‘I am comfortable. Thank you, Dolf.’
Having been apprised that Katsumi Bauer survived the explosion, Ivo now feared that they were dealing with a cunning enemy. Moreover, he worried that the American commando had somehow discovered that the Montségur Medallion contained a treasure map. One that had been devised nearly eight hundred years ago by a group of religious heretics known as the Cathars.
On the verge of total annihilation, the Pope having called a bloodthirsty crusade against them, the beleaguered Cathars sought the aid of the only Catholics who’d not turned against them, the Knights Templar. In exchange for their military support, the Cathars offered to give the Templars their most prized possession, the Lapis Exillis. Rightly concerned that the Templars might not hold up their end of the bargain, the Cathars crafted a magnificent gold medallion. Engraved on one side of the medallion was an encrypted map that indicated where the Lapis Exillis had been hidden. The Templars would not be given the encryption key until their battle-ready knights arrived at Montségur. Tragically, the besieged Cathar stronghold fell to papal forces before the military contingent arrived. To the Templars’ great dismay, for without the encryption key, they could not decipher the ingeniously devised map.
Although that didn’t stop them from spending the next sixty years searching for the Lapis Exillis. In 1307, their search came to an abrupt end when the French king, Philippe le Bel, issued a general arrest warrant for the Knights Templar, the entire order accused of committing religious heresy. To ensure that the covetous king didn’t acquire the Montségur Medallion, the Templars hid it in the catacombs beneath their Paris preceptory.
Which is where the Seven discovered the medallion in the summer of 1940. Five years later, in the wake of the Reich’s defeat, Friedrich Uhlemann managed to safely smuggle it out of Germany. Like the Templars before him, he spent years searching, in vain, for the Lapis Exillis.
In the hours before his death, Friedrich composed one last letter, imploring Ivo to continue the search for the Lapis Exillis. Considering it an honour, Ivo gladly accepted the passed torch.
In the hopes that, one day, he could shine a bright light upon a new Reich.
‘Gott in Himmel,’ his chauffeur angrily muttered. ‘Do these people never sleep?’
Ivo wondered the same thing as he caught sight of a gypsy woman standing on the street corner, a passel of grubby-faced children huddled at her feet. A repulsive display, he thought, annoyed when the sloe-eyed slattern dared to raise her right hand, palm up, in his direction. The beggar’s age-old appeal for alms.
‘Give me some of your hard-earned money because I am too stupid and lazy to earn my own keep.’
An inbred race of conniving ingrates, the gypsies, or the Romani as they indignantly preferred; they were only skilled at one thing, sucking on society’s teat. And they’d done so since their ragtag horde first emigrated to Europe from the Indian subcontinent during the Middle Ages. In all that time, they’d produced nothing of lasting value. No art. No science. No literature. No music worthy of the name. They merely reproduced. Fathers sleeping with daughters. Brothers sleeping with sisters. Uncles sleeping with anyone they could find. Utterly disgusting. Indeed, the marvel of the human brain was completely wasted on them. A spinal column alone would have sufficed.
Too busy rounding up Jews, the Reich’s high command greatly erred when they didn’t eradicate the Romani. Yes, many gypsies were killed, but like rodents, they spent the post-war years reproducing at a frantic pace. Six decades later, they littered the streets of every major city in Europe. Like so much trash.
Trash that would be picked up and put into a garbage bin once they located the Lapis Exillis.
But first they had to find the medallion. And we only have five days to do so.
Since his father had been afraid to ship the Montségur Medallion to Germany, lest it be confiscated by an inquisitive customs inspector, his last letter contained a drawing, front and back, of the pendant. Disastrously, by the time the missive arrived in Göttingen, the ink had smudged, the symbols and inscription illegible.
Although stymied by the setback, the seed of an idea began to germinate: what if the other members of the Seven had sent their children letters? Perhaps there were others, like Ivo, who wanted to continue their fathers’ research, but didn’t know how to find the Lapis Exillis. Or, more importantly, what to do with the ancient relic should they manage to locate it.
Inspired, Ivo spent several months tracking down the second generation.
As fate would have it, those children, now grown adults, had also received letters from fathers who’d eluded arrest by stealing away to Buenos Aires, Cairo, New York. Contained within those dispatches was the cumulative research of the original Seven. Thrilled at the prospect of continuing the great work begun by their fathers, the second generation vowed to find the Lapis Exillis. To honour their fathers, they unanimously decided to call themselves ‘The Seven Research Foundation’.
Naturally, the first order of business was to find the Montségur Medallion, Ivo’s father making no mention in his last missive of its whereabouts. Since that letter had a Damascus postmark, they surmised that the medallion was in Syria. It took them more than twenty-five years to locate it, finally tracking the medallion to the remote village of Al-Qanawat. Not wishing to garner unwanted attention, they contracted a third party to retrieve the medallion.
A costly blunder. One that must be rectified as soon as possible.
Without the Montségur Medallion, they could not find the Lapis Exillis, the requisite component to perform das Groß Versuch. Once the Great Experiment was successfully executed, they would be able to awaken the sleeping soul of the Aryan people.
Then they could begin again. Bolder. Stronger. More resolute.
Just as their fathers had envisioned.
18
‘Sorry, Kate. You can’t come with me to Paris.’
‘Since it’s not safe for me to stay in Washington, what am I supposed to do?’ Kate retorted, quick to bat the objection right back at Finn. ‘I need you to protect me. There’s no place in the city where I can hide. They know my name and address. No doubt, they’ve mined all my personal data off of a computer database. My place of employment and my –’
‘This is strictly a one-man operation,’ Finn said over the top of her. ‘And just so you know, the matter is not open for debate.’ Ultimatum issued, he walked over to the coffee table to retrieve his belongings.
Kate trailed after him. ‘But I have an expertise that you’ll need once you get to Paris.’
‘Oh, really?’ It was all he could do not to roll his eyes. ‘Is this where you tell me that you took karate lessons at the local Y?’
‘No. This is where I tell you that I speak passably good French. When I was an undergraduate in college, I had a three-month summer internship at the Musée de l’Homme.’
‘Good for you.’ Finn stuffed his cell phone into his pocket. ‘But I was planning to buy one of those electronic translators.’ He didn’t enjoy being a hard ass, but he needed to end this discussion here and now. If he was going to get out of Washington without putting CID on the scent, he’d have to call in some old debts. Get the ball rolling. He already knew that if he went to an ATM or used a credit card, he’d be signing his death warrant.