'Guten morgen, mutter !'

The cheerful greeting met with a slack-jawed stare. Dolf took the blank stare in his stride as he walked over to the metal hospital bed and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. Before putting her to bed, he'd changed the sheets and tidied the room in preparation. He wanted everything to be perfect.

With a tender hand, he smoothed her bunched nightdress so that it modestly draped her withered body. He then unpinned the coiled braids at the top of his mother's head and arranged one thick grey braid on each side of her face. There was a time, when Dolf had been a very small boy, that his mother had been vibrant of body and mind. But those days were long gone.

Humming softly, he secured her wrists and ankles to the metal bed railing with leather straps. Noticing that her toenails needed to be clipped, he glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. Scheisse. Too late now. There wasn't enough time to hunt for the nail clippers.

Refusing to get riled over the small blunder, he walked across to the bureau and opened the top drawer, removing a green plastic medicine bottle. Reaching under a folded towel, he also retrieved an ornately carved oak bread plate. As he did, Dolf glanced at the framed photograph hanging on the wall of his six-year-old mother offering the Fuhrer a slice of freshly baked schwarzbrot. He'd always been immensely proud of the fact that he was named after the Fuhrer. Proud of his family's close connection to that great and good man who had been a saviour to Germany.

Pleased that he'd remembered the plate, Dolf carried it over to the bed and set it on top of his mother's chest. In the centre of the oak plate was a carved Sonnenrad Hakenkreutz. A German sun wheel. Although he couldn't be certain, he thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in his mother's faded blue eyes.

As he did each morning before he left for work, Dolf gently inserted a sleeping pill between her lips, holding up her head so she could swallow it without gagging. Then he inserted another. And another ... until the bottle was completely empty.

' "Cattle die, kinsmen die. The self must also die; I know one thing which never dies: the reputation of each dead man,"' he quietly recited. It was his mother's favourite line from the Havamal, the collection of old Norse poems. 'Do not fear, mutter. You will always be "the Fuhrer's little handmaid".'

He stuffed the green plastic bottle in his pocket before turning out the light. Now there were no more enc.u.mbrances to hold him back.

Today, Adolf Reinhardt was finally a free man.

75.

Grande Arche, Paris 0528 hours 'You seem oddly calm for a man who might soon be the guest of honour at his own funeral,' Caedmon remarked as he and McGuire made their way on foot across the deserted esplanade in front of the Grande Arche. At that somnolent hour, the skysc.r.a.pers of La Defense business district had an otherworldly aspect. A forest of steel and gla.s.s silhouetted against a slate-grey sky.

'Got over my fear of death years ago.' The commando carefully adjusted the canvas rucksack slung across his chest. Inside his Go Bag were six homemade pipe bombs packed in wadded cotton fabric. 'Being a soldier, I know how I'll die. I just don't know the when of it. Only Bob Almighty knows that.'

'And, how may I ask '

'Hail of bullets, buddy boy. Hail of bullets.'

Taken aback by McGuire's exuberance, and that he considered his violent demise a fait accompli, Caedmon said quietly, 'You shall be missed when you're gone.'

'Gee, didn't know you cared that much.'

'I was thinking of Kate.'

The other man's expression instantly sobered. 'Yeah, I can't seem to get her off my mind. I hope to h.e.l.l she's all right.'

As do I.

While they were going into the breach armed with six pipe bombs and one Ruger P89 semi-automatic pistol, a pitiful a.r.s.enal by any standard, Kate was utterly defenceless.

Unnerved by the eerie silence, Caedmon looked over his left shoulder. The pedestrian esplanade, a concrete meadow in the midst of the steel forest, afforded him an un.o.bstructed view to the east of the Arc de Triomphe L'etoile. Though he couldn't see beyond the famous monument, he knew that it was exactly seven kilometres in distance from the first arch on the Axe Historique, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, to the Grande Arche. Seven. One of the most sacred of all numbers, it symbolized the totality of the Universe, the Heavens conjoined to the Earth. Astral energy fused to telluric energy. How ironic that Ivo Uhlemann's despicable group was named 'The Seven'.

Put in mind of an initiate making his way to the holy shrine, he stared at the gleaming white cube. An impressive sight in broad daylight, the Grande Arche was utterly stunning at night, the alabaster marble gleaming with an ethereal l.u.s.tre. He'd once read that the Cathedral of Notre-Dame would fit perfectly inside the cube's open s.p.a.ce.

Was that merely a coincidence or was it a profound and purposeful design element?

Caedmon suspected the latter, the cathedral having been built over the top of an ancient temple dedicated to Isis, the Egyptian Queen of the Heavens the reason why the city had originally been called 'Parisis'. In point of fact, the Axe Historique was the Axis of Isis, the ma.s.sive ley line perfectly aligned to the heliacal rising of her sacred star Sirius. A star that would appear in sixty minutes after an absence of seventy days. Seven plus zero equals seven.

As Caedmon glanced at the high-rises that flanked the esplanade, he wondered if any of the thousands of Parisians who worked in those office buildings knew that the centrepiece of La Defense, the Grande Arche, was a porte cosmique. A star gate built to harness astral energy.

Though spectacularly modern in execution, the Grande Arche was ancient wisdom articulated in marble and granite. That wisdom had been safeguarded through the centuries by a succession of secret societies: the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Nine Sisters Lodge, the Egyptian Rite, to name just a few. Deemed heretical, one and all, by the Church Fathers, those underground societies had been the Guardians of the Lost Science. Each group had gleaned a different piece of the puzzle. None of them possessed all of the knowledge. Or the requisite component, the Lapis Exillis, which would have enabled them to generate the Vril force.

Until the Seven Research Foundation retrieved all of the puzzle pieces and put them in order.

A dedicated group of educated zealots a secret society in the guise of an academic think tank the Seven Research Foundation intended to exploit the Lost Science. An unknown force of nature, the Vril was derived from fused energies. It had been the power behind the Egyptian civilization. For all he knew, it was the very power that ultimately destroyed that same empire. Since the Vril force was created through the manipulation of astral and telluric energies, if there was the slightest miscalculation, he feared catastrophe would ensue.

Given that it had been more than three thousand years since the Vril force had last been generated, the possibility of error was great.

Well aware that the clock ticked loudly, neither he nor McGuire said a word as they ascended the steps which led to the Grande Arche veranda. Each of them knew what had to be done. Earlier in the evening as they'd prepared the pipe bombs a laborious endeavour that had taken hours to complete they'd gone over the mission op in excruciating detail. Their plan was two-p.r.o.nged: he would find and rescue Kate; McGuire would set and ignite the six pipe bombs.

Reaching the fifty-fourth, and final, step, they hurriedly slipped into the shadows. Moored on the far side of the veranda were the gla.s.s elevators used to whisk tourists to the rooftop observation deck. Canopied directly above them was the white canvas 'cloud' that spanned the open-ended courtyard. Le Nuage. Caedmon had always thought it more closely resembled a hovering white moth than a floating cirrus cloud. An eyesore from any angle, it had been installed to reduce the wind shear. He peered at the esplanade below. From his elevated position, it was akin to standing at a window that opened on to the world.

As outlined in the mission op, they veered away from the bank of revolving gla.s.s doors that led to the north and south lobbies, both of which were manned by a night-duty guard. Instead, they proceeded to a single gla.s.s door that was out of the guards' line of sight. Head bowed so he couldn't be easily identified on the security camera, McGuire quickly punched an eight-digit code into a keypad affixed to the door jamb. An instant later, the door buzzed open. Because the Grande Arche was a potential terrorist target, all of the building's security codes were kept on file with the Ministry of Interior, the government office responsible for national security. Calling in an old favour with a computer engineer at Thames House, Caedmon had acquired the necessary codes.

Hopefully the guard stationed at the video monitors would pay them short shrift. Not only did they use an authorized security code, they'd come through a designated after-hours entryway. Just a pair of overworked office cogs getting an early start.

'Well done,' he whispered, relieved at the ease with which they'd entered the building.

'Unlike you, I'm not gonna wrench my arm out its socket to pat myself on the back. Do that and somebody will shoot you in the back for sure,' McGuire muttered. He glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. 'We've only got fifty-two minutes until sunrise.'

'Right.'

Properly chastened, Caedmon followed the commando down the dim corridor. A long-forgotten line popped into his head: 'From battle and murder, and from sudden death.'

He hoped to G.o.d that it wasn't a grisly premonition.

76.

Seven Research Facility 0528 hours Ivo Uhlemann carefully set the phonograph needle on to the vinyl disk.

His choice of music admittedly ironic, he walked over to the rosewood bureau as the opening strains of Wagner's Gotterdammerung reverberated throughout his private study. He'd always considered the 1966 recording by the Berlin Philharmonic the cla.s.sic rendition of the operatic cycle.

The irony, of course, was that the fall of the Third Reich had been Germany's great Gotterdammerung. Not Brunnhilde's immolation. What happened in April of 1945 was the true ' Twilight of the G.o.ds'.

Wracked with pain, Ivo gingerly opened the bureau's top drawer and removed a wooden box with a carved sun wheel on the lid. An authentic Ahnenerbe-commissioned chest, he'd paid an exorbitant price for it at a private auction. It'd always angered him, as it did his father, that Himmler and his cronies misappropriated the Sonnenrad Hakenkreutz symbol, foolishly believing that the swirling energy that radiated from the Black Sun, Sirius, would somehow magically transform them into avatars. Fools! All of them! They could not comprehend that Sirius was simply a key to unlock the door of s.p.a.ce and time.

Ivo lifted the lid and removed his drug paraphernalia. As he did so, he glanced dismissively at the Iron Cross in the bottom of the box. He'd been awarded the medal on 20 April 1945 by Adolf Hitler in the bomb-blasted Chancellery Garden. To this day, he could still envision in his mind's eye the tottering Fuhrer who, his brain addled, destroyed by the cancer of occultism, would lead the glorious Reich into fiery defeat.

It could have been different. Had men of greater intelligence been making the decisions. But the occult wing of the German high command had been trapped in a hall of mirrors which, ironically, they had created. For them, indeed, for the whole of Germany, there was no escape from the madness.

Soon that would all change. Soon the Reich would be created anew.

Stepping over to his upholstered chaise longue, Ivo carefully sat down, every movement inciting an agonized riot. At the end of the elongated chair, Wolfgang slept peacefully, curled in a furry ball.

A few moments later, as the pain-numbing heroin coursed through his veins, he reclined on the chaise longue. While science and mathematics spoke to the mind, art, literature and music spoke to the soul of mankind. A universal language that could inspire greatness. Overcome by the rich orchestral tones, he closed his eyes and dreamed the sweetest of dreams.

Of a different world. A different childhood. One in which he didn't have to join the Hitler-Jugend because there would be no need for children to do the work of men. To martyr themselves for their fathers. How very sweet. And in this different, better world, his father would come home each evening after teaching at the university, greeted with a warm kiss from his wife Berthe and big hug from his son Ivo. The smell of Aprikosenkuchen baking in the oven would swirl around the three of them like a heavenly apricot cloud. Sweeter, yet. And, later, freed from the onerous burden of fulfilling his father's dream, Ivo wouldn't have had to become a physicist. He could follow his own pa.s.sions and inclinations. Perhaps become an art historian. Yes, very sweet indeed.

'Is there anything that I can get for you?'

On hearing Angelika's voice, Ivo opened his eyes. Breathtakingly lovely, she stood in the doorway, a concerned look on her face.

His beautiful dark angel.

When Angelika was just a small child, she had begun to exhibit vicious tendencies, deriving pleasure from the pain of others. First insects. Then small animals. Then other children. Since her mother had abandoned her, Ivo had full responsibility for raising the child. Faced with a th.o.r.n.y dilemma to inst.i.tutionalize Angelika or to keep her with him, he settled for the latter. Which meant that he had to find a way to channel her homicidal urges. To teach Angelika how to kill judiciously. While he was not always successful, he'd done the best he could.

Blut und Ehre. Blood and honour. And family. The holy trinity.

'I am fine. Thank you for checking.' Patting the Schnauzer's head one last time, he smiled wistfully and said, 'Take Wolfgang with you, please. You know what must be done.'

Ivo watched as the docile little beast obediently trotted after the beautiful Angel of Death.

Although he had every confidence that das Gro Versuch would be successful, there was always the possibility of a calamitous error. That was the reason why the board members of the Seven Research Foundation would observe the proceedings via CCTV from the safety of an off-site location. Because of his terminal illness, his death a certainty, Ivo was the only one among them who would be physically present for the Vril generation. On the off-chance that something went wrong during das Gro Versuch, he had every confidence that the board members would continue their fathers' work. Committed, they would discover what went wrong and make the necessary adjustments so that, next year on the heliacal rising, they could attempt the experiment again. But, this year, the honour was his alone.

Staring at the ceiling, Ivo imagined himself as the Rucken-figur, that solitary figure in a Caspar David Friedrich painting, always seen from behind, gaze set on the horizon.

He closed his eyes, the moment too sublime for words.

Dein Reich koimme. Thy kingdom come. On earth as it is in heaven. The fate of the Reich linked to one particular star in the heavenly firmament.

Very soon now.

77.

0538 hours Having committed the Grande Arche building plan to memory, McGuire promptly headed for a door located thirty feet away from the exterior entry. The placard read 'escalier'. Beneath that was the international zigzag symbol for 'stairs'. The commando wordlessly opened the door and entered the stairwell, Caedmon following right behind him.

They went down four flights of steps, descending into the bowels of the building. Exiting the stairwell, they traversed another dimly lit corridor lined with office suites, left and right. All of the doors were closed; each had a security keypad above the door k.n.o.b. A uniformly designed rabbit warren. Although the chance of running into someone at that hour was remote, Caedmon nonetheless slid his right hand under his jacket. Ignoring the burst of pain in his upper arm, he grasped the Ruger's gun handle, suddenly wis.h.i.+ng they'd had more time to prepare for the mission.

McGuire came to a halt in front of a closed door with a polished bronze plaque engraved 'SEVEN RESEARCH FOUNDATION'. The s.h.i.+ny surface reflected their joint image. He keyed in a security code, the door unlocking with a soft click!

Pulling a military-style torch from his Go Bag, the commando smirked and said in a hushed voice, 'Come on, Jonah. Time to gut the whale.'

As he stepped across the threshold, Caedmon, worried they might have tripped a silent alarm, slid the Ruger P89 pistol from its holster and thumbed the safety lever to the 'off' position.

Nerves jangling, he scrutinized the shadowy antechamber, searching for a surveillance device. Relieved when he didn't see any, he released a pent-up breath.

'Nice joint,' McGuire said as he s.h.i.+ned the torch around the room.

Boasting a sleekly modern design, the reception lounge was a notch above the typical office suite. Behind the curved reception desk, cascading water sluiced over a floor-to-ceiling copper panel. Off to the side, four leather chairs were grouped around a square-topped table on which there was an abstract marble sculpture and a few glossy magazines artfully arranged. A large Dufy canvas hung on the wall. A cheery Fauvist seascape, it was an unexpected splash of colour in an otherwise monochromatic setting.

The commando elbowed him. 'According to the architectural plan, there's supposed to be a door leading to the laboratory. Where the h.e.l.l is it?'

'My guess is behind the waterfall. At least that's where a door should be located.'

The designated point man, McGuire strode towards the water feature and peered behind the st.u.r.dy copper frame. Nodding his head, he disappeared behind the panel.

Gun tightly gripped in his hand, Caedmon stepped around the faux wall. McGuire, the torch protruding from his mouth, stood in front of an intimidating black door with a security keypad inlaid above the k.n.o.b. Unlike the door on the other side of the office, this was a bullet- and fire-resistant, galvanized steel entry.

s.h.i.+ning his torch at the numeric pad, McGuire keyed in the third, and last, hacked security code.

The lock softly popped. Removing the torch from his mouth, the commando pushed down on the polished steel handle and eased the door open a few scant inches. Just far enough for him to peep through the crack and scan the environs beyond.

'Coast is clear,' he whispered, swinging the door open and making his exit.

Ruger at the ready, Caedmon stepped cautiously into the research facility, the steel door automatically closing behind him. He glanced about, stunned.

It was as though he'd just entered another world.

Designed as a s.p.a.cious three-storey atrium, the lofty s.p.a.ce very cleverly fooled one into thinking that it was an airy, light-filled courtyard when, in fact, it was a subterranean bunker. An ethereal one, at that, with abundant white marble, polished chrome and alternating banks of clear and frosted gla.s.s. The illusion was further enhanced by potted Areca palm trees and towering rubber plants.

Directly across from them, the centre of the mezzanine resembled a collegiate study hall. There were seven identical tables each outfitted with flat-screen computer monitors and ergonomic roller chairs. On the far side of the mezzanine there was a capsule-like lift. From the architectural blueprints, Caedmon knew that there was an enclosed stairwell in the atrium's northwest quadrant.

Grim-faced, McGuire ducked into the shadows cast by a rectangular pillar, Caedmon following in his wake. Like a medieval cloister, columns were set every eight feet around the perimeter of the mezzanine supporting the promenade above.

'Forty-six minutes and counting,' McGuire informed him in a lowered voice. 'Time to say "ta ta" and go our separate ways.' His objective was to locate the maintenance room below the mezzanine where the mechanical systems were housed.

While he did that, Caedmon would search for Kate.

'Good luck, McGuire.'

'Yeah ... same to you, Aisquith.' One side of the commando's mouth quirked upward. 'If things don't go according to plan, I'll meet you at the pearly gates.'

Not the least bit amused, Caedmon said, 'Heaven or h.e.l.l, dead is dead. Ask any corpse.'

78.