Black Order (18 page)

Across the room, Lisa lit the bedside candles. She shoved her feet into a pair of sturdy leather boots meant more for men. They waited in silence for a span of time…maybe twenty minutes, listening to the commotion slowly die down.

Both sank back to the bed.

“What do you think happened?” Lisa whispered.

Barked shouts echoed.

“Don’t know…but I think we’re about to find out.”

Boots pounded down the stone passage beyond the thick oak door. Painter stood, craning an ear.

“Coming this way,” he said.

Confirming this, a hard knock rattled the door. Holding up an arm, Painter held Lisa back, but he also took a step back himself. A heavy scrape sounded next, releasing the iron bar that sealed them inside.

The door was tugged open. Four men streamed into the room, rifles pointing at them. A fifth entered. He looked a lot like the assassin named Gunther. A giant bull of a man, thick necked, a stubble field for hair, silver or light gray. He wore baggy brown pants tucked into midthigh black boots and a matching brown shirt.

Except for the missing black armband and swastika, he looked the part of a Nazi storm trooper.

Or rather
former
Nazi storm trooper.

He also had the same pale face as Gunther, only something seemed wrong. The left side of his face drooped like a stroke victim. His left arm trembled with a palsy as he pointed toward the door.

“Kommen mit mir!”
he snapped.

They were being ordered out. The massive leader turned and strode away, as if any thought of disobeying was simply unfathomable. Then again, the rifles at their back certainly reinforced that assumption.

Painter nodded to Lisa. She joined him as they exited, trailed by the cadre of guards. The hallway was narrow, hewn from the rock, barely wide enough for two people. The only illumination came from flashlights secured to the guards’ rifles, jittering shadows ahead of them. It was distinctly colder in the hallway than their room, but far from frigid.

They were not led far. Painter estimated that they were headed toward the front façade of the castle. He was right. He even heard a distant whistle of wind. The storm must have kicked up again outside.

Ahead, the massive guardsman knocked on a carved wooden door. A muffled response encouraged him to open the door. Warm light flowed out into the hall, along with a breath of heat.

The guard stepped through and held the door.

Painter led Lisa into the room and searched around him. It appeared to be a rustic study and library. It climbed two stories, all four walls covered in open bookshelves. The upper level was circled by an iron balcony, heavy and undecorated. The only way up was via a steep ladder.

The source of the room’s heat was a large stone hearth, aglow with a small bonfire. An oil painting of a man in a German uniform glared down at them.

“My grandfather,” Anna Sporrenberg said, noting Painter’s attention. She rose from behind a carved monstrosity of a desk. She wore dark jeans and a sweater, too. Apparently it was the dress code for the castle. “He took over the castle after the war.”

She motioned them to a circle of wingback chairs that fronted the fireplace. Painter noted the circles under her eyes. It looked like she hadn’t slept at all. He also smelled smoke on her, an odor not unlike cordite.

Interesting.

Painter met her eyes as she approached the heavy chairs. The small hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Despite her exhaustion, her eyes were bright and sharp. Painter recognized a cunning, predatory, and calculating gleam. Here was someone to watch closely. She seemed to be appraising him just as intently, sizing him up.

What was going on?

“Setzen Sie, bitte,”
she said, nodding to the chairs.

Painter and Lisa took neighboring chairs. Anna chose one opposite them. The guard kept a post by the closed door, arms crossed. Painter knew the cadre of other guards still waited outside. He surveyed the room for escape routes. The only other exit was a deep-set glazed window, frosted to obscurity, crisscrossed with iron bars.

No escape that way.

Painter returned his attention to Anna. Maybe there was another way out. Anna’s manner was cautious, but they had been called here for a reason. He needed as much information as possible, but he would have to handle this deftly. He noted Anna’s family resemblance to the man in the oil painting. A place to start.

“You said your grandfather
took over
the castle,” Painter said, prying for answers, sticking to safe ground. “Who held it before him?”

Anna leaned back into the seat, obviously relieved to sit in front of the fire for a quiet moment. Still, her manner was focused, hands folded on her lap, eyes passing over Lisa, then back to him. “
Granitschloß
has a long and dark history, Mr. Crowe. Are you familiar with Heinrich Himmler?”

“Hitler’s second in command?”

“
Ja
. The head of the SS. Also a butcher and madman.”

Painter was surprised to hear this characterization. Was this a trick? He sensed a game afoot. Only he didn’t know the steps…at least not yet.

Anna continued, “Himmler believed himself to be the reincarnation of King Heinrich, a tenth-century German king of the Saxons. Even thought he received psychic messages from him.”

Painter nodded. “I’ve heard he was interested in the occult.”

“Obsessed actually.” Anna shrugged. “It was a passion of many in Germany. Going back to Madame Blavatsky, who coined the term Aryan. She claimed to have gained secret knowledge while studying at a Buddhist monastery. Secret masters supposedly taught her how mankind had devolved from a superior race and would one day evolve back.”

“The proverbial master race,” Painter said.

“Precisely. A century later, Guido von List mixed her beliefs with German mythology, refining a Nordic origin to this mythic Aryan race.”

“And the German people bought the story hook, line, and sinker,” Painter said, baiting her a bit.

“And why not? After our defeat in World War I, such an idea was a flattering conceit. It was taken up in a flourish of occult lodges in Germany. The Thule Society, the Vril Society, the Order of the New Templars.”

“And as I recall, Himmler himself belonged to the Thule Society.”

“Yes, the
Reichsführer
believed fully in this mythology. Even in the magic of the Nordic runes. It was why he chose the double
sig
runes, twin lightning bolts, to represent his own order of warrior-priests, the
Schutzstaffel,
the SS. He became convinced, from studying Madame Blavatsky’s work, that it was in the Himalayas that the Aryan race first arose, and that it was here that it would rise again.”

Lisa spoke for the first time. “So Himmler did send expeditions out into the Himalayas.” She shared a glance with Painter. They had talked about this earlier. So they weren’t so far off base. But Painter still wondered about Anna’s cryptic statement.

We’re not Nazis. Not anymore.

He encouraged the woman to talk while she remained gregarious. He sensed a setup, but he had no idea where it was leading. He hated being in the dark, but he refused to show it.

“So what was Himmler searching for out here?” he asked. “Some lost tribe of Aryans? A white-supremacist’s Shangri-La?”

“Not exactly. Under the guise of anthropological and zoological research, Himmler sent members of his SS to search for
evidence
of a long-lost master race. He became convinced that he would find traces of the old race here. And though he found nothing, he grew more determined, driven further into madness. When he started constructing an SS stronghold in Germany, a personal castle named Wewelsburg, he built a mirror image of the same here, airlifting a thousand slave laborers from German concentration camps. He also shipped a metric ton of gold bullion. To make us self-sufficient. Which it has, with careful investments.”

“But why build here?” Lisa asked.

Painter could guess. “He believed that the Aryan race would again rise from these mountains. He was building their first citadel.”

Anna nodded, as if conceding a point in a match. “He also believed the hidden masters who once taught Madame Blavatsky were still alive. He was building them a stronghold, a central place to bring all such knowledge and experience together.”

“Did these hidden masters ever show up?” Painter asked mockingly.

“No. But my grandfather did at the end of the war. And he brought with him something miraculous, something that could make Himmler’s dream a reality.”

“And what was that?” Painter asked.

Anna shook her head. “Before we talk further, I must ask you a question. And I would appreciate a truthful answer.”

Painter frowned at the sudden change of tack. “You know I can’t promise that.”

Anna smiled for the first time. “I appreciate even that much honesty, Mr. Crowe.”

“So what’s your question?” he asked, curious. Here must be the heart of the matter.

Anna stared at him. “Are you ill? I’m having a hard time telling. You seem very clear-headed.”

Painter’s eyes widened. He had not expected that question.

Before he could respond, Lisa answered, “Yes.”

“Lisa…,” Painter warned.

“She’ll know anyway. It doesn’t take a medical degree to tell.” Lisa turned to Anna. “He’s showing vestibular signs, nystagmus, and disorientation.”

“How about migraines with visual flashes?”

Lisa nodded.

“I thought as much.” She leaned back. The information seemed to reassure the woman.

Painter frowned. Why?

Lisa pressed. “What is affecting him? I think we…he has a right to know.”

“That will take some further discussion, but I can give you his prognosis.”

“And that is?”

“He will die in another three days. Most horribly.”

Painter forced himself not to react.

Lisa remained equally unfazed, her tone clinical. “Is there a cure?”

Anna glanced to Painter, then back to Lisa.

“No.”

11:18
P.M
.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

He had to get the girl to safety, to a doctor. Gray felt the blood seeping from Fiona’s gunshot wound, soaking through her shirt as he supported her, an arm under her.

Around them, the crowds pressed. Cameras flashed, keeping Gray edgy. Music and song echoed off the lake as the electrical parade floated past. Giant animated puppets loomed high, nodding and lolling over the heads of the crowd.

Fireworks continued to boom and burst over the lake.

Gray ignored it all. He kept low, still searching for the sniper who shot Fiona. He had glanced briefly at her wound. Only a graze, skin burned, weeping blood, but she needed medical care. Pain blanched her face.

The shot had come from behind. That meant that the sniper had to be positioned among the trees and bushes. They had been lucky to reach the crowds. Still, with them spotted, the hunters were probably already converging. Surely there were some among the crowd already.

He checked his watch. Forty-five minutes until the park closed.

Gray needed a plan…a new plan. They could no longer wait until midnight to make their escape with the exiting crowd. They would be discovered before then. They needed to leave now.

But the stretch of park between the parade grounds and the exit was nearly deserted as all the visitors gathered around the lake. If they attempted a mad dash for the exit, they would be exposed again, caught out in the open. And surely the park gate was under watch, too.

Next to him, Fiona kept a hand clutched to her wounded side. Blood oozed between her fingers. Her eyes met his, panicked.

She whispered to him, “What are we going to do?”

Gray kept them moving through the crowd. He only had one idea. It was dangerous, but caution was not going to get them out of the park. He turned Fiona toward him.

“I need to bloody my hands.”

“What?”

He motioned to her shirt.

Frowning, she lifted the edge of her blouse. “Be careful…”

He gently wiped the blood dribbling from the raw wound. She winced and let out a small gasp.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Your fingers are freezing,” she mumbled.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.”

That was the goal.

“I’m going to have to carry you in a second,” Gray said, standing up.

“What are you—?”

“Just be ready to scream when I tell you.”

She wrinkled her nose in confusion, but nodded.

He waited for the right moment. Flutes and drums started in the distance. Gray edged Fiona in the direction of the main gates. Past the heads of a group of schoolchildren, Gray spotted a familiar figure in a trench coat, arm in a sling, Grette’s murderer. He waded through the pocket of youngsters, eyes searching.

Gray retreated into a mob of Germans singing a ballad in tune with the flutes and drums. As the song ended, a burst of fireworks concluded in a tympani of crackling explosions.

“Here we go,” Gray said, leaning down. He smeared his face with blood and picked Fiona up in his arms. Lifting her, he raised his voice and yelled in Danish. “Bomb!”

Crackling explosions punctuated his booming bellow.

“Scream,” he whispered in Fiona’s ear.

He lifted his face again, smeared in blood. On cue, Fiona wailed and shrieked in agony in his arms.

“Bomb!” Gray yelled again.

Faces turned in his direction. Fireworks boomed. The fresh blood glistened on his cheeks. At first no one moved. Then like a turning tide, one person backed away, bumping against another. Confused cries and calls rose. More people began to retreat.

Gray kept after those retreating, staying among the most panicked.

Fiona cried and thrashed. She waved an arm, fingers dripping with blood.

Confusion spread like wildfire. Gray’s bellow caught on the dry tinder, whetted by attacks in London and Spain. More cries of
Bomb!
echoed through the crowd, carried from one breath to another.