F. Paul Wilson: The Keep

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank Rado L. Lencek, professor of Slavic languages at Columbia University, for his prompt and enthusiastic response to a very odd request from a stranger.

The author also wishes to acknowledge an obvious debt to Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert Ervin Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith.

F. Paul Wilson

April, 1979 -- January, 1981

PROLOGUE

Warsaw, Poland

Monday, 28 April 1941

0815 hours

A year and a half ago there had been another name on the door, a Polish name, and no doubt a title and the name of a department or bureau in the Polish government. But Poland no longer belonged to the Poles, and the name had been crudely obliterated with thick, heavy strokes of black paint. Erich Kaempffer paused outside the door and tried to remember the name. Not that he cared. It was merely an exercise in memory. A mahogany plaque now covered the spot, but smears of black showed around its edges. It read:

SS-Oberfü hrer W. Hossbach

RSHA—Division of Race and Resettlement

Warsaw District

He paused to compose himself. What did Hossbach want of him? Why the early morning summons? He was angry with himself for letting this get to him, but no one in the SS, no matter how secure his position, even an officer rising as rapidly as he, could be summoned to report "immediately" to a superior's office without experiencing a spasm of apprehension.

Kaempffer took one last deep breath, masked his anxiety, and pushed through the door. The corporal who acted as General Hossbach's secretary snapped to attention. The man was new and Kaempffer could see that the soldier didn't recognize him. It was understandable—Kaempffer had been at Auschwitz for the past year.

"Sturmbannführer Kaempffer," was all he said, allowing the youngster to take it from there. The corporal pivoted and strode through to the inner office. He returned immediately.

"Oberführer Hossbach will see you now, Herr Major."

Kaempffer breezed past the corporal and stepped into Hossbach's office to find him sitting on the edge of his desk.

"Ah, Erich! Good morning!" Hossbach said with uncharacteristic joviality. "Coffee?"

"No thank you, Willhelm." He had craved a cup until this very moment, but Hossbach's smile had immediately put him on guard. Now there was a knot where an empty stomach had been.

"Very well, then. But take off your coat and get comfortable."

The calendar said April, but it was still cold in Warsaw. Kaempffer wore his overlong SS greatcoat. He removed it and his officer's cap slowly and hung them on the wall rack with great care, forcing Hossbach to watch him and, perhaps, to dwell on their physical differences. Hossbach was portly, balding, in his early fifties. Kaempffer was a decade younger, with a tightly muscled frame and a full head of boyishly blond hair. And Erich Kaempffer was on his way up.

"Congratulations, by the way, on your promotion and on your new assignment. The Ploiesti position is quite a plum."

"Yes." Kaempffer maintained a neutral tone. "I just hope I can live up to Berlin's confidence in me."

"I'm sure you will."

Kaempffer knew that Hossbach's good wishes were as hollow as the promises of resettlement he made to the Polish Jews: Hossbach had wanted Ploiesti for himself—every SS officer wanted it. The opportunities for advancement and for personal profit in being commandant of the major camp in Romania were enormous. In the relentless pursuit of position within the huge bureaucracy created by Heinrich Himmler, where one eye was always fixed on the vulnerable back of the man ahead of you, and the other eye ever watchful over your shoulder at the man behind you, there was no such thing as a sincere wish for success.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Kaempffer scanned the walls and repressed a sneer as he noted more lightly colored squares and rectangles where degrees and citations had been hung by the previous occupant. Hossbach had not redecorated. Typical of the man to try to give the impression that he was much too busy with SS matters to bother with trifles such as having the walls painted. It was so obviously an act. Kaempffer did not need to put on a show of his devotion to the SS. His every waking hour was devoted to furthering his position in the organization.

He pretended to study the large map of Poland on the wall, its face studded with colored pins representing concentrations of undesirables. It had been a busy year for Hossbach's RSHA office; it was through here that Poland's Jewish population was being directed toward the "resettlement center" near the rail nexus of Auschwitz. Kaempffer imagined his own office-to-be in Ploiesti, with a map of Romania on the wall, studded with his own pins. Ploiesti... there could be no doubt that Hossbach's cheery manner boded ill. Something had gone wrong somewhere and Hossbach was going to make full use of his last few days as superior officer to rub Kaempffer's nose in it.

"Is there some way I might be of service to you?" Kaempffer finally asked.

"Not to me, per se, but to the High Command. There is a little problem in Romania at the moment. An inconvenience, really."

"Oh?"

"Yes. A small regular army detachment stationed in the Alps north of Ploiesti has been suffering some losses—apparently due to local partisan activity—and the officer wishes to abandon his position."

"That's an army matter." Major Kaempffer didn't like this one bit. "It has nothing to do with the SS."

"But it does." Hossbach reached behind him and plucked a piece of paper off his desk top. "The High Command passed this on to Obergruppenführer Heydrich's office. I think it is rather fitting that I pass it on to you."