Introduction
At the heart of every lore lies a truth—often merely a grain, a scrap, an explanation forced upon the inexplicable by the uninformed. Sometimes, however, a legend’s birth is so monumental, so magnificent, that it sears itself into the collective consciousness of a people and echoes across ages—The Odyssey, Thermopylae, Camelot. But time is not kind to truth. All men are liars, and through malice or imperfection, as centuries pass, meaning is lost or misconstrued, and fact becomes fiction. Therefore, our search for truth—our quest—must look back before tales of clever symbologists or whip-wielding archaeologists, hellbent on unraveling the mystery of the Holy Grail, took center stage. Back even before power-hungry popes hurled the nobility of Europe against Islam in crushing Crusades searching for its whereabouts. We must return to a wedding feast in the Garden of Gethsemane when Christendom’s greatest relic was still nothing more than a humble silver chalice.
Prologue: Kristallnacht
“These measures are neither meanness nor extremism, but justice for our nation.”
-Adolf Hitler, November 10, 1938
Sarah hadn’t slept—not a wink—huddled by her aunt’s radio when she wasn’t praying to La Madeleine or begging the operator to leave the line open just a little longer.
From her splintered thoughts, her mother’s simple mantra emerged—God protects his servants—but on the crowded tram the Star of David at her throat felt more like a bullseye than a shield. As it lurched onto Berlin’s posh Kurfürstendamm, she shot out of her seat. They rounded the corner and her pulse doubled, then doubled again, the squeal of its steel wheels amplifying the keening in her head.
Please God, no!
Shards of glass blanketed the sidewalks, glittering like fields of diamonds in the watery sunrise. Up ahead, mannequins hung from gutted shop windows like fallen soldiers.
Her breathing stopped.
She tried to scream, but the angry words lay stillborn in her throat.
She jumped down the stairs and threw her body against the glass. “OPEN THE DOOR, DAMN YOU!” she howled, beating it until her knuckles left bloody streaks.
Finally, the conductor threw the lever.
With her world tilting, she stumbled onto the curb; legs heavy, glass crunching like eggshells beneath her boots.
“Momma?” she yelled, climbing through their storefront window.
She paused, hatred twisting her gut into knots. The showroom was devastated, only scraps of fabric remained where yesterday her mother’s beautiful gowns were displayed. She’d grown up here, pinning her fanciful drawings to the wall, dreaming of one day sharing the runway with Coco Chanel.
“Momma!” she shouted, racing upstairs to their residence. She grabbed the doorknob and hope blossomed like a spring crocus—it was locked. From inside, haunting strains of her father’s favorite concerto filtered faintly through the elegant carved oak. She found her key and threw open the door—the foyer was exactly as she’d left it.
“Momma?” she called again, running down the hall, but suddenly ice water flashed down her veins, and her muscles betrayed her.
His Luger was the first thing she noticed—its barrel pointing squarely at her chest. He was a square-jawed brute, his black uniform stretched tightly across his broad shoulders, SS runes at his collar glinting like the emerald brooch in his hand.
For a heartbeat, neither moved, but then his malevolence melted away and he holstered his gun.
“Ah, Sarah,” he greeted her with mocking familiarity. “You’re just in time—your Adagio was my favorite. I caught your final performance at the Beethovensaal. You were magnificent!”
She had been—a child prodigy. A featured soloist on many occasions before the laws ousting Jews from Berlin’s philharmonic.
She tried to speak… nothing came.
He returned to plundering through her mother’s jewelry box.
“Please, help me choose,” he said, motioning for her to join him, “my sister’s birthday is next week.”
She tried again. “Where… where are my parents?”
He selected another piece and held it up to the light—an exquisite ruby necklace trimmed with diamonds—then slipped it into his pocket.
“Where’s my mother?” she said again, stronger this time.
The malevolence returned, his dark bushy eyebrows closing down over his eyes. “Clearly, Fräulein,” he growled, “they’re not here.”
As Bruch’s 2nd movement swelled from her father’s gramophone, terror roared inside her head.
“What have you done with them?”
“Nothing,” he said snidely. “I abhor paperwork—the Gestapo handles all the arrests.”
“Arrests… arrested for what?” Her words were strangled. “They… own a dress shop.”
He laughed—a raspy cackle that sent talons of fear clawing up her back.
“They owned a dress shop.”
All the air vanished from the room. Pinpricks of light began pulsing all around her, her knees threatening to buckle.
“You see, as enemies of the state,” he added casually, pouring another shot from her father’s best bottle of schnapps, “their assets have been seized by the Reich.”
She staggered and fell heavily against her mother’s armoire.
He strolled closer—
—too close.
She tried shifting away, but his hand shot out, tangling in a fistful of her long black hair. She yelped like a scolded puppy as the floor lurched away.
Eye-to-eye, he smelled of sweat and liquor and his eyes were badly bloodshot.
“And unless you want your next concert to be at Dachau, I suggest you leave.”
He let go and she collapsed into a heap on the loveseat.
“NOW!” he screamed.
She shot to her feet—legs trembling—then ran down the hall to her room.
In the center of her bed, a suitcase waited alongside her violin and a small envelope. She snatched up the envelope, and in her mind’s eye a crystal-clear scene began to form—her mother frantically scribbling, her father offering the brute a handful of diamonds. She ripped it open.
Liebchen, you are my heart and soul. La Madeleine will watch over you—but you must never trust anyone with her secret.
Never.
With tears welling in her eyes, she grabbed her favorite photograph off her nightstand and crammed it into her suitcase.
The sorrowful notes of her final performance at the Alte Philharmonie followed her down the hall. She stopped in the foyer.
“You’ll pay for this,” she whispered, then she stepped into the cold.
Part 1: Blitzkrieg
“Europe cannot find peace until the Jewish question has been solved.”
-Adolf Hitler, January 30, 1939
Tyre, Lebanon
Friday August 11th
– 1 –
The outer envelope was as grimy as the young Arab boy who’d braved his team’s pockmarked excavation site to deliver it, but the smaller envelope inside was pristine. With a thudding heart, Sebastian pulled it out—
“—Oooo, I love surprises!”
He spun around and was greeted by a pair of inquisitive green eyes—Ingrid, his Graduate Assistant, a glorified babysitter for the fourteen undergraduates doing all the digging this semester.
“Must you always sneak up on me?” he snapped, instantly regretting it.
She noticed but let it slide. “I was a cat in a previous life. Just open it!”
With his unease mounting, he turned it over—the Great Seal of England shimmered in the glare of the midday sun.
“It’s about your visa!” she crowed. “You’re going to Palestine!”
Damn it! Heydrich was right—Chamberlain’s gullibility has permeated the entire Home Office.
He shook his head disgustedly. He’d only agreed to this ‘favor’ because he was utterly convinced Whitehall would say no.
“Oh, come on,” she said, slugging his bicep. “I’d kill for the chance to do research in Jerusalem!”
Hyperbole, but not by much—for the past three weeks they’d spent their evenings cloistered in the cool of the hotel bar discussing the details of his new book on Richard Cœr de Lion.
“You’re right, it’s a golden opportunity,” he allowed. “I wish you could come.”
Her aquiline eyes grew wide and hopeful and for the second time in as many minutes, he cursed his propensity for blurting unfiltered thoughts.
Stephen Mann, his curt but efficient Field Director, stepped into the shade of the dusty tarpaulin they called an ‘office’ and dropped a collection box on the table with a loud thud.
“What are you two bickering about this time?”
“We weren’t bickering,” Ingrid shot back with an icy glare. In their four weeks together, her and Mann had developed a healthy dislike.
Mann scoffed. “Don’t you have work to do?”
Her eyes flared and she turned to Sebastian, but he was too caught up in his dilemma to run interference.
She spun on her heel and left in a trail of dust, her long blonde ponytail bobbing with every step. His eyes followed—she wasn’t just smart, funny, and easy on the eyes—she liked him in spite of his family, not because of it.
Mann shook his head, pulling over the box from the new shaft. “It’s no wonder she’s still on the market.”
Sebastian held up the envelope. “My visa’s ready in Beirut, so I’ll be headed out in the morning.”
Mann ignored him.
“You still okay running the show while—”
“—I told you I was fine with it,” he said bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Stephen, I appreciate you picking up the slack.”
Mann went back to sifting dirt. “You’d do the same for me.”
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Fortunately, he managed to keep that thought to himself.
“I’ve got some loose-ends to tie up, but I’ll see you in the bar later.”
And I’ll be drunk by the time you get there.
Ras Naqoura Border Station, Lebanon
Saturday August 12th
– 2 –
“Suitcase on the counter.” The man’s face was expressionless, and Sebastian did his best to mimic him as he handed over his passport—his French passport—with his new visa stamped inside it.
“The modifications are impossible to detect,” Heydrich had assured him when he’d delivered the suitcase to the von Kessel villa in Essen. “Take it to your hotel in Jerusalem and someone there will do the rest while you work on your book.”
The agent flipped open his passport and studied the vitals—6’2″, 230 pounds—then stared hard at Sebastian’s face. The photo was recent, but the sun had lightened his thick blonde hair to the color of gold, and laziness had added a neatly trimmed beard to his sharp Aryan features.
“What is your final destination?”
“I apologize; I do not speak English.” A slow, well-rehearsed line that was mostly true.
“What is your final destination?” The agent continued in French.
Sebastian responded calmly, always maintaining eye contact, precisely as he’d been coached by his brother, an SS officer. “The Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem.”
“What is the purpose of your visit?”
“Research—I’m writing a book on Richard the Lionheart.”
I’m also couriering top secret messages from the Third Reich intended to foment a new Arab uprising in Palestine.
The agent stared silently at him, and the long, deep scar stretching across Sebastian’s high forehead began pulsing angrily, as if the truth was scrolling across it like a newsreel.
“Where will you be staying during your visit?”
“The King David Hotel.”
“Are you carrying a firearm, or currency in excess of £5,000?” the agent continued, his keen eyes studying Sebastian for any whiff of deception.
“No.”
“Thank you, Monsieur Docteur von Kessel,” the man said in his bureaucratic monotone, handing back his passport without even looking inside his suitcase.
Sebastian let out a deep breath, his confidence soaring—this is a piece of cake!
“Please collect your belongings and follow Sergeant Tibbs to Room C.”
“Was?!” he blurted in German.
“Please collect your belongings and follow Sergeant Tibbs,” he repeated.
Sebastian had never been interrogated, but this place fit the bill—drab grey walls, a plain metal table covered in cracked linoleum, and two straight-backed wooden chairs. The small transom over the door was the only window.
Fifteen minutes came and went—only fifteen minutes—but it felt like a decade.
Finally, the door squeaked opened and an older man in a wilted suit breezed in. His neat gray crew cut, and pale grey eyes, perfectly suited the room.
“Monsieur Docteur von Kessel, my name is Mark Hampstead,” he said in heavily accented French. “I’m the facility supervisor.”
“Mr. Hampstead, if I miss my train in Haifa, I’ll lose an entire day of research.”
“Well then, Herr Doktor, I suggest you be as cooperative as possible.” Hampstead’s German was excellent, but Sebastian didn’t flinch—his brother, Kurt had prepped him well.
“I’m a dual citizen; that’s not a crime.”
“No, but stirring up trouble in a protectorate of the British Empire damn sure is.”
“Then we have nothing more to discuss—I’m going to Jerusalem to do research for my book, that’s all.”
“You picked a peculiar time, or maybe Kessel Heavy Industries isn’t worried about its heir-apparent being trapped on foreign soil when the shooting starts.”
“Mr. Hampstead, I’m an archaeologist, not a spy.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said, with a smirk that made Sebastian’s stomach lurch like he’d missed a step getting off the train. Hampstead grabbed his suitcase. “Mind if I have a look?”
Sebastian waved him on. “Whatever will speed this along.”
Hampstead removed everything—clothes, shoe bags, notebooks, and toiletries—then he examined every millimeter of the hand-tooled leather.
“It’s surprisingly heavy, don’t you think?” he said, lifting it up and bobbing it like he was weighing a melon at a fruit stand.
It wasn’t—there were only a few sheets of paper sandwiched between the leather—he was fishing, that’s all. “I’m living out of a tent; rugged seemed like the way to go,” he snapped sarcastically.
Hampstead’s eyes flared—he’d hit paydirt, and he knew it—but a sharp knock at the door interrupted him. “Hold that thought,” he said with a grin as he disappeared.
Sixty seconds later he was back, and he’d left the smirk outside.
“London says you’re harmless as a kitten,” he said, leaning close enough for Sebastian to smell the sardines on his breath, “but you’re lying—I can feel it.” He closed the suitcase. “If anything at all happens while you’re here—a goat goes missing—you’ll be the first person arrested.”
Sebastian climbed awkwardly to his feet and grabbed Heydrich’s suitcase—resting the other hand on the table to keep the room from spinning. “I promise, there won’t be any trouble while I’m here.”
Hampstead’s jaw clenched; he was grinding his teeth. “If I were you, I’d hire a damn good bodyguard.”
Haifa, Mandatory Palestine
Wednesday August 16th
– 3 –
Sebastian rolled the icy highball glass across his forehead and glanced at his suitcase above Mrs. Johnston’s head. It had disappeared from his room at the King David the night he arrived; he prayed that meant the Grand Mufti’s response to der Führer was sewn inside.
His travelling companion didn’t seem the least bit wilted by the sunbaked air being batted about quite uselessly by their compartment’s fans. Outside their window, the pale ocher countryside blurred past, broken only by flashes of dark green olive groves.
“Monsieur Docteur, do you have a particular affinity for olive trees? Or am I simply too dull for conversation?”
He smiled. “Truth be told, Mrs. Johnston, I’m a closet botanist, but please don’t sell me out to the paparazzi.”
Her soft, sweet laughter reminded him of Ingrid—she’d be waiting for him at the border—but so would Hampstead.
“Your secret is safe with me,” she whispered, but then with a raised eyebrow she added, “Although, I’m curious, what’s the going rate for juicy gossip these days?”
He rolled his eyes and flashed her a smirk; they both laughed.
“Well then, we’d best concoct a cover story, in case I get interrogated.”
He flinched—why had she chosen those particular words?
“Was your stay fruitful?”
“Very—my colleague’s going to be overjoyed with something I stumbled upon in Jerusalem.”
“Oh, do tell! Is it some kind of treasure?”
“Just a boring bit of history, I’m afraid, but archaeologists are easily amused.”
Even in a setting like this he found it hard to be truthful about the Templars. If he wasn’t careful, his passion would tarnish his reputation as a serious archaeologist and ruin his chance at a full professorship.
“Look mother!” The woman’s young son suddenly plastered his face against the glass. “Camels!”
His mother rustled his thick black hair and kissed the top of his head—just as Sebastian’s mother used to do. Reflexively, he reached up and traced the long, jagged scar across his forehead.
He’d been only eight years old when his childhood ended.
Paris had been their refuge—the de Mare daughters and their sons—but the armistice had emptied the trenches, so they were heading to the family’s grand château in Metz for Christmas. His mother, Madeleine never let him forget that he was the firstborn son of not one, but two great families. They were crossing the frontier—the No Man’s Land he’d seen so many times in newsreels—when the bomb detonated.
With a tremendous boom and a blinding flash, the front of their car was blasted off the tracks. A brutal shockwave sent giant shards of glass slicing through the air. The shriek of straining steel and twisting metal from the collapsing trestle—
“Monsieur Docteur?”
A white-glove was resting lightly on his deeply tanned hand.
“Monsieur Docteur, are you alright?” Mrs. Johnston asked.
“Just remembering the last time I saw Maman; her birthday is next week, and I miss her.”
She smiled kindly and squeezed his arm. “I’m sure she misses you too—wherever she’s at.”
“Look mother, the sea!” her son called out excitedly.
The overhead lights blinked three times—they were arriving in Haifa.
He zipped up his field journal and returned it to his well-worn messenger bag. A quick glance at his Rolex—Ingrid would be leaving about now. A cab to the bus station, and a short ride to the border. He threw back the rest of his cocktail, closed his eyes, and tried hard not to think about the suitcase above his head.
– 4 –
“Thank you,” Sebastian said, stepping from the taxi—his head centered in the cross-hairs of a Lee-Enfield sniper rifle. He kissed Mrs. Johnston’s hand. “You were a delightful companion.”
Across the street, the young man staring through the scope was absolutely miserable; he blinked repeatedly, trying to clear the sweat burning his eye. He’d volunteered for this assignment—in spite of the short timeline: a Nazi industrialist with no security was too tempting to ignore.
He’d arrived in darkness so no one would see him as he made his way up to the roof. In the cool, pre-dawn stillness, he’d set up a simple blind using a black tarpaulin (to match the tar of the roof) and created a line-of-sight to the bus station by removing two bricks from a downspout.
As the hours passed the temperature soared, and the acrid smell of scorched tar clotted his nose and burned his eyes. He’d lugged up four canteens in his pack, each tinctured with pickle juice, and he’d drained them all, but still his mouth felt stuffed with cotton.
A bodyguard would have you inside already.
He slipped his finger over the trigger and blinked, then he blinked again, but his double-vision refused to clear. He was panting, and when he tried to swallow, his tongue refused. A wave of muscular tremors raced down his arm making the German’s head dance drunkenly inside his scope.
It had to be now.
The driver had just closed the trunk when Sebastian felt a hammer-like blow to his skull followed almost instantly by the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle. Behind him, a plate glass window shattered into a spray of jagged shards. Pain exploded in his head and his knees buckled. He collapsed onto the sidewalk with the suitcase breaking his fall.
The terrified cabbie jumped in and went screaming off in a cloud of dust leaving Sebastian completely exposed.
High above, the young man cursed. This was a one-shot mission; his escape plan demanded it, but he grabbed the bolt, chambered another .303 round, and peered through his scope.
Sebastian fought his way to his knees, holding out his hand, but the crowd had melted away. He collapsed back onto the suitcase, blood streaming from the gash above his left eye—a perfect target.
The sniper took a deep breath and held it—the Nazi’s bloody head was jittering in his cross-hairs. Finger trembling—he slowly squeezed the trigger.
At 744 meters per second, a .303 round closed the distance in an instant—but it wasn’t the sniper’s bullet.
The British soldier guarding the entrance to the bus station was a veteran, a sergeant who’d fought in the Arab uprising—he’d seen Sebastian go down and the window disintegrate, so he knew exactly where to look.
When he saw movement on the roof—he fired.
Tyre, Lebanon
Sunday August 19th
– 5 –
He was a terrible patient. To the chagrin of his doctors, he’d discharged himself the second the Brits gave him the greenlight. “I can rest in Tyre,” he’d repeated like a scratched record, and eventually they’d caved.
The sun had dropped below the horizon when he finally staggered into the parking lot on the French side of the border. Heydrich’s suitcase had survived Sardine Breath’s scrutiny again, but it was slipping from his sweaty palms. His pulse was racing. He was digging his flask out of his messenger bag—a nip would quiet the drumming in his head.
He barely recognized her when she stepped out of the Steyr.
Ingrid closed the distance in a heartbeat and threw her arms around him.
“Oh my God!”
She smelled of sweat and lavender, and she’d traded her high-waisted jodhpurs for a pale-blue sundress that perfectly accentuated her bronzed skin.
“I should’ve gotten shot weeks ago.”
She slugged his bicep and instantly regretted it. “Oh, no! Did I hurt you?” she said, her beautiful sea-green eyes glistening.
He laughed, relying on her for stability. This was exactly the way he’d imagined (fantasized about?) their reunion while he’d been laid up in Haifa.
“Fortunately, I got shot in the head, not the arm.”
“Does it still hurt?”
She’d dispensed with the perpetual ponytail, freeing her long blonde hair to spill over her bare shoulders.
“Hard to say, but I’m barely fit to walk, much less drive.”
She slipped her arm around his waist with a warm pearly smile, “Ingrid Bergstrom at your service, monsieur.”
He threw the suitcase in the backseat and settled in.
“I want to hear everything—but in reverse; start with Haifa!”
By the time the second bullet slammed into his suitcase, she was barely breathing. She reached over and clutched his hand possessively. “Oh my God! I still can’t believe someone tried to kill you.”
“In hindsight,” he said pensively, “it was all too predictable—a senior Nazi, parading through Palestine alone.” Just saying that out loud made him feel foolish… no, worse than foolish: used.
“I rarely think of you as a Nazi.”
“My grandfather would be disappointed to hear that.”
“How often do you wear a swastika?” she countered.
“Blood red just isn’t my color.”
“And you haven’t missed Mass a single time since we’ve been here.”
She was three for three—Am I really that transparent? No wonder Simon had compartmentalized their operation in Berlin.
The sun was setting when they pulled into Tyre. “Let’s get dinner,” he insisted.
She briefly squeezed his hand. “Our first date, monsieur?”
A flash of his trademark grin. “Oui mademoiselle.”
After dessert—and locking the suitcase in the trunk—they carried the rest of the wine down to the water’s edge and talked until the stars were brilliant little diamonds blanketing the sky.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time you walked into my office,” he confessed as his lips brushed hers and his hand slipped firmly around her neck, thumb tracing the pulse at her throat. She molded into him with a soft moan.
Later, when he pulled her to her feet, he whispered, “I’m a light sleeper.”
She tensed, and he feared he’d gone too far, but then she shivered and looked up at him.
“Don’t lock your door.”
Tyre, Lebanon
Tuesday August 22nd
– 6 –
Ingrid surreptitiously dragged the tips of her fingers across Sebastian’s hand as she slipped into the shade of the tarpaulin, sending an icy chill up his arm.
“I’ve sent the kids back to the hotel—they can spend the afternoon in the pool.”
David shot her a sour look. “They shouldn’t be here if they can’t handle a little heat.”
She stiffened, but her attack was preempted by the clatter of a bicycle shooting down the hill. An Arab boy skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust and ran towards them.
“Telegram for Monsieur Docteur Sebastian von Kessel,” he announced breathlessly holding up a small striped envelope with PRIORITY printed across it in bold red letters.
Sebastian raised his hand.
“I bet that’s from the University,” David crowed. Their little band of would grave robbers had made hit paydirt while he’d been away—an undisturbed Templar knight’s tomb.
Sebastian scrawled his name across the receipt, then fumbled for change.
“I bet you’re right.” He pulled out a stiff card with strips of teletype glued haphazardly across its face.
BT
CRITICAL YOU DEPART ASAP STOP MUST ARRIVE AT FRIENDS HOUSE FOR YOUR MOTHERS BIRTHDAY PARTY STOP NLT YOUR MOTHERS BIRTHDAY STOP AK
BT
There was no doubting its authenticity—the originating station was Essen, and his father’s compulsive habit of repeating himself took care of the rest. And its intent was crystal clear—get out of Lebanon.
But why?
He handed it to David.
“We can’t leave,” he shrieked an octave too high. “That Templar’s tomb is my ticket to tenure! Who sent this?”
“My father, Albrecht.”
“So, he means, you, right? Not the rest of us?”
“What’s going on?” Ingrid asked.
“This doesn’t concern you,” David barked with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Sebastian fired back. “She has a right to know.” He snatched the telegram out of David’s hand and handed it to her.
Her eyes widened. “Your mother? But that’s not—”
A sharp look from him clipped her thought, but she held his gaze.
“It’s a code, isn’t it?”
Of course! She’d hit the nail on the head. All they could talk about at the Villa the week he left was Hitler’s orders cancelling leave for both the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. The next step in reshaping the map of Europe must be imminent. “Her birthday is September 1st.”
“This is madness! You’re not going to trust her, are you?”
He stared at the telegram rubbing his scar, pieces slowly clicking into place like tumblers in a lock. Hitler’s next move must target Britain’s empire—that’s why Jerusalem mattered.
Did Himmler warn my father to save me… or that suitcase?
It didn’t matter.
“If my father wants us out of here, he has a damn good reason, and you’re going to make that happen. Do you understand me?” he said, punctuating his question with a jab of his finger on David’s chest.
“What about the sarcophagus—we can’t just leave it?” he asked, his eyes burning a hole through Sebastian’s head.
“We’re tomb raiders, remember—crate it up. Ingrid, tell the students we’re closing down—photograph everything so we’ll know where to pick up next year.”
She started to ask a question, then thought better of it.
He stuffed the telegram into his pocket and shoved past David.
“I’ll be at the hotel; I’ve got a lot of calls to make.”
Naples, Italy
Sunday August 27th
– 7 –
“Herr Doktor von Kessel, if you’ll follow me, I have some paperwork I need you to sign.” She was a petite, hard-faced woman with a firm grip and a crisp Italian accent. His wounded head was pounding in rhythm with his pulse as he trailed her to a room marked PRIVATE. She stopped and looked both directions before ushering him in.
“Brother!”
“Kurt!”
Wearing a wide, friendly grin, his half-brother strode over and wrapped him in a bear hug. “And father thought I was the hardheaded one,” he chided as each tried to impress the other with their strength.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sebastian said, shoving him to arm’s length, “but what the hell are you doing here?”
“The Abwehr’s Middle East desk got wind of your mission—the Reichsführer needs your suitcase in Berlin by morning.” He motioned to the woman. “And I wanted to check on you—two birds, one stone.”
“Herr Doktor, allow me,” she said taking his suitcase and setting it on the table.
He reached over and stuck his finger into the ragged bullet hole—a hole that was meant for his head. Kurt grabbed his shoulder and squeezed as his assistant got to work. “They missed, brother—that’s the important thing.” Kurt gently moved aside his hair. “How many stitches?”
“Seventy-five, if I—”
A playful smirk suddenly brightened his little brother’s face. Kurt plucked a pair of lacy pink panties from the pile. “A souvenir of Beirut’s nightlife?”
He snatched them away and stuffed them in his pocket. “You’re really going to like her.”
Kurt’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, she’s with you?”
“Yes, but you can’t meet her yet.”
“You DOG!” Kurt laughed, his eyes gleaming.
Sebastian shoved him—hard. “She’s twenty-six—but technically a student until she finishes her dissertation.”
The woman, meanwhile, had used a razorblade to slice open the long inner seam of the silk lining. She pulled out an envelope and handed it to Kurt.
“Mission accomplished,” Kurt said with a playful wink.
She repacked his suitcase and excused herself: “Herr Doktor, please hurry.”
The second the door clicked shut, Sebastian shifted gears. “Why’d father pull me out? Is this related to that new treaty with the Soviets?”
Kurt’s expression darkened. “We pulled you out—”
“—We?”
“The Reichsführer wasn’t at liberty to share the target or the timetable, which led to father’s cryptic telegram.”
Sebastian’s stomach tightened. “But an attack is in the offing?”
Kurt nodded. “The Luftwaffe went on full alert yesterday.”
Sebastian exhaled sharply and squeezed his temples, fighting a wave of nausea. “I can’t believe Hitler crawled into bed with a Communist—let’s find a bottle of whiskey and a handful of aspirin.”
“Tempting,” Kurt said, “but my plane’s waiting.” He stuck his finger into the bullet hole in the suitcase. “The Haganah did you a favor.”
“They tried to kill me!”
“Exactly,” Kurt said coolly. “And they wouldn’t do that to one of their own.”
Neither moved. Neither blinked. The silence was suffocating, a weight pressing in on Sebastian’s chest.
“What are you insinuating?”
Kurt adjusted his cuff, his tone casual. “The Gruppenführer has been asking about the Louvre.”
Don’t look away. Don’t touch your face. Breathe—deep, steady.
“He’s a colleague.”
“He’s a Jew.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Yes, they are,” Kurt shot back. “You’re a von Kessel.”
“Well then, thank God for the Haganah and their inept snipers,” he snarled as he flung open the door nearly hitting Ingrid.
The woman with the clipboard hurried over.
“There’s been a slight change of plans, Signora,” he said, turning to his brother. “I’m going to Paris—while I still can.”
Marseille, France
Friday September 1st
– 8 –
As he unfolded from the backseat of the tiny Citroën, he was still cursing himself—I should’ve slipped Ingrid a note! He’d pawned her off on David for the remainder of the trip—he’d be lucky if they were still on speaking terms when he returned to Berlin.
He waved a five franc note above his head and a burly Algerian porter in sweat-stained livery raced over to collect his luggage.
“Plate-forme cinq s’il vous plaît,” he said, then headed for the Western Union kiosk. He picked up a copy of Le Temps. The headlines screamed of ultimatums and diplomatic failures, but the air around him—hurried travelers, the scent of strong coffee, the clatter of departing trains—felt deceptively normal.
When it was his turn, he tore two sheets from the message pad and unscrewed his lucky Waterman. The first was simple, just letting Madame Gabrielle know he was back in France. As he wrote her name, a familiar warmth crept in—Gabby had turned his Paris sanctuary into a real home after his mother died. She’d given up her sous-chef job at the George V, sold her apartment, and fled her own ghosts in Bavaria to watch over him. In every way but name—they were family.
His second telegram was deliberately cryptic.
BT
LEAVING MARSEILLE STOP EXCITING KT CLUE ARAB SOURCE JERUSALEM STOP ILE SAINT LOUIS 8PM
BT
He pushed both sheets through to the clerk and paid his fee, confident his telegram would reel in Professor Weißmann as surely as a bleating goat in a tiger trap.
Simon Weißmann was a slave to his work, often remaining cloistered away in his office at the Louvre until the wee hours of the morning, but their private code, ‘KT,’ had always proven irresistible. The pseudo-mythical Knights Templar were Simon Weißmann’s raison d’être.
A sly grin crept across Sebastian’s face—an expression Ingrid would’ve recognized immediately. He too was passionate about Templar lore—but he had far better ‘reasons to live.’ His smile faded—he’d been such a cad, and Ingrid’s father was the provost at his university, so sending a ‘make-up’ bouquet to their home in Berlin was out of the question.
With his wounded head throbbing, he set off in search of his plush first-class berth to Paris—he had a lot to think about.
Paris, France
Friday September 1st
– 9 –
“Boy!” Sebastian shouted, leaning over the railing of the moving train. “Over here!”
The wiry little news boy shot over and made the trade in a flash.
A single damning word dominated the front page: WAR!
Bands of steel clamped around Sebastian’s chest—in a heartbeat his beloved Paris had turned on him like a rabid dog.
Does the Sûreté know I’m on this train?
Feeling naked and exposed, he stepped back from the railing and scanned the nervously milling crowd.
That’s when he noticed her.
She was striking and impossible to miss in her vibrant red dress. She was tall and lean, with hair and eyes the color of raven’s feathers—and vaguely familiar. Curiously, she was eyeing him like he was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.
Their eyes met and on cue, she started frantically waving. “Professor—over here!” she yelled thrusting a hand-printed sign above her head with Simon’s name scrawled across it.
She subtly motioned to her right: two uniformed gendarmes—huge men with thick necks—were studying 8×10 glossies. He could guess whose face was plastered on them.
“Professor, hurry!”
He felt the hawklike stare of the gendarmes sweep across his face like a spotlight.
“Our taxi won’t wait forever!” she said stepping in front of them.
They looked at her.
They looked at the card.
They looked at him.
Then they moved on to the next face in the flood of first-class passengers spilling around him like a rock in a stream.
Biting back the bile clawing at his throat, he disembarked and forged his way through the jittery crowd.
“Mademoiselle,” he said softly when he finally reached her, “I’m deeply grateful; but I’m not—”
“I know who you are, Professor,” she snapped, “and unless you’re eager to spend the rest of the war in a prison camp, let’s go.”
He nodded and whipped out enough cash to snag a porter.
As they charged out of the station, he finally connected the dots.
“You’re Gestapo, right?”
With a feral intensity, she whirled and slapped his face. The sound alone was enough to make everyone around them stop and stare.
He glanced back; afraid she’d drawn the gendarme’s attention.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, grabbing her arm and shoving her towards the street.
“Where’s our taxi?” he asked, the hot glow of her handprint blossoming on his cheek.
“I don’t have a taxi,” she said defiantly. “You should never trust a Jew, Professor.”
He stopped abruptly, gears grinding in his pounding head.
Then the pieces fell into place, and both cheeks grew red. They’d met years ago, backstage in Berlin—she’d been the featured soloist with the Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester.
“You’re Sarah, aren’t you—Simon’s niece?”
She yanked free and strode purposefully towards the street.
“I’m sorry,” he called after her, “I didn’t—”
“Save it!” she yelled, “and hurry up.”
He did as he was told.
– 10 –
“This would be a bad time to get—”
“Shut up,” she said coldly as she abruptly changed lanes, slinging him against the polished mahogany dashboard of Simon’s elegant Delage.
She shot through the intersection at the Pont de Sully like they were escaping the scene of a crime, her long hair whipping wildly in the breeze.
Likewise, she flew past the broad Pont Marie without even slowing down.
“May I ask where you’re taking me?”
“If you must… Uncle Simon asked for my help—so I’m helping.”
“Fair enough, but my apartment is on Île Saint-Louis… and you just passed both bridges.”
“I’m sure you consider those gendarmes milquetoast compared to your Gestapo, but they’re not stupid.” She found a seam and cut across two lanes of traffic. “You’re fortunate all they had was a blurry photo.”
There was a pregnant pause and she glanced at him—he looked pale—reality was settling in.
“I’m fortunate you’re such a clever woman.”
“Yes… yes, you are,” she shot back, turning onto Rue du Temple.
They were both silent for two blocks.
“Damn!” she blurted abruptly. “I used my uncle’s name!”
He instantly understood.
“And when I don’t show up at my apartment, his flat will be their next stop.”
She pulled over. “Get in the back and lay down.”
He stared at her for a moment, but he complied without protest. Once he was out of sight, she drove deeper into le Marais — the Parisian Jewish Quarter —before slowing in front of a classic Haussmann apartment building where the doorman promptly rushed out and opened the gate. She pulled smoothly into her uncle’s numbered slot and killed the engine. She looked around—the garage was completely deserted.
“Let’s go.”