The Templar's Quest

Damn the man. He’d made himself right at home.

Still sneering, McGuire tossed a key in his direction; Cædmon caught it in his left hand.

‘I returned your Vespa. It’s parked out back.’

Without missing a beat, Cædmon tossed the key right back at him. ‘Then rev up and fuck off.’

‘I’m not going anywhere until you give me the Grail.’

‘Small problem with that, old boy –’ grimacing, he lowered himself into his upholstered club chair – ‘I don’t have the blasted Grail.’

‘But you did find it, right?’

Wondering at the bastard’s interest, Cædmon nodded warily. ‘However, soon after I uncovered the Grail, an armed thug arrived on the scene. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the Seven Research Foundation is now in possession of the ancient relic.’

‘Ah, shit!’ A look of abject desperation flashed across the commando’s unshaven face. ‘Uhlemann abducted Kate.’

‘Good God!’

Stunned, Cædmon slumped ingloriously in the chair.

Neither of them spoke, the only sound the incessant ticking of the wall clock.

‘Is she still alive?’ he finally asked, emotionally steeling himself for the reply.

‘Yeah, I think so. If they wanted her dead, they would’ve killed her at the cemetery.’ Then, with the fierce vigour of the Spartan three hundred, McGuire said, ‘I will find her!’

‘Any idea where the Seven might be holding her?’

‘Well, I know where they’re not holding her. Their headquarters at Grande Arche is deserted and no one is home at Uhlemann’s Paris apartment.’

Cædmon ran possible scenarios through his head. His sweet Rosa Mundi, in the monster’s clutch. What a bloody nightmare!

‘If we’re to find her, I need you to brief me in full detail. Leave nothing out. No stone unturned, understood?’

McGuire nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll hurl every rock I’ve got. But I’ll tell ya right now, you’re not gonna like what you’re about to hear.’

I already don’t like it.

How could it possibly get any worse?

71

Seven Research Laboratory

1945 hours

Quid pro quo. This for that.

The only reason Kate was still alive.

Earlier, at Père Lachaise cemetery, she’d stopped Finn from killing Dr Uhlemann. In return, Dr Uhlemann had commuted her sentence. At least for the time being.

She glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. Ten hours and forty-five minutes until the heliacal rising of Sirius. Still plenty of time for him to rescind the stay of execution.

Although not a lot of time to stop a mad man from changing world history.

Nearly fourteen hours ago, she’d been brought to the Seven Research Foundation’s laboratory. She had no idea where the facility was located other than the fact that it was somewhere in Paris; when they left the Obelisk at Place de la Concorde, she’d been blindfolded. Upon arriving, she was ushered to a small annex adjacent to a library. The room was comfortable enough with a sofa, a writing desk and a flat-screen television. While she had access to the library, she was forbidden from leaving her two-room prison. The intimidating bald-headed chauffeur, who currently had guard duty, ensured her cooperation.

Needing to stretch her legs, Kate picked up her dinner tray. Not a big Beaufort cheese fan, she’d forced herself to eat four bites of the sandwich and drink the carton of orange juice. If for no other reason than to maintain her strength.

Tray in hand, she stepped into the library. In the middle of the book-lined room there was a table with two upholstered chairs. Dolf, hunched over a laptop computer, sat at the table.

Kate assumed an amiable expression. No easy feat given that, three days ago, the sullen-faced chauffeur had tried very hard to kill her. In the last hour, they’d not spoken ten words to one another.

‘Hello, Dolf. The sandwich was delicious,’ she said with forced civility. She knew that in an abduction scenario, it was vitally important for the prisoner to make a human connection to her captor. As difficult and distasteful as that might be.

Dolf simply grunted, not even bothering to glance up from his computer. With his battered, grotesque nose and enormous build, he put her in mind of a latter-day Quasimodo. A disheartened Esmeralda, she deposited her dinner tray on the table and returned to the annex.

Plopping down on the sofa, she stared morosely at the clock on the wall.

How apropos.

We look at a clock, we count the minutes and we foolishly think that we understand the concept of Time. It follows a linear progression. A straight line from yesterday to today to tomorrow. But Dr Uhlemann and his research team had figured out how to alter time so that, rather than being linear, the two ends of the line connect, forming a closed loop. A circle of time rather than a straight line. And that loop would enable them to travel back through time.

The fact that Dr Uhlemann had the Lapis Exillis and would now be able to generate the Vril force was worrisome. However, it was what he intended to do with the Vril force that was truly terrifying. How many millions of lives would be affected if he could actually change the outcome of the Second World War? What would become of Europe? The Middle East? Africa? Even America? The mere thought of Hitler’s brutal regime rising from the ashes incited a dread terror. Even now, six decades after the war’s end, the Third Reich was the monster that could not be killed – the reason why a swastika was still a chilling sight.

‘Doctor Bauer?’

Hearing her name spoken, Kate glanced up, surprised to see Dr Uhlemann standing in the doorway. She didn’t know who scared her more: the monstrous chauffeur or the malevolent scientist.

‘Excuse me. I was lost in thought,’ she mumbled.

‘Plotting your escape, were you?’

‘Um, actually, I was trying to figure out how … how you can use light to bend the space–time continuum,’ she said haltingly, hoping to engage him in a civil conversation for the same reason she’d earlier tried to converse with his minion.

‘You have an inquisitive mind. That’s what I most admire about you. My daughter, alas, has no interest in science.’

‘I didn’t know that you had a – oh!’ Kate’s eyes opened wide, startled by the belated realization. ‘Angelika is your daughter, isn’t she?’

‘Conceived in a moment of rash passion with a woman I barely knew. Paris can have that effect on a man.’ Lips twisted in an ugly sneer, he cackled. An instant later, his expression sobered. ‘Would you like me to give you a tour of the laboratory?’

‘Oh, yes … Thank you.’ Surprised by the unexpected offer, she scrambled to her feet.

Smoothing a hand over her unkempt hair, Kate followed Dr Uhlemann into the library. Although she didn’t have a clue how she could stop the Vril force from being generated, she needed to gather as much intelligence as possible. Find out everything she could about the laboratory. Then maybe she could devise a plan of action.

‘Dolf, go home and see to your mother,’ Dr Uhlemann ordered with a wave of the hand. ‘I won’t require your services until six o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes, Herr Doktor Uhlemann.’ The chauffeur respectfully bowed his head before taking his leave.

Playing the gentleman, Dr Uhlemann politely held the door open for Kate. Equally polite, she thanked him as she stepped across the threshold. Just outside the door was a walkway that overlooked a magnificent three-storey atrium, the library located on the third floor. Although there were no windows, banks of frosted glass created the impression of a light-filled space. With the exception of an armed guard standing sentry at the end of the walkway, the atrium was deserted.

Dr Uhlemann escorted her to an unmarked door. He then brushed his right index finger against his lab coat before placing it on a scanner affixed to the doorframe.

A few seconds later, the bolt on the biometric security system popped open. Again, Dr Uhlemann politely gestured for Kate to precede him through the doorway. Admittedly intrigued, she quickly surveyed the laboratory.

‘Sterile’ and ‘industrial’ were the first two words that came to mind. And while most of the apparatus set out on stainless-steel work stations was unfamiliar to her – instrumentation panels and high-tech gadgets galore – Kate ascertained that Dr Uhlemann ran a state-of-the-art facility. In the middle of the lab was a large glass enclosure. Inside the enclosure were four matte-black columns inset with mirrors. The columns were of equal length, approximately six feet high. Evenly spaced three feet apart, they formed a square.

‘Is this the laboratory where the Vril force will be generated?’ she enquired.

‘No. Das Groß Versuch will take place in a specially designed chamber. If you behave yourself, I might be persuaded to show it to you.’

Kate made no comment, unsure why he was even taking her on this tour. She suspected that it might have something to do with his immense ego. It wasn’t enough to gloat about having the Lapis Exillis. Dr Uhlemann wanted to rub her face in it.

As if to prove that very point, Dr Uhlemann, triumphantly smiling, gestured to the glass enclosure. ‘What you see contained within this hermetically sealed structure is our CTC device.’

CTC. A physics acronym for ‘closed time-like curve’.

‘And these are my father’s mathematical calculations that prove the gravitational effects of light.’ Dr Uhlemann next directed her attention to an indecipherable equation that filled two entire chalkboards. ‘Embedded in that elegant equation is the secret to exploring the boundaries of time.’

72

L’Equinoxe Bookstore

2015 hours

‘Time-travelling Nazis! It’s a plot straight out of a penny dreadful!’

Leaning back in his club chair, Cædmon stared, slack-jawed; McGuire’s update was mind-boggling.

‘If the Nazis had invaded the oil-rich Middle East instead of the Soviet Union, it would have been damned dreadful,’ the commando declared, his voice raw with emotion. ‘Ivo Uhlemann has had more than sixty years to devise a winning strategy. Trust me. If they go with the new, improved plan, Germany will win the Second World War.’

‘Assuming the Seven Research Foundation can actually perform their fantastical experiment.’

Seated opposite him on the tufted leather sofa, McGuire reached for the chipped teapot on the Edwardian table. As he spoke, he refilled both their cups. ‘Uhlemann is convinced that Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is the key to time travel. While he didn’t go into specifics, evidently it can be done using gravity and the blue light emitted from the Vril force. Once he opens his tunnel in the space–time continuum, he’s gonna party like it’s 1941.’

Cædmon ran a hand over his unshaven jaw. The Universe, for all its marvels, was an intrinsically dangerous place. He’d never doubted that the Vril force could be generated; but it was what the Seven Research Foundation intended to do with it that staggered him.

Still grappling with the idea of time travel, he raised the teacup to his lips. Grimacing, he took a few sips of McGuire’s potent Irish brew. Were it not for the fact that he needed to keep his wits about him, he would have opted for a G&T. The headache powder that he’d mixed earlier was doing little to dull the throbbing pain radiating from his skull down his cervical vertebrae to his right arm.

McGuire snatched the carton of milk and poured a dollop into his teacup. ‘If I don’t take out these bastards, we’re talking doomsday scenario.’

‘If we don’t take out these bastards,’ Cædmon stated matter-of-factly, having thrown in his lot with Finnegan McGuire the instant he learned Kate had been abducted. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘The heliacal rising of Sirius will take place in ten hours and thirteen minutes. At six thirty sharp. While rescuing Kate is a priority, we must also prevent Doctor Uhlemann from creating the Vril force. From what you’ve told me, it’s the linchpin in his time-travel experiment.’

‘That isn’t a helluva lot of time. Particularly since we don’t know where their hidey-hole is located.’

‘I assume that Dr Uhlemann has a laboratory somewhere in Paris.’

‘Makes sense.’

‘As with any laboratory, it would require electricity to operate.’ Leaning towards the coffee table, Cædmon unthinkingly reached for his laptop computer with both hands, his right triceps painfully protesting the rash move. He bit back a groan. ‘I’m going to contact my old group leader at Five and have him pull the utility records for the Seven Research Foundation.’

One dark brow quizzically raised, the commando was clearly surprised. ‘Your guy can do that?’

Pulling up his email account, Cædmon quickly typed a missive. ‘In the grand scheme, it’s a rather low-level request for MI5. Information is to spooks what bullets are to commandos.’

‘Indispensable ammunition.’

‘Precisely. Hopefully, our digital shot across the bow will hit a target.’ He hit the ‘send’ button.

‘Better blow it out of the water or we’re fucked.’

Cædmon made no comment. He and the commando were tentatively dancing around the ring, pugilists sizing up the opponent. Except they were no longer opponents. They were now, for better or worse, mismatched allies. Soldier and spy. Each had a strength and expertise that the other lacked. As long as they acknowledged that, their unlikely partnership should hold.

Shrugging off his fatigue, Cædmon set the laptop on the coffee table. ‘Knowledge is all about the connections between seemingly disparate elements. Once you make those connections, knowledge becomes a powerful tool. That said, is there anything else which Doctor Uhlemann disclosed that you haven’t told me?’

Scowling, as though annoyed by the request, McGuire said, ‘Don’t know if it’s important, but he mentioned that the original Seven came into possession of an ancient Egyptian manuscript that contains step-by-step instructions for generating the Vril force.’

‘How fascinating.’

‘Yeah, I was real enthralled,’ McGuire deadpanned. ‘I think he called it the Ghayat al-Hakim.’

‘The Ghayat al-Hakim … Yes! That makes perfect sense.’ The pieces starting to fall into place, Cædmon got up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that lined the back wall of the ‘drawing room’. Dragging the wheeled library ladder to the middle case, he gingerly climbed several rungs to reach a book on the top shelf.

As he walked back to his club chair, he blew a puff of dust from the gilded edge of the leather-bound volume.

‘This is a corrupted version of the Ghayat al-Hakim,’ he said, retaking his seat. ‘Entitled Picatrix, it’s a fifteenth-century Hermetic grimoire that was translated into Latin by the Florentine scholar Marcilio Ficino for his patron Lorenzo de Medici.’

‘Does the Latin version mention anything about the Vril force?’ McGuire asked, cutting to the chase.

‘Not specifically. As I said, it’s a corrupted version of the Arabic original. Nonetheless, encoded within the text’s magical incantations are instructions for manipulating astral energy.’ Cædmon idly flipped through several pages, momentarily distracted by a lavish illustration of a knight, astride a griffin, a sword in one hand and an enemy’s head in the other. ‘I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect that, like the Seven, the Knights Templar also had a copy of the original Ghayat al-Hakim. It would explain how the Templars devised their blueprint for the Axe Historique in Paris.’

‘According to Uhlemann, a shady Cairo bookseller gave a copy of the original Arabic text to the Nazis,’ McGuire informed him. ‘How the hell did the Templars get their copy of the Ghayat al-Hakim?’

‘When the Knights Templar were arrested en masse in 1307, the Grand Inquisitor accused the Templars of being in league with the agents of Islam.’

‘A charge that will land you on a waterboard in Guantanamo these days.’

‘And on the rack in the fourteenth century,’ Cædmon countered, the torture tactics of the Dominicans far more brutal than those used by the CIA. ‘Unlike most of the charges brought against the order, this one actually had merit. During their tenure in the Holy Land, the Knights Templar did maintain a secret affiliation with Rashid ad-Din Sinan. Better known by his guerre de nom, the Old Man in the Mountain, Rashid led a group of Syrian warriors called the Assassins.’

‘Those were the dudes who smoked hash before they went into battle, right?’

Cædmon nodded. ‘The hashish induced a psychoactive response, the effects of which turned the Assassins into raving berserkers on the battlefield. Invincible warriors who knew no fear.’

‘You mean warriors who scared the crap out of the enemy,’ the commando affirmed with earthy aplomb.

‘Which mightily impressed the Knights Templar. Although they hailed from different religions and different cultures, the Templars and the Assassins were nearly identical in one regard: both belonged to a brotherhood of warriors who believed that dying bravely in battle was the only means of achieving glory in heaven. As such, they immediately recognized one another as kindred spirits.’

‘I’m a soldier so, yeah, I get it. The Templars wouldn’t have had much in common with dandified European knights trying to impress their lady loves at a jousting match,’ McGuire sagely observed. ‘But they’d be on the same wavelength with the fedayeen.’

‘Those who redeem themselves by sacrificing themselves,’ Cædmon reflected, having always thought that the fedayeen, a.k.a. the Assassins, were a class of warriors unto themselves.

‘During the Crusades, the Templars and the Assassins maintained this covert relationship, beheading and disembowelling one another on the field of battle, but embracing one another as blood brothers behind closed doors. That clandestine relationship continued after the Europeans lost control of the Holy Land. Which leads me to one other shared commonality.’ Cædmon paused, certain that his next remarks would elicit a sceptical jeer from the commando. ‘Both the Templars and the Assassins were deeply involved in acquiring esoteric and arcane knowledge. Although the Old Man in the Mountain maintained his base of operations in Syria, he was a subject of the Fatamid Caliphate who –’

‘Built the House of Knowledge in Egypt,’ McGuire interjected, much to Cædmon’s surprise. ‘Uhlemann mentioned it when we were at the cemetery. The Dar ul-Hikmat, or House of Knowledge, was an academic centre of learning with a renowned library.’

‘You’re quite right,’ Cædmon murmured, impressed with the commando’s flawless recall. ‘The House of Knowledge was also the repository for ancient Egyptian esoteric texts that had been smuggled out of Alexandria before the Christian horde destroyed that Great Library. As I’ve already mentioned, I suspect the Old Man in the Mountain, who would have had access to the House of Knowledge, bequeathed a copy of the original Arabic manuscript to the Knights Templar.’

‘Which is how the Templars got a hold of the instruction manual for building ley lines and generating the Vril force.’

Cædmon nodded. ‘While the Templars had the knowledge, they didn’t have the essential component, the pyramidal Grail stone. Had they located the ancient relic and used it to generate the Vril force, in the words of the famed occultist Eliphas Lévi, the Knights Templar would have attained “the secret of human omnipotence”.’

‘Incoming,’ McGuire said abruptly, canting his chin at the laptop computer as it emitted an electronic chirp.

‘Right.’

Using his left hand, Cædmon pulled the computer on to his lap. The incoming email was from Trent Saunders, his old group leader at Five. He quickly opened the attachment and scanned the utility records for the Seven Research Foundation. As he’d hoped, there were two separate accounts: one for the Seven’s headquarters in the penthouse office suite at the Grande Arche and a second electric bill.

‘It seems that their laboratory is located at the Grande Arche.’

‘Fuck!’ McGuire pounded on the sofa cushion with a balled fist. ‘You mean that’s where they’ve been hiding out? I went there three times and nobody was home.’

‘You went to the penthouse suite three times. According to the billing records, the Seven Research Foundation has a laboratory in the basement of the Grande Arche. Most people are unaware that there’s an extensive complex beneath the building.’

‘The Seven would’ve had to obtain construction permits to build their lab,’ McGuire stated, quickly stowing his anger. ‘Can you get me the architectural plans and the schematics for the mechanicals? I need to know where the power lines, air-conditioning and heating vents, and water pipes are located.’

‘Consider it done.’ Cædmon quickly typed an email reply to Trent Saunders and hit the ‘send’ button.

‘Before we move to the next phase of this operation, I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page.’ Eyes narrowed, McGuire stared at him. Cædmon had the distinct impression that the other man was taking his measure. ‘The Seven Research Foundation is a clear and present danger. Is that your take on the situation?’

‘No need to worry; we’re singing from the same page of the hymnal.’

The other man smirked. ‘Glad to have you in the choir. And before you even ask, no, we can’t go to the authorities. Since I’m a fugitive, this has to remain a two-man duet.’

Cædmon let the addendum pass, McGuire having uncannily pre-empted him.

‘How do you propose we combat the danger?’ he asked instead, deferring to McGuire’s expertise as a Special Forces commando.

‘To win the battle, you have to go on the offensive. Now that we’ve got a fix on their location, we can charge the barricade.’ Getting up from the sofa, McGuire walked over and retrieved his plastic shopping bag. ‘Earlier today I bought a few supplies. I always say, “No need for calculus when simple math will do”.’ He hefted a bag of sugar in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other. ‘Sucrose plus potassium chlorate equals Kaboom!’

Cædmon smiled humourlessly.

‘Götterdämmerung … bloody brilliant.’

73

Seven Research Laboratory

2015 hours

‘My father’s equation is a stunning scientific achievement,’ Dr Uhlemann continued, standing beside the chalkboard. ‘Unfortunately, he will never receive the credit and acclaim due him.’

Staring at the lengthy equation, Kate winced. For theoretical physicists, advanced mathematics was their window on to the world. For everyone else, her included, those elaborate, seemingly never-ending series of numerals, letters and symbols were like seeing ‘through a glass, darkly’.

‘This is a particularly elegant calculation,’ Dr Uhlemann remarked, using a piece of white chalk to underline a section of the equation. ‘Since your father is an astrophysicist, I assume that you’ve heard of frame dragging.’

The last comment caught Kate by surprise. Studying the equation with renewed interest, she nodded. ‘In fact, my father’s research involves the frame-dragging effect of black holes.’

‘Then you undoubtedly know that frame-dragging occurs when a rotating body, such as a planet or a black hole, drags the space–time continuum around itself.’

‘When I was a child, my father described it as swirling a bowling ball in a tub full of caramel, the bowling ball being the rotating body and the caramel, the space–time continuum.’ A silly but effective visual description.

‘That stirring up of space–time was first described by Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity. Amazingly, Einstein correctly predicted the effect eighty years before it was actually observed on X-ray astronomy satellites.’ Dr Uhlemann waved a blue-veined hand in the air. ‘But I digress. To get back on point: when frame-dragging occurs, if the twisting of space is strong enough, it will also twist time, producing a closed time-like curve.’

‘And once you have a CTC, you can travel backward in time.’ A split-second later, befuddled, Kate shook her head. ‘But that’s specific to black holes. How are you going to create a frame-dragging effect in a laboratory setting?’

Still holding the piece of chalk, Dr Uhlemann vigorously tapped the underlined equation. ‘This is the part of the equation where my father proved that a rotating beam of light could create the same frame-dragging gravitational effect as a rotating body. Using my father’s equations, our research team designed a tower of continuously rotating light beams, one stacked on top of another.’

Kate glanced at the hermetically sealed glass enclosure. ‘I’m having a really difficult time envisioning how that is going to turn into a rotating light tower which will then created a frame-dragging effect.’

Stepping away from the chalkboard, Dr Uhlemann walked over to a nearby computer console. A monster in the guise of an old-world gentleman, he held the back of an office chair, motioning for her to sit down. As she did, Kate recalled that Adolf Hitler reputedly had perfect Viennese manners.

‘Engineering a working prototype took years of research and development. At first, we thought optic fibres could be used to build a rotating light tower, but that proved a futile endeavour. We even briefly considered photonic crystals.’ As he spoke, Dr Uhlemann pecked on the keyboard, typing in what appeared to be a coded password. ‘We finally settled on a system of stacked lasers.’ Finished typing, he spun around in his chair and gestured to the four rectilinear columns set in the middle of the enclosure. ‘The prototype that you see before you was constructed using red laser lights. Each of the four columns is lined with twenty-five hundred diode lasers. Are you familiar with laser technology?’

Nodding, Kate said, ‘Most people are unaware that the word “laser” is actually an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.’

‘And what differentiates laser light from normal light –’ Dr Uhlemann picked up a pen-like laser from the computer console and flipped it on – ‘is that a laser projects a thin beam.’ He emphasized the point by shining the red beam of light around the laboratory. ‘A coherent beam of thin light is the key to creating the light tower. Allow me to demonstrate.’

With an air of heightened drama, he hit the ‘enter’ key. Instantly, ten thousand red laser lights switched on, swirling within the confines of the four black columns at a dizzying speed. It immediately put Kate in mind of a spectacular light show at a big-name rock concert. The only thing missing was the smoke machine and blaring guitar.

‘Une tour de la lumière, as the French would say. Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Like a proud father, Dr Uhlemann stared at the six-foot-high blur of radiant red light.

‘Wow,’ Kate marvelled, grudgingly impressed. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she said, ‘Since light normally travels in a straight line, how did you get all of those laser lights to continuously swirl in the same direction?’

‘The mirrors embedded on the columns cause the light to swirl in a circular pattern. What you can’t see is that the rotating beams create a gravitational field which will produce a frame-dragging effect. The area inside the tower of light is where space is being twisted. Once we have a strong enough light energy, the twisted space will create a closed time-like curve. When that happens, any particle placed in the gravitational field will be dragged along the closed-time loop.’ Dr Uhlemann spoke with barely restrained emotion, his voice rising and falling, a verbal pendulum that increased momentum with each impassioned swing.

Getting up from his chair, Dr Uhlemann walked over to the enclosure. Pointing to the light tower, he said, ‘This CTC device was built with laser light. Once we have generated the Vril force, we will use the Vril to create what we call a vaser light.’

‘I assume that you’ll then reconfigure the CTC device, replacing the lasers with ten thousand vaser lights.’

The red light reflected eerily off Dr Uhlemann’s face, bathing him in a demonic glow. ‘Those ten thousand vasers will give us a coherent rotating swirl of high-frequency Vril light.’

Still shielding her eyes, Kate glanced at the enclosure. ‘Why can’t you just use laser lights to operate the CTC device?’

‘For the simple reason that a laser doesn’t have a high enough frequency to twist the space–time continuum,’ Dr Uhlemann informed her. ‘I’m sure you’re aware that Einstein won his Nobel Prize not for his Theory of General Relativity but for his work with the photoelectric effect.’

‘In which he proved that the higher the frequency of light, the greater maximum kinetic energy produced.’

‘Exactly so. When we replace the lasers with our specially designed vaser lights, the rotating light tower will have sufficient energy and torque to twist space. When the frame-dragging effect is strong enough, it will not only twist space, but it will create a closed time-like curve in the space–time continuum.’

‘But how are you going to send a human being through your closed-time loop?’ Having been a Trekker when she was a teenager, Kate envisioned the transporter chamber from the Star Trek television series.

‘At this stage in the research, it would be impossible to transport a human through the CTC device.’

Hearing that, Kate did a double-take at the red swirling lights. Bewildered, she asked the obvious: ‘Then what’s the point of all this?’

‘While it’s not possible at this stage to transport a human being, it is entirely possible to transmit information.’

‘So you’re – what? – going to send an email or fax through a closed time-like curve?’

‘Don’t be flip, my dear. It’s unbecoming,’ Dr Uhlemann snapped churlishly as he stepped over to the computer console and retook his seat. ‘Although we’ll be able to transmit information, we can’t utilize any technology that didn’t exist in the year 1940. Because of that constraint, we’re going to send radio signals through the closed-time loop. Which is why it’s more appropriate to refer to this –’ he gestured to the swirling red tower of light – ‘as a communication machine rather than a time machine.’

While her grasp of physics lacked his breadth, Kate understood enough to see the flaw in Dr Uhlemann’s design. ‘In order to transmit information backward into time, someone would have had to have built a communication machine in the past that can receive your transmission. Otherwise, you have nothing to send your information to.’

Dr Uhlemann smiled knowingly, as though he’d been anticipating her objection. ‘In December of 1940, my father designed and activated a receiver apparatus for that very purpose. The information we transmit through our CTC device will be received by the original Seven in 1940 on their receiver.’

‘Jeez, talk about thinking ahead,’ Kate murmured. Gnawing on her lower lip, she tried to come at the problem from a different angle. ‘But wouldn’t your father’s receiver have to be turned on and running right now in the twenty-first century?’ When Dr Uhlemann confirmed this with a nod, she then said, ‘If he turned on the receiver in 1940 and left it running, the battery to operate it would have drained decades ago. Rendering it useless.’

‘As I’ve told you before, Doctor Bauer, you need to start thinking outside the box.’ Insult delivered, he folded his arms over his chest. ‘Do you happen to know how the first telegraph wires were powered in the mid-nineteenth century?’

Actually, she did know the answer, Cædmon having mentioned it a few days earlier when they were at the Louvre. ‘An earth battery using telluric currents was utilized.’ No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the realization hit, like a broad-handed slap to the face. ‘The Seven manufactured an earth battery for their receiver, didn’t they?’

‘Ensuring that it will never run out of power. A simple, but ingenious, solution.’ Dr Uhlemann chuckled conceitedly, well aware that he was holding four aces in his hand. ‘The original Seven knew that it would be years, decades even, before a working CTC device could be designed and constructed. They had to find a means to keep a receiver fully charged and operational in perpetuity. Caching the receiver in the catacombs beneath Paris, they were able to directly tap into underground telluric currents.’

Kate glanced at the mathematical equation on the chalkboard. The ‘T’s had been crossed decades ago by the original Seven. All that remained was for their children to dot the ‘I’s.

‘Will you be able to have two-way radio communication with the original Seven?’

‘Alas, no. While our fathers will be able to receive our transmission, they won’t be able to reply. Nonetheless, they are anxiously awaiting the transmission.’ Blue eyes excitedly gleaming, he gestured to the glass enclosure. ‘This is our dream about to come to fruition. Knowing that our fathers are poised and ready to act, we have already put together a comprehensive information packet.’

Information. The ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Scientia potentia est.

‘Knowledge is power’ as Cædmon used to always say.

Soon, Dr Uhlemann and the Seven Research Foundation would be able to transmit to their fathers the ultimate war plan that would secure victory for the Third Reich.

The few bites of her dinner that she’d managed to eat began to congeal in her stomach.

Earlier, she’d wondered how Dr Uhlemann would use light to create a closed time-like curve. Now she knew.

She also now knew what was meant by the phrase ‘evil genius’.

74

Oberkampf Neighbourhood, Paris

0500 hours

Dolf Reinhardt ran the carbon steel blade across his head, carefully shaving the blond stubble from his scalp.

It was important that he look his best today. For today he aimed to impress. He didn’t know what was planned to occur later this morning; he wasn’t privy to the closed-door meetings at the Seven Research Foundation. But he knew something momentous was in the works. He’d eavesdropped on enough conversations to ascertain that it had to do with the Third Reich. Perhaps Herr Doktor had plans to launch a new National Socialist Party to oust the immigrants from Germany. Whatever it was, Dolf instinctively knew that he would soon be able to prove his worth.

He stepped closer to the cracked mirror above the bathroom sink, making one last pass with the cut-throat blade. Tilting his head from side to side, he inspected his handiwork. Unable to detect any stubble, he rinsed the blade clean. He then swabbed his head with a soapy cloth, washing away the residue from his peppermint-scented shaving oil. Removing the bath towel knotted at his waist, he used it to dry his head.

‘Scheisse,’ he muttered angrily, accidentally bashing his swollen nose.

Flinging the damp towel into the corner, he strode naked out of the bathroom.

He’d not realized until yesterday that his mother had been the one holding him back all these years. Because of her, he was like a horse tethered to a post. A thoroughbred stallion full of sturm und drang. Not the pliant plough horse that everyone made him out to be.

‘Go home and see to your mother, Dolf.’

Herr Doktor Uhlemann, knowing that Dolf’s primary responsibility was to his aged mother, had been unwilling to promote him. Instead he’d kept him hobbled these last eight years behind the wheel of the Mercedes Benz. He didn’t hold it against Herr Doktor. His vision clear, Dolf now understood. He’d finally figured out that Herr Doktor Uhlemann had been unwilling to give him additional responsibility, fearing his professional duties would always come in a distant second.

Today, Herr Doktor would learn that he could always depend on Dolf.

Opening the wardrobe, he removed a velvet-covered box from the top shelf. He pried the lid open, the hinge softly creaking. Inside, nestled on a bed of white satin, was a gleaming disc on a green grosgrain ribbon. His European Junior Boxing gold medal. Dolf slipped his shaved head through the ribbon, adjusting the medal so that it rested squarely in the middle of his chest. It proved that he was a champion. That he could hold his own in any ring.

In a hurry, he hastily donned the clean clothes that he’d laid out on the bed. Before slipping into his black suit jacket, he brushed it with a piece of tape to remove any stray pieces of lint.

Finished dressing, he left his bedroom and made his way down the dimly lit hall to his mother’s room. Opening the door, he smiled broadly as he stepped across the threshold. The bedside lamp illuminated the room in a golden glow. Dolf always left the light turned on at night, worried that his mother might be afraid of the dark.

‘Guten morgen, mutter !’

The cheerful greeting met with a slack-jawed stare. Dolf took the blank stare in his stride as he walked over to the metal hospital bed and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. Before putting her to bed, he’d changed the sheets and tidied the room in preparation. He wanted everything to be perfect.

With a tender hand, he smoothed her bunched nightdress so that it modestly draped her withered body. He then unpinned the coiled braids at the top of his mother’s head and arranged one thick grey braid on each side of her face. There was a time, when Dolf had been a very small boy, that his mother had been vibrant of body and mind. But those days were long gone.

Humming softly, he secured her wrists and ankles to the metal bed railing with leather straps. Noticing that her toenails needed to be clipped, he glanced at his wristwatch. Scheisse. Too late now. There wasn’t enough time to hunt for the nail clippers.

Refusing to get riled over the small blunder, he walked across to the bureau and opened the top drawer, removing a green plastic medicine bottle. Reaching under a folded towel, he also retrieved an ornately carved oak bread plate. As he did, Dolf glanced at the framed photograph hanging on the wall of his six-year-old mother offering the Führer a slice of freshly baked schwarzbrot. He’d always been immensely proud of the fact that he was named after the Führer. Proud of his family’s close connection to that great and good man who had been a saviour to Germany.

Pleased that he’d remembered the plate, Dolf carried it over to the bed and set it on top of his mother’s chest. In the centre of the oak plate was a carved Sonnenrad Hakenkreutz. A German sun wheel. Although he couldn’t be certain, he thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in his mother’s faded blue eyes.

As he did each morning before he left for work, Dolf gently inserted a sleeping pill between her lips, holding up her head so she could swallow it without gagging. Then he inserted another. And another … until the bottle was completely empty.

‘ “Cattle die, kinsmen die. The self must also die; I know one thing which never dies: the reputation of each dead man,”’ he quietly recited. It was his mother’s favourite line from the Hávamál, the collection of old Norse poems. ‘Do not fear, mutter. You will always be “the Führer’s little handmaid”.’

He stuffed the green plastic bottle in his pocket before turning out the light. Now there were no more encumbrances to hold him back.

Today, Adolf Reinhardt was finally a free man.

75

Grande Arche, Paris

0528 hours

‘You seem oddly calm for a man who might soon be the guest of honour at his own funeral,’ Cædmon remarked as he and McGuire made their way on foot across the deserted esplanade in front of the Grande Arche. At that somnolent hour, the skyscrapers of La Defense business district had an otherworldly aspect. A forest of steel and glass silhouetted against a slate-grey sky.

‘Got over my fear of death years ago.’ The commando carefully adjusted the canvas rucksack slung across his chest. Inside his Go Bag were six homemade pipe bombs packed in wadded cotton fabric. ‘Being a soldier, I know how I’ll die. I just don’t know the when of it. Only Bob Almighty knows that.’

‘And, how may I ask –’

‘Hail of bullets, buddy boy. Hail of bullets.’

Taken aback by McGuire’s exuberance, and that he considered his violent demise a fait accompli, Cædmon said quietly, ‘You shall be missed when you’re gone.’

‘Gee, didn’t know you cared that much.’

‘I was thinking of Kate.’

The other man’s expression instantly sobered. ‘Yeah, I can’t seem to get her off my mind. I hope to hell she’s all right.’

As do I.

While they were going into the breach armed with six pipe bombs and one Ruger P89 semi-automatic pistol, a pitiful arsenal by any standard, Kate was utterly defenceless.

Unnerved by the eerie silence, Cædmon looked over his left shoulder. The pedestrian esplanade, a concrete meadow in the midst of the steel forest, afforded him an unobstructed view to the east of the Arc de Triomphe L’Étoile. Though he couldn’t see beyond the famous monument, he knew that it was exactly seven kilometres in distance from the first arch on the Axe Historique, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, to the Grande Arche. Seven. One of the most sacred of all numbers, it symbolized the totality of the Universe, the Heavens conjoined to the Earth. Astral energy fused to telluric energy. How ironic that Ivo Uhlemann’s despicable group was named ‘The Seven’.

Put in mind of an initiate making his way to the holy shrine, he stared at the gleaming white cube. An impressive sight in broad daylight, the Grande Arche was utterly stunning at night, the alabaster marble gleaming with an ethereal lustre. He’d once read that the Cathedral of Notre-Dame would fit perfectly inside the cube’s open space.

Was that merely a coincidence or was it a profound and purposeful design element?

Cædmon suspected the latter, the cathedral having been built over the top of an ancient temple dedicated to Isis, the Egyptian Queen of the Heavens – the reason why the city had originally been called ‘Parisis’. In point of fact, the Axe Historique was the Axis of Isis, the massive ley line perfectly aligned to the heliacal rising of her sacred star Sirius. A star that would appear in sixty minutes after an absence of seventy days. Seven plus zero equals seven.

As Cædmon glanced at the high-rises that flanked the esplanade, he wondered if any of the thousands of Parisians who worked in those office buildings knew that the centrepiece of La Defense, the Grande Arche, was a porte cosmique. A star gate built to harness astral energy.

Though spectacularly modern in execution, the Grande Arche was ancient wisdom articulated in marble and granite. That wisdom had been safeguarded through the centuries by a succession of secret societies: the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Nine Sisters Lodge, the Egyptian Rite, to name just a few. Deemed heretical, one and all, by the Church Fathers, those underground societies had been the Guardians of the Lost Science. Each group had gleaned a different piece of the puzzle. None of them possessed all of the knowledge. Or the requisite component, the Lapis Exillis, which would have enabled them to generate the Vril force.

Until the Seven Research Foundation retrieved all of the puzzle pieces and put them in order.

A dedicated group of educated zealots – a secret society in the guise of an academic think tank – the Seven Research Foundation intended to exploit the Lost Science. An unknown force of nature, the Vril was derived from fused energies. It had been the power behind the Egyptian civilization. For all he knew, it was the very power that ultimately destroyed that same empire. Since the Vril force was created through the manipulation of astral and telluric energies, if there was the slightest miscalculation, he feared catastrophe would ensue.

Given that it had been more than three thousand years since the Vril force had last been generated, the possibility of error was great.

Well aware that the clock ticked loudly, neither he nor McGuire said a word as they ascended the steps which led to the Grande Arche veranda. Each of them knew what had to be done. Earlier in the evening as they’d prepared the pipe bombs – a laborious endeavour that had taken hours to complete – they’d gone over the mission op in excruciating detail. Their plan was two-pronged: he would find and rescue Kate; McGuire would set and ignite the six pipe bombs.

Reaching the fifty-fourth, and final, step, they hurriedly slipped into the shadows. Moored on the far side of the veranda were the glass elevators used to whisk tourists to the rooftop observation deck. Canopied directly above them was the white canvas ‘cloud’ that spanned the open-ended courtyard. Le Nuage. Cædmon had always thought it more closely resembled a hovering white moth than a floating cirrus cloud. An eyesore from any angle, it had been installed to reduce the wind shear. He peered at the esplanade below. From his elevated position, it was akin to standing at a window that opened on to the world.

As outlined in the mission op, they veered away from the bank of revolving glass doors that led to the north and south lobbies, both of which were manned by a night-duty guard. Instead, they proceeded to a single glass door that was out of the guards’ line of sight. Head bowed so he couldn’t be easily identified on the security camera, McGuire quickly punched an eight-digit code into a keypad affixed to the door jamb. An instant later, the door buzzed open. Because the Grande Arche was a potential terrorist target, all of the building’s security codes were kept on file with the Ministry of Interior, the government office responsible for national security. Calling in an old favour with a computer engineer at Thames House, Cædmon had acquired the necessary codes.

Hopefully the guard stationed at the video monitors would pay them short shrift. Not only did they use an authorized security code, they’d come through a designated after-hours entryway. Just a pair of overworked office cogs getting an early start.

‘Well done,’ he whispered, relieved at the ease with which they’d entered the building.

‘Unlike you, I’m not gonna wrench my arm out its socket to pat myself on the back. Do that and somebody will shoot you in the back for sure,’ McGuire muttered. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘We’ve only got fifty-two minutes until sunrise.’

‘Right.’

Properly chastened, Cædmon followed the commando down the dim corridor. A long-forgotten line popped into his head: ‘From battle and murder, and from sudden death.’

He hoped to God that it wasn’t a grisly premonition.

76

Seven Research Facility

0528 hours

Ivo Uhlemann carefully set the phonograph needle on to the vinyl disk.

His choice of music admittedly ironic, he walked over to the rosewood bureau as the opening strains of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung reverberated throughout his private study. He’d always considered the 1966 recording by the Berlin Philharmonic the classic rendition of the operatic cycle.

The irony, of course, was that the fall of the Third Reich had been Germany’s great Götterdämmerung. Not Brünnhilde’s immolation. What happened in April of 1945 was the true ‘ Twilight of the gods’.

Wracked with pain, Ivo gingerly opened the bureau’s top drawer and removed a wooden box with a carved sun wheel on the lid. An authentic Ahnenerbe-commissioned chest, he’d paid an exorbitant price for it at a private auction. It’d always angered him, as it did his father, that Himmler and his cronies misappropriated the Sonnenrad Hakenkreutz symbol, foolishly believing that the swirling energy that radiated from the Black Sun, Sirius, would somehow magically transform them into avatars. Fools! All of them! They could not comprehend that Sirius was simply a key to unlock the door of space and time.

Ivo lifted the lid and removed his drug paraphernalia. As he did so, he glanced dismissively at the Iron Cross in the bottom of the box. He’d been awarded the medal on 20 April 1945 by Adolf Hitler in the bomb-blasted Chancellery Garden. To this day, he could still envision in his mind’s eye the tottering Führer who, his brain addled, destroyed by the cancer of occultism, would lead the glorious Reich into fiery defeat.

It could have been different. Had men of greater intelligence been making the decisions. But the occult wing of the German high command had been trapped in a hall of mirrors which, ironically, they had created. For them, indeed, for the whole of Germany, there was no escape from the madness.

Soon that would all change. Soon the Reich would be created anew.

Stepping over to his upholstered chaise longue, Ivo carefully sat down, every movement inciting an agonized riot. At the end of the elongated chair, Wolfgang slept peacefully, curled in a furry ball.

A few moments later, as the pain-numbing heroin coursed through his veins, he reclined on the chaise longue. While science and mathematics spoke to the mind, art, literature and music spoke to the soul of mankind. A universal language that could inspire greatness. Overcome by the rich orchestral tones, he closed his eyes and dreamed the sweetest of dreams.

Of a different world. A different childhood. One in which he didn’t have to join the Hitler-Jugend because there would be no need for children to do the work of men. To martyr themselves for their fathers. How very sweet. And in this different, better world, his father would come home each evening after teaching at the university, greeted with a warm kiss from his wife Berthe and big hug from his son Ivo. The smell of Aprikosenkuchen baking in the oven would swirl around the three of them like a heavenly apricot cloud. Sweeter, yet. And, later, freed from the onerous burden of fulfilling his father’s dream, Ivo wouldn’t have had to become a physicist. He could follow his own passions and inclinations. Perhaps become an art historian. Yes, very sweet indeed.

‘Is there anything that I can get for you?’

On hearing Angelika’s voice, Ivo opened his eyes. Breathtakingly lovely, she stood in the doorway, a concerned look on her face.

His beautiful dark angel.

When Angelika was just a small child, she had begun to exhibit vicious tendencies, deriving pleasure from the pain of others. First insects. Then small animals. Then other children. Since her mother had abandoned her, Ivo had full responsibility for raising the child. Faced with a thorny dilemma – to institutionalize Angelika or to keep her with him, he settled for the latter. Which meant that he had to find a way to channel her homicidal urges. To teach Angelika how to kill judiciously. While he was not always successful, he’d done the best he could.

Blut und Ehre. Blood and honour. And family. The holy trinity.

‘I am fine. Thank you for checking.’ Patting the Schnauzer’s head one last time, he smiled wistfully and said, ‘Take Wolfgang with you, please. You know what must be done.’

Ivo watched as the docile little beast obediently trotted after the beautiful Angel of Death.

Although he had every confidence that das Groß Versuch would be successful, there was always the possibility of a calamitous error. That was the reason why the board members of the Seven Research Foundation would observe the proceedings via CCTV from the safety of an off-site location. Because of his terminal illness, his death a certainty, Ivo was the only one among them who would be physically present for the Vril generation. On the off-chance that something went wrong during das Groß Versuch, he had every confidence that the board members would continue their fathers’ work. Committed, they would discover what went wrong and make the necessary adjustments so that, next year on the heliacal rising, they could attempt the experiment again. But, this year, the honour was his alone.

Staring at the ceiling, Ivo imagined himself as the Rücken-figur, that solitary figure in a Caspar David Friedrich painting, always seen from behind, gaze set on the horizon.

He closed his eyes, the moment too sublime for words.

Dein Reich koimme. Thy kingdom come. On earth as it is in heaven. The fate of the Reich linked to one particular star in the heavenly firmament.

Very soon now.

77

0538 hours

Having committed the Grande Arche building plan to memory, McGuire promptly headed for a door located thirty feet away from the exterior entry. The placard read ‘escalier’. Beneath that was the international zigzag symbol for ‘stairs’. The commando wordlessly opened the door and entered the stairwell, Cædmon following right behind him.

They went down four flights of steps, descending into the bowels of the building. Exiting the stairwell, they traversed another dimly lit corridor lined with office suites, left and right. All of the doors were closed; each had a security keypad above the door knob. A uniformly designed rabbit warren. Although the chance of running into someone at that hour was remote, Cædmon nonetheless slid his right hand under his jacket. Ignoring the burst of pain in his upper arm, he grasped the Ruger’s gun handle, suddenly wishing they’d had more time to prepare for the mission.

McGuire came to a halt in front of a closed door with a polished bronze plaque engraved ‘SEVEN RESEARCH FOUNDATION’. The shiny surface reflected their joint image. He keyed in a security code, the door unlocking with a soft click!

Pulling a military-style torch from his Go Bag, the commando smirked and said in a hushed voice, ‘Come on, Jonah. Time to gut the whale.’

As he stepped across the threshold, Cædmon, worried they might have tripped a silent alarm, slid the Ruger P89 pistol from its holster and thumbed the safety lever to the ‘off’ position.

Nerves jangling, he scrutinized the shadowy antechamber, searching for a surveillance device. Relieved when he didn’t see any, he released a pent-up breath.

‘Nice joint,’ McGuire said as he shined the torch around the room.

Boasting a sleekly modern design, the reception lounge was a notch above the typical office suite. Behind the curved reception desk, cascading water sluiced over a floor-to-ceiling copper panel. Off to the side, four leather chairs were grouped around a square-topped table on which there was an abstract marble sculpture and a few glossy magazines artfully arranged. A large Dufy canvas hung on the wall. A cheery Fauvist seascape, it was an unexpected splash of colour in an otherwise monochromatic setting.

The commando elbowed him. ‘According to the architectural plan, there’s supposed to be a door leading to the laboratory. Where the hell is it?’

‘My guess is behind the waterfall. At least that’s where a door should be located.’

The designated point man, McGuire strode towards the water feature and peered behind the sturdy copper frame. Nodding his head, he disappeared behind the panel.

Gun tightly gripped in his hand, Cædmon stepped around the faux wall. McGuire, the torch protruding from his mouth, stood in front of an intimidating black door with a security keypad inlaid above the knob. Unlike the door on the other side of the office, this was a bullet- and fire-resistant, galvanized steel entry.

Shining his torch at the numeric pad, McGuire keyed in the third, and last, hacked security code.

The lock softly popped. Removing the torch from his mouth, the commando pushed down on the polished steel handle and eased the door open a few scant inches. Just far enough for him to peep through the crack and scan the environs beyond.

‘Coast is clear,’ he whispered, swinging the door open and making his exit.

Ruger at the ready, Cædmon stepped cautiously into the research facility, the steel door automatically closing behind him. He glanced about, stunned.

It was as though he’d just entered another world.

Designed as a spacious three-storey atrium, the lofty space very cleverly fooled one into thinking that it was an airy, light-filled courtyard when, in fact, it was a subterranean bunker. An ethereal one, at that, with abundant white marble, polished chrome and alternating banks of clear and frosted glass. The illusion was further enhanced by potted Areca palm trees and towering rubber plants.

Directly across from them, the centre of the mezzanine resembled a collegiate study hall. There were seven identical tables each outfitted with flat-screen computer monitors and ergonomic roller chairs. On the far side of the mezzanine there was a capsule-like lift. From the architectural blueprints, Cædmon knew that there was an enclosed stairwell in the atrium’s northwest quadrant.

Grim-faced, McGuire ducked into the shadows cast by a rectangular pillar, Cædmon following in his wake. Like a medieval cloister, columns were set every eight feet around the perimeter of the mezzanine supporting the promenade above.

‘Forty-six minutes and counting,’ McGuire informed him in a lowered voice. ‘Time to say “ta ta” and go our separate ways.’ His objective was to locate the maintenance room below the mezzanine where the mechanical systems were housed.

While he did that, Cædmon would search for Kate.

‘Good luck, McGuire.’

‘Yeah … same to you, Aisquith.’ One side of the commando’s mouth quirked upward. ‘If things don’t go according to plan, I’ll meet you at the pearly gates.’

Not the least bit amused, Cædmon said, ‘Heaven or hell, dead is dead. Ask any corpse.’

78

Seven Research Facility

0538 hours

Angelika dumped the knotted heavy-duty plastic bag into the rubbish bin. ‘Bye-bye, doggie.’

Finished with the chore, she walked over to the lavatory mirror and checked her make-up. Puckering her lips, she decided that another coat of lipstick was in order. She reached for the lacquered tube – crimson red – her favourite shade.

‘Better,’ she murmured, pleased with the effect, the slash of crimson the only colour on her pale face. That and her cornflower blue eyes. Today she wore her hair pulled back in a tight chignon, a severe style that accentuated her pale skin.

Make-up applied, she reached for the HK semi-automatic holstered on her thigh. She quickly rechecked her weapon, having cleaned and oiled it before taking care of Wolfgang. Satisfied that everything was in working order, she slid the pistol back into the holster.

While she might look like a woman, she thought like a man. Fought and killed like one, too. That was her strength. Her power. It always had been. Ever since that first time when she’d persuaded another little girl to walk out on to the thin ice in the middle of the lake. When the silly child fell through the ice, Angelika had stood on the shoreline, thrilled, as she watched the frantic struggle take place. Only to feel keenly disappointed when the little girl disappeared beneath the ice, having succumbed too quickly. She decided then and there that killing from afar was no fun. It was always better when you could see the tears well in their eyes and hear their voices crack as they begged and pleaded.

In high spirits, Angelika turned off the light in the lavatory and stepped into the hall. She peered over the railing that overlooked the mezzanine below. The atrium was deserted, not a soul in sight. All of the researchers had been dismissed two days ago, informed that the facility would be temporarily closed while new carpet was installed. A few minutes ago, as a stop-gap measure, she’d gone into the security computer system and changed the code for the facility entry.

Needing to issue a few last orders, she headed for the library. To her vexation, the little mouse was still alive. For some inexplicable reason her father had not yet given the kill order for the Bauer woman and seemed reluctant to do so. Earlier in the day she’d come very close to shoving the little mouse over the railing, but had been thwarted when an armed sentry showed up for guard duty.

Rankled by the recollection, Angelika entered the library. Dolf Reinhardt sat at one end of the table, watching football on his laptop, and Axel Weber, an ex-military gun-for-hire, sat at the other end, expertly shuffling a deck of cards. She glanced at her watch; the chauffeur had clocked-in twenty minutes early. No doubt trying to make up for his colossal fuck-ups. I’d like to shove him over the railing. What a useless excuse for a man.

Ignoring the bald-headed oaf, she turned her attention to Weber. ‘You are to report to the Groß Versuch viewing room for guard duty.’

Impudently smiling, Weber ran his thumbs over the edge of the deck before cutting the stack. ‘As you can see, Angelika, I’m still on my break. Another five minutes and then I will do your bidding.’

‘You will do my bidding now.’

Weber put the deck aside and folded his arms over his chest. The chauffeur looked up nervously; then just as quickly tucked his chin into his chest and stared intently at his laptop. Hear no evil. See no evil.

‘My break is over in five minutes,’ Weber reiterated. ‘Time for one last cigarette.’

‘You don’t smoke.’

‘I have five minutes to learn the habit.’ He eyed Angelika, a lewd gleam in his eyes. ‘Would you like to light my cigarette?’

Angelika reached for the HK semi-automatic, sliding it from her thigh holster. ‘I’d be happy to oblige you.’ She aimed the gun at his crotch.

Not the least bit intimidated, Axel chortled. ‘Warm and creamy on the inside but, oh, so cold on the outside.’

‘I was going to let you kill the little mouse, but I don’t think you’re man enough to do it,’ she taunted.

‘But you are, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ The macho bastard leaned back in his chair. ‘I only kill when I get paid to do so. If I don’t get paid, I don’t pull the trigger … unless somebody makes the mistake of waylaying me in the dark.’

Angelika returned the pistol to its holster. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she purred, already plotting the ambush. She glanced at the oaf. ‘Dolfie, go and ask the little mouse what she wants for breakfast.’

Orders issued, Angelika turned around and walked towards the door. Very slowly. Letting them both get an eyeful.

Her strength. Her power.

79

0544 hours

The two men headed in opposite directions, their plan to divide and conquer.

Although Cædmon would settle for finding Kate, retrieving the Grail and getting out alive.

While McGuire surreptitiously made his way to the stairwell, Cædmon navigated a different route, crabbing along the mezzanine’s colonnaded walkway. Since they had no idea where Kate was being held, his job was to systematically open each closed door on the mezzanine level. A total of eight doors. After checking each and every room, he would then ascend to the second level and repeat the process. If that proved fruitless, he would search the third floor. Again, proceeding room by room until he found her.

He glanced at the upper levels of the atrium, counting half a dozen frosted glass walls that incandescently glowed – two on the second floor and four on the third – indicating that the lights had been turned on in those rooms. That implied that there were bodies afoot. No doubt preparing for the astral event soon to take place. However many troops were on hand, it was a sure bet that he and McGuire were outnumbered.

Approaching the first closed door, Cædmon reached into his jacket pocket and removed a small torch. He clicked it on and stuck the slender rod between his pursed lips, freeing his left hand to open the door. At a glance he could see that he had just entered the employee lounge. Like the rest of the facility, it was starkly modern, what one might expect to see in an upscale bistro. He backed out of the lounge and proceeded to the next door.

Three minutes later, having opened all eight doors on the mezzanine level and verified that all eight rooms were vacant, he headed for the stairwell at the end of the walkway. He’d taken no more than three steps when the lift unexpectedly began to glide upward.

Cædmon hurriedly concealed himself behind a concrete pillar. A few moments later, he heard a high-pitched chime. Whoever had summoned the lift descended to the mezzanine.

He furtively peered around the corner … just in time to see an armed man – a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist – exit the lift. One of Uhlemann’s foot soldiers, he had a mean street look about him. Clearly someone who could comport himself in a firefight or a fist fight. Oblivious to the fact that he was being watched, the armed man strode towards the stairwell. Opening the door, he disappeared from sight.

Where the bloody hell was he going?

Since the armed thug had just come from the third floor, completely bypassing the second, Cædmon surmised that he was headed to the maintenance level, one storey below. Finnegan McGuire’s current location.

Baffled by the unexpected turn of events, Cædmon slid the Ruger into its holster. Unclipping a phone from his waistband, he quickly typed a text message to McGuire and hit the ‘send’ button. Warning issued, he stepped away from the pillar.

Only to hurriedly retreat when the lift unexpectedly returned to the third floor. Presumably to pick up another passenger.

Shite! The research facility was fast turning into Victoria Station.

Holding the pistol in a two-handed grip, Cædmon waited. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. For a fleeting instant it felt as though the earth turned faster on its axis.

The chime pinged again. A few seconds later, like a theatre curtain, the lift doors slid open, a Goliath of a man emerging on to the stage.

The bald-headed brute from the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel!

Plastering himself to the pillar, he watched the black-suited Myrmidon stride across the mezzanine to the employee lounge. The instant the bald brute disappeared into the break room, Cædmon hastily made his way to the stairwell.

Circumspect, he opened the door and assessed the dim interior. When no malevolent shape emerged from the shadows, he stepped inside. He then stealthily climbed the steps, hugging the outer wall so that he could better view the shaft above.

Reaching the second floor, Cædmon paused, wondering if he should deviate from the mission op.

Decision made, he continued to the third floor.

80

0545 hours

Cracking the door on the stairwell, Finn scanned the shadowy hallway. Not a soul in sight.

Dumb bastards.

The reason why there weren’t any sentries posted in the laboratory was because the Seven didn’t think that he and Aisquith had a snowball’s chance of breaching the security system. Big mistake, underestimating the enemy. It will always come back to haunt you.

Making like a ghost warrior, Finn hoofed down the hall. According to the architectural blueprint, the maintenance engineering room was located sixty feet from the stairwell, entry on the right. His mission was straightforward: destroy the laboratory’s infrastructure and functional capability without compromising the structural integrity of the building above. With his training in explosives, Finn was confident that he could demolish the mechanical system without bringing down the house.

In theory, it would be similar to what happened in ’93 when the car bomb went off in the basement of the World Trade Center. The blast did a helluva lot of damage underground, but didn’t disturb a thing top side. Which, in retrospect, proved a bad thing, inciting the terrorists to change tactics. Terrorists, like Uhlemann and his Nazi fuckers, were a primeval force of evil.

Arriving at the maintenance engineering room, Finn opened the door and peered inside the dark recess. No unfriendlies. I love it when the op goes according to plan.

He stepped across the threshold, closed the door and turned on the light switch. His ocular nerve was instantly blasted with a blinding burst of light. It felt like he’d just gone snow blind.

‘I don’t care if fluorescent lights are more energy efficient,’ he muttered. ‘There ought to be a law against ’em.’

Still squinting, he scoped out the room. Basic concrete block construction with a poured cement floor. Everything, including the walls, was painted a blah shade of grey, khaki or black. Strictly utilitarian. Unlike the slick Euro design of the research facility. Upstairs, downstairs. World of difference.

At a glance, Finn could see that the room housed a state-of-the-art system with an array of pipes, ducts, tubes, coils, conduit boxes, boilers and compressors. Building anatomy no different to human anatomy, these were the internal organs that made the pretty office space upstairs functional. The heart, bladder, liver and kidneys.

He walked over to a large industrial panel box bolted into the wall. Opening the metal door, he smiled at seeing the configured cables, connectors and signal modules. Sweet. It was the building automation system. An integrated assembly that controlled the electric, heating and air-conditioning. The joint’s cerebral cortex.

The six homemade pipe bombs would more than do the trick.

I got a feeling this is going to be a clean job instead of a suicide mission, Finn thought with a measure of relief as he removed the towelling-wrapped bundle from his Go Bag.

‘God, I hope so.’

There were things that he needed to tell Kate. Should have told her back at the hotel. But didn’t. Probably because he didn’t have a lot of experience with the man–woman thing. At least, not the emotional part of it. The physical part, oh yeah. Put a blush to your face.

Walking over to a nearby work bench, he removed his supplies from the Go Bag. He felt a strange tightening in his gut. He didn’t know if he loved Kate Bauer. Hell, he barely knew her. But she was different from any other woman he’d ever known. Serene, smart, sexy. And incredibly fragile. He had no idea whether she’d be interested in a man like him. For the long haul, that is. Find out soon enough. Hopefully.

Not there to sightsee, Finn rummaged through his Go Bag, retrieving a plastic zip-lock bag that contained two lighters. One he stuck into his T-shirt breast pocket; the second one – the emergency back-up lighter – he stuffed into his boot. That done, he surveyed the room, determining where to set the pipe bombs to achieve maximum effect. The plan was to set the six bombs then wait until he had confirmation from Aisquith that Kate had been safely removed from the premises before he detonated. The gasoline-soaked fuses would ensure a slow burn and that, in turn, should give him enough lag time to clear out. Wouldn’t want to get his ass blown to Kingdom Come.

Logistics figured out, he very carefully picked up two pipe bombs. Ready to rock and roll.

As if on cue, his phone softly vibrated against his waist.

Finn set the bombs back on the table and checked the LCD screen. Incoming from Aisquith. He assumed the Brit was letting him know that he’d found Kate. He flipped the phone open.

Fuck!

Message read, Finn flipped the clam phone shut and clipped it on his waistband. According to Aisquith, there was an armed unfriendly headed in his direction.

He re-wrapped the six pipe bombs in the towel, taking care even as he hurriedly cleared the work table. He did not want it carved on his tombstone that he was a dumb-fuck bomb maker who died from bad dumb luck.

No sooner had he slipped the bundled pipe bombs into his Go Bag and unsheathed his KA-BAR knife than he heard footsteps just outside the door.

He ducked behind a rotund hot-water boiler, stashing his Go Bag in the corner.

The doorknob turned. Finn stilled his breath. Completely hidden out of sight, he had the advantage. And the beauty of an edged weapon? It would not run out of bullets or jam on him. If you knew how to hit the sweet spot, a knife could be just as lethal as a loaded gun.

The door swung open. Finn peered between the boiler and a set of copper pipes. A big bruiser with a solid build entered the room. He had the confident stride of a man who had some serious military training. Uhlemann’s muscle, obviously.

Luckily, the bruiser didn’t seem the least bit perturbed that the overhead lights were turned on. Finn’s gaze honed in on the holstered Sig Sauer P6.

Finn wanted that gun in the worst awful way.

Quickly he ran through his options: attacking and using the KA-BAR in a close-quarter situation, slicing or punching a hole in a major artery; tossing the KA-BAR at the dude’s heart; or tossing the knife at his backside, then disarming him from behind.

Settling on the last option, he soft-footed away from the boiler, keeping to the shadows. The bruiser was headed for the trio of big aluminium condensers on the other side of the room. Finn took aim and hurled the KA-BAR knife.

The bruiser, seeing the blur of motion reflected in the shiny aluminium, lurched out of the way at the last possible instant, the KA-BAR puncturing a hole in the condenser instead of the bruiser.

Possessed with quick reflexes, the other man spun on his heel as he reached for the P6.

Fuck!

81

0550 hours

Acting on a hunch, Cædmon silently trod the third-floor promenade that overlooked the mezzanine. Like a guilty thief with the goods in his pocket, he clung to the shadows. Off-script, he headed for the nearest room that had visible light shining through the frosted glass. Something was here, on the third floor. He could feel it in his blood.

The same blood that coursed through his heart muscle in dizzying contractions. The same blood painfully thumping against the gauze bandage wrapped around his skull.

Where are you, Kate?

He prayed that he’d find her sooner rather than later, his energy flagging. The tension wrought by the situation, his recent injuries and the lack of sleep, it was all starting to wear on his pitiful reserves, the initial burst of adrenaline having run its course.

Christ! Bugger the horse. My kingdom for a wee sip of gin.

Kicking that thought to the kerb, he trudged forward, walking, breathing, everything now noticeably laboured.

Ruger in hand, he approached the illuminated room. Grasping the doorknob with his left hand, he pushed the door open a few inches and furtively peered inside. On the other side of the threshold was a snuggery lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. All of them jam-packed with leather-bound volumes. For a crazed half-second, he thought he’d been transported to a parallel universe, albeit a tidier universe than the one at L’Equinoxe.

Cædmon cautiously stepped into the library, closing the door behind him. Like every other room he’d investigated, it was eerily vacant, although he sensed it had recently been occupied – there was a small stack of books and an open laptop computer on the centre table. He walked over and perused the pile. Nazi Mysticism. The Secret of Luxor. Parzival. The Monuments of Paris. An eclectic assortment, to be sure. And, in one way or another, all related to the Grail and the Axe Historique. He next examined the laptop computer, the screen frozen on an image from a football match. Curiouser and curiouser.

Espying a narrow passageway between two bookcases, Cædmon padded over to it. Holding his gun in front of him, he peeked around the corner. Although the lights were low, he could see that it was a small study. His gaze zoomed over to the boxy sofa set against the far wall. There was a huddled body, backside turned to him, curled on the cushions. Shoulders visibly shaking, the occupant was clearly sobbing.

Kate!

Clicking off the safety, he shoved the Ruger into its holster before rushing over to the sofa. Without turning her head, Kate raised a hand and limply waved it in the direction of the library.

‘You can set the tray on the table,’ she warbled in a tear-weakened voice.

Cædmon went down on bent knee beside the sofa and gently touched her shoulder. ‘It’s me, Kate. I’ve come to rescue you.’

‘You can’t rescue me,’ she said between doleful sobs. ‘You’re dead. Both of you.’

‘I fear those rumours have been greatly exaggerated. While I might be mistaken for a corpse, I’m still among the living. As is McGuire.’

Kate rolled over. ‘I don’t believe it! Cædmon!’ Clearly stunned to see him, she grabbed his face between her two hands. ‘You’re alive!’ Then, a sense of urgency about her, she said, ‘You have to leave! Now! Before –’

The look of dread fear that immediately marred Kate’s face was the only warning that Cædmon had before a dark shadow fell over the two of them.

There was someone behind him!

Still on bent knee, he straight away reached for the Ruger. Just as his hand grazed the stippled grip, the unseen intruder grabbed his right wrist, snatching his hand away from the gun. Imprisoning his wrist in a bone-crunching grasp, the assailant pulled tight, cinching Cædmon’s arm around his own neck. Jamming his chin into the crook of his elbow.

Cædmon bellowed in agony as several sutures instantly popped open.

The brute forcefully jerked on his wrist, spinning him in a semi-circle. Cædmon reflexively swung his left arm; a wild scything slash that connected with a leg muscle. Before he could retract his arm to take another swing, a giant fist smashed into his left temple. Hammer on anvil.

The ferocity of the blow hurled Cædmon to one side. The brute hauled him up by his manacled wrist. With his free hand, the attacker yanked the Ruger out of the holster before shoving Cædmon to the floor.

‘That vas too easy,’ the brute snarled in a thick accent.

Immobilized with molten pain, Cædmon spat out a mouthful of yellow bile. Dazed, his vision suddenly gone blurry, he struggled to bring the attacker into focus. It took several seconds before the scene crystallized. It took several additional seconds before he realized that he was one bullet from death, the bald-headed Myrmidon pressing the gun muzzle against the same temple he’d just tenderized with his fist.

Enraged that his life was about to end in such humiliating fashion, Cædmon impotently glared at the bald-headed gunman. He didn’t have the strength to stagger to his feet, much less rebuff another blow. Callously smiling, the brute’s right thumb flicked the safety into the ‘off’ position. Any second now.

‘You can’t shoot him!’ Kate exclaimed frantically, scrambling off the sofa. ‘Cædmon Aisquith has valuable information pertaining to the Lapis Exillis that Doctor Uhlemann will be very interested to hear.’

Frowning, the Myrmidon retracted the muzzle several inches, his confusion plainly evident. In that instant, Cædmon intuited that the big German could not juggle more than one ball.

‘It’s imperative that Doctor Uhlemann be briefed about the second stone before the heliacal rising occurs,’ Kate continued, pressing the brute.

Cædmon tossed another ball into the ring. ‘You heard the lady. I have important information to convey to your employer. Pull the trigger at your own peril.’

Relenting, the browbeaten Myrmidon jabbed the gun in Cædmon’s direction. ‘Get up, wichser ! I will take you to see Herr Doktor Uhlemann.’

Realizing that he’d just been granted a temporary reprieve, Cædmon heaved with his left arm, clumsily shoving himself off the floor. Kate rushed to his side. Wrapping both arms around his chest, she assisted him to his feet.

‘When you meet Doctor Uhlemann, be sure to emphasize the catastrophe that will ensue without the second stone,’ Kate told him. ‘Earlier, he showed me the Vril Generator and I could see that –’

‘Shut up! Both of you!’ the brute roughly ordered. ‘Now get moving!’

Unable to stand up straight, Cædmon took a wobbly step, further disgracing himself. Leaning close, Kate placed a stabilizing arm around his waist. Then, risking the brute’s ire, she whispered under her breath, ‘Scientia potentia est.’

Cædmon stared beseechingly at her.

Knowledge might be power, but he didn’t know a damned thing about a second stone.

82

0548 hours

Realizing that Finn was unarmed, the gunman stared quizzically. Sig Sauer clenched in his right hand, he then grinned. A big jolly smile that conveyed a simple, straightforward message. Ho, ho, ho! I’m about to blow your head clean off your shoulders. But first I’m going to toy with you.

‘I understand that Hell is a nice place to visit this time of year,’ Mr Smiley Face goaded in a jovial biergarten accent, dispensing the first toy from his goody bag.

The gig up, Finn shrugged resignedly. ‘Heaven or Hell, dead is dead.’ And damn Cædmon Aisquith for mentioning it.

Just then, one of the overhead fluorescent bulbs crackled loudly, the sound accompanied by an erratic flicker. The gunman reflexively glanced up. Finn seized his chance and dodged behind the boiler, swerving out of the line of fire just as the big bruiser pulled the trigger.

The bullet slammed into the stainless-steel boiler, instantly creating a spigot of scalding hot water.

‘Gottverdammt!’

Finn quickly unbuckled his belt. ‘Take another step, Herr Fucker, and I’ll pull the trigger,’ he blustered, hoping to buy a few extra seconds.

A cocky bastard, the bruiser didn’t dive for cover. He knew damn well that phantom guns fire make-believe bullets. Still wearing his doofy-ass grin, the German sauntered towards the boiler.

‘If you had a gun, we would not be having this conversation. You would have shot me dead the moment I walked through the door.’ The German was now directly opposite Finn on the other side of the rotund tank.

With a quick tug, Finn yanked his belt through the loops. He then wrapped the leather strap around his right hand, buckle dangling. Flail at the ready, he waited until the German was a few inches from the torrent of hot water that spewed from the tank.

You’re gonna wish to God I had shot you, Finn thought maliciously … just before he whipped the belt around the corner with two hundred and twenty pounds of torque, smashing the metal buckle into the German’s face. The force of the assault knocked the gunman’s head into the metal tank. Scalding his left cheek with 170°F water. Forty-two degrees shy of a fast boil. Shock and awe, baby. Shock and awe.

The German howled in pain. Dazed, he staggered and fired two wild shots.

Finn immediately reeled in his belt. Surging forward, he crisply whipped it again, this time parallel to the ground. Hard and fast. The heavy buckle hammered into the German’s hand, knocking the Sig Sauer loose.

The gun clattered to the concrete floor, discharging a bullet. The German immediately came at him with a roundhouse high kick. Finn swivelled nimbly. Dropping the belt, he snatched hold of the bruiser’s raised boot with both hands and jerked upward as hard as he could, pulling the big German completely off balance. Literally sweeping him off his feet.

Upended, the bruiser’s head hit the concrete floor with a dull thud, his skull cracking on impact. Like a watermelon hitting the pavement.

Finn stared dispassionately at the dead German. Well, that sure as hell wiped the grin off Herr Fucker’s face.

‘Well done, Finnegan. You have, once again, proved yourself the better man.’

Hearing that sultry French accent, Finn’s jaw tightened. Although he figured it was a futile gesture, he raised both hands in the air and slowly turned around.

The Dark Angel – decked out in curve-hugging black leather pants, skintight black tank top and fingerless black leather gloves – leaned casually against a circuit box. She held a Heckler & Koch semi-automatic in her right hand. No surprise that it was pointed directly at Finn. Game over. Fade to black.

Not about to antagonize her, Finn kept silent. There was no doubt in his mind that the bitch would shoot to kill. And given that she was one sick bitch, she’d probably keep on firing long after he was dead.

Hips swaying provocatively, she strolled towards him. Smiling, she nudged the muzzle of the semi-automatic against his lower lip.

‘Suck very hard on that and maybe I won’t pull the trigger.’

Finn glared. The bitch wanted to emasculate him before she turned his grey matter into slurry.

Summoning all the false bravado he could muster, Finn looked her right in the eye and said, ‘You’ve got two choices, Angelika … kill me or take me to your leader.’

83

0610 hours

‘Oh, my God!’ Kate gasped. ‘He’s dead!’

Cædmon glanced at the corpse sprawled on the floor of the maintenance engineering room, a lake of blood pooled at his head.

‘I daresay the bloke had it coming,’ he remarked, unmoved at seeing the slain foot soldier.

The bald-headed Myrmidon prodded him in the back with the gun muzzle. ‘Shut up, wichser, and keep moving. Herr Doktor Uhlemann is expecting us in the viewing chamber.’

Trooping past a trio of aluminium condensers, Cædmon saw a knife hilt protruding from one of them. A battle had clearly taken place between Finn McGuire and the dead man. He hoped to God that the commando had escaped with his life. And would very soon come to their rescue.

To his astonishment, a steel door was hidden behind the condensers. Since the entryway had not been included on the architectural blueprints that he’d obtained for the facility, he assumed that it led to a secret ‘viewing chamber’. A security keypad was attached to the doorframe.

The Myrmidon hesitated, then stepped over and keyed in a numeric code. ‘Scheisse,’ he muttered under his breath when the door remained locked. He tried again, actually sighing with relief when the lock popped open. Holding the door ajar, he motioned impatiently for Cædmon and Kate to enter.

As he stepped across the threshold, Cædmon immediately saw that there would be no rescue. The vanquished Finnegan McGuire was seated against the far wall. Standing beside him, a leather-clad Valkyrie had a semi-automatic pressed to his left temple. Wearing a white lab coat, Dr Ivo Uhlemann stood a few feet from the pair.

A small room, the viewing chamber was no bigger than a home theatre with a glass partition in lieu of a movie screen. On the other side of the glass was the Vril Generator, housed in a pyramid-shaped bunker. The centrepiece of the device was the Grail, configured in some sort of crystal array. A second door led to the bunker. Like the steel door they’d just come through, it had a security keypad on the doorframe.

Still clutching the Ruger, the faithful Myrmidon slunk over to his master, insinuating himself between Dr Uhlemann and the blonde Valkyrie.

‘Oh, Finn … I’m so happy to see you!’ Kate rushed towards McGuire, only to draw up short when the Valkyrie took aim at her with the semi-automatic.

‘Sorry I couldn’t come through for you, Katie.’ The commando’s apology was punctuated with a rueful half-smile. Turning slightly, he jutted his head in Cædmon’s direction. ‘Hey, buddy. Glad to see that you’re still alive. The Death Star is due to appear in eighteen minutes. So you better grab yourself a front-row seat.’

Cædmon sensed that embedded within McGuire’s swagger was a covert message. But what?

He surreptitiously glanced around the viewing chamber. There was a clock above the glass partition, a chalkboard affixed to one wall, a video camera set on a tripod and three empty viewing chairs lined up in front of the glass partition. ‘Grab yourself a front row seat.’ Perhaps McGuire thought Cædmon could use one of the wood-backed chairs as a weapon.

Right.

He deliberately touched the blood-soaked bandage on his head as he turned to Dr Uhlemann and said, ‘May I have leave to sit down? Before I fall down,’ he added, hoping he appeared sufficiently pathetic.

‘By all means.’ The request was granted with a regal wave of the hand.

Playing the nursemaid, Kate solicitously helped Cædmon to his seat. In truth, he was a bloodied weakling, having yet to recover from the earlier thrashing. The painful crown that insistently pressed against his bashed head had become damned near excruciating.

Although not as excruciating as a bullet to the brain.

No time to waste, Cædmon quickly sized up the enemy. Crisply knotted silk tie. Perfectly tailored trousers. Tasselled leather loathers. All-in-all, a revealing book cover. Conservative, yet eloquent, the wardrobe indicated that Ivo Uhlemann was a man with a taste for the finer things. Cædmon suspected that the German was also something of an aesthete, a lover of all that was beautiful and perfect. As ‘Herr Doktor’ defined those two terms, of course, his arrogance plain to see. Paired with that conceit was a keen intelligence. Unlike the gauche Myrmidon who couldn’t juggle two balls at once, the elder German was a spatial thinker. A theoretical physicist who could problem solve in multiple dimensions.

He’ll prove a damned difficult nut to crack, Cædmon acknowledged dispiritedly.

As for the blonde Valkyrie, he didn’t intend to turn his back on her any time soon.

‘I am delighted that the three of you will witness das Groß Versuch,’ Dr Uhlemann announced with an air of mocking conviviality.

Since cadavers can’t speak, Cædmon assumed that the witnesses would be summarily shot at the conclusion of the ‘Great Experiment’. The gloating victor, Dr Uhlemann wanted first to lord his hard-earned triumph over them. And it had been hard-earned, years in the making as he understood it.

Acutely aware of the ticking clock, Cædmon examined the Vril Generator.

Noticing the direction of his gaze, Dr Uhlemann said, ‘The design for the generator was extrapolated from a careful reading of the Ghayat al-Hakim. Crystal matrixes are part of the Lost Science.’ He removed a laser pen from his pocket and aimed the red beam at the Vril Generator. ‘As you can see, the nucleus of the design is the Lapis Exillis, which is bracketed, top and bottom, by a tubular quartz crystal. The ancients were well aware that these crystals can hold a high-frequency electric charge.’

‘That’s what modern-day scientists refer to as piezoelectricity,’ Kate remarked as she sat down beside Cædmon. Turning her head ever so slightly, she shot him a pointed glance.

Earlier, when they were in the library, she had tried to tell him something about ‘two stones’.

But there was only the one Grail.

Christ! What in bloody hell is she trying to communicate to me?

He needed more intelligence. And he needed to be damned quick about gathering it.

‘Doctor Uhlemann, how exactly does the crystal matrix work?’ he enquired, hoping to pry loose a useful nugget.

‘Astral energy is directed into the quartz crystal suspended from the pyramid’s apex. Conversely, the crystal on the floor acts as a magnet to attract telluric energy from deep within the earth,’ the German informed him in a professorial tone. ‘The two quartz crystals simultaneously funnel their respective energies into the Lapis Exillis which then generates the Vril force. All in all, a simple but efficient means of energy production.’

‘Fascinating.’ Cædmon then asked the question that had been plaguing him since he’d first found the Grail stone hidden inside the Isis Sanctuary. ‘Do you have any idea what’s beneath the gold plating?’

‘According to our scan, it’s a layered configuration, a lapis lazuli stone embedded in the centre. We have yet to determine the material used in the insulating second layer.’

‘Blue, of course, is the colour ascribed to Isis, Queen of the Heavens. Prized by the Egyptians for its unique hue, the stone was used as a protective talisman, a lapis lazuli scarab often buried with the dead to guard them in the afterlife.’

Kate gently nudged him with her elbow. ‘And, like the quartz crystal, lapis lazuli has a high resonance frequency.’

Cædmon took the nudge as a silent caution to keep the conversation grounded in the scientific and not veer off on to the esoteric realm.

Right.

Taking his cues from Kate, he made a quick course correction. ‘As I recall from a long-ago physics lesson, high resonance frequency has to do with the stone’s accumulated vibrational energy.’ He glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. Eleven minutes left. How can I possibly stop the Vril generation from taking place in the few minutes remaining?

Jaw clamped tight, Cædmon refocused his attention on the Grail.

Think, man, think.

‘Doctor Uhlemann, I’m curious about the relationship between the Vril Generator and the monuments on the Axe Historique,’ Kate ventured politely. ‘Specifically, I’m wondering how the Louvre Pyramid figures into the equation.’

Hearing this, Cædmon whipped his head in Kate’s direction. The ‘second stone’. Of course! That was it!

Kate, you’re brilliant.

He gave her an answering nudge, signalling that, while late to the game, he now understood.

‘As you know, each monument on the Axe Historique has a purpose. The obelisk functions as a radio tower, drawing down the astral energy from Sirius, and the three arches channel the earth’s telluric energy. The glass pyramid serves as a counterbalance to the pyramidal Lapis Exillis.’ With his laser light pen, Dr Uhlemann pointed to the Grail. ‘Perfect symmetry.’

‘I concur. However …’ Cædmon paused, ensuring that he had the other man’s full attention before he dropped the bombshell. ‘That is precisely why your Vril Generator is a flawed design.’

The elder German’s eyes narrowed dangerously, like Zeus about to hurl a lightning bolt.

‘Anyone who’s been to the Cour Napoléon knows that there are two notable pyramids on the eastern end of the Axe Historique,’ Cædmon continued, bracing himself for a full-out Titanomachy. ‘The famous upright glass pyramid and La Pyramide Inversée, the inverted pyramid.’

‘Which is only visible below ground,’ Kate emphasized. ‘In fact, most people strolling in the courtyard are unaware of its existence.’

‘The Pyramid Inversée is the unseen twin. As above, so below. That, old boy, is perfect symmetry. Not this asymmetrical configuration that you’ve patched together,’ Cædmon derided. Then, going for the jugular, he said, ‘The Vril Generator is not going to work … you’re missing the second pyramidal stone.’

84

0621 hours

Yes! Two stones! Message sent and received.

Sagging against her chair, Kate released a pent-up breath.

‘Furthermore, I strongly urge you to immediately deconstruct the Vril Generator. And do hurry.’ Cædmon jutted his chin at the clock hanging on the wall. ‘You have only nine minutes to avert disaster.’

‘I refuse to countenance this preposterous claim!’

Kate anxiously glanced between the two men. She’d spent hours poring over books in the upstairs library, trying to find the fatal flaw in Dr Uhlemann’s design concept. Since he was a man of science, they had to sway his mind. Not his heart. If he even possessed one of those.

‘The blueprint on the Axe Historique is clear: Two pyramidal stones are required on each end of the axis.’ Undaunted, Cædmon put his left hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Kate, would you do the honours and sketch the correct design for Doctor Uhlemann?’ His face drained of colour, Cædmon drew her attention to the small puddle of blood on the floor next to his chair, his right jacket sleeve stained a deep burgundy. ‘Afraid that I’m not up to the task.’

Biting back a commiserating whimper, Kate got up from her chair and walked over to the chalkboard.

As she limned the geometric configuration, she had to stop several times and take a stabilizing breath. It was a desperate gamble, trying to persuade a mad scientist to adopt the sane course of action. But what else could they do? They had no guns. No reinforcements. And no contingency plan should they fail. They had to prove that the generator was imperfectly configured. There was no other way to stop Ivo Uhlemann from changing the course of history.

In truth, she didn’t know if the generator design was actually flawed. They just had to convince Dr Uhlemann of that fact. Worried she might not be persuasive enough, she would leave it to Cædmon to explain the drawing.

Craning her neck, Kate peered at the clock. Seven minutes. And counting.

Finished, she placed the piece of white chalk on the metal ledge beneath the board. Please, please, please! she silently begged of any god who would listen, Make this work.

‘Two pyramidal stones placed in this configuration form an octahedron, a Platonic solid comprised of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex,’ Cædmon iterated, getting right to the gist. ‘An octahedron would allow for each quartz crystal terminator point to transmit directly into the apex of a pyramidal stone. Point to point. It’s counter-intuitive. Your design is clearly defective. What you have here –’ raising his left arm, Cædmon pointed to the Grail on the other side of the glass partition – ‘is half of an octahedron.’

‘Which makes it half-ass in my book,’ Finn sneered, having been noticeably quiet.

‘The Vril Generator must be reconfigured,’ Cædmon insisted doggedly. ‘This is a flawed design that could have catastrophic consequences. My guess is a massive explosion due to the energy build-up.’

Clearly unmoved by Cædmon’s argument, Dr Uhlemann tersely shook his head. ‘The only way to determine if the Vril Generator works is to proceed with the experiment.’

‘In addition to white marble, the Grande Arche building was constructed with vast quantities of granite rock. Granite, as you undoubtedly know, is a transmission stone. It’s also slightly radioactive. Moreover, the Axe Historique is built over limestone bedrock which creates a natural water aquifer.’

Realizing where Cædmon was headed, Kate said, ‘And when water moves through limestone, it produces an electric charge.’

‘The Earth’s electromagnetic field is most powerful just before dawn,’ Cædmon stated, elaborating on her point. ‘Since the Axe Historique has never been used to fuse astral and telluric energies to create the Vril force, you could well be playing with a fire that you won’t be able to control. This is a technology that has not been used since the days of the pharaohs. Have you considered the possibility that there might be a deadly reason why?’

‘Your question lacks merit and has no bearing on das Groß Versuch,’ Dr Uhlemann bristled.

Kate clasped her hands to her chest. ‘I implore you, Doctor Uhlemann. Any other scientist would cancel the experiment rather than court disaster.’

‘I will not postpone das Groß Versuch.’

‘Even if you destroy half of Paris in the process?’

Dr Uhlemann shot Cædmon a withering glance. ‘The only thing that we intend to destroy are the dark forces of German history.’

‘And here all along I thought you guys were the dark force of German history,’ Finn deadpanned. ‘I get all of you goose-stepping rat bastards mixed up.’

The older German blanched at the crude insult.

Snarling, Angelika shoved her gun muzzle against Finn’s temple. ‘I would be happy to show you the difference.’

‘Do you mind if I take a rain check? The show’s about to begin and I’m really looking forward to seeing what all the hoopla’s about. There’s only a few things in this world that make me go ga-ga.’ Point made, Finn purposefully looked over at Kate. And smiled wistfully.

Oh, Finn … You brash, beautiful man.

Feeling the sting of tears, Kate glanced anxiously at the clock. Six minutes until the heliacal rising of Sirius. If the Vril Generator didn’t work, something disastrous could happen. But, on the other hand, if it did work, they could all end up living in a fascist regime ruled by an ego-maniacal mad man. Both prospects incited a dread fear.

‘You’re dealing with cosmic forces that no one fully comprehends,’ Cædmon asserted. ‘There’s a very real possibility that a catastrophic event will occur.’

Expressionless, Ivo Uhlemann shrugged. ‘According to my oncologist, I’m not long for this world. Death, like the speed of light, is one of the few unchanging constants in the Universe. That said, we constructed the Vril Generator according to the instructions in the Ghayat al-Hakim. It will work.’

‘While I haven’t read the Arabic original, I have read Picatrix, the Latin translation,’ Cædmon counterpunched, refusing to surrender the field. ‘It’s a magical grimoire composed in metaphoric and symbolic language that can easily be misinterpreted. In my experience, when one dives into the occult, the waters turn very murky very quickly.’

‘I am a scientist, not an occultist!’

‘Anyone familiar with the history of the Nazi movement knows that the occult strain ran deep in its ranks. I find it hard to believe that you would stray far from those beliefs.’

‘How dare you!’ Dr Uhlemann physically recoiled, as though he’d just been splashed with acid. ‘The occultists are no different to those addicted to the crutch of organized religion. They should all be led to the nearest funeral pyre.’

‘As I recall, your Führer once claimed that “A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming”.’

‘Pure poppycock!’ Dr Uhlemann exclaimed angrily. ‘They ruined our perfect society. The one that we worked so hard to achieve. For them, everything had a mystical implication. Even the initials SS had a magical meaning.’

‘The word “Schutzstaffel” means special staff.’ Cædmon’s brows drew together in a questioning pucker. ‘What in God’s name is magical about that?’

‘Absolutely nothing. However, those two initials also stand for “schwarz sonne ”.’

‘Ah! Of course. The Black Sun,’ Cædmon translated. ‘Also known as Sirius. Which, coincidentally, is due to rise at any moment.’

The irony of the addendum was lost on Dr Uhlemann.

‘They worshipped their Black Sun like a coven of superstitious pagans. There were officers in the SS who thought they could win the war with Ouija boards and Runic magic. Outright quackery is what it was. How educated men could fall victim to such outlandish delusions is truly astonishing.’

‘Not so astonishing given that many in the Nazi high command dabbled in the dark arts.’ With only four minutes left, Cædmon was still grounded, still steady at the helm.

‘They did more than dabble. They were brainwashed devotees, Hitler their prophet and Himmler their high priest,’ Dr Uhlemann said accusingly. ‘In the end, their minds had become unhinged, corrupted by occult lunacies. Is there any wonder that we lost the war?’

‘Most historians would agree that their occultism proved a fatal idée fixe.’

Dr Uhlemann concurred with a vigorous nod. ‘That is the reason why our fathers will rid the German high command of this dangerous occult element. Once that is done, the way will be paved to immediately begin the military campaign in the Middle East.’

‘But, as you said, Hitler himself was a member of this esoteric coven.’ Cædmon frowned, clearly perplexed. ‘How are you going to persuade him that science is superior to magic?’

‘We have no intention of persuading him … we intend to assassinate Adolf Hitler.’

Hearing that, Kate’s eyes opened wide. The moment, indeed, the entire situation, had just turned unbelievably surreal.

‘Or, rather, my father and his colleagues in the Seven will have the honour of committing the regicide,’ Dr Uhlemann clarified.

If Cædmon was surprised by the announcement, he hid it well. ‘There were many attempts on Hitler’s life, most of them plotted by members of the Nazi Party. How can you be so sure that your attempt will succeed?’

‘To use an oft-repeated cliché, hindsight is twenty-twenty vision,’ Dr Uhlemann informed him. ‘We know that the Führer and the occult members of his inner circle will all be in attendance at the 1940 Schutzstaffel Christmas party. The festivities will be held at the Löwenbräu Keller in Munich. We have put together a detailed assassination plan which we will transmit to our fathers via our CTC device. Trust me … no one will leave the Löwenbräu Keller alive.’

‘Damned diabolical,’ Cædmon muttered. ‘Part of me actually hopes that you succeed.’

Dolf Reinhardt suddenly stepped forward. Eyes glistening with unshed tears, he shook with a barely restrained emotion.

‘Nein! Nein! Nein!’

85

0628 hours

‘Obviously, someone forgot to send Cue Ball the “Kill Hitler” memo,’ Finn muttered under his breath.

‘What is happening here?’ the chauffeur bellowed. ‘Has everyone lost their mind?’

‘If you cannot control yourself, Dolf, you will have to leave the room,’ Uhlemann threatened in a patronizing tone, speaking to the big goon as though he were a six-year-old child. ‘It’s obvious that you’re confused.’

‘I want you to answer my question, Herr Doktor! What is happening here!?’ Wide-eyed, Dolf clutched the Ruger P89 to his chest; his very own nine-mil teddy bear.

Finn glanced at the clock. Fuck. Two minutes until sunrise. Aisquith was convinced the design flaw in the Vril Generator would cause an explosion due to an energy build-up. Add to that the six pipe bombs stashed next door in the maintenance engineering room and they’d all be blown to Sirius and back.

Determined to go down fighting, Finn swung his head in Aisquith’s direction, silently signalling to the Brit that he had a plan. He then looked over at the bewildered bald dude.

‘Not only are you confused, but you are definitely out of the loop,’ Finn told the chauffeur, hoping to stoke him into shutting down the show. A lame duck, if he so much as lifted his ass off the chair, Angelika would put a bullet right between his eyes. ‘Here’s the simplified version. The star Sirius is due to appear in the dawn sky in two minutes. When that happens, your boss is gonna use the astral energy from the star to generate the Vril force. That’s a kind of fused energy that emits a blue light. Uhlemann needs that blue light to open a hole in the space–time continuum so he can travel back to the year 1940 and kill Adolf Hitler.’

‘Is this true, Herr Doktor?’ The chauffeur’s expression of disbelief was almost comical.

Clearly outraged by the insurrection, Uhlemann shot his subordinate a glacial stare, refusing to answer.

‘It’s true, Dolf,’ Kate volunteered, her features stamped with abject fear. ‘Doctor Uhlemann showed me the time machine.’

To say that Dolf was crestfallen would be putting it mildly; tears were running down his cheeks and snot was dripping from his nose.

‘My mother was the Führer’s little handmaid,’ the big slobbering bastard rasped in a hoarse voice. ‘My grandfather was his chauffeur.’

‘Hitler’s chauffeur? No shit. I’m impressed,’ Finn lied. ‘I’m guessing he was in the SS, right?’

Wiping a ribbon of snot with the back of his hand, the other man nodded. ‘He was an officer in the Reich Security Service.’

Realizing that was the perfect segue, Finn, winging it all the way, said, ‘So it’s a given that he would have driven the Führer to the Christmas party in 1940. The two of them probably sang a couple of rounds of “Silent Night” on the way to the big shindig. Once they get there, your grandfather will be having a good time, drinking a little eggnog, then Kaboom! Silent night. Auf wiedersehen. You heard Uhlemann; no one is gonna leave the Löwenbräu Keller alive. Helluva way to go.’

The realization that his own grandfather would be killed in the planned massacre suddenly dawned in Dolf’s watery eyes. In that instant, he went from confused lapdog to snarling Rottweiler. Teeth clenched, he aimed the Ruger P89 at his master’s head. ‘How could you destroy my family like this? I sacrificed everything for you.’

Proving that he was an old-school Prussian, Uhlemann glared at his rabid dog. Unbowed and unafraid.

‘Hah! What did you sacrifice?’ Angelika jeered. ‘A few dinners with your old mutti?’

‘Leave my mother out of this!’

‘This is sheer idiocy. Give me the gun.’ A leather-clad dominatrix, Angelika stomped her booted foot imperiously on the floor. ‘Now!’

‘Nein!’ Dolf abruptly changed targets, Ruger now aimed directly at Angelika’s head. ‘Shut up, bitch! You’re always telling me what to do!’

Well, well, well … Sounds like the two winged monkeys have some wicked bad history. Finn just hoped he didn’t get caught in their crossfire.

Changing tactics, Angelika’s sneer instantly morphed into a smile. A come-hither invite that oozed sex like a volcano oozing molten lava. ‘I can make all of your dreams come true, Dolf. You know the kind of dreams I’m talking about … those naughty dreams that you have in the middle of the night.’ Her gaze slowly travelled down Cue Ball’s chest to his crotch.

Teary eyes narrowed furiously. ‘Slut!’

‘If you want me to be.’ Still smiling, and still holding the HK semi to Finn’s head, Angelika held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers. ‘Dolfie, give me the gun. If you don’t, I will tell your mutti that you were a very bad boy.’

‘I told you not to mention my mother!’ Last Rites administered, ‘Dolfie’ pulled the trigger.

Before the blonde bitch even hit the deck, Finn cannonballed out of his chair and hurled himself at the bald-headed gunman … who now had his weapon trained on Ivo Uhlemann.

In a fast wham-bam move, Finn, attacking from behind, cinched his left hand around Dolf’s thick neck. With his right, he knocked the gun loose. Two pounds of stainless steel thudded on to the concrete floor, the impact causing a round to discharge. Galvanized, Finn secured his right hand on the other side of the big man’s neck. And squeezed like hell.

Pumped up on adrenaline, the goon thrashed violently, clawing Finn’s wrists with his huge boxer-size paws. Locked in a ferocious embrace, the two of them slammed against the concrete wall.

‘It’s six thirty!’ Kate screamed. ‘You have to stop the experiment!’

Hearing that, Finn spared a quick glance. Kate was yanking on Ivo Uhlemann’s arm, while Aisquith was frantically trying to open the door that led to the Vril Generator.

‘Yes! Yes! It’s happening!’ Uhlemann shouted jubilantly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Finn saw a luminous blue haze surrounding the Grail.

Shit!

Jaw clenched tight, Finn squeezed for all he was worth on the chauffeur’s thick, muscle-roped neck … But it was like squeezing a damned tree trunk.

86

0630 hours

Standing in front of the steel door that led to the Vril Generator, Cædmon turned his head and peered through the plate-glass window.

A blue phosphorescent corona had completely enveloped the Grail.

Christ! The energy fusion has already begun!

Having tried all three of the hacked security codes – with no luck – Cædmon rushed over to Dr Uhlemann.

‘There’s no time to waste! Give me the security code to bypass the lock!’

Ignoring his shouted demand, the German scientist pressed both palms to the glass partition as he gazed through the glass. ‘Soon! Soon! Soon!’ he chanted, his rheumy eyes gleaming with excitement. Obsessed with his creation, he was oblivious to the danger.

Kate, standing on the other side of Dr Uhlemann, urgently tugged on his arm. ‘You have to stop the experiment!’

A loud crackling sound reverberated from the other side of the glass as blue sparks began to fly frenetically off the stone. The crackling was near-deafening, Cædmon afraid that his eardrums were about to burst. A jagged blue streak arced through the air, the stench of ozone filling the chamber, the ambient temperature rapidly escalating.

Cædmon could feel his body vibrate painfully, as though his internal organs were being agitated from within.

‘The generator must be shut down this instant!’ he hollered.

‘No!’

Cædmon spun on his heel and grabbed a wooden-backed chair. Biting back an agonized bellow of pain, he slammed it against the glass partition.

A wasted effort, the safety glass too thick to penetrate.

Just then, the energy fusion produced myriad streamers, each branching out from the Grail into hundreds of thin blue filaments that streaked ominously in every direction.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Cædmon yelled, barely audible over the shrill cacophony. ‘Give me the code, you bloody contemptible –’

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three gun shots were fired in quick succession, the glass partition immediately shattering.

A split-second later, a ragged blue bolt of current ripped free from the Grail and struck Ivo Uhlemann square in the chest. The force of the blow hurtled him ten feet through the air, the German careening into the concrete block wall at the back of the room.

Cædmon heaved the chair through the open partition – dislodging the Grail from the crystal matrix.

In an instant, all went eerily silent.

‘It’s over,’ he murmured, his shoulders slumping in relief. ‘The experiment has been stopped.’

He turned his head. McGuire stood over the dead Myrmidon, the Ruger clutched in his hand. Gracelessly sprawled on the floor, the bald brute’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Grim-faced, the commando charged towards the video camera that was set on a nearby tripod. Grabbing the camera with his free hand, he flung it against the concrete wall, the device smashing on impact.

‘Uhlemann’s buddies were watching the proceedings on a live video feed,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘So we better hustle before they send in the reinforcements.’

‘My God … I feel like I just came through a war zone,’ Kate gasped, a shell-shocked expression on her face.

Indeed, the floor was littered with bodies.

Cædmon glanced dispassionately at the crumpled figure of Ivo Uhlemann.

‘Jaysus,’ McGuire softly swore as he examined the body. ‘Not only did the Vril force blow a gaping hole clean through him, but it carbonized the skin around the wound.’ Stepping away from the dead German, he shook his head in disgust. ‘Although I gotta tell you, I don’t have an ounce to spare for any of ’em.’

‘Nor I,’ Cædmon seconded.

‘Me, three,’ Kate whispered.

McGuire checked his watch. ‘We still need to stick to the game plan and destroy the Vril Generator. And we don’t have a whole helluva lot of time to do it.’

‘I’ll climb through the partition and retrieve the Grail,’ Cædmon informed him.

The commando clamped a hand on his left shoulder, stopping him in mid-stride. ‘No way are we taking that stone with us,’ he bluntly informed Cædmon, a determined look in his eyes. ‘I don’t want to be running this same op again next year. If the Grail does what everyone claims it can do, every military in the world will be vying for it. Hell, look what it did Ivo Meister.’

‘I’ll make certain that it’s safeguarded.’

‘You’re good, buddy, but you’re just one man. Trust me. You won’t be able to safeguard that damned thing once the Powers-That-Be catch wind of it. The gold will melt in the explosion.’

Rendering the Grail worthless.

Cædmon turned and stared at the legendary stone gleaming on the concrete floor. Beckoning. Parzival’s Lapis Exillis. The same stone sought by the Knights Templar.

And the scientists of the Third Reich.

Knowing that McGuire spoke the truth, Cædmon nodded his head in resignation. ‘Right. Let’s destroy the chamber and get the bloody hell out of here.’

‘You also have to destroy the CTC device,’ Kate informed them.

In unison, both he and McGuire swung their heads in her direction.

‘What?’ they jointly exclaimed.

‘It’s the working prototype for the Seven’s time machine. Doctor Uhlemann showed it to me. While I’m not a scientist, I’m fairly certain that it will work!’

‘Provided you have the Vril force to power it.’ Cædmon nodded at the crystal matrix. ‘Which will be impossible to create without a functioning generator.’

‘The crystal matrix is just one way to generate the Vril force,’ Kate countered. ‘What if there are multiple ways to create it?’

Cædmon turned to the commando. ‘She has a valid point.’

‘Okay,’ McGuire said, persuaded. ‘I’ve got enough pipe bombs to destroy both the Vril Generator and this CTC device. Where’s the time machine located?’

‘Upstairs on the third floor. The laboratory is two doors down from the library.’

‘Gotcha.’

Kate’s brows suddenly knitted together. ‘But you’re not going to be able to get into the lab.’

‘Why not!?’ Both Cædmon and McGuire again exclaimed in unison.

‘The door to the laboratory is secured with a biometric device. It requires a fingerprint scan to unlock the door. And Doctor Uhlemann is no longer –’

‘Which finger?’ the commando interjected.

‘Right index.’

‘Then I’d better retrieve my KA-BAR knife.’ Without a backward glance, McGuire charged over to the door that led to the maintenance engineering room, propping it open with a chair.

Belatedly realizing what the commando intended to do, Kate’s eyes opened wide, a horrified expression on her face. ‘Oh, my God! We can’t let him –’

‘I can assure you that Doctor Uhlemann won’t feel a thing.’ Moreover, the bastard has it coming.

A few moments later, McGuire returned to the viewing chamber, his Go Bag slung over his shoulder and a business-like knife gripped in his right hand. ‘This is the plan: I’ll toss three bombs through the partition then run upstairs to the third floor. I’ll wait to enter the lab until the two of you are clear and free of the mezzanine.’

Kate placed a hand on McGuire’s chest. ‘Finn, please be –’

‘Don’t worry, Katie. I’ll be just fine,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I’m doing what I was put on this earth to do. Improvise, utilize, then haul ass.’ His lips curved in a cocky grin. ‘It’s what I do best.’

‘Second best,’ Kate whispered. Going up on her tiptoes, she lovingly kissed him full on the lips.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, McGuire pulled her close. Suddenly feeling like an unwanted intruder, Cædmon discreetly turned his head.

‘Aisquith’s a stand-up guy. He’ll get you out of here,’ McGuire said a few moments later.

Her grey-blue eyes glistening with unshed tears, Kate rushed out of the viewing chamber. Just as Cædmon was about to follow her, McGuire grabbed hold of his left arm, preventing him from leaving.

‘You get her out of here safely or you die trying.’

Cædmon put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘You have my word.’

‘If I don’t make it out alive, I want you to take care of Kate,’ McGuire told him in a gruff, emotion-laden voice. ‘And if you don’t, I will seriously haunt your ass.’

‘Consider it done.’

McGuire smiled, visibly relieved. ‘Good. Now get the hell out of here. I got work to do.’

87

Cædmon yanked open the door at the top of the steps, motioning for Kate to precede him.

‘Ladies first,’ he said, his lips twisted in a semblance of a smile.

Kate wasn’t fooled for a minute – he was in a tremendous amount of pain. The bandage on his head was completely saturated with blood and his right jacket sleeve had a large bloody splotch. She had no idea how Cædmon had come by his wounds, but it was obvious that he needed immediate medical attention.

Free and clear of the stairwell, the two of them sprinted across the low-lit mezzanine. Two shadows charging through the penumbra.

Heart pounding, Kate pushed herself to keep up with Cædmon’s long-legged stride. Although the temperature inside the atrium was downright frigid, she was heated from the exertion. Stress, combined with lack of food and sleep, was sapping what little energy she had left. To prevent herself from stumbling, she focused on keeping her arms and legs coordinated.

Worried that Finn might run into trouble, she spared a quick glance over her shoulder. She hoped to God that Dr Uhlemann’s associates didn’t send armed reinforcements to ambush him. She didn’t know a lot about pipe bombs other than the fact that they were incredibly volatile and dangerous to handle. If he got caught in a firefight, it might trigger an unintended explosion.

As if to prove that very point, a loud blast suddenly thundered in the level below them, Kate feeling the reverberations in her spinal column. A few seconds later, a second bomb detonated. And then a third.

‘Excellent!’ Cædmon exclaimed. ‘McGuire has ignited the first three bombs.’

A few moments later, they arrived at the exit door, both of them slightly out of breath.

‘Bloody hell! Who puts a security lock on both sides of the door?’ Cædmon gestured to the numeric pad affixed to the right side of the door jamb. ‘Luckily, I have the access code.’

He keyed in a six-digit number.

‘Damn … I must have mis-keyed.’ He tried again, slower this time.

When nothing happened, Kate asked the obvious question. ‘Why isn’t the door unlocking?’

‘I have no idea. Not to fear.’ Cædmon absently patted her arm. ‘I have two other codes. I’m sure one of them will work.’

Despite his assurance, she literally crossed her fingers as she watched him carefully key in a second numeric code.

Six attempts later, Cædmon turned to her and delivered the bad news. ‘It would appear that we’re locked in.’

Kate gasped. Swayed. Saw spots in front of her eyes.

They were trapped inside the facility!

88

Like he was a launched ballistic missile, Finn charged out of the third-floor stairwell, hung a Louie, and ran towards the library.

‘The laboratory is two doors down from the library.’

‘Two Doors Down’ – one of his favourite Dolly Parton songs.

Finn smiled, everything going according to plan. Soon it would all be over. And when he’d completed the mission, he planned on sweeping little Katie right off her feet.

His smile widened. He wasn’t supposed to let his emotions flare during a mission. But what the hell? This was his last op. Once he cleared himself of the murder charges, he was going to put in for a transfer to Fort Bragg. Get himself a cushy position as a Delta Force training instructor. And while he didn’t want to get ahead of himself, he was feeling pretty confident that Kate would sign up for the move.

Arriving at the second door, Finn peered at the mezzanine below – Aisquith and Kate were already at the exit, about to make good their escape. Perfect.

Ripping open the flap on his cargo pants, he removed Uhlemann’s severed index finger, using the hem of his T-shirt to wipe off the excess blood. That done, he placed the fleshy tip on to the biometric reader.

A white light flared. An instant later, the bolt on the door popped open.

‘In like Finn,’ he chortled, riding a little happy high. He flung the butchered finger aside and opened the door. ‘I love it when the op goes without a hitch.’

Stepping across the threshold, he hit the light switch. A row of fluorescent bulbs washed the laboratory in antiseptic bright light.

‘There it is, the Flux Capacitor.’ But unlike the DeLorean time machine from the Back to the Future movie, this was the real deal. Not some contrived Hollywood invention.

He strode over to the glass enclosure. The remaining pipe bombs will definitely do the trick.

In a big-ass hurry, Finn went down on bent knee in front of the enclosure. He then carefully removed the last three bombs from his Go Bag and lined them up directly in front of the heavy-duty glass. Retrieving the cigarette lighter from his breast pocket, he quickly lit all three fuses.

Okay, boys and girls. ‘It’s home from work we go.’

Lurching to his feet, he rushed over to the door … Only to draw up short an instant later.

Seeing the metal security panel attached to the side of the doorframe, Finn’s heart skidded. Full stop. Little Katie forgot to mention that there was a biometric security lock on both sides of the laboratory door, Uhlemann’s severed finger now on the other side of the locked door.

Ah, shit.

89

Refusing to surrender, Cædmon glared at the numeric keypad, the locked door an unforeseen wrinkle in the plan.

‘If we can’t exit the facility, Finn won’t be able to get out either,’ Kate anxiously informed him. Visibly shaking, her concern had already leapfrogged from moderate to acute.

‘Not to worry. I’ll call for help.’ Cædmon removed his cell phone from his jacket pocket and flipped it open, relieved that Uhlemann’s bald-headed minion had lacked the foresight to confiscate it.

Damn!

Bewildered, he showed Kate the dark screen. ‘It’s completely dead. I don’t understand … the battery was fully charged.’

‘I’m guessing the Vril force emitted an electromagnetic pulse that somehow disabled it.’

He shoved the phone back in his pocket. ‘Do you recall seeing a fire alarm anywhere in the research facility? If so, I could trigger it, alerting the guards in the lobby.’

Kate’s brow furrowed. ‘No, I …’ She shook her head dejectedly. ‘I’m sorry, Cædmon, but I can’t –’

‘It’s not your fault.’ He hesitated, worried that if he shouted for help, an armed interloper might answer the summons.

Bugger it.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, Cædmon stepped away from the door and bellowed, ‘McGuire! Where are you? We need your assistance!’

Ears still ringing from the first three bomb blasts, he cocked his head to one side and listened attentively.

Not so much as a pin. Damn.

He walked back to the exit door. ‘Doctor Uhlemann’s postmortem revenge, I daresay. Not only are we in the stocks, but we’re unable to communicate with the outside world. Only one thing left to do.’ Although his right arm ached and his head throbbed ferociously, Cædmon forcefully beat on the steel door with his balled fist in the hope that someone might be on the other side.

The painful shock waves that pounded his body in the aftermath were for naught. No one replied.

‘Wait!’ Wide-eyed, Kate clutched his forearm. ‘Didn’t Dolf key in a security code to gain entry to the viewing chamber?’

Cædmon replayed the scene in his mind’s eye. ‘He did, but I didn’t take note of the code.’

‘Um … let me think a minute …’ Closing her eyes, Kate raised her right hand. She then took several deep breaths before her fingers moved across an imaginary keypad. An instant later, her eyes popped open. ‘Three, eight, two, five, six, three. Try it.’

He hurriedly keyed in the code.

Hearing the lock click open, Cædmon sagged against the door jamb. Although he wasn’t a church-going man, he offered up a grateful prayer.

‘What a relief,’ Kate murmured. ‘We need to wait here until –’

Just then, a blast detonated on the upper level of the atrium. The force of the explosion blew out an entire bank of frosted glass, strafing the mezzanine with thousands of white shards. A deadly snowfall. A second later, the next blast detonated, hurling a section of railing through the air.

‘Finn! Where are you?!’ Kate screamed over the third and final bomb blast.

90

Washington, DC

Two weeks later

The waiter placed an iced coffee in front of Kate. She promptly reached for the ceramic sugar bowl. He then set a glass of tonic water, sans the gin, in front of Cædmon, prompting him to grit his teeth. Mindful that gin had rendered him an unfeeling brute, he was now determined to retain what few shreds of humanity he still had left. The going wasn’t easy. Case in point.

Res ipsa loquitur. The damned thing speaks for itself, in a blaringly loud voice.

‘I’m glad that, in the end, you and Finn managed to overcome your differences,’ Kate remarked as she stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her glass, ice cubes tinkling merrily.

Assuming a solemn air, Cædmon placed his right hand over his heart. ‘As the Buddha so wisely extolled: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ’

Her brow puckered. ‘Did you have to mention the Buddha?’

Reaching across the table, Cædmon gently patted her hand. ‘Give it time, Kate. Yours is a forgiving religion.’

‘Other than the fact that everyone is speaking English, it almost feels like we’re sitting at an outdoor Paris café,’ she effused, effectively changing the subject.

Cædmon glanced at the Georgetown cityscape, the quaint eighteenth-century brick architecture more reminiscent of London than Beaux Arts Paris. Kate, no doubt, referred to the weather; a typical August evening, it was hot, humid and oppressively muggy, the air so thick it was palpable. A week ago when they had left Paris, the city had been in the midst of a fiendish heat wave.

‘I can’t thank you enough, Cædmon, for helping me get everything settled. I had no idea that there would be so much paperwork to fill out, what with the insurance forms for what used to be my house, police reports and a slew of security statements.’ Shaking her head, Kate amiably chuckled. ‘I’m thinking of changing my middle name to “Affidavit”.’

‘I was happy to assist.’

‘All the same, treating you to a glass of tonic water seems small recompense.’

‘More than I deserve.’

Particularly since he’d damned near got her killed at the Seven Research Facility. No surprise that after the bomb blasts they’d immediately been apprehended, the explosions bringing the official sector out in force. Debriefed ad nauseam, they’d finally been exonerated of any wrongdoing, with security agencies on both sides of the Channel relieved that Dr Uhlemann’s ‘Great Experiment’ had been disrupted. Although those same security agencies were none too pleased that the CTC device had been destroyed, quick to recognize that it was the sort of game-changing technology that could easily alter the balance of power.

Thank God it had been destroyed. Cædmon didn’t trust his own government with that kind of technology, let alone a foreign rival.

In exchange for the blanket annulment, they were forced to sign a confidentiality agreement, a draconian contract which secured their vow to never mention, write about, whisper, or mutter in their sleep anything to do with the Seven Research Foundation, the Vril force, or what took place in that underground bunker beneath the Grande Arche.

As fate would cruelly have it, the Grail had been obliterated in the pipe bomb explosion. For the best, Cædmon grudgingly conceded, the reality far more dangerous and deadly than the innocent prize that Parzival sought. The mass of men could not comprehend the breadth of the Grail’s power, while the few who did were hell-bent on using it to advance their own twisted ambitions.

Because of that, the Grail would forever remain that most elusive of relics.

‘So, what’s next on your agenda?’

‘Er, if you must know, I intend to further investigate the Cathar sanctuary at Mont de la Lune,’ he confessed diffidently, worried that Kate might think him bonkers. Or that he was biting off more than he could reasonably chew. ‘There’s a mystery there that I’m keen to solve. Perhaps I can shed some light on what has always been a dark page in medieval history.’ The confidentiality agreement didn’t cover the time that he spent in the Languedoc. Since the ‘powers that be’ had failed to enquire, he had accordingly failed to volunteer the details of his trip. How fortuitous.

‘I can’t wait to read the book.’ Kate moved her right hand theatrically through the air, disclosing an imaginary book title. ‘You can call it Isis Revealed.’

‘Such high expectations. I might crumble under the strain.’

‘You’re a stronger man than that.’

‘We shall see,’ he quietly replied, still navigating the shoals.

Just then a bloke blithely strolled past their table in a pair of rudely tight trousers. Emblazoned on the front of his T-shirt was a single word, boldly printed all in capital letters: HUNG.

‘Talk about being boastful.’

Raising his glass of tonic water, Cædmon chortled good-naturedly. ‘At least give the fellow credit for using the correct verb tense.’

‘While I love Washington, there are some things that I’m not going to miss.’ Kate rolled her eyes at the retreating braggart. ‘That was one of them.’

‘Just letting his freak flag fly, as your commando is wont to say. Ah! Unless I’m mistaken, this is him now come late to the party.’ Cædmon nodded at the yellow cab that had pulled up to the nearby kerb.

The back door opened and Finnegan McGuire got out of the taxi. Mercifully, he’d survived the explosion at the research facility, managing to take cover behind a brawny 3000-pound mainframe computer before the pipe bombs detonated. While he’d been bashed up quite a bit, suffering several cracked ribs, deep lacerations and a nasty concussion, he’d lived to tell the tale. He’d also had the foresight to record enough of the tale on to a digital voice recorder. Though it’d taken nearly a week for CID, the French National Police and INTERPOL agents to verify the evidence, he was eventually cleared of the murder charges.

‘Ask the driver to wait please!’ Cædmon called out. Bending over, he retrieved his piece of carry-on luggage, slipping the leather strap on to his shoulder.

‘I wish you’d booked a later flight. There’s still time to call and cancel,’ Kate added, smiling winsomely.

‘Needs must.’ He wasn’t about to admit that he felt like a third wheel. Overcome with an unexpected burst of nostalgia, he grabbed her by the shoulders, warmly kissing her on each cheek. ‘Goodbye, Kate. You’re in good hands now.’

Farewells always awkward, he left it at that. Hitching the luggage strap a bit higher on his shoulder, he walked towards the waiting taxi, meeting the commando midway.

‘Come on, buddy. Why don’t you stay another day?’ McGuire entreated, placing a congenial hand on his shoulder. ‘There’s a great pizza joint –’

‘Thank you, but I really must catch my flight.’ Then, with a self-deprecating snort, he said, ‘My Grail quest has finally come to an end.’

‘If it’s any consolation, Cædmon, you made a believer out of me.’

‘High praise, indeed, coming from such a diehard sceptic. Good luck, Finn.’ Cædmon extended his right hand in a heartfelt show of friendship. ‘And pity the poor lads who have you as a drill instructor.’

‘Yeah, I’m looking forward to becoming the most hated man at Fort Bragg,’ the commando retorted with his trademark smirk.

‘But loved by the one person who matters.’ Cædmon glanced pointedly at Kate, who stood waiting by the bistro table. Two weeks ago, he had mistakenly thought them strange bedfellows. He knew better now.

Ducking his head, Cædmon slid into the back seat of the taxi. ‘Ronald Reagan National Airport, please.’

As the cab pulled away from the kerb, he peered out of the window, casting his gaze towards the western horizon. The sun’s fiery last light had softened into a burgundy blush, making for a breathtakingly beautiful sight. He stared, awestruck.

‘’Tis not too late to seek a new world.’

Smiling at the thought, he folded his arms across his chest.

Eat. Sleep. Live to fight another day. But it was the moments that took one’s breath away that made it all worth while.

And the fact that it did, gave him hope.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jeanne Chitty and Peter Scheer for assisting with the book illustrations.

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First published 2011

Copyright © C. M. Palov, 2011

Photography by © Richard Peach / Alamy

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The moral right of the author has been asserted

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-0-14-196066-1