At Sword's Point (7 page)

"Hi. Erik Klaussen. Hope you don't mind the invasion."

"Not at all." The other took his hand and shook it. "I'm Anton von Tupilow."

"Karl Braun," said the other hiker, as he walked over to where Anton had propped himself up on one elbow. "What brings you to Wewelsberg?"

"Mostly my old motorbike," Anton said. "And a bit of curiosity."

"Curiosity?" asked Karl.

"Well, yes. Old castles are a hobby of mine, and I was interested to see this one, since it was restored before the war."

"Do you know why it was restored?" Erik asked.

"Well, first because it was a ruin," Anton replied with a grin, "but I've also heard that Himmler, the head of the SS, thought that it had magical powers."

Erik had flopped down on the bunk under Anton's. "Magical powers?" he said. "Really? What sort of magical powers?"

"Well, according to the legends, this castle could never fall to invaders from the East. So Himmler decided that it should become the grand commandery of an order of SS knights. He personally selected twelve SS officers as the foundation of his black order of knights, and four times a year they used to gather here at the castle." Anton sat up cross-legged on his bunk. "It must have been something to see."

"It was," Karl said.

"Oh," said Anton, "you've seen photos?"

"Better," Karl replied. "The caretaker is my uncle. He gave me a tour of the place about two years ago."

"Really? God, I'd love to see the rooms upstairs. They're supposed to have been spectacular." Anton's request hung in the air for several long seconds before Karl replied.

"I could ask my uncle for the, keys, if I thought I could trust you." He looked levelly at Anton.

"What do you mean, 'trust me'? What's that supposed to mean?" Anton sounded almost offended.

"Just this: Erik and I—"

"Don't tell him, Karl," Erik's voice interrupted, coming up from beneath Anton's bunk, challenging him to be part of their secret. "It could get us in trouble."

"I give my word of honor, as a von Tupilow, that I will not betray any confidences given to me this evening."

Looking at Anton's face as he spoke, Karl knew that it was time to spring the trap.

"You have a scar on your face." Involuntarily, Anton's hand reached up to the thin white line that ran, razor-straight, across his cheek. "Do you belong to a dueling fraternity?"

"I am a member of the Student Corporation Lutzow. Why do you ask?" Anton said cautiously.

"Because I am going to ask you to swear on the honor of Germany never to betray what you may see here." Karl stared deep into Anton's eyes, looking for a flicker of hesitation. He saw none. "Do you swear?"

"I swear it," Anton said.

Karl took a deep breath and looked at Erik sprawled across the bunk below Anton. Erik shot Karl his lopsided grin and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Then I'll go get the keys." Karl turned and vanished down the stone stairs that led to the castle courtyard.

Anton leaned over the edge of his bunk, trying to get a glimpse of Karl's partner. "Hey, Erik, have you ever seen the castle before?" he asked.

"No," Erik lied. "I haven't. It will be a first for both of us tonight."

"What did you mean when you said it might get you and Karl into trouble if I saw the upper floors of the castle?" Anton asked.

"Karl and I are here to help clean up and restore some of the rooms as they were before the war. If word got out that someone was restoring an SS shrine, we could all be in big trouble." Erik could faintly hear Anton's blood pulsing through his veins as he lay on the bunk above him.

"Well, you certainly don't have to worry about me on that score," Anton said. "My grandfather was in the SS, and after the war the Russians shot him and confiscated our estates. Besides, that was long ago. Now all of this is 'just history,' as they say at the university." Anton dropped down onto the stone floor next to the bunks as Karl came in with a key ring and three flashlights.

"Here," he said, handing each of them a flashlight. "We're going to need these. My uncle turns off the power at ten." As if on cue, the lights in the dorm went out.

"Well," Anton said in the darkness, "let the tour begin."

Flicking on his flashlight, Karl motioned for Anton and Erik to follow.

"After the war, the British tried to destroy the castle, but they weren't totally successful," he said. The beams from the three flashlights bounced off the white tile walls of the shower room as Karl led them through the dorm and into a long passageway. "They smashed up everything they could get hold of, and then they tried to set fire to the castle before they left," At the end of the passage Karl took them up another flight of stone stairs.

"So was everything destroyed by the British?" Anton asked.

"Oh, no. In 1944, the SS crated up a lot of stuff and loaded it onto trucks, then drove up into the hills, where they hid it in some caves. Afterwards, when they came back, they had my Uncle Stephen brick up the doors to all of the rooms on the top two floors. The British managed to break into all of the rooms, except one." Karl shone his flashlight on an oak door studded with iron nails. "They thought they'd found everything, when they broke into the great hall and the crypt beneath, but the true inner sanctum was never violated."

He fitted a large key into the lock, turned it, then swung the door open. The shining lights revealed a damaged toilet and a couple of old mops and buckets.

"This is the inner sanctum?" Anton asked.

"No," Karl replied. "This is the landing at the bottom of the stair that leads to it. When my uncle bricked up the stair, it made this little room, which he finished off to look like a toilet. When the British came, they didn't think to knock down the walls, so they never found Himmler's secret knights' chamber."

He sat down on the floor and, placing his feet against one corner of the wall, gave a mighty push. The bricks tumbled in, revealing a hole in the wall just big enough to crawl through.

"Okay, follow me."

The three young men scuttled through the opening and found themselves at the base of a wide turnpike stair that spiraled up and to their right. Leading the way, Karl continued his story.

"Once things settled back to normal, my Uncle Stephen became the caretaker of the castle, waiting for the day when the SS knights would return." They had reached another locked door, and it took Karl several tries to find the right key. Unlocking the door, he turned to Anton and Erik before entering the room.

"Erik, give me your lighter. You and Anton wait here, I'll be right back."

Taking Erik's lighter, Karl eased himself past the door and vanished into the knights' chamber. Erik switched off his flashlight and sat down on the stone steps.

"You'd better turn off your torch if you want to be able to see on the way back down."

Obediently Anton turned off his flashlight, and at once they were plunged into darkness.

"Anton." Erik's deep voice was low, barely more than a softly spoken whisper. "You were talking about the SS knights back in the dorm. What do you know about them?"

In the darkness, Erik could see Anton shake his head as clearly as if they were sitting outside in the moonlight.

"Just what I've already told you," Anton said. "I guess the war ended the order."

"Well, you're wrong." It was Karl's voice coming through the darkness and Anton jumped at the sound of it. "Sure, Himmler and most of the original knights didn't survive the war, but a few did. And they preserved the order. See for yourself." Swinging wide the door to the knights' chamber, Karl revealed an oak paneled room illuminated by the glow of a dozen thick candles.

For a moment, Anton von Tupilow was speechless.

"My God, it's beautiful."

In the middle of the room, surrounded by twelve high-backed chairs, stood the round table of Himmler's order of knighthood, its edge inlaid with runes picked out in ivory. SS daggers lay on the polished wood before each place, the flickering candlelight shimmering off more runes damascened on the blades in gold, the tips pointing toward the gold- and jewel-encrusted chalice from which the knights drank their blood-oath of communion. In the dim shadows beyond the table, Anton could make out the black-and-silver labrium of the SS and the blood-red flag of the Third Reich, with its black swastika on a white roundel. He did not know if it was the original
Blutfahne
, but it should have been, in this holy place.

"This is fantastic," Anton said softly, stepping closer to the table. "I had no idea such a place existed."

"That's why we're here," Karl said. "To see to it that our order lasts for all eternity."

"Are you telling me that the SS still exists?" Anton asked in disbelief.

"Not the SS," Erik said, "but the order it founded. The
Blutorden"

"That's right, Anton: the Knights of the Blood," Karl added.

"But aren't they one and the same?" Anton asked.

"Not at all. The
Blutorden
was an inner order, like a religion within a religion. Their ties weren't to Hitler, but to the blood and soil of Germany, to the soul of our race." Karl stepped up next to Anton. "Join us, Anton. Honor your grandfather's memory. Become one of us."

* * * *

Drummond's mouth felt like it was coated with lint. Now feeling the full effect of the stimulant they had given him, he found himself wide awake with a splitting headache.

"Now, Mr. Drummond, for the last time, why did you go to the Weisenthal Center?" Gluckman stared sympathetically at his hostage,

"Because I thought Sacher did a shitty job investigating Stucke's death."

"What made you think that?" Trostler interrupted.

"Because he chalked it up to suicide, but there wasn't any blood on the walls. The body was in the bathtub, but the walls were clean."

"So?" Gluckman said.

Drummond sighed, impatient despite his discomfort.

"When someone's throat gets cut, they spray the walls with their blood. But not in Stucke's place. The walls were as clean as if they'd been washed down the week before. So I figured Stucke had been killed somewhere else and his body brought back to the apartment to make it look like suicide." Drummond's arms ached from being taped to the chair arms. "So I went back the next day and had another look around."

"Wasn't that a little odd, Mr. Drummond?" Gluckman asked.

"Not if you're a cop. And it did confirm my suspicions about the crime." Drummond cleared his throat. "Most of Stucke's things were still in his flat, except his shoes. His watch, yes; his shoes, no. I figure that he was killed elsewhere, stripped, and brought back to the apartment.

"Then, under the bed, I found a box full of girlie magazines and a scrapbook full of clippings about Nazi war criminals. In the scrapbook was a receipt from the Weisenthal Center. Stucke had ordered a copy of the file on this guy Kluge, but it wasn't in his flat. So, I went to the Weisenthal Center to get a copy of the file to see if it might provide a lead in Stucke's murder."

"So you think Kluge did it, Mr. Drummond?" Gluckman asked.

"No, he'd be too old. I figure he must be about seventy, maybe seventy-five years old. Killing Stucke and lugging his body up two flights of stairs would require a lot more strength than an old man is apt to possess.

"No, if Kluge was involved at all, he ordered someone to kill Stucke and then place the body in the shower." Drummond's throat was raw from the drugs they had given him. "Can I have a drink of water?" he asked.

Gluckman turned to Meier. "Bring Mr. Drummond a glass of water."

He closed his eyes briefly while he waited, rousing when Meier held a paper cup to his lips, carefully tilting it back so the cool water could trickle down his throat. As he swallowed the last of the water, the old man at the table stood up and crossed over to Gluckman. Peering at Drummond through owlish spectacles taped together at the bridge of the nose, he said something in Yiddish to Gluckman, who merely grunted in reply.

"Mr. Drummond." The old man's gravelly voice and Eastern European accent made it difficult for Drummond to follow everything he said next. "Do you believe in
wampyrs
?"

"Do you mean like in the movies?" Drummond asked.

"Don't get cute with us, Drummond." Meier's voice had a nasty edge to it.

"Mr. Drummond," Gluckman interjected, "Dr. Rubinsky worked in a very special hospital in the Soviet Union before he moved to Israel. Kluge was a patient at that hospital for a number of years before he escaped. Please, treat his questions with respect."

"No, Dr. Rubinsky, I don't believe in vampires," Drummond said.

"Well, maybe you should," Rubinsky replied. "Let me tell you about my hospital work in Russia. After the war, there were nearly half a million men in our prisoner of war camps. Stalin decided that only about half of those should be sent back. The rest—well, they were to be vanished." Rubinsky pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes before continuing.

"One day in 1946, several dozen 'vanished' Germans were brought to my hospital under heavy guard and put in a special isolation wing. A medical commissar arrived with them and told us that we were to use whatever means were medically necessary to discover what made these men 'special.'" Rubinsky rubbed his hands together and leaned closer to Drummond. "Do you know why they were special, Mr. Drummond?"

Drummond looked at the stooped little man with the bald head and broken glasses and wondered how sane he was. "Let me guess, Dr. Rubinsky. They were vampires?"

"That's a good guess, Mr. Drummond, They were
wampyrs
," Rubinsky said. "And for the next nineteen years, I studied them every day, trying to find out all about them. Some we dissected, and some we starved to death. Some we kept fat and hoped to learn their secrets. Finally came the big breakthrough. One of our researchers discovered that their blood was infected with a virus." He paused and leaned close to Drummond. "You don't know anything about virology, do you?"

" 'Fraid not, Doctor."

"Well, one of my colleagues was a veterinarian, and he noticed that the virus was similar to an equine disease found in some Cossack horses. So I postulated that
wampyrs
might have been infected with a mutated form of this equine virus."