“Forty-nine rooms in all, counting the suites in the tower,” Alexandru said.
“An odd number, don’t you think? Why not round it off to fifty?”
Alexandru shrugged. “Who is to say?”
Woermann ground his teeth. If he shrugs once more…
They walked along one of the rampart walls that ran out diagonally from the tower then angled straight back to the mountain. He noted crosses imbedded in the breast-high parapet, too. A question rose in his mind: “I don’t recall seeing any crosses in the outer aspect of the wall.”‘
“There aren’t any. Only on the inside. And look at the blocks here. See how perfectly they fit. Not a speck of mortar is used to hold them together. All the walls in the keep are constructed this way. It’s a lost art.”
Woermann didn’t care about stone blocks. He indicated the rampart beneath their feet. “You say there are rooms below us here?”
“Two tiers of them within each wall, each with a slit window through the outer wall, and a door to a corridor leading to the courtyard.”
“Excellent. They’ll do nicely for barracks. Now to the tower.”
The watchtower was of unusual design. It had five levels, each consisting of a two-room suite that took up all of the level save the space required for a door onto a small exposed landing. A stone stairway climbed the inner surface of the tower’s northern wall in a steep zigzag.
Breathing hard after the climb, Woermann leaned over the parapet that rimmed the tower roof and scanned the long stretch of the Dinu Pass commanded by the keep. He could now see the best placements for his antitank rifles. He had little faith in the effectiveness of the 7.92mm Panzerbuchse 38s he had been given, but then he didn’t expect to have to use them. Nor the mortars. But he would set them up anyway.
“Not much can go by unnoticed from up here,” he said, speaking to himself.
Alexandru replied unexpectedly. “Except in the spring fog. The whole pass gets filled with heavy fog every night during the spring.”
Woermann made a mental note of that. Those on watch duty would have to keep their ears open as well as their eyes.
“Where are all the birds?” he asked. It bothered him that he hadn’t seen any yet.
“I’ve never seen a bird in the keep,” Alexandru said. “Ever.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“The keep itself is odd, Herr Captain, what with its crosses and all. I stopped trying to explain it when I was ten years old. It’s just here.”
“Who built it?” Woermann asked, and turned away so he wouldn’t have to see the shrug he knew was coming.
“Ask five people and you will get five answers. All different. Some say it was one of the old lords of Wallachia, some say it was a defiant Turk, and there are even a few who believe it was built by one of the popes. Who knows for sure? Truth can shrink and fancy can grow much in five centuries.”
“You really think it takes that long?” Woermann said, taking in a final survey of the pass before he turned away. It can happen in a matter of a few years.
As they reached courtyard level, the sound of hammering drew Alexandru toward the corridor that ran along the inner wall of the south rampart. Woermann followed. When Alexandru saw men hammering at the walls, he ran ahead for a closer look, then scurried back to Woermann.
“Herr Captain, they’re driving spikes between the stones!” he cried, his hands twisting together as he spoke. “Stop them! They’re ruining the walls!”
“Nonsense! Those ‘spikes’ are common nails, and there’s one being placed only every ten feet or so. We have two generators and the men are stringing up lights. The German Army does not live by torchlight.”
As they progressed down the corridor, they came upon a soldier kneeling on the floor and stabbing at one of the blocks in the wall with his bayonet. Alexandru became even more agitated.
“And him?” the Romanian said in a harsh whisper. “Is he stringing lights?”
Woermann moved swiftly and silently to a position directly behind the preoccupied private. As he watched the man pry at one of the inlaid crosses with the point of his heavy blade, Woermann felt himself tremble and break out in a cold sweat.
“Who assigned you to this duty, soldier?”
The private started in surprise and dropped his bayonet. His pinched face paled as he turned to see his commanding officer standing over him. He scrambled to his feet.
“Answer me!” Woermann shouted.
“No one, sir.” He stood at attention, eyes straight ahead.
“What was your assignment?”
“To help string the lights, sir.”
“And why aren’t you?”
“No excuse, sir.”
“I’m not your drill sergeant, soldier. I want to know what you had in mind when you decided to act like a common vandal rather than a German soldier. Answer me!”
“Gold, sir,” the private said sheepishly. It sounded lame and he evidently knew it. “There’s been talk that this castle was built to hide papal treasure. And all these crosses, sir…they look like gold and silver. I was just—”
“You were neglecting your duty, soldier. What’s your name?”
“Lutz, sir.”
“Well, Private Lutz, it’s been a profitable day for you. You’ve not only learned that the crosses are made of brass and nickel rather than gold and silver, but you’ve earned yourself a place on the first watch all week as well. Report to Sergeant Oster when you’ve finished with the lights.”
As Lutz sheathed his fallen bayonet and marched away, Woermann turned to Alexandru to find him white-faced and trembling.
“The crosses must never be touched!” the Romanian said. “Never!”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s always been that way. Nothing in the keep is to be changed. That is why we work. That is why you must not stay here!”
“Good day, Alexandru,” Woermann said in a tone he hoped would signal the end of the discussion. He sympathized with the older man’s predicament, but his own duty took precedence.
As he turned away he heard Alexandru’s plaintive voice behind him.
“Please, Herr Captain! Tell them not to touch the crosses! Not to touch the crosses!”
Woermann resolved to do just that. Not for Alexandru’s sake, but because he could not explain the nameless fear that had crept over him as he had watched Lutz pry at that cross with his bayonet. Not a simple stab of unease, but rather a cold, sick dread that had coiled about his stomach and squeezed. And he could not imagine why.
It was late by the time Woermann gratefully settled into his bedroll on the floor of his quarters. He had chosen the third floor of the tower for himself; it stood above the walls and was not too hard a climb. The front room would serve as an office, the smaller rear room as a personal billet. The two front windows—glassless rectangular openings in the outer wall flanked by wooden shutters—gave him a good view of most of the pass, and the village as well; through the pair of windows to the rear he was able to keep an eye on the courtyard.
The shutters were all open to the night. He had turned off his lights and spent a quiet moment at the front windows, watching the gently undulating layer of fog that obscured the gorge. With the passing of the sun, cold air had begun to slip down from the mountain peaks, mixing with the moist air along the floor of the pass which still retained some heat from the day. A white drifting river of mist was the result. The scene was lit only by starlight, but such a magnificent array of stars as seen only in the mountains. He could stare at them and almost understand the delirious motion in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” The silence was broken only by the low hum of the generators situated in a far corner of the courtyard. A timeless scene, and Woermann lingered over it until he felt himself nodding off.
Once in the bedroll, however, he found sleep elusive despite his fatigue. His thoughts scattered in all directions: cold tonight, but not cold enough for the fireplaces…no wood for them anywa
y…heat wouldn’t be a problem with summer coming on…neither would water since they had found cisterns full of it in the cellar floor, fed continuously by an underground stream…sanitation always a problem…how long were they going to be here?…should he let the men sleep in tomorrow after the long day they had just finished?…maybe get Alexandru and his boys to fashion some cots for the men and himself to get them off these cold stone floors…especially if they would be here into the fall and winter months…if the war lasted that long…
The war…it seemed so far away now. The thought of resigning his commission drifted across his mind again. During the day he could escape it, but here in the dark where he was alone with himself it crept up and crouched on his chest, demanding attention.
He couldn’t resign now, not while his country was still at war. Especially not while he was stationed in these desolate mountains at the whim of the soldier politicians in Berlin. That would be playing directly into their hands. He knew what was on their minds: Join the Party or we’ll keep you out of the fight; join the Party or we’ll disgrace you with assignments like watchdog duty in the Transylvanian Alps; join the Party or resign.
Perhaps he’d resign after the war. This spring marked his twenty-fifth year in the army. And with the way things were going, perhaps a quarter century was enough. It would be good to be home every day with Helga, spend some time with the boys, and hone his painting skills on Prussian landscapes.
Still…the army had been home for so long, and he could not help but believe that the German Army would somehow outlast these Nazis. If he could just hang on long enough…
He opened his eyes and looked into the darkness. Although the wall opposite him was lost in shadow, he could almost sense the crosses inlaid in the stone blocks there. He was not a religious man, but there was unaccountable comfort to be found in their presence.
Which brought to mind the incident in the corridor this afternoon. Try as he might, Woermann could not completely shake off the dread that had gripped him as he had watched that private—what was his name? Lutz?—gouging that cross.
Lutz…Private Lutz…that man was trouble…better have Oster keep an eye on him…
He drifted into sleep wondering if Alexandru’s nightmare awaited him.
TWO
THE KEEP
Wednesday, 23 April
0340 hours
Private Hans Lutz squatted under a naked low-wattage bulb, a lone figure perched on an island of light midstream in a river of darkness, pulling deeply on a cigarette, his back against the cold stone of the keep’s cellar walls. His helmet was off, revealing blond hair and a youthful face marred by the hard set of his eyes and mouth. Lutz ached all over. He was tired. He wanted nothing more than to climb into his bedroll for a few hours of oblivion. In fact, if it were just a bit warmer down here in the cellar he would doze off right where he was.
But he could not allow that to happen. Getting first watch for the entire week was bad enough—God knows what would happen if he got caught sleeping on duty. And it was not beyond Captain Woermann to come strolling down the very corridor where Lutz was sitting, just to check up on him. He had to stay awake.
Just his luck for the captain to come by this afternoon. Lutz had been eyeing those funny-looking crosses since he first set foot in the courtyard. Finally, after an hour of being near them, the temptation had been too great. They had looked like gold and silver, yet it seemed impossible they were. He’d had to find out, and now he was in trouble.
Well, at least he had satisfied his curiosity: no gold or silver. The knowledge hardly seemed worth a week of first watch, though.
He cupped his hands around the pulsating glow of his cigarette tip to warm them. Gott, it was cold! Colder down here than in the open air up on the rampart where Ernst and Otto were patrolling. Lutz had come down to the cellar knowing it was cold. Ostensibly, he hoped the lower temperature would refresh him and help keep him awake; actually, he wanted a chance for a private reconnaissance.
For Lutz had yet to be dissuaded from his belief that there was papal treasure here. There were too many indications—in fact, everything pointed to it. The crosses were the first and most obvious clue; they weren’t good, strong, symmetrical Maltese crosses, but they were crosses nonetheless. And they did look like gold and silver. Further, none of the rooms was furnished, which meant that no one was intended to live here. But far more striking was the constant maintenance: Some organization had been paying the upkeep of this place for centuries without interruption. Centuries! He knew of only one organization with the power, the resources, and the continuity for that: the Catholic Church.
As far as Lutz was concerned, the keep was being maintained for only one purpose: to safeguard Vatican loot.
It was here somewhere—behind the walls or under the floors—and he’d find it.
Lutz stared at the stone wall across the corridor from him. The crosses were particularly numerous down here in the cellar, and as usual they all looked the same—except perhaps for that one off to the left there, the one in the stone on the bottom row at the edge of the light…something different about the way the wan illumination glanced off its surface. A trick of the light? A different finish?
Or a different metal?
Lutz took his Schmeisser automatic from its resting place across his knees and leaned it against the wall. He unsheathed his bayonet as he crawled across the corridor on his hands and knees. The instant the point touched the yellow metal of the cross’s upright he knew he was on to something: The metal was soft…soft and yellow as only solid gold can be.
His hands began to tremble as he dug the tip of the blade into the interface of cross and stone, wedging it deeper and deeper until he felt it grate against the granite. Despite increasing pressure, he could advance the blade no farther. He had penetrated to the rear of the inlaid cross. With a little work he was sure he could pop the entire thing out of the stone in one piece. Leaning against the handle of the knife, Lutz applied steadily increasing pressure. He felt something give and stopped to look.
Damn! The tempered steel of the bayonet was tearing through the gold. He tried to adjust the vector of force more directly outward from the stone, but the metal continued to bulge, to stretch—
The stone moved.
Lutz withdrew the bayonet and studied the block.
Nothing special about it: two feet wide, about a foot and a half high, and probably a foot deep. It was unmortared like the rest, only now it stood a full quarter inch out from its fellows. He rose and paced the distance down to the doorway on the left; entering the room there, he paced the distance back to the wall within. He repeated the procedure on the other side in the room to the right of the loose stone. Simple addition and subtraction revealed a significant discrepancy. The number of steps didn’t match.
There was a large dead space behind the wall.
With a tight thrill tingling in his chest, Lutz fairly fell upon the loose block, prying frantically at its edge. Despite his best efforts, however, he could not move it any farther out of the wall. He hated the thought, but finally had to admit that he couldn’t do it alone. He would have to bring someone else in on this.
Otto Grunstadt, patrolling the wall at this moment, was the obvious choice. He was always looking for a way to pick up a few quick and easy marks. And there were more than a few involved here. Behind that loose stone waited millions in papal gold. Lutz was sure of it. He could almost taste it.
Leaving his Schmeisser and bayonet behind, he ran for the stairs.
“Hurry, Otto!”
“I still don’t know about this,” Grunstadt said, trotting to keep up. He was heavier, darker than Lutz, and sweating despite the cold. “I’m supposed to be on duty above. If I’m caught—”
“This will only take a minute or two,” Lutz said. “It’s right over here.”
After helping himself to a kerosene lamp from the supply room, he had literally pulled Grunstadt from his post, talking all the while of treasu
re and of being rich for life, of never having to work again. Like a moth catching sight of a light, Grunstadt had followed.
“See?” Lutz said, standing over the stone and pointing. “See how it’s out of line?”
Grunstadt knelt to examine the warped and lacerated border of the stone’s inlaid cross. He picked up Lutz’s bayonet and pressed the cutting edge against the yellow metal of the upright. It cut easily.
“Gold, all right,” he said softly. Lutz wanted to kick him, tell him to hurry up, but he had to let Grunstadt make up his own mind. He watched him try the bayonet point on all the other crosses within reach. “All the other uprights are brass. This is the only one that’s worth anything.”
“And the stone that it’s in is loose,” Lutz added quickly. “And there’s a dead space behind it six feet wide and who knows how deep.”
Grunstadt looked up and grinned. The conclusion was inescapable. “Let’s get started.”
Working in concert they made progress, but not quickly enough to satisfy Lutz. The stone block canted infinitesimally to the left, then to the right, and after fifteen minutes of backbreaking labor it stood less than an inch out from the wall.
“Wait,” Lutz panted. “This thing is a foot deep. It’ll take all night like this. We’ll never finish before the next watch. Let’s see if we can bend the center of the cross out a little more. I’ve got an idea.”
Using both bayonets, they managed to bulge the gold upright out of its groove at a point just below the silver crosspiece, leaving enough space behind it to slip Lutz’s belt between the metal and the stone.
“Now we can pull straight out!”
Grunstadt returned the smile, but weakly. He seemed uneasy about being away from his post for so long. “Then let’s get to it.”