Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

Tom followed the link on the word ‘Totenkopfverbände’ . It took him to the website of something called the Museum of Tolerance. There was a definition: SS Units who guarded concentration camps. On the right collar of their uniform they wore the death's head symbol, from which they took their name. They became an elite unit within the elite SS.

Tom scanned to the end of the entry.

… they were put in charge of killing Jews and partisans.

Now he pushed back his chair and reached, instinctively, for the pouch of tobacco in his inside pocket. If there was anywhere left in London you could get away with smoking, surely it was in a hole like this. With one hand, his eye still on the screen, he rolled himself a cigarette and put it between his lips. Even this sensation, before he had lit a match, felt like a hit of soothing nicotine.

Jesus Christ. What part of his brain had not thought of this earlier? Had he suppressed the very thought of it? It had been under his nose. The minute he had opened Gershon Matzkin's journal, he should have at least considered it. Everyone else would have. He'd been despatched to shut down the case of an aged Nazi-hunter by – guess who – a German! You didn't have to be filled with prejudice to see the connection, just common sense. Why had he been so stupid? He had allowed his personal affection for Henning to cloud his judgment. It had obscured the most obvious line of enquiry. His friendship had barred his synapses from even twitching at the possible interest a German diplomat might have in suppressing the Nazi past. Or perhaps it was that Tom no longer even saw Henning as German, but rather as some internationalized quasi-Australian.

His mind sprinted ahead, trying to keep up with the implications. Surely it meant that Henning had tricked him by sending him on this mission. He had claimed to know nothing of Gerald Merton but he had known everything that mattered, starting with the old man's motive.

But that was the least of it. The chief legal counsel of the UN had somehow masterminded an intelligence operation in a foreign capital, able to track down – and trash – the homes of both Gerald Merton and his daughter, to say nothing of eaves-dropping on, then murdering, Henry Goldman. How would Munchau possibly have such power? Unless he was part of something much bigger.

At first Tom had felt a slight sense of disappointment. Specifically, disappointment in Gershon Matzkin. He had expected more of him. It seemed beneath him to have travelled to New York simply to track down the son or, more likely, grandson of a Nazi war criminal. Tom had, despite himself, sympathized with DIN's determination to hunt down the guilty men, but this – visiting the sins of the fathers on their children and grandchildren – was impossible to defend. The only way it could make sense was if this was not simply about Henning Munchau and his Nazi grandfather, but something in which the UN lawyer – Tom's old boss and great friend – was just a minor player.

He turned to Rebecca, expecting her to be looking over his shoulder, reading the potted history of Munchau Snr that still glowed on the screen. But Rebecca wasn't looking at his terminal. She was looking at her own. And her face was white.

‘What is it?’

She simply pointed at the display, open to her Facebook page. She indicated the Friends column down the left hand side.

‘I don't understand,’ Tom said, once again aware not only that Rebecca was ten years younger than him but that the latest wave of the internet revolution had mostly passed him by. Everyone else might have been forming social networks but these days his own personal community consisted of the models he dated, the Mafia men he worked for and the British-born tailor he had discovered on Spring Street: and none of those relationships happened online.

Rebecca made a few key strokes, going back several pages. Tom was distracted: he had spotted a new customer.

‘See this guy here?’ She was pointing at a square filled not with a photograph but with a question mark. ‘He asked to friend me earlier.’

‘To friend you?’

‘It's a Facebook thing. Anyway, I said yes.’ She saw Tom's look of disbelief. ‘Lots of people were getting in touch, mainly to send condolences about Dad. It just seemed easier to say yes to everyone.’

Tom was looking again at the new arrival. Something about him was familiar.

‘Look at these status updates.’

Tom looked down at the list. Jay…is dining in York – again. Zoe… can't wait till she gets off work so she can have a stiff drink. His eye went off the screen and back to the man, now sitting at the end of the row. White, iPod headphones nestled by his collar.

Rebecca's finger took Tom back to the list of status lines on the Facebook page, directing him to one five lines down. ‘That's him.’

Richard needs to meet Rebecca urgently – so he can explain everything that's going on.

Tom had barely read the words when Rebecca began typing furiously: Who are you? How do you know what's going on?

Tom rubbed his chin, ‘I wonder if you should say-’

‘Too late,’ Rebecca said, coming down hard on the return key. ‘I've already sent it.’

‘For God's sake, we needed-’ He stopped himself: he couldn't afford to pick a fight now, not with what he was about to tell her. He glanced over to the man with the white headphones: he had his head down and was banging away at the keyboard, apparently oblivious to them and everyone else. ‘Rebecca, there's something you need to look at.’ He turned his screen towards her, so that she could see his discovery for herself. ‘Remember my old boss, Henning Munchau? Legal Counsel to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and all that? OK. Take a look at this.’

He watched as Rebecca's face lit up in the blue glow of the computer screen, her eyes skipping across the few lines of biography on Wilhelm Henning Munchau he had just called up. She didn't look surprised, Tom decided; she just seemed to be concentrating very hard.

‘You think this could be what this is all about?’

‘I don't know. It seems crazy. OK, Henning plays hardball, no doubt about it. But underneath the cynical exterior, he's on the side of the angels. Serious humanitarian. If you'd seen him in East Timor, when the rebels were getting pounded, he-’

‘But it would explain a lot. His father's a Nazi-’

‘Probably grandfather.’

‘-and he doesn't want it to get out. Maybe he knows my father knew about his family and he's determined to prevent us discovering it. It would explain a lot.’

‘I know. But I can't believe he would go to those lengths: sending men over here to wreck your father's home, your home, to bug our meetings-’

‘To kill Goldman.’

‘Even if he wanted to do that, he wouldn't have the capacity to do it. People always imagine the United Nations is some global power. But it's got nothing. If it wants ink for the photocopier it has to go begging.’

‘Have you got a better explanation?’

Tom rubbed his eyes until they emitted an audible squeak. He had no good answer. After all, what did they know? That there had been a plan to poison the water supply of post-war Germany that had clearly been abortive. That, instead, DIN had killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of former SS officers while they awaited trial for war crimes. But how this related to now, to the present day, he could not say. Despite everything they had learned, he and Rebecca could not even state for certain what Gerald Merton had been doing in New York two days ago.

‘No. I can't think of-’

‘A-ha. Here we go. He's replied.’

I'm a friend and I really want to help.