D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

He turned to Michael and Erika. “So sorry for the inconvenience, Michael, but I can’t keep a decent secretary anymore. Practically a different one every day. And these white uniforms they insist on wearing! No style at all.”

Cadwallader turned back to his cabinets and opened another drawer. It howled in protest. Michael began to wonder if they’d wasted their time. For all he knew those filing cabinets contained nothing more ominous than old time sheets. Suddenly the old man straightened up. “Aha! Knew I had the blasted thing!” He raised his arm in triumph, revealing a yellowed file clutched in his gnarled fingers.

Bringing it over to a small table, he opened the folder, extracted a sealed envelope, and handed it to Michael, who wasted no time in tearing it open, and dumping out its contents into the palm of his hand.

It was a key to a safe deposit box.

And on it was the box’s number and nothing else.

Cadwallader squeezed Michael’s hand, his aged eyes burning with fervor. “Barclay’s Bank,” he whispered. “Trafalgar Square.”

A surge of adrenaline raced through Michael’s body. He cradled the key in his hand like a holy relic, feeling it warm to his touch. The gentle pressure of Erika’s hand on his arm told him she felt the same way. A troubling thought occurred to him and he looked up at the old man.

“How will I get into the box if it’s under your name?”

“It isn’t. It’s under yours.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “But how could you know that I’d come?”

Cadwallader clapped him on the back affectionately. “Kept tabs on you, my boy. From very early on I knew you were your father’s son.”

Michael felt a wave of emotion wash over him. “Thank you, sir. I am in your debt.”

“Of course, you are,” the old man snapped, “you haven’t paid your bill in months.”

The dark veil had descended over the old man’s eyes again, and Michael signaled to Erika that they should leave. She nodded and walked out the door, leaving the two men with a moment of privacy.

“I wish you well, sir,” Michael said.

The old man remained silent, staring out into space, his mouth hanging open as if in the middle of forming a word. It made Michael’s skin crawl. Feeling awkward standing there, he turned to go. He’d barely taken a step when Cadwallader called out.

“M—Michael?”

He turned to face the old man and found that the light had returned to Cadwallader’s eyes, along with an expression of wistful sadness.

“Your father was a good man,” he said, moving to the ancient record player, “a man I was proud to call my friend.... He just trusted the wrong people.”

The smile that had come to Michael’s face faded as he walked out of the room. Once again, the music of Glen Miller blasted out into the hall. This time its lively rhythms and happy-go-lucky sound grated on his nerves.

Trusted the wrong people.

The old man’s words sent a chill up his spine. He hadn’t wanted to admit, even to himself, that there might be a grain of truth to it. And if that were true, what did that bode for him now that he was dogging his father’s footsteps?

Erika fell into step next to him, and remained silent, sensing his darker mood. Back on the ground floor, she stopped him when they reached the front door, her face etched with concern. “What is it?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Nothing, just something the old man said about my father.”

Erika squeezed his arm. “It’s hard to hear unexpected things about someone you love.”

Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, I am not trying to be, how you say, enigmatic. My father had secrets that I am just now finding out. It’s hard—” She stopped as tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry....”

“Me too,” he said, laying his hand over hers. “It’s all a lot of bloody crap.” He looked out on the street until he was satisfied that nothing was amiss, then held open the door. “Come on, we need to hurry if we’re going to make the bank before it closes.”

In a few moments they were back on the A22 headed for London. For the entire drive, Michael was very much aware of Erika’s presence in the car. It was palpable, as if the air pressure had increased somehow. Part of him wanted to pour out his feelings to her, feelings that were growing by the hour. The other part of him resisted the urge, fought it tooth and nail, as if his life depended on it.

When are you going to grow up and be a bloody man? he thought bitterly. When, indeed? Perhaps his father had asked himself the same questions, and the answers had placed him inevitably in harm’s way. And that was when another thought came to him in the form of an old quote from George Santayana, one his old philosophy professor at Cambridge had drummed into his head: Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

He only hoped the old goat was right, and that he would have the time to learn enough about what had happened to avoid the same fate.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The coarse wool of Werner Mueller’s pea coat made the back of his neck itch, as did the rough denim of his shirt. Thank god the shoes fit, at least. They were stout, hobnailed boots, the kind a laborer wore on a construction site, which was precisely the image he was out to project. Ignoring the tickling on his neck, Mueller adjusted his hard-hat and squinted toward the guard shack up ahead. He’d been standing in the line at Checkpoint Charlie for slightly over an hour. And it