by Vic Robbie
Evaluating the reaction, Mengele nodded as the intruder’s head slumped onto his chest.
Steinling stared at him, reminding him he had forgotten something and he lifted a finger in the air. ‘Ah, yes, my colleagues are intrigued by the leader of your investigation?’
‘I can’t–’
‘Never mind, it is not important.’
‘I don’t care if you stick me full of needles, I’m not talking.’
‘Unfortunate. Our people still operate in France. You would be surprised what positions some of them hold. If you want to be uncooperative, dreadful things could happen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A son might go missing on his way home from school, or a wife have an accident. Nothing serious, but disfiguring like acid.’
The intruder struggled to his feet. ‘You can’t, you bâtard Nazi.’ But the guards were too strong.
As if it were of no consequence, he shrugged.
‘I can’t tell you.’
Turning to the others as if appealing for help, he sighed. ‘Very well. That leaves us no alternative.’ He gestured to his men. ‘Take him; I have no more use for him.’
’But what about my children, my wife?’
‘Why should I care? Let things take their course. Get him out of here.’
As they dragged him to the door, the intruder shouted: ‘Wait, wait. What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything. Just don’t hurt them.’
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know the woman’s name. At my level, we aren’t told. I know nothing about her.’ His voice trailed. ‘Met her only once.’
‘As expected,’ he said and pulled open a drawer in the desk. He took out a grainy wire photograph that showed General De Gaulle in Paris and placed it before him. ‘You will notice here, a woman. Is she the one?’
‘Yes, she heads up the section searching for people like you.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Nothing.’ The man clamped his mouth shut and then with bravado added, ‘but she’s very resourceful.’
‘This black hure is known to us,’ he said almost to himself. ‘A young woman of mixed race. Her father was a white Frenchman who fought against our invading heroes in 1940. Her mother was a black from the Caribbean. She fought for the Resistance and never gave up looking for her father.’
The intruder glared.
‘An ignorant black bitch and she causes us this amount of trouble.’ In disbelief, he turned to look at his colleagues who were enjoying the joke. ‘You worked on these women at Auschwitz, Josef?’
Mengele encouraged him. ‘Yes, yes.’
‘What was it you did with them?’
‘Research into their reproductive powers.’ The doctor shook a hand at him, dismissing the subject as though he didn’t expect his colleague to understand.
Their insouciance annoyed the prisoner who blurted out. ‘She believes Hitler is alive.’
All three looked at him as one.
Mengele spoke first. ‘What is this nonsense?’
‘She believes he didn’t die in the bunker.’
‘Unmöglich,’ Mengele said in disbelief.
‘Impossible,’ he agreed. ‘I think perhaps Herr Doctor your drug has fried his brain. Don’t forget; I saw the Führer’s body in the bunker. He died by his own hand, and his body was taken out and cremated.’
‘Quite, what is this woman’s reason for pursuing this?’
‘The black bitch obviously believes in fairy tales.’ He looked at the man in disgust. Being a misanthropist, the dregs of humanity could never disappoint him. ‘We know she is wasting her time and so do her colleagues, I understand. For your information, you have found some of the people you were searching for, but I cannot allow you to share this with your colleagues.’
The French agent waited to be sentenced. Instead, the German clapped his hands. ‘Well, Herr Doctor, I promised you something special. Come with me.’
Puzzled, Mengele glanced at Steinling who stared back at him without emotion. The war hero knew what was about to happen and didn’t care to join them.
‘Take him out.’ He gestured to the guards, who dragged him off, and he and Mengele followed.
Across the lawns at the rear of the house, they went through a gate in a wire fence that the staff used. Beyond, the forest waited, and they took a path for about fifty yards before coming to a pond enclosed by more fencing. While Mengele’s face was questioning, his glowed in anticipation.
‘At this time of the day they are usually asleep, but soon it will be feeding time, and they are hungry. Look.’ He pointed to the other side of the water and Mengele recognised a couple of shapes about nine feet long lying camouflaged in the almost black mud. ‘Beautiful creatures and so efficient.’
Mengele felt the adrenaline coursing through his body. ‘You keep them penned in so they don’t escape?’
‘Partly, but also to protect them. The forest is full of jaguars, and the big cats prey on caimans. Even the strongest of us have our predators.’
The intruder, realising what was about to happen, shouted and struggled to break free, attracting the caimans’ attention and they rose out of the mud.
Müller signalled to the guards, and they handcuffed him and lifted him by the hands and feet. They swung him back and forth before throwing him into the middle of the pond. The French agent screamed in terror as the splash concentrated the caimans’ attention. Scenting fear, they appeared to smile at the prospect of a kill. They waddled to the edge of the pond and slipped into the water, gliding into the middle, only their snouts and eyes showing above the surface. For a moment they paused, assessing their prey, and then both attacked at once with frightening power and speed. One bit into the man’s thigh, and he screamed in pain but pressed his hands on the caiman’s broad snout and pushed it under the water. The animal’s tail thrashed from side to side making the water boil while the other circled looking for its opportunity. Impeded by the handcuffs, the agent was losing the struggle and then the second caiman pounced and clamped its jaws on the man’s head. It flipped him over and dragged him down, his screams fading to a desperate gurgling as he disappeared beneath the waters. The thrashing receded, and soon the surface was as smooth as oil.
‘Perfekt!’ he said, turning and slapping Mengele on the shoulder. ‘Was that as exciting as one of your experiments?’
13
London
Alena had not contacted him, and he now believed she wouldn’t. Natalie had disappeared as rapidly as her scent so that he questioned whether her appearance at the apartment was a figment of his imagination. There had been no word from Pickering, presumably keeping one step ahead of his former colleagues. Or had SIS locked him up? Like characters in a play, the actors had left the stage. As his publisher kept chasing him for the manuscript of his latest book, Ben used this period of relative tranquillity to work, and he made good progress.
An unexpected morning call shattered the peace. He considered not answering it as he was going out to meet his publisher. But he could never ignore the ring of a telephone as he had found to his cost many times.
There was silence on the other end, not even heavy breathing. He said ‘Hello?’ several times before a woman spoke, her voice tremulous and distorted as if a hand was cupped around the mouthpiece. ‘Ben Peters?’
‘Yes?’ Impatience welled up. ‘Who is this?’ There was just a crackling on the line. ‘Can I help you?’ He was ready to replace the receiver and glanced at his watch. He would be late for lunch.
‘Mr Peters,’ she said. ‘Somebody needs to talk to you.’ The voice sounded familiar with the trace of a French accent, but he couldn’t place it. Alena would have been more direct. And it wasn’t Natalie.
‘It’s urgent. This person is in great danger and needs your help.’ The delivery was staccato as if she were running out of time.
‘Who is this?’
‘Will you meet this person?’
‘When?’
‘But–’
‘Do you know the Round Pond?’
‘Of course.’ As the war was over, he thought the days of cloak and dagger were redundant. ‘But–’
‘Go to the Pond,’ she said, giving further instructions.
‘How will I recognise whoever it is?’
‘They’ll find you.’
An echo jangled in his head as the call clicked off. The caller had sounded frightened, but her melodramatic request also suggested someone could be playing a hoax on him. No women he knew had that sense of humour. These days, his track record with the fairer sex was nothing to boast about. Alena had not made contact in seven years. Ronnie preferred to stay in Martinique. And he wasn’t sure whether Natalie wanted to bed him or kill him.
The publisher’s secretary took his call, and he sensed ice spreading down the line. There was no excuse for cancelling lunch at such short notice.
The walk to the Round Pond was what he needed to exercise his joints, still suffering from being blown up by a German bomb on the first night of the Blitz. Walking down Kensington High Street, he turned into Boardwalk with Kensington Palace on his left. George II added the pond in 1730 to be a focal point of the gardens.
He had been told to sit on the middle bench facing the water. Why am I doing this? He felt ridiculous.
The joker must be hiding behind a tree and convulsed in laughter.
The park was quiet and the bench unoccupied. He would wait until the mysterious person, who may have followed him from his apartment, approached. All around ducks, swans and geese vied for territorial control and bread thrown by the odd child.
An almost relaxed feeling permeated London unlike in 1941 when Hitler attempted to reduce the city to a moonscape with daily bombing raids. Then, most looked at the skies for warplanes. Now the only invaders were raindrops, and he was going to get wet. No one showed interest in him. He would give it a little longer and, if not contacted, return to his apartment and work on his book.
After another ten minutes, he was sure he was the target of someone’s jaded humour.
Okay, one minute more and then I’m out of here.
And he cursed himself for being fooled like this.
‘Ben Peters?’ A quiet voice, almost like a stage whisper. ‘Don’t turn around. They are close by.’ The voice of the caller with a hint of vulnerability. Who would be surveilling him? British Intelligence had lost interest, and they wanted Pickering, not some delusional woman.
What’s all this nonsense about?
‘Look.’ Ben made to get to his feet.
‘Don’t get up. Otherwise, you’ll put our lives in danger.’
He sighed and slumped back on the bench.
‘Someone needs to speak to you urgently.’
‘I got the message already.’ He failed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
‘Not here. It’s not safe. There is something you have to see.’
Whatever. He waved a nonchalant arm over his head to show the jokers he had not been fooled by their elaborate hoax.
‘Do you know the Soho Square Hotel?’
He didn’t. It sounded like some cheap flophouse, the kind he tried to avoid, but he nodded.
‘Meet there.’ The more she talked, the more familiar the voice became. But he couldn’t place it. ‘Give me some idea what it’s about.’
‘Go to room twelve. Make sure you’re not followed.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight at seven. Come alone or else the whole thing’s off.’
He shrugged, not caring if it didn’t happen. The joke had worn thin.
‘Can you tell me your name?’
‘No.’
‘I was told never to go to hotel rooms with someone I didn’t know.’
She said nothing, and again he moved to turn.
‘I’m leaving now. They’re still watching. Stay there for ten minutes.’
He waited another couple of minutes before asking ‘What about…’ But it trailed off as he realised he was talking to himself. He made a play of yawning and stretching and stole a look behind him. In the distance, a woman, wearing a long coat and fur hat with a scarf wrapped around her face, was disappearing into the trees.
Most had drifted away. Across from him, a woman finished feeding the ducks and emptied crumbs from a paper bag into the water. And she set off in the same direction as the contact. Now he knew it was no joke.
14
She sat at a corner table in an over-priced restaurant on the banks of the River Thames watching eights sculling on the murky waters. She would prefer to be locked in a room with a basket of snakes than meet Dag Bartley. But he had something she needed. And she could be very persuasive.
French Intelligence wanted the meeting at MI6 headquarters, but she had no intention of following their orders. Too many prying eyes and opportunities to bug conversations. This was for Bartley’s ears only and, if necessary, she would deny all knowledge of a meeting. No notes were to be taken; it was off the record. The fewer who knew, the better. The Kamerad Organisation were everywhere, possibly even in MI6. Bartley couldn’t be trusted. Having met him before, she found him condescending as if a woman shouldn’t be in control in this kind of work. Perhaps her gender or colour troubled him, but she’d rather not know.
To reach her present position in France’s Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) had taken hard work, bravery and a slice of good fortune. Recruited by the Resistance, she returned to France to search for her father, lost in the war. An unending hatred of the Nazis fuelled her ambition. And she rose through the ranks and was promoted to head of section even though her methods were controversial.
Bartley entered the restaurant, but she didn’t acknowledge his arrival, instead continuing to sip a dry Martini.
‘Ah, my dear.’ He kissed her hand. ‘Or shouldn’t I greet you like that?’
‘Friends can, but you’re not one.’ She wiped her hand on a napkin.
He ignored the rebuff. ‘I see you have a drink.’ Annoyed she had ordered before him, he shouted over a shoulder to the waiter. ‘Gin and tonic. A large one.’
They ate a light lunch with a passable white wine and skirted around the subject she intended to broach. When everything was cleared away, he ordered a brandy for himself and lit a small cigar.
‘I hope you will not waste my time.’ A conspiratorial sneer on a sweating face. ‘You didn’t bring me here just to buy me lunch. You are paying, I hope?’
With resignation, she averted her eyes.
‘We’re not here to bat pleasantries at each other. What do you want of me?’
Marshalling her thoughts, she cleared her throat. As MI6’s assistance was required, she had to maintain a modicum of civility. If he walked away, he could use her information for their own operation and screw everything.
‘You’ve heard what I’m involved in?’
He grunted – he had reread the file – and took another long drag on his cigar. He preferred vulnerable women unsure of themselves. Self-confident women, who could not accept their place, were tricky and negated his advantage. ‘You head a team tracking down Nazi war criminals.’
‘Absolument.’
As he blew a cloud of cigar smoke over her head, he grinned with the look of someone with a tale to tell. ‘I understand you have controversial views on the subject.’ He observed her. ‘Some in your service think you’re crazy.’
She had heard the accusation too many times. ‘Really?’ Her eyebrows arched as she studied him over her drink, forgetting the need to be civil.
‘I understand that you claim Hitler is alive and well and living in London.’ He chortled at the joke and slapped a thigh.
Her look of disapproval silenced him. Not prepared to share her theories about Hitler, she glanced away, reminded how much she disliked this man. ‘As you’re aware, the SS set up ratlines to help their comrades escape. The Catholic Church was complicit in this, hid th
em in their monasteries as they followed a route through Italy and on to South America. The majority travelled to Argentina where the dictator Perón welcomed them. It is my mission to track them down and bring them to justice.’
‘Quite so,’ Bartley replied, comfortable with his pomposity. It never paid to reveal how much you knew because they wouldn’t either. ‘Anyone of interest to me?’
‘Many, but three in particular.’ As though reluctant to mention names, she paused and looked out over the river.
‘If you need our help, you must name them.’ Bartley felt he was in control.
‘Three at the top of the organisation. Dr Josef Mengele, who carried out heinous operations on Jews in Auschwitz in the name of research, killing thousands. Wilfried Steinling, one of Nazi Germany’s war heroes. But the most important is Heinrich Müller.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He’d read the information left by Martinez for Pickering.
‘Müller is the highest-ranking Nazi to have escaped capture and punishment. He was chief of the Gestapo. Eichmann’s superior and responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. He was the last to see Hitler alive.’
A deep intake of breath. ‘Where are the bastards hiding?’ he muttered.
‘Argentina.’
He wanted her to be specific. ‘That’s a big country.’
‘Unfortunately, we don’t have the exact location yet,’ she replied, and he couldn’t be sure if she were lying.
Disappointed, Bartley, who had leant forward, sighed and sat back. ‘So you want our help on this goose chase?’
‘We got close to pinning them down. An SS courier we were following realised one of our female operatives was on his tail but failed to spot another of our people. The agent found the Nazis’ compound, but we lost contact, so presumably, they’ve killed him.’ She looked away so he couldn’t see her frustration.