Shout in the Dark (20 page)

When he used the library computer to do a
web search for professional photographers and visual arts
technicians in Germany, he found the name Bayer.
Otto Bayer of Köln.

An
Internet directory showed Otto Bayer, a photographer, and
Helmut and Monika Bayer, sharing the same address in a small town a
few miles north east of Köln. Otto Bayer. It was a bit of a long
shot, but the son of a photographer might follow his father's
profession. If this Helmut Bayer was the wartime photographer, he
would probably remember a bronze head being recovered from behind
smashed wooden paneling, and know where the monastery
was.

He returned to the hotel to find Karl on
the bed, playing with his home-made dagger while watching a
children
's cartoon in
Italian.

"
Nothing," said Karl, nodding towards the set.

"
The
news
channel!"
Kessel snatched the controller and pressed the button. "We have to
know what's on TV Roma."

Karl laughed loudly. "I don't speak the
language, Herr Kessel. Anyway, you seem pleased with
yourself."

Kessel pushed Karl's legs to one side to
make room on the end of the bed. "It looks as though our man is
called Bayer." He was beginning to wonder if Karl's father had been
deliberately lax in not discovering the name, when he had done his
own investigation some years ago. Of course Rüdi had not been well,
but ill health had not prevented him making incredible plans for
the future of
Achtzehn Deutschland Reinigung
; or to be more accurate, receiving incredible
plans through strange visions. What a shame Rüdi had not devoted
more time to preparing for that future.

"
The world wide web is our friend, Karl. Your father and I
couldn't see the Internet coming, but Phönix plans to use it to
tell the world to come and see his head of Hitler."

"
You mean it will be on public display?" Karl was picking
his ear. "How can he do that without the German
Polizei
locking
him up?"

"
First he'll put a page on the Internet to say the remains
of Hitler's skull will be shown
somewhere
in Germany, but not where. Think of it, Karl. Our
friends in the American Identity movement will come over, and I can
see at least a thousand activists arriving from each European
country. Thousands of hard-line supporters arriving in Germany
hoping to see the Führer's head. Ten thousand minimum. But when I
add the head of Jesus Christ we would draw maybe ... ten times that
figure."

"
A million," said Karl, working out the sum on his
fingers.

"
A hundred thousand, Karl. But there could be over a million
when people realize the authorities are preventing them from seeing
the exact likeness of Christ. Racial purity is a powerful magnet
for our cause. Over half of Germany supports racial purity. The
same goes for most northern European countries."

"
Sounds like Phönix needs you," said Karl, with what might
be a note of admiration.

"
He's just not thinking big enough in only wanting the head
of the Führer. You're right, Karl, Phönix needs me. The press will
be reporting the Shrine worldwide by the time our supporters are
flocking into Germany. Then we use the Internet to tell them to
come to Berlin. Finally, we give the exact location."

"
And the
Polizei
will be there waiting."

"
So they will, Karl, and a million people who see things our
way will overwhelm them. There will be shootings; martyrs. That
will encourage even more of our supporters to come out into the
open. Ten million? Twenty? You know what Hitler called the burning
of the Reichstag in nineteen thirty-three?"

"
A sign from heaven."

"
And he put the blame on the Communists. The fighting in the
streets of Berlin will provide exactly the result we're looking
for. It will demonstrate to the world that
we
have a peaceful, religious aim, and everyone will
see that it is the immigrants and left wingers who are intolerant.
They'll get the blame for the trouble, and it will be like the
destruction of the Reichstag all over again. The people will demand
a new leader."

"
It won't be you, I hope."

"
Phönix, Karl." He ignored the sarcasm. "When you know the
identity of Phönix you'll understand why he's Europe's man for the
Third Millennium."

"
So what do we do now, Herr Kessel?" Karl seemed to be
showing some interest at last.

"
I'm about to phone the Bayers in Köln, and inquire if
Helmut was down here in the war."

He picked up the phone and dialed the number
he had copied from the website directory.

A man's voice answered. "I am Otto Bayer,"
he said in response to Kessel's question. "
Ja
, my father was in Italy in the war. I forget which unit.
He is old and frail now. Why do you want to speak to
him?"

"
I have some questions I'd like to ask."

"
Not now," said the man called Otto. "My father is resting.
I will ask him if is convenient for you to phone later."

Karl was standing close enough to the
phone to overhear the conversation and he shook his head
vigorously. "We'll go and see them, Herr Kessel. If you frighten
the old man on the phone he'll tell you nothing. But don't let him
know we're coming."

Kessel realized that by leaving Rome he
would be out of the reach of Phönix and the senior members of ADR
for a few days. Any time now they'd be contacting him to demand an
explanation as to why he'd become involved with TV Roma. But as
soon as he had the relic -- the real one this time -- he would be
the one to call the tune.

The photographer had still not returned to
the phone. Kessel replaced the receiver. "Very good, Karl. You're
being helpful all of a sudden. We'll get the next train north and
pay Herr Bayer a surprise visit."

The youth was balancing his knife on one
finger. He flicked it high into the air and caught it by the ornate
handle. "I want to get back to Germany, Herr Kessel. I hate
Rome."

IN HIS CAR across the street, Bruno
Bastiani punched the air triumphantly. He pulled the lightweight
headphones from his head and ran a comb through his dyed, thinning
hair. The transmitters were digital, sophisticated and performed
superbly. Many of Rome
's
famous names had unwittingly broadcast their most intimate
conversations through his carefully placed bugs.

He glanced at his watch. Köln. It would
mean an afternoon flight to get to the Bayers
' home in Köln first, but no one stayed
ahead in the press game by sitting on their backsides. Enzo's train
wouldn't arrive in Germany until early tomorrow morning. His
half-brother was the slow fool he'd always been. But how did the
Bayer family in Köln fit into the picture? Were there to be more
flies for their web?

TEN MINUTES later, Kessel came back into
the room.
"Get your
things, Karl!" he shouted. "I've settled the bill, and our train
leaves in forty minutes."

Karl grinned to himself. Herr Kessel was
boasting that he'd tracked some old photographer to Köln. Bonn,
Frankfurt, Köln: did it really matter? Anywhere on the Rhine would
do, with plenty of good German food. Even one of the Ruhr cities
would be better than this disintegrating dump. It could only have
been for strategic reasons that Germany occupied Italy in the
war.

"
Hurry up, Karl!"

Karl Bretz pulled the bedroom door shut for
the last time. He was glad to be seeing the back of this stuffy
room that was no bigger than a cupboard, and be returning to
civilization. Rome was much too hot for anyone with even half a
brain.

"
Karl!"

He refused to be hurried. The Central
Station was only a few minutes away. But perhaps the sooner they
were on the train, the sooner they could get back to
civilization.

"
Coming, Herr Kessel."

THE JOURNEY TO Germany seemed long, just
as it had on the way down, with the economy class seats still short
on support. Kessel constantly shifted his position but was unable
to get comfortable. The only good news was that as the evening, and
then the night wore tediously on, they would be getting closer
to
der
Vaterland
-- the
Fatherland.

He felt in his pocket for the notebook
holding the photograph. The creased picture, showing an SS group
beside broken wooden paneling, still obsessed him. When he was ten,
he had found it in a drawer in his mother's dressing table, along
with some German papers she had snatched from his father's room
when he was murdered by the Gapists in the Via Tasso. On the back,
the man who must be his father had written in German:
Soldiers holding
the bronze head of the statue of Jesus Christ, seen by Eusebius. My
property stolen from me by a Jew and taken to the Vatican.
When she realized what he had
found, his mother became so angry that she screamed at him. He
could still hear the scream now.

"
Where's that monastery, Karl?"

The big skinhead was almost asleep. Other
passengers had been giving the boy distasteful glances ever since
boarding the train in Rome, and frankly his looks were an
embarrassment right now.

"
What, Herr Kessel?"

"
If only we could go back eighteen years to the death of
Canon Levi." Kessel realized he might as well be talking to
himself. "That man did something with my father's property just
before he agreed to sell it to us. The problem is, I wouldn't
recognize that bronze head if it was staring me in the face. It
probably isn't painted white any more. If the picture was clearer
I'd have a better idea of what I'm looking for. The bronze head you
wrecked at TV Roma was rubbish. I'm thinking that the Canon
probably gave the real one back to the monks -- but I don't know
where to find the monastery."

Karl shrugged his shoulders and closed his
eyes again. "I'm sure you're right, Herr Kessel."

Kessel looked across at the sleeping
youth. It didn't matter that Rüdi's son had not been listening.
Just talking aloud had brought the truth home to him -- if he had
no idea where the genuine relic was hidden, neither did the
Vatican.

Chapter
18

Germany

KÖLN STATION, at eight o
'clock on a damp summer morning, was pure
hospitality. The people, the announcements in German, even the
posters seemed to Kessel to be here specially to make him feel
welcome, like long-lost friends on a reunion.

"
We'll find an
Imbiss
for breakfast, Karl." He spoke in a subdued voice. "Then
we'll get down to business."

He took his time eating local rye bread with
cold meat and gherkins, laughing and talking loudly. A German
needed to eat German food and to be seen enjoying it. The rain
descended in a cloud of heavy drizzle, sending streams of
invigorating water down the window panes of the small snack-bar: a
welcome change from the dryness of Rome.

A taxi would normally be out of the
question, but with the possibility of success looming closer,
Kessel indulged himself.

The tall, balding man at the photographic
studio looked to be in his early fifties: too young to be Helmut,
but the right age for a son.

"
Ja
, I
am Otto Bayer," he said cautiously in answer to Kessel's inquiries.
"We were expecting you to phone again, not to call here in person.
So, you think my father served in the army in Italy in the
war?"

"
Where is he? I must... I'd quite like to see him." Kessel
realized he was sounding a little too eager, and slowed
down.

"
You know him?"

"
I believe my father did, Herr Bayer. They almost certainly
served together in Italy."

The small reception area to the photographic
studio was hung with ornately framed photographs of wedding
couples, laughing children, and formidable business men in dark
suits sitting grim faced against somber library backgrounds.
Advertisements for German films, German photo chemicals and German
photographic equipment were spaced in carefully controlled order.
The area showed the meticulous touch of an over-efficient
woman.

"
Then you must meet my father, Herr Kessel. He got through
the war unscathed. His illness now is quite unconnected. You will
excuse me for not being able to recall the exact details of his
military service, but if your father also served in the same
regiment you will understand the reason for that lapse of memory."
The tall, bespectacled man gave the slightest of bows, which Kessel
took as a mark of respect towards his father. Mention of the
Defense
Echelon
, the SS, was
still taboo. "Quite a popular man all of a sudden. Is there some
wartime reunion being planned?"