Black Order

by James Rollins

  “No papers, no identification,” Anna said, turning to him. Her gaze fell heavily onto Painter. “We needed the saboteur alive.”

  He had no excuse. “I aimed for her shoulder.”

  He shook his head in frustration. A debilitating bout of vertigo had paralyzed him after his descent in the rope harness. But they had no time to spare, barely making it here from the far side of the mountain. They would’ve never made it on foot through the castle. The helicopter had been their only chance, hopping over the shoulder of the mountain and dropping someone down on a harness.

  Anna was no good with a gun, and Gunther was piloting the helo.

  That left only Painter.

  So despite the vertigo and double vision, Painter had crawled to the castle and aimed as best he could through the window. He’d had to act fast as he saw the woman rush Lisa, sword poised.

  So he had taken his shot.

  And though it may have cost them everything—even the knowledge of the true puppetmaster who manipulated these saboteurs—Painter did not regret his choice. He had seen the horror on Lisa’s face. Vertigo be damned, he had fired. His head still pounded now. A new fear rose.

  What if he had struck Lisa…? How long until he was more of a liability than an asset? He shoved this thought aside.

  Quit wringing your hands and roll up your sleeves.

  “What about any distinguishing marks?” Painter asked, getting back into the game.

  “Only this.” Anna turned over the woman’s wrist and exposed the back of the assassin’s hand. “Do you recognize it?”

  A black tattoo marred her perfect white skin. Four entwined loops.

  “Looks Celtic, but it means nothing to me.”

  “Nor me.” Anna sat back, dropping the corpse’s hand.

  Painter noted something else and knelt down closer. He turned the hand over again, still warm. The woman’s pinkie fingernail was missing, the bed scarred. A tiny blemish, but a significant one.

  Anna took the hand from him. She rubbed the nail bed. “Dry…” A deep furrow formed between her brows. Her eyes met his.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” he asked.

  Anna’s gaze shifted to the woman’s face. “But I’d have to do a retinal scan for sure. Look for petechia around the optic nerve.”

  Painter didn’t need any further evidence. He had seen how fast the assassin had moved across the room, preternaturally agile. “She’s one of the Sonnekönige.”

  Lisa and Gunther joined them.

  “Not one of ours,” Anna said. “She’s way too young. Too perfect. Whoever created her employed our latest techniques, those that we finessed over the past decades from our in vitro studies. They’ve advanced them into human subjects.”

  “Could someone have created them here, behind your back…after hours?”

  Anna shook her head. “It takes an enormous amount of energy to activate the Bell. We would know.”

  “Then that only means one thing.”

  “She was created somewhere else.” Anna rose to her feet. “Someone else has an operable Bell.”

  Painter remained where he was, examining the nail and tattoo. “And that someone means to shut you down now,” he mumbled.

  Silence settled over the room.

  In the quiet, Painter heard a tiny chime, barely audible. It came from the woman. He realized he had heard it a few times, but there had been so much commotion, so much speculation, it had not fully registered.

  He pulled up her parka sleeve.

  A digital watch with a thick leather band, a full two inches in width, was secured to her wrist. Painter studied its red face. A holographic hand swept fully around, marking off the seconds. A digital readout glowed.

  01:32

  Seconds subtracted with every sweep.

  Just over a minute.

  Painter unstrapped the watch and checked the inside of the band. Two silver contact points were wired in place. Heartbeat monitor. And somewhere inside the watch must be a microtransmitter.

  “What are you doing?” Anna asked.

  “Did you search her for any explosives?”

  “She’s clean,” Anna said. “Why?”

  Painter stood and spoke rapidly. “She’s wired with a monitor. When her heartbeat stopped, a transmission must’ve been sent out.” He glanced to the watch in his hand. “This is just a timer.”

  He held it out toward them.

  01:05

  “Klaus and this woman had full access to your facilities for who knows how long. Plenty of time to jury-rig a failsafe.” Painter held up the watch. “Something tells me we don’t want to be here when this reaches zero.”

  The second hand swept around, and a small chime sounded as the count dropped below a minute.

  00:59

  “We must get out of here. Now!”

  10

  BLACK CAMELOT

  9:32 A.M.

  WEWELSBURG, GERMANY

  “The SS started out as the personal bodyguard for Hitler,” the docent said in French, leading a group of sodden tourists through the heart of the Wewelsburg museum. “In fact, the term SS is derived from the German word Schutzstaffel, which means ‘guard detachment.’ Only later did they become Himmler’s Black Order.”

  Gray stepped aside as the tour group passed. While waiting for the museum director, he had eavesdropped on enough of the tour to gain the gist of the castle’s history. How Himmler had leased the castle for only one Reichsmark, then spent a quarter billion rebuilding the castle into his personal Camelot, a small price compared to the cost in human blood and suffering.

  Gray stood beside a display case with a striped prison uniform from the Niederhagen concentration camp.

  Thunder rumbled from beyond the walls, rattling the old windows.

  As the tour group drifted away, the docent’s voice faded into the babble of the few other visitors, all seeking shelter against the storm.

  Monk stood with Fiona. Ryan had gone to fetch the director. Monk leaned down to examine one of the infamous Toten Kopf rings on display, a silver band granted to SS officers. It was engraved with runes, along with a skull and crossbones. A gruesome piece of art, ripe with symbolism and power.

  Other exhibits stretched across the small hall: miniature models, photographs of daily life, SS paraphernalia, even a strange little teapot that once belonged to Himmler. A sun-shaped rune decorated the pot.

  “Here comes the director,” Monk said, stepping closer. He nodded to a squat gentleman who strode out a private door. Ryan accompanied him.

  The museum director appeared to be in his late fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, rumpled black suit. As he approached, he removed a pair of eyeglasses and held out his other hand toward Gray.

  “Dr. Dieter Ulmstrom,” the man said. “Director of the Historisches Museum des Hochstifts Paderborn. Wilkommen.”

  The man’s harried look belied his welcome.

  He continued, “Young Ryan here has explained how you’ve come to investigate some runes found in an old book. How intriguing.”

  Again the man appeared more hassled than intrigued.

  “We won’t keep you long,” Gray said. “We were wondering if you could help us identify a particular rune and its significance.”

  “Certainly. If there is one thing a museum director at Wewelsburg must be fluent with, it is rune lore.”

  Gray waved to Fiona for the Darwin Bible. She already had it out.

  Flipping open the back cover, Gray held the book out.

  Lips pursing, Dr. Ulmstrom replaced his glasses and looked closer. He studied the rune scoured in ink by Hugo Hirszfeld on the back pasteboard.

  “May I examine the book, bitte?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Gray relented.

  The director flipped through the pages, pausing at some of the chicken-scratched marks inside. “A Bible…how strange…”

  “The symbol at the back,” Gray pressed.

  “Of course. It is the Mensch rune.”<
br />
  “Mensch,” Gray said. “As in the German word for ‘man.’”

  “Ja. Note the form. Like a decapitated stick figure.” The director drifted back to the earlier pages. “Ryan’s great-grandfather seemed very fixated on symbols associated with the All-Father.”

  “What do you mean?” Gray asked.

  Ulmstrom pointed to one of the scratches on the inner pages of the Bible.

  “This is the rune for k,” the director said, “also called cen in Anglo-Saxon. It’s an earlier rune for ‘man,’ only two upraised arms, a cruder portrayal. And on this other page is the rune’s mirror image.” He flipped a few pages and pointed to another.

  “The two symbols are sort of like two sides of the same coin. Yin and yang. Male and female. Light and dark.”

  Gray nodded. It reminded him of his discussions with Ang Gelu when he had studied with the Buddhist monk, how all societies seemed to be transfixed by this duality. This reverie tweaked his concern about Painter Crowe. There’d been no word yet from Nepal.

  Monk redirected the talk. “These runes? What do they all have to do with this All-Father guy?”

  “All three are related. Symbolically. The big rune, the Mensch rune, is often considered to represent the Norse god Thor, a bringer of life, a higher state of being. What we all strive to become.”

  Gray’s mind puzzled through to the answer, picturing it in his head. “And these two earlier runes, the k runes, they form the two halves of the Mensch rune.”

  “Huh?” Monk grunted.

  “Like this,” Fiona said, understanding. Using her finger, she drew in the dust atop a display case. “You push the two-armed runes together to form the Mensch rune. Like a jigsaw.”

  “Sehr gut,” the director said. He tapped the first two runes. “These represent the common man—in all his duality—joining together to form the All-Father, a supreme being.” Ulmstrom handed the Bible back to Gray and shook his head. “These runes certainly seemed to obsess Ryan’s great-grandfather.”

  Gray stared at the symbol on the back cover. “Ryan, Hugo was a biologist, correct?”

  Ryan stirred. He seemed dismayed by all this. “Ja. As was my great-aunt Tola.”

  Gray nodded slowly. The Nazis were always interested in the myth of the superman, the All-Father from which the Aryan race supposedly descended. All these scribblings, were they just Hugo’s declaration of his belief in this Nazi dogma? Gray didn’t think so. He remembered Ryan’s description of his great-grandfather’s notes, the scientist’s growing disillusionment—and then the cryptic note to his daughter, a hint of a secret, one too beautiful to let die and too monstrous to set free.

  From one biologist to another.

  He sensed it was all tied together: runes, the All-Father, some long-abandoned research. Whatever the secret was, it seemed it was worth killing over.

  Ulmstrom continued, “The Mensch rune was also of particular interest to the Nazis. They even renamed it the leben-rune.”

  “The life rune?” Gray asked, focusing his attention back.

  “Ja. They used it to represent the Lebensborn program.”

  “What’s that?” Monk asked.

  Gray answered. “A Nazi breeding program. Farms to produce more blond, blue-eyed children.”

  The director nodded. “But like the duality of the k rune, the leben-rune also has its mirror image.” He motioned for Gray to turn the Bible upside down, upending the symbol. “Reversed, the leben-rune becomes its opposite. The toten-rune.”

  Monk frowned at Gray.

  He translated. “The rune of death.”

  1:37 P.M.

  HIMALAYAS

  Death ticked down.

  0:55

  Painter stood with the dead assassin’s wrist timer in his hand. “No time to make it out on foot. Never get clear of the blast zone.”

  “Then what—?” Anna asked.

  “The helicopter,” Painter said and pointed toward the window. The A-Star helicopter they’d used to hop here still sat outside the castle, engine warm.

  “The others.” Anna headed to the phone, ready to raise the alarm.

  “Keine Zeit,” Gunther barked, stopping her.

  The man unhitched his assault rifle, a Russian A-91 Bullpup. With his other hand, he yanked out a grenade cartridge from his waistband and jammed it into the rifle’s 40mm launcher.

  “Hier!” He strode in large steps to Anna’s massive desk. “Schnell!”

  He pointed the rifle at arm’s length toward the room’s barred window.

  Painter grabbed Lisa’s hand and ran for shelter, Anna on their heels. Gunther waited until they were close enough and fired. A jet of gas blasted from the rock-steady weapon.

  They all leaped behind the desk.

  Gunther grabbed his sister around the waist and bodily rolled her under him. The grenade exploded deafeningly. Painter felt his ears pop. Lisa clamped her hands over her ears. The concussion shoved the desk a full foot. Bits of rock and glass pelted the front of the desk. Rock dust and smoke choked over them.

  Gunther hauled Anna to her feet. They wasted no words. Across the library, a ragged hole had been blasted through to the outside. Books—shredded and aflame—dotted the floor and had been blown out into the courtyard.

  They ran for the exit.

  The helicopter sat beyond the mountain overhang. A good forty yards. Bounding through the jumbled blast zone, they sprinted for the helicopter.

  Painter still clutched the wrist timer. He didn’t check it until they were at the helicopter. Gunther had reached the chopper first and ripped open the rear door. Painter helped Anna and Lisa inside, then dove in after them.

  Gunther was already in the pilot’s seat. Belts snapped into place. Painter glanced at the timer. Not that it would do any good. Either they’d get clear or they wouldn’t.

  He stared at the number. His head pounded, stabbing his eyes with pain. He could barely make out the digital readout.

  00:09

  No time left.

  Gunther had the engine roaring. Painter glanced up. The rotors had begun to spin…slowly, too slowly. He glanced out a side window. The helo perched at the top of a steep snowy slope, freshly corniced from last night’s storm. The sky beyond was shredded with clouds, and icy mists clung to cliffs and valleys.

  From the front seat, Gunther swore under his breath. The bird refused to climb into the thin air, not without top rotor speed.

  00:03

  They’d never make it.

  Painter reached for Lisa’s hand.

  He gripped it tightly—then suddenly the world lifted and crashed back down. A distant hollow boom sounded. They all held their breath, ready to be blasted off the mountain. But nothing else happened. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Then the cornice upon which they were perched broke away. The A-Star tilted down nose first. Rotors churned uselessly overhead. The entire snowy slope slipped in one sheet, sliding away, as if shrugged off the mountain, taking the helicopter with it.

  They were headed for the cliff’s edge. Snow tumbled over it in a churning torrent.

  The ground bumped again…another explosion…

  The helo bucked but refused to get airborne.

  Gunther wrestled with the controls, choking the throttle.

  The cliff rushed toward them. The snow could be heard beyond the roar of the helicopter, growling like Class V rapids.

  Lisa pressed against Painter’s side, her hand white-knuckled around his fingers. On her other side, Anna sat ramrod straight, face blank, eyes fixed forward.

  In front, Gunther went deathly silent as they were carried over the cliff.

  Shoved off the edge, they tipped sideways, snow falling away under them, behind them. Dropping fast, the craft jittered, yawing back and forth. Cliffs of rock rose in all directions.

  No one made a sound. The rotors screamed for all of them.

  Then just like that, the craft found air. With no more jolt than an elevator coming to a sto
p, the A-star steadied. Gunther grunted at the controls…slowly, slowly, spiraling the craft upward.

  Ahead, the last of the avalanche tumbled over the cliff face.

  The helo climbed enough to survey the damage to the castle. Smoke choked out all the façade’s windows. The front doors had been blown off. Over the shoulder of the mountain, a thick black column rose into the sky, coming from the helipad on the far side.

  Anna sagged, palms on the side window. “Almost a hundred and fifty men and women.”

  “Maybe some got out,” Lisa said dully, unblinking.

  They spotted no movement.

  Only smoke.

  Anna pointed toward the castle. “Wir sollten suchen—”

  But there would be no search, no rescue.

  Ever.

  A blinding white flash, like a crack of lightning, blazed from all the windows. Beyond the shoulder, a sodium-arc sunrise. No noise. Like heat lightning. It burned into the retina, shutting off all sight.

  Blinded, Painter felt the helo lurch up as Gunther yanked on the collective. A noise intruded, a vast grating rumble of rock. Impossibly loud. Not just an avalanche. It sounded tectonic, a grinding of continental plates.

  The helo trembled in the air, a fly in a paint shaker.

  Sight returned painfully.

  Painter pressed against the window and stared below.

  “My God…,” he uttered in awe.

  Rock dust obscured most of the view, but it could not hide the scope of the destruction. The entire side of the mountain had buckled in on itself. The shoulder of granite that had overhung the castle had collapsed, as if all beneath it—the castle and a good section of mountain—had simply vanished.

  “Unmöglich,” Anna mumbled, stunned.

  “What?”

  “Such annihilation…it had to be a ZPE bomb.” Her eyes had gone glassy.

  Painter waited for her to explain.

  She did after another shuddering breath. “ZPE. Zero point energy. Einstein’s formulas led to the first nuclear bomb, tapping into the energies of a few uranium atoms. But that’s nothing compared to the potential power hidden within Planck’s quantum theories. Such bombs would tap into the very energies birthed during the big bang.”