The Doomsday Testament

XXVII

They must have travelled south, because by the time they reached the outskirts of the small German town the sun was coming up over the hills to their left. A sign informed him he was entering Fulda, but left him little the wiser. He avoided directions to the town centre and instead looked for an industrial area where he knew he’d find one of those cheap hotels that lorry drivers use when they don’t want to sleep in their cabs; the type that caters for arrivals at any time of the day or night and the receptionist is too bored or too tired to ask questions. When he found it, he parked the little Japanese compact in the corner furthest away from the hotel building and part-shielded from the road by a pair of green recycling bins. Sarah’s face was deathly pale and from the set of her lips he knew she was thinking about Magda.

He switched off the engine and they sat in a silent purgatory of exhaustion and disbelief, allowing the minutes to pass.

‘Do you feel up to booking in?’ he said eventually. ‘They may not be too fussy here, but I doubt I’ll be welcome looking like this.’

She turned to look at him, and he saw her flinch as she took in the blood that stained the front of his shirt and jacket. Her dark hair hung lank across her cheeks and weariness and grief had sharpened the planes of her face making her look like an urchin from a Dickens novel. She reached into a pocket to retrieve a tiny white handkerchief, spat on it and wiped at his face and cheeks. The gesture was almost motherly and he would have smiled except the linen came away pink and he remembered the wet spray as Magda had been shot. He felt as if he was going to be sick. Sarah’s frown deepened as she noticed something else. She reached up to the side of his head and gently searched amongst his hair. He felt a sharp pain as she tugged at some object embedded in his scalp and her hand came away holding a sliver of white.

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Upper left incisor, I’d say.’ They stared at it and suddenly they were both laughing, at first almost hysterically, but gradually the tension drained away as if someone had opened a valve.

‘Book a room for a week. If they’re suspicious they’ll want to get a couple of nights’ rent before they turn us in to anybody.’

‘You mean the cops?’

‘No, I mean anybody.’

The room was modern and clean. It had one double bed with a single bunk above, and just about enough room to sidle between the bed, a small chest of drawers and a sink that comprised the rest of the furniture. A sign informed them that the communal bathroom was along the hall. Jamie would have preferred a room on the upper floors, but this had been the only one available. It had a small square window, set high enough for privacy, which faced on to trees beyond the car park. Once Sarah had booked in and smuggled him past reception they had been too tired to feel anything but relief. Jamie closed the curtain while Sarah kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. For a few moments he stood over her, wondering at the sheer resilience packed into that small, almost childlike body. He looked from the bed up to the bunk bed. To hell with it. He peeled off his bloodstained shirt, replaced it with the slightly less stained jacket and lay down beside her. Before he lost consciousness a little voice kept demanding: What the hell are we going to do now?

He was woken by someone blowing gently into his ear, which was a pleasant contrast to the dream where he had just been placed into an implement of torture straight out of the Pit and the Pendulum. Blearily, he opened his eyes and found himself under the scrutiny of two liquid orbs of gold-flecked walnut.

‘I hope you didn’t take any liberties while I was asleep, Jamie Saintclair.’ Sarah lay on her side with her head supported by her right hand, but he knew she hadn’t woken in that position because it was clear she had washed her hair and done those things that women do to their face that turns attractive into beautiful. She spoke lightly, but he felt a sizzle of electricity in the air that had nothing to do with the fact they were on the run. It struck him that now was the moment to act on the impulse he’d felt since virtually the first moment he’d cast eyes on her. Then he was struck by something even more fundamental.

‘What’s for breakfast?’

She swung herself off the bed and he raised himself as she produced two enormous pastries from a paper bag and complemented them with two cardboard cups that contained, if his nose didn’t deceive him, about a gallon each of tarry German coffee. ‘I’ve been busy. We’re in a town called Fulda.’

He nodded, remembering the sign from yesterday, or was it last night, or possibly this morning?

She nibbled delicately on her pastry. ‘Nice place, lots of great architecture according to the girl at the coffee house.’ Jamie stared at her. He’d assumed the food had come from somewhere in the hotel. He stood up and pulled back the curtain a fraction of an inch so that he could see across the gravel car park. She glared at him. ‘I’m not stupid, Jamie. I didn’t take any chances and nobody followed me back.’

He ignored her and continued his check. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual. No one sitting in cars reading yesterday’s newspaper. ‘It was still a risk.’

‘You’d rather not eat?’

He laughed and bit into the kuchen. It was sweet and flaky and when he added a tentative sip of scalding liquid he felt instantly revived. ‘I don’t plan to be here long enough to see the sights.’

‘I guessed that. So I washed your shirt — just don’t expect service like this every day, OK. But maybe you should… umm, clean up first and see what you can do with the jacket before you put it back on.’

The hint made him suddenly aware he was wearing yesterday’s underwear. He sniffed and caught a whiff of stale sweat and something else that was instantly recognizable, a mixture of rotting fish meal and wet metal; fear and blood. His fear. Magda’s blood. ‘We need new clothes.’

She nodded. ‘And a lot of other things. When we’ve eaten and you’ve freshened up, maybe we could talk about it?’

An hour later they were sitting on opposite sides of the bed with the two rucksacks between them. Sarah pulled out her laptop and linked to the hotel’s wi-fi connection.

‘I did a little research on this Vril thing our friend Frederick mentioned. It’s another of Himmler’s pet cults and all tied up with his obsession with the creation of the Aryan race. The cult was founded by a bunch of guys who’d read a nineteenth-century book called The Coming Race by some crazy English baron called Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was a work of fiction that speculated on a long lost master race emerging to rule the world. You can see where we’re going here, huh? The Vril Society ticked all the boxes for Himmler, but the important thing for us is that the energy that gave the Vril their mythical powers was said to be from the Black Sun and the aim of the Vril Society was to find the key to that power.’

Jamie felt the room go cold. ‘So what exactly was the Black Sun? Obviously it wasn’t just a symbol.’

‘Nobody knows, but it sure spawned a lot of conspiracy theories. Look.’ She brought up another internet page. ‘Remember Magda talked about Wewelsburg being a landing site for UFOs? Crazy, huh? Well, here’s a story that claims the Nazis actually made contact with the Vril and they cooperated to build a fleet of flying saucers at a secret base in the Antarctic. It sounds nuts, but the United States government were convinced enough in nineteen forty-seven to put together Operation Highjump under a respected admiral and former polar explorer called Richard E. Byrd. Admiral Byrd commanded a task force that included an aircraft carrier and four thousand men. They combed the ice shelf from one side to the other and it’s claimed that Byrd actually found the base. After he returned to the States he was hospitalized and when he died in nineteen fifty-seven there’s speculation that he was murdered.

‘What I need to know is where we go from here.’ She spoke slowly, choosing her words with care. They were at a crossroads, she was saying, and not just in their quest. Jamie held her gaze as she studied him. ‘My take is that this has got way out of our control. What happened back there has taken it beyond a fun jaunt looking for a painting that may not exist and with a little sexual tension thrown in to make it spicy.’ She saw his look. ‘Come on, Jamie, don’t tell me you didn’t feel it too. Anyway, people have died and we’re on some Nazi’s hit list and on the run. This isn’t a game, it’s the real thing. These people are cold-blooded killers. The sensible option would be for both of us to get the hell out of here, find a way back to London and disappear for a while.’

Jamie nodded, acknowledging she was correct in every particular.

‘You’re right. You should go. There’s bound to be a train from Fulda to the north coast. You can jump on a ferry and be home by Friday. But I have to stay here. I have my own reasons for keeping going.’

‘And those reasons are?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Magda for one. I’m to blame for what happened to her, no one else. She was a nice kid, trying to make a better world. She didn’t deserve to die, but she was as good as dead the minute we walked into that museum. It’s not about anything as melodramatic as revenge, though I’d surely like to see Frederick behind bars, or better still, in a coffin, but at the very least I need to know why she died. And that’s the second reason. I can’t let Frederick get away with whatever he’s doing. Not now.’

She nodded. ‘I kinda guessed that would be the argument, and it answers one of the questions I was asking myself: what makes it worth going on? You’re right, Magda does. We can argue about who’s to blame when this is all over, but she sure as hell deserves some answers. My second question is, if this is out of control, how do we get back in control?’ She allowed the question to hang in the air and develop an energy of its own. He sensed that the answers she sought went far beyond the meaning of the words she’d used. He had a decision to make.

He reached for the rucksack.

‘Maybe the answer to that is in the journal.’