The Doomsday Testament(130)

Howard Vanderbilt sighed and when he spoke, Jamie detected a lack of certainty in his voice. The weariness of a man who had run out of time, or ideas, or both. Obviously this wasn’t going according to the industrialist’s plan.

‘You have caused me some trouble, Mr Saintclair. I have spent a great deal of time and money seeking out what has brought us to this place. It ends here. Am I clear on that?’

‘Very clear, Mr Vanderbilt.’ He thought he heard the word ‘chicken’ but Sarah might only have been sighing. ‘But I would have thought that in your world everything was a matter of negotiation?’

Vanderbilt leaned closer to Sarah. ‘I can buy it, or I can take it, son, it’s up to you. Name your price. We’re finished playing games.’

Jamie shook his head and looked around. ‘Do you think you and your stormtroopers are the only people who’ve been following me? Bugging my phone? There’s probably an NSA satellite up there right at this moment, listening to every word we say. The cheerful Oriental gentleman at the back with his two friends is to my certain knowledge a representative of the Chinese government. Everybody wants the Sun Stone, Howard, and frankly you’re the last person I’d give it up to. All you want to do is exploit it, whatever the cost. Just like Brohm.’

Vanderbilt’s face hardened. ‘Have it your own way, son.’ He moved the barrel of the pistol from Jamie to Sarah. ‘Tell me where the stone and Brohm’s documents are or I’ll kill the girl.’

Jamie stared at him. Not even Howard Vanderbilt could get away with murder in a church full of witnesses, but suddenly the church wasn’t so full. Young men in dark suits began ushering the tourists out. Most went, but Jamie could hear Mr Lim politely refusing the offer of assistance to leave, and the distinct sound of a pistol being cocked seemed to indicate that the pro-Frederick members of the Vril Society were prepared to stand their ground. Jamie hoped that he hadn’t misread the cast who’d assembled here, the last thing they needed was a shooting war in the Frauenkirche.

Vanderbilt took a big breath. ‘I . . .’

It wasn’t often a man like Howard Vanderbilt could be rendered speechless, but the muzzle of the little pistol Sarah Grant was screwing into the flesh beneath his right ear achieved what presidents and prime ministers had routinely failed to do.

‘The Sun Stone belongs to the State of Israel,’ she said loudly enough for everyone in the church to hear.

‘Perhaps I should have mentioned that, Howard,’ Jamie said patiently. ‘Miss Grant and the handsome gentleman who has the drop on us from the walkway up there are here to represent the people who were sacrificed to help Walter Brohm unlock the potential of the Sun Stone.’

It was time. He got to his feet and addressed everyone in the church. ‘Gentlemen.’ He raised his voice and it rang around the enormous space that had been designed precisely for that purpose. He allowed himself a smile at Sarah. ‘And lady. This is a place of worship, let us not turn it into a war zone. As you can see, we have a number of competing interests for the legacy of the late Brigadeführer Walter Brohm. Mr Vanderbilt here believes he has a divine right to exploit it and the gun in his hand suggests he is probably prepared to go further than any of you to get it. The shadowy gentleman behind him, representing the paramilitary wing of the Vril Society, may have a legal point were he to suggest that what Walter Brohm called the Sun Stone was in the gift of the then Tibetan government and that the investment which brought the major breakthrough in exploiting it was made by his countrymen. I suppose the German government could make a similar claim, though I doubt that they would want to press it. Mr Lim,’ the Chinaman bowed his head, ‘of the Chinese People’s Republic, would argue that his country has a more legitimate claim to it than any of you, because the Sun Stone was first discovered in the soil his people lay claim to, although I know the supporters of a Free Tibet would dispute that claim. And finally, Miss Sarah Grant, representative of the State of Israel, who can give evidence, which I’d be happy to support, of the human sacrifice her people were forced to make by Walter Brohm in the pursuit of his obsession.

‘But,’ he continued, ‘as I said, this is a place of worship. It is not a law court. You are all here because you want to know the story of the Sun Stone, particularly how it is going to end. My grandfather, like Walter Brohm’s father, was a churchman, so please indulge me if I preach you a short sermon about greed.

‘When Walter Brohm returned to Germany and opened the casket he found in Tibet, he suspected he had in his hands something enormously significant: a substance hitherto unknown to man. As a scientist it was his duty to discover the properties of that material and, at a time of great upheaval for his country, their significance and potential value. Yet the very upheaval which spurred him proved to be his greatest obstacle, because with war on the horizon no one was interested in possibilities – a dream that promised some distant panacea – only in certainties.