Forcing his feet to move, he walked slowly to the centre of the chamber and with a soft click his torch illuminated the marble symbol on the floor. The first surprise was that it wasn’t black, it was green, a mottled greyish green the colour of the Wehrmacht uniforms he’d seen in colour newsreels of the Russian Front. The second, that it was much bigger than it had looked.
‘The Black Sun,’ Sarah whispered.
‘But not our Black Sun. This is different.’ He felt a moment of confusion, uncertain whether to be disappointed or not. The symbol from his grandfather’s diary had nine arms, this had twelve, and there was no message or number.
By now Sarah had pulled a large piece of tracing paper from her bag and was hurriedly copying the design. As an afterthought she shaded in the centre of the sun with the pencil as if it were a brass rubbing. She had just finished and was in the act of replacing the paper when the beam of a powerful torch trapped them in its spotlight.
XXIV
Silicon Valley, California
‘THE ARTEFACT IS of very ancient construction.’ Six men in white protective suits stood over the golden casket inside the ‘clean’ area of the laboratory complex, but only one spoke into the microphone. Speakers relayed his emotionless voice to the glass booth where the man who had initiated the raid on the Menshikov Palace now stood. He cut an incongruous figure in his T-shirt and jeans, with the thick-lensed rimless spectacles that reminded people of a short-sighted cartoon character and his long grey hair tied in a ponytail. He knew he was a throwback to another era, but he had never cared what anyone else thought about him. Money allowed you to make your own decisions and he’d long ago made more than enough money to tell the world to go screw itself. He listened intently as the scientist continued.
‘Tests conducted on the base of the object confirm it is manufactured of mahogany wood, probably imported from India, overlaid with a thin sheet of beaten gold which chemical analysis suggests is of similar origin. The gold is embossed with extensive symbols and patterns. Several letters are visible, but these are in a very obscure and venerable form of Sanskrit, possibly even pre-Sanskrit, and are indecipherable to me.’
He paused and looked up at the watchers. ‘I understand more expert eyes are already studying this aspect of the investigation.’
He turned his attention back to the casket. ‘The lock has a fairly complex twin-barrel mechanism, but we have been able to manufacture a key that should allow me to open it. Radiation levels are normal for an object that has spent many years in the mountains of Tibet, however our X-rays indicate the box may be lined with lead or some other similar material, so before I begin, please seal off the room.’
Metal screens rose up in front of the booth window and the man inside concentrated on the voice. ‘Check suit integrity. Yes? I will commence to open the box.’
The words were an inane catchphrase from some long-forgotten TV game show. Did the scientist have a sense of humour? It seemed unlikely. The pony-tailed man had known him for fifteen years and he could barely remember seeing him smile. Nerves, perhaps. That was more likely. Whatever was inside the casket, even if it only held a tiny trace of what they hoped, could change their lives. The scientist would hold the key to the last great secret of nuclear physics and the man in the booth would take a decisive step towards his goal of becoming the most powerful person on the planet. He held his breath and it seemed that the silence that preceded the metallic click of the lock’s engagement was the eternal silence of the grave.
‘I will now lift the lid of the casket . . . which contains a . . . a . . .’
The scientist’s words tailed away and the man ground his teeth in frustration.
‘A what, goddamit, Jensen? Lift these goddam screens.’ He did not normally use profanity in public, but many years earlier when he had been a packer in the loading bay of a television factory in Mesa, Arizona, he had been an inveterate cusser, and his choice of words reflected the tension of the moment.
The metal screen withdrew to expose the brightly lit scene below. He saw that the six white-suited men had all taken a step back from the casket and were staring in astonishment at whatever was inside. He craned his neck to get a better view, but he could still see nothing because of the ring of hooded figures.
‘For Christ’s sake.’ He hammered the reinforced glass and six pairs of eyes turned to him.
The men moved apart, like a white flower opening in the sun, and at last he saw it.
For a moment he couldn’t speak. He felt a hammer blow in his chest that might have been the prelude to a heart attack. The hammer blow of failure. All that time and effort and investment and the sacrifice of other men’s lives had achieved nothing but to uncover some sort of macabre joke. It had never been likely that the casket would contain the material itself, but he had hoped for some sort of residue, some hint of its nature or potential. The Sanskrit symbols might still provide a clue, but surely he deserved more than this?
‘The casket contains . . .’ Jensen resumed his commentary, but now his voice crackled with nervous energy, ‘. . . what appears to be a representation of a human skull . . .’ He held up the object in gloved hands and the over-bright artificial light of the laboratory caught it, so that the man in the booth was almost dazzled by the reflected brilliance. ‘It appears to be made of . . .’
‘Silver,’ the man in the booth said decisively. ‘After sixty years old Heini is still playing with us. Who would have thought the chicken farmer had a sense of humour? Don’t you recognize it, Jensen? Christ, your old man probably had one just like it.’ He studied the empty eye sockets and the mocking seven-toothed smile. ‘It’s a replica of the skull on an SS Death’s Head honour ring. Get me the file on the nineteen thirty-seven expedition to Tibet.’
Five minutes later he was leafing through the thin folder. Most of the documents were original and in German, but German had been his first language in the clapboard house in East Brunswick where he had been brought up. The original family name hadn’t been Vanderbilt, of course, but there had come a point after December 1941 when the old man decided it was more sensible to be Dutch than Deutsche. His German had come in useful when he was drafted, because it allowed him to spend the dangerous Vietnam years at a NATO headquarters near Hanover instead of crawling around some swamp in the DMZ getting shot at by Stone Age sub-humans. That was where he had learned to love electronics and had spotted the potential of the newfangled tape cassette players. When he returned to the States he’d bought a licence and mortgaged himself ten times over to create a manufacturing facility. Within a year he’d made the first of his many millions. Another opportunity had come with the rise of video tape technology in the early seventies, but he’d remembered how the eight-track player had once looked as though it would cost him everything, and foresaw that this new race would develop into a battle of formats. Instead, he decided to focus on the components that would be needed in every machine, whoever made it. By the time the boom in home computers took off he’d been perfectly placed to take advantage. And that was just the start. He’d made and lost fortunes along the way, married and lost wives, but there had always been one constant in his life. Membership of the Vril Society had come via his father and grandfather, influence in it had come with his growing fortune. Influence had inevitably led to the leadership, the first time the position had been held by a member outwith the Fatherland. Half of his life had been devoted to the search for the Vril, the race of ancient supermen who had survived the Great Inundation and sought refuge deep in the earth, where their powers still lay untapped. He had sponsored years of research, expeditions to the Arctic and the Gobi Desert under the guise of scientific fieldwork, and he had pinpointed sunken Atlantis to the Bay of Naples, in Italy, on the edge of the Phlegraean Plain. His fortune funded Frederick’s private army, which ensured that the potential advances made under Adolf Hitler would remain within the control of those pure enough to merit the rewards they promised. He had believed. But the Brohm papers had chan
ged everything. Now he understood that the Vril would never be found within his lifetime. The strange thing was that it didn’t matter because he had discovered that the power of the Vril already lay within him. All he needed to tap into it was the Sun Stone. He snapped his fingers and an aide placed a mobile phone in his hand, the preset number already ringing.
XXV
‘PLEASE PLACE THE paper back on the floor.’
The flat voice had a distinct Berlin accent and came from the direction of the torch. Jamie became aware of shadowy figures moving inside the ring of pillars. Twelve of them. Why wasn’t he surprised. Somewhere within him a dangerous stillness developed. He recognized it from his OTC days and an escape and evasion course that had gone wrong. He had fallen into the hands of three ugly Paras who thought it would be fun to haze a posh boy for a change. They told him what they were going to do to him and showed him the broomstick they were going to do it with. They’d expected him to piss himself with fear, but all he felt was the stillness. And from within the stillness the beast had emerged. He remembered an arm snapping and yellow teeth flying. They’d got him in the end, of course, and they might have killed him if the marshal hadn’t appeared. Instead, he’d been given the option of joining them. That was then. This was now. He began backing towards the doorway, but two of the shadows moved to block the only exit. His first priority was to protect Sarah, and for the moment the only way to protect Sarah was to submit. Or at least appear to submit. He willed the beast back into his lair and nodded to her to do as the voice ordered. She glared at him, but retrieved the tracing from her bag and reluctantly placed it back over the sun symbol before stepping away.
A tall man in a dark suit entered from the direction of the torch, stooped to pick up the tracing and returned the way he came. He was silhouetted against the light and Jamie couldn’t see his face, but he had an impression of absolute control and athletic strength. A grunt of acknowledgement seemed to indicate satisfaction.
‘This is a sacred place. Why are you here?’
‘I see nothing sacred about a Nazi chicken farmer’s obsession with King Arthur.’ The beast might be docile, but he still had a tongue. ‘And judging by the fact that you haven’t put the lights on, I’d say we have as much right to be here as you have. Who are you people, anyway?’
For a moment the hatred in the room was so palpable he could feel the fingers reaching for his throat, but the insult seemed to have no effect on the man who had spoken. ‘You may call me Frederick. As for my friends, they would prefer to remain anonymous for now.’
Something told Jamie that Frederick’s willingness to be candid wasn’t good news and the German’s next question confirmed the suspicion. ‘What is your interest in the Black Sun?’
‘As you can see,’ Jamie pointed towards the paper in Frederick’s hands, ‘our interest is purely artistic.’ Frederick didn’t laugh, but then it hadn’t been much of a joke. The silence that followed was more eloquent than any words and Jamie sensed Sarah moving closer and slightly behind him. She froze as the double click of an automatic pistol being cocked split the graveyard atmosphere and Jamie’s body did its best to disappear into itself as it awaited the strike of the first bullet. Frederick continued as if nothing had happened. Either he enjoyed the sound of his own voice or somebody somewhere was checking that the interlopers didn’t have back-up who might arrive to spoil the party.
‘You went to great lengths to keep your visit here secret; for us that is not so necessary. Did you think that those for whom this castle holds the same reverence as your St Paul’s Cathedral would be kept from it by a few provincial bureaucrats? We belong here. We are the inheritors. The keepers of the truth. The mysteries enacted in this room are beyond your capacity for understanding. If our predecessors had succeeded in what they attempted here the world would be a different place. A better place that would not have had to endure sixty years of the corrupt, putrescent influence of Communism.’
‘A world ruled by Nazis?’ The inner stillness returned and the monster took a distinctly human form. He focused on Frederick. When the time came, he would take him first. ‘I don’t think I would have liked to live in that world.’
‘Do not be confused by labels, Mr Saintclair.’ Jamie winced at the sound of his name. Clearly this wasn’t the chance encounter Frederick had let him believe. But what else did he know? And how did he come to know it? The German’s voice took on a new authority as he continued. ‘Let us say a world ruled by those with the qualities to rule: authority, resolve, organization and ambition. Men of pure heart and pure vision. Men with the courage to remake the world. Men like those who stood where we stand now more than half a century ago. When the time came they did not hesitate. They stepped forward to take their place in history, because it was their duty.’
While Frederick talked Jamie allowed his senses to absorb the changing dynamics of the situation. He could sense the dark shadows moving closer: the slightest hint of movement against the faint blur of a pillar; the soft shuffle of a rubber-soled shoe on the marble floor. He tried to focus his mind. There had to be a way out of this trap. Negotiation clearly wasn’t an option, but at least he could try to buy more time. He remembered his grandfather’s journal entry about the camps. My German tastes like vomit in my mouth. If he could provoke them, or at least surprise them, maybe he could give Sarah the chance to get clear.
‘Was it their duty to kill millions of innocent people and destroy the lives of tens of millions more?’ He allowed contempt to saturate his words. ‘The only place they have in history is in the chapter reserved for cowards and murderers. And they failed in the end. This room is an illusion, an architectural conjuring trick. It is no more sacred than a multi-storey car park. The power of the men who created Wewelsburg was smashed, the way evil will always be smashed. This so-called Valhalla was never anything but a building site. The SS no longer exists except in the minds of a few misguided idiots, and Heinrich Himmler and those he led are long dead.’
The expected reaction didn’t materialize. Frederick wasn’t finished with his lesson.
‘You misunderstand the situation, just as you misunderstand the true meaning of the Black Sun. You talk of Nazis and the SS as if they were somehow central to our aims, but they were only a vehicle for their times. Adolf Hitler allowed his vision to be distorted by fear and hatred and in doing so he betrayed his legacy. His fear led him to go to war five years before he was ready. His hatred made him focus on the extermination of the Jews and the Slavs to the exclusion of all else. He should have enslaved them or conscripted them into expendable penal battalions, the result would have been the same in the end. Instead, he wasted irreplaceable resources on their destruction, when those resources were needed here to achieve something truly important. That opportunity was missed, but we are patient men, Mr Saintclair, and it will come again. Now, where is the journal?’
Jamie had no time for surprise at Frederick’s mention of the journal. Suddenly there was movement all around him. ‘Go!’ He shouted the warning to Sarah and threw himself towards Frederick. It had always been a long shot and it lengthened further when a leg stuck out and knocked his feet from under him. He hit the marble floor with enough force to jar his teeth and kicked out frantically at the nearest solid form. Someone cried out in pain, but any satisfaction was buried by the realization that they were now making a determined effort to kill him. He tried to roll clear of a glancing blow from a heavy boot that made his ears ring. Another knocked the wind from him as it crunched into his ribs. He called desperately to Sarah to get out and he could hear the fear in his own voice. A muffled scream answered his plea and he knew they had failed. Now the boots were arriving in earnest, a relentless businesslike rhythm that sought out his most vulnerable parts. He squirmed and twisted, but his racing mind told him he was dead unless someone intervened. A heel that had been meant to crush his skull emerged from the darkness and missed his nose by an inch. He had a vision of other helpless men who had died in this very
place, beaten to death by the predecessors of the men who were killing him.
‘Enough!’
Strong arms hauled him roughly to his feet. His head still spun from the blows and his body was a mass of pain, but at least he was alive. He winced as something hard and metallic was rammed into his bruised ribs with enough force to make him grunt.
‘Search them, and the bag.’
He heard Sarah hiss like a trapped wildcat as coarse hands made a rudimentary check of his body.
‘Nothing but more paper, a length of rope and a laptop.’
‘It does not matter. It will be in the car or one of the rooms.’
‘It isn’t.’ Jamie’s words seemed to freeze the darkness. ‘Let the girl go and I’ll tell you where the journal is.’
Frederick, he assumed it was Frederick, brought his face close enough so Jamie could smell the mix of beer and garlic on his breath. Half a head taller, with cropped, sandy hair, the German’s calculating grey eyes studied him from a face that was as flat and as expressionless as a marble statue and with the complexion of a day old corpse.
‘No,’ the other man said eventually. ‘I believe you are bluffing. In any case, we will soon find out. Gustav?’ Another figure detached itself from the outer shadows. ‘Gustav has recently returned from duty in Afghanistan where he was able to refine his interrogation techniques with a remarkable degree of success.’ A hand like a shovel pulled Jamie’s arm backwards and before he knew what was happening his wrists had been cuffed and he was spun to face his captor. Gustav was short, but with a chest that strained the buttons of his shirt, a face that seemed too small for his head and wide-set eyes like quarry chips. He gave Jamie’s cheek a playful slap with his left hand and drove his right fist deep into the Englishman’s stomach. A man who enjoyed his work. Jamie struggled for breath as his captor drew him upright again.
The Doomsday Testament Page 14
