‘What are you doing?’ Zane whispered.
‘Being polite.’
‘But—’
Eddie waved him to silence as a voice came from inside the room. ‘Ja? Wer ist da?’
‘Das Flugzeug ist bereit! Es kann beladen werden,’ the Englishman replied, to mystification from his companions.
The man inside the room was equally bewildered. ‘Was?’ A creak of floorboards from the other side of the door, then it opened—
Eddie punched the surprised soldier hard in the face, sending him to the floor. A kick to the head knocked the Nazi out cold. ‘Dummkopf,’ he told the unconscious man as he moved inside. No other guards — but Banna looked up in shock. Several maps of the Middle East and Iran were spread across the table, along with translations of the Greek texts and numerous notes.
‘I didn’t know you spoke German!’ said Nina.
Her husband gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t. One of the Nazis says it in Raiders of the Lost Ark. No idea what it means, but I always thought it sounded cool.’
Zane took up position to guard the entrance. ‘It means “The plane is ready—”’
‘Don’t tell me!’ Eddie protested. ‘It’ll spoil it.’
Banna hurried to Nina, shocked and relieved. ‘I–I thought they had killed you!’
‘I’m okay,’ she said, greeting him with a brief embrace. ‘But we’ve got to get out of here.’ Though Banna was keen to leave, his face warned her that he had bad news. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I… I located the spring. And I told Kroll where it is.’ The young man looked miserably at the floor. ‘I had no choice. I am sorry.’
‘Shit.’ Nina regarded the Egyptian’s work in dismay. ‘What if we take all this? Can he find the spring without it?’
‘I am afraid so. I showed him the location — here.’ He pointed at a spot on one of the more detailed maps. As the archaeologists had deduced earlier, it was in the Alborz mountains, below the Caspian coastline. ‘But…’ His expression showed a flicker of hope.
‘What?’
‘The text on the relic — it said that after you pass through the Gate of Alexander, if you do what Andreas did, the fish will show you the spring.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Eddie.
Nina shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but if Kroll doesn’t have the fish, maybe he won’t get the spring either.’ There was no sign of the bronze artefact. ‘Where is it?’
‘In his vault,’ Banna told her.
‘Then we’d better get it.’ She hurried back to the door. ‘Eddie, this way. Kroll’s got the Andreas relic in a safe.’
‘But he has the key,’ objected Banna.
‘We can’t let him take it.’ She went to the Nazi leader’s study and opened the door.
‘We could just kill the bastard,’ Eddie suggested as the others followed her — then froze when he saw the room’s interior. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said in disgust, staring at the portrait of Hitler. ‘Definitely kill the bastard.’
Nina pulled aside the swastika banner to reveal the vault door. ‘It’s in here — and so’s their supply of the water from the Spring of Immortality. Without it, they’ve got nothing.’
‘So how do we get it open?’ asked Zane.
‘I was kinda hoping Eddie had brought about half a ton of explosives with him.’
Eddie shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, love. What you see is what you get.’
‘Yeah, I accepted that when I married you. But we’ve got to—’
A sound from the hall — someone entering the house. ‘Get back,’ Eddie whispered. Everyone moved to the study’s periphery as he quietly closed the door.
Someone spoke in German: Kroll. The Nazi leader was angry, barking orders. ‘Ja, mein Führer,’ said a subordinate, hurrying back outside.
Eddie brought up his gun — as did Zane, then Nina. The floorboards creaked as Kroll came towards the study. The Englishman gave Zane a look: nobody had closed the door to the map room, and the unconscious soldier was lying in plain sight…
But Kroll walked past without pause. The door opened—
Eddie was about to greet him with his gun, but Nina beat him to it. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ she snarled, pointing her MP5 at his head.
Kroll froze. ‘Dr Wilde!’
‘Yeah, that’s right. And I’m sure you remember Jared.’
Zane advanced on the obese Nazi. ‘I remember you,’ he said in a menacing tone.
‘Go to the vault,’ Nina ordered. Kroll raised his hands and stepped into the room.
Eddie shut the door. ‘Ay up. So you’re the leader of the master race, eh? Master bators, more like.’ He nodded at the portrait. ‘You’ll need a wider frame than Shitler there to fit your gut in the picture.’
‘Who are you?’ Kroll demanded.
‘Eddie Chase. Nina’s husband.’
‘But I was told you were… Of course. Did you kill Santos? Silva would never have dared betray me if he was alive.’
‘Shut up,’ Nina snapped. ‘I ought to kill you for what you did to Macy.’ The image of her friend’s last moments came unbidden to her mind.
The dark glare turned upon her. ‘Then why do you not, Dr Wilde?’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ She could — and she should, the desire for vengeance rising within her. All she had to do was pull the trigger…
‘They’ll hear the shots,’ Eddie warned, but that wasn’t what stopped her. The Nazi leader was unarmed, defenceless. Just like his victims — but that would make her no better than him. Her face twisted with anger, but her forefinger did not move.
‘I knew you could not,’ said Kroll smugly. ‘You are a product of your modern and civilised democracy.’ The words oozed sarcasm. ‘America and the United Nations are both the same — weak, degenerate, cowardly. Too squeamish to do what must be done.’
Zane pressed his own gun against Kroll’s head. ‘She may be. I am not. You know that I came here to kill you.’
‘No, you came here to find me, boy,’ the Nazi sneered. ‘To bring me to your so-called justice. You still fear us, don’t you? Even after all this time. The Mossad does not hesitate to assassinate Arabs, Muslims, even Canadians — but Nazis, no, you dare not just murder us.’
‘You’re right,’ said Zane, after a moment. ‘We don’t murder Nazis. We make examples of them.’ He tilted his head to show the red ligature mark around his throat. ‘The last person to be executed in Israel was Adolf Eichmann. He was hanged. I’ve felt the rope around my neck — and I’ll be there when you feel it too. Only you’ll have no friends to rescue you.’
‘One man, in over fifty years,’ was Kroll’s disdainful response. ‘The Mossad fears us more than we fear you—’
‘Oh, bollocks to this,’ snapped Eddie. ‘This vault — how does it open?’
‘There’s a combination lock,’ Nina told him, ‘but he’s also got a key. Around his neck.’
Eddie reached under the folds of fat overflowing Kroll’s collar to pull out the chain holding the key. A sharp tug, and it snapped. He put the key in the lock and turned it. A faint clunk came from the metal door, but it did not open. ‘All right, Das Bloat, what’s the combination?’
‘I will not tell you,’ said the Nazi.
The Englishman shrugged. ‘Okay, then I’ll shoot you.’
‘And you will never open the vault.’ He gave the others a look of contempt. ‘The New Reich will still rise, even without me. You cannot change the course of history!’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Nina fired back. ‘I’m getting quite good at it — I’ve had a lot of practice. You still need Andreas’ fish to find the Spring of Immortality — so if we take it and the last of your water, then even if you get to Iran, you’re left with nothing.’