Ice Station Wolfenstein

Chapter 3

"Well, they're definitely army documents," Nina said. Several pairs of eyes glanced at her with disapproval, but she paid them no attention. Sam, on the other hand, felt a little intimidated. He was used to having people look askance at him, wondering who the disheveled drunk was, but the reading room at the National Library made him feel even more judged than usual. All of these serious, studious people seemed to be doing work that was far more legitimate than his was.

He had not always felt this way. During his time at the Clarion he had been in and out of the British Library in London, checking out old stories and researching people's backgrounds. But in those days he wore shirts with all their buttons still attached. He shaved every morning and only drank in company. His work felt important. No one questioned his legitimacy then. Just eighteen short months ago…

"Sam?" Nina's voice called him back to the present.

"Uh, yes," Sam pulled himself together. "Army documents. That's great. Any idea what they're about?"

She pointed to a sheaf of typed papers. "These are in some sort of code. They refer to some kind of base in New Schwabenland. It's not entirely clear — there are several abbreviations and military acronyms that I don't understand — but I know that the Nazis hoped to establish a whaling base there. They needed whale oil for things such as soap, margarine, god knows what else. And they were thinking of setting up a naval base there. They got as far as charting some of the territory — I think that's what some of these handwritten notes refer to — but then it became clear that Germany was going to war, so setting up remote ice stations wasn't really a priority. It's strange, though, because some of these notes make it sound like some sort of base had actually been established and the writer — Harald Kruger, did you say? — was working on something there."

Next, she tapped the little pile of notebooks. "These look like some sort of journal. Again, there are a lot of abbreviations and acronyms, but I should be able to translate them if you don't mind leaving them with me." She glanced up, her brown eyes sincere. "I promise I'll take perfect care of them."

Sam allowed himself a small smile. He wondered for a moment how Nina imagined him taking care of the box's contents. She'd probably be horrified if she saw my place, he thought. "Sure," he said, "as long as you're careful."

"Thanks." Nina looked genuinely excited at the prospect of spending her Christmas holiday translating old Nazi letters. "I will be." Carefully, methodically, she took out the metal parts and laid them in a row on the table. There was a cog, small in diameter but thick and heavy, a flat disc with a tiny hole in its center like a miniature CD, an inch-long cylinder, and a strange ring with a row of bulbous protrusions along the top. "Any idea what these are?" Nina asked.

"Not a clue," said Sam. "Just bits of metal as far as I'm concerned."

"I thought as much. Do you want to hang on to these for now? There's not much I can do with them, but I'll let you know if I find any reference to them in the notebooks. Now, shall we get out of here? If we talk for much longer these people are likely to turn violent."

"We'd better, then," Sam agreed. "Some of them have staplers. They could do a lot of damage."

He watched as Nina folded the papers and slipped them back into the strongbox with care bordering on reverence. She took the key from him and was just about to lock it when she paused. "You know what?" she said, "If I just take the notebooks and leave the papers with you, I could put you in touch with someone who might be able to decode them."

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

"His name is Dr. George Lehmann," Nina said. "Here, I'll write down his number. I'd call him myself, but… well, I can't. Here. Tell him I sent you."

"And who exactly is this guy?"

"Another German scientist. You'd be surprised how many were spirited out of Germany during Operation Paperclip. He was a friend of my supervisor's, he helped me with some research for my doctorate and I've kept in touch ever since." She gathered the notebooks and put them carefully in her handbag, then locked the strongbox and handed it back to Sam. He could not help noticing that her tone of voice had become suspiciously calm. A spark of mischief flared up in him and he decided not to resist it.

"So…" he said casually. "How come you can't contact this Dr. Lehmann? I mean, I'm very happy to do it — thanks for the contact and everything — I'm just curious. Wouldn't it be better for you to talk to him, one expert to another?"

Nina's mouth folded into a hard line. "It's complicated," she said. She made her way out of the reading room and headed down the stairs, Sam at her heels.

"How so?" Sam asked, deliberately keeping his voice as light as he could.

She stopped dead, spun around and looked Sam straight in the face. "Is this any of your business?" she demanded. "Ok, you really want to know? Dr. Lehmann lives with his son, Steven. When I went down to Berkshire to interview Dr. Lehmann, Steven and I… hit it off, shall we say? We had a kind of on-off affair for a couple of years. Then last year, Steven's wife found out. She wasn't particularly happy to find out about me. To be fair, I wasn't particularly happy to find out about her… But apparently they've worked things out. Dr. Lehmann wrote to me recently to say that they'd had a baby. I have a feeling that a call from me wouldn't be appreciated right now, even if it wasn't Steven I wanted to talk to."

"I see." Sam could see that Nina was scrutinizing his face for any hint of judgment. He kept his expression neutral. These things happened, he knew. Patricia's ex-husband hadn't exactly been thrilled when Trish packed her bags one night and headed straight for Sam's place.

"So, I'm sure you can understand why I would rather have you call him. You're less likely to get his wife accusing you of trying to destroy her home." She turned away and continued down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to put her coat on.

Sam caught her up and stopped beside her to wind his scarf around his neck. "Sorry," he said.

Nina glanced back over her shoulder at him and Sam caught a hint of a smile. "No you're not," she said. "You're a journalist. Prying is your job. And everyone loves gossip, don't they?" She slung her bag over her arm and patted it. "I'll get on with translating these. Give me until New Year's Day. We can meet up after that. I'll talk you through whatever I've found and you can tell me if Dr. Lehmann could clear anything up regarding those papers. Bring wine." She strode off toward the door.

"Sam, what the hell is this?"

Sam's mind raced as he tried to figure out who was speaking. One of these days, he promised himself, I am going to get myself a phone with caller ID. He seldom felt the need for anything more sophisticated than his old brick of a phone, but moments like this made him wish that he knew who was calling so that he could avoid answering the call. A quick process of deduction, running through the list of people who could possibly be pissed off with him, brought him to the conclusion that it was his editor, Mitchell Scott. "What's up, Mitch?"

"This piece you wrote about the Braxfield Tower opening." Mitchell was exasperated. "What am I supposed to do with this, Sam? There's hardly any information about what the new building's for, who built it, who paid for it, anything. You give us a brief hint that the staff aren't happy about the design, but then you don't go into it — no quotes, nothing! The whole thing just reads like you don't give a shit. I'm going to have to do a massive rewrite. Basically, this is going to end up as a rehash of the press release."

The reprimand was not entirely unexpected. Sam knew full well that his article was lackluster. He knew that Mitchell would rewrite it. He also knew that he should care, but he just couldn't find it within himself. He made some apologetic noises, but Mitchell was in full flow.

"Are we back here again, Sam? Really? I'm trying to be supportive, I really am. I know you've got a lot to deal with. And it's not that you're not good. When you're on form, your work's fantastic. The Queensferry murder piece was phenomenal. Seriously. I loved it. Figures for that day were amazing. We were ahead of the Guardian, the Times—all the nationals. But then you give me something like this. Any teenager with a blog could do better than this. What's the matter, Sam? Are you ok? Is there anything you need?"

"A lifetime supply of single malt wouldn't come amiss." Sam leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

"Oh, Sam," Mitchell sighed heavily. "This is serious. I'm really concerned about you. Look, why don't you take some time off? Have a bit of a break. I can sort you out some paid leave. Maybe just relax until after the new year, get your head together a bit."

"Gardening leave?"

"Don't think of it like that. I'm just concerned about your well-being, Sam. Are you seeing anyone? Such as a therapist or someone? I know it's none of my business — I'm not trying to be nosy, it's just that if you need a recommendation I know a couple of people…"

Sam sighed. If only Mitchell weren't so nice. Most people who had tried to recommend therapists to Sam had been told to fuck off, or worse. He couldn't say that Mitchell. "That would be great, Mitchell," he conceded.

"Fantastic!" Mitchell's tone brightened at once. "I'll email you their details. And if there's anything else, anything at all, just you let me know. I'll drop you a line after Hogmanay and we'll have a chat about what to do going forward. Don't you worry about a thing."

"That's great, Mitchell. Thanks." Sam let Mitchell twitter for another couple of minutes before hanging up. Then he took a lengthy puff on his cigarette. Well, he thought, no more local interest stories for a bit. Now what am I going to do to ignore the run-up to Christmas?

Sam decided that concentrating on the strongbox and its mysterious contents was his best option. He opened his search engine and looked up Schwabenland, taking a few guesses before hitting on the correct spelling. He clicked his way through link after link, flipping among sites that looked legitimate and sites that were clearly hosted by deranged conspiracy theorists. His favorites were the ones that insisted that Hitler had not died at the end of the Second World War but was still alive, even in 2012, at the grand old age of 124. Many of these suggested that he had been spirited off to Antarctica, leaving a look-alike to shoot himself in the bunker. Some even stated that Hitler was still there, cryogenically frozen, waiting in suspended animation until the Nazis regained power and revived him. The more Sam drank, the more entertaining his search became.

Eventually, countless conspiracy theories later, Sam grew curious about Dr. Lehmann. He could find nothing about the scientist online, apart from a couple of mentions in the thanks sections of academic papers. This annoyed him. He liked to find out a bit about people before he contacted them.

He also liked to be a little more sober than he currently was, so he headed to the bathroom and took a shower. The water was bracingly cold, which was good for sobering him up but also indicated that the boiler was on the blink again. He toweled himself off at top speed, threw on some nearly clean clothes and had a mug of tea and half a packet of chocolate digestives. As soon as his head began to feel a little clearer, he dialed the number on Nina's note.

It was a woman who answered. "Lehmann residence."

"Could I speak to Dr. Lehmann, please?" Sam did his best to sound professional.

"May I ask who's calling?" The female at the other end of the phone did not seem particularly friendly.

"My name is Sam Cleave; I'm with the Edinburgh Post. I'm working on a story about a scientist whom I think Dr. Lehmann might have known, so I'd like to ask him a few questions."

"Hmm. Right. I'll see if he's available. One moment."

Sam waited while the woman went to find Dr. Lehmann. The house sounded chaotic, judging by the noises he could hear at the other end of the line. Two male voices were raised in a heated argument, at least until the woman's voice cut through them, and a baby was wailing in the background. That's what Christmas is going to sound like, Sam thought glumly, recalling his sister's invitation to stay with her, her husband, and their two-year-old daughter. Maybe I'll just stay here and pretend it's not happening.

"Hello," a man's voice this time, "George Lehmann speaking." His speech bore only faint traces of his German accent. If it had not been for his pronunciation of his name, retaining the hard G, Sam might not have noticed it at all.

"Hello, Dr. Lehmann. Thank you for speaking to me," Sam said. "I'm Sam Cleave, I write for the Edinburgh Post. I was given your number by Nina Gould at Edinburgh University. She thought you might be able to give me some information about a story I'm working on."

"Indeed." Dr. Lehmann's voice remained neutral at the mention of Nina's name. "And what is this story about?"

Sam explained about the death of Harald Kruger, omitting the gorier details. Dr. Lehmann did not appear to have heard about the murder, though he admitted to a passing familiarity with Kruger's work. It was not until Sam mentioned the strongbox that a trace of excitement crept into his voice.

"And you say these notes pertain to some kind of Antarctic base?" Lehmann asked. "But no name is given?"

"That's right. Or at least, Nina says it's right. But she can't tell me more about it because the notes are partly in code. She said you might be able to help with that."

Dr. Lehmann broke into a loud, unexpected laugh. "She did, did she? Yes, that sounds like her. There's always a way to get the things she wants. Well, I would need to have a look at these papers before I could tell you how much help I can offer."

"I could scan them and send them to you," Sam suggested. "Do you have an email address?"

"Mr. Cleave," Lehmann replied with a chuckle, "I am 97 years old. How likely do you think it is that I have an email address?"

"Point taken," Sam shrugged. It was rare that he met anyone less up-to-date with modern technology than he was, but this time it seemed that he had. "Should I put them in the post?"

"No." Lehmann's tone was emphatic. "Definitely not. These are valuable artifacts, or at least they might be. If they were to be lost or damaged… No. Would it be possible for you to bring them to me, or entrust them to someone in whom you have the utmost faith? If it were remotely possible for me to come to you, I would — but I find myself less able to travel these days."

Sam considered it. His gut reaction was to say no. It was a long way to go, a journey that would cost money he didn't have. What am I doing with this story anyway? Sam wondered. I don't do this kind of thing anymore. I'm supposed to be leaving the investigative stuff to other people these days.

"Yeah, go on then," said Sam.