While Frederick talked Jamie allowed his senses to absorb the changing dynamics of the situation. He could sense the dark shadows moving closer: the slightest hint of movement against the faint blur of a pillar; the soft shuffle of a rubber-soled shoe on the marble floor. He tried to focus his mind. There had to be a way out of this trap. Negotiation clearly wasn’t an option, but at least he could try to buy more time. He remembered his grandfather’s journal entry about the camps. My German tastes like vomit in my mouth. If he could provoke them, or at least surprise them, maybe he could give Sarah the chance to get clear.
‘Was it their duty to kill millions of innocent people and destroy the lives of tens of millions more?’ He allowed contempt to saturate his words. ‘The only place they have in history is in the chapter reserved for cowards and murderers. And they failed in the end. This room is an illusion, an architectural conjuring trick. It is no more sacred than a multi-storey car park. The power of the men who created Wewelsburg was smashed, the way evil will always be smashed. This so-called Valhalla was never anything but a building site. The SS no longer exists except in the minds of a few misguided idiots, and Heinrich Himmler and those he led are long dead.’
The expected reaction didn’t materialize. Frederick wasn’t finished with his lesson.
‘You misunderstand the situation, just as you misunderstand the true meaning of the Black Sun. You talk of Nazis and the SS as if they were somehow central to our aims, but they were only a vehicle for their times. Adolf Hitler allowed his vision to be distorted by fear and hatred and in doing so he betrayed his legacy. His fear led him to go to war five years before he was ready. His hatred made him focus on the extermination of the Jews and the Slavs to the exclusion of all else. He should have enslaved them or conscripted them into expendable penal battalions, the result would have been the same in the end. Instead, he wasted irreplaceable resources on their destruction, when those resources were needed here to achieve something truly important. That opportunity was missed, but we are patient men, Mr Saintclair, and it will come again. Now, where is the journal?’
Jamie had no time for surprise at Frederick’s mention of the journal. Suddenly there was movement all around him. ‘Go!’ He shouted the warning to Sarah and threw himself towards Frederick. It had always been a long shot and it lengthened further when a leg stuck out and knocked his feet from under him. He hit the marble floor with enough force to jar his teeth and kicked out frantically at the nearest solid form. Someone cried out in pain, but any satisfaction was buried by the realization that they were now making a determined effort to kill him. He tried to roll clear of a glancing blow from a heavy boot that made his ears ring. Another knocked the wind from him as it crunched into his ribs. He called desperately to Sarah to get out and he could hear the fear in his own voice. A muffled scream answered his plea and he knew they had failed. Now the boots were arriving in earnest, a relentless businesslike rhythm that sought out his most vulnerable parts. He squirmed and twisted, but his racing mind told him he was dead unless someone intervened. A heel that had been meant to crush his skull emerged from the darkness and missed his nose by an inch. He had a vision of other helpless men who had died in this very place, beaten to death by the predecessors of the men who were killing him.
‘Enough!’
Strong arms hauled him roughly to his feet. His head still spun from the blows and his body was a mass of pain, but at least he was alive. He winced as something hard and metallic was rammed into his bruised ribs with enough force to make him grunt.
‘Search them, and the bag.’
He heard Sarah hiss like a trapped wildcat as coarse hands made a rudimentary check of his body.
‘Nothing but more paper, a length of rope and a laptop.’
‘It does not matter. It will be in the car or one of the rooms.’
‘It isn’t.’ Jamie’s words seemed to freeze the darkness. ‘Let the girl go and I’ll tell you where the journal is.’
Frederick, he assumed it was Frederick, brought his face close enough so Jamie could smell the mix of beer and garlic on his breath. Half a head taller, with cropped, sandy hair, the German’s calculating grey eyes studied him from a face that was as flat and as expressionless as a marble statue and with the complexion of a day old corpse.
‘No,’ the other man said eventually. ‘I believe you are bluffing. In any case, we will soon find out. Gustav?’ Another figure detached itself from the outer shadows. ‘Gustav has recently returned from duty in Afghanistan where he was able to refine his interrogation techniques with a remarkable degree of success.’ A hand like a shovel pulled Jamie’s arm backwards and before he knew what was happening his wrists had been cuffed and he was spun to face his captor. Gustav was short, but with a chest that strained the buttons of his shirt, a face that seemed too small for his head and wide-set eyes like quarry chips. He gave Jamie’s cheek a playful slap with his left hand and drove his right fist deep into the Englishman’s stomach. A man who enjoyed his work. Jamie struggled for breath as his captor drew him upright again.