The Isis Covenant

XXIII

‘Hey.’ Danny Fisher nudged Jamie’s arm. ‘A girl likes to be shown a little attention.’

‘Actually, I was just wondering exactly who the Berlin Ladies Sewing and Sub-machine Gun Circle were.’

‘Cops,’ she said emphatically. ‘Berlin’s answer to a SWAT team, or maybe one of those elite anti-terrorist units that have grown like mushrooms since 9/11. It would make sense for the Sisterhood to infiltrate their people into something like that.’

He nodded. ‘Athena referred to them as her Order, which makes them sound fairly military, a female Knights Templar … They were—’

‘I read The Da Vinci Code on the way over, Jamie.’

‘In any case, you’re right. If the Sisterhood has survived two thousand years of persecution and living and worshipping underground, they’d need to know how to look after themselves. Even Athena’s name is significant. In Greek mythology she was the goddess of wisdom, courage and just warfare. The companion of heroes.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘I suspect they may still be around.’ They were sitting in a small cafeteria tucked away off the main concourse at Tegel. Athena had advised against taking their scheduled flight back from Schonefeld in case Frederick’s men were aware of it. Instead, they were flying out of Berlin’s biggest airport in seats booked at the last minute.

‘So, Hartmann or Dornberger? Which trail do we follow? They can’t both have had the Crown of Isis.’

‘I don’t know,’ Jamie admitted. ‘But the first thing we need to do is talk to Sir William Melrose. From what his researcher told the Neues Museum, it’s pretty clear that his source had a good description of the Crown. If that’s the case, what other information does he have? And why didn’t he use it in the book?’

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll go along with that, but aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘That a hired killer might be waiting for me when I open the door to my flat? Yes, I had considered it.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

He grinned. ‘I thought I might move in with you for a few days.’

Paul Dornberger couldn’t believe he’d lost Saintclair. Over the years with Oleg Samsonov he had painstakingly worked to create an organization within an organization: a small group of investigators and highly skilled individuals who believed they were acting for the oligarch, but were actually doing Dornberger’s bidding. Thus far, Saintclair had come into contact only with the very fringes of the Hartmann investigation which had taken up so much of Dornberger’s life. That made him of interest, but of fairly low-level interest. The murder attempt had made him more significant. For a time Dornberger worried that some new and unknown force might have appeared from below the radar, but his subsequent investigations seemed to discount that possibility. The private inquiry agent tasked with keeping a discreet watch on the art dealer had reported little or no activity in the days following his release from hospital, apart from a visit from the as yet unidentified woman he had taken to dinner. Then he had disappeared.

Disappointingly, Saintclair’s secretary had stalled every attempt to glean any further information, either by telephone or by visits from potential ‘customers’, and they’d had to abandon the attempt when it became obvious that she was becoming suspicious. A search of Saintclair’s flat and office had been equally unrevealing, but had allowed them to plant bugs in his phones.

It seemed their only option was to wait until the quarry turned up.

But there was still one loose end and Paul Dornberger didn’t like loose ends. He couldn’t allow a rogue element to blunder around London getting in the way of the operation and potentially threatening everything he’d achieved. The hotel his people had pinpointed was only a dozen blocks away in the West End and he’d reconnoitred it the previous evening, confirming what they’d already learned by hacking into the computer system. The two men were lying low, existing on room service, booze from the mini-bar and cable-channel porn movies. Harmless enough for the moment, but the very fact they were still in London pointed to a second attempt to kill Saintclair.

It was nine thirty in the evening when he used a cloned card to gain entry to the hotel’s service area. Not late enough to alarm them, but late enough that they’d be sluggish from food and drink and just about to settle down in front of Prom Girls in the Shower, or whatever constituted tonight’s entertainment. Once inside he changed into the green overall with the hotel group’s logo and retrieved a workman’s toolbag from his rucksack.

In room 508, Jacko Bonetti lay with his eyes closed listening to Mario’s commentary of what was happening on the screen. Christ, couldn’t he shut up even for one goddam minute? After five days cooped up together the glamour of their situation had long since worn off. How was he to know the mark would be wearing a vest? There was no other explanation for Saintclair’s survival. He had hit him clean. Two right over the heart. No man could survive that. Well, the next time it would be two in the head and brains on the sidewalk. Get up after that, you prick.

He was going through the hit in his mind when he heard the gentle knock on the door. It was a knock they’d experienced a dozen times during their stay. Routine and unthreatening. Unusual only for the timing.

‘Who is it?’ Jacko’s hand instinctively crept below the pillow where the replacement automatic was stashed.

‘Room maintenance.’

Jacko exchanged glances with Mario, who shrugged. ‘We didn’t call for none.’

‘I know, sir, but the previous occupants of this room reported a faulty window catch. It will only take me a minute to fix it.’

‘Switch that off.’

‘Aw, Jacko—’

‘Switch the fucking thing off.’

Jacko went to the door and opened it to reveal a cheerful, bulky man in the familiar green overall worn by the hotel’s cleaners and maintenance staff. ‘Okay, but make it quick.’ He went back to the bed, his right hand hovering by the pillow.

‘Thanks for this.’ The engineer marched directly to the window. ‘It’d be more than my job’s worth if it was put off for another day.’ He fiddled around with a screwdriver. ‘That’ll do it.’

‘That’s it?’

The bulky man nodded and was heading for the door when something caught his eye. He frowned and pointed at the phone by Jacko’s bed. ‘Can’t trust anyone these days.’ Before Jacko could react he was kneeling beside the bed. ‘See, bare wires.’

Automatically, Jacko followed the pointing finger, but all he saw was the nozzle of a small spray can. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the nozzle emitted a single concentrated puff and his whole world froze. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He willed his fingers to reach for the gun that was mere inches from them, but they wouldn’t obey his ice-bound mind.

Dornberger held his breath until he knew he was safe from the gas, which had been developed by the KGB to help in the forced return of defectors.

Mario heard the soft ‘phut’ of the spray being released, but his brain was already anticipating the return to the 42-inch plasma screen of a dozen naked, soap-covered female bodies. He turned and looked up into the engineer’s smiling face.

‘I have an appointment to see Sir William at three.’ Jamie smiled at the woman who answered the big oak door. ‘The name is Saintclair.’

‘Of course, sir.’ She ushered him inside with old-fashioned courtesy. ‘Please come in. Sir William will be with you in just a moment.’

She took his coat and led him into a wide room with a wine-coloured carpet and matching walls hung with paintings of ships and seascapes. He was admiring a vibrant oil on canvas of a sea battle when a tall, balding man entered, dressed in worn jeans and a ragged blue cardigan.

‘HMS Agamemnon’s somewhere in the smoke in the background. My great, great whatever grandfather served as a mid in her at Trafalgar. The ’seventy-four taking on the big Frenchman in the centre is Superb.’

‘A beautiful picture. One of Pocock’s?’

The man’s manner, which had been offhand, became appraising. ‘Of course, you’re that Saintclair, the one who found the Raphael. Reason I agreed to meet you, actually. Intrigued. Have to ’scuse the skivvies, but I’ve been working on my transcriptions.’ Sir William Melrose spoke in clipped, machine-gun-burst sentences that for Jamie would always be the speech pattern of the military man, which in turn reminded him that his host had sidestepped the family’s naval tradition and gone on to command tanks instead of destroyers.

‘Your secretary said you’ve been in the Far East.’

‘Mmmmh. Burma and Japan.’ He waved Jamie to one of a pair of antique Chesterfield settees. ‘Publishers weren’t too happy about it. Not commercial enough. Forgotten Army’s still forgotten, poor buggers. Still, if you’re going to do it, do it right, what? Both sides. Very old, of course, the Japanese survivors. Penitent, which was a surprise. Still, the name will sell it hopefully.’

Jamie nodded in bemused agreement. ‘I was reading your book about Berlin recently … In fact, I’m just back from there.’

Sir William smiled. ‘Wonderful city, spent many happy months there. Not quite the atmosphere it had in the Cold War, but the Jerries don’t hang around. If Stalin had had his way he’d have bulldozed it and salted the ground. Didn’t dare after he’d given half of it to the Yanks. Something in the book you wanted to chat about?’

Jamie explained how he had stumbled across the passage about the ancient artefact, and the meeting with the Herr Direktor that had confirmed the description of an Egyptian crown. ‘I wondered if you had any more information about the circumstances?’

The author nodded slowly. ‘A murder case, you say? Odd a chap in your line being involved in a murder investigation. Odder still that you’re looking at evidence from more than half a century ago …’

‘All I can say, sir, is that I’m helping the New York Police with the background.’

‘Mmmmmh.’

‘I also wondered why you hadn’t mentioned the crown when you had its description?’

‘Simple enough, really.’ Sir William got to his feet and motioned Jamie after him. ‘No corroboration. Nothing to say where it might have come from. Could have been a child’s toy. Too outlandish, you see. It would have been sensationalist. Tempted, but one must maintain one’s standards. Mary?’ he shouted. ‘Tea for two in the writing room, there’s a dear. Biscuits, too. The chocolate digestives. Now, tell me all about this bunker where you found the painting …’

They descended a stone staircase with a cherrywood banister into the basement of the building.

‘Can’t write without my files,’ Sir William explained. ‘Only place in the house big enough to hold them all. Had to find somewhere else for the wine.’ He led the way into a room lined with wooden shelves packed with files of every shade and colour. In the centre stood an ancient desk as big as a battleship, equipped with an equally antiquated manual typewriter. ‘Can’t be doing with all that modern rubbish. Leave the inter-whatever to my researchers. Too much distraction, you know. Sensory deprivation. Only way to write. Now, where are we? Yes, here it is.’ He waved a languid hand at one wall. ‘Berlin: the Last Hundred Days. A hundred sections, one for each day, naturally. Black files for the SS and the Nazi hierarchy. Grey for the Wehrmacht. Red for the Soviets and Comrade Stalin. Green for the Allies, and brown for the civil administration, including our chums the Gestapo. Now, what day did we say it was?’

‘April twenty-ninth. The day before Hitler shot himself.’

‘Of course.’ The author smiled dreamily. He ran his hand along the wall of files caressing the spine of each one, until he reached a slim brown volume. ‘Not a lot of civil administration left by then, of course. Surprising they held it together at all. Fear. And discipline. But mostly fear. You can read German?’

Jamie assured him he did and Sir William handed him the file. ‘Take as long as you like with it. If you need any copies, just let me know. We’ve all sorts of technical wizardry upstairs.

‘Ah, Mary, thank you, my dear.’ He accepted a tray from the secretary. ‘Milk and sugar?’

Jamie nodded distractedly, leafing his way through the file until he found what he was looking for. It was a single photocopied sheet of Geheime Staatspolizei headed notepaper recording a contact report between Kriminalassistent Krebs and informant Zeigler, a jeweller on Wilhelmstrasse. The time was given as 15:47 hours on Sunday 29 April 1945 and the place as the jeweller’s premises at Wilhelmstrasse 94.

Regular weekly contact meeting: Note — Informant displayed uncharacteristic nervousness, but this may have been a result of nearby artillery fire.

Informant Zeigler begged to report a suspicious customer on the morning of 29 April. Suspect knocked loudly on door of Informant Z’s shop premises and refused to leave until door was answered: suspect described as male, thin and of small stature, and dressed in the uniform of an SS-Unterscharführer. Suspect carried a brown hessian bag of reasonable proportions, which he opened on entry to reveal a curious object, which suspect claimed was a crown of Egyptian origin. Informant Z described a coronet of gold, or gold-like substance, decorated with a single stylized eye and mounted with the horns of some animal. In Informant Z’s professional opinion a central feature of the piece appeared to be missing. Suspect was visibly agitated and in a hurry. He wished to exchange the crown for its approximate physical value in gold coins or small diamonds. Believing that the item could not have been obtained legally, Informant Z terminated the meeting and suggested the suspect return later, at which point Informant Z contacted Kriminalassistent Krebs. Investigator’s conclusion: suspect is almost certainly a criminal element attempting to sell looted material. Action: further investigation required. Signed: Walter Krebs, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, 29 April 1945.

‘Astonishing, when you think of it, that our friend Krebs may have been typing that note at the very moment the Russians were knocking on the front door of Gestapo headquarters …’ The author’s voice faded into the background as Jamie flipped idly to the next page in the file, another report by the same agent. Suddenly he found it difficult to breathe.

‘Are you all right, young man?’