure them that we can still proceed.'
'There are other industrialists sympathetic to our cause.'
'Not as powerful as Mitzer.'
'I can prepare a list of those who have shown an interest in joining us.'
'Good. But first we must clear it with the council. Make them feel that they are actively chasing Mitzer's replacement. The involvement will make them think of the future, not of the past.'
'I'll have the list ready for the meeting.'
The Mercedes had followed the line of blue prefabricated concrete slabs, the long four kilometre wall that separated the Dresdener Heidi from the Strasse Otto Buckwitz. The car pulled off the road and stopped at a gatehouse with double steel doors that blocked any unwarranted entry into the Heidi.
A Stermabeitalung in a grey suit, like that of the driver, saluted the car and signalled his colleague to swing the gate open. The Mercedes moved through the gate and into the Heidi.
The Dresdener Heidi was the city's greatest park until the Russian tanks rolled in in 1945. Within weeks they had ringed it off and turned it into their barracks. Over the years, until their withdrawal in the 1990's, they had built a vast tank training ground through the woods and parkland, thrown up a series of yellow and black painted apartment blocks, and built a 4,000 foot runway from which they flew small transport aircraft and helicopter gunships. Apart from the Army, it had also housed the KGB and other military intelligence. It had become a war zone, a death fort in a conquered city.
Large tracts of the Dresdener Heidi had been snapped up by developers when Germany was reunified. One of those developers had been Ritz Frankfurte Gmb, a subsidiary property company privately owned by Grob Mitzer. It had taken the largest part of the Heidi, had sealed it off and kept it very much as it was under the Russians.
The official story was that it was an investment for the future and would be developed as the need required. Part of it was leased to a company that ran action and survival courses for executives and others who felt they would benefit from the service.
The truth was that it became the training ground for the Stermabeitalung and other groups involved in the growth of the National Socialists. It was their base, the headquarters from where the party would move to head the political agenda of a new Germany.
The car swung up the cobbled road towards the big old house that stood deep in the trees, a baroque four storied building that was home to Frick a
nd his staff. Outside the small wooded area, it was surrounded by the old Russian barracks, now home to nearly a thousand Stermabeitalung, the storm troopers of the future.
As the Mercedes drove towards the house, small groups of uniformed Stermabeitalung snapped to attention and gave the traditional Nazi salute as their leader passed.
'The newspapers are reacting as we expected,' said Kragan as he watched Frick return the salute in that same arrogant way that he had seen Hitler react in the old film footage. The man was already picking up his hero's mannerisms.
'They follow the herd. That's all they're good for,' replied Frick. 'Feed them gossip and they call it news because it sells papers and makes them feel important. What the hell was Mitzer doing there?'
'It was a last minute decision. According to his secretary the invitation had been declined, but a friend called him and said they should go together and then on to a business lunch.'
'Couldn't we have stopped him?'
'We would have done if we'd known he was going. We knew his diary, always knew what he was doing. This was totally unexpected.'
'A big setback. Mitzer opened doors that we needed.'
'We'll find new ways of opening those doors.'
'Take too long. No. Let's give those people a reason for opening the doors to us. We must speed up our programme.'
'The faster we go, the more chance there is of us making mistakes.'
But Frick was beyond caution. 'No!' he ranted. 'Now we go faster. Now we cause chaos. Now we will open the doors for Germany to beg us to bring about order.'
The car pulled up outside the building and a guard came down the steps and opened the door for Frick.
'We will not waste unification,' continued Frick as he climbed the stairs, Kragan following just behind. He stopped at the top and faced his assistant. 'If Mitzer is gone, then there are others of the old ones who can help us. Spiedal, or Trimmler as he's called. And Goodenache. And the rest who are waiting to come back. Mitzer wasn't the only one who knew how to access the funds. We must find someone else who also knows. One of the Lucy Ghosts.’
Ch. 45
Hilton Hotel
New Orleans
Louisiana
They were good. They had to be not to wake him.
Adam was asleep under the sun lamp, dozing while he toned up his tan. He’d finished training and had wandered into the sun room.
The room had been locked for the night, but he slipped his Visa credit card from his wallet and slid it into the crack between the door and the jamb, then clicked the Yale lock open and let himself in. There were three sunbeds, laid out side by side like mortuary tables. He closed the door and checked the controls on the middle machine.
It was a double sided contraption, one where you lay on a bank of tanning tubes and lowered the canopy electrically, which also housed a series of tubes. A sort of fluorescent sandwich with a human filling, it was effective and toned up a tan within twenty minutes.
He’d undressed, slid onto the tanner, switched on the timer and had dozed off within a minute.
Adam lived in that world of half sleep, always enough to catch up with his rest, but never enough to be surprised by those out to harm him. He believed it was Marcus who watched over him, who warned him of any danger that may be approaching.
The first warning he had was when someone gripped his arms, which were crossed behind his head as a pillow, and pulled them outward and straight.
At the same instance, another intruder had grabbed his legs and held them rigid.
'Don't move, or I cut your throat,' said a third man to his right. 'You better believe it, boy.'
Adam felt the sharpness of a knife prick into his neck. The men who held him down were strong; he couldn't see them as he was blinded by the brightly lit tubes. The rest of the room still remained in darkness.
'What do you want?' he asked. There was no emotion in his voice.
'Just wanna talk,' said the Knife. It wasn't a voice Adam recognised.
'I'm a captive audience.'
'Don't get fresh, jerk.' The Knife pricked him harder. Adam felt his skin break.
'You bleed nicely, jerk. Any more funnies?'
Adam shook his head.
'Good. Now tell me what you doing here?'
'Sun tann.....' Adam stopped. His cheek was going to shorten his life if he wasn't careful. 'You mean in New Orleans?'
'You learning.'
'I'm here covering the space conference.'
'That all?'
'Yes.'
'Reporter?'
'No. I'm a special delegate. I've got to make a report for the British government.'
'Why?'
'We have a European Space Agency. We're not in your league, but we need to know what's going on.'
'You lying to me?'
'Why should I?'
'You tell me.' The Knife pushed the implement sharper into Adam's neck, the cut got deeper.
'I told you the truth.'
'We going to teach you a lesson, jerk. Don't mess with what don't concern you.'
'I'm happy to mind my own business.'
'Still going to teach you a lesson. I'm going to cut your toe off, boy. If you resist, I'll slit your throat. If you got any sense in that bonehead of yours, you'll just lie still.'
Adam knew he would do that, so he lay still. Come on, Marcus, let me take this. Damn it, help me keep still.
'Do it,' the Knife ordered the man who gripped Adam's legs.
The grip tightened round his ankles. He felt the Knife move away, down to his feet.
Then he felt the pain, sharp at first, then burning as it entwined the base of his toe. The pressure tightened, twisted into his flesh and to the bone; he and Marcus fought it and took the hurt and withstood the pain that was being cut from his foot.
'Tough bastard,' he heard the man who held his arms say.
Then it was over.
One of the men, he took it to be the Knife, punched him sharply in the side, forcing him upwards as he slammed his head into the canopy and broke one of the tubes.
They left him as quickly as they had come.
He lay still, collecting himself before he slid sideways out of the sun machine and onto the floor.
He sat up and reached for his foot.
They hadn't cut it off, just tightened a strand of barbed wire round it, twisted it tight so it cut right into the skin and some of its barbs had sliced through to the bone. Slowly he loosened the wire.
They had played with him, taken away his dignity and fucking played with him. He felt the anger build within him and he tried to control it, bring it down. Anger wasn't one of the weapons in his arsenal.
The bottle mocked him from across the floor, in the corner. A simple bottle with a red fluid inside.
A virgin's blood and piss.
He remembered they had been watching Trimmler.
He got dressed as quickly as he could. The gun was still in his brown bag and he slipped it into his belt.
He caught the lift to the eighteenth floor.
Neither Billie nor Tucker was there.
A virgin's blood and piss. They had to be after Trimmler.
A door opened across the hall and he had the Browning aimed straight at the person who came out.
'For Christ's sake!' said Billie, suddenly scared by his manner.
'Sshh!' he warned her. 'Where's Tucker?'
'I don't know. He was watching...'
Adam cut her off by turning away to Trimmler's door, the gun poised in his hand. He turned the handle; the door opened easily, it wasn't locked.
He quietly let himself into the room. Billie stayed where she was at first, not knowing what to do. Then she followed him.
The lights were on. There was no-one in the sitting area.
He saw Trudi first, on the floor, by the dressing table in the bedroom. There was no blood. Her neck had simply been broken, wrung like a chicken and twisted almost at right angles to her naked body.
Trimmler was on the bed. There was a lot of blood there, soaked into the sheets; the blankets had been peeled back and lay across the floor.
Adam checked the rest of the room before he approached the bed. The placed was empty.
He'd seen death in many forms, in may different places, but he wasn't prepared for what they had done to Trimmler.
The scientist was naked, his body appeared whiter than it was against the redness of the blood that framed it on both sides. It wasn't an attractive body in the best of circumstances, but in death the fatness had spread, even his large paunch had slipped to his hips; his stomach was almost flat.
It was a grotesque sight, made more gruesome by the fact that both arms had been sliced off just above the elbow.
They had been placed over each other, the limbs forced and bent in such a manner that they formed a fleshy swastika.
Adam stayed in his room for nearly an hour before the Chief of Detectives knocked on his door. During that time he saw Tucker twice; 'Why the hell did you call the cops?' and ' The Agency's going bananas.'; Billie once when she came and spent ten minutes with him and said little; and the house doctor who bandaged up his toe and told him to rest it up for a few days and take some time off work.
There was little he was prepared to tell the policeman, apart from what he had already gathered.
'You didn't see anybody? Nothing suspicious, anywhere in the hotel.'
'Nothing,' he replied.
The policeman shook his head. He was in a quandary, he knew there was more to this whole affair, but the CIA had banged heads somewhere above him in the department and he had to limit himself to simple questions. If he'd had his own way he'd rush them all back to the station and make sure he damn well got answers to all his questions.
When the policeman left, Adam lay down on the bed. He knew what was happening inside, that the forces of good and evil were at war.
‘Walk away from it. It's over. Go home to Emma and Steed and Lily's home cooking’.
‘No. Iu know who the bastards are. I’ll get them. I never walked away from a job before, never left it unfinished. And they laughed at me, tied a bloody piece of barbed wire round my big toe and laughed their silly little heads off at me.’