Hands of the Traitor (5 page)

"Near Calais. That's all."

"And where was the weekend
massacre?"

"Near Calais."

"There you are then." Ken's face beamed.
"Get on the Internet and find the name of the nearest town to the
blood bath, and write a letter to the local mayor. Give him
Sophie's name and see if he can track her down for you. Your new
girlfriend can help you with the long words. I'm giving you the
rest of the day off -- with pay."

"Thanks."

"That's it, kiddo, look on the bright
side." Ken seemed to be playing the unaccustomed role of beneficial
uncle. "An Internet search could take hours. I need the computer
today, so nip on down to Mac the Hack at the Internet café. He'll
give you a special rate if you mention my name."

Matt decided that Mac had every reason
to be generous. Ken's computer was unreliable and often in need of
Mac's expertise for finding lost files.

"Things are fairly quiet here," Ken
continued. "We've cleared up that case for Tom Grieves, so you can
have a few days off to go to France."

Matt nodded. This certainly wasn't the
Ken Habgood who usually sat at the desk.

"And there's more good news, kiddo.
You'll find an orange car in the yard. A gift from Tom Grieves. He
says you saved his company money. Ring your insurance and get it
transferred onto your policy."

"Are you serious?"

"It's yours. A present. You can drive down
to the Chamber of Commerce and see Louise Grantham. She'll help you
get in touch with the right people -- if you speak to her nicely."
Ken winked deliberately.

"I'm not going near Louise. Anyway,
she won't want to see me."

"This could be your last chance to patch
things up, kiddo. You'd better take a look at your new car or it
may disappear -- like Cinderella's coach."

Matt caught the keys that Ken tossed
him. He moved towards the door, anxious to discover what sort of
vehicle Tom Grieves had kindly donated. The fact that the keys were
old and worn didn't register at first.

"I don't want to patch things up," he
called back as he went down the stairs. "I'll have a look at the
car, then I'll go round to Mac's and get on the Internet. Maybe
there's something to the background of the massacre on there. If
those Heinmans have a guilty secret, I want to know what it
is."

The Past

Chapter
4

New York
-- June 1937

...THEREFORE
we are terminating
your financial agreement with Berlin at the end of July.

It was a brief note on heavy paper,
deeply embossed with an eagle and a Nazi swastika. Albert Becker
Heinman swore loudly and lengthily. The Germans were about to pull
the plug on DCI. He depended on the Germans for trade, and without
their support he'd go broke.

He joined the crowd pushing its way
into Macy's large entrance hall. One of the girls in here should
know what would excite a woman like Irena.

"Hey, fella, who do you think you're
pushing!"

He muttered an apology to the man he
had accidentally touched, but his voice was unheard above the noise
of customers crowding through the Manhattan department store. An
apology by Albert Becker Heinman, president of Domestic Chemicals
Incorporated? He stopped beside a perfume counter. This must be one
hell of a shopping trip if it made a man of his height apologize to
anyone.

What had caused this sudden rejection
by the Nazis, when their joint project in the development of
artificial fibers was going so well? It had to be the pressure of
public opinion from those anti-German protestors campaigning loudly
in Madison Gardens just down the street. Did they think there was a
war coming?

He usually made a point of keeping
well clear of the shops at any time, but especially on Saturdays.
He cursed his secretary for being away. A very convenient time for
a girl to phone in sick. Some sort of early morning nausea that had
been going on for several weeks.

What the hell were secretaries for if they
couldn't attend to choosing a wife's birthday present -- or
remembering the birthday in the first place? Karen McDowell should
have reminded him yesterday, and today she could have come down
here to the city. A woman would even be able to buy fancy
underwear. He picked up a bottle of perfume and replaced it
immediately. Karen McDowell would have known what to choose for
Irena. A girl like Karen should stay in good health at all times,
especially on Saturdays.

Some small kids, no doubt out to cause
trouble, began to drop stink bombs. Innocent passers-by unwittingly
crushed the thin glass capsules of glass under their feet while the
boys made good their escape. A foul stench of rotten eggs pervaded
this section of the largest store in Manhattan.

In the vain hope of masking the odor
the counter assistants sprayed priceless fragrances into the air.
The resultant mix was an offence to both eggs and perfume. Many of
the customers simply laughed with embarrassment before moving
swiftly through to the next department. Unfortunately the brats
were just ahead, with a pocketful of the bombs.

A few of the customers were rightly
furious. Heinman stopped, oblivious to the obnoxious blend of
sulphur dioxide and rose petals. He realized that the smell was
fuelling something that already existed in the crowded shopping
conditions. As the shoppers jostled their way between the counters
they exchanged heated words. Their initial amusement at the
childish prank was quickly turning to real anger.

A middle-aged woman in her Macy's
blouse and skirt, her face made up like a brown mask, reached
forward to squirt a generous spray of scent in his direction. It
reminded him of the perfume used by Karen. Karen McDowell might not
be particularly desirable, but she had a delicate fragrance that
attracted the men. It certainly attracted him.

The smell was clearing a little by the
time a uniformed commissionaire escorted three white-faced boys to
the main entrance. The kids protested their innocence, and would
probably continue to do so until they entered one of the adjoining
stores to release further foul capsules.

The Nazi letter again filled Heinman's
thoughts: the letter on official Third Reich stationery. He stayed
motionless, starting to see the way to retain Berlin's funding. One
of DCI's experimental substances had such a serious side effect
that no one could get near it without becoming emotionally
disturbed.

Jacco Morell believed it was something in
the smell that triggered the response. The effective agent had yet
to be identified. Albert Heinman made for the exit and the fresh
air. DCI would apply their existing chemistry to a shunned method
of warfare, and the Nazis would buy it as part of their rearmament
program. If there was a war in Europe, America would be well out of
it. The development program would be extremely rewarding for
Domestic Chemicals, especially if the funding came directly from
the wealth of Chancellor Hitler's Third Reich.

The work must be a secret between himself
and his senior chemist, Jacco Morell -- and Skorensky, the chief
executive officer of course. Igor Skorensky, the crazy driver who
had nearly killed himself twice in the past twelve months. Senior
men in the company had no right to go motor racing in their spare
time.

*

IRENA HEINMAN received no birthday present
in June 1937. She made it clear that a fiftieth birthday deserved
some sort of recognition, even from a man totally immersed in his
lifelong passion of work. Instead of the eagerly awaited gift she
received a phone call. Her hard-working husband had set out from
the office for the Manhattan shops but had been unavoidably
diverted. He was now back at DCI. She must be patient and
understand that the future of Domestic Chemicals was in the
balance.

Seven Years
Later

Chapter
5

England
-- June 12, 1944

"GERMANY CALLING. Germany
calling."

"Turn that damn row off!"

George Penbridge looked up from his
supper. "You watch your lip, woman," he growled in response to his
wife's scolding. "There's news on there we don't hear from the
BBC."

The oldest son, Jeffrey, began to join
in, siding with his father for once. "It's the invasion, Ma. The
war's nearly over. Our troops have landed in France and we want to
know what's happening."

"Well, if you don't all shut
your mouths, we'll none of us know what Lord Haw-Haw is on
about.
Quiet
!"

As several neighbors would later
testify, George's voice could be very loud. And extremely
angry.

"The British people are facing
defeat," whined the nasal tones of William Joyce, nicknamed Lord
Haw-Haw by a journalist at the start of the war. The majority of
listeners received the aristocratic voice with derision, tempered
by the view that there just might be some item of truth amongst the
dross.

"On the beaches of Normandy the British
and American soldiers are lying dead. The so-called invasion was a
failure. Your leaders have lied to you. The superior German army
was waiting for your badly prepared landing forces. There are few
survivors. I have here some of the names of the dead. Mothers of
England, weep for your sons."

While Lord Haw-Haw read out the list,
the argument in the Penbridge farm in Berkshire, well to the west
of London, was renewed.

"He's just making them up. There's no
such people," insisted Mrs. Penbridge as she gathered the empty
plates from the table with as much noise as possible.

"Might be," muttered George. "You
don't know that, do you, woman."

Mrs. Penbridge dropped the armful of
plates into the old earthenware sink. Miraculously none broke. "All
I know is the man in the newspaper said Lord Haw-Haw talks
rubbish," she bawled. "He just invents the places where bombs land,
so we think the Germans know everything that's going on in this
country. We don't know if it's true or not, because we're not there
to see."

"Exactly, woman. Exactly." George felt
he had somehow scored a worthy point here. Even Jeffrey nodded in
rare agreement.

Marsh Acre Farm was remote, shunned by
the local people. The man from the War Office, sent by Whitehall to
make a personal check on the three sons, had confided to colleagues
that he would rather face the Germans than make a second visit to
Marsh Acre. His official report stated that beyond doubt the sons
were working on the land and fulfilling the alternatives to
military conscription. There was simply no need for him to seek
further confirmation.

The villagers talked of incest,
although they used the word "inbreeding". Certainly the Penbridges
had been a close family for several generations. The farm had
become a tip, and as long as a Penbridge was in residence it would
remain one. There was constant fighting at March Acre. The
neighbors said that no good would come of all that aggressiveness;
it wasn't natural.

"Shut up, woman!" shouted George.
"Give the man a chance to tell us something!"

"The German leaders have new
wonder weapons," Lord Haw-Haw continued. "They are calling
them
Vergeltungswaffen
-- Reprisal Weapons. The German people can no
longer tolerate the aggressiveness of the British and American
warmongers. These V weapons will rain down on you until the
politicians who seek war with Germany come to their senses. People
of England, when you see these wonder weapons falling on your
cities you must tell your leaders to make peace, before your
beautiful country is destroyed."

"Rubbish!" shouted Mrs. Penbridge,
turning on her uncouth family. "If you believe that, you're mad,
the lot of you!"

*

EIGHT HOURS later, at 4.00 a.m. on the
thirteenth of June, the first V1 approached London with its high
mounted pulse-jet engine emitting an unsteady throb. Suddenly the
engine cut. The silence was ominous as the small pilotless aircraft
began its dive on the closely packed houses below. Three-quarters
of a ton of high explosive killed six people in Bethnal Green, and
caused considerable damage to property.

It was the first of four
Vergeltungswaffen
to arrive that night. Over the next few weeks over
eight thousand V1s would be launched at England from the coast of
northern France. The British people quickly christened them the
doodlebug. Nearly all were targeted at the capital.

*

New York

"BERLITZAN OIL!"

Albert Heinman said the name aloud and
it had a good ring to it. Germany would be pleased with the latest
batch. For the last seven years Berlin had been funding a DCI
project called Berlitzan. They weren't funding it on the scale he'd
envisaged in 1937, but Domestic Chemicals Incorporated had made
enough progress to ensure regular deliveries of Nazi gold through
South America.

He had been bringing his son Frank
into the office for the past few months. It was doubtful if the boy
would ever be able to run such a complex business as DCI on his
own. But as Irena told him, Frank was still young, just six weeks
off his twenty-first birthday. And he had the Heinman height.
People always respected a tall man, she said.