The Ultimate Secret

by David Thomas Moore

  Which also made it a popular hunting ground for the likes of Jamie and Tinkerbell. A number of their clients, over the years, had wanted to know something a rival nation was keeping secret, and here was often the place to find it. Argentina punished spies harshly, but the potential rewards more than made up for the risk.

  “HERE WE ARE. Thirteenth floor.” Jamie clambered out the lift door and swept the corridor with his pistol. The gas lamps were wound low, casting the floor in a warm gloom. The wall facing him bore the legend Archiv 4.

  Tinks slinked out behind him, carbine slung over her shoulder. She grinned at him. “Feeling superstitious?”

  “Actually I was just thinking maybe the Germans were. Bit obvious, isn’t it, putting your secret files up here?”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. There are archives on the floors below as well.” She’d unslung her rifle, and now pulled a creased drawing out of a thigh pocket. “Right. We need Room 4B. On the right, second left.”

  They moved down the hall, slowly and silently, scanning the way in both directions as they went.

  OBERSTURMFÜHRER HEIDI FARLHABER swung back on her chair, booted feet resting on the cheap table by the wall, flipping through a battered old American pulp novel, The Queen of the Leopard People! It was supposedly based on true events, but she found it sordid and dull. She sighed and tossed the book onto the table.

  Strict embassy rules held that a Schutzstaffel officer be posted at the Schwarzarchiv at all times, and in theory it was an honour to be given this responsibility – it had come with her officer’s commission – but she couldn’t help but feel it was a punishment. She’d been too outspoken, too unruly, in her earlier assignments; it was a fault common to her kind, and she couldn’t help but think the upper ranks should take that into account. Instead, here she was cooling her heels at this tote Hosen outpost of the Ultimate Reich, protecting dusty old boxes that no-one had shown the slightest interest in in decades.

  She sighed again and rubbed her temples. Perhaps the late hour was making her maudlin. She’d get a coffee and–

  A noise.

  Heidi’s ears twitched and she became perfectly still, straining to hear the sound that had caught her attention. She sniffed the air, hoping to make out, beneath the dust and the faded, brittle paper, and the fug of the gas lamps, some hint of–

  Yes. A hint of human perspiration. And now a soft footfall.

  She dropped her feet to the floor and stood in a single, fluid motion, drawing her Luger as she did so, then looked down at the pistol, grimaced and reholstered it. She was going to be meeting new people, after all.

  It would be politest to change first.

  THEY WERE ONLY minutes out of the airfield when Tinks clocked their tail.

  The address had been easy enough to locate. The Autopista Pascual Palazzo was a major road in an industrial district in the northeast of the city; mostly paper factories and news presses. It was about three-quarters of an hour’s drive on main roads all the way, by cab.

  They’d briefly debated hiring a trap. There was a small crowd of them outside the airfield, the drivers grooming and fussing over the lagartos: pachycephalosaurs, by the looks of them, their hides striped in vivid red and yellow, domed heads gleaming in the sun as they bobbed and tossed. But Jamie had demurred; the traps were cheaper than a steam car, but slower and less reliable, and he didn’t like the beasts. Skittish, and inclined to balk in crowds.

  Pulling onto Pablo Ricchieri out of the airport, they’d been joined immediately by two or three other cabs – more passengers from the same flight, presumably – and a plain, new black car that slipped into the traffic two places behind them and remained obstinately in place, changing lanes twice to remain there. Tinks pointed it out to her partner.

  “Thought that girl on Passport Control was giving us the eyeball,” he’d muttered. “They’re being a bit obvious, though, aren’t they?”

  “Sending us a message, love.” Tinks had given them one more glance and slumped back in her seat to leaf through the architectural drawings they’d been given. “‘We know you’re here. Get out of town.’”

  “What d’you think we should we do, then?”

  She’d shrugged, still poring over the papers. “See if we can try and throw them off, carry on with the mission.”

  “You’ve got a face, haven’t you? They hang spies, here.”

  She’d smiled, and kissed him. “Let’s not get caught, then.”

  THE DOOR WAS locked. Tinks pulled a roll of lockpicks from her belt, selected a couple of tools, and set to work as Jamie covered her. Even in the dim light, it took her less than two minutes.

  It opened without a creak; disused as these archives were, the whole floor was nonetheless spotlessly maintained. The floors gleamed, and the walls had been recently painted. The only dust was in the boxes themselves, faded and ancient, the labels on their sides giving dates from decades before.

  “Shelf Thirty-Seven,” whispered Tinks. “It’ll be near the back of the room.”

  They crept into the room, Jamie keeping his pistol drawn and one eye on the door. “Christ on a bike!” he hissed. “These files are ancient. What could be in here that anyone would want now?”

  Tinks shrugged, no less puzzled. “We can worry about it later. Come on.”

  They came to the shelf. The boxes here were among the oldest in the room, with original dates in the ’thirties and ’forties. Judging by the labels, they had been moved many times, and were heavily plastered with stamps marking them Geheim: secret.

  “Here it is,” said Tinks at length. “4B-37-DZ.” She pulled down the box, bringing out a small cloud of dust as she did. “It’s heavy enough, anyway.” She waved back at the door. “Come on. Let’s get a shift on.”

  Jamie turned to go, and then froze at a low growl outside the door.

  HEIDI CREPT DOWN the corridor, her tread cat-soft, belying her great size. She alternated between walking and moving on all fours, equally comfortable – equally uncomfortable, in truth, being neither one thing nor the other – on both. Her claws occasionally clicked lightly on the wooden floorboards.

  The world around her swirled with colours and tones, her brain interpreting the information flooding in from her senses: the dull yellows of the dry, brittle paper, the sharp purple of the floor wax, the hint of blue where the paint, a month old but still discernible, cut through the scents of the archive. There: a thread of red, weaving in and under it all. The intruders were near.

  Her great heart, pounding in her immense chest, strained, yearning for the hunt, the kill. As she drew closer, she lowered her head and shoulders, preparing for the sudden strike.

  TO LOSE THEIR tail, they’d paid the cab driver – and it had been a generous sum; he was extremely reluctant when they’d explained what they’d wanted – to change his route, take them via Villa Subió Negro, a slum to the west of the city, not too far out of their way.

  The steam car had made it perhaps a third of the way into the slum – the tin-box homes stacked three or four high between the narrow, winding streets, rubbish rotting openly on the ground, small clusters of locals standing and sitting at corners, staring intently at the car as it crept past them – before the way got too narrow and the steam car could go no further. The cab driver lost his nerve, insisting they either get out or let him drive them back into the city, and they’d decided to make the rest of the trip on foot. They’d moved quickly; the black car following them had disappeared a few streets back, but there was no guarantee they weren’t being followed.

  The whole area was overrun with the tiny scavenging dinosaurs the locals called carroñitas: compsognathuses, their hides a brilliant green or a muddy brown. Some were kept as pets, but most simply roamed the streets, rooting in the rubbish and squabbling in the dust. Almost as ubiquitous, it seemed to them, were the soldiers of the local gang, which claimed control over the whole villa, drugs, prostitution and protection. They’d got into one fight shortly after arriving, leavi
ng two of the gangsters dead in the street. Even through the black rose tattoos plastered across their faces, the boys didn’t look more than seventeen years old.

  Near the centre of villa, they’d had a stand-off with the gang’s general and a handful of his soldiers, which Jamie had eventually defused by pulling a pin on a grenade and holding it over his head.

  When eventually they’d cleared the villa and found paved streets again, there was no sign of pursuit. Another steam cab took them to their destination, pulling into the lot across the road and a hundred yards up. They’d paid and climbed out, and stood for a moment, regarding the grim concrete tower they’d been sent to rob. Red, white and black banners fluttered from poles on either side of the entrance.

  “Now, what do you suppose it is the East India Company wants from the Nazis?” asked Jamie.

  THE GROWL CAME again, and a shadow fell across the dim light coming in through the open door.

  “What the–?” Tinks began, dropping the box and scrabbling for her carbine.

  “Get down!” Jamie shouted, raising his pistol and stepping in front of her, just as the door was thrown open and a huge creature came crashing in, roaring in rage and frenzy.

  Jamie’s pistol barked, deafening in the still, crowded space, and the thing’s great hairy arm battered it aside, smashing his arm against the shelf to his right. The pistol clattered to the floor. It followed up with its right, manlike hand stretched open, claws – talons, each a hand’s-width long – raking as it swung for the big mercenary’s belly. He stepped back, his curved, wickedly-serrated combat knife already in his left hand, and felt the tips of the claws tear the heavy jacket, nearly staggering him with the force of the near-miss.

  It was in form like a human being, but terrible in aspect. Shrouded in shaggy black fur, it was nonetheless tatty, with bulging, unnatural muscles poking grotesquely through patches in its coat. A great, wolflike maw grinned and drooled as it inched towards him, and yet he made out a glint of human intelligence in its red, baleful eyes.

  Jamie retreated before the beast, step for step, and felt his boot come up against the fallen archive box. He could hear Tinks, on the floor behind him, still bringing the rifle to bear. He would need to buy her a second’s more time, maybe more. Without another moment’s thought, he lunged, plunging the knife deep into its ribs, and felt a moment’s satisfaction as the blade bit and the creature gave a piercing, unearthly shriek.

  His delight was short-lived. The thing – the werewolf, he supposed, although he’d not heard of such a thing actually existing – snatched his left wrist, even as he began to withdraw the knife again, and drove the claws of its own left hand into his side, filling his world with red light and blinding pain.

  I’m dying, here. I can’t fight this thing at close quarters. But he couldn’t escape; it was too strong, terribly strong. He could no more pull his arm free than tear down a stone wall.

  Desperately, he kicked at the creature: at its knees, its shins, between its legs, assuming it even had anything there to kick.

  Salvation came in the form of a deafening crack, and a flash of yellow light, as his partner’s carbine was set off alongside him. Blood sprayed from the thing’s neck, covering his face, and abruptly he was hurled to the floor at its feet. He had the presence of mind to keep hold of the knife. He lay dazed and half-delirious, watching the terrible beast stepping over his body, and briefly, hysterically reflected that he couldn’t tell one way or the other, in this light, if it did have anything to kick, up there.

  A third shot echoed in the cramped room, another flash of light glimmered behind the spots in his eyes, and he came to his senses. He tried to sit up and roll forwards, to bring himself to his knees behind the monster, although the pain that flooded his body from his torn and bleeding side turned it into a flop and an inelegant scramble to his feet. He heard Tinks’ scream, bellowed himself in response, and turned to see the creature snatching the rifle from her hands.

  Its back still to him, the werewolf slowly, deliberately snapped the rifle in half, the muscles in its arms and back – all misplaced, all causing his mind to rebel at their wrongness – bulging and straining. It threw the shards of metal and wood to its feet and reached out for the slight woman. Roaring his defiance, Jamie threw himself at the beast’s back, driving his knife in between its shoulder blades again and again. It reared in pain, shrieked again and spun around, swinging one great limb around to swat him away, and he was hurled out the door and into the hallway. His shoulder clipped the doorframe, spinning him as he flew; that would be a bruise, he idly thought. His back hit the opposite wall hard, awkwardly, and he felt a crack that shivered through him; no new pain, although that was perhaps unsurprising. A broken rib, he thought. Perhaps two. He heaved himself painfully to his feet – knife still, miraculously, gripped in his hand – as the thing advanced on him again.

  “Come on...” Jamie murmured, swapping the knife to his right and beckoning with his left, showing a confidence he didn’t feel. The thing slowed as it approached, hunching as if to pounce, and he shouted in its face. “Come on, you furry Kraut twat!”

  With an answering roar, the werewolf lunged forward, claws outstretched, and he stepped forward, ducked, and drove the knife up into its armpit, trying for the axillary artery. Swinging wide, clumsily, it nevertheless scored a hit on his back, and two or three deep cuts opened up, sending lines of fire down him. He allowed himself to fall to his good shoulder, planning to roll out from under it before it could grab hold of him again, but the thing fell on top of him, crushing the air out of him.

  For a moment or two, the silence in the clean, empty corridor returned, ringing in his ears.

  “You going to get up, then, you lazy sod?” Tinks’ voice. In spite of the banter, her voice was tense, worried. He stretched, looked over the thing’s shoulder and saw his partner standing over him, his pistol still smoking in her hand. He hadn’t even heard her shoot.

  “Well – frankly – I could use help. He’s a heavy bugger.” Jamie heaved himself up on one elbow and nearly passed out from the pain. He started to shove the thing off him, and Tinks stepped forward to help; between them, they eventually dropped the werewolf to the floor and got Jamie to his feet. Blood was pouring down his back and thigh. He staggered and leaned back on the wall.

  Tinks looked up and down the corridor as she pulled a first aid kit from one of her pockets. “I don’t think we’ve raised the alarm, unbelievably, but I don’t think I’ve got time to do anything other than bandage you. We’ll get out of here, get Jen on the phone; he’s bound to have a tame doctor somewhere in BA that’ll patch you up.”

  As she worked, staunching the bleeding, covering the wounds, the monstrous form on the floor gradually shrank, shed its hair, became a human woman. Short blonde hair, pale blue eyes, an athletic, tightly-muscled body: poster child for the Ultimate Reich. Naked, and horribly bent as she lay on the floor, the wounds – which showed all too clearly against her alabaster skin – were appalling. Her chest and side were a morass of knife wounds; bullet holes marred her head and throat. Jamie felt slightly sick, spat on the floor at his feet.

  “Figures,” he said. “I tried to kick her in the bollocks. Wasn’t going to work, was it?”

  Tinks cast her a fleeting look, before returning to her work. Smiled, tightly. “No, I suppose not.”

  Then Jamie laughed, and then gasped with the pain, and Tinks looked quizzically at him. “No dogs,” he hissed. He took a deep breath, and started again. “No bloody dogs, didn’t we say?”

  Tinks smiled, and touched his cheek. “Right. No dogs. Sorry.”

  Once Jamie was bound to her satisfaction, they gathered the box and made their way out through the disabled lift shaft once more. It took them much longer going back.

  IN THE ABSENCE of an infirmary, Obersturmführer Farlhaber lay on a couch in the rest room on the third floor, swathed in bandages. Not that it mattered; she’d be on her feet by the end of the day. Her kind healed quickl
y, and the foreigners had not used silver, that she could tell. Clerks and petty officials buzzed and fussed around her, unsure what to do.

  “Just find me the file!” she shouted, heaving herself up to wave them away. “I’ll be fine! Just find out which file they took, and show me the fucking manifest!”

  The clerks panicked, ran about, shouted at each other. Two of them ran back up to the Schwarzarchiv, and she fell back on the cushion. The secretary to the Consul walked in and took in the room briefly, before moving over to her.

  “Obersturmführer. I came as quickly as I could. Before I contact the Consul, what has happened?”

  Farlhaber hissed. “We’ve lost a fucking file, that’s what. From the Schwarzarchiv.”

  Schmidt nodded, digesting. “From the... Which file? What does it relate to?”

  “We don’t know yet. Some of your fatheads are finding out now. From Archive Four.”

  Schmidt frowned. “Archive–? Those files date from the war! What could be in there that anyone would–”

  “I would leave off your speculation right there, Herr Sekretär. The Führer has secrets that could be dangerous even to ask about.”

  “I–” Schmidt stopped himself, cocked his head, then nodded. “Very well. Our concern, then, is to minimise the damage. We must reacquire the file as soon as possible – on the black market, if necessary – and avoid loss of face. Your failure could cost us both dearly, Obersturmführer.”

  Farlhaber glared and spat. “My failure? It was your security systems they bypassed to get in here.”

  The secretary smiled serenely. “Of course, Obersturmführer Farlhaber. But I was given to understand that the Schutzstaffel security expert I was issued would be able to–”