The Lance

Prologue

The Fenris Mountains reared like black fangs against the dazzling white of the Antarctic plain. SS General Dieter Reinhardt watched two crewmen from U-886 clear ice and snow from steel doors set into the side of one of the nameless peaks. A motorized sled waited nearby. Reinhardt’s face mirrored the death’s head emblem on his high, peaked hat. He was tall and thin. In his long greatcoat and dark, round snow goggles he looked like a malevolent insect.

The doors swung inward. The crewmen picked up a wooden crate from the sled, then followed Reinhardt down a dark corridor into the heart of the mountain. The corridor ended at a steel vault with a numbered dial. Reinhardt worked the combination, turned a large, spoked wheel and pulled open the heavy door.

Numbered metal boxes lined one wall. On the opposite side, gold bars stamped with the eagle and swastika of the Riechsbank shone in the bright light of Reinhardt’s electric torch.

“Put it there, against the back.” His breath formed clouds of condensation in the frigid air.

The crewmen set the box down. Reinhardt drew his pistol in a fluid, practiced movement. He placed the muzzle at the base of one man’s skull and fired. The report echoed in the steel space. His mate turned, eyes wide in shock. Reinhardt fired again. Blood sprayed across the wall behind.

Reinhardt holstered the pistol, stepped around the bodies and went back into the corridor. He closed the vault door and locked it in place, retraced his steps and emerged into the polar glare. Charges around the entrance to the bunker brought down an avalanche of ice and snow over the doors.

No one would ever find it again, unless they knew exactly where it was.

Reinhardt started the sled and headed back for the distant edge of the ice shelf, where U-886 waited for his return. He felt for the journal sealed in a waterproof pouch under his shirt. He’d bring it up to date once they were underway. Some day it would be a proud chapter in the history of the Fourth Reich.

He remembered the night he'd been summoned from Berlin.

SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler’s private train waited, blacked out on a side spur of the main line near the Western Front. On the other side of the Rhine, flashes of light and the distant rumble of artillery signaled the advance of the Allied armies.

Himmler was at his desk. He looked up as Reinhardt entered the command car. The lamps shone off his round, flat glasses. In civilian clothes he might have been mistaken for a clerk in a small town butcher shop. In his SS uniform, with the silver wreath and oak leaves embroidered on his collar, he looked like what he was; the most dangerous man in Nazi Germany. Only Hitler had more power. Reinhardt raised his arm in salute and snapped his heels together.

“Come with me, General.”

Himmler rose. Reinhardt followed him into the baggage car. In the center of the car was a square, polished box. On the lid of the box, a large golden swastika and victory wreath set with diamonds glittered in the lamplight.

Himmler lifted the lid.

The spear lay within on a bed of blood red silk.

Reinhardt laid his hand on the ancient blade. It felt warm to the touch, even in the chill of the unheated railroad car.

The legend was clear: Whoever possesses the Lance controls the destiny of the world.

Some thought the power of the Lance came from the Antichrist. Himmler didn't care where it came from. The power was real. That was all that was important.

Only the Knights of the Grand Council knew Himmler had the Holy Spear. Only the Council knew it was the Lance that had brought victory after victory in the early years of the war.

Himmler handed Reinhardt a thick packet.

“Your orders. Take the Lance to Antarctica and conceal it.”

“Base 211?”

Himmler nodded. Most of the people who knew of the abandoned research complex in the Antarctic wastes were dead. No one had been there since late in '42.

“Dieter.”

Reinhardt looked at Himmler.

“It is possible I will not survive this war.” He held up his hand to silence Reinhardt’s protest. “If I fall, there will be a new Grand Master. Aid him in every way you can.”

“As you command, Reichsfuhrer.”

And that Grand Master will be me.

Both men looked down at the Holy Lance. It glowed with a faint blood light, perhaps a reflection from the red silk where it lay.

“The war is almost over. We have lost for now. But as long as the Lance is ours, we will never be defeated,” said Himmler.

A patch of rough ice under the sled jolted Reinhardt back to the present.

He would tell the Captain of U-886 his crewmen had been killed under a fall of ice. It was of no importance. When they reached Argentina the Captain and the others would join their dead comrades. It was all arranged.

Three days later, U-886 was ripped apart by British depth charges as she approached the Argentine coast. She breached the surface long enough for the officer of the watch to record her badge and type before she vanished beneath the waves.

In the lightless vault under the mountain, the Lance waited beneath the diamond swastika. One day, someone would come. It was only a matter of time.