Blood of the Reich

by William Dietrich

  “Get him, Sam!” she screamed. She clawed at Jake’s face.

  Then the pistol went off, a pop, and she hesitated for just a fraction of a second.

  The butt of the gun struck her temple, and her vision blurred.

  Meanwhile, Sam Mackenzie was thrown back hard, grunting. “Jesus fuck! He shot me!” He sounded unbelieving.

  Barrow twisted and threw Rominy off—he was strong as an animal—and leaped up to kick her in the stomach. She was gutted of wind.

  “That was really stupid,” he snarled. “Now you’ve killed your friend.”

  Curling in agony, she twisted to look. Sam had been shoved by the bullet against the back wall of the chamber and had slid down, his mouth gasping for air. The front of his shirt had a spreading red splotch. Her eyes blurred with tears, a torment of fury, pain, remorse, and helplessness.

  Barrow lifted her like a sack of potatoes and pitched her into the little chamber against Sam, who yelped with pain. Then he grabbed the oddly translucent staff and stepped outside.

  “Unfortunately for you, your blood doesn’t open the chamber from the inside. There’s no lock there.” He clicked the staff against the edge of the portal and it began to slowly slide shut. He held the pistol on her. “I do care for you, Rominy—I’ve enjoyed our time together—so I really don’t want to shoot you. I think this is better closure.”

  “Don’t trap me here!” she screamed. “I’d rather die!”

  “Too late.”

  The portal slammed shut.

  They were locked in total blackness.

  44

  Shambhala, Tibet

  September 20, Present Day

  Jake Barrow trudged to the top of the stairs—he couldn’t trot at this altitude—and pounded on the temple door to be let back into the nunnery. There was no latch on his side. He had enough C4 plastic explosive to blow his way out if necessary, and the pistol to cow the nuns, but the last thing he wanted was a running retreat from a mob of angry Buddhist women. A massacre would make it hard to escape Tibet. He had what he’d come for, and with Shambhala swamped there could be no more investigation until The Fellowship triumphed. Best now to slip quietly away to the Land Cruiser and head to Germany.

  He waited impatiently for what seemed like an eon but was probably only a minute, and then there was a clank, a squeal, and the door creaked open. Even the dim light of the temple seemed bright after the gloom of the descending stairway.

  “Mr. Barrow.” Amrita bowed. “Did you find what you hoped?”

  “I think so, but there’s been an accident, sister.” He was a good actor, and trusted that his face showed appropriate concern. “Rominy and Sam are trying to open some kind of door, but Sam’s hurt. Rominy is looking after him while I fetch our first-aid kit from the Land Cruiser. Are there some young nuns you could send to help?”

  Amrita’s eyes fixed on the staff. “You found your desire.”

  “Yes. But Sam is more important.”

  “Perhaps we could use your new rod to help make a litter?”

  “I’m afraid the ancient glass might break.”

  “Ah. You’ll share your discovery with the Chinese authorities?”

  “Of course.” He smiled to mask his impatience. “Please, Sam is in pain. I’ve got to get some pills.” These shaven-headed women were loopy as loons with religious mysticism and thwarted desire. It shouldn’t be hard to lie his way past them.

  But Amrita still blocked his way. “I see you’re impatient, Mr. Barrow, but sometimes it’s better to pause and meditate about your course.”

  “Not when a friend is injured.”

  She held his eye for a moment, his gaze sliding uncomfortably away, and then stood aside. “Of course. I’ll take some acolytes and look to your companions while you hurry.”

  “Bless you. Good-bye.” The ring holding the key to the iron door was hung nearby.

  While Amrita called out for help he rounded the Buddha, feeling squeezed by its presence, its consciousness concentrated inside instead of out. No Nazi statue would ever pose in such a pensive, passive, decadent way. Then he hid in shadow. He needed as much time as possible.

  Three other young nuns appeared with bandages, cloths, and what looked like their own herbal medicines. The nuns lit lamps small enough to carry by hand and, Amrita leading, disappeared down the winding stairs.

  Jake slipped back, looked quickly about, and slammed the iron door shut, locking it with the ring of keys. These he pocketed. Then he hurried to his room, scooped up his backpack, and crossed the nunnery courtyard. A nun said something to him in Tibetan and he tensed, ready to draw and shoot her through the eye if he had to, the horror of it making the others hesitate. His hand curled on the grip. But while he didn’t understand Tibetan, he did know one name.

  “Amrita?” He held his other hand palm out in a gesture of confusion and nodded toward the gate.

  The nun shook her head as if she didn’t know.

  He nodded as if searching and was past her, out the gate, and down the mountain, cold wind snapping at his clothes. He hurried to the plain where the Land Cruiser waited, keys still in the ignition. Even if they realized where Amrita was trapped, it would take them hours to pry that iron door back open.

  He’d put the pieces in motion. And he hadn’t killed anyone, he told himself, not yet. Even when surprised by Rominy’s tackle, he had aimed very carefully.

  Rominy’s tomb was absolutely dark, absolutely hard, and absolutely silent, except for Sam’s labored breathing. Terror was held at bay only by her mental paralysis; she was in shock at her own catastrophic misjudgment. Why had she followed anyone into the bowels of Tibet? Because of vanity, curiosity at her own heritage and importance, and belief that Jake Barrow had fallen hard for her. It had been the full-blown fairy tale, a kind of adventurous elopement complete with fake wedding ring.

  What a fool she was.

  The jewelry burned on her finger and she tugged it off, hurling it against the closed door.

  It made a little clink as it fell.

  She was going to suffocate and no one would even know where she died.

  “Mu-thur-fucker!” Sam coughed, groaning. “I can’t believe that lunatic shot me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Sam,” Rominy said dully. “He locked us in. We’re both going to die.”

  “It matters to me.”

  Of course. Her guide was shot, and she was just sitting here, feeling sorry for herself. Attention, Kmart shopper. There’s a man bleeding to death right next to you.

  “I’m sorry, I just feel so dumb. . . . Where are you hit, Sam? Can we stop the bleeding?”

  He coughed again. “He hit me in the most vital part.”

  “Your heart?”

  “My iPhone.”

  “What?”

  “It was in my shirt pocket, under my jacket. The bastard just plugged two hundred dollars’ worth of hardware, bruised a rib or two, and made me feel like I’ve been kicked by a mule.”

  “You mean the bullet didn’t go in?”

  “I can feel it squashed in the ruins. All my contacts were in there.”

  “You mean you’re not dying?”

  “You just said I am going to die.”

  “Well, yes, but from lack of oxygen or water, not bleeding. This is good news, isn’t it?” It was odd how his survival cheered her.

  “Good news how?”

  “I don’t want to suffocate alone.”

  He was dead silent for a moment. Then he barked a laugh, a gasping chuckle, and then coughed. “Ow! Jeez, that hurts. Oh, man, what a crazy chick you are. No wonder you wound up with losers like me and Jake Nazi. Geez, I’m glad to accommodate you, Rominy. That will be another three hundred dollars, please.”

  “Sam, I’m really, really sorry. I don’t understand any of this. I wasn’t with Jake on this at all. I mean, I was with him, but I thought he was a reporter and we were on this treasure hunt. I got . . . greedy, I think. I wanted to matter. And he babbled about atom sm
ashers and funny little strings and it all seemed to make . . . sense. Until it didn’t.”

  “I’ve heard of getting dumped, but man, that guy is cold. Why do women have such bad taste in men?”

  “Because we hope.” But what had she even been hoping for? Excitement. Purpose. Love. Oh, God, how she ached.

  They were quiet for a moment. Then Sam spoke again. “So what’s with the stick he grabbed? Is it a light saber, or what?”

  “A magic wand, he called it. A wizard’s staff. He thinks ancient people knew about particle physics and could do advanced science we’d think was magic.”

  “So now he’s a sorcerer?”

  “My guess is he’s fetching for somebody else. If they really knew how such a thing works, why would they need an old one? I’ll bet he’s taking it somewhere to study. He wants to see if they have this power called Vril from Shambhala.”

  “Man, I must be one lousy guide. That’s why I draw the lunatics.”

  “At least you try.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I think trying to do good counts. Trying to do bad, counts bad.”

  “I’m just doing this because I ran out of trekking money. College dropout, drifter, slacker. But I speak a little Tibetan and here I am. Locked in Shambhala’s bowel.”

  They were quiet. “Should we stop talking to conserve oxygen?” Rominy finally asked.

  “If we do that, I’ll start to cry. No, better to curse that sonofabitch to the final breath. Maybe if we try hard enough, we can levitate our way out of here.”

  “If only that were true.” But she decided to try, to not just wish but pray, to see if thoughts really could somehow affect the tons of rock hemming them in. So she concentrated, calling on the help of every Catholic saint she could remember, and Buddha to boot.

  Nothing happened. It was as dark and confining as ever.

  She could hear Sam wheezing like an old man.

  She could feel the throb of her heart in her temples.

  And then there was a clunk, a whir, and the door locking them in split in half and the soft, flickering light of carried butter lamps found its way inside. A miracle? Prayers answered? They blinked, from both the light and tears.

  “Who’s there?”

  A tall, slender, robed woman was silhouetted in the doorway. “It’s Amrita, Rominy. We came to let you out.”

  They stood, balancing against the wall and then stumbling into the arms of the nuns. Rominy was shaking with deliverance, her mind whirling. Sam’s shirt was blotched with red.

  “But how could you open it? He said it was a blood lock. He said it could only be opened with my blood.” She lifted her crudely bandaged hand.

  “Or the blood of your ancestors.” Amrita smiled and lifted a vial. “Mr. Barrow never thought to ask if we’d kept something like this.”

  “But you’ve never used it?”

  “We were told to wait, for you. Now that Mr. Barrow is gone, we’ve got a letter that’s been waiting for you for a very long time.”

  “A letter?”

  “I think it’s time you finally got some answers.”

  45

  Hood’s Cabin, Cascade Mountains, United States

  September 8, 1945

  When Beth Calloway pulled into the weedy yard of her cabin hermitage, ten thousand miles from where the nightmare had begun, the gas gauge on the ’29 Ford Woody was hovering on empty. The truck’s panels were stained and mossy, its bed holding only her backpack. No matter. It was interesting what didn’t matter when the end was finally near. They’d come sooner than she’d hoped, later than she’d feared. Once she read about the atomic bombings, she knew they’d want more magic. The world had gone nuts. She’d done her best, and now it was in God’s hands.

  Whatever God really was.

  She eased herself out from behind the wheel and stood, her knees almost buckling. Duncan Hale had been quick and she’d been quicker, but the bastard had still put the bullet in her gut that changed everything. She’d wrapped a girdle of bandages around her waist and worn a pea jacket to hide the bleeding so her neighbor Margaret wouldn’t be spooked any more than she already was . . . but Christ on a Crutch it hurt! Perversely, Beth smiled at the pain.

  She’d known a man like Benjamin Hood was bad news.

  And she’d still fly him anywhere, if she still had a plane.

  Limping, she crossed the yard and stumped up onto the porch, wincing as she did so. She wished she still had the pistol, for comfort if nothing else, but she’d had to entrust it to Margaret to add to the other things in the safety deposit box. She couldn’t fight anymore anyway.

  “I’m moving, Gertie—moving back to Nebraska tonight,” she lied to her friend. “You tell ’em you’re just running an errand for me, and don’t let ’em see the gun when you lock it in the bank.” She’d rehearsed these instructions many times in her own head. “Then you get my kid down to Seattle and leave her with the Sisters until I can come back. That hundred dollars will more than cover it, I know.”

  “But why can’t you do it, Beth?” Margaret had wailed. She wasn’t the strongest of women, but there hadn’t been time for a better choice. Margaret was just five miles down the road, and Beth dared not risk more time or blood loss. Poor little Sadie, short for Palisade, would likely wind up in an orphanage no matter who she picked, but that was a better chance for safety than she had here. It broke Beth’s heart to hand her over, but it was a relief as well. Would it ever make a difference?

  That was in God’s hand, too.

  “And you mail that letter. That’s the most important of all. You mail that. You hear?”

  “I will, Beth.” Her voice quavered. She was alarmed at the pallor of Calloway’s complexion. What trouble had she brought here? Why this sudden run back to her family? She’d always been a little fascinated by Beth Calloway, but a little afraid, too. “When you going to come back for Sadie?”

  “When I finish what I have to do.”

  But you didn’t get back. Not from eternity.

  Beth knew the end had finally come that morning, when Duncan Hale had driven up in the pale light of predawn. His hair was greasy from lack of washing, his face city-pale, and his suit looked about as appropriate as a hickory shirt and caulk boots on Wall Street. But he’d skipped up her deck slick as Eliot Ness, badge out and hand in one jacket pocket, the snout of his little pistol poking against the fabric like a tiny erection.

  Girl’s gun, that’s what Beth had thought. She’d slipped Ben’s heavy .45 automatic in her backpack before she opened the door.

  Hale had been arrogant as snot, informing her that he was a by-god-genuine government G-man of some agency or other—who could tell which one, since Roosevelt and Truman had spawned all those bureaucracies?—and that he was looking for one Benjamin Grayson Hood, a special agent who’d gone missing for uh, seven years.

  “You haven’t found him in seven years, city boy?”

  “I have now, sweetheart, haven’t I? Or do you want to go to jail?”

  She’d shrugged. “Sure, I can show you Ben. Or rather, what’s left of him. But that’s not what you really want, is it? Aren’t you after what he found?”

  “I’m after both. Benjamin Hood has a lot of questions to answer. It’s a matter of national security, Miss Calloway. We live in a dangerous world. A very dangerous world. Hitler was bad, but Stalin is going to be worse. If there’s something that might help America, Uncle Sam has a right to it.”

  “Does that include paying for that right?”

  The G-man smirked. “Mr. Hood volunteered to bear most of the expense of his expedition himself. Nothing has changed that arrangement.”

  “He never paid me, you know. I flew him there.”

  “I can help you file the necessary paperwork for possible compensation.” He glanced around. “We’ll have to do it downriver. We’d need a typewriter.”

  “I got all day.”

  “You take me to Hood first.” />
  She looked him up and down. “He’s a bit reclusive. It’s up a mountain and down a mine. No offense, but you aren’t dressed to even trek across my yard.”

  “He lives in a mine?”

  “It’s safer that way.”

  Hale looked suspicious. “Is there a trail?”

  “Miner’s trail.”

  “Then don’t worry how I’m dressed, Miss Calloway.”

  “How do you know I’m not a Mrs.?”

  “I checked the records before I came. All the records.”

  She’d even fixed him breakfast before they went, thinking over what she had to do, and not liking the way he eyed Sadie so intently. She’d have run the child down to Gertie then, but she couldn’t risk him knowing where the child was in case things didn’t go as planned.

  “Sadie, you stay in the cabin here and play while Mama goes up the mountain with this man. Understand?”

  The girl nodded. The seven-year-old had been alone before and was precociously independent. “When will you be home?”

  “By lunch, I hope. If I’m not, you fix yourself a peanut butter sandwich. Just stay here and don’t open the door to anybody or anything. You want to be a cupcake for a black bear?” It was a running joke between them.

  Sadie giggled. “No, Mama! Is the suit man a friend?”

  “No, honey. Just a man.”

  She’d turned so Sadie couldn’t see her cry. It spooked her, every time she looked into the child’s eyes.

  Then they drove down the brushy lane, Sadie at the window watching them go.

  Hale was in shape, she’d give him that. He’d kept up with her brisk stride up the crude trail in country that stood on end. And even city boy Hale had marveled when they came over the rise and first saw Eldorado, wiping his face on his handkerchief as he viewed the glorious panorama of the North Cascades. Then they’d cut downhill on the eastern side, carefully working over to the mouth of the mine. It was halfway up the cliff face, with a bank of old tailings providing a crude ramp.