‘But — but he could bring this whole thing down!’ Dalton’s words rose in pitch despite his best efforts to maintain a calm front. ‘If he finds this place, if he rescues Wilde, it’ll all point back to me!’
‘Irton’s tracks are covered,’ said Cross, with more than a hint of impatience. ‘Chase won’t find the Mission.’
‘Chase once found his way into my house, into my goddamn bedroom, and that was when I still had Secret Service protection! You underestimated him, Ezekiel. That’s a big mistake.’
‘I know what I’m doing, Mr President.’ Dalton was taken aback by Cross’s warning tone, but the cult leader ignored his reaction. ‘If Chase tries to interfere with the plan… we’ll kill him.’
12
‘Nice day for it,’ Eddie sighed, watching the rain-drenched outskirts of the German capital crawl past beyond the clogged autobahn. He and Rothschild had unluckily landed at Tegel airport just in time to catch the evening rush hour. ‘Everyone’s drowning in Berlin.’
His companion didn’t get the reference to the old pop song; either that, or she was simply ignoring him. ‘Why are we going this way?’ she complained instead. ‘The Saatwinkler Damm would be much more direct.’
‘Calm down, the IHA’s paid for the ride.’ The Mercedes had picked them up at the terminal. ‘It’s not like the driver’s trying to rip you off by taking us via Poland.’
Rothschild’s pinched little mouth shrank further, but rather than make a sarcastic rejoinder, she instead spoke in German to the driver. ‘There’s been a car crash,’ she told Eddie. ‘So we’re having to go a longer way around. But at least this way we’ll see more of the city.’
Eddie peered at the heavy slate-grey sky and the wet tower blocks silhouetted against it. ‘Terrific, I’ll get my camera ready. So you know Berlin pretty well?’
‘It’s been a while since I was last here, but yes. I even lived here for several months after I got my masters in archaeology.’
‘Yeah? Did you meet the Kaiser?’
‘No, of course not, that was a long time before—’ She finally got the joke and treated him to a withering glare. ‘I’m no fan of Nina’s, but I always thought she was at least intelligent. Her seeing anything in you makes me question that, though.’
Eddie shrugged, grinning. After putting up with the elderly woman’s barbs on the long journey across the Atlantic, he’d been unable to resist getting in one of his own. ‘Is that how you know the bloke at this museum?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘Markus? Yes. We’ve been friends for a long time. And by that, I mean since the 1970s, not the 1910s,’ she added peevishly.
The Englishman smiled again, then turned his attention back to the city. His only prior visits to Germany had been brief, and he had never been to Berlin itself. What he’d seen of it so far was what he had expected, however: lots of post-war tower blocks, though with more green space around them than similar developments in London or Paris. The car crossed over a river — or given its straightness, a canal — and continued towards the capital’s heart, more unappealing concrete buildings rolling by before the visitors passed over another bridge and before long entered a large swathe of parkland.
‘That’s the Siegessäule,’ said Rothschild, pointing ahead.
‘The what?’
‘The Victory Column. There.’ Eddie looked past the driver and saw a tall pillar at the end of the road, a winged golden figure at its top. ‘It used to be in front of the Reichstag, but Hitler and Albert Speer had it moved. A good thing, otherwise it would have been flattened by Allied bombers. This park leads all the way to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, actually.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Eddie, not particularly interested. Monuments to the common soldiers who had fallen in wars meant more to him than extravagant celebrations of the politicians who claimed to have won them. But as the Mercedes negotiated the large roundabout circling the edifice, he had to admit that it was quite impressive, floodlights making the statue at its summit gleam even in the rain. ‘The Brandenburg Gate’s where the Berlin Wall was, right?’
‘Yes, and it was the site of the signing of German reunification. So you know some history, then.’
‘Military history I’m pretty good on. I even surprise Nina sometimes.’ He looked ahead as the car turned on to a long, broad tree-lined avenue, but saw nothing through the traffic and the dull haze of rain. ‘How far is it?’ he asked, peering at the driver’s satnav to get an idea of the city’s layout. A winding river bisected the capital, its wide, snaking curves running north of their current position.
‘Over a mile,’ Rothschild told him.
‘Glad we’re driving, then. Don’t fancy getting wet — I had way too much of that recently.’ His expression darkened as he briefly thought back to his waterboarding ordeal. Rothschild gave him a curious look, but decided not to voice any questions.
The Mercedes continued down the long avenue. Eventually the towering triumphal arch of the Brandenburg Gate came into sight, though to Eddie’s slight disappointment the road didn’t go through it, traffic instead diverting around a broad pedestrianised area. Even in the bad weather, there were still plenty of tourists at the monument. ‘Not far now,’ said Rothschild as the gate passed out of sight behind a building.
‘Great,’ Eddie replied. ‘This friend of yours, Dr Derrick — he’s an expert on this altar, right?’
‘It’s been his life’s work, and he’s in charge of overseeing its restoration, so you could say that, yes.’
‘Good. ’Cause I’ve been thinking—’
Flat sarcasm. ‘Really.’
‘A hardy har. I’ve been wondering how this angel could be hidden in it without anyone having found it already, even if it’s behind a secret panel or something.’
Rothschild smiled patronisingly. ‘Do you know how big the Altar of Zeus is, Mr Chase?’
‘I dunno. But an altar’s basically a fancy table, so… ten feet long and six wide?’ he guessed. ‘Twelve feet?’
She could barely hide her amusement. ‘A little bigger.’
The Brandenburg Gate reappeared behind them as the car turned on to a wide boulevard and headed east for roughly half a mile, then picked its way north through smaller streets before finally stopping. ‘This is it?’ Eddie asked. Another glance at the satnav told him that their destination was actually on an island.
‘That’s it,’ Rothschild replied. ‘The Pergamon Museum.’
A footbridge spanned a waterway in front of the imposing classical building, steps leading up to a plaza between the two long wings of the museum. A far more modern structure, a cylindrical tower, occupied most of the space. ‘Big place just for an altar.’
‘The Altar of Zeus isn’t the only exhibit; there’s also the Museum of Islamic Art, the Middle East museum and the antiquity collection. But Markus can show you… Ah, here he comes.’ A tall figure beneath a large black umbrella scuttled down the steps and crossed the bridge to meet them.
The driver opened the door for Rothschild, Eddie following her out. ‘Markus, hello!’ she trilled, embracing then kissing the new arrival. ‘It’s so good to see you again!’
‘You too, after all these years,’ said the square-jawed German. Eddie guessed him to be in his sixties, although his hair was a chestnut brown suspiciously rich for someone of that age. ‘Ah, Maureen. Willkommen zurück, welcome back. Come, come inside, out of this rain.’