The Suicide Exhibition Page 2

  Smith kept his expression neutral. The beard helped. He saved his excited enthusiasm for Streicher’s translation.

  Armed with heavy flashlights, the two of them followed Klaas across the cavern to the exposed wall. Two more soldiers, stripped to the waist, stood ready with pickaxes.

  “Let me see, let me see.” Smith pushed past. He ran his hand over the rough stone surface of the wall, nodding. “Yeah—this is absolutely typical of the ninth century. See the way the stones have been interlaced? Looks like you’ve got yourselves the tomb of an ancient chieftain.”

  “Much more than that,” Streicher murmured in German. He nodded for the men to start work on the wall.

  The stone was brittle with age. There was no mortar to hold the wall together, and in minutes the soldiers had torn a ragged hole large enough for a man to get through. Streicher stepped forward, determined to be the first to see what lay beyond the wall.

  But Smith caught Streicher’s arm. “Be a bit careful there.”

  It was sensible advice. Streicher stepped cautiously through, testing the ground on the other side before he committed his full weight to it. It seemed firm enough. Once through, he waited for Smith to join him, several of the SS soldiers clambering after the academic. Two of them still carried their pickaxes.

  The flashlights illuminated a narrow passageway sloping downward ahead of them.

  “So, not quite at the main chamber yet,” Smith noted. “Can’t be far, though.”

  Streicher’s impatience got the better of him and he set off along the passage. If they didn’t find the chamber soon, the messages he received daily from Wewelsburg would become more insistent. He knew only too well that in the Third Reich in general and in the SS in particular you could be transformed from hero to pariah in a matter of hours.

  Again, Smith caught Streicher’s shoulder.

  “Take it easy. There could still be surprises.”

  As he spoke, something moved in the shadows ahead of them. A trick of the wandering flashlight beam, perhaps. But it seemed like a patch of darkness scuttled back from the edge of the shadows and buried itself deeper against the wall. Streicher moved his flashlight, following the motion. But there was nothing. Just a dark, narrow gap where the stone-flagged floor of the passage didn’t quite meet the rough, crumbling brickwork of the wall.

  “Is that the end of the tunnel?” Smith wondered. “We must be nearly there.”

  Streicher nodded. It was a shame—the American had saved lives and helped them get this far. But depending on what they found at the end of this passage, Smith might become a liability. Streicher would do it himself. He owed the man that.

  “Wait!”

  Smith’s warning shocked Streicher out of his thoughts. He froze—one foot raised. Smith gently helped him step back.

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure.”

  Professor Smith stooped down, shining his flashlight at the stone slab where Streicher had been about to put his foot. The edges seemed darker than the slabs around it.

  “Pickaxe.” Smith held his hand out behind him, not turning to look.

  Streicher repeated the instruction in German to the nearest soldier, who handed Smith the short-handled pickaxe he was carrying.

  Smith positioned the handle of the upright pickaxe on the slab of stone, and pressed down hard. There was a grinding sound—stone on stone. The ground shuddered, and Smith pitched suddenly forward as the slab dropped away. Smith stumbled as he fought to keep his balance. In front of him, the whole section of floor had disappeared.

  The soldier who had carried the pickaxe staggered, and fell. He pitched sideways with a cry. Another soldier made to grab him, but was too late. His hand closed on empty air. The falling soldier disappeared over the edge and into the darkness. His shout echoed round the passageway—the sound of hopeless terror.

  Streicher had firm hold of Smith’s arm, pulling him up and back from the brink.

  Ahead of them was a gaping hole, about ten feet across. The section of floor had pivoted on the far side, tilting away. Below was darkness. The cries of the falling soldier faded into the distance.

  Smith handed the pickaxe to another soldier and took a deep breath. “A bit more extreme than I was expecting,” he admitted. “Sorry about that poor fellow. But thanks for the helping hand.”

  “My pleasure.” Streicher smiled grimly. It might have saved a problem later if Smith had fallen. There again, it looked like they might still need the man’s help. The loss of another soldier was regrettable, but Streicher was used to death.

  The jump was made more difficult by knowing the consequences of not making it. No one asked if the ground on the other side would be secure, but everyone was wondering. Streicher went first.

  He took a short run up, and leaped across the abyss, landing heavily on the other side. The ground was firm. Smith followed, taking a longer run up, moving clumsily, arms flailing in the air as he made his ungainly journey across. He landed close to Streicher with a loud sigh of relief followed by a nervous laugh. The others crossed without incident.

  “I think this could be it,” Smith announced, aiming his flashlight down the passage.

  A short way ahead, what Streicher had taken for more shadows and the continuing passage was now visible as a huge barrier. It was caked in mud and grime. Smith rubbed his hand over it.

  “Metal,” he announced with surprise. “Bronze, perhaps? Or iron. Difficult to tell in this light. Not what I was expecting, though, whatever it is.”

  The door—and there was soon no doubt that it was a door—was embossed with a series of circles and lines. It was hinged on one side. A heavy latch slid into a socket on the other side. It took two of the soldiers to slide the latch back out of the socket. It finally gave in a shower of dirt and rust. The door creaked on its hinges as if it too was sighing with relief.

  The two soldiers leaned back, using their whole weight to drag the door open. It moved slowly at first, the metal screeching in protest. Once it was free of the frame, it swung ponderously outward. Then it jammed on the uneven floor leaving a gap just wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Behind it was a gaping maw of darkness.

  Streicher stepped toward the darkness, Smith at his side. The flashlight beams disappeared into the void, as if it was swallowing up their light.

  “Best send one of your men first,” Smith said quietly. “I mean, hell, I’m guessing they’re more expendable.”

  Streicher did not reply, but motioned for one of the soldiers to lead the way. The man took a flashlight from one of his colleagues, and struggled through the opening, almost immediately calling back that it was safe.

  * * *

  Smith squeezed through the gap after Streicher, the other SS men following behind. He was fascinated, but wary. Most of them had been lucky—he himself had been very lucky—with the collapsing floor. But they couldn’t rely on luck forever. Smith, more than most, understood the importance of proper planning and meticulous research. This place, by its very nature, denied them that.

  Beyond the door was a small, empty antechamber. Ahead of them was another wall. The stonework was more regular, tighter fitting than the other walls they had breached getting this far. Smith glanced back past the door behind him, out into the passageway beyond. The small chamber they had just entered made no sense. It was like a watertight compartment before a vital section of a ship or a submarine. Watertight and airtight.

  Airtight.

  The first man through raised his pickaxe. Streicher and the others stepped back to allow him room to swing at the wall.

  “No—stop him!”

  But Smith’s cry was too late. The pickaxe bit into the wall. Nothing happened.

  Not until the man levered it out again.

  There was a sudden, loud hissing sound. A white mist, like smoke, curled from the hole in the wall. Smith pulled his handkerchief from his top pocket and jammed it over his nose and mouth. He pulled Streicher away, struggling to get him ba
ck through the doorway.

  The man was coughing and spluttering—choking on the pale mist. The whole antechamber was full of it. Through the thickening fog, Smith saw men staggering into each other, clutching their throats. Falling. Their faces blotched with bursting pustules.

  One of them blundered in front of Smith. The whole side of the man’s face was peeling away, like it was drenched in acid.

  Smith shouldered the poor man aside, and with a final effort he dragged Streicher back through to the passageway. He pushed at the door, but it was jammed open. The deadly mist curled out after them, like a smoky finger stabbing toward Smith as he half dragged, half carried Streicher away. Something brushed against his leg, and Smith almost fell. He caught a glimpse of a dark shape lingering for a moment against Streicher, then scuttling into the shadows, like a huge spider. A trick of the light. An artifact of the drifting mist that swirled toward him …

  There was barely room for them both as Smith staggered back along the tunnel, holding his breath for as long as he could, lungs bursting with the effort. He had to breathe through his handkerchief, hoping the air out here wasn’t poisoned. Streicher was a dead weight against him.

  In the panic and the swirling mist, he almost stumbled over the edge where the floor had dropped away. Smith teetered for a moment on the brink, staring down into the blackness in front of him. He managed to take a step backward. But what now? Streicher was in no fit state to jump. The man was practically unconscious, and retching and choking as Smith supported his weight.

  Deciding this was no time for playacting, Smith unceremoniously hoisted the SS officer onto his shoulders in a fireman’s lift, taking care not to drop his flashlight. He backed down the passageway, straightening up as he bore the other man’s weight. In the gloom of the tunnel he seemed taller, more confident.

  The flashlight beam juddered, cutting through the mist and dancing over the walls and floor as Smith ran toward the abyss. Despite the near-dead weight over his shoulders, there was none of the awkwardness of his earlier jump. But it was a hell of a distance for a man carrying another.

  The darkness rushed past below. The far side of the pit flew toward him. Before he was halfway, Smith knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  He fell short, his chest slamming into the top edge of the abyss. Streicher’s body was jolted from his grasp. Somehow Smith managed to heave it over the lip and onto the floor of the passage. The SS officer rolled away, groaning.

  The flashlight skidded after Streicher, its beam pointing straight back at Smith. Dazzling. Then he was falling, dropping into the bottomless pit.

  He scrabbled desperately, arms stretched out along the tunnel floor, fingers searching for the slightest purchase. Smith’s nails ripped as he tried to force them into the tiny gaps between the slabs. Finally, with an excruciating jolt, he caught hold with his right hand. He worked his fingers deeper into the crevice he’d found, scraping with his left hand to find a similar grip.

  It was a slow and painful process, but somehow Smith managed to haul himself back up. He was holding his breath, his lungs bursting, though all the air must have been knocked out of him by the impact on the side of the pit.

  He gathered up the flashlight and his handkerchief from the ground, then heaved Streicher over his shoulders again. The man grunted, but there was no other sign that he was even alive.

  Aching and exhausted, Smith stumbled down the passageway toward the broken wall into the next chamber. The heavy mist drifted after him.

  * * *

  At last they were out of the tunnel, through the final chamber and into the warm afternoon sunshine. Smith let Streicher fall on the grass beside the trench leading down into the mound. He gasped in great lungfuls of fresh air, before yelling for help.

  He grabbed the first soldier to arrive, miming putting on a gas mask. The soldier glanced at Streicher, and understood, shouting to the others.

  “We’ll be OK,” Smith told them in rasping, painful English. “You go help the others.”

  They seemed to understand, and soon Smith and Streicher were alone. Smith felt for a heartbeat. Weak and erratic, but Streicher was still alive. Smith looked round, checking again that none of the remaining soldiers were within sight. Certain that they were alone, he undid Streicher’s tunic and emptied the man’s pockets. Carefully and neatly, he laid out everything. He unfolded letters and papers, placing them so they caught the brightest sunlight.

  Then he took out a packet of cigarettes. The packet seemed full, but that was because most of the space inside was taken up with a miniature camera. Smith slid back the hidden cover to expose the lens then quickly but systematically photographed Streicher’s possessions, including the letters and orders. When he was done, he replaced everything exactly as he had found it in the SS officer’s pockets.

  Finally, he took a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

  “I may live to regret saving you,” Smith said quietly, his accent now more Eton than Harvard. “But we all have our iron cross to bear.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Major Guy Pentecross dived to one side as the bullets raked through the sea where he had been. His arm exploded with pain. His mouth filled with blood and saltwater. His nostrils absorbed the stench of fuel oil and death. Someone was screaming.

  The scream was the blast of the engine’s whistle as the train entered a tunnel. The windows were suddenly opaque, and Guy found himself staring at his own pale, haunted face. Over his trembling shoulder, another face watched with unfocused concern.

  “Are you all right, young man?”

  He forced a smile, and turned to reassure the elderly woman. “Bad dream. Sorry if I…”

  She waved away his apology. “We all have bad dreams these days. It’s the bombing.” She hesitated before adding: “You’re not in uniform, I see.” There was just a hint of accusation.

  “I work at the Foreign Office.”

  “Oh.” More than a hint this time. “Well, I’m sure that’s very … useful.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Guy agreed. “Though I’d rather be back in uniform, I have to admit. I made the mistake of getting shot up at Dunkirk.”

  He left it at that, turning back to the window. They were soon out of the tunnel and rattling through the fields again. “All charging along like troops in a battle,” he murmured, recalling a poem he’d learned at school. A lifetime ago. Before Cambridge, before joining the army back when a war seemed possible but not likely. Mother had expected him to follow his father into the Foreign Office and become a diplomat. He had tried—joining the staff of the FO straight from Cambridge.

  But the military had always appealed more to Guy. He soon left the civil service and joined up, soon making the rank of captain. Even if his mother didn’t, he knew how bored his father had become with the whole diplomatic round, with never knowing quite which part of the world he could end up in next year or even next month. When Guy was growing up, they never seemed to stay long in one place before moving on. “Each a glimpse, then gone forever.”

  The army meant travel and uncertainty too of course, but it was so much more invigorating. The thing that had kept Guy sane as he grew up was the challenge of learning the languages. He found he had an aptitude for it, a natural ability. Another reason why his mother thought he should become a diplomat. The irony was, of course, that the Foreign Office was exactly where he had ended up after being injured at Dunkirk. As soon as Guy was declared unfit for active service—even temporarily—the Foreign Office intervened. Someone had remembered his aptitude for languages, and he was seconded to the government offices he had been so keen to escape.

  Guy was fit again now—fighting fit. But he was too good at his job. They’d let him go once, and they weren’t about to do it again. His uniform had become a pinstriped suit, and Guy hated it. He’d rather face the nightmares every night than the mundane monotony of Whitehall every day.

  Painted stations whistled by. Guy dozed, read the paper, stared out of the window. Planes
passed high above, too distant to make out details, like houseflies against a pale blue ceiling. Clear weather was not a good thing.

  It was sobering to walk through London from the station to the office. Some streets seemed perfectly normal, untouched by the bombing. Others had collapsed into a wasteland of devastation. Volunteers shoveled debris from the road. A fire engine charged past, bells ringing. It should have impressed on Guy how important his role was, how vital that he play his part. But instead it made him angry and impatient. He wanted to be out there doing something. Not sitting on his backside in an office sifting through reports, or traveling round the country interviewing people who invariably turned out not to be enemy spies.

  As a linguist, he was a valuable resource. He understood that. He also appreciated that it was important that any foreigners arriving in Britain needed screening. He just didn’t think it should be him doing it. The most cursory check by anyone with an ounce of common sense would have saved him the previous day’s journey down to the south coast. The local police had three men in custody who’d arrived in a small boat. They spoke reasonable English, and claimed to have fled from Poland. But the police were convinced they were spies.

  Guy had suggested he could talk to one of them on the telephone, but the police sergeant insisted he should come and see them in person on the grounds that “they look German to me.”

  So he had wasted the best part of a day. When he finally got to see the three men it took Guy less than a minute to verify that they were indeed Polish. They spoke the language—better than their hesitant English or halting German. They obviously had first-hand knowledge of Danzig, where they claimed to have come from. And when Guy asked them what they thought of the Germans, they all three displayed a knowledge of Polish slang that considerably expanded Guy’s own rather meager vocabulary.

  “They’re not German spies,” he told the police sergeant with exaggerated patience.

  The sergeant nodded. “But they could have been,” he said.

  And that was the problem—Guy had to admit the man was right. They could have been German spies. And while every “could have been” was a frustration, it was also a relief. Every wasted journey was in fact not a waste of time at all. His work was necessary, but it was boring and it was frustrating.