Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (6 page)

"Precisely. Your year's tutelage at
Auschwitz should have taught you not only how to run an efficient camp, but how to deal with partisan locals as well. I'm sure you'll solve the matter quickly.”

“May I see the paper?"

"Certainly."

Kaempffer took the proffered slip and read the two lines. Then he read them again.

"Was this decoded properly?"

"Yes. I thought the wording rather odd myself, so I had it double-checked. It's accurate."

Kaempffer read the message again:

Request immediate relocation.

Something is murdering my men.

A disturbing message. He had known Woermann in the Great War and would always remember him as one of the stubbornest men alive. And now, in a new war, as an officer in the Reichswehr, Woermann had repeatedly refused to join the Party despite relentless pressure. Not a man to abandon a position, strategic or otherwise, once he had assumed it. Something must be very wrong for him to request relocation.

But what bothered Kaempffer even more was the choice of words. Woermann was intelligent and precise. He knew his message would pass through a number of hands along the transcription and decoding route and must have been trying to get something across to the High Command without going into detail.

But what? The word "murder" implied a purposeful human agent. Why then had he preceded it with "something"? A thing – an animal, a disease, a natural disaster – could kill, but it could not murder.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you," Hossbach was saying, "that since Romania is an ally state rather than an occupied territory, a certain amount of finesse will be required.”

"I'm quite well aware of that."

A certain amount of finesse would be required in handling Woermann, too. Kaempffer had an old score to settle with him.

Hossbach tried to smile, but the attempt looked more like a leer. "All of us at RSHA, all the way up to General Heydrich, will be most interested to see how you fare in this…before you move on to the major task at Ploiesti.”

The emphasis on the word "before," and the slight pause preceding it, were not lost on Kaempffer. Hossbach was going to turn this little side trip to the Alps into a trial by fire. Kaempffer was due in Ploiesti in one week; if he could not handle Woermann's problem with sufficient dispatch, then it might be said that perhaps he was not the man to set up the resettlement camp at Ploiesti. There would be no shortage of candidates to take his place.

Spurred by a sudden sense of urgency, he rose and put on his coat and cap. "I foresee no problems. I'll leave at once with two squads of
einsatzkommandos
. If air transport can be arranged and proper rail connections made, we can be there by this evening."

"Excellent!" Hossbach said, returning Kaempffer's salute. "Two squads should be sufficient to take care of a few guerrillas." He turned and stepped to the door.

"More than sufficient, I'm sure."

SS-Sturmbannfohrer Kaempffer did not hear his superior's parting remark. Other words filled his mind:
"Something is murdering my men…"

DINU PASS
, ROMANIA

28 April 1941
 

1322 hours

Captain Klaus Woermann stepped to the south win
dow of his room in the keep's tower and spat a stream of white into the open air.

Goat's milk –
gah!
For cheese, maybe, but not for drinking.

As he watched the liquid dissipate into a cloud of pale droplets plummeting the hundred feet or so to the rocks below, Woermann wished for a brimming stein of good German beer. The only thing he wanted more than the beer was to be gone from this antechamber to Hell.

But that was not to be. Not yet, anyway. He straightened his shoulders in a typically Prussian gesture. He was taller than average and had a large frame that had once supported more muscle but was now tending toward flab. His dark brown hair was cropped close; he had wide-set eyes, equally brown; a slightly crooked nose, broken in his youth; and a full mouth capable of a toothy grin when appropriate. His gray tunic was open to the waist, allowing his small paunch to protrude. He patted it. Too much sausage. When frustrated or dissatisfied, he tended to nibble between meals, usually at a sausage. The more frustrated and dissatisfied, the more he nibbled. He was getting fat.

Woermann's gaze came to rest on the tiny Romanian village across the gorge, basking in the afternoon sun
light, peaceful, a world away. Pulling himself from the window, he turned and walked across the room, a room lined with stone blocks, many of them inlaid with peculiar brass-and-nickel crosses. Forty-nine crosses in this room to be exact. He knew. He had counted them numerous times in the last three or four days. He walked past an easel holding a nearly finished painting, past a cluttered makeshift desk to the opposite window, the one that looked down on the keep's small courtyard.

Below, the off-duty men of his command stood in small groups, some talking in low tones, most sullen and silent, all avoiding the lengthening shadows. Another night was coming. Another of their number would die.

One man sat alone in a corner, whittling feverishly. Woermann squinted down at the piece of wood taking shape in the carver's hands – a crude cross. As if there weren't enough crosses around!

The men were afraid. And so was he. Quite a turn
around in less than a week. He remembered marching them through the gates of the keep as proud soldiers of the Wehrmacht, an army that had conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium; and then, after sweeping the remnants of the British Army into the sea at Dunkirk, had gone on to finish off France in thirty-nine days. And just this month Yugoslavia had been overrun in twelve days, Greece in a mere twenty-one as of yesterday. Nothing could stand against them. Born victors.

But that had been last week. Amazing what six hor
rible deaths could do to the conquerors of the world. It worried him. During the past week the world had constricted until nothing existed for him and his men beyond this undersized castle, this tomb of stone. They had run up against something that defied all their efforts to stop it, that killed and faded away, only to return to kill again. The heart was going out of them.

They
…Woermann realized that he had not included himself among them for some time. The fight had gone out of his own heart back in Poland, near the town of Posnan… after the SS had moved in and he had seen firsthand the fate of those “undesirables” left in the wake of the victorious Wehrmacht. He had protested. As a result, he had seen no further combat. Just as well. He had lost all pride that day in thinking of himself as one of the conquerors of the world.

He left the window and returned to the desk. Oblivious to the framed photographs of his wife and his two sons, he stared down at the decoded message there.

SS-Sturmbannfahrer Kaempffer arriving to
day with

detachment einsatzkommandos. Maintain present position.

Why an SS major
’? This was a regular army position. The SS had nothing to do with him, with the keep, or with Romania as far as he knew. But then there were so many things he failed to understand about this war. And Kaempffer, of all people! A rotten soldier, but no doubt an exemplary SS man. Why here? And why with einsatzkommandos? They were extermination squads. Death’s Head Troopers. Concentration camp muscle. Specialists in killing unarmed civilians. It was their work he had witnessed outside Posnan. Why were they coming here’?

Unarmed civilians…the words lingered…and as they did, a smile crept slowly into the corners of his mouth, leaving his eyes untouched.

Let the SS come. Woermann was now convinced there was an unarmed civilian of sorts at the root of all the deaths in the keep. But not the helpless cringing sort the SS was used to. Let them come. Let them taste the fear they so dearly loved to spread. Let them learn to believe in the unbelievable.

Woermann believed. A week ago he would have laughed at the thought. But now, the nearer the sun to the horizon, the more firmly he believed…
and feared.

All within a week. There had been unanswered questions when they had first arrived at the keep, but no fear. A week. Was that all? It seemed ages ago that he had first laid eyes on the keep…

If you wish to read on…
The Keep

1968

REBORN

Reborn
is the direct sequel to
The Keep
.  This is where the sleepy little Village of Monroe on Long Island’s north shore lands on the map of the Secret History.  We’ll be returning to Monroe again and agaian as time goes on.

I had no idea I'd ever write another word related to
The Keep
.  Same with
The Touch
and
The Tomb
.  I considered them unrelated stand-alone novels.  But my subconscious had other ideas.

In 1987, after finishing
Black Wind
, I started on
Reborn
.  I'd outlined it with a different title years before but it didn't gel.  I wanted it to look like a
Rosemary's Baby
or an
Omen
but actually be something different (just as
The Keep
looks like a vampire novel for a while, but it's not).  But I wanted to use an evil entity other than the Antichrist.  Then I realized I already
had
that entity in Rasalom.  I needed a suburban setting convenient to Manhattan, and realized I already had one in Monroe where
The Touch
took place.  Could I tie those novels into Rasalom's reincarnation and bring the books full circle? 

If I brought Rasalom back, I was obligated to get rid of him, right?  Things grew – and I do mean
grew
– from there.  Somehow the mythology I’d invented for
The Tomb
became involved, and that brought Jack into the picture.  The result was an outline for a 1,000-plus-page novel.  Nobody was going to publish that, so I broke it down into a trilogy –
Reborn Reprisal,
and
Nightworld
– and sold it that way.  But in my head it remains a single novel – a
roman fleuve
, if you will. 

Here’s how it starts…

REBORN

(sample)

PROLOGUE

Sunday

February 11, 1968 

1

He was calling himself Mr. Veilleur these days – Gaston Veilleur – and tonight he found it difficult to sleep.  A remote uneasiness made him restless, a vague malaise nettled his mind, stirring up old memories and ancient nightmares.  But he refused to give up the chase.  He measured his breathing and soon found the elusive prey within his grasp.  But just as he was slipping off, something dragged him back to full wakefulness.