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"Is that lead?" Tom asked.

"It is," said Volz. "Merely a protective layer, of course, to reduce the contamination risk.

"Contamination from what?" said Tom, already guessing and dreading the answer.

"U-235," replied Volz. "Four tons of it."

"U-what?" Archie, looking confused, turned to Tom.

"U-235," Tom explained, his voice disbelieving. "An isotope of uranium. It's the basic component of a nuclear bomb."

CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

6:06 p.m.

Anuclear bomb? You intend to build a nuclear bomb?" Tom couldn't tell whether Renwick was appalled or impressed.

"U-235 has a half-life of seven hundred million years. Even a minute amount, attached to a conventional explosive and detonated in an urban area, will create widespread radioactive fallout, triggering mass panic and economic collapse. Can you imagine the price this material would fetch from armed Middle Eastern groups, or even foreign governments? For years we have been building our organization in the shadows, almost unnoticed. Now, finally, we have the means not just to fight but to win our war. Now we are ready to reveal ourselves."

"But where has this come from?" Tom asked. "How did it get here?"

"Do you know what the markings on the side of this carriage denote?" Volz pointed at the series of flaking letters and numbers on the side of the second.

"Some sort of serial number?"

"Exactly. It identifies the contents as having come from Berlin. From the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in

Dahlem, to be precise. The headquarters of the Nazis' effort to produce a nuclear bomb."

"Rubbish!" Renwick said dismissively. "The Nazis never had a nuclear program."

"They all did," Volz snapped. "The Soviets called theirs Operation Borodino, the Americans the Manhattan Project. And Hitler was in the hunt too. In 1940 German troops in Norway seized control of the world's only heavy-water production facility and stepped up production of enriched uranium to supply the German fission program. There were stories after the war that German scientists had deliberately sabotaged Hitler's attempts to build an atomic bomb, but the truth was that they were trying as hard as they could. Some even say they detonated a few devices in Thuringia. But the Americans had thrown a hundred and twenty-five thousand people into their program. In the end, Hitler simply couldn't compete."

"So how far did they get?" Tom asked.

"Far enough to accumulate a considerable amount of fissile material. Material that Stalin was determined to get his hands on before the Americans could grab it. That's why he ordered Marshals Zhukov and Konev to race each other to Berlin: to be certain that the Red Army got there first. They say the effort cost the Russians seventy thousand men. Once there, special NKVD troops were dispatched to secure the institute. They arrived in April 1945 and discovered three tons of uranium oxide, two hundred and fifty kilograms of metallic uranium and twenty liters of heavy water. Enough to kick-start Operation Borodino and allow Stalin to start working on Russia's first atomic bomb."

"So you're saying they didn't find all the uranium?"

"They found what was there. But Himmler, ever resourceful, had already moved several tons by placing it in lead boxes built into the walls of a specially modified carriage. The Order personally supervised the shipment, meeting up with the Gold Train in Budapest in December 1944 and attaching their two carriages to it. As soon as they realized they wouldn't make it to Switzerland, they unhitched the carriages and brought them up here, to be recovered at a later date."

"And now the Order of the Death's Head lives on, is that it?" Tom asked. "Only this time armed with a weapon to destroy anyone who doesn't share your lunacy."

"The Order has nothing to do with me or my men," Volz retorted. "We wouldn't have stood idly by playing at knights while Germany was bleeding."

"Then how do you know all this? How did you find this place without access to the painting? Only the Order would have known this location."

Volz hesitated, as if deciding whether to answer. Then he reached inside his coat and produced a large black wallet. Opening it carefully, he withdrew a tattered black-and-white photograph, which he handed to Tom. The same photograph they had found in Weissman's house.

"Weissman and Lammers," Tom said, looking up. Ren-wick held his hand out for the photo and studied it closely.

"And the third man?" Volz asked. "Do you recognize him?"

Tom glanced at the photo again, then gave Volz a long, searching look. There was a definite family resemblance in the high forehead, straight, almost sculpted nose, and small round eyes that Tom had also noted in the portraits lining the Volz et Cie offices in Zurich.

"Your father?" Tom ventured.

"Uncle. The other two men were called Becker and All-brecht. Weissman and Lammers were names they hid behind after the war like the cowards they were."

"So you learned all this from him?" Archie asked.

"Some I know from him; some you have helped me discover. My uncle and his two comrades were plucked from the ranks because of their scientific knowledge and initiated into the Order as retainers."

Tom nodded, remembering that Weissman was a chemist and Lammers a physics professor.

"Three retainers for twelve knights," Tom said slowly. "In the same way that the Black Sun has three circles and twelve runes." He looked up at the huge flag above them.

"Exactly!" Volz smiled at Tom's perceptiveness. "Just as there were three medals and three paintings. My uncle accompanied the Order on the Gold Train's ill-fated escape across Europe while Lammers and Weissman prepared the crypt at Wewelsburg Castle. Then, as ordered, all three of them made their way back to Berlin, hiding what they knew even from each other. Then, just before the end, all three were entrusted with one final instruction."

"Which was?" Renwick asked, a blood vessel pulsing in his neck.

"To protect an encrypted message. A message that could be deciphered only with an Enigma machine configured with the right settings. A message that they hastily scrawled on a painting in a place that couldn't be seen once the frame was on. A painting that they found hanging in Himmler's office because he couldn't bring himself to destroy it."

"A painting that they then lost to the Soviets," Tom guessed.

"The Russians made it to Berlin far faster than anyone expected. Lammers and Weissman risked everything by returning to the SS building to recover the painting but soon realized that the Trophy Squad had beaten them to it. The only two Bellaks they could find were the ones of Wewels-burg Castle and the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague.

"So, Lammers and Weissman knew where the painting was headed, and they had the settings for the Enigma machine to decode the message, but the one thing they didn't know was the actual location of the Gold Train," said Tom.

"Only my uncle knew that," Volz confirmed. "Realizing this, they drew together a series of clues using the two Bel-laks they had managed to save, the specially engraved medals, and the map of the railway system so that others might follow — those of pure Aryan blood, true believers, who could use the riches of the Gold Train to found a new Reich."

"But if you knew all this," asked Archie, "why have you waited until now to come here and find the train?"

"Because I didn't know where the train was either."

"I thought you said your uncle had helped put it here? Surely he told you?"

Volz gave an exasperated laugh. "Unlike his two com-

rades, my uncle ended the war disgusted at what he had seen and what he had done. He realized how potent a weapon had been stored in this mountain and was determined that no one should ever be able to exploit it. So he set up his own council of twelve. But unlike the Order, his council's mission was to protect life, not destroy it. They did this by guarding the location of the site, whatever the cost. When he died five years ago, I was asked to take his seat on the council."