The Black Sun

by James Twining

  complex

  composed

  of

  a

  series

  of

  concentric

  fortifications,

  218 james twining

  barracks, and houses that radiated out for miles from where

  you’re standing.”

  Tom looked down at his feet and shifted uncomfortably.

  “At that precise spot an eternal flame was to be lit,” she continued. “And although the guidebooks don’t mention the Order by name, the theory is that the ashes of senior SS

  leaders were to be placed on one of these . . .” She crossed to the wall and indicated a low stone pedestal that Tom had not noticed before. He looked around him and saw that there was a total of twelve identical pedestals spaced around the chamber’s walls. “Clearly, the Order were to remain united in death as they had been in life.”

  “Then this is where we’ll start,” said Tom, stamping on the stone floor. “Where the flame was to have burned. Right under the swastika. At the center of their world.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  2:51 a.m.

  Crouching in the pit, Tom and Archie set to work chiseling away at the mortar surrounding the large stone set into the center of the floor. It was slow, painful work, the hammer handles slippery in their grasp, the vibrations through the steel chisel stinging their fingers despite the strips of rubber used to muffle the blows. After five or ten minutes, however, the sound of metal striking stone gave way to another, unexpected sound.

  “There’s something under here,” said Archie excitedly.

  They levered the first stone out, then set to work on the ones surrounding it, eventually clearing a wide area and revealing the outline of a three-foot-square metal plate, about half an inch thick.

  “Use this.” Dominique handed Tom a long metal spike from one of the packs. Tom banged it under one side of the plate, then used it to pry the heavy metal slab away from the ground until there was a big enough gap for Archie to slip his fingers into. Archie hauled the plate upright until it was standing on edge, then pushed it away, sending it toppling to the floor with a crash. As the cloud of dust cleared, a thick, fetid stench rose slowly from the dark hole.

  Dropping

  to

  their

  hands

  and

  knees,

  they

  crawled

  to

  the

  220 james twining

  hole’s edge and peered into it, their hands covering their mouths in an unsuccessful attempt to filter out the smell. A dark, impenetrable nothingness stared back at them, and for a few moments they were all silent.

  “I’ll go down first,” Tom volunteered. He grabbed a rope and secured one end to the gate, then threw the other end down the hole. Gripping his flashlight between his teeth, he lowered himself into the inky void, allowing the rope to slide slowly through his hands, controlling the speed of his descent with his legs.

  The floor appeared to be made from some sort of white stone, although he could also make out a dark disc at its center, directly beneath where he was coming down. It was only when his feet unexpectedly landed on the disc that he realized it was, in fact, a large table. He let go of the rope and took the light from his mouth.

  The table was made of wood and was surrounded by twelve high-backed oak chairs, each adorned with a tarnished silver plaque engraved with a different coat of arms and a family name. But Tom’s eye was drawn less to the chairs than their motionless, grinning occupants.

  For assembled around the table, like macabre guests at some apocalyptic dinner party, were twelve gleaming skeletons in full SS dress uniform.

  Hardly daring to breathe, he let his flashlight beam play across chests gleaming with medals and ribbons, down to the lower left arm where he found their embroidered cuffbands. The gold lettering glowed against the black material, revealing their owners’ regimental title:

  Totenkopfsorden.

  The

  Order

  of

  the

  Death’s

  Head.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE, ZURICH

  January 9—2:51 a.m.

  There you go.” Lasche pointed to the typewriter-sized wooden box on his desk. “I’ve only sold one Enigma before. A few years ago now. He was a Russian collector, if I remember rightly.”

  “And the other components?” The voice was soft and lilting, hinting at lazy, humid evenings on a porch somewhere in South Carolina or Louisiana.

  “Already in the machine. Of course, the final settings are up to you, Mr. . . . I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” The beneficial effects of the blood transfusion were already beginning to wear off, and Lasche was feeling tired and a little more unfocused than he would have liked for this meeting. It was unavoidable, given the hour. He’d had little warning, merely a phone call informing him that someone would be coming to make the exchange and to ensure that he was alone.

  “Foster. Kyle Foster.” He was a large, rugged-looking man, his thick beard melting into wild, unkempt light brown hair, his steel gray eyes still and watchful. A dangerous man, thought Lasche. “Any problems getting hold of this?”

  “Not

  really.

  I

  have

  my

  contacts.

  People

  I

  trust

  for

  this

  sort

  222 james twining

  of job. They’re reliable and discreet and keep themselves to themselves. Besides, they’re the last people on earth anyone would imagine I was involved with.”

  “You mean the Sons of American Liberty?” Foster asked with a smile.

  “How do you know that?” Lasche was at once amazed and angry. Amazed that they knew, angry because it meant that they’d been watching him. That they hadn’t trusted him.

  “Cassius does not take chances. Just because he asked you to get him an Enigma machine, doesn’t mean he didn’t care how you did it. As soon as he was certain that your man Blondi—was that his name?” Lasche nodded dumbly. “As soon as he was certain that your man Blondi had taken delivery of this”—Foster patted the wooden box protectively— “and was on his way home, he asked me to go and . . . meet with your people.”

  The hesitation, the slight edge that Lasche detected in Foster’s voice, hinted at some sinister implication to this seemingly innocent remark. Though he feared he already knew the answer, Lasche couldn’t resist putting the question: “Meet with them? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I locked them all in a booby-trapped room and tipped off the Feds so that they’d be the ones to set it off.” Foster seemed to smile at the memory. “They’ll be too busy blaming each other to ever figure out what really happened.”

  “All of them?” Lasche gasped, feeling his chest tightening, his breathing becoming ragged. “Why?”

  “Loose ends.” Foster reached into his pocket and pulled out a silenced 9mm pistol.

  “Cassius won’t stand for loose ends. Which brings us to you . . .”

  Lasche locked eyes with Foster, saw his cold and unblinking gaze, the gun pointed at his chest.

  “I assume there’s no possibility of a reprieve?” His voice remained calm and businesslike. He had been around long enough to know that neither tears nor tantrums would have any effect. “No amount of money that would convince you to put down your gun

  and

  walk

  out

  of

  here?”

  the black sun 223

  Foster gave a half smile. “Then I’d be the dead man and not you.”

  “I see.”

  A pause.

  “But my employer did have one offer to make you.”

  “Which is?” Lasche’s voice was fired by a faint glimmer of hope.

  “You get to choose.”

  “Choose?
” He frowned in confusion. “Choose what?”

  Foster jerked his head at the room full of weapons behind him. “How you die.”

  Lasche gave a rueful shake of his head. He had been foolish to expect anything else from Cassius. Even so, it was a concession. A concession that Lasche valued because it gave him some element of control in his passing. Ridiculous as it may have seemed, he really did appreciate the gesture.

  “Tell him . . . tell him thank you.”

  Lasche reversed his wheelchair out from behind his desk and slowly rolled past the display cabinets along the left-hand wall, appraising their contents. Foster followed him, his gun still drawn, the sound of his footsteps like the steady, inexorable beat of the drum as the tumbrel rolled toward the steps of the guillotine.

  Lasche’s eyes skipped from item to item, weighing the merits of each against the other. A Kukri knife presented itself as the first possible candidate. It had belonged to a Gurkha in the British Army who had died in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The hooked slash of its blade was covered, for legend has it that a Kukri can never be unsheathed without drawing blood.

  Then there was the polished elegance of the pistol used by Alexander Pushkin in a duel fought on the banks of the Black River in 1837. The poet had entered into the duel to defend his wife’s honor against the unwanted advances of a dashing officer. Mortally wounded, he died a few days later, plunging the whole of Russia into mourning. Another possibility was the Winchester M1873—the rifle that “won the West” with its fearsome accuracy and reliability. Lasche’s two examples were especially rare, modern 224 james twining

  ballistics having confirmed them as two of the eight 73s used by Native Americans at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

  But he kept going, past these and many more like them, until his wheelchair hummed to a halt in front of the suit of samurai armor. At its feet, carefully mounted on their stand, were two swords. In the end, he knew now, these had been the only possible choice.

  “A samurai wore two swords,” Lasche said softly. He could sense that Foster was standing behind him, although he did not look around. “The katana and the wakizashi.”

  He pointed first at the long sword, then the shorter one mounted above it. “They were a symbol of prestige and pride, and along with the Sacred Mirror and the Comma-Shaped Beads, are said to be one of three sacred treasures of Japan.”

  “They’re old?” Foster sounded uninterested.

  “Edo period—about 1795. So old, yes, but not as old as the armor.”

  “And that’s what you want?” Foster had stepped forward so that he was alongside Lasche, his voice skeptical.

  Lasche nodded.

  “Okay.” Foster bent toward the display, then looked up to see which of the swords Lasche wanted.

  “Have you heard of Bushido?” asked Lasche.

  “No.” There was irritation in Foster’s voice now, as if he wanted to get it over with. Lasche took no notice.

  “Bushido is the way of the warrior, the code by which the samurai ruled their lives. It teaches that, to save face, a samurai may commit seppuku, a form of ritualized suicide.”

  “You want to do it to yourself?” Foster looked worried, as if this fell outside the remit that he had been given. “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. You will be kaishakunin, my officer of death. You’ll need both swords.”

  Shrugging, Foster took both swords from their ebony stand and followed Lasche back over to the other side of the room where he had stopped, just in front of the large cannon.

  “Traditionally,

  I

  would

  be

  wearing

  a

  white

  kimono

  and

  in

  the black sun 225

  front of me would be a tray bearing a piece of washi paper, ink, a cup of sake, and a tanto knife, although the wakizashi will suffice. I would drink the sake in two gulps—

  any more or less would not show the correct balance of contemplation and determination—and then compose a fitting poem in the waka style. Finally, I would take the sword”—he took the shorter sword from Foster and unsheathed it, throwing its black lacquered scabbard to the floor—“and place it against my belly, here.” He pulled his shirt out of his trousers and exposed his soft, sagging stomach on the left-hand side, pressing the tip of the blade against it. “Then, when I was ready, I would push it in and slice across from left to right.”

  Foster had already discarded the scabbard from the longer sword and was feeling its weight in his hand, tapping his foot impatiently as he stood behind him.

  “Then you,” Lasche continued, “as my kaishakunin, would step in and take off my head. This was intended to—”

  Lasche never finished his sentence. With a flash of steel Foster decapitated him, the impact knocking his body out of the wheelchair so that he slumped forward onto the cannon, his head rolling across the floor.

  “You

  talk

  too

  much,

  old

  man,”

  Foster

  muttered.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  WEWELSBURG CASTLE, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

  January 9—3:23 a.m.

  They’re here,” Tom shouted as he jumped down from the table between two of the skeletons and walked around the table behind them, flicking his light from one corpse to the next. The heads of a few had rolled onto the floor, but most were remarkably intact, peaked hats perched on white skulls, empty eye sockets seeming to follow Tom’s every movement like some grotesque Mardi Gras carnival float. “They’re all here,” he whispered to himself, not sure whether he should feel exhilarated or horrified by the discovery.

  “Who?” Archie shouted from the floor above.

  “The Order.” He noticed a small hole in the right temple of one of the skulls, saw the same wound in the others, then a gun on the floor next to one of the chairs. “Looks like they killed themselves in some sort of suicide pact.”

  “I’m coming down,” Archie announced. A few seconds later, his large frame momentarily eclipsed the small circle of light from the crypt above before sliding down the rope and landing in the center of the table.

  “Christ!” he exclaimed as his flashlight picked out the Nazi skeletons, the silver plaques behind their heads winking as the light caught them. “You weren’t joking.” He the black sun 227

  sounded genuinely shocked. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but they’re an even creepier bunch dead than when they were alive. Gathered together for a last supper like the twelve apostles.”

  “They must have lowered themselves in here, got someone else to replace the stones upstairs, then pulled the trigger.”

  “And assured themselves of a much more pleasant death than they had ever allowed anyone else,” Archie said with feeling as he jumped down to the floor, shaking his head in disgust. “See anything else?”

  “Not yet. Let’s take a look around, see what was so important about this place.”

  “Wait for me—” Dominique had noiselessly lowered herself down the rope onto the table behind them, clutching a lantern.

  “I thought you were meant to be watching our backs?” Tom admonished her.

  “And let you two have all the fun?” She grinned, holding up her lantern so she could get a good look at the corpses. “Look at them. It’s almost like they’re waiting for us.”

  “For us or someone else,” Tom agreed, realizing that he should have known better than to assume Dominique wouldn’t want to get stuck in alongside them. “Come on, let’s see what else is down here.”

  She hopped off the table, and all three of them turned their attention to examining the chamber itself. It was about thirty feet across, and the walls were rounded as if they were in a large stone barrel. A brief survey confirmed that the only way in or out seemed to be the hole above them, for the walls were uninterrupted by any kind of opening. They
reassembled near the middle of the room.

  “Well, if there’s something down here, I can’t see it.” Archie shone his flashlight disconsolately around him.

  “Agreed,” said Tom. “But there’s one place we haven’t looked.”

  “The bodies,” Dominique whispered. “You mean the bodies, don’t you?”

  Without

  waiting

  for

  an

  answer,

  she

  turned

  toward

  the

  228 james twining

  table and walked slowly around it, her forehead creased with concentration. The flickering light from the lantern threw rippling shadows across the skeletons’ faces, until they seemed almost alive, the occasional glint of a tooth or a shadow dancing across a vacant eye socket suggesting that they might be on the point of waking from their long slumber. Finally she came to a halt behind one of the chairs. “Let’s try this one first.”

  “Why that one?” Tom asked. The skeleton looked no different from the others, although arguably slightly more grotesque, the lower jaw having fallen into its lap, with one eye socket covered by a frayed silk patch.

  “Look at the table.”

  Tom directed his light where she was pointing and saw that the table’s surface had been divided into twelve equal slices, one opposite each knight. And each slice had been inlaid with a different type of wood.

  “Oak, walnut, birch . . .” She pointed each one out in turn, her lantern moving around the table like a spotlight. “Elm, cherry, teak, mahogany . . .” She paused when she came to the segment of table facing the chair she had stopped behind. “Amber.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Archie agreed.

  Her jaw set firm, Dominique gingerly unbuttoned the skeleton’s jacket, two of the silver buttons coming away in her hand where the thread had dissolved. Then, pulling the jacket to one side, she began checking the pockets, inside and out. There was nothing in any of them.

  “What about around his neck?” Tom suggested. “He might have hung something there.”

  Keeping her face as far away from the skeleton as possible, Dominique unbuttoned its shirt, the material clinging to the desiccated rib cage underneath where the flesh had rotted and then dried. But again, there was nothing. Just the empty void of the chest cavity and the remains of his heart where it had fallen through to the chair and dried like a large prune.