Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘Anistaze is a Stormtrooper?” Nash said. ‘I was under the impression he was working for German intellig—’

‘Not anymore,’ Schroeder said bitterly. ‘After the Eastern Bloc collapsed, Anistaze was hired by the German government on a contract basis only—to take care of certain “problems”. But it appears our leash wasn’t short enough.

‘Anistaze is a mercenary, a killer for hire. It wasn’t long before someone offered him more than we were paying him, and he betrayed two of his case officers and turned them over to the enemy.

‘It came as no surprise to us when, not long after that incident, his rather distinctive methods of persuasion started showing up in Stormtrooper-related incidents.

Apparently, Anistaze’s rise through the Stormtrooper ranks has been swift. We believe he is now an Obergruppenfiihrer in their ranking system. A lieutenant-general. Second only to Ehrhardt himself.’

‘Son of a bitch…’

‘As for scientists,’ Schroeder shrugged, ‘the same principles apply.

The Stormtroopers lure many highly educated men and women who are working on projects that are not seen as in keeping with modem Germany’s collective guilt.

‘For example, when the Wall came down, certain East German scientists developing NA grenades—grenades filled with nitric acid, designed to inflict horrific injuries but not to kill their victims—soon found themselves out of a job.

The Stormtroopers, on the other hand, are always on the lookout for those kinds of people, and they are willing to pay handsomely for their services.’

‘How?’ Copeland asked. ‘How can they afford all this?’

“Doctor Copeland. The modem Nazi movement has never been short of cash. In 1994, an illegal BKA trace of a suspected Nazi account in a Swiss bank estimated the Stormtroopers’ total cash reserves at more than half a billion dollars—the proceeds of the sale of priceless artifacts stolen during World War II.’

‘Half a billion dollars,’ Race breathed.

‘Gentlemen,’ Schroeder said, ‘the Stormtroopers, they do not hijack aeroplanes. They do not murder federal officials or blow up federal buildings. They look for greater victories-victories that will overthrow the entire world order.’

‘And now you think they have a Supernova?’ Nash said.

‘Up until about three days ago, all we had were unproveable suspicions,’ Schroeder said. ‘But now we are certain of it. Six months ago, BKA surveillance agents in Chile photographed a man strolling around the grounds of Colonia Alemania with Odilo Ehrhardt himself.

He was later identified as Doctor Fritz Weber. Herr Nash, I imagine that you would know who Doctor Weber is.’

‘Yes, but…’ Nash paused, frowning. ‘Fritz Weber was a German scientist during the Second World War, nuclear physicist, borderline genius, but also a borderline sociopath. He was one of the first people to state that the creation of a planet-destroying device was possible. In 1944, when he was only thirty, he worked on the Nazis’ atomic bomb project. But before that, it was said that Weber worked on the infamous Nazi torture experiments-they would put a man in freezing water and monitor how long it took for him to die. But I thought Weber was executed after the war…’

Schroeder nodded. ‘He was. Doctor Fritz Weber stood trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity in October 1945. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was officially executed on 22 November 1945 at Karlsburg prison. Whether it was actually Weber who was executed has been disputed for many years. There have been numerous sightings of him over the decades by people who claim to have been tortured by him—in Ireland, in Brazil, in Russia.’

Schroeder said seriously, ‘We believe that the Soviets spirited Weber out of Karlsburg the night before he was to be executed and replaced him with an impostor. In return for saving his life, the Soviets used Weber’s considerable skills to advance their own nuclear weapons program. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the BKA went looking for Weber, there was no sign of him at all. He had disappeared off the face of the earth.’

‘Only to turn up eight years later at the headquarters of a Nazi terrorist organisation,’ Nash added.

‘Correct. So at that stage, we were thinking that the Nazis were constructing a conventional nuclear device. But the Stormtroopers raid that monastery in France after it was discovered to possess the legendary Santiago Manuscript,’

Schroeder said. ‘When one pieced together the murder of Albert Mueller and his discovery of a meteorite crater in Peru and the supposed tale in the Santiago Manuscript of an idol with rather strange properties, suddenly our suspicions took on a whole new reality.

Maybe, under Weber’s tutelage, the Stormtroopers were doing more than just building a regular nuclear bomb, maybe they had succeeded in creating a Supernova and were now on the hunt for thyrium.

‘And then, three days ago the same day as the raid on the French monastery-our surveillance team in Chile picked up this.’

Schroeder pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Nash.

‘It’s a transcript of a telephone conversation that was made from a cellular phone somewhere in Peru to the main laboratory at Colonia Alemania three days ago,’ Schroeder said.

Nash showed the German transcript to Race, who translated it aloud.

VOICE 1: —-base of operations has been established—-rest of the—-will be—-mne—-

VOICE 2: —-about the device?—-ready?

VOICE 1: —-have adopted hourglass formation based on the American model—-two thermonuclear detonators mounted above and below a titanium-alloy inner chamber. Field tests indicate that—-device—-operational.

All we need now—-the thyrium,

VOICE 2: —-don’t worry, Anistaze’s taking care of that—

VOICE 1: What about the message?

VOICE 2: —-will go out as soon as we get the idol—-to every Prime Minister and President in the EU-plus the President of the United States via internal emergency hotline-o-ransom will be one hundred billion dollars U.S.—or else we detonate the device…

Nash stared at the transcript in shock.

Everyone else was silent.

Race gazed at the words: one hundred billion dollars U.S., or else we detonate the device.

Jesus H. Christ.

Nash turned to Schroeder. ‘So what have you done about all this?’

‘We have executed a two-pronged plan,’ the German said. “Two separate missions, each designed to reinforce the other should either of them fail.

‘Mission One was to get the thyrium idol before the Nazis did. To do that, we obtained a copy of the Santiago Manuscript and used it to find our way here. And as it happened, we beat the Stormtroopers—but we never expected to find those things inside the temple.’

As he listened to Schroeder speak, something twigged in the back of Race’s mind, something about what the German agent had just said. Something that wasn’t quite right.

He shook it off, put it to the back of his mind.

‘And the second part of the mission?’ Nash said.

‘Take out Colonia Alemania,’ Schroeder said. ‘After we intercepted that telephone conversation three days ago, we opened entreaties with the new Chilean government for a warrant that would allow BKA agents to search Colonia

Alemania in coordination with Chilean authorities.’

‘And?’

‘We got it. If everything has gone according to plan, BKA agents and the Chilean National Guard are right this minute storming the grounds of Colonia Alemania and seizing the Stormtroopers’ Supernova. I’m hoping to receive a radio update from them any minute now.’

At that very same moment six hundred miles away, a ten-ton truck owned by the Chilean National Guard exploded through the gates of Colonia Alemania.