He turned his attention to the jacket, his hands shaking as he held it, although it was hard to know if this was from anticipation or old age.
“It’s obviously an SS uniform,” he said between strained breaths, pointing at the distinctive silver double lightning bolts on the right-hand collar badge. “And its owner was probably German, since in theory only Germans were allowed to wear the Siegrunen. And you see the national eagle and swastika worn high on the left sleeve? Only the SS
did this. Every other fighting service wore it on the left breast. The uniform is based on the
M1943
design,
but
from
the
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fabric and quality I’d say it was tailor-made rather than pro
duced by the SS-Bekleidungswerke, which is strange . . .”
Tom tilted his head at the unfamiliar word.
“The SS clothing works,” Lasche explained. “Tailoring was common for senior officers, but not for an Unterscharführer.” He pointed at the left-hand collar badge, a single silver pip on a black background.
“A what?”
“It’s the owner’s rank. I suppose it would translate as corporal. So either this particular officer was very rich or . . .”
Lasche had just caught sight of the cuff title, a thin strip of black material embroidered with gold that had been sewn to the left-hand sleeve just below the elbow. The sight seemed to trigger a hacking cough and a frenzied gasping for breath that had the nurse behind him pressing the oxygen mask to his face and feverishly adjusting taps on the gas bottles until he was able to speak again.
“Where did you get this?” he croaked, waving the nurse away.
“London. Why?”
“Why? Why? Because, Mr. Kirk, this jacket belonged to a member of Der Totenkopfsorden.
The
Order
of
the
Death’s
Head.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HOTEL VIER JAHRESZEITEN KEMPINSKI, MUNICH,
GERMANY
January 7—3:31 p.m.
The Order of the Death’s Head?” The voice from the speakerphone sounded skeptical.
“Never heard of it.” “Not many people have.” Renwick got up and began to pace back and forth behind the sofa as he spoke. Hecht observed him with a detached leer. “It has taken me years to piece together the little that I know. But it existed, I promise you that.”
“I know every regiment, every division, every company that the Third Reich ever formed. And I have never heard of this so-called Order,” Hecht said dismissively.
“Let him speak, Colonel,” Dmitri snapped. Hecht shrugged, heaving his booted feet up on the coffee table and settling back into his seat.
“As you know, Heinrich Himmler turned the SS into the most powerful force within the Reich, a state within a state, its tentacles reaching into almost every facet of German life and influencing agricultural, racial, scientific, and health policies.”
“It was a marvel,” Dmitri agreed. “The pride of the Fatherland. In charge of the police, the
secret
service,
and
the
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death camps, as well as running its own businesses and factories.”
“Not to mention controlling an army of nine hundred thousand men at its peak,” Hecht added enthusiastically.
“Right from the start, Himmler realized that loyalty could more easily be bought by ensuring that people felt they were part of something special. So everything about the SS, from the black uniforms to the runic symbols and badges, was designed to enhance their mystique and elite status. And it worked. Almost too well . . .”
“How can it have worked too well?” asked Hecht, frowning.
“Because with increasing power came the need for the SS to expand. It was forced to recruit in such numbers that there was no choice but to draw from a wider and less exclusive pool of applicants than had originally been the case.”
“Which threatened its integrity and exclusivity,” Dmitri said thoughtfully.
“Exactly. So Himmler began to look to romanticized history and pagan ritual to unite the disparate groups that made up the SS. He longed for a return to a more feudal age, a time of myth and legend and chivalric ideals. He was particularly obsessed with King Arthur and the story of how he gathered his twelve bravest and most noble knights at a round table to defend the Celtic way of life. Inspired by this story, he chose twelve men, all of Obergruppenführer rank, to be his knights. These twelve were to stand for everything that was best about the Aryan nation and the SS brotherhood.”
“How is it I have never heard of this?” The voice from the speakerphone was laced with skepticism.
“The existence of the Order was unknown even to the Führer himself. They wore no outward badge or sign that they belonged to the SS’s most exclusive club—except when they were together. For their secret meetings, they swapped their normal uniforms for ones that declared their status.”
“In what way?”
“Standard SS uniforms display the regimental title on their cuff.”
“Of
course”—Hecht
dropped
his
feet
to
the
floor
and
sat
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forward—“Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler; Das Reich, Theodor Eicke. These are names that have gone down in history.”
“The Order was no different, except they used gold rather than silver thread.”
“Why has this never come out before?” Hecht asked, his impatience clear.
“Because every single member of the Order vanished in early 1945, and with them their secret. Some say that they escaped abroad. Others that they died defending Berlin. But I believe that they lived . . . Or, at least, they lived long enough to carry out one last order.”
“Which was?”
“To
protect
a
train.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
KITZBÜHEL, AUSTRIA
January 7—3:31 p.m.
The season was in full swing and Kitzbühel’s snow-laden streets were buzzing with people. The skiers were beginning to make their way off the slopes, squeezing themselves onto sweaty buses or clomping noisily along the treacherously icy roads in their unfastened boots, skis precariously balanced on one shoulder. The nonskiers were emerging from long, late lunches and steeling themselves for the heavy dinner that lay ahead, the women, especially, dressed in billowing curtains of fur. A few dogs danced through the legs of the café chairs lining the pavements, or in between the expensive SUVs that purred effortlessly along the narrow streets, their owners fruitlessly calling them to heel.
Archie picked his way through the traffic, one eye on his map and the other making sure he didn’t knock anyone over. Luckily, the house he was searching for was conveniently located on a large plot only a short way from the town center, and he pulled into the drive with relief.
The house looked better cared for than its overgrown garden; the walls had been painted a bright yellow, and the wooden cladding that surrounded the upper story looked to have been recently replaced and treated. To the left, a makeshift 122 james twining
carport constructed of rough timber and plastic sheeting was sagging under a fresh blanket of snow.
The front door was to the right of the main building, up some steps and under a separate covered porch. Archie rang the bell. There was no reply. He stepped back from the porch and looked up at the house with a pained sigh. It was bad enough being abroad, he thought, but it would be worse still if this turned out to be a wasted trip.
He stepped forward and rang again. This time the door opened almost immediately, taking him by surprise.
“Ja?” It was a woman, about thirty years o
ld, her hair tied up in a blue polka-dot scarf, her hands sheathed in bright yellow rubber gloves. She was wearing tennis shoes and a baggy tracksuit. In the hall behind her he could just about make out the shape of a kid’s tricycle and a football.
“Guten Tag,” Archie said haltingly.
Unlike Tom and Dominique, Archie had a vocabulary extending little beyond hello and good-bye in any language other than French, and the latter only because he had mastered the principal phrases used in Baccarat.
“I’m looking for Mr. Lammers—Herr Manfred Lammers,” he said, reading from the back of the envelope he had found at Weissman’s house. Fearing that his pronunciation might be more hindrance than help, he held out the envelope so she could read the name for herself. She studied the handwritten name and address, then looked up at him with a sad expression on her face.
“I’m sorry,” she replied with a thick accent, “but Herr Lammers is dead. Three years ago.”
“Oh.” His face fell. Back to square one.
“Can I help? I am his niece, Maria Lammers.”
“I don’t think so,” Archie said with a resigned shrug. “Not unless you recognize these.”
He handed her the three photographs. “Your uncle sent them to someone in England. I was hoping to find out where the original paintings were.”
She took the photographs and leafed through them, shaking her head. “Nein . . . no, sorry. I have never . . .” As she came to the last picture, she paused midsentence. the black sun 123
“What?”
“This one”—she held up the photograph showing a painting of a castle—“this I have seen before.”
“Where?” Archie stepped forward eagerly. “Do you have it here?”
“No.”
“Can you show it to me?”
A pause as she weighed her answer. “You have come from England to see this?”
“Yes, yes, from England.”
She slowly peeled off her rubber gloves and then pulled the scarf off her head. Her hair, dyed a vivid henna, fell around her face in a scruffy bob.
“Come.”
She grabbed a coat off the back of the door, tugged it on, and led him down the drive and back out onto the street. Turning left, she cut through a small park where children were hurling snowballs at each other. Quickly leaving their laughter and screams behind, they passed under a large arch and down a hill, Archie treading carefully to avoid patches of ice that remained unsanded. Along the way, Maria passed several people she knew, greeting them with a wave as they looked Archie up and down, obviously curious as to who he was.
Eventually they came to a steep staircase cut into a buttressed wall that led up to the main parish church, its snow-covered gothic steeple towering above the surrounding roofs.
Despite the church’s rather drab external appearance, its interior had clearly benefited from a Baroque renovation at some stage in the eighteen hundreds and was, as a consequence, surprisingly ornate and bright. Everything of value appeared to have been gilded, from the picture frames that lined both walls, to the icons benevolently peering down from their elevated vantage points on each of the four central pillars, and the intricately decorated altarpieces that flanked each side of the chancel. The apse, meanwhile, was dominated by an enormous black and gold-leaf reredos, that reached almost to the top of the high, ribbed ceiling.
“Kommen
Sie.”
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She led him down the nave to the marble-floored chancel and then turned right into the side chapel.
“You see?”
The light outside was fading fast, and Archie peered into the gloom in confusion. Although the ceiling had been decorated attractively enough with painted plaster moldings, there was nothing else there apart from a rather gaudy icon of the Virgin and Child mounted high up on the left wall, and a massive marble font. But then, instinctively almost, he looked up to the stained-glass window overhead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
January 7—3:31 p.m.
So there were twelve members of the Order?” Tom asked. “Yes. Like the Knights of the Round Table. Himmler himself selected them, not only for their Aryan looks and racially pure bloodlines, but also for their total loyalty to him. They were his own Praetorian Guard.”
“But you said that the twelve knights were all Obergruppenführer rank and above. Yet that uniform belonged to a corporal. How can that be?”
“I’m not sure.” Lasche shook his head. “As far as I know, no one outside the Order has ever seen one of these uniforms before. It’s possible that in some act of ritual humility they all assumed lowly rank to emphasize their brotherhood and unity.”
“Or maybe, if they were knights, they had retainers? Someone to assist them in the performance of their duties,” Tom speculated.
“Yes. Yes, that is also a possibility.”
“It would certainly explain why someone so young got to wear
such a coveted uniform.” “Who?” “The man this uniform
belonged to. He died ten days ago.
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He was in his eighties. There was a photo, taken in 1944, of him wearing the uniform. That would have made him about twenty at the time.”
“What was his name?”
“Weissman. Andreas Weissman.” Tom saw the surprised look on Lasche’s face. “It’s a Jewish name, I know. He adopted an alias in order to escape after the war. Passed himself off as a concentration camp survivor—even tattooed a fake camp number on his arm. We don’t know his real name.”
“You know, many members of the SS had their blood type tattooed on their left underarm, twenty centimeters up from the elbow. It was done so that field medics might quickly determine a wounded man’s blood type. After the war, Allied investigators used the blood group tattoo to identify potential war criminals. Many SS members burned or disfigured their underarm to avoid capture.”
“Or perhaps tattooed another number over the top to disguise it . . . ?” Tom mused, recalling the difficulty Turn-bull’s forensic people had had in deciphering some of the numbers recovered from Weissman’s arm.
“Possibly.”
“Did the Order have any specific symbols or images that they used, apart from the regular SS ones?”
“Just one. A black disc surrounded by two concentric circles with twelve spokes radiating from its center in the form of SS lightning bolts. One for each member of the Order. They called it the Schwarze Sonne—the Black Sun.”
“Like this?” Tom asked, handing Lasche the cap recovered from Weissman’s house and pointing at its badge. Lasche grasped it unsteadily, a glimmer of recognition flickering across his face.
“Yes, yes. It is as I thought!” He looked up at Tom excitedly, straining to get the words out between breaths. “This is the symbol of the Order, a corruption of an Alamannian sun-wheel from the third century AD. It was intended as a reference to a time when the SS would shine down on the world as their racial masters.”
There was a pause as Tom let this new piece of information sink in. the black sun 127
“What happened to the Order in the end?”
“Ah,” said Lasche, “the, how you say, six-million-dollar question. The answer is simple: nobody knows.”
“Nobody?”
Lasche gave a smile, more gums than teeth. “Not for certain. Although . . . Well, let’s just say I have my own ideas.”
“Go on,” Tom urged him with a nod.
“Himmler, for all his failings, had a clearer view of the way the war was going than Hitler did. He even tried to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies in the final days of the war. And with the specter of defeat looming, he would never have been able to contemplate his precious knights being captured or imprisoned or otherwise humiliated by their enemies.”
“So what do you think he did?”
Lasche paused, as if to collect his strength. “Are you aware what happened to King
Arthur when he lay dying?” he wheezed.
“He asked one of his knights to throw Excalibur into the lake.”
“Yes. Sir Bedivere—who refused three times, like Peter denying Christ. And then, when eventually he did comply, a ship with black sails appeared and carried Arthur to Avalon, from where it is said he will rise one day to save his people when they are next in mortal peril.”
Tom frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Many cultures have a similar legend. In Denmark, it is believed that Holger the Dane sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle, from where he will emerge when the fatherland is in need. In Germany, Emperor Frederick II—Barbarossa— is said to sleep beneath the Kyffhäuser mountain, from where he will return at the end of time. In my opinion, Himmler wanted a fittingly epic end for his own knights. In December 1944 he summoned the Order for one last meeting. It’s not known what instructions he gave them, but not long afterwards they disappeared and were never seen again.”
“You think they escaped?”
“Who
knows?
Maybe
they
were
killed
by
the
advancing
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Soviet army. Maybe they lived out their days on a banana plantation somewhere in Paraguay. Or maybe, as we speak, they are waiting beneath some mountain or castle for the time when they will be called upon to restore the German Reich.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
HOTEL VIER JAHRESZEITEN KEMPINSKI, MUNICH,
GERMANY
January 7—3:32 p.m.
Finally, we get to the train.” Hecht sighed sarcastically. “It’s what was on the train that I want to know about!” came the voice from the speakerphone. “And you would be right,”
said Renwick. “Because that is where the story gets really interesting. You see—” Before he could continue, the door burst open and three uniformed men with shaved heads sprang into the room, machine guns slung around their necks. Renwick snapped his eyes to Hecht, but he seemed unperturbed.
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