At the top was the familiar war eagle, gripping a swastika in its beak, the symbol of Germany’s Third Reich. The text was in German. Just below was the word OSTLEGIONEN, accompanied by a color photo of a woven oval, obviously a uniform insignia, of a swastika encircled by laurel leaves. Around the central symbol were the words TREU, TAPIR, GEHORSAM, which Bourne translated as “loyal, brave, steadfast.” Below that was another color photo of a woven rampant wolf’s head, under which was the designation: OSTMANISCHE SS-DIVISION.
Bourne noted the date on the page: 14 December 1941.
“I never heard of the Eastern Legions,” Bourne said. “Who were they?”
Specter turned the page and there, pinned to it, was a square of olive fabric. On it had been sewn a blue shield with a black border. Across the top was the word BERGKAUKASIEN-Caucasus Mountains. Directly beneath it in bright yellow was the emblem of three horses’ heads joined to what Bourne now knew was a death’s head, the symbol of the Nazi Schutzstaffel, the Protective Squadron, known colloquially as the SS. It was exactly the same as the tattoo on the gunman’s arm.
“Not were, are.” Specter’s eyes glittered. “They’re the people who tried to kidnap me, Jason. They want to interrogate me and kill me. Now that they’ve become aware of you, they’ll want to do the same to you.”
Eight
THE ROOF or the basement?” Arkadin said.
“The roof,” she said at once. “There’s only one way in and out of the basement itself.”
They ran as fast as they could to the stairway, then took the steps two at a time. Arkadin’s heart pounded, his blood raced, the adrenaline pumped into him with every leap upward. He could hear his pursuers laboring up below him. The noose was tightening around him. Racing to the far end of the narrow hallway, he reached up with his right hand, pulled down the metal ladder that led to the roof. Soviet structures of this era were notorious for their flimsy doors. He knew he’d have no trouble breaking out onto the roof. From there, it was a short jump to the next building and the next, then down to the streets, where it would be easy to elude the enemy.
Boosting Devra’s body through the square hole in the ceiling, he clambered up. Behind him, the shouted calls of the three men: Filya’s apartment had been searched. All of them were coming after him. Gaining the tiny landing, he now faced the door to the roof, but when he tried to push against the horizontal metal bar nothing happened. He pushed harder, with the same result. Fishing a ring of slender metal picks out of his pocket, he inserted one after another into the lock, fiddling it up and down, getting nowhere. Looking more closely, he could see why: The interior of the cheap lock was rusted shut. It wouldn’t open.
He turned back, staring down the ladder. Here came his pursuers. He had nowhere to go.
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded Soviet Russia,” Professor Specter said. “As they did so they came upon thousands upon thousands of enemy soldiers who either surrendered without a fight or were flat-out deserting. By August of that year the invading army had interned half a million Soviet prisoners of war. Many of them were Muslims-Tatars from the Caucasus, Turks, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakhs, others from the tribes in the Ural Mountains, Turkestan, Crimea. The one thing all these Muslims had in common was their hatred of the Soviets, Stalin in particular. To make a very long story short, these Muslims, taken as prisoners of war, offered their services to the Nazis to fight alongside them on the Eastern Front, where they could do the most damage both by infiltration and by decoding Soviet intelligence transmissions. The Fьhrer was elated; the Ostlegionen became the particular interest of Reichsfьhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, who saw Islam as a masculine, war-like religion that featured certain key qualities in common with his SS philosophy, mainly blind obedience, the willingness for self-sacrifice, a total lack of compassion for the enemy.”
Bourne was absorbing every word, every detail of the photos. “Didn’t his embrace of Islam fly in the face of the Nazi racial order?”
“You know humans better than most, Jason. They have an infinite capacity for rationalizing reality to fit their personal ideas. So it was with Himmler, who had convinced himself that the Slavs and the Jews were subhuman. The Asian element in the Russian nation made those people who were descended from the great warriors Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane fit his criteria of superiority. Himmler embraced the Muslims from that area, descendants of the Mongols.
“These men became the core of the Nazi Ostlegionen, but the cream of the crop Himmler reserved for himself, training them in secret with his best SS leaders, honing their skills not simply as soldiers, but as the elite warriors, spies, and assassins it was widely known he’d yearned to command. He called this unit the Black Legion. You see, I’ve made an exhaustive study of the Nazis and their Ostlegionen.” Specter pointed to the shield of three horses’ heads joined by the death’s head. “This is their emblem. From 1943 on it became more feared than even the SS’s own twin lightning bolts, or the symbol of its adjunct, the Gestapo.”
“It’s a little late in the day for Nazis to be a serious threat,” Bourne said, “don’t you think?”
“The Black Legion’s Nazi affiliation has long since vanished. It’s now the most powerful and influential Islamic terrorist network no one has heard of. Its anonymity is deliberate. It is funded through the legitimate front, the Eastern Brotherhood.”
Specter took out another album. This one was filled with newspaper clippings of terrorist attacks all over the world: London, Madrid, Karachi, Fallujah, Afghanistan, Russia. As Bourne paged through the album, the list grew.
“As you can see, other, known terrorist networks claimed responsibility for some of these attacks. For others, no claim was made, no terrorists were ever linked to them. But I know through my sources that all were perpetrated by the Black Legion,” Specter said. “And now they’re planning their biggest, most spectacular attack. Jason, we think that they’re targeting New York. I told you Pyotr Zilber, the young man the Black Legion murdered, was special. He was a magician. He’d somehow managed to steal the plans for the target of the Legion’s attack. Normally, of course, the planning would all be oral. But apparently the target of this attack is so complex, the Black Legion had to obtain the actual plans of the structure. That’s why I believe it to be a large building in a major metropolitan area. It’s absolutely imperative that we find that document. It’s the only way we’ll know where the Black Legion intends to strike.”
Arkadin sat on the floor of the small landing, his legs on either side of the opening down to the top residential floor.
“Shout to them,” he whispered. Now that he was situated on the high ground, so to speak, he wanted to draw them to him. “Go on. Let them know where you are.”
Devra screamed.
Now Arkadin heard the hollow ring of someone climbing the metal ladder. When a head popped up, along with a hand holding a gun, Arkadin slammed his ankles into the man’s ears. As his eyes began to roll up, Arkadin snatched the gun from his hand, braced himself, and broke the man’s neck.
The moment he let go the man vanished, clattering back down the ladder. Predictably, a hail of gunfire shot through the square opening, the bullets embedding themselves in the ceiling. The moment that abated, Arkadin shoved Devra through the opening, followed her, sliding down with the insides of his shoes against the outside of the ladder.
As Arkadin had hoped, the remaining two men were stunned by the fall of their compatriot and held their fire. Arkadin shot one through the right eye. The other retreated around a corner as Arkadin fired at him. Arkadin gathered the girl, bruised but otherwise fine, ran to the first door, and pounded on it. Hearing a querulous man’s voice raised in protest, he pounded on the opposite door. No answer. Firing his gun at the lock, he crashed open the door.