The Lance (The PROJECT: Book Two) (17 page)

"Is that an apology?"

"Maybe you're right about talking with someone."

"Maybe we both should. You're not the only one on the edge."

Two hours later they were in the air.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

It
was a pleasant evening. The windows of the safe house were cracked open. A cool night breeze brought the pungent scent of burning leaves from somewhere. Nick tried to relax on the couch. A ceiling fan turned above. Selena sat across from him in a wingback chair.

"We have a lot to talk about," Harker said. "
Stephanie broke the encryption on Arslanian's drive."

"I figured out most of it," Stephanie said. "
Arslanian was researching the Holocaust. He visited Germany two weeks before he was killed and found documents written by Himmler. They were stashed away in one of the old Stasi archives in what used to be East Germany. He scanned them and that's what's on his drive."

"Stasi?" Lamont said.

"The East German Secret Police," Harker tapped her pen. "Kind of like the Nazi Gestapo."

Stephanie said, "
Himmler knew Germany would lose the war. Sometime in 1943 he prepared a plan for afterwards. He wanted to establish the Fourth Reich right here in the US. The plan is code named 'Parsifal'. It details money transfers, land purchases, deep cover agents in the US and South America and political action plans for subverting our electoral process and taking over the government."

"
What's the part you haven't figured out?" asked Lamont.

"It's a separate piece in itself, written
in runes. It's several pages."

"
Runes?" Selena came alive. "Nordic runes, the old Norse language?"

Stephanie nodded. 

"Can you bring them up on screen?" Selena asked.

"
Sure." Stephanie tapped on her keyboard. "Here's the first page."

Selena got up and went over to
the monitor.

"
This is Elder Futhark," Selena said.

"
Excuse me?"

"
Elder Futhark. That's what you call this variant. Although it might be using the Nazi variation. They made up their own meanings for some of the symbols, like the SS lightning bolts. That's a double Sig rune. The SS used runes everywhere, on birth certificates, graves, military markings—everywhere." She squinted at the screen.

"
You can read it?" Harker tapped her pen.

"
Yes. Elder Futhark is an Indo-European language, Germanic. I had to study it during my Master's program." 

"
What does it say?"

"It says, '
Aufruf vom Alten'. It's a direct translation from modern German."

"What does that mean?"

"Invocation of the Old One. What's the next page. Steph?"

Selena studied the writing, let out a breath. "Whoa. This says, 'By the blood of the Spear, call the Old One. With the Sacred Blade, prepare the circle with the blood of the sacrifice'."

Ronnie and Nick looked at each other. "Okay, who's the 'Old One'," Ronnie said.

"Someone you don't want to meet," said Selena. "A demon, or even Satan himself. I think we've got some kind of magical ritual here, something Himmler and Heydrich cooked up."

"You think they wrote a ritual to evoke a
demon
? Are you serious?"

"I have to read the rest of it. How many more pages, Steph?"

"Another twenty-five. There are twenty-seven altogether."

Selena nodded her head. "That fits. Twenty-seven is three times nine. Nine and three are magical numbers in the old Germanic culture, used in rituals and spells. Give me an hour and I think I can translate it all."

It took her an hour and a half.

"I knew the Nazis and Himmler were into the occult, but this is something else." She seemed uneasy and stopped. Everyone waited for her to go on.

"There was a strong occultist movement in Germany. These pages are a black magic rite. Himmler created a special SS Bureau to study the occult. He sent teams all over the world looking for secrets of magical power. The Nazis even used mystical power symbols to call on supernatural forces."

"Power symbols?" Nick finished his whiskey.

"The swastika is a good example. It's thousands of years old. The Nazi swastika turns counter-clockwise. As a symbol it can represent the dark side, the left hand path, the path of darkness away from the sun."

"The dark side? Like Darth Vader?" Ronnie shook his head. "When you look at what the Nazis did, it must have worked."

"The ritual on these pages is about using the Vienna Lance as a magical power object to ensure victory. According to this, it requires a blood sacrifice. Human sacrifice."

"
A magical object requiring human sacrifice?" Lamont looked at Selena in astonishment. "I thought the Lance was supposed to be something good, something associated with Christ."

"That seems to depend
on who possesses it and what they intend to do with it. That Lance was carried by the commanders of armies that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people. People like Charlemagne and Barbarossa and Frederick the Great. There's been a lot of blood spilled under the shadow of that spear. That's a lot of psychic energy. Blood sacrifice, if you like."

"
You believe in that stuff?" Lamont asked.

"It doesn't matter if I believe in it. It'
s clear Himmler and Heydrich thought the Lance was magical."

"
If people think something is imbued with mystical power, they'll act like it is," Nick said. "It doesn't mean anything more than that."

"
Are you sure about that?" Selena said. "What about all those stories of miraculous events associated with the relics of Saints or the like? Or the healing miracles that happen at places like Lourdes? Or that man down in Brazil who does operations with a rusty penknife while spirits help him out? And what about those dreams you have, the ones that foreshadow the future?"

"
That's different."

"
How is it different?"

"
Well, you can't pick up a dream. It's not an object."

"
Yes, but it's still mystical somehow. How can you know things that haven't happened yet?"

"
I don't know that. I just get images of things that later turn out to be connected to something in my life."

Harker tapped her pen on a glass.

"This is all very interesting, but it doesn't get us any closer to finding out who's behind the Jerusalem bombing, or why Arslanian was killed."

"W
e should be able to figure it out," Nick said. "At least some of it. The documents and the diary say there's a Nazi plan for after the war, 'Parsifal'. Arslanian found out about it and they killed him. The plan must be active and someone is following it. Dysart mentioned Parsifal, so we know he's involved."

Harker set her pen down.
"Yes, but he's taking orders from someone else."

"
Dysart and whoever 'commands' him knew about the Lance." Nick looked at the others. "The Lance was hidden in 1945. The only people who could have known that were the Nazis in Himmler's secret Council. Maybe the Council kept going after the war and Dysart is one of them. If he is, someone in the Council could command him."

"
You think a secret SS Order is still in business?" Harker picked up her pen.

"
It would explain a lot. If they are, we'd better find out what the hell they're planning."

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The thirteen members of the Council sat at a large round table made of dark oak. The Grand Master sat in a wooden armchair like the others, the only distinction being that his chair was upholstered in black. The others were brown. The wooden box recovered from Antarctica rested on the table before him. The lid bore a golden wreath and a large swastika of solid gold set with hundreds of diamonds. The diamonds glittered in the light of the overhead chandelier.

General Dysart sat on the right of the Grand Master. Next to him was Eric Reinhardt. He was the son of SS General Dieter Reinhardt, the man who had hidden the Lance in the last months of the war.

Reinhardt had come to America with his mother in 1948. The money concealed by his father in Switzerland had provided the capital needed to start his business ventures. Now almost seventy years old, Reinhardt had built an industrial empire. He was one of America's largest defense contractors. His company had developed the new explosive that had brought down the Mosque in Jerusalem. His device had led to the hidden base in Antarctica.

Two of the members of the Council, like Reinhardt, had been born into families of SS officers who had made their way into the United States in the years after the war. The others were from families of deep cover agents known only to Himmler and a few of the original Council, placed in America before the war had begun.

All were dedicated to the SS philosophy; annihilation of the Jews, purification of the race and loyalty to the cause of Aryan supremacy and it's leader. All had attended the best American universities and colleges. All had risen to the top of their respective professions. They represented the success of Himmler's plan, if not yet the culmination.

PARSIFAL.

No one would have thought there was anything unusual about this gathering, if they had bothered to pay attention. It was common for these powerful men to meet for a social evening of cards and drinks. Everyone knew that. It was even dubbed "The Movers' Club" by the media.

The Council had been gathered for over an hour. The Grand Master addressed the group.

"Everything is now in place." He placed his hand on the box containing the Lance. "The Holy Spear is in our possession. Our success is assured. Events are going well in the Middle East. The Muslims are convinced the Jews destroyed al-Aqsa. They are preparing to attack. The Jews argue among themselves. They are likely to launch a preemptive strike, provoking an even greater response."

The Grand Master turned to Dysart.

"It's time to begin the next phase. Is everything ready?"

"Yes. The warhead will detonate on the Jew Sabbath. Our analysis indicates full-scale escalation within 24 hours. This isn't 1967. The Jews will be defeated. This time, the Angel of Death won't be passing over."

There were smiles and chuckles all around the table.

Dysart went on. "Intelligence after the blast will point to Iran. The Jews are certain to retaliate but it will be too late."

"What about the oil fields?"

"None of our scenarios indicate more than moderate damage to the fields. If the Jews use nukes they'll aim for the cities, not the oil. Mecca, Tehran, Damascus, perhaps Cairo, perhaps Islamabad. Most of their nuclear arsenal is tactical, but their missiles are capable of long range accuracy. They will simply aid us in ridding the world of more non-Aryans."

The Grand Master turned to a man on his left.

"What is the status of our naval operation?"

The man cleared his throat. "Everything is ready. Elements of the Fifth Fleet will be attacked in the Gulf of Hormuz by what appear to be Iranian gunships. There will be American casualties."

"And Rice?"

"Rice will be in Chicago addressing a convention when he receives the news. When he leaves the building, he will be assassinated."

The speaker nodded at another man sitting at the table.

"Our new President will engage the Iranians. After the air and missile strikes, the follow up invasion will leave our military overextended. It will take time to bring back the draft and increase war production, but it is so easy to manipulate public opinion. Within two years we will have the armies we need, with weapons and resources our forefathers only dreamed of."

Dysart spoke. "We have an ongoing problem, minor, but it needs to be handled. The woman, Harker. She knows too much. She needs to be eliminated, along with her unit."

"Why hasn't it been done?" The Grand Master gave Dysart a cold stare.

"They've been lucky. They escaped us in Argentina and until today I didn't know where they were. That location has been determined. I intend to take care of it personally."

"See that you do." The Grand Master looked around the circle. "Are there any other issues we need to address?"

No one spoke. Almost as one, the men stood. They raised their arms high in the Nazi salute. "Seig, Heil!"

Hail, Victory!