by John Meaney
"Have you still got that old Morris Minor?" I asked him.
"What do you mean, old?"
"I'll pay you twenty quid if you give me a lift into Hereford."
Ivor stared at me for a long time.
"Oh," he said finally. "You're one of them, are you?"
"Does that mean you'll do it?"
"I fought for King and bloody country, boyo. I'll take you right to the gates, if they let me, and I don't want your money, either. Deal?"
After a second, I held out my hand.
"Deal," I said.
We shook on it.
Ivor dropped me off outside the main gates at Bradbury Lines. He drove off before the sentries, wearing tan berets and the winged dagger insignia, came out to see who I was. Five minutes later, I was standing in a wooden guardhouse, waiting for someone to vouch for me, when a familiar figure entered.
"Look what the cat drug in. A wolf cub."
"Hey, Brummie. How ya doin'?"
It took less than two minutes for Brummie Greenmore to understand what I needed. Then he led me out of the guardhouse and past a killing house, where live gunfire banged and echoed, to a long communications hut that had not been there when I was seconded to the Regiment. He left me in a small room, went to see someone, then returned with two enamelled tin mugs of sweet tea. After a while, the Regimental Officer Commanding poked his head around the corner, nodded at me, then told Brummie: "Secure comms are in place. You talk to Berlin, and sort it out. Wolf."
"Sir." I would have saluted, but the OC was already gone.
We went through to a radio room. Beside the operator, a captain that I didn't know, lean and ultra-fit-looking, was engaged in conversation, microphone in hand.
"Your man's here now. I'll put him on."
"Do that." Schröder's voice came from a speaker. "Thank you."
"Sir." I clicked the switch. "It's sleight of hand, and I think the way they're transporting the sculpture is a clue. They're shipping the glass portions wrapped separately from the metal structure, which itself is in two parts, the globe and the hands or wings that are holding it."
The captain raised his eyebrow, as he gave a what's-going-on smile.
"It's been assembled already, on UN Plaza."
"Who did the assembly?"
There was a silence.
"Hello? You still there?"
"Stand by, Wolf."
After another twenty seconds, Schröder said: "Someone's looking into that, but we think we know already. Details later. You said the globe was too solid, correct?"
"Yes, but either they cut it open to put the atomic bomb inside, or there was something else, some kind of duplicate for them to make a switch. Damn it... Moskowitz's agent said he was exhausted with overwork. She even told me it was physical strain."
"He made two sculptures, not one."
"Probably. And now the hollow one has an atomic bomb inside, and it's standing next to the UN building, waiting for someone to detonate the thing."
Brummie and the captain stared at each other. Then the captain mouthed Bloody hell and bolted from the room.
"Our friends" – Schröder meant the CIA – "have been keeping Appleton in a warm climate. Arizona, I believe."
I understood that since my phone call from Ivor Hughes' shop, the phone lines between Berlin and Washington had been burning with signals traffic.
"They're moving him to New York. Perhaps it will give him an incentive to talk."
Close to where the nuclear fireball was due to go up. That might loosen his reluctance to speak.
"Has his family over here" – I glanced at Brummie – "been told that the American government is holding an English citizen prisoner, without due process?"
"I doubt it."
"Perhaps we could ask Appleton's family if they want to visit him. Present it as the outcome of delicate diplomatic manoeuvring."
Then it wouldn't just be Appleton in the blast zone, it would be everybody he loved.
"That'll be up to the British."
But Brummie was already grinning.
"You are a cruel and devious bastard," he said.
"Thanks. I've had great teachers." Then I clicked the mike. "I think we can get the help we need."
The captain was coming back in, with the OC in tow. Talk of atomic bombs and the United Nations building had catapulted this to Priority Red.
"That's good. Is the Officer Commanding present?"
"Yes, he is."
"Then pass me across. We need to have a little conversation."
I handed over the microphone.
"It's for you, sir."
The next morning we were on a flight to Idlewild, New York. Besides Brummie and myself, there were eight Regiment men wearing business suits, some puzzled-looking middle-aged people, and a group of boisterous children, who ran up and down the aisles of the near-empty DC10, celebrating their unexpected holiday. One of the civilian men began to protest, but as Brummie leaned over the man's seat, Brummie's suit jacket fell open, affording a glimpse of shoulder holster.
"Just think of me," said Brummie, "as your attractive trolley dolly. Can I get you anything at all, sir?"
"Um... No. Thank you."
"Good."
One of the other guys, Rob Fields, beckoned me from the cockpit door. I went forward.
"Signals," he said. "Your crowd."
"We like to keep in touch."
"Close family, huh? Like this lot." He gestured with his chin towards the now-subdued adult civilians. "I think they're regretting their solidarity."
"Looks like it."
I went in, and the navigation officer handed me a headset. I pulled it on.
"Wolf."
"Good." It was Pinchas. "We have the name of the company who did the set-up."
He meant the sculpture assembly. They would be civilian contractors, but security-vetted.
"They have a warehouse location in New Jersey, plus temporary use of a secure site close to the Plaza."
"It might not be them." I adjusted the chin mike. "The switch might have been made during the transfer off the ship."
For a few seconds, there was nothing besides a faint hiss. I looked beyond the cockpit panel, to the sparkling white cloud layer flowing beneath us.
"They were already red-flagged. Fern Segal gave us their name, in a here-goes signal."
"What happened?"
A here-goes signal means a katsa is going solo into a red zone, with no time to do anything but tell Berlin where they're headed.
"She's been out of contact for fifty-two hours."
I swallowed.
"Understood."
"Berlin out."
Then I removed the headset very carefully, and handed it back to the navigation officer like a precious relic.
Fern's missing.
"Is everything OK?"
Fifty-two hours.
"No, I don't think it is."
THIRTY-THREE:
NEW YORK, November 1963
The children and their parents were in a courtyard normally reserved for exercising prisoners. Someone had brought ice cream, and the kids looked happy. It was the adults who tried not to stare at the gun towers.
From roof level, I looked down on the innocent relatives of Dr Appleton. All around, the rooftops formed interlocking red Xs: a trellis-shaped hive of convicts. This was Rikers Island, a prison in the heart of New York, which few NYers know how to get to. There are no bus or subway stations here.
Moshe came up beside me.
"You think Appleton will crack when he sees them?"
"I don't know. Is Blackstone ready for us yet?"
"He said, give him five. I presume he meant minutes."
"Right." I stared downward. "If we can't break Appleton..."
Or if we can't find Fern.
"...then we'll have to go straight for the sculpture."
"Bad idea."
"I know."
Because there could be Black Path observers in place,
and there was no reason to believe that the bomb was on a timer. It could be a radio trigger, detonated from long distance via relays. Our people had used a detector and found nothing, but that was before the bastards had switched the innocent Peace Globe for the one with the bomb inside.
I was ninety-nine percent sure of that.
"Appleton's cell overlooks the courtyard," said Moshe. "He might have seen them already."
"Let's give Blackstone time to intimidate the fucker."
"If the Americans haven't broken Appleton yet, maybe he doesn't intimidate so easily."
You can break a person until they'll say anything, but here's the thing: you can always verify what they've told you. You just have to realize there's a need to check the facts.
I wondered how good Appleton's people were at psych techniques. Could they get someone to not see a pregnant woman's belly, until the thrashing and the screaming, the blood spouting everywhere—?
"You OK, Wolf?"
"Yeah." I stared around the red rooftop, down into the yard. Happy children, worried parents. "Let's go break this motherfucker."
"After you."
We used the rooftop entrance, and went down stone steps, as I wondered what approach to take. Albrecht Reinhard might or might not be in Manhattan, there was almost certainly an atomic bomb here, and I had to figure a way of cracking Appleton without triggering a booby trap that had nothing to do with explosives. We had a few Black Path prisoners of our own, back in Berlin, primed to suffer amnesia or catatonia before delivering up useful information. Appleton with a blank mind would be sod-all use to anybody.
It occurred to me that the real enemy wasn't Albrecht Reinhard or even his father, but Professor Edmund Strang.
"Here we are." Moshe nodded to two men with buzz-cut hair and wide shoulders, standing in front of a cell door. "Time for our little pow-wow."
One of the guards smirked. I shook my head, because Moshe had not been insulting Blackstone's Apache blood: he probably didn't know of it.
The other guard pushed the door open, and we went in.
I said: "What are you doing to this man?"
Blackstone was pressing Appleton's face against the bars. Appleton's thin limbs moved uselessly. He looked like a stick insect trapped by a larger predator.
"Showing the gentleman his visitors." Blackstone's voice was resonant. "Down in the yard."
"Well, that's nice. Perhaps he'd care to sit down for a spell."
Appleton looked exhausted. As he sat down on the prison cot, he started to slump. I took hold of his shoulder, steadying him. His bones felt brittle.
I could just squeeze until they snap.
That wasn't the point of being here.
"You can relax... now..." I said. "And in a moment your... eyes will begin to blink..."
Already, Appleton's eyelids were fluttering.
"...and as you relax deeper..."
The technical term is induction. I altered my own internal state, and Appleton followed me, going deeper still.
"...to the space between atoms... to the dance of electrons that resonate..."
I used imagery that he, as a physicist, would understand. My own vision softened, because you induce trance quickly by leading the way. Appleton's breathing had almost stopped.
"Imagine yourself, a week from now," I said. "That's right."
Beneath his closed eyelids, Appleton's eyes moved.
"And you can point to the image."
His finger shook slightly as he raised his hand, pointed, then lowered the hand to his lap once more.
"And picture yourself in a month, and show me..." I talked Appleton through the process of imagining he could float out of his body and drift into that future time. "And now, you can tell me what the date is."
Appleton continued to breathe slowly.
"What is today's date?" I said.
"Third. December."
"That's right."
Bingo.
"And tell me," I added, "what happened three days ago."
"The bomb. Went. Up. Destroyed. New. York."
"That's right." I waited, gathering my thoughts. Then: "Who detonated the bomb?"
"Mossad," said Appleton. "Branch. Seven."
"Fuck," breathed Moshe, then shook his head.
I was in an altered state myself, or I'd have had the same reaction. Appleton was telling the truth – what he thought was the truth, after spending time with Strang.
"Weren't you a member," I said, "of anti-Semitic organizations?"
"Cover. Infiltrated."
"All right. You will stay in this moment, relaxing, while I talk to the other people in this room. You relax."
I crossed to the other side of the cell, beckoning Moshe and Blackstone.
"What's going on?" said Moshe. "You think our side has planted the bomb?"
"No." I pointed back at Appleton. "But he does. If anyone ever asked him, he would truly say – I mean truthfully, in the sense of believing it – that New Jerusalem destroyed Manhattan and the UN and a bunch of world leaders."
And when Soviet tanks rolled across our soil, the rest of the world would be cheering them on. Meanwhile Black Path's political front would be seizing power in Outer Germany as the populace reacted with new fear. Whether the Nazis intended to peacefully coexist while Berlin and perhaps the Elbe corridor were absorbed into the East, or merely planned to bide their time until full re-armament was achieved...
God. What if the Soviets have promised them more nuclear material? Could they have been that stupid?
"What do you mean?" said Blackstone. "Is Appleton a Mossad asset or not?"
"No, but he believes he is. Deeply believes it. Call it brainwashing. Black Path sacrificing one of their own."
"Shit." Moshe gave a distorted smile. "That's pretty fuckin' clever."
Post-explosion, in his Arizona cell, Appleton would finally have 'broken' and told his CIA captors all about the Zionist plot that had destroyed New York. But the bastards would not be relying on him alone. There must be other evidence in place, planted by Black Path to corroborate the fiction.
"Remember Pearl Harbor," Pinchas had said, and he was right.
The US might even go to war, and try to take out New Jerusalem. Americans might end up fighting the Soviets for control of the territory.
And if the war went atomic, well, New Jerusalem had that technology too.
I brought my attention back to here and now. The stone cell was drab and cold, its walls filled with the misery of prisoners over the years.
"So," said Moshe. "What do we do with him?"
"Nothing." Blackstone's voice deepened. "Appleton is a US federal prisoner."
"But what can he tell us about Black Path?" Moshe stared at Appleton, whose chin was resting on his narrow chest, his eyes closed. "If he's been worked on by Strang... Wolf, you reckon you can reverse the process? I'm damn sure I can't."
Blackstone laughed: an abrupt, short-lived sound.
"You people learn some interesting skills."
"Yeah." I knew that Schröder would be pissed off when he learned what I'd done in front of a CIA case officer. "I could try taking Appleton back in time, to before Strang screwed with his mind. But I'm not sure I can do it safely."
"Can you turn him against his own people somehow?" said Blackstone.
"He thinks we're his own people."
Somewhere in Appleton's mind might be all the information needed to crack Black Path's Nazi operation, but I couldn't get at it. We could just leave him here, and try disarming the Peace Globe right now. But UN Plaza is a public place, easy to watch. It would take only one kamikaze Nazi with a radio trigger–
I looked at Moshe, thinking of Czechoslovakia, and the lover he'd killed when he blew up the opposition's van.
"Fern," I said out loud.
"What?"
I crossed the cell, back to Appleton. "What do you know of Helen Stanfield?"
That was Fern's cover name in Washington.
"Su
pposed to be. One of. Us. Mossad." Appleton's voice slurred. "Really. KGB."
"Oy," said Moshe.
"What happened? When – Mossad – found about her?"
"Set up. Trap."
"She's being held for interrogation?"
"Yes."
"Where? "
"Tudor City. On Roosevelt." With maddening slowness, he related the full Manhattan address. "In dining. Room."
Even down to which room. Had he been there when they started the interrogation?
"Easy." Moshe touched my arm. "We'll get her out."
Blackstone nodded.
Fern. If they've harmed you...
My fists were curled, and it would be so easy to hammer into Appleton's vulnerable throat, to grab hold of his head and twist. To hear the crunch as his vertebrae gave way.
I squeezed my fists harder, then let the tension go.
"How did they detonate it?" I said. "Appleton. How did they – how did you – detonate the bomb?"
In my mind's eye, I could see Manhattan devastated.
"Line of. Sight."
"What?"
"Laser. Detonation."
For a moment, I was thrown by this. Laser triggers were a new concept. Why would they risk using untested technology?
Then: "Shit. You don't mean the trigger, do you?"
"Only. Detonator."
"The black glass, on the sculpture," I said. "Activating that, yes?"
"Yes."
I should have remembered that Albrecht Reinhard's background was in theatre. The Peace Globe was going to flare in pretty colours before the world's TV cameras, broadcasting live at the unveiling ceremony. That was the plan. They'd have made sure that the fluorescence went on for some time before the bomb went up.
The world's TVs weren't just going to go blank. They were going to show something strange happening to a sculpture from New Jerusalem, glowing immediately before the cataclysm, and as a piece of terrorist theatre it was brilliant. It wouldn't take long for people everywhere to put the clues together into screaming hysteria and a devastating need for war and revenge. With Kennedy newly dead, the effect would be even stronger.
And Moskowitz had been worked on by Strang. The US authorities would track down Moskowitz, and find that New Jerusalem's most famous sculptor was ready to make a confession, spilling forth his implanted memories of Zionist conspiracy. Because his mind would have been altered just like Appleton's.