of which he’d bought at the shops in the terminal building, because he’d needed to replace the bag and clothes he’d had to abandon in the Hyundai. He’d also found a twelve-volt universal phone charger for use in a car, and that was in the bag as well.
Angela’s flight arrived on time, and Bronson stood up, grabbed his new bag and walked over to greet her as soon as he recognized her in the stream of passengers entering the hall.
Bronson moved quickly through the melee of people, reaching her side before Angela even saw him. The moment she did, she lowered her bag to the floor and hugged him tight.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” she whispered. “I’ve had the police round twice, looking for you, and I swear that at least once somebody followed me to work.”
Bronson nodded. “I’m not surprised. I left Britain under something of a cloud, and a warrant’s been issued for my arrest.”
“Then you really are in trouble, aren’t you?”
“More than you can possibly imagine, for a whole bunch of different reasons. I’m really pleased to see you, but I’d still rather you were safely back in London.”
“It’s too late for that. I’m out here now, because I decided I couldn’t stay away any longer. Besides, I think you need my help.”
Bronson smiled at her. “You know,” he replied, “I think I probably do. I realized this morning that I had no idea where to go or what to do next, so I hope you really have got some information about this ‘lantern bearer’ thing.”
“I have,” Angela said, “and I’ll tell you all about it in the car on the way to Ludwikowice. You’ve got a car, I hope?”
Bronson looked puzzled. “Yes,” he replied, “I’ve got a car. But what-or where-is this Ludwig-whatever place?”
“It’s in Poland,” Angela replied, “and it’s where I hope we might find the answers to a lot of questions. It’s certainly the place where the story of the ‘lantern bearer’ began.”
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting side by side in the BMW, and Bronson had just finished programming the built-in satnav with Ludwikowice as a destination.
“It’s over two hundred miles from here,” he said, as the satnav finished its computations, “so it’ll take us most of the day to get there.”
He started the car and a couple of minutes later the barrier in front of them lifted and they drove out onto the exit road from the airport.
“We’ll get a few miles under our belt before we stop for something to eat,” Bronson went on. “So you’ve got plenty of time to tell me exactly what you’re talking about, and why this Ludwig place is so important.”
Angela leaned back in her seat and relaxed. “You’ll notice,” she began, “that I haven’t asked you how come you’re driving around in a BMW-a make of car I know you detest-on Berlin plates, or why there’s the butt of what looks to me like an automatic pistol poking out from underneath your seat.”
“It’s a long story,” Bronson replied, “and thank you for reminding me about the plates. I need to fix those as soon as I can. And it’s not so much BMWs I dislike-it’s the particular collection of arrogant and incompetent idiots who always seem to end up driving them.”
“What do you mean by ‘fix’?”
“You’ll see.”
Once they’d cleared the airfield, and had passed the intersection between the E36 and the Berliner Ring, Bronson turned off on the L40 toward Ragow and pulled into the first deserted turnout he saw. There, while Angela stood beside him, looking and listening for cars or pedestrians, Bronson quickly and efficiently swapped the registration plates on the BMW, tossing the originals over a hedge and into the adjacent field.
“Because of what you’ve just done,” Angela said, “may I assume that you’ve borrowed the car we’re traveling in, using the term ‘borrowed’ in its loosest possible sense? That we are, in fact, driving around in a stolen vehicle?”
“You assume correctly,” Bronson replied, getting back in the car and restarting the engine. He didn’t know what contacts Marcus might have with the Berlin police-if he had any contacts at all-but he knew that changing the plates would make it a lot more difficult for anybody to track him as they drove across Germany. Unless somebody checked the chassis number of the BMW, it would appear to be entirely legitimate, at least until the owner of the car in the long-term parking at Brandenburg Airport returned from wherever he’d flown to and blew the whistle.
“I’ve been very patient,” Bronson said, as he swung the car around in a U-turn to head back the way they’d come, “and you’ve been very mysterious. So why don’t you tell me exactly what you’ve found out about the ‘lantern bearer.’”
“Right,” Angela replied. “Since you called me, apart from running around most of London trying to find different places to call you from-calls you never actually answered, I’d like to point out-about all I’ve done is research, following on from everything that Steven told me. It has been,” she added, opening her handbag and taking out a small notebook with a dark blue cover, “grimly fascinating. First of all, have you ever heard the German terms Wunderwaffen or Vergeltungswaffen?”
Bronson shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. What do they mean?”
“The word ‘ waffen ’ translates as ‘weapon,’ so ‘ Wunderwaffen ’ means ‘wonder weapon’ and ‘ Vergeltungswaffen ’ translates as ‘vengeance weapon.’ Originally the Wunderwaffen were supposed to be various types of tactical battlefield weapons, while the Vergeltungswaffen were much more powerful strategic theater devices, but these days the term Wunderwaffen is often applied to both types of weapon. You probably know that toward the end of the Second World War the Nazis were desperately trying to find some kind of weapon or tactic that would turn the tide and force back the Allied advance, and keep the Russians off their backs.”
Bronson nodded. “I know they developed jet engines for their fighters, and of course there were the V1 and V2 missiles that they fired at London. I suppose they were classed as ‘vengeance weapons,’ because of the ‘V’ designation?”
“Exactly. But the Nazis had far more interesting and exotic devices up their sleeve. Their problem was that by that time they’d lost air superiority in the skies over their own country, and the Allied bombing raids were doing enormous damage to their airfields and especially to the factories that were turning out military hardware. But one of the odd things about this period of the war was that despite all this bombing, Germany’s war production actually continued to increase.”
“I didn’t know that,” Bronson admitted. “How did they manage it?”
“It was all down to a man named Albert Speer.”
“I’ve heard of him. He was one of Hitler’s ministers, wasn’t he?”
“You’re right. In nineteen forty-two he was appointed Minister of Armaments and War Production, and as Allied bombs rained down on Germany night after night, he came up with a radical solution. Because the factories on the ground were no longer safe, he decided to move them. But instead of simply relocating them to other parts of Germany, he put them underground.”
“Underground? That must have been an enormous job. You mean the Germans dug tunnels?”
“It was a huge undertaking, without question, but it wasn’t the Germans who were doing the work. Because of the concentration camps, they had an enormous force of slave laborers-hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people, who could be quite literally worked to death in the most appalling conditions. And as soon as one man died, they simply dragged in another and forced him to take his place. They didn’t need to supply safety equipment or proper clothing or masks or anything. In many of the construction sites, the SS doctors estimated that a fresh concentration camp prisoner would have a working life of as little as six weeks, working twelve-hour shifts with the most basic possible rations of food and drink. In several cases, according to the testimonies of the handful of people who managed to survive, prisoners were marched into the tunnels and only left them when they died, their bodies hauled out and dumped in a mass grave.”
“Horrendous,” Bronson muttered, “simply horrendous.” He’d decided not to mention what he’d seen at the house-the chilling sight of Marcus in full SS regalia-for the moment.
“It was,” she agreed, her voice bitter, “but it was also very efficient, and the Nazis were nothing if not efficient. Working prisoners to death not only meant that their construction projects proceeded quickly, but it also saved them the price of a bullet or the cost of a canister of poison gas.”
