troops or passengers from its regular use as a bomber. Staying out of the corridors that the allies used for bombing runs on Germany, they winged high over the Fatherland, peaceful now from this distance; but below a nation was dying. After a flight of several hours, they touched down, the wheels screeching as the brakes gripped and dug in to stop the Heinkel. A Mercedes was waiting at the door when they stopped. Two more SS men with machine pistols in readiness stood by on motorcycles to escort the car and its passengers into the mountains. Langer noted carefully concealed bunkers that housed antitank guns and heavy machine guns all along the route leading to their destination. All the crews wore the camouflage patterns peculiar to the SS.
Stahlberg Castle rose out of the morning mist, a remnant left over from the feudal days of Germany. It looked more like a picture postcard than a real building. Strong, massively built from the native mountain stones, it had lasted centuries with little change, probably much less change than humanity had achieved since the bloody days of its construction. The Stahlberg. Even the name sounded ominous.
The terrain immediately adjacent to the castle was well guarded by the elite fanatics of the SS regiment Adolf Hitler. Young faces that had known defeat watched him through serious eyes. Their commanders were battle-tested veterans of Russia and Europe that had somehow managed to retain their fanaticism for the New Order even in the face of disaster. They had no god but Adolf Hitler and as with religious fanatics, to die in the service of your god was the greatest accomplishment one could hope for. They had the look of martyrs about them, men seeking their own perverse form of paradise and ready to kill or be killed for it.
Once inside the Stahlberg, the atmosphere changed to one of a time long past. Arms and armor lined the halls. Flags and pennants of battles long forgotten added bits of faded color to the gray stone. Interspersed were badly done paintings of the castle's former masters, with stern, righteous faces that glowered down on all who passed beneath as if sitting in judgment.
The floors were polished by a couple of Polish slaves who kept their eyes averted from those of their overlords. Slaves were not permitted to look directly at a member of the master race without permission. They too waited with a resignation to their own coming finality. They knew that they would never live to return home even if the Germans lost the war. They were dead men, they merely hadn't been buried yet, but knew that time was drawing close.
The escorting officer rapped once sharply on a single door, waited a moment and ushered his charge inside to stand in front of a plain, businesslike desk devoid of ornamentation except for a single telephone. The walls were bare save for the black and silver flag of the SS standing in the right corner.
More impressive was the man behind the desk,
The SS general indicated for his guest to sit in the single wooden-back chair in front of his desk. Langer's manacles clanked as he obeyed the unspoken order.
Langer cast a quick look around the stone-walled room, noting a single window set about five feet from the floor. Zeitsler smiled and spoke for the first time, his voice steady, the words measured and precise. He shook his finger schoolmasterishly. 'I really wouldn't consider it if I were you. It's a sixty-foot drop to the ground, where you would land in a stone courtyard in which a machine gun and its crew are positioned. And if you somehow managed to free yourself from your chains and take me prisoner it would still serve no purpose. My guards have their orders and they wouldn't hesitate a heartbeat to shoot me down to stop you, Herr Longinus.'
Langer froze at the name. 'You have me mistaken, Herr
Zeitsler smiled and shook his head, opening a desk drawer. He removed the contents. Several photographs were visible from where Langer sat and some older documents looking like parchment, old, very old. His heart skipped a beat. He sat tense, fully alert, awaiting the next move with a definite feeling of foreboding pervading the atmosphere of the sterile office.
'You may relieve yourself of playing at charades. We know exactly who you are.' He tapped the folder. 'It's all in here, including the report of your stay at the sanctuary of Elder Dacort. Indeed, we know all about you. How long has it been since you were called by your true name, Casca Rufio Longinus? No matter.' He waved a hand dismissing the unimportant thought. 'We have been looking for you for some time now. We lost sight of you in the twenties when the world went to pieces following the depression. But when we received your name from the Geheime Staats Polizei they also sent along your paybook, which they found after you killed three of our men. With that a complete investigation was launched as a matter of routine. There is no Carl Langer. You took the name from a tombstone in Bayreuth and acquired your other papers after that. Indeed, we have been awaiting your arrival for some time. You would be flattered to know how many man-hours and how much money have been spent on seeing that you could join us. Indeed, you have arrived at a most opportune time.' He checked his watch. 'In a few minutes all your questions will be answered. In the meantime you will remain in this room until someone comes for you. You are our guest and food will be brought. But please, no tricks. We know all about—how should we say it?—your condition.' He laughed softly. 'And as you know, there are worse things than dying.' He left closing the door behind him, but Langer knew he was being watched. The general's words echoed in his mind, worse things than dying . . . Sweat broke out on his forehead.
Did the SS general know? And if so, to what purpose was he brought here? What could the SS want with him? Questions, too many of them.
No longer thinking of himself as Carl Langer, Casca Longinus rose from his seat and looked over the papers on the desk. He knew the general had left them out in the open for that purpose. The story, the truth, was there. Not everything, but enough. They did know.
There was nothing to be used in the room as a weapon. Even the flagpole would be of little use against the machine guns and hundreds of men here who would just overpower him. And as the general said, there were worse things than dying. He sat back down to wait.
Langer felt familiar with the stone walls of the medieval castle. He passed stone-faced guards standing rigidly at their posts with faces pale in the glow of the bare light bulbs, spaced every ten or so feet throughout the halls of the castle. Unsmiling, serious faces that stood in pale deathlike contrast to the black of their dress SS uniforms, each armed with a Schmeisser machine pistol slung from the shoulders by the straps ready for instant use, as was evidenced by the fact that the cocking levers were drawn full back ready to instant firing. They knew they were chosen, the elite. Ready to die for the Fuhrer, God and the Reich.
His escort had the same vacuous expressions, the dead eyes, that would only come alive when they were witnessing the pain of another. They halted at the end of one corridor before massive, ancient wooden doors carved with the mystic runic symbols of the ancient Nordics, a stylized oak tree wrapped about with the twining tendrils of the great serpent. Standing in front of the Laers he felt a sense of foreboding that there was something evil behind
