Secrets of the Last Nazi

TWELVE

Gripping his economy flight ticket with his teeth, Myles manoeuvred his injured knee onto the plane. His height and the aluminium crutches made it awkward. Along with his briefing pack, there were too many things to hold. But at least his briefing pack was slim: a few emails printed out, a scanned photo of Stolz, and a last page with just a single sentence on it.

Myles checked the back of the paper: nothing. That was it.

The emails were correspondence between five people he’d never heard of were copied in. Then he looked at the email addresses: mostly fco.gov.uk — the British Foreign Office. But there was also an @state.gov — the US State Department, and one from someone using @diplomatie.gouv.fr, which meant the Quai D’Orsay — the French Foreign Ministry. He scanned through the pages. The very first message had come from the Russian Government, but they’d been left off the rest of the email chain.

He read the text. Some mention of Werner Stolz, but he wasn’t the main subject of the emails. Most were about whether or not to re-open a joint investigation into Stolz, as the Russians demanded. Much of it was legal jargon, debating how much of the agreements reached in the closing months of World War Two still applied.

Myles put the papers down and looked out of the plane window, wondering what had he stumbled into.

The airline stewardess was leaning towards him. ‘Your seatbelt, Sir?’

Still thinking about Stolz, Myles registered the instruction and clumsily tried to fit one part of the mechanism into the other. He watched the runway as the plane accelerated, about to take off, and pondered why were the Russians so interested in such a very old man who had just died. What made this low-level SS officer so special?

The plane shuddered as the nose began to rise. Myles read the emails again. He was missing something. This was a puzzle he couldn’t solve — not yet. He didn’t have enough pieces. And he knew most of the pieces of the puzzle dated from the end of World War Two. Some would be lost, some buried, and — if they were important enough — some hidden. It meant that to solve it, he’d have to investigate the world as it was at that time. The world when it was at war. The world which still obsessed so many of his students.

He knew he’d get help from Helen. If anybody could track down the former Corporal Bradley, it was her. It would make a great story, potentially for broadcast. But he would have to learn more about Stolz himself. Who was this man, and what sort of life had he lived?

Myles began to imagine Stolz when he was a soldier. A time when people gave hysterical support to Hitler, when Germany seemed able to conquer the world, then — as the war turned against the Nazis — when the Third Reich crumbled and collapsed. How had Stolz reacted to it all?

Myles woke to find the plane landing at Berlin’s Tegel airport.

Back on his crutches, handed to him with the stewardess’ goodbye, Myles hobbled towards the aircraft steps. Halfway down, he paused to breathe in the surprisingly fresh Berlin city air. Then he was disturbed by a call from below.

‘Munro?’ It was an American voice.

Myles peered down. The man who had called out had already turned away, scanning around to see who might be watching.

As he reached the bottom of the steps, Myles tucked one of his crutches under his arm and offered a handshake.

The American ignored it. ‘You got any baggage?’

His voice was cold and purposeful. Myles noticed his whole head was shaved in an extreme buzzcut: this was a man who coped with baldness by eradicating any trace of hair from his scalp. The American had an ex-military bearing. He obviously kept himself in shape. Probably in his late forties, but it was hard to tell. ‘I said, you got any baggage?’

‘Yes. One bag. I couldn’t really take much carry-on.’

The man kept scanning around, avoiding eye contact with Myles when he spoke. ‘So, you’re the history professor from Oxford University?’

‘Just a lecturer, but yes, at Oxford.’

The American let the words settle before he replied. ‘And you do the Nazis?’ He said ‘Nazis’ with his mouth pulled wide, as though saying the words was a painful instruction from a dentist.

‘It’s hard to be a war historian without covering the World Wars. So, yes, I “do” the Nazis.’ Myles wondered whether to explain his unorthodox theory of war. But first he wanted to know more about the frosty American who was guiding him through the arrivals terminal. ‘Sorry, your name is?’

The American looked at him sideways, then offered Myles a hand to shake. ‘Glenn. You can call me Glenn.’

Myles stopped on his crutches to accept the gesture. ‘Hello, Glenn. Just “Glenn”?’

‘I said you could call me Glenn. I didn’t say it was my name…’

The American supressed a smirk. Myles had come across people like ‘Glenn’ before. Probably a spook — they often worked on just a first-name basis. That way, even if they said something notable, nobody could quote it. All that could be reported was that there was someone called ‘John’ or ‘Sarah’ working on a particular topic in the national intelligence agency. Myles understood: ‘Glenn’ could be a firstname, middlename, surname, nickname, code-name or just a random designation given to the well-honed American official standing beside him.

Glenn pointed upwards, directing Myles’ eyes towards a sign. Myles duly pulled out his passport, ready to be checked. Glenn waited by Myles while he queued. ‘… So, you read up much about Werner Stolz?’

Myles shook his head. ‘Not sure there’s much to read, is there?’

The American didn’t reply immediately. Myles sensed the man was measuring his words before he said them. ‘That’s the thing. There might be more to read than we thought.’

Myles presented his official document to the German border official, who flicked straight to the photo page.

‘Welcome to Germany.’

‘Thank you.’

Myles was curious about the fact the American didn’t show anything to the official — he just made eye-contact and was waved through. Myles kept up with his questions. ‘More to read about Stolz, you mean?’

‘Sort of,’ explained Glenn. ‘It looks like there might be a problem with the original file. You see, it looks like something went missing…’

Neither of them noticed the ‘tourist’ testing his camera near the passport queue.

THIRTEEN

Glenn took Myles’ bag and led him to the airport’s parking lot. ‘I guess you can’t drive — with your leg.’ The American nodded towards Myles’ knee brace.

‘Yeah,’ accepted Myles. ‘But the doctor reckons I should be out of this in about a fortnight.’

‘Good,’ said Glenn, as he put Myles’ bag in the trunk and opened the passenger door. The American had hired an anonymous mid-range car.

Myles thanked him, threw his crutches in the back, then hauled himself inside.

The radio came on with the ignition, and a German woman’s voice started speaking. Probably an advert for something. Although he couldn’t understand the language, Myles tried to work out what she was selling.

Glenn switched it off. Silence.

The barrier to the parking lot lifted as they left the airport.

‘So, Myles — you’ve worked with Americans before?’

‘Yes.’ Myles sense Glenn already knew his answer.

‘So, tell me,’ Glenn checked the rear-view mirror as he spoke. ‘What happened between you and those terrorists?’

Myles sighed. Always the same. The only thing he was known for: false allegations. Glenn had probably googled his name to read all about it.

‘I was the patsy.’

‘Patsy, huh, Myles? Like Lee Harvey Oswald?’ Glenn was teasing Myles for a reaction. ‘So who do you blame?’

Myles paused and thought. Glenn’s response was odd. Most people, when he explained he had been set up, suspected he was still guilty somehow. But Glenn seemed to take for granted that the authorities were wrong, even though he was employed by them. Glenn was the authorities.

Glenn was still concentrating on the road, not really expecting Myles to answer. ‘You see, Myles,’ he continued. ‘I don’t care who you blame for your problems, as long as you don’t blame the Americans.’

‘OK…’ Myles puzzled through Glenn’s answer. ‘… So why shouldn’t I blame the Americans?’

‘Because there are more important things at stake here. Americans and Brits need to stick together.’

‘Like during the war, Glenn?’

‘Yes, Mr Military Historian,’ Glenn relaxed properly for the first time since Myles had met him. ‘Like during the war.’

The roads were fast and well-maintained. Glenn drove the car past a few of the city’s most famous sites. Myles recognised the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, with its new glass dome. The design had won almost every architectural award there were. It topped a building which rose high above the grassy Platz der Republik, where tourists meandered between flowers and greenery, admiring Berlin’s post-war renaissance, while also still fascinated by its horrific past.

Myles spotted the nearby parking lot, and recognised it at once: buried underneath was the infamous Hitler bunker, where the dictator spent much of his last year. The thick concrete walls and its location deep underground had foiled Soviet attempts to destroy it after the war. A memorial to the holocaust had been built nearby, just in case anyone tried to resurrect Hitler’s reputation.

Myles saw the main river, the Spree, clean and fresh-looking as it flowed slowly through the city. A small boat carried more tourists, who were being spoken to by a guide. Myles guessed they were learning how the river divided the city between East and West Berlin for more than four decades, looking out for signs of the Cold War on the river banks. He remembered the famous quote from Karl Marx, the prophet of communism:

‘He who controls Berlin controls Germany. He who controls Germany controls Europe. He who controls Europe controls the world…’

Now he had seen Berlin, he understood what Marx had meant a little better.

As they drove into the suburbs, the houses appeared carefully maintained. The lawns were smart and many of the buildings had recently been painted. This was the rich metropolis at the centre of New Europe. No sign of the nation’s troubled history at all. But then, that was all a long time ago.

The car slowed and pulled into the forecourt of a hotel. Myles glimpsed the sign.

Schlosshotel Cecilienhof, Potsdam

Myles knew it immediately: this was where the Potsdam conference had taken place in July 1945. It was in this building that the new US President Truman, the Soviet dictator Stalin, and the British Prime Minister had carved up post-war Europe — days before Churchill had been kicked out by the British electorate, and just before the Cold War started in earnest. Now it had been converted into a top-class hotel. Whoever had booked it for them had a wry sense of humour.

The concierge, dressed smartly in a formal uniform, approached the car to open the door. When he saw Myles’ scruffy clothes, he supressed a sneer, but upon seeing the artificial support around Myles’ knee, he offered an arm to help him climb out and up some steps.

Through a pair of double doors at the top, Myles found himself in the hotel lobby. He was greeted by an attractive brunette. ‘Mr Munro. Welcome.’ The receptionist beamed, blushing slightly. Myles was about to respond when the woman gestured to the inside of the building. ‘Let me guide you to your party, Sir.’

She directed him past the lobby area, along a refurbished corridor, around a couple of corners and up a small flight of stairs. ‘These executive rooms have been hired for your group’s privacy, Sir.’ She pointed towards two heavy but modern-looking doors. They were probably sound-proofed.

Inside, sitting around a table beside Glenn, were two unfamiliar women and a man.

The man, who was wearing a casual jacket, quickly stood up and offered a handshake. ‘Mr Munro?’ The words came with a heavy French accent. He leaned forward.

‘Pigou. Jean-François Pigou, Flight Lieutenant, French air force.’ The Frenchman was enthusiastic. Myles sensed he was eager to get going.

‘Good to meet you, Flight Lieutenant Pigou. I’m Myles Munro.’

The two woman also stood up. The first, slightly older and considerably taller, wore make-up and a beret. ‘Zenyalena Androvsky,’ she said. Although she was obviously Russian, Zenyalena’s dark blonde hair was in a Western style. Her suit was bright orange but stylish. ‘You may call me Zenyalena.’ She squared up to Myles, looking him in the eye as she shook his hand.

Just from her face Myles could tell she was unorthodox. There was something about her eyes, too, which drew his attention — they seemed to be open too wide, as if she was too alert.

‘Glad to meet up, Zenyalena.’

Zenyalena shook his hand with a jolt, hurting Myles’ wrist. When he reacted, the Russian woman gave a satisfied grin, then sat down again.

Myles turned to the younger woman. Dressed in practical clothes, she seemed plain, dowdy even. With the manner of a librarian, she was much less showy than the Russian. But something about her face told Myles she was highly intelligent.

‘My name is Heike-Ann Hassenbacher. I’m your interpreter, from Germany.’ There was only a slight German accent in Heike-Ann’s words — she spoke English better than many English people.

‘I’m Myles Munro. Good to meet you. I’m guessing you’re not just an interpreter.’

‘Correct. I’m with the diplomatic police, here in Berlin. My work is looking after foreign diplomats and dignitaries. I’m here to facilitate your investigation.’ The woman patted her stomach. ‘And before you wonder, yes, I am pregnant, although I may be fat, too.’

‘Congratulations — when’s it due?’

‘Thank you. Mid-term at the moment,’ said Heike-Ann, peering down at her bulge. ‘About four months to go.’

Aware that the introductions were over, Glenn positioned his body in a way which made clear he was in charge. ‘Good, we’ve all met each other, so let’s start.’

The group seemed to nod at once. Glenn spread out some papers on the table. Myles, Jean-François and Heike-Ann all leant forward to look.

Only Zenyalena held back. Myles sensed she had an issue with the American assuming command. She was looking round at the team, not following Glenn’s lead.

Glenn either didn’t notice Zenyalena’s reaction or just ignored it. ‘So, our mission is to investigate Werner Stolz and his papers…’ the American said. He continued with his eyes down at the paper, ‘… and the mandate for this comes from an edict agreed by our respective governments after the war — before any of us were born.’

‘Can you just stop there, please?’ It was Zenyalena.

Glenn looked up. ‘Yes?’

‘Mr Glenn, I think before we start, we need to appoint a chairman.’

Glenn lifted his eyebrows.

Zenyalena turned to the others. ‘Jean-François, would the French government object to us appointing a chairman?’

Jean-François was also surprised. He smiled, then shrugged. His expression made clear he didn’t care one way or the other.

‘Good.’ Zenyalena scanned towards Heike-Ann, and seemed to consider asking her, then decided not to. Their interpreter was German: she didn’t have a vote. Zenyalena moved on to Myles. ‘And the British? Do you mind?’ She stared at him for an answer, not blinking.

Myles paused, and caught Glenn’s eye as he spoke. ‘I suppose there’s a good precedent for it: November 1943. When FDR, Churchill and Stalin first met at the Tehran Conference, Stalin said exactly the same thing. He proposed the American President as chair, just to make sure it wasn’t the Englishman.’

Glenn lifted his head. ‘So Myles, you think it’s the turn of the Brits to chair this time?’

Zenyalena spoke before Myles could answer. ‘Well, the Russian delegation would like to propose these meetings are chaired by France.’

Jean-François looked surprised again, but took the invitation with a small laugh.

Zenyalena pressed her point home. ‘Jean-François, would you mind being chairman?’

‘Yes, no problem.’

Glenn caught Myles’ eye again. His expression was clear: the American could object, but only if he had British back-up.

Myles wasn’t so sure. This wasn’t the time to fight. Instead, he proposed a compromise. ‘How about this: France to chair for now. We’ll pick another chair in a week or so. Yes?’

Zenyalena slowly began to nod, followed by Heike-Ann and Jean-François.

Then Jean-François clapped his hands, and spoke to the team. ‘So that’s agreed. I’ll chair for now. Another chair later. Good.’

The Frenchman leaned over the table, slightly embarrassed. He placed his large hands over the papers which had been in front of Glenn, and slid them towards himself. Then he tried to sort them out. ‘So… so…’ He picked out a faded yellow page with old typewritten text on it. It was a list. ‘So this is the original Allied report. From 1945…?’

Glenn nodded, still smarting from being evicted from his team leader role. ‘Yes. The page you’re holding is the inventory on Stolz’s papers.’

‘And do you know who typed it up?’

Glenn shook his head. ‘Some part of the de-Nazification team. Someone in 1945, at an American army base south of Munich. But I don’t know who exactly.’

‘Can we find out?’ asked Jean-François.

‘Maybe, but whoever it was, they might be dead by now.’

Jean-François nodded sympathetically, accepting there were limits to what they could learn. He turned back to the papers. From the second pile he drew out a more modern-looking sheet. This page was white, not faded. The letters on it had come from a computer printer using a contemporary font. He pushed it to the middle of the table. ‘And this is the list of papers found in Stolz’s apartment?’

Glenn turned to Heike-Ann, encouraging her to speak.

Heike-Ann duly obeyed. ‘Yes, that’s correct,’ she said. ‘That is the list made by the Berlin city police team in his apartment yesterday.’

Jean-François continued to interrogate Heike-Ann, ever so politely. ‘And all the papers on this new list are from 1945 or earlier?’

‘Yes.’

Jean-François considered the two lists. He compared them, putting them next to each other in front of him on the coffee table. Then he spoke softly.

‘Now, I don’t want to accuse. But does anybody know why the list written in 1945 is incomplete?’

The whole team looked blank.

Jean-François asked again. ‘So nobody knows why, in 1945, they didn’t list all of the papers?’ He looked at all four of the people sitting around him in turn, wondering if any of them might volunteer something. They all remained silent. Jean-François continued, drawing out the final piece of paper. He turned to Zenyalena. ‘And does anybody know why the Russian government has decided that Stolz’s papers would need to be re-examined after his death?’

The Russian diplomat was about to answer, but Glenn interrupted. He had a sarcastic tone. ‘They probably thought it would be amusing.’

Jean-François accepted Glenn’s humour. ‘OK, so we go through all of Stolz’s papers. We read them all, and report on anything which might still be “amusing” seventy years later. Is that agreed?’ He looked straight across at Zenyalena. ‘Zenyalena — is Russia happy with that?’

‘Yes: Russia is content.’

Jean-François turned to Myles. ‘Britain?’

‘Fine.’

‘And finally, the US. Glenn?’

Glenn shrugged his shoulders, much as Jean-François had earlier. The Frenchman took it as consent.

‘Good. Then let’s start looking through what we’ve got…’

Myles raised his hand.

Jean-François acknowledged him. ‘Yes — Great Britain.’

‘Plain “Myles” will do. It’s just — I wonder if we’ll learn more about this man, Stolz, if we see where he lived. Can we visit his apartment?’

Myles’ suggestion was met with accepting faces.

Jean-François nodded in agreement. ‘Right — so we look through the papers we have, and we do it in Stolz’s old apartment.’

FOURTEEN

Werner Stolz’s skin had become grey many years ago — the same colour as his hair, his old photos, and his eyes, which just stared up at the ceiling.

The stiffness which had overtaken his body in the hours after his death had now passed from his limbs. When the autopsy assistant placed his corpse on the inspection slab, Stolz’s expression was relaxed — serene, even. The single bullet which had passed through his brain, leaving an entry wound in one temple and a larger exit wound in the other, had done nothing to remove the satisfaction from his face.

‘Danke.’ The forensic pathologist invited her assistant to stand back from the body. He duly retreated. Then she bent down for a closer look at the head wound. Satisfied that it was just a single bullet, she spoke calmly to her assistant. ‘Greifzirkel, bitte.’ Callipers, please.

She held out her palm to receive the implements. Then she closed the aperture and held them next to Stolz’s ear, over the entry wound.

‘7.6–7.7 mm.’ The pathologist said the numbers as if they were no surprise at all. She had seen other men of Stolz’s generation kill themselves this way. They all used 7.65 mm bullets.

It also meant she knew where to look next. Checking her latex gloves were clear of nicks and holes, she probed a short aluminium rod into his mouth, and pushed his tongue to one side. It was there, as expected. ‘Pinzette, bitte.’

The assistant duly gave her some tweezers, and for the next three minutes, the pathologist used them to pluck tiny fragments of glass from his gums and cheek. She collected the fragments in a shiny metal bowl, then she took a small ball of cotton wool to soak up the remaining saliva. She placed the swab in the bowl and passed it to her assistant.

The assistant nodded. He didn’t need instructions — he already knew he would have to test for cyanide.

It was a common pattern: a man, usually born between 1900 and 1925, who knows he’s about to die. He looks for meaning in his life, and decides his most fulfilling moments were in the service of the Führer. De-Nazification is forgotten, and he decides to die as he would have died with the Third Reich: crunching a cyanide capsule just before sending a 7.65 bullet through his head. Exactly the same death as Adolf Hitler himself.

The phenomenon even had a nickname: Fuehroxia — death caused by the Führer.

The pathologist knew how to confirm the diagnosis: blood and saliva tests for cyanide, and a final check that the victim fired the bullet themselves, through tests for traces of gunpowder on their hands.

The pathologist gently lifted Werner Stolz’s wrists and wiped another swab of cotton wool along his fingers. She dropped the second swab into a second metal bowl, and passed it over to her assistant, who was already testing the first sample. ‘Blut auch, bitte,’ she instructed.

The assistant nodded again, confirming that he would also check Stolz’s blood.

The pathologist began taking off her gloves, confident of her initial diagnosis: Fuehroxia, even though it was becoming increasingly rare. But then, Werner Stolz had been one hundred and three years old. There were few of his generation left.

The assistant quietly mixed the chemicals, being as careful with the sodium hydroxide solution he used for the test as he was with Stolz’s poisoned blood.

As expected, the cyanide test was positive.

Next, he took a pair of sterile tweezers and lifted the finger swab from the aluminium bowl. The assistant dropped it in a small plastic bag and added a few drops of reagent. Then, while he waited the six minutes for the test to complete, he tidied the old man’s body.

Six minutes later, he was perplexed: the gunpowder test was negative.

He stared at the results for a moment, sure there had been a mistake.

He repeated the test, making sure to collect a proper sample of residue from Stolz’s fingers this time. More reagent, and another six-minute wait. But it still came back negative.

The assistant re-read the initial report. That made clear that Werner Stolz had been found in the middle of his carpet. There was no sign of anything which could have protected his fingers.

The assistant froze, alarmed by what the science was telling him: that someone else had put the Walter PPK to Stolz’s temple and squeezed the trigger — after Stolz himself had bitten the cyanide pill.

That could make it assisted suicide — or even murder.

Finally, the assistant smiled to himself. He had proven the pathologist wrong.

It was not Fuehroxia at all.

FIFTEEN

Father Samuel stared down at his device, and the three words on its small display.

He used his thumbs to type back a two-word response.

As he pressed ‘send’, the rotund priest became concerned about the strength of the encryption between the two mobile communication units. Even if the content of his messages were safe, he was sure someone, somewhere would be monitoring the connection between Israel and Germany.

But he became even more concerned, one minute later, when he received the reply.

He let out a breath of exasperation, cursing to himself.

Father Samuel rolled his eyes to the Heavens, where he saw his monastery’s magnificent ceiling. It was the artwork of religious devotion: years of dedicated craftsmanship, reminding him that his people had endured centuries of suffering.

They had survived before, and it was his duty to ensure they would survive this.

More calmly, he typed back just three words.

Another minute passed, before he received his answer.

Then he sat down to wonder whether he needed to do more to ensure a satisfactory outcome in Berlin. The chance of a real problem remained extremely low, but if it did happen, the impact would be unimaginably huge.

SIXTEEN

Within two hours of their first meeting in the exclusive Cecilienhof Hotel in Potsdam, the team of five had driven into the centre of Berlin.

Myles gazed out of the car window, wondering at the sights around him. He saw a woman in a hijab pushing a pram, and two men with tight haircuts holding hands. T-shirts were loud and even the office workers seemed casually dressed. German society had rebelled against everything the Nazis stood for.

Even more dramatic was the evolving cityscape. Cranes and construction equipment seemed to be everywhere: Berlin was being refashioned. Concrete and Prussian brick were being replaced by slick metal trimmed with wood and high-quality plastic. It was a very visual departure from the past.

Meanwhile, scars from the Cold War — including the great wall which had divided the city for more than twenty-eight years — had mostly disappeared, and bomb damage from the end of the Reich was completely gone. Myles noticed not a single street sign bore a bullet hole, which meant those which had been damaged in the intense battle for the city in the spring of 1945 must have been replaced. There were no scorch marks from explosions, or any of the tell-tale chipped concrete he’d seen in other former war zones. The Soviet assault had involved two-and-half million troops, yet all trace of their presence, in this part of Berlin at least, had been erased.

Glenn, in the driving seat, allowed the satellite navigation device to direct him through the traffic.

‘Turn left, one hundred yards,’ instructed the computerised voice.

Glenn duly obeyed, pulling the hire car quietly into a secluded cul-de-sac.

‘Am Krusenick 38. You have arrived at your destination.’

Zenyalena was the first to open a door. She stared up at the building in front of her. ‘He hid this away pretty well…’

She was right. Stolz had bought an apartment in former East Berlin. Although the street had been laid down in the 1890s, the whole district had been flattened by bombing raids in the war. Number 38 was a functional and dour five-storey block, built by the Communists over the pre-war foundations. Myles imagined it was probably damp inside, and cold in the winter. There were signs it had been renovated, probably not long after 1989, when the city was reunited. Some of the upper floors had been repainted more recently, but it still looked stark.

Myles sniffed the air: he could smell the city’s main river, the Spree, which ran nearby.

Heike-Ann pulled out the police envelope which contained the keys, unsure whether to offer them to Glenn or Jean-François. Glenn deferred to the Frenchman, who took them with a grateful nod. ‘Thank you, Heike-Ann,’ he said, sizing up the building in front of them all. He began testing the keys in the lock. The first didn’t fit, nor the second. But the third one did. He turned his wrist, then gently pushed open the door. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said, as he searched for and quickly found a light switch.

Glenn, Zenyalena, and Heike-Ann followed inside, with Myles hobbling along behind, battling with his crutches.

They were in the shared lobby of the apartment block. The ceiling was high, and the floor carpeted with a plastic mat. A wire-metal door locked off the small space which housed machinery for the lift. It had been swept recently, but not a thorough clean: the dirt had just been brushed under the mat, not taken away.

Heike-Ann pointed them towards the single door on the ground-floor: Stolz’s apartment. Myles noticed the paint was worn and neglected. It was a sad place for Stolz to spend his final years.

Jean-François guessed which of his remaining keys fitted this inside door, and got it right first time. He unlocked Stolz’s apartment and led them inside.

The interior was much better kept than the outside of the flat would suggest, but certainly nothing special. The walls were painted an old shade of beige, and the furniture seemed like it hadn’t been used much. Perhaps Stolz hadn’t invited many friends over. Perhaps there had been no friends to invite.

The main living room was dominated by an expensive-looking dining table, with four cardboard boxes on top. Glenn approached them and started opening. Other members of the team watched in silence.

Each box contained the same thing: a set of old files. Glenn pulled one out and peeled open the cardboard. There were several sheets of paper inside.

The American looked up at the others. ‘So these are all his papers?’

Heike-Ann nodded. ‘Yes. All the papers in the flat — which is all the papers he had relating to the period before May 1945. They’re all here.’

Glenn absorbed the information as he leafed through some of the titles. Then, believing he had the rest of the team’s permission, he started to read some of them out. ‘So we have here a box with a German title: ‘Militärische Operation Werwolf — Technologie’. Heike-Ann, what does that mean?’

Heike-Ann tried to take the question seriously, even though it barely needed any translation. ‘In English, it means “Military Operation Werewolf — Technology”.’

Zenyalena looked puzzled. ‘Werewolf?’

Myles recognised the reference. ‘Operation Werewolf was Hitler’s plan for resistance in Germany once the country was occupied by the Allies. The Führer expected thousands, perhaps millions of his followers to keep fighting after his death.’

Jean-François lifted his head back as if a half-memory about Operation Werewolf had returned to his mind. ‘So you think these papers relate to technology for Operation Werewolf?’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Myles. ‘But most resistance to occupation is very low-tech — it uses technology everybody already knows. If this is high-technology and secret, then it might be about the wonder weapons Hitler believed could bring victory when he was losing.’

Zenyalena registered the point. ‘Good,’ she said, speaking firmly. ‘Then we must examine all these papers. There are four boxes and, not counting Heike-Ann, there are four of us.’ She had already gone towards the table. ‘One each,’ she said, picking a box and pulling it to one side.

Jean-François was happy to oblige, and stood next to the box nearest to him.

Myles offered the choice between the remaining two boxes to Glenn, who lifted a file from one of the boxes, then read the title: ‘Wirtschaft’. Economy. He pushed it across the table to Myles. Myles accepted it, leaving Glenn to take the last one.

Jean-François looked around. The American, Russian and Brit had already started peering into their boxes, lifting out obscure papers to see what they could find.

The Frenchman clapped his hands to gather their attention. ‘So: we all take our boxes back to the hotel and read through them tonight. Then we meet again tomorrow at ten in the morning to report back.’ Jean-François spoke with a certain charm that made it hard to say no. ‘Is that agreed?’

Only Zenyalena managed to quibble. She directed her words to Heike-Ann. ‘Half-agreed — Heike-Ann, you said these were only his papers relating to the period before May 1945. Do you know where his other papers are — his papers from after 1945?’

‘I understand they are with his lawyers,’ replied Heike-Ann.

‘Then we must get them,’ Zenyalena instructed, matter-of-factly.

Glenn stopped what he was doing, as if the Russian had just said something outrageous. ‘No. There’s no reason to do that.’

Zenyalena turned her body to the American, facing him squarely. She seemed to have expected objections from Glenn. ‘Yes, there is a reason. We want to examine all that Stolz knew at the end of the war. That means reviewing things he wrote afterwards, as well as before.’

Glenn didn’t reply immediately. Instead he paused, then pulled from his pocket a folded print-out of an email. He scanned down it, then stopped and picked on a phrase. ‘Here, your request: “The team shall re-examine all papers and other materials belonging to SS Captain Werner Stolz.” We can’t re-examine papers if they weren’t examined already. Your words, Zenyalena.’ Glenn waved the paper towards the others. ‘Our inquiry is limited to papers from 1945 and earlier.’

Zenyalena shook her head. ‘You’re reading it wrongly,’ she said, her tone dismissive. ‘‘All papers and other materials”. That means all. Recent ones included.’

‘But how can we re-examine them, Zenyalena? They were never “examined” in the first place.’

She shrugged, gloating with a satisfied grin. ‘Easy,’ she said. ‘We examine them twice.’

Jean-François seemed insulted that the team were arguing. ‘We must all agree,’ he suggested. ‘If the American delegation doesn’t want to re-examine the more recent papers, that is no problem. But the others can.’

Glenn snorted, unimpressed by the Frenchman’s weak answer. He turned to Myles, hoping for a better response.

Myles began to speak carefully, thinking as he spoke. ‘Glenn certainly has a point. “Re-examine” does suggest only the papers which had been looked at already. But, if there is some mystery to this man, Werner Stolz — an important mystery — then only by looking at his whole life can we find out what it is.’ Myles raised his eyebrows, half-apologising to Glenn, who seemed to be losing most of the arguments at the moment.

Glenn returned his glance — the American was accepting Myles’ point. But he was also making clear that soon he would need Myles’ support. The special relationship — Britain and America — mattered here. Silently, Myles acknowledged it too.

‘Good,’ said Jean-François, seeming happier. ‘Then I will go now to the lawyers who are holding Stolz’s other papers. Heike-Ann, I will need you with me because my German is very poor. Does anybody else want to accompany us?’

Zenyalena raised her hand. ‘I will come.’

‘Excellent. Anyone else?’

Slowly the American raised his hand, copying Zenyalena. ‘Well, I don’t want this to be a purely Franco-Russian affair,’ explained Glenn. He tried to say it as a joke, but the humour was flat. Geo-politics seemed to matter too much to him.

‘Welcome along, Glenn. And Myles — you coming, too?’

Myles had already started on the material from his box. Someone had scribbled a translation in English on a large section of the text and he was absorbed by what he was reading.

‘Myles?’

Myles looked up to see the four faces inviting him out. ‘Oh, no thanks. I’ll make a start here. And it’s hard for me to travel, with my leg. You’ll be back soon, right?’

Jean-François nodded firmly.

Heike-Ann and Zenyalena waved their goodbyes, while they followed the Frenchman out of the room. Glenn patted Myles on the back, and then left with the others. Myles heard the outside door close behind them.

He glanced up from the files and through the window. He could see the four of them standing outside the car, arguing about who should drive. Glenn eventually tossed the car keys over to Zenyalena, who began to adjust the seat.

Myles looked back into the room. Something didn’t seem right, but he couldn’t work out what it was.

He studied the walls. Stolz had collected a lifetime’s worth of books and memorabilia. On a shelf stood a framed photo of the man looking middle-aged next to the Olympic rings. The 1974 Munich Olympics: Stolz must have had VIP tickets to the event.

Stolz had obviously been wealthy. Yet his main apartment, on the ground floor in the centre of Berlin, was dark. It was close to the River Spree, but had no riverside view. It seemed damp — Myles could smell the river inside the building. Surely Stolz could have chosen a better place to live than this?

Myles edged towards the bookcase. The titles were all in German. Even though he couldn’t translate the words, he could deduce what they were about. Some science, some history, some travel, and an old Prussian novel. Myles noticed an encyclopaedia of the twentieth century, which had been flicked through many times. The only other book which seemed to have been read so much was titled, ‘Ephemeris’. Myles peeked inside: it was a strange timetable, full of symbols and numbers, a different month on every page. Carefully, Myles placed it back, not sure what he had found. He ran a finger along the shelf — some dust, but not much.

Diagonally above the book case was an airvent, which seemed out of place. Stolz had connected a filter to it — a man determined to keep out the carbon from the city traffic?

Myles opened a drawer and found all sorts of small things: train tickets, receipts, a faded set of instructions to some household device. Stolz was a hoarder, but not of large things — the dead German seemed to have collected items which carried information. Myles picked out a photo of the man in his mid-twenties, posing while a jubilant crowd was gathering behind him. Stolz was grinning, as though he had just won tickets to see some big attraction. Myles noticed an out-of-focus swastika in the image. On the back was scribbled simply, ‘Vienna, 1938’. He replaced the picture, trying to leave it untouched.

From the lobby of the apartment block, Myles heard the gentle whirring of the lift start up. One of the other residents would be returning to their flat above him.

The distraction made Myles focus. The papers: that was where Stolz’s secret lay. That was where Myles had to search.

His thumb moved along the top edges of the papers in his file. Many of the pages were worn: someone had flicked through them before.

Then he noticed more handwritten scribbles under the typewritten text. He gently lifted out the page, careful not to pull too hard in case the paper tore. It was another translation. The words had been done with a fountain pen and the black ink had faded. Myles guessed the scrawls were from the 1940s. It was probably from one of the first people to interrogate Stolz — perhaps from Corporal Bradley himself.

He placed the sheet flat on the table, stretching out the wrinkles with his palms. It was entitled, ‘Cross-Border Economic Systems’. Myles began to read:

Myles wondered what the event was: what had happened in June 1939 to coincide with the Pact of Steel? What else had happened when the US Federal Reserve was founded in 1913? For every date, Stolz had told his interviewer about a change in the way money and power operate across borders, but what was he linking to it? Myles noticed the interval between the dates was not even.

He kept reading:

Myles read it again, amazed.

In 1957 and 1958: the European Economic Community — the future EU — was established, a cross-border bureaucracy to regulate trade in Europe.

October 1971: President Nixon abandoned the rules which fixed the dollar to the price of gold, and brought in a currency based on negotiated power.

August 1984: Economic deregulation dominant in many developed countries.

January 1995: the World Trade Organisation was formed.

November 2008: the credit crunch, causing great problems for banks around the world.

Each one of Stolz’s predictions had come true.

He read the rest of the paper.

Would these predictions become true, too?

Then Myles looked down at the bottom of the page. There was a simple reference. It had not been translated, because it didn’t need to be.

Myles stared at it, stunned.

It meant the original German words on this page had been typewritten in the summer 1940, many years before the events they predicted.

Myles recoiled from the table.

There were lots of possible explanations. Most likely, the page was written later and the date at the bottom was a lie. How else could the predictions and their precise timings have been made?

But then he began to wonder — why would someone fabricate these predictions? And surely, if it was a hoax, the team from 1945 would have rumbled it?

Behind him, he could still hear the whirr of the lift motor. It had been running for several minutes now. Odd: surely most rides within the five-storey apartment block would take just a few seconds…

Myles slumped down in a seat, taking the weight off his healing knee. He was feeling tired and light-headed. Sick, even.

He looked around the room — his head seemed to be spinning. Perhaps his vision was failing.

He wondered if it was the shock of discovering the old Nazi been making such accurate predictions. Unlikely — it wasn’t enough to explain his intense nausea.

Could the paper have been poisoned somehow? Something chemical or even biological — a clever trap by Stolz to protect his papers? Revenge on anyone who tried to take his secret?

He examined the papers again. The documents were dry, there was no sign of any powder, and Myles had barely touched them. If he was being poisoned, it wasn’t by Stolz.

The pages in the box were fluttering slightly, as if there was a gentle breeze within the room. Staggering to his feet, he forced himself back to the boxes. He put his hand on top of them and felt warm air tumbling onto it. Slowly, with his balance failing, he lifted his arm, tracing the source of the draft. His hand reached back to the filter. Warm air was blowing in through it.

He fell backwards, and his head hit the floor. He felt his muscles stiffen, and his stomach convulse, as if it wanted him to vomit. He tried to get back on his feet again, but this time he couldn’t.

Suffocating, and with his muscles stiffening by the second, Myles realised he had become completely helpless.

SEVENTEEN

Jean-François opened the door to the lawyer’s office for Heike-Ann, who accepted the gesture politely, and Zenyalena, who was much less gracious. The three of them had entered a waiting room. Zenyalena was the first to sit down, and choose the largest seat.

Glenn followed on behind, distracted by the English-language version of the Berliner Morgenpost, which he accessed on his mobile. He soon found what he was looking for.

Glenn could tell most of Stolz’s obituary was old. It was common practice for junior reporters to collect material on people like Stolz for use later. Every few years — usually in slack periods, like August and over the Christmas break — the obituaries would be reviewed and occasionally updated by the next generation of trainees.

The cynics were probably right. Glenn continued reading.

Finally, Glenn reached the last paragraph. He scanned it, then — suddenly reacting to the words — leaned forward, as he read the text again. Then he exhaled deeply, wondering at the significance of what he had just seen.

He passed his phone to Jean-François, who held it so Heike-Ann could read it at the same time. Zenyalena made a point of using her own phone to find the same website.

Glenn watched Jean-François’ face, waiting until the Frenchman had finished reading. ‘So, Jean-François — what do you think?’

The Frenchman shrugged. He didn’t really think anything.

Glenn pressed home the point. ‘I mean about the obituary. The last paragraph.’ The American was raising his voice.

Jean-François still didn’t understand Glenn’s point. Heike-Ann also looked confused.

Frustrated, the American took back his phone, and brought up the final sentences on Stolz so the words filled the screen.

Glenn pointed at the device. ‘See? Who do you think they’ve been talking to?’

Jean-François seemed innocent. ‘You think these journalists spoke to someone?’

‘Of course they have. They wouldn’t print that unless they knew.’ Glenn began quoting the last sentence, his irritation obvious. ‘It says, “Their work investigating this Nazi-turned-philanthropist has already begun”.’

Finally Jean-François was beginning to understand. ‘Well, I’m sure it was none of our team. It could have been someone at the care home — or the police…’

Glenn was unconvinced. He looked accusingly at Zenyalena. ‘Did you make this public?’

Before Zenyalena had a chance to answer, Heike-Ann finally spoke up. ‘It was me.’

Glenn and Zenyalena both turned to her. Jean-François’ face invited the German policewoman to explain.

Heike-Ann lifted her palms as she spoke, as if she had nothing to hide. ‘A man from the newspaper called me yesterday. They asked me to confirm that the international team had arrived. All I said was “yes”.’

Glenn and Jean-François looked at each other, uncertain what to do next.

Glenn followed up with questions. ‘How did the journalist know about our investigation, Heike-Ann?’

‘He said he’d been told by the Berlin police.’ Heike-Ann’s answer was straightforward. It was hard to believe she was lying.

‘Come on — that’s a trick from Journalism 101,’ sneered Glenn. ‘Make something up, pretend you had it from someone else, and ask for “confirmation”. You thought he was telling the truth?’

‘Yes, I did. He sounded truthful. Why should he lie?’

Jean-François held Heike-Ann’s hand. He squeezed it, as if to emphasise that she had done nothing wrong.

But Glenn was still angry. ‘Can we all agree: no more publicity? No speaking to journalists — or emailing, or any contact with them. Right?’

Jean-François looked uncertain.

Zenyalena volunteered a compromise. ‘No publicity unless at least three of us want it. Agreed?’

Glenn thought then slowly nodded his acceptance. ‘We’ll have to get Myles Munro’s agreement, when we get back to him.’

The American stared down at the obituary again. The consequence of it was clear. It meant the team’s work was no longer secret. Anybody reading the newspaper, or anybody who did a simply internet search for Werner Stolz, would find out that the dead German’s affairs — as well as his body — were the subject of research. Research which had been ordered at the highest level.

Eventually the door opened. A prim secretary appeared, holding the door handle. ‘Gentlemen, ladies. You may come through now,’ she said with a haughty tone.

Zenyalena allowed Jean-François to lead the way, then followed on. Glenn and Heike-Ann trailed behind.

They were being invited into a wood-panelled office. Books were carefully arranged on the shelves, cataloguing German court cases over many years. They looked neat and probably unread.

Wearing thick-rimmed glasses, an austere-looking man pointed to the furniture without making eye contact. ‘Good morning. Please…’

Jean-François, Zenyalena, Glenn and Heike-Ann were offered leather-bound seats. As they sat, it became clear their seats were lower than the lawyer’s, forcing them to look up at him

The German lawyer repositioned a paperweight on his desk, then took off his glasses to polish them, paying more attention to imaginary dust on the lens than the four people in his room. ‘… Now, I understand you have come to me in connection with the late Mr Werner Stolz.’ His English was weighed down by a thick accent.

Jean-François nodded. He sat forward, keen to make his point. ‘That’s right. You are the custodian of some of Mr Stolz’s files?’ The Frenchman said it as a question.

The lawyer remained silent.

Uneasy at the lawyer’s failure to respond, Jean-François continued. ‘Well, we are an investigation team representing the four Allied war powers — France, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union.’

‘Does the Soviet Union still exist?’ The lawyer started chuckling to himself.

Zenyalena rolled her eyes. ‘The Soviet Union’s legal rights and obligations passed to the Russian Federation in December 1991.’ She turned to Jean-François, encouraging him to continue.

‘Yes, and we would like to examine all the papers placed in your keeping by Mr Stolz.’

The lawyer remained silent. Jean-François remained silent also, determined to make the lawyer answer this time.

Finally, the old German spoke. ‘You are correct that, before Mr Stolz died, he authorised me to safeguard some of his possessions.’

More silence. Jean-François was becoming infuriated. ‘So, can we see them?’

‘No, you cannot.’

‘And why is that, exactly?’

‘Because Mr Stolz was very clear about who was allowed to see them, and you are not that person.’

EIGHTEEN

The room was closing around him. His breathing became even more difficult. Myles looked up again at the air filter, and the black carbon stain darkening in the centre. The whirr of the lift motor vibrated in his ears.

Then he understood: carbon monoxide poisoning.

He tried to remember the symptoms: nausea, blurred vision, vertigo, exhaustion… He had them all. Were there others? He didn’t know, but he could feel consciousness fading away from him.

Fresh air — he was gasping for fresh air.

Still lying on the floor, he jolted his head towards the door, hoping to suck oxygen from under it. He tried to stretch, dragging his damaged leg behind him and pushed with his elbows and thighs, the only parts of his body still strong enough to take him to safety.

He was getting closer. But the gas was closing in too.

Then he felt the presence of someone else in the room. Someone behind him, a man standing beside Stolz’s papers.

Desperately he tried to turn his head, but his muscles had stiffened too much. He couldn’t quite twist his body enough to see…

Then Myles felt a boot on his neck. The weight began pressing him firmly to the floor, and the sensation of total blackness took over him completely.

NINETEEN

Glenn was fuming. ‘And who is that person that Stolz gave his papers to, Mr Lawyer, Sir?’ He said the words ‘Mr Lawyer’ with a sneer.

‘I’m not allowed to say.’

Glenn stood up. For a moment, it seemed he might throw a punch.

The lawyer felt the need to explain himself. ‘You may not be acquainted with German law. But the position concerning an individual’s last will and testament is very clear. Mr Stolz stipulated his papers were not to be given out, other than to a specific individual. He also stipulated that I was not to divulge that individual’s identity.’

None of the team knew what to do next. Zenyalena thought she’d try. ‘So, what legal means can we use to change your position?’

The lawyer lifted his head up and looked down his nose at the Russian. ‘There are no legal means to change my position. Not even the Supreme Court of Germany can force me to divulge the information I safeguard for the late Mr Stolz. A German federal court could ask whether Werner Stolz was of sound mind, and whether he made his will voluntarily. It is easy for me to prove that both of those conditions were met.’ The lawyer concluded with a shrug.

Glenn snarled at him again, but didn’t know how to respond. Zenyalena and Jean-François both looked blank.

Eventually Heike-Ann spoke up. ‘Sir, I believe that the German Supreme Court was established by the Basic Law, with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.’

‘The constitution, yes.’

‘Good. And Article 25 of the Basic Law makes German law subservient to certain international laws, correct?’

The lawyer didn’t answer immediately. Heike-Ann was straying into constitutional law, an area which clearly left the man uncomfortable.

Heike-Ann didn’t allow the lawyer’s silence to stop her. ‘Sir, I believe that this commission of investigation, which I have been mandated to facilitate, has a legal basis which overrules provisions of the German Basic Law.’

The lawyer looked nervous, as though he’d been humbled by an amateur but was trying to hide it.

Heike-Ann rammed her point home. ‘You see, this team does not just have diplomatic immunity. It has a mandate which originates in the Treaty of Yalta. That means it comes from international law, which overrides Germany’s Grundgesetz. So if this team make a request, you have a legal obligation to comply.’

Jean-François rallied behind her. ‘… And we request all your papers on Werner Stolz, including information about whom you should give them to.’

It was almost half a minute before the lawyer offered an answer. ‘You must put your case in writing,’ he said, dryly.

Glenn slammed his fist on the table. ‘Damn that! We’ve already got it in writing.’ He pulled out his printed emails and thrust them in the lawyer’s face.

The lawyer peered down his nose at the American. ‘So you have a copy of the Treaty of Yalta. Good for you. You must still make your case in writing.’

Zenyalena squared her eyes to the lawyer’s. ‘No. Under the authority granted to our governments in 1945, you must submit your papers to us immediately. If you do not then you are obstructing international law, which underpins the German constitution.’

Zenyalena, Glenn, Heike-Ann and Jean-François all focussed on the lawyer, watching him weigh his options.

The old German lawyer could tell Zenyalena and the motley foreigners in his office were partly bluffing. None of them were legal experts. If he tried, he could delay them in the courts. Perhaps humiliate them, as they were humiliating him now. But he knew that was unlikely. The Great Powers would never allow it. Instead, they’d crush him. The foreigners only needed to hire a semi-competent lawyer and they’d easily get what they wanted. The legal point was clear: certain aspects of international law did trump the German constitution, even after all these years.

It was just a question of time: surrender Werner Stolz’s papers now, or be forced to later, by the courts.

The lawyer looked again at the four people in front of him. ‘Without confirming I accept your legal position, I am willing to comply with your request,’ he acknowledged.

Jean-François looked at Zenyalena and Glenn, not sure whether to believe their luck, while Heike-Ann smiled shyly.

The lawyer said something in German to his secretary, who nodded discreetly, scurried into a side office, and returned a few seconds later with a single box file.

Zenyalena looked disappointed. ‘Is that all?’

The lawyer smirked, slightly surprised that he was having the last laugh. ‘Yes, that’s all.’

Glenn, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann also rose to their feet, all keen to leave the lawyer as fast as they could. Heike-Ann and Jean-François shook hands with the man as they left; Zenyalena refused.

Last to leave was Glenn. ‘One question.’

‘Yes?’

‘Who was the person Stolz authorised you to give these papers to?’

The lawyer paused before he answered, wondering again whether to hold back the secret. But he knew the same logic applied: tell now or be forced to tell later. He looked through his thick glasses at the American. He would at least gain pleasure from answering the foreigner correctly, without satisfying him at all. ‘The papers say “These are for a foreign man about to die, at the start of a trial by air, fire, earth and water”.’

Glenn frowned. ‘And who’s that?’

The lawyer shrugged, ‘I do not know,’ he said. Then his face contorted into an artificial smile, gloating openly. ‘Goodbye.’

TWENTY

Driving back to Stolz’s old apartment in Am Krusenick Street, the team celebrated.

Jean-François seemed happiest. ‘That lawyer — what a, a…’ he searched for the words in English, ‘… a stuff-ball!’

Zenyalena and Heike-Ann laughed.

It took them a quarter of an hour to reach Stolz’s flat. As the car pulled up in the drive, the four people inside climbed out casually. Zenyalena and Jean-François were still smiling as they approached the building. They had no thoughts about what might lie inside.

Glenn unlocked the outer door, went through the lobby, then entered Stolz’s ground-floor apartment.

A body lay on the floor. It was Myles, frozen in place.

Glenn bent down to him, shaking Myles’ shoulders in panic. ‘Myles? Myles, you alive?’

Myles didn’t move. The American shook him even harder. He searched Myles’ body for signs of life. Nothing.

The others arrived. Jean-François called out, unsure how to react. ‘Myles?’

Zenyalena looked around, alert to danger.

Then, very slowly, muscles on Myles’ face began to twitch. He opened his eyes and tried to focus, and started spluttering on the floor, only half conscious.

Glenn shouted at him. ‘Myles, what happened?’

Myles was too dazed to reply. Glenn realised, and pulled him up into a sitting position.

Myles finally started to remember where he was. He called out, gasping. ‘Air…’ He was desperate for breath.

Heike-Ann pushed the door to the apartment wide open. A fresh breeze blew through the building — a through draft. A window was open somewhere in the apartment.

Glenn enlisted Jean-François’ help, and together the two men hauled Myles outside. There, Glenn encouraged the Oxford lecturer to take some deep breaths.

Myles gradually felt his head begin to clear. ‘… Has he gone?’

‘Who?’ asked Glenn.

Myles didn’t know who, but he could still feel the boot marks on his neck.

Then Myles remembered the gas. He remembered the lift motor running far longer than it should. He remembered the vent, and the filter. He remembered the sickness. Carbon monoxide sickness.

The four others stood around him, all confused.

‘Are you OK, Myles?’ Heike-Ann sounded genuinely concerned.

Slowly Myles began to explain. ‘I think they tried to gas me. Carbon monoxide poisoning — from the lift motor…’

Zenyalena and Jean-François scoffed. Even Heike-Ann was sceptical. Only Glenn went back to inspect the lift machinery in the lobby.

Heike-Ann checked Myles’ pulse. She took a small bottle of water from her bag and offered it to him.

Myles brought the bottle to his lips, spilling some as he drank. ‘Thank you…’ Sitting outside the apartment while he recovered, Myles realised the people around him still didn’t understand what had happened to him. He tried to explain it all. ‘… Just after you left, someone turned on the motor to the lift in the building. But it didn’t just work the lift. It pumped carbon-monoxide gas into the apartment.’ He could tell they all seemed shocked.

Zenyalena was still trying to grasp the order of events. ‘Is that why you opened the window? To clear in the apartment? Why didn’t you just open the door, or walk outside?’ There was a barb in the Russian woman’s voice. It was hostile questioning.

Myles tried to be as honest as he could. ‘I didn’t open the window. It must have been opened by someone else.’

‘But why didn’t you just leave the building?’

‘I couldn’t — the poisoning stopped my muscles. And someone put a boot on my neck.’ Myles rubbed his collar as he spoke.

Finally Jean-François gripped the seriousness of the danger. ‘You think you could have died?’

Myles nodded.

Jean-François put his hand on Myles’ shoulder. ‘Then, Mr Munro, we need to take you to a hospital.’

‘Thank you, but I’m alright.’

‘You sure?’

Myles nodded again, not wanting to leave, and trying to work out who had almost killed him. ‘Which of you was the last to leave?’ he asked. ‘When you went to the lawyer, which of you was the last one to get into the car?’

Jean-François, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann looked blankly at each other.

Then an American voice spoke from behind. ‘Me. I was the last to leave,’ admitted Glenn. ‘And I’ve just checked out the pipework in the building: something’s been done to it…’

Glenn led the whole team back to the entrance lobby. Myles walked with Heike-Ann’s arm supporting him, propping up both his ruptured knee and his recovering lungs.

The American took them to the lift machinery, housed behind a wire-framed door. It was old technology — probably Communist-era, from before the Berlin Wall came down. Most of the metal had darkened from age and dirty grease. It all made the green plastic pipe, which bent round from the exhaust of the motor, instantly out of place.

Glenn’s finger pointed to where the pipe led. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Someone recently attached the pipe, so it pumps the fumes straight into Stolz’s old apartment.’ He gripped the pipe hard and pulled at it. It came away in his hands.

‘Leave that,’ called Heike-Ann.

Glenn obeyed, confused.

‘Fingerprints,’ explained Heike-Ann. ‘We must get this checked out.’

Zenyalena frowned. ‘It’ll have Glenn’s fingerprints on it now… If it didn’t have them already…’

Glenn’s face fumed with anger. The accusation was obvious. ‘If you’re saying I would do something like try to kill…’

Myles tried to calm them both. ‘Nobody thinks Glenn tried to gas me. Zenyalena’s just trying to understand what happened.’

‘We need the police for that,’ volunteered Heike-Ann.

Silence.

Heike-Ann was surprised the team didn’t welcome her suggestion. She made her point again. ‘It was attempted murder, right? So we should contact the police.’

Zenyalena spoke firmly. ‘We can contact the police. But their work must be limited to this incident. They are not to investigate Stolz. The attempted murder of Myles and the Stolz investigation are separate. OK?’

Heike-Ann turned to the Englishman, asking her query in a very reasonable tone. ‘Myles — you want the police to investigate this, right?’

Myles nodded. ‘Yes, they should. But they have to tell us everything they discover. Does German law allow for that?’

Heike-Ann tipped her face to one side. ‘The police can tell us some things.’

With Myles back on his feet, slowly he was able to lead the team back into the room. The others followed, all keen to know more about what had happened.

Once they were all inside, Myles leaned on a crutch and pointed to a chair. ‘This is where I was sitting. I had the papers in my hand…’

Heike-Ann, Glenn and Jean-François observed the scene from the doorway.

Zenyalena picked up the file Myles had been reading. ‘What do you think of Stolz’s papers?’

‘Interesting. He liked dates.’ Myles put out his hand and the Russian returned the file to him. He started looking through it, trying to find the papers he’d been reading before he was gassed. ‘There was one piece… Dates when the way the world traded across borders had changed…’ Myles kept trying to find it. ‘… The page was dated Juli 1940, which means July, right? It was written at the bottom of the page — although that date must have been added later…’

Zenyalena’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Why must the “1940” date have been added later?’

‘Because it was so accurate. The paper described events since then,’ said Myles, still searching. ‘Things which couldn’t have been known back in 1940.’

‘Well, where is it?’

No matter how hard Myles looked, he couldn’t find it. The page he had been reading was gone.

TWENTY-ONE

Sally Wotton shook the rain from her hair and threw her broken umbrella in the bin. Damn thing…

Trying not to spill her morning venti latte, she put her security pass between her teeth and took off her coat. Her arm caught in the sleeve. She fumbled, tried to yank it and coffee leapt out of the cardboard cup onto her black trousers. She was examining the stain when the door opened for her — from the inside.

It was her boss. ‘Hello Sally — caught in the rain?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The man only half-acknowledged her, then retreated inside.

Sally cursed again. She tried to brush the stain clean, finished with her coat, and hung it up. Finally, she swiped in and walked into the secure area, looking up at the clock: nine minutes late.

Walking through the open-plan office, she tried to ignore the other analysts — most, like her, had just got in. Their computers were still powering up. But she knew they’d arrived on time. The only person who had been late was her.

She put down her latte, and pressed the ‘on’ button while she adjusted her chair.

Sally typed in her username code, A439, and reminded herself of this week’s passwords, ready for the prompts she knew were coming. She typed the first sixteen-character code using just one hand:

Then the second code, typed with the other hand:

She pressed ‘enter’, and the machine seemed satisfied.

She sipped her latte again, knowing she had several minutes before her computer would be fully ready to use. The delay was deliberate, like a time lock on a bank vault. It was an extra precaution to protect the information inside.

She stretched the fabric on her trousers to check the coffee stain. So annoying… And the Central Intelligence Agency didn’t offer much in the way of laundry facilities. The stain would have to wait until lunchtime.

She checked her watch, looking again at the other analysts — none of whom made eye contact. Eventually her gaze returned to her sterile desk.

Slowly, her computer yawned to life. She watched the screen as the colours changed.

Beep.

A small box of text had appeared. Sally clicked on ‘Proceed’, then — at last — the morning’s summary came up.

She scrolled down through all the jihadist stuff. Al-Qaeda and ISIS belonged to other teams. Most of the time, like today, she ignored it.

Far more interesting were the other sites. Usually oddballs, cranks and students experimenting with the internet. Some were computer hackers testing the security — trying to upload an untraceable website, filling it with terrorist stuff just to make sure Langley was watching. Almost always they were easy to trace — and the CIA did trace them. It was just that the agency couldn’t be bothered to react.

Drug-traffickers, people-traffickers and the mafia who ran the ‘dark web’ weren’t for Sally either. Sally reported them, passing them on to whoever needed to know. But rarely did they impact directly on America’s strategic security interests.

And she didn’t bother with electronic espionage, either. Everybody knew China was spying on America. Cyber systems from the rising superpower had penetrated US strategic infrastructure already. But China was what they called a ‘rational actor’. It was predictable, and measures to deal with it were already in place.

She was looking for that very rare thing: a web-based threat to US interests which was credible, and which wasn’t linked to radical Islam or any nation state.

Her eye stopped at an unusual-sounding site.

She glowered at the screen, annoyed that a new site with a level-three security threat had come up as untraceable.

She sipped her coffee again, and decided to look at the site itself.

As she clicked her mouse, the screen filled with a photograph of Hitler saluting. She’d seen the picture before — it was a common library stock image of the dictator. Nothing new there. Probably just another sick Hitler fansite, posted by an American teenager spending too much time in their bedroom.

She scrolled down to check the words. They were in English.

She raised her eyebrows — this was more interesting. She remembered all those accounts of 9/11: some said Al Qaeda had attacked New York’s World Trade Centre because they really believed all the world’s trade was coordinated from inside the building. Was this threat similar?

And more unusually, it was so specific. It gave a date, several years off — why 2024? It was too far away to be threatening. When eventually the date had come and gone, the threat would seem redundant. Silly even. Unless, of course, it was accurate…

She scrolled down the screen.

Sally sipped her latte once more. What sort of whack-job made threats — predictions, even — thirty years out?

She shook her head, dismissing it all. Oh well, one for the tech boys…

She pointed the mouse to an icon at the top. A drop-down list appeared:

Sally drew the cursor down until the last option was highlighted. She clicked it, then watched as the grainy image vanished from her computer screen.

TWENTY-TWO

Back at the hotel, Myles wondered how close to death he had been. Whoever had pumped carbon monoxide into the room had certainly meant harm. But had they tried to kill him and failed, or just tried to scare him — and succeeded?

He picked up the phone and began to dial. After two rings, a familiar voice answered.

‘Helen Bridle speaking.’

‘It’s me,’ said Myles, noticing her voice picked up when she recognised him. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘How have you been?’

‘I’m still looking into Corporal Bradley — looks like he’s had quite an unusual life…’

‘How’s Berlin?’

‘Interesting, and the team I’m with is even more interesting,’ he said. Gradually

Myles got round to telling her about the carbon monoxide attack. Helen’s voice became agitated and he tried to calm her down. ‘It’s alright, honey. Whoever it was: if they had wanted to kill me, they would have done it.’

Helen wasn’t persuaded. ‘Or they’ll just try again. Who do you think it was?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. Myles tried to recall the vague presence he felt in the room while he was losing consciousness. Even when they had placed a boot on his neck, they had stayed calm. Myles thought they might have been wearing a gas mask, although he hadn’t been able to see them properly. ‘They might have just wanted Stolz’s papers.’

‘Which means it wasn’t one of your team, right?’ Helen’s logic was sharp. Zenyalena, Jean-François, Heike-Ann and Glenn all had access to Stolz’s documents, so they didn’t need to steal them.

‘Yes, and they were with a lawyer at the time,’ he said.

‘So, they have an alibi,’ she added. ‘Someone else broke in to steal Stolz’s files, and they could do something similar again. Stay safe, you understand? Don’t risk your life for bits of paper. OK?’

‘Love you, Helen.’

Myles replaced the receiver, and immediately regretted doing so. He missed her deeply, and wondered if he should take more of her advice.

The team had arranged to meet back in their private meeting room of the Cecilienhof Hotel. Jean-François was reading a book about Nazis and their interest in the occult when Myles arrived, hobbling up the stairs to meet him, still hampered by his bad knee. As Myles laid his crutches by his seat, Jean-François jumped to his feet and offered to pour Myles a coffee. Myles accepted gratefully.

Glenn arrived, looking more rested than before. He explained he had found a good running route around the lake. Heike-Ann arrived perfectly on time, followed only a minute later by Zenyalena, who was wearing a purple power-suit. Myles guessed her clothes were meant to be fashionable. They were certainly hard to ignore.

Jean-François produced a folder and placed it on the table. Inside was a list of all the files they had from Stolz. As he spread the papers out, it became clear there were three lists. Jean-François had been working hard, typing up the lists in his hotel room. ‘This is what we have,’ he explained. ‘This first list sets out all the files from the official 1945 archive. The second is of the files we found in Stolz’s room, both in the care home and at his apartment. The third describes the papers given to us by Stolz’s lawyer.’ He paused. ‘We could divide the papers between us — but all of us would have to agree…’ The Frenchman lifted his palms. He wanted someone else in the team to make the next suggestion.

Zenyalena responded quickly. ‘How would we decide who gets what?’

Glenn gently pushed the list towards her. ‘Which files would you like to look through?’

Zenyalena wasn’t sure how to react. Then she scowled. ‘If I choose, does that mean I won’t get to see the others?’

Myles tried to defuse the issue. ‘We could photocopy all the papers. We all get a copy of everything. Then we divide up the workload.’

Only Glenn was hostile. ‘Do we really have to photocopy them all?’ He said the word ‘all’ in an American drawl, as if photocopying large quantities of paper was a European fetish.

Jean-François raised his eyebrows towards Heike-Ann. ‘Heike-Ann — can you handle the copying?’

Heike-Ann didn’t feel humbled by the request at all. ‘I can get everything photocopied within a day. It is no problem,’ she said.

The team split up for several hours, until Heike-Ann called them back together in the early evening. They returned to the hotel’s executive meeting room to find several stacks of paper. ‘There were just 230 sheets in total,’ she declared. ‘Not too many.’

Jean-François was gracious. ‘I hope you didn’t have trouble carrying them,’ he apologised, referring to her pregnancy, as he flicked through the pile of papers. They were neatly ordered, almost perfectly so. Numbered stickers on cardboard separator files divided each subject. Different translations were on different coloured paper: white for the German original, green for English, pink for Russian and light blue for French.

Glenn and Zenyalena eyed the stacks around the room, checking they were identical. They certainly looked the same. Zenyalena, though, wanted to be sure. ‘This looks very good — thank you, Heike-Ann. And you’re sure this is a copy of all the papers we have?’

‘Correct — yes. It was easier than it looks: the computer which did all the translations also did the photocopying.’

Glenn followed up on Zenyalena’s theme. ‘But, Heike-Ann, do you think there could be any others?’

Heike-Ann looked confused by the question. She thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know.’

Myles was the only one of the team who found the computer translations awkward — and not just because they would be hard to carry with his injured leg. To him, they seemed too neat. Too bureaucratic. It was an odd way to summarise the lifetime’s work of Werner Stolz — the grey man had become a set of multi-coloured papers.

Heike-Ann raised another sheet in the air, waving it for the team to see. ‘I also had this translated for you. It’s the police report about Stolz’s apartment.’

She was about to put the paper down, but Zenyalena peered closer. ‘What else does the police report say about the property?’

Heike-Ann scanned it again, half-shaking her head, as though it was all trivial. ‘Dates of previous incidents.’ She pointed to a small table on the paper. ‘Three break-ins, all reported by Mr Stolz. Here are the dates, and the action taken by the police.’

Myles realised these were probably the most significant facts in the document. ‘Well, how did the police respond?’

‘Er…’ Heike-Ann was reading from the list. ‘First time… they interviewed the occupant — Mr Stolz. Stolz confirmed nothing had been taken. They advised the occupant on household security. Second time… the same. Third time… they interviewed Mr Stolz, again. This time, Stolz said he had to leave his apartment while the burglar was there.’ Heike-Ann scanned the document to make certain there was nothing else. ‘Yes. That’s all.’

Myles tried to understand what they had just learned. ‘So here’s Stolz. Very rich, but living in a ground floor apartment that gets broken into. Did he put on new locks after the first break-in, as the police recommended?’

Heike-Ann couldn’t find the answer on in the police report.

Jean-François tried to help. ‘I noticed the locks on that apartment. There were several. All different. Looked pretty strong to me. Most of them must have been new… The main one on the front door was very shiny.’

Myles absorbed the information. ‘So it can’t have been a normal burglary. The thief or thieves were looking for something, and they probably knew what it was. And they came back — twice. So they didn’t get what they were looking for.’

Heike-Ann checked the dates on the police report. ‘I think it was about a week after this third break-in that Stolz left for the nursing home.’

Myles tried to put his thoughts together. Stolz was able to escape from a

determined burglar, then two weeks later he checks in to a nursing home.

‘Stolz didn’t go to the nursing home to be looked after. He went there for protection,’ he said. Now it made sense. Myles was beginning to understand what Stolz had been thinking. The old man wasn’t senile at all. Quite the opposite. He was trying to protect himself — and whatever it was the burglar had tried to find.

Myles looked at the others around the table. Zenyalena and Jean-François were wondering the same thing. Glenn obviously seemed to think it was less significant. He had already started reading through his papers.

Jean-François decided to call time on the meeting. ‘Again, thank you, Heike-Ann. This is excellent. Glenn, Myles, Zenyalena: let’s all read through our files, and meet again tomorrow morning. Each of us will report on what we’ve learned. Is that accepted by us all?’

Myles, Glenn and Zenyalena all indicated it was fine. All three were now looking at their files. It was already too interesting for them to put down.

Myles had quickly become absorbed in the documents. The first file was a translation of a government brief. Dated May 1940, it had been written for one of the top Nazis at the time — probably Himmler or Hess.

Myles remembered Himmler’s obsession with the ‘Holy Lance’ — the spear thought to have pierced Jesus’ side when he was on the cross. The artefact — or at least, a piece of wood sanctified as the relic by a medieval Pope — was recovered from Nuremberg after the war.

He scratched his head. Could this really be true?

He read some more. The next page was entitled, ‘Interrogation of Karl Ernst Krafft, November-December 1939’.

Myles was suspicious. Krafft may have anticipated things. But did that mean he really predicted them?

People had been trying to predict the future since civilisation began. Shamen, wizards, and holy men — they all claimed to know what was about to happen. It gave them power. Some of them were right, but they could have been right by accident.

Maybe there had been ten Nazis like Krafft. They could have made ten different predictions. If only Krafft’s came true, the other nine would be forgotten. It doesn’t mean Krafft did anything special.

Myles turned the page. The next paper was a graph. The bottom axis was labelled ‘Jahre’, which a post-war clerk had translated as ‘years’. The timeline seemed to run from 1620 to the year 2000. But what were the two wavy lines above it, rising and falling together? Myles turned the paper, trying to understand, but it still made no sense.

He read the box of text on the side:

Both lines on the graph plunged down for the bloody War of the Spanish Succession, around 1700, and there were other falls for the Seven Years war of the 1750s and during the bloodiest years of the Napoleonic era. Then there was a huge drop between 1914 and 1919, for the Great War, and another fall, in the early 1940s, until one of the lines stopped. From about 1944 to 2000, there was just one line on the graph.

He realised one line must be war deaths over the last centuries — the line which ran through until 1944, the last year for which the Nazis had data. But what was the other line? What ‘natural event’ had the Nazis found which correlated so accurately with casualty rates over all those decades?

Myles suddenly became aware of himself. He looked up: Glenn, Jean-François, Zenyalena and Heike-Ann had all gone to their rooms. Awkwardly, he gathered his papers back into the cardboard box, and lifted it. His knee still restricted by the brace, he manoeuvred the limb out from under the table and hobbled towards the steps. His mind still swirling with thoughts about Krafft and the lines on the graph, Myles made it into his room, slumped onto the bed, and fell swiftly asleep.

TWENTY-THREE

Dieter allowed himself to smirk, knowing it would humiliate his prey. ‘Now, try to think if there’s anything else I might want…’

By tilting his head, Dieter was able to maintain complete eye-contact with the person he was watching. He slowly moved his face towards his victim’s, drawing out his tongue to slurp blood from the man’s chin. ‘Hmmm. Salty — like rare beef,’ he said, smacking his lips as though he was savouring a fine wine.

He sauntered back to his original position, still grinning, and began strolling around the room. As he circled, he mocked the man with his footwork. ‘I’m guessing you used to like dancing,’ he said. ‘Go on — try it now. Don’t feel shy,’ he offered, looking at his own feet. ‘Try to… relish this experience.’

He read the man’s expression. There was something there, something besides pain and the other side-effects of a drawn-out death. ‘You’re thinking,’ he said. ‘That’s good — keep doing that.’

Dieter took out his smartphone, checking the in-built flash was enabled. He lifted it up, and framed the image in front of him. ‘… Smile, now…’

He waited for the man to react, but it was clear he wasn’t going to cooperate. So Dieter took the picture anyway, then checked it. A good image — perhaps even good enough for the webpage…

Dieter polished the smart phone with his thumb, wiping away a smear as he admired the technology. Drawing out the moment, he turned the device over, examined the back of it, and felt the weight in his hand. ‘They make them very well nowadays,’ he remarked. ‘All sorts of clever apps — some of them cleverer than you, even,’ he said to the man before him. Very carefully, he slipped the smartphone back into his pocket, and tapped it.

Dieter pondered as the man dangled. Persuading the man to wear a noose of piano wire had been fun. All achieved so simply, just by holding the man at gunpoint. How easily people could be fooled into cooperating with their own demise…

‘You’re wondering about the wire, aren’t you,’ he mused. ‘I don’t think it will slice completely through your neck. But someone did a test with a guillotine in 1905, and found heads can remain conscious for half-a-minute without their bodies. So if you are decapitated, you’ll know. For thirty seconds. That’s nice, isn’t it?’ Then Dieter thrust his face forward again, staring into the man’s popping eyes. ‘So, is it just these papers? There are no more?’

There was some reaction — a little twitching, and an attempt to speak from behind the tape. The man was trying to say ‘yes,’ and it was convincing.

For Dieter, it meant there was no more reason to keep him alive. He observed how the wire cut into the man’s neck, and how the interrupted blood flow gave the man an involuntary erection. The man’s pulse rate had been quickening fast but was now starting to fall away. He waited a few moments. Firing the bullet through Stolz’s head had given Dieter a surge of euphoria. But this killing was a disappointment — except for the thrill of beating the hotel’s CCTV system.

Dieter turned to look at the papers. He flicked through the stack, deciding where to start. He was beginning to understand what Stolz’s secret might be, and why his paymaster thought it was so valuable. It might be valuable to him, too.

Dieter’s plan allowed him two-and-a-half hours to read through the documents — when he had scheduled another disturbance to the digital CCTV recording, which would give him a ninety-nine-second window to leave.

He sensed the hanging man was trying to communicate.

Finally…

Dieter went towards him and ripped the tape from the man’s mouth. But only saliva mixed with blood oozed out. The man’s tongue, like the rest of his body, soon fixed in place.

Dieter pushed the corpse to watch it swing, to-and-fro, above the hotel bed. Then he swaggered away to concentrate on the secrets.