by Tom Knox
He looked at David.
Amy asked: ‘But…how can Dresler help us now?’
‘Because. If what Nathan said is right, then Dresler also knows what the doctors did after the war. He knows the lot.’
‘After the war? What does that mean?’
A shrug.
‘Angus!’
The Scotsman slowed the dinghy further. Sea birds wheeled behind. He gazed at Amy, then at David: ‘The Nazis discovered DNA – during the war.’
David was so stunned he felt the boat wobble beneath him. He gasped: ‘DNA?’
‘Yup. They’d been onto it a while. Fischer, and so forth: he got the first intimations in Namibia, studying the Khoisan and the Basters. Then he clinched the proof at Gurs. But that’s not key to what I’m saying. It’s what the Nazis did with this technology. Because of what they then found, within and between human genetic variation – that’s the key. It was a discovery so…’ Angus shrugged. ‘I mean allegedly – I don’t have proof, and probably never will now – but it was a discovery allegedly so devastating that it led to the Holocaust. And it was so powerful it gave the Nazi doctors leverage – after the war.’
‘I still don’t get the whole picture…’
Angus tutted, impatiently, but explained. ‘At the end of the war, the Nazi doctors from Gurs had one bargaining chip, which they could swap for their lives and freedom. And that bargaining chip was the Fischer results. The rumour is they hid the data somewhere…inaccessible. In Europe is my guess. Probably in central Europe, as the Allies pressed in on the shrinking Nazi empire.’ He eyed the shallowing waters, then went on: ‘The Allies couldn’t imprison them, or try them, let alone execute them. In case one of the other doctors revealed the results.’
Amy interrupted: ‘So the doctors were freed. Exonerated. Fischer became…professor at Freiburg, in 1945, despite everything he’d done.’
‘Yes.’
‘So this doctor in Luderitz? How does he fit in?’
‘Well, if what poor Nathan said is right, Dresler knows where the results are hidden.’
David felt the surge of excitement. Angus raised a hand.
‘Sure, it is compelling…But remember the Nazis must have hidden the data somewhere wildly inaccessible. Plenty of people have tried to find it. Who knows though.’ Angus paused. ‘Maybe we will?’
David was curious.
‘We? You’re coming along?’
He ran his fingers through his red hair. Eyes bright. ‘K, I confess, you got me, it’s a fair cop. I’m piqued. I’m intrigued. You shoot, you score. Maybe Dresler does know. And if so…I want to know too. I spent five years on this, I want to know if my hunch was right, about the Jews, Hitler, the Holocaust, the Basters.’
He leaned and flung a rope as the dinghy bumped into the pier. ‘But first we have to go see Dresler. And torture the truth out of him.’
43
Simon walked nervously down the cobbled high street. Autumn in the Bavarian Alps was quiet. The ski shops were shut; and tourists were few, mainly hikers huddled over big maps, flapping in the breeze. It was a cold and greyish day and the kitsch, gilded streets were largely deserted.
But he still felt nervous. He’d have preferred the anonymity of a hotel in a big city, but didn’t dare use credit cards or show his passport: so he’d chosen here, Garmischpartenkirchen, as a compromise. Suzie and he had been here on holiday years ago.
Suzie.
Suzie and Conor.
Suzie and Conor and Tim.
He was lodged in a cold austere cottage, in an ugly new development, in the silence of the Alps, just above the little town. But every minute of every day he’d felt the need for information. An overwhelming need.
So he’d spent half his time in the little town, on payphones to Sanderson and Suzie, or sitting in the internet cafe, with its tinkling bell above the door, and the wall full of red pennants for Bayern Munich FC.
He greeted the girl at the till; she smiled, with a polite nod of recognition, and returned to her magazine. Selecting a terminal amongst all the other dusty, unused terminals, he opened his webmail account. He could feel his own nervousness, like a bad taste in his mouth. Was there any news from Tim? About Tim? David and Amy? What about his wife and child?
There was just one email of interest. There were two unread emails but there was just one email he wanted to read. He didn’t want to read that other message. Because he knew it was the communication about Tim, from Tim’s captors. The email Sanderson had warned him about.
Don’t watch it, Simon. Really. Don’t watch it.
So instead he clicked on the other unopened email. It was from David Martinez. He read it twice, absorbing the very serious information, writing some notes in his pad. Then he stood and went to the girl at the till. She charged him a few cents and he paid the money.
The doorway swung open to the street. He stared over the shops and houses at the grey Alps beyond. They were a row of snowy faces, white and sombre: like a jury of elders looking down at his guilt.
Tim. The email about Tim?
The email about Tim.
It was becoming too much. He had managed to avoid opening the Tim email for three days now, and each time he came here it got harder, and harder, to resist clicking on it and watching, to resist the terrible temptation: the desire to know, to behold the worst.
He couldn’t resist any longer.
Twisting on a heel, he stepped back inside and, with an embarrassed nod at the cybercafe girl, he returned to the screen.
He sat down, and opened up his webmail account. He clicked on the email.
Subject: Your brother.
He steeled himself. Dry mouthed.
The email was empty except for an icon. An icon that linked to a little movie. It buffered for a second, then cleared: and there was Tim. Sitting in a chair. Half smiling at the camera with his chubby face. Nervous.
It was the video of Tim.
A masked man was standing beside Simon’s brother.
The captor spoke.
‘That’s right, Tim, look at the camera. Say hello to your brother.’
‘Hello!’
Tim was waving. Anxiously.
The masked man nodded. And said: ‘You have something to say to him?’
Tim’s smile was crinkled. He was probably hearing the voices again. Tim spoke through the voices.
‘Sorry Simon but hello. How are you. I am sorry the men are detaining me, we have been detained. Rather wrong. What can I say. Hello.’
The masked man said:
‘Good. What else, Tim? What else do you want to say to Simon?’
‘The dog. Gusty. They want me to mention Augustus. Do you remember when we went to the stream with Augustus, we were happy then weren’t we? Doubtless. Because I understand why, doing everything like this.’
Tim swallowed. The masked man waited. Simon’s mad older brother gazed right at the camera.
‘Simon can you tell Mother I’m sorry for what I did, stabbing her was wrong. So very wrong I understand. Mummy?’
Simon felt the prickle of tears; he fought them.
His brother’s face was fat and vulnerable.
‘Just wanted to say I remembered the football, too, and I believe we had a nice time when we were boys and if I ruined it, thus, because it was my fault my fault. Then if if…sorry Mum. Tell Mum sorry Simon, OK? Thank you.’
The masked man leaned closer to Tim and said quite loudly:
‘Tim, do you know why we are here? Talking to Simon?’
Tim shook his head.
‘I went to Oxford and after that it was very different. Believe me I undoubtedly…something happened.’
Tim turned and looked at the masked man. ‘I no longer want this. Why are we here?’
‘We’re here because your brother won’t tell us. We want him to tell us everything. Give us David Martinez and Amy Myerson. Tell us where they are. Tell us what he knows. Hand himself over…or else he will suffer just as you are abou
t to suffer.’
Tim attempted a dreadful courageous smile. He was trying to smile, bravely, for Simon.
The pathos was unbearable.
Another man moved behind Tim. He had a rope and a piece of wood. A looped rope and a piece of wood?
The first man spoke calmly through his facemask. He had the faintest trace of an accent.
‘So, Tim, I am so very sorry we have to do this but it is because of your brother, he doesn’t care about you. So say goodbye to Simon, your brother who doesn’t care.’
The man slipped the garrotte over Tim’s head.
Tim began to choke, almost at once. His legs thrashed out, kicking and scraping, heels squeaking against the floor. The garrotte was tightened further, and harder. Now Tim’s face was going pink, then red, then almost blue.
The impassive man, standing right behind, just kept the garrotte tight, saying nothing. And then the killer released the garrotte, and Tim gasped, and gasped. He was still alive. Tim was still alive.
The first man leaned towards the camera.
‘Next time we kill him.’
The screen went dead.
Simon stared at the blackness. He pushed back the chair, and turned away, ready to go – to go anywhere, just anywhere else; he hurled some euros at the puzzled girl and then he strode out onto the cobbled street. He needed the fresh air to stop himself screaming.
Tim…
A police car was slowly rumbling along the cobbles of the main street. Heading uphill past the Gasthof Fraundorfer. Heading in the direction of the chalet.
Simon watched the car. Then he remembered David’s information. He turned the other way, and started running.
44
In front of them was the strange skyscape of Luderitz itself: stern Lutheran churches sat atop dirt roads, which ran past gaily gabled Black Forest villas and scruffy miners’ taverns. Rolls of barbed wire guarded wooden piers that jutted into the cold blue harshness of the sea.
David followed along, as Angus walked quickly, turned left – and gestured. ‘Dresler’s house…’
They were confronted by one of the most vividly painted houses; its walls were a bright, Baltic red. Big white jeeps were parked down the deserted road. Scorching hot metal in the sun.
Angus knocked, and paused. He had a hand poised in an inside pocket. David knew why. Angus knocked again, louder and harder, and waited.
Then, a noise. The door was slowly unlatched, and a very old man peered around it. Angus instantly whipped out Nathan’s gun, shoved through the door and pushed the man, roughly, angrily back into his own hallway.
The muzzle of the gun was pointing at the old man’s orange cardigan. Amy and David exchanged glances. Alarmed and frightened.
Angus showed no such fear or doubt. He spat his words:
‘Dresler, listen, everyone is fucking dead. And I want to know where you guys put the Fischer results. Now. Tell me.’
The old Nazi shrivelled away, but Angus loomed over the old German, pinning him to the wall. Dresler was staring at the gun, and at Angus, and then at David. Three times he blinked, staring at David, as if he found David more frightening than the gun.
‘Dresler. Tell me. Just fucking tell me.’
Dresler was stammering; Angus was growling his questions.
‘Tell me now!’
‘Ich weiss es nicht nein nein –’
‘I know you speak fucking English, you cocksucker –’
The old man was dribbling. He was so frightened and shocked he was dribbling.
David felt a desire to intervene. The scene was too hideous; just too hideous. He stared around, as Angus shouted and yelled. They were standing in a hallway straight from Alpine Bavaria. There was actually a cuckoo clock ticking on the wall. Some ancient walking sticks, with yellow horn handles.
And a portrait of Pope Pius the Tenth?
Maybe Angus was right to terrorize this Nazi into confession.
Dresler’s old mouth was opening and closing. Angus leaned nearer. David surmised the gun must be hurting the old man, the muzzle pressing hard in his chest.
‘Where are the Fischer results? Next time I shoot.’
The old man pushed feebly at Angus; and the Scotsman casually pulled back, aimed the gun at Dresler – and he shot in the air, millimetres from his target. Almost grazing the doctor’s face. Terrifyingly close.
Amy gasped. David looked away. He looked anywhere else. He noticed something: a little address book on the hallway table, next to a phone. A little address book with handwriting on the cover. What was that? Another echo in his mind. Something. Something there?
Then he looked back.
Dresler had sunk to his knees in fear.
‘Listen, Herr Doktor. You have two fucking minutes. Where are the results?’
Angus lifted the gun again, and he set the muzzle to the man’s shoulder. ‘Next I will shoot your arm, here, at the shoulderblade. Might take the whole arm off –’
The doctor was trembling.
‘Ja! OK OK!’ The old man lifted a liver-spotted hand. ‘Shark Island.’
‘Where?’
‘I tell you. Shark Island. Go and see.’ He was still terrified. There was a moist dark patch in his trousers. Fear had voided his bladder.
‘Shark Island? What does that mean? Why? That doesn’t make sense.’ Angus pressed the gun harder into the shoulder. ‘Tell me more.’
‘Aber…Aber…’ The old man shivered. He shut his eyes, like someone about to be executed. He was mumbling words. What were they? Prayers? They sounded like prayers.
And then Dresler opened his old sad eyes. And then he looked at David, then at Amy. He shook his head. ‘I do not believe this…I do not believe you.’
‘What?’
‘You…you people will not kill me. You do not have the courage. Nein.’
Angus swore, and shot again, this time at the floor. A few centimetres to the left of the old man’s legs. Splintered wood spun in the air.
But the Nazi had found some determination. He shook his head, and his eyes gleamed with a sullen defiance. Or maybe it was just a different kind of fear, maybe he was more scared of talking, of confessing, because of what might happen to him then.
Amy was protesting.
‘Angus – you just can’t shoot him –’
Angus swore, and waved the gun.
‘But Kellerman said, fuck this, Kellerman said –’
It was an impasse. They were stuck. Angus had the gun aimed at Dresler’s head but David knew the German was right, Angus couldn’t do this. Not in cold blood. Couldn’t kill this sad old man with his spidery writing.
The spidery writing? With a well-oiled click the mental machinery of the puzzle began to turn. He gasped aloud. Of course. The address book.
‘Stop!’
Faces turned. David explained:
‘He knows me.’
Angus was incredulous: ‘What?’
‘I’ve worked it out. This guy Dresler. He knows me. He must recognize me.’
Amy went to speak; David interrupted: ‘Angus. Where
was this guy living – before he came to Luderitz?’
‘France. Provence.’
‘There. That’s it.’ David gestured, fiercely, at the kneeling old Nazi. ‘He recognized me when I walked through the door. I saw it in his eyes.’ He leaned very close to Dresler’s sweaty face. ‘You know me, don’t you? Because you met my father. He found you. Someone in the Basque Country, a Gurs survivor, gave my father your details, your name, and Dad traced you to Provence.’ He was leaning even closer to the quailing old German. ‘And my dad threatened to reveal your past to the world – so you confessed – or you helped him – I’m fucking right, aren’t I?’
Dresler was shaking his head. Mute. Determined and mute. But his silence was unconvincing. Amy whispered: ‘I think you’re right. Look at him.’
David didn’t need any encouragement.
‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. Someone must have
told my father about the monastery, someone who knew secrets. Who had an interest in the story, like an old Nazi, from Gurs. Who became a member of the Society of Pius…He would know where the archives were kept. It was you. You told my father – and then you had to flee, to Namibia, and this – this here –’
David grabbed at the address book. He waved it under Dresler’s face.
‘I recognize this handwriting! This tiny precise scrawl. You wrote on the back of my father’s map. Didn’t you?’
Again Dresler shook his head. And again it was unconvincing.
Angus was visibly excited.
‘OK. So let’s say that’s it. You must be right. Let’s put the clues together –’
‘How?’
‘Shark Island. That’s what this fucker said. Shark Island.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Just down the road. Luderitz! By the fish wharves.’
Angus swivelled on Dresler. For a second it seemed Angus would strike the bowed and silent head of the Nazi with the butt of the pistol. Then he seemed to think better of it. He spat with contempt, but lowered the gun.
‘Come on – we haven’t got much time and Miguel could be anywhere, that chopper leaves in two hours –’
They ran to the door, leaving Dresler burbling and shivering in his hallway. A Nazi kneeling in the contents of his own emptied bladder.
The brutal noon sun was like a punishment, a fierce chastisement. Angus gestured south. They ran down the dusty road which doubled back to the wharves.
Two black men were sifting listlessly through piles of white dust on a corner. The smell of fish and decay was overpowering. Bleak white dust and hot blue sky – and an old Nazi wetting himself. David’s mind was alive with fears and anxieties, and hope. Maybe they would find the secret. He realized, now, at least he was beginning to realize, that he needed to find the secret. The secret of himself. The terror of ignorance was too much.
The road terminated at a gate.
‘That is Shark Island.’ Angus indicated a kind of peninsula, jutting out into the sea. ‘We take this path…’
They paced along a hot burning track that hugged the shoreline, hemmed in by broken concrete walls. Then they paused. A windswept and derelict warehouse loomed to their left, providing shade. The smell of the cold rich Benguela current was intense in the burning air.