C. Palov - Templar's Quest

Long moments passed, the pain finally ebbing to a tolerable level.

Ivo glanced at his right hand, palm still pressed against the smooth inlaid cherry desktop. Noticing the raised blue veins and splotchy, tissue-paper-like skin, he frowned. If only the body kept pace with the mind . Yet another battle he had to wage.

Chaos, destruction and death , the sum of each man’s journey through life . Ivo first experienced the brutal trinity at a tender age. Even now, all these years later, he could still vividly recall that night in 1943 when British RAF pilots rained deadly bombs on Berlin’s sleeping neighbourhoods. An act of callous savagery, thousands were immolated alive, with Ivo’s own grandparents among the victims. But to the Allies utter disbelief, Berliners rose up from the ashes, Phoenix-like, the firebird heroically transformed into a Reichsadler , the proud eagle of the Reich.

Seized with patriotic fervour, his own spirit burnished in the flames, Ivo straight away joined the Hitler-Jugend. Eleven years and three days of age, he proudly wore the black shorts, long-sleeved brown shirt and peaked cap. And though he couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of the slogan ‘Blood and Honour’, he nonetheless shouted it with great ferocity at war rallies. Assigned to an anti-aircraft crew, he was trained to use a flak gun. Bursting with pride, his mother Berthe showered him with adoring kisses. His father, stationed at the SS Headquarters in Wewelsburg, sent letters commending Ivo for his unparalleled bravery.

That bravery was put to a gruelling test seventeen months later when Ivo was issued a steel helmet, a Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon and a bolt-action rifle with one hundred rounds of ammunition. Marching in perfect unison, heel to toe as they’d been trained, Ivo and his regiment of Hitler-Jugend were ordered to take up a position on the Pichelsdorf Bridge. Part of the last German defence, the ‘boy brigade’ was to halt the Russian advance and prevent the enemy from entering Berlin.

For two gore-filled days, they held their ground. Of the five thousand boys sent to the bridge, only five hundred remained standing at the end of those horrific forty-eight hours. Just as the jubilant Red horde stormed across the bridge, Ivo was severely wounded in a mortar blast.

When he finally regained consciousness in an American field hospital, the Führer was dead, Germany a conquered nation. Bandaged from head to foot, immobilized in a traction device, Ivo was filled with shame.

If I’d only fought harder. Fired more bullets. Killed more Russians.

Six months would pass before he was discharged from the military hospital with a wooden cane, a Hershey’s chocolate bar and a silver Reichspfennig coin. Oskar Baader, a grey-haired, bespectacled man who’d been his father’s colleague in the physics department at Göttingen University, met him at the hospital gate. On the train ride to Göttingen, the professor informed Ivo that his mother had been killed during the Russian attack on Berlin and that his father, who’d risen within the SS to the rank of Oberführer, was a wanted fugitive. The shock more than he could bear, Ivo burst into tears.

As the months passed, Ivo settled into his new life in Göttingen with the elderly Baader couple, marching drills and combat practice replaced with violin lessons and science tutorials. Eventually the sorrow faded. In its stead was a wide-eyed curiosity as encoded letters from his father – postmarked from such far-flung places as Lisbon, Genoa and Cairo – began to arrive at the flat.

With each encoded letter, more and more of an incredible tale began to unfold. According to the missives, his father had been assigned to a highly-classified research project under the auspices of the Ahnenerbe. The project, which involved an ancient relic known as the Lapis Exillis , had been sanctioned by the Führer himself. Even more amazing, although the war had ended and the surviving members of the Ahnenerbe were either on the run or facing a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Friedrich Uhlemann still actively sought the relic. His father claimed that this relic contained unique properties that could be used to harness a heretofore untapped energy.

Hearing the ormolu clock on the mantel chime the new hour, Ivo turned his head. One o’clock. He assumed the Dark Angel had detonated the plastic explosive. With Katsumi Bauer removed from the equation, the American commando could be lured back to the bargaining table. Every man had his price. Too much was at stake. Encrypted clues to the whereabouts of the Lapis Exillis were engraved on the Montségur Medallion.

They had only five days to find it.

Five days until the Heliacal Rising of Sirius when the great star would appear on the eastern horizon just before sunrise. Five days until that powerful energy burst that could change the course of history.

Would change it, provided they located the Lapis Exillis.

Ivo again glanced at the clock, silently damning the reminder that each minute, each hour, each day lost could not be regained.

Only five days.

A trained physicist, Friedrich Uhlemann had gone to his grave convinced that the ancient technology contained within the Lapis Exilis could have saved the Reich from total annihilation.

Ivo, also a trained physicist, knew that it wasn’t too late. If found, the Lapis Exilis could still save the Reich.

14

‘Here. This should help.’ Finn offered Kate a chipped Redskins mug filled with hot coffee and a slug of Jameson’s whiskey. ‘You’re damned lucky to have landed in that barberry bush.’

Tersely shaking her head, Kate refused the pick-me-up. Instead, she continued to sit on the sofa with her arms wrapped around her chest, hands coiled around her elbows. Since the blast, the woman hadn’t uttered a single word. They’d just entered the second hour of radio silence.

‘Drink it, Kate. The booze will do you good. I don’t want you fainting on me again.’ He butted the mug against her chest, forcing her to accept the spiked coffee.

Her expression blank, Kate stared straight ahead as she obediently took a sip.

She must have had a sheltering angel standing sentry at the front door. Because, somehow, against all odds, she’d managed to survive the blast relatively unscathed. Scratches, bruises, minor abrasions and a swollen right knee; the kind of injuries that always hurt worse the morning after.

Immediately after the explosion, he’d thrown Kate over his shoulder and hauled ass to Wisconsin Avenue. Needing to find a hidey-hole on the double-quick, he’d flagged down a pizza delivery guy and paid him a hundred bucks to drive them to a houseboat docked at the Gangplank Marina. While he didn’t personally know Major James Bukowski, the owner of the houseboat, he’d once overheard the cocky officer bragging about his waterfront digs. Since Bukowski was currently deployed in Afghanistan, the trespass had been child’s play. He’d even told the neighbour that ‘Jimbo’ gave him the key.

For the time being, they were safe.

Still nameless, still faceless, the enemy possessed the stealth of a well-trained Delta unit. If it wasn’t for the freaking suit jacket, Kate would have been killed in the explosion.

‘ If you speak of this matter to anyone, they will be targeted for execution. ’

Warning issued. Action taken. Clearly these rat bastards did not make idle threats.

Pricked by a guilty conscience, Finn turned away from Kate and walked over to the window. Pulling the drawn curtain aside, he watched silently as drops of rain plopped against the varnished deck before congealing into plump translucent beads. Scanning the marina, his gaze ricocheted between the dark waters of the Washington Channel and the wood-planked dock.