“Open another one,” Völz said gleefully. “Any one. It won’t make a difference.”
Archie grabbed the crowbar off Tom and opened another crate.
“Alarm clocks,” he said, holding one up for everyone to see before dropping it back inside with a crash.
He opened another. “Typewriters.”
Then another. “Silk underwear.” He held up a bra and camisole before throwing them at Völz. They fell well short.
“Okay, Völz, you made your point,” Tom said slowly.
“Surely Lasche told you these were some of the items that were loaded on the train?”
Völz asked with a shrug. “I don’t see why you’re so surprised.”
“Don’t play dumb. Where is it?” Renwick demanded.
“Where is what?” Völz said, in mock confusion.
“You know damn well what,” Renwick snapped. “The Amber Room. Why else do you think we are all here?”
Völz laughed. “Ah yes, the Amber Room. Amazing how that myth refuses to die.”
“It’s not a myth.” Renwick fired back.
“No need to feel foolish. Thousands have fallen for the same deluded fantasy. And I’m certain thousands more will follow.”
“You’re saying it doesn’t exist?” Tom asked.
“I’m saying it was destroyed in the war.”
“Rubbish,” said Renwick.
“Is it?” Völz sniffed.
“It was moved to Königsberg Castle. Everyone knows that. Then it vanished. It was hidden.”
“It didn’t vanish and no one hid it. If you must know, it was burned. Burned by the very Russian troops who’d been sent to recover it. They overran Königsberg Castle in April 1945 and, in their haste, set fire to the Knight’s Hall. They didn’t know that the Amber Room was being stored there. Just as they probably didn’t know that, being a resin, amber is highly flammable. By the time they realized what they had done, it was too
late.”
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“If that story were true, it would have come out before now,” Renwick said dismissively.
“Really? You think the Soviets would freely admit that their own troops destroyed one of Russia’s most precious treasures? I don’t think so. Far easier for them to accuse the Nazis of having hidden this irreplaceable gem than face that particular embarrassment. You may not believe me, but I’ve seen the Kremlin documents in the Central State Archive of Literature and Art that confirm it. Not only did the Russians know that the Amber Room had been destroyed, they used it as a pawn in their negotiations for the return of valuable works of art from Germany.”
Völz’s eyes shone brightly, and Tom could see that, on this point, at least, he was telling the truth. Or at least he believed he was.
“Then what are you here for?” Tom asked slowly.
“For that,” said Völz, pointing at the second car. “Show them, Colonel.”
Hecht grabbed the crowbar from Archie and approached the side of the car. He forced the end in between two of the wide wooden planks and levered it sideways. The wood splintered noisily. Then Hecht snapped off more planks, creating a large jagged hole in the side of the car. But instead of being able to see through into the car, as Tom had expected, they were confronted by an expanse of dull gray metal. Something had been built into the walls.
“Is that lead?” Tom asked.
“It is,” said Völz. “Merely a protective layer, of course, to reduce the contamination risk.
“Contamination from what?” said Tom, already guessing and dreading the answer.
“U-235,” replied Völz. “Four tons of it.”
“U-what?” Archie, looking confused, turned to Tom.
“U-235,” Tom explained, his voice disbelieving. “An isotope of uranium. It’s the basic component
of
a
nuclear
bomb.”
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
6:06 p.m.
Anuclear bomb? You intend to build a nuclear bomb?” Tom couldn’t tell whether Renwick was appalled or impressed. “U-235 has a half-life of seven hundred million years. Even a minute amount, attached to a conventional explosive and detonated in an urban area, will create widespread radioactive fallout, triggering mass panic and economic collapse. Can you imagine the price this material would fetch from armed Middle Eastern groups, or even foreign governments? For years we have been building our organization in the shadows, almost unnoticed. Now, finally, we have the means not just to fight but to win our war. Now we are ready to reveal ourselves.”
“But where has this come from?” Tom asked. “How did it get here?”
“Do you know what the markings on the side of this carriage denote?” Völz pointed at the series of flaking letters and numbers on the side of the second.
“Some sort of serial number?” “Exactly. It identifies the contents as having come from Berlin. From the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 394 james twining
Dahlem, to be precise. The headquarters of the Nazis’ effort to produce a nuclear bomb.”
“Rubbish!” Renwick said dismissively. “The Nazis never had a nuclear program.”
“They all did,” Völz snapped. “The Soviets called theirs Operation Borodino, the Americans the Manhattan Project. And Hitler was in the hunt too. In 1940 German troops in Norway seized control of the world’s only heavy-water production facility and stepped up production of enriched uranium to supply the German fission program. There were stories after the war that German scientists had deliberately sabotaged Hitler’s attempts to build an atomic bomb, but the truth was that they were trying as hard as they could. Some even say they detonated a few devices in Thuringia. But the Americans had thrown a hundred and twenty-five thousand people into their program. In the end, Hitler simply couldn’t compete.”
“So how far did they get?” Tom asked.
“Far enough to accumulate a considerable amount of fissile material. Material that Stalin was determined to get his hands on before the Americans could grab it. That’s why he ordered Marshals Zhukov and Konev to race each other to Berlin: to be certain that the Red Army got there first. They say the effort cost the Russians seventy thousand men. Once there, special NKVD troops were dispatched to secure the institute. They arrived in April 1945 and discovered three tons of uranium oxide, two hundred and fifty kilograms of metallic uranium and twenty liters of heavy water. Enough to kick-start Operation Borodino and allow Stalin to start working on Russia’s first atomic bomb.”
“So you’re saying they didn’t find all the uranium?”
“They found what was there. But Himmler, ever resourceful, had already moved several tons by placing it in lead boxes built into the walls of a specially modified carriage. The Order personally supervised the shipment, meeting up with the Gold Train in Budapest in December 1944 and attaching their two carriages to it. As soon as they realized they wouldn’t make it to Switzerland, they unhitched the carriages and brought them
up
here,
to
be
recovered
at
a
later
date.”
the black sun 395
“And now the Order of the Death’s Head lives on, is that it?” Tom asked. “Only this time armed with a weapon to destroy anyone who doesn’t share your lunacy.”
“The Order has nothing to do with me or my men,” Völz retorted. “We wouldn’t have stood idly by playing at knights while Germany was bleeding.”
“Then how do you know all this? How did you find this place without access to the painting? Only the Order would have known this location.”
Völz hesitated, as if deciding whether to answer. Then he reached inside his coat and produced a large black wallet. Opening it carefully, he withdrew a tattered black-and-white photograph, which he handed to Tom. The same photograph they had found in Weissman’s house.
“Weissman and Lammers,” Tom said, looking up. Renwick held his hand out for the photo and studied it closely.
“And the third man?” Völz asked. “Do you recognize him?”
Tom glanced at the photo again, then gave Völz a long, searching look. There was a definite family resemblance in the high forehead, straight, almost sculpted nose, and small round eyes that Tom had also noted in the portraits lining the Völz et Cie offices in Zurich.
“Your father?” Tom ventured.
“Uncle. The other two men were called Becker and All-brecht.
Weissman
and
Lammers
were names they hid behind after the war like the cowards they were.”
“So you learned all this from him?” Archie asked.
“Some I know from him; some you have helped me discover. My uncle and his two comrades were plucked from the ranks because of their scientific knowledge and initiated into the Order as retainers.”
Tom nodded, remembering that Weissman was a chemist and Lammers a physics professor.
“Three retainers for twelve knights,” Tom said slowly. “In the same way that the Black Sun has three circles and twelve runes.” He looked up at the huge flag above them.
“Exactly!” Völz smiled at Tom’s perceptiveness. “Just as there were three medals and three
paintings.
My
uncle
396 james twining
accompanied the Order on the Gold Train’s ill-fated escape across Europe while Lammers and Weissman prepared the crypt at Wewelsburg Castle. Then, as ordered, all three of them made their way back to Berlin, hiding what they knew even from each other. Then, just before the end, all three were entrusted with one final instruction.”
“Which was?” Renwick asked, a blood vessel pulsing in his neck.
“To protect an encrypted message. A message that could be deciphered only with an Enigma machine configured with the right settings. A message that they hastily scrawled on a painting in a place that couldn’t be seen once the frame was on. A painting that they found hanging in Himmler’s office because he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it.”
“A painting that they then lost to the Soviets,” Tom guessed.
“The Russians made it to Berlin far faster than anyone expected. Lammers and Weissman risked everything by returning to the SS building to recover the painting but soon realized that the Trophy Squad had beaten them to it. The only two Bellaks they could find were the ones of Wewelsburg Castle and the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague.
“So, Lammers and Weissman knew where the painting was headed, and they had the settings for the Enigma machine to decode the message, but the one thing they didn’t know was the actual location of the Gold Train,” said Tom.
“Only my uncle knew that,” Völz confirmed. “Realizing this, they drew together a series of clues using the two Bellaks they had managed to save, the specially engraved medals, and the map of the railway system so that others might follow—those of pure Aryan blood, true believers, who could use the riches of the Gold Train to found a new Reich.”
“But if you knew all this,” asked Archie, “why have you waited until now to come here and find the train?”
“Because
I
didn’t know where the train was either.”
“I thought you said your uncle had helped put it here? Surely he told you?”
Völz
gave
an
exasperated
laugh.
“Unlike
his
two
com
the black sun 397
rades, my uncle ended the war disgusted at what he had seen and what he had done. He realized how potent a weapon had been stored in this mountain and was determined that no one should ever be able to exploit it. So he set up his own council of twelve. But unlike the Order, his council’s mission was to protect life, not destroy it. They did this by guarding the location of the site, whatever the cost. When he died five years ago, I was asked to take his seat on the council.”
“Didn’t they tell you the train’s location?”
“My uncle, in his wisdom, had decreed that only one man—the leader of the council—
should be entrusted with the location of the Gold Train. Only if the train was in imminent danger of being uncovered was the secret to be disclosed.”
“So you used me to make them think their precious secret was in danger,” Renwick said through gritted teeth.
“Johann and I had been fueling rumors about the Gold Train, the missing Bellaks, and the need for an Enigma machine to decode a secret message for years in the hope that it might help bring the portrait to light. When we discovered that you had taken the bait, I suggested that we flush you out by putting a price on your head through ads in the
Herald Tribune
. The council agreed, of course.”
“So the raid in Munich . . .”
“. . . Was not real. Those were my men in the lobby. You were never in any danger. We wanted to make you think you were getting close, and to show the council that their methods were failing. That they needed a change of leader.”
“Is that why you involved me?” Tom asked. “To make them sweat?”
“I didn’t involve you,” Völz said. “Turnbull was working for Cassius.” Tom shot Renwick a look, but it went unseen. Renwick’s hate-filled eyes were locked on Völz. “I took my inspiration from Stalin’s strategy of pitting Zhukov and Konev against each other, and kept you both in the hunt. The irony, of course, was that the key to all this had been lying in my vault all the time. Until you showed up, I had no 398 james twining
idea who that safety-deposit box belonged to. Had I known, all this might have been avoided.”
“But you knew that Weissman and Lammers had left a map.”
“The council tracked Lammers down a few years ago and made him talk. Unfortunately, his heart gave out before he could disclose the location of the crypt or the final painting. But he did reveal the settings for the Enigma machine, and the fact that Weissman was living in the UK. And of course we found the number tattooed on his arm, though we didn’t know its significance at the time.”