NOW 12

Chapter Twelve

Ministry of Defence denies Scapa Flow closure rumours (The Scotsman)

In a press release issued in London yesterday the Ministry of Defence denied 'once and for all' all rumours that the Fleet Base at Scapa Flow was to be drawn down and closed. However the Submarine Base at Holy Loch was deemed 'surplus to requirements' and that in the future all Royal Navy Submarines were to be based out of Faslane and Freetown...[1]

UAPR tests at least seven devices in Pacific Proofing Grounds (Singapore Times)

Seismographic stations in Northern Australia and western Canada detected the shock-waves originating in the Bikini-Atoll grounds where in the past the UAPR has already conducted extensive Nuclear testing. MoD Officials and representatives of the Torchwood Institute estimated at least seven devices, and Prime Minister Wilson called on the American Government to stop the destabilizing...

Space Command launches Hermes 9 on schedule (Frankfurter Allgemeine)

British Space Exploration efforts are back on schedule after last years Hermes 8 disaster that cost the lives of two Astronauts. Hermes 9 is the first flight after that disaster and the result of extensive redesigning of the capsule and the rocket. RAF Space Command has not yet officially stated the reason for the explosion and...

TELSAT 5 to be launched in January (British Telecom Memorandum)

The 5^th TELSAT Satellite is to be launched next January, weather and scheduling permitting. Gentlemen, we have to remember that we are as of yet dependant on Space Command being willing and able to launch our Sats with their rockets so I must stress that we need to have TELSAT 5 ready by the New Year at the latest. The Italians are on board but the French won't resume their participation so any suggestions?

~**---**~

The warehouse was a rundown structure that still filled Wachmann with a sense of forboding. Built back when Wilhelm Two had been the one to call the shots in this city and thus wasn't made out of concrete but instead the Red Bricks so common in the industrial architecture of the time.

Twenty Police Officers, one Homicide Detective and one Australian Military Police Officer were waiting about until.

“Let's get cracking.” Wachman said and nodded at the man with the bolt cutter in his hands and he stepped forward to release the gate around the grounds from the padlock that had denied them entry. The police streamed over the small open area between the gate and there was no gunfire coming at them, but they were still all armed, the Commissioner had even released the men that were qualified with the K98ks that the Municipal Police used only when very heavy resistance was expected.

Well, they wouldn't need them for the moment, and Wachmann was all the happier for it.

The side door to the warehouse was locked but the rusty metal quickly yielded to the bootheel of the same Officer who had cut away the pad lock and the Police filed in. The inside was spacious, but the floor was coffered with all manner of boxes of all sizes.

“Hey, who are you?” came the yell of a man who was coming out of an Office that was mounted on a platform in one corner.

“Police! And yes, we do have a warrant!” Wachmann yelled and motioned for him to be taken into custody before he decided to bolt.

He watched as three more of the men ran up the metal staircase to the Office to gather up every scrap of paper while Wachmann and Kelso went to talk to the man who was now in handcuffs.

“You have no right being here!” was all the greeting they got and Wachmann replied with a short 'Shut up or I make you' look on his face that was working perfectly.

The man was wearing a workmans overall and otherwise was only distinguished by not wearing the mod-style haircuts that men of his age found to be fashionable right now.

“So, three questions.” Wachman began, “First, who are you, secondly, what are you doing here and thirdly, what is being stored here?”

Before the man answered added: “And don't bother lying to me. I'll find out anyway, but if I have to work late tonight I will be very angry and know who to blame for that.”

But the man was nothing more than a caretaker who remarked that he was paid extra for not looking into the boxes.

Somewhere during the short conversation Kelso had wandered off as he knew that without speaking the local dialect well enough he was next to useless.

He began looking into the boxes and while for the most part they were nondescript and not incriminating, but the boxes in one of the corners he found something that was technically not illegal but still somewhat curious. Bayonets. Bayonets wrapped in oiled paper and sometimes even still with the manufacturers markings.

He struck paydirt with the very next crate. The Bayonets might be surplus and be sold, as said hardly illegal, but what he found next most certainly was. He had to contain a laugh, as it was ridiculous for some reason. A box full with at least twenty pristine copies of Mein Kampf. In Germany the book was illegal and could only be obtained via the Federal Office for Political Education, and only by authorized occupations like teachers and historians, so these alone would bring the wounded in the hospital and the caretaker arrested at least two to three years each.

“What's so funny?”

Wachmann had walked over and when he saw what was in the box the grin on his face was wide.

“Well, at least these idiots make our job easy for once.”

“How come?” Kelso asked with interest, because they were still no nearer to achieving anything.

Wachmann held up a thick, ledger.

“Because this is the personal address book of out trigger-happy friend and I bet you a bottle of the finest Single Malt that our man is at least known to one of the chaps on this list.”

“Would they be that...experimental with Operational security?”

Wachmann shrugged. “Why not? Before and after Canaris defected during the war the Intelligence services couldn't tie their shoes without setting them on fire after all.”

Kelso had to admit that was true. Even after the Admiral had decided to seek British hospitality, a fact not revealed to the public until after the war, the German intelligence services hadn't been the sharpest tools in the box, and after Heidrich had grabbed the Abwehr's responsibilities for the RSHA this hadn't exactly improved and had been more concerned with rooting out suspected dissidents and 'wreckers' even as Germany had started to come apart around him. As a result the ordinary German had less than no respect for the intelligence services, even though the new ones had been built up probably with the help of MI5 and MI6, as they were most certainly organized along the same lines so far as they were known.

“The Problem is, the longer we are sitting around here the deeper these people are going to run.” Kelso said and saw that Wachmann nodded.

“Someone has to supervise this lot here though. Still, I'll have to phone this on. Excuse me, Lieutenant.”

Well, at least they had enough to seriously start cracking heads as his relative would say. He knew Wachmann well enough by now to be perfectly certain that the German was sitting as if on coals with the list and not being able to do much with it. Such were the peculiarities of the situation in Berlin that the Police here was chronically underfunded and undermanned, in spite of being the nominal, if not factual capital of Germany. So they had to sit around the warehouse while Wachmann frantically tried to get either relief or have those back at the station.

There were fifty people on the 'address list' and Kelso estimated by rule of thumb that maybe at best ten or twelve would be able to tell anyone anything of significance, and of those no more than two or three were even likely to be even somewhat useful for their real investigation.

What had begun as a run of the mill murder case was now turning into a look at the seedier aspects of post-war Germany and Kelso had to admit to himself that he was somewhat surprised to see how eager the Germans were to smash this group. Kelso of course found the notion that Germany was nothing than a fourth Reich in waiting and after that was defeated a fifth and so forth ridiculous, people weren't posted to Berlin for believing things like that, but the habits of decades were hard to shake.

“So, what we do we do now?” Kelso asked as Wachmann returned.

“Well, back at the precinct they'll kick it up the chain and we'll pull in everyone we have a file on. That's about all we can do, because theoretically all of these could be acquaintances from his legal operations.” Wachmann said in a resigned tone of voice.

“Joy.” Kelso replied in the same.

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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

[1] No ICBMs means no Boomers. As those of you who have read Operation Tidespring might know, the concept of the missile sub won't even surface until the 1970s.