A Thousand Suns (40 page)

Truman’s eyes remained on Wallace, studying his reaction, looking for uncertainty in the young man’s response. If there was doubt or any indecision in his response, he supposed the young man would not be suitable . . . and he too would be a potential liability to deal with.

‘Whatever it takes, sir?’

Truman nodded. ‘Well? Do you think you’re up to it?’

In the darkness, outside the motel rooms, in response to that question asked over sixty years earlier, Wallace nodded with satisfaction. He
had
been up to it.

His eyes picked out the headlights of the van as it exited the interstate off the slip road, disappeared momentarily behind some trees and then, seconds later, cruised quietly past the diner and on to the parking lot in front of the motel rooms. The headlights winked off and the van rolled silently forward, the engine switched off, using the last of the vehicle’s momentum. It came to a rest a few yards from where Wallace waited in the shadows.

His men had taken their damned time.

He had called them from the diner’s toilet over two hours ago. He was lucky this man Chris and his friend hadn’t a clue who they had in their care. In fact, after his initial fear of the impromptu ‘rescuing’ had passed, Wallace had begun to find the whole situation rather amusing.

It had been an appalling
fuck-up
, his men being caught out like that, allowing these two amateurs to best them and escape into the night. And then, to make matters worse, abduct him shortly afterwards, right under their noses. But, despite the fact that shots had been fired, and there were some people who had witnessed what had happened, it had worked itself out all right. Here they were, somewhere remote and quiet, and now it was time to tidy things up once more.

As he had waited for his men to arrive, Wallace had contacted the dive team. The deed was done, the
package
had been dropped into deeper waters. So, it was finally done, the only
real
evidence of the event was gone. All that was left now to think about was what these two amateurs might decide to say and do.

Wallace beckoned to the two men sitting inside the van to follow him and approached the motel rooms. Both men gently stepped out of the van, leaving the doors open rather than make a noise closing them. They came to a halt outside cabin five and Wallace raised a hand, an indication that they should wait right there.

It was silent now, except for the occasional whisper of a passing car on the nearby interstate, and the hum of the neon light above the motel cabins. There were no other guests tonight, only Chris Roland’s car in the parking lot . . . and the anonymous-looking black van.

Wallace studied the door in front of him. It had a flat-key lock, little more than a springed latch.

He turned to his men, motionless silhouettes in the dark poised for action, and pointed to the lock. The older of his two men, the grey-haired man who used the name ‘Jimmy’ for this particular contract, approached the lock and quietly produced an adjustable lock-pick, cradling it carefully so that the metal parts didn’t jangle. Deftly he inserted it into the lock and twisted it, feeling the resistance and adjusting the spacing of the teeth until the pick approximated the profile of the lock. It opened with the lightest of clicks. He nodded to Wallace to let him know that it was done and then took a step back.

Inside, Wallace could hear the faint rustling of rhythmic breathing. Chris Roland was in a deep sleep.

All the better, then
.

He didn’t want a discussion with the guy, he needed time to think, not talk. If he was going to do it himself once more, he’d rather put a single cap into his unconscious head than endure a startled plea for mercy. Not something he was particularly keen to experience again.

He approached the side of the bed, feeling his way cautiously with one foot in front of the other. A shard of amber light from the arc lamp outside fell across the bed and picked out the English guy’s face.

Wallace smiled as he looked down on Chris sleeping deeply, no doubt dreaming of fame and glory and journalistic prizes. A smile spread across Wallace’s lips, not of compassion, but of satisfaction. The job was nearly done . . . just this last thing.

Truman had asked him all those years ago if he thought he could do the job.

Damned right he could. He had seen it through right up until now. There was only one name left on that list of Those Who Knew, one person left alive who had lived through the events of that day, and that last name was
his
. When his time was up, and if he was honest with himself, that wasn’t going to be too much longer now, there really would be no one left to tell the story.

It would die right alongside him. He had fulfilled Truman’s brief absolutely to the letter.

There was something about that thought that filled Wallace with an odd feeling of loss. The job needed finishing up with a single bullet into this man’s head, and that of his friend’s, and their bodies disposed of. That would be the end of it all. And then, with the few months he had left, he would need to close down the Department, shred what was left of file n-27, empty the safe that sat in the corner of his now rarely used office of the last of the money and close the door once and for all on that mezzanine floor.

There would be something poetically final about that; finishing off a job well done.

But it was the finality that troubled him. Once he had done away with these two young men, it would just be him once more. The last person . . . the only person to know.

A very lonely responsibility.

Chris stirred and muttered in his sleep and turned over. Wallace raised his gun and lined it up on the back of Chris’s head.

There was something else to bear in mind. Killing him now, after the unfortunately noisy skirmish earlier this evening, might result in some awkward complications he wasn’t sure he could square away with the money he had left. Making these two men vanish wasn’t going to be as easy as it once was. Those gunshots in the dark back in that sleepy little seaside town might attract the interest of some slack-jawed local law enforcement officer. But a murder? That would mean the FBI would get to stick its nose in, and frankly, with whatever time he had left, Wallace didn’t want to be worrying about a knock on his door and a visit from the G-men.

I could let him go
.

There was nothing left of the story for Chris Roland. No bomb, no photographs of a bomb, no eyewitnesses, no testimonies, nothing. There was now just the plane and two skeletons dressed in shreds that might possibly be recognised as a Luftwaffe uniform; an intriguing story perhaps, but nothing that would lead anywhere. There was nothing that could be substantiated.

With a shudder of dawning realisation, the old man could see the job was already done. The secret was now safe. He decided that leaving it like this was tidy enough as far as he was concerned. And anyway, there was something about this bumbling British amateur he had grown to like.

He lowered his gun.

Your lucky night.

Wallace reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out, something he had kept close to himself for sixty years, something he had once upon a time prised loose from the stiff grasp of a dead boy called Sean Grady, lying amidst blood-spattered ferns. It jingled ever so slightly as he lifted it carefully out and placed it softly on the bedside table.

You can have that, my young friend
.

Wallace felt strangely light, as if the small metal disc and the chain attached to it had been a weighty shackle. It glinted in the amber light streaking in from the lamp outside. Wallace had never really understood why he had taken it off the dead boy. It was evidence, of course, something that really shouldn’t be found. He should have destroyed it. But instead he had kept it all these years, perhaps as a reminder of how ruthless he had once been, and might need to be again? Perhaps out of a sense of guilt - that boy, the young girl and her teacher in New York, none of them deserved to die . . . but they really had to.

Wallace felt his throat tighten and a momentary welling of a confused, unidentifiable emotion. He struggled to fight it down and put a lid back on it.

This young man can have it, he thought. On its own, the little disc could tell no one anything, but in some odd way, to the old man, it felt like he was passing on the baton, the secret, to someone else to keep close, to cherish.

Wallace eased his way back towards the door and slipped quietly outside. He turned to the motionless dark shapes of his hired men gathered by the doorway.

‘We’re done here,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter 61

Going Home

The surf rolled across the pebbles and came to a reluctant halt a few inches away from his trainers, before drawing back with a hiss of frustration. Chris looked up at grey clouds rolling across the mid-morning sky. It was going to rain pretty soon. Another rainy day to join the other seven he’d endured out here amidst the coastal wilderness of Rhode Island.

He looked down at the object in his hand, the dog tag with the serial number on it, and the German name: OberLt Kleinmann M. That’s all he had left now.

‘Fuck it.’

That bastard Wallace had stitched him up. He had discovered that fantastic bit of news first thing this morning when he had gone to open his door to step outside and spotted the note pushed through underneath the draught flap.

It’s not going to make a great news story without any pictures or evidence is it? By now, what you discovered beneath the sea will be long gone. So why not let it go? It’s no longer a news story . . . it’s just a story now. Hell, it might even make a good book one day. I’ll be watching you. W.

The wily old bastard had played Chris like a fiddle - cosying up and playing new best friend, while all the time, behind his back, his bloody hired thugs were hoovering up the evidence. Now he was starting to wonder how much of what Wallace had told him was the truth anyway, and how much of it was just a yarn he had spun to keep Chris out of his motel room long enough for his men to sweep it thoroughly.

He could dive again on the wreck, but something told him that all he would find this time would be the plane . . . he was sure even the bodies would be gone.

He kicked at the sand with frustration. It would have been a great story. Better than Nixon and Watergate, better than Bush and Bin Laden, the Hitler Diaries. It would have set him up for life.

Nazi Germany Came Within an Ace of Nuking New York
- the sort of tagline that would give a tabloid editor a permanent hard-on. He could have licensed the picture of the bomb itself for hundreds of thousands to the right publication.

But it was pointless beating himself up like this. There were no pictures now, thanks to that old bastard. It was game over.

How about counting your blessings, Chris, me old mate?

‘Yeah? And what blessings would those be, exactly?’ he muttered.

People have been known to go missing for knowing a whole lot less
.

Perhaps there was some truth in that. If that shit Wallace really had been a government spook he could surely have made him and Mark just vanish. Those men who had jumped him in his motel room had come within a few moments of wasting him. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. If that old man Wallace - if that was his name - had really been their boss,
shit
. . . he and Mark were pretty lucky to have woken up this morning.

And they had been in his room last night. God knows, while he’d been sleeping like a baby, they must have been standing over him, guns raised, aimed at his face, and he could imagine Wallace silently doing an
eeny-meenyminy-mo
.

Chris heard the Cherokee’s horn. Mark was getting impatient. He wanted to get the hell out of here. Chris couldn’t blame him.

It was time to head back to New York. Elaine Swisson was going to go ballistic when he turned up empty-handed. He knew damn well if he switched his mobile back on, there would be a dozen frantic messages from her, that deadline almost upon them. He wondered what exactly he was going to tell the woman. Perhaps he could come up with something between now and hitting New York.

Well, Elaine, I’ll tell you what happened. A legal eagle from the US Air Force paid me a visit and asked me not to exploit what they consider to be a war grave . . . and they suggested they might take legal action if the pictures appeared in the public domain. So I guess we’re screwed
.

Chris nodded. That would probably do it.
News Fortnite
readers generally seemed to be of the blue-rinse variety or elderly, medal-wearing vets. If the mention of legal action didn’t cool her enthusiasm, the possibility of alienating her readers would. He wasn’t looking forward to lying to her. He respected Elaine, but the lie would keep things uncomplicated.

Chris decided he would hand some of the advance back to the magazine, and keep a couple of thousand to cover the costs he had incurred in the last week, including paying Mark. That seemed to be the best he could do in the circumstances. And once he’d dealt with Elaine, he was going to have to drop Mark back home in Queens and then return the car to Hertz.

After that, he fancied maybe he would grab a plane at JFK and go back home to London. The old man, Wallace, was right about one thing, though - it might make for a good book. He could always have a go, write up the tale Wallace had told him, as a work of fiction, of course.

Chris turned the dog tags over in his hand and studied the name stamped into the brass surface. He had found them on his bedside table, a parting gift from Wallace.

‘M. Kleinmann, I guess whatever it is you did, or didn’t do, is . . . well, I suppose it just never happened.’

He turned away from the sea, as rolling surf once more reached out for his feet. He began to make his way back across wet pebbles and drying sand towards grass-topped dunes and the roadside beyond, where Mark was gunning the engine impatiently.

Without a story behind it, it was nothing but a disc of brass with a name stamped in it. He ran his finger across the indented name one last time before tossing it away as he took a step up out of the dunes and headed across hard gravel towards the jeep.

The little brass disc rolled down the side of the dune, gathering a miniature avalanche of loose sand in its wake. With a gentle tap, it came to rest against the base of a weathered, old, wooden cross that poked out of the sand and was embraced by the coarse grass. The cross had been crudely fashioned from two pieces of driftwood nailed together a long time ago, but had stood the test of time. Engraved on the coarse wood by a boy with a penknife was a simple sentence. The letters now were worn by the elements, scoured by wind-borne sand, but still legible, just:

Here was found the body of an unknown airman.

Died April, 1945
.