The Excalibur Codex

by James Douglas

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on them and maybe stop in one of the towns up ahead,’ Gault said.

  Twenty minutes later they pulled off the motorway and drove into the town square of a lakeside settlement that announced itself as Mragowo. For a few minutes they sat in the car while Gault studied the traffic entering the square behind them, but either he didn’t see anything suspicious or he wasn’t saying.

  ‘I’m going to stretch my legs,’ Jamie announced.

  Gault made as if to veto the idea, but he relented with a begrudging: ‘Don’t get into any fucking bother.’

  Charlotte suggested she join him and Jamie smiled. ‘Er, you’re welcome, but “stretch my legs” was actually a bit of a euphemism for “look for somewhere to have a pee”.’ Her face turned pink and she settled back into her seat. ‘I’ll let you know if I find anywhere,’ he promised.

  He was wandering round the centre of the town looking for somewhere favourable when he noticed a slim young woman walk into a nearby grocer’s shop. Something about her made his heart quicken for no apparent reason, and he followed in her wake. By the time he entered the store she’d already disappeared. Puzzled, he searched among the long aisles of carelessly stacked boxes and sacks until he came to a magazine rack.

  ‘Don’t turn and look at me. Don’t do anything. You’re searching for a newspaper.’

  The voice came from behind him in a low whisper, and the intensity in the words made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He hadn’t heard that voice for more than two years, since she’d walked out on him to ‘find herself’ back home in the States. Which begged the question why Sarah Grant, late, or perhaps not so late, of some shady offshoot of Mossad, was doing in a one-horse town in northern Poland?

  He was about to ask when she cut across him like a whiplash. ‘Do you trust these people? Don’t answer; it wasn’t that kind of question. Just hear me out and we’ll go our separate ways. You got that?’ He supposed he was allowed to nod. ‘You’re way out of your league on this one, Jamie boy. This makes the Sun Stone look like a kid’s parlour game. Take my advice and get yourself on the first train back to Warsaw.’ Jamie forced himself to concentrate on the newspapers and magazines in front of him, though his mind whirled with any number of questions. The Sun Stone had been an ancient artefact that the Nazis had hoped would bring them the Holy Grail of unlimited energy, and the search for it had almost cost Jamie and Sarah their lives. They’d become lovers along the way, but he’d never been completely certain whether it had been the real thing for her, or just part of the job. Before he could speak she slipped something into his hand. ‘My number’s on there. Call me if you need help to get out.’ He turned to reply, but the shop door was already closing behind her. The object in his hand was a simple strip of card embossed with a twelve-digit number.

  He walked back to the car trying to come to terms with the bizarre meeting. What the hell was Sarah doing here and what did it mean for him? It seemed clear enough that when she’d left him to go to ‘find herself’ in America, she’d instead found her way back to the Mossad agents who had originally recruited her and partnered her with him in the search for the Sun Stone. But how did Mossad know about the hunt for Excalibur? And if they did, why would they be interested in some madcap, probably doomed quest to find an ancient sword that nobody was sure even existed? One thing was certain, it wasn’t just to warn Jamie Saintclair he was out of his depth – as if he needed to be told. What was it she’d said? Do you trust these people? If she meant Gault and Charlotte, or Steele and his people, the answer was probably a qualified no. In the last few years he’d learned to trust only his closest friends. The problem was he didn’t have many left. Gault was too clever for his own good, and a shifty bastard at that, but that was probably why Steele employed him in the first place. Charlotte appeared what she seemed, a competent enough organizer, who was brighter than the little-girl-lost act she sometimes put on. Yet she’d come away with all that high-kicking, unarmed combat stuff that had saved his neck and left Otto Ziegler with a broken jaw. As for Steele, a status-obsessed banker with a liking for edged weapons and humiliating his employees, you could never trust his motives even if you could understand his ambition. But did that mean he would walk away? He knew the answer to that. Steele had challenged him as deliberately as if he’d thrown down a gauntlet or slapped him in the face. Jamie had never walked away from a challenge.

  And then there was Excalibur. Myth or not, Arthur’s sword was the embodiment of good against evil. He wanted it to exist and he wanted Jamie Saintclair to find it. For Abbie.

  When he got back to the car Charlotte and Gault were chatting. He threw the paper he’d bought in the back and took his seat in the front. Charlotte’s giggle made him look round. She was peering at the newspaper. ‘Jamie, you idiot. You know none of us can read Polish.’

  XXI

  They got lost twice in Ketrzyn, the pretty little Polish town closest to the Wolfsschanze. Gault stopped to ask for directions, but it took them three attempts before they found someone who could speak enough English to put them on the right road. Eventually they reached the eastern outskirts and wound their way through two smaller villages until they reached what was little more than a track that followed the railway line through open country. A few minutes later a dense forest of evergreens seemed to wrap itself around the car and they found themselves in almost pitch darkness with the headlights creating a tunnel in front. Gaps in the trees revealed an occasional glimpse of ancient railway line with the rusting steel tracks laid direct on a layer of ash.

  ‘Christ,’ Gault complained. ‘It’s like somebody switched off the sun.’

  As they drove on, the gloom of their surroundings seemed to be fighting its way into the car and it was a relief when they saw the sign for the Wolfsschanze Hotel and Gault turned off to the left. A hundred yards ahead they came to a clearing and the former SBS man slowed to a halt.

  They studied their surroundings with varying degrees of bewilderment. ‘Did somebody turn the clock back?’ Jamie asked. ‘We appear to be in nineteen forty-five.’

  ‘I booked us into the nearest hotel,’ Gault said defensively. ‘The website said it used to be Hitler’s former security bunker, but I thought they might have done it up a little since he was in residence. At least it’s got atmosphere.’

  ‘Sure, atmosphere as in all the ambiance of a concentration camp.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Charlotte pointed out. ‘Your concentration camp has a beer garden.’

  The hotel looked what it was, a relic of the Second World War that had been given a coat of green paint. Fortunately the interior, though equally gloomy because of the small windows, turned out to be modern, if functionally basic in a way that reminded Jamie of his school canteen. They were met at the check-in by a cheerful, slim young man in a white shirt and dark trousers who thankfully spoke German, and broke into passable English when they produced their passports.

  ‘Let me know when you want see Wolf’s Lair,’ he suggested. ‘You need guide to get best of site, but official guides only speak Polish. Hermann gives good rates for English peoples. Shows you everything.’

  He handed them a leaflet boasting the highlights of the complex, with pictures of enormous bunkers cloaked in green ivy, intimidating subterranean tunnels and huge chunks of nameless concrete. ‘Just the place to come for a cheery relaxing holiday,’ Gault chuckled. ‘And that’s without an introduction to the former residents. Anybody fancy a trip to the shooting range in General Jodl’s staff bunker?’

  Hermann’s face split into a grin. ‘You like? Try Mauser sniper’s rifle, MP40?’

  ‘What about a Panzerfaust?’ Gault asked innocently.

  ‘You joke with me, right? I get you discount. We talk later, I serve in restaurant.’

  He walked away with a shy smile at Charlotte. Gault said he’d check in with Adam Steele. Jamie and Charlotte decided to take a walk in the grounds around the hotel to familiarize themselves with their surroundi
ngs. They moved silently in the dim light beneath the towering pines and beeches, passing a memorial cross topped by a crowned eagle. The writing was Polish, but a German translation commemorated the Polish engineers killed and injured in these woods during the ten years it took to clear 54,000 mines laid by the Nazis. Jamie shivered and not just from the raw chill that ate into his bones. This was a place of ghosts. He half expected a spectral SS general to walk out of the gloom. Huge shadowy bunkers loomed among the trees and his imagination created the mighty fortresses they had once been. Many looked as if they’d been tossed high in the air and crashed back to earth in giant pieces, some of them the size of a small house. Everything was overgrown with the creepers and moss that thrived in the damp atmosphere. He wondered how Hitler, the hypochondriac, had fared here.

  ‘I see it’s your turn to be preoccupied.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His mind took a little time to clear. He’d almost forgotten Charlotte was with him. She studied him, the blue eyes appraising, but the moment he looked up, she turned away, as if she couldn’t bear him to read the message in them. Tall and slim in tight blue jeans and a jacket of shiny black leather, he suddenly realized just how achingly beautiful she was. ‘I was just thinking that the very earth of this place is tainted by the Nazis, even after all these years.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, too,’ she said seriously. ‘Remember we were talking about Lauterbacher’s description: a walled castle beside a lake?’

  He nodded. ‘We decided it wasn’t much help because there are thousands of lakes.’

  ‘And hundreds of castles.’

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed.

  ‘What kind of people build castles?’

  He wondered what this was all about, but decided to play along. ‘Kings, princes, dukes, barons …’

  ‘And knights.’

  He stopped. ‘Yes, and knights.’

  She laughed, pleased with herself for surprising him. ‘I did some research and I discovered that East Prussia is the creation of an order called the Teutonic Knights. They have their roots in the Crusades – Richard the Lionheart, the Saracens, and all that – a bit like the Knights Templar, but later they turned their sights closer to home. They drove the pagan Prussians out of their lands and established themselves here, building castles left, right and centre. Their hereditary enemies were the Lithuanians, and, like someone we know, the Poles and the Russians. The emblem of the order was a …’

  Jamie dredged a memory from somewhere. ‘A black Maltese cross. The holy Knight’s Cross.’

  ‘I know it doesn’t take us much further forward, but it—’

  ‘Hang on a second.’ He delved in the rucksack for the journal. ‘I should have seen this before. There’s always been a name that doesn’t quite fit. Joyeuse, the sword of Charlemagne; Durendal, the sword of his lieutenant, Roland; Gotteswerkzeug, the sword of Werner von Orseln, defier of the Eastern hordes; Zerstorer, the sword of Barbarossa; and your sword, the most powerful of them all, the sword of Arthur: Excalibur. Charlemagne, Barbarossa and Arthur were all kings in their own right. Roland was, at worst, a prince, and in any case his holdings were in France. The question is: who was Werner von Orseln, the man who carried a sword called God’s Instrument?’

  They walked back to the hotel, passing the beer garden. The route took them through the car park and Jamie noticed a large black car with mirrored windows, what the Americans called an SUV and the Brits a 4x4. He didn’t realize it was occupied until the driver gunned the engine and drove away as they came up behind it. He glanced at Charlotte, but his companion didn’t react. Hermann was polishing the glass panels in the hotel’s front door, and as they passed him Jamie asked how long the car had been standing there.

  ‘Maybe twenty minutes.’ He shrugged. ‘Looks like they didn’t want to stay after all.’

  XXII

  ‘Werner von Orseln lived in the fourteenth century and was the seventeenth Grand Master of the Teutonic Order,’ Charlotte read from a lined notebook as she sat with Jamie and Gault in the bunker restaurant of the Wolf’s Lair hotel. ‘He’s credited with revitalizing the fight against Poland, Lithuania and Russia and is one of the great heroes of the Teutonic Order because he led from the front, wielding his great sword Gotteswerkzeug – God’s Instrument. His family originally came from Frankfurt but as Grand Master he ruled Prussia from the great Teutonic fortress at Malbork, which is west of here and on a river, not a lake.’

  ‘And doesn’t help us much,’ Gault pointed out gracelessly.

  ‘That’s true,’ she admitted. ‘But I managed to trace records of his holdings. It’s not known when he joined the Order, but by thirteen twelve he’d been appointed komtur, which is commander, of Ragnit, now Neman, then in Lithuania, but now in the Kaliningrad Oblast, which makes it Russian.’ She looked up. ‘The geography of this part of the world is jolly confusing.’

  Hermann hovered by the table and they placed their orders.

  ‘I’m not sure where this is getting us,’ Jamie said.

  ‘Neither am I,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘But we have to start somewhere. By thirteen fourteen he was grand komtur at Malbork, which presumably means his career was on the up. A couple of years later he backed the wrong man in some dispute and ended up in exile. When he returned in thirteen nineteen, he was given command of a relatively minor castle, somewhere called Altburg.’

  Jamie cleared a space among the cutlery and glasses and spread a large-scale map across the table. He studied the scattered communities among the lakes around the Wolfsschanze. ‘I can’t see anything that comes close.’

  She frowned and scrolled through the document on her screen. ‘Try Nortstein: that seems to be a more recent name.’

  Jamie looked up as a shadow loomed over him. Did he imagine it, or did Hermann’s face freeze for a split second? Certainly, the German’s expression changed the instant he felt Jamie’s eyes on him, but not before the art dealer recognized something intriguing. After a moment’s hesitation the young man produced a fixed smile. ‘You ordered the beetroot soup, sir?’

  Nortstein proved as elusive as Altburg and dinner ended disappointingly. Charlotte and Gault moved away towards the bar and Jamie waited until the waiter returned to clear the table.

  ‘You said you could take us on a tour of the Wolf’s Lair.’ He took out a wad of notes that made Hermann’s eyes open and counted fifty euros onto the table. ‘It looks as if we’re going to have some time on our hands tomorrow. Would that be suitable?’

  Hermann grinned. ‘Sure, I get day off. You just let me know time. Best take warm clothes. I show you place where Hitler nearly kaput, but many other good things too. We got seventy bunkers, shelters, maybe some tank traps. Martin Bormann’s house. Hermann show you tunnels nobody ever see before, not even Russkis, maybe he still living down there, huh?’

  ‘Then again, old son,’ Jamie counted another fifty onto the worn table top, ‘maybe you can just take us to Nortstein?’

  The smile faded to be replaced by a look of weary resignation. ‘Sure.’

  ‘In nineteen forty-five, Nortstein became Radznort.’ Jamie pointed to a fly speck on the map as they waited in the hired BMW for Hermann. ‘It’s about ten miles from here as the crow flies, but probably a bit more by road because this is swamp and lake country. It looks as if there are two possible routes, both of them a bit complicated.’

  ‘Why are we taking the Hun?’ Gault demanded. ‘Suddenly I can’t drive this thing?’

  ‘Because he knows the area and I think there’s some kind of link between him and Radznort,’ Jamie explained. ‘When he heard the word Nortstein he reacted as if someone had stuck him with an electric cattle prod.’

  ‘Do you want me to pump him on the way?’ Charlotte suggested without any apparent irony.

  ‘I’m sure there’s nothing he’d like better.’ Jamie caught Gault’s grin. ‘But let’s just play it as it comes. I want to see the look on his face when we get there. If he volunteers something that’s fine, but …
’

  Hermann, dressed in a combat jacket and jeans, bundled his way into the rear seats beside the English girl. ‘You take Radzieje road, yes? Maybe you get lost without Hermann.’

  ‘That’s the other reason,’ Jamie said, laughing at Gault’s irritated growl.

  Despite the incessant drizzle and the oppressiveness of the flat, open country, the journey felt like the final stages of a school trip. The excitement in the car grew with every passing mile on a narrow road that quickly turned into little more than a farm track. Though they fought the feeling, it was difficult not to think of this as an end in itself. Gault drove with a grim half smile and Charlotte grinned every time her eyes met Jamie’s. Even Hermann caught the mood. He sat a little closer to Charlotte than was necessary and every few minutes he’d turn to stare artlessly at her, volunteering an occasional direction as Gault approached a cross roads. ‘Radzieje,’ he said as they passed through a tiny settlement. ‘You go right here, then take first left round lake. Not far now.’

  Suddenly, to their right, lay an enormous expanse of water. A castle beside a lake. Jamie felt his heart beat a little faster. In the distance, beyond a second, smaller lake, he could see a cluster of houses. Radznort, was, if anything, smaller than Radzieje, perhaps home to less than a hundred people. Only the concrete road was evidence it had once been a place of some consequence. But something was missing. As they approached the hamlet his eyes desperately searched the trees beyond for some sign of what they were seeking.

  Gault said it first. ‘There’s no fucking castle.’ He turned in his seat and glared accusingly at Hermann. ‘There’s no fucking castle.’

  They drove to the far side of the town and stopped where the buildings ended. Jamie got out of the car and walked to where the concrete paving crumbled and a jumble of low, grass-covered earthwork banks and ditches stretched into the distance, the only indication that there had once been a substantial building here. They were too late. Decades too late. There was no castle.