The Excalibur Codex (18 page)

The last man had stood ready while the other swords were placed, his heavy blade held unwavering in front of his face. His was a sword of the most ancient lineage, a broad-bladed, battle-notched iron man-killer. Without a tremor, Reinhard Heydrich allowed the blade to slowly fall, until its tip touched the hilt of the first sword and made the final connection. ‘I lay before you Excalibur, the sword of Arthur, may his strength and the strength of all these great champions aid our cause and use their power to smite our enemies and the enemies of our beloved Führer.’ At the word Excalibur I heard someone gasp. Who had not heard the story of King Arthur and his knights? The others were kings and heroes; Arthur was a legend whose fame had spread beyond his native land and beyond
the boundaries of his time. If Arthur was with us we could not fail.

I was so mesmerized by this revelation that I hadn’t recognized the symbol created by the final sword. At first I struggled to hide my astonishment: a Star of David?

‘The five-pointed star of the pentagram is the most potent of all occult symbols,’ Sievers answered my unspoken question as he took his place beside von dem Bach-Zelewski at the eastern point of the star. He wore a black robe with a silver pentagram embroidered on the chest. In the centre of the pentagram was a swastika. ‘The connection of the five blades will channel the power of the men who wielded them, all that is required now is to propitiate the old Gods to ensure that power is ours to wield.’ He paused, allowing the significance of the statement to carry to each of the men at the table. ‘Bring forward the gifts.’

I heard the cry of a child and my blood turned to ice.

I dared not turn my head, but I witnessed them walk into the circle one by one. I have seen the face of war in all its terrible guises, but of them all, this was the most cold-blooded and the most ruthless. Small and naked, the babe was carried almost reverently in the arms of one of the men who had driven the truck and handed gently to Wolfram Sievers. He took the squirming bundle in one arm and withdrew something I could not see from the folds of his robe.
The twelve men around the table began to sing in a low monotone. Moving to the north side of the table, Sievers manoeuvred the child so that the head was above the blade of the first sword. It was crying loudly and I could see its angry, wrinkled pink face. In an instant, the cries were cut off as Sievers drew his right hand sharply across the exposed throat and a cascade of dark liquid spurted across the gleaming steel and the virgin white of the table’s cloth. Without a change of expression, he placed the still-twitching body in the centre of the star. ‘May the spirit of Charlemagne accept this gift.’ A second child was brought forward. I turned my eyes away and found myself staring into those of Walter Schellenberg. I have never seen such hatred before or since. It took a second before I realized his loathing wasn’t directed at me. He was looking at Reinhard Heydrich.

At the completion of the ceremony, with the five tiny bodies piled in the centre of the table, Sievers invited the sword bearers to pick up their bloodstained weapons. I saw Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski’s hand shake as he reached for the hilt of Joyeuse and heard his cry of astonishment as he discovered Charlemagne’s sword was as fixed to the table as if it were welded there. Dietrich, Daluege and Hildebrandt followed suit, and found the same. Heydrich reached towards Excalibur, hesitated, then withdrew his hand.

‘The future of the Third Reich lies in your hands.’
Sievers’ voice held a promise and a threat. ‘As long as you, the paramount knights of the Schutzstaffel keep your honour and your faith, the spell will remain in place and the power of the swords and the men who wielded them will carry the armies of Adolf Hitler to victory. Draw strength from what you have seen and done here. Use that strength to advance the cause of National Socialism and in the execution of the difficult and glorious task that lies ahead. Weaken, and that power will turn against you.’

In the morning I wondered if I had dreamed it all, but as we were leaving the castle Dietrich turned to me. His tone was almost kindly. ‘I am sorry you had to see what you did, Lauterbacher. You must forget everything and get on with your life.’ My eyes were drawn to a column of smoke in the woods behind the castle. He shrugged. ‘They were idiot mischlings who did not exist in the eyes of the law. You could say that at least they died for a purpose.’

His eyes told me he didn’t believe that, and he knew I didn’t either.

Two days later I was transferred to an assault group of the 1st SS infantry battalion and within a week I was fighting in the front line of the invasion of Greece.

There was more on Lauterbacher’s war career, which ended on the Seelow Heights and included some questionable and self-serving justification of certain postings
to the East. His capture and recruitment by the Allies to infiltrate the ‘rat lines’ that allowed the top Nazis like Mengele and Eichmann to escape to South America and the Middle East. The ‘suggestion’ from American intelligence that he volunteer to work with the Egyptians to create an ant-Israeli guerrilla force. His return to a divided Germany where the reward was protection and a job with the Gehlen Organization, which had turned out to be a smokescreen for fleecing his American employers.

And then the tiny imperfection Jamie had noticed earlier and was puzzling unless you were familiar with the signs.

Once again, Jamie Saintclair could barely believe what he was seeing.

‘Are you winding me up?’ Gault’s voice was heavy with derision as he laid down the decoded text. Lack of sleep made Jamie feel slightly detached from proceedings and it seemed almost unreal that, in the street outside the hotel window, the bubbling song of a lone blackbird soared and dipped in celebration of the new day.

‘You think it’s unlikely?’

‘Pagan rituals? Human sacrifice? I think either it’s a fairytale or the person who wrote it was deranged. Even for the Nazis it’s unbelievable.’

‘Almost as unbelievable as building death factories to exterminate an entire race of people? Six million is the last count, as I recall. What are the lives of five children compared to the Final Solution?’

‘But there’s evidence for that—’

‘Wolfram Sievers existed,’ Jamie interrupted. ‘He was the general secretary of the
Ahnenerbe
, the SS research and ancestral heritage society that was a front
for Himmler’s obsession with the occult. Walter Darré was another of its leaders. The twelve men who took part in the ritual described here are all real and were key members of Himmler’s inner circle. Charlemagne’s sword Joyeuse is real. I could take you to see it in the Louvre, only it wouldn’t be the real thing. Because the real thing went missing during the German occupation of Paris.’

Charlotte looked up from her computer. Her reaction to the revelations in the coded journal had been one of such shocked outrage that in anyone else Jamie might have thought it almost theatrical, which surprised him, because she gave the impression of always being in control. ‘I’ve checked the reference to
Aktion T4.
It existed too. At the start of the war Hitler decided that anyone with a severe birth defect like Down’s syndrome or with serious mental problems was a burden on the state and didn’t deserve to live. They began the euthanasia programme in nineteen thirty-nine and the last killings took place a week after the war ended. It says here that at least two hundred thousand physically and mentally handicapped men, women and children were killed. Some of Germany’s most eminent doctors were involved. One of its most enthusiastic supporters was
SS-Obergruppenführer
Richard Hildebrandt, who was later convicted of kidnapping or forcibly removing the children of Eastern workers. If anyone could
fulfil
Reinhard Heydrich’s
requirements
it was Hildebrandt. God, I feel sick. They used five babies like sacrificial
lambs to carry out some deranged Nazi’s sick fucking fantasy?’

‘They’re dead,’ Gault said brutally. ‘And every man in that room is dead with them. Some of them were shot and some of them finished up at the end of a rope. Maybe you think the others should have suffered more. I doubt Heydrich would have agreed as he was lying there with a handful of grenade fragments covered in the contents of a Prague sewer in his belly. All that matters to us is finding that sword.’

‘So now you believe?’ Jamie demanded.

‘You said it yourself. The elements existed and they were all in place. Only it didn’t work, because in the long term the Red Army kicked their Nazi arses, Hitler put a bullet in his own brain and Heinrich Himmler ate a cyanide pill for breakfast. The question is, where does it take us?’

Jamie looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock and he experienced a curious mix of exhaustion and elation. His damaged rib throbbed and his brain whirled with new theories and possibilities, but for the moment he’d had enough of codes and Nazi atrocities. He needed something to clear his mind. ‘It takes me to breakfast, then the Prado. Too late to sleep and I need a bit of time to think about all this. I usually find the best place for thinking is in an art gallery. There’s a certain peace that soothes the mind, don’t you think?’ He ignored Gault’s look of disbelief. ‘Anyone fancy coming along?’

Charlotte smiled and headed for the door. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

‘Mr Steele isn’t going to like you swanning around Madrid like a tourist,’ the former soldier grumbled at Jamie.

‘Think of it as taking back a bit of overtime, old chum. And don’t worry, there are a few things stirring in the old noggin. If I come up with anything concrete I’ll give Adam a call and let him know.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the other man said hastily. ‘I know for a fact he’s in meetings all morning. He asked for an update in the early afternoon. Be back by one and we can have a chance to talk it over, yes?’

Jamie stifled a yawn. ‘Why not?’

The young man hitched the rucksack on his back and studied himself in the mirror. Short hair, mirror sunglasses partially disguising his identity, Levi’s jeans and a T-shirt advertising some heavy metal rock band. Just another student backpacker of indeterminate origin, looking for somewhere to stay in one of the many rooming houses and hostels that made Madrid a magnet for such people. The bomb was quite a small one, but he had been assured the type of explosives would do the greatest amount of damage in the confined space where it would detonate. One would have thought security would be much tighter given the events of four years earlier, but he had made three practice runs – assuming a different identity each time – and it appeared to have
made no difference. The many signs urged people to report any baggage left unattended, but in such places human nature seemed to dictate that everyone must pay no mind to each other’s business. He’d been able to leave the rucksack alone for fifteen minutes at a time without anyone even giving it a glance. Well, they would pay for their complacency. Perhaps he was doing them a favour.

The hotel on the Calle Velàzquez was only a short walk from the Metro station at Principe. The train took a few minutes to arrive, but when it did Jamie and Charlotte found a pair of seats together in one of the centre carriages. He could tell something was bothering her and he thought he knew what it was.

‘Look.’ He did his best to keep his voice neutral. ‘Last night was a bit awkward, but we shouldn’t let it get in the way of what we’re doing. Just give me a bit of time.’

It was all of ten seconds before the light of understanding flickered in the blue eyes. ‘It’s not that at all,’ she snorted. ‘I was a little bored and a little attracted and I flirted with you, so what? If it makes you feel better, it didn’t mean anything.’

Belatedly, he realized he’d completely misread her and prayed silently for the world to swallow him up. ‘You seemed, er … preoccupied.’

‘Oh, I was just thinking about Gault.’ Her face twisted into a grimace. ‘Sometimes he really creeps me out. Have you noticed the way he looks at me, as if I’m just a piece of meat? And you never know how he’s going to
react. One minute he doesn’t think the sword exists, the next he’s more eager to find it than any of us.’

Jamie thought Gault could be boorish and introverted, but apart from a few mildly close-to-the-bone jokes that were hardly surprising from a former soldier, he’d never noticed anything wrong in his attitude to Charlotte. But then maybe you have to see it from a woman’s point of view. ‘I can have a word with him if you like,’ he suggested.

‘That’s all right,’ she laughed. ‘I can look after myself, but you did ask …’ She frowned. ‘It’s just that he’s so bloody calculating, and cold. He didn’t turn a hair when he read about the murdered babies. I wanted to be sick. It’s difficult to believe that any human being could be part of such a thing.’

Jamie kept his voice down. They were talking in English, but that didn’t mean the people around them on the packed carriage couldn’t understand what they were saying. ‘You’re wrong, Charlotte. When I started researching these things I rather naively believed only a few people were involved in the very worst of it, concentration camp guards and that sort of thing. But the deeper I dug, the more it became clear that every time you turned over a stone in World War Two you’d find another atrocity, maybe involving only a few people, but still sickening in its own right. You don’t kill millions upon millions of people, Jews, Slavs, Poles and Russians, without getting your hands dirty, and Germany got its hands dirty.’

Charlotte chewed her lip with perfect white teeth. ‘Yes, I can see that. What I don’t understand is how those men – Himmler’s Black Knights – could be taken in by all the mumbo-jumbo of the ritual. It was the twentieth century, for God’s sake. One or two, yes, but not twelve. They were monsters, but they must have been intelligent monsters to reach the positions they held. Any fool can see that you won’t change the world by sticking five pieces of metal together, no matter what those pieces of metal are, who held them or what they represent.’

‘The answer is simple enough.’ Jamie pushed his rucksack between his feet to allow an elderly woman to reach the exit. ‘Heinrich Himmler believed, and every man who sat at the round table that day owed his status and his power to Himmler. Think of the SS as a kind of Freemasonry. There are thousands of Masonic meetings in Britain every week, attended by hundreds of thousands of ordinary men. All of them have undergone certain initiation rituals to gain membership or to advance in the organization. How many of them truly believe in those rituals? Probably very few. They are there for the influence and the power the membership of a select, secretive organization gives them. Of the men who attended the Excalibur ritual, Sievers and probably Darré were believers, Heydrich was doing his master’s bidding, two or three were there because they feared the consequences of non-attendance, and the rest, like Josef Dietrich, were pragmatists who knew their place at the
Nazi top table depended on Himmler. They did what had to be done, just as they did what they were ordered to do later in the war, no matter how sickening it was. I doubt if more than three or four would have known about the children in advance.’