sThe Quiet Wart (25 page)

Sean and Liz were woken early in the morning by Clive.

‘Anna Faustein's up and heading in the direction of the airport. Dorsch's guys are on her. They'll find out where she's going and we'll follow in his plane.'

‘I'll stay here with Praew and if you don't come back by Sunday night, I'll take the train to London. I need to get her back to school,' Liz said.

‘You can't do that. What about Koryalov?' Sean asked.

‘She has to go back some time. We can't just hide forever.'

‘I know, but let's deal with Koryalov first.'

Staring helplessly at Sean, Liz pleaded. ‘Okay, but do something soon. I'll stay here and do some home schooling with her for now, but ...'

‘Good, you'll be safer here with Dorsch's men,' Sean agreed, climbing out of bed and heading for the shower.

Ten minutes later he was in the back of a Mercedes S Class, with Clive, Steve and Pete, being driven to the private terminal at Brussels International Airport. There was no traffic so early on Saturday morning and they pulled up outside the hanger less than fifteen minutes later. Dorsch was already inside, waiting for them at the reception counter.

‘She's flying to Berlin. I've got people waiting for her there, but we'll get there before her anyway. Her flight doesn't leave for another half an hour.'

*

The flight to Berlin took just over an hour and they were soon sitting outside the main passenger terminal at Tegel airport. The 1970s' curved concrete façade swept away into the distance as Sean peered through the darkened glass window of the Range Rover that had collected them. Dorsch was in the front passenger seat and Clive was in the rear with Sean. At the other end of the terminal, Pete and Steve were in another car with two of Dorsch's men, waiting.

‘She's coming through now,' the voice of another of Dorsch's men said from inside the terminal. ‘She'll be at the south side door.'

When Anna strode out of the glass doors of the terminal building pulling a carry-on suitcase, she looked as confident as ever, dressed in a neat black business suit and carrying a thin, black, leather briefcase. To Sean though, she looked different: she was now the target. ‘She must be going to a meeting. That's not how she dresses outside work,' he commented.

A black BMW 7 series arrived at the kerbside next to her and a uniformed chauffer quickly jumped out to open the door. Anna didn't wait, opening the door herself before climbing into the limousine.

Both cars followed the BMW through the streets of north Berlin for fifteen minutes, before they came out from under a bridge and curved right, onto the ultra-modern
Moltkebrücke
, which spanned the River Spree. On the other side of the river, the BMW slowed and indicated to turn right. Both of Dorsch's cars continued through the curve to the left and didn't stop.

‘Why aren't we following?' Sean asked.

‘That's the Bundeskanzleramt; the home of the Chancellor. We can't stop around here,' Dorsch said. ‘We'll put one car in either direction and pick her up when she leaves. At least we know who she's meeting.'

It would be normal for a person in Anna's position to meet with the German Chancellor, but Sean's mind raced.
Could that be who we're looking for… the Führer?'

‘I don't suppose she could be… I mean Dorfman… the
Führer?'
Sean said

‘I've given that some thought. She's from a party linked to Faustein's party and although she claims to be from the centre of politics, it's not the way she acts. She runs the country like a dictator and takes no prisoners. I wouldn't be surprised if she was involved in some way,' Dorsch said.

Instinctively, Sean picked up his phone and called Liz. ‘Hi, Liz, could you get me as much background as possible on Gretal Dorfman?'

‘The German Chancellor?'

‘Yes. Anna Faustein's just gone into her residence.'

‘My god, Sean, be careful. Give me a few hours and I'll see what I can come up with.'

When Sean clicked the phone off, he was still processing things in his mind. ‘It doesn't really make sense though; a national head of state making the EU irreversibly more powerful than the state. They're the people who stand to lose the most,' he said.

‘That depends on whether she's pulling the strings in the background. She probably has the ability to vote Faustein in or out as party leader, it's an effective means of control,' Dorsch said.

Images of the news articles that Sean had read over the years, which claimed that the German Chancellor was really in charge of events at the EU, suddenly sprang into Sean's mind. He'd always written them off as nonsense, because he couldn't see how it could work, but that was before he understood the power of the transnational political parties and their links to national party leaders.

‘They'd need to be confident that they had the right person before they transferred the overt power like that. Whoever it is would have to be beyond corruption; totally loyal to the cause,' Sean said.

‘Like the granddaughter of Adolf Hitler?' Clive suggested.

The two other passengers suddenly fell silent.

‘Surely not! Surely that's nonsense!' Sean said quietly.

But the others didn't speak.

Anna's car came back out onto Willy Brandt Strasse two hours later and turned right, towards the centre of Berlin. Following behind, they were soon out of the gleaming modern structures of the government buildings and into some of the few remaining historic structures that had survived the Allied bombing of the Second World War.

After a few minutes, the BMW came to a halt outside a sandstone building with burgundy awnings above its windows. In the distance, the Brandenberg Gate dominated the area and Sean scrutinised the edifice he'd seen on TV so many times growing up. It was something that had become the symbol of the struggle between East and West during the Cold War; the most prominent point on the Berlin Wall.

They'd stopped on the former communist side and Anna climbed out of the car, while a hotel porter took her bags. After stretching her back, she sauntered through the doors of the Hotel Adlon.

‘I guess we'll be here for a while,' Clive said, as Anna's car pulled away from the door.

Agreeing with Clive, Dorsch quickly hopped out of the car and returned with some cold drinks and sandwiches, but they didn't need to wait as long as expected for Anna, as within minutes, she ran out of the front door of the hotel and turned left towards the gate, wearing her jogging clothes.

‘We can't follow her there. It's pedestrianised. We'll have to go to the other side. You stay here in case we lose her,' Dorsch instructed the other car, as they sped away from the gate to a road that cut through the buildings, out to the western side of the wall.

When they arrived on the other side, tour buses were blocking the view back to the gate. They scanned the area for Anna, but she was nowhere to be seen.

‘We've lost her,' Clive exclaimed.

‘Wait. Is that her getting into that green Audi?' Sean pointed to a green car on the wide street by the park.

‘Yes, it is. She's being cautious. She's up to something,' Clive commented.

*

When the Audi pulled away, they followed as it headed north on the road towards Rostock. After about half-an-hour's driving, Dorsch's phone rang. ‘Wagner's just left Leipzig in a helicopter. We can't follow him,' he said, after the call.

Returning to his phone, Dorsch then made another call and spoke in German. ‘My guys are checking out her room in the Adlon. She can't get back there to surprise them now,' he said, following the call.

Thoughts of what Liz would make of Dorsch's lack of respect for the law crossed Sean's mind, but he decided to just let it go.

Another hour and a half passed before they reached the Baltic seaport of Rostock. When the Audi pulled over by a small roadside café, Anna got out carrying a bag and went inside. The team waited, out of sight in the Range Rover. After about twenty minutes, Anna emerged, but she was no longer wearing her running clothes and had changed into a traditional dirndl, topped off with a long blonde wig. If it was a disguise, it was good. Sean would have walked past her in the street.

The Audi soon sped away, but Dorsch told the driver to wait a minute or so. ‘I don't want to be seen, and anyway, I think I know where she's going.'

‘Where?' Sean asked, as the Range Rover started to move again.

‘Jamel. It's not far from here, but we can't go there.'

‘Why not?' Clive said, surprised by Dorsch's sudden caution.

‘Because it's a town for Nazis: only Nazis live there; and only Nazis are welcome there. We'd stand out like, how do you say it… the testicles of a dog.'

‘We could get some pictures of Anna dressed like that,' Clive said.

The comment made Dorsch laugh. ‘Every woman in Germany has a traditional dirndl. I'm guessing that she's wearing it because it fits with the mentality of the Nazis'. They like tradition, anything which harks back to the old Germany,' he said.

With the Audi now well out of sight, they were soon out into open countryside, passing through quaint towns with traditional buildings. When they arrived at the small village of Gressow, Dorsch told the driver to stop, and they parked the car behind a café, hiding it from the road. ‘This is as close as we get,' Dorsch climbed out of the car. ‘Jamel is less than two kilometres up this road. We'll catch her when she leaves.'

When they entered the small café, the owner said something in German to Dorsch, who in turn, seemed to be asking questions of the elderly man.

‘That's odd. He says that a lot of cars have gone into Jamel this morning. It must be some kind of meeting,' Dorsch relayed.

As Sean was about to speak, the propeller noise from a nearby helicopter disrupted them, smothering the conversation. Sean immediately ran outside and took a photo of it, before it disappeared over the tress, seemingly landing in Jamel. When he returned to his seat, he quickly pulled the photo up on the screen and passed it around. ‘I'd bet that's Wagner. What flag is that?' Sean asked about the black, red and white flag with an iron cross in the corner, which was painted across the bottom of the helicopter.

‘It's the flag of the Kaiser. Nazi symbols are banned in Germany, so they've adopted this instead. I think you're right. The only person wealthy enough to own a helicopter and bold enough to paint it this way is Wagner. It must be an important meeting,' Dorsch said.

‘If it is, they'll all be there: all the leaders,' Clive said, raising an eyebrow.

Taking the hint, Dorsch quickly sprang to his feet. ‘Come on. Let's see if we can get a better look.' He ran out to the Range Rover and instructed the driver to stay with the car. Then he pulled out a camera with a zoom lens and two sets of military binoculars from the boot, before passing around three browning 9mm pistols. ‘Same rules; don't shoot me,' he said to Sean, grinning.

‘Won't the café owner give us away?' Clive asked.

‘I doubt it. He called them “fucking Nazi dickheads” earlier.' Dorsch smiled.

Following behind Dorsch, they ran out of the town, through a farmer's field and into a small forest. When they made their way to the other side of the trees, the small village of Jamal came into view, about 300 metres away across open fields. Staying behind the last line of trees, Clive and Sean began to scan the area with the binoculars, while Dorsch assessed their position just using his naked eyes.

A yellow tin sign for the town came into view in Sean's binoculars, announcing it as Jamel, Landkreis Nordwestmecklenberg. Along from the tin sign and closer to the village centre, he saw another, more makeshift sign. It had a series of wooden arrows attached to it, giving distances to other places in Europe, similar to the tourist signs seen in major cities all over the world. When Sean read the arrow second from the bottom, it sent a chill down his spine:
Braunau-am-Inn 855km.
Beyond the signpost, painted onto a rendered wall, a large mural depicted a traditional Bavarian family; all with blonde hair and blue eyes. Even with his limited historical knowledge, Sean knew that it was a copy of a 1930s' Nazi propaganda poster.

The small village was filled with parked cars, and skinheads with dogs roamed around the perimeter of the houses. The irony of the fact that these vicious-looking bald-headed thugs somehow identified themselves with the people in the poster baffled Sean completely.
But then Hitler himself was hardly the prime Aryan example,
he thought.

In the centre of the village, Anna's green Audi was parked by a light blue-coloured house, which was surrounded by guards. Wagner's helicopter sat in a small paddock on the edge of the village, also surrounded by skinhead guards.

‘I think they're meeting in that building there,' Dorsch said, pointing to the cream building closest to the woods that they were hiding in. He quickly pulled the camera up and set up a tripod below it, which seemed a bit extreme to Sean.

‘It's a laser listening device. It has to be perfectly still and focussed on a window,' Dorsch said, interpreting Sean's expression.

‘Sorry, I thought it was a camera,' Sean smiled.

Lifting his eyebrows in a concerned way, Dorsch continued to play with the lens a few times, before stopping. ‘It's no use. I need to get closer. Stay here,' he said, before grabbing the equipment and edging across the trees. When he reached the end of the forest, he moved forward towards the town, using a hedgerow as cover.

With Dorsch now so close to the village, Sean felt his pulse race, willing him to be careful. Then he stopped, just 150m from the building where the meeting was taking place and set up the listening device behind the hedgerow. After a couple of minutes of fiddling with it, he turned and gave the thumbs-up.

‘What are they saying?' Sean asked.

Pushing his headphones into his ears, Dorsch didn't answer for a while. ‘They seem to be judging some kind of beauty pageant.'

‘Really? That's it?' Sean said.

‘Yes, they've just named some girl from Dortmund Miss Hitler, saying that she's the perfect Aryan.'

‘Fucking hell! Are you serious?' Clive said.

‘Yes. Shhh,' Dorsch replied.

The radio went silent for a little while again. ‘Okay, it's a meeting alright, they've moved on to the next agenda item.'

‘Anna's speaking now. They introduced her as the
Vizekanzler,
so we were right about that,' Dorsch laughed.

‘Wait a minute. How the hell did he get there? It's Grossi.'

‘At least we know that he's involved now. So we know three of the top four people in 4R18,' Sean said.

‘Quiet, they're talking about you,' Dorsch said quickly.

‘What?' Sean asked.

‘They're saying that the Russian failed. They know about Koryalov. They gave him your location.'

‘So Koryalov
is
part of this?' Sean asked.

‘I don't think so, they just seem to have been using him.'

‘But how did they know about us and Koryalov?'

‘Wasn't it all over the news?'

‘Yes,' Sean said sheepishly.

‘Wagner's just said that he'll deal with it himself from now on.'

‘Did he say that he knows where we are?'

‘Shhh,' Dorsch said again. ‘They've just introduced the
Führer
.'

‘Who is it?' Clive asked quickly.

‘Shhh,' Dorsch repeated, as Sean saw him pushing on the outside of his ear phones. Then he suddenly lifted his head, peering over the hedgerow. ‘No, impossible. It can't be… '