sThe Quiet Wart

by The Quiet War (ARC) (epub)

  ‘A kink; nothing more. I like anal sex, but I’m not attracted to men.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sean said, then changed back to the real subject of his interview. ‘Well, are you involved in the Fourth Reich?’ Sean asked again.

  Before he spoke, Dorsch looked Sean up and down making him feel as if he was being strip-searched. ‘No, I’m not, but I do know more than I said earlier.’

  ‘How?’ Sean asked.

  ‘I was approached by them: first by Glas, then by Wagner. They tried to recruit me, would you believe?’ Dorsch said, with a wry grin.

  ‘I don’t understand. Why is it funny?’ Sean said.

  ‘Firstly, as you know, I have sexual tendencies which don’t exactly fit their view of the ideal German; and secondly, I’m actually Jewish.’

  Sean frowned. ‘But Dorsch isn’t a Jewish name.’

  ‘No, my grandfather changed our name before the war to avoid being interned by the Nazis. I’m not a practising Jew, so nobody would know now. It’s just my heritage.’

  ‘So when they approached you, why didn’t you go to the authorities?’ Sean continued with his questioning.

  ‘And say what? They hadn’t broken any laws. Everybody knows that Wagner’s a Nazi, and Glas… well, he’s nearly dead anyway.’

  ‘Why do you think they approached you?’ Clive asked.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe because I have over 8,000 highly trained soldiers at my disposal.’

  ‘What did they want you to do?’ Sean asked.

  ‘They asked me to take a cabinet post in this so-called Fourth Reich. I thought it was all a bit crazy to be honest. They said that they’d organised over 400 once disparate Nazi groups from Moscow to London; that they now had a membership of over 300,000; and that they were preparing to restore the Fatherland to its rightful place in Europe.’

  ‘300,000 people! Didn’t that make you think it was more serious?’ Clive asked.

  ‘Not really. I didn’t believe them and I’m sure most of their so-called membership is made up of disillusioned children, playing on the Internet.’

  Maybe not. Sean thought about the number of divisions on the org chart.

  ‘Did they tell you who ran the organisation, or who their deputy was?’ Sean questioned further.

  ‘No. I remember that they said the Vice Chancellor was somebody high up in the EU, but they didn’t say who, and frankly, I didn’t believe them, so I didn’t push it. Then they started to babble all kinds of nonsense, so I just switched off.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Well they started to talk about bloodlines and the natural heirs to the European throne. I really just wanted to get away from them, so I didn’t question it any further.’

  ‘Bloodlines? You mean like descendants of Hitler?’ Clive said.

  Dorsch shrugged. ‘Hitler, the Kaiser, Attila… who knows and who cares? They’re all crazy. I wanted no part of it.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about them?’ Sean asked, laughing.

  ‘No, that’s about all I remember. Now, will you erase the photos?’

  Before responding, Sean thought about Dorsch’s answers. He’d been cooperative and he seemed believable. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. That’s not how I normally go about an interview.’

  ‘Thank you. And if you want my advice, forget these idiots. They’re nothing but a bunch of misguided fools, goose-stepping around in Nazi uniforms and carrying on. It’s embarrassing.’

  The interview over, Steve showed Dorsch to the door and let him out.

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Sean asked Clive when Dorsch had gone.

  ‘I’m not sure. He could just be a good liar.’

  ‘There is one part of his story we should be able to test. He said his grandfather changed their name before the war. Liz is pretty good at digging through that kind of thing. I’ll go and get her. If he is a Jew, it’s pretty certain he wouldn’t get involved with this lot.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tuesday, 9th February. Munich, Germany.

  Sean left the room they had used to interview Dorsch and made his way down the corridor to his own room, knocking loudly on the door to wake Liz, who quickly opened it for him. To his surprise she was already dressed, and Praew was with her. ‘Look at this,’ she passed her iPad to Sean.

  The page was opened on the BBC News app and the headline immediately caught Sean’s eye: UNITED KINGDOM DEFAULTS ON EU LOAN. A shiver ran down his spine. ‘Do you think this is it? What they’ve been planning?’ he said.

  ‘Read on,’ Liz replied.

  The rest of the article outlined the technical default by the United Kingdom and nine other members of the EU. ‘So, they haven’t actually defaulted on a payment of debt, it’s just a technicality. That can’t be too bad,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I thought, until I read this.’ Liz clicked over onto another website, which had an analysis of the default. Sean read that the loan wasn’t a loan from the EU Central Bank to the UK; it was the other way. But one of the thousands of technical clauses in the loan required the buyers to hold certain levels of euro reserves; in fact, these levels were so high that the only way the UK could comply would be to adopt the Euro as its own currency and drop Sterling. Of course, the UK Government had refused to do this when the default was notified by the European Commission. It stated that: ‘its interpretation of the clause was that it only applied to countries whose currency was already the euro’.

  The European Court of Justice had ruled on the clause last week and upheld the Commission’s view that it applied to all bond holders.

  ‘Couldn’t they just sell the bonds?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Apparently not: they’re fixed term and not transferrable.’

  ‘What about the other countries?’

  ‘All of the Eastern European ones want to be in the euro anyway, but don’t qualify yet. That only leaves Denmark and Sweden, and they’re in exactly the same boat as the UK.’

  ‘Bugger! So what now?’ Sean said, shaking his head.

  ‘The UK Government has been given a week to make a plan to get back in compliance with the loan; i.e., agree a time to transfer to the euro, or face other penalties, which as you know could now mean suspension.’

  ‘Do you think that they know it could mean suspension?’ Sean frowned.

  ‘I haven’t seen anything that says that; in fact, the opposite. Most commentators are just talking about a fine and more provocation for the UK to leave the EU.’ Liz replied. ‘How did it go with Dorsch?’

  Sean quickly explained the outcome of the interview.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, but if he’d hidden his identity well enough to fool the Nazis prior to the war, I doubt there’ll be anything to uncover now,’ Liz replied. ‘Let’s go and talk to Clive. This is all getting very complicated and I think the urgency may have just been stepped up, given the news on the default,’ Liz said.

  When Sean and Liz arrived at Clive’s room, he was alone. Steve and Pete had decided to follow Dorsch to see if he made any interesting moves. Sitting on the bed, Sean quickly explained the situation at the EU to Clive.

  ‘Amazing that we haven’t heard anything sooner, if there was a court case,’ Clive responded.

  ‘I guess everybody thought it was just bureaucracy at work and that it would amount to nothing. There are constant challenges by member states in the EU courts that never get reported,’ Liz said.

  ‘How serious do you think this could be?’ Clive asked.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s clear that the UK, Sweden and Denmark can’t quickly rectify their default. I still find it hard to believe that they’ll actually suspend them, based on a technicality, using some dubiously worded translations,’ Liz said.

  ‘Hmmm, I’m not sure. It depends who’s behind it and what their end game is,’ Sean added.

  ‘What do you think it could be?’ Clive asked.

  Sean considered Clive’s question briefly. He was quickly coming to the real
ization that they really didn’t know anything, and that all the information they’d gathered had no definite links. ‘I really don’t know, but I think we need to work out what we’ve got before we make our next move.’

  Clive immediately produced a piece of blank paper. ‘Agreed.’ He drew a circle in the centre of the page, but then stopped. ‘You know, I don’t even know what to put in the centre of the page. Are we investigating the corruption in the EU primarily; the murder of Allsop and Phil; or the Nazis and Glas?’

  It was a relevant question. So far all of the work seemed to add up to three independent enquiries with only tenuous interconnection. ‘I think you have to put the EU corruption at the centre,’ Liz said. ‘To me, it’s the common link.’

  Clive wrote ‘EU corruption’ in the centre circle, then drew more circles, orbiting the centre. Working in a clockwise direction he wrote: ‘Glas’ in the first; ‘Wagner’ in the second; ‘4R18’ in the third; ‘Allsop’ in the fourth; ‘Faustein’ in the fifth; ‘Dorsch’ in the sixth; and ‘Blom’ in the seventh. Then using different colours he started to join the circles. First, Glas, Blom, Faustein, Allsop and the EU were linked. Then, 4R18, Wagner and Glas, with a dotted line to Dorsch. Finally, he drew a line between Glas, Blom and Wagner, indicating a separate link.

  ‘I drew that because I think it’s the only link we understand more about,’ Clive said. ‘The set-up of Blom meeting Wagner was obviously a plan to get Blom out of the way and replace him with somebody else.’

  ‘Who was he replaced with?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Gunther Matthias; a German who was previously responsible for budgeting,’ Liz answered.

  Clive immediately added another circle for Matthias. ‘He has to be involved somehow,’ he said.

  ‘What about what Dorsch said? That the Nazis have a senior figure in the EU?’ Liz added.

  Clive added a dotted line from Matthias to 4R18. ‘He’s certainly a senior figure,’ he said.

  ‘But what would that achieve: one commissioner, who’s appointed by the German Government?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know. You know, we really don’t know enough about the internal struggles at the EU to work out what’s going on here and the motivations behind it,’ Liz said.

  ‘We could ask Anna?’ Clive suggested.

  ‘She’s part of the system. We need somebody more impartial,’ Liz said quickly.

  ‘What about Nathan Shaw? When he left the Daily he went to Brussels to work as the EU correspondent for the Economic News? He’s one of my LinkedIn connections. I know he’s a bit of a prat, but he may well be able to help,’ Sean said.

  ‘A bit of a prat? That’s an understatement! But if we have to, at least he should be independent,’ Liz responded.

  *

  Sean managed to contact Shaw and set up a Skype call quickly. When he’d worked with Sean at the Financial Daily, Shaw had been a real pain; he’d arrived straight from university with an attitude that he was better than everybody else because he came from a privileged background. But he’d soon learned that nobody in the news room cared about his parents, and that he had to prove himself to get ahead. After a bit of work from Sean, he’d turned himself into a competent reporter, but still couldn’t get along with the rest of the team, and eventually left. In his current role as a political reporter, his family contacts were important and he’d thrived.

  When his face appeared on the small screen of Liz’s laptop, he hadn’t changed much in the four years since Sean had seen him last: his hair was still slicked back against his head tightly, and his gaunt face looked as if he hadn’t been fed in years.

  ‘Hi, Nathan,’ Sean said.

  ‘Hey, McManus. How may I be of assistance?’ the pompous voice replied.

  Sean wasn’t about to tell him anything about the investigation in case he stole the story, so he carefully fed him some snippets. ‘A piece I’m working on has some EU element and I thought you may be able to shed some light on a few of the subtleties.’

  Shaw laughed loudly. ‘Maybe. But I thought you’d have given up political reporting after your last attempt?’

  ‘What?’ Sean was genuinely bemused.

  ‘The Blom piece. Clearly it was a set-up. Blom’s an alcoholic and a gambler, but he’s no Nazi,’ Shaw continued to laugh.

  ‘But he met with Wagner. How was it a set-up?’ Sean didn’t disclose that he knew that Blom had been set up by Glas.

  ‘I’m sure that was staged for your benefit. Why do you think that whoever was feeding you information didn’t go to one of us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sean replied, a sudden jolt of panic entering his mind.

  ‘Because we’d have seen the politicking behind it and not reported it,’ Shaw continued to laugh.

  Suddenly, Sean felt a heavy weight on his chest. Shaw was saying that it was he who’d been set up, to finish Blom’s career. Had somebody been playing them all this time; pushing him into a position for their own gains? ‘Who’d do that? Why?’ he said.

  ‘Who gained most from Blom’s removal?’

  ‘Matthias?’ Sean suggested.

  Shaw pulled a face. ‘But he just got transferred to another directorate, so he didn’t really gain anything. I’d say the real winners were the Parliament in general. Following the scandal, their powers were increased quite a lot at the expense of the Commission. And then there’s the new Commission President; he only got an opportunity because the old one resigned, following your scandal piece.’

  ‘So who would want to increase the powers of the Parliament?’ Sean asked.

  ‘The federalists, of course! That gives you about 250 million people to work with. What you have to understand about the EU is that it’s divided by a power struggle between the state governments, represented by the two councils, and the Parliament, represented by the MEPs. Keeping more power with the councils is something supported by the sceptics, like the UK, while the federalists would rather see the power given to the Parliament to act like a real state, independent of the member governments.’

  When Sean thought about Shaw’s comments, they made sense, but it didn’t fit with the view he’d formed of what was going on. ‘What about the Commission? Isn’t the real issue that unelected officials in the Commission were being given too much power?’

  Shaw pursed his lips. ‘Not really. Although the Commission acts like it’s in charge, it’s really just a pawn, controlled by others. But whoever controls the Commission controls the EU.’

  ‘And who controls the Commission?’

  Shaw laughed again. ‘Well, until recently the state governments, via the councils, but the scandal from your article, and more importantly, the way the new President came to power, has shifted that balance towards the Parliament. In fact more specifically towards one party.’

  ‘What was that about the President?’

  ‘In the past, the selection of the Commission President was the sole domain of the European Council, but the Treaty of Lisbon added that the candidate must be approved by the Parliament. This, in effect, gave the selection power to the Parliament.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that a good thing? It sounds like it; the elected members taking power from the unelected bureaucrats?’

  ‘That depends on your point of view, old boy. If the Parliament takes control of the Commission, the EU truly frees itself of member state government interference, and the EU becomes a real federal state… with a Parliament elected by the people in control of the resources and laws. It means the end of national sovereignty in Europe.’

  ‘From what you’ve just said, isn’t it already there?’

  Shaw tilted his head slightly. ‘Not quite. Almost, but luckily, the various treaties still limit the power of the EU, and the heads of state still have to unanimously adopt new treaties.’

  A knot formed in Sean’s stomach. He knew that the default on the loan gave the Commission President power to suspend member states, which would allow them to change the unanimity requirement for a treaty. W
here his thinking had been wrong was that he’d been led to believe that this was a power-push by the Commission. The real winners, however, would be the Parliament; more specifically one party in the Parliament. Damn! I’ve been played, he thought.

  During his investigations, he’d only encountered three members of the parliament: Allsop, who was dead; Glas, who was involved somehow, but as a peripheral player; and Anna Faustein, who had transformed herself from a lowly backbencher to the most important person in the Parliament… and if these changes were made, the most important person in Europe.

  ‘Thanks, Nathan. That was really helpful,’ Sean said quickly.

  ‘Is that all you wanted, old boy?’ Shaw said.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ Sean said, desperate to get off the call.

  After disconnecting the call, Sean turned to Liz and Clive. ‘We’ve been set up,’ he said, the colour draining from his face.

  ‘How? By whom?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Anna Faustein,’ Sean conceded.

  ‘How did you get there?’ Clive said.

  ‘She was the person that steered us towards Blom, then stopped us looking further. She was the one that seeded the idea that the Commission was getting out of control and needed to be stopped… and she’s the one who’s gained most from it,’ Sean said.

  ‘So, you’re suggesting that she had Allsop killed and staged the attempt on her own life, when Phil was killed, just to push us in a certain direction?’ Clive said.

  ‘Yes. Then she got us to back off. She never expected us to visit Blom and go after Glas,’ Sean said. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. I should’ve seen it.’ He cursed his own naivety.

  ‘It all fits. She was the one person who knew what Allsop was on to, and then her sudden appearance in London,’ Liz said.

  ‘And the Nazi link?’ Clive asked.

  ‘She could be the Vice Chancellor of 4R18. Dorsch said it was somebody high up in the EU. If she pulls this off there’ll be nobody higher,’ Sean said.

  Pulling out a red pen, Clive drew three circles around Anna Faustein’s name on the page, making it stand out from the other names, acknowledging that he agreed with Sean’s analysis.