Kingdom (24 page)

‘. . . And when they broke into the monasteries, it’s rumoured that the Chinese found hidden cellars filled with ancient occult manuals and monks who were practising all sorts of deviant black arts. The Chinese soldiers who fought their way into Shigatse monastery past two thousand monks told stories of animal and human sacrifices and flesh-eating rituals in the caves beneath . . .’

Nancy baulked. ‘Come on, Jack! That’s just propaganda. I can’t believe you swallow it.’

‘Well, it may well be exaggerated, but I’ll bet you there’s some truth in there too. You have to ask yourself, how can a massively hierarchical priesthood be properly Buddhist? It can’t, and that’s the truth. Buddhism is supposed to be about the dissolution of the ego and the renunciation of worldly affairs. What I see in Tibetan religion is a sort of military theocracy, lots of different ranks and privileges, lots of secrets and knowledge withheld from the people. And I really don’t see what secrets have to do with the Buddha’s teachings, or with magic for that matter. There’s one hell of a lot of power or energy or mana or whatever you want to call it, all being controlled from the top. So something else must have been going on in Tibet all these years – something other than just plain old Buddhism. The only problem is that as outsiders we will never learn what. The lamas are doing their own propaganda job too – you can be sure about that – with the old boy trotting round the world, smiling at everyone, looking so cuddly and cute . . .’

‘I’m surprised that you’re adopting such an extreme position,’ said Nancy. ‘I’ve seen the Dalai Lama speak when he came to Central Park in New York. He was clearly a peaceful, enlightened man. He’s the epitome of the Buddhist, as I understand it.’

‘Well, I can see he’s worked his magic on you. Doesn’t it bother you that he’s related to the last Dalai Lama and the one before that? It’s hardly democracy, is it? More like hereditary privilege, or that’s what it sounds like to me. I mean, I’m just a simple country boy from Oregon, but as far as I can see the whole religion is built on black magic and superstition. Would you believe it if a Western monk said that he was the incarnation of Jesus? No! So why the suspension of disbelief just because we’re in Tibet? Would you revere any Western monk as a deity in the way that the Dalai Lama is revered? It’s mass hypnosis if you ask me; or if we’re calling it magic, then it looks a lot more like black magic than any other sort.’

Jack tipped his beer bottle back, emptied the last few inches down his throat and then slammed it on the table.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I said from the start, it’s pretty clear these guys are capable of things that we in the West can’t even begin to understand – and I suspect they are way more advanced than us in their knowledge of the human mind – but the whole lot of them give me the creeps – big time. And you know what? That’s why I think there’s something of the dark side about all of them.’

They fell into silence, Jack nursing the empty bottle in his weatherbeaten mountaineer’s hands. After a minute he said, ‘But enough of my thoughts. What I want to know is what you’re really up to, Nancy Kelly.’

She felt a rush of adrenalin.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. How come you know about the Book of Dzyan? And why did you need to come into Tibet on the quiet – without the normal immigration procedures? You’re not an antiques smuggler. And what was Anton really doing in Pemako? You know, don’t you? Or at least you suspect something. And the man in the lobby of the Taj – he wasn’t after me at all, was he? I want to know what’s really going on.’

He was looking hard at her, with his unblinking blue eyes. She had to respond.

‘Listen, Jack, the truth is I don’t know.’

‘You know a lot more than you’re letting on, that’s what I think.’

Everything was so confused in her own mind that it was hard to know where to begin. But she felt he deserved a better explanation than she had so far given him, if she could just disentangle her motives, make something coherent of them.

‘Well, OK. Let’s see,’ she said, while Jack stared expectantly at her. ‘The police in India and in China are after Anton. They are accusing him of spying. No one at the
Trib
believes it. I think it’s absurd as well, for what it’s worth. I got arrested as soon as I arrived in Delhi because he sent me that bone I showed you. They interrogated me about my connection with Herzog. They were clutching at straws, but I could see he was in big trouble. They let me go. I assume they have been following me and tapping all my calls, which is why I didn’t want to discuss the flight on the phone. At first I was angry, angry about my arrest and about the fact that no one seemed to be doing anything to find Anton – he’s been gone for three months already – it was all so odd. But at least then I thought it was pretty simple – journalist doing his job, repressive forces trying to stop him, that kind of story. But when I started to look into it, everything started to get really weird . . .’

Jack raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

‘I discovered that Anton’s father – Felix Koenig – was a Tibetologist and a member of an esoteric German sect called the Thule Society, which conducted research into the history of the Aryans and sent expeditions to Tibet. It seems that Koenig went to Tibet, possibly more than once, on trips sponsored by the Nazis, in order to enlist the lamas on the side of Germany . . .’

She looked at Jack almost pleadingly – she was aware how strange her whole story sounded and she was waiting for the moment where he would tell her that she had lost her mind. But he remained silent, watching her; his expression impossible to interpret.

She pressed on. ‘The Nazis thought that the lamas of Tibet – or some secret lodge in Tibet – had knowledge of the superman, that they knew how to transform an ordinary human being into a more advanced evolutionary type, a sort of higher order of man, born to rule the world. The Nazis thought that this knowledge belonged to them because it was really ancient Aryan knowledge . . . and that it would help them win the war. I know this all sounds far-fetched, but when I went to see Maya, she showed me some old medals that Anton had left with her and one of them was a Thule Gesellschaft medal which clearly belonged to Anton’s father, Felix Koenig. It had the exact same design as the one on the mouthpiece of the bone trumpet.’

Jack Adams’s eyes widened in amazement.

‘Are you sure? That trumpet is massively old.’

‘Yes. Absolutely certain. A dagger emblazoned on a swastika. But it was knowledge of the superman they desperately wanted, and they believed the Book of Dzyan held all this knowledge – they called it
Das Buch des Ringes
, the Book of the Ring – and they became obsessed with finding it, hence the expeditions. Anton’s research must have been related to this. It simply must’ve been. This was the story that Anton was trying to research – he told Maya it was the biggest story the world has ever known . . .’

Nancy’s voice trailed off. A dark shadow had passed over Jack’s face.

‘Jesus, Nancy – why didn’t you tell me all this before we left?’

‘Well, I’ve been finding out as we went along. Then for a while I just thought it was too weird and couldn’t quite process it. Then I thought I’d give up, abandon the whole thing, that I was out of my depth and I should just pay you and go home.’

They fell silent for a moment, but then Nancy turned her gaze on him once again.

‘But what about you Jack? Why were you prepared to take me to Tibet at such a knock-down price? And what does the symbol on the bone trumpet mean, and what about the letters – where are they from? You’ve known all along, haven’t you?’

Jack sighed heavily and shook his head:

‘Yes and no. I have no idea about the origins of the dagger and swastika symbol. I don’t recognize it at all – but yes, it’s true, I do recognize the letters.’

‘And what are they?’

‘They are the Elder Futhark.’

‘The what?’

‘Runes. They’re the first six magical letters of the oldest known runic alphabet: F, U, Th, A, R, K. It’s known as the Elder Futhark.’

‘How could a bone trumpet that is more than twenty thousand years old have a European script on it? And what on earth is it doing turning up in the middle of the Himalayas?’

‘Exactly. Now you know why I am so desperate to find where it came from. It’s what I’ve been looking for all these years. It supplies categorical – to my mind – proof that humanity is vastly older than people think, that developed civilizations existed more than fifteen thousand years ago. To find an ancient bone with runes written on it, thousands of miles from northern Europe, is simply incredible. I am now absolutely certain that Herzog must have found the Aryan kingdom that he was looking for all these years, and I intend to go there and bring back its treasures and its relics. I want to show the world that I am right. And I can tell you something else – it will more than clear my debts if I can get my hands on even one decent piece of proof.’

There was a glint in his eye when he said this. Of course, thought Nancy, it would be a giant treasure trove; it would make the Tomb of Tutankhamun look positively modern. Jack Adams was frowning:

‘How sure are you about all this stuff about Anton’s dad?’

‘Almost certain. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre corroborated it, pretty much. I mean, they confirmed that Anton’s father is suspected to have been Felix Koenig, and that Koenig was an expert adviser to the Nazis on Tibetan culture, that he travelled to Tibet and so on. But the idea that Anton is after the Book of Dzyan is just speculation. Maybe he’s just interested in Tibet for other reasons, though the fact that he is travelling with the Terton Thupten Jinpa only makes me more suspicious, given that the Book of Dzyan is a terma and it seems that tertons are the only people who know how to find the lost termas. One thing is for sure though, Koenig made several trips to Lhasa, in the pay of the Nazi regime, and it’s on the record that he went there specifically to look for lost Aryan knowledge and the origins of the Aryan race.’

They fell into silence. Nancy watched Jack expectantly. Now she had poured everything out, she felt relieved to have shared her tentative speculation about Herzog’s activities. Jack Adams might now join her in puzzling over what was true and what were simply the fantasies of Second World War occultists and crazy lamas. She studied him; his head was bowed now and he appeared to be deep in thought. After a minute or so, he began to scratch nervously at the label on his beer bottle. Finally, he looked up.

‘Well, Nancy Kelly, this really is an interesting case. I’m not saying I believe in a lot of this esoteric hokum. I think the Nazis are even more nuts than the lamas, but I do know what the Nazis were looking for. Or at least I think I do. They must have been trying to get in contact with the Great White Brotherhood . . .’

‘I haven’t thought about the Great White Brotherhood in years. When I was younger, in my early twenties, I was doing some doctoral research in Kathmandu . . .’

The waitress clinked down more bottles on the table. Jack thanked her and then handed one to Nancy, who took it gratefully.

‘I don’t know if you’ve been to Kathmandu, but it attracts a lot of weirdos: seekers of the truth and so on, people who believe that there are gurus out there who know the secrets of life and people who think that they are gurus themselves. They traffic in a whole bunch of well-worn myths and give each other the heebie-jeebies about secret societies, evil curses and so on. At the top of the tree of all these myths and stories about gurus and secret lodges stands the Great White Brotherhood. It’s supposed to be a mystical secret society of Masters who control the world from their underground kingdom, or valley in the high Himalayas. Some people say the name of their kingdom is Shangri-La, others say that Shangri-La is a good place and that it could never be home to such a brotherhood, but either way, to be fair, there are very thorough accounts of them all across Asia – it’s not just hippies making up stories.’

He took a slug of his beer.

‘It must have been the Brotherhood that the Nazis were trying to contact. If you go to Kathmandu you will even meet people who claim to have found their way to Shangri-La and met the Brotherhood, but it’s a pack of lies. The Brotherhood come to you and invite you – you don’t find them . . . and I doubt anyone who has been invited would tell any tales . . .’

Nancy replaced her bottle on the table.

‘But who on earth are these people?’

‘Some say it is a sort of university for the enlightened. That they possess great libraries, filled with esoteric knowledge. If the Book of Dzyan really does exist, then maybe it’s kept in one of those. Others say that, despite its name, the Brotherhood is under the influence of the forces of darkness.’

Nancy interjected:

‘And what do you think?’

‘Well, as I think I’ve made clear, I have a slightly sceptical approach to all of this. So, personally, I reckon that if the Brotherhood does exist, then it’s probably more of a cave community of Indian and Tibetan occultists, up to no good. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t powerful. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if it’s true that the Nazis really did come to Tibet, then it could just as easily have been the case that it was the Brotherhood who summoned them, in order to draw them into some crazy scheme of their own making. I don’t know, perhaps the whole idea of the Second World War was cooked up by the Great White Brotherhood itself . . .’

Nancy choked on her beer.

‘What! You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought you didn’t believe in all this black magic.’

Jack put his finger to his lips and looked around the room anxiously.

‘Sshh! Keep your voice down. There are informers everywhere, even in the Blue Lantern. Now listen. You’re not understanding me: I told you before, it’s not that I don’t believe that there are weird things going on in the world – it’s just that I’m not convinced they’ve got anything to do with magic. Tibetan Tantric practices don’t stop at party tricks like levitation, I can assure you of that. Telepathic mind control is a speciality of these guys.’