——————— ◆ ———————
Wewelsburg Castle
B
ü
ren
Paderborn
North-Rhine Westphalia
Federal Republic of Germany
Ava had no idea how long they had been in the air.
It had not been a good flight.
She had been trying to think through the possible connections between Saxby and Malchus, and none of the scenarios was positive.
In addition, the presence of the dark-blond man sitting opposite her was a complication she did not need. If he was just one of the hired thugs, then she had nothing especially to worry about from him.
But if he was Israeli government, that added a whole new complexity. Not only would she have to get the Ark and Menorah away from Malchus, she would also need to make sure the
katsa
did not interfere with her plans.
As the helicopter started descending, she got a view of their destination out of the window.
It was a castle—one of the most striking she had ever seen.
The fortification was perched on top of a high rock, whose tree-covered sides fell away sharply. It occupied a strategically commanding position, dominating everything around. Far below it, a river snaked along in the valley, silver in the moonlight.
The imposing castle’s shape and grey outer stonework looked renaissance—early 1600s, she guessed. But from its strongly defensive position, she was sure there would have been previous castles on the site for well over a thousand years.
It had three high round towers connected to each other by long straight ranges, leaving a large central isosceles courtyard in the middle. By far the biggest tower, dwarfing the other two, was at the apex of the triangle, giving the building a perfect symmetry.
As she stared at it, the helicopter dropped towards the courtyard, aiming for the centre of the fortified buildings.
Once they had touched down, the men in the cabin around Ava reached into their holdalls and took out leather waistcoats. As they pulled them on, Ava could clearly see the fronts and backs were emblazoned with Nazi insignia.
On the front faces of the jackets were a variety of emblems, but all had the three lions of England under the words ‘BRITISCHES FREIKORPS’.
She recognized the badge from the photos of the Thelema Prince had shown her at Legoland.
Saxby and the guard, Danny, ushered her and Ferguson off the helicopter at gunpoint. They crossed the cobbled courtyard and passed through an arched doorway into the largest tower. Ascending a dark stone stairwell, they stopped at the third floor, where they entered a low corridor.
There was minimal lighting, lending the castle a menacing air.
“Where are we?” Ferguson asked, as their footsteps echoed on the hard stone floor
“Wewelsburg,” Saxby replied with an air of reverence. “The Vatican of the SS —Himmler’s spiritual headquarters. But a renowned castle for centuries before. In its heyday under the bishop-princes, it was infamous as a prison for torturing and trying witches.”
Saxby stopped outside a thick low door. It was almost square, and the ancient wood, toughened and darkened by the years, was reinforced with strips of bolted iron.
“Inside,” he ordered, pulling the door open for Ava and Ferguson.
Ava had been expecting to enter a prison cell, imagining the hopeless state of the thousands of inmates whose lives had wasted away over the centuries in airless castle chambers.
But instead they stepped into a large circular solar, with windows spaced evenly around the bare stone walls. It was pitch dark outside, so the only light came from three flaming torches mounted into wall sconces. The shadows cast by the dancing flames gave the room a sinister feel, as did the oily smell and occasional wisps of black smoke they threw off.
Malchus was already there, sitting on a low wooden bench by the wide carved stone fireplace, leafing through a sheaf of papers. Ava could not clearly see what they were, but the writing looked like the translation of
The Sword of Moses
she had spotted on the Table of Practice at Boleskine House.
“Chain them up,” Saxby instructed the guard, nodding towards a square-sectioned iron bar several feet long set into the stone between two of the windows. It was well above head height, and had probably originally been used for hanging weapons and armour.
The guard approached Ava and undid her left handcuff.
She would have loved to use the opportunity to make a break for it, but Ferguson was in no position to join her, and she could see that neither of them would make it even as far as the door. The guard had a submachine gun, and Saxby was still pointing his pistol at them. From what she could remember, Malchus still had his own gun and Ferguson’s Sig Sauer in his pocket, too.
As the cuff came off, she stretched out her arms, grateful for the opportunity to get the circulation flowing into the numbed muscles again. They had been pinned together since Malchus had first put her on his garrotting chair. Although the guard had switched the cuffs to her front during the flight, she had still lost almost all feeling in her arms.
Before she had time to savour the freedom of being able to move her arms freely, the guard indicated for her to raise them above her head. She did, and he swiftly hooked the handcuffs through the bar, before snapping them tight around her left wrist again.
The wall was hard and uneven, and the stone was cold. But worse than that, the bar was high, and she had to stand on her toes to prevent the metal of the handcuffs digging deeply into her wrists and hands. It meant her calf muscles were forced to take her entire weight. Modern interrogation manuals would have described it as a ‘stress position’—a technique forcing an individual group of muscles to take unaccustomed strain for long periods of time.
The guard shackled Ferguson immediately next to her, but his height meant he had both feet firmly on the ground. His arms would become painful after a time, just like hers, but he would be able to stay against the wall for much longer.
She gritted her teeth, resolving to shut off the pain when it started.
Her priority now was to get Saxby talking, to find out what he had planned for them. So much had happened so fast that she was still struggling to put the pieces together.
“So there are no Knights Templar, after all?” she looked at Saxby accusingly.
“Of course there are,” he answered contemptuously. “They’re very real.”
“Then everything you told us about their mission was lies?”
“On the contrary,” Saxby replied. “The Order is as De Molay and I described it. But I outgrew them many years ago, when I realized my true destiny lay elsewhere—to lead rather than to serve. As I explained to you very clearly, I see no purpose in power if one cannot use it for one’s true aims.””
“Destiny?” There was a note of scorn in Ferguson’s voice.
Saxby spun round and glared at him. “I inherited my role in the Templars when I was young, Major Ferguson, direct from my grandfather. My father had died in the war and was, in any event, the black sheep of the family. The Templar Order was not for him. But I took my role as Seneschal deathly seriously. I studied the Order’s history and traditions minutely and indefatigably. I became invaluable to them—their walking encyclopaedia, a repository of all their ways: the most Templar of the Templars, a pillar of their establishment.”
Ferguson snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”
“But there was something of my father in me,” Saxby continued, “and it’s become stronger as I’ve grown older. You see, the Saxbys are not an old English family. We did not come over with William the Conqueror. It was my grandfather who Anglicized the name when he settled in London in the 1920s, sensing England had more to offer a cosmopolitan European than the wrecked shell of post-war Germany. Our real name is von Saxburg, an ancient knightly family of the Uradel, Seneschals to the Templars for over seven hundred years.”
Ferguson looked unimpressed.
Saxby continued. “My father had strong views about his natural heritage, and the duties it brought. He was not interested in aristocratic life in England, or in the Templars. He believed our rightful place was in Germany. So he returned home before the outbreak of war, and gained what he really wanted, what he believed best represented his contribution to society—the black tunic of the SS officer.”
“So you had no choice? Nazism’s in your blood?” Ava was not sure if Saxby had caught the note or sarcasm in Ferguson’s voice. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Saxby sneered. “Do you know what the
Lebensborn
children’s programme was?”
Ava stared blankly back at him. She had never heard of it. Ferguson looked equally unsure.
“It means ‘fountain of life’,” Saxby explained.
“Don’t tell me,” Ferguson sounded contemptuous. “Experimenting on child prisoners?”
Saxby ignored him. “The
Lebensborn
was a revolutionary programme designed by the
Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler himself. Its mission was to breed perfect Aryans—to replace war losses and to repopulate the Slavic lands captured in the East with strong racial stock.”
“A breeding programme?” Ava was appalled.
“The science of eugenics, Dr Curzon, racial selection, was very popular a hundred years ago. Even the endlessly admired Winston Churchill was a supporter. He wrote to the prime minister of Great Britain in 1910 that he was ‘convinced that the multiplication of the feeble-minded is a terrible danger to the race’, and he firmly advocated their sterilization. So don’t tell me it’s a fetish of the Third
Reich
. And Germany was not the only country to practise it either. Sweden was active in sterilizations until forty years ago, along with dozens of other enlightened democratic countries. And let’s not forget the United States of America, which had the world’s most widespread twentieth-century eugenics programme of all. It was law in thirty states until the 1970s, requiring the sterilization of the mentally incapacitated. So while the USA was criticizing the
Reich
for racial selection, they were busy doing the same thing, and they kept on doing it long after the war was over.”
“And that makes it okay?” Ava’s eyes were blazing with anger. She was not going to listen to his repellent justifications.
“All aspiring SS men had to pass rigorous physical and racial purity tests before joining. The
Lebensborn
programme then brought them together with specially selected young women who had undergone equally stringent tests. The children of these elite couples were born and raised at
Lebensborn
facilities, then educated in dedicated SS nurseries and schools.”
He looked at them both expectantly, pausing for effect. “My parents had the honour of being selected for the programme, and I was born into it.”
Ava was repulsed.
He was actually proud of it.
“Several months later, my father was killed in the Russians’ final assault on Berlin, and my mother was reported missing-presumed-dead in the bombed out wreckage of the city. As the war was over, I was packed off to be brought up by my grandfather in England. And when I reached adulthood, he initiated me into my shadowy life in the Templars.”
“You don’t see any contradiction in belonging to the two organizations?” Ava was struggling to hide her incredulity. “The one standing for tolerance and peace, at least as you and De Molay explained it, the other for racism and conquest?”
Saxby turned on Ava, passion flaring in his eyes. “The Templars were once racial warriors, too. The fiercest. They fought to uphold the pure European way of life. But that was long ago. They renounced their heritage in 1312 and now pursue other aims. I long ago came to despise their spineless vision.”
Ava shook her head in disbelief. His description of the medieval Knights Templar was a fantasy, rewritten to suit his poisonous politics.
He stepped over, closer to her, dropping his voice. “Anyone can join the Templars if they make it their mission. I was born to it, but I have an even more unique genetic birthright because of the
Lebensborn
—a singularly precious gift of the most sophisticated racial breeding programme the world has ever known. To be the first and only member of my family to have such an honour is something I value more highly than anything else. I’m the only
Lebensborn
survivor in our organization. And I therefore lead the international struggle back to our true Nordic European roots with pride.”
“Leading men like Malchus?” Ava looked over towards him, hunched over the papers on the bench against the far wall. “And what do you suppose they’ll bring you?”
“Together, we’ll give birth to The Fourth
Reich
,” he replied simply.
“So, what did you need me for,” Ava asked, changing the subject, keen to learn the answer to something that had been bothering her. “Why did you recruit me when you already had Malchus?”
Saxby walked towards her, eyeing her pensively. “You’re mistaken, Dr Curzon, if you think you haven’t helped greatly. You’ve been quite invaluable, I can assure you. The Templars are very knowledgeable about objects like the Ark. That’s how I knew where it was, at Aksum. When De Molay discovered it had gone missing, he instructed me to oversee the vital operation to retrieve it, little knowing that I was the one who had arranged for its removal from Ethiopia. So you see, your very involvement has kept the heavy finger of suspicion from ever pointing at me. You’ve helped me play the role of the concerned Templar beautifully. And I’m sincerely grateful to you.”
So there it was.
He had been using her.
She felt ill, and her calves were beginning to ache from the strain of standing on her toes.
“But you turned out to be so much more than I ever bargained for,” he continued. “I chose you because of the troubled history between Malchus and your father, and you have not disappointed. Your anger and desire to see him brought to justice have led you to help us very much. Without you, we might never have found the Menorah. For so long as you and Malchus were locked together in battle over the artefacts, all I had to do was sit back and let your collective expertise do the work for me. And you have both excelled. Where one of you had gaps in knowledge or abilities, the other filled in. I smuggled Malchus into our Templar archives where he found the Vatican’s ancient medal giving details of the Menorah’s hiding place, but it was your tireless ingenuity that solved the puzzle. Leaving the medal for Drewitt to pass to you was a master stroke on his part.”