James Twining
The Black Sun
To my parents and my sister, thank you for everything
Epigraph
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Historical Background
This novel is inspired by the incredible true story of the Hungarian Gold Train and its desperate journey across a ravaged continent in the dying days of the Second World War. When it was eventually discovered by U.S. troops in a remote Austrian tunnel, it was found to contain several billion dollars' worth of stolen gold, art, and other treasures.
All descriptions and background information provided on works of art, artists, thefts, architecture, and Nazi uniforms and rituals are similarly accurate. Descriptions of the workings of the Enigma machine have been simplified.
Extract from the volkischer beobachter, official journal of the nazi party (Edition A, No. 270, September 27, 1934), from Wewelsburg 1933–1945: A Cult and Terror Centre of the SS, by Karl Huser; translated by Robin Benson
Today the old defiant Wewelsburg Castle, situated in a historical location in the old land of the Saxons, has passed into the care of the SS of the NSDAP and is to serve, in future, as the Reich Leaders' School of the SS.
As a result, Wewelsburg Castle, which can look back on a long and glorious role in German history, has also been assigned a place of historical importance in the Third Reich.
For it is here that the men are to be instructed in a worldview and beliefs as well as to receive physical instruction, whose calling it is to assume the office of leaders in the SS, and who are to march forward as examples and leaders before the nucleus of our healthy German youth.
Extract from The Spoils of World War II, by Kenneth D. Alford
On May 16, 1945, the 3rd Infantry Division, 15th Regiment, A Company, commanded by Lieutenant Joseph A. Mercer, entered the Tauern Tunnel 60 miles south of Salzburg. To their astonishment, they discovered a partially concealed train crammed with gold and other valuables…. The 1945 estimated value of the contents of the train was $206 million — which would translate into several billion dollars today.
PROLOGUE
The broad mass of a nation… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
CHAPTER ONE
Ash cash. That's what medical students call it. Every cremation or burial release form requires a doctor's signature, and every signature earns its donor a small fee. Death could be good business for a doctor who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.
To Dr. John Bennett, however, shouldering the icy rain as he walked briskly over to the main hospital building from the ugly hulk of the accommodation block, the prospect of a few extra quid was small compensation for being paged at three a.m. Very small. As if to emphasize the hour, Big Ben, its face suspended in the air like a small moon on the other side of the river, chose that moment to chime, each heavy, deadened strike shaking Bennett a little further awake.
He stepped out of the cold into the warm blast of the heaters positioned in the entrance vestibule, the sudden change in temperature making his glasses fog. He took them off and wiped them clean on his shirt, the moisture streaking across the lens.
A red LED display glowed into life overhead as the elevator made its way down to him, the declining numbers scrolling rhythmically across the panel. Eventually, there was a muffled sound of machinery as it slowed and the door opened. He stepped inside, noting as the elevator lurched upward that the bronzed mirrors made him look healthier than he felt.
A few moments later, he walked out onto the ward, the wet soles of his shoes faintly marking the scarlet linoleum. The corridor ahead of him was dark, the lights dimmed apart from the emergency exit signs that glared green above the doors at either end.
"Doctor?" A woman's voice rang out through the gloom. He slipped his glasses back on to identify the approaching figure.
"Morning, Laura," Bennett greeted her with a warm smile. "Don't tell me you've killed another one of my patients?" She shrugged helplessly. "I've had a bad week."
"Who was it this time?"
"Mr. Hammon."
"Hammon? Well, I can't say I'm surprised. He was in a pretty bad way."
"He was fine when I came on duty. But when I looked in…"
"People get old," Bennett said gently, sensing she was upset. "There's nothing you could have done." She smiled at him gratefully. "Anyway, I'd better take a look. Have you got the paperwork ready?"
"It's in the office."
The windowless room was positioned about halfway down the ward, the only light coming from the glow of two surveillance monitors and the LED display of the video recorder beneath them. One monitor showed the corridor where they had just been standing; the other flicked between the patients' rooms, pausing a few seconds in each. The rooms were identical, a single narrow bed dominating the space with a few chairs drawn up under the window and a TV set fixed high up on the facing wall. The only variation was in the quantity of flowers and get-well cards on one side of the bed and monitoring and resuscitation equipment on the other. Unsurprisingly, there seemed to be a direct correlation between the two.
Laura rummaged around on the desk for the file, the blue glow from the monitors staining her red nails purple.
"Do you want the light on?"
"Please," she replied, without looking up.
Bennett reached for the switch, when suddenly something caught his eye. The roving camera had settled momentarily in one of the patients' rooms. Two dark figures were silhouetted against the open doorway, one slight, the other improbably tall.
"Who's that?" Bennett said with a frown. The picture jumped to the next room. "Quick, get it back."
Laura switched the system to manual and scanned the rooms one by one until she found the men.
"It's Mr. Weissman's room," she said in a low, uncertain voice.
The two figures were now standing on either side of the bed looking down at the sleeping patient. Even on the monitor he looked thin and frail, his skin pinched, his cheeks hollowed by age. Various wires and tubes emerged from under the bedclothes and led to a heart-rate monitor and some sort of drip.
"What the hell are they playing at?" Bennett's surprise had given way to irritation. "You can't just come in here whenever you feel like it. What do people think we have visiting hours for? I'm calling security."
As Bennett reached for the phone, the tall man on the left snatched a pillow out from under the sleeping man's head. He awoke immediately, his eyes wide with surprise and then, as he blinked at the two men looming above him, fear. His mouth moved to speak, but whatever sound he might have been trying to make was smothered as the pillow was roughly pushed down onto his face. Helplessly, his arms and legs flapped, like a goldfish that had leapt out if its bowl.
"Jesus Christ!" Bennett gasped, his voice now a whisper. He jammed the phone to his ear, the white plastic slippery against his sweaty skin. Hearing nothing, he tapped the hook switch a few times before locking eyes with Laura. "It's dead."