The Isis Covenant (22 page)

They stared at each other, knowing they were going down the same road and entertaining the same doubts.

‘We need to know what happened afterwards,’ Danny said slowly. ‘Somehow we have to find out if Hartmann or Dornberger escaped, and what happened to them if they did? Is that possible?’

Jamie shook his head. ‘I don’t know. These people didn’t exactly advertise what they did after the war.’

‘Yeah, how do you go about tracking down an old SS man? I thought they all changed their names and skeedaddled off to Argentina, like that Doc What’s-his-name.’

‘Mengele,’ Jamie said absently. ‘A lot of them just vanished into Soviet prisoner of war camps and never came back. The lucky ones like Mengele were smuggled out by ODESSA, the SS escape organization that had been set up when they saw what was coming, or with the help of the Roman Catholic Church.’ He saw the
look
on her face. ‘Oh yes, it’s a murky area, but well documented. The worst of them changed their names and their faces, although, oddly enough, now that I think of it, some of them are quite proud of their past. They even have an Old Soldiers’ organization.’

‘Like the American Legion?’

‘That’s right, a sort of Legion for the Damned.’

‘Well I’ll be …’

‘What we need is an introduction.’

‘And where are we going to get that?’ Her face creased in a frown. ‘Maybe London is crawling with ex SS men, but they aren’t likely to introduce themselves and, even if they did, I doubt they’d send us an invitation to their next square dance.’

Jamie went to the window and looked out over the London roofscape towards the distinctive outline of the Gherkin. ‘There is one possibility.’ His voice made it clear it wasn’t a particularly welcome possibility. ‘It might be pointless. On the other hand, it might be dangerous. Even if it works, I’ll end up owing a man I’d rather not be in debt too.’

‘Except the other option is to walk away.’

‘That’s right. The other option is to walk away. And for the sake of the Crown of Isis’s next victim we can’t do that.’

‘May I speak to David, please?’

‘There is no David here. I believe you have the wrong number.’

I wish
. Jamie smiled bitterly. ‘Perhaps he no longer calls himself David.’

‘You have a nerve calling this number again, Mr Saintclair. You exposed me to a great deal of needless trouble, not so say risk, and you cost me the services of a very good operative.’

‘How is Miss Grant?’

‘What makes you think I would know?’ the other man demanded. Something in the way he said it confirmed Jamie’s growing suspicion that Sarah Grant had returned to the fold.

‘Please pass on my regards, if she gets in touch.’

A half-grunt of disbelief.

‘At great risk to myself, I lured the Vril Society out into the open for you. I’m sure you made good use of that.’

‘The Vril Society is an irrelevance, Mr Saintclair. Our only interest was in the Sun Stone. It took a large amount of money and effort to discover what you already knew. That it no longer existed. I have very painful memories of the meeting with my supervisor at which I had to explain that. So tell me, why should I talk to you?’

‘Because I also removed Walter Brohm, Gunther Klosse and Paul Strasser from your most-wanted list. I’m sure that was a cause for celebration in certain quarters.’ He took the silence that followed as confirmation. ‘I’m interested in getting in touch with some former
Kameraden
. You will have heard of
Geistjaeger 88
?’

A snort of disgust made David’s feelings clear enough. ‘Not just an irrelevance, but a joke. Perhaps if you discover the Spear of Destiny or the Ark of the Covenant you will get back in touch?’

‘I can assure you this is no joke, David,’ Jamie hurried on before the other man could hang up, ‘but a matter of life and death. People have already died and others may be at risk. I can’t believe a man with your background would leave them to their fate.’

There was another long pause while David made his decision. ‘I think if we had any sense we would discontinue this call and terminate our relationship now, Mr Saintclair, but there is a possibility that at some point in the future you may be of some practical use to us. Do you understand what I am saying? This might not be in your best interests.’

Jamie knew exactly what he was saying and he was certain that David was right. Who would have thought selling your soul would cause such a physical pain? Still, he was too far in to turn back now.

‘I need a way to reach the Old Comrades’ Association. I thought you might have a suggestion.’

‘Call me on this number in two days.’

David was still as he remembered him. Short, tanned and powerful: a pocket battleship of a man in a smart suit and open-necked shirt, who could break your neck with a flick of his wrists and his smile wouldn’t even falter.

‘How was our old friend Frederick when you last met? Berlin, wasn’t it?’

Jamie laughed. So he’d been right. Mossad did have a source inside the Vril Society. So much for being irrelevant. ‘If you’d ever tried poking a cobra with a stick you’d know. Isn’t this a strange place for you to be meeting someone?’ He looked up into the nave of the church, where time had blackened and cracked the seven-hundred-year-old beams.

David didn’t take his eyes of the altarpiece. ‘Not so strange as you might think.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope, which he handed over. Jamie hesitated, not certain what to do next. ‘Open it, please.’

He worked the flap free and pulled out two sheets of paper. David saw his look of surprise.

‘Yes, quite interesting that you should already be acquainted. Page one is a biography of his life that you will already be familiar with. The second page is an alternative and entirely accurate account of his activities between nineteen forty-one and nineteen forty-six.’

Jamie shook his head, even after so many surprises this was difficult to believe.

‘What if he denies it?’

‘Oh, he certainly will. First he will feign shock that you, his friend, have accused him. Then he will laugh it off; a joke perpetrated by his friends. If you press him, he will deny it outright. Enemies attempting to smear him. A hangover from the time when he risked his life for good old Blighty in the fight against Communism.
That’s
when you show him a copy of this.’ He handed over a picture of a man in uniform, smiling broadly as he fixed a noose over the head of a boy in a flat cap. Beside the boy a pretty girl with wild blonde hair looks on so disinterestedly that it takes you a moment to realize she is already dead, choked by the thin rope around her neck. ‘Clearly he enjoyed his work.’

Jamie read the second page of the document again. ‘Why …?’

‘Because, despite what you read there, he was small fry. Not worth the effort of unmasking. There are thousands like that. Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians. All former SS with blood on their hands and welcomed into your country. They even set up their own social clubs. At one time, there was a feeling that he might be useful and the material could be used to persuade him to help us. Now, because of his age, he is a dwindling asset. Thus …’

‘Thank you.’

‘You understand that it is up to you to make this work, Mr Saintclair? And that our agreement is still binding whether it does or not.’

Jamie nodded.

‘Good. Here is a card with a new number to use. I have decided to discontinue the old one.’

Jamie took it and studied the name. ‘Benjamin?’

The other man produced a tight smile. ‘David was becoming a little stale.’ He got to his feet. ‘Good luck, Mr Saintclair. I do not envy you your task. Even for the
most
righteous, it is difficult to dabble in these waters without becoming a little contaminated. And should this lead you back to Germany, please be careful. The Vril Society may be an irrelevance, but that does not make Frederick any less dangerous.’

XXV

‘I SHOULD REALLY
call in at the office to let Gail know I might be gone for a while longer.’

Danny gave him one of her looks. ‘So you stay away from the apartment, but you’re happy to walk into the office in broad daylight? Why don’t you pin a notice on your back saying shoot me? Give her a call, but not on the office phone, on her cell. Okay?’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘but I can’t hide for ever.’

He rang the number and Gail answered on the third ring.

After the usual pleasantries and a briefing on the latest business she came out with the information he’d been expecting, but hoped not to hear. ‘I’m so glad you called, Jamie,’ she said. ‘I’ve been frightened for you. We’ve had some very odd phone calls and a couple of unlikely “customers” asking questions about your new female assistant.’

Jamie looked to where Danny lay on the bed studying
the
newspaper and making a call of her own. ‘We need all the customers we can get, Gail.’ He forced himself to be cheerfully reassuring. ‘If we turned away the weird ones we’d be out of business in a fortnight. Look, that’s what I was phoning you about. Why don’t you take a week off and spend some time with your mum? I’m trying to set up some meetings in Germany and I won’t be in the office for a while.’

‘I could do that.’ He sensed the reluctance in her voice. ‘But if there was anything I could do to help. Anything at all …’

He closed his eyes. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? Life couldn’t be that complicated.

‘No, that’s fine, but look, we’ll have a chat when I get back. Increased responsibilities, maybe a pay rise …’

When he rang off, Danny was doing the same.

‘Thanks for your help, sir.’ She laid down the phone, picked up the newspaper and handed it to him. ‘Page four. One of the stories down the side. Just a few paragraphs because Scotland Yard is trying to keep a lid on it for now.’

He found what he was looking for. ‘Two American tourists found dead in a hotel room. Police are treating the deaths as suspicious and have asked for any witnesses to come forward?’

‘That’s right, two American tourists with a rap sheet you could use as a parachute and a cocked .45 pistol under their pillow.’

‘Our guy? That would be quite a coincidence.’

She nodded slowly. ‘And we don’t do coincidences. But that’s not the juicy part.’

‘I’m not sure if I’m going to like the juicy part.’

‘The way they died. The very specific way they were killed. According to your cops, their throats were cut by some kind of metallic ligature. That’s precisely the same MO as the Hartmanns in Brooklyn and the London Hartmans.’ She picked up the Gestapo report on the boy’s death in Berlin from where it was lying on the bed. ‘Which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is also uncannily similar to our unknown child victim in nineteen forty-five.’

‘Hartmann must be in his eighties. Dornberger nearer a hundred. They’re not running around London killing people with a piece of piano wire, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Maybe not, but someone is.’

‘Why would our man – assuming it is a man – kill someone who was sent from the States to kill me? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘None of this makes sense, Jamie. We just have to try to make sense of it. What does he achieve by killing them?’

The seconds lengthened into minutes as he turned it over in his mind. ‘I think there are two possibilities.’ She nodded for him to carry on. ‘Either he wanted them out of the way to have a clear run at me at a time and place of his choosing – he wants me dead, but for some reason not now – or he wants me to keep looking for the Crown of Isis …’

‘Which means …’

Their eyes met. ‘We’re closer than we think.’

‘Why not a combination of both? He killed them because he thinks you can lead him to the diamond and once you have …’

Jamie told her about Gail’s strange calls and visitors and got up to close the curtains. He looked out from the window and saw a hundred others staring back at him from a dozen tower blocks. The killer could be behind any one, which triggered a worrying possibility.

‘How did he know where to find them?’

‘As your Sherlock Holmes would say:
Elementary, my dear Saintclair, elementary
. He knew where to find them because he was watching us when they hit you. But I don’t think he is now.’

‘I’m not sure I go along with that, Danny. I prefer to stay nervous.’

She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. If he knew
where
I was the chances are he’d know
who
I was. If that’s the case, why would he be asking your secretary about your new female assistant only a few days ago, while we were still in Germany? I think he lost us.’

Cork Street, in Mayfair, had been the centre for London’s most successful commercial art galleries for as long as anyone could remember. It was close to Jamie’s office in Old Bond Street and he regularly made the rounds in the search for business and the hope of being offered a decent cup of coffee. Cork Street wasn’t the
kind
of place you were likely to pick up a bargain, but sometimes, if a gallery owner was keen to move a picture on, Jamie might be offered a commission. Micky Janelis ran his business from a discreet townhouse in the small mews that cut off at a dogleg from the main street. The only clue to his line of work was the Renoir self-portrait in the front window that may, or may not, have been genuine but that to Jamie’s certain knowledge had never been offered for sale. Micky was an old-school collector who specialized in the Impressionists and revelled in his self-appointed role as the street’s elder statesman and relentless
bête noire
of all things modernist. He was a diminutive, untidy man in a rumpled suit and spotted bow tie, with spikes of grey hair that shot like fireworks from either side of his bald head. From what Jamie had heard, Micky could have comfortably retired a couple of decades earlier, but claimed it was only his passion for art that kept him alive.

When Jamie pressed the entry buzzer and Micky discovered who it was, he greeted the younger man like an old friend.

‘Jamie Saintclair, as I live and breathe, I thought you was dead, or off to Tahiti, chasing the ladies like Gauguin with the profits of that Raphael I heard about. You come to spend some money with Micky, huh? You spreading it about? Come, I got something to show you. Just in this week. Look.’ By now he’d blown through to the gallery like a mini whirlwind with Jamie
in
his wake. He pulled back a black velvet curtain in the centre of the wall. ‘Just for you.’ There was a twinkle in his eye as he unveiled the picture. ‘What you think, eh?’