‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have . . . I understand.’
‘No, you do not understand. I had another great grandfather, a pastor in the town, and one of the few who did protest at the treatment of the prisoners in the camp. He was not a brave man, but felt he had an obligation to help these people. He is one of the fifty-six shot by the Gestapo. They burned his body and ground his bones into the dust. Now do you understand?’
Sarah nodded wordlessly.
‘One a hero and the other to be forgotten. But I will not let them forget. To us, the people of my generation, this is not just history. It is a lesson that we must never allow anything like it to happen again. We will go to the castle now.’
She led the way over the drawbridge and into the triangular courtyard. Jamie could see the German girl was struggling to control her emotions.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ he whispered.
‘I just wanted to know.’
‘Know what? None of this is new. You must have heard stories like that a hundred times.’
‘Yes, but this isn’t stories. This is where it happened. People died to create this monstrosity for a megalomaniac. This place is evil. Can’t you feel it? It’s as if the spirits of the SS are still here in the walls all around us. They should have blown the whole damned thing to kingdom come.’
Jamie stared at her.
‘Look, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s something in the air. I’m over it now. Forgive me?’
‘OK,’ he said, and took her hand as they walked through the door of the north tower and into the heart of Himmler’s Camelot.
XXI
‘THIS WAS TO be the centre of the world.’
The phrase stirred something on the outer limits of Jamie’s memory, but he struggled to place it as Magda’s hypnotic voice echoed eerily around the walls. Inside the crypt the only light came from a series of small windows set in the domed ceiling. Out there in the sunlight, Himmler’s obsession with the occult might appear foolish, even comical, but here in the darkness it took on a frightening reality. The room was empty but a shallow basin five paces across and surrounded by a low concrete wall dominated the centre of the floor.
‘Above you, the hackenkreuz, the swastika symbol of the Nazi party.’ She pointed to an ornate carving in the centre of the ceiling. ‘It is physically linked to the famous Black Sun which is the centrepiece of the room above us.’ Jamie tensed at the mention of the sun symbol and his eyes met Sarah’s. The American girl’s face appeared unnaturally pale in the gloom. He was reminded of an image he had once seen of an avenging angel with a fiery sword; firm of purpose, grim and unyielding. Something had changed since they had left London. This had been his quest and she had tagged along more or less on a whim. Yet with every hour that passed it was clear her emotional commitment to the search increased. It was as if the only way she could combat the aura of evil around them was by creating a super-hardened shield of her own. He had felt her strength right from the first, but he began to understand that this new Sarah Grant had a core of steel.
‘Here were to be stored the Death’s Head honour rings of every SS officer who fell in battle. You see.’ Magda knelt by the basin and indicated a short piece of copper pipe just visible in the very centre. ‘An eternal flame would have burned to prove that the spirit of the SS warrior was unquenchable. The rings were the personal gift of Himmler and as well as the Totenkopf they were also engraved with rune symbols and the name of the bearer. It is said that the crypt was to be Himmler’s last resting place, but as you know, that was not to be.’
Jamie struggled to contain his simmering impatience. Sarah hovered by the doorway and he could see that she, too, was desperate to reach the sun symbol. Now that he was within feet of the symbol itself, he felt the chilly fingers of doubt close around his heart. Every inch of this vainglorious Nazi monument had some sordid story to tell of murder or madness, slavery or repression, but what was the secret behind Matthew Sinclair’s silk map? What if there was no message? What if the Black Sun was simply a decoration? No, his grandfather wouldn’t have left him the map unless it contained some kind of clue and the clue had to be visible in the original.
‘Now we will proceed to the Obergruppenführersaal, the Hall of the Generals.’
Magda led the way to the ground floor and through a doorway – where they were met by a barred metal grille. Behind it Jamie could see a large empty room encircled by stone pillars and windowed alcoves. He held his breath as he prepared to look upon the true Black Sun for the first time. The guide’s next words made him feel as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.