"What am I looking at?" Sam was perplexed. "It's nearly all white."
"Exactly," said Nina triumphantly. "It's Antarctica. Specifically, it's New Schwabenland. It's exactly the area that the Nazis were considering as a possible Antarctic base… and Kruger seems to be claiming that he'd been there. This is the most compelling evidence I've seen that there genuinely was an attempt to set up a base there. Look at this — it was one of Kruger's last entries."
Sam squinted at the page she indicated, struggling to decipher Nina's spiky writing. He had expected Harald Kruger's writing to be dry, academic, and full of advanced theories that were impossible for nonscientists to understand. Instead, what he found was something whimsical, something that read more like fiction than the thoughts of an eminent intellectual.
It shall be the greatest of adventures! Worthy of Holmes, of Nemo, of Doctor Moreau! Since it now seems inevitable that the journey must be undertaken, it behooves us to approach it with [zeal? unclear]. Hidden away in that most remote of places, we few may discover the means by which we shall snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. To be personally selected by F [Fuhrer?] and entrusted with the richest of our nation's treasures… It is my fondest wish. I feel the call of the vastness once again and can only hope that I shall be permitted to answer it. Wolfenstein, I am for you!
Sam wrinkled his nose. "Wee bit purple, isn't it? What's he referring to?"
"It certainly is," Nina replied with a roll of her eyes. "I think… and this sounds crazy, but bear with me… There's a little-known theory that several Nazi scientists and a whole lot of the Reich's treasures were sneaked out of Germany when it became clear that the Allies were going to win. Some people even think—"
"That Hitler was spirited away as well, and that his death in the bunker was faked?" Sam chipped in. "Yeah, it's not as little-known as you think. I got that from a stroll around the Internet."
Nina took a deep breath before replying. "Perhaps I should have phrased that differently. There might be plenty of people who are familiar with the theory, but there are very few reputable historians who take it seriously, so in academic circles it's barely considered. Without evidence that the ice station — Wolfenstein, as he seems to be calling it — in New Schwabenland even existed, there was no reason to believe that any attempt was made to secrete anything there."
"Hasn't anyone ever, you know, gone out there to look for it?" Sam asked.
"Sam, look at the map!" Nina said. "We're talking about somewhere incredibly remote, it's not like you can just drive by and check it out. You've got to know what you're doing to survive in that environment — or have the resources to hire someone who knows. Mounting that kind of expedition costs, I don't know, tens of thousands? Maybe hundreds? And that's before…" she trailed off, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"What?"
"I have an idea." Nina was suddenly alight with excitement. "I have a friend, another academic. She's a marine virologist, and she's part of an expedition to Queen Maud Land — better known to you as New Schwabenland — early next year. I wonder…"
It took Sam a moment to catch up. "You're not trying to get yourself to the Antarctic? Nina, that's insane."
Nina shrugged. "Is it? It's not a huge amount of evidence, I know. But that's how discoveries are made, isn't it? If I wait for someone else to get out there and prove there's an ice station to be discovered, it won't be me making the discovery. And I'm just spinning my wheels here. I'm teaching stuff I could recite in my sleep, I'm writing papers I don't give a toss about just to keep my publication record up to date. Frankly, if there's a chance to do something exciting at this point in my life, I'm damn well going to take it." She drained her glass and slammed it down on the table. "What did Dr. Lehmann say about the ice station?"
"Not much," said Sam. "Just that it existed — he called it by name, so he's clearly heard of it — and that we shouldn't look for it. Then he got caught up thinking about you and his son and I couldn't get any more out of him."
"Ugh, his son," Nina shuddered. "How is dear Steven?"
"Jealous, I think," Sam said. "He didn't seem to like me very much. Seemed to think you and I had something going on."
"Sounds like him." Nina's rosebud mouth gathered into a scowl. "Never mind the fact that he's got a wife and baby and that I finished things over a year ago. Sorry if he made things awkward for you. People skills aren't really his thing, as I'm sure his wife could attest."
"Sounds like there's a story there."
"I don't want to bore you."
After all the puzzles and confusion of the past week, Sam was more than ready for a tale of a simple relationship drama. Besides, Nina looked like she needed to unload. He listened as she poured out the story of how she had met Steven Lehmann when she was visiting his father. She had mistaken his coldness for mystery, his desperate need for fulfillment for love. Up to her eyes in stress during the final year of her doctorate, eager for excitement and purpose, Nina had persuaded herself that she was in love with Steven.
For two years they had met up in hotels, spent weekends abroad together, he had visited her at her flat. All the while, Dr. Lehmann had warned Nina to be careful of his son. Gradually she had come to realize that Steven was a strange, cold man whose pleasure was derived from control. When she had finally learned of the existence of his wife, she had only been half-surprised.
Since their relationship had ended, Nina had learned that Steven had no intention of letting her go easily. "I think he thinks he's some kind of mafia boss," she snarled, draining her third rum and Coke. "You know — sending messages and all that nonsense. For a while I kept finding shredded violets on my doorstep. He knew they were my favorite flower, so he'd have them ripped up and sent to me. Once he texted me and said he'd heard that I was seeing someone, and that I'd better not be or he'd do something about it.
"It would be funny if it weren't for the fact that he genuinely has some scary contacts. Not underworld, or anything like that — he's far too posh. But he's friends with some worryingly powerful people. You remember that arms dealer who got arrested, the politician's son? Charles Whitsun, I think? He was one of Steven's friends. They'd been at school together. Apparently they used to get drunk and — Sam, are you ok?"
Sam was not ok. He had finally realized where he and Steven Lehmann recognized each other from. Charles Whitsun was a name that no one had said in Sam's presence since the investigation into Patricia's death had ended. Charles Whitsun and his arms-dealing cronies were the reason she was dead, and Sam Cleave's testimony was the reason why Charles Whitsun had been sentenced to thirty-eight years in prison. Not that he served them. He had blown his own brains out rather than face jail. No wonder he wasn't happy at the idea of me and Nina getting together, Sam thought.
"Sam?" Nina's voice called him back to the moment. She looked worried. While Sam had been having his moment of unpleasant realization, it seemed she had been having one of her own. "Sam… I don't suppose Steven knew what you were discussing with his father, did he?"
Automatically, Sam shook his head. Yet as he did so, he remembered Steven Lehmann hovering outside the study, fooling around with a plug and socket. He remembered that something had caught his eye as he left the room, though he had been too tired to recognize the lumped shape of the device plugged into the wall just a few feet away from where they had been sitting. Of course Steven had heard their conversation. That device was a baby monitor.
Chapter 6
NINA,
You've already had your house burgled. Was that not enough of a warning? Tell me you're not still planning to go looking for this fucking magical imaginary ice station? Even if it did exist once, it's probably just a few shards of rusty metal sticking out of the ice now. Wouldn't someone have flown over and seen it, if it was really still there? Honestly. Just leave it.