Secrets of the Last Nazi (22 page)

G
ently Myles placed
pressure on the handle of the knife. The metal ammunition box flexed, like a spring being compressed. The rust started to crack. Myles eased the knife along. He felt it move then, suddenly, the lid flung open. Dirt sprayed onto Myles’ face.

Inside they saw a transparent plastic bag sealed with tape. ‘Now this isn’t from the World Wars,’ said Myles, lifting it out of the metal tin, and carefully turning it in his hands.

The bag contained some papers and a bottle. Clear liquid inside the bottle glugged from side to side as Myles tilted it. Then he noticed the label: something in German. ‘We’re going to need Heike-Ann to translate this before we open it.’ He looked up at the faces of Glenn, Pascal and Zenyalena. They all nodded. Finally, something they could all agreed upon.

After checking there was nothing else in the metal box, Myles carried the plastic bag as carefully as he could. They all returned to the gravel track and clustered around Heike-Ann. Heike-Ann pulled some latex gloves from her pocket and squeezed her hands into them before taking the bag from Myles. Then she placed the bag on the gravel, in clear view of the whole team, and delicately started to unpick the seal.

The plastic opened easily enough. Heike-Ann extracted the papers. There were lots of them: perhaps a hundred sheets. Most had yellowed with age, and had type-written text on them.

Zenyalena urged her to translate. ‘Well, what do they say?’

Heike-Ann squinted at the papers. ‘The title, it’s ‘Eid’ in German – it means ‘the passing of an oath or solemn promise’.’

The others stood bemused, waiting for Heike-Ann to explain the main text.

Heike-Ann started to read and translate at the main time. ‘‘Im April 1945 versprach ich ihm dass ich als Teil der Operation Werwolf auch weiterhin für Deutschland kämpfen würde. Diese Flasche mit einer konzentrierten Mischung aus Sarin und Tebum war die Waffe, die ich erhielt...’ ‘
In April 1945, I promised Him I would continue to fight for Germany, as part of Operation Werewolf. This bottle of concentrated Sarin and Tebum mixture was the weapon I was given.’’

She looked down at the liquid inside the glass container. ‘Tebum?’ she queried, glancing up at Myles.

‘Tebum is a nerve agent, like Sarin,’ Myles explained. ‘Chemical weapons developed by the Nazis. Lethal – even in tiny doses.’

Heike-Ann made sure she was clear of the bottle. She turned to the next page. ‘Between April 1945 and May 1990, I could not access the Bunker Am Krusenick ….’

Myles and Glenn looked at each other.
Am Krusenick.

It was the road where Stolz had his basement flat. The place where Myles had been gassed.

Heike-Ann kept reading, translating as she went. ‘… so for the main part of my life I was forced to do without the knowledge we had rediscovered. These notes explain the method I developed in the absence of that science and our equipment.’

Heike-Ann turned the paper over to check there was nothing on the other side. It was blank.

Zenyalena urged her to look at the next pack of paper. ‘Well, what was his method?’

Heike-Ann started again. The page was thick with text. ‘It’s, er, a set of principles for – for predicting things. How to foretell life events, that sort of thing,’ she said, trying to summarise it.

The others exchanged glances, urgently wanting Heike-Ann to translate more. Heike-Ann just leafed through the pages, realising there was too much to go through. ‘This page is all about how to get the timing of an event… this one is all about how different angles have a different impact…’ She was becoming overwhelmed.

‘Come on. This is just more hogwash,’ said Glenn, shaking his head to dismiss it all.

Heike-Ann looked sceptical too. She turned the page, to reveal something from the Office of Joseph Goebbels. ‘It’s a propaganda plan,’ she offered. ‘Operation Blinker, it’s called.’ She scanned it. ‘Looks like a set of ten instructions for covering up the secret.’

Zenyalena snatched the ‘Operation Blinker’ page. Heike-Ann let her take it while she picked out the next set of papers – two sheets held together with a paperclip. The headline on the front page read simply ‘Nixon’. She held the page up for Glenn, who instantly recognised the disgraced President’s name.

Glenn’s face invited her to read it out.

‘Er, it starts ‘Richard Mulhaus Nixon, born 9.35pm PST 9
^th
Jan 1913. 33:53 North, 17:49 West (Yorba Linda, California, USA)’….’ she began scanning through the text. ‘It says ‘Low chance of winning Presidential election in November 1960 because on Inauguration Day in January 1961, Nixon has both Jupiter and Saturn at the lowest point in the chart, opposing point of career success... 1968 election is much better, because then Jupiter on the rising horizon makes for popular Presidency with foreign policy focus. Saturn on setting horizon indicates confrontation with Congress.’’

Myles could see the others absorbing the information. ‘Well, it’s right so far – Nixon lost the 1960 election, then won in 1968. What else does it say, Heike-Ann?’

‘Er… ‘1972: Jupiter allows for criticism to be brushed off’ then, it says ‘April 30
^th
1973: Uranus at 90 degrees to Sun – shock challenge to public image…’’ Heike-Ann turned the page. ‘… and on the next sheet, it says ‘20
^th
October 1973… something more about planets. Nixon to issue shock instruction, over-reach his power and respond in anger to achieve deception. Failure likely...’’ She looked up. ‘Myles: what was that about?’

Myles remembered his US history. ‘It was called the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’. Nixon tried to be bold. He dismissed the special prosecutor into Watergate, and also his attorney general. It backfired on him, though.’

Heike-Ann turned to the last page on Nixon. ‘Then it concludes: ‘Neptune, Moon, Venus, Mars, and Uranus – total difference from exact angles reaches zero on 8
^th
August 1974 at 2105 Eastern Standard Time.’’

Myles recognised the date and time. ‘Middle of the evening... The precise moment of Nixon’s resignation, live on TV. Stolz got it exactly right.’

‘I’m still not convinced,’ said Glenn, frowning. ‘Did he write that before Nixon resigned, or afterwards?’

Heike-Ann scoured the page. ‘It doesn’t say. It’s not dated…’

She turned the page, trying to find more. ‘…There doesn’t seem to be anything else on Nixon. But it does have this. It says ‘We were able to apply these methods to countries as well as people. 5.10pm on July 4
^th
, 1776, counts as the USA’s birthday, when the colony launched a broadside over water against the British Empire. We realised that the planet Uranus returned to where it was on that first Independence Day in April 1861, exactly when Union troops fired cannons across Charleston Harbour to start the US Civil War. Uranus returned there again in early June 1944 for D-Day, when the Americans again launched a momentous attack over water, and we can expect something similar next time, in May 2026, or during the first three months of 2027.’’

Myles remembered the papers from Vienna. ‘The 83-year cycle. It was the Uranus cycle – that’s how long it takes the planet to go round the sun. Combining it with the moon – that’s how Stolz predicted D-Day.’

Heike-Ann read on. ‘ ‘We also applied these methods for the United Kingdom, using the Act of Union, which took effect on midnight on 1
^st
January 1801. This warned us of Neptune causing problems of arrogance and deception in October 1956, and Pluto undermining the leadership through destructive power in October 1984.’’ Underneath the page, Heike-Ann found a more recent sheet – dated just three months ago. She showed it to the others as she translated. ‘‘As a final proof, I have applied my methods to predict the forthcoming events…’’

She held up the list – a couple of US senators were named, with dates in the near future next to each one. Stolz had also thrown in the names of a US Supreme Court Justice, a European Prime Minister and a well-known pop star. Beside each one, next to a month and year, were the words ‘to die’: Stolz was foretelling the death of each one.

None of the team knew what to make of their discoveries. Pascal seemed transfixed by the liquid, Glenn’s body language was trying to convince the others it was all nonsense, while Zenyalena was absorbing Stolz’s principles for prediction.

It was Myles who drew them back to what could have been the most important reference in the whole box. ‘What did he mean by ‘his equipment’’ in ‘Am Krusenick’? and ‘The main part of the knowledge we rediscovered’?’

Pascal tipped his head, scowling at the others. ‘You must have missed something when you checked out his basement flat.’

Glenn wasn’t so sure. ‘We checked it pretty thoroughly,’ he said. ‘So did your friend Jean-François. And the German police.’

Heike-Ann looked back at the words. ‘Bunker Am Krusenick. It says ‘Bunker’. Could there be a bunker somewhere in Am Krusenick – under where Stolz used to live?’

‘It could make sense,’ suggested Myles, ‘if the place was only accessible through Stolz’s old basement flat. That would explain why the old man went there as soon as he could, after the Berlin Wall came down... And why he left a mansion outside Nuremberg for a damp inner city flat.’

Heike-Ann was about to reply when a crack exploded in their ears. Myles instinctively felt himself diving to the ground, almost hitting the bottle of nerve agent. He felt air rush passed him and splinters of wood fly around.

More bullets whizzed nearby. Exposed on the gravel road, he tried to gain his bearings, desperately trying to know where the firing was coming from.

Pascal was next to him, also trying to understand what had happened. Zenyalena and Glenn had dived towards the trenches. The American was trying to crawl into the ditch for cover.

Then Myles saw Heike-Ann fall to the ground.

M
yles saw
Heike-Ann had been hit near her elbow. Pascal made eye-contact, indicating they needed to help the woman towards the trench. He lifted her legs while Myles grabbed the German’s good arm, staying low. Together, they carried her towards the undergrowth, and passed her down to Glenn. Myles and Pascal slid into the ditch after her.

The firing continued over their heads. Zenyalena started to check Heike-Ann’s wounds while Glenn and Myles tried to understand who was attacking them.

‘It’s coming from at least two places,’ said Myles, cowering. ‘There must be two guns.’

He saw Pascal bend down to their wounded German translator. Then the Frenchman lifted himself out of the trench and started crawling back to the road.

‘What the hell’s he doing?’ Glenn shouted across to Myles.

Staying within the trench, Myles and Glenn could see Pascal crawl forward, his weight on his forearms. Then they glimpsed what he was crawling towards: a machine gun
– which was firing by itself.

Myles and Glenn ducked, covering their ears from the horrendous noise, feeling their whole bodies shake with the clatter of the gun. Glenn slung himself tight into the protection of the trench. Myles felt splatters of mud and other debris showering them, kicked up as the arc of bullets swung by.

Pascal poked his head up to check how the gun was positioned – it was hidden under a camouflage net and mounted on a tripod, sweeping one way then the other. But its elevation was fixed: it was not firing down. There was just enough space for Pascal to crawl underneath the bullets.

The Frenchman rushed towards it as quickly as he could, then knocked the gun from below. It took him just a moment more to stop it firing.

With one weapon down, it was much easier to locate the other. Like the first, it was hidden and mounted, with no-one at the controls.

Myles and Glenn ducked again as the bullets swept towards them. They waited for the stream of metal to pass, then Myles called out above the clatter of the automatic gunfire. ‘Pascal?’

No reply.

Glenn stared nervously at Myles: had the Frenchman been hit? Myles shouted up, ‘Pascal. Are you there?’

Still no reply.

Neither of them wanted to lift their heads out of the trench to look.

Then they heard movement – a noise above the racket of the machine gun, something rushing through the undergrowth, and a body slamming onto the earth with a grunt.

‘Pascal?’

Nothing. The bullets swept close again.

Unable to work out what was happening above them, Myles and Glenn looked down to Heike-Ann and Zenyalena. Zenyalena had improvised a bandage around their translator’s wrist. Heike-Ann was still alert.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a…

The bullets swept overhead once more, skimming the top of the trench and sending splatters of earth flying into the air. Myles’ head recoiled, ducking into his shoulders. He saw Glenn trying to protect his ears from the racket.

Then it stopped. Silence – finally.

Myles looked at the American, who raised his eyebrows in surprise. Had Pascal disabled the second gun?

Myles called out again. ‘Pascal? Are you there?’

After a long moment, the reply came back. Pascal’s words were breathless and exhausted. ‘Yes. I’m here. And it’s safe now.’

Myles poked his head up, and saw Pascal recovering: the Frenchman was sitting on the second gun, relieved but drained.

Myles called out. ‘What happened?’

Pascal was too out of breath to answer immediately. Instead he just patted the gun metal. ‘I knocked it down.’

Myles and Glenn started climbing out of the trenches. Glenn approached the first gun, checking it was safe. Myles approached the gun near Pascal. He recognised it from pictures he’d seen: a Vickers .303 heavy machine gun. Once one of the most common automatic weapons from the Western Front, but now old and rare. He knew immediately it was one of the guns stolen from the Imperial War Museum.

Then he saw something next to it – a small black plastic box.

Pascal lifted it for him to see. ‘It was attached to the firing button….’ The Frenchman pulled out an aerial, still catching his breath. ‘…radio-controlled.’

Glenn called over from the first gun. ‘Hey, this thing’s been set on automatic,’ The American was running back towards them. ‘Someone made it fire by itself.’

Zenyalena emerged from the trench, with Heike-Ann’s arm over her shoulder. Heike-Ann was conscious, but in pain. Myles, Glenn and Pascal saw the Russian woman was struggling, and rushed over to help. All four of them carried Heike-Ann back to the gravel track, near to where she’d been hit, and laid her down. Blood had already seeped through the bandage.

Myles held her hand and lifted the injured limb in the air. ‘We’ll keep it up – you’ll lose less blood that way.’

‘Thank you.’ Heike-Ann was wincing, holding back the intense agony of a gunshot wound, and clearly worried about her pregnancy.

Pascal put his hand on her forehead, trying to calm her.

Glenn was still livid. ‘What was that? We’ve just been attacked. By…by…’ He didn’t know what to say.

Pascal completed the sentence for him. ‘By a ghost.’

Myles could tell something flicked across Zenyalena’s mind. The Russian ran swiftly towards the first gun, determined to inspect it for herself. It was just a few seconds later when she called out from where the first gun had been. ‘We’ve been betrayed.’

Glenn shouted back, angry that Zenyalena was stating the obvious. ‘Of course we’ve been betrayed. Hell, we’ve almost been killed.’

‘No, Glenn. It’s one of us,’ said Zenyalena, with a deadly tone in her voice. ‘One of the five of us must have done this.’ She ran back over to the group, furious. She was clutching one of the black boxes which had been attached to the machine gun. ‘Look….’ She held up the device. ‘…This is a short-range receiver. Someone must have set it off from very close by.’

‘You’re talking nonsense, Zenylena,’ said Glenn, still shaking his head. ‘Whoever it was could still be hiding round here - so
not
one of us.’

Heike-Ann called up from the ground, where she was still resting with her wound. ‘They used those things guarding the East German border – automatic machine guns. It could have been set off when we picked up the ammunition box.’

Zenyalena was having none of it. ‘You’re saying Stolz set those guns up? Some sort of trap to hide his precious papers?’ She pointed at the machine guns. ‘Those guns couldn’t have stayed hidden for any length of time. Not for even for a few days. Someone would have found them. And if they were there for a long time, they would have stopped working. Guns – especially vintage machine guns – need constant maintenance.’

Myles realised Zenyalena had a point. But it led to a terrible conclusion: one of the five of them was somehow involved in setting the trap.

Calmly, Pascal tried to mediate. ‘So we know those guns were put there recently, probably to hit whoever found Stolz’s papers. But it can’t be someone from our team, because any one of us could have been killed. It must be someone who had worked with Stolz.’ His logic was clear: someone else was trying to keep them from Stolz’s secret - someone prepared to use deadly force.

But Zenyalena still wasn’t accepting it. ‘No. Jean-François’ murder, the fire in Vienna, the ladder breaking in Munich, even Myles being gassed in Berlin. Whoever’s trying to stop us finding Stolz’s secret - they must be getting help from one of us.’

Myles looked at the other team members. If there was a traitor, who could it be? He wondered about each of the four people beside him.

Heike-Ann was still nursing her wounded arm. Surely she wouldn’t have set the gun to fire on herself?

Not Pascal, either. In the most heroic way possible, the Frenchman had just proved he was trying to help the team. And he had risked his life underground in Munich, and during the fire in Vienna, too.

Glenn? Glenn was still a mystery. Myles knew he was connected with some murky part of the US Government machine. Glenn had always been the most sceptical of Stolz’s material. But surely the American would have easier ways of disrupting the mission than setting up ancient machine guns?

That just left Zenyalena. Certainly, she was mentally unstable. But could she be mad enough to set up the guns and start the fire in Vienna? Unlikely. And Zenyalena was the most keen to find the traitor - she didn’t seem like the sort of woman who could bluff like that.

None of them could be a traitor – unless he was missing something. There had to be some other explanation.

Myles raised his voice. ‘When we left Munich, we all agreed not to tell anyone about this location. Yes?’

All four of the others agreed.

‘So, did anyone mention this location to anyone else?’

Glenn and Pascal shook their heads looking straight back at Myles.

‘Heike-Ann? Zenyalena?’

‘No,’ explained Heike-Ann. ‘I told my husband I’d be going to France, but I didn’t say where.’

Zenyalena gave a fuller answer. ‘I gave a report to Moscow, but that was about what we found in Munich. Not about this.’ She saw Glenn was still sceptical. ‘There’s no way Moscow could do this… even if someone intercepted my report, they wouldn’t know about this place.’

Myles tried something else. ‘So, maybe someone has found a way to follow us.’

Pascal raised a query. ‘Would that be possible? Even if someone tracked us here, setting up the machine guns would take time. We’d see them do it. And if they did, why use remote controls?’

Myles accepted Pascal was right. Even if someone was tracking them, it wouldn’t explain what had been happening. He was about to ask what they do next, when the quiet of the forest was interrupted by a faint noise. Something was coming down the gravel path. Footsteps.

Myles’ eyes alerted the rest of the team to the danger. Without words, he pointed to the trees, urging them to leave the track. Silently, Pascal and Glenn carried Heike-Ann into the undergrowth. Zenyalena ran back towards one of the machine guns. Myles crouched behind a tree, resting his supported leg on the ground as silently as he could.

He listened carefully. The footsteps were getting closer. It sounded like a single set of footsteps: just one person? Zenyalena also guessed whoever was coming was alone. She indicated to Myles she was ready with the gun.

But Myles recognised something odd about the steps. It wasn’t the sound of a normal person walking. The footsteps came in pairs - someone walking with an uneven gait.

Myles allowed his head to emerge from behind the tree. He could see the silhouette. He recognised it instantly, as he heard a familiar voice call out.

‘Myles? Myles, are you here?’

Myles allowed himself to stand up. In full view, he stepped out and walked back to the main track. Then he approached the man he had known for twenty years. He went to shake hands with his old pal. ‘Frank – Frank, why on earth are you here?’

As ever, Frank was sweating, but his face opened up when he saw his university friend. ‘Myles. Good to find you.’ The museum curator let his walking stick rest on his hip while he searched for an envelope in his bag. ‘I came to give you the carbon-dating results – you said they were urgent,’ he explained.

Then he realised Myles was not alone. First Pascal appeared, then Glenn. Heike-Ann sat herself up, wincing in pain as she did so. They looked at him, accusingly. Frank obviously couldn’t understand why.

Glenn made the first comment, his tone hostile. ‘So, Myles: was it
you
who told someone about this location?’

Glenn and Pascal stared at Frank, blaming him for the machine guns.

Myles knew he had to stand up for his old friend. ‘Yes, I did. I told my partner, Helen.’

Frank gathered Myles was in some kind of trouble and tried to back him up. ‘Er, yes, that’s right. And it was Helen who told me.’ Nervously he felt the need to say more, trying to sound positive. ‘Helen Bridle – she’s with CNN, you know.’ The museum curator held up the envelope. ‘I came to give Myles these - carbon-dating results.’

Glenn snatched it away.

Quickly, Pascal grabbed Frank’s walking stick. ‘Is this a real walking stick? Or is your limp just an act?’

‘It’s childhood polio, Pascal,’ said Myles, defending his colleague again. ‘Frank’s had a limp for years. And in case you’re wondering - could Frank have set up those machine guns? The answer’s no.’

Frank’s eyes looked scared, as if the danger he sensed in the people around him was suddenly very real. ‘Machine guns? The ones we had stolen from the museum over night?’

Myles was about to point to them when he felt his body recoil again.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat…

They all ducked as another explosive clatter of gunfire burst around them.

The bullets stopped. Myles turned to see. It was Zenyalena: she was holding the German machine gun, and had just fired a burst of bullets above their heads. ‘All of you: stay there. Myles: you lied. You told someone about this place, then tried to keep it secret.’ The Russian stood up, her hands still on the firing mechanism. ‘And in Vienna – that fire. You were behind it.’

‘No.’

‘Come on. It all points to you. The gas attack in Berlin – you did that yourself, didn’t you….’ Zenyalena’s voice had a sarcastic tone to it. ‘...And Munich. Now I understand. The grenade didn’t go off because you didn’t want it to. That’s why Pascal had to do it.’

‘Oh, Zenyalena, come on.’

‘Be quiet. Traitor.’ Zenyalena was lifting up the gun, pointing it towards him. It was heavy – she could only just manage, and she was keeping her fingers away from the barrel, probably because the recent shots had made it too hot. Myles saw the belt of ammunition was almost finished. If she did shoot, she’d only manage one or two bursts of fire. But then, that was probably all she’d need to kill him – perhaps to kill them all.