The Excalibur Codex (32 page)

Gault ran his hands swiftly through the fallen guard’s camo jacket and trousers, coming up with a set of keys and what looked like a plastic bank card. When he completed the search he handed what he’d found to Jamie and dragged the unconscious man to the outhouse and, from somewhere, produced a set of plastic ties to bind his wrists.

‘What are you waiting for? Take his gun and get going. If my guess is right the card will get you through that door.’ He pointed to a doorway with a swipe machine attached to the jamb. ‘Old technology, but by the looks of thing they’ve been here long enough to feel pretty secure.’

Jamie picked up the Glock and weighed it in his hand before laying it down again. ‘I don’t think I will, Gault. I’m not sure I’m
ready to shoot somebody just at this very moment.’

The former SBS man glared at him, his mouth working. ‘You really are a fucking amateur. If you screw this up I might shoot you myself.’

Jamie ignored the threat. ‘What will you be doing while I’m risking my neck inside?’

‘What I do best,’ Gault produced a fierce grin. ‘Causing bloody mayhem. As soon as you hear them charging from the front door make your move.’

For the moment Jamie had no inkling what that move would be, but he licked his lips and nodded. Gault rechecked the bound man’s ties, dragged him into the outhouse and closed the door from the outside. With a wink at Jamie, he was gone.

Jamie hesitated by the doorway to the house, but there was no option really. He hadn’t come all this way to turn back just when things got a little tough. Of course, he was going to look silly, if not worse, if he was found wandering the hallways of the old man’s house and there was nothing to find. But he remembered the effort that had gone into bringing this ugly piece of East Prussia here and he knew in his heart Hal Webster was hiding something. Whether it was Excalibur or not, the only way to find out was to get inside. He slipped the card into the swipe slot and pulled sharply down, triggering a soft buzz and a click. With the other hand he pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the last refuge of the Teutonic Knights.

A short corridor with what seemed to be staff quarters and kitchens to left and right led to a door at the far end. He pushed the door an inch and his heart quickened as he recognized the banners of a dozen SS divisions hanging from the high ceiling of a large entrance hall. They were all there. The silver key on a black shield that was Sepp Dietrich’s lucky charm and the symbol of his 1st
Liebstandarte
. The Death’s Head skull of the 3rd
Totenkopf
hung alongside it. The inverted Z of
Das Reich
and four or five more divisions he could name. Many of them had lost their entire strength four or five times before finally being annihilated on the vast Russian steppes, the narrow lanes of Normandy or the ruins of Berlin in April and May 1945. The banners appeared dusty and frayed; in fact, the whole atmosphere was one of progressive decay, cold and dank with a raw chill that seemed to flow from the floor of grey flagstone. Yet these black strips of fading silk cloth were very likely the ones that had hung there in 1941 when Reinhard Heydrich had marched into the hall of Nortstein Castle. Jamie shivered. Somehow, they still carried the same malignant power they had when the young men of the
Schutzstaffel
had marched behind them more than sixty years earlier. To his right and left a great double stairway curved up on either side of the room, linking it to the upper floors of the east and west wings. As he retreated back to the empty kitchen he caught sight of himself in a mirror and almost laughed at the piratical bearded figure staring back. A shave and a haircut were
definitely on the cards at the end of all this. But first he had a job to do.

Twenty seconds passed before the sound of an alarm bell filled the building. He heard doors open a few feet away and prayed no one wanted to grab a quick snack before dealing with whatever emergency Gault had cooked up. The sound was followed by the swift tramp of running feet heading away from him and he waited until it had cleared before returning to the door into the hall. When he reached it, he hesitated and waited again, and was rewarded by the sound of at least two men racing down the stairs to the west wing. When the door slammed behind them he ventured warily into the hall, every sense seeking out the man who had been delayed, or deliberately left to deal with just this scenario, but there was nothing. The men had come from the west wing, which meant presumably that was where Hal Webster had his quarters. Logic said search the east wing first, but logic and instinct fought a short sharp battle and instinct won. The octagonal tower on the west wing was where the owner of this monstrosity had chosen to flaunt the symbol of the Teutonic Knights as if it was his personal banner.

Images from Wulf Ziegler’s journal transposed themselves on the scene in front of him.

Over the next twenty-four hours the High Priests of the SS arrived … Dietrich and Daluege, were hard men who had broken heads in Munich beer halls and
pulled triggers during the Night of the Long Knives … Darré and Hildebrandt were intellectuals … von Eberstein had introduced Heydrich and Himmler … Bach-Zelewski, of Prussian aristocratic stock, had empty pockets … Berger, Jeckeln, Wolff and Pohl … At precisely eight p.m. Reinhard Heydrich swept into the hall like a Crown Prince entering his own palace.

For a heartbeat Jamie felt as if the surrounding chill had pierced his heart. The Third Reich’s merchants of death had all stood together in this room, the architects of the Holocaust and the
einsatzgruppen,
and their taint still marked it now like the scent of blood. All logic was forgotten as some force beyond nature drew him to the right where a darkened doorway loomed like the entrance to a tomb. He did not want to go there, but his feet moved of their own volition until the shadow engulfed him. Gradually the details of the room emerged as his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

An enormous round table covered with white cloth and circled at precise intervals by twelve throne-like chairs … each draped with a cloth embossed with a distinctive coat of arms … replicated by twelve banners suspended from the ceiling. In the centre hung the symbol of the Knight’s Cross …

This was what he had come here for, but he found himself gripped by a sort of mental paralysis. Only now,
with every detail laid out in front of him, did the full horror of that night truly register. Around him twelve dark figures stood deathly still, cloaked in black robes lined with white silk. Below the robes they wore the black and silver uniform of the SS and the oak leaf collar patches of their rank. Only the dead eyes were wrong. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe, as if some unseen hand gripped his throat. Hot bile crept up from his stomach into his chest and he retched, his face grimacing in pain as more visions forced their way into his brain.

‘I lay before you Joyeuse, mighty sword of Charlemagne, defender of the faith.’ … a beautiful weapon, the sword of kings, with a golden hilt and a cross guard formed in the shape of two winged dragons … ‘Zerstorer, sword of Frederick Barbarossa, defier of the Eastern hordes,’ … ‘Durendal, imperious blade of Roland, hero of old.’ … ‘Gotteswerkzeug, the sword of Werner von Orseln, greatest of all the Teutonic Knights.’ … The blades … created an odd symmetrical pattern … The last man had stood ready … his heavy blade held unwavering in front of his face. His was a sword of the most ancient lineage … a broad-bladed, battle-notched iron man-killer … Reinhard Heydrich allowed the blade to slowly fall, until its tip touched the hilt of the first sword and made the final connection. ‘I lay before you Excalibur, the sword of Arthur, may his strength
and the strength of all these great champions, aid our cause and use their power to smite our enemies and the enemies of our beloved Führer.’

‘No, please no.’ The cry came from somewhere inside his head, but still he couldn’t move.

‘Bring forward the gifts.’

‘No.’

In his mind it was a shout of defiance as he stepped forward to lay his hands on Excalibur, the sword of Arthur and remove it from the pentagram of blades. The reality was a strangled squeak from the doorway behind him. He turned very carefully and found himself staring into what appeared to be the barrel of a nine-inch howitzer, but maybe that was just a matter of perspective. On further appraisal it was probably only a .45 pistol – one of those old-fashioned revolvers Clint Eastwood used so successfully to make holes in the bad guys – which wasn’t a great deal of comfort. At this range the effect would be much the same. Jamie tried to remember if these guns fired on first pressure, or if they needed a bit more effort. He sincerely hoped it was the second. The shock was compounded by the heavy-set man who confronted him from the wheelchair. Two different people stared from the face of the silver-haired patrician with the .45 waving shakily in his right hand. Something had happened to his left side that seemed to
have melted his features and twisted his hand and arm into a hooked claw. The flesh of his forehead drooped over his eyelid, which gravity in turn drew down to meet his lip, which seemed to be trying to slip from the bottom of his jaw. If anything, the effect was made all the more bizarre, almost schizophrenic, by the fine-boned features and cold-eyed certainty studying him from the right half of the face.

That single cold eye told him he needed to talk his way out of this, and fast.

‘Mr Webster, I—’

The shaking arm extended and the gun barrel homed on to Jamie’s chest and held steady. All of a sudden the chances of negotiating a ceasefire seemed a lot slimmer. The options flashed through his mind. Ten feet. Rush him to put off his aim and he might miss. No, he couldn’t miss at that range and a .45 round would take off his arm or blow a hole in him the size of a man’s fist. The knuckle of the trigger finger went a little whiter and he tensed to throw himself at Harold Webster’s feet, praying the American couldn’t bring the gun to bear before he upended the chair.

He was so focused on the old man he didn’t notice the third person enter the room.

‘I’ve told you often enough you’re not allowed to shoot trespassers, Gramps.’ A flash of silver flicked out to knock the barrel to one side.

Jamie risked a glance at his saviour – at least he hoped she was his saviour. Slim and blonde, she must have
been close to his own age, and the tight-fitting black bodysuit she wore emphasized the curves of a body that combined the strength of an athlete with the poise of a supermodel. Surprisingly, given that Gramps had just been about to commit murder, she was smiling: the sort of cold-eyed, knowing smile that made Jamie suspect his presence here wasn’t all that unexpected and she’d quite enjoyed watching him squirm in the sights of a one-man firing squad. Even more surprisingly, she was holding a fencing foil.

Hal Webster snarled and sputtered, saliva drooling from his twisted mouth and a single tear trickling from the damaged eye as he tried to bring the big gun back to bear. The woman effortlessly maintained the pressure on his wrist with the foil and reached down with her free hand to take the pistol from his fingers. Just for a second Jamie noted that the barrel hovered over his chest and he took a deep breath, before their eyes met and with a short laugh she moved it aside. She reminded him of a very dangerous version of a woman he vaguely remembered from an old British TV series called
The Avengers
: Emma Peel with a splash of Lauren Bacall and more than a touch of cornered black widow spider. Her next words seemed to confirm it.

‘You have an interest in swords, Mr Saintclair?’ Why wasn’t he surprised she knew his name? ‘I also hear you can use them. Carl?’ A black man in fencing gear appeared in the doorway and Jamie realized he
and Webster’s granddaughter must have been sparring somewhere in the house. ‘Give him the sword.’

The man approached with a grin. ‘You know the meaning of the phrase “greased lightnin’”, sir? Well, you’re about to find out.’

‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’ Jamie played for time as he studied the sword, which was one of the old-fashioned Italian types with a button point. The blade felt comfortable in his hand, but he had a feeling this was unlikely to turn out well.

‘Oh, we’ve plenty of time for that, Mr Saintclair,’ the woman said with airy confidence. ‘You aren’t going anywhere soon. Your friend is being entertained by some of our staff who don’t take too kindly to people who are guilty of trespass, arson and pistol-whipping their comrades. You think that’s amusing?’

‘No.’ He glanced at the old man in the wheelchair. ‘I think it’s probably a recipe for starting World War Three.’

Her smile was as cold as her ice-blue eyes. ‘Don’t mind Gramps. He’s never been the same since he had his stroke. Maybe a little crankier, but that would be difficult to tell. We just keep him locked up here in his little Nazi fantasy world waiting to die.’

She saw Jamie’s startled glance and laughed. ‘Clearly you don’t know my grandfather, Mr Saintclair. He is not a likeable man. You have no idea how much pleasure it gives me to be able to stand here and heap the kind of humiliation on him he heaped on my daddy
and then me for all those years. In fact, every day he lives is a blessing, trapped in that broken, rotting body and knowing there is not one thing he can do about it.’

‘I’ve heard of dysfunctional families, but—’

‘
En garde
.’ The sword snapped up and froze in place.

‘Shouldn’t we at least be introduced?’

She frowned for a second. ‘Sure, why not? I’m Helena Webster, and I am chairman and chief executive of the Webster Corporation. Miss Helena Webster, if you care to know, because that vegetable in the wheelchair would never let a worthwhile man come near me. And you are Mr James Saintclair, art dealer of London, England. Locator of items of interest that changed ownership in World War Two without the consent of their owners. Would that be correct?’

‘You seem to know a lot about me.’

‘Oh, I do, Mr Saintclair. I became curious when I discovered you were dabbling in areas where I have a mutual interest. For instance, I know that you recently lost someone very close to you.’ She noticed him flinch and shook her head. ‘I apologize. Cruelty is in danger of becoming a habit. However, I also know that you have an unfortunate predilection for attracting some rather dangerous enemies, and, dare I say, curious friends. Do you gamble, Mr Saintclair?’ she asked before he could ask any one of the several questions that came to mind.