Echo of the Reich

13

22 July 2012

Eaton’s estimate of a couple of miles wasn’t too far out. Bronson followed about fifty yards behind the Vauxhall as Eaton threaded his way through the afternoon traffic. Their route was toward the east, through districts Bronson had never visited before, moving steadily away from the congestion of the city and deeper into the suburbs.

Eventually, Eaton turned into another small industrial estate-the group was obviously fairly consistent in its choice of rendezvous locations-and pulled up outside a unit that either had been abandoned early in the life of the estate or had simply never been used at all. It was impossible to tell which, and it really didn’t matter.

Bronson pulled the car into a parking space on the cracked concrete forecourt of the unit. Grass and stunted weeds sprouted from the cracks, evidence of the time that had passed since the unit had last been occupied, by either builders or tenants. He climbed out of the vehicle and locked the doors. The GPS tracker unit, he knew, was powered directly from the battery, and had its own independent battery pack as a backup, so now that he had finally stopped moving, he assumed Curtis would already have passed his position to the crew of the Armed Response Vehicle he hoped had been tasked to follow him. He realized there were rather a lot of assumptions in his situation, and absolutely nothing he could do about any of them.

There were already half a dozen other cars occupying slots on the unit’s forecourt, but as the commercial premises next door had a full car park, Bronson wondered if the vacant lot was simply used as an overflow car park by the people who worked there. Whatever the case, the presence of so many cars was a comfort, because that meant there had to be a number of people in the vicinity-inconvenient witnesses if the group intended to do him any harm.

The structure was typical of many small industrial units. There was a small door on the right-hand side beside a large window, perhaps intended for a receptionist, while the majority of the front of the building was occupied by a wide metal roller-shutter door, the opening big enough to allow a small truck to enter. The paint on both doors was faded white and peeling, and the window beside the office entrance was cracked in one corner. The whole building exuded an air of dereliction.

About halfway down the side wall of the building was another door, dark gray this time, already standing open, and Bronson spotted a set of keys in the lock. He took a last glance behind him, then followed Eaton inside and found himself in a short corridor with three doors-one at the end, which presumably led to the main open area of the unit, and the others on either side of the corridor, both of which obviously opened into internal offices. Bronson followed Eaton into the office on his left, and wasn’t entirely surprised to see Mike leaning against the far wall, naked hostility radiating from him, and Georg sitting quite comfortably in the only chair in the room.

Georg glanced round the empty office. “I would ask you to sit down, but the facilities here are a little limited, so I’m afraid you’ll have to stand. But this won’t take long.”

Bronson nodded, and mirrored Mike’s pose, leaning against the wall beside the door.

“You bother me, Bronson,” Georg began, “precisely because you used to be in the army and then, as we found out later, served as a police officer. The kind of people who follow that career path tend to have clear and rigid ideas about right and wrong. When John Eaton first told me about you, I was prepared to bet that you were working undercover, trying to infiltrate our organization, simply because you told him you’d been in the army. I assumed that your talk of vandalizing sites to do with the London Olympic Games was just a smokescreen, boastful bravado to hide your true purpose.”

Bronson shrugged, uncomfortably aware of the accuracy of Georg’s analysis.

“Not everyone in the army has a ‘clear and rigid’ concept of what’s right or wrong,” he replied, “and bent coppers aren’t exactly a rarity.”

“I know. And I saw the way you attacked that bulldozer. I watched the two videos-the one my man took and the one shown on Sky. It looked to me as if you were enjoying yourself, and you clearly did a good job on it, maybe even wrote it off, in fact. The way you did that didn’t seem like you were an undercover cop trying to establish some credibility. There seemed to be real rage in what you did.”

“I still don’t trust the bastard,” Mike growled from his perch against the wall.

“Shut up,” Georg snapped, without even turning round, then turned his attention back to Bronson. “That, and the fact that you’re walking around with an unlicensed pistol in your pocket, could mean that you’re exactly who you say you are. But there’s still a nagging doubt in my mind.”

Bronson shrugged again. “That’s your problem, not mine. You don’t like me, you don’t want me around, just say the word and I’ll walk.”

He took a couple of steps forward, then turned toward the door.

“I didn’t say that,” Georg murmured. “You still have the potential to be very useful to us. You’ve only recently left the police, so you’ll know the kind of operations they’d be likely to mount against us. Information like that could be very valuable, and we’d pay well for it.”

Bronson stopped in the doorway and looked back.

“How much?”

“That depends. First, we need to be sure about you, be certain that you won’t betray us.”

“Yeah? And how do you do that?”

Georg shook his head. “I won’t. It’s not my decision. Did you bring your passport?”

Bronson nodded and produced the document from his trouser pocket.

“Good. I don’t need to see it, but you’ll need it later today.” Georg stood up and reached into his jacket.

Bronson tensed instantly, his right hand closing around the butt of the Llama. But Georg simply pulled out a thick buff envelope and tossed it across the room to him. Bronson caught it with his left hand, flicked up the flap with his thumb and glanced at the contents. Banknotes.

“There’s one hundred pounds in twenty-pound notes in that envelope, plus five hundred euros. There’s also a piece of paper with an address on it. It’s in Berlin. They’re expecting you by tomorrow evening. That should be enough for the ferry crossing, petrol, autobahn tolls and so on. If there’s any change you can keep it.”

“Hang on a minute,” Bronson said. “Why the hell am I driving halfway across Europe? And who am I meeting in Berlin?”

Georg shook his head. “Berlin is hardly ‘halfway across Europe,’ Bronson. It’s about a day and a half’s drive from the French Channel ports, about twelve hundred kilometers or seven hundred and fifty miles, that’s all.”

“And I’m meeting who, exactly?” Bronson asked again.

“My colleagues. They want to see you, and then they’ll decide if we want to involve you in what we’re doing.” Georg leaned forward, to emphasize what he was about to say. “Let me be frank, Bronson.” He flicked a glance toward Mike. “Hiring muscle is easy. We pay them well, and they do as they’re told. You’re different. You’ve got brains as well as brawn, and your background and the knowledge you have would make you invaluable to our cause, and especially at the end.”

“What do you mean, ‘at the end’?” Bronson asked.

“That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that what we’re doing now is just a prelude to the main event. A distraction, if you like. You’ll be told exactly what we’re doing once we’re certain where your loyalties lie.”

“And how are your colleagues going to establish that?” Bronson asked again.

Georg smiled for the first time since Bronson had walked into the disused office.

“I’m sure they’ll find a way,” he replied.