James Becker - Echo of the Reich

Marcus smiled, but there was no humor in his expression.

“It might not be a problem for you,” he said, “but it certainly would be for us. You know my name, you’ve seen my face and those of several members of this organization, and you’ve been inside my house, so it’s far too late for you to just go back, as you put it. You will be leaving here, but what we have to decide is whether you walk out or if it would suit our interests better to ensure you never walked or talked again.”

It was neither more nor less than a casual death sentence, delivered in the same urbane, conversational manner as everything else Marcus had said, and Bronson felt a chill run through him. He was acutely aware that he was completely unarmed, surrounded by a group of men, all of whom were probably carrying pistols, and that nobody outside the building had the slightest idea where he was.

If Marcus decided to have him shot down there and then, Bronson knew there was almost no chance that anyone would ever find out about it or discover his body. His corpse could be stripped, loaded into the trunk of one of the cars, driven out into the countryside and dumped down a well or mineshaft or just left deep in the woods to rot. And if they cut off his head and hands, identification would be virtually impossible.

Even Angela-who was absolutely the only person he was sure he could trust-only knew that he had been intending to travel to Germany, and Germany was a very big country. All Bronson had been able to tell her was that he had a meeting in Berlin. If he didn’t call her within about a day, she would raise the alarm, certainly, but that probably wouldn’t do any good. By that time he would simply have vanished without trace.

Despite these extremely unpleasant thoughts coursing through his brain, Bronson remained outwardly calm and unruffled.

“You’re right,” he said, “I was a police officer, but I was kicked out of the force months ago.”

“I know,” Marcus replied. “Georg checked.”

That was a small comfort. Obviously somebody in the Met had faked the records to show his dismissal when Davidson had decided to send him undercover. Whether those records would be altered to reflect the truth of his situation now that there really was a warrant out for his arrest on firearms charges was another matter entirely. All Bronson could hope was that Georg wouldn’t decide to probe any more deeply.

“So you’ll know that I have no love for my former employers,” he stated. “And Georg should also have told you how I came to meet his group in the first place.”

Marcus smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Doing a bit of minor vandalism at the Olympic sites. Hardly the Great Train Robbery, Mr. Bronson, was it? And then you attacked that bulldozer with a hammer, a somewhat inadequate weapon if you were being serious.”

“That was about all we had to hand,” Bronson said defensively. “And you can do a lot of damage if you know how. I probably smashed it up enough to write it off.”

“Bravo,” Marcus muttered ironically, “so the sum total of your efforts to disrupt the London Olympic Games amounts to the possible financial destruction of one piece of earthmoving equipment that might at some point have been used on the site. Obviously there’s no way of telling, because all the major construction work was completed some time ago. Not particularly impressive.”

“I did what I could,” Bronson replied, then decided that perhaps attack was the best form of defense. “And as far as I could see, Georg and his merry men weren’t doing much better, and there were about a dozen of them.”

Marcus nodded. “Actually, they were doing exactly what we wanted them to do. They were just providing a diversion, making the police think that the biggest threat to the Games was this kind of minor vandalism.”

That tied up with what Georg had told Bronson earlier, and implied that the German was planning something else, something darker and much more dangerous.

“So you’ve got something else in mind?”

Marcus shook his head. “Before we decide to share that information with you-if we ever do, that is-we need to be sure exactly where your loyalties lie.”

“I would have thought I’d established that by now. I’m wanted by the British police for assault and whatever other charges they’ve been able to drum up against me. If I go back to England, there’s a strong chance I’ll be arrested as soon as I get there and then spend several years in prison. I’ve no option but to throw in my lot with Georg and the rest of the group in their campaign against the Olympic Games, and that’s why I’m here now.”

Marcus nodded patiently. “I know, but what you don’t understand is that we really don’t care about the Olympics except as a convenient vehicle for what we intend to do. And if you are going to play any part, however small, in our operation, then, as I said a few moments ago, we must be certain of your loyalty.”

“And how are you going to achieve that?” Bronson asked.

“A simple test, that’s all. You’ll be performing a small service for us, but one that will satisfy me that you can be relied upon.”

Again, this echoed what Georg had said to him back in England, and Bronson didn’t like the sound of it any more the second time round. But there was nothing he could do except go along with whatever Marcus had planned.

“Follow me,” the German said.

Marcus gave a slight nod, then turned away and began walking toward a set of double doors at the far end of the room, the two men who had accompanied Bronson following on behind. Bronson was led down a flight of stairs, and then down another flight, by which time he was certain that they were below ground level. At the end of a short corridor was a steel door, standing partially ajar.

As Marcus approached, the door swung open to reveal a brightly lit room, the walls and ceiling painted brilliant white, in which about half a dozen men were standing waiting. But unlike the opulent surroundings Bronson had just left, this chamber was almost bare. The floor was gray-painted concrete, and the only objects in the room were bright lights-almost like floodlights-set in each corner, and a heavy wooden chair, the back, arms and legs fitted with leather straps, bolted to the floor in the center, the area around it scuffed and discolored with dark stains. A professional-looking movie camera was positioned at one side of the room, its lens pointing directly toward the chair.

Bronson was walking into what looked like a film studio intended for a very particular type of action, and he had a sudden, disturbingly clear idea about exactly what Marcus intended.

23 July 2012

Marcus stopped inside the room and gestured for Bronson to approach him.

“The test we’ve devised is very simple, and will only take a couple of minutes. Afterward, as long as you’ve passed it, I’ll decide exactly how much I should tell you about our operation.”

He turned away and made a gesture to one of the men standing beside the wall. The man nodded, then strode across to another door a few feet away, opened it and barked a command.

Two other men appeared from the open doorway, half carrying, half dragging, a third figure, another man wearing only a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, both garments heavily bloodstained. His face bore the unmistakable marks of a severe beating, and even from where Bronson was standing it was clear that several of his fingers had been broken, and his arms were covered in what looked like acid burns. Whoever he was, he had clearly suffered appalling torture, either as punishment for some infraction or, probably more likely, to extract information from him. He was muttering almost incoherently, in great pain, and the only words Bronson could make out were nein and bitte.