by David Wood
“I think we’re done here.” The voice was a low growl. “I’ve changed my mind about those freak skulls. We’ll take them with us. They must be a clue, though I can’t see how.”
Privately, Niklas thought they should have taken the skulls with them in the first place, but the scarred man’s rage had been so overwhelming that he had refused to even look at them, and neither Niklas nor Ulrich was about to argue with him. At least he had changed his mind. At worst, they would have something to show their superiors.
They slipped back inside the cathedral, the warm air a welcome after the chilly winter breeze. Niklas moved silently, more out of habit than necessity. It was after hours and they had dispatched the few living men inside the Kölner Dom. There was no danger.
They rounded the corner of the transept, turned toward the nave, and froze. A man sat on the floor alongside the dead priests. His face was buried in his hands and he was speaking softly, the rhythm of his words indicating prayer.
The American held a finger to his lips. He motioned for Ulrich to keep watch at the main entrance and for Niklas to follow him. He moved like a shadow across the floor, impressive considering his bulk and awkward gait. He was on the praying man in an instant, wrapping his thick arm around the man’s throat like a python squeezing its prey, and lifting him up off the ground. The man kicked, flailed, and made squelching noises, but froze when the American spoke.
“You answer my questions, you might live.”
That was surely a lie, but it wasn’t Niklas’s problem.
“You try anything at all and you die. Painfully. Understand?”
The man nodded. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, as if he could deny what was happening.
The American sat him down and the man dropped to his knees. He was shaking so hard he could barely remain upright.
“Tell me what you know.”
“I... I know nothing. I come here to study...”
Snap! The American broke the man’s little finger eliciting a shriek of agony.
“Shut up and listen.” His tone was enough to cut off their prisoner’s screams. “I can tell when you’re lying. I can tell when you leave things out. And I... don’t... care... how much I hurt you. I’ll cut your eyeballs out and eat a damn Big Mac while I do it. You got me?”
Niklas’s limited knowledge of American cuisine did not include ‘damn Big Mac’ but the words seemed to do the job. He saw the paltry bit of resistance drain from the man as his shoulders sagged and his chin fell to his chest.
Torture was something only an exceptional person could endure for any length of time. He had faced his share as part of his training prior to induction into the Heilig Herrschaft. Maintaining one’s focus on the Most Holy was central to the denial of pain. Academics like the man who cowered before them usually broke quickly, for they had faith in nothing.
“Tell me everything.”
The prisoner nodded vigorously and launched into an explanation, his words coming in short, disjointed bursts, as if each phrase was trying to jostle the others out of the way so it could be heard first.
“One priest was not dead. He made no sense. He said he had a secret. Mailänder Madonna. Dreihasenbild. He made no sense.”
“That can’t be everything.” The American reached for the knife at his waist, but the prisoner kept talking.
“He tried to say something else, but he died. All he said was ‘ewige’ and then he died.” The prisoner stiffened as if waiting for something to happen. Indeed, Niklas expected the American to kill the man soon, if not now. “It is true. I swear it!” The man’s eyes remained firmly shut. This might be a bad dream, but it was one from which he would not wake.
The American looked around and froze.
“Where are the skulls?” His voice was velvet soft, and it sent frozen fingers like the touch of a spirit down Niklas’s spine.
The man hesitated and, for a moment, Niklas thought the fellow might try to hold something back, but courage apparently failed him.
“The others took them. I was giving them a tour, and they took the skulls.”
“Did they hear the priest’s words?” Heat rose in the American’s voice.
“Yes. They hear everything. Then they took the skulls and left. I stayed here to wait for die Polizei.”
So the authorities were on their way. That changed things. Niklas looked around as if uniformed men lurked in the shadows.
“I want names, and fast.”
“I do not know them all. They introduced themselves quickly and then we saw the priests.” The man was shaking; clearly fearing this lack of knowledge would cost him his life. “One man was a red Indian. A big man, almost two meters tall. There was a woman, also a red Indian. I do not remember their names. And there was another man and woman.”
“You’d better come up with at least one name or the remainder of your very short life will be filled with pain.”
“Verzeih mir,” the man whispered. Forgive me. “Jade Ihara. She was a colleague...”
“Jade Ihara the archaeologist?”
“Ja.” The man nodded, his body quaking.
“They are here!” Ulrich called. “They did not use their sirens. We have no time.”
The American let out roar of rage and frustration and clubbed the prisoner across the temple, knocking him unconscious.
The three men dashed back to the transept and slipped outside, past the treasury, and across the street. Ten minutes later they were in their vehicle, driving along the Rhine. The American sat in the passenger side, muttering to himself. Niklas finally broke the silence.
“This Jade Ihara, you know her?” He bit his lip, waiting for the explosion, but it did not come.
“Oh yes. I know her well, and if I don’t miss my guess, I know the men she’s with. But they think I’m dead.”
Chapter 5- A Way Out
“You have got to be kidding me.” Angel’s tone was as flat as her stare as she stepped back and regarded at the closed door. “I thought you guys were winding me up when you told me about your crazy adventures.”
“I wish.” Dane shone his light on the door and ran his fingers along its surface, but felt no switch or lever. “The good news is, there’s always a way out.”
“How can you be sure?” Angel didn’t sound doubtful– only curious.
“You see any remains in here? Obviously, everyone who came in here left again. We just need to figure out how.” He continued to search. “Let’s start by looking for either the sign of the three hares or the wise virgins. This is a pagan temple, so I think the hares are more likely.”
They spread out and continued the search. It wasn’t long before Jade called everyone over to the Bacchus frieze.
“I found the hares!” She shone her light over a bunch of grapes.
Dane and the others circled around behind her and looked where she indicated. He frowned.
“I don’t see anything but grapes.”
“You won’t at first. Step back and squint.” Jade turned and flashed a bright smile. “Tilt your head if you have to.”
They must have made an odd-looking trio, the three of them leaning to and fro, looking from different angles, trying to see what Jade saw. She moved the side and shone her light across the carving, casting it in long shadows.
“There it is!” Bones’ voice was triumphant. “It’s like one of those weird posters where you have to let your vision go all fuzzy before you can see it.”
Almost as soon as Bones had spoken, Dane saw it too. It wasn’t quite a stereogram, but some of the grapes were raised far above the others, and when seen in the proper light, the image swam into focus, forming a shape that resembled the three hares.
“Give it a push.” Dane held his breath as Jade pressed her palm to the carving. He saw no seam that would indicate that the hare sign was anything other than a clever artistic detail, but after a moment, Jade’s hand slowly moved forward as the hares slid into the wall. Something snapped into place and the wall sank sl
owly into the floor, revealing an upward-sloping passageway, the twin of the one that had brought them here.
The way was long and steep, but uneventful. They finally came to a blank wall. The ceiling here was low, and even Jade had to duck to avoid banging her head. Dane shone his light on the ceiling. There were no hares or wise virgins here, only two handholds set in a square stone as wide as his shoulders. He reached for it and hesitated. What, or who, would they find on the other side?
“Do you think we’re back at the cathedral?” Angel asked.
“No. This tunnel was almost a straight shot moving away from the cathedral. I think we’re closer to the river.” The air was cooler hear and, he thought, just a touch more humid.
“Does it really matter?” Bones stared up at the trapdoor as he spoke. “It’s not like there’s anywhere else to go.”
“True.” Dane nodded. “Tell you what. If we wind up in the middle of someone’s living room, you and Angel start talking in Cherokee and Jade can chime in with Japanese. Act confused and get the hell out of there.”
“What about you?” Bones eyed him, an amused smile on his lips. “What other language do you speak, Maddock?”
Dane grinned. He knew a smattering of German and French, and enough Spanish to order drinks and a meal and to ask for directions to the bathroom, but none of those would help. “Pig Latin.”
Bones chuckled as the two of them pushed up on the trapdoor. They lifted it up and set it over to the side. Up above, faint yellow light flickered on an arched stone roof.
“Another cathedral,” Dane muttered. He helped the others up and then climbed out with an assist from Bones. Looking around, he knew immediately he had been correct. This was not the Kölner Dom. The interior, though impressive in its architecture, was austere. It lacked Kölner Dom ‘s splendor, the stained glass one of the few sources of color.
“This is St. Martin’s,” Jade whispered. “It was almost destroyed in World War II and rebuilt afterward.”
“You can tell us all about it later.” Dane slid the stone back into place, took Jade’s hand, and led the way out.
Just before they reached the doors leading out, a white-robed man appeared. He spotted Dane, frowned, and opened his mouth to speak. And then he spotted Bones. As was often the case, the sight of the massive Cherokee rendered him speechless. He gaped as Bones took out his wallet, withdrew a twenty, and pressed it into the monk’s hand.
“A da ne di.” Bones smiled, patted the monk on the shoulder, and led the way out.
“What did you say to him?” Jade asked.
“I told him, in Cherokee, to get himself a happy ending massage.”
“He’s lying.” Angel seemed to have given up punching her brother, and gave him a dirty look instead. “He told him it was a gift.”
“It was either that or punch the dude. I figured he has enough problems. You know, no cash, boring clothes, no babes.”
Dane had to laugh. “Remind me about this next time I complain about your ugly mug.”
“Right.” Bones feigned disbelief. “Everybody knows I’m the good-looking one.”
Chapter 6- The Clue
The winter garden in Heller’s Brauhaus was decked out for the holiday season. Traditional music played in the background, scarcely audible over the talk and laughter in the crowded pub. The cheerful atmosphere was at odds with Dane’s gray mood which had only begun to lighten when Jade had received a text from Otto letting them know he was all right and had been released after being questioned by the police. They had sampled a few German Christmas specialties and were digging into plates of spaetzle and bottles of Kolsch, a local specialty beer, when Otto wandered in with a bandage on his finger and looking dazed but otherwise whole. He declined Dane’s offer to buy his dinner, but accepted a Kolsch and drank half of it in three large gulps.
“I don’t feel right about leaving you there by yourself,” Dane told him. “We should have stayed with you.” The others agreed. Excited as they were about the discovery they had made, leaving the man to face the authorities alone felt wrong.
“No, no.” Otto waved away their apologies. “The police would have taken the skulls and we would not have had a chance to look for the hidden passage. The place is now a crime scene. There is no telling how long it will be before it is once again open to the public.” He took another swallow of his beer, this one moderate, and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve before continuing. “I also agree with the priest. If the public knew the Shrine of the Magi held such grotesqueries...” He pinched his lower lip, his eyes narrowed in thought.
“What do you think they are?” Angel asked. “Have you ever seen anything like them?”
“Never. I suspect they are forgeries– a sinister joke left behind by whoever stole the real skulls of the Magi.”
So you think the bones of the Wise Men really were in the shrine at some point in the past?” Dane had been wondering if perhaps the horned skulls had been there from the beginning.
“If the records are to be believed, the shrine once contained three crowned skulls. This was supposedly verified by priests at Kölner Dom. Of course, everything is in question now.” Otto lapsed back into deep thought, then his eyes suddenly brightened and he looked at Jade. “Where are the skulls now?”
“Back in our hotel room. I thought about leaving them in the temple, but changed my mind.”
“What temple?” Otto’s eyes shone with disbelief as they filled him in on what lay beneath Kölner Dom.
“A temple to a Roman god beneath Cologne’s most sacred site. It is difficult to accept. Of course, ours is a tangled history.” He smiled sadly. “Why do you suppose the priest wanted someone to know about it? Would it not have been best for the church to let it fall from memory? If he was the keeper of the secret, he need not have passed it along.”
“Jade left out the most interesting part.” Dane smiled. “She does that for dramatic effect.”
“I was getting there, Maddock.” She blushed, giving her almond-colored skin a warm, pleasant hue. “But you go ahead.”
“You’ve got the disc. You tell the story.” Dane took a long pull of his Kolsch, savoring its sweet, almost fruity flavor, something between ale and lager. He glanced at Otto, whose eyes sparkled as he leaned in close, his beer forgotten, as he waited for the rest of the story.” Bones smirked and Angel grinned behind her mug.
“But you’re the one who found the compartment inside the Milan Madonna.” Jade played along. “You should tell him.”
“Disc? Milan Madonna?” Otto sounded like a little boy, early on Christmas morning, begging to open his gifts.
They all took long pulls of Kolsch, prolonging the moment as Otto’s pleading eyes darted around the table, eager for someone to let him in on the secret.
“It was nothing much,” Jade said, placing her mug on the table and reaching into her purse. “We found the original Milan Madonna and this was hidden inside of her.” She handed Otto an object wrapped in a handkerchief.
He held it gingerly and unwrapped it with care, holding it close to his chest and hunching over as if to hide it from prying eyes. Dane thought the man need not bother. The place was packed, mostly with young people overindulging in ale and holiday cheer, and no one was paying them a bit of attention.
When Otto’s eyes fell on the three hares, he gaped. He turned it in his hands, gazing at the ancient symbol. Apparently satisfied there was nothing more to see there, he turned it over. “Latin?” he asked as he once again turned the disc, his eyes following the writing that spiraled in toward the center.
“That’s what we thought.” Jade sounded annoyed. “But nothing translates, at least not on any of the websites I tried.” She shrugged and made an apologetic face. “My specialty is the native tribes of the southwestern United States, and I’ve branched out into eastern Asia. My knowledge of this part of the world is comparatively small.”
“I think,” Otto said, a ghost of a grin materializing on his face, “that it is La
tin, but in a cipher.”
Now it was Dane’s turn to grin. He had suspected the same thing and had sent photographs of the disc to his friend Jimmy Letson, an accomplished hacker and a computer whiz of the first order. Jimmy had replied with a text that read, I do have a life, you know, but if Dane knew Jimmy, he was already hard at work cracking the code. Like Dane and Bones, the man relished a challenge, though his specialty was of the cyber realm rather than the archaeological.
“Any idea what kind of cipher it might be?” Dane asked Otto, who was fixated on the text.
“I cannot say at first glance,” he mumbled. “The Caesar shift cipher was commonly used in the church. One simply chooses a number to shift the letters, either to the right or to the left. A shift of one to the right and the letter ‘A’ becomes ‘B’ and so on. It is simple enough for a priest who was not a cryptographer to use, but complicated enough to fool the average person.”
“Could the average person even read back then?” Angel asked.
“We do not, of course, know the time period when this cipher was written, if that is indeed what it is. If it is more than a few centuries old, you are certainly correct, particularly for a message in Latin.”
“Any chance it’s a fake?” Angel asked.
Otto tilted his hand back-and-forth. “It is possible, but the temple and the Madonna suggest otherwise.”
Dane nodded. It was the same conclusion they had drawn. He was looking around for a server from whom to order another round of Kolsch when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Jimmy.
“Why don’t you give me something that requires neurons next time, like a ten-piece kindergarten puzzle?”
“I take it you’ve deciphered our cipher.” At those words, all eyes at the table turned to Dane.
“If you can call it that.” Jimmy was clearly disappointed at the lack of challenge posed by the text on the disc. “It was one of the most common ciphers ever.”
