'I was lucky to find sellers who wanted cash. They are becoming harder and harder to locate. Which brings us to my payment.'
Wilkerson retrieved an envelope from inside his coat and handed it to the man. 'Ten thousand euros, as agreed.'
The German thumbed through the bills, clearly pleased.
They left the vault and walked back toward the front of the store.
Martin arrived at the curtain first and suddenly spun around, a gun pointed straight at Wilkerson. 'I'm not an amateur. But whoever you work for must take me for one.'
He tried to wipe the confusion from his face.
'Those men outside. Why are they here?'
'To help me.'
'I did as you asked, bought what you wanted, and left no trail to you.'
'Then you have nothing to worry about. I came solely for the boxes.'
Martin motioned with the envelope. 'Is it the money?'
He shrugged. 'I wouldn't think so.'
'Tell whoever is funding this purchase that they should leave me alone.'
'How do you know I'm not funding it?'
Martin studied him. 'Somebody is using you. Or worse, you're whoring yourself. You're lucky I don't shoot you.'
'Why don't you?'
'No need for me to waste a bullet. You're no threat. But tell your benefactor to leave me be. Now take your boxes and go.'
'I'll need some help.'
Martin shook his head. 'Those two stay in the car. You carry them out yourself. But know this. One trick and I'll shoot you dead.'
FOURTEEN
DOROTHEA LINDAUER STARED AT THE LUSTROUS BLUE-GRAY stones supposedly carted here by her grandfather from Antarctica. Through the years she'd rarely visited the abbey. These obsessions had meant little to her. And as she caressed the rough surface, her fingers tracing the strange letters that her grandfather and father had wrestled to understand, she was now sure.
Fools. Both of them.
Especially her grandfather.
Hermann Oberhauser had been born into an aristocratic family of reactionary politicians, passionate in their beliefs, incompetent in doing much about them. He'd latched on to the anti-Polish movement that swept through Germany in the early 1930s, raising money to combat the hated Weimar Republic. As Hitler rose to power, Hermann acquired a publicity firm, sold editorial space to the National Socialists at bargain rates, and aided the rise of the Brown Shirts from terrorists to leaders. He then started a chain of newspapers and headed the German National People's Party, which eventually aligned itself with the Nazis. He also sired three sons. Two never saw the end of the war, one dying in Russia, the other in France. Her father survived only because he was too young to fight. After the peace, her grandfather became one of the countless disappointed souls who'd made Hitler what he was and survived to endure the shame. He lost his newspapers, but luckily kept his factories, paper mills, and oil refinery, which were needed by the Allies, so his sins, if not forgiven, were conveniently forgotten.
Her grandfather also claimed an irrational pride in his Teutonic heritage. He was enraptured with German nationalism, concluding that Western civilization was on the verge of collapse and its only hope lay in recovering long-lost truths. As she'd told Malone, in the late 1930s he'd spotted strange symbols in the gables of Dutch farmhouses and came to believe that they, along with the rock art from Sweden and Norway, and the stones from Antarctica, were a type of Aryan hieroglyph.
The mother of all scripts.
The language of heaven.
Utter nonsense, but the Nazis loved those romantic ideas. By 1931 ten thousand men were part of the SS, which Himmler eventually transformed into a racial elite of young Aryan males. Its Race and Settlement Office meticulously determined if an applicant was genetically fit for membership. Then, in 1935, Himmler went a step farther and created a brain trust dedicated to reconstructing a golden Aryan past.
The trust's mission was twofold.
Unearth evidence of Germany's ancestors back to the Old Stone Age, and convey those findings to the German people.
A long label lent credibility to its supposed importance. Deutsches Ahnenerbe-Studiengesellschaft fur Geistesurgeschichte. German Ancestral Her itage-the Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas. Or, more simply, the Ahnenerbe. Something inherited from the forefathers. One hundred thirty-seven scholars and scientists, another eighty-two filmmakers, photographers, artists, sculptors, librarians, technicians, accountants, and secretaries.
Headed by Hermann Oberhauser.
And while her grandfather toiled on fiction, Germans died by the millions. Hitler eventually fired him from the Ahnenerbe and publicly humiliated both him and the entire Oberhauser family. That was when he retreated here, to the abbey, safe behind walls that religion protected, and tried to rehabilitate himself.
But never did.
She remembered the day he died.
'Papa.' She knelt beside the bed and grasped his frail hand.
The old man's eyes opened, but he said nothing. He'd long ago lost all memory of her.
'It's never time to give up,' she said.
'Let me go ashore.' The words came only upon his breath and she had to strain to hear him.
'Papa, what are you saying?'
His eyes glazed over, the oily glare disconcerting. He slowly shook his head.
'You want to die?' she asked.
'I must go ashore. Tell the captain.'
'What do you mean?'
He shook his head again. 'Their world. It is gone. I have to go ashore.'
She started to speak, to reassure him, but his grip relaxed and his chest fluttered. Then his mouth slowly opened and he said, 'Heil… Hitler.'
Her spine tingled every time she thought of those final words. Why had he felt compelled, with his dying breath, to proclaim an allegiance to evil?
Unfortunately, she would never know.
The door to the subterranean room opened and the woman from the cable car returned. Dorothea watched as she strolled confidently through the displays. How had things come to this point? Her grandfather had died a Nazi, her father had perished a dreamer.
Now she was about to repeat it all.
'Malone's gone,' the woman said. 'He drove off. I need my money.'
'What happened on the mountain today? Your associate wasn't supposed to be killed.'
'Things blew out of hand.'
'You drew a lot of attention to something that wasn't supposed to be noticed.'
'It worked out. Malone came, and you were able to have that chat you wanted.'
'You may have jeopardized everything.'
'I did what you asked me to do and I want to be paid. And I want Erik's share. He definitely earned it.'
