The Ultimate Secret
Page 1
THE ULTIMATE SECRET
SHE THREW OPEN another door and came out into a covered alley on the far side of the building, this one wider, cleaner, even dimly gaslit. The smell of the fish market wafted up from one end, and the roar of traffic could be heard at the other.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
She looked up and left towards the sound, close to panic, and made out two huge figures lumbering –
No, that wasn’t right. They moved slowly and haltingly, as though assessing every step, but with precision and economy.
The figures picked their way slowly and carefully towards her. They were at least seven feet tall, and broad with it, with slightly unnatural proportions, their ungainly limbs and craning necks seeming slightly stretched. Although they were fully dressed, in long kurtas and broad hats, she was sure it was more for disguise than modesty. In the half-light, she could make out nothing of their features. Every few steps, one or the other would pause for a half-second or so, as though uncertain about its footing. Every time they did, they emitted that staccato ticking sound.
Kim felt ice trickle down her back as they picked their way towards her. She backed away from them, stumbling and nearly falling over before she could finally tear her eyes from the things. She wheeled on one foot and sprinted down the alley, dimly registering them both stopping to make that noise as she did so:
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
PAX BRITANNIA
THE ULTIMATE SECRET
David Thomas Moore
Pax Britannia
The Ulysses Quicksilver Books, by Jonathan Green
Unnatural History
Leviathan Rising
Human Nature
Evolution Expects
Blood Royal
Dark Side
Anno Frankenstein
Time's Arrow
The El Sombra Books, by Al Ewing
El Sombra
Gods of Manhattan
Pax Omega
An Abaddon Books™ Publication
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First published in 2013 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.
Editors: Jonathan Oliver & David Moore
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ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-84997-532-2
ISBN (MOBI): 978-1-84997-533-9
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
For Tamsin, of course.
MASQUES AND LIES
Fortune does not change men;
it unmasks them.
– Suzanne Curchod (1739 – 1794)
AUSCHWITZ, OCCUPIED POLAND, 1944
IVAN STEPPED OVER the cooling body of the Nazi guard and slowly pushed open the door into the dormitory. Filthy pallets crowded the floor, and a few wretched belongings – a girl’s torn dress, a book missing its cover, a silver Star of David – were scattered here and there, but the draughty shed was as devoid of people as all the others had been. He turned back and looked around the empty camp again.
What was going on here?
Even the Nazis had all but disappeared. The guard had been Ivan’s third kill since his arrival, and only the eighth living human being he’d seen. After all their preparations and stealth, Captain Ilyanov’s unit were essentially unopposed; the officers, most of the men, the engineers, even the Jewish workers had all seemingly vanished. Possibly, with the loss of the Frankenstein Corps and their catastrophic failure at Amiens, the Nazis were retrenching. Or, perhaps, the officers and men at Auschwitz had been warned that Russian forces were on their way, and had fled.
Fled, somehow, taking the time to set fire to their own administrative block and bring all their prisoners with them, but leaving – judging by the plumes of acrid smoke pouring from the chimneys of the massive building looming ahead of them – the factory’s engines burning in the middle of the night.
He turned and glanced over at Daria, emerging from the dormitory opposite his. Her eyes flashed green as she met his gaze, and she solemnly shook her head. Empty. She crept around the side of the building, tight-fitting black fatigues fading into the shadows, and peered around the corner; they were at the end of the last accommodation block.
Ivan mirrored Daria, his skin gleaming in the moonlight, looking around his own building. Nothing. Eventually, he shrugged and walked across the open ground to her.
“What?” she hissed.
“There’s nothing here.” He gestured around him.
She nodded. “It’s strange. If it’s a munitions factory, you’d think they’d have gone to more effort to hold it.”
“If.” Ivan shrugged, looking at the fence beyond the dorms, and the great red building beyond, with the smoking chimneys.
“Should we return to Katya and the captain, clarify our orders?”
He shook his head. “We may as well finish our search.”
He kissed her on the cheek, left her side and walked up to the gate in the chain-link fence, casting around for any more guards as he went. He made his way to the nearest entrance, a stair cut into the ground, leading under the huge brick building. He detected faint traces of harsh chemicals, chlorine and detergent... and something else. A sign by the steps read, in German, Czech and Polish: Disinfection.
VATICAN CITY, THE VATICAN PARTITION, 1998
HE’D BEEN NEARLY conscious of the noise all day.
Crossing the northern colonnade of the Piazza San Pietro and approaching the checkpoint, Father Giacomo Ferrera first became aware of the noise itself – of the cheering, of those incessant whistles, of the wordless shouts, of the sheer volume of people talking, drinking, arguing and seducing – and then realised that it’d been hanging just out of hearing since morning, putting him on edge, distracting him from his prayers.
Carnevale.
Every year at this time, for seven days, the city beyond the walls became a riot of noise and colour. The sober young men and women of Rome set down their tools and their books and took to the streets. Every night it was something different: a play about the workers’ struggle, a masqued parade through the Campidoglio, swimming in the fountains, bonfires in the streets. For the past two years, blowing little tin whistles all night long had been all the rage. And around and throughout the rest, young people celebrating, in the houses, in the bars and on the streets.
The irony of it was, Rome had never held Carnevales, even back when it was still Catholic; everyone used to go to Venice. That’s where the masks came from. All this had only been going on for about ten years, courtesy of the Communist Party and their ‘Cultural Revival’ nonsense. Giacomo shook his head.
He slowed just before reaching the checkpoint and ran his hand across one of the stone columns at the end of the colonnade, as i
f for luck, and looked up. An ugly mix of iron, canvas and wood, the Britannian checkpoint looked like what it was: a tent that had stayed too long and set down roots. Rust ran down the ancient walls from the temporary brackets, mounted to carry telegraph wires into the tent; weeds gathered under the edges of the canvas walls. A peeling sign warned him as he entered, in Italian, German, French and English:
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING VATICAN CITY.
PLEASE HAVE ALL TRAVEL DOCUMENTS READY
BEFORE ENTERING THE CHECKPOINT.
He patted his bag, checking for the fourth or fifth time that he still had the passport and visa he’d been given an hour before, then gathered his black habit around himself and stepped into the blinding glare of the gaslight.
A soft murmur joined the noise of the revelry from beyond the checkpoint. Two of the four desks were open, and other travellers – both priests, like him – were speaking quietly with clerks in British Army uniforms, checking their paperwork and confirming their routes. Cheap folding chairs lined the walls of the tent, this side of the checkpoint, and nine other men and women sat uncomfortably, waiting their turn. Giacomo nodded distractedly at another Jesuit, but sat on his own, apart from the others. He crossed his legs and breathed deeply, striving not to look as anxious as he felt.
Of course, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. The passport was quite genuine, as was the visa, and he had every right to enter Rome. He couldn’t help but wonder what a Party official would make of him if he was stopped; his mysterious errand smacked of espionage.
“You’re meeting someone,” said the Superior General. “A Russian. Name of Konstantinov. At the Campo de’ Fiori, under the statue of Bruno.”
“A priest?”
“No. An officer, I gather. We don’t have a great deal of information on him.”
Giacomo frowned. “And what does he want? What help can I be to him?”
“He’s going to hand over some papers, apparently. Wants to get them to il Papa. I suspect they’ll go to Cardinal Kovacs; he can deal with them.”
“What papers? What’s this about, Father?”
“We don’t know. This Konstantinov says they’ll be of interest to us, but that he can’t enter the Vatican. Get too many questions asked, in Rome and back in Moscow. Says it’s important.
“It needn’t concern you for very long, my son. Go and meet the man, take the papers from him, bring them back to me and this’ll all be out of your hair.”
And that was that. A monk’s life is one of service, after all.
The queue had moved on; there were only three more people still sitting by the wall, not including himself. Giacomo looked around him.
Behind the row of desks, a rank of automaton soldiers stood impassively, a hint of red light flickering in their dead eyes. He shuddered. He was not a superstitious man by nature; cybernetics was nothing more than a branch of science, every bit as much a reflection of God’s glory as bioscience or chemistry. Some of his own brethren used difference engines in their work. But it’s one thing to know that an android is simply a machine, a work of men’s hands, and quite another to stand in front of one and not feel as though it were... unnatural.
If the machines felt his eyes on them – if they were even capable of feeling uncomfortable under scrutiny – they didn’t show it.
And now he was the only man waiting, and a clerk, mercifully human, had come free. He stood and walked up to the desk.
“Name?” The bored clerk gestured to the seat in front of him, not looking up, his pen poised over a blank form.
“Fath– Father Giacomo Ferrera,” he replied, stumbling over the English.
The clerk glanced at his habit. “What order?”
“The Society of Jesus.”
“Mm-hm.” The clerk made a note.
“I suppose you’re an Anglican?” Giacomo asked, attempting a smile.
The man looked up, met his eyes. “The Devil I am. I was born in Cork.”
“Ah. I’m sorry. I cannot tell accents well in English.”
The soldier chuckled. “Quite alright, Father. Now... purpose of visit?”
“Pilgrimage. I am visiting the Basilicas before Lent.”
That was another change. In 1947, the Basilicas outside the Partition were lost to the Church. For nearly thirty years, they had been locked up by the Party, used for storage or administrative offices, until they were re-opened in 1975 as museums. But since 1990, when they were re-consecrated to the new state-approved Church of Italy, Catholics had been allowed to visit them on pilgrimage.
“I went when I first got here. They’re a sight. Passport and visa?”
“Of course.” Giacomo fumbled in his bag for the documents.
“Thank you.” The clerk made some more notes, asked for a signature, and then handed Giacomo’s papers back to him. “I’m obliged to warn you that your visa gives you access to the Socialist Republic of Italy for no more than twenty-four hours, and that you are to remain within the bounds of the City of Rome for the duration of your stay. Also, under the terms of the Lateran Treaty of 1991, you are not to perform any spiritual service for any resident of the Republic, regardless of their stated religious beliefs. I’m sorry, Father, I have to say it. It’s the rules.
“Enjoy your stay. God bless, and have a good evening.”
“Thank you.” Stuffing the papers back into his bag, he walked past the automatons and through the tent into the shouts and the cheers.
ROME, THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ITALY, 1998
IN A SMALL office overlooking the famous Trevi fountain, another visitor looked out on the mounting festivities, awaiting an appointment.
Obersturmbannführer Dietrich Adler was not a typical Schutzstaffel officer: tall and slender, he had unruly black hair and dark brown eyes, a complexion that tanned readily, and a strong, crooked nose. What he lacked in Aryan purity, however, he more than made up for in savagery; it was rumoured that years ago, when he’d overheard a junior officer questioning his heritage, Adler had beaten the poor man to death with a riding crop.
Whether it was true or not, he scared the hell out of Otto.
Adler stood motionless in front of the window, hands behind his back, staring down at the Italians shouting and singing in the piazza below. He held a handmade necklace in one hand – fangs and beads, much as wild young men sometimes wore on the beaches in America – and idly rubbed one of the fangs between his thumb and forefinger every few seconds. For the past fifteen minutes, it had been the only sign that he was still alive.
Otto met his partner Ingo’s eyes, across the room. Neither of them dared move until Adler did. They had been assigned to him from the Luftwaffe two years ago, and he had never so much as addressed either of them by first name. Two of the best wing-harness fliers in their year at the academy, they were seconded directly upon earning their commissions and had been attached to the enforcer ever since, travelling around the world and assassinating the enemies of the Reich.
Down in the piazza, the steady traffic that had come and gone since dawn was gradually becoming a crowd. Even in the cool February afternoon, more than a few people had already taken impromptu dips in the fountain – some voluntarily, some less so – and were drying themselves by the fires that had sprung up in barrels at the corners of the square. A handful of Carabinieri stood around, keeping the peace, but looking slightly nervous as the crowds grew louder and more chaotic.
Sunday night, according to the Ministry for Culture, was masque night, and the revellers in the streets were wearing a dizzying array of guises, from plain, traditional Venetian leather masks to great jewelled and feathered head-dresses that towered over the crowd. It wouldn’t make their hunt any easier, but that was no doubt their quarry’s intention.
Still not turning from the window, Adler spoke.
“Hartmann. Ritter. Suit up. I’ll want you in the air for this one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.” The two scrambled to put their harnesses on, the steam-driven
, cavorite-infused engines that would keep them over the streets of Rome as the Obersturmbannführer hunted. The machines were the reason the two men worked with Adler in place of SS troopers; many of his targets were extremely dangerous, and the older man valued the tactical advantage of flying back-up. In practice, he rarely asked them to wear them, unless he was worried about the mission. Otto exchanged another look with Ingo, but neither of them said anything.
“The sun sets in fifteen minutes. We shall tail him as he leaves his hotel, and apprehend both him and the man he is planning to meet.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Otto, tightening the straps across his chest, and bending to buckle up his legs.
“And remember, take no action until I give the kill order. The Italians are uncomfortable about our presence as it is.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ingo, adjusting the throttle on his wing-harness, listening to the pitch of the engine.
Adler slowly lifted the necklace in his hands and fastened it around his neck, and then tucked it under his collar and turned to face them. “It is imperative that we do not fail. Tonight, the very future of the Ultimate Reich may depend on us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
AUSCHWITZ, OCCUPIED POLAND, 1944
DARIA HURRIED OVER to Ivan, scanning the shadows as she came, frowning.
“Now what–” She stopped. “Blood.”