Free Secrets of the Last Nazi by Iain King

them.
    He glanced up from the files and through the window. He could see the four of them standing outside the car, arguing about who should drive. Glenn eventually tossed the car keys over to Zenyalena, who began to adjust the seat.
    Myles looked back into the room. Something didn’t seem right, but he couldn’t work out what it was.
    He studied the walls. Stolz had collected a lifetime’s worth of books and memorabilia. On a shelf stood a framed photo of the man looking middle-aged next to the Olympic rings. The 1974 Munich Olympics: Stolz must have had VIP tickets to the event.
    Stolz had obviously been wealthy. Yet his main apartment, on the ground floor in the centre of Berlin, was dark. It was close to the River Spree, but had no riverside view. It seemed damp - Myles could smell the river inside the building. Surely Stolz could have chosen a better place to live than this?
    Myles edged towards the bookcase. The titles were all in German. Even though he couldn’t translate the words, he could deduce what they were about. Some science, some history, some travel, and an old Prussian novel. Myles noticed an encyclopaedia of the twentieth century, which had been flicked through many times. The only other book which seemed to have been read so much was titled, ‘Ephemeris’. Myles peeked inside: it was a strange timetable, full of symbols and numbers, a different month on every page. Carefully, Myles placed it back, not sure what he had found. He ran a finger along the shelf – some dust, but not much.
    Diagonally above the book case was an airvent, which seemed out of place. Stolz had connected a filter to it – a man determined to keep out the carbon from the city traffic?
    Myles opened a drawer and found all sorts of small things: train tickets, receipts, a faded set of instructions to some household device. Stolz was a hoarder, but not of large things – the dead German seemed to have collected items which carried information. Myles picked out a photo of the man in his mid-twenties, posing while a jubilant crowd was gathering behind him. Stolz was grinning, as though he had just won tickets to see some big attraction. Myles noticed an out-of-focus swastika in the image. On the back was scribbled simply, ‘Vienna, 1938’. He replaced the picture, trying to leave it untouched.
    From the lobby of the apartment block, Myles heard the gentle whirring of the lift start up. One of the other residents would be returning to their flat above him.
    The distraction made Myles focus. The papers: that was where Stolz’s secret lay. That was where Myles had to search.
    His thumb moved along the top edges of the papers in his file. Many of the pages were worn: someone had flicked through them before.
    Then he noticed more handwritten scribbles under the typewritten text. He gently lifted out the page, careful not to pull too hard in case the paper tore. It was another translation. The words had been done with a fountain pen and the black ink had faded. Myles guessed the scrawls were from the 1940s. It was probably from one of the first people to interrogate Stolz - perhaps from Corporal Bradley himself.
    He placed the sheet flat on the table, stretching out the wrinkles with his palms. It was entitled, ‘Cross-Border Economic Systems’. Myles began to read:
    Our calculations have established the dates on which this happened before, and the historical events associated with those times. These are:
    October 1823 to February 1824 – US President declares his authority over Americas.
    December 1852 – Napoleon III becomes French Emperor and promotes free trade.
    1884 – Berlin Conference sets borders in Africa and international conference agrees on time zones
    December 1913 – US Federal Reserve established
    June 1939 – Pact of Steel unites economies of Germany and Italy.
    Myles wondered what the event was: what had happened in June 1939 to coincide with the Pact of Steel? What else had happened when the US Federal