William Tyree - The Fellowship

“Very well,” Nagel nodded. He took a flashlight as big as a police baton from the table and turned to the group. “Follow me.”

Wolf, Lang, Ritter, Fleischer and Dr. Seiler followed Nagel out of the hall, into the corridor and to the southeast wing of the castle. There they descended a winding stone staircase until they found themselves in a vast wine cellar. At approximately 56 degrees Fahrenheit, it was substantially warmer than the castle’s upper floors.

The aroma of mustiness, oak and fermenting wine was immediate and overpowering. The unit proceeded through row after row of barrels stacked nearly to the ceiling. Nagel seemed intent on reaching some predetermined destination, and yet there seemed to be no obvious path through the cavernous space. It was as if the barrels had been deliberately arranged in a sort of maze that twisted illogically through the room. Nevertheless, Nagel pressed on, following a path that he clearly knew by heart.

Fleischer dropped back until he was walking alongside Wolf. “I knew your father,” Fleischer offered.

Wolf glanced up at Fleischer as they navigated the path through the room. He did not want to give the smug anthropologist the satisfaction of knowing that a photograph of him still hung in his father’s empty study in Munich. “You worked together?” Wolf asked.

“Tibet,” Fleischer nodded. “Your father was a good researcher. We all caught strange illnesses over there. I nearly died myself.”

“Was it worth it?” Wolf pushed, earning a sideways glance from the older man. “I don’t mean to be rude,” Wolf explained. “I just want to know.”

Fleischer shook his head. “I suppose not. There was no Aryan connection in Tibet. Just a lot of good hunting.”

At last they came to a chain link gate fitted with a sign that read ATTENTION! DANGER! SALT MINE ENTRANCE!

Nagel unclipped a ring of keys from his belt, plucked a long jagged one from it, and unlocked the gate. Once the others had passed through, he shut the gate behind them, rattling it to ensure it was properly locked.

He switched on his flashlight and led them down a lightless hallway. Wolf’s heart began beating hard in his chest. He began counting his steps in case he had to find his way back in the dark.

“Halt!” a voice shouted from farther down the second corridor. Wolf was temporarily blinded as a spotlight that seemed as bright as the sun itself swept across the group.

“Obergruppenfuhrer Nagel,” one of the voices said. “You may proceed.”

The spotlight flashed off. Wolf, his eyes still blinded by spots, forced his feet forward, using the sound of Nagel’s boots against the concrete as a guide. They turned a corner, where he saw a lift entrance with a guard sentry on either side. One of the guards presented Nagel with a clipboard. The castle commandant scrawled his name and date on the visitor form, and then passed it to each of the men in the group.

At last they boarded the lift, where the lighting was much easier on the eyes. The lift platform was roughly the size of a car, easily the largest Wolf had ever seen. As they began their descent, Wolf peered at the cut earth through the chicken wire surrounding the lift.

“The shaft is 800 meters deep,” Nagel noted.

Wolf’s mouth instinctively yawned open as a plugging sensation overtook his eardrums. Soon he could hear, over the whirring of the lift cables, the sound of metal on stone. A steady chipping that was rhythmic, if not perfectly syncopated.

“How many prisoners died digging this hole?” Fleischer asked.

“Not so many,” Nagel replied. “Perhaps two thousand.”

At last the walls flickered with shadows. The lift slowed and bounced gently at the shaft’s bottom, sending Dr. Seiler wobbling against Lang for balance. The group stepped onto a floor of freshly poured concrete.

The room was lit with tunneling lights and filled with stone carvers in jumpers that were caked with white dust. The finished walls were carved with scenes from ancient Nordic myths. Against the far wall, a pair of enormous stone lions flanked the entrance into a second room. The sight reminded Wolf of photographs he had seen of the ancient tomb of the Egyptian king Tutankhamen.

Nagel led the men through the antechamber, between the lions, through the portal — which was easily 10 meters tall — and into a torch-lit crypt that was elaborately decorated with dozens of German noble flags. Hung high above was the Lucas Cranach painting of the Last Supper that Wolf had seen previously in Himmler’s private museum. A lit cauldron burned in the center of the room, smoke drawing up through a ventilator that had been bored into the ceiling.

Heinrich Himmler stood in a corner, surrounded by three personal bodyguards. His shadow danced in the torchlight behind him, larger than life against the enormous rune-etched walls. He did not speak, but rather pointed to the eastern wall. Hahn, Ritter and Seiler led the way, followed by Wolf and Lang.

Cut out of the wall were five extravagantly decorated marble crypts. Wolf sensed an inner darkness grip him as he, along with the others, approached the first crypt. Despite an overwhelming sense of dread, curiosity propelled him forward until he was close enough to make out the engraving on the marker:

HEINRICH I — HENRY THE FOWLER

KING OF GERMANY

876- 936 AD

This defied all reason. It was common knowledge that the king had been buried at Quedlinburg Abbey for a millennium. Had Himmler actually disinterred the body from its ancient resting place to move it here? He quickly moved to the second crypt, where a large portrait of Frederick II hung. The nameplate read:

Frederick the Great

King of Prussia

Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire

1712–1786 AD

He struggled to make sense of this spectacle. This crime. Had these bodies been moved for their own protection? Was a Russian invasion really so certain? Or was this just another manifestation of Himmler’s sorcery?

The third sarcophagus was lavishly covered in medals and decorations from the Great War. A portrait of Paul von Hindenburg was suspended overhead, along with a bevy of rifles and swords.

FIELD MARSHAL PAUL VON HINDENBURG

PRESIDENT OF GERMANY

1847–1934 AD

The fourth sarcophagus was as yet undecorated and apparently empty. The nameplate read:

FUHRER ADOLF HITLER

FIRST LEADER OF THE THIRD REICH

36th HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR

20, April 1889 AD -

Now the meaning of their visit here — 800 meters below Castle Wewelsburg — was perfectly clear. Should they be successful in their mission, this was where their prize would rest for all eternity.

Wolf’s hunch was confirmed as soon as he caught sight of the fifth chamber, which had recently been cut into the stone wall. The nameplate read:

JESUS CHRIST

O — 38 AD

Venice

January 2, 1943

It had been a long time since Wolf had seen a city so boldly lit at nighttime. The wrath of British and American air raids had forced Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt and even Paris to observe nightly blackouts. And yet the good citizens of Venice seemed to have no fear. The orange-hued city flickered, dreamlike, through a layer of fog that rolled from the marshes across the lagoon.

The boat churned through the Grand Canal, its engine seeming to grumble more than hum. Wolf sat on a wooden bench in the aft alongside Lang and three other young soldiers — Adler, Bauer and Kalb. They had been entrusted with the task of finding the ossuary and bringing it to Germany.

Of these soldiers, Wolf was considered the least green, considering that he had both killed a man and also been wounded. And maybe they were right. He was no longer the same person that he was when he had left Munich for the fall semester at the Reich School. Not damaged, exactly, but certainly altered.