Echo of the Reich (22 page)

For a few moments Angela was silent, then she sighed.

“Then I suppose this is as good a time as any to explain what else Steven came up with. I told you what
Laternenträger
means, what the dictionary definition says. But there’s another possible interpretation of the word which is much, much older than a nineteenth-century lamplighter. It could be a fairly literal translation of an ancient name, a name that’s resonated down the ages, a name that’s synonymous with death and destruction.”

“You’re sounding almost messianic, Angela. Or maybe apocalyptic.”

“That’s not a bad description, actually. The Latin phrase
lucem ferre
means ‘the bearer of the light,’ and that gave us an English name that means almost the same thing. ‘He who carries the light’ is the ancient name of Lucifer, the Devil. The Devil is supposed to be the author of all evil, the fallen angel who brought death to this world. If you’re right, Chris—and I pray that you’re not—then this man Marcus might be planning to unleash a weapon on London that would be far worse than the wrath of God; it could be the Devil’s revenge.”

24 July 2012

“That tiny island is an anachronism that Europe simply doesn’t need,” Marcus Wolf said. “We came so close in the last war to utterly destroying it, and if the Führer had not turned his attention to the east and awoken the sleeping Russian bear, we could have—we should have—succeeded.”

Klaus Drescher nodded. The leader of
Die Neue Dämmerung
—The New Dawn—was treading familiar ground but, as usual, Drescher didn’t disagree with anything that Wolf said. They had both studied, in considerable detail, the history of the Second World War, and their analysis was unequivocal. If Hitler had pressed home his advantage, prevented the mass evacuation of Dunkirk that had been hailed as—and indeed was—an Allied triumph, and forced Hermann Goering to commit every aircraft he had to destroying the British Royal Air Force, Britain would certainly have been defeated in the winter
of 1940. Then Hitler’s Operation Sea Lion could have proceeded as planned, and would have resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Fatherland. Only after the war had ended did it become clear just how close Britain had come to ultimate defeat and inevitable surrender.

But now, thanks to the
Laternenträger
, Germany had a chance to redress the balance, though it had been a long wait.

When it had become clear to even the most dedicated and fanatical Nazi that Hitler’s dream was over, and that Germany would be overrun by enemy forces within a matter of weeks, farsighted individuals began implementing the plans they had already drawn up. Some of these later became public knowledge. The Vatican, for example, had been perfectly happy to facilitate the transport of high-ranking Nazis out of Germany in exchange for financial donations, and even Red Cross officials knew that many of the so-called “refugees’ they were processing were actually wanted Nazis. And the Odessa—the
Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen
, the Organization of Former SS Members—had established numerous “rat lines” to allow the escape of senior SS officers from Germany and Austria to other countries, primarily South America.

Marcus’s grandfather hadn’t needed to avail himself of any of these organizations, simply because he had been on board the Junkers Ju-390 that had spirited
Die Glocke
out of Poland and on to its ultimate destination in Argentina. There, he had found a number of like-minded former German officers, and within a fairly short time he had set up
Die Neue Dämmerung
: the group that would herald the new dawn of the Nazi dream.

They had hoped, even after the end of hostilities, to quickly regroup and re-arm and, allied with the threat of the devastating military capability promised by
Die Glocke
, to force the Allies to surrender. And then they would have returned to the Fatherland in triumph. But the destruction of Germany had been so complete, so devastating, and the work required on
Die Glocke
so complex and time-consuming, that they were never able to realize their dream. Until now, that is, when their scientists had finally perfected the weapon that was even then on its way to London.

Leadership of the New Dawn had been passed from father to son, to ensure that the organization never lost its focus or clarity of purpose, and now Marcus Wolf held the reins, and was preparing for the triumph that had eluded the group for so long.

“Eventually, the people of Germany will thank us,” Klaus said now. “It was a mistake, a bad mistake, to have allowed Britain ever to become a part of the European Union. We have nothing in common with them, and they have been nothing but trouble, just as they were in the nineteen forties.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Marcus agreed. “After we have succeeded with our mission, we will be able to ignore the United Kingdom, and that will allow Germany, the Fatherland, to again take its rightful place as the most powerful nation within Europe. The Führer failed to achieve that using tanks and soldiers and aircraft, but we are going to succeed. We will eliminate Britain as a political and economic force by the application of pure science, by the triggering of our weapon, and our nation
will then go on to dominate the continent because of the power of our economy and our implacable political will. Within five years, my friend, I believe that Germany will be the fourth most important nation on Earth, and we can then, perhaps, begin making plans to topple America and Russia, and maybe even China as well.”

“When they see what the
Laternenträger
can do, and they realize that there is no defense against it, the political climate will change dramatically,” Drescher agreed.

“Exactly,” Marcus said. “There is nothing to stop us now.”

24 July 2012

Bronson removed the battery from the mobile phone, placed the components in the Hyundai’s glovebox, then started the car and drove out of the service area and back onto route 13, heading south.

As he pulled out into the light early-morning traffic, he glanced frequently in his rearview mirror. And what he saw confirmed his suspicions. He’d only just cleared the end of the slip road when he noticed two marked police cars heading south toward him, and traveling very quickly. A short distance behind them, a Mercedes van was matching their speed. As he watched, the two police cars slowed and turned into the service area, disappearing from view. The Mercedes van continued along the autobahn, slowing all the time, and then turned right onto the end of the slip road, partially blocking it.

It could, of course, have been some kind of exercise, or a mere coincidence that the German police had arrived
in force at a location he had just left, but Bronson didn’t believe in coincidences. He was now certain that his mobile phone was being tracked. If he’d spent just two more minutes on his call to Angela, he knew he’d now be in custody and awaiting extradition back to England to face whatever charges Detective Inspector Davidson thought he could make stick.

The phone would have to go, obviously, but he would still need to be able to contact Angela, and using public pay phones simply wouldn’t work. He needed another mobile phone. And, just as important, so did she, because the only way the Metropolitan Police could possibly have worked out that he was using this particular mobile was if they’d placed a watch on Angela’s home, office and mobile numbers.

He would have to risk one final call to her from that phone.

The next exit from the autobahn was the Groß Köris junction. Bronson took the slip road and then turned east toward Klein Köris. As soon as he found somewhere to park safely beside the road, he stopped the car, reassembled the mobile phone, and called Angela’s mobile. She answered almost immediately.

“It’s me again,” Bronson said. “This is important, so just listen and please don’t interrupt. My phone’s being tracked by the police here, and they must have discovered the number by monitoring my calls to you. I’m getting a new phone this morning, and I want you to do the same. Just buy an ordinary pay-as-you-go mobile for cash and load the SIM card with as much credit as it’ll take, but at least twenty pounds. Keep your present mobile with you,
and I’ll text you the number of my new phone as soon as I’ve got it.”

“If you do that, won’t the police also know your number?” Angela protested. “And you’re in even more trouble now, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m at about the same depth as usual, I suppose. And sending a text should be safe. I’ll explain why later. Now, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you this evening.”

Bronson again removed the battery from the phone and drove on. He hoped he was right about a text message being safe. It was one thing for the Metropolitan Police to ask a mobile phone company to locate the position of a particular handset by checking which radio masts the unit was in contact with, or even to obtain a listing of the calls made and received by that mobile, but it was quite another to monitor the calls and messages themselves. That needed warrants or court orders, and Bronson doubted if Davidson had enough evidence to convince anybody that he needed to be able to listen to what Angela Lewis, a respected ceramics conservator working for the British Museum, a lady who had never been given so much as a parking ticket in her life, was saying, or what her texts comprised.

And unless they had obtained a warrant to record her calls, there was no way they’d be able to track him once he’d ditched his original mobile. After that, their conversations would just be from one unregistered mobile in London to another unregistered mobile near Berlin.

That thought gave him some comfort as he continued east toward Klein Köris. All he had to do now was find somewhere to buy a new phone.

In fact, that didn’t prove too difficult. When he reached the town, he easily found a parking place in a side street, locked the car and walked the short distance to the main shopping area. At the end of a short parade of shops, he found the kind of retail establishment that would be instantly familiar to any British shopper: smart and glitzy, staffed by bright young things, and with examples of all the latest handsets mounted in racks on the walls.

Bronson had no interest in the number of texts he could send at no charge, or the length of time he could spend pointlessly surfing the Internet on a phone with a screen the size of a large postage stamp. All he wanted was the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone the shop had to offer. And eventually, after a good deal of gesticulating, pointing and miming, and even trying out a bit of his French on the assistant, Bronson got what he wanted: a cheap phone with a mains charger and a SIM card in a colorful box, plus the largest amount of credit the unit would accept, all of which he paid for in cash.

He returned to the car, opened the box and checked the phone. All the instructions were in German, obviously, but mobile phones aren’t complicated to use, and he didn’t expect to have any trouble getting it to work, especially after he went into the menu system and changed the display language to English.

The owner of the Hyundai had helpfully left a universal phone charger in the glovebox, perhaps because he used several different phones for different purposes—a common trick employed by drug dealers—and Bronson quickly found the correct adapter for his new unit. He
plugged the other end of the charging lead into the cigarette lighter socket, and left the phone switched on. Now he needed to send the text to Angela, and then lose the old unit.

He checked the map book. He still believed that the house he’d been taken to lay somewhere to the southeast of Berlin, but he guessed he was too far south. The fastest way to drive to the north would be along the autobahn he’d recently left, but he was reluctant to do that just in case there were any checks or roadblocks on it. He much preferred the freedom of choice and multiplicity of routes offered by the normal roads.

Bronson started the car again and drove straight through Klein Köris to the T-junction with route 179, where he turned left. About five miles north of the junction, he found a convenient turnout and pulled in. He reinserted the battery in his old mobile phone and switched it on.

He’d just entered the phone number of his new mobile when a thought struck him: there was something, something important, that he hadn’t asked Angela to do. After the mobile number he quickly added a few sentences: REMOVE BATTERY FROM NEW PHONE WHEN IN OR NEAR OFFICE OR FLAT. PHONE CAN BE TRACED IF BATTERY ATTACHED. ONLY SWITCH ON WHEN ABOUT TO CALL ME. ONLY CALL ME FROM CAFE OR RESTAURANT OR OTHER CROWDED LOCATION. UNDERSTAND?

He left the phone switched on for a couple of minutes while he worked out the route he was going to follow, just in case Angela replied quickly. And she did, just before
Bronson was going to start the engine and drive away. Her message was just as abrupt and terse as his had been. I GET IT, she’d sent. Bronson grinned, pulled out the phone’s battery, and drove away.

Near Körbiskrug he pulled into a garage to fill the car’s fuel tank, and buy some snacks and a couple of cans of drink. While he was in the garage, he looked at some of the other items on display, and in what looked like a “special offer” section—which was probably stuff the owner was desperate to get rid of—he found exactly what he wanted. And it was cheap, too.

A mile or so further up the road he pulled into a large turnout to eat his scratch lunch before starting his search for the house in earnest. There were three other vehicles parked in the turnout, two cars and a pickup truck with an open flat-bed rear, full of bits of furniture and other stuff. Bronson pulled his car to a stop a few yards away from it, and looked at it thoughtfully, a simple plan forming in his mind.

He reached over and opened the glovebox, put the battery back in his old mobile and turned on the unit. The driver of the pickup truck was sitting in the vehicle, eating a large sandwich and chatting to his passenger. The sound of country-and-western music was faintly audible through the truck’s open windows, and neither of them seemed to be paying too much attention to their surroundings.