Burning Angels

72

Five thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, the architect of the evil was putting the finishing touches to a momentous message. Kammler’s Werewolves – the true sons of the Reich; those who had remained steadfast for over seven decades – were poised to reap their rewards.

Stupendous rewards.

The time was almost upon them.

Hank Kammler ran his eye over the closing paragraphs, polishing them one final time.

Kammler read it, and it was good.

His finger punched the ‘send’ button.

He leant back in his leather chair, his eyes drifting to a framed photo on his desk. The middle-aged man in the pinstriped suit bore a striking resemblance to Kammler: they had the same thin, hawkish nose; the same ice-blue eyes brimful of arrogance; the same gaze betraying an easy assumption that power and privilege were theirs as a birthright, and due them long into old age.

It wasn’t hard to imagine them as father and son.

‘At last,’ the seated figure whispered, almost as if speaking to the photo. ‘Wir sind die Zukunft.’

His gaze dwelt upon the framed image a moment longer, but his eyes were looking inwards; menacing pools of thick darkness that sucked in all that was good. All life – all innocence – was drawn into them, suffocating mercilessly.

London, Kammler reflected. London – the seat of the British government; the site of the late Winston Churchill’s War Rooms, from where he had orchestrated resistance to Hitler’s glorious Reich when all defiance had seemed futile.

The cursed British had held on for just long enough to draw the Americans into the war. Without them, of course, the Third Reich would have triumphed and ruled as the Führer had intended – for a thousand years.

London. It was only right that the darkness had begun there.

Kammler tapped his keyboard and pulled up his IntelCom link. He dialled, and a voice answered.

‘So tell me, how are my animals?’ Kammler asked. ‘Katavi? Our elephants are thriving, despite the greed of the locals?’

‘The elephant populations are stronger by the day,’ Falk Konig’s voice replied. ‘Less attrition – especially since our friends Bert and Andrea—’

‘Forget them!’ Kammler cut in. ‘So they snuffed out the Lebanese dealer and his gang. Their motives weren’t entirely altruistic, let me assure you.’

‘I had been wondering…’ Falk’s voice tailed off. ‘But either way, they did a good thing.’

Kammler snorted. ‘Nothing compared to what I intend. I mean to kill them all. Every last poacher, every last trader, and every last buyer – all of them.’

‘So why not hire Bert and Andrea?’ Konig persisted. ‘They’re good people. Professionals. And especially in Andrea’s case, a genuine lover of wildlife. They’re ex-military and in need of work. If you want to defeat the poachers, you could use them to run an anti-poaching drive.’

‘It won’t be necessary,’ Kammler snapped. ‘You liked them, did you?’ His voice was laced with sarcasm now. ‘Made some fine new friends?’

‘In a way, yes,’ Konig replied defiantly. ‘Yes, I did.’

Kammler’s voice softened, but it was all the more sinister for it. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, my boy? I know our opinions can tend to differ, but our key interests remain aligned. Conservation. Wildlife protection. The herds. That is what matters. There’s nothing that might threaten Katavi, is there?’

Kammler sensed his son’s hesitation. He knew he was afraid of him, or rather of the kind of people – the enforcers – that he at times sent out to Katavi; like the present incumbent, the fearsome shaven-headed Jones.

‘You know, if you’re holding something back, you really shouldn’t,’ Kammler wheedled. ‘It will be the wildlife that suffers. Your elephants. Your rhino. Our beloved animals. You know that, don’t you?’

‘It’s just… I did mention the kid to them.’

‘What kid?’

‘The slum kid. Turned up here a few months back. It was nothing…’ Again Konig’s voice tailed off into silence.

‘If it was nothing, no reason not to share it with me, is there?’ Kammler wheedled, a real edge of menace to his tone now.

‘It was just a story about some boy who stowed away on one of the flights… It didn’t make any sense to anyone.’

‘A slum kid, you say?’ Kammler was silent for a long second. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this… Well, I will be out there with you soon. Within the next forty-eight hours. You can tell me everything then. I have just a few things to deal with here first. In the meantime, a nurse will be flying in. She needs to give you an injection. A follow-up booster for a childhood illness. You were too young to remember much, but trust me, it’s worth doing as a precaution.’

‘Father, I’m thirty-four,’ Konig protested. ‘I don’t need looking after.’

‘She is already on her way,’ Kammler replied, with finality. ‘I will be flying in shortly thereafter. Returning to my sanctuary. And when I get there, I’ll look forward to you telling me all about this boy – this slum kid. We have much to catch up on…’

Kammler said goodbye and finished the call.

Falk wasn’t exactly the son he would have wished for, but at the same time he wasn’t wholly bad. They shared a key passion: conservation. And in Kammler’s brave new world, wildlife, the environment – the health of the planet – would once again be ascendant. The dangers facing the world – global warming, overpopulation, extinctions, habitat destruction – would be dealt with in an instant.

Kammler had used computer simulations to predict the death count from the coming pandemic. The world population would experience an almost total eclipse. It would be reduced to a few hundred thousand souls.

The human race was a veritable plague upon the earth.

It would be wiped out by the mother of all plagues.

It was all just so perfect.

Some isolated peoples would doubtless survive. Those on remote, rarely visited islands. Tribes in the deep jungle. And of course, that was as it should be. After all, the Fourth Reich would have need of some natives – Untermenschen – to serve as their slaves.

Hopefully, once the pandemic had run its course, Falk would see the light. In any case, he was all that Kammler had. His wife had died during childbirth, and Falk was their first and only child.

Come the rise of the Fourth Reich, Kammler was determined to make him an heir worthy of the cause.

He dialled up another IntelCom ID.

A voice answered. ‘Jones.’

‘You have a new task,’ Kammler announced. ‘A story about some kid from the slums did the rounds of Katavi Lodge. I have a particular interest in this. There are two members of staff who will do anything for a few beers. Try Andrew Asoko first; if he knows nothing, speak to Frank Kikeye. Let me know what you find.’

‘Got it.’

‘One more thing. A nurse will fly in today with an inoculation for Falk Konig, my head conservationist. Make sure he allows her to administer it. I don’t care if you have to forcibly restrain him, but he gets his injection. Understood?’

‘Got it. An injection. Some story about a kid.’ He paused. ‘But tell me, when do I get to do something really pleasurable, like hitting Jaeger?’

‘The two tasks you’ve just been given are of key importance,’ Kammler snapped. ‘Get them done first.’

He killed the call.

He didn’t like Jones. But he was an efficient exterminator, which was all that mattered. And by the time he would be ready to claim his first – very handsome – pay cheque, he would be as good as dead, along with the rest of humanity… bar the chosen.

But this story about a slum kid was worrisome. A few months back Kammler had received reports that a grave on the island had been disturbed. They’d presumed it was the work of wild animals. But was it just possible that someone had survived, and escaped?

Either way, Jones was sure to get to the bottom of it. Kammler put his worries to one side, and refocused.

The resurrection of the Reich – it was almost upon them.