Pact With the Devil Part II
In this chapter Indy Keeps an appointment in Berlin, where a surprise awaits . . .
CHAPTER ONE: BERLIN, NOVEMBER, 1938
Indiana Jones checked his watch for what he guessed was the fourth time that evening. He was not overly familiar with the layout of Berlin, and it was taking him longer than he liked to walk the distance from his small hotel just off Unter Den Linden to the Kurfursten Bridge. The watch showed 7:45, ample time to reach the rendezvous point mentioned in Rosen's note. Still, Jones kept up a hurried pace as he made his way through the darkened streets. This was one meeting for which he could ill afford to be late.
Perhaps it was the inevitable state of nerves caused by his uncertain position, but it seemed to Indy that the city had fallen under a strange, brooding tension that night - the edgy, stretched almost to snapping calm of a thunderstorm about to break. He found difficult to put a finger on exactly what felt wrong. He had seen the usual pedestrian traffic- lovers walking hand in hand, groups in gay evening dress on their way to the fabled nightlife of the Kurfurstendamme several blocks to the west, one or two ladies 'holding up lamp posts' to put it euphemistically, even though the German government insisted that such social problems as prostitution had been put to rest by the Glorious Third Reich. But there were others out that evening, too: solitary, frightened looking men who glanced nervously over their shoulders as they walked, and large groups of men in civilian dress who moved with almost military precision, their faces grim and purposeful. Somewhere off to the east, Indy heard the loud alternating klaxon of an emergency vehicle.
At last he came to the broad expanse of the River Spree and turned right, heading east along a wide esplanade. To his left was an iron railing that fenced the sidewalk from the dark waters of the river below; on his right was an unbroken row of three and four-story stone buildings that held small shops and businesses. Two blocks ahead, he could make out his destination, the Kurfursten Bridge with the dark silhouette of the Berlin Cathedral looming behind it.
Suddenly the sharp tinkle of breaking glass split the night. Picking up his pace and craning his neck, Indy hurried on up the street toward the point from which the sound had issued. He found a crowd of people, mostly onlookers, milling in front of one of the small shops in the next block, partially blocking his way.
The establishment looked as if it had once been prosperous, but it had obviously fallen on hard times. Tarnished brass lettering over the doorway proclaimed: A. Wallerstein, Rare Books and Manuscripts. One letter hung askew. Graffiti, the word Jude and Stars of David, crudely daubed in dripping yellow paint, defaced the building's stonework front. The big plate glass window lay in scattered shards, and a heavy, coarse-looking man holding a tire iron stood in the wreckage, grinning at his handiwork.
As Indy approached, other men, looking for all the world like a parade of busy ants, appeared from the shop's interior, arms laden down with ancient looking leather-bound books which they threw unceremoniously onto the pavement. The fragile volumes split on impact, their dry, delicate pages disintegrating under the abuse. Laughing, the looters finished the job of destruction by grinding the paper under their boots and kicking the fragments into the river, where they floated in tiny swirls on the slowly moving waters. Sickened, Indy shook his head and wondered if this was how the barbarian sacking of Rome had appeared to the helpless bystanders of the day. Was this the harbinger of another Dark Age about to fall on all of Europe?
There was a commotion and a man of about sixty, evidently the shop's proprietor, fought his way out of the crowd and stood staring in shock at the destruction. Like his business, he too had seen better days. His suit was of good material and expensive cut, but it was thread-bare and obviously several years past its useful life. The man himself, although his demeanor bespoke education and prosperous refinement, moved with the slight cringing stoop of someone who has lived too long in fear.
That fear vanished when he spied the pile of scattered pages on the pavement in front of his shop, and he uttered a cry of grief and rage. "Nein . . . bitte!" he pleaded, throwing himself to the ground in a futile attempt to bodily protect one of the more priceless of his volumes. The largest of the bullies, smiling with pleasure at the prospect of more exciting prey, drew back and delivered a vicious kick to the small of the prostrate old man's back.
Indy's blood came to a boil. "Hey, leave him alone, you bastards!" he yelled, trying to elbow his way through the crowd.
"I would not do that if I were you, Dr. Jones," came a voice from behind his back, and Indy felt a restraining hand on his shoulder.
Indy whirled and found himself face to face with a light-haired man approximately his height and weight, though several years younger. He looked down and swallowed hard. It was as axiomatic as not peeing into the wind: you didn't argue with a man holding a Luger.
Jones was just about mad enough to do it anyway, but glancing back toward the shop, he saw several pairs of friendly hands taking advantage of the momentary distraction to reach out from the crowd to help the semi- conscious old Jew to his feet and spirit him away into the night.
Indy turned back. "I take it you're my welcoming committee," he said.
"Colonel Diefenthaler, Schutzstaffel, or SS, as you Americans call it. And this is my aide, Lieutenant Bruch." The tall officer indicated another man standing a few paces behind. "We have been following you for many blocks."
"What the hell's going on around here, anyway?" Indy asked, indicating the mob and the ongoing destruction of the bookshop with a sweep of his arm. The sound of more police sirens and the tinkle of smashing glass could be heard faintly off in the distance.
Diefenthaler surveyed the wreckage with an air of satisfaction. "At this moment, all over Germany, riots are breaking out against businesses and property held by our Jewish enemies - spontaneous demonstration of the German people's outrage over the cowardly assassination of counselor Ernst vom Rath by the Jew, Grynszpan."
Jones had read about the tragic incident upon landing in Rotterdam. An unstable youth, Herschel Grynszpan, pushed past the brink by the summary deportation of his parents, had entered the German Embassy in Paris, ironically missing his intended target and shooting one of the few remaining German officials sympathetic to the Jewish plight. Jones doubted that the Third Reich was shedding tears over vom Rath. No doubt they were only too pleased at the opportunity for the anti-Jewish action his death presented.
"Spontaneous demonstration - is that so?" Indy said dryly. "If you really wanted anyone to believe that, you should have told your boys to take off their brown shirts."
Diefenthaler glared briefly, but his attention was diverted as someone in the looting mob produced a lit torch and tossed it into the shop. Flames sprang up, casting dancing shadows on the pavement outside the demolished window.
"Scheisse! Those idiots will burn down the whole block. There is Aryan property on either side." He turned to Bruch and snapped, "Go tell them to put it out."
The aide nodded and hurried off to confront the group's leader, the fat man Indy had seen earlier with the tire iron. Jones could see them waving and gesticulating, and he sighed and shook his head in disgust as two straight-armed salutes were exchanged. Immediately, the erstwhile rioters began to scurry to fetch blankets and pails of water to douse the blaze.
"That's better," Diefenthaler said, starting off through the crowd, which parted respectfully before them at the sight of the familiar black and silver SS uniforms.
On the very fringes of the crowd, at his assigned post on the corner, Indy spied a man in the uniform of a Berlin Police regular. The man stood at attention, his hands clenched tightly at his sides, watching the destruction of property it was his sworn duty to protect, yet obviously under orders not to intervene. Tears ran down his cheeks.
A Mercedes staff car was parked near the bridge. Bruch took the driver's seat and Diefenthaler motioned Indy into the back.
"I hope there will be no further interruption," he grumbled as he slid in beside Indy. "We are already late as it is, and we have a long distance to travel tonight."
"Where are you taking me?" Jones asked with more than a little trepidation, his head filling with visions of secret Gestapo cellars where horribly inventive tortures, so much more satisfying to the revenge-bent Nazi mind, awaited him.
"We are driving south to the Berghoff, the Führer's Villa at Berchtesgaden," Diefenthaler replied. "The Führer will meet with you tomorrow morning."
"The Führer?… As in Adolf Hitler?"
Diefenthaler nodded.
Indy smiled weakly. "There's no need to do me such a high honor as that," he said.
"Frankly, I do not understand why the Führer would wish to meet you - or any other archaeologist," Diefenthaler replied sourly, enunciating the word 'archaeologist' as if it were synonymous with 'vermin', "but those are the orders."
Jones fell silent, pondering the implications of this startling development. Soon they had left the streets of Berlin far behind as the powerful motorcar sped them south toward the Austrian border.
Throughout the long night, it seemed to Indy that all of Germany had gone mad. In every town they came to, large and small, the car's wheels crunched over broken glass and the countryside was dotted with ruddy patches of fire that could be seen blazing for miles around. In a little village just outside of Leipzig, they came to a building that burned unchecked, the town firefighters standing idly by with their equipment at the ready only should the blaze threaten to spread to nearby Aryan property. Bruch slowed the car down to a crawl to ease their way past a crowd of townsfolk who stood watching the blaze, their faces registering the full spectrum of emotion from shock to apathy to outright glee.
"Nothing quite cheers up a dark night like the glow of a burning synagogue, eh?" Jones said sarcastically.
Diefenthaler, who had turned to admire the conflagration, totally missed Jones' bitter irony. "Yes. Glorious, isn't it?"
Indy glared at the back of the SS Colonel's crew-cut blond head. Solid bone, he thought. If this was the vaunted Master Race, he'd eat his hat, sweat band and all.
And yet, he could not dismiss the Nazis quite so easily. This night of broken glass - Kristallnacht as history later came to call it - could not have impressed him more deeply if it had been staged expressly for his benefit, which it assuredly had not been. The Nazi philosophy of race hatred might appeal primarily to the stupid, but in the hands of skillful leaders, stupidity and blind adherence to orders could be a powerful force. Each flame glowing in the night, each crunch of broken glass reminded Jones of Rachel Rosen and her children, and of what sort of men held them prisoner. It firmed his resolve to help them no matter what the price. He felt certain that the violence would go beyond more than just damaged property next time.
Indy did not realize that he had fallen into an uneasy sleep until Diefenthaler shook him by the shoulder. He opened his eyes to discover that daylight shone in through the windows and the car was climbing up the steeply wooded side of the Obersalzberg. As they approached the summit, the rustic churches and quaint farmsteads gave way to scenery of a decidedly less bucolic nature. They passed a barracks, a guarded gate, and the car pulled to a stop in front of the Berghoff.
Jones was led up a flight of stone steps and across a wide terrace that flanked the house. Inside, a pleasant guestroom awaited, where he was left alone to freshen up from the effects of the long night's journey. He found soap and fine linen towels laid out for his use. Adolf Hitler and his SS house staff were congenial hosts, it seemed. When Jones asked for a razor with which to remove his twenty-four hours' growth of beard stubble, one was provided, but Diefenthaller remained in the room watching dispassionately while Jones shaved. It also seemed that his congenial hosts were taking no chances.
Newly neat and presentable, Indy was conducted through the halls of the Berghoff to his early morning interview. The villa was lavishly appointed; Old Masters paintings hung on the walls and thick Gobelins carpets muted the sound of their footsteps, yet the place seemed oddly cold and soulless. Cold perhaps, reflecting the personality of its famous inhabitant.
In the anteroom outside Hitler's study, Diefenthaler paused. "You are to go directly in, Dr. Jones. The Führer is expecting you."
Indy opened the door and stepped in. Hitler's wood-paneled study struck Jones as being rather simple and spartan for a room that had seen the likes of Neville Chamberlain, the Duke of Windsor, and Benito Mussolini - and even Rene Belloq, as he had recently learned.
The Führer was seated at his desk, head bent over what appeared to be a stack of intelligence reports, and a large, dark muzzled Alsatian dog lay at his feet. The animal lifted its head and began to thump its tail on the carpet in response to Jones' entrance.
Another man, not in uniform, who had been discreetly seated in one corner of the room, rose and extended his hand. "I am Herr Schmidt, the Führer's private interpreter. I will be translating the conversation for you."
Indy nodded pleasantly to Schmidt and directed his words to the man behind the desk. "I thank you for your consideration, Herr Chancellor, but that won't be necessary. I speak your language," he said, in passable High Deutsch.
Without looking up, Hitler waved a hand in dismissal. Schmidt saluted and left the room.
For a moment, silence reigned in the tiny study. Then, slowly, Adolf Hitler raised his head to regard Jones with an unwavering stare. Indy stared back, having a good look at the man whose shadow was falling increasingly over all of Europe.
At first glance it was difficult to see what all the fuss was about - just a man not much above middle height, body inclining to the stoutness of middle age, dark brown hair combed limply across his forehead and clipped into a comic-opera paintbrush mustache on his upper lip. But the longer Indy looked, the more he began to notice a compelling and hypnotic quality in the Führer's faded blue eyes. In horses they called it the look of eagles. In this man, Jones would have called it the fire of madness, but he could well understand how at least two women had attempted suicide over Adolf Hitler and how the force of his words could stir men to his cause. There was a strange attraction to this man, something the crude flickering newsreels could not capture. Suddenly Indy was uncomfortably reminded of the paralyzing spell a snake is said to cast over a helpless bird. He swallowed quickly and dropped his eyes.
Hitler cleared his throat. "So you are Indiana Jones. I have heard a great deal about you, Herr Doktor."
None of it good, I hope, Indy thought silently. Warning himself to keep a civil tongue, he merely inclined his head modestly. Too much was at stake for him to act the big man, no matter how much Hitler stood for everything he hated.
"Thanks to you," the Führer continued, looking back down at the top sheet of paper, which appeared to be some kind of list, "the German Reich - and I - have been deprived of: one flying wing aircraft; one pilot of said aircraft; one mechanic third class; a truck convoy consisting of one Mercedes heavy transport; a Jeep with machine gun mount; and a motorcycle with sidecar, plus assorted casualties and fatalities to the convoy escort personnel; two SSA Colonels; one very excellent Gestapo agent; an entire submarine crew; and the invaluable services of a French archaeologist by the name of Belloq."
Indy shrugged. "I plead guilty to the plane and convoy, Herr Chancellor, but as to the rest…" What could he say about the rest, since he hadn't gotten it clear in his own mind yet? The Wrath of the Lord God Yahweh? Some principle of science as yet unknown? "Let's just say I give credit to a… Higher Power."
"Which is why I feel the loss of the Ark of the Covenant so keenly. That is another thing you have cost me. You are a very brave man to have dared to come here, Dr. Jones."
"You know why I came," Jones said quietly. "Where are Dr. Rosen's wife and children?"
"We will talk about the Jewess and her offspring later," Hitler said coldly. "First, we will discuss how you will pay back this debt you owe me." He began to pull the drawer of his desk open.
Here it comes, Indy thought, expecting to see a gun, or worse, but Hitler merely took out a book, which he laid on the desk in front of him.
"Come, Dr. Jones, sit down. I wish you to do a job for me."
"A… job?" Indy said weakly, afraid that he was gaping.
"Yes, to procure an artifact. That is what you do, is it not?"
"In a manner of speaking - yes."
"Very well then." Hitler nodded with the air of having settled something. "What do you know about Alexander the Great?"
"Only what any person with a college education knows," Jones answered, realizing a second too late that the remark might be a shade less than tactful. By all reports, Hitler had been a poor scholar and had failed to complete his secondary education. By American standards, he was the equivalent of a high school dropout.
But the Führer took no notice. Opening the book to an illustration of a young blond man wearing Greek style armor, he turned the book around and slid it across the desk to Indy.
"Then you will know that before embarking upon his conquest of Asia Minor, Alexander first paid a visit to the city of Troy, where he made sacrifices to the goddess Athena and took possession of a sacred Golden Shield that was reputed to have belonged to his ancestor, the legendary hero Achilles."
Jones nodded and bent to examine the book, a biography of Alexander. It was hardly a scholarly tome. The bright, almost gaudy colors in the illustration and the simplicity of the text proclaimed it to be a juvenile work- a Boy's Life sort of thing- and it confirmed Indy's assessment of the mental depth of Hitler, whose private literary tastes reportedly ran to adventure novels and westerns.
"That shield had special powers, Dr. Jones. Alexander carried it throughout the remainder of his life. He was wounded twice, once quite severely, but miraculously he survived." Hitler smiled, looking rather pleased to be showing off his knowledge and instructing Jones in his own field. "What is more, Alexander was never bested in battle. Do you know, Dr. Jones, that he was only prevented from pushing on past India to conquer China and the rest of the Far East by the revolt of his own troops, who refused to go any farther?" The Führer paused, with a far away light in his eyes. "My troops will never show such disloyalty. They will press on at my orders to the very ends of the Earth! Dr. Jones, you will bring me that shield!"
Indy sighed and snapped the book shut. He had heard the legend surrounding Alexander's shield before. Just like the myths about the Spear of Destiny or the Holy Grail, no one took them very seriously. But someone in Hitler's motley entourage of astrologers, occultists, and soothsayers must have put the idea into the Führer's brain.
"With all due respect, Herr Chancellor," Indy began, "that might not be so easy to accomplish. The shield seems to have dropped from history with Alexander's death. Presumably it was buried with him in Alexandria, but no burial site has ever been discovered there. My best guess is that the tomb was rifled and destroyed and its contents scattered, either when the Romans sacked the city in 215 CE or when it fell to the Arabs in 640. It may take me years to discover where the shield is, if in fact it even still exists."
"That particular problem has been solved for you, Dr. Jones," Hitler said. "My agents, working largely from the unfinished research of Rene Belloq, have discovered the location of the shield. Your task will be to go there and secure the shield for me."
"Fine- anywhere but Madagascar," Indy muttered.
"I beg your pardon, Herr Doktor?" Hitler said, puzzled.
"Ah… nothing, Herr Chancellor. Merely a rather large misunderstanding. Now, where is it precisely that I'm supposed to find the shield?"
"At the monastery of Saint Athanasius, near Mekele, Ethiopia. The Coptic monks of the order guard it as one of their most treasured relics."
"If you don't mind my asking, Herr Chancellor, if you know where the shield is, why not simply send some of your troops in and take it? That's how you did it in Egypt."
"As you are no doubt aware, Dr. Jones, all of Abyssinia is presently occupied by the government of Italy. A military action in territory belonging to one of our allies might prove… embarrassing. For that reason, the taking of the shield must be done as discreetly as possible, so naturally if you were to be caught, the Reich will deny any knowledge of you or your activities on our behalf."
"Of course," Jones said dryly, amused at the idea that the man who had so high handedly expropriated Austria and Czechoslovakia was afraid of causing an international incident. "But why me? Surely you could have found someone a little more … sympathetic to your cause."
"I had meant the Frenchman to do it," Hitler said, "but that is, of course, now out of the question."
"Yes… too bad. Belloq was always good at that sort of thing." More and more, the assignment was sounding like a glorified burglary.
"Belloq was very good but you are better. In the end, you were the one who won the Ark. From what I have learned of your reputation, Dr. Jones, you could sneak into Hell and steal the hot coals from under the throne of the Devil Himself."
A wasted effort if ever there was one, Jones thought. If such a place as Hell existed, Adolf Hitler would be warming his backside over those very coals soon enough.
Aloud, he said, "Thank you, Herr Chancellor."
"Do not thank me, Dr. Jones. You will understand how much your unique skills are needed once you see the monastery of Saint Athanasius."
"And what if I find myself unequal to the task?" Jones asked carefully.
"I think you will find yourself equal to it, once you understand the nature of your payment." Hitler's tone was cold.
Indy swallowed. "Frau Rosen and her children?"
The Fuhrer nodded. "They will be released to you in return for the shield. And if not," he absently reached down to scratch the ears of the large dog at his feet. "Germany has a problem, and we will settle that problem by our own means. Three Jews, more or less, are of no consequence to me."
Something cold and nasty brushed its bony fingers across Indy's heart as he sensed the enormity of what lay behind Hitler's words. "You'll have your shield," he said quietly.
Art by Wanda Lybarger
CHAPTER ONE: BERLIN, NOVEMBER, 1938
Indiana Jones checked his watch for what he guessed was the fourth time that evening. He was not overly familiar with the layout of Berlin, and it was taking him longer than he liked to walk the distance from his small hotel just off Unter Den Linden to the Kurfursten Bridge. The watch showed 7:45, ample time to reach the rendezvous point mentioned in Rosen's note. Still, Jones kept up a hurried pace as he made his way through the darkened streets. This was one meeting for which he could ill afford to be late.
Perhaps it was the inevitable state of nerves caused by his uncertain position, but it seemed to Indy that the city had fallen under a strange, brooding tension that night - the edgy, stretched almost to snapping calm of a thunderstorm about to break. He found difficult to put a finger on exactly what felt wrong. He had seen the usual pedestrian traffic- lovers walking hand in hand, groups in gay evening dress on their way to the fabled nightlife of the Kurfurstendamme several blocks to the west, one or two ladies 'holding up lamp posts' to put it euphemistically, even though the German government insisted that such social problems as prostitution had been put to rest by the Glorious Third Reich. But there were others out that evening, too: solitary, frightened looking men who glanced nervously over their shoulders as they walked, and large groups of men in civilian dress who moved with almost military precision, their faces grim and purposeful. Somewhere off to the east, Indy heard the loud alternating klaxon of an emergency vehicle.
At last he came to the broad expanse of the River Spree and turned right, heading east along a wide esplanade. To his left was an iron railing that fenced the sidewalk from the dark waters of the river below; on his right was an unbroken row of three and four-story stone buildings that held small shops and businesses. Two blocks ahead, he could make out his destination, the Kurfursten Bridge with the dark silhouette of the Berlin Cathedral looming behind it.
Suddenly the sharp tinkle of breaking glass split the night. Picking up his pace and craning his neck, Indy hurried on up the street toward the point from which the sound had issued. He found a crowd of people, mostly onlookers, milling in front of one of the small shops in the next block, partially blocking his way.
The establishment looked as if it had once been prosperous, but it had obviously fallen on hard times. Tarnished brass lettering over the doorway proclaimed: A. Wallerstein, Rare Books and Manuscripts. One letter hung askew. Graffiti, the word Jude and Stars of David, crudely daubed in dripping yellow paint, defaced the building's stonework front. The big plate glass window lay in scattered shards, and a heavy, coarse-looking man holding a tire iron stood in the wreckage, grinning at his handiwork.
As Indy approached, other men, looking for all the world like a parade of busy ants, appeared from the shop's interior, arms laden down with ancient looking leather-bound books which they threw unceremoniously onto the pavement. The fragile volumes split on impact, their dry, delicate pages disintegrating under the abuse. Laughing, the looters finished the job of destruction by grinding the paper under their boots and kicking the fragments into the river, where they floated in tiny swirls on the slowly moving waters. Sickened, Indy shook his head and wondered if this was how the barbarian sacking of Rome had appeared to the helpless bystanders of the day. Was this the harbinger of another Dark Age about to fall on all of Europe?
There was a commotion and a man of about sixty, evidently the shop's proprietor, fought his way out of the crowd and stood staring in shock at the destruction. Like his business, he too had seen better days. His suit was of good material and expensive cut, but it was thread-bare and obviously several years past its useful life. The man himself, although his demeanor bespoke education and prosperous refinement, moved with the slight cringing stoop of someone who has lived too long in fear.
That fear vanished when he spied the pile of scattered pages on the pavement in front of his shop, and he uttered a cry of grief and rage. "Nein . . . bitte!" he pleaded, throwing himself to the ground in a futile attempt to bodily protect one of the more priceless of his volumes. The largest of the bullies, smiling with pleasure at the prospect of more exciting prey, drew back and delivered a vicious kick to the small of the prostrate old man's back.
Indy's blood came to a boil. "Hey, leave him alone, you bastards!" he yelled, trying to elbow his way through the crowd.
"I would not do that if I were you, Dr. Jones," came a voice from behind his back, and Indy felt a restraining hand on his shoulder.
Indy whirled and found himself face to face with a light-haired man approximately his height and weight, though several years younger. He looked down and swallowed hard. It was as axiomatic as not peeing into the wind: you didn't argue with a man holding a Luger.
Jones was just about mad enough to do it anyway, but glancing back toward the shop, he saw several pairs of friendly hands taking advantage of the momentary distraction to reach out from the crowd to help the semi- conscious old Jew to his feet and spirit him away into the night.
Indy turned back. "I take it you're my welcoming committee," he said.
"Colonel Diefenthaler, Schutzstaffel, or SS, as you Americans call it. And this is my aide, Lieutenant Bruch." The tall officer indicated another man standing a few paces behind. "We have been following you for many blocks."
"What the hell's going on around here, anyway?" Indy asked, indicating the mob and the ongoing destruction of the bookshop with a sweep of his arm. The sound of more police sirens and the tinkle of smashing glass could be heard faintly off in the distance.
Diefenthaler surveyed the wreckage with an air of satisfaction. "At this moment, all over Germany, riots are breaking out against businesses and property held by our Jewish enemies - spontaneous demonstration of the German people's outrage over the cowardly assassination of counselor Ernst vom Rath by the Jew, Grynszpan."
Jones had read about the tragic incident upon landing in Rotterdam. An unstable youth, Herschel Grynszpan, pushed past the brink by the summary deportation of his parents, had entered the German Embassy in Paris, ironically missing his intended target and shooting one of the few remaining German officials sympathetic to the Jewish plight. Jones doubted that the Third Reich was shedding tears over vom Rath. No doubt they were only too pleased at the opportunity for the anti-Jewish action his death presented.
"Spontaneous demonstration - is that so?" Indy said dryly. "If you really wanted anyone to believe that, you should have told your boys to take off their brown shirts."
Diefenthaler glared briefly, but his attention was diverted as someone in the looting mob produced a lit torch and tossed it into the shop. Flames sprang up, casting dancing shadows on the pavement outside the demolished window.
"Scheisse! Those idiots will burn down the whole block. There is Aryan property on either side." He turned to Bruch and snapped, "Go tell them to put it out."
The aide nodded and hurried off to confront the group's leader, the fat man Indy had seen earlier with the tire iron. Jones could see them waving and gesticulating, and he sighed and shook his head in disgust as two straight-armed salutes were exchanged. Immediately, the erstwhile rioters began to scurry to fetch blankets and pails of water to douse the blaze.
"That's better," Diefenthaler said, starting off through the crowd, which parted respectfully before them at the sight of the familiar black and silver SS uniforms.
On the very fringes of the crowd, at his assigned post on the corner, Indy spied a man in the uniform of a Berlin Police regular. The man stood at attention, his hands clenched tightly at his sides, watching the destruction of property it was his sworn duty to protect, yet obviously under orders not to intervene. Tears ran down his cheeks.
A Mercedes staff car was parked near the bridge. Bruch took the driver's seat and Diefenthaler motioned Indy into the back.
"I hope there will be no further interruption," he grumbled as he slid in beside Indy. "We are already late as it is, and we have a long distance to travel tonight."
"Where are you taking me?" Jones asked with more than a little trepidation, his head filling with visions of secret Gestapo cellars where horribly inventive tortures, so much more satisfying to the revenge-bent Nazi mind, awaited him.
"We are driving south to the Berghoff, the Führer's Villa at Berchtesgaden," Diefenthaler replied. "The Führer will meet with you tomorrow morning."
"The Führer?… As in Adolf Hitler?"
Diefenthaler nodded.
Indy smiled weakly. "There's no need to do me such a high honor as that," he said.
"Frankly, I do not understand why the Führer would wish to meet you - or any other archaeologist," Diefenthaler replied sourly, enunciating the word 'archaeologist' as if it were synonymous with 'vermin', "but those are the orders."
Jones fell silent, pondering the implications of this startling development. Soon they had left the streets of Berlin far behind as the powerful motorcar sped them south toward the Austrian border.
Throughout the long night, it seemed to Indy that all of Germany had gone mad. In every town they came to, large and small, the car's wheels crunched over broken glass and the countryside was dotted with ruddy patches of fire that could be seen blazing for miles around. In a little village just outside of Leipzig, they came to a building that burned unchecked, the town firefighters standing idly by with their equipment at the ready only should the blaze threaten to spread to nearby Aryan property. Bruch slowed the car down to a crawl to ease their way past a crowd of townsfolk who stood watching the blaze, their faces registering the full spectrum of emotion from shock to apathy to outright glee.
"Nothing quite cheers up a dark night like the glow of a burning synagogue, eh?" Jones said sarcastically.
Diefenthaler, who had turned to admire the conflagration, totally missed Jones' bitter irony. "Yes. Glorious, isn't it?"
Indy glared at the back of the SS Colonel's crew-cut blond head. Solid bone, he thought. If this was the vaunted Master Race, he'd eat his hat, sweat band and all.
And yet, he could not dismiss the Nazis quite so easily. This night of broken glass - Kristallnacht as history later came to call it - could not have impressed him more deeply if it had been staged expressly for his benefit, which it assuredly had not been. The Nazi philosophy of race hatred might appeal primarily to the stupid, but in the hands of skillful leaders, stupidity and blind adherence to orders could be a powerful force. Each flame glowing in the night, each crunch of broken glass reminded Jones of Rachel Rosen and her children, and of what sort of men held them prisoner. It firmed his resolve to help them no matter what the price. He felt certain that the violence would go beyond more than just damaged property next time.
Indy did not realize that he had fallen into an uneasy sleep until Diefenthaler shook him by the shoulder. He opened his eyes to discover that daylight shone in through the windows and the car was climbing up the steeply wooded side of the Obersalzberg. As they approached the summit, the rustic churches and quaint farmsteads gave way to scenery of a decidedly less bucolic nature. They passed a barracks, a guarded gate, and the car pulled to a stop in front of the Berghoff.
Jones was led up a flight of stone steps and across a wide terrace that flanked the house. Inside, a pleasant guestroom awaited, where he was left alone to freshen up from the effects of the long night's journey. He found soap and fine linen towels laid out for his use. Adolf Hitler and his SS house staff were congenial hosts, it seemed. When Jones asked for a razor with which to remove his twenty-four hours' growth of beard stubble, one was provided, but Diefenthaller remained in the room watching dispassionately while Jones shaved. It also seemed that his congenial hosts were taking no chances.
Newly neat and presentable, Indy was conducted through the halls of the Berghoff to his early morning interview. The villa was lavishly appointed; Old Masters paintings hung on the walls and thick Gobelins carpets muted the sound of their footsteps, yet the place seemed oddly cold and soulless. Cold perhaps, reflecting the personality of its famous inhabitant.
In the anteroom outside Hitler's study, Diefenthaler paused. "You are to go directly in, Dr. Jones. The Führer is expecting you."
Indy opened the door and stepped in. Hitler's wood-paneled study struck Jones as being rather simple and spartan for a room that had seen the likes of Neville Chamberlain, the Duke of Windsor, and Benito Mussolini - and even Rene Belloq, as he had recently learned.
The Führer was seated at his desk, head bent over what appeared to be a stack of intelligence reports, and a large, dark muzzled Alsatian dog lay at his feet. The animal lifted its head and began to thump its tail on the carpet in response to Jones' entrance.
Another man, not in uniform, who had been discreetly seated in one corner of the room, rose and extended his hand. "I am Herr Schmidt, the Führer's private interpreter. I will be translating the conversation for you."
Indy nodded pleasantly to Schmidt and directed his words to the man behind the desk. "I thank you for your consideration, Herr Chancellor, but that won't be necessary. I speak your language," he said, in passable High Deutsch.
Without looking up, Hitler waved a hand in dismissal. Schmidt saluted and left the room.
For a moment, silence reigned in the tiny study. Then, slowly, Adolf Hitler raised his head to regard Jones with an unwavering stare. Indy stared back, having a good look at the man whose shadow was falling increasingly over all of Europe.
At first glance it was difficult to see what all the fuss was about - just a man not much above middle height, body inclining to the stoutness of middle age, dark brown hair combed limply across his forehead and clipped into a comic-opera paintbrush mustache on his upper lip. But the longer Indy looked, the more he began to notice a compelling and hypnotic quality in the Führer's faded blue eyes. In horses they called it the look of eagles. In this man, Jones would have called it the fire of madness, but he could well understand how at least two women had attempted suicide over Adolf Hitler and how the force of his words could stir men to his cause. There was a strange attraction to this man, something the crude flickering newsreels could not capture. Suddenly Indy was uncomfortably reminded of the paralyzing spell a snake is said to cast over a helpless bird. He swallowed quickly and dropped his eyes.
Hitler cleared his throat. "So you are Indiana Jones. I have heard a great deal about you, Herr Doktor."
None of it good, I hope, Indy thought silently. Warning himself to keep a civil tongue, he merely inclined his head modestly. Too much was at stake for him to act the big man, no matter how much Hitler stood for everything he hated.
"Thanks to you," the Führer continued, looking back down at the top sheet of paper, which appeared to be some kind of list, "the German Reich - and I - have been deprived of: one flying wing aircraft; one pilot of said aircraft; one mechanic third class; a truck convoy consisting of one Mercedes heavy transport; a Jeep with machine gun mount; and a motorcycle with sidecar, plus assorted casualties and fatalities to the convoy escort personnel; two SSA Colonels; one very excellent Gestapo agent; an entire submarine crew; and the invaluable services of a French archaeologist by the name of Belloq."
Indy shrugged. "I plead guilty to the plane and convoy, Herr Chancellor, but as to the rest…" What could he say about the rest, since he hadn't gotten it clear in his own mind yet? The Wrath of the Lord God Yahweh? Some principle of science as yet unknown? "Let's just say I give credit to a… Higher Power."
"Which is why I feel the loss of the Ark of the Covenant so keenly. That is another thing you have cost me. You are a very brave man to have dared to come here, Dr. Jones."
"You know why I came," Jones said quietly. "Where are Dr. Rosen's wife and children?"
"We will talk about the Jewess and her offspring later," Hitler said coldly. "First, we will discuss how you will pay back this debt you owe me." He began to pull the drawer of his desk open.
Here it comes, Indy thought, expecting to see a gun, or worse, but Hitler merely took out a book, which he laid on the desk in front of him.
"Come, Dr. Jones, sit down. I wish you to do a job for me."
"A… job?" Indy said weakly, afraid that he was gaping.
"Yes, to procure an artifact. That is what you do, is it not?"
"In a manner of speaking - yes."
"Very well then." Hitler nodded with the air of having settled something. "What do you know about Alexander the Great?"
"Only what any person with a college education knows," Jones answered, realizing a second too late that the remark might be a shade less than tactful. By all reports, Hitler had been a poor scholar and had failed to complete his secondary education. By American standards, he was the equivalent of a high school dropout.
But the Führer took no notice. Opening the book to an illustration of a young blond man wearing Greek style armor, he turned the book around and slid it across the desk to Indy.
"Then you will know that before embarking upon his conquest of Asia Minor, Alexander first paid a visit to the city of Troy, where he made sacrifices to the goddess Athena and took possession of a sacred Golden Shield that was reputed to have belonged to his ancestor, the legendary hero Achilles."
Jones nodded and bent to examine the book, a biography of Alexander. It was hardly a scholarly tome. The bright, almost gaudy colors in the illustration and the simplicity of the text proclaimed it to be a juvenile work- a Boy's Life sort of thing- and it confirmed Indy's assessment of the mental depth of Hitler, whose private literary tastes reportedly ran to adventure novels and westerns.
"That shield had special powers, Dr. Jones. Alexander carried it throughout the remainder of his life. He was wounded twice, once quite severely, but miraculously he survived." Hitler smiled, looking rather pleased to be showing off his knowledge and instructing Jones in his own field. "What is more, Alexander was never bested in battle. Do you know, Dr. Jones, that he was only prevented from pushing on past India to conquer China and the rest of the Far East by the revolt of his own troops, who refused to go any farther?" The Führer paused, with a far away light in his eyes. "My troops will never show such disloyalty. They will press on at my orders to the very ends of the Earth! Dr. Jones, you will bring me that shield!"
Indy sighed and snapped the book shut. He had heard the legend surrounding Alexander's shield before. Just like the myths about the Spear of Destiny or the Holy Grail, no one took them very seriously. But someone in Hitler's motley entourage of astrologers, occultists, and soothsayers must have put the idea into the Führer's brain.
"With all due respect, Herr Chancellor," Indy began, "that might not be so easy to accomplish. The shield seems to have dropped from history with Alexander's death. Presumably it was buried with him in Alexandria, but no burial site has ever been discovered there. My best guess is that the tomb was rifled and destroyed and its contents scattered, either when the Romans sacked the city in 215 CE or when it fell to the Arabs in 640. It may take me years to discover where the shield is, if in fact it even still exists."
"That particular problem has been solved for you, Dr. Jones," Hitler said. "My agents, working largely from the unfinished research of Rene Belloq, have discovered the location of the shield. Your task will be to go there and secure the shield for me."
"Fine- anywhere but Madagascar," Indy muttered.
"I beg your pardon, Herr Doktor?" Hitler said, puzzled.
"Ah… nothing, Herr Chancellor. Merely a rather large misunderstanding. Now, where is it precisely that I'm supposed to find the shield?"
"At the monastery of Saint Athanasius, near Mekele, Ethiopia. The Coptic monks of the order guard it as one of their most treasured relics."
"If you don't mind my asking, Herr Chancellor, if you know where the shield is, why not simply send some of your troops in and take it? That's how you did it in Egypt."
"As you are no doubt aware, Dr. Jones, all of Abyssinia is presently occupied by the government of Italy. A military action in territory belonging to one of our allies might prove… embarrassing. For that reason, the taking of the shield must be done as discreetly as possible, so naturally if you were to be caught, the Reich will deny any knowledge of you or your activities on our behalf."
"Of course," Jones said dryly, amused at the idea that the man who had so high handedly expropriated Austria and Czechoslovakia was afraid of causing an international incident. "But why me? Surely you could have found someone a little more … sympathetic to your cause."
"I had meant the Frenchman to do it," Hitler said, "but that is, of course, now out of the question."
"Yes… too bad. Belloq was always good at that sort of thing." More and more, the assignment was sounding like a glorified burglary.
"Belloq was very good but you are better. In the end, you were the one who won the Ark. From what I have learned of your reputation, Dr. Jones, you could sneak into Hell and steal the hot coals from under the throne of the Devil Himself."
A wasted effort if ever there was one, Jones thought. If such a place as Hell existed, Adolf Hitler would be warming his backside over those very coals soon enough.
Aloud, he said, "Thank you, Herr Chancellor."
"Do not thank me, Dr. Jones. You will understand how much your unique skills are needed once you see the monastery of Saint Athanasius."
"And what if I find myself unequal to the task?" Jones asked carefully.
"I think you will find yourself equal to it, once you understand the nature of your payment." Hitler's tone was cold.
Indy swallowed. "Frau Rosen and her children?"
The Fuhrer nodded. "They will be released to you in return for the shield. And if not," he absently reached down to scratch the ears of the large dog at his feet. "Germany has a problem, and we will settle that problem by our own means. Three Jews, more or less, are of no consequence to me."
Something cold and nasty brushed its bony fingers across Indy's heart as he sensed the enormity of what lay behind Hitler's words. "You'll have your shield," he said quietly.
Art by Wanda Lybarger