The Lance (The PROJECT: Book Two) (16 page)

CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE

"You might have a concussion." Nick held up three fingers. "How many?"

"Three."

"Good answer." Nick peered into his eyes. Both pupils were the same size.

"I think you're good. But pay attention, will you?"

"I'm fine Nick. It's just a bump on the head."

Selena had changed into sweats and jacket and was sitting near the stern, watching the wake trail out behind.

Lamont
walked to the stern and sat down next to her. He looked out over the water, then down at the deck.

"When I was a kid, I almost drowned."

Selena waited.

"It was a hot summer day. I
was eight years old. My mom took me to the city park, to the pool. It was mobbed. Everyone was running around, rough housing, splashing each other. You know how kids are."

"Sure."

"There was this long line for the diving board. The water was twelve feet at the deep end and kids were piling off the board, one right after another. I got on the board, ran to the end and jumped. A big kid jumped in right behind and kicked me in the head. It knocked me out and I went right to the bottom. When I came to I was breathing water. Then everything got kind of peaceful and I started drifting down there, on the bottom of the pool."

Lamont looked out over the South Atlantic.

"I remember the paint on the bottom was blue and it was all chipped and cracked and there was this Baby Ruth candy wrapper stuck on the drain. It felt easy. I wasn't struggling or choking, just drifting in the water. Then someone grabbed me and pulled me out and dumped me on the cement by the pool. I never saw who it was, only a pair of feet walking away. Then my mom was yelling and pounding me on the back and I coughed up water and got sick."

Lamont paused.

"That pipe hitting me down there, it was like when that kid kicked me. I gotta tell you the truth, I wasn't sure about this when we went over the side, about having you down there. You know, Seals—we have our own way of doing things." He looked embarrassed. "Thanks for getting me out."

"
You'd have done the same."

"
Yeah, but thanks anyway."

In the
wheelhouse, Ronnie turned the pouch Lamont had found over in his hands. 

"Let's wait until we're back on shore to open it." Nick made a course adjustment.

Ronnie set the pouch down. "Boats heading toward us." He pointed out over the water. The line of cliffs and beaches along the coast was still three or four miles away. Dark, low shapes were coming hard over the waves, throwing water behind them in a wide wake.

Carter
scanned them through his binoculars.

"
Three speed boats. Big engines. They're in some kind of hurry. Two men in each."

The boats were
headed straight for them.

"
You call for pizza, Ronnie?"

"
Don't think so."

"
Break out the weapons." Nick lowered the binoculars.

Selena had come back to the wheelhouse. "
How would anyone know what we were doing?" she asked.

"
We seem to be asking that question a lot these days. I don't know. But whoever they are, they're coming this way. They're not here for the fishing."

Ronnie
lifted MP-5s out of the weapons case. Lamont took one and inserted a 30 round magazine. He tapped the magazine with his hand to make sure it was seated. He racked the bolt and grabbed an ammo belt with five extra magazines.

"Reminds me of
the old days," he said. "I carried one of these for years."

Nick
moved the throttle forward and turned west. The speedboats altered course.

"
No doubt about it. They want to intercept us. They're a lot faster, they'll get here in a few minutes. Ronnie, you and Lamont cover the stern."

Ronnie
pulled an Airtronics RPG-7 launcher out of the case. It looked like a ray gun from a pulp science fiction novel. It had an elongated trumpet on one end, a large bulbous section in the middle and a black pistol grip and trigger in the front. He opened a knapsack with five rockets sticking out of it.

"Latest stuff," he said. "Your basic Russian design but made in America with improvements. We're r
eady to rock and roll. The guys in those boats are in for a little surprise."

"
Selena," Nick said. "You position yourself here in the wheelhouse. Don't get behind that launcher. I may have to do some fancy turns and I need you to watch my back. We'll play it by ear until we know for sure they're hostile."

She nodded
and loaded her weapon. Cocked and locked and ready to go. She put on her sunglasses and stood calmly in the wind and sun looking out at the approaching boats, legs slightly apart and holding the MP-5 across her chest.

Nick watched her. The sun gleamed off her weapon and framed her hair in a halo of light. She looked like an avenging Amazon from a new, modern myth of war. He felt something clench in his gut. He put it out of his mind.

For the next few minutes nothing happened. The three boats fanned out in a widening arc, angling to come at them from the stern and sides. Nick looked through the binoculars again.

"
Armed. Looks like AKs. I guess they're not friendly."

The sides of the boat offered some protection where they rose above the deck. It wasn't much.
Ronnie and Lamont crouched behind a large metal fish locker near the stern. The lead boat closed and the passenger lifted his assault rifle and fired. Splinters flew from the fantail.

Ronnie and Lam
ont opened up. Two of the boats thundered by on each side of the wheelhouse. The roar of their engines blotted out the sound of AK's firing from the cockpits. Nick and Selena ducked.

T
he wooden frames of the wheelhouse turned to splinters. The windows shattered into a thousand bits of glass.

Selena stood
up when the boats had passed and fired after them. Nick gripped the wheel and pushed the throttles to the firewall. Two of the attackers veered off into another turn. The third boat crossed in front and raked the wheelhouse. What little glass that was left disappeared.

Selena waited until it was past, then emptied her magazine. The bullets made a trail of spouts up to the stern of the speeding boat
and into the rear. The gas tank exploded. The boat skewed left and stopped. Black smoke roiled skyward as the burning craft sank by the stern. The two men in the boat were screaming, engulfed in flame.

Nick
tried to ram one of the pursuers. The boat roared past. Aft, Lamont let off short, steady bursts. Ronnie picked up the launcher.

The two remaining speedboats came
in for another run. Bits of wood flew all around. Bullets smacked into the metal locker and whined away. Ronnie knelt with the launcher and fired.

T
he rocket shot from the tube in a trailing curl of white smoke. It passed over the lead boat and was swallowed in the water beyond.

"
Damn," Ronnie said. He loaded another. Selena slammed in another magazine. Lamont was firing. Nick spun the wheel to port and the boat heeled over. Ronnie lost his balance and slid across the deck. He recovered, stood up and zeroed in on one of the boats. This time the rocket went straight in. The boat disintegrated in a billowing black and orange fireball.

The third boat turned
and raced for shore.

Ronnie
took careful aim and fired another rocket. It streaked toward the last attacker and blew the craft out of the water. A body flew into the air and splashed into the waves. What was left of the boat sank in seconds. As they passed over the spot there was nothing to see but fragments of fiberglass and a slick of burning oil floating on the surface.

Carter
throttled down and headed for Mar del Plata. He kept one hand on the helm and looked around. Everything seemed lit with bright light.

The railings
of the boat were splintered and broken. The metal fish locker was holed and pocked from multiple hits. The deck was torn up in gouges where rounds had struck or ricocheted. All the glass was shot away from the wheelhouse and it was in bad shape. Only the corner posts still held the roof on.

No one was wounded. That qualified as a minor miracle.

"I don't think the guy that owns this boat is going to be happy," Lamont said. "What do we tell him?"

"
Pirates. We tell him pirates." Selena brushed hair away from her forehead. She looked angry.

"
Pirates off Argentina?"

"
Why not? They seem to be everywhere else. Why not here?"

"
We'll compensate him," Nick said. "We'll buy him a new boat. I've got ten grand right here." He patted a money belt strapped around his waist. "Hell, its government money."

"
We were lucky." Lamont cleared his MP-5 and placed it back in the case.

"
Yeah, Lamont, it's been your lucky day."

They entered the harbor by the southern breakwater, past a tall statue of Christ waiting with open arms to welcome sailors home. It was a comforting sight. They
headed for the dock.

***

A non-descript man in a tan straw hat stood fishing on the end of the pier. He watched the battered red and white boat ease into the dock and a black man jump off and tie her down against the fenders hanging alongside. The fisherman noted the destroyed wheelhouse and bullet-scarred sides. He watched the four people on board begin unloading their gear. The owner of the boat appeared and started shouting and waving his hands in the air.

The fisherman picked up his rod and sauntered past the curious onlookers beginning to gather.
When he reached the street he stopped and turned back to look at the scene, then took out a phone and placed a call to Washington.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The boat owner
was hysterical.

"Selena, talk to him," Nick said. A crowd was forming. It didn't look friendly. There was a lot of muttering.

She began speaking to him.

"Sir, calm down. It's not our fault.
Pirates came after us. They must have thought they could take your boat from us. We had to fight them off. But we will pay to fix her. Please, be calm. We'll pay. There's no need to be upset."

Nick
took cash from his money belt and held it in front of the man. His eyes bugged as he saw the wad of hundred dollar bills. Maybe more American dollars than his boat was worth.

Lamont and Ronnie watched the crowd. It was a lot of money, out in the open. A siren announced the approach of the
local
policia
.

"Give him five thousand dollars," Selena said. "He may want more. I'm going to call for help." She took out her cell phone and punched in the number for the Argentine Major.

An hour later and eight thousand dollars lighter, plus five hundred for the Chief of Police and five hundred more for the Major, they were allowed to leave the pier. Maybe it was because of Selena's fluent Spanish, or maybe the fact that the Major couldn't stop ogling her breasts.

Breasts or not, he made it clear they
had overstayed their welcome.

Back in the house the team was ready to move out. They sat around the table with cups of strong Argentine coffee, looking at the pouch Lamont had salvaged from the U-Boat. Carter unsealed
the oilskin packet, expecting seawater to pour out. Inside was a slim, brown book. The pouch had held up. The book was dry. He opened the hard bound cover. A name was written across the flyleaf in black ink.

Oberg
ruppenfuhrer Dieter Reinhardt.

Nick
turned the page. The writing was in German.

"
It's a journal." Selena pointed at the first entry. It was dated in the European style, 30-4-41. April 30, 1941.

"
Can you read it?" Nick thought about how she'd looked standing on the deck of the boat just before they were attacked, the sun shining off her hair and the metal of her MP-5.

"
Yes." She scanned the entry. "It's the diary of an SS General."

"
What was an SS General doing on that sub?" Lamont sipped his coffee.

"
Probably escaping to Argentina," Carter said. "A lot of the SS made it out of Germany at the end and came down here. What does the first entry say, Selena?"

"
It's a description of his initiation into a secret SS order headed by Heinrich Himmler."

"
The chief of the SS?"

"
Yes. Listen to this. This is in the spring of 1941. Walpurgis Night, May Eve."

"
The witches' night."

"
Yes."

30-4-41

Tonight I was initiated into the
Council, the greatest honor of my life. I knelt before the Reichsfuhrer in the holy circle. The Knights of the Grand Council looked on. Heydrich was there, and Eicke, Frank, Dietrich, Muller, Nebe, Lorenz.

The blood offering was exchanged. I swore my oath, kneeling before Grand Master
Himmler and my peers. While I knelt, Heydrich invoked the power of the Spear, chanting in the old language. Heydrich spoke the words, but it was the Reichsfuhrer himself who touched my shoulders with the most sacred talisman, the Holy Lance of Vienna, to seal the oath.

"The Vienna Lance? Wasn't that captured by Patton in 1945?"

"
Yes. It's back in Vienna now. I wonder why Himmler had it? Hitler grabbed it when he entered Austria. He took it to Nuremberg." Selena pointed at the page. "That list of names is a who's who of the SS. Eicke commanded Dachau. Heydrich was number two after Himmler. The Czechs called him the 'Butcher of Prague'."

"
What's this Council he's talking about?" Ronnie added sugar to his coffee.

"
Himmler created a Nazi round table modeled on the legends of King Arthur, called the Grand Council of Knights. There were twelve plus Himmler, all senior SS Generals. They met in Himmler's castle."

"
How do you know this stuff? Nazi Knights?" Nick tugged on his ear.

"Just something else I know."

He remembered his wise ass comment about her knowing everything.

Selena looked at him and took pity. She decided to explain.

"I was researching Indo-European languages. Studying the evolution of archaic languages into modern ones. Himmler and the Nazis used language as one of the tests in all that pseudo-scientific nonsense about the 'Master Race'. I came across a discussion of Himmler and his so-called Council. He advocated a return to the old German religion. He was supposed to have conducted secret ceremonies in archaic German, but nobody knows what those were."

She turned a page.

20-1-42

We met today in the Wannsee district to discuss the Jewish question. The conference was led by Heydrich. He was inspiring, pointing out that the conference would resolve fundamental questions of organization, transportation and coordination of efforts between all of us to achieve the final solution.

Our aim must be to cleanse the Fatherland and all the territories the German people will occupy in the future of the corrupting stain of the Jews.

It was decided to accelerate the transportation of the Jews to the East, where facilities for work and reeducation are available and they can receive special treatment.

"He's talking about the death camps!" Lamont set his cup down. "Special treatment was Nazi speak for the gas chambers."

"
There's a list of the people who were there," Selena said. "SS big shots and Nazi Party officials. He says the notes were taken by Adolph Eichmann."

"
Skip ahead, Selena. See if anything jumps out at you." She turned a page.

4-6-42

A great Knight has fallen! Heydrich was brutally attacked in Czechoslovakia. He struggled bravely with his wounds, but succumbed to poisoning of the blood. They will pay.

"
The guy who wrote this was a real piece of work." Ronnie gestured at the book. "Heydrich was a psychopath. The Nazis burned a whole town of people alive in retaliation for Heydrich's death."

4-2-43

Bad news from the Eastern Front. Stalingrad has fallen. Paulus and Schrenk, both surrendered. The Fuhrer refused to recall the armies, and now 600,000 men are gone. Many rings have been sent back from the front. The Russians
now have the advantage.

"Rings? What's he talking about?"

Selena said, "
SS officers wore silver skull rings. Himmler ordered the rings sent back to him when an officer was killed. After the war they found a box with thousands of them in his castle."

S
he turned another page.

21-6-43

Trudi and I were married today in the Chancellery. Reichsfuhrer Himmler presided over the ceremony. The Fuhrer himself was there, and Goering.

"He got married on the Summer Solstice," Ronnie said. "This guy seems to have a thing for dates of ancient celebrations."

"
That fits with the movement toward the old German gods and pagan religion among the Nazis," Selena said. "Reinhardt was probably a believer. The SS had their own pagan versions of Christian ceremonies like baptism and marriage."

17-4-44

I have a son! Trudi gave birth today. I
have named him Eric. Our pure Aryan heritage will carry on. We shall raise a warrior for the Cause.

I leave for an inspection tour of the camps tomorrow. I have completed my arrangements in Switzerland. If I should fall, Trudi and Eric will be well protected.

"
I wonder if they survived the war, his wife and boy." Selena said.

"
At least here's one good Nazi who didn't. Skip to the end, Selena. See if there's anything about the sub or Antarctica." Nick emptied his cup. She turned pages.

"Here's something."

8-12-44

I met with the Grand Master. He has tasked me with a sacred mission. The Holy Lance is in my care. I leave tonight for Antarctica.

She turned a page. "This is the last entry. Three days before the sub went down."

19-2-45

We arrived in New Schwabia today. At last. The trip from
Spain was difficult. We spent most of the time submerged. The new snorkel unit kept us out of sight of the enemy.

I took
the Lance to Station 211 and placed it in the vault, as instructed. When I left, I concealed the entrance. No one will find it.

Now we are underway for Argentina
. Parsifal has begun and we will continue. In time, victory will be ours.

The journal ended there.

"Well." Selena put the book down on the table. "Now we know what the submarine was doing in Antarctica. Hiding the Vienna Lance."

"
There wasn't much future for the Nazis in 1945," Ronnie said. "Why go all the way to Antarctica to hide a Christian relic? Who's Parsifal?"

Selena said,
"Parsifal was a knight who sought the Holy Grail. Wagner wrote a whole opera about it. Parsifal had to retrieve the Holy Spear from an evil magician named Klingsor. That must be what Dysart's email was about. The Spear. The Lance. That's the Antarctica reference, and Parsifal is some kind of code name for whatever is going on."

"
I don't get it." Lamont rubbed the bump on his head. "What's the big deal about this spear?"

Selena brushed her hair back.
"It's supposed to be the spear that pierced Christ's side on the cross. Sometimes it's called the Spear of Longinus, after the Roman legionnaire who wielded it. It's said to have mystical powers because it was bathed in the blood of Christ. There's a legend that whoever has it will rule the world. All the great conquerors of Europe carried it, starting with Charlemagne. The Holy Roman Emperors, Barbarossa, Frederick the Great. People like that. That's why Hitler wanted it."

"Napoleon?"

"No, it was hidden from him. Then it ended up with the Hapsburg Emperor."

"
But Patton's army found it, didn't they? So how could it be in Antarctica?" Lamont picked up his empty cup, set it down.

"
They found something that looked like the one Hitler stole in Vienna," Selena said, "but there have been tests on it since then. It's no older than the sixth or seventh century CE. It couldn't have been the actual spear at the crucifixion. It does have a first century piece of iron attached to it that's supposed to be a nail from the True Cross."

"
Then what's this one, the one he's talking about in the journal?" Lamont asked.

"According to that diary H
immler used the Lance for his Council of Knights," Carter said. "I don't think Hitler would have let him do that. Himmler could have made a copy to fool Hitler and taken the real one."

Selena picked up the diary, put it back in the pouch.
"There have been rumors for years saying the lance Patton found is a copy and that the Nazis hid the real one. Maybe it's true."

Ronnie peered into his cup.
"So when Himmler sees that time's up for the Third Reich, he sends one of his generals down to the South Pole to hide the lance in a secret base nobody knows about."

Selena stood up and went to the stove, poured herself some more coffee.
"The journal says they will continue. He's talking about his Nazi Council. Do you think they could still exist? Could they be behind the attack in Antarctica?" She set the pot back on the stove.

"
There are plenty of Nazi groups," Nick said. "None so organized they could intercept information sent to Berlin and mount an armed expedition within hours." 

"
None that we know about," said Lamont.

"
Someone knew the Vienna Lance was in that vault. They must not have known
where
it was until the research station notified Berlin. When they found out they went and got it. It's like they were waiting."

"
Waiting for almost seventy years? That's too weird."

He
stood up. "We need to get back and get this to Harker."

As they walked out to the van, Nick touched Selena on the arm. He had to say it.

"You were good out there today. I'm sorry for that crack I made about everything you know how to do. I don't know why I said that. If you hadn't been down there Lamont would have died."