Fall of Knight

by Peter David

  “I do not—?” He looked questioningly at Bormann.

  “This,” said Bormann, “is the Spear of Destiny.” He looked up at Wagner, waiting for some sort of reaction. Wagner just stared at him and shrugged slightly. “The Spear of Destiny,” repeated Bormann. “The Holy Lance. The Spear of Longinus. Spear Luin, as the Irish call it. Does any of that mean anything to you?”

  “Should it, Herr Bormann?” he asked politely.

  Bormann chuckled slightly. It was an odd sound, coming from this man. “I suppose not necessarily. When one is with the Fuhrer as much as I, and hears about such relics as often as I have, one just tends to assume that everyone knows about them. The Spear of Destiny, Captain Wagner, is the Spear wielded by the Roman soldier Gaius Cassius Longinus…that was used to pierce the side of the body of Christ.”

  “You mean…Christ on the cross?”

  “Where else would he be?” Bormann asked sarcastically.

  Wagner looked at the Spear with shocked reverence. The concept that he was beholding, with his own eyes, an artifact traceable to the savior himself…it was almost too much for him to contemplate.

  “The Fuhrer,” Bormann continued, “has intense fascination with such objects. He has gathered as many as he can. He considers this Longinus Spear to be the crowning glory of his collection.”

  “Does it…” Wagner wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Does it…possess any particular…you know…properties?”

  “Properties?”

  “It is said…” Self-consciously Wagner lowered his voice, even though there was no one around to hear it. “It is said that the Fuhrer seeks power through these…these items. And I was wondering…if I am not overstepping myself…?”

  “What sort of power this Spear has?” He shrugged. “Frankly, Captain, the only power I know of that this Spear possesses is the power to convince others that it has true power. Other than that, aside from its value as an antique, it has nothing to recommend it other than the power generated by one’s belief in it. Since I have no such beliefs, it has no power over me. You are, naturally, invited to draw your own conclusions.”

  “Am I correct in assuming, Herr Bormann, that you are not showing me this artifact simply because you thought I would be interested in its historic value.”

  “A safe assumption, Captain.” Bormann proceeded to put the Spear back into its case. “You know of the Russians’ progress. There is every likelihood that they will make it down to here, the heart of the bunker. Should that occur, they would doubtless take whatever is in it…and that would include the Spear. The Fuhrer absolutely does not want possession of the Spear to leave the hands of the Reich.”

  “I am sure he does not…”

  “You don’t understand, Captain,” Bormann said, snapping closed the case. “He is convinced that to lose possession of the Spear is tantamount to a death sentence. At least, that is what the superstition dictates. Whosoever has the Spear, if they lose it or it is taken from them, is doomed. At least so the Fuhrer believes, and neither you nor I am in a position to convince him otherwise.” He stood and handed the case to Wagner. “You were born and raised in this section of Berlin, yes? You are familiar with it?”

  “There is no back road, no alleyway, no path that is unknown to me, even with the city as devastated as it is,” said Wagner proudly.

  “Good. Then it will be your job to avoid all invading troops, and take this to—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The voice that echoed through the corridor was completely new to them, and Wagner’s Luger was instantly in his hand. “Who goes there!” he shouted into the darkness.

  For a moment, nothing stirred. And then, seemingly from the very shadows themselves, something or someone separated from them and presented itself. It was a man, or at least bore the general shape of one. He was cloaked and hooded, making it impossible to see any specifics of his face or build.

  He was, however, clearly holding something. There was a spear in his right hand. Even in the darkness, Wagner could see that it was an exact duplicate of the Spear of Destiny.

  “Lower your weapon immediately,” said the man in the darkness.

  Wagner had no intention of doing so. There was only one reason that he had not discharged his weapon instantly, and that was because—in the interest of security—he wanted the answer to his next question. “How did you get down here?”

  “I got down here because down here is where I desired to be. Now put your weapon down.”

  “That is no answer!”

  “It’s all the answer I intend to provide.”

  “Shoot him!” shouted Bormann, thoroughly unnerved.

  As far as Wagner was concerned, that was the end of the discussion. Taking deadly aim, his finger began to squeeze tightly on the trigger.

  But when the gun fired, it jerked wide of its target. That was because a knife had come slicing through the air, thrown so quickly by the shadow man that Wagner had never even seen his hand move. All he knew was that one moment he was taking aim, and the next a knife had buried itself in his shoulder up to the hilt. Wagner cried out, staggering, and dropped his gun. He tried to reach up and pull the knife from its new sheath in his body, but before he could, the shadow man was right in front of him, and he delivered a fierce punch right to the knife handle. This caused such a shock wave of pain through his body that he collapsed, crying out and feeling weak and unmanned because of it.

  “Here is what is going to happen,” said the shadow man. It was difficult to get a read on his voice. He was speaking perfectly accented German, but Wagner suspected it was not his native tongue. It was impossible to determine, though, just what his nationality might be. Then again, with blood welling up from the brutal wound in his shoulder, Wagner wasn’t exactly at his best at the moment. “You,” continued the shadow man, pointing at Bormann, “are going to switch the spear I am holding for that one. I will then depart, and you will leave the fake spear to be found right here in the bunker. I assure you, this replacement is so close that it will take them years to discover this one is a fraud, if they ever do.”

  “And you will return the Spear of Destiny to us?” Bormann asked carefully, still not sure what he was dealing with.

  “What? Oh…no. No, that won’t be happening. I will be taking it to its true…destiny, if you will. Or even if you won’t, as the case may be. Now step back from the case.”

  Wagner tried to get to his feet, but the pain was overwhelming. Bormann backed up slowly. It was curious that the intruder had not told Bormann to keep his hands raised. It was as if he didn’t consider Bormann a threat and didn’t care what Bormann did.

  The shadow man opened the case and withdrew the Spear of Destiny.

  “That,” Bormann said coldly, “is the property of the Third Reich.”

  “Believe me,” replied the shadow man, “the Third Reich’s losing the Spear is going to be the least of your problems. Unless, of course, you believe that losing the Spear is the final nail in the coffin of the Third Reich, but I leave that to others.”

  “Put it down.”

  “You have no right to it.”

  “I said,” Bormann warned him, “put it down!”

  He reached into his coat with the clear intention of pulling a gun. It was a foolish move, prompted more by loyalty to his Fuhrer and to the Reich than anything remotely approaching common sense. The shadow man, however, did not hesitate. He swung the Spear of Destiny around and jammed it right through Martin Bormann’s chest. It went in at an angle, slammed through, and came out his back, pointing toward the ceiling.

  Bormann let out a terrified scream as the shadow man lifted Bormann off his feet as if he weighed nothing. The Spear didn’t bend in the slightest.

  “You wanted to know if the Spear bore any special properties,” said the shadow man in a shockingly casual manner to Wagner. “This should answer that.”

  Wagner started to lunge for his fallen gun, but then he stopped, paralyzed with horror,
as he watched Bormann’s skin begin to blacken and crisp, as if he were being incinerated from the inside out. There was no heat, no stench of burning flesh, a smell with which Wagner had become all too familiar in the past years. Bormann was roasting from a fire that was not of this Earth.

  The screaming had stopped almost immediately; perhaps Bormann’s vocal cords were the first things to go. All Wagner knew was that, within seconds, Bormann’s flesh was completely gone. All that was left were the tattered remains of his skeleton, held together by a few stray bits of flesh, muscle, and sinew that had miraculously avoided the fate of the rest of the body.

  The shadow man casually angled the Spear downward and the remains of Martin Bormann slid off and onto the floor. He turned and looked toward Wagner, who still couldn’t make out any details of his face.

  “Do you wish to share his fate?” asked the shadow man very quietly.

  Wagner knew this was to be one of the defining moments of his life. His reaction in the face of such otherworldly danger would be the measure of the kind of man he was. He knew he wanted to spit out defiance, to tell this…this creature…to go to hell.

  Instead the words that came out of his mouth were, “No. No…I don’t.”

  “You are wise beyond your years, Captain,” the shadow man told him. He sounded slightly amused. “A pity that you allied yourself with a losing cause. You could have accomplished far more with the winning side. Then again…none of us chooses our destiny, I suppose.”

  He had, by that point, inserted the fake spear into the container and snapped it shut. Then he gently tossed it over to Wagner so that it landed near him. “Farewell.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Wagner.

  The shadow man laughed. “An admirer,” he said. “An admirer of ancient artifacts. One who knows the way of things. I have been looking for this weapon for quite some time, and once I found it, I merely awaited the right moment to come and claim it. That moment is now. And now…the moment is passed. Again…farewell.”

  He began to step back toward the shadows that had spat him out, and Wagner—trying not to moan from the blood loss—clutched at his shoulder, his hand already red with blood, and said, “But…what are you going to use it for?”

  “Well,” said the shadow man, “I was thinking about perhaps destroying the world. We’ll have to see how that works out, though.”

  With that, he stepped backwards in the shadows, bowing once again as he did so, and vanished.

  CHAPTRE

  THE SEVENTH

  CARDINAL FRANCIS PATRICK Ruehl had never liked Arthur Penn. Not when he was president and certainly not now.

  As far as Ruehl was concerned, Arthur’s entire approach to politics was to act as if he was completely different from all other politicians. In Ruehl’s experience, those who made the greatest point of emphasizing how different they were from all the other guys were the ones who were the most alike all the other guys. Thus, in his estimation, Arthur was very likely a massive hypocrite. Since Ruehl despised hypocrites, it meant he cared little for Arthur Penn or the way he had gone about doing his job.

  Granted, his likes and dislikes were not of tremendous importance. His job wasn’t to decide whom to like. It was to perform the wishes of His Holiness, the Pope. And in this case, those wishes could not be clearer:

  Bring the Holy Grail home.

  Ruehl was prepared for a fight. That was normal, though. Ruehl was always prepared for a fight.

  Of all the cardinals who operated out of the Vatican, Ruehl had a nose that held the record for most times broken. Ruehl was a scrapper, by both nurture and nature. This stemmed from his formative years growing up in some of the rougher sections of Brooklyn. He’d gotten into a lot of street fights and taken any number of poundings although he prided himself on giving as good as he got. Sometimes he didn’t like to think about where he would have wound up if his parish priest hadn’t intervened and guided him down the proper path to salvation. Then again, sometimes…he did like to think about where he would have wound up. Certainly, whether he’d lived or died, either way it would have been simpler than the life he now led.

  Ruehl had a big, open face, with a lantern jaw that was perpetually thrust outward as if daring someone to take a swing at it. His hair was red to match his occasionally fiery disposition, and his eyes were dark and displayed piercing intelligence. Ruehl, for all that he believed in tolerance, did not suffer fools gladly, as any number of fools who had crossed him had discovered to their dismay.

  He was feeling both jet-lagged and a bit cranky as the limousine angled up the main driveway of the White House. This was certainly not his first time visiting the seat of American executive power. He’d been meeting with American presidents regularly, in various capacities, for the last twenty-five years. They didn’t intimidate him. Why should he be intimidated? Whatever power they wielded, it stemmed from responsibilities ascribed them by mere voters and citizens. The man whom Cardinal Ruehl represented answered—as the old commercial went—to a much higher authority. This enabled him to look at those whom he encountered, no matter how powerful they were, with a certain degree of superiority. He knew that this wasn’t a charitable way to view the world. That he was even self-aggrandizing when by rights he should be self-effacing. Nevertheless, he was who he was, and he’d been around too long to start changing.

  He knew that the White House was designed to intimidate visitors and remind them where the true seat of power was. But since Cardinal Ruehl knew where the true seat of power was in the grand scheme of things, naturally that did not work on him.

  “We’re here, your Eminence,” said the driver, as the limo slowed.

  “I can see that,” replied Cardinal Ruehl, peering out the window. “You can keep the engine running if you want. This shouldn’t take long.”

  THE MAN SIMPLY doesn’t like me,” Arthur said in irritation as Gwen straightened his necktie. “He doesn’t like me, and neither does the Pope.”

  “The Pope loves everyone. It’s in his job description somewhere.”

  Arthur chuckled at that. Then he frowned. “Why is he coming here again?”

  “Arthur, why do you think?” She stepped back, checking her handiwork and nodding approvingly. “You’ve gone public with the Holy Grail. Do you seriously think that’s not going to set off a few bells at the Vatican?”

  “I suppose.” He paused a moment, then said, “What do you think I should say?”

  “About what?”

  “When he wants to take it.”

  She sighed. “Do you think that’s what he’s coming here for?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “It’s entirely possible,” she admitted. “What are you going to tell him if he does?”

  “I could swear I just asked you that question.”

  “You don’t need to ask me what to say to people. I’m sure you have your own thoughts on the matter.”

  “Yes, well,” and he straightened the lapels of his dark blue jacket. There was amusement in his eyes. “I was probably going to tell him to sod off.”

  “You can’t do that, Arthur.” She pointed around them at the Lincoln Bedroom. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re guests here. You’re no longer in residence. The last thing we need to do is cause Terrance problems by you bitch-slapping Cardinal Ruehl around.”

  “Any man with a name like that deserves a little slapping, don’t you think?”

  “No, I really don’t. And the press is going to be there as well, so for God’s sake, don’t you think a little decorum would be appropriate?”

  “All right,” Arthur said reluctantly. “But just a little.”

  THE MEETING WAS scheduled to be held in the Mural Room, and a selection of the press corps was already set up there. It was Arthur and Stockwell’s mutual decision that the interview with Ruehl should not be held in the Oval Office. To all intents and purposes, Arthur was acting as a private citizen, even though he was a guest in the White House. Stockwell didn’t
want to give anyone the impression that the things he had been saying, or the claims he’d been making, were in any way endorsed by the office of the president.

  Indeed, Stockwell had been walking one hell of a tightrope ever since Arthur’s return and various announcements. The natural question that was being posed to him was, “Do you believe that Arthur Penn is truly King Arthur? Are you supporting his claim that Gwendolyne Penn was cured by the Holy Grail?” Mahoney had dodged the question for as long as he was able to—which wasn’t all that long—until finally Stockwell came out himself and said, in as straightforward a manner as he could, “I believe that former President Penn believes it, I have tremendous respect for him, and I have no intention of disputing him in this matter.” Which was, of course, a long and roundabout way of saying, “I don’t want any part of this.”

  Consequently, when the call came from the Vatican, Ron Cordoba made damned sure that the president’s schedule required him to be the hell out of Washington, DC, when the Cardinal made his appearance. As far as Cordoba was concerned there was no advantage, none, to Stockwell’s being there. Later, when the public meeting between Arthur and the Cardinal came completely unraveled, Ron’s decision would be seen as uncannily prescient, instead of what it was: familiarity with Arthur’s ability, through his imperiousness and annoying tendency to say exactly what was on his mind, to take any potentially incendiary situation and transform it into a full-blown incident. Ron’s respect for Arthur as a man—and for that matter, as a king, accustomed to everyone doing exactly what he said when he said it—was second to none. But he was all too aware of Arthur’s limitations. The very attributes that made him a great king served, in Ron’s opinion, to make him a problematic president.

  If the United States had been at peace, God only knew what sort of difficulties Arthur would have had. But because America was under a state of siege, the people and Congress had rallied around him, a state of affairs that was ideally suited to one of Arthur’s peculiar talents. And although Ron would never, in a million years, have wished Gwen’s trauma upon her, part of him thought that—in the final analysis—Arthur’s departure from power couldn’t have come in a more timely fashion. Except he felt so guilty feeling that way that it had been partly what motivated him to accompany Arthur on his insane, albeit ultimately successful, quest to revive the fallen first lady.