Shadow Ritual (12 page)

He turned onto the Rue André-del-Sarte. At the end of the street was the Rue Foyatier stairway to Montmartre, which was popular with tourists and filmmakers looking for an iconic Parisian venue. The steps ended at Sacré Coeur. A real postcard.

The square was empty, and only the Botak Café was open. The staff had already set out chairs that would be filled with tourists and regulars come eleven. He waved to the waitress and ordered his morning drug: strong hot chocolate—lots of cacao thinned with skim milk. Marcas liked coffee well enough, but he always started the day with hot chocolate.

He pulled out the diary and reread the passages that had caught his attention the previous night.

June 14, 1940

The Germans are parading triumphantly down the Champs-Elysées. Who would have thought it possible? Had lunch with Badcan at the Petit Richet. The atmosphere was dreary. A couple of men had drunk too much and shouted that France deserves this, that Jews and Freemasons will be brought in line. We didn’t say anything. What good would it have done? I didn’t have the strength to go to the hospital and visit the sick. There were speeches on the radio. We can only hope that Marshal Pétain will shield France from Hitler’s hordes and those pulling the strings.

June 15, 1940

Worshipful Master Bertier came early this morning, around seven. He was angry and nearly frantic. The Germans showed up last night on the Rue Cadet and locked the entrance to the Grand Orient Lodge. Nobody can enter. Practically all of our archives are still inside. We didn’t have time to get them out. We’ve been struck dumb by this defeat. It’s an unprecedented disaster for the order. Meanwhile, the Grande Loge de France was raided.

August 20, 1940

A ban on secret societies took effect five days ago, and now Marshal Pétain has closed all Freemason lodges. A long, dark night for Freemasons is beginning. Government officials must declare any Freemason allegiance.

October 30, 1940

My hospital privileges have been revoked. It was suggested that I take time off. A long time off. There’s a rumor that some lodges are meeting in secret. The Germans have ordered all Jews to register or risk prosecution. Brothers in the police force are doing their best to alter the records, but most of their colleagues are quite zealous. I fear the subterfuge will soon be detected.

December 21, 1940

Darkness has invaded the world, but light is eternal. We have already put together a dozen meeting places to replace our lodges in and around Paris. What a relief! Had dinner with Michel Dumesnil de Grammont, who is part of the Masonic resistance called Patriam Recuperare. He introduced me to a brother who had a determined look in his eye. His name is Jean Moulin. We embraced before saying good-bye. The fight will be long and hard.

The Pétainists have instituted no fewer than three organizations to keep tabs on us and study what they’ve plundered. Bernard Fay, who runs the national library, heads up the regime’s Secret Societies Department. He’s an ardent monarchist, a salon scholar who has hated us for a long time. He even dared to set up his headquarters in our lodge on the Rue Cadet. He’s busy working on the few archival documents that the Germans didn’t take with them. Next, the Department of Banned Associations is run by a Paris police chief. He and his henchmen can search the offices and homes of brothers whenever they want. Finally, there is the Research Department, which reports directly to Pétain’s inner circle. Its primary focus is political activities. According to a number of well-informed brothers, the first two organizations are under tight German control. The Germans have also set up headquarters in the lodge on the Rue Cadet, but it is on a different floor.

March 21, 1941

Every time I tune the radio to the BBC, the light returns. Several brothers have gone to London to join Charles de Gaulle. They’re doing a broadcast called “Les Français Parlent aux Français.” The profane don’t know that the first notes in Brother Beethoven’s Fifth speak directly to us. They also don’t know that Radio London is broadcasting the most symbolic passages from Brother Mozart’s Masonic opera,
The Enchanted Flute
. The chain of unity is coming together again.

June 28, 1941

Pétain and his reactionary regime have started registering French Jews again, this time in the south. Apparently, they have to declare their assets.

August 11, 1941

The Germans keep gaining ground in Russia. They seem invincible. This morning I saw a poster with caricatures of the good French laboring away, hounded by Jews and Freemasons. The rhetoric is appalling and incredibly stupid from a scientific perspective. We know where their theories comes from. I remember meeting the propagators in Germany ten years ago. The Thule should be cursed forever for what it has done. Now that hardheaded ass Pétain has instituted a law prohibiting former Freemason dignitaries and officers from holding government jobs, just as he did with the Jews. And he has asked for the Aryanization of businesses. Aryanization? Have they actually taken a close look at their führer?

October 23, 1941

It’s done. My name was published the day before yesterday in a collaborationist newspaper. “Professor Henri Jouhanneau, worshipful master, Grand Orient.” I feel like everyone has seen it, and now I’m considered a criminal. This morning our concierge said something about it in a very loud voice when she heard me coming down the stairs. She also insulted the Zylberstein couple on the fourth floor. Of course she tells everyone that she’s “a full-blooded Aryan.” I’m tolerant by nature, but now I’m feeling the poison so dear to our enemies—hatred.

October 25, 1941

Worshipful Master Poulain was found slain in his apartment—killed with three blows: one to the shoulder, one to the neck, and one to the forehead. A parody of Hiram’s death. Poulain was one of our most erudite brothers. He was seventy-two years old and a threat to no one. It can only mean one thing. The Thule are here. They’ve always watched us, always hated us. Now they’re killing us.

October 28, 1941

Three French police officers took me in for questioning early this morning. My son was crying, and my wife fainted when they hauled me off. She has to stay strong. They drove me to the Rue Cadet. How ironic. The temple, now a lair of evil operating under the guise of a vast administrative service directed by conscientious bureaucrats. After a three-hour wait, two Germans in civilian clothes questioned me about our order’s archives. One of them, an officer who spoke perfect French, asked about my Freemason rank and my interest in esoteric research. He impressed me with his knowledge, and I realized he was a member of the Thule—our worst enemies.

He said he works for a German cultural institute called the Ahnenerbe, which studies ancient civilizations. They’re recruiting researchers and scholars—non-Jews, of course—to work on the archives found in the occupied European countries. I told him I would be returning to my job at the hospital soon. He asked me about my research and said that Ahnenerbe has a medical research department. It’s conducting experiments that will be very useful to humanity, he said.

My blood ran cold when he said he doesn’t put the Jews and Freemasons in the same category. The former are another race. The latter have just made a perverted philosophical choice.

Then, to my great surprise, he let me go, telling me not to leave Paris.

October 30, 1941

I now know they’re watching me around the clock. I haven’t left the apartment for two days. I can’t stay in touch with my brothers in the resistance, and I can no longer keep this diary. I’ll drop it off with a trusted friend. I hope to get it back in less uncertain times. I’m afraid. What will become of my wife and son if they kidnap and kill me?

A familiar scraping sound brought Marcas back to the present. He turned to see a street cleaner in his green vest collecting the daily harvest of detritus left the previous night by hordes of tourists who invaded the neighborhood: soda cans, plastic bottles in every color, bright plastic wraps, and shattered liquor bottles. Marcas sighed.

Another ritual slaying—identical to Sophie’s and that of the man in Jerusalem. Was it really the Thule’s signature? What were they after?

He was finishing his second cup of chocolate when his phone buzzed. Zewinski.

“I’ll meet you on the Place Beauvau, in front of the ministry,” he said.

26

The Thalys train advanced slowly across the Dutch countryside, which looked dreary under the light drizzle. It could have been Belgium or northern France. The landscape would have been the same. Settled comfortably in a first-class compartment, he stared at the seemingly endless potato fields. How different from the arid Palestinian soil where his brothers struggled daily to extract a meager existence. It was nothing compared with the land the Jews had confiscated and transformed into fertile fields, thanks to American dollars. If only the Arab countries showed such solidarity with Palestine. His land would be an Eden.

Bashir turned his attention to the three men next to him, pale-skinned Hassidic Jews with light-brown sidelocks. They were wearing black rekels and hats. If they only knew who he was. He beamed at them and chatted about the weather, using a slight Italian accent. The man sitting closest to him joked that he could pass for one of them if he had a yarmulke. Bashir said it would be a great honor and promised to visit their diamond shop in Anvers the next time he was there.

He had another two hours to kill before the train arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Time for coffee, Bashir thought, getting up to stretch his legs. He grabbed the leather bag containing the Tebah Stone and headed toward the bar car, going down the aisle between the pairs of seats filled with commuting businessmen. A privileged group in dark, well-tailored suits, tablets and laptops on, financial newspapers folded next to them. So conformist, he thought with disgust. Life would be very boring without the adrenaline rushes he was used to.

In the next car over, a shiver ran up his spine. Something was not right. A tiny alarm was going off in his head.

He stepped into the bathroom to think. What fleeting information had triggered his defense mechanism? He ran his hands under cold water and splashed his face. He breathed deeply to empty his mind and bring his unconscious thoughts to the surface. He’d learned the technique from an old Syrian Sufi.

After a minute or so, a connection occurred in the complex circuit of his neurons. The blue-eyed man wearing a dove-gray shirt in the last row to the right. He’d seen him before, drinking a beer in a bar next to his hotel. Both times, the man had been deeply absorbed in a magazine. What was the likelihood of that man taking the same train? Bashir didn’t like coincidences. It was a loathing that had saved his life on many occasions.

He didn’t want to tip off the operative, so he kept heading in the direction of the bar car. The man was most likely Mossad or Shin Bet. Too blond to be a Jew, but Bashir knew Israeli intelligence recruited many fair-haired agents to track former Nazis in South America. He had probably picked up the tail at the Jordanian border.

Bashir would have to give the man the slip as soon as they reached France. His client wouldn’t be happy that he had been followed. He waited a good fifteen minutes in the bar car and started returning to his seat. The man looked like he was sleeping—peaceful, his eyes closed, ear buds in place. Yes, but he did move his foot ever so slightly as Bashir passed, slowing to check his watch.

He settled back into his compartment with the three diamond merchants, who were busy talking in a mix of Dutch and Yiddish.

The Israeli operative wouldn’t be working alone. Others would be waiting at the Gare du Nord. From there, it would be nearly impossible to lose them. His only alternative was getting off the train in Brussels and trying to give Blondie the slip. He’d find another way to Paris, but it would make him even later.

When the train entered the suburbs of the Belgian capital, Bashir reached for his briefcase and began to get up. Then the Jew to his right push a piece of paper toward him. On it, a single word was written in large black letters—three of them: SOL.

27

Marcas was standing on the stairs in front of the ministry when Zewinski drove up in a metallic green MG.

“Nice wheels, Zewinski,” he said, getting into the car.

“Don’t stain the seat leather.”

“This is going to be fun,” Marcas muttered under his breath.

Zewinski revved the engine. The GPS showed a traffic jam near the Saint Augustin neighborhood, so she headed toward the Champs-Elysées. They hadn’t said another word to each other.

Finally, Zewinski spoke. “Let’s bury the hatchet, Marcas. I want to find Sophie’s murderer. At least talk to me while we drive. It looks like traffic is slow up there.”