Blood of the Reich

by William Dietrich

  “She? So it was Beth Calloway and not Benjamin Hood?” Rominy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But where was my great-grandfather?”

  “Shambhala. We never met him.”

  This was disturbing news.

  “Then Shambhala is really here?” Jake leaned forward.

  “Where is here, Mr. Barrow? Yes, we looked at your identity while you were sleeping. Is paradise a place or a state of mind? Is the journey to reach it an outward one or inward?”

  He sat back, disappointed. “I know you’re on a spiritual journey, but we’re on a physical one. Rominy’s great-grandfather and, it appears, her great-grandmother, came here and saw something. We climbed to where we thought Shambhala might be and found only a lake. If it doesn’t exist, so be it. But I want to know if it existed for real, not just in fable.”

  “Your definition of reality and mine are not the same.” She looked at them closely, but not unkindly, in turn. “But I’ll show you another door to satisfy your curiosity. The real Closed Door may or may not open. It may or may not give you what you need to find.”

  “Sometimes not finding is as important as finding,” Rominy said. “You need things to end.”

  “Yes, beginning and endings. The Western goal, the Eastern illusion. Come.”

  They entered the temple again, butter lamps flickering, the air tanged with incense and smoke, the Buddha vast and hazy as a dream. Amrita led them around the statue. At the back of the temple was an ancient black iron door set in a wall of stone. It looked crudely hammered but immensely strong. From her cloak she took a ring of big, medieval-looking keys and inserted one in the lock. It wouldn’t turn.

  She addressed Jake. “This is the first Closed Door, Mr. Barrow. We never have occasion to open it, and so the lock is rusty. Do you have strong fingers?”

  “Strong enough to get me this far.” He wrenched, there was a grind and a clunk, and the metal door was pulled open, squealing on its hinges. Even though the temple itself was chilly, the air that wafted out at them was noticeably colder and moist. Their breath fogged.

  “We’ve been the gatekeepers for two hundred generations. But what we guard is very different now. Do you have electric torches?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then descend.” She looked at Jake. “Be careful what you seek.”

  “I don’t seek it for myself.”

  They stepped forward. On the other side of the door, stairs hewn out of mountain rock led downward in a spiral, like a castle tower. It was utterly dark below.

  “I must close the door behind you to keep out the draft,” Amrita said. “Knock when you wish to return.” And with that the iron door swung shut, shutting with a booming clang. They jumped.

  “Well, that’s cozy,” Sam muttered. “This feels like Frankenstein’s castle, and she’s Frau Blucher.”

  “You’re a very skeptical guide, Sam,” Jake said.

  “Lapsed. Converts turned doubters are the worst. I came for enlightenment and got statuary and yak tea. I think I’m homesick.”

  “I’m paying you enough to get you home.”

  “And you hired me to take you as far from it as we can get.”

  “Well, I trust her,” Rominy said.

  “You trust everyone,” said Sam.

  They crept down, their flashlights providing a fan of light. In places they passed lovely carvings in the surrounding stone: a graceful script reminiscent of Tibetan—“It’s not the same,” Sam informed them—entwined with flowers, beasts, strange machines, and large-headed people in flowing robes. The bas-relief gave a three-dimensional quality so that the plants seemed to be blossoming from rock.

  “These carvings weren’t done by nuns,” Jake said. “Shambhala is real.”

  “So who did do them?” Sam asked.

  “Ancients or aliens who knew more than we do. Don’t you think? I like the vines and trees. The Greeks believed we began as happy plants and devolved into our unhappy animal and human form, getting farther from the divine as we did so. The farther back you went, the better things were, they thought. The SS who came to Tibet thought that, too, that the distant past wasn’t something we escaped but a paradise of adventure and power we’d lost.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “An ancestral vegetable sounds even worse than an ancestral monkey.”

  “There’s something peaceful in being a carrot,” Rominy said.

  “Not on a salad bar.”

  Then the walls would get plain again.

  Suddenly one wall disappeared, and the Americans found themselves on an exposed stair at the side of a huge shaft a hundred feet across. It rose higher than their flashlight beams could probe. There were dark openings on the other side, and bats fluttered when Jake banged the edge of his flashlight on stone.

  “Ventilation shaft,” he guessed. “Bats means there has to be an opening above. This was for Shambhala, my friends.”

  “It’s huge,” said Rominy.

  “Which means Shambhala was huge.”

  “I smell water,” Sam said. “We’re going to hit your lake, Barrow.”

  They carefully wound down the shaft, the staircase having no railing to keep them from falling. Then it wormed into the mountain again. A horizontal passageway ran on into darkness like the shaft of a mine. More stairs continued down.

  “Down first,” said Jake.

  The stairs ended a hundred steps farther at water, dark and still. There was no landing. The steps just continued into the deep.

  “It’s the lake,” Jake confirmed. “He drowned Shambhala.”

  “Who drowned it?” Rominy asked.

  “Your great-grandpa.”

  “But why?”

  He shook his head. “Who knows?”

  “Look at the dark lines on the walls,” Sam said. “You can see how the water rises and falls with the seasons.”

  Jake looked frustrated. “We need a submarine.”

  “Into that? Better you than me, buddy.”

  “This is as big as Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. We’ll do it eventually.”

  “Maybe Grandpa made the lake to bury whatever’s down there,” Rominy said. “Maybe it was something dangerous or evil.”

  “Or something invaluable.” Jake sighed. “It’s still a find. I’ve still got a hot news story. Benjamin Hood drowns a city. Is that why he became a hermit?”

  “Maybe he tried to hide what he found,” Rominy said.

  They were quiet, the water opaque. Then Jake pointed back the way they’d come. “There’s still that horizontal shaft. Last chance. Let’s check that out.”

  They climbed back to the passageway and followed it. The shaft ended abruptly at a massive door.

  Again, a riot of decoration, but this time cast instead of carved, as if the door were made of bronze. The material was dark and swallowed light, however, and was unlike anything they’d ever felt. It wasn’t quite like stone, wood, metal, or plastic.

  “Another dead end,” Sam said.

  Jake seemed transfixed. “Not necessarily. Doors open.”

  “There’s no handle or keyhole,” Rominy said.

  Jake let his fingers trace the vines sculpted into the door. “Or it’s a different kind of lock.” He followed them down, a tangle of flowers, to a bas-relief of an anatomically correct carving of a heart. An artery was a tube with an opening like a flower, as thin as a fine vase but firm as steel.

  “This is weird,” Sam said, his palm to the door. “Do you feel that? This substance kind of tingles.”

  Rominy put her hand on the door. It seemed to vibrate in response, like a purring kitten. “It almost feels like it’s alive,” she agreed.

  “Which raises the question of just what life is,” Jake said. “At what point does matter, allied with energy, become life? Is energy itself life? Do you know our brain’s chemistry throws off enough electricity to power a small lightbulb?”

  “So talk to it, Barrow. Open, Sesame.”

  “Wait, I recognize
these designs,” Rominy said. “This door was drawn in the papers from Hood’s satchel. Maybe this is the way into Shambhala. The Closed Door! Why would Benjamin Hood have drawn this?”

  Jake nodded and pointed. “Blood lock,” he said, pointing to the carving of a heart.

  “Blood what?” asked Sam.

  “According to my research, the Shambhala of legend devised a means by which doors could be opened only by a specified individual, who was identified by drops of his or her blood. The Germans who came in ’38 brought a vial of blood with them for just that purpose. They didn’t understand how such a thing could work, but today we know about DNA and how each of us has a unique genetic code. What’s interesting is that access could thus become hereditary; a descendant’s blood might contain the very same key.” He looked at Rominy. “A great-granddaughter, perhaps.” He slung off his pack and stooped to put it on the floor, groping inside. His tone had become businesslike. “Which explains, Rominy, why you’re really here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled out a knife and slid the blade clear from its hard scabbard. It was a wicked-looking, twin-edged weapon with an eagle on the handle and twin lightning bolts on the pommel. Some German words were etched onto the blade.

  “What the fuck?” said Sam.

  “I mean that I hope we found what we’ve been looking for after all.” Jake looked up at the woman he said he loved with a face drained of all expression. “I’m afraid I need your blood.”

  43

  Shambhala, Tibet

  September 20, Present Day

  Are you crazy?” Rominy was looking at the blade with wide eyes. It wasn’t a hunting knife, it was a dagger, the kind you used to kill people.

  “Let’s cool the jets, here, Barrow,” Sam said, his hands raised in alarm. “I think you’re overdosing on the exotic culture, man.”

  Jake’s face was dead as a zombie, his tone clinical. “And I think we’ve finally found what we hired you to help us find, Sam.” He used the other hand to pull a gun from the backpack and Rominy gasped. “This is only a .22, but I assure you that at this range I have the skill to make it lethal. So you can stand in the corner there and shut up, Mackenzie, or I can shut you up in my own efficient way.” He had the remoteness of a lab technician.

  Sam took a step back. “Just don’t hurt the girl, bro.”

  “I’m not your brother. But she’s the great-granddaughter we’ve been seeking.”

  “Why?” It was all Rominy could think to say. The blade looked as big as a sword.

  “We won’t know until we open it, will we? But someone very, very important thinks some thing that is very, very important was hidden here. Which is why I had to find and seduce you.”

  “You’re going to cut her for a newspaper story, for crying out loud?”

  “Are you both stupid enough to think I was really a journalist? I’ve never been in a newsroom in my life.”

  Rominy’s mind was reeling, her eyes hypnotized by the bright dagger blade. Was everything a lie?

  “If I’d allowed you a way to contact the Seattle Times, Rominy, you’d have learned in a minute they’d never heard of me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “So you did take the battery from my cell phone.”

  “I used a magnet to disrupt it first, and removed the battery later. I’ve appreciated that you’ve given me the benefit of the doubt, since you’ve had quite legitimate suspicions. Fortunately, we’ve been in a bit of a hurry and you’ve been more resourceful at solving Hood’s puzzles than I ever hoped. The Fourth Reich will acknowledge your contribution someday.”

  “The Fourth Reich?” Sam asked.

  “Try, try again.” Jake smiled at his little joke.

  Their guide was struggling with which question to ask first. “How in hell did you get a pistol in Tibet?” he finally managed.

  “By spending four thousand of my girlfriend’s dollars. Outrageous markups in the Jokhang, but it’s true, with cash enough, you can buy anything. The bullets cost ten dollars a piece. Can you believe that? Bandits.”

  “So think hard before you shoot one.”

  “I think very hard about everything I do.” He was in a squat, gun in one hand, knife in the other. “Now, hold out your hand, Rominy. It’s very sharp, so it really won’t hurt.”

  “What is this really all about?” she asked, all certainty lost, all balance undone. Had it all been an act, even their lovemaking? Had she fallen for some lunatic Nazi? Who, then, was the skinhead in the Cascade Mountains? Once more, nothing seemed to make sense.

  “Power.” And before she could react he seized her wrist, jerked her to him, and sliced her palm with the SS dagger. Now she saw the words on the blade: Meine Ehre Heist Treue. It stung. Blood ran with alarming quickness from the wound. He stood and kissed her, quickly. “To make it all better.” Then he matter-of-factly tucked the dagger in his belt and brought out a tin backpacking cup, catching the flow. She thought she might faint. When the cup was full, like thick burgundy, he brusquely shoved her backward toward Sam and set the cup aside. He reached inside the pack again and pulled out some bandages, throwing them at the guide. “Bind the wound, Mackenzie.”

  Then, picking up the pistol and keeping a wary eye on them, he went to the door, squatted again, and started pouring Rominy’s blood into the carved artery of the heart.

  “What are you doing, Barrow?” Sam asked.

  “Watch and see. I don’t know how much blood it will take, but we’ll do it by the cup. Everything is alive, if you look at it the right way. Or rather, life itself is a kind of conceit, an illusion of energy, once you realize all is one.”

  A glow began to emanate from the rock. There was a clunk, a whir, and a line appeared to divide the solid slab. And then with a grind, it slowly slid apart.

  There was a small chamber beyond, blank and featureless. It led nowhere.

  “You cut Rominy to find a closet?” Sam asked.

  Jake ignored him. Leaning against the back wall was a translucent staff. No light emanated from it but it was a beautifully sensual thing, smooth like colored glass, and its surface had subtle bas-relief of beasts and warriors.

  “Heil Hitler,” Jake whispered.

  “Seriously, dude, this isn’t cool. You need help, man.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Mackenzie, I’m one of the few sane people on this planet.”

  “But you lied,” Rominy said. “About everything.”

  “Not everything. I did save you from dying with your car. But I knew it was wired to explode. I did lie about who I am, but I didn’t lie about who you are, and taught you more about yourself than you ever knew. I didn’t tell you everything about what I was looking for, but I was absolutely sincere in bringing you to Tibet. I needed your DNA, Rominy, and you can feel satisfied you played a role in history.”

  “There were never any skinheads chasing us on the freeway, were there? You pretended, and shoved my head down, and fired that shot through the window yourself. With that pistol.”

  “Very good. I used a silencer. How did you know?”

  “I found the bullet casing behind the seat.”

  “Ah. I looked for it several times.”

  “But you needed the safety deposit box. You needed me for that.”

  “That, and your blood. You are the correct descendant of the one who apparently sealed this chamber.”

  “You came for that rod like we talked about on the plane?”

  “That rod, or staff, is a necessary first step in reconstituting Shambhala. As you’ve seen, the original city is quite wet, and even if we did have scuba equipment, I’m sure seventy years of immersion hasn’t helped whatever machinery is down there. But science has advanced a great deal since 1938, and some of us are prepared to become Shambhalans ourselves. You have to understand that conventional history is a monstrous distortion of the evolutionary goals of National Socialism. Now we can finish what we started, and when we do, our species will realize its potential.”
r />   “Finish the Holocaust?” Sam asked.

  “Finish purification, once we regain power. End global warming, stop population growth by the wrong people, and make room for the right. All it takes is organization, discipline, and will.”

  “Barrow, listen to yourself,” Sam groaned. “Hitler couldn’t do it with most of Europe under his boot. Germany’s gone liberal. It’s too late.”

  “On the contrary, it is finally time. The pair of you can take satisfaction in playing a role in the greatest experiment since the Manhattan Project.”

  “Jake, please,” Rominy pleaded. “This makes no sense. If there was really Vril, wouldn’t scientists have found it by now?”

  “What’s Vril?” Sam asked.

  “This fantasy power source. He thinks Shambhala used it. But the city is gone, Jake. Drowned. Hitler lost the war. Please put the gun down.”

  “The resurrection will begin in the Camelot of the SS, my dear. Beyond that, I think the details are over your head. You already know more than is good for you, or rather me.”

  “So you’re going to kill me?”

  “There’s one other thing I didn’t lie about: I was falling in love with you, even as I used you. You’re pretty, you’re smart, and you’re more than just a good lay.”

  She was shaking with fear and fury. “What a flatterer you are.”

  “I’m not comfortable shooting you. Instead, I’m going to have you step inside that chamber there.”

  “If you shut the door we’ll suffocate,” Sam said.

  “Not if the nuns find you in time. So the answer to your question, Rominy, is no. I’m not a murderer.”

  But he was crazy. So Rominy lunged.

  Her goal was the knife or gun, but her target was simply Jake Barrow, all the lies he’d told and all the manipulations he’d fostered. Her vision had gone red, furious at herself and furious at him, furious for letting herself stay off-balance while this maniac led her like a sheep. The fury consumed her; she didn’t know anger and loathing could be so great. So she sprang with rage she didn’t know she was capable of, and struck with explosive frustration. Jake pitched back in surprise, one hand on his knife and the other holding the gun, and they both went over, hitting the stone floor hard.