Kate and Nick slept for a while, their heads leaning together against the wall of the truck. They were jarred awake when the truck came to an abrupt stop. The rear door was thrown open and cool air rushed in. It was one of the best things Kate had ever felt.
They all climbed out of the truck and looked around at a small desert outpost, just a gas station and two other buildings. There was nothing else but the open desert all around them, a mostly dark sky, and a billion stars starting to shine.
Franz unfolded himself from the cab, stretched his muscles, and went to pump the gas.
“Two at a time,” Rolf said, nodding toward the building. “Use the bathroom, drink some water. Do anything else and the two people left behind will die.”
Kate drank as much water as she could, breathed in the cool air until it was time to go back into the truck. The warmth of the day had vanished and now she started to shiver.
“The sun went down to our right,” Quentin said. “We’re heading south.”
* * *
Time went into limbo again. The gaps in the truck’s metallic sides started to glow with light again. The air quickly got warmer. They felt the truck come to a stop, then they heard muffled voices arguing. The truck started moving again.
“I don’t think we’re in Morocco anymore,” Quentin said. “We’ve come so far south. That was probably the border.”
“The border to where?” Kate asked.
“Essentially nowhere,” Quentin said. “The biggest no-man’s-land in the world.”
Jake nodded. “Western Sahara.”
“That’s right,” Quentin said. “Morocco has claimed it ever since it was a Spanish colony. But the local desert nomads are called the Sahrawi. They’ve been here for centuries, and they’re claiming the land for their own independent country.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Nick asked.
“It was on the Agency’s radar for a while,” Quentin said. “If there was oil involved, or really anything at all except empty sand dunes, they might have cared a little more.”
The road beneath the truck’s wheels turned into hard, rutted ground. They bounced up and down like popcorn in a popper for at least another hour until finally everything stopped. The door was thrown open. Kate winced at the sudden glare of morning sunlight.
“Welcome to Die Zitadelle,” Rolf said. “Herr Egger is anxious to see you.”
“Where’s Professor Lewis?” Nick asked.
“He is inside. Come.”
They got out, all stumbling as they found their legs again after so many hours in the truck. As they blinked away the glare, they saw a compound made up of white single-story buildings. Each one looked like it had been baking in the sun for centuries. Beyond the buildings, as far as the eye could see in any direction, was nothing but endless sand, swept into dunes by the wind.
Aside from the beat-up panel truck, there were a handful of other large vehicles, all equipped with large tires for desert travel. A dozen men, all wearing desert camo, stood watching as Rolf led his hostages into the largest of the buildings. These men are different, Nick thought. They’re dressed in real uniforms. They look sharper, more disciplined. And I haven’t seen one red star tattoo yet. Which means this isn’t a bunch of hired goons. This is the real thing. The Brotherhood.
“This way,” Rolf said. He opened two hulking doors that looked like they’d come off Noah’s Ark, leading to a large, mostly empty hall. High windows ran down both long walls in the hall. The floor was once intricate tiles, now cracked with age and covered with a light dusting of sand. At the opposite end was a great wooden table, also probably from the Ark, set upon a dais, which was shared by a pair of camo-wearing, submachine-gun-toting guards who served as bookends to the table. Seated behind the center of the table, like a desert king receiving visitors, was Klaus Egger.
“How was the journey?” Egger asked.
“The nuts weren’t warm and the champagne was flat,” Nick said. “I want to see Professor Lewis.”
“We’ve had some interesting conversations, your professor and I. It’s amazing how much he knows about German literature. And yet so little about the German soul.”
“I’m not sure your soul represents the best of modern-day Germany,” Nick said. “Where is the professor?”
Egger just smiled. Franz, who’d been standing at the back of the room with Rolf, came up behind Quentin and picked him up by the back of his neck. Jake aimed a kick at Franz’s knee. It would have folded any other man in half. But Franz just looked down at Jake as if to say, you’re next.
“The book,” Egger said.
Holding Quentin in the air with one hand, Franz searched him with the other. The logbook was tucked into Quentin’s belt. Franz took it, dropped Quentin to the hard floor, and brought the book to Egger.
“Thank you, Franz,” Egger said.
Franz nodded without saying a word. Jake and Nick helped Quentin get to his feet as Egger paged through the book.
“Just to be clear,” Egger said. “Adolf Hitler was a drug-addled fool, easily manipulated by men like Heinrich Himmler.”
“Hitler, Himmler, Göring,” Jake said. “Nobody cares about them anymore, Egger. They all hanged, at least the ones who didn’t kill themselves to avoid it. The world’s got bigger problems right now, and it doesn’t need you running around here playing Nazi dress-up, trying to find some gold your grandfather helped steal.”
Franz took a step toward Jake.
“Stop!” Egger said. “Silence!”
Franz froze in his tracks. Everybody looked at Egger as he put the book down on the table and bent over to carefully read the last page.
“He wrote this,” Egger said, transfixed. “With his own hand. These are the last words of Gerhard Egger.”
“Hate to tell you,” Nick said, “but your grandpa Gerhard had a pretty rough exit.”
“I said silence!”
Egger looked carefully at the page, saying the first word out loud. “Verrat!” Betrayal. He took a moment to absorb this, then kept reading, mouthing each word to himself as he went down the page.
“What does this mean?” he said. “Tiefbrunnen vom Eisenmann. Tiefbrunnen vom Eisenmann.” He kept saying it to himself, over and over again, like a man in a trance. Until at last, Egger looked up at the ceiling, raising his hands as if receiving a benediction from God Himself.
“Danke, mein Gerhard,” he said. “Danke!”
“We kept our end of the bargain,” Kate said. “Now give us back Professor Lewis.”
When Egger came back to earth, he looked down at Kate as if she were a child interrupting serious grown-up business.
“You’re going to watch your professor die now,” Egger said. “Along with the rest of these men. Then I’m going to let my brothers use you for their own amusement.”
Jake and Nick both took two steps toward Egger, and were stopped only when the guards pointed their guns at Kate.
“Take them to the box,” Egger said. “I want to watch how they die. Every minute of it. Don’t start until I’m there.”
As they were all led outside, Kate squinted in the harsh light, then looked one by one at Nick, Quentin, and finally her father. Behind them were the two guards with their submachine guns, Rolf with his semiautomatic, and Franz, who never really needed a gun at all.