A Time To Every Purpose Read online

  “We believe in one church of humanity made into nations and tribes so that we may know one another in peace. We believe in the peaceful coexistence of all peoples, even unto the unbelievers for blessed are the peacemakers, who shall be called children of God. And so we promise to love one another as we would be loved and to turn the other cheek to aggressors. We look for forgiveness when we cause pain, we await judgement by the Father and the life of the world to come.”

  They paused in harmony and as they bowed their heads once more they reflected on their own acts and thoughts since the last time they had been together. At no set time or moment one of them would feel the urge to speak and recount the good and the bad experiences that had influenced their life in the intervening time.

  Thomas looked to Ben. Since last they had gathered Thomas knew that Ben and Liza had discovered they were to become parents. Liza was going to be due in six to seven months. A winter solstice baby would be a fine thing. He watched as Ben raised his bowed head and began to speak.

  Thomas did not hear him.

  The shaped-charge explosive that had been placed around the bay window detonated with a force that took all sound away.

  Simultaneously the front door to Thomas’s house was blown off its hinges, the back door was put in by a leaden entry ram and all power was cut, taking away what little light had been in the lounge room. In a smooth, well-practised and much used manoeuvre the black-clad Kommando moved into the house through the ingress points. Three of the soldiers entered directly into the lounge room through the remnants of the shattered window and shredded drapes. Each man knew the target he was responsible for. After studying the surveillance photography for the last forty-eight hours and having watched the arrival of the targets that evening they knew exactly who was who. As they moved into the room they trained the laser sighting of their Heckler & Koch MP19 machine pistols onto the head of their designated target.

  Four more Kommando entered through what was left of the front door frame. One covered the hallway and bottom of the stairs whilst the rest moved swiftly into the house, turned right and entered the lounge room through the door directly opposite the bay window. They also trained their weapons on their designated targets. The four Kommando personnel who entered through the back door cleared the empty rooms on the ground floor before moving up the stairs, clearing each of the bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor. The securing of the six targets in the lounge room took less than fifteen seconds from the first blast. The rest of the house was secure in little more than a minute. It was swift, professional and brutal in its execution.

  The six targets were not expected to put up any resistance. Even if they hadn’t been guided by their God, the friends could not have resisted. In the noise and shock wave caused by the initial explosions Thomas had his eardrums ruptured. He had instinctively crouched at the noise but had stayed up on his feet. As he looked through the dust and the swirling black shapes around him he could see Ben lying on the floor. A piece of window frame had smashed into his friend’s face and he lay bloodied beside the debris. Thomas looked left and right and saw the rest of his friends crouching like he was. Frightened, shocked, cowed in submission. Except Christine.

  Christine stood tall looking down at him. In the faint blue-black light of dusk that was filtering in through the obliterated window he saw a smile on her lips. He tilted his head in a query and looked at the woman he had loved deep in his heart for the last fifteen years. She looked back at him and then down at the table. He followed her gaze but stopped as he saw the stain of red spreading across her shirt. What looked like a finely crafted crystal spear jutted out of her right breast. He couldn’t understand what he was looking at. He frowned and looked back at Christine’s face. She gazed into his eyes and then he saw her lips move.

  “I love you Thomas.”

  He watched as she began to fall but saw nothing else as his world plunged into black. He felt the hood’s fabric around his face and he felt his hands yanked behind his back and tight restraints jolted onto his wrists. He was pushed, pulled, lifted and then forcibly thrown down. He braced for a hard surface but felt the soft yield of a lawn. He lay still and tried to hear through deafened ears. Had he been able to see he would have been amazed.

  The quiet suburban street was a changed scene from what was its norm. Three detachments of Special Forces had sealed off both ends of the road. They had quietly and with their normal efficiency moved all the other residents out of their houses. The cordon had been secured before the commander, Johan Lowther, gave the ‘Go’ order. He now stood and listened to the radio chatter from his Kommandos. A small, charred tear of curtain fabric fluttered silently down, twisted in the air and landed gently on Lowther’s lapel. He reached up and with a delicate touch dusted off his pristine uniform. The blackened remnant fell away and revealed again his subdued pattern, double lightning strike insignia.

  “Building clear. Tango 3 unconscious from flying debris, Tango 4 is dead from a glass shard. Looks like one of the det cords on the window slipped and blew in the bottom left of the frame. Other targets secured and on way out now, your orders?”

  SS-Sturmbannführer Lowther raised his right hand to the throat mike he wore and acknowledged the report.

  “Good work and don’t worry about the det cord, it saves us transporting six of them. I don’t want to waste time lifting unconscious bodies, just finish it in place. Leave the corpses, torch the house. Escort the others to the transport. Liaise with the Fire Department so it’s only this piece of shit that is razed. The good citizens of Stanmore might object otherwise. I want you all up and out of here within the half hour. See you back in Northwood. Oh and Carl, remember to post the sign.” Lowther keyed off his mike and turned on his heel towards his transport. He knew the job had been well done and he was very satisfied. He also knew that his senior operators could look after the rest of the night’s necessities without him hovering over them.

  SS-Hauptscharführer Carl Schern looked down at the slumped figure of Ben Stevens. He moved the sight of his HK-MP19 so that the small red dot of the laser illuminated on to Ben’s brow and pulled the trigger twice. He then nodded to his remaining squad members to carry out the rest of their orders. The main power switch was tripped back on so they could work with more haste. It also allowed his men to see what was worth ‘saving’ from the house before they set it on fire.

  The kerosene cans were emptied throughout the upper and lower floor. Once done the final squad members made their way out through the remains of the bay window. Carl stopped and checked by radio that all his men were clear. He took a last look around and was about to leave when he saw the table in the middle of the lounge room. Its white cloth was soiled by dust and debris and Tango 4’s blood. But sitting upright on it, unharmed in any way, was the six-spoke wheel. He walked over to the table, picked the statue up, smirked and shook his head. He was slightly incredulous that something so fine and delicate and obviously very old could survive the violence that had been visited upon this place. Somewhere deep in his psyche he knew there was a bigger significance to the symbolism but he ignored it. He looked again at the statue and momentarily thought about pocketing it. He smiled as he remembered this little flimsy statue carried a death sentence for anyone found possessing it. The spoils of war were not that important. He dropped it on the floor between the two bodies and crushed it under foot.

  Less than twenty minutes after the ‘Go’ order, the street was cleared of Special Forces, the remaining prisoners taken in the raid were being transported to the Harrow Holding Centre, the Fire Department were monitoring the blazing house and a sign had been posted on the front lawn:

  This property has been identified

  as a gathering place for the

  Turner Religious Sect.

  Its continued use is outlawed by order of the

  Reich High Command.

  All citizens are forbidden to congregate

  in its vicinity on

  Pain of Dea
th.

  It was the same wording that had been in use since the beginning of the Reich. It was the same wording that had been posted throughout the world from the German Southern African Colonies to the west coast of the German States of America to the east coast of Germanic Russia. The High Command boasted of two things; the sun never set on the Reich and the Reich never stopped in its hunt of Turners.

  Chapter 3

  The sun had set in the Mall and the street lamps had come on. Leigh still waited for the car. A few couples walked here and there. A young and obviously single Kapitänleutnant of the Kriegsmarine had approached her to ask directions to the Palace, which was in plain sight from where he stood. She had taken her time to point it out to him.

  She knew she fit the Aryan mould and as such she was held as a thing of beauty in the culture she despised. She was fairly tall and her shoulder length hair framed pale skin and a face that men had told her was beautiful and younger than her actual years. She was aware that her figure was slim, her legs shapely, her bust full enough to cause men’s eyes to drift. She knew that wearing an A-line skirt and simple court shoes, a white blouse and a thin cardigan under her light jacket made her look plain and refined all in one. She knew the handsome mariner was going to ask her to accompany him. Smiling up at him she thanked him for his kind offer but told him, in as casual a voice as possible, that she was waiting for a Schutzstaffel car to pick her up and take her to work. He stepped backward a little too quickly and couldn’t hide the apprehension on his face. He nodded in the uniquely old-Prussian manner and set off in the direction of the Palace. Leigh sighed to see that even a handsome sailor was terrified at the very mention of the Siegrune.

  She lit a cigarette and watched a group of excited tourists from Spain follow their guide into the entrance way to Horse Guards Parade. Leigh’s Spanish was not all that good but she could make out the odd word of excited chatter and surmised that the tourists had seen the Trooping the Colour ceremony for the Founding Führer’s Birthday celebrations on State Television the previous month. Now they appeared to be extremely buoyant about seeing the actual parade ground in real life. The mass floodlights surrounding the square allowed visitors to come and go at all hours of the day and night in complete, halogen-lit safety. There was to be no fear of being accosted in the second capital of the Empire.

  The tour guide was stopped by the on-duty Police Officer and without hesitation she swiped her fingerprint over the biometric input station set into the external wall of the sentry post and looked into the small camera lens mounted above. The familiar tones of the elektronische Bürgerdatei warbled their way through their scale as the biometric data was processed. Inside the post a second Police Officer sat watching a bank of terminals. Leigh could see the dark shape of his head through the small, bullet-resistant windows, but his features were not visible against the low lighting reflected from the computer screens.

  Leigh had worked on the cross-reference algorithms for the eBü back when she was a Junior Scientific Intern at the Reich Security Directorate’s Technical Division. An interesting summer spent learning about just how some of the State’s apparatus worked. She knew that on one of the small screens inside the sentry post a green-bordered box would pop up within three seconds of the fingerprint being swiped. The box would confirm the name of the subject and display an ID photograph taken within the last five years. This image was digitally face-matched to the young woman looking up at the camera outside. The popping up of the box corresponded with an audio confirmation tone passed directly to the wireless earpieces both Officers wore.

  Well, Leigh presumed this would be what happened. She didn’t imagine a Spanish tourist guide would cause the other possible outcome. A red-bordered box popping up on screen, details of an arrest warrant outstanding, a mismatched face recognition image or some other breach of security. That would cause a very different audible note passed to the two Officers.

  As it was, the Police Officer smiled at the pretty tourist guide and nodded for her to proceed. She nodded politely, stepped onto the pathway that led down to the parade square and waited for her brood of followers to pass through the checkpoint. Fourteen people, all doing the same process, all cleared through by the affable and smiling Police Officer, all finished and on their way in less than a minute of total time. Leigh noticed one of those strange emotions she often felt. A surge of simple pride that the system worked so well. A comfortable pleasure that she and her colleagues had produced a very, very good piece of equipment. Yet, this pride and pleasure was corrupted by the knowledge of what that system actually did.

  Of what would happen to the individual if the red box popped up. Of why the smiling and affable Police Officer carried a chest slung modernised HK-MP5 machine pistol and a hip-holster that contained a HK-P8 side arm.

  She sighed and checked her watch. It had been thirty-five minutes since Heinrich Steinmann had called her. She could have walked to the tube station in Westminster and been at her work by now, but she guessed what they were up to. Even in these days of advanced surveillance and CCTV cameras there were parts of the city that were unobserved. It was the nature of physical space and dimensions. Walls were just not see-through. So they had her wait. In plain sight of at least four cameras and just across from a manned security checkpoint. Clever.

  But she was clever too. She had initially sat on the small raised kerb with her back to one of the ceremonial masts, glancing upward to see the drape of the Nationalflagge hanging over her head. Producing a notebook and a pen from her bag she had busily scribbled down notes invented to make it look like she was thinking about the good professor’s experiments and what could have gone wrong. She made no phone calls, she made no furtive gestures, she behaved like a model citizen waiting to serve her country. She had continued to write and look thoughtful about potential problems in work. She had observed the passersby on the street, talked to the young sailor and watched the tourists. She had also watched the sky darkening.

  Now she was beginning to feel a slight chill creeping into the evening air and she pulled her cardigan and jacket closer. It had only been her intention to go for a short walk. Through James’s Park and out at the exit across from the Palace, up though Green Park and onto Piccadilly opposite the Luftwaffe Club. Along the busy road and back into her flat in Old Bond Street. All done she would only have been out of her home for just over an hour.

  She liked walking in the city on a Sunday evening. It reminded her of the times when, as a little girl, her father had taken her for evening walks through the small village in Cambridgeshire where she had grown up. The memory made her smile. She still missed him. She missed her mother too but she supposed like most little girls her father was the one she had been closer to. Although it was six years since they had gone she could see them in her mind as clear as the lights of the parade square. The thought of them smiling at her on her graduation from The Führer’s College, Cambridge was the image that was always the clearest. Her mother had been crying and her father had said that she had done well.

  That simple phrase, “You’ve done well Lee-Lee.”

  She had hugged them both and she had cried. They had walked arm in arm down to the Backs and hired a punt. Her father had asked if there was anything more stereotypical to do in Cambridge but it was good natured and they had bumbled along the Cam, trying to avoid the athletic young men whose coordination and capabilities with the long pole outstripped theirs. It was a memory that her mind perhaps made more idyllic since her loss, but she was sure that it had been just as special as she recalled. Her memory shifted backwards. She was thirteen.

  “The years leave a mark.” Her mother’s voice. “Constantly hiding who you really are and what you really believe, oh Leigh it takes a toll on you. We know you’re clever and strong, but this double life you think you want. It has consequences. We know sweetheart, we’ve lived it for ourselves.”

  “It’s okay mum,” Leigh had replied, so sure of her convictions and commitment. Sometime
s she just wished that she could have a few more moments with her mother to tell her.

  “You were right mum. So right. Playing a role, being the other Leigh. Oh mum, it is so hard sometimes. Being a good Party member. Mixing with the senior officials, having to listen to their intolerance, living in their company, smiling at their base humour, going home each and every night and praying for my heart’s salvation. Willing Him to find me and help me. It’s been hard mum. You were so right. The years leave a mark.” But she had always kept the pain to herself.

  The temperature had dropped more and she buttoned her cardigan and fastened her jacket. The breeze had picked up and the flags above her unfurled their full length. In the overspill glow of the floodlights surrounding Horse Guards the flags looked somehow less threatening. Their colours were washed out and that symbol was not as visible.

  She gazed at the flag and remembered back to when she was nine, maybe ten. Her father and mother had spoken in quiet tones about how the true nature of humanity was being crushed. How the very symbol of the Reich was a sign of love and peace and harmony that had been corrupted. During that summer she had learnt that the barbarism, insanity and elitism of the world that surrounded her was not the way it was meant to be. That was not the teaching of God. That was not what had brought nearly two thousand years of peace.

  She had been taught the Turner Creed and learned how the people of Earth had embraced the way of love. She listened to the distant voices of her childhood and she could see how everything had led her to where she was now. As her grandfather in Scotland had prepared her father to become influential in the Party so she had been prepared.

  She was sent to good schools that were open to her because of her father’s money and influence. But it was her natural intelligence that allowed her to rise into the top ranks of the scientific community. Alone now, with her grandparents and parents gone, she was the torchbearer of her family. The latest and maybe the last in a generational plan to keep the beliefs, work a way into the system and watch for an opportunity to crack it apart.