Kingdom of Darkness

16

Zane plunged straight down—

Eddie’s outstretched hand clamped around his wrist.

Pain flared in the Englishman’s other hand as his clawed fingers took Zane’s full unsupported weight. ‘Don’t — fuckin’ — move,’ Eddie rasped.

The boat was now tied up. The passenger stepped on to the jetty.

‘Chase, I’m slipping!’ Zane gasped. Eddie felt the Israeli’s sweat-drenched hand sliding through his. He squeezed more tightly, but knew he was about to lose him…

The new arrival rolled his head to work out a crick in his neck, then spoke to the guard. The man replied, the visitor nodding. For an agonising moment they remained still… then the pair started for the steps.

The crewmen turned their attention back to the boat. Eddie waited, still straining to keep hold of Zane’s hand. The instant the two men on the jetty passed out of sight, he hauled the younger man upwards. ‘Get a foothold!’

Zane’s feet scrabbled at the rock, finding a small protrusion. He pushed himself higher. Eddie shifted to bring his companion’s free hand within reach of the cliff. The Mossad agent grabbed it, letting out a loud gasp of relief. ‘You safe?’ Eddie asked.

‘Yeah, I… I got it,’ Zane replied. ‘I think… maybe the easy route is a good idea.’

‘No fucking kidding.’

They recovered their breath, then started to climb again — along Eddie’s suggested path. The Israeli’s ascent was considerably more cautious than before. They soon drew level with the patio. Voices warned them that more of Leitz’s guests had arrived and were enjoying the view, though fortunately across the sea rather than down the cliff.

They continued up to the next floor. Eddie shimmied across until he reached a little balcony with an open door and peered warily into the room beyond. The contrast between the bright sunlight outside and the shade within limited what he could discern, but he immediately picked out the glowing rectangle of a computer monitor on a desk. He climbed on to the balcony and moved to the door, back against its frame as he looked inside.

Nobody was there. As his eyes adjusted, he made out several tall bookshelves, their contents a mix of large leather-bound ledgers and black box files. Lined up beside the monitor were a laser printer and three telephones, one of which he recognised as a scrambler unit. Leitz apparently liked to keep certain conversations private. Everything was fastidiously neat, even the small amount of paperwork perfectly aligned with the desk’s edges.

A closed door led to the rest of the villa. ‘Okay, it’s clear,’ he said as he entered. Zane clambered on to the balcony behind him. ‘You all right?’

The Israeli was still breathing heavily. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he replied. He went to the desk, seemingly examining the papers on it — but Eddie noticed him holding one hand just above the polished surface, fingers slightly splayed. They were trembling; only a little, but enough for the Englishman to spot.

‘It’s okay to be shaken up,’ Eddie told him quietly.

Zane hurriedly closed his fist. ‘What?’

‘You were seeing if your hand was shaking.’

‘I was checking Leitz’s mail,’ the younger man insisted. He opened the satchel. ‘Watch the door.’

Eddie shrugged, knowing all too well how reluctant men in their twenties — and beyond — were to reveal weakness. He listened at the entrance. Indistinct voices reached him, but none were close. ‘We’re okay.’

Zane nodded, then took a small device from his bag and plugged it into a USB port on Leitz’s computer. ‘How long will that take?’ Eddie asked.

‘Not long, I hope.’ He watched the screen — while making another surreptitious check on his hand. ‘Okay,’ he said after thirty seconds, reclaiming the USB device. ‘I can access everything on his computer—’

Eddie raised a hand in warning. ‘Someone’s coming.’

Zane scurried to join the Yorkshireman as he flattened himself against the wall behind the door. A conversation in German grew louder outside. For a moment, Eddie thought the approaching men were going to enter the office… but then they continued past, going down a flight of stairs.

‘One of them was Leitz,’ Zane whispered. ‘He said, “Now that everyone is here, we can start.”’

‘Start what?’

‘That’s what I want to find out.’ The Mossad agent produced a compact and rather ugly matt-black handgun from his satchel.

Eddie eyed the weapon, an Israeli SP-21 Barak. ‘Don’t suppose you brought one for me?’

‘Sorry.’ He flicked off the safety. ‘Leitz probably has a weapon hidden in here.’

‘And you’re going to give me time to look for it, right?’ the Englishman said sarcastically as Zane opened the door and peeked out, then exited. Annoyed, he followed.

They emerged on to a landing running around three sides of a spacious marble-floored hall. Sunlight from the patio’s entrance gleamed off the stone — revealing growing shadows inside the bright rectangles. Eddie and Zane both ducked as two elderly men entered the hall, but they didn’t go towards the staircase, instead heading for a set of dark wooden doors.

‘That guy’s American,’ Eddie muttered, overhearing snippets of discussion as they passed below.

Zane nodded. ‘From Florida. His name is Thomson Holmes — another rich man, and another Jew-hater.’

‘Thomson Holmes? Sounds like a property developer.’

‘He is.’ They exchanged looks, then Zane continued: ‘The man he was with is English. He’s a member of your aristocracy. Charles Hertsmore, also known as the eighth Baron Winderhithe. His grandfather was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler before the war.’

‘Apples don’t fall far from the tree, then.’ Eddie watched in disgust as the pair went into the next room, then tilted his head. ‘I can still hear them talking. Where’s it coming from?’

‘Through there.’ At the end of the landing, directly above the double doors, was another entrance. It was ajar. Keeping low, Zane moved to it and cautiously looked through before gesturing for Eddie to join him.

The large room beyond was a mixture of library and lounge. The door opened on to a narrow gallery overlooking the main floor. Windows opposite looked out along the coast, though the focus of attention was not the view but a big flat-screen television. A camera had been mounted on top of its bezel.

Zane crept to the edge of the gallery to look down between the wooden railings. Eddie joined him, getting his first view of Leitz’s assembled guests. All were male, well into middle age or older. Even though they were chatting, there was a definite lack of humour amongst the group. Everyone present took themselves very seriously indeed.

The agent’s gaze flicked from one man to another. ‘I know them all,’ he whispered to Eddie. ‘They’re some of Leitz’s biggest clients. There isn’t one of them worth less than fifty million US dollars.’ A hard edge entered his voice. ‘And they’re all known anti-Semites, supporters of fascism.’

‘Didn’t bring a hand grenade, did you?’ Eddie asked. ‘One bomb chucked down there’d be doing the world a big favour.’

The group below looked around as someone else entered the library. White suit, white hair, rectangular glasses: Leitz. ‘Gentlemen, good day,’ he said in clipped, accented English. ‘Now that Mr Haas is here,’ he gestured to the man who had arrived by boat while Eddie and Zane were scaling the cliff, ‘we can begin. If you will take your seats?’

The dozen men found places facing the screen. Leitz lowered blinds, then turned to the TV. ‘Computer, screen on,’ he said. It came to life, the giant display replicating what was on the monitor in the office. ‘Computer, conference.’ A window opened in response to his voice command, showing the dashboard of an encrypted videoconferencing program. He took up position beside the television. ‘As I am sure you all know, there have recently been changes in the ranks of the so-called global elite. The disappearances, and presumed deaths, of the Bull brothers, Rudolf Meerkrieger and Travis Warden, as well as several others in their circle, have created a power vacuum at the highest levels of commerce and politics.’

‘Oops,’ said Eddie under his breath as Leitz continued speaking.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Zane.

‘The people he’s talking about? Basically the secret rulers of the world?’

‘They are? What about them?’

‘Me and Nina kind of… blew them up. In a volcano.’

The Israeli regarded him in disbelief. ‘A volcano.’

‘What can I say? That’s how we roll. Although don’t blame us for whatever’s going on here,’ he added hurriedly. ‘We were in the middle of saving the world, so we were kind of preoccupied.’

Zane waved him to silence. ‘This has created a unique opportunity,’ the middleman was saying, ‘for those with a certain vision for the world. You and I all share that vision, as does my client.’ A chime from the TV, where a flashing message announced an incoming call. ‘He is offering you a way to ensure that you will not only see this new world come into being, but also enjoy it for a very long time.’ Leitz stepped back from the television and said, ‘Computer, accept.’ The dashboard disappeared, replaced by a live feed. ‘Gentlemen, I present to you: SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Kroll.’

Eddie stared in amazement — and a sense of horror — at the screen. Kroll was recognisable as the man whose photo he had seen at the United Nations… but only just. In the seventy years he had been in hiding, he had put on a huge amount of weight. His face was bloated, jowls overflowing his collar. His hair had almost disappeared except for a few grey wisps over his ears. But it was definitely the same man, the malevolent eyes unchanged.

He wore a black SS officer’s uniform, a line of medals and ribbons drawing a line across his left breast to a bright red slash around his bicep. An armband, a symbol upon it.

The swastika, emblem of Nazi Germany.

The same emblem, much larger, was also on the wall behind him, the white circle around the angular black character framing his head like a halo. Eddie felt a chill. This wasn’t somebody dressing up in a Nazi costume, or a thuggish modern-day imitator. The man he was looking at was the genuine article, an actual wanted war criminal.

And he had escaped not only justice, but also the ravages of time. Kroll should have been almost a hundred years old, but he appeared only half that, not even his grotesque corpulence adding any age to his features. Was Nina’s discovery in Alexandria really true, then? Had the escaped Nazis found water from the Spring of Immortality?

Zane stiffened, face tight with anger. Eddie could fully sympathise. To the Englishman, the Nazis were an aggressive, powerful war machine that had tried to crush his country; to the young Jewish man, they were figures of pure evil who had attempted to exterminate every last one of his people. Kroll was a demon made flesh, emerging from the past to threaten them once more.

The demon spoke, his voice like bubbles slowly working their way up through black tar. ‘Good day to you all,’ said Kroll in heavily accented English.

Leitz’s guests responded with something approaching awe. Eddie felt slightly sick when he realised why. To him and Zane, the Nazi was a monster; to those below, he was an icon. His earlier comment about the hand grenade had been joking, but now he wanted to do it for real.

‘As Herr Leitz has told you,’ Kroll continued, ‘during the war we obtained a supply of an incredible substance, a water that slowed the process of ageing. For those who drink it regularly, each five years that pass are like only a single one. We have been in hiding for almost seventy years, but our bodies have aged only about fifteen.’

‘I still want to see scientific proof of this,’ said Holmes, drawing disapproving looks from some of his companions.

Kroll scowled. ‘You have already been shown as much proof as we are able to provide without compromising our security. If you did not believe it, why are you here?’ Holmes shifted uncomfortably, forced to concede the point. ‘But we had only a limited amount of the water. This meant that only select members of our group were permitted to use it.’ His eyes became more intense. ‘The situation has now changed. Our raid on the tomb of Alexander the Great in Egypt has given us the means to locate the water’s original source.’

That prompted intrigued mutterings from the guests. Eddie, meanwhile, had a whispered comment of his own. ‘What? They didn’t get anything. We took the statue.’ Zane shushed him.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Kroll impatiently. The susurration ceased. ‘I asked Herr Leitz to assemble you here so that I can present to you a great opportunity. You are all wealthy men, in positions of power and influence in your countries. Influence that you are willing to use to promote the ideals of history’s greatest leader… Adolf Hitler.’

One of the men jumped to his feet, right arm stiffly raised with his palm turned downwards. ‘Heil Hitler!’

In moments, the others had all stood to deliver identical salutes. ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’ The bloated figure on the screen looked on with approval.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Eddie gasped, appalled. Zane appeared ready to kill.

Kroll waited for the awful chorus to die down. ‘Thank you. It is very good to know that others outside the Enklave’ — something about the way he said the word made Eddie realise he was using it as a proper noun — ‘believe as we do. And the tide of history is turning back towards us. More people join our cause every day across Europe and other parts of the world, disgusted by the failures of the supposed democracies and the pollution of their nations by inferiors. The time to act is now! All of you have enough influence to bring the masses in your countries to our way of thinking — through your newspapers, television stations, the Internet, your friends and puppets in government. If you all push together, our way will be seen as the only way, now and for ever — and with what I am offering, you will all be able to see the work through.’

The hard sell was coming, Eddie realised. Kroll had had decades to work on his sales pitch — and his audience seemed to be willing buyers.

The Nazi spoke again. ‘As I told you, we have obtained the means to find the source of the water. However, it will require considerable resources to secure it — and considerable amounts of money. But I can assure you that it will be worth it. Your payments now will guarantee you a supply for the rest of your lives. Which will be very long.’ He leaned back, watching his audience’s response intently.

Leitz stepped forward. ‘You have heard Herr Kroll’s proposal, and he has authorised me to act as his agent. The price for entry is… ten million US dollars.’

That caused a flurry of consternation from the guests. While they had come with the intention of doing business, clearly few had expected the cost to be so high. ‘And Leitz takes his twenty per cent of it all,’ whispered Zane.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Kroll, more loudly. His raised voice brought all eyes back to his image. ‘Ten million dollars may seem like a large sum, but you should consider it an investment — in your futures. The water from the Spring of Immortality will make the rest of your lives five times longer, or more. Think of what you can accomplish with those extra years. And it will be you who is doing it; not your heirs, not your trusts or companies. You will see your plans through to completion. You will see the final victory of the New Reich. Is that not worth the price I ask?’

Discussions began, but it was evident to the observers in the gallery that Kroll’s words had made an impression. Before long, the men below gravitated to Leitz; from his smiles in response, they had decided to accept the war criminal’s offer.

All but one. Holmes, the American, was still dubious. ‘Herr Kroll, you know that I’m a committed supporter of your goals — the world needs to be taken under firm control. But I also follow the news, and I don’t just mean Fox. The raid in Alexandria yesterday… it wasn’t successful, was it? Several of your men were killed, and I know from my sources that you didn’t get what you were after. The Egyptians and the International Heritage Agency recovered the statue.’

Some of the other guests regarded the challenger with surprise and even mistrust. Kroll’s eyes for a moment betrayed fury… then control returned. ‘Your sources are not quite up to date, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘Yes, the statue was taken from us. But we have already retaliated. This morning, my men attacked the convoy transporting it to Cairo — and their mission to recover it was a success.’

Eddie flinched in shock. Nina! She had been with the convoy—

A hand squeezed his arm, hard. He snapped his head around to find Zane staring at him with a grim but determined expression. ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ whispered the Israeli.

‘But Nina—’

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ he repeated. ‘Not now.’

Stomach churning with rage and fear, Eddie looked back at the scene below. Holmes was talking with Leitz, apparently convinced. The middleman nodded, then addressed the group. ‘Everyone is in agreement? Then payments must be made within the next twenty-four hours, via secure electronic transfer. I will provide each of you with the necessary details.’

‘It’s a lot of money,’ said Hertsmore, ‘but God, it’ll be worth every penny.’

‘It will indeed,’ said Kroll. ‘Now, gentlemen, I hope that soon it will be safe for me to come out of exile and meet you all in person. Until that day, we must all work tirelessly to build the New Reich. Heil Hitler!’

‘Heil Hitler!’ The chant echoed around the library as Kroll’s image disappeared.

‘Computer, close application,’ said Leitz to the television. The videoconferencing program was replaced by the desktop. ‘Here is the account information,’ he said, handing out business cards. ‘Burn the card after you have transferred the money. The transfers will be encrypted and will pass through many proxy accounts, but it is still best to be safe.’

‘That fat fucker,’ Eddie snarled as Leitz showed the group to the exit. ‘If anything’s happened to Nina—’

‘Stay calm,’ Zane interrupted. ‘Wait for the others to leave. We need to interrogate Leitz.’

Though still furious, Eddie recognised a change in the Israeli’s attitude. ‘I thought you were going to hack his computer?’

‘The situation’s changed. If you want to know what’s happened to your wife, this will be the quickest way.’

‘And what about Leitz? If he tells that Nazi arsehole that he had a visit from Mossad, he’ll go underground again!’

Zane gave him a humourless smile. ‘Accidents happen. It’s a long drop from that balcony…’

‘Don’t fuckin’ kill him until we know what’s happened to Nina.’ Eddie watched as the library emptied, then moved back to the door. Leitz’s visitors were crossing the hall below, the white-suited man going with them. ‘Okay, let’s have a little chat…’