James Becker - Echo of the Reich

Weeks nodded. “Good choice. It’s clean, as far as I know, and for that money you can ditch it if you have to and walk away.”

Bronson pulled out his wallet and handed over five twenty-pound notes, which Weeks slid into his jacket pocket before handing over the fully charged magazine.

Then Weeks gestured to the dashboard in front of Bronson. “The boxes of ammo are in there.”

Bronson opened the glovebox and looked inside. There were two boxes of twenty-two-caliber cartridges there, along with boxes for a number of other calibres, all the way up to 357 Magnum.

“That’s kind of my ready-use locker,” Weeks said. “Never know when I’ll need a box of something.”

“I’m sure,” Bronson replied.

Keeping his finger outside the trigger guard, he slid the magazine into the butt of the Llama, pulled back the slide and chambered the top round. He pulled it back again, ejecting the cartridge onto his lap, and repeated the sequence of actions until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back. Then he reloaded the magazine, replaced it in the pistol and again chambered the first cartridge, making it ready for use. He set the safety catch and slid the weapon into the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Thanks, Dickie. I hope I don’t need it, but it’s good to have it, just in case.”

“Drop you somewhere?”

Bronson glanced at his watch before replying, then nodded. “Yes, be a help if you could.”

Moments later, Weeks steered the Range Rover out of the Tesco car park and followed Bronson’s directions, heading back toward Straight Road and his second rendezvous of the day.

20 July 2012

The first car arrived early in the afternoon and parked inside the large underground garage that formed part of the basement of the house. Within twenty minutes, two other cars had parked beside it, and three more were standing on the graveled driveway outside the double garage doors.

The last car to arrive, a black BMW, drove quickly along the ruler-straight Rothen Road to the north of Spreenhagen, a large village to the southeast of Berlin, then slowed and made the right turn off the road, bordered on both sides by thick woodland, and down the driveway leading to the house. The driver was the sole occupant of the car, and he was a few minutes late because he’d been held up by a minor traffic accident en route.

He parked the car, nodded to the two men who were standing by the double doors, and strode quickly into the garage. As soon as he’d done so, one of the men pressed a remote control and the doors closed behind him with a metallic clatter.

Inside the property, the man walked briskly, tracing a familiar route. At the end of the corridor leading from the garage was a flight of stairs he took two at a time; then he walked down a corridor to a large formal dining room. But there was neither food nor cutlery on the long polished walnut table, around which half a dozen men in dark suits were seated.

Apart from the absence of laptops, briefcases and writing pads, it could have been a typical board meeting. It had been their rule from the first that no writing or recording materials of any sort were allowed in the room, and the room itself was swept for bugs at least once a day.

The new arrival muttered his apologies, then took the last remaining seat.

“Let us begin,” said the man at the head of the table.

He was just over fifty years old, slimly built, with fair hair, a pale complexion and light blue eyes. Apart from his height-he was well under six feet tall-he could have been cast from the classic Aryan mold, and he was clearly the dominant personality in the room. That was immediately obvious from the way the other men looked at him and had refrained even from chatting among themselves whilst they’d waited for the last member of the group to make his appearance.

“Not all of you will be aware of the progress we have made and how close we are to achieving our goal,” the man went on, his voice surprisingly deep and resonant, his German formal and grammatically correct. “ Die Neue Dammerung is on track and on time as I speak, though we do have one problem that I will address at the end of our meeting. First, and to ensure that you are all thoroughly familiar with all aspects of our operation, I would like Klaus to outline what we have achieved so far.”

The man sitting on his right, a solid-looking, dark-haired individual with craggy features, nodded and sat up straighter in his seat. He had acted as second-in-command to Marcus for the last twenty years, and was just as dedicated to ensuring the success of the operation.

“Thank you, Marcus,” he began. “I will start with a bit of history. Most of you are aware of the events that took place in Poland at the end of the last war. You will know that the SS Evacuation Kommando-which was, of course, under the command of Marcus’s grandfather-successfully retrieved the device upon which so many of the hopes and dreams of the Third Reich rested. You may also have heard that it was successfully transported to Bodo in Norway and then flown on to South America to ensure that none of the enemies of the Fatherland could take possession of it. The few scientists deemed essential to the project traveled with the device, and all other people with any significant knowledge of what we were trying to achieve were eliminated.”

Klaus Drescher looked swiftly around the table. Several heads nodded knowingly. “At that time, the regime in Argentina was sympathetic to our cause, and work was able to continue on the device without hindrance. Great strides were made both in increasing the effectiveness of Die Glocke and in the process of miniaturization, though there remained a number of significant technological hurdles to be overcome. In fact, it took over half a century before a new generation of our scientists was able to create a fully functioning and reasonably portable version of the device. That triumph was finally achieved only five years ago, and we now have six weapons concealed in secure locations here in Germany.”

He paused for a moment, and then smiled slightly.

“In fact,” he went on, “that’s not strictly true. We actually only have five weapons in storage, because the sixth one is about to be deployed, and where we position the other five devices will largely depend upon what happens after this first, live test. If we have to take further action, most of the targets are fairly obvious: Paris, Madrid and Rome, certainly, and probably Brussels as well, and that will still leave us with one weapon in reserve. And as you all know, because of our recent activities, the first weapon of our arsenal will be triggered in London. The Olympic Games is simply too good an opportunity to miss.”

A heavily built man on the opposite side of the table shook his head. “You know there will be reprisals. If the British discover that we were responsible, military action against Germany is possible, perhaps even probable. And the United Nations and America might also become involved.”

Drescher shook his head, the smile still in evidence.

“We have taken steps to ensure that that will not happen. The vehicle to be used for the transportation of the device will have no connection to Germany whatsoever, and we are also employing measures to suggest that the real culprit, the author of the atrocity, is a much older and far more dangerous enemy than Germany.”

He smiled more broadly as he looked around at the other men.

“It is just possible that our action could rid the world of a contagion that has existed since the beginning of recorded history.” He paused again, and then continued. “Because, gentlemen, we are going to make it clear that the perpetrators of this attack have made their home a long way to the east, on stolen ground. We are going to blame it on the Jews.”