Black Order (27 page)

As he paced, he ran through what clues Klaus had offered.

…we can be kings among men again
.

…you have served your purpose. But no longer.

A headache flared as Painter attempted to piece things together.

Klaus must have been recruited as a double agent…in a game of industrial espionage. For someone carrying on parallel research. And now the work at the castle here had become superfluous, and steps had been put into motion to eliminate the competition.

“Could he have spoken truthfully?” Gunther asked.

Painter remembered the large man’s hesitation a moment before, baited by an offer of a cure, for himself and his sister. It had all died with Klaus.

But they weren’t giving up.

Anna had dropped to a knee. She removed a small phone from Klaus’s pocket. “We’ll have to work quickly.”

“Can you help?” Gunther asked Painter, nodding to the phone.

Their only hope lay in finding out who had picked up the other line.

“If you could trace the call…,” Anna said, standing up.

Painter shook his head, not in denial. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. His head pounded, rounding up to a full migraine. But even that wasn’t what had him shaking his head.

Close…whatever nagged him was so close…

Anna stepped near to him, touched his elbow. “It is to all our best interest to—”

“I know,” he snapped. “Now shut up! Let me think.”

Anna’s hand dropped from his arm.

His outburst silenced the room. He fought to drag up what his mind kept hidden. It was like transposing the numbers on the sat-phone. The sharp edge to his mental acuity was dulling.

“The sat-phone…something about the sat-phone…,” he whispered, pressing back the migraine by sheer will. “But what?”

Anna spoke softly. “What do you mean?”

Then it struck him. How could he have been so blind?

Painter lowered his arms and opened his eyes. “Klaus knew the castle was under electronic surveillance. So why did he make the call at all? Expose himself? Why take that risk?”

Cold terror washed over him. He swung to Anna. “The rumor. The one about having a cache of Xerum 525 still left. Were we the only ones who knew the rumor was false? That there really isn’t any more of the liquid metal?”

The others in the room gasped at his revelation. A few voices rose in anger. Much hope had been seeded by the rumor, inflaming some optimism that a second Bell could be built. Now it was dashed.

But certainly someone else had believed the rumor, too.

“Only Gunther knew the truth,” Anna said, confirming his worst fear.

Painter stared out across the helipad. He pictured the castle schematic in his head. He now knew
why
Klaus had made the call…and
why
he made it from here. The bastard thought he could hide in plain sight afterward, so confident he hadn’t even disposed of the phone. He had chosen this spot specifically.

“Anna, when you spread the rumor, where did you say you had the Xerum 525 locked up? How had it avoided being destroyed in the explosion?”

“I claimed it was locked up in a vault.”

“What vault?”

“Away from the explosion site. The one in my study. Why?”

All the way on the other side of the castle.

“We’ve been played,” Painter said. “Klaus called from here, knowing the castle was being monitored. He
meant
to lure us here. To pull our attention away from your study, from the secret vault, from the supposed last cache of Xerum 525.”

Anna shook her head, not understanding.

“Klaus’s call was a
decoy
. The real goal all along was the fabled last batch of Xerum 525.”

Anna’s eyes grew wide.

Gunther understood now, too. “There must be a second saboteur.”

“While we’re distracted here, he’s going after the Xerum 525.”

“My study,” Anna said, turning to Painter.

It finally struck him, what had been nagging him the most, making him heartsick and nauseated. It burst forth with a white-hot stab of blinding pain. Someone stood in the direct path of the saboteur.

Lisa searched the upper story of the library. She had climbed the wrought-iron ladder to the rickety iron balcony and now circled the room. She kept one hand on the balcony railing.

She had spent the past hour gathering books and papers on quantum mechanics. She even found the original treatise of Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, a theory that defined a bewildering world of elemental particles, a world where energy could be broken down into small packets, called quanta, and where elemental matter behaved like both particles
and
waves.

It all made her head ache.

What did any of this have to do with evolution?

She sensed any cure lay in discovering that answer.

Reaching out, she tilted a book from the shelf, studying the binding. She squinted at the faded lettering.

Was this the right volume?

A commotion at the door drew her attention around. She knew the exit was guarded. What now? Was Anna returning already? Had they found the saboteur? Lisa turned back toward the ladder. She hoped Painter was with Anna. She didn’t like being apart from him. And maybe he could make heads or tails of these strange theories of matter and energy.

She reached the ladder and turned to step down on the first rung.

A sharp scream, quickly silenced, froze her in place.

It came from right outside the door.

Reacting on instinct, Lisa lunged back up and spread herself flat on the wrought-iron balcony. The open floor grating offered little cover. She slid close to the stacks, into the shadows, away from the wall sconces on this level.

As she lay still, the door across the room opened and closed. A figure slipped into the room. A woman. In a snow-white parka. But it wasn’t Anna. The woman tossed back her hood and pulled down a scarf. She had long white hair and was as pale as a ghost.

Friend or foe?

Lisa kept hidden until she knew more.

There was something too confident about the woman. The way her eyes searched the room. She half turned. A spray of blood marred the side of her jacket. In her other hand, she held a curved katana, a short Japanese saber. Blood dripped from the blade.

The woman danced into the room, turning in a slow circle.

Hunting.

Lisa dared not breathe. She prayed the shadows kept her hidden up here. The library’s few lamps lit the lower level, as did the hearth fire. It crackled and shone with a few flames. But the upper balcony remained gloomy.

Would it be enough to hide her?

Lisa watched the intruder make another circle, standing in the middle of the room, bloodied katana held at the ready.

Seemingly satisfied, the ice-blond woman strode quickly toward Anna’s desk. She ignored the clutter on top and stepped behind the wide table. Reaching to a tapestry on the wall, she pulled it back and exposed a large black cast-iron wall safe.

Hooking the tapestry aside, she knelt and inspected the combination lock, the handle, the edges of the door.

With the woman’s concentration so focused, Lisa allowed herself to breathe. Whatever thievery was afoot, so be it. Let the woman abscond with whatever she came for and be gone. If the burglar had slain the guards, maybe Lisa could turn it to her advantage. If she could reach a phone…the intrusion might actually turn out for the best.

A loud clatter startled her.

A few yards away, a heavy book had fallen from its shelf and landed splayed open on the wrought-iron balcony. Pages still fluttered from the impact. Lisa recognized the book she had half pulled out a moment ago. Forgotten until now, gravity had done the rest, slowly tugging the book free.

Below, the woman retreated to the center of the room.

A pistol had appeared in her other hand, as if out of thin air, pointed up.

Lisa had nowhere to hide.

9:18
A.M
.
BÜREN, GERMANY

Gray pulled open the door to the team’s BMW. He began to duck inside when a shout rose behind him. He turned toward the entrance to the hostel. Ryan Hirszfeld hurried toward them, hunched under an umbrella. Thunder echoed, and rain lashed across the parking lot of the cottage estate.

“Get inside,” Gray ordered Monk and Fiona, waving to the sedan.

He faced Ryan as the young man reached his side.

“Are you heading to the castle…to Wewelsburg?” he asked, lifting the umbrella to shelter them both.

“Yes, we are. Why?”

“Might I hop a ride with you?”

“I don’t think—”

Ryan cut him off. “You were asking about my great-grandfather…Hugo. I may have more information for you. It’ll only cost you a ride up the hill.”

Gray hesitated. The young man must have eavesdropped on their earlier conversation with Johann, his father. What could Ryan know that his father didn’t? Still, the man stared at him with earnest eyes.

Turning, Gray popped the back door and held it open.

“Danke.”
Ryan folded the umbrella and ducked into the back with Fiona.

Gray climbed behind the wheel. In moments, they were bumping down the driveway out of the estate.

“Shouldn’t you be home watching the store?” Monk asked, half turned in the passenger seat to address Ryan.

“Alicia will cover the front desk for me,” Ryan said. “The storm will keep everyone close to the fire.”

Gray studied the young man in the rearview mirror. He looked suddenly uncomfortable under Monk’s and Fiona’s scrutiny.

“What did you want to tell us?” Gray asked.

Ryan’s eyes met his in the mirror. He swallowed and nodded. “My father thinks I know nothing about my great-grandfather Hugo. Thinks it best be buried in the past,
ja
? But it’s still whispered about. Same with Aunt Tola.”

Gray understood. Family secrets had a way of surfacing, no matter how deeply you tried to bury them. Curiosity had plainly been instilled in Ryan about his ancestors and their role during the war. It practically shone from the man’s eyes.

“You’ve been doing your own investigation into the past?” Gray said.

Ryan nodded. “For three years now. But the trail goes back further. To when the Berlin Wall came down. When the Soviet Union dissolved.”

“I don’t understand,” Gray said.

“Do you remember when Russia declassified the older Soviet files?”

“I suppose. But what about them?”

“Well, back when Wewelsburg was reconstructed—”

“Wait a sec.” Fiona stirred. She’d been sitting with her arms crossed, as if disgruntled by the intrusion of the stranger. But Gray had caught the few sidelong glances she gave the man, sizing him up. He wondered if the man still had his wallet. “Reconstructed? They rebuilt that ugly place?” she asked.

Ryan nodded as the castle came into view on the ridgeline. Gray signaled and turned onto Burgstrasse, the road that headed up toward the castle. “Himmler had it blown up near the end of the war. Only the North Tower was untouched. After the war, it was rebuilt. Part museum, part youth hostel. Still bothers my father.”

Gray could understand why.

“It was finished in 1979,” Ryan continued. “The museum directors over the years have petitioned former Allied governments for documents and such related to the castle.”

“Including Russia,” Monk said.

“
Natürlich
. Once records were decommissioned, the current director sent archivists over to Russia. Three years ago, they returned with truckloads of declassified documents related to the Russian campaign in the area. The archivists had also left here with a long list of names to search for in the Russian files. Including my great-grandfather, Hugo Hirszfeld.”

“Why him?”

“He was intimately involved in the Thule Society rituals at the castle. He was well known locally for his knowledge of runes, which decorate the castle. He even corresponded with Karl Wiligut, Himmler’s personal astrologer.”

Gray pictured the three-pronged mark in the Bible but remained silent.

“The archivists returned with several boxes specifically about my great-grandfather. My father was informed but refused to participate in any way.”

“But you snuck up there?” Monk said.

“I wanted to know more about him,” Ryan said. “Figure out why…what happened…” He shook his head.

The past had a way of grabbing hold and not letting go.

“And what did you learn?” Gray asked.

“Not much. One box contained papers from the Nazi research lab where my great-grandfather worked. He was given the rank of
Oberarbeitsleiter
. Head of the project.” This last was said with a tone both shamed and defiant. “But whatever they were working on must not have been declassified. Most of the papers were personal correspondence. With friends, with family.”

“And you read through them all?”

A slow nod. “Enough to get the feeling my great-grandfather had begun to have doubts about his work. Yet he couldn’t leave.”

“Or he would’ve been shot,” Fiona said.

Ryan shook his head, a forlorn expression waxing for a breath. “I think it was more the project itself…he couldn’t let it go. Not completely. It was like he was repulsed but drawn at the same time.”

Gray sensed Ryan’s personal pursuit into the past was tinged with the same tidal push and pull.

Monk tilted his head and cracked his neck with a loud
pop
. “What does any of this have to do with the Darwin Bible?” he asked, bringing the subject back around to the beginning.

“I found one note,” Ryan answered. “Addressed to my great-aunt Tola. It mentions the crate of books my great-grandfather sent back to the estate. I remember it because of his rather strange remarks about it.”

“What did he say?”

“The letter is up at the museum. I thought you might like to have a copy of it…to go along with the Bible.”