The Mask of Troy jh-5

by David Gibbins

  ‘Nobody aims a gun at my daughter,’ Jack said coldly.

  ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I never would have harmed her.’

  ‘Well then, I think we might have to let him live, Costas.’

  ‘Right-oh.’ Costas kept the Beretta trained.

  ‘Let me see,’ Jack said. ‘Attempted murder, extortion, kidnapping. On Turkish territory. That means a Turkish prison.’

  ‘No,’ Raitz whispered. ‘Not that. I’d rather die.’

  Costas levelled the Beretta at his eyes, holding it with two hands and sighting it. ‘You’d rather die? Really? Have you got the guts to die?’

  ‘No, please.’ Raitz fell forward on his knees, sobbing. ‘Don’t shoot.’

  Jack held the Webley ready. ‘Better still. We’re in a military zone. That means you come under the jurisdiction of the Turkish military. At least it’ll save you the public humiliation of a trial by jury. You’ll get a tribunal of Turkish officers. They’re good men. I know plenty of them personally. But I don’t need to call in any favours. They’ll see that justice is done.’

  ‘Just outside Diyarbakir, isn’t it?’ Costas said.

  Jack nodded. ‘In the desert on the way to the Armenian border. Just about the worst place in the world. A sweathole in summer, freezing in winter. Maximum-security military prison. Murderers, psychopaths, homosexual rapists, that kind of thing. No human rights there, because the inmates barely count as human. You go in there, you don’t come out. Throw away the key. Simple as that.’

  ‘We can do a deal,’ Raitz said hoarsely, craning his head up, his eyes desperate. ‘I’ve got original documents, maps. Treasure maps.’

  ‘Das Agamemnon-Code?’ Jack said.

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  Costas waved his pistol. ‘We may as well kill him, Jack. This is getting us nowhere. Rebecca, block your ears.’

  ‘No!’ Raitz begged. ‘Please. I’ll tell you. In a safe in my house. Under the floorboards in the cellar. At the bottom of the stairs.’

  Jack kept aiming. ‘Only the one document?’

  ‘Only one with those words. But there are more. Many more. Photos. Maps to bunkers. A treasure trove. Just don’t hand me over to the Turks. Please God. I can give you the key to untold riches. All the lost treasures of the Nazis.’

  ‘You mean in the other safe in the study? Or the one behind the bookcase in your office in the Courtauld? Our security guys are pretty adept lock-breakers, wouldn’t you say, Costas? Both safes empty now, I’m afraid.’

  ‘ Sheisse,’ Raitz muttered, staring at the ground. ‘Sheisse.’ He looked up at Jack again, suddenly defiant, tapping his head. ‘In here. Much more in here. I’ll do a deal with the Turks. Just like Schliemann did.’

  ‘Schliemann didn’t mess around with the Turks. They were the ones who were using him. Anyway, they won’t believe you, without documentation. And they won’t listen to you where you’re going. Just another insane Westerner babbling away in solitary confinement in a hellhole Eastern prison.’

  ‘For the rest of his life,’ Costas said.

  ‘Not a very long life, I would imagine, especially if they ever let him out of solitary and the other prisoners get their hands on him.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Raitz sobbed.

  Jack put the Webley in his fleece pocket, took out a small notebook and pencil, walked over and knelt in front of Raitz. ‘Here’s the deal. You’ll do time, but I can keep you out of that place. I can even put in a word for repatriation to a British prison. And you know how lenient judges are in Britain. You’re still a young man. You could remake your career. Even argue that you were forced to do this against your will. A British court would probably believe you. You have lots of influential friends, former students and colleagues, politicians.’ Jack pushed the notebook towards him. ‘All you have to do is write down one name. The name of the person who’s been controlling you.’

  ‘He’ll find me and kill me. Whatever it is he wants in that bunker is too precious to him. He’s got more of these thugs. Russians, mostly, but they call themselves Totenkopfe. Ironic, isn’t it? I’m the one with the Nazi background, not…’

  ‘Not who?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘He’ll kill me. They’ll hunt me down.’

  ‘I don’t think that should be a concern where you’re going.’

  Raitz was still for a moment, then put his hand on the notebook. He let it rest there, then picked up the pencil and scrawled a name. Jack quickly took the pad, stared at it, thought hard for a moment, then pocketed it. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Why? You wanted your absurd Fuhrermuseum. What on earth did a man like that want?’

  ‘Gold,’ Raitz said. ‘Gold, and works of art. Everyone knows he has Marseille gangsters in his background. The press love it. He’s used it to his advantage. A charming Algerian intellectual, with a bit of rogue in his genes. The truth is, that wasn’t just in the past. He’s secretly in charge of the family crime syndicate. No longer just small-time gangsters. One of the biggest in Europe. Worth hundreds, hundreds of millions.’

  ‘So he was interested in all your leads? All the material on hidden art you’d collected?’

  Raitz shook his head. ‘No. Only the Agamemnon Code. Only that one bunker in the forest.’

  ‘He was playing you,’ Costas said.

  ‘You’ve been a fool,’ Jack said to Raitz angrily. ‘A bloody fool, duped into going along with someone who had no interest in your cause, let alone antiquities or art.’

  ‘You’re wrong. He said-’

  ‘I don’t care what he said. You’re a naive academic, Raitz. You’ve forgotten what real people are like.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look around you,’ Jack said. ‘All this bronze, all this raw material for weapons, enough to equip all the armies of the ancient Aegean world: the Mycenaeans, the Trojans, every one of them. Yet all of it redundant. It’s because a new metal had been forged, iron. And then think of today. People are always on the search for the new weapon. Or the weapon that may already have been devised and then been hidden away. Think of the underworld since the fall of the Soviet Union. First they were on the hunt for nuclear weapons, components for dirty bombs. Then, with the revelation of what the Russians had taken from Nazi Germany, the lost treasure of Priam, and all the revived interest over the past few years in hidden Nazi art, their ears pricked up. They’d forgotten about the Nazis, about what might still be hidden. About the dreadful weapons that probably still lie in those bunkers today.’

  ‘I know nothing of weapons,’ Raitz mumbled. ‘This is nothing to do with me.’

  Jack picked up the empty black box and tapped it. ‘In 1945, a Luftwaffe officer took the Trojan palladion from the salt mine in Poland to the bunker near Belsen you know about. He was a fanatic. He was one of those who had been activated, to be there, poised ready to fulfil Hitler’s final decree. Not the Nero Decree, the destruction of the Reich. No. The Agamemnon Code. Armageddon. There were others activated, too. We believe at least one of them was there, in the forest, waiting, because of what happened. The officer took the palladion into the bunker, but a few days later, while he was waiting for the final order, he was shot by British soldiers. Then the SS guards at the nearby camp took a girl into the bunker and raped her. She saw the palladion. It was her drawing of it that gave us the clue. We knew it was there all along, not in the salt mine. We knew that two officers, one British and one American, were told about it, and went to investigate. Nobody knows what happened to them. But it is possible that the other fanatic was there, waiting for the final activation signal from Berlin, and they died together in a fight. Whatever was in there that was so lethal is still there today.’

  ‘But the palladion was the key to opening a storeroom of art,’ Raitz said weakly.

  Jack waved his hand dismissively. ‘Is that the story Saumerre sold you? Why have a special key for that, some sacred symbol? No. It was the key to something completely different, much more sinister. I belie
ve the palladion may have been partly meteoritic, according to an ancient Trojan myth about its origins. The reverse swastika itself is hardly a unique key, but there could have been a unique magnetic signature that made it the only way of opening the door.’

  ‘The door to what?’ Raitz said.

  ‘We can only guess. The worst the Nazis could come up with. Not nuclear, which they were never close to achieving. Perhaps not chemical, which might be difficult to propagate widely without aircraft or missiles. That leaves biological. And that’s the worst. Typhus. Plague. Look what happened to the world with the flu epidemic in 1918. That would have been fresh in the minds of the Nazi scientists. They might even have had access to diseased bodies. They certainly had access to plenty of live humans for experimentation, in that camp. They could have reawakened the Spanish influenza virus, and even mutated it. If that’s still in the bunker, if it was released, it could kill hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions. It could wipe out civilization as we know it. Is that part of your Nazi dream?’

  ‘My God,’ Raitz said. ‘My God. What have I done? ’

  ‘What you can do,’ Jack said, kneeling down in front of him, ‘is help us. We need to know whether Saumerre was operating solely for his own business interests. Such a weapon could be worth millions. Billions. We need to know whether he is interested as a middleman, or whether there was any other motivation. Did he say anything, did you hear anything? If I believe you, that’s another mark in your favour with the courts.’

  Raitz looked pale, and put his hand to his forehead. His voice was shaky. ‘I can’t think of anything. Anything at all. We only ever spoke about it in the British Museum where we first met, where he passed me the code document, and then in that ghastly flat in London where they murdered the Dutchman. It was only ever family interest with him. The family business. Marseille mafia. It was just money.’

  Costas nodded at him, still keeping the Beretta trained. ‘Just out of curiosity. What’s Saumerre’s religion?’

  ‘Saumerre? Muslim, of course. His grandfather was from Algeria. So what? There are millions of Muslims in Algeria, in France. And look at him. He’s hardly a terrorist.’

  ‘Who is?’ Costas murmured.

  ‘He did say something. When we parted at that flat.’ Raitz stared at Jack, clearly thinking hard, then sank down and put his head in his hands. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Why didn’t I see?’

  Jack reached over and lifted his head up. ‘What?’

  ‘I said I was doing this for the Fuhrer. For the cause. For a museum, God help me. He said something in Arabic, about Allah, but then seemed apologetic, as if he’d let something slip. I thought it was odd, as he’d been so adamant about this being all to do with gold and antiquities and money. But I thought he was just repeating a familiar phrase. I remember it. It was Jazaka Allahu Khairan. May Allah reward us with good. A perfectly normal expression for a Muslim. He even said so, when he explained it. But maybe… my God. My God .’

  Jack leaned over and took Raitz’s chin in his hands. ‘Listen to me, and listen well. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, anywhere, my people will know. You’ll be getting that one-way ticket to Diyarbakir. Play your cards right, and I’ll see what I can do for you.’

  Jack nodded at Costas, who took the iPhone from his belt and pressed it. Seconds later Ben appeared at the entrance to the chamber flanked by two IMU security men with handguns drawn, and then a team of black-clad Turkish navy commandos with MP-5 sub-machine guns, who quickly filed into the chamber, training their weapons on Raitz and the two bodies, and then kicking the bodies. Jack recognized the officer in charge, did a thumbs-up at him and pointed to Raitz. The officer gestured, and two of his men dragged Raitz to his feet, handcuffed him behind his back, and then pushed him through the entrance and out of sight down the tunnel. They could hear the clatter of a helicopter somewhere close by. Rebecca had come running from her hiding place, and Jack took her in his arms and held her tight.

  ‘I hope I never see him again,’ Rebecca murmured.

  ‘Are you all right? Did they touch you? Thank God you’re here.’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m fine. What about you?’

  One of the security team, a woman, passed them each a small water bottle, and they uncapped and drained them together, then clicked the bottles together. Jack smiled at her. ‘I’m fine. A little tired.’ He gestured at Ben and the security team. ‘Bet they’re itching to hear your story.’

  Costas came up to them, and eyed Rebecca shrewdly. ‘Nice kick. Ouch.’

  ‘Ben taught me that.’

  Jack nodded at Ben, who had joined them. ‘Yeah, he’s pretty good like that.’

  Ben nodded, and looked intently at him. ‘Got a result?’

  Jack handed him the notebook. ‘Got a result.’

  ‘I’m on to it.’ Ben tapped his BlackBerry, Googling the name. ‘Saumerre. Keynote speaker at a European Union cultural affairs conference in Brussels today.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Should be on the podium in roughly forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Okay. He’s going to be on tenterhooks waiting for a result from here. I imagine Raitz would have been planning to call him about now. Get Raitz’s cell phone and try the contact numbers. I want to be on the phone with Saumerre before he makes that speech.’

  ‘What are you going to say to him?’

  ‘I’m going to tell him that I know everything about his criminal activities. Enough to destroy his political career. That career is undoubtedly crucial to his, shall we say, business interests, as well as to the bigger picture that may lie behind all this. He won’t want to jeopardize his status and influence, as that’s worth a huge amount to him, to the organization he may represent.’

  ‘Fill me in.’

  ‘We need to check any affiliation he might have with extremist Islamist terrorism.’

  Ben peered at him. ‘Okay. Got you.’

  ‘What’s the latest on the bunker?’

  ‘We’ve been overtime on that one. My people have scoured everything they can get their hands on that’s not under the Official Secrets Act, and called in a few favours to see some things we shouldn’t have. We knew the site of the camp was under a NATO airbase built fairly soon after the war. The construction workers came across a pit full of hundreds of skeletons, all shot. We now think we can pin the likely location of that sector of forest with the bunker to an area well within the military compound, actually beneath the runway tarmac. That’s good news as far as we’re concerned, Jack. Nobody’s going to go burrowing around there and it’s about as secure a site as you could get. It’s still an active base, two Luftwaffe squadrons flying Tornados. The question is, how long will that last, with the Cold War standoff finished and so many bases being mothballed?’

  ‘Have you told anyone in the military about the bunker yet?’

  ‘You said to hang fire, and I’ve done that. It’s your call. When they built the base, there was no ground-penetrating radar, but any survey today in advance of new building work might reveal it. The runways get resurfaced routinely but are pretty old underneath, and at some point they’ll redo them if the base is kept running. There’s probably no structural issue with the bunker under the runway, as it’ll be buried very deep, but if you’re right, we may need to think about whether our NATO pilots should be taxiing and landing with JDAMs and who knows what other munitions with something just beneath their runway that may contain a deadly biological weapon.’

  ‘Okay. Good work. I’ll give you my decision when we’re out of here. Meanwhile, let’s catch Saumerre on the phone.’

  ‘I’m on to it.’

  Rebecca waved at the other security people she knew, then detached herself from Jack and went down the passageway. Jack watched her stop and stare at the rubble wall, and then turn back to him. ‘Dad. I forgot to say. That ring Maurice found here, the signet ring? It was George Hoar. A famous American senator who knew Schliemann.’

  Jack knew he had seen it befo
re. ‘Of course. Hugh has Hoar’s copy of Schliemann’s Mycenae. The bookplate with the coat of arms in the front.’

  Rebecca waved, then turned and spoke intently to the others, gesturing. Jack remembered Dillen’s account from Hugh of Schliemann’s foreman, and the men he had seen here that night in 1890. What was George Hoar doing here? Had Schliemann invited him to see this wonder he had begun to uncover? Jack remembered reading Hoar’s speeches to the US Senate against imperialism. Had Schliemann wanted to tell others what he thought had happened here, others who might find hope in this chamber for avoiding war in the future?

  He looked at Rebecca again, and then at Ben, who gestured back, smiling and pointing at Rebecca and doing a thumbs-up. Jack returned the gesture. She was in the best possible hands. He and Costas were now the only ones left in the chamber, discounting the two bodies. Jack took out the Webley, clicked it open, ejected the cartridges into his hand and dumped them in his fleece pocket. Then he closed the Webley and held it tight. It was over. He could let go. He walked towards the ancient bronze door, and suddenly began to shake uncontrollably. He squatted down, then stood up, leaning against the door, the Webley still in his hand, bowing his head, trying to control it. Costas put a hand on his shoulder. Jack nodded at him, then stood upright, taking several deep breaths, and tried to relax. He swallowed hard. ‘Two days can seem like a very long time.’

  ‘We did it,’ Costas said. ‘You did what you said you’d do. You got Rebecca back.’

  Jack high-fived Costas with one hand. ‘Right on,’ he said, wiping his eyes. Right on. He looked at the door he was holding, and then moved round to glance at the extraordinary symbol, the keyhole, visible from both sides.