The Mask of Troy (32 page)

‘And then what?’

‘Then? Then? What
then
?’ Saumerre spat the word out with scorn. ‘You are a sentimentalist, Professor. Not a good Nazi.’

Raitz straightened up, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers. ‘You are wrong. I serve the memory of the Führer. The thousand-year Reich.’

Saumerre looked at him appraisingly. ‘And everything else is dispensable?’

‘Nothing is more important than the cause.’

‘That is exactly how we think too. Maybe we can still do business, Professor. Maybe we can.’ He flipped open his phone. ‘You know this girl, correct? She will recognize you?’

‘As I told you. She came to see me at the institute to talk about the return of that Dürer to Germany. We had lunch. A good Aryan girl, on her father’s side.’

‘Forget that Aryan nonsense. Just remember this. A date, a time, a place. Tomorrow evening, seven p.m., the County Hall Marriott. Her school group is assembling there. You will greet her like an old friend. Pure coincidence that you are there, some academic meeting in the hotel just finished. It concerns Nazi art, your speciality. And you happen to have something extraordinary, something you think her father would be fascinated to know about. She’ll always want to please him. Use that. Tell her you have pictures of a Nazi bunker, full of ancient antiquities.’

‘She’ll have security. That was an issue when she came to see me before. She should have involved IMU security, but she didn’t.’

‘She has no reason to be suspicious of you. And you just said it. She doesn’t like security. There are two entrances to the hotel. One is from Westminster Bridge Road, the main entrance. The other is Belvedere Road. You’ll tell her your car is there. The pictures are locked inside. She only needs to step out on to the pavement. My men will take it from there.’

‘Where will you take her?’

‘Where will
you
take her. You wish to keep my Russian friends from doing her harm? It will be your part of the bargain. I remain anonymous. You will take her out of the country. I will give you instructions. Somewhere close to Dr Howard’s heart. Meanwhile, he and his Greek friend will do a little job for us.
A job from which they will not return
. And I need to be ready to take what they find.’

‘And we will both have what we want.’

‘If it leads us to where I think it will lead us, then you will have your art, for your secret Führermuseum. And I will have my treasure.’

‘And if not?’

‘You doubt me?’

‘I didn’t trust Brandeis. I was trying to tell you. That story from the old Jew. Brandeis wasn’t telling us everything. When you asked whether the German officer had taken anything else with him from Poland. I could see it in his eyes.’

‘Are you weak, Raitz? Was the girl right? You’ve let Brandeis get to you. This is what he wanted you to think. Sow the seeds of doubt. Take your eyes off the prize. Divert you from the cause.’

‘Saumerre.’ Raitz eyed him. ‘You may think me naïve, but I have a first-class mind. I insist that you tell me the full story. You told me enough to convince me to join you. But now we’re playing a different game. There’s been a murder, and I’m involved in it. I insist you tell me. If you want me to remain on course.’

Saumerre stood for a moment, then went over and peered through the door. He shut and locked it, then came back to Raitz and spoke quietly. ‘When we met in the British Museum, I mentioned the story my grandfather told me. The reason I believe Brandeis’ story is that the account he had from the old Jew chimed so closely with my grandfather’s account. The Dutchman just couldn’t have made it up. The camp is one and the same, the labour camp where my grandfather survived by working as a cook. That document I gave you with the swastika, with the Agamemnon Code stamp, came from the same Luftwaffe officer. My grandfather must have stumbled across his body just before the other man. He remembered other documents in the man’s pockets, but this one looked important and he just took it and ran. He was a profiteer, and desperate, grabbing anything he might sell, or use as a bargaining chip. But this is what I haven’t told you yet. Do you swear . . .’

‘Of course,’ Raitz whispered. ‘
Of course
. I swear on the soul of the Führer. I will tell nobody.’

‘My grandfather went into the forest. He hid there. He said it was a fearful place, with SS guards and former inmates trying to kill each other. He was desperate for food. He found a bunker. He saw a man go in and out, not someone he recognized. He followed him once into the bunker, hoping to find food. What he saw there was beyond your wildest dreams. All of the great lost works of art are there. A veritable shrine to your Führer. But there was another room. That room contains what I want. In the door he saw an impressed swastika shape in a roundel. A reverse swastika. It was a keyhole. Some kind of magnetic key.’

‘And you think the key is what’s hidden in the mine,’ Raitz whispered.

‘My grandfather had only a few moments inside the bunker before he crept out. The next day he saw two Allied officers go in with the man. The door shut itself and they never came out. He thought he might have heard a gunshot inside. Then the weather got worse and he had a bad feeling. He had just reached the edge of the forest that evening when it began to rain bombs.’

‘My God. The bunker is still there?’

‘Buried under a NATO airbase.’

‘Have you tried to see how we might get there?’

‘That’s the next stage.’

‘This is wonderful,’ Raitz said, his concerns about the Dutchman forgotten. ‘This serves your cause. And my cause.’

‘And what is that?’

‘The thousand-year Reich,’ Raitz said reverently, clumsily clicking his heels.

‘
Jazaka Allahu Khairan
,’ Saumerre replied, closing his eyes.

Raitz stared at him. ‘What does that mean?’

Saumerre opened his eyes. They were burning with fervour. He stared at Raitz, then seemed to remember where he was, and relaxed. ‘I was forgetting myself. I am a Muslim, you remember, on my father’s side, Algerian. It means good luck.
May Allah reward us with good
. It’s just an expression. Now, I can still smell that Jew. We have arrangements to make. Let’s get out of here.’

 

T
he Turkish navy crewman opened the throttle on the outboard and the Zodiac boat roared away, digging a trough in the sea and then rising above it to skim towards the distant grey shape of the minesweeper. Jack grasped the railing and leaned out through the stern of
Seaquest II
’s internal docking bay, a hangar-sized space open to the sea below that allowed diving and submersible launch in virtually any conditions. Today the sea had been unusually calm, a sluggish low swell occasionally ruffled by the early-afternoon breeze, and Captain Macalister had kept the stern door open. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relishing the breeze, the tang of salt, the whiff of two-stroke exhaust. These were the smells he had associated with diving all his life, the smells that meant he was in the right place, doing the right thing. He felt a burst of adrenalin. It had been a frustrating morning, as they had negotiated the best way to remove the mine from the shipwreck. But now they were back on course, and he could focus again on what he was about to see on the sea bed, a find that almost beggared belief, the extraordinary remains of a galley from the Trojan War.

Costas came up alongside, wiping his oily hands on a rag, wearing torn working overalls with tools poking out of the pockets. He followed Jack’s gaze, and looked wistfully at the Zodiac as it receded into the distance. ‘It should have been me,’ he said. ‘Defusing that mine. It makes me feel empty inside.’

‘Not as empty as you’d feel if it had gone off while you were hugging it.’

‘Speaking of which.’ Costas pointed out to sea, and Jack saw that the Zodiac had come to a stop, perhaps a mile from the minesweeper. Two men came up behind them, Mustafa Alkozen, the IMU Turkish liaison, and Ben Kershaw, the ship’s security chief. Mustafa, a muscular, bearded man with a deep voice, had a two-way radio receiver clamped to his ear. He took it down. ‘Captain Macalister has just been informed by the captain of
Nusbat
. One minute.’ The ship’s klaxon sounded to warn the crew to brace for impact. They were well outside the danger zone, but Macalister was taking no chances. Jack looked out into the haze off the bows of the minesweeper, two, maybe two and a half nautical miles distant, Gallipoli just visible in the background, the coast of Troy to the right. Suddenly there was a wobble in the sea and a white ripple that flashed outwards, followed by a geyser of spray. Seconds later he felt something, barely discernible, as if a ghost had passed through them. ‘That was the shock wave, this far away,’ Costas said, shaking his head. ‘Imagine those guys in the Turkish minelayer in 1915, snagging one of those things. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

Jack turned to Mustafa, smiled broadly and shook his hand. ‘Thanks again. That was excellent liaison. I’d like to have some of their guys dive with us, once the excavation gets under way.’

‘You have a standing invitation to the Turkish naval academy for dinner, you know that. You and Costas. You’ll be very well looked after.’

‘I know about Turkish hospitality. I’d be delighted. I’ve got some good friends there from my navy days, and now some more. Once we’re up and running.’

Ben nodded at Jack. He was a small, wiry man, with a quiet voice, British ex-special forces. ‘They should have let you take out that mine with the Webley.’

‘You kidding? You should have seen me yesterday. All over the place.’

‘I was watching from the bridge. Not a bad final shot.’

‘Pure fluke. I’d given up trying.’

‘That’s often the key. It’s what I tell Rebecca. Stop trying so hard, relax.’

‘She’s a better shot than me.’

Ben grinned. ‘You better watch it, Jack. She’ll be taking over.’ He stood quietly for a moment, a little awkward. ‘I meant to say. I really would have gone with her to London, you know. You just had to say the word. She’s . . . a really good kid. Hard to think what it was like on board without her. My guys would do anything for her. You know that.’

‘I know.’ Jack put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. ‘And I appreciate it. Really do. She thinks of you guys, the crew, as an extended family. It’s the best thing for me to see, especially after what she’s gone through.’

Ben nodded. He patted a bulge in his jacket. ‘I’ve done those reloads for you. Took the bullet weight down a notch, two hundred and sixty-five grains. That should do the trick. Wouldn’t mind having a go myself.’

‘See you on the foredeck after dinner?’

‘You’re on.’ Ben waved, and he and Mustafa walked back through the jumble of equipment. Jack turned to Costas. ‘So what’s the story with my Aquapod?’

Costas exhaled forcibly, shaking his head. ‘Can’t work it out.’

Jack looked at him incredulously. ‘I didn’t hear you say that.’

‘Jeremy and I spent half the night on it. He’s got a real knack. Sees things like you do, sees the whole problem first and then deconstructs it. Too many engineers are the other way round, too logical. I can’t really understand what made him leave engineering to study ancient languages, for God’s sake.’

Jack grinned. ‘Same kind of challenges. Just less oily.’

‘The problem’s not a safety issue. It’s the external link on the intercom. We can communicate between the Aquapods, but you can’t link to the outside. We think it might be pressure-related. Only way to find out is to take it down.’

‘Fine by me. I never liked talking much underwater anyway. That’s the problem with all these submersibles. Diving’s about getting away from that. Just you and your breathing.’

‘It’s hard enough getting you to say anything at the best of times when you’ve seen something on the sea bed. Some fishermen holler when they’ve got a fish on. Some go silent, like a dog on a scent. You’re definitely the silent type.’

Jack smiled, then turned back and leaned out, feeling the breeze again, watching the occasional spray of whitecaps on the swell. ‘I was just thinking of Lanowski.’

‘Don’t. Please God, don’t.’

‘Seriously.’

‘You mean out there? The ripple effect from that mine. The shock wave. What he said about earthquakes.’

Jack nodded. ‘If something like that mine can produce a discernible shock wave two miles away, imagine what an earthquake might have done in 1200 BC. I don’t just mean our shipwreck. I mean a huge wave, an actual wave of water, hitting Troy. And watching the Zodiac go made me remember what he said about horses.’

‘When I nearly went to get a straitjacket.’

Jack shook his head. ‘He was right. I knew he was on to something. I just had to let it gel. It’s blindingly obvious. You remember he said the Greek word,
ippoi
, horses, could be used to mean waves, whitecaps, and also ships?’

‘Sure.’

‘Think of another horse.’ Jack jerked his hand to shore. ‘This place. Troy. Horse.’

‘Well. The Trojan Horse, obviously. But . . .’ Costas’ jaw dropped. ‘Holy cow.’

Jack turned to him, his eyes blazing. ‘That’s the point. That’s what Lanowski was driving at. The Trojan Horse wasn’t a horse.
It was a ship
.’

‘But what about Homer?’

‘Homer? The story of the Trojan Horse isn’t even in Homer. It’s only known from those later epic fragments. No way was Homer going to include a story of a wooden horse in the
Iliad
. He was far too great a poet for that. The story demeans the Trojans, makes Priam look ridiculous. What kind of enemy worth fighting is going to be duped by a gift like that? To make a great epic poem work, the enemy must be equal to yourselves. But that’s not to say the Trojan
ippos
didn’t happen. It was a terrifying event, truly the linchpin. But it was part of a different story, the story of the fall of Troy, the
Ilioupersis
. A poem Homer wrote but never revealed.’