Jack Ludlow - A Broken Land

Yet he was too close to completion to back away and there was also the knowledge that, on paper, this transaction was impossible. Maybe Sir Basil Zaharoff in his prime could have pulled it off, and there was, too, a slight glow in the thought that the old man would probably have entrusted the information he had passed over to very few people, indeed, he might be the only one.

Callum Jardine still had to make his way in his world, and if the deal needed to be kept secret now, these things had a way of filtering out to the wider arms-dealing community over time and his name would gain in reputation — if he was not making a money profit on this, it might translate into a healthy stream of income in the future.

He nodded and smiled, which made MCG smile too, and so pleased was he that a small and noisy joining of his hands in front of his snub nose was the result. Cal picked up the documents and transferred them to his attache case.

‘The meeting for the handover will take place here. I will cable the ambassador and I am sure you too will be informed that the contract has got to the point of finalising the payment.’

A nod.

‘I will, of course, oversee the actual purchase, the transportation to the docks and the loading, at which point I will telephone to the Attica Bank and give them a code word which we have agreed between us. They will then put the ambassador on the phone for completion. Is that satisfactory?’

‘Very satisfactory, Herr Moncrief. I must ask, how long has it been since you were in Germany?’

That made Cal Jardine stiffen, it being the kind of question that might have unpleasant undertones. His last departure, not that long past, had been a close-run thing and he knew there were people in Germany who would dearly love to get him in a cell with a couple of rubber truncheons in their hands and some bare electrical wiring. Yet looking at MCG and his bland expression, it seemed as if the question was an innocent one.

‘Quite some time, but it is a country I am fond of.’

‘You will find it much changed, Herr Moncrief, and for the better. I feel we could do with a dose of what the Fuhrer has done in Germany here in Greece, particularly the way he has dealt with the communists.’

Not wanting to go there, Cal decided to change the subject. ‘I forgot to ask you, Herr Constantou-Georgiadis, how is your lovely wife?’

MCG looked as if he had just been slapped, and as much as it was possible for the skin of his face to tighten it did just that. Did he know what had happened that night he stormed out of the Grande Bretagne?

‘My wife,’ he hissed, ‘is where she should be, mein Herr, looking after my affairs.’

‘She’s very good at looking after affairs, I should think.’

The train north was the Arlberg Orient Express, direct from Athens through Belgrade, Bucharest, then, after a change at Vienna, the journey north through Czechoslovakia to Germany and Berlin, where, once over the border, he was subjected to the usual continual checking of papers en route that went with the thorough Teutonic bureaucracy that existed in a country with more uniform per square metre than anywhere else in the world.

He spent a night in the Adlon Hotel, luxurious and central, but reputedly not much loved by the Berlin Nazis, who preferred the Kaiserhof. Even then, having checked in as Herr Moncrief, he ate in his room and had a careful look round the following morning before exiting to hail a taxi to take him to catch the train to Celle in Lower Saxony.

With eighty million Germans, the chances of running into anyone who knew his face were so slight as to be non-existent, but he had always been of the opinion that it would be a stupid mistake to ignore the risk, because you would feel a damn fool if it went wrong, and in his case, in this country, it could prove fatal.

Celle was a pretty place, very conscious of itself, once part of the electorate of Hanover which had produced the Georgian kings of England — a fact that was immediately mentioned to him as he checked into the Furstenhof Hotel and they saw his British passport. Provincial in the extreme, it was miles away in time and thinking from Berlin, sharing only the very recognisable features of the totalitarian state: the ubiquitous swastika flags and banners, the exhorting posters, as well as the loudspeakers on lampposts and buildings which would play martial music as well as deliver messages from the propaganda ministry, just in case the populace did not know how great their country was.

From there it was another short journey to Unterluss and the Rheinmetall-Borsig Werk. With three factories this was the one he had been told to go to; what they did not make here would be brought from the other plants in Kassel and Dusseldorf — the whole, once inspected and accepted, would be shipped up to the Free Port of Hamburg. Peter Lanchester had a cargo vessel on the way to dock there and wait, provided by one of his secretive backers, who was obviously in shipping.

Unterluss was a typical small German town, dependent on the factory, with tall half-timbered buildings with steep sloping roofs and the serious-minded Saxon inhabitants. Reputedly the hardest workers in the country, their neighbours had a saying for them, that in a Saxon household ‘even if Grandfather is dead he must work; put his ashes in the timer’.

The name he had been given was that of the factory manager, Herr Gessler, and having rung from Celle he was expected. Gessler was very correct, dressed in a grey suit that hugged his thin frame, with rimless glasses and his party badge on his lapel, an object he was given to frequently fingering. A tour of the factory was obligatory and it was something he would report back on, this being the manufacturing works for not only small arms and flak artillery, but for small-calibre naval guns.

Gessler had obviously been told to treat him as an honoured guest, an instruction which had no doubt come from above, but he was nervous in a way that made Jardine jumpy, given there seemed no reason for him to be. He was also a walking technical encyclopaedia who wanted to impart all his knowledge in a sort of breathless litany that left even a man with a professional interest in the subject wondering whether he would ever shut up.

The nerves had an explanation, which was provided as they approached the head office building having finished their tour. The Mercedes standing outside had a swastika pennant on its wheel arch and beside it, standing to attention, was a driver in the pale-blue uniform of the Luftwaffe.

Inside Gessler’s office they met the passenger — a full colonel, sharp-featured and wearing a monocle, in a beautifully tailored uniform, boots so shiny you could have shaved in them, and a pair of grey gloves in one hand which he slapped into the other — who, having clicked his heels, introduced himself as Oberst Brauschitz.

‘Herr Moncrief, I have come from Oberbefehlshaber Goring who wishes to meet with you. I am ordered to convey you to his hunting lodge at Carinhall.’

He did not want to go; it was like the lair of the wolf and he was aware that the excuse he offered was a feeble one. ‘I daresay that will involve an overnight stay, Herr Oberst , and my luggage is at the Furstenhof.’

Brauschitz responded with a thin smile. ‘Please credit us with some sense, Herr Moncrief. Your luggage is in the back of the car. But I assure you, were it not, you would want for nothing, given the person who is going to be your host.’

‘I cannot think I warrant the personal attention of the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe.’

For the first time the genial mask dropped and he almost barked. ‘It is not for you to decide, it is for you to do as you are requested.’