sThe Quiet Wart (15 page)

‘Why did you try to kill Anna Faustein?' Clive asked, still intent upon finding the person responsible for Phil's death.

‘Faustein? Ich?'
Glas looked confused. Before he could continue, Sean took the opportunity and leaped forward pushing the barrel of the gun into the air. With his left hand making sure it was safely pointing away, he pushed Glas to the floor easily and took the gun away from him.

‘I asked you a question,' Clive said.

Looking up from the cold stone floor and shaking his head, ‘I don't know what you're talking about,' he said.

Leaving Sean with the gun, Clive picked Glas up from the floor and sat him in the chair behind the desk. Then he scanned the room for any phones or other communication devices, but there were none to be seen. Taking the key from the lock, he placed it in the outside of the door, indicating to Sean that they should leave.

Before they left, Sean took a photo of Glas in the chair behind the desk, making sure he got the photo of Hitler and the two large Nazi flags in the frame.

‘We've got to go,' Clive said hurrying up.

Ignoring the reminder, Sean looked straight at Glas. ‘Blom doesn't owe you any more money. Do you understand,' he said aggressively.

‘But … ' Glas started.

‘Not buts,' Sean interrupted. ‘In the morning, you'll send him a letter forgiving him all of the debt and wishing him well for the future. If he doesn't get that letter by Thursday, on Friday morning, every newspaper in Europe will be carrying this photo.' Sean turned around the screen on his phone so that the old man could see it.

Glas gritted his teeth, but didn't respond.

‘Agreed?' Sean pushed.

Finally, Glas begrudgingly nodded his head in agreement and Sean turned to leave.

Once outside the office, Clive locked the door, but left the key in the lock. ‘I'll leave a note on the table telling his wife where she can find him,' Clive said, before he took the gun from Sean and wiped it clean.

Quickly climbing the stairs out of the basement, they scurried through the garden back to their car. Within five minutes they were across the bridge and back into Germany.

‘What do you think he meant when he said they were close to victory?' Clive asked.

‘God knows, but I really want to find out,' Sean said.

The breathing apparatus covering a portion of Terry's face did nothing to disguise the extent of his injuries. Special bandaging stretched from his forehead to his chest and was changed at regular intervals by a team of nurses, as machines monitored his every life sign.

Moving next to the bed, Praew held onto his hand, checking for any signs of movement in his face. She stayed there for a whole hour, but was disappointed when he failed to respond.

‘Let us know if he comes around, please,' Liz said to the nurse before leaving the intensive care ward.

‘Of course,' the nurse nodded.

‘I wish British hospitals were that good,' Liz said to Praew as they walked back out onto the street.

The snow was piling up on the street and Praew gripped tightly onto Liz's hand for the short walk back to the hotel near to the hospital.

‘What did they say about having him moved to London?' Clive asked.

‘Basically no; he's not well enough to be moved yet,' Liz answered.

Taking in the news, they found a table in a café, which joined the lobby of the hotel, ordered three coffees and an orange juice and Liz immediately produced her laptop. ‘I had a look at the pictures last night. Look at this.' She turned the screen around to reveal the organisation chart that Sean had photographed in the skinhead farmhouse.

After pulling out his glasses, Clive studied the chart carefully. ‘Far more organised than it was years ago,' he said, still reading.

‘What do you mean?' Liz asked.

‘When we were looking at Allsop, there were quite a few neo-Nazi groups, but there was no command structure: each was an autonomous organisation and quite small. Now it looks like they're grouping together under a common leadership: this 4R18.'

‘The first two pages seem to be all on one level, including Glas:
Regionaler Markführer
, which means regional leader,' Liz commented, then zoomed in on some so that Clive could see them more clearly.

‘So Glas is just an underling: one of hundreds of other regional chiefs?' Clive said.

‘Yes, it looks like it, and I think the BR in BR18, means Braunau, which would make sense, look at all the other initials: they must be names of towns,' Liz said, then scrolled up two pages, as the org chart first went to six people on a level, then to two. Next to one of the two boxes, the name
‘Wagner'
was written in blue ink. In the box his title was
Kriegsminister.
‘It means Minister of War,' Liz said.

‘So he's not the boss? That's interesting,' Clive commented.

‘No,' Liz replied, then highlighted the box on the same level as Wagner's, which was named
Propagandaminister
, with a handwritten name:
Dorsch?
‘I assume the question mark by the name means the writer wasn't sure,' she said.

After they'd taken the page in, Liz scrolled up to where just one box sat above Wagner's and the Minister of Secret Police. The printed title in the box was
Vizekanzler
, but there was no handwritten name by it. ‘Vice Chancellor, if you hadn't already guessed,' Liz said.

‘Then,' Clive pointed up the screen as Liz scrolled up further.
Führer und Reichskanzler der Vierten Reich
was typed in a large box at the top, again with no name beside it.

‘The Leader and Chancellor of the Fourth Reich,' Liz added.

‘The Fourth Reich? What are these guys up to?' Clive blew out a rasp of air.

‘I don't know, but if you go back down the chart, they seem to have hundreds of divisions, and not just in Germany or Austria, but right across Europe, including the UK, Russia, the Ukraine etc.,' Liz said, scrolling down to the bottom of the chart. ‘See LO18, under the UK? I'll bet that's London and MA18… Manchester,' she added.

‘It's massive,' Sean said, almost scared by his own words.

‘Why do you think he was filling in the names?' Clive asked.

‘I don't know. I've been asking myself the same thing. It's almost as if he was investigating them,' Liz suggested.

‘Maybe he's undercover police?' Sean said.

Clive was staring off into the distance and then looked back at Sean. He was moving his head up and down slightly. ‘I think you may be right. He speaks English, so he's obviously educated and on three separate occasions he took the least violent option: he hit the father on the knee rather than the head; he backed away from a fight with Terry in the square, even though he outnumbered us four to one; then the same again at the father's house. Not exactly the behaviour of a racist thug, is it?'

‘Then there was his room; it was much cleaner than I expected,' Sean added.

‘Look at the page next to the Vice Chancellor's box and the Chancellor's. It's marked with deep pen dots. He was obviously frustrated about something,' Liz said.

‘He's trying to piece the organisation together,' Clive said. ‘We need to know why.'

The light was fading as Clive drove the car over the bridge into Austria from Simbach-am-Inn. Sean had offered to do the driving, but Clive had insisted, Sean assumed so that he could prove he was still physically capable, despite his prosthetic hand. The sight of the onion-domed church tower sticking out above the roofs of Braunau sent a nervous shudder through Sean's spine. Isolating the leader of the skinhead gang wouldn't be easy, especially without Terry around.

‘What if we're wrong? What if he's just the local leader of a group of neo-Nazi thugs?' Sean said.

‘Then we'd better be prepared for a fight,' Clive replied.

‘How confident are you that he's not one of them?' Sean asked.

‘Fifty-fifty I'd say,' Clive shrugged.

Not really the odds Sean wanted to hear as they parked the car in a side street off the Stadtsplatz, the elongated main square where the skinheads hung out. Their position gave them a good view of the fountain and they waited. It was around eight when the first of the skinheads arrived. Then more came, until their number swelled to around twenty. The leader wasn't with them and they seemed particularly boisterous, egged on by the first of the youths Sean had encountered the previous week. He was chastising people as they walked by, following them and making childish faces, intimidating them, as his gang jeered and laughed.

Sean could sense that the policeman in Clive wanted to do something, but he just stayed in the car, watching, as his ire clearly swelled.

By nine-thirty, the leader still hadn't arrived and Clive was becoming increasingly agitated by the loutish behaviour of the skinhead gang. ‘Where are the police? Look at the way he's goading that couple; they're terrified,' Clive said.

Another half an hour passed, but still the leader didn't show.

Then, just as Sean thought Clive was about to burst with anger, Glas' black Mercedes 600 appeared at the far end of the square. ‘I thought he'd be back in Brussels,' Sean said.

‘He is. His wife's driving,' Clive replied, as the car pulled closer.

Then they caught sight of him, the skinhead leader, sitting in the front seat of the car, being driven by Glas' wife. When the car stopped at the statue, the leader kissed Frau Glas on the cheek and climbed out. The boisterous activity died down quickly, as the first thug re-assumed his position as deputy and the leader walked over and leant against the fountain wall.

‘That's weird. She kissed him like she was his mother. I think we've got it wrong about him,' Sean said.

‘Maybe, but I still don't understand why he had the org chart, if he's not trying to piece the organisation together,' Clive responded.

‘It could just be homework. You know, studying the organisation before some kind of promotion?' Sean suggested.

‘Yes, but why the dots on the page showing his frustration at not knowing the ultimate leaders? If it was some kind of studying, they're the last names he'd forget.'

‘You're right. We need to talk to him,' Sean concluded.

‘You know what to do,' Clive said.

Knowing what to do, and actually doing it are gulfs apart,
Sean thought, as he mentally rehearsed Clive's plan. He would walk into the square and get the attention of the thugs, keeping enough distance that he'd be able to outrun them for long enough to get across the river into Germany, where they hoped the police would be more helpful, if needed. They were hoping that, as before, the leader wouldn't join in the chase and Clive would pull the car up alongside him, using the fake pistol he'd bought from a toyshop to get him into the car. Then they'd catch up with Sean on the agreed route to Simbach. It sounded simple, but they both knew that a lot could go wrong and the consequences if it did were unthinkable.

Tentatively climbing out of the car, Sean made his way to the corner of the square. The fountain was about eighty metres away and Clive had warned him not to get closer than fifty metres to the gang, as he needed a good head start for safety. Plucking up his courage, he stepped out of the shadows of the side street and walked straight towards the statue. He could feel every movement of his body as his heart raced in anticipation of what was to come.

After ten metres, nothing happened, so he slowed his pace deliberately, counting down the distance between him and the skinheads.
65, 64… 58, 57… 46, 45…
He was too close and he knew it
… 40, 39. Way too close. 36, 35 ...

‘Hey, das ist der Engländer,'
he heard one of the group shout and point in his direction. He stopped no more than thirty metres from the group, waiting for the chase to begin, tensing his muscles ready to run.

The break came from the side of the group, from the same youth he'd confronted on the first night again. Sean turned and started to run, pushing his speed faster, while trying to avoid slipping in the snow.

When he glanced over his shoulder, as expected, the group was giving chase. Knowing that he needed to conserve energy, he ran at three-quarters pace past the car, where Clive was crouched down in the driver's seat, hiding. The gang were now about forty metres behind him and not gaining ground, so he continued at the same pace, allowing something in reserve in case he got into trouble.

When he approached the sharp corner onto the river road, still coasting ahead of the angry group, his confidence was growing. Suddenly, as he attempted to round the corner, he felt his feet lose their grip on the cobbles and he slid across the pavement, falling headfirst into a snowdrift. Behind him, the gang gained ground quickly. He rolled out of the drift and onto the firm ground, righting himself as quickly as he could.

Just as the first of the skinheads reached the corner, he started to move away again, the thug's outstretched hand failing to connect with him. As he picked up his pace again, he looked back to see the skinheads falling at the same spot that he'd slipped.

Somehow, they managed to right themselves more quickly than he had, and had gained some twenty metres, so he increased his pace and started to pull away, thankful for Clive's advice about holding something in reserve, as the thugs struggled to keep up in their heavy boots.

When the lights on the bridge came into view, just 300 metres in front of him, with the gap to the gang growing to about forty metres or so behind, he started to feel confident he could get there before them and maintained his pace.

Then, with just seventy metres to go, he heard the sound of an engine revving hard, when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the pickup truck the thugs had used some nights before, skidding around the corner. A bolt of panic shot through his body and he picked up his pace to a sprint, pushing towards the bridge as the truck got closer.

Thirty metres before he reached the bridge, the truck pulled alongside him. One of the skinheads was leaning out of the window, hurling abuse at him, but steel street posts stopped the truck from mounting the kerb and Sean just carried on running, ignoring the abuse, hoping that they didn't have weapons.

Just then, Clive's rented car shot past on the bridge road, skidding to a halt ten metres onto the bridge. Right behind it, Sean flung himself around the corner and onto the bridge, while the truck slid sideways in the snow as it hit the junction. When Sean reached the car, he jumped into the rear seat and before he could close the door, Clive hit the pedal again, with Sean's legs still dangling onto the street.

The wheels spun in the snow, trying to get traction, as the truck rammed the rear of the car, sending it careering forward. The violent crash threw Sean into the footwell and he lost his grip on the seat, suddenly slipping backwards out of the open door.

Somehow, Clive managed to regain control and steer to the centre of the road, with the truck still pushing at the rear.

Sean rolled to a halt against the railings of the bridge. When he looked back, he saw that the skinheads had stopped at the edge of the bridge, watching the car chase. When they saw Sean, they started to sprint in his direction.

A loud cracking sound came from the rear of the car, as the bumper was ripped from the frame and the truck swerved free.

Sean sprinted as fast as he could towards the German side of the bridge, with the group of skinheads behind giving chase, then suddenly in front of him, the truck stopped and started to turn around.

A signpost above the truck read;
Willkommen im Deutschland
.
Clive was right! They won't cross into Germany.

As the truck straightened up on the bridge, it was about thirty metres ahead of Sean and the skinheads on foot were about the same distance behind him. He was trapped.