The Fellowship (28 page)

“
No. God chooses Popes. Cardinals are merely his instruments.”

“Believe what you wish,” Himmler said. “But I assure you that the
pontiff remains not only a steadfast friend and supporter of the German people, but also one that longs for the historical bond between the Vatican and the Holy Roman Empire. Even now the Crown Jewels and the Spear of Longinus have been returned to their rightful place at Wewelsburg Castle.”

“Nobody has returned anything,” the priest
spat. “They were stolen when your armies occupied Austria.”

Dr.
Seiler sat forward. “Father LeFevre, as a civilian observer, I urge you to watch your tone. You speak as if you yourself are eager to become a martyr.”

Himmler
held his hand up and smiled. “Professor, relax. I actually enjoy intellectual banter with men of the cloth. And even I am too superstitious to kill a priest in Notre Dame Cathedral.”

LeFevre’s face flushed. “Forgive me. I do not wish to be uncivil. But regardless of what His Holiness has authorized, the removal of artifacts from Notre Dame would be regarded as a cardinal sin.”

“Let those without sin be the first to cast stones, Father. When Napoleon sacked Rome, he brought the entirety of the Vatican archives with him to France. More than three thousand chests’ worth.” 

“
At least Napoleon was a Christian,” LeFevre shot back. “He wanted nothing more than to be closer to Jesus Christ. Hitler’s reputation is quite different.”

Himmler crossed his left leg over his right before he spoke.
“Had you read the führer’s autobiography, you would know he was raised Catholic.”

“Judging by the way he has treated the Jews of France, I sincerely doubt that
he can truly love Jesus Christ, who was himself a Jew.”

“Ah!” Himmler
stood. “Yes. Precisely the problem. The matter of Jesus’ alleged race.”

LeFevre
rose, wringing his hands. “There is no question of Jesus’ background, which is why your interest in possession of the relics confounds me.”

“
I beg to differ. Scholars such as Dr. Seiler here have created new hope for Christianity in the Third Reich.”

“
By what means? Dare I ask?”

“If I may,”
Dr. Seiler interjected, clearing his throat. “Three years ago I embarked on an archeological expedition of the Middle East to discover whether Germanic people had served in the Roman army during biblical times. Significant evidence was found of Nordic influence, including a number of ancient sites where Germanic runes were present. And furthermore –”

“
We’ve no time for lectures,” Himmler interrupted. He removed his eyeglasses, and with a handkerchief from his pocket, leisurely wiped spots from the lenses. “To make a very long story short, our scholars at the Ahnenerbe have determined that Jesus of Nazareth is likely of Aryan descent.”

LeFevre’s eyes bulged
. “Apparently your scholars have not even read the Bible!”

“Be honest,” Himmler said. “
Two thousand years of interpretations and translations. Substantial amounts of prophecy omitted or missing. Even you must admit scripture cannot be trusted word for word.”

LeFevre
paced the other side of the room. “Church doctrine is very clear. Jesus was borne of immaculate conception in Mary’s womb.”

Himmler reached inside his jacket pocket. Wolf saw a glint of metal and feared the worst.
Alas, it was only a black-faced Doxa pocket watch with large white numerals. “The matter of Jesus’ divinity is not in question. Those who know me realize that I am quite open to the paranormal.”

“
Paranormal
? Divinity is hardly part of the occult!”

The
reichs
führer
did not raise his voice as he spoke and wound the watch. “You will admit that the Bible never specifically identifies Mary’s parents?” He gave the baffled priest only a moment to contemplate his question before continuing. “An expedition to Palestine revealed that German people were recruited into the Roman army a full century before Jesus’ birth. These divisions with high concentrations of Aryan soldiers occupied Nazareth and Galilee. Further, there is ample evidence that the non-Aryan populations were moved out of Nazareth and Galilee well before Mary’s birth. Do you follow me, priest?”

Father
LeFevre’s hands were trembling. He bore the look of a man pushed to the edge of sanity. “I am trying.”

“
The dissemination of genetic material, both willingly and by force, is an inevitable consequence of military occupation. Given the ethnic makeup of the Nazareth and Galilee, and the presence of young male soldiers in the vicinity, then Mary would be at least partially Aryan, if not fully Aryan.”

The priest shook his head.
“What is the point of this conversation?”

“
The point is that this war cannot last forever. Europe cannot sustain a protracted conflict. But imagine if the führer could be persuaded to turn to Christ?”

Wolf felt dizzy.
What was it that Nagel had said on the train?
The success of Ahnenerbe research and operations will be directly proportional to the cultural strength of the German people.

“Consider it,” Himmler said. “If the
führer could embrace the notion of a Christian state, rooted in Germanic blood, the war could end tomorrow. Millions could be saved.”

Wolf struggled to contain his emotions.
Until now he he’d had trouble reconciling Himmler’s passion for collecting Christian artifacts. He wondered if it was nothing less than a desire to bottle up the entire religion and lock it away. But now he realized that he had been wrong about that. Christianity was, in fact, central to the war strategy.

The priest brushed past Wolf. Despite the frigid temperatures within the room, he reeked of nervous perspiration.
“Your slim theories about the rape and resettlement of the ancient Jews will prove nothing.”

“
You underestimate German ambition. No one could have foreseen the invention of the V-2 rocket. A rocket that can reach London without a pilot! Just as our scientists have honed our powers of destruction, recent advancements in biological science may also expedite peace. For example, our researchers have studied nucleic acids called DNA for many decades. Are you familiar with the concept?”

“
No.”

“
DNA is nothing less than the genetic code with which living organisms are constructed.”

“Nonsense. God
alone is the architect and creator.”

“Perhaps. But
I am told that one day soon, the concept of using cranial measurements to determine ethnicity will be replaced by DNA examination of each individual. In the meantime, blood research is an acceptable intermediary step. Already, German physicians can determine paternity from simple blood tests. Our forensic investigators can determine guilt in murder cases with a growing degree of accuracy based on dried bloodstains. Even as we speak, a racial studies team at the University of Leipzig is working to harness the ability to perform blood and DNA tests on ancient bone fragments.”

Finally the
priest could take no more. He opened a desk drawer and took a heavy set of keys from it. He took his lamp from the wall and opened the door. “You are wasting your time,” he sighed. “I will prove it to you.”

He went past Wolf and Lang
toward a door at the far end of the landing.

“But the treasury is downstairs,”
Dr. Seiler objected.

LeFevre shook his head
as he inserted a key in the door. “The occupation has left France impoverished. Even the most devout Parisians may be far too hungry to ignore the treasury’s temptations.”

He entered the room and lit two additional lanterns, illuminating a windowless
chamber crowded with glass enclosures displaying robes, various reliquaries, crucifixes, ancient Bibles and more. The collection was every bit as crowded as Himmler’s private museum – moreso, in fact – but had clearly been hastily assembled.

LeFevre set his lamp to the side and unlocked a large cabinet. He pulled from it an elaborate shrine constructed of bronze and glass that, judging by the grimace on the priest’s
face, was quite heavy. It was 88 centimeters high, and the top was fashioned to resemble a royal crown encrusted with diamonds and other precious gems. The base was encircled by figurines, the most prominent of which was a likeness of St. Louis, sitting on a throne of lion’s head armrests, holding the Holy Crown in his hands. Himmler stood behind LeFevre as the priest first donned white gloves and then removed the top, setting it carefully aside. He reached inside and removed the transparent circular reliquary that held the braided holy thrushes. The thrushes were tied together with golden thread.

He turned and held it under the lantern’s illumination for Himmler and
Seiler to examine. “As you can well see,” LeFevre said, “There are no thorns in the crown. It is a forgery. You have wasted your time, professor.”

Wolf and Lang shared a glance. The priest was clearly lying. The
papal document that Himmler had brought with him, clearing the transfer of the relics to Germany, would not be enough to convince the priest to let them go without a fight.

And now a much darker
fear came over Wolf. What if he was ordered to kill the priest? During his six-week training at Wewelsburg Castle, Wolf had been schooled in hand-to-hand combat, basic security, and to a lesser extent, marksmanship. He had come to the realization that he might be asked to kill an enemy spy or soldier, but he had never considered that the enemy would be a priest.  That would be an unforgivable sin.

Seiler
leaned forward. His small eyes seemed to dart around the relic for several moments. “If I may,” he began, taking the precious circular glass into his gloved hands. Seiler’s face displayed a look of mild satisfaction that worried the priest. “This
could
be authentic. Christian art traditionally portrays the crown as a thorned branch that has been twisted into a circle. But the Catholic Encyclopedia itself tells us that the crown was created from jujube reeds and the Roman soldiers plaited the thorns together into a sort of cap. It further says that the thorns themselves were distributed centuries ago, as Byzantine and French kings began the seemingly ill-advised practice of giving the thorns away as gifts. This crown would seem to be consistent with those findings.”

“Even so,” the priest protested, “Your scientists can learn nothing
about Mary’s ancestry from this.”

Even as LeFevre continued to lodge protests,
Seiler restored the glass containing the reeds to its home within the larger reliquary. Behind them, Himmler had located the reliquaries containing pieces of the True Cross and a nail used in the crucifixion. “Just look at the craftsmanship,” he said admiringly.

LeFevre flung himself at the
reichs
führer
, knocking Himmler off balance while wrestling the reliquary of the True Cross from his grasp. He hugged it to his chest and backed into a corner of the sacristy. The relic was pushed against his robe, revealing a set of bulging ribs, his torso having been wasted by malnourishment. His eyes darted between the five Nazis, daring them to act.

Himmler
sighed. “Don’t be a fool, priest. Yes, we will take the Holy Crown since it interests the professor. But these are not even the relics of the passion that we came for. They pale in comparison.”

The priest gritted his teeth. “
What are you talking about?”

“The Holy Ossuary, of course. The bones.”

Confusion reigned in the priest’s face. “Ossuary?” he repeated slowly, as if uttering the words for the first time.

Wolf had
come across the term only once or twice in his ancient civilization studies. If memory served, he believed an ossuary was some sort of secondary burial crypt containing the bones of a person that had already decomposed.

Himmler’s eyebrows arched. “Well
well. It seems that our informant was correct. The relic is indeed a well-guarded secret. Not even the resident priest knows what riches lie within his own church.”

A great crash was heard
, followed by the unmistakable sound of something hard – marble, perhaps, or plaster – breaking into pieces.

Lang suddenly appeared at the doorway. “
There’s something going on downstairs!”

“
The others must have arrived,” Himmler said. “Let’s go.”

Dr.
Seiler took the reliquary of the Holy Crown into his arms, seemingly surprised by its heft. LeFevre remained in the corner, muttering in Latin as he hugged the reliquary of the True Cross for dear life.

Wolf and Lang le
d the descent, followed closely by Himmler and Dr. Seiler. Wolf heard voices. German, French and – as unlikely as it seemed – Italian. As they neared the ground floor, he heard shouting, followed by the crackle of gunfire.

The foursome froze. With the others falling in line behind him, Wolf pressed his back against the stone wall, fumbling with the bolt handle of his MP-40 for a moment before managing to push it forward. The shooting went on uninterrupted for several seconds.
It sounded as if at least three guns were at work, if not more. He imagined Hoffman fending off a group of French resistance fighters.