The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (16 page)

Alban stared back at Davenport for several seconds. Then without a word, he turned on his heel and stamped from the room. The other men followed without comment.

The sound of their footsteps on the stairs outside had died away before Guy found his voice. ‘Thank you. That was some bluff.’

Davenport seemed amused. ‘Who said I was bluffing?’

‘Well, you sure convinced them,’ Sarah said. ‘But how did you get that forged paper?’

‘Forged paper?’ he seemed scandalised. ‘I can assure you it is quite genuine.’

Pentecross felt as if the world was spinning around him. ‘But – that would mean…’

‘It means I work for Colonel Brinkman, yes,’ Davenport said. ‘He asked me to have a little chat with you both to see if I thought you could be useful. You’re certainly tenacious, but he wondered if it would be advantageous to bring you into the fold rather than have you trying to sneak in under the fence, as it were. For what it’s worth, my assessment is that it would. Miss Manners will have your transfer orders out by breakfast tomorrow, so if you could both report to Station Z at oh-nine-hundred sharp, that would be helpful. You know where it is. We’ll be expecting you.’

EVERYWHERE WAS STONE
. The pillars that held up the vaulted ceiling, the floor, the circular table in the heart of the chamber. Dark smoke curled from the flame of a black candle that stood in the round recess at the centre of the table. Other candles nestled in niches set into the pillars and the walls. Flickering lights and pools of shadow conspired to hide the dimensions and shape of the chamber.

The table was huge – large enough for twelve figures to be arranged round it. They lay on low metal-framed beds, their feet close to the table and heads angled away from it so that if they were somehow raised up, they would be looking at the black candle.

But they barely moved. Eyes closed, faint breath misting the cold subterranean air and susurrating like a faint winter breeze. Candlelight glinted on the glass vessels upended on metal stands beside each bed, reflections distorted by the clear liquid that dripped down tubes and into the left forearm of each of the sleepers. The right arm of each sleeper was folded across the chest, over the single thin sheet that covered but didn’t disguise the nakedness of the figures. Six male, six female. Several were elderly, one was a boy of about twelve. Most were white, fair-haired, discovered in the ranks of the Hitler Youth and its associated League of German Girls or recruited from the SS itself.

Georg Kruger wore a white coat over his black uniform. As he moved, the candles cast broken shadows of him across the floor and the table. Angular and sharp, like his features – slightly hooked nose, high forehead, thinning grey hair. He went from each bed to the next, checking the drip was properly in place, gently opening an eyelid with his thumb to see if the pupil was dilated, listening to the rhythm of the breathing…

Satisfied, Kruger paused for a last look at the sleepers, then nodded and strode quickly from the room.

Hoffman stood with Himmler at the back of the chamber. The acrid candle smoke caught in Hoffman’s throat, and he struggled not to cough. They watched but took no part in the ceremony. It never failed to astonish Hoffman that these rituals actually worked. He had not been there when they first linked to the original Ubermensch, but he had read the file. He’d seen the film.

No one filmed it this time, but Hoffman suspected the woman who now entered the room had watched the first ceremony several times in the last few hours. The Seer was old and stooped. The robes she wore looked like a witch’s cowl. She shuffled along arthritically, struggling to keep the red velvet cushion she carried level. Making sure the bronze bracelet that rested on it did not slip off.

Behind her, more cloaked figures entered the chamber. They positioned themselves round the outside of the circle of sleepers. The Seer moved slowly from bed to bed, holding the bracelet on its cushion level with her glazed eyes. Mumbling under her breath.

The other figures joined in, quietly at first but louder and louder until the words became a chant that echoed off the stone walls. The words were guttural and harsh, nothing that Hoffman recognised.

‘It is interesting, isn’t it?’ Himmler said quietly to Hoffman, not taking his eyes off the Seer. ‘Is the bracelet a charm, to be awoken by the intonation of a spell? Or are we witnessing a technology so advanced it is controlled by voice, and the
words of power are no more mystical than the press of a switch or the positioning of a lever?’

The chanting faded. The Seer placed the bracelet on its cushion on the table. She stepped back, intoning one last phrase. The bracelet flickered and shone in the candlelight. As her words died away, the candle flame leaped upwards. Hoffman felt the heat of it even across the chamber. Then the flame went out.

A moment later, the rest of the candles snuffed out as if an abrupt wind had gusted from the central table. Sudden darkness. The only light was from the bracelet – still flickering and shining, as if reflecting the light from candle flames that were no longer there.

Harsh white overhead lamps glared on, a sudden contrast to the guttering candles. In an instant the chamber was transformed from shadowy and inchoate to bright and defined. The robed figures now seemed out of place. They bowed and left, the Seer hobbling after them. She paused in the doorway, looking back awkwardly at Hoffman and Himmler. Her face was wizened, the same texture as the weathered stone wall behind her.

Himmler ignored her. The woman’s job was done and he had probably dismissed her from his thoughts already. ‘Hoffman,’ he prompted.

Hoffman clicked his heels in salute, and marched to the table. ‘Do we know which one?’

The answer came from the old woman still lingering in the doorway. ‘It could be any of them. Or none of them.’ Her voice was as cracked and worn as her features.

Again, Himmler ignored her. Hoffman glanced across to see her shuffle out. The door swung slowly shut behind her.

‘Start with the boy,’ Himmler instructed.

Hoffman lifted the bracelet from its cushion, careful to hold it only by the edges. Even in the bright room he could see the inner glow, as if light was filtering through the silver tracery. He expected it to be warm, but it was cold to the touch. He sprung the bracelet open, and turned to the boy in the bed beside the table.

Himmler watched impassively as Hoffman lifted the boy’s right hand, and closed the bracelet over the thin, pale wrist.

Nothing.

Himmler nodded as if he had expected this. He made no comment, so Hoffman moved to the next bed. A young woman lay beneath the white sheet. Her features were soft and delicate, framed by a mass of blonde curls. Hoffman lifted her hand from her chest, exposing the shape of her body beneath, the sheet moving slightly as she breathed, breasts rising and falling. He hoped it wouldn’t be her, holding his own breath as he closed the bracelet round her wrist.

There was a slight stutter in her breathing. But then the rhythm was restored. She slept on, oblivious.

Hoffman repeated the process with the elderly man in the next bed. His wrist was dry and bony, like a brittle stick.

Himmler stepped closer to watch. ‘He was a farmer, you know.’

No reaction to the bracelet. Hoffman moved to the next bed.

‘His wife came to us, or rather to the Gestapo. She said he was a witch because he always knew what the weather would be like the next day, even the next week. The experience of a good farmer, you might say… But someone was alert enough to give him the test. And here he is.’

The woman in the next bed was almost as old. Still nothing.

‘Ah now this man is interesting,’ Himmler said. He stood at the end of the bed, by the young man’s head. The sleeper’s hair was dark and longer than the other men’s. He was unshaven, a stubbly beard sprouting from his chin. His eyebrows were dark and heavy.

‘Not a volunteer,’ Hoffman guessed.

‘An Italian, I forget where from exactly. But he was reading Tarot cards in the local bar. When his readings started to come true…’

‘He was sent here,’ Hoffman said. As he spoke, he felt the bracelet tremble slightly in his fingers. He almost dropped it. ‘It could be him.’

‘Let us see.’

Hoffman lifted the man’s wrist. His forearm was tanned, coarse with dark hair. Hoffman closed the bracelet on the man’s wrist, and let it fall back across his chest. His heart leaped in his chest as the man’s eyes snapped open. He stared up at Hoffman, his face filled with confusion and terror. His mouth twisted open, letting out a sudden shriek of pain.

The bracelet glowed brighter, clamping tightly round the man’s wrist. Sharp spines sprang out from inside the bracelet, curving back inwards to clamp into the man’s wrist – digging deep into his flesh. Blood oozed out, running from each incision, soaking into the sheet.

Then the man’s eyes glazed over. He sat up, the bloodied sheet peeling away from his chest and pooling round his waist. His right hand jerked and spasmed, moving across the folds of thin cotton, back and forth.

Himmler hurried to an alcove, returning with several sheets of thick cartridge paper and a pencil. He pushed the paper beneath the man’s hand, and thrust the pencil between his fingers.

The hand continued to move across the paper. The man stared into space. Blood congealed round the bracelet, smearing over the paper as the man shaded it black and red.

‘Just darkness,’ Hoffman said. ‘No detail. No image. Perhaps the connection hasn’t worked?’

‘Perhaps,’ Himmler said. He watched transfixed, the light from above a glare on the lenses of his spectacles, so that it looked as though his eyes were shining white.

‘It might be like a radio wave,’ Hoffman went on. ‘If the bracelet isn’t receiving properly… We had one Viewer who connected to the first Ubermensch without the need for a bracelet.’

‘I remember,’ Himmler said evenly. ‘His images were vague… distorted.’

‘Could the bracelet be damaged?’

Himmler shook his head. ‘No. It is working perfectly. He draws what the Ubermensch sees.’

‘He draws nothing,’ Hoffman said. The paper was almost completely shaded.

‘He sees darkness. That is good.’

‘It is?’

‘It suggests the Ubermensch has not yet awoken.’

In darkness so complete it was palpable, the same words echoed in emptiness. The voice was different, but the guttural sounds, the expression, the
shape
of the language was just as when the Seer spoke the litany at Wewelsburg.

A tiny blink of light in the dark. The faintest shape of a symbol glowed into life, like an ancient rune cut out of a black curtain to let light through from another world.

A second shape gleamed beside the first. Then another… A series of runic symbols stretching out as if carved into the darkness itself.

Words… Phrases…

Instructions.

WORKING FAR BENEATH
the main building, Elizabeth Archer had no way of knowing what was happening above her, and with no windows she easily lost track of the time. It was not unusual for her to be the last person working at the British Museum. Many of the staff had been shipped out along with the artefacts. Plans had been drawn up for ‘evacuating’ the museum’s contents back in 1934 – which Elizabeth thought was rather forward thinking for an institution dedicated to looking into the past.

It was after midnight when she finally finished cataloguing a set of ancient scrolls unearthed in a remote region of India. She made a token effort to tidy her desk before leaving. The electric lights snapped off instantly at the press of a switch plunging the cavernous space beneath the Great Court into darkness. When Elizabeth first came here, it was lit by gas – a softer, less invasive light that gave the whole place a more moody and dangerous atmosphere. There was something about the bright whiteness of the electric lights that dispelled the feeling of history and age. It reduced everything to the more commonplace and mundane.

But she knew from experience that there was little here that was common or usual. As she made her way carefully up the steep steps, holding on to the metal railing set into the brickwork, she remembered how she used to run up and down
these stairs. It didn’t seem that long ago. She didn’t feel any older, not really. Just slower. But she looked at young Edward – now in his seventies – and she saw in him a reflection of her own mortality. Saw in him memories of younger, happier times before she was widowed…

The muffled thump of falling bombs and the constant drone of aircraft high above grew louder and more distinct as she neared ground level. She had hoped to be away before the bombing started. Now she would have to forget the idea of a taxi and get to the tube. Deep in the cellarage Elizabeth was probably safer than in a shelter, but up here…

As she locked the door to the stairway behind her, Elizabeth became aware of another sound, closer than the bombs. A scraping, banging sound from somewhere nearby – one of the storerooms, probably. It would be just like Eddie to spend the night unpacking the latest acquisitions, keen to see what had arrived. Perhaps it was whatever Davenport had brought in.

A dark figure, barely more than a silhouette, hurried towards her down the corridor.

‘Mrs Archer – is it you making that racket?’

It was one of the night staff. Several of them had a rota to keep watch in case a bomb hit the museum, ready to raise the alarm and act as firemen. His features became clear as he moved under a light – receding, dark hair and a stubby nose. Harry, she thought his name was.

‘Not guilty,’ she said. ‘It’s probably Young Eddie.’

Harry shook his head. ‘Mr Hopkins left over an hour ago.’

The sound started up again – hammering, and then a splintering of wood.

‘It’s coming from down here…’

Harry hurried to one of the doors and threw it open. Moonlight shone in through a skylight. An orange glow lit the lower edges of the glass as tonight’s fires began to take hold.

‘No,’ Harry said as Elizabeth reached for the light switch. ‘Blackout, remember.’