Hermann held his sister’s hand. It was shaking in his, but he gave her a light press to reassure her.
“Now, tell me your names,” the officer said, while Kowalski pulled up his knees against his chest and chewed his nails.
“Hermann Brozek and this is my sister, Sophia,” the young boy replied quickly.
“Gut, gut. Hermann, tell me what you are doing here at Kowalski’s house? He is not a nice man and I cannot imagine children coming to seek out his company,” he said calmly, his light blue eyes like steel. As Hermann opened his mouth to speak, the Obersturmführer added, “And don’t lie. I shall know.”
The boy briefly, and with much mumbling, rushed off something about selling something for bread.
“But you do have rations. Why do you need to disobey and scheme for more food?” the cold Gestapo devil asked in words that lacked any emotion whatsoever and it ran the siblings’ blood cold. Resisting the natural urge to explain that the 300 calories the Nazis allowed common individuals per day was not even adequate for basic survival, the young Hermann elected to choose a docile and simple answer, “We are still hungry, sir.”
Knowing full well that his superiors tried to gradually starve the Jews, he merely nodded and folded his hands between his knees.
“Hermann, what did you bring to trade with Kowalski, against the orders of The Führer?” he asked so amicably that the siblings anticipated the worst. They had to reveal it, they knew. He knew that they had brought something and obviously would not take no for an answer. From under the closed door, a gust of icy wind and feathery flakes of snow intruded, as if the world itself feared the consequences. Hesitantly, Hermann pulled the item from the inside of his thick woolen coat. It was an antique of sorts, belonging to his mother and her mother before her, he explained as the German officer took it from him with uncharacteristic respect and reverence. It was a brooch of considerable age, this was clear. Made from copper alloy, oval in shape, the piece seemed to have an enthralling effect on the officer.
“I would be very interested in purchasing this piece, my boy,” the man said as he scrutinized the piece from all sides, sweeping his thumb over the surface of it. He did not even look up at Hermann once as he spoke, completely obsessed with the piece. “Where is your mother? I will discuss a price with her.”
The two siblings led the Obersturmführer along the biting cold a few houses down to where their mother had her one light on, waiting on her children’s return. In his trail, the officer had his two men following, leaving the other two behind with Kowalski. Not a word was spoken as they made their way to Frau Brozek’s door.
Of course the slight, brunette widow was unpleasantly surprised to see the Gorget patches on the uniform before her — the three diagonal squares on one side, the infamous double lightning bolt ‘S’ motif on the other. He was SS and he stood with his arms around her two children like a father: the most terrifying sight she had ever seen in her life.
“My apologies for keeping them, Frau Brozek, but your children told me that you wished to sell this?” the officer said politely.
Hesitantly, knowing the cunning of the Nazi sharks, she replied, “Yes, sir, I was hoping to get some food… for the children.”
“Of course. Of course. May we come in?” he asked. In Nazi terms those words were never a request and she stepped aside, eager for her children to enter safely. Her heart throbbed erratically inside her and her hands were sweaty.
“Certainly.”
After sitting the children and their mother down on the couch, the officer explained that his great-grandfather had just such a piece that he had unfortunately lost track of. However, he did not like the way in which the woman’s eyes accused him of being a manipulative liar.
But he kept his mask on.
He also knew that this particular artifact was of Viking origin, discovered in the 19th Century, and was said to be harbored by one of the oldest enemies of the Third Reich. They were a secret society, unknown even to the Allied Forces and the Vatican. Their purpose was specific: to resist those who pursued explicitly the treasures of the old Aryan kingdoms, the Scandinavian treasures which held great power, power Hitler and Himmler actively tracked. It came directly from the Norse god Odin, as did all Aryan bloodlines, and those who held these treasures would reign supreme over the half-breed races infesting the earth. One of those treasures, an unspeakable evil trapped in the Holiest Hall of Odin, was kept hidden from the Nazis and they would uproot the very planet to find it.
Here was a solid piece of proof, a remnant of the old kingdom in his palm. If Frau Brozek knew what it was, she would not sell it, would she? Or was her family so important that she would relinquish such a power for bread? His eyes met hers. If she knew what the relic was, she would be the perfect interrogation candidate. To uncover the location of Odin’s hall would secure him the highest rank in the Führer's Reich.
He smiled, “Frau Brozek, I would like to invite you to dinner with me tonight.”
Chapter 22
The brittle walls of the ancient fortress looked deceivingly timid. Grey and stained with the green and black of years on the shoreline, it still looked rather imposing upon the end of the landmass. Above it, the dark skies threatened to unleash a shower, but waited. It was cold and the air was moist when there was no breeze to move along the breath of the tides. The barren windows of the old castle stared blankly across the sea, reminiscing about the vessels used to traverse the expanse of water to pillage, plunder and claim it.
Inside the massive structure two floors, the top and one below, effectively resembled the deterioration of the place.
The stone floors and stairs had crumbled in places, amounting to nothing but a heap of moss-riddled rocks below on the next floor’s back room. Skillfully closed, it looked like just another section of the floor, but the brickwork adorned with a dark velvet drape in emerald green. The two floors below, however, were subterranean. One was quite lavish, considering it was part of a ruin, containing most of the modern necessities to house a few people for short periods of time.
Below this floor was one that differed vastly from it. It made no secret that it was utilized during the time of the Third Reich. Little had changed in its structure and contents, apart from perhaps being somewhat more decrepit, but other than that, it remained an intimidating chamber of cold wet walls and the smell of rotting marine matter under the corners that reached over the rock beneath it and caught some of the frigid lapping waters.
From one side to another, a long hallway stretching in the middle of it, the bottom floor was slightly submerged in a thin sheet of tidal water, gradually eating away at the structure over the centuries, but it was far from collapse. Such a floor gave the place a surreal image, the arches of the ceiling reflecting in the mirroring water and when the tide was out and the water lay still, it gave the chilling effect of a chasm. This was such a day.
With the tide low and the wind still, most of the passing vessels lay quietly off shore, much farther out than usual. It was a serene sight for anyone who would stand sentinel on the broken towers of the stronghold, in sharp contrast to what was happening in the bowels of the building. In the ill lit chambers of the lowest floor where the floor was flooded, several cells populated the west side of the castle. In one of those cells, a petite brunette sat on the bunk that was starkly new in relation to the stone room it furnished. Nina was cold, her lips and nails light blue from the chill. In the freezing bare rooms, the cold sea air had permeated all night, rendering her unable to sleep at all. Under her normally wide and bright dark eyes, dark circles haunted her pretty features and she pulled her knees up tightly against her chest to generate some form of warmth. Nina tried to ease her breathing, the shivering just exacerbating her torment, but it was not working. Everything around her, everything inside her, was cold. It was the kind of frigidity that burned through the tissue and tightened the ligaments and tendons to that movement would be impaired severely, so much that rapid animation could well tear muscle or sinew.