The Sixth Key(18)

Rahn wanted to throw it into that pompous little face but that would not have been wise. His hand was shaking. He looked at the ring. It was a silver band with several runes and oak leaves cast into the exterior, topped off with a skull.

‘Look inside it, go on!’ Himmler said, excited.

Rahn wiped his eyes. ‘I can’t see.’

‘Inside is your last name, today’s date, and my own signature. You see how I have faith in you, Rahn – even before you bring me your genealogy? Keep the ring safe. It is the visible sign of your devotion to our community’s inner code and your loyalty to the Führer and his ideals. However, you must not wear it until you have made the final oath to replace the Christian cross with the Swastika – only then will you be wedded to this order. But remember, Herr Rahn, even now you are united with us in such a way that you can never resign. Do you understand?’

The group returned to the castle and Rahn was shown to a room where he spent what was left of the awful night unable to sleep, sitting on a bed vacantly waiting for the dawn. When it came, he was taken by car back to the station where he caught the next train out of Paderborn for Berlin.

As the train left the station Rahn opened the window and threw the Death’s Head ring as far as he could into a field. He recalled a fairytale about a man who was so good he allowed one mosquito to bite him. He thought, ‘Poor little mosquito, let him suck until he is full,’ and the mosquito was so happy with the man it then told all the mosquitoes in the city. Soon the sky grew black with mosquitoes wanting to taste the good man’s blood and they bit and bit and sucked and sucked but they couldn’t get full because there were so many of them, and in the meantime the man had died.

Rahn had given his blood to the Nazis and he could throw that ring all the way to the moon but it would make no difference now. He was forever tainted with their madness.

Somehow he knew he wouldn’t get out of this alive.





6


Serinus

‘This is a very unexpected turn of affairs.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’


On the train, Rahn dozed and had a dream in which he was floating in blood. It woke him with a start and to his surprise he found that someone was sitting beside him reading the Völkischer Beobachter. The man closed the paper and folded it neatly. He was wearing a blue suit, a hat to match and a party pin in his spotless necktie. He looked like a respectable middle-class gentleman who lived a middle-class life in a modest house in Berlin with his plain Bavarian wife and his fine Aryan children. What would he say if he knew the madness of the man he called his Führer?

The man looked at Rahn now as if to say, Who are you?

Rahn wanted to tell him that he didn’t know who he was or what had happened to the legend he had created for himself, as an adventurer, a writer and historian. Everything had fallen to pieces the moment those shots were fired.

When the gentleman spoke, he said, ‘Are you alright?’

‘Terribly sorry,’ Rahn said, ‘just a dream.’ He looked out at the grey day and it stared back at him.

‘You were saying something in your sleep,’ the man ventured.

‘Was I?’

‘Oh yes, you said, “The children.”’

Rahn laughed nervously. ‘Did I? Strange . . .’

The man adjusted his glasses. There was something familiar about him.

‘Do you have children?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Indeed. That is good, in times like these.’

In times like these! There was a world of meaning hidden in such a phrase. It said all there was to say.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked as plainly as if he had said, What do you think the weather will do now?

‘I beg your pardon?’ He felt his temple for a fever.

‘You’re in a bit of a pickle, Herr Rahn.’

Rahn sat up. ‘I’m terribly sorry, have I met you before?’

‘Well, yes and no.’

‘I don’t remember, I’m afraid . . .’

‘I’m not surprised. After all, we weren’t formally introduced. One could say it was just a brief encounter.’

‘When did we meet?’

‘Last night.’

It took a moment for this to sink in. He had seen this man before. This was the man with the scar on his cheek! The man who had given him that knife when he was standing in the pit!

‘I am a friend,’ the man said.

‘I don’t understand.’ Rahn’s heart was pounding. Was this a trap, one of Himmler’s trials to gauge his loyalty?

‘I can offer you . . . restitution.’

‘I’m sorry but I—’

‘Do you want to make good what you’ve done? I am here to offer you an alternative. You don’t have to say yes or no right away. Perhaps you think this is a test, but I’m here to tell you that no, it isn’t. We understand your caution and we advise you to trust no one. For now, all you have to do is go to France and continue as instructed – to hunt for that grimoire. I wish you luck on your hunt. Keep your ears open in Paris and you will soon learn more. Perhaps you still have a chance to do something fine for the world.’