Paul Christopher - The Sword of the Templars

Most interesting of all, a much older Lutz Kellerman standing with his son on a hill across from the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado Mountain overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. In the photograph Axel Kellerman looked to be about eighteen. The car behind them was a 1959 Chevy Impala, with its classic sweeping fins and cat’s-eye tail-lights. Proof that Lutz Kellerman had survived the war and lived at least that long afterward.

Father and son were remarkably alike. Same long aristocratic nose, same fox-like face and widow’s peak, and same slightly feminine lips. The biggest difference between the two was the long, disfiguring Renommierschmiss or “bragging scar” that ran from just beneath Lutz Kellerman’s left eye down to his chin, earned in some long-ago saber duel where the object was not to inflict a wound but to receive one. The most perverted courage Holliday could think of, displayed not on a battlefield but in a fencing salon with celebratory champagne to follow.

“Look at this,” said Peggy, from the far side of the room. She was standing in front of a large desk. On the wall above it was a framed photograph of Hitler, and on the desk itself was a family portrait in a silver frame-a handsome woman in a forties-style dress standing with a young girl, six or seven, and a baby in her arms. Behind them, as distinctive as the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio, was the rough claw shape of the snowcapped Matterhorn. The Kellerman family safe in Switzerland for the duration. On the desk was a leather-bound book. Embossed on its cover was the death’s-head insignia of the Totenkopf, the 33rd SS Division in charge of concentration camps.

“A diary?” Holliday asked.

Peggy flipped it open. Dates at the top of the page, inked entries in neat, small handwriting. Lutz Kellerman’s journal. It appeared to be for the year 1943.

“Does that camera of yours take close-ups?”

“Sure.”

“As many pages as you can.”

“Done.”

Peggy took the camera out of her bag, opened up the journal to the first page, and got started. It took her the better part of twenty minutes. Holliday was wandering through the room, looking through the exhibits, trying to find some connection between Lutz Kellerman and the Templar sword Uncle Henry had hidden in his house.

The only faintly relevant thing he could find was a picture of Himmler, Goebbels, and Lutz Kellerman standing on the balcony at the Berghof, coffee cups in hand, at least corroborating Drabeck’s story that Kellerman had actually been at Hitler’s summer house in the Bavarian Alps.

“Finished,” said Peggy, joining him. “About two hundred pages. It’ll be fuzzy, but give me a decent computer and we’ll be able to read it.”

There was the sound of a wooden match striking across rough stone. Holliday and Peggy turned.

“Herr Doktor Holliday, Frдulein Blackstock,” said Axel Kellerman, standing in the doorway to the chamber. Two blond, uniformed men stood behind him. Both of them were armed with very modern looking Heckler amp; Koch G36 assault rifles. Kellerman lit his cigarette then blew out the match. He exhaled twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils and smiled. “How good of you to drop by.”

“I told you we should have brought a gun,” muttered Peggy.

Handcuffed, Holliday and Peggy Blackstock were taken back down to the Schloss in a security golf cart. Peggy had been relieved of her camera and bag, and Holliday had the Maglite taken away from him. Arriving at the estate, Holliday saw that the big Mercedes sedan he’d seen leaving the property earlier was back in the parking lot. The guards pulled him and Peggy out of the golf cart and pushed them toward the car.

Two more security guards came out of the service entrance, the hunched and handcuffed form of Rudolph Drabeck sagging between them. The first pair of men disappeared back inside the Schloss, taking Holliday’s Maglite and Peggy’s camera and shoulder bag with them. The guards with Drabeck were wearing sidearms. From where Holliday was standing they looked like bulky HK45 automatic pistols.

Kellerman stood beside the open driver’s-side door of the big sedan.

“We are, as the saying goes, taking you for a ride,” he said. “You will please get in the backseat, both of you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Holliday. One of the guards separated himself from Drabeck and grabbed Holliday by the arm, dragging him toward the rear door of the vehicle. Holliday tried to jerk out of his grip, then stumbled, barging into Drabeck and almost knocking him over. The old man grunted with surprise. Holliday saw that Drabeck’s face had been beaten raw, his nose broken, the nostrils crusted with blood.

“Please, Doctor, I would rather not resort to violence,” chided Kellerman. “Yet.”

The guard pulled Holliday upright. Kellerman gestured with his chin.

“Take off their handcuffs,” he ordered. The guard did as he was told. Peggy and Holliday rubbed their wrists.

“Ich flehe dich an!” groaned the old man, pleading, “Bitte, ich flehe dich an!”

“What’s he saying?” Peggy asked, turning to Holliday.

“He’s begging for his life,” translated Kellerman, his voice flat, without emotion. “Now, please, get in the car. We’re already behind schedule.”

“Where are you taking us?” Peggy asked.

Kellerman sighed.

“To a place where no one will hear you screaming and where bloodstains will not mar my expensive carpeting,” responded Kellerman. “Ein schweinbetrieb, a pig abattoir I own a short distance from here. Eminently suitable, I think. You will be tortured while Doctor Holliday watches. When he tells me where he has hidden the sword that your grandfather stole the torture will stop.”

“Uncle Henry didn’t steal the sword and you know it,” said Holliday.

“I don’t have time to argue semantics with you, Doctor. Get in the car.”

“And if I don’t?”

Kellerman sighed theatrically again.

“Then I’ll have no choice but to ask Stefan to break Miss Blackstock’s fingers, one by one,” said Kellerman. There was no arguing with that; the logic was impeccable.

“All right,” said Holliday. He ducked into the backseat of the car with Peggy right behind him, prodded by Stefan. The door slammed. Kellerman got behind the wheel. Outside there was a sound like a sharp, barking cough. Turning, Holliday saw Drabeck drop to the gravel surface of the parking lot.

Stefan the security guard unscrewed the fat suppressor from his pistol, reholstered the weapon, and picked up Drabeck’s feet while the other man lifted his shoulders. They carried the dead man to the back of the car, and Kellerman popped the trunk. The two security guards hoisted the body of the old man up and in, and then slammed the trunk lid. Stefan got into the backseat beside Peggy, and the other man climbed into the front seat beside Kellerman. Stefan unhol stered the squat, heavy-looking automatic again and held it in his lap, his thick index finger curled around the trigger.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” said Peggy, her teeth gritted and her eyes wet with tears.

Kellerman glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His face was expressionless.

“He was of no further use to me.”

Kellerman turned to the guard in the seat beside him.

“Zeit in die Heia zu gehen, jawohl?”

“Dein Wunsch ist mir Befehl, Mein Herr,” the guard said and laughed. Kellerman turned the key in the ignition and dropped the transmission into reverse. They backed and filled, then headed off down the winding tree-lined driveway to the main road. The car turned right, away from Friedrichshafen, and Kellerman drove into the darkness, north toward the nearby mountains.