sThe Quiet Wart (22 page)

When Sean and Liz went to wake Praew in the morning, she looked like she'd had a tough night's sleep. There were bags under her eyes and her hair was strewn around like spaghetti.

‘Are you okay, darling?' Liz said, gently stroking her face.

Praew's eyes opened half way. ‘Is it morning already?' she said, turning over.

‘Didn't you sleep well?' Liz asked.

‘Yes, but not for long enough. I was working until four,' she said, tilting her head to the side.

‘We've got some news for you,' Liz said quietly as Praew sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘Sean and I are getting married.'

‘Yippeee!' Praew jumped up and first held Liz, then Sean. Then they all sat on Praew's bed and talked about how Sean had proposed.

‘Not very romantic, Dad,' Praew said, pulling a face.

‘Perfect for me, darling,' Liz replied. ‘Now, you said you'd been up working half the night. Did you find anything interesting?'

Praew pulled a long face. ‘Not really. Well, I don't know; something, but I think it's a bit silly.'

‘I'm sure it's not,' Liz encouraged her.

Reaching down to the side of the bed, she pulled up her laptop and flicked open the screen. After making a few keystrokes, she turned it around so that Sean and Liz could see it.

The screen showed an article from a UK newspaper, dated November 2012. The heading read:
ADOLF HITLER'S FINAL RESTING PLACE.

The article went on to describe a controversial theory that Hitler didn't kill himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945, but instead escaped to Argentina and from there to Brazil, where he grew old and died aged ninety-five. But not before he'd married a local girl and had two children.

Impressed by her ability to link all of the facts together, Sean smiled at Praew. She'd done very well. He knew that there were literally hundreds of crank conspiracy theories about Hitler's escape to South America, along with Mengele and Eichmann, who'd been found there in later years. But he wasn't about to discourage Praew.

When he read the next paragraph, his stomach knotted tightly.
This
theory claimed that Hitler had lived in a small mining village close to the Bolivian border. Nossa Senhorra do Liveramento was a satellite town of the state capital of Matto Grosso, Cuiaba.

Feeling a sudden sense of urgency, he went back to his own room and grabbed the blue cardboard file from Faustein's apartment, extracting the marriage certificate. He read the details again:
Anna Maria Ruiz, born 12/02/1977, Cuiaba, Mato Grosso, Brasilien.

Shaking his head, he passed the form to Liz.

‘You can't be serious?' Liz said, giggling.

‘I know, but Dorsch did say that the 4R18 mob believe that their leader has some kind of bloodline to Hitler.'

‘She's too young to be his daughter,' Liz said.

‘Granddaughter perhaps?' Sean said.

‘No, it's nuts. Mossad would have found him years ago. He died in Berlin, in 1945.'

‘You do know that nobody ever found his or Braun's body?' Sean said.

‘You're beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist,' Liz laughed.

‘Don't you see? It doesn't matter whether we believe it or not. If the nut cases in the 4R18 believe it, it gives them a powerful rallying cry.'

Not laughing anymore, Liz bowed her head in thought, then lifted it nodding. ‘My god, you're right. If those deranged morons think that they're following Adolf Hitler's granddaughter, they'll wreak havoc.' She turned to Praew. ‘Well done. This is very important and I'd never have found it,' she said.

Praew's face lit up brightly at the compliment. ‘It was easy really,' she grinned.

‘We need to get Clive and get over to Dorsch's,' Sean said, standing up.

*

Clive grinned when he spoke about the theory to Dorsch, obviously embarrassed to be spouting such nonsense. But Dorsch's response surprised Sean.

‘Why do you think it's so crazy? I've heard much less likely conspiracy theories, like the 911 plot etc. At least with this one, there's a genuine lack of credible evidence for the official story.'

‘So you think it could be true? That Anna Faustein could be Hitler's granddaughter?' Liz questioned.

‘I think it's unlikely, but I can't see why it's implausible. Like most people, I'd require some kind of proof, DNA etc.'

‘And what would you do if you got that proof and found that she was Hitler's offspring?' Sean asked.

Dorsch smiled. ‘If she lived in a farmhouse in South America, or even Germany for that matter, and didn't bother anybody, then I'd do absolutely nothing. It's not her fault who her grandfather was. But, if as you say, she's involved in some secret conspiracy to gain power in Europe, then I'd find a way to stop her.'

‘Good. Then we're in this together,' Sean said.

‘My plane came back early this morning. Your friend has been delivered to the hospital in Scotland. We can talk on the way to the airport about what we do when we get to Brussels,' Dorsch said.

‘And what we're going to do about Koryalov,' Sean replied.

‘Thank you for getting Terry to safety,' Clive added.

Initially, Sean was concerned that Clive wouldn't like the way Dorsch was taking over events. But if he was, he certainly didn't show it, and he seemed quite happy to go along with things for now.

*

On the way to the airport, Sean received a text on his phone and grinned. ‘Blom got the letter,' he said.

‘That's good, at least it's one thing off his plate. Poor guy,' Clive responded.

The general aviation terminal at Munich airport was two kilometres away from the regular terminals. When the two black Mercedes limousines pulled up outside the glass structure, a uniformed doorman opened the door for Sean and they quickly made their way inside.

Unlike the only other time Sean had flown on a private jet, he wasn't packed into a wooden crate and the formalities were completed very casually in the terminal building, before they made their way straight onto the plane. As soon as the door was closed, Dorsch nodded discreetly to the stewardess and they began to taxi away from the terminal building.

The cream leather and polished walnut interior of Dorsch's plane was a world away from the cramped economy flights that Sean was used to. As soon as they'd levelled out, Dorsch joined Clive, Liz and Sean around a meeting table, while the stewardess showed Praew onto the flight deck.

‘There's one thing I still don't understand. Even if Faustein is a Nazi, the rest of her party isn't, nor the rest of the EU. It's not as if she's goose-stepped in there in her SS uniform and declared that she's Hitler's granddaughter. So what impact can she really have?'

‘I don't think we're talking about revolution: just small steps with a large cumulative effect,' Liz said.

‘Like what?' Dorsch asked.

‘I don't know: how about a law that overrides the German ban on Nazism and the swastika, passed under the guise of an EU human rights and freedom of expression law. As a consequence of which, German Nazis start to wear their uniforms in public, and start to release propaganda appealing to the genuine insecurities of people worried about mass immigration?' Liz countered.

‘Nobody will listen to those idiots,' Dorsch said.

‘Really? As far as I can tell, the popularity of the far right is growing quickly in every European country, even the traditionally communist France. It wouldn't be a huge leap to call them Nazis. All they need is a uniform,' Sean added.

‘And let's not forget it happened before, less than 100 years ago, in a similar febrile political environment as now,' Liz said.

‘Carried out on a Europe wide scale, with expansion of the EU's military and police capabilities, which is already happening. Nation states will be helpless to stop it,' Sean said.

Dorsch fell silent, looking out of the window briefly as the plane continued its ascent. ‘Okay, I think I get it. You must understand that it's not easy to be German and talk about Nazis. In most of us the sense of guilt is still very strong.'

‘We need to form a plan to watch Anna Faustein around the clock,' Clive said, taking control again.

‘Last night you said that you had evidence of where Koryalov's money came from,' Sean said to Dorsch.

‘Yes,' he nodded.

‘Could I see it?'

‘Yes, it's on my hard drive. I'll email it to you, but why?'

‘I think it may be the key to getting him off our back,' Sean said as the plane began its descent into Brussels.

The large house that Dorsch had rented for the team on Chemin de Putdael, in the Woluwe St Pierre district, was less than half a kilometre from the grand mansion in which Anna Faustein now resided. It was chosen by Dorsch for that reason, and for its high fences and walls, offering privacy to its inhabitants.

When two plain white vans arrived filled with military hardware, Sean realised why he wanted the privacy.

Within hours, Dorsch and Clive had organised surveillance teams to monitor Anna's house and the doors to the Willy Brandt Building, where her office was located.

‘She's on her way out, walking, heading through the park,' Steve's message came.

‘She's heading towards the gate at Place Jourdan. You can pick her up there,' the next message came though a few minutes later.

‘Got her,' Pete's voice came over the radio clearly.

‘She's turned into an apartment building by the park.' Pete's voice again came through.

‘It's where she used to live. Maybe she still has an apartment there?' Clive said.

‘She's carrying a suit bag. I'll wait over the road and watch the door.'

‘Her apartment is on the ninth floor, the last one on the right. You should be able to see the light come on if she goes in there,' Sean said, then quickly looked at Liz for a reaction. He'd never told her that he'd been in Anna's apartment. Luckily, she didn't seem to notice his remark and the radio fell silent for a few seconds while everybody waited.

‘Yep, light's just come on. I can't see her though, the angle's too steep.'

A few more moments passed.

‘The light's gone off. Either she likes the dark, or she's on her way back out,' Pete said. ‘Okay, she's out and walking towards Place Jourdan, without the suit bag.'

‘She's gone into a small restaurant on the corner and joined two other people. You should be able to see them now.'

The screen in the centre of the table lit up with the scene from the restaurant, filmed by one of Dorsch's men on his phone.

‘They're MEPs from her party,' Liz said, flicking though her computer screen.

Two hours later, the confirmation that she was on her way home came though.

After one of Dorsch's men confirmed that Anna was in her Woluwe St Pierre house, Clive, Liz, Sean and Dorsch sat around the makeshift operations room they'd established in the dining room of the rented house.

‘What's the apartment number in that building? If she's dropping clothes off there, she intends to use it,' Dorsch said.

‘903,' Sean answered, again wishing he hadn't said it so quickly.

Dorsch quickly summoned two of his men and spoke to them in German.

‘What was that?' Liz asked.

‘We're going to get some eyes and ears in that apartment,' Dorsch said.

‘You mean bugs?' Liz asked, widening her eyes, looking at Sean.

‘Yes, and cameras,' Dorsch responded.

‘Is that legal?' Liz asked.

‘No, it's highly illegal, but how else will we know what's going on in there? I'd like to get them into her house as well, but it's like Fort Knox and we can't get near her office. That apartment's our only chance, and who knows, she may just have been dropping something off for a friend.'

‘I don't like it,' Liz said.

‘He's right, Liz. We need something to get a break or we're just going to be watching her through a window for months,' Clive said.

That night, Sean and Liz debated the pros and cons of the spy devices, with Liz in the firm belief that they'd crossed the line and were becoming too much like their targets in the pursuit of the story.

‘Aren't the means justified by the end?' Sean protested.

‘That's the mentality that leads to rendition and torture,' Liz scolded him.

Admitting that she was right, Sean agreed that there had to be rules. ‘Okay, if we don't have anything by Sunday, I'll tell Dorsch that he needs to get them out.'

‘What was on the files that Dorsch sent you?' Liz asked.

‘Given your last response, I don't think you'll like it. Dorsch somehow has a complete audit trail of Koryalov's wealth, right back to President Volkov. He even has decoded email correspondence between Koryalov and Volkov and it's clear who's in charge. God knows how he got it.'

‘I don't think our new friend Dorsch has much respect for privacy laws, we need to make sure we don't get caught up in any of his tactics,' Liz said. ‘What are you going to do with the information?'

‘I haven't decided. Probably write a piece, it'll make a great story.'

‘Well whatever you decide, do it soon, because I think he'll be coming after us when he sees his son's penis.'

*

The following day was like ground-hog day, even down to the restaurant; the small eatery on the corner of Place Jourdan, which Anna clearly favoured for her evening meetings. This time she met with the new President of the European Commission, Paulo Grossi. It was just the two of them and Sean noted the familiarity they shared as he watched the FaceTime feed from Dorsch's man.

The most senior politician in the EU and the most senior civil servant seemed to be discussing the contents of a piece of paper that lay on the table between them. The conversation wasn't angry and was accented with frequent laughter, but there was something about it that seemed odd.

‘Look at the body language. She's giving him instructions,' Sean said. It was subtle, but Grossi was showing some deference to Anna.

‘I think you're right. Look at the way he's nodding when she speaks. It's like she's his boss,' Liz agreed.

‘Maybe she is.' Clive placed the Nazi organisation chart on the table between Sean and Liz and circled the box for the
Propogandaminister.

‘Jesus Christ! The leader of the Parliament and the President of the Commission, both part of 4R18? If they're working together, they could get anything through,' Sean exclaimed.

‘It makes sense. It even fits with their mentality. He's Italian; an ally,' Liz added.

‘And who better to head the propaganda war than the President of the EU,' Sean commented.

‘But how the hell did they pull it off?' Clive said.

‘Powerful friends, from an all powerful political party,' Sean concluded.

Nodding his agreement, Clive circled the box at the top of the organisation chart with a large red question mark by it. ‘But who?' he said.

Before they could carry on, Anna grabbed her briefcase and headed out to her car, leaving the papers with Grossi. Two cars then followed both diners back to their respective houses, with nothing of note to report.