Blood of the Reich

48

Wewelsburg, Germany

October 2, Present Day

I t was near midnight when they parked a quarter mile from the castle and cautiously made their way through the outskirts of Wewelsburg, their bags in the trunk in case they had to suddenly flee. It was autumn, the days shortening, the crops in, but even at that the town seemed oddly quiet. Every curtain was drawn. They could see the glow of lights and the flicker of television in a few houses, but only occasionally did a car hiss down the village lanes. It was so quiet that the slam of a door could be heard from a hundred yards away, and the bark of a dog twice that. Their footsteps seemed loud, and Rominy had a sense of being watched. Yet no one challenged them.

They studied the castle from the shadow of trees. The building was entirely dark, shut for the night. A ramp led across a ditch to the castle entrance, but the way was barricaded with lumber and tape, signs bearing international symbols for construction. Apparently off-season remodeling was going on. Looming above, the edifice seemed somber and sad, not a Camelot at all. Did the ghosts from old SS plots, seminars, initiation ceremonies, and Aryan weddings still linger here?

“Looks like a wild-goose chase,” Sam murmured. “If the castle is closed, Barrow wouldn’t come here, would he?”

“But where else would he go?” She was frustrated.

“We’re not detectives, Rominy. We might have to hire one, or find some officials who’d believe our story and do the detective work themselves. Jake might not even be in Germany. We need Interpol, not our instincts.”

“But we don’t even have proof Jake Barrow exists, or whatever his real name is.”

“Maybe if we told our story, the Chinese police would verify it for Interpol by interviewing the nuns.”

“I’m not going to sic Communist Chinese cops on a Buddhist nunnery.”

He looked back at the quiet village. It looked Disney clean, like everything in this model railroad of a country. “What then?”

“I don’t know. Let’s look around a little more.”

“We can’t even get in the place.”

“There’s a dry moat on this side. I think that sign in German says it leads to a tower. Let’s try that. Maybe we can peek in some windows.”

“You got balls, girl.”

“I just don’t want to waste my plane ticket. And I’m angry for letting life happen to me, instead of me happening it.”

“Happening it?”

“You know what I mean. Come on, you’re the one who lost his iPhone to that maniac.”

Skirting the barricades, they made their way down into a grassy moat. A three-quarter moon floated above and gave enough light to mark their way through the mown trench. Down there the castle seemed even higher and darker, a cliff like the cliff that had barred their way to Shambhala. There were actually no windows at moat level to peer into, and Rominy was almost pleased. She’d be glad to get away from this creepy castle, but she had to do something. Her best, and then go home.

The moat led them north to the big, flat-roofed tower. The ditch ended where the castle ridge dropped toward the valley below, since no barrier was needed on that steep side. A few farm lights glittered on the plain beyond. They backed away from the tower and looked up, its crenellations picked out by the moon. Nothing…

Except that.

“Did you see it?” Rominy whispered.

“What?”

“A candle. It moved. Someone’s inside.” She shivered from both excitement and dread.

“This isn’t one of your wacky ‘I see God’ moments, is it?”

“No, there was a light, I swear it.” She pointed. “It was up where the main floor of the tower would be.”

“A janitor with a flashlight.”

“Or someone sneaking around inside.”

“In that case, let’s call the cops.”

“We can’t. It might just be a janitor with a flashlight.”

“Rominy…”

“Look, there are some stairs leading down from the base of the tower into a well with a basement door. Maybe we can get in there.”

“You’re going to break into a Nazi castle in the middle of Germany? And then make our case to the police?”

“We need proof.” She sounded a lot braver than she felt. “It probably is just a janitor.”

“I’m not even getting paid anymore.”

“I let you rent the BMW. Or should I go by myself?”

“No, you need adult supervision. Lacking that, you get me.”

They descended the stairwell to a wooden door with an old-fashioned iron handle and latch. “How are your lock-picking skills?” Sam whispered.

She grasped the latch. It lifted. “Perfect. It’s unlocked.”

He put his hand on her arm. “That’s not necessarily a good sign.”

“Sam, we have to peek. We don’t know what else to do.”

“Vin Diesel and Schwarzenegger would go in shooting.”

“Come on.”

It was pitch-black inside. They shuffled into the basement of the tower carefully, wary of unseen steps. Then they halted. Only the palest radiance came from the open door they’d crept through. They could see nothing.

“Light the candle,” she whispered.

They’d found one in the bed-and-breakfast they’d checked into, provided either as insurance against power outages or to let guests cast a romantic mood. Now Sam pulled it out and used the hostel’s matches to light it. The sudden illumination threw back the shadows and revealed a round, stark, gloomy room.

It was the basement of the tower. The roof was a stone dome.

“Oh my God, look at that!” Rominy hissed.

At the dome’s apex was a stone swastika, each arm extended with additional turns. Despite countless war movies it looked, in its geometric intricacy, oddly compelling.

“I’ve seen that kind in Tibet,” Sam muttered. “Sometimes it’s called a sun wheel.”

Their feet were at the edge of a sunken circle in the room, like a shallow pool. Directly below the swastika was a circle within this circle, a depression that sank a few inches deeper. Its purpose was unclear.

Arranged around the room were twelve squat round stone pedestals, like the bases of pillars. Placed on each one was a bronze sculpture.

“The signs of the zodiac,” Rominy said. “What could this be for?”

“Pagan cosmology,” said Sam. “Twelve is an ancient sacred number, like seven. The ancients believed the gods were aligned with the planets, and the Web site said Himmler planned an observatory here. Maybe the Nazis came down here to cast the future.”

“Must have been disheartening if it worked.”

“Maybe they still come down. The sculptures look bright and new, and they’re not all aligned evenly, like someone just set them up.”

“Very perceptive, Mr. Mackenzie!” a new voice said.

The door through which they’d entered closed with a boom, and they whirled. There was a figure in the shadows.

“It’s actually Valhalla,” a woman’s voice said with a crisp German accent. A flashlight blazed, freezing them like deer in its beam. “A Hall of the Dead.” The woman shining the light was standing next to the door, wearing a business suit and pumps and holding a wicked-looking assault rifle. “There are tours that explain all this when the castle is open. Which it is not.”

“The door was unlocked,” Sam tried.

“Convenient, don’t you think?” The light danced on them, making sure they had no weapons.

“You know Jake Barrow?” Rominy asked, her voice trembling despite her best effort to be brave. Why not get to the point?

“Silly girl. Of course I do.”

The woman came closer, the beam lowering so they could see.

And Rominy almost fainted.

Her hair was coiffed, her teeth were perfect, her makeup carefully applied, and her look a generation younger. But holding the gun was Delphina Clarkson, Rominy’s backwoods neighbor from the Cascade Mountains.