India and Brandon walked up the gangplank of the cruise ship and were greeted at the top by an immaculately dressed steward holding a tray of champagne.
‘Welcome to the Ice World Explorer,’ said the steward, ‘my name is Marcos. I hope you have a wonderful trip with us.’
‘Thank you, Marcos,’ said Brandon, taking a glass from the tray. ‘Are we the only ones embarking here today?’
‘Oh no, sir, there are several other couples who have flown down to join us. When they are finally on board, we will be fully booked. This is our last port of call before we head south.’
‘Thank you,’ said Brandon. ‘Could you tell us where our luggage is?’
‘It has been delivered directly to your stateroom,’ said Carlos, ‘and if you follow me, I will show you the way.’
‘Thank you, Carlos,’ said India, and they followed the steward up to their cabin. Minutes later, Brandon tipped the steward and closed the door. It was quite a large room and consisted of a small sitting room, leading on to a sleeping area and two single beds. Between the beds he could see a curtain which could be dropped to afford privacy between the two. India was out on the balcony, looking down at the bustle of the dockside below.
Their suitcases were on the bed but alongside them were two larger cases Brandon had never seen before. He opened the one with his name on and saw it was full of warm winter clothing as well as a pair of strong boots and a parka. He assumed the other case was similarly packed for India.
‘What’s this?’ asked India, returning from the balcony.
‘It looks like they’ve provided us with everything we need,’ said Brandon.
‘Really?’ laughed India, opening her case. ‘Where’s the evening wear and the cocktail dresses then? We are on a cruise, aren’t we? I thought it was supposed to be a luxurious way to travel.’
Brandon smiled a wry smile at her.
‘I’m sorry I’ve got you into this,’ he said. ‘If I had known it was going to get so intense, I would never have taken the job in the first place.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ asked India. ‘Mysterious mummies, double agents, missing submarines and World War Two Nazis bent on world domination, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’
Brandon smiled. India had changed so much since he had met her two years earlier and now bore no similarities to the shy librarian he had first met.
‘What’s that one?’ asked India, pointing at a smaller briefcase between the beds.
Brandon glanced at the case before looking back at India.
‘Just some special kit I ordered, nothing for you to worry about.’
India picked it up and laid it on the other bed.
‘It’s locked,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Well aren’t you going to open it?’
Brandon paused, wondering whether it was a good idea, but India saw his hesitation and spoke again.
‘Look, Brandon,’ she said, ‘we started this together and I am happy to see it through to the end. However, I have no intention of being just an ornament on your arm just to help your cover. What’s in the case?’
‘You’re right,’ said Brandon, and retrieving a small piece of paper from his shirt pocket, used the printed number to undo the combination lock. Inside the lid was a small hardback notebook tucked into a pocket. Alongside that was a folder containing various documents, but it was the contents of the main case that caught India’s eye. A pistol was sitting within preformed sponge inlay and six boxes of ammunition laid side by side along the top edge.
‘What’s that?’ asked India, pointing at a separate tube sunk into its own section.
‘A silencer,’ said Brandon. ‘It affects distance and accuracy but muffles the sound of the shot.’
‘And those?’
‘High frequency radios. They are very powerful and work via satellite.’
‘Why do we need radios?’
‘India,’ said Brandon, ‘I don’t know what is going to happen over the next few days, but there may be a time that I have to leave you for a little while. If that happens, I want you to use one of these radios. The knob on the top can select two channels. Number one will connect to the other radio, which I will have, but number two will get you assistance if required.’
‘Who?’ asked India.
‘That’s not important,’ said Brandon, ‘but suffice to say it will get through to someone who can help. The batteries will last a total of twelve hours, so we can’t leave them switched on. If you need to call for help, there will be somebody monitoring the emergency channel for half an hour either side of midday and midnight each day.’
‘Where do you intend going?’
‘Probably nowhere,’ said Brandon, ‘but that man called Meister they briefed us about yesterday must be here for a reason. I’m taking no chances.’
‘I thought our brief was observation only,’ said India.
‘It is,’ said Brandon, ‘but we can’t be too careful. Look, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind these past few days. Let’s get unpacked, find the restaurant and try to make sense of what we know so far.’
‘Don’t you want to identify Meister?’
‘There’s no rush,’ said Brandon. ‘He’s not going anywhere, not for a few days, anyway.’
‘Restaurant it is then,’ said India.
Half an hour later they helped themselves to a meal from the buffet section and sat down in a secluded corner to relax and gather their thoughts.
‘So what did they say in that briefing?’ asked India, referring to the previous day when Brandon had been whisked away by the commander of Mount Pleasant Airbase.
‘Basically,’ said Brandon, ‘there is at least one drugs baron on board and they suspect he is here for a reason.’
‘What reason?’
‘We are not sure, but it is something to do with a whaler that passed this way in the last week or so.’
‘So why all the interest?’
‘Because he’s not Colombian,’ said Brandon. ‘His father was a Nazi officer during the war and escaped to South America along with many others. For decades there was no more heard of him but when he died, his son emerged as one of the leading drugs barons in the area.’
‘So why didn’t they arrest him?’
‘For what, the sins of his father?’
‘Can’t they arrest him for the drugs?’
‘If it was that easy,’ said Brandon, ‘all the drugs barons would be inside. No, they are very clever in covering their tracks and keep their hands clean. Most of the government and law enforcement agencies in Colombia are on their payroll, so unless they commit a crime that is in the full view of the international authorities, they are virtually bulletproof. That’s why we have been asked to get involved so quickly. Ordinarily they would have sent a surveillance team but there was no time. I’ve done this sort of thing before and was on the spot, so to speak. For the first time, this Franz Meister has left the safety of his empire and risked the wrath of the international community. For that to happen he must be doing something very, very important, and that’s why our people are so excited.’
‘Our people?’
‘The grey men,’ said Brandon.
‘Oh yes,’ said India with a twinkle in her eye, ‘the elusive grey men.’
‘Anyway,’ said Brandon, ignoring the tease in India’s voice, ‘the thing is, that’s why we are here, to keep an eye on a war criminal’s son.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what?’ asked Brandon.
‘That his father was a war criminal.’
‘India,’ said Brandon with a condescending tone to his voice, ‘it is a well-known fact that thousands of Nazis escaped to South America after the war and they know that Meister’s father was one of them.’
‘I know,’ said India, mimicking Brandon’s tone, ‘but that doesn’t necessarily make them all war criminals. Remember, Nazism was a political ideal. An abhorrent one, agreed, but an ideal nevertheless. Don’t forget that the SS were also an elite fighting unit that fought on the front line of many battles, but that alone doesn’t make every one of them war criminals.’
‘What about all the atrocities of the concentration camps?’ asked Brandon.
‘I know they were crimes against humanity,’ said India, ‘but the perpetrators were in the minority if counted against the entire German army. Those who made the decisions were the real criminals and many were captured, tried and executed for their crimes. Most of the SS were no more than highly politicised soldiers who fought alongside other soldiers. The real war criminals were those giving the orders. Anyway, it pisses me off when so much is made about war criminals when so many were helped to disappear after the war by the allies.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ said Brandon. ‘Those who didn’t escape to South America were hunted down by the allies and made to face justice.’
‘You think so?’ said India. ‘What if I were to tell you that even the Vatican helped well-known Nazis to escape justice, and not only helped but financed their escape to foreign countries?’
‘Then I would say that’s ridiculous,’ said Brandon. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Brandon,’ sighed India, ‘I may not know much about the hardware or tactics employed by the military of the time, that’s your expertise, but what I do know something about is the politics involved. At the end of the Second World War, the allies were far more worried about Russia than they had ever been about Germany. Russia had the political intent, the hardware and military might to seize the whole of Europe if they wanted. The allies knew this and were terrified that if they did, it would basically split the world into two, the east and the west. However, though Germany lost the war, it soon became evident that their technology was far in advance of anything the allies possessed. Some of the things the allies discovered were nothing short of amazing. They had jet fighters, intercontinental rockets and were far along the route of developing an atomic bomb. The allies needed this technology and there was a frantic free-for-all to envelop the best scientists into the ranks of the west. Most went to America, though many found their way to all of the allied countries.’
‘But surely not those suspected of war crimes?’ said Brandon.
‘It depends what you call a war crime,’ said India. ‘Is the designer of the doodlebugs that harried London a war criminal? The thing is, if they had something to offer the victors in the way of technology, they were snapped up, and if that meant bypassing the legal system, then so be it.’
‘So what about the Vatican?’ asked Brandon. ‘What did they have to do with all this?’
‘That’s a bit more disturbing,’ said India, ‘and to understand their role you have to go back to the concentration camps. What people don’t realise is that Germany weren’t the only ones to systematically slaughter millions of innocent civilians in the name of ethnic cleansing. Have you ever heard of the organisation Ustashi?’
‘No,’ said Brandon.
‘Exactly,’ said India. ‘The Ustashi were the organisation that headed up the government of pre-war Croatia. They were fiercely Catholic and anticommunist. At the time, the head of the regime was somebody called Pavelich, and he was well known as being a vicious and sadistic leader, but the Vatican added credibility to the regime by installing an archbishop called Stepinak alongside Pavelich. For years they jointly ruled Croatia and when war broke out, Hitler made Pavelich the head of his puppet government. With this perceived endorsement, Pavelich and Stepinak saw the opportunity they had been waiting for and systematically set out to either convert every person in Croatia to Catholicism or wipe them from the face of the earth.’
‘And did they?’
‘Yes,’ said India. ‘Numbers vary, but between half a million and a million Serbs, Jews and fellow countrymen who didn’t believe in the ideals of the Ustashi were put to death with the full knowledge of the Croatian government. But as terrible as that was, it gets worse. The Ustashi didn’t believe in mass extermination like the death camps in Poland, so most of those killed were tortured horribly before suffering the worst kind of deaths you could imagine. The atrocities were so bad they even sickened the Nazis, but the worst part is, there are recorded documents that show that the clergy at the time not only knew about the practices but actively supported them, often taking part themselves. I won’t go into depth, Brandon, but trust me, what the Ustashi did to those they murdered is beyond belief.’
‘How do we know all this,’ asked Brandon, ‘post-war interrogation?’
‘Yes, there were post-war confessions,’ said India, ‘but the thing is, the Ustashi saw no crime in their actions as they were acting on behalf of their church. Not only that, many were so eager to please their leaders they took photographs of themselves actually carrying out the deeds. There are thousands of sickening pictures available showing what the twisted bastards did in the name of religion.’
‘But what makes you think the Vatican knew about this?’
‘The Vatican kept up their support of the regime throughout the war,’ said India. ‘As they saw the Croatian regime as a front-line defence against communism. Archbishop Stepinak even wrote to all the clergy in Croatia ordering them to support the regime.’
‘Did the west know about this?’
‘In all probability, yes. After the war they arrested Stepinak and sentenced him to seventeen years in prison for war crimes, but after intense lobbying from the Vatican, he was released early and eventually made a cardinal.’
‘That’s atrocious,’ said Brandon.
‘But true,’ said India. ‘But to go back to the main point, just using this scenario you can see why the Vatican had reason to help smuggle known war criminals out of Europe. There was a system called the Ratlines that was controlled by the Vatican and linked a huge amount of safe houses and sympathisers, helping Nazis and Ustashi members to reach the safety of the west. Thousands made it through and they were dispersed throughout every ally country using the contacts of the Catholic Church as protection. America, Argentina, Britain, Australia, Canada, you name the country and I guarantee the church has helped somebody disappear there.’
‘This is disturbing,’ said Brandon, ‘and quite sick.’
‘There was also another motive,’ said India.
‘And that is?’
‘Money,’ said India. ‘Much of the gold and valuables the Ustashi stole from the victims of their own holocaust was sent to the Vatican as gifts from the Croatian regime. As it became clear the war was being lost, the payments increased, though this time to pay for the Vatican’s protection and for safe passage out of Europe.’
‘How much are we talking about?’ asked Brandon.
‘Nobody really knows,’ said India, ‘but it was in the millions. There was, however, a much bigger amount that found its way into the Vatican vaults through illegal means, and that situation is well documented.’
‘What happened?’
‘Through the church, the Vatican became aware of the movement of a huge amount of wealth in Croatia and arranged for it to be intercepted and confiscated to be stored for safekeeping. Of course, it was never seen again.’
‘How much?’ asked Brandon.
‘At least two hundred and twenty million Swiss Francs,’ said India. ‘With interest, that is worth several hundred million pounds today.’
‘Are you sure about all this?’
‘None of this is hearsay, Brandon,’ said India. ‘It is all well documented. There have even been lawsuits to get the necessary documents released from the government archives, but they are classified as secret and can’t be accessed.’
‘Why not?’ asked Brandon. ‘Surely it would be in everyone’s interest to make all this public?’
‘Not if it incriminates the good guys as well,’ said India. ‘It is thought that much of that money was used to finance secret operations against the Russians after the war. Imagine if that was true and that western powers used money gained from the holocaust for their own purposes. The ramifications would be enormous.’
‘OK,’ said Brandon. ‘Assuming all this is true, what does it have to do with our investigation?’
‘I don’t know,’ said India. ‘Probably nothing, but it is a hell of a coincidence that untold fortunes were shipped to Argentina after the war and haven’t been accounted for. Now all of a sudden, a forgotten base in Antarctica comes to light and everyone and his dog seems to show a healthy interest in finding out exactly what’s down there?’
‘What do you think is there?’
‘Think about it,’ said India. ‘The only way that money could be transported is by U-boat. The Germans had established a base on Antarctica that was probably a staging point before heading on to South America. Now what if one or even several of those U-boats never reached Argentina, but was offloaded in Antarctica? There could be an awful lot of wealth just sitting down there waiting to be picked up.’
‘But what would be the point of unloading it there?’ asked Brandon. ‘There’s nothing to spend it on.’
‘Not at the time,’ said India, ‘but don’t forget that back then they envisaged a Fourth Reich and a time when they could emerge back into the limelight. Don’t forget what Bert said, there was a substantial base there right up to 1947. Perhaps they were just waiting for things to die down before risking the next leg.’
‘It all sounds feasible,’ said Brandon, ‘but I’m not convinced.’
‘We’ll discuss it further later on,’ said India. ‘Your man just walked through the door.’
‘Relax,’ said Brandon. ‘Remember, he doesn’t know who we are. As far as he knows we are just tourists.’
‘Really?’ asked India. ‘If that is the case, why is he making a beeline over here?’