The Isis Covenant (15 page)

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ he managed, before the lights went out again.

‘Okay, mister. You have some explaining to do.’

She sat by the assessment bed where Jamie lay bare chested, with various electrical monitors attached to his skin and two enormous bruises merging over his heart. A nurse had drawn the curtains round the bed to allow them some privacy.

‘I suppose I do owe you an explanation,’ he admitted.

‘Damn right you do.’

‘I don’t think this has anything to do with your case.’ He told her about the Raphael and the Sun Stone and the possibility that Howard Vanderbilt had taken out a contract on his life.

‘And you didn’t think to tell me this before?’ The blue eyes flashed dangerously. ‘You didn’t feel it might be a good idea to let me know I might be standing next to a walking shooting gallery.’

‘It was only a remote possibility.’

‘So remote that you went out and bought a bullet-proof vest.’

‘That was in the way of a present,’ he protested. ‘A gift from a Detective Sergeant Shreeves.’

‘Who took the threat seriously enough to send it to you,’ she pointed out.

‘He was only covering his backsi … hedging his bets.’

For a moment he thought she was going to walk out and he knew he would always regret that. He also knew there was nothing he could say that would stop her. She made him wait, but when she spoke again there was authority in her voice. ‘If we’re going to work together, this is the way it goes. You let me know anything, and I mean
anything
, that might have an impact on our personal security and I’ll do the same. Of course,’ she gave him her best bad-cop stare, ‘I haven’t been holding anything back. Okay?’

He nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ll call some folks and see if I can get something done about Vanderbilt. It could take a little time, but they’ll ask a few questions, throw a little weight around and maybe he’ll back off. Meanwhile, is there anything you’d like to get off your chest?’ She pointed at the electrical spaghetti. When they finally finished laughing he told her about the ‘muggers’.

‘That’s exactly what they said?’

‘Exactly.
The man says to back off
.’

‘And you’ve no idea who
the man
is?’

‘None. My first thought was that it might be a message from Vanderbilt.’ He brushed his fingers lightly over his chest and winced. ‘But recent experience suggests that he’s into more direct action.’

‘Could it be to do with anything else you’ve been working on?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve gone back over everything. I’ve made a few enemies, but not that kind of enemy.’

‘Then we have to assume that the man wants us to back off from trying to find out what happened to Berndt Hartmann and, if it exists, the Crown of Isis.’ She pinned him with hard blue eyes. ‘This is my job, Jamie, but there’s no reason for you to get yourself killed. Maybe you should get out now?’

He grinned at her. ‘Not until hell freezes over.’

XVIII

‘WHY DANNY? DANIELLA’S
a perfectly nice name. Or is that what they call you at the precinct? Tough-cop banter?’ All he knew about American police procedure had been learned from a TV programme called
NYPD Blue
, but she didn’t object. The doctor had told him to rest for a couple of days and they’d ended up at his Kensington flat, where to his surprise and delight, one thing had led inevitably to another.

‘It’s been Danny for as long as I can remember. Only person calls me Daniella is my mom. Started out as a joke. I’ve always been tall and skinny and when I’m a kid there’s this short, fat actor; sorta borderline famous, right? So the other kids see me and they shout out, “Here comes Danny de Vito.” Funny, huh?’

‘Maybe not so funny.’

‘I hung out with a crowd of boys, could outjump ’em, outrun ’em and outfight ’em. So it kinda stuck. You thought I was a lesbian, right?’

‘Er, course not?’

‘Don’t worry, happens all the time. A gal tall as me and with no tits has either gotta be a clothes horse – what is a clothes horse, by the way?’ He explained: wooden, railing, hanging for the use of. ‘Right. I like that. Anyways, gal like me has to be some kind of model or a dyke.’

‘I like your tits. They’re small, but perfect. Like rosebuds.’ He leaned over her and took her left nipple in his mouth, sucking it long and slow. She gave a purr of pleasure. Reluctantly, he detached himself. ‘I bet you’re popular with all the girls, though?’

‘Sure.’ She grinned. ‘I have to fight ’em off.’

‘Er … ever not fight hard enough?’

Her nose wrinkled and he thought he’d pushed it too far, but she was only considering what, or what not, to reveal. ‘It’s happened,’ she admitted. ‘Wanna hear about it.’

Well, he did, but the abstract fact of it was already having an obvious effect. ‘Maybe another time.’ He took her hand and drew it to him. ‘But you like this, too.’

‘Oh, yes, I do like that.’ Her fingers closed over him and began to move; a soft fluttering like an angel’s wings. ‘And you like when I do this, right?’

Something like an electric shock ran through him. ‘Mmmmhhh.’

‘And when I do this?’ She lowered her head so that the dark hair fell over his lower body like a silken veil
and
he couldn’t quite believe what was happening down there.

‘Maybe not too much of this,’ he choked. ‘It might spoil the fun for later.’

But she was having far too much fun right at the present to listen to him.

She came out of the shower room wearing his ragged dressing gown and a towel around her head and still managing to look like the Queen of Sheba.

‘So where do we go from here?’

‘You mean
we
as in
us
?’

‘No, idiot.’ She slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Just because you’ve had your wicked way with me doesn’t mean we have to get married.
We
are just doing a little fooling around to pass the time. I mean where do we intrepid investigators go next?’

He picked up the book he’d been reading and showed her the image on the cover. It was a black-and-white shot of a soldier in the act of placing a flag on top of a large building. The flag was the only element in colour: a scarlet background with a yellow hammer and sickle.

‘
Berlin: The Last Hundred Days
,’ she read. ‘Any good?’

‘It has every last detail, but one in particular caught my eye.’ He opened it at the page he’d marked. ‘There.’

‘
As the Russians closed in on the diplomatic quarter an astonishing, almost Medieval, barter system thrived. People would swap a sack of coal they had hoarded
over
the winter for a single egg or a bottle of clean water. A car would not buy a loaf of bread. In one instance, a Wilhelmstrasse jeweller reported how he had been approached by a soldier trying to sell an ancient artefact that could only have come from a museum
. So? It could have been anything.’

‘I know, but Wilhelmstrasse is the street that runs close by Hitler’s bunker. I’ve tried to call Sir William Melrose to find out if he has any more information, but he’s out of the country for a week researching his latest masterpiece. In the meantime, I thought we might go out to Berlin and do a little sleuthing.’

She was rubbing her hair with the towel. She stopped and stared at him. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No, Danny. I’m not.’

‘Jesus, Saintclair, that’s what I call a long shot.’

‘Actually, a long shot is what I’m trying to avoid. I thought if I was in another country I might be a bloody sight harder to hit. Besides, Berlin is where Berndt Hartmann disappeared.’

‘Seventy years ago. You said he was around twenty back then? One way or another he’s old bones now.’

‘You mean you won’t come with me?’

‘I’m here to do a job, Jamie. I didn’t come equipped for a European tour. What would we do for money?’

‘While I was in hospital my lawyer called to let me know the Princess Czartoryski Foundation had agreed an interim payment for finding the Raphael. It’s not
huge
, but it means that, for once, I’m in funds. Look, let’s go. Think of it as a holiday.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘This isn’t just because you want to shack up with li’l ol’ me for a few days, is it?’

Jamie grinned. ‘Guilty as charged, m’lud. To be honest, because of my past experiences, Germany wouldn’t be number one on my holiday destination list, but I’ve always fancied Berlin.’

‘In that case, when do we leave?’

Two days later they were on an early-morning flight out of Gatwick for Berlin. Schonefeld airport caters mainly for budget airlines and is about ten miles from the city centre. It has few facilities that make it an attractive destination, but it does boast an excellent S-bahn link, and less than an hour after walking out of the terminal they reached Friedrichstrasse station. Jamie had chosen a hotel nearby and Danny surveyed the streets as they walked the two hundred yards there.

‘So where is the Berlin Wall from here?’

‘It’s about a quarter of a mile that way. We can go and see it if you like, once we’ve got rid of our luggage. It’s a little too early to check in; maybe we could have lunch?’

‘Sure. We’re in what was the East now, huh? I’d expected something a little greyer.’

Jamie waited until they’d crossed the street. ‘Never underestimate German efficiency. It didn’t take them long to turn communist East Berlin into what passes for a capitalist paradise. Hotels, bars, boutiques, shopping
malls
; they all sprang up within a couple of years. I suspect the place is unrecognizable now to the people who used to live here. This is our hotel.’

It didn’t look much from the outside, but the interior was modern and bright. They left their bags with reception and had a coffee while Jamie retrieved a guidebook from his backpack.

‘I thought we could go along the river, past the station and then come round until we reach the Unter den Linden, before we get back here and, er, freshen up for dinner.’

She laughed at the hint of an invitation in his voice. ‘Freshen up, huh? Is that what we’re calling it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, hefting the bag. ‘And the quicker we get going the quicker we get back.’

They left the hotel and turned right towards the River Spree. ‘If Dornberger and Hartmann escaped from the bunker,’ Jamie explained, ‘the likelihood is they did it the day after Hitler’s suicide when the last survivors of the Charlemagne Division and the bunker guards broke out under the command of the Führer’s deputy, Martin Bormann. This is the road they would have taken.’ He pointed towards the river. ‘Imagine that bridge with a Tiger tank charging across it and hundreds, maybe more than a thousand people, right behind it. It blasts its way through a Russian barricade at the far end before being knocked out by an anti-tank gun, leaving all those behind it exposed to machine guns, mortars and artillery.’

‘It doesn’t seem possible.’ She struggled to equate the image of carnage – the dead and the dying sprawled across the narrow roadway, the tank burning in the distance – with the quaint cast-iron structure flanked by pretty riverside cafés. ‘It all just seems too … tranquil.’

‘Don’t be fooled. On May the first, nineteen forty-five, this was the centre of hell on earth.’

They crossed the bridge and strolled along the riverside walkway westwards past busy bars and restaurants. The golden days of Autumn were just a memory, but it looked as if Berliners refused to be beaten by a little bit of cold and drizzle because the outside tables were all packed. To their left, the far side of the Spree was dominated by the bulk of Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof. The great brick, glass and iron structure looked like a leftover from an earlier industrial age, but Jamie recrossed towards it on a footway beneath the railway bridge.

Danny gave him a look that he’d been getting used to. The one that said:
What the hell are you doing now?

‘General Mohnke, the chap who organized the break-out, was no fool. While Bormann and the rest were trying to fight their way across the Weidendammer Bridge there, Mohnke quietly disappeared with a group of the bunker’s secretaries and walked across this
completely unguarded
footbridge.’

‘Every man for himself, huh?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And did this guy live to fight another day?’

He nodded. ‘I suppose you could say that, but just the one. They were all captured by the Russians the next night.’

They continued round the great curve of the river until a landscape of modern structures in glass, concrete and stainless steel dominated their vision.

‘Wow,’ Fisher said. ‘I’m impressed. Does that building actually cross the river?’

Jamie consulted the tourist guide. ‘I think so, but it’s maybe just an enclosed bridge. According to this, it’s all part of the new government district. The parliament, offices, that sort of thing.

The one I’m really interested in is the big building with the dome. What’s up?’

She’d seemed distracted since they’d crossed the river, stopping occasionally to glance in shop windows and loitering in places where there was nothing to see.

‘I’m not certain yet. Don’t worry. Just keep walking.’

If one thing was guaranteed to make him worry, it was someone telling him not to, but he ignored the urge to look behind him and kept walking, past a broad avenue that opened up to their right, then a huge stone building that overshadowed everything around it.

‘Well, wow again, Saintclair. You make quite a tour guide.’

‘If you think this is good, just wait until we get to the front,’ he promised.

They walked onto a damp lawn as wide as two football fields and stretching far into the distance,
before
turning back to stare at the enormous structure with its Romanesque frontage and glass dome.

‘This is the Reichstag,’ Jamie explained. ‘The building that’s on the cover of our book.’

‘Where Hartmann and Dornberger were fighting the tanks?’

‘No, that’s the Reichschancellery. It was across there.’ He pointed to his right. ‘Way beyond the Brandenburg Gate. This was what the Russians coveted most, though. Stalin had made it his aiming point and told his generals he wanted it by May the first. It turned into a crazy race between Zhukov and Konev that probably wasted the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers. The Germans fought for every room and every floor. When the fighting was over it was left a shattered ruin, but now they’ve completely restored it.’