Burning Angels

2

Wirth ducked his head and thrust it through the double layer of thick canvas: one layer to keep out the murderous cold and the storm-whipped snow; the second, inner layer to keep in the heat thrown off by live human bodies and the roaring stove.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit him. Three pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly.

‘My dear Wirth, why the long face?’ General Kammler quipped. ‘Today is the day!’

‘You didn’t drop our lovely Frau into the bottom of the crevasse?’ Otto Rahn added, a wry grin twisting his features. ‘Or try to kiss her awake, only to get slapped around the face for your troubles?’

Rahn and Kammler guffawed.

The diehard SS general and the somewhat effeminate palaeontologist seemed to share a peculiar brand of camaraderie. Like so much in the Reich, it made no sense to Wirth. As to the third seated figure – SS General Richard Walter Darre – he just scowled into his coffee, dark eyes smouldering under hooded brows, thin lips clamped tight shut as always.

‘So, our ice maiden?’ Kammler prompted. ‘Is she ready for us?’ He swept his hand across the breakfast spread. ‘Or do we have our celebratory feast first?’

Wirth shuddered. He was still feeling nauseous. He figured it might be better if the three men got to see the Lady of the Ice before they ate.

‘It’s perhaps best, Herr General, to do this before your breakfast.’

‘You seem downhearted, Herr Lieutenant,’ Kammler prompted. ‘Is she not all we were expecting? A blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel of the north?’

‘You have freed her from the ice?’ General Darre cut in. ‘Her features are visible? What do they tell you about our Freyja?’ Darre had borrowed the name of an ancient Norse goddess – meaning ‘the lady’ – for the woman entombed within the ice.

‘Surely she is our Hariasa,’ Rahn countered. ‘Our Hariasa of the ancient north.’ Hariasa was another Nordic deity; her name meant ‘the goddess with the long hair’. Three days earlier, it had seemed entirely fitting.

For weeks the team had been carefully chipping away at the ice so as to enable a closer look. When finally they managed it, the ice maiden proved to be turned into the wall of the crevasse, with only her back showing. But it was enough. She had revealed herself to possess glorious tresses of long golden hair, plaited into thick braids.

At that discovery, Wirth, Rahn and Darre had felt a bolt of excitement burn through them. If her facial features likewise matched the Aryan racial model, they were home and dry. Hitler would shower his blessings upon them. All they needed to do was free her from the wall of the crevasse, turn the block of ice around and get a proper look at her.

Well, Wirth had had that look… and it was utterly stomach-churning.

‘She’s not quite what we were expecting, Herr Generals,’ he stammered. ‘It’s best you come see for yourselves.’

Kammler was the first to his feet, a faint frown creasing his forehead. The SS General had appropriated the name of a third Nordic goddess for the frozen corpse. ‘She will be cherished by all who set eyes upon her,’ he had declared. ‘That is why I have told the Führer that we have named her Var – “the beloved”.’

Well, it would take a true saint to love that bloody, corrupted corpse. And of one thing Wirth was certain: there were few saints in that tent right now.

He led the men across the ice, feeling as if he were heading his own funeral cortège. They entered the cage and were lowered, the floodlights flaring to life as they sank beneath the surface. Wirth had ordered the lights kept extinguished, unless someone was working on or inspecting the corpse. He didn’t want the heat thrown off by the powerful illumination melting the ice and thawing out their lady-in-waiting. She would need to remain utterly deep-frozen for safe transport back to the Deutsche Ahnenerbe’s headquarters in Berlin.

He glanced across the cage at Rahn. His face lay in dark shadow. No matter where he might be, Rahn wore a wide-brimmed black felt fedora hat. A self-styled bone-hunter and archaeological adventurer, he had adopted it as his trademark.

Wirth felt a certain camaraderie with the flamboyant Rahn. They shared the same hopes, passions and beliefs. And, of course, the same fears.

The cage came to a lurching halt. It swung back and forth for an instant like a crazed pendulum, before the chain holding it brought it to some kind of standstill.

Four sets of eyes stared into the face of the corpse entombed within the block of ice; ice that was streaked with hideous swirls of dark red. Wirth could sense the impact the apparition was having upon his SS colleagues. There was a stunned, disbelieving silence.

It was General Kammler who finally broke the quiet. He turned his gaze on Wirth. His face was inscrutable as ever, a cold reptilian look flaring behind his eyes.

‘The Führer expects,’ he announced quietly. ‘We do not disappoint the Führer.’ A pause. ‘Make her a figure worthy of her name: of Var.’

Wirth shook his head disbelievingly. ‘We go ahead as planned? But Herr General, the risks…’

‘What risks, Herr Lieutenant?’

‘We have no idea what killed her…’ Wirth gestured at the corpse. ‘What caused all—’

‘There is no risk,’ Kammler cut in. ‘She came to grief on the ice cap five millennia ago. That’s five thousand years. You will clean her up. Make her beautiful. Make her Nordic, Aryan… perfect. Make her fit for the Führer.’

‘But how, Herr General?’ Wirth queried. ‘You have seen—’

‘Unfreeze her, for God’s sake,’ Kammler cut in. He gestured at the block of ice. ‘You Deutsche Ahnenerbe people have been experimenting on live humans – freezing and unfreezing them – for years, have you not?’

‘We have, Herr General,’ Wirth conceded. ‘Not myself personally, but there have been human freezing experiments, plus the salt-water—’

‘Spare me the details.’ Kammler jabbed a gloved finger at the bloodied corpse. ‘Breathe life into her. Whatever it takes, wipe that death’s-head smile off her face. Banish that… look from her eyes. Make her suit the Führer’s prettiest dreams.’

Wirth forced out a reply. ‘Yes, Herr General.’

Kammler glanced from Wirth to Rahn. ‘If you do not – if you fail in this task – on your heads be it.’

He yelled an order for the cage to be lifted skywards. They rose together in silence. When they reached the surface, Kammler turned to face the Deutsche Ahnenerbe men.

‘I have little stomach for breakfast any more.’ He clicked his heels together and gave the Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’

‘Heil Hitler,’ his SS colleagues echoed.

And with that, General Hans Kammler stalked across the ice, heading for his aircraft – and Germany.