Echo of the Reich

56

9 August 2012

“Sit down, Chris.”

Bronson took a seat in front of the superintendent’s desk and waited.

“You’re fully recovered, I hope. Smoke inhalation can be dangerous, and I can see that your hair and eyebrows suffered a bit.”

Bronson nodded.

“I’m fine, sir, really. And the checks for radiation sickness came back negative as well.”

“Good. Now, there’s good news and bad news, like there usually is. The good news is that the boffins have finally finished picking over what was left of that burned-out lorry in the Olympic Park. Your instinct was right. Because you managed to stop the generators delivering a current to the Bell only a few seconds after it was activated, the two contrarotating cylinders never reached a sufficiently high speed to start a sustained reaction.”

The superintendent paused and glanced down at the notes on his desk.

“Now, I don’t pretend to understand the science behind it, but it seems that when it was originally constructed-when the Nazis built Die Glocke, I mean-it was intended to act as a kind of nuclear reactor, to transmute thorium into uranium or possibly uranium into plutonium, as part of the German atom bomb project. And we now know a bit more about what’s happened since then. The Met police arrested half a dozen other Germans who were clearly involved with this plot and a couple of them have been quite forthcoming. According to them, at the end of the last war, the Nazis managed to fly the original Bell, and the most important scientists involved in the project, out to South America. It looks as if Marcus Wolf’s grandfather was the officer in charge of that evacuation, and he and a bunch of other renegade Nazis, who were certain that Hitler had been right all along, decided they’d use the Bell to take revenge on the rest of Europe. The problem they had was that it took them a lot longer, decades longer in fact, to produce a fully functioning and miniaturized version of the weapon.

“And they also changed the way it worked from the original. Marcus Wolf’s Bell was only ever intended to produce radiation. Massive amounts of lethal radiation. If you hadn’t stopped it, I have been assured by the scientists who’ve looked at it, a circular area covering over one hundred square miles would have been so badly contaminated that nothing would be able to live there for a minimum of fifty years. The estimates of the immediate death toll don’t run into the thousands. They run into the tens of thousands, possibly even higher, and an incalculable number of people would have suffered from cancers and other diseases caused by radiation sickness of various sorts.

“It was an outstanding piece of work, and I’m only sorry that Detective Inspector Davidson-I’m sorry, I mean the former Detective Inspector Davidson-was so dismissive of the information that you provided to him and his officers. He’s already been suspended and will probably be dismissed from the force, and there will be a commendation for you in the near future, I imagine. The other evidence that has emerged from this operation is that Marcus Wolf-which does actually appear to be his real name-was a very professional operator. As well as the technical expertise he and his men showed in the construction of this nasty weapon, he had even managed to arrange for Israel to take the blame. I fully accept your view that Wolf was a Nazi, in the proper sense of that word, and he genuinely believed that the Jews were responsible for most of the ills of the world. What we think he was hoping for was a backlash against the state of Israel once his plot had succeeded.

“What he’d done was prepare forged documentation that would apparently show that the device had been developed and positioned by a radical Egyptian terrorist group, but which would, on closer examination, prove to have been the work of rogue elements within the Israeli Mossad secret service. It was, if you like, a forgery within a forgery. But thanks to the information you’ve provided, identifying the real culprits has not proved difficult.”

The superintendent paused and smiled at Bronson.

“And the bad news, sir?”

“There have been a number of questions raised about the weapons you and your companion were seen to be carrying, and later using, in the Olympic Park. You’ve also failed to identify your companion. Your statement that he was a former army colleague presently seconded to the Special Air Service, and that he supplied the weapons you used, appears to be without foundation. Or at least, the army has so far failed to identify anyone who meets those criteria.”

For a few seconds, the superintendent simply stared at Bronson. Then he nodded and continued.

“We will be taking the pragmatic view here, Chris. Because you managed to foil this plot, no action will be taken over any perceived firearms offenses that you and your companion may seem to be guilty of. As I’m your superior officer, all inquiries into this matter will eventually arrive on my desk, and I am prepared to provide evidence that the weapons were issued to you by the Kent Police, and that your companion was an undercover officer employed by this force who can’t be identified for security reasons.”

Bronson breathed a sigh of relief. Because of what had happened, he hadn’t expected to encounter any problems over his somewhat unorthodox handling of the situation, but it was good to have this confirmed.

There was only one other matter that was gnawing at his conscience. Two days after the incidents in the Olympic Park, he and Weeks had traveled by car to Berlin, used the keys Bronson had removed from Marcus’s body in the truck, and thoroughly searched the German’s house. One of the keys had opened a safe in a bedroom, hidden inside a wardrobe that contained only Nazi uniforms. Inside that safe they’d found several hundred thousand euros, which they’d split between them as unofficial payment for the job they’d done in London, a Walther pistol and a DVD.

Bronson had played the first few seconds of the DVD to make sure it was the correct one, then removed it and the pistol. On the way back across the Channel on the ferry, he’d cut the DVD into a dozen pieces and tossed them all over the side rail, and then dropped the component parts of the Walther into the sea, one at a time.

But that still left the killing of the undercover police officer to be addressed.

“And the other matter, sir?” Bronson asked.

“Ah, yes. That’s caused a bit of confusion, actually, but the Berlin police were very helpful. They still don’t know why we needed to know about an undercover police officer named Herman Polti, but they did check their records for us. And that’s a puzzle, really, because not only could they find no trace of an undercover officer by that name, but they also could find no serving police officer anywhere in the Berlin force called Herman Polti. So I don’t know where you got your information from, but it appears to be completely inaccurate.”

The superintendent paused again, and looked speculatively across the desk at Bronson.

“They did do a wider check, though, and the name cropped up on one of their databases. A week or so ago, shortly after you went undercover in London, actually, the body of a man named Herman Polti was found in woodland on the eastern outskirts of Berlin. He’d been shot in the chest, and the corpse showed unmistakable signs of having been brutally tortured.”

Bronson sat forward in his chair, hanging on every word.

“But he wasn’t a policeman. Quite the reverse, in fact. Now that we’ve managed to identify Marcus Wolf as the ringleader of this plot, we’ve also been able to trace many of his associates. Herman Polti was one of those associates, and he was also wanted by the Berlin police in connection with at least two robberies and three murders. He was, in short, a career criminal who seemed to have thrown his lot in with Wolf. Who killed him, and who tortured him, are two mysteries that we may never solve. It’s possible that someone from his past life caught up with him to exact revenge, or perhaps Marcus Wolf discovered he was playing both sides against the middle and had him executed. We don’t know, and frankly we don’t care.”

Bronson didn’t even realize he had been holding his breath until he exhaled.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, getting to his feet, “for everything.”

The superintendent smiled.

“Actually, I think it’s the other way round,” he said. “I don’t care what you’re working on now, just clear your desk and take some leave. You’ve earned it. I don’t want to see you back here for at least two weeks. If Angela’s still speaking to you, take her somewhere hot. Just not the Berlin area. It’s possible some of Marcus Wolf’s friends might still be on the loose, and I’d hate you to meet up with them.”

Bronson nodded.

“I hadn’t planned to go back to Germany for some time,” he said. “Maybe never. There’s something about that country that I don’t like. Probably just too many echoes of the past.”