Shadow Ritual (11 page)

Marcas scowled. “No, but he lived in Barcelona a long time. Let’s get down to business.”

Mareuil, however, was still ignoring him. He was examining the wine display that filled an entire wall. “What kind of wine do they produce in Catalonia?” Without waiting for an answer, he changed the subject. “See Le Procope across the street?”

“I mostly see the line of tourists waiting to get in.”

“Oh yes, Paris and its famous sites. Le Procope has been there since the eighteenth century. It was one of the first places in town where you could get coffee and hot chocolate—but not too much, because it was considered an
inflamer
at the time of Voltaire. That was another way of saying an aphrodisiac.”

“Are we really going to spend our time here talking about beverages in the Age of Enlightenment?”

The waitress, a flat-chested woman with an angular face, walked over to their table. Marcas and Mareuil placed their orders, and Mareuil asked for a glass of tempranillo.

“She shouldn’t pull her hair back like that,” Mareuil said as she headed to the kitchen. “Her face isn’t right for it.” He sighed and took a blue folder out of his leather briefcase. He opened it to a yellowed typewritten page. “In the nineteen fifties, a historian wrote up a report about the documents that were stolen during the war. Here, take a look.”

Marcas took the report and started reading.

Part of our archives, like those of the Grande Loge de France, remained in France in the hands of the Vichy government’s Secret Societies Department. The majority of the documents, however, were sent by train to Berlin, where Nazi scholars picked through them. Political documents ended up with the Gestapo, which used them to identify people who opposed fascism during the period between the two wars.

The documents of a more esoteric nature were shipped to a special institute called the Ahnenerbe, founded in 1935 by Heinrich Himmler to look for traces of Aryan influence around the world. The institute had considerable means and employed up to three hundred specialists—the elite of the Nazi scientific community, including archeologists, physicians, historians, and chemists.

Ahnenerbe’s research was under the control of a secret society called the Thule, which had infiltrated the centers of Nazi power, including the upper echelons of the SS.

We have few documents on this dangerous sect, but we know that two members of the Thule were in charge of the Freemason archives. One of them, a certain Wolfram Sievers, general secretary of the Ahnenerbe and a dignitary in the Thule, was sentenced at Nuremberg. During his trial, one of our Freemason brothers, a captain in charge of interrogations, learned that Ahnenerbe researchers were on the verge of making a breakthrough that would be key to the future of the Aryan race, one that would be more important than the V-2 rockets. Our brother took down Sievers’s statement but observed that he seemed to have lost his mind.

Marcas stopped reading and looked at Mareuil. “So what if Sievers seemed nuts? The Nazis were a bunch of crazies, as Zewinski would say.”

“We know that economic, social, political, and cultural factors all contributed to the rise of Nazism. Hitler was probably not a puppet of the Thule, and he was entirely responsible for the regime’s atrocities, but it is clear that there was a time in his life when the Thule influenced him. Read on. The key to Sophie’s murder is perhaps connected to those archives.”

Marcas shrugged and focused again on the dog-eared pages.

When the Germans sensed that the tide was turning after the defeat of Stalingrad in 1943, they took precautions. The Masonic archives were split up and sent to several destinations—mostly castles and salt mines—where they could not be easily seized.

In April 1944, with Germany losing the war, SS high command intensified its operation to hide the stolen archives. Whole trains were commissioned to move tons of documents from place to place.

When the Soviets invaded Germany in 1945, Russian intelligence units tracked down everything that the Nazis had stolen. At the end of the war, more than forty train cars full of recovered documents were sent to Moscow. Ultimately, all the Masonic documents stolen from France ended up in the hands of Russian intelligence.

Our grand master has requested the return of those documents. The Soviet Union, however, claims that none of them are in their possession.

The text stopped there. Marcas looked up and gave the papers back to Mareuil. “Someone clearly thought the documents were important. What happened after that?”

“Nothing for forty years, until the fall of communism, when the issue surfaced again. The Russians admitted that they had our archives, and negotiations for the return of the documents got under way. We received the first batch in 1995, with the rest coming in installments through 2002. In theory, they have now gotten everything back to us.”

“In theory?”

“That’s where Sophie Dawes comes in.”

Mareuil sipped his wine before continuing. “The documents were inventoried twice: once by the Germans and once by the Russians. It became clear that the Germans had listed more documents than the Russians. Some were missing.”

“Are you saying that Moscow deliberately kept part of the collection?”

“That’s what we thought at first, but then Sophie found this.”

Mareuil pulled out an envelope. “It’s a copy of an interrogation led by the French Army in April 1945 in a small German village. A man named Le Guermand was arrested when he tried to return to France. He was an SS officer in the Charlemagne Division, a unit composed of French soldiers. They were defending Berlin at the end.”

“You’re giving me a history lesson here. What’s the connection to the lost archives?”

“I’m getting there. A little before the Reich fell, Le Guermand and other SS officers were pulled off the front for a final assignment: to lead a convoy west, no matter what it took. Russian troops took down Le Guermand’s truck a few miles from Berlin, but he managed to escape. A French patrol caught him a week later. He was delirious, going on about priceless documents on letterhead with a square and a compass.”

“Why did he say all that?”

“He was facing a firing squad for treason. In exchange for his life, he offered to lead the investigators to the last truck, which was somewhere in the forest.”

“So what did they find?”

“Nothing. Three French soldiers went off with Le Guermand. The next day, a patrol found four bodies in an abandoned barn.”

“No more Le Guermand, no more papers. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not exactly. The Russians actually did find the truck. Sophie had been working on that part of the archives, but key documents were incomplete. She had them with her.”

“And you’re suggesting someone wants them enough to kill for them?”

“Not someone. The Thule.”

Marcas listened as he sliced into his cod with honey sauce.

Mareuil continued, slipping a leather-bound notebook across the table. “They hated us as much as they coveted our knowledge, brother. Here’s a diary kept by one of us—Henri Jouhanneau—in 1940 and 1941. He was a neurologist before he was deported. Read it sometime. It’s edifying.”

“Seriously, I’m having a hard time seeing the relationship between these stories and the murder. As remarkable as the archives are, they’re just history, and the Nazis vanished sixty years ago, except for a small minority who are nostalgic for those days. So unless some old SS geezers have decided to leave the nursing home and take up arms again, I don’t think this is much of a lead.”

Mareuil sighed. “In 1993, the German police discovered an extensive network of extreme-right activists. They were exchanging plans for building bombs. They had the blueprints for Masonic lodges and Jewish synagogues. And some of them were bold enough to share their personal addresses. What were these people calling themselves? The Thule. And if you think they were just a bunch of retired Third Reich lovers and low-life skinheads, you’re wrong. They were computer engineers right out of the university, along with highly successful stockbrokers and financial analysts.

“A few extremists. And we’re not in Germany. It’s a big step from that to a huge conspiracy against the Freemasons.”

Mareuil set down his knife and fork and pulled another paper from his briefcase. He read the passage slowly. “What a shame the Führer did not have sufficient time to eradicate your brotherhood from the surface of the earth. Your members deserve to be burned at the stake as a public hygiene measure. Freemasons, the hour of your expiation is near, and this time, we will let none of you escape. Heil Hitler.”

Mareuil paused. “That dates from last year. It’s from an online message found on a number of anti-Freemason sites. I’m telling you, the three blows are a message.”

“In that case, the murder in Jerusalem is connected. But how? What was Sophie going to do there?”

“I don’t know,” Mareuil said.

They sat in silence.

After a few seconds, Mareuil continued. “Did you know that Freemason scholars met at Le Procope before the French Revolution to discuss philosophy? The place is nothing more than a tourist trap these days, but here we are, you and I, just across the street, talking about similar issues two centuries later. That’s what counts. People are dying. Be vigilant—and mindful of the chain that unites us over time and space.”

“I find you very philosophical today,” Marcas said, getting up.

“No coffee?”

“No, not now.”

“I think I’ll stay a little. I’d like to become more familiar with Catalonia,” Mareuil said, winking at Marcas and giving the waitress a look.

Marcas headed toward the door.

“Antoine?”

“Yes?”

“Jade is a pretty name.”

24

Joana groaned as she put down Jade Zewinski’s file. Why was it that beauty was always a chief factor in a man’s description of a woman? Zewinski’s biography was exhaustive, and Orden’s quick response was commendable. But the man who had put it together couldn’t restrain himself. “An attractive, athletic body and a pleasant face,” he had written.

Males could be such cavemen. When a man was describing another man, looks were never considered. A recent target—a Danish arms dealer—was on the verge of obesity, with a face as ugly as they came, and his file never mentioned either of those things. Unimportant details, apparently.

Sol had been very clear on the phone.

“Get the papers. If possible, don’t harm the woman. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers in the French government. But remember, those documents are the key to a new future for the Orden and for the pure race as a whole. If physical elimination is necessary, so be it. Do you understand?”

“I won’t fail you again,” she had answered.

Joana gazed at the waters of the bay outside the window. She respected Sol but didn’t trust him. He was one of a handful of men behind the renewal of the Thule and a survivor of an earlier day. In a month and a half, the solstice would be celebrated in Hvar, and Sol had promised an unforgettable event. What exactly was he planning? And just how strong was his hold on the organization?

But for now, she needed to sleep. She would leave the castle at six in the morning, taking an Orden helicopter to Zagreb, where she would grab a flight to Paris. Her hotel room was already reserved. She thought about Zewinski and the fun it would be to take her on. Sophie’s murder had been a formality, but Zewinski seemed tougher. She fell asleep right away, her mind and body emptied, dreaming of another prey.

HEKEL

The holy place

The middle chamber

~ ~ ~

“Why were you made a Mason?”

“For the sake of the Letter G.”

“What does it signify?”

“Geometry.”

“Why geometry?”

“Because it is the root and foundation of all Arts and Sciences.”

—Masonic catechism, circa 1740

25

A soft wind caressed the leaves of the sycamore trees that had escaped Paris’s gardeners and their pruning rage. Marcas recalled a childhood image of endless streets shaded by the light green of these familiar trees.

A sense of deep lethargy enveloped the neighborhood around the Marché Saint Pierre as the first rays of sunshine gave the sparse clouds above the capital a mauve tinge. Marcas observed the play of colors on the horizon and remembered a discussion with an American police officer—also a Freemason—whom he had met at an international conference. They had talked about the importance of the Orient, the East, in the Freemason initiation rite, when the worshipful master would say, “As the sun rises in the East to rule and govern the day, so rises the worshipful master in the Orient to rule and govern the lodge.”

Marcas liked the allegories that gave precise and even exquisite meaning to events that many people rarely thought about—the sunrise, for example. Every day, light spread from the East, and in the lodge, meetings would begin with the illumination at the east side of the temple.

He experienced a few moments of serenity every time he watched the sun come up. There was nothing magical about the sunrise, but rather a kind of sacred geometry, a mathematical ballet related to the location of the observer, the angle of the sun, and the angle of the darkness. And then the clouds would come into play. It was a phenomenon that involved much more than the sense of sight. Poet Charles Baudelaire had put it this way: “Sound calls to fragrance, color calls to sound.”

Alas, fragrances were not in harmony with the beauty of the sky on this morning. Marcas had to sidestep a steaming and smelly pile of dog excrement on the sidewalk. It was seven o’clock, when man’s best friends took to the streets to empty their intestines under the watchful eyes of their masters. He had just passed a weasel-faced man dragging a grumpy-looking dog.