The Ultimate Secret Read online

  He nodded. “Human, fresh, more than one person. There’s also recent bullet scars on the walls” – his hand brushed the bricks – “and this...”

  He bent to pick up a white lozenge, about the size of his palm. It was one of several dozen scattered at their feet.

  “Soap?” she asked, squinting at it. She looked up at him, her ivory, heart-shaped face shocking in the cold light. “There was a firefight... over soap?”

  “Or someone didn’t want a shower.” He gestured at the steel door at the base of the steps, which was rubber-sealed all around, and locked from the outside with a heavy iron wheel.

  “I don’t...”

  “Can’t you smell it?”

  She looked down and cocked her head, sniffing the air and concentrating. For several long seconds, she stood unmoving. A light breeze blew through the camp, whistling softly at the edge of hearing. Ivan stared at her intently.

  “I smell... chlorine... detergent... and something else... prussic acid?”

  “Yes. And under that?”

  She frowned again, closing her eyes. “I smell... I – oh, God...” Suddenly her eyes were wide open. “What have they done here?”

  He raised his hand to the wheel. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  ROME, THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ITALY, 1998

  THE FRENCH SOLDIERS guarding the other side of the checkpoint barely registered Giacomo’s presence, nodding at him as he passed them into Rome. He hunched his shoulders against the chill and trotted into the gathering dark, acknowledging the greetings – and occasional jeers and catcalls – of the young men and women passing him, and made his way towards the Ponte Vittorio.

  A fine mist had sprung up, slicking the cobbles and making them treacherous underfoot, fogging up Giacomo’s lenses so that he had to remove and polish them every few minutes. Barrel-fires were springing up all over the city, and in the baleful, flickering light, the masked figures were starting to look sinister, even demonic. The drink had begun to flow, and the revellers were singing, dancing, hooting and capering in the street.

  Most seemed to assume that his habit was a costume, laughing and demanding to know why he didn’t have a mask. A tall girl in a fox mask, no more than half his age, seized him and kissed him sloppily on the mouth, slurring and breathing grappa into his face. He stammered, trying to extricate himself from her grip, and she pouted at him and pleaded to be confessed, before being dragged away, laughing, by her friends.

  Giacomo had stared around wildly, looking for any Carabinieri, or for anyone watching the exchange closely; he’d heard the Party used secret police. She’d been joking, of course, but he remembered the Irish soldier’s warning. He didn’t want to be arrested on sedition charges because someone decided he was offering absolutions.

  No-one seemed to be paying attention, so he went on his way, eventually reaching the bridge. He paused to regain his composure, watching the Tevere flow underfoot.

  Not everyone made the same assumption, unfortunately. A handful of people realised he was a genuine monk, and hurled abuse at him. A policeman even spat at his feet, shouting at him that he should return to the Vatican where he belonged. Giacomo had not been sure what to do. He’d just shown the man his visa, apologised – why had he apologised, he wondered; for doing what? – and walked on, hoping he would leave it at that.

  He reflected, not for the first time, on Rome’s twin role as the heart of both the Holy Church and godless Communism; not just as the capital of Italy, but de facto leader of the whole League of Socialist Republics, from Yugoslavia to Bulgaria.

  Not Communism, of course. “Analytical Socialism.” Giacomo stopped himself from sneering in the street. The great machine that filled one whole floor of the Palazzo Senatorio supposedly knew where every grain of wheat grown in the whole of the League was, and where best to send it to the greatest benefit of the people. How listening to the precepts of some machine god was any better than following the orders of mortal men, he didn’t know. The very idea of a machine having so much power seemed stupid and perverse.

  He shook his head. That was the kind of blinkered feeling that the Superior General had criticised him for. It was the same as the British automaton, after all; nothing more than science, a remarkable application of natural laws.

  Wait. Was that the same girl in the fox mask? The drunken one?

  Giacomo couldn’t be sure. She looked similar, but surely there were hundreds of girls in fox masks out in Rome tonight?

  Even if it was, she couldn’t be following him, could she? Spying for the Party?

  That was foolish. The Italian government wouldn’t need to set up some sort of elaborate scheme to spy on him. If anyone were watching or following him, it would most likely just be a uniformed Carabiniere. And he’d seen one or two this evening...

  It was now full dark. A pair of lampionai were making their way down the road ahead of him, firing the gaslamps and bathing the cobbles in warm yellow light. Shaken, starting at shadows, Giacomo made his way west.

  IT WAS NOW full dark. Otto was perched on the roof of the Palazzo Poli, looking down on the Trevi Fountain, and on the small hotel across the square where Adler had said their quarry was staying. Ingo was out of sight on the roof of one of the other buildings. Adler himself was down on the street, browsing through the papers on sale at a newsagent’s stand just outside the hotel.

  As Otto watched, Adler frowned, checking his watch for the third time, and then looked up at the roof of the Palazzo and waved towards the roof of the hotel. Otto nodded his understanding – although he doubted if the Obersturmbannführer could see him on the roof – and took to the air, as Adler stormed in the front door of the hotel.

  Otto and Ingo circled above the hotel, metal wings clanking as they beat at the air, steam escaping in short puffs and hisses from the engines on their harnesses, scanning the crowds below. They had a basic description of their target, but with most of the people below them wearing masks, he would be impossible to identify. Eventually, Otto pointed out the roof-top fire escape to Ingo, and then banked and swooped towards the third-floor window of the target’s hotel room, landing on the window-ledge and smashing in the glass with his boot.

  Adler was already in the room, Luger in hand, rummaging through a bureau. Unmoved by the noise, he glanced up, nodded perfunctorily and continued opening drawers.

  “We’re too late. He left earlier than expected. Search for any hint of his destination.”

  Otto dropped into the room, casting about. The bed had been slept in, although the maid should have been to the room hours before, and the door had been kicked in by Adler. A fire was built in the firegrate, but had not yet been lit. He held his hand out, but there was no heat. A large, striped box filled with crepe paper rested on a chair by the window. This had presumably held their target’s mask, which must have been large and elaborate; possibly both a mask and a hat. Otto held some of the crepe paper up to his nose. Oiled leather, perhaps?

  “A-ha.” Adler peered at the writing pad on the bureau.

  “Our man had a very firm hand, it seems.”

  He reached into his coat pocket for some charcoal, with which he very gently shaded the upper half of the sheet, holding it close to the desk lamp.

  “‘Under... Bruno.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No, sir,” said Otto.

  “Under Bruno... Under Bruno...” Adler tapped the charcoal against his chin thoughtfully, then smiled, coldly. “Of course...”

  He wheeled on Otto. “Hartmann! Go get Ritter and head east. Keep me in sight. I have him.”

  He stormed out the door, his long black leather coat swirling out behind him.

  AUSCHWITZ, OCCUPIED POLAND, 1944

  “...AT LEAST FIVE hundred of them. I’d guess they normally kill a few score at a time, but these were packed in like sardines. Some of them resisted and were shot. There’s blood everywhere.” Ivan’s voice shook slightly. The last two guards he and Daria had encountered, in
the furnaces, had... suffered, more than they’d needed to. More than their colleagues had, at any rate.

  Captain Ilyanov nodded, his face impassive, eyes reflecting the moonlight redly. “And the furnace?”

  “It’ll be impossible to count, even when it burns down; the ovens are hot enough to burn bone,” said Daria, more calmly. “But they seem to have overfilled them, too. There must be hundreds of bodies burning in there right now.”

  The captain was silent for a moment, before turning to the fourth member of their unit.

  “Katya, get over to the vehicle sheds. Find out if the Nazis were kind enough to leave us a working jeep or car. We need to get back to Russian lines quickly.”

  The small, red-haired woman nodded and ran off into the camp.

  “Why?” Ivan demanded, but the captain didn’t answer. He stepped in front of him. “What are we doing, Josef?”

  Ilyanov met his eyes, unblinking. He was two inches shorter than Ivan, with fine, fair hair and a neat goatee. His lips parted slightly, giving a hint of his fangs.

  “Firstly, Lieutenant,” he said, crisply, “you will address me as ‘Captain,’ or ‘Sir,’ at least as long as we are in the field. We are far from typical soldiers, but we should observe some discipline.

  “Secondly, you will show your commanding officer a modicum of respect, and of trust.”

  Ivan flushed angrily, but dropped his gaze and stepped back.

  “Of course, sir. Forgive me.”

  “It’s alright, Ivan. I understand. This must all have come as a shock to you.”

  Ivan’s eyes widened. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew what we would find.”

  Daria gasped, looking from Ivan to Ilyanov. “Captain...?”

  The captain sighed, picking an imaginary thread off the cuff of his jacket. “Yes, Ivan. Daria. I knew. Moscow has received reports. About this camp... about camps like it. It’s why we were sent here, instead of regular troops. The Romanovs trust us more. And there are fewer people to talk.”

  “Fewer people to...?” Ivan gaped. “But surely we have to–”

  “To return to the Russian lines and wire our Britannian allies,” Ilyanov interrupted, raising his voice slightly. “To confirm that Auschwitz-Birkenau is a munitions factory as reported, and that we have neutralised it, but cannot spare the men to hold it. To ask them to send an airship to bomb it to the ground; ensure that not one stone is left standing on another.”

  “But we–”

  “Think of it as a burial, Lieutenant. It’s the only dignity these poor souls are likely to receive.”

  “But Captain–”

  “Lieutenant Konstantinov,” Ilyanov said, firmly. “Whatever may yet befall between Germany and Britannia, Poland has already lost this war. The Jews have already lost this war. The resounding defeat of the army that did this is the only punishment we can mete out, and the only satisfaction we can offer.

  “Listen: Russia is now occupying half of Poland, and will, by the time this war ends, have it all. At present, all of Europe is satisfied with this; it is, if you will, Russia’s reward for entering the conflict. If this” – the captain flung his arm out, taking in the camp, the empty dorms and the smoke pouring from the furnace – “became public, there would be more pressure to create a Polish state, to give Poland to the Poles. You would cost the Romanovs their one great coup in this war, and these men and women would be no less dead.”

  Ivan scowled stubbornly. “But if the British found out–”

  The captain threw up his arms in exasperation. “Britannia stands to lose as much as Russia does. The Palestine situation has been on the verge of exploding in their faces for years. What effect do you think this would have?”

  The sound of an engine sputtering to life echoed across the camp from the vehicle shed. Katya had apparently succeeded in finding something.

  “I still don’t like it.”

  Ilyanov rested his hand on Ivan’s shoulder. “If it helps, Ivan, nor do I. I know that the Romanovs are appalled at what has happened here, and I take comfort from that; but I don’t agree with their decision to keep it quiet.

  “But these are our orders, and we will follow them. If they’re right, we may actually be saving lives.”

  The jeep roared as Katya drove through the camp and pulled up in front of them.

  ROME, THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ITALY, 1998

  A LIGHT RAIN had banished the mist by the time Giacomo reached the Campo de’ Fiori, and his habit was getting cold and wet and heavy. It did nothing to dissuade the masked revellers, though, who sang and danced, slipping on the cobbles and laughing.

  He didn’t recognise most of the songs. They sounded revolutionary.

  There was old Giordano Bruno, high and severe on his plinth, peeking out from under his hood. The much newer statue of the American, Doc Thunder, stood in stark contrast opposite him, dressed in his signature lightning-bolt t-shirt, smiling sadly out on the world. Perhaps deliberately, the two appeared to be looking at each other, two giants of rationalism exchanging a glance across the centuries.

  A group of eight young men and women joined hands in a ring around Thunder’s plinth, and were dancing around it, chanting and giggling.

  Giacomo remembered Thunder’s visit to Rome and the Vatican, eight years before. The grainy photo, in all the papers, of Thunder standing with President Perroni, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Thunder kneeling in front of il Papa, asking for his blessing and kissing his ring.

  He’d heard rumours about Doc Thunder, more recently; about his lovers, both male and female. He wondered if either man would have greeted the American as warmly, had those rumours been circulating back then.

  He sighed. In truth, Thunder had made the Lateran Treaty possible. Without him, Giacomo wouldn’t be standing here in Rome, looking at the American’s statue. In both cities, he was still hailed as a hero, and the rumours were either firmly ignored or furiously debated.

  He huddled at the foot of the old philosopher – there was a tobacconist on the edge of the square, but it was locked and barred for the night, and the awning was locked against the walls – and waited for the mysterious Russian.

  A ninth man had joined the group dancing around Thunder, dressed as a Plague Doctor. He wore plain black clothes and a great black coat, topped with a wide-brimmed, black leather hat and the notorious ‘beak mask,’ with its long, freakish nose and glass lenses over the eyes, like a grotesque parody of a modern-day gas-mask. Giacomo shuddered at the scarecrow figure, but the dancers greeted him with cheers and laughter, inviting him into their ring. He capered and danced with them, although he did not join in their song, as far as the monk could hear from across the square.

  It was dark, and cold, and wet, and Giacomo found himself thinking lovingly of his dry cell, and a change of clothes. There was a fire-barrel near the tobacconist; surely he could stand near it and watch out for anyone approaching the statue?

  He’d barely gone a dozen paces when the Plague Doctor broke from the ring of dances, whirled and skittered across the square, grabbed hold of him and started to swing him around. The masked dancers laughed and clapped, as the doctor spoke to him, muffled by the mask:

  “Father Ferrera?”

  “Y-yes...” he answered, hesitantly.

  “We must leave at once. I believe I am being followed.” The stranger’s Italian was excellent, with only a hint of a Russian accent. He swung Giacomo around and around, eventually leading them both down an alley off the Campo. At length, they stumbled to a halt in front of one of the fire-barrels, where the Russian made a great deal of losing hold of his hands and falling on to his rump. He staggered to his feet as though drunk, but when he pulled the beaked mask off his face, his gaze was steady and his voice level.

  “Thank you for meeting me, Father. I am Ivan Konstantinov.”

  “Giacomo Ferrera.”

  “An honour, Father. I won’t keep you long; it’s best for us both if we are on our way back to our respecti
ve homes as quickly as possible.”

  “I understand.” Giacomo stood over the bin, warming himself by the flames. Steam was starting to rise from his habit.

  The Russian reached into his coat pocket and produced an envelope. “Take this.”

  Giacomo hesitated, then took it. “May I see the contents?”

  “If you wish. I want it to be taken to His Holiness as soon as possible, but if it needs to be read by others to speed it on its way, so be it.”

  The monk tore open the envelope and leafed through a bundle of photos, facsimiles of written statements, typewritten reports.

  He received a confused barrage of horrors: grainy pictures of dead bodies, twisted and contorted; catalogues of human bones, grouped by the inferred age and gender of the deceased; blandly awful lists of quotas of the dead. The forms and reports were all dated in the late ’thirties or early ’forties; many of the names were German.

  Without exception, the documents were stamped with the Russian word тайна, in thick red letters.

  “What does this mean?” he asked, pointing to the stamp.

  “‘Secret.’” Konstantinov smiled. “You will never know how difficult it was to collect all that. I have been piecing it together for nearly fifty years.”

  Giacomo shot the stranger a sharp look. He didn’t look like he could be any more than thirty years old. “What is this, exactly?”

  “Evidence.”

  “Of what?”

  “The greatest crime of this century. Of any century. This, Father, will destroy the Ultimate Reich.”

  “I don’t understand. Why me? Why the Vatican?”

  The Russian took Giacomo’s hand in his. “Moscow will not act on it. Rome will not act on it. It is hard for me to get to America or Britannia.

  “The Church can get this out there. The truth will be known.”

  Giacomo stared at the stranger, firelight flickering in his eyes. “Why is this so important to you?” he asked.