The Doomsday Testament

XXIII

Jamie had just replaced the phone when he was interrupted by a knock. When he opened the door, Sarah was waiting, dark hair tied back, dressed all in black and carrying her own rucksack.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’ He switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

Wewelsburg Castle by day intimidated, by night it had all the charm of a Transylvanian keep under a full moon. They parked beside the road circling the base of the hill and stood for a few moments in a tense, nerve-tingling silence. Sarah bowed her head and he wondered if she was praying. He remembered what she had said — This is where it happened — and he knew she was thinking about the men and women who had died here. This was the very ground where the pictures had shown the Russian prisoners, the homosexuals and the emaciated shells of Hitler’s political enemies toiling to make Heinrich Himmler’s crazed dream of an SS Disneyworld a reality.

Jamie had identified a track that wound across the tree-blanketed slope. It was less a path than an unofficial shortcut created by wandering deer and children on mountain bikes, and he cursed silently as unseen brambles clawed at him and nettles whipped his face. A few feet behind, he noted tetchily, Sarah moved easily, as if darkness was her natural element, a silent shadow that treated the fierce incline as if it didn’t exist. When they reached the top of the hill, he began moving to his left. She placed a hand on his arm.

‘Not by the museum, there’ll be some sort of security.’ She led him through an arch and into the shadows. ‘I told you I was good at research.’

‘If you’re so good at research what is the penalty in Germany for breaking into a national monument?’

‘You should have thought of that earlier, but I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t get away with anything less than being put up against a wall and shot.’

‘You’re right, I should have thought of it earlier. Where now?’

‘This way avoids the museum.’ The grounds of the castle were on two levels. She led them to where a narrow stair led up to the roadway and the main gate. ‘Just pray there aren’t security lights with motion sensors.’

For once, he found the intellectual high ground. ‘Rabbit burrows.’ He pointed to the dark shadows in the grass. ‘They’d never be off, think of the electricity bill. Bugger.’

Sarah stopped. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve left my rucksack in the car.’

He heard a soft mutter that might have been ‘idiot’. ‘We can’t go back now. We’ll just have to get by with what’s in mine. Come on.’

They trotted to the gateway with Jamie in the lead. At one point the clouds parted and he felt as if he was the focus of a hundred eyes as moonlight reflected from the castle windows, but soon they were across the bridge and inside the internal courtyard.

At the far end of the triangle lay the wooden door to the north tower. It had been open earlier, but now it was locked and Sarah pulled the stolen keys from the voluminous pocket of her hooded jacket. Jamie used his own anorak as a shield and switched on his torch. She studied the lock and speculatively dangled the keys. They’d discussed the likeliest ones for each door, but now, faced with the choice, she was uncertain which to try.

‘OK, baby, which one are you?’ She chose one of four similar black keys designed for mortise locks, and tried the first. It slid easily into the lock but didn’t turn. She repeated the process with the second with a similar result.

Jamie fretted. She was taking too long. ‘Let me try?’

The darkness hid her face, but he guessed that the look she gave him would leave a permanent scar. Fortunately, she thrust the keys into his hand without argument.

He worked the next key into the lock, but it barely fitted. One last try. As he juggled the keys in his hand they rattled like a prisoner’s chains.

‘Jeez, next time I’m going to commit a burglary I’ll make sure my partner’s a rhinoceros. He’ll make a darn sight less noise. Try the first one again. I had the feeling it might just be stiff.’

‘Maybe we should have brought some oil?’ ‘Just try it,’ she snarled.

This time it turned easily and the door opened with a slight creak. ‘You just have to have the knack.’ He was glad she hadn’t brought a knife.

The barred door to the inner chamber was much simpler. Only a single key in the bunch, the big silver one Magda had brought out earlier, looked capable of fitting the ornate lock and the gate swung open without complaint when Sarah turned it. They slipped inside and stood in the darkness. Jamie knew the exact location of the Black Sun, but for some reason he found it difficult to move. It wasn’t fear, he told himself, just a sensible precaution. This was a chamber where only the initiated were meant to feel at home. He’d expected there to be at least a little light from the windows in the alcoved niches, but it seemed someone had closed the shutters. Still he could visualize the Obergruppenführersaal from their previous visit. Twelve large pillars circled the room, and twelve empty niches that had never been filled. He knew that the number twelve played a major role in Nazi mythology; just as the twelve apostles served Christ and twelve knights followed King Arthur, so an inner circle of twelve Obergruppenführer served Himmler. The only sound was Sarah’s steady breathing. He knew they were alone, but in the darkness of the chamber it was as if the ghosts of the past stalked them.

Forcing his feet to move, he walked slowly to the centre of the chamber and with a soft click his torch illuminated the marble symbol on the floor. The first surprise was that it wasn’t black, it was green, a mottled greyish green the colour of the Wehrmacht uniforms he’d seen in colour newsreels of the Russian Front. The second, that it was much bigger than it had looked.

‘The Black Sun,’ Sarah whispered.

‘But not our Black Sun. This is different.’ He felt a moment of confusion, uncertain whether to be disappointed or not. The symbol from his grandfather’s diary had nine arms, this had twelve, and there was no message or number.

By now Sarah had pulled a large piece of tracing paper from her bag and was hurriedly copying the design. As an afterthought she shaded in the centre of the sun with the pencil as if it were a brass rubbing. She had just finished and was in the act of replacing the paper when the beam of a powerful torch trapped them in its spotlight.