My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin (3 page)

Professor Richter enjoyed his stroll down the
Unter Den Linden
, the grass pedestrian mall named for the linden trees that have stood there since the 1600s.

Despite its long and proud history, many of the buildings along the
Unter Den Linden
are relatively new. In Berlin, it is said that you can tell if a building was around during the Second World War by whether or not it has bullet holes. If it doesn’t have bullet holes, it wasn’t there.

On the day that Professor Richter walked down the former path to the palace of the Prussian kings, however, bullets were not flying through the streets of Berlin. Germany had the blood of freedom pouring through its veins and the
Unter Den Linden
was beautiful again.

The professor decided to make the biggest announcement of his career at Humboldt University for two reasons. First, the school was a legend in academic circles all over the world; it had been home to some of Germany’s finest minds of the past 200 years, including his hero Albert Einstein and more than twenty-five Nobel Prize winners.

The second reason was more personal to Richter, as a writer. The campus is infamous for the night that the Nazis burned 20,000 books authored by Jews and other so-called degenerates in the nearby
Bebelplatz
. That horrible evening featured a speech by Joseph Goebbels and showed the world what was in store for it with Nazi ideology. Richter felt that if he had been a writer back in the 1930s, his books would have been on that burning pile. If not himself.

Richter stood above the small hidden memorial that marked the spot where the Nazis burned the books and said a silent prayer. Just below ground level, bookcases with shelf space for 20,000 books lined an all-white room. There was not a book to be found on the shelves, but a plaque bore the famous Heinrich Heine epigraph:
“Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Boucher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende ouch Mencken
” (“That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people”).

The Nazis had always fascinated Richter, especially their well-documented interest in the occult. But he didn’t admire them. Instead, he wondered what could have driven an entire country off the deep end like that. He didn’t think it was because the German economy was in free fall, nor the fact that Hitler had been a charismatic leader who was at the right place at the right time. Instead, Richter was convinced that true evil had been responsible for Hitler’s messianic rise to power—perhaps the manifestation of Satan himself.
If only the world had known how truly close Hitler had taken us to the brink,
he thought.

Just outside the university gates, Richter stopped at a row of tables from which the school sold reprints of the books that the Nazis burned in the
Bebelplatz
. As he browsed, a student asked him to sign a copy of
Pyramids and Aliens
. He scribbled his name on the inside cover and sent the kid on his way. He drew comfort from the fact that
Pyramids and Aliens
was still generating interest. His research had not been the best, perhaps, but his fans loved the book. The 70,000 copies that it had sold over the last few months got him onto a few talk shows and paid the bills; not a bad thing. There were even rumors of a movie deal, but that hadn’t quite panned out yet.

Richter enjoyed the fame and benefits that came with a best seller, but his perspective changed when the mysterious dossier arrived in his mailbox. At first, he thought the document was a joke or perhaps an anonymous work penned in tribute to his own books. But, his life changed when he went to Prague and began to retrace the journey of the two German soldiers—that’s when Richter found himself in possession of the scoop of the century. And with the person who sent him the top-secret dossier unwilling or unable to disclose their identity, the story was all his.

Professor Richter looked around at his surroundings one last time before he went into the school. He knew that the world would be a far different place when he emerged.

Julia panicked when she saw him walk towards the front door. She didn’t have a plan, but she tried to buy Zig some time. “Professor Richter! Professor Richter!”

Richter heard her call out, but he had no intention of stopping. He signed one book, but he couldn’t sign them all—the press was waiting.

He went inside. When Julia tried to follow him, a security guard in a blue blazer stepped in front of her. “Student ID, please.”

Julia reeled backwards, not sure what to say. “I don’t have student ID, sir. I’m just here for the lecture.”

The guard looked at his clipboard. “Name, please.”

“Julia Heckmann. I’m not on the list, but I’ve traveled a long way to hear Professor Richter speak. Please, you’ve got to let me in.”

“You’re not on the list.”

“I know that I’m not on the list. I just told you that. I’m a huge fan of
Pyramids and Aliens
. Have you read it?”

The security guard shook his head. By his irritable demeanor, she instantly knew there was no point in appealing to his literary tastes.

“Can I please come in for the lecture? I cancelled plans with my family to be here. I’ll behave and I’ll leave right after it’s over. I promise.”

The security guard shook his head.

Julia sighed and walked away. A few steps later, she gathered her courage, blended into a group of students and tried to sneak past the guard again.

When the irate guard blocked her way for the second time, he pushed his sport jacket aside to reveal a small silver pistol in a shoulder holster.

“You’re
not
on the list.”

4

The elevator door opened and General Hastings towered over Zig. He had been absolutely convinced that the kid was a lunatic. That certainty disappeared as the elevator doors closed. “What the hell did you just say?” he bellowed.

“Ook,” Zig responded. Agent Jones had his face pushed down into the carpet.

“What?”

“Ananrannaggupupyyzzrzoozananannnnawhhhhoppkknssssssssoyyeaawwoookookkkkieezzzzeszzzz. Uruururru.”

“Get him up. I can’t understand a goddamn word he’s saying. Take the cuffs off,” Hastings ordered.

Agent Jones pulled him to his feet and took the handcuffs off. Zig cringed when Hastings grabbed him by the collar and looked him in the eye.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Michael Zigmund, sir.”

“Are you going to tell me what all of this nonsense is about?”

Zig glanced nervously at the Secret Service and other people in the hallway who had been attracted by the commotion. Sheppard stood outside of his office with his arms crossed, looking like a math teacher who just caught some kid cheating on the final.

“This is highly confidential. Can we talk in private, sir? Please?” Zig asked.

General Hastings sighed. Then he turned to his security detail. “Did you search him for weapons?”

Agent Jones nodded.

“Shep, can we use your office?”

Sheppard stepped aside, but he wasn’t happy about it. Zig picked his papers up, winked as he passed Sheppard and went into the office. Hastings followed him in and shut the door.

“Okay Mr. Zigmund, I’ll play. What kind of goddamn, low-rent, turkey raffle bullshit is this? What is so important to risk your career and personal liberty over?”

Zig held up a copy of
Pyramids and Aliens
.

The general knew the book; his wife Maureen wouldn’t stop talking about it. “I hope you’re not about to tell me that the theories in that book are real,” he warned. “Because if you do, I’m going to kick your ass right here, right now. Step two will be your arrest on federal charges for assaulting a Secret Service agent.”

Zig smiled. “No, sir.
Pyramids and Aliens
is complete tabloid bullshit. Well-written entertainment fiction. Fun to read. It might even make a great movie. But nothing in that book is real. Nothing at all.”

General Hastings breathed a sigh of relief. The kid at least had half of a brain. “Get to the point.”

“A friend of mine heard that Professor Richter is going to speak at Humboldt University today, in Berlin. She thinks he’s going to announce his next book.”

“So what.”

“He isn’t going to announce his next book. He’s going to announce something much, much bigger than that. And if what he shows people in that presentation is real, there could be trouble. A lot of trouble.”

“Why are you so interested in that guy’s kooky theories? He claims to have proof that the Pyramids of Giza were built by Martians. How the hell do you know he’s not cooking up another publicity stunt to sell more books?”

“I hacked into his laptop.” Then Zig showed him the dossier. “It’s all here—I printed it out.”

General Hastings was stunned speechless. He had just spent the morning testifying to an antagonized Congressional subcommittee about the NSA’s new warrantless electronic surveillance guidelines. The incident that Zig just admitted to was a textbook case of what Congress and the civil liberties groups were up in arms about. He wondered if his next day on the Hill would be spent explaining and apologizing for this crap. On C-SPAN.

“Who told you to do that? Who authorized you to scan his laptop?” Hastings asked.

Zig just stood there.

“Did anyone at all approve it? Anybody at all?”

“Nope.”

Hastings hit the roof. “How goddamn stupid can you be? Don’t you know how big this issue is right now? If the press gets wind of this, they will eat us alive—so will Congress!”

“I understand, sir.” Zig put his head down in shame. He wondered if they were going to let him clean out his desk. Then he wondered if he could get a new job with a felony on his record.

As Zig turned to leave, General Hastings grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute, son.”

“Sir?”

“Let me see what’s in that file.”

5

Patrick Waldon leaned back in his chair and pushed his breakfast across his desk, away from him. In his six years as Director of the CIA, the secret had come close to being revealed twice. Both times he had successfully dealt with the situation. It wasn’t pleasant, but he did what he had to do. The stakes were too high to play by the rules.