The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (38 page)

‘I imagine you have a lot of questions,’ he said as the car reached its destination.

‘And I’m guessing you don’t have many answers,’ Alban replied, getting out to follow Brinkman. ‘I wish I could help you find some.’

‘You’ve helped already.’ It was as close as Brinkman was prepared to get to saying thank you. He led the way up the steps and into the British Museum.

Alban didn’t push it. ‘Any chance my people can look at Wiles’ UDT data?’

‘None.’

‘They wouldn’t need to know what it is or where it came from. A few fresh sets of eyes might help, and I have some pretty bright sparks on hand who are trained to spot patterns in information, make deductions.’

It was sensible, Brinkman supposed. ‘All right, but as few people as possible. Anything they come up with—’

‘I shall report back to you, and only to you. Deal.’

Mrs Archer was waiting for them, leading the way down to the area where the Ubermensch body from Shingle Bay was stored. She slid it out of its refrigerated drawer and uncovered it for Brinkman and Alban, giving a similar brief description to the one she had given Guy Pentecross and Sarah Diamond several months previously.

‘This lichen-like stuff,’ Alban said, pointing to the orange growth that permeated the limbs.

‘Yes?’ Brinkman said.

‘It looks as though it’s grown there. I mean, like a plant or a fungus. A cancer.’

‘I agree,’ Elizabeth Archer said. She prodded at it with the end of a pencil. ‘It must have been very resilient, giving the body strength. From what Green and the others said about the Sussex dig…’ She hesitated. ‘You know about Sussex?’

Alban nodded. ‘Not the details, but yes.’

‘Well, it seems this material heals over wounds. Basically it keeps the human body alive and functioning after death should have occurred by natural causes. The trouble is, there’s no central intelligence so far as I can see. It’s a nervous system rather than a brain.’

‘So?’ Brinkman asked.

‘So how does the infected body know what to do?’ she asked.

‘How does the Ubermensch get its orders, you mean?’ Alban said. ‘And from where?’

‘Exactly.’ She prodded experimentally at the orange growth again. It was blackened and charred from the fire that had engulfed the body, but the stunted ends of tendril-like filaments were still visible.

‘Here’s another question,’ Brinkman said. ‘You called this an infection. So how is that infection transmitted? What turns someone into an Ubermensch?’

By the end of the day, his head was pounding – from what he had been through and from what he had seen. Hoffman felt numbed by it all. He was amazed he had survived, and astounded that Himmler now seemed to regard him as even more trustworthy. The things the Reichsfuhrer had shown him…

It was a shame that the British agents were long gone, and Hoffman had no way of contacting them again. He had intended to establish some sort of system of keeping in touch, but their hasty departure had put paid to any hope of that.

Alone in his small room in the barrack block, Hoffman took off his uniform cap and jacket then unbuckled his holster. He slumped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to think clearly about anything. The pain in his leg had subsided to a dull ache. He probably needed sleep. Tomorrow he would be fine. Tomorrow he would decide what to do. He drifted into sleep…

More than anything, Hoffman realised when he woke the next morning, he wanted to get away from this ungodly place and go home. Surely he knew enough now that his superiors would understand that?

Unthinking, he swung his legs off the bed and got up. He crossed to the corner of the room and levered away a loose tile at the back of the small washstand. Behind it was a small piece of cloth, the size of a handkerchief. Hoffman unrolled it, and took out the photograph concealed within. It curled up in his hand, and he had to bend it backwards to see the image.

A young woman with long dark hair. She was sitting on a stone step outside a small house. Her head was tilted slightly to one side, her hand running through her hair. She wasn’t beautiful by any means, but she had a pretty smile. Was she even still alive, Hoffman wondered. She’d said she would wait for him, but he had no illusions about that.

He rolled the picture back inside the cloth and hid it again, pressing the tile back into place. He didn’t deserve waiting for. He didn’t deserve Alina. He turned on the hot tap and let
water run into the sink. It was probably a good idea to bathe his wounded leg.

The wound had crusted over. Frowning, Hoffman ran his fingers over the long, thin scab where the cut had been. It wasn’t like a normal scab of crusted, dried blood sealing the wound. It was spongy and soft. And orange. Tiny filaments rippled under his fingers.

He took a pair of trousers from his wardrobe and put them on. Then he sat down on the bed, staring across at the small desk against the opposite wall. What should he do? His mind was a blank.

After a while, he got up and went over to the desk. He took a pad of paper, tearing sheets into small squares about four inches along each side. On each he wrote a letter or a number. A to Z and 0 to 9. With a sweep of his arm he cleared everything else from the top of the desk, and arranged the squares round the edge. Then he went back to the washstand and removed his toothbrush from where it stood inside a small glass tumbler.

Hoffman placed the upturned tumbler in the centre of the desk, surrounded by the letters and numbers. He sat down and watched the glass. Waiting for it to move. Waiting for orders.

THEY MANAGED TO
refuel the Kubelwagon at a supplies depot. Intimidated by their SS uniforms, the soldiers manning the facility hurried to obey Guy’s orders while Davenport looked on with studied disdain from the back of the vehicle.

With a full tank, they managed to get back into France. If Davenport’s friend the Countess was surprised to see them again, and in SS uniform, she concealed it well. The coded Morse message Davenport had sent from Wewelsburg gave little more than an acknowledgement that their mission had been successful, followed by a pick-up location and a time two days later.

That night, back in their civilian disguises, well rested and nourished, Guy and Davenport said their goodbyes to the Countess. They made their way through the estate to a large field where they had already arranged piles of hay from one of the barns. They waited until they could hear the plane’s engines, then Davenport used his cigarette lighter to set fire to the bundles, forming a line down the side of the field.

‘Just so long as we’re not lighting up a landing strip for a German night fighter,’ he told Guy cheerily.

The plane bounced and slewed to a halt close to the end of the field. It was the same Avro Anson that had brought them to France several weeks previously. A line of ragged bullet holes was stitched along the fuselage.

Guy held his breath as they waited for the pilot to emerge. Would it be Sarah? Was she all right?

‘Well, come on if you’re coming,’ a familiar voice called. He could hardly contain his relief. ‘Thank God you’re OK.’ He went to embrace her, but Sarah was already disappearing back inside the fuselage.

‘Oh don’t worry about the bullet holes,’ she called back. ‘Let’s hope we don’t pick up any more on the way back,’ Davenport said as they clambered into the aircraft.

But the bullet holes did nothing to dent Guy’s mood. He felt light-headed, though his euphoria dimmed slowly as they made their way back through the cold night. With Sarah piloting the plane, and Guy once again acting as gunner should the need arise, he was left alone with his thoughts. Desperate to ask her what had happened, but unable for the moment to do so.

The flight back was mercifully uneventful, but Guy breathed a long sigh of relief when he recognised the wide dark expanse of the English Channel. He knew they weren’t safe yet. In fact it was more dangerous to come down in the December sea where the cold would kill them in minutes than to crash-land in occupied Europe. But they were nearly home. And despite what they had seen at Wewelsburg, despite what he had never admitted to himself he feared, Sarah was all right.

He sat for hours, unmoving, mind blank. The glass didn’t move. But gradually a thought formed in Hoffman’s brain. A shape, an image – something he needed.

He finished dressing and made his way briskly through the castle, back down to the Vault.

Streicher was supervising the clean-up. The floor had been scrubbed and the artefacts replaced in their positions on the workbenches. Bullet holes in the tables and up the walls were the only signs that anything had happened here. The shutters over the shattered Vril tank were closed.

‘Are you all right?’ Streicher asked as Hoffman walked
slowly through the chamber, attention focused on the main workbench.

‘I’m fine.’ His voice was flat and uninflected.

Streicher reached out and caught his arm. ‘You are sure?’

Hoffman looked down, and Streicher quickly removed his hand. But not so quickly that Hoffman had not seen the glint of silver from the bracelet on his wrist.

‘I am now,’ he said.

Further along the workbench was a collection of several of the heavy metal bracelets. Hoffman looked round to check no one was watching. Streicher had moved away and there was no one nearby. Hoffman reached out for one of the bracelets, his bare wrist emerging from the sleeve of his jacket. It would take only a moment to put on the bracelet. That was what he had to do. That was why he was here.

But somewhere in the back of his thoughts, he could remember the pain on the faces of those who wore them, as the bands of metal bit into their flesh. He could remember the smoking ruin of Number Five, the sickly stench of burning flesh. Number Nine’s scream as the bracelet was torn from his wrist…

Hoffman’s hand closed on the nearest bracelet. Held it for a moment. He knew what he had to do.

Christmas was little more than a date on the calendar. Guy went to his mother’s for lunch, both having attended the local church in the morning. Davenport disappeared for a couple of days without giving any hint of his destination. Sarah spent the day alone in her flat. She wrote a long letter to her father, which actually told him little of what she had been doing. She mentioned that she’d been sorry to hear that Andrew Whitman had died in some sort of accident at the embassy.

Sergeant Green enjoyed an army Christmas lunch, which was heavy on vegetables but light on meat and served with thin gravy. Brinkman spent the day in the office, only realising that it was actually Christmas when Miss Manners brought him a home-made minced pie that was almost all pastry.

‘Don’t you have somewhere to go?’ he asked her.

She looked at him sternly. ‘Of course I do. The same place as you. So here I am.’

The war barely paused. But Christmas brought some good news. The Russians were counterattacking the advancing Germans outside Moscow and finally driving back the Panzers. Churchill spent Christmas in the USA, and addressed Congress on Boxing Day. His confidence and rhetoric were tempered by the knowledge that the Japanese were advancing almost unchallenged through the Pacific region.

Station X at Bletchley Park allowed itself little respite for the festive season. There was some levity – even homemade crackers at Christmas lunch. But generally the tireless work of interception, decryption, and analysis went on uninterrupted.

That suited Henry Wiles. He hated interruptions. His personal opinion was that Christmas, and any other public holiday whether religious or secular, was a complete waste of time and opportunity. He was pleased when the brief ‘holiday’ period was over, and predictably irritated to be summoned to London for a meeting.

‘I hope this won’t take long,’ were his first words as he entered the Station Z offices. He declined Miss Manners’ offer to take his coat and hat, emphasising his ambition to be finished and away in as little time as possible. He did allow her to take his newspaper.

‘Only half finished?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow and indicating the uncompleted
Times
crossword.

‘The rest of it was easy,’ Wiles said dismissively. ‘Not worth filling in. Now what do you lot want?’

The walls of the conference room were covered with maps. Davenport was adjusting the position of a chart of the Mediterranean as Miss Manners led Wiles in. He took a seat at the table, next to Guy Pentecross and opposite Brinkman and Sarah Diamond.

‘I think we can start,’ Brinkman said. ‘Sergeant Green will
listen out for the phones, if you could take minutes please, Penelope?’

Miss Manners nodded, and took a seat close to where Davenport was now inspecting a map of North Africa.

‘Thank you for joining us, Henry,’ Brinkman went on. ‘I know you are extremely busy.’

As a concession to this admission, Wiles removed his hat, placing it on the table in front of him. He lifted his briefcase and put that beside the hat. ‘So why am I here?’

‘Two reasons. First, you suggested on the phone that you had some information for us.’

Wiles sniffed. ‘True. Supposition and theory, but it might get us somewhere. Second reason?’

‘A fresh pair of eyes. Expert eyes. These maps…’ He waved for Davenport to explain.

‘These maps are arranged precisely as they were in the Vault beneath Wewelsburg Castle. They were obviously significant to Himmler and his team, so we need to know why, and what they show.’ Davenport pointed out features on the various charts as he explained. ‘I’ve marked them up in the same way as they were marked there, though obviously I can’t guarantee I’ve reproduced everything exactly. And of course we don’t always have access to exactly the same charts or maps. Where we do, I’ve fixed the map at the top, and put an English-language equivalent underneath.’ He lifted one of the maps of Europe to reveal a similar one behind it.

Wiles nodded. ‘I see, I see. Interesting.’ He stood up abruptly and took his coat off, dumping it over the back of his chair before hurrying round the table to inspect the maps at close range.

‘We’ve all examined them,’ Guy told him.