Jonathan Taylor: Meyer-Hofmann AG

“The mistake is mine. I have believed your bullshit all these years, Von Klitzing!” Cerf was now nodding and smiling.

Von Klitzing looked up at him in disbelief, unable to understand what Cerf was saying and why he was behaving this way.

“We have received a call from Munich. From the German Police. They say that you are under investigation, and we should take you into custody.”

Von Klitzing’s brain was working overtime, trying to understand what was happening to him. The only thing he could think of was Eva’s imminent arrest for impersonating Britt Petersen.

“That has nothing to do with me. My daughter has been in a little bit of trouble, but it’s nothing serious, I assure you!”

“No, that’s not it.”

Von Klitzing frowned.

“You have been lying to me, Johann. You have been lying to me for a long time, and I intend to find out exactly how many lies you have told me.”

“No! Benjamin, you know that is not true.”

“Yes! There is no evidence of an Iranian Nuclear Program, is there?”

Von Klitzing fought to remain in control of himself.

“Yes, there is. They are only days away. I can prove it!”

“Prove it! How will you prove it? We have received documents that describe exactly this course of events. They were written months ago, we have e-mails written from your personal computer, which describe an attack against Israel as retaliation for our bombing the power station in Bushehr. We have already detected forces on three of our borders. Can you explain that, Von Klitzing?”

“No, that’s not possible, there has been a mistake!”

“That is what I thought. In the next few hours, we will know if it is true, Von Klitzing. If we have made a mistake, I will let you go, but if, by any small chance, we have not… If we have not, you will be sorry. You will be very, very sorry!”

“Look, I don’t know where you got this information from, but it is a lie—it is all lies! We have known one another for years, Benjamin. You don’t think that I would do anything to hurt you?”

“They say you are a Nazi, Johann. Are you a Nazi?”

“No, of course not! How could you even think such a thing?”

“Do you know a woman called Britt Petersen?”

“No, who? I have never heard of her!”

“It seems she has heard of you. According to the BND, you were probably responsible for her death.”

“No, I could never hurt anyone, you know that. You know me, Benjamin. I couldn’t hurt a fly!”

“They think you tortured her. They think you tortured lots of people, Johann. People very close to me. Very close to my country.”

“Who do you think I am? You are making a mistake!”

“You have said. You have said that a lot. But I don’t believe you. I have been watching you, Johann. I have been watching you answer my questions, and I think you are lying.”

“NO.”

“Yes. And I think you are a bad person, a very bad person!”

“You don’t know who I am. How dare you!”

“Oh, I dare. I dare to do some bad things as well. When it is in my country’s national interest, I have learnt to do some bad things. I have to protect my country, Johann. There are still people like you who just can’t let us be. Just can’t let us get on with our lives.”

“You are parasites! You always were, and you always will be. You suck the blood from everything you come into contact with, the Europeans, the Arabs, it is all the same to you and your kind. You are a plague upon this world!” Von Klitzing spat the last words out, his face contorted and full of hate.

“Ah, he shows his colours.” A broad smile covered Cerf’s face. “I didn’t want to believe it, but it is true. You are one of them, aren’t you, Johann? I am honoured.”

Von Klitzing looked up at Cerf, puzzled.

“I am honoured to have the opportunity to repay a debt. A debt you owe my country and its people. You are going to spend a lot of time getting to know us, Johann. Israelis have learnt a lot about interrogation over the years. Some of it, our people had to learn first-hand. In your camps. We are going to find out exactly who you are. We are going to find out exactly what you know, and we are going to make you regret it all. When I am finished with you, Johann, you will know yourself better.” Cerf’s face was now cold and determined. Von Klitzing looked up into his eyes and knew he was finished.

Bremen’s excitement was growing by the minute. The world’s stock markets were in free fall, and James Mountfield, a leading conservative politician in England, was one of many politicians who had quit their parties, claiming their close ties to the banks was immoral. The right screen showed their troops in Iran, and Brandt on his way to the rendezvous point on the coast at Bushehr. It was obviously a hot, dusty drive along poor roads. The cameras mounted on the roof of the trucks and the helmet cameras carried by each commander showed clouds of dust billowing from the back of the vehicles as they ploughed their way along the broken roads. Brandt’s camera was showing the scene looking out of a truck window, and he was shaking around like a pea in a can. The camera intermittently bounced off the truck’s roof, sending blue horizontal lines across the screen.

“Can’t he buckle himself in, the idiot!” Bremen blustered at no one in particular.

Brandt’s arms stretched out to brace himself against the dashboard and seat. Then he dipped down to look out of the driver’s side window, giving them a view of more barren landscape before a bright flash of light filled the picture and the screen in the control room went black.

“Get that fixed!” Bremen barked into the auditorium.

His order led to a feverish hammering of keys from the men sat at the control panels. This was accompanied by intense conversations between the operators, before the picture reappeared of its own accord. The scene it revealed shocked the room, and there were gasps of disbelief. The men at the consoles turned from the screen to Bremen, to see his reaction. Brandt’s camera was steady, but at a forty-five-degree angle to the sky and no longer trapped in the confines of the truck’s shaking walls. Instead, it watched with its monocular eye, as waves of Mil Mi-24 attack helicopters chased one another across the blue-grey Iranian sky.

“What the hell’s happened?”

A moment later, Heinz was staring down past the camera, into his dead commander’s eyes. His head filled the screen. As if knowing what his superiors would want him to do, he disconnected the camera from Brandt’s helmet and started to film their surroundings. The truck in which they had both been sitting just a short time before had totally disintegrated, hit by the first volley of rockets from the Russian-built helicopters. Thrown from the wreckage by the force of the explosion, Brandt’s legs had parted company with the rest of his body, before hitting the ground and leaving a red stripe across the brown desert road.

In the control room, Heinz’s emotionless face now filled the screen. For a moment, he stared into the camera lens, then, placing the camera back on the ground, he turned towards his enemy. His wide khaki-clad back filled the screen. Facing the helicopters, he raised a machine gun and depressed the trigger, the gun fighting his strong arms, kicking and jolting as each round left the smoking barrel. The fight was useless, but this didn’t seem to deter the clone soldier, who continued to fill the air with lead, spraying the bullets in huge arcs across the pale sky. Only when the helicopters detected the threat did the firing stop, as a machine cannon ripped him apart. A red mist of blood and flesh was sent into the afternoon sky, landing like rain, blotting out the camera’s lens and filling the auditorium with a dark red glow.