Echo of the Reich

43

26 July 2012

Bronson stepped soundlessly across to the partially open door. He eased it a fraction wider and for a second or two just listened.

Then he pushed it closed and looked back into the control room, the flashlight beam flitting around the room as he searched for a hiding place, for somewhere that Angela would be safe.

“Who is it?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Bronson replied, just as quietly, “but somehow I don’t think it’s some guy doing a guided tour of the mine. It’s most likely one of Marcus’s men, and it sounds as if he’s right down by the entrance, probably where we got in.”

“They followed us here?”

“I doubt it. I think it’s just Marcus covering all the bases. He and his men will have been looking for me ever since I shot my way past them at the house outside Berlin. He’ll have the British gang watching out for me, and if I’d been him I would have sent somebody here, just in case. The only clue he let slip was the expression ‘lantern bearer,’ and he must have known that that would only make sense in the context of the Wenceslas Mine. If they’ve spotted the car outside, they’ll know I’m inside, somewhere. But what they can’t know is that you’re here as well, and I’m going to make sure that that doesn’t change. You have to get out of sight.”

“And then what?” Angela demanded, her voice low and urgent.

“Stay hidden and stay quiet. I’m armed, and I have one big advantage. I don’t have to go searching for them, because they’ll come looking for me.”

“You mean you’ll kill them?”

Bronson looked at her pale face, barely visible in the gloom of the chamber, his flashlight pointing at the far wall, his fingers partially obscuring the lens to cut down the light.

“If it comes to that, yes,” he replied. “These men are utterly ruthless-I’ve seen that for myself, at first hand-and they have absolutely nothing to lose. Whoever has followed us inside will be carrying weapons-they’ve been sent here to kill me. I have no doubt at all about that.” Bronson smiled briefly. “So we’ll just have to make sure that they won’t succeed.”

He turned away from Angela and checked the room once again. Apart from directly behind the door, which was hardly a suitable hiding place, the only possible place of concealment was a cupboard with double doors built into the rear wall. Bronson strode over to it and pulled both doors wide, hoping that it wouldn’t be fitted with shelves or stuffed with equipment that would take time to remove.

In the event, it was virtually empty, just a few printed forms and other pieces of paper lying at the very bottom of the cupboard.

“Can you fit in there?” Bronson asked.

“Yes, but I really don’t like this.”

“I’m not wild about it myself, but right now I don’t see another option. Just stay in the cupboard and wait until it’s all over.”

“Just a minute,” Angela interrupted. “Are you sure that these people don’t know about me?”

“I don’t see how they can, so that’s why you need to stay hidden. If they don’t know you’re here, they won’t be looking for you.”

“So use me. We’ve got to find out what they’ve got planned for London. If they think they’ve got you cornered, maybe you can get some information from them that will help. I’ve still got your pistol, so I can be your insurance policy.”

“That only works in bad movies,” Bronson objected.

But then there was no more time for talking or planning, because they both heard the door at the end of the short passageway swing open, the unused hinges creaking a warning, saw the faint glow of a flashlight down the corridor, and then heard the sound of footsteps drawing steadily closer.

Bronson extinguished his own flashlight and, moving only by feel, ducked down behind the end of the heavy steel control panel, taking the Walther pistol out of his pocket as he did so, and quickly attaching the suppressor.

He could hear the man-only one man, he guessed, much to his relief-more clearly now, as he proceeded in a methodical fashion to clear each room as he reached it, exactly the way Bronson would have done if their situations had been reversed. And then the man stopped outside the door of the control room, presumably listening for the slightest sound that would confirm the presence of his quarry.

The door swung wide, kicked open, and the interior of the control room was filled with light as the man switched on a powerful lantern that he was carrying in his left hand. In his right he held a Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun.

Bronson registered all this in a split second as he crouched down low, peering around the base of the control panel and aiming the Walther.

But before he could pull the trigger, the intruder must have spotted either Bronson’s face or the pistol, because he immediately squeezed the trigger of the submachine gun and sent a lethal stream of nine-millimeter bullets toward him, the noise of the burst deafening in the confined space.

Bronson ducked back into his rudimentary shelter, bullets ricocheting off the steel plate and stone floor and howling around the room, almost as dangerous to the shooter as to the man he was aiming at.

Bronson risked another quick glance, guessing that the man’s next move would be to step inside the room and widen the angle so that he’d be able to see his target properly. The glare of the lantern was blinding, and Bronson could see nothing behind it. But he knew where the man had to be, so he adjusted his aim slightly and then squeezed the trigger.

The Walther kicked in his hand, but the only sound the weapon made was a flat slap, followed by the metallic noise of the slide being forced backward by the recoil, the ejected case clattering onto the stone floor, and a fresh round being loaded into the breech.

He had no idea whether he’d hit his target, but because the man made no sound, Bronson assumed that he’d missed. Semi-automatic pistols are notoriously inaccurate, even in experienced hands.

But then there was another shot, the crack of a small-caliber weapon, and immediately Bronson heard a howl of pain from the intruder, followed by the sound of something heavy and metallic falling to the floor. No way was he going to stand up to see what had happened, but he still needed to know the situation. He reached up and placed his flashlight on top of the metal control panel, aimed it more or less at the door of the room, and switched it on. At the same time, he ducked down again, aimed the Walther around the corner of the control panel directly at the lantern, and squeezed the trigger.

Immediately, the room plunged into relative darkness, and there, illuminated by the much weaker beam of Bronson’s flashlight, he saw the intruder for the first time, and recognized him immediately as one of the men he’d seen-what felt like months ago-in Marcus’s house in Germany. At his feet lay the Heckler amp; Koch, and he was clutching his stomach with both hands, his face ashen with pain.

Aiming the Walther straight at him, Bronson stood up and moved forward cautiously. In the light from the flashlight, he could see that the front of the man’s one-piece overall, somewhat similar to the ones he and Angela were wearing, was soaked in blood and, even as Bronson stepped near him, the man abruptly tumbled backward, falling limply to the floor like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut.

Bronson picked up the submachine gun and slung it over his shoulder, then stepped backward a couple of paces and glanced over to his right, toward the cupboard where Angela had taken refuge.

“Angela, are you okay?”

The cupboard door swung open and she peered out, her eyes moist in the dim light, her body trembling with shock.

“I just meant to frighten him,” she said. “I thought if I-”

“You did a lot more than frighten him,” Bronson said.

“I just pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.”

Bronson didn’t reply, just took the second flashlight from his pocket, switched it on and stepped forward to where the man lay writhing on the floor, a low moan of agony escaping his lips.

It probably wasn’t a fatal wound, especially from the low-powered. 22 pistol, but from what Bronson knew of gunshot injuries, the stomach was one of the most painful places to be shot.

“Do you speak English?” he asked, staring down at the man who’d tried to kill him.

The wounded man nodded slightly.

“A little,” he said, from between clenched teeth.

“We can get you a doctor,” Bronson said, as Angela walked across the room to stand beside him. “But first there’s something we need from you.”

The man didn’t respond, just stared upward, his eyes flickering between the two of them.

“We need information. First, did Marcus send you?”

The man seemed to be considering his answer for a few moments, then he spoke.

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s what I thought. Now, we need to know what he’s got planned for London. Is he intending to mount a terrorist attack on the city?”

Again the man stared at them, then his face contorted into a kind of smile, and he laughed shortly. Then he coughed, and a fine mist of blood shot out of his mouth and sprayed down the front of his overall. It looked to Bronson as if the bullet Angela had fired had done a lot more damage than he’d first thought.

“Well?”

The man shook his head.

“Terrorist attack, no,” he said. “Vengeance attack, yes.”

“What’s the difference?” Bronson asked. “And why ‘vengeance’?”

“Terrorist attack kills people, destroys buildings. Two, three years, is forgotten. Vengeance attack destroys city.”

Bronson felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise.

“But why? Why attack London?”

“For vengeance. I told you.”

“Yes, but vengeance for what?”

The man looked puzzled.

“You do not know?”

Bronson shook his head.

“For the Reich that never was. For our Fuhrer who was killed.”

“The Thousand-year Reich that lasted less than a decade?” Angela snapped. “And Hitler committed suicide. He didn’t even have the courage to face his enemies and die in combat.”

“You are a liar,” the man said simply, another cough spraying more blood over his clothing. “Our Fuhrer fought gloriously to the very end. Our Fatherland should have been victorious. There would be no Jews, polluting the nations of the world. We would have abolished homosexuals, and made sure that the Arab nations knew their place.”

Bronson glanced at Angela and shrugged. He’d been right: the group Marcus had apparently founded wasn’t neo-Nazi. It was the real thing, a dyed-in-the-wool recreation of a part of the awesome military machine that had so very nearly conquered the whole of Europe.

“That sad old Aryan dream,” Angela said. “Didn’t any of you see the irony? You were being led toward this ideal of a nation of tall, attractive, fair-haired, blue-eyed people by a short ugly man with black hair and brown eyes, who wasn’t even German. Who was also mad, by the way.”

The wounded man stared at her, then coughed again, producing still more blood.

“So your foul little group is intending to do what Hitler couldn’t manage? You’re going to try to destroy London?” Bronson asked.

“Yes.”

“With the Laternentrager?” Angela asked.

The man looked surprised, but nodded slowly.

“So what will it do?” Bronson asked. “How does it work?”

Again an expression of amusement crossed the man’s pain-ravaged face.

“You do not know?” He laughed shortly, then coughed again. “You will find out,” he said. “The whole of London will find out.”

“When?”

“When the Rings of Olympus fly over London. When the eyes of the world are staring at our symbol for the Games. When the-”

Then he gave a shudder and emitted a gasp, almost, it seemed, of surprise, and lay still, his eyes wide-open and his mouth forming a silent “O.”

“Is he…?” Angela asked.

“He’s dead, yes,” Bronson replied, checking the man’s neck for a pulse. “I think that bullet must have hit his lungs, maybe some other organs.”

Angela stared down at the corpse.

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” she said, a quaver in her voice. “I didn’t even mean to do it.”

Bronson wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said, “but I’m glad you shot him. If you hadn’t, I might be dead now and I don’t like to even think what he’d have done to you if he’d found you. As I told you, these people play for keeps.”

Angela looked away from the body, and took a step backward.

“So now what do we do?”

“I don’t think there’s much else we can learn here,” Bronson replied. “We still don’t know exactly what the Bell does, but at least we know that Marcus’s group intends to attack London with it-or maybe with a modified version of the device-so that’s where we need to go, as soon as we can.”

He searched the body, removing the dead man’s wallet, all the ammunition he was carrying and his backup weapon, a nine-millimeter Walther P99.

They took a last look round the room, the light from their flashlights reflecting off the dusty dials and controls, then stepped over the corpse and made their way back down the stone corridor, retracing their steps toward the chamber where the ventilation shaft terminated.

In the chamber, Bronson looked around for something to stand on. He could hoist Angela up to the entrance to the shaft, but he knew he couldn’t just jump or climb up to the opening himself. There was nothing in the room, but they’d found plenty of offices, equipped with chairs and desks.

“Hang on for a second,” Bronson said. “I’ll just get a chair or something.”

He left Angela standing in the doorway, walked down the corridor to the nearest office, grabbed one of the chairs and walked back. He placed it against the wall, stepped up onto it and looked along the ventilation shaft, staring toward the welcome sight of the fresh air outside.

It would feel good to be out of the mine, Bronson thought, away from the old bones and the long black shadows of evil cast by the Nazis.

But as he looked down the ventilation shaft he realized that there was one question he hadn’t asked the man who’d attacked them.

Because he’d just seen another shadow, a shadow that had nothing to do with his imagination. Somebody-or something-had just walked across in front of the opening, and that action had faintly disturbed the light shining down the shaft. It could have been an animal, perhaps, or even somebody from Ludwikowice out walking in the hills, but Bronson didn’t believe that for a moment.

The man Marcus had sent hadn’t come alone. A second man was waiting outside the mine.