by Glenn Cooper
The liquor flooded his system and fogged his brain. Fighting the booze was a switch. Usually he welcomed the feeling of having his senses dulled. It was his way of unwinding, shutting down, dampening unpleasant groundswells. Tonight he was fighting like hell. He kept looking at Irene, unconscious and vulnerable, at the candles, at the neckties. He didn’t know what the brute had in mind but this wasn’t going to end well.
‘You’re still awake,’ Gerhardt said. ‘More vodka. Open your mouth.’
Everything was getting fuzzy and distorted. He had to try, had to try, try, try, try …
When Cal’s head fell forward and his chin rested on his heaving chest, Gerhardt slapped his cheeks.
‘You asleep? Wake up. Wake up now. No? Ok, good.’
Gerhardt began to work quickly and efficiently. His first order of business was to snip Cal’s plastic ties and lift him onto the bed, laying him on his back beside Irene. Then he stripped off all his clothes, flinging them around the room. Next came the neckties. He tied them around Cal’s wrists and ankles and secured them to the headboard and legs of the bed. The nearly-empty vodka bottle was pressed against their fingertips and left on the bed. Lifting his phone, then re-pocketing it, he seemed to resist the temptation to snap a photo of the spread-eagled tableau he’d created. Next he set about arranging the candles around the room and lighting them. When that was done he wagged his finger at the sprinkler head over the bed and climbed up, finding footing in the midst of their naked bodies. With a technique he’d learned from an online video, he unscrewed the sprinkler heat seal and used a specialized tool to tighten the pressure valve. An investigation would certainly question the inoperative sprinkler head, but would likely conclude that its installation was faulty.
Finally, he took one of the candles and held it to the curtains until the fabric caught. With flames climbing he picked up his tool bag, pulled a workmen’s cap over his distinctive haircut and with a final smile at his handiwork, left a do not disturb sign on the door.
From a great distance Cal heard coughing.
It was coming from far away, maybe from another room, maybe from down a long hall.
Would the guy just shut up? I’m trying to sleep here. Some people are assholes …
The guy started making more noise beyond coughing. A galloping noise, or was it whooshing? How was he doing that?
His eyes were stinging and watering. Got to wipe them, wipe them good.
He tried. Tried again.
What was stopping him? Were some jerks holding his hands down? His old college roommates had pulled a stunt like that once. Were they in on this? Maybe he should open his eyes and see what was up.
Cal’s eyelids snapped open.
One wall and half the ceiling were ablaze and smoke was filling the room. He tried to get up but his hands and feet were bound with neckties.
Then he remembered.
She was lying next to him. He tried to nudge her with his knee. ‘Irene! Irene! Wake up!’
She was out cold.
He called for help a couple of times.
Pulling at his ties proved futile. He arched his neck to look at the bed board. The neckties were knotted around heavy bed board slats.
He balled up his right fist and delivered a punch behind his head, striking a slat.
The pain was instantaneous but he hit the wood again.
Harder, goddamn it. Harder!
He felt the blood streaming down his palm.
The flames were spreading fast and it was getting hot. No one was coming.
He punched harder, another time. Two more times. Three.
There was a cracking sound. He didn’t know if it was his knuckles or the slat. He pulled like crazy at the silk tie and his hand came free.
He had tugged so hard on the other ties that the knots were small and tight and he couldn’t get them undone. With panic setting in, he saw the vodka bottle, grabbed it by the neck and smashed it hard against the nightstand. He had the knife he needed.
On his feet, he scooped Irene in his arms and made it out into the hall where he began yelling ‘Fire!’ at the top of his lungs.
TWENTY-SIX
Lieutenant Colonel Cecchi swept into his office, located off the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, apologizing profusely for keeping them waiting.
It was the evening of the day after the hotel blaze. Their lungs were irritated from the smoke and Cal’s right hand was heavily bandaged from the pounding. They had both been treated and released from a Munich hospital and had spent much of the day in interviews with the police. They were tired, they were upset, but mostly they were angry.
‘It was necessary to speak with the authorities in Munich,’ Cecchi explained. ‘They only just called me back. I’m sure you can understand.’
‘Did they confirm what we told you?’ Cal asked.
‘Yes, in every detail. Unfortunately, the hotel personnel cannot explain how a non-guest was able to get onto the premises. Perhaps it was via the service areas. Perhaps someone was bribed. The security cameras identified a man fitting your description but his face was covered. There were many different fingerprints in the room, but as you said, he was wearing gloves. Clearly, if you hadn’t awoken in time, professor, your deaths would have been linked to a sex game and heavy drinking.’
‘The guy didn’t realize what he was dealing with,’ Cal said.
‘And what was that?’ Cecchi asked.
‘A guy who can handle a bottle of vodka without spending the entire night in a coma.’
Cecchi squinted at him but Irene laughed a little. ‘It seems my knight in shining armor is a heavy drinker.’
‘I have to tell you,’ Cecchi said, ‘that this unfortunate incident of yours has made me more inclined to accept your evidence with that open mind I spoke of. I am ready for you to show me what you think you have.’
The men were assembling for drinks in the paneled great room of Lambret Schneider’s grand hunting lodge. Amidst the taxidermy, oil paintings and a veritable forest of carved pine, they picked at canapés and drank champagne. They had been summoned to the outskirts of the Bavarian National Forest at short notice and they were keen for an explanation, though none of them had been inclined to push Schneider for details before he was ready.
Some, though not all, of the eleven men present had met the new fellow, Jürgen Besemer, and Schneider took him around for introductions.
An old, jowly man in a black, crested blazer and ascot, stuck out his hand, or rather angled it down, since he was a giant and Besemer was quite small.
‘Saw your particulars, young man. Very impressive.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘First meeting then.’
‘Yes sir. I’m very happy to be involved.’
‘He’s polite, Lambret, I’ll give him that.’
Schneider clapped Besemer on the back and remarked that he certainly was, but that if politeness were a prerequisite for membership then their ranks would be thinner.
‘Where’s our Gerhardt then?’ the old man said. ‘Haven’t seen him.’
‘He’s away, on the field of battle, Milo,’ Schneider said enigmatically. ‘All will be revealed. Ah, there’s Kurt. Now we can begin.’
Schneider had everyone gather around as he stood with a champagne flute under an exceptionally large wild boar’s head.
‘Gentlemen, let us please raise our glasses to toast the Knights of Longinus, our comrades who have departed, our glorious past and our auspicious future.’
A collective ‘Prost!’ rang out.
‘Now sit, please. Some of you are so old you won’t last another five minutes on your feet.’ Like a good toastmaster, he let the laughter die down before continuing. ‘I know you’re all curious about this rather imperial summons of mine. Though most of you are retired gentlemen, a few, myself included, remain gainfully employed and for you to drop everything and come down here is a great show of loyalty. Thank you. If it weren’t important I wouldn’t have made the demand. O
ur new member, Jürgen, will not know our tradition, but we begin each of our increasingly irregular meetings with a show and tell, as the schoolteachers call it. And so …’
He went for an ornate silver box on a side table, lifted the lid and held up the box so everyone could see the black and gold relic.
‘My knights, I present to you the Spear of Longinus.’
Besemer stared, his mouth agape.
After a round of applause, one old man piped up with a chuckle, ‘How do we know that one’s not a fake?’ It was a running joke of theirs.
Schneider laughed and said, ‘I assure you, this is the True Lance, the one that you, Archie, and you, Theo, and you, Milo, found with me on that frigid Antarctic day in 1973. Come here, Jürgen. Come closer for a good look. But only look, don’t touch or you’ll be stung.’
The young man stared down at the box.
‘When Jürgen came to see me for his interview he revealed himself to be a young man who was well-versed in the history of the Reich. He told me it was his understanding that the lance found by the Americans at Nürnberg might have been a fake and that the Reich hid the real one for a future generation of German patriots to find. You said that, didn’t you?’
Besemer nodded.
‘Clever lad,’ one of them called out.
‘Clever indeed,’ Schneider said. ‘Yes, this is precisely what happened, Jürgen. The true lance was originally held in Vienna. When it was seized from the Austrians and taken to Himmler, he had two perfect replicas made. One was found by the Americans in Nürnberg after the war and returned to the Austrian government. That is the one now on display for the fat tourists in baseball hats who visit the Imperial Treasury. Himmler gave the second replica to my father who was one of his key aides. I keep it as a personal treasure. This one, the real one, was dispatched by Himmler to a secret base in Antarctica, along with other artifacts of the Reich, when it appeared we were going to lose the war. Some of these men and myself successfully recovered it during our secret expedition of 1973 but sustained a heavy loss – Gerhardt Hufnagel’s father and my dear friend, Oskar, perished.’
Schneider reclaimed the lance from Besemer. There was a smaller silver box on another table. He opened that one too, revealing a tiny relic, a single, slender thorn.
‘And this is a True Thorn which, two thousand years ago, was part of the jujube tree that was fashioned into Christ’s crown of thorns.’
Besemer held up his hand as if he were a polite student.
‘How do you know it is an actual thorn from the crown?’
‘To answer this let me show you something. Then I will pour more champagne to keep everyone quiet while I tell Jürgen the story of a remarkable man named Otto Rahn.’
Schneider put on a pair of leather gloves and took the small silver box over to the larger one. When the two boxes were within a meter of one another something happened that made Besemer gasp and the other men smile knowingly.
The thorn and the lance both began to glow.
Cecchi put his glasses back on to reinspect the last pieces of evidence, the cellphone photo of the faded Himmler letter and Irene’s drawing of Giovanni’s windowsill. When he removed them he seemed bewildered.
‘Quantum entanglement. This is a not a concept I’ve encountered in law enforcement.’
‘It was a new one for me too,’ Cal said.
‘I can only imagine what my superior officer will say when he reads this in my report.’
‘I appreciate your support,’ Cal said. ‘If we hadn’t personally experienced these things I’m sure we’d be skeptical as hell.’
Cecchi held up Irene’s drawing. ‘And you truly believe that this sketch is a faithful reproduction of what your brother was seeing from his place of captivity?’
‘I do,’ Irene said. ‘I’d never even heard of this Font Vella water.’
Cal nodded. ‘Me neither and I saw it too.’
‘And you have no idea where this might be?’ the officer asked. ‘This is not a place you recognize from family holidays.’
‘I’ve never even been to Spain,’ she said.
‘It’s certainly a Spanish brand,’ Cecchi said, ‘but someone could have brought it with them from Spain. He could be in Italy, Greece, anywhere coastal.’
‘But chances are, it is in Spain,’ Cal said. ‘Who brings bottled water for a hostage from another country?’
Cecchi shrugged.
‘We’ve told you everything we know,’ Irene said. ‘What are you going to do to find my family?’
‘What am I going to do?’ the officer repeated, looking at the ceiling for divine inspiration perhaps. ‘I’ll be honest. I don’t know. I say this as it pertains to your brother. As for your mother, aunt and nephew, well, there’s been a development in the investigation.’
She nearly leapt from her chair. ‘What? What development?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t compromise the investigation at this delicate stage.’
‘Please,’ she begged.
‘I’ll only say that it’s a potential lead based on forensics. I’m going to have to leave it at that but believe me, I’ll contact you as soon as I am able.’
Although Schneider’s lecture was intended for Besemer, the other men listened attentively to a story they knew by heart.
‘Let me show you something, Jürgen,’ Schneider said, reaching for a folder on a side table.
He handed him the letter from Himmler to Hitler describing the potential power of combining the three piercing relics of Christ and the imperative of finding the missing relic of the trio, a Holy Nail.
Besemer paused a few times to look at the men watching him and Schneider told him to take his time. When the young man was done he handed the document back with a look of dazed zeal.
‘Yes, it’s quite amazing, isn’t it?’ Schneider said. ‘It’s kept this room of old men going for all these years, never giving up the hope that one day we might find the nail, never giving up hope that we might be the instruments of a Fourth Reich.’
‘And?’ Besemer said.
‘And what?’
‘For God’s sake, what of the nail?’ Besemer asked, causing some of the old men to cluck.
Schneider grinned. ‘He’s an eager one, is he not?’ he said. ‘Eagerness is good. Recall what I told you about the scribble in the book by Procopius that Rahn discovered – the bishop who developed the wounds of Christ after handling a nail relic. I wanted to be absolutely sure that this manuscript of The Secret History, VAT. GR. 1001, was what Rahn claimed it to be. That’s why I went to great lengths to have it stolen from the Vatican Library. Have a look.’
The old vellum manuscript was on the table next to the lance. Schneider pointed to the bookmarked marginalia and translated the Greek for Besemer.
‘“Eusebius, bishop of Cyzicus, who showed the wounds of Christ when he held in his hands the holy nail of Empress Helena.” Do you understand what this means, Jürgen?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘That is why we have taken a great interest in the case of the Italian priest with stigmata,’ Schneider said. ‘Do you know of it?’
‘It’s been in the news. Of course,’ Besemer said. ‘He’s the one who was kidnapped last week.’
‘Whom do you think kidnapped him?’ Schneider asked with a broad smile.
The young man’s eyes danced. ‘You? I mean, us?’
Schneider nodded with delight and the old men laughed heartily. ‘Our Gerhardt’s been a busy chap, that I can tell you.’
Milo interrupted the merriment with a question. ‘So tell us, Lambret, has anything come of it?’
Schneider put his gloves on again and reached into his breast pocket.
‘Only this.’
Besemer sprang up and the old men struggled to their feet and gathered around for a better look.
Schneider’s voice rose. ‘Gentlemen, I give you a Holy Nail.’
More than one reached out to touch it.
‘Careful!’ Sch
neider warned. ‘Or you’ll get a nasty surprise. The priest was given the relic when he visited a monastery in Croatia. An old monk there told him that non-believers in Christ weren’t affected but true believers developed bleeding stigmata. I admit I touched it out of curiosity and developed some definite pain in my wrist which I find curious.’ He laughed. ‘Perhaps I’m not the complete atheist I’ve claimed to be.’
‘Give it here,’ one of the old men shouted. ‘I’m not worried in the least!’
‘Ah, but you should be worried about handling it,’ Schneider said. ‘We must be very careful. There was an almighty explosion in Rahn’s day when a speck of metal from a holy nail came in contact with the other two relics. One slip up and, well, we wouldn’t want to lose Bavaria, would we?’
Schneider pocketed the relic and removed his gloves.
‘So you see, gentlemen, this is why I summoned you here. Finally, we are in a position to launch a mission we could only dream about these long years. If it is successful, we all may live to see the dawn of the Fourth Reich, the rebirth of the true Fatherland that our mothers, our fathers, our comrades died for. And gentlemen, I used the word live. We are not crazy people who strap on suicide vests. We are civilized men, we are thinking men. Someone else will die so we might live to experience a glorious future.’
The view from Giovanni’s window was disappearing as night fell. All that was left were the distant lights of the hillside village. Downstairs, it had been quiet all day but now he heard arguing through the door. One of the voices was from the blonde fiend who mercifully had been gone for a couple of days.
The voices grew louder and the door was unbolted. When Martin and Gerhardt came in, Gerhardt pointed toward the open window and reprimanded Martin furiously in German.
‘What the hell were you thinking? You bring him upstairs and then you open the goddamn window?’
‘It’s a long drop to the stones,’ Martin protested. ‘Escape is impossible.’
‘But he could kill himself, you idiot. You know what would happen if he killed himself?’
‘What?’
‘First, you’d be dead.’
