The Isis Covenant

XXX

The interior of the shop consisted of a gloomy maze of enormous safes and stacks of smaller items like strongboxes, security TV systems and alarms. The only true light came from the spotlights in the front windows, which were mostly blocked by merchandise, and some source at the far end of the shop. A flashing red beam in a globe suspended from the ceiling indicated that someone was monitoring their progress, which was comforting, because it should mean that nobody was going to ambush them. Then again, that could be wishful thinking.

Gradually, they were drawn to the light, which came from what looked like a small and very basic office with a desk at its centre and an unfeasibly heavy door thrown back in welcome.

‘Please come in,’ invited a disjointed voice that was unmistakably American.

Jamie hesitated in the doorway and he almost had a seizure when a hand dropped on his shoulder. He turned and looked into Danny Fisher’s wild eyes. ‘Trap!’ she whispered. His mouth felt as if it was filled with gravel, but he shook his head.

‘You wanted to talk, so come in and talk,’ the voice persisted.

He took Danny’s hand in his and they walked side by side into the room.

‘At last.’ The tone was good-humoured, even playful. ‘Now we can proceed. Please take a seat.’

Two chairs sat behind the desk and they took their places warily. Facing them, above the open doorway, was the lens of a security camera, and Jamie knew that whoever was doing the talking was also watching them on a monitor from somewhere nearby. The voice originated from a microphone set in the corner behind them, which gave him the odd feeling of being surrounded. That feeling was compounded when the metal door of the room silently swung closed with a gentle, but very final ‘thud’. They frantically searched the room for an alternative exit, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that Danny’s prediction had been right and they were trapped.

‘Now we have a little privacy,’ the voice said.

‘Shouldn’t you be telling us not to be alarmed?’ Jamie indicated the closed door.

‘At the moment you will be admiring the interior of the XK-60 vault, our best-selling walk-in safe, complete with eight-inch Titanium-steel alloy walls, fully encrypted locking and guaranteed air tight. Is it a little stuffy in there?’

Jamie swallowed and felt a tightness in his chest. Just for a moment the walls seemed to be closing in. Claustrophobia had never been a problem in the past. He’d done the water-filled pipe thing on army assault courses and felt nothing more than mild discomfort. But then he’d always known that if anything happened the good guys were on hand to get him out. He’d never been stuck in an eight-foot steel box with every breath using up the available air.

Danny sat with her head back and her eyes closed and he wondered if it was despair, exasperation or the fact that she wanted to kill him for getting her into this mess. She opened one eye and confirmed the third theory. ‘Did I ever tell you that I really don’t like enclosed spaces?’

‘You should have enough oxygen for about thirty minutes, give or take,’ the voice assured her. ‘I am going to allow you ten of those minutes to consider your situation, then we’ll have our talk.’

‘We came here to talk about Hartmann.’ Jamie’s voice echoed round the chamber’s metal walls, but the only answer was a low hiss of static. Fisher pushed the desk away with a wooden screech and gave the door an ineffectual kick.

‘Okay, Sherlock, what the fuck do we do now?’

‘We wait. Maybe he’s bluffing?’

‘That’s it?’ She didn’t bother to hide her incredulity.

‘We’re not dead yet.’ He stared up at the camera, trying to figure out who was watching them and hoping he lived long enough to beat the living shit out of him.

The atmosphere inside the safe was already stuffy. Soon the sweat made their clothing stick to their bodies and the air seemed to be thicker and more difficult to breathe. Jamie knew that was only an illusion caused by his own fear, but knowing didn’t seem to help a lot. Danny had taken up a position with her back against one wall and her long legs folded in front of her.

‘We’re here because they want something, huh?’

He nodded. ‘If they wanted to kill us they could have done it in Hamburg. I don’t think this is about the SS and the past any more. It’s about now. By contacting the jovial Herr Kohler we knocked on a door and gave someone palpitations. Now they have to make up their mind whether to open it and let us step through or …’ He shrugged.

Danny uncoiled herself and got to her feet. She took his hand and drew him to a point as far from the microphone and the camera as possible. ‘So what can we tell them that will keep us alive?’ she whispered.

‘Hartmann is the key. If this is about Hartmann,’ he replied in the same vein, ‘whoever is out there is going to want to know why the past has suddenly come back to haunt them. They’ll want to know how we got here and who else knows we’re here.’

‘So we tell him about the Crown of Isis?’

‘Unless we think the Crown is the reason he’s been hiding all these years. If it is, the very fact we know about it could give him a reason for letting us rot in here. Ouch!’ He touched his ear where she’d bitten it.

‘I was looking for something a little more positive.’

‘The only way we can play this is one card at a time. If he doesn’t have a reason for keeping us alive, we have to give him one. Maybe that’s the Crown of Isis, maybe it’s not. The Crown is the joker in the pack, but only he knows whether it’s the high card or the low. The one thing I’m certain of is that we can’t play it too early. Am I making sense?’

‘As much as you ever do.’

Another few minutes passed and the air around them became noticeably staler.

‘I see you made good use of your time.’ Jamie searched for some emotion or evidence of compassion in the voice, but found none. ‘Twenty minutes left. Time enough for a game of twenty questions. Well, perhaps not twenty, but enough questions to give you an opportunity to convince me that you have a value. First the obvious: why did you come here?’

Jamie exchanged glances with Danny and she nodded.

‘We’re looking for information about a man called Berndt Hartmann.’

‘A good start, which confirms what I already know. May I ask what makes Hartmann so interesting?’

This time it was Danny who answered. She related the story of the murders in New York and London and the link back to the SS man.

‘Yes, I can see why you’d wish to confirm the connection, but not why you would want to pursue this man Hartmann, who, after all, is much more likely to be dead than alive?’

Danny’s head came up. ‘Why would you say that?’ She hadn’t mentioned the details of Hartmann’s career in Geistjaeger 88 or the circumstances of his disappearance in Berlin. ‘Berndt Hartmann would be in his eighties now, along with many people who survived the war.’

‘Under the circumstances you’ll forgive me for insisting that it’s I who ask the questions, Detective. I repeat, why would you wish to pursue Berndt Hartmann?’ The question was followed by a long, dangerous pause, filled only with the sound of strained breathing. ‘Don’t take too long. Time — and air — is in short supply.’

‘Because … if he’s alive he should be warned.’ Danny felt as if she was walking on quicksand. ‘The name Hartmann was not the only thing that linked the murder victims to this man.’

Again, the long pause, as if the man behind the microphone wasn’t certain he wanted to know the answer. Eventually, he decided he did: ‘And this other thing is?’

‘An Egyptian symbol.’

‘Go on.’

‘One of the murder victims had the Eye of Isis carved into her forehead.’

There was a thump from the microphone: the sound it would make if it had been knocked over. When it spoke again the voice was almost accusing. ‘And what makes you think this Eye of Isis is in any way connected with the man Hartmann?’

‘I think you already know the answer to that question, sir,’ Danny said softly.

She waited for the angry rebuttal. What she didn’t expect was the drawn-out sigh they heard.

‘You should not have come here. I am truly sorry.’

The utter finality of the words froze whatever Danny was going to say on her lips. Jamie knew he only had seconds before the camera and the microphone were switched off and they were left to suffocate.

‘Tell him Max Dornberger says hello.’