sThe Quiet Wart

by The Quiet War (ARC) (epub)

  ‘What is it? It looks like an organisation chart. Take a picture of it and put it back,’ Clive said.

  They spent a few more minutes, looking through the dilapidated farmhouse and taking pictures, before sneaking back through the hole in the fence and returning to the car.

  ‘Can you make anything out on the chart?’ Clive asked.

  ‘Just the heading ‘4R18’, the rest is too small. We’ll have to wait until I can upload it to my computer.’

  ‘Glas’ house next. That might not be quite as easy as this one,’ Clive said.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled up outside the wooden chalet owned by Glas. It was 9 p.m. and the lights were all off.

  ‘Looks like there’s nobody home,’ Sean said.

  ‘Either that, or they’re in bed,’ Clive responded.

  Staying out of sight, they parked the car a few hundred metres away and made their way back to the house quickly on foot. There were no security fences to negotiate this time and they were soon outside the back door, where Clive again fiddled with the lock and opened it within minutes.

  The inside of the house was dimly lit by the orange glow from the street lamp, so they didn’t need torches. The decor was traditionally Austrian, with chunky wooden furniture, red-checked curtains and a terracotta stone floor. As they made their way through the ground floor of the house quietly, there was nothing unusual; just a typical old people’s house, cluttered and badly decorated.

  When they reached the stairs, Clive went up first, carefully testing each tread to make sure it made no sound, followed by Sean, placing his feet in exactly the same spots.

  At the top, Clive waited, pushing his finger to his lips to hush Sean. From a room at the end of the landing, the faint sound of snoring came through the open door. After telling Sean to stay put, Clive quickly looked in each room, except the one where the snoring emanated from, and rejoined Sean, pointing down the stairs.

  When they were back in the kitchen, Clive whispered, ‘Something’s missing. There was no office. I’d expect an MEP to have a home office.’

  ‘Cellar?’ Sean suggested.

  Clive nodded and searched around for a door, but couldn’t find one.

  ‘Maybe outside?’ Sean said.

  Silently creeping around, they made their way back out onto the terrace and down into the garden below. There, beneath the high terrace, was an old style wooden door. Again Clive picked the lock and opened it. The inside was black and lightless, so he quickly turned on his torch, which revealed stone steps leading down into a damp cellar.

  A musty smell hit Sean as soon as he entered the corridor and he shivered at the sudden drop in temperature. In front of him, four doors led from the dingy space into the cellar chambers. Following the same process, Clive took the first, while Sean took the second. When he opened the thick wooden door, the beam from his torch highlighted a pile of old junk: broken rusty bikes, children’s toys and other rubbish was piled to the ceiling, and he quickly exited and moved on to the next room.

  When he opened the door, he caught sight of a chunky wooden desk, bingo, he thought, the office.

  As the light from the torch lit up the small space, he noticed that the desk didn’t have a computer on it, but did have an elaborate pen and ink holder: an old man’s office, he thought. Then he shone the beam up to the wall behind the desk, where a large framed black-and-white photograph hung. The picture depicted Hitler, shaking hands with a small child, held up by a man wearing an overcoat with a Nazi armband. Underneath, the writing said:

  Der Führer wird von Josef Glas und sein Sohn Hans begrüßt, als er triumphierend tritt Österreich am 12 März, 1938, Braunau-am-Inn

  Translating the message in his head as best he could, Sean came up with: Josef Glas and his son, Hans, meeting Hitler in Braunau, in 1938.

  My god, Glas actually met Hitler, and he’s obviously proud of it. He spun around quickly to get Clive, but he didn’t need to. As he turned, Clive walked into the office with his hands held high above his head. Behind him, Glas held a shotgun close to his back. He shoved Clive forward with the barrel and closed the door behind him.

  The sight of such an old man brandishing a shotgun brought images of Mr Magoo cartoons to Sean’s mind, but any comparison between the cartoon character and the real-life one ended with age. Glas held the weapon confidently and gritted his teeth in anger.

  ‘Warum bist Du in meinem Haus? Was suchst Du?’ Glas said moving the weapon between Sean and Clive.

  ‘I’m sorry. We don’t speak German,’ Sean said.

  ‘Ah, den Engländern aus Ranshofen,’ Glas nodded, then switched language. ‘Why are you in my house? What are you looking for?’

  ‘I’m a journalist investigating a piece on neo-Nazis,’ Sean said.

  ‘This doesn’t give you the right to break into my house in the night.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Sean said. ‘But why do you hide the fact that you’re a Nazi from the European Parliament?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m a Nazi?’ Glas extended the gun angrily.

  ‘That is you meeting Hitler in the picture, isn’t it?’ Sean said, pointing to the picture above the desk.

  ‘Yes, but as you can see, I was just a small boy.’

  ‘But it still takes pride of place on your wall,’ Sean added.

  ‘Enough. I’ll call the police,’ Glas said.

  ‘You won’t, because you’d have to show them all of this,’ Clive swept his arm around the room, highlighting the pictures of various people in Nazi uniforms. In each corner of the room, behind the desk, red flags with white circles and black swastikas were presented facing the desk.

  ‘Then I’ll kill you here… for trespassing.’

  ‘You won’t do that either. You may get one of us, before the other gets you, but you won’t get both. So any attempt to fire your gun will be suicide on your part. Plus, it’ll also bring the police, and disgrace your family.’

  ‘The police do as I tell them,’ Glas snarled.

  ‘I don’t think a double murder will be left to the local police, do you?’ Clive said calmly.

  The comment unsettled Glas and he looked uncertain, indecision written across his face. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just to ask you a few questions, then we’ll leave you alone,’ Sean said. He didn’t wait for a response from Glas. ‘Why did you set Blom up with Wagner?’

  ‘So that’s who sent you here: Blom, the neutral.’ Glas renewed his grip on the gun.

  ‘The neutral? You do know that the war ended a long time ago?’ Clive said, picking up on the odd language.

  Glas laughed loudly. ‘You think I’m crazy because I say the war is still going on. Let me tell you, it’s your blindness and the ignorant triumphalism of the British people that doesn’t let you see the real war. Just because it’s now fought with bank notes and legal acts doesn’t make it any less a war. And, it won’t be any less deadly now that victory is in sight.’

  Glas’ comments worried Sean: he wouldn’t be making them if he planned to let them go. He immediately tensed his muscles, ready to pounce at the right opportunity.

  ‘Why did you try to kill Anna Faustein?’ Clive asked, still intent upon finding the person responsible for Phil’s death.

  ‘Faustein? Ich?’ Glas looked confused. Before he could continue, Sean took the opportunity and leaped forward pushing the barrel of the gun into the air. With his left hand making sure it was safely pointing away, he pushed Glas to the floor easily and took the gun away from him.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ Clive said.

  Looking up from the cold stone floor and shaking his head, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  Leaving Sean with the gun, Clive picked Glas up from the floor and sat him in the chair behind the desk. Then he scanned the room for any phones or other communication devices, but there were none to be seen. Taking the key from the lock, he placed it in the outside of the door, indicating to Sean that they should
leave.

  Before they left, Sean took a photo of Glas in the chair behind the desk, making sure he got the photo of Hitler and the two large Nazi flags in the frame.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ Clive said hurrying up.

  Ignoring the reminder, Sean looked straight at Glas. ‘Blom doesn’t owe you any more money. Do you understand,’ he said aggressively.

  ‘But … ’ Glas started.

  ‘Not buts,’ Sean interrupted. ‘In the morning, you’ll send him a letter forgiving him all of the debt and wishing him well for the future. If he doesn’t get that letter by Thursday, on Friday morning, every newspaper in Europe will be carrying this photo.’ Sean turned around the screen on his phone so that the old man could see it.

  Glas gritted his teeth, but didn’t respond.

  ‘Agreed?’ Sean pushed.

  Finally, Glas begrudgingly nodded his head in agreement and Sean turned to leave.

  Once outside the office, Clive locked the door, but left the key in the lock. ‘I’ll leave a note on the table telling his wife where she can find him,’ Clive said, before he took the gun from Sean and wiped it clean.

  Quickly climbing the stairs out of the basement, they scurried through the garden back to their car. Within five minutes they were across the bridge and back into Germany.

  ‘What do you think he meant when he said they were close to victory?’ Clive asked.

  ‘God knows, but I really want to find out,’ Sean said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sunday, 7th February. Munich, Germany.

  The breathing apparatus covering a portion of Terry’s face did nothing to disguise the extent of his injuries. Special bandaging stretched from his forehead to his chest and was changed at regular intervals by a team of nurses, as machines monitored his every life sign.

  Moving next to the bed, Praew held onto his hand, checking for any signs of movement in his face. She stayed there for a whole hour, but was disappointed when he failed to respond.

  ‘Let us know if he comes around, please,’ Liz said to the nurse before leaving the intensive care ward.

  ‘Of course,’ the nurse nodded.

  ‘I wish British hospitals were that good,’ Liz said to Praew as they walked back out onto the street.

  The snow was piling up on the street and Praew gripped tightly onto Liz’s hand for the short walk back to the hotel near to the hospital.

  ‘What did they say about having him moved to London?’ Clive asked.

  ‘Basically no; he’s not well enough to be moved yet,’ Liz answered.

  Taking in the news, they found a table in a café, which joined the lobby of the hotel, ordered three coffees and an orange juice and Liz immediately produced her laptop. ‘I had a look at the pictures last night. Look at this.’ She turned the screen around to reveal the organisation chart that Sean had photographed in the skinhead farmhouse.

  After pulling out his glasses, Clive studied the chart carefully. ‘Far more organised than it was years ago,’ he said, still reading.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Liz asked.

  ‘When we were looking at Allsop, there were quite a few neo-Nazi groups, but there was no command structure: each was an autonomous organisation and quite small. Now it looks like they’re grouping together under a common leadership: this 4R18.’

  ‘The first two pages seem to be all on one level, including Glas: Regionaler Markführer, which means regional leader,’ Liz commented, then zoomed in on some so that Clive could see them more clearly.

  ‘So Glas is just an underling: one of hundreds of other regional chiefs?’ Clive said.

  ‘Yes, it looks like it, and I think the BR in BR18, means Braunau, which would make sense, look at all the other initials: they must be names of towns,’ Liz said, then scrolled up two pages, as the org chart first went to six people on a level, then to two. Next to one of the two boxes, the name ‘Wagner’ was written in blue ink. In the box his title was Kriegsminister. ‘It means Minister of War,’ Liz said.

  ‘So he’s not the boss? That’s interesting,’ Clive commented.

  ‘No,’ Liz replied, then highlighted the box on the same level as Wagner’s, which was named Propagandaminister, with a handwritten name: Dorsch? ‘I assume the question mark by the name means the writer wasn’t sure,’ she said.

  After they’d taken the page in, Liz scrolled up to where just one box sat above Wagner’s and the Minister of Secret Police. The printed title in the box was Vizekanzler, but there was no handwritten name by it. ‘Vice Chancellor, if you hadn’t already guessed,’ Liz said.

  ‘Then,’ Clive pointed up the screen as Liz scrolled up further. Führer und Reichskanzler der Vierten Reich was typed in a large box at the top, again with no name beside it.

  ‘The Leader and Chancellor of the Fourth Reich,’ Liz added.

  ‘The Fourth Reich? What are these guys up to?’ Clive blew out a rasp of air.

  ‘I don’t know, but if you go back down the chart, they seem to have hundreds of divisions, and not just in Germany or Austria, but right across Europe, including the UK, Russia, the Ukraine etc.,’ Liz said, scrolling down to the bottom of the chart. ‘See LO18, under the UK? I’ll bet that’s London and MA18… Manchester,’ she added.

  ‘It’s massive,’ Sean said, almost scared by his own words.

  ‘Why do you think he was filling in the names?’ Clive asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself the same thing. It’s almost as if he was investigating them,’ Liz suggested.

  ‘Maybe he’s undercover police?’ Sean said.

  Clive was staring off into the distance and then looked back at Sean. He was moving his head up and down slightly. ‘I think you may be right. He speaks English, so he’s obviously educated and on three separate occasions he took the least violent option: he hit the father on the knee rather than the head; he backed away from a fight with Terry in the square, even though he outnumbered us four to one; then the same again at the father’s house. Not exactly the behaviour of a racist thug, is it?’

  ‘Then there was his room; it was much cleaner than I expected,’ Sean added.

  ‘Look at the page next to the Vice Chancellor’s box and the Chancellor’s. It’s marked with deep pen dots. He was obviously frustrated about something,’ Liz said.

  ‘He’s trying to piece the organisation together,’ Clive said. ‘We need to know why.’

  Author's Note

  It is estimated that there are over half a million active neo-Nazis in the world today.

  Police forces across the globe have reported a growing level of organisation and interconnectivity among their ranks.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Monday, 8th February. Braunau-am-Inn, Austria.

  The light was fading as Clive drove the car over the bridge into Austria from Simbach-am-Inn. Sean had offered to do the driving, but Clive had insisted, Sean assumed so that he could prove he was still physically capable, despite his prosthetic hand. The sight of the onion-domed church tower sticking out above the roofs of Braunau sent a nervous shudder through Sean’s spine. Isolating the leader of the skinhead gang wouldn’t be easy, especially without Terry around.

  ‘What if we’re wrong? What if he’s just the local leader of a group of neo-Nazi thugs?’ Sean said.

  ‘Then we’d better be prepared for a fight,’ Clive replied.

  ‘How confident are you that he’s not one of them?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Fifty-fifty I’d say,’ Clive shrugged.

  Not really the odds Sean wanted to hear as they parked the car in a side street off the Stadtsplatz, the elongated main square where the skinheads hung out. Their position gave them a good view of the fountain and they waited. It was around eight when the first of the skinheads arrived. Then more came, until their number swelled to around twenty. The leader wasn’t with them and they seemed particularly boisterous, egged on by the first of the youths Sean had encountered the previous week. He was chastising people as they
walked by, following them and making childish faces, intimidating them, as his gang jeered and laughed.

  Sean could sense that the policeman in Clive wanted to do something, but he just stayed in the car, watching, as his ire clearly swelled.

  By nine-thirty, the leader still hadn’t arrived and Clive was becoming increasingly agitated by the loutish behaviour of the skinhead gang. ‘Where are the police? Look at the way he’s goading that couple; they’re terrified,’ Clive said.

  Another half an hour passed, but still the leader didn’t show.

  Then, just as Sean thought Clive was about to burst with anger, Glas’ black Mercedes 600 appeared at the far end of the square. ‘I thought he’d be back in Brussels,’ Sean said.

  ‘He is. His wife’s driving,’ Clive replied, as the car pulled closer.

  Then they caught sight of him, the skinhead leader, sitting in the front seat of the car, being driven by Glas’ wife. When the car stopped at the statue, the leader kissed Frau Glas on the cheek and climbed out. The boisterous activity died down quickly, as the first thug re-assumed his position as deputy and the leader walked over and leant against the fountain wall.

  ‘That’s weird. She kissed him like she was his mother. I think we’ve got it wrong about him,’ Sean said.

  ‘Maybe, but I still don’t understand why he had the org chart, if he’s not trying to piece the organisation together,’ Clive responded.

  ‘It could just be homework. You know, studying the organisation before some kind of promotion?’ Sean suggested.

  ‘Yes, but why the dots on the page showing his frustration at not knowing the ultimate leaders? If it was some kind of studying, they’re the last names he’d forget.’

  ‘You’re right. We need to talk to him,’ Sean concluded.

  ‘You know what to do,’ Clive said.

  Knowing what to do, and actually doing it are gulfs apart, Sean thought, as he mentally rehearsed Clive’s plan. He would walk into the square and get the attention of the thugs, keeping enough distance that he’d be able to outrun them for long enough to get across the river into Germany, where they hoped the police would be more helpful, if needed. They were hoping that, as before, the leader wouldn’t join in the chase and Clive would pull the car up alongside him, using the fake pistol he’d bought from a toyshop to get him into the car. Then they’d catch up with Sean on the agreed route to Simbach. It sounded simple, but they both knew that a lot could go wrong and the consequences if it did were unthinkable.