The Templar Prophecy

by Mario Reading

  ‘You.’ Hitler pointed to the second guard. ‘Fetch me Colonel von Hartelius and his wife.’

  ‘They have retired, Mein Führer.’

  ‘Then un-retire them. They are to bring everything necessary for a journey. A long journey.’ The Führer clapped his hands together like a child impatient for his Christmas present.

  Eberhard was left alone with his leader.

  ‘You know what is in here, Sergeant? What is on this piece of paper? What it says?’

  ‘No, Mein Führer. Of course not. It was marked for your personal attention only. I would have cut off my right arm at the shoulder rather than open it.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. You shall be rewarded for this. And you may keep your arm for the time being. I wish there were more men like you, Sergeant. Then we wouldn’t be in this pretty pass. Instead I have to deal with roomfuls of blithering incompetents.’ Hitler’s attention wavered. He stared for ten seconds at the skirting board. Then he slapped the paper in his hand and focused all his attention back on Eberhard. ‘As of this instant I am promoting you to sergeant major. My housekeeper will sew on your new collar tabs. Go to the armoury and procure yourself a weapon. Also two officers’ pistols and spare clips. One of my adjutants will see that you have all you need. Then wait outside until I call you.’

  Eberhard saluted. He felt as if Hitler’s gaze had pierced his very soul.

  ‘Wait. You know how to get to the East–West Axis, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, Mein Führer. I have been there many times.’

  ‘Can you get there still? Given the prevailing conditions? You can assure me of this?’

  ‘Yes, Mein Führer. We are dug in like moles out there. The Tiergarten is still very much in our hands, and is likely to remain so. Which means the Charlottenburger Chaussee is too. At least as far as the Victory Column.’ If Eberhard felt uncomfortable mentioning the Victory Column, he hid it well. Even so, his voice ended on a dying fall. There was a limit to the amount of self-deception even a dyed-in-the-wool Panglossian like Eberhard could conjure up.

  Hitler had heard what he wanted to hear. ‘You will leave the bunker by the Kannenberggang. You will guide Colonel von Hartelius and his wife to their Storch. The plane is being held in readiness for them on the East–West Axis, one hundred metres due east of the Brandenburg Gate. When they reach it, you will see them safely aboard and into the air before returning and reporting to me personally.’ Hitler slapped the desk with the paper he was holding. ‘Into the air.’

  ‘Yes, Mein Führer.’

  ‘Now go and fetch the weapons. Then wait outside.’

  As Eberhard left the study, he could hear Hitler cackling behind him. To Eberhard’s ears the sound resembled not the pathetic croaking of a beaten man but the triumphant cawing of a hawk, stooping onto its prey.

  Not for the first time in his life Eberhard thanked whatever forces controlled his destiny for providing him with such a forceful and charismatic leader as the Führer. Germany could never be beaten when led by such a man. It was inconceivable. Something would always turn up. And Eberhard suspected that the documents contained within the briefcase he had just delivered constituted exactly that expected miracle.

  TEN

  Hartelius had just finished making love to his wife when the knock sounded. It was a military knock – forceful, ordered, and impossible to ignore.

  Inge von Hartelius, whose real pleasure lay in the series of post-coital orgasms her husband nearly always provided her with, gave one final shunt of her hips and dismounted.

  Hartelius wriggled out from underneath her and padded to the door. He threw aside the barricade he had constructed from two library chairs and flipped back the bolt.

  The SS guard standing in the corridor affected not to notice that Hartelius was stark naked, and his member still semi-erect. ‘The Führer requires your presence and that of Frau von Hartelius in his study immediately, Colonel. You are ordered to prepare yourselves for a long journey. Bring all that you need with you. You will not be returning to this room after the interview.’ The direction of the guard’s gaze flickered briefly over Hartelius’s shoulder, and then shifted once again to neutral.

  Hartelius gave a snort. He knew better than to prod the guard for any additional information. In the prevailing circumstances it would be absurd. ‘We’ll be ready in ten minutes. No. Make that fifteen. There is a lady involved.’ Hartelius slammed the door in the guard’s face. He couldn’t abide the SS. He could scarcely even bring himself to acknowledge their absurd uniforms. Far less their Ruritanian customs and ersatz mythology. The man had been unpardonably abrupt, given the differences in their rank. ‘You heard?’

  Inge von Hartelius was already slipping into her underwear. ‘Of course I heard. You were both shouting at the tops of your voices.’ She finished attaching her stockings to her garter belt and slithered into her favourite Lucien Lelong dress.

  Wearing a dress and stockings when you expected to be flying an aeroplane within the next hour, might not, at first glance, make sense. But Inge had come prepared. She understood men. And the Führer was a man like any other. The publicity pictures she had seen of Eva Braun in the follow-up to her sister’s society wedding to General Fegelein showed her elegantly and femininely attired, often with exotic furs draped over her shoulders. Inge had therefore deduced that the clothes Eva wore were a direct reflection of the Führer’s taste – how could it possibly be otherwise, when it was an open secret that the two of them had been lovers since 1931?

  ‘Wear your smartest outfit, Joni. Medals and all. This may be our last chance to make our mark.’

  ‘My smartest outfit? Who do you think I am? Marika Roekk?’ Hartelius grinned. Unlike many professional soldiers, he relished the differences between men and women, and the sometimes competing polarities of their thought processes. Despite his pretend outrage, he pulled his best uniform out of his kitbag and began putting it on. His wife was generally right on such matters. ‘What does the carpet-eater want, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t care what he wants. But I know what I want. I want my plane back.’ She glanced around the room and lowered her voice. ‘And everything that is inside it.’

  Twenty minutes later, externally immaculate but still reeking of sex, Johannes and Inge von Hartelius were shown into the Führer’s study.

  Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels were standing beside the Führer. All three men were laughing in that artificial way men have when they know they are the centre of interest. The SS guard who had escorted the Harteliuses from their quarters saluted and backed out of the door. He took up position in the corridor alongside his companion-in-arms and the frightened-looking female SS-Gefolge guard who had been called in to conduct the mandatory weapons search on Inge. Beside them, his face impassive, stood the newly promoted, and now heavily armed, Sergeant Major Eberhard.

  Hartelius snapped out a Hitler salute. Inge did the same. The salute had only been imposed on the Wehrmacht after the July 1944 assassination plot, and it sat badly with the army. Its pragmatic use, however, was mandatory. People had been put into concentration camps for mocking or refusing to use it. Given the top echelon audience in front of him, neither Hartelius nor his wife dared not conform. Both shouted, ‘Heil, Mein Führer!’ in enthusiastic voices.

  Hitler gave a lazy crook of his right arm in response. His attention seemed focused elsewhere. His expression, behind the forced levity he and his minions had seen fit to impose on themselves, was dark.

  ‘A thousand congratulations on your recent marriage, Mein Führer. Please pass on our compliments to Frau Hitler.’

  Hartelius raised an eyebrow at his wife’s forthrightness. Well. At least she knew what to say and when to say it. Looking at her, he felt a surge of pride and possessiveness. Twenty minutes ago he had been making love to the beautiful woman beside him, and she had been whispering endearments in his ear. Now they were standing in front of their country’s certifiably insane leader, and two of his equally insane
henchmen, bandying social niceties. Fate was a curious thing.

  Joseph Goebbels stepped forward. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. His face was covered with red blotches. He wore a rictus grin like a man already dead. ‘You are Colonel Freiherr Johannes von Hartelius, hereditary Guardian of the Holy Lance?’

  Hartelius did a double take. The Guardian of the Holy Lance? Was that what all this nonsense was about? The Holy bloody Lance? The object itself was in the basement of an infant school in Nuremberg. On the Panier Platz. Near the entrance to the Oberen Schmied Gasse. Either that or it was at the bottom of Lake Zell, near Salzburg. Depending on which army rumour you had listened to last. But who gave a damn any more about the bloody thing? Or who its hereditary guardian was? The Ivans were at the gates of Berlin. The so-called magic Lance wouldn’t save anybody from them.

  ‘Are you the person this speaks of?’

  Goebbels held out a document. On it were the seals of Frederick VI of Swabia and Henry VI of Staufen. Hartelius noticed that Goebbels’s fingertips were yellow with nicotine. Something of a paradox, as the Führer formally prohibited the smoking of cigarettes in his presence.

  Hartelius took the document and held it up to the light. The emergency generator picked exactly that moment to respond to a more than usually concerted Katyusha rocket salvo on the Chancellery. It faltered for ten seconds and then regained its equilibrium. Hartelius had already recognized the document, despite the temporary blackout. It was an exact copy of the one his father had shown him a few weeks before his suicide in October 1938, following the annexation of the Sudetenland. It was painstakingly dated 1190 in Gothic Blackletter.

  ‘I have seen this document before. Or at least one similar to it. It refers to my namesake, Johannes von Hartelius. The Baron Sanct Quirin.’

  ‘I know who and what it refers to. Are you this man’s direct male descendant? According to semi-Salic law?’

  Direct male descendant? Semi-Salic law? Hartelius forced back a baffled smile. ‘Yes. I suppose I am. Twenty generations later. Maybe more. But yes. I also carry the Uradel title of nobility mentioned in the text. It actually predates the oldest Uradel title, but that is beside the point. I would need to engage in a twenty-year court battle to prove it.’ Hartelius was playing for time. Before this, he had simply looked upon himself as nothing more than a high-ranking courier – albeit with the priceless additional convenience of a test-pilot wife. In the light of what Goebbels was asking him, he was rapidly being forced to reassess the situation in which he found himself.

  Goebbels made an impatient gesture. ‘So you are indeed the Guardian of the Holy Lance? What is otherwise known as the Maurice Lance? You are certain of this?’

  Hartelius was tempted to burst out laughing. Was this really what these maniacs had brought him and Inge five hundred kilometres to Berlin for? In the final stages of the war to end all wars? To ask him if he was hereditary guardian of some stupid lance that had probably been faked up nine hundred years before by an overzealous priest in order to galvanize recalcitrant crusaders? Were these really the people for whom he had been risking his life these past five years? The comedian in front of him was hardly Frederick Barbarossa now, was he? More like Cruel Frederick in Heinrich Hoffman’s Struwwelpeter stories, who loved to tear the wings off flies, and killed the birds and broke the chairs and threw the kitten down the stairs.

  Hartelius could feel Inge’s eyes boring into him. Urging him not to spoil their final chance of freedom. Urging him to respond with caution. ‘Yes, I am certain of this. I am indeed Hereditary Guardian of the Lance.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Goebbels withdrew and Bormann stepped forward. It was as if the trio had rehearsed their respective moves prior to their appearance in a Marx Brothers movie, thought Hartelius. A nice irony.

  ‘Do you have children, Freifrau von Hartelius?’ Bormann appeared to be making a specific point by the use of Inge’s honorific title. It didn’t sit well with his butcher’s face and peasant’s body, however. In the haphazard light from the emergency generator he looked more like a character from a painting by Pieter Breughel the Elder than a German Party Minister and de facto General Secretary of the Nazi Party. He was the only one of the three leaders present who did not carry the aura of imminent death about him.

  ‘Yes. One.’

  ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘A boy.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  Hartelius saw the maternal panic begin to flare on his wife’s face. He cut into her dialogue with Bormann, aping the role of the stern professional soldier with little time for small talk. The paterfamilias. ‘Johannes is with his grandparents in Darmstadt.’

  ‘Ah. Darmstadt. The first city in Germany to force its Jewish shops to close. We executed Leuschner and Hauback there. Two of our home-grown terrorists.’

  ‘No,’ Hitler cut in. His voice had a querulous quality, like that of King Lear on the heath talking to his fool. ‘They were executed here in Plötzensee. They came from Darmstadt, though. You are right on that score, Martin. They are in the photo collection. You used to have a better memory for such things in the old days.’

  Hartelius was beginning to wonder whether Hitler might be working himself up to passing round the Schnapps? The atmosphere in the room was lurching towards the sentimental and nostalgic. He offered up a silent prayer of thanks that Bormann had veered off the subject of their son. He tried not to think to what the photo collection might refer.

  ‘Now. To business.’ Hitler pointed one shaking hand at the mid-sized leather suitcase resting on a painted table in the corner of the room. ‘This case contains two things, Colonel. One: the true Holy Lance. Not the ersatz model my people mocked up to fool the idiot Americans. And two…’ Hitler hesitated for a moment. He rubbed at the corners of his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic. ‘Suffice it to say that it contains something of crucial importance to the future of the Reich. Of equal importance – of equal significance even – to the Holy Lance, and in strategic terms, superior even to the V-2 rocket.’ Hitler’s eyes flashed. He resembled, for a moment, a magician who has just withdrawn an enormous lop-eared rabbit from a very small hat.

  Hartelius could only nod. He hadn’t the remotest idea where the Führer was heading with his declarations.

  ‘Tomorrow morning I intend to offer up my life as a final sacrifice to the German Reich.’ Hitler’s gaze turned inward. ‘Frau Hitler, of course, will die alongside me, just as Isolde died alongside Tristan. I shall use the same cyanide tablets I gave to you, Hartelius. But in addition I shall use a pistol.’ Hitler’s bleary eyes gleamed with self-pity. He held up one shaking hand. ‘No. It is pointless to protest.’

  Hartelius had not been about to protest, but Hitler was plainly at the stage where he saw only what he chose to see. Hartelius found himself wondering why the Führer was still intent on killing himself moments after taking possession of the plans for a new, all-conquering super weapon? This was, indeed, a house of fools, just as Inge had suggested.

  ‘To make entirely sure that the Russians will not be able to make use of our bodies in the same way that the communist filth made use of Il Duce’s, two days ago, I have ordered that our corpses be immediately incinerated. Reich Minister Goebbels and Magda, his wife, together with their six children, have requested permission to accompany me.’

  ‘To accompany you?’ Inge von Hartelius couldn’t help herself. The thought of the six Goebbels children being forcibly killed was too much to bear. She, like everyone else in Germany, had seen perennial images of this perfect Aryan family in endless propaganda magazines and newsreels. ‘Do you mean accompany you to die?’

  ‘What did you think I meant, Freifrau von Hartelius? Honour to the point of destruction. That is the only possible answer to the dilemma our nation faces. Reich Minister Goebbels and his family, to their eternal credit, have refused my direct order that they leave Berlin and help form the new government.
They have chosen to accompany me in death. Head of the Party Chancellery Bormann will represent me in their stead. My decision is final. I have already made my will. Everything is left to the German people. The Reich expects nothing less.’

  Hartelius’s eyes flickered towards the leather suitcase. Was Hitler anticipating a round of applause? Hartelius knew that he needed to get everybody back on track and away from their Wagnerian Ring des Nibelungen fantasies, or he and Inge would be doomed along with the rest of the asylum inmates in the impending Götterdämmerung. ‘Where are we to take the suitcase, Mein Führer?’

  ‘The suitcase. Yes. This must be our number one priority.’ Hitler took off his blue glasses and handed them to Bormann. Bormann inspected them for a moment and then began to clean them on the sleeve of his uniform. ‘The sergeant major – I forget his name, the one you passed outside in the corridor – he will guide you back to your Storch. He has pistols for you both. Also a packed lunch and thermoses of coffee made by my butler. I’m not allocating you extra guards. That would simply draw attention to what you are doing.’ Hitler took the glasses back from Bormann, checked that they were clean, and replaced them on his nose. ‘You will take the suitcase and fly it to Gmund in Bavaria. There you will be met by my representative, Heinrich Rache.’ He glanced at Bormann, who nodded. ‘You know Rache, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, Mein Führer. I met him before the war. Our parents are near neighbours.’

  ‘Good. That will make things easier. This is why we have chosen you for this duty. You will hand Rache the suitcase. He will hand you a receipt.’

  ‘Then what must we do?’

  Hitler snorted. ‘If it’s still possible, save yourselves. Failing that…’ He made a scything motion with his left hand. ‘Swallow the pills.’