Jabos, low-flying fighter-bombers, armed with rockets and cannons, that ranged over Germany with impunity, shooting at whatever struck their fancy.
Just that morning, Krohn had seen a Jabo chasing an old woman in a farm field, swooping in again and again as she stumbled across the furrows, too far from trees or a building to find shelter, her dress flapping against her shins. Finally a burst of cannon fire cut her down and the airplane climbed up into the sky, like a raptor seeking other prey. Krohn did not condemn the pilot—he could see the sport in the hunt—but it pained him to see his fellow Germans dying as their Fatherland was ripped open.
A slight man with a limp that disqualified him from front-line duty, the result of a childhood accident with a horse, Krohn knew that the heart of a warrior beat strong in him. As a high priest to the god Odin, he contributed to the war effort with his temple. On the first day of the war, September 1st, 1939, in the old Christian calendar, the sixth year of the Third Reich, he had offered up to Odin his first bride. She was a fourteen-year-old girl from Czechoslovakia, but of Polish extraction. He had personally investigated her genealogy to make sure.
In just over a month, the German legions had overrun Poland. Krohn wrote a private letter directly to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the bespectacled head of the SS, communicating his belief that the bride-offering had encouraged Odin to directly help achieve the victory. Himmler was always interested in Krohn’s work and approved the funding and secret orders necessary to collect more girls.
The launch of the Norwegian campaign in April 1940 was so secret that Krohn was unprepared when he heard the news. He commandeered a transport aircraft and flew to Oslo as quickly as he could, found a comely virgin, and flew her back to the temple. Though she acted terrified, he knew that she was secretly honored to become a bride of Odin. After only two months, Norway belonged to Germany. Truly a day for joy, since Norway was an Aryan nation, of the purist Nordic stock, not like the Poles, who as Slavs were fit only for servitude.
Only a few days later, Himmler passed the word that the Low Countries and France were about to be invaded. Krohn scrambled to find offerings from each of the countries. France itself was so large that it presented difficulties. From his historical studies, he knew that France was really not a single ethnic nation. He needed girls from the Franks, Bretons, Basques, Normans, and Alsatians. He failed to find a Norman girl, but the others died in a glorious ceremony. After the success of conquering France in only six weeks, a task that Germany had failed to accomplish after four years of trying in the First World War, Krohn’s faith in his program of offering brides to Odin was confirmed.
After France, Krohn embarked on a vigorous program to find virgins from every possible country and region that the Führer might decide to add to the Reich. He housed them at the nearby concentration camp and took care to ensure that they received the best treatment. Success followed success, and Himmler presented Krohn with a Totenkopfring, a ring with runes and a skull on it, only granted to the most honored SS officers.
“Go to my house,” Krohn now told Karl. The twin grunted his obedience. When they first came to him, Krohn had been irritated by how few words the burly twins from Stuttgart seemed to know. He had came to realize that they were bright enough and knew the words; they just didn’t like to talk, though at times he had seen the twins hold long whispered conversations with each other. Krohn decided to allow them their seeming insolence after he realized that they were as loyal as the best shepherd dog a man could ask for.
Still no planes. Probably because of the trees, or maybe the Americans were so sure of victory that they had already started to celebrate and the pilots were drunk. How had it come to this? The first two years of the war had been one success after another, military victories on a scale never before seen in history, and Krohn knew that Odin had played a major part. Then came December of 1941 and the reverses before Moscow.
Desperate to recover German fortunes, Krohn had stained the snow with the blood of dozens of brides. He had plenty of girls from Russia and the Ukraine, sent to him by SS units that roamed behind the advancing German armies, getting rid of Jews and other undesirables. Even with the entry of America into the war, German fortunes recovered in the summer of 1942, and Krohn thanked Odin.
Then, in the winter of 1942, everything started to go wrong. Rommel lost in Egypt, the Americans invaded North Africa, and worst of all, the German Sixth Army surrendered at Stalingrad. Krohn had been summoned to an emergency meeting at Wewelsburg Castle, the ritual home of the SS. With other scholars and officers, Krohn watched a grizzled old woman, perhaps even a gypsy, draw from her bag human bones, mostly from fingers and worn from long use. She cast them onto the Black Sun mosaic set into the floor of the Marble Hall. Looking up at Himmler with her rheumy eyes, the oracle pronounced the end of the Reich.
Krohn heard later that she had been sent to the camps for her audacious prophecy, though Himmler did not seem to doubt her. That day began the many plans for the National Socialist movement to continue even if the Allies defeated the military forces of the Reich. Krohn participated in many of the efforts, especially the Norwegian project. Krohn also redoubled his efforts to placate Odin with more brides. Even after sending eighty virgins to Odin in 1943, the military reverses continued. The skies brought death and ruin from British bombers at night and American bombers during the day.
Krohn asked himself, why had everything gone sour? Even as he continued to offer brides, he came to the conclusion that the leaders of the Reich must have lost faith. Hitler himself had always seemed lukewarm to many of the more interesting implications of occult knowledge. Perhaps it was the heart of Hitler that was to blame. Perhaps Hitler was not the great leader that the Aryan nation truly needed.
Krohn kept such ideas to himself.
CHAPTER SIX
The crackle of submachine-gun fire alerted Carter that the guards had returned. Four of his men came rushing through the open gate, heads down low, running as if they expected a bullet to find their backs at any moment.
Carter’s eyes swept the temple, counting his resources. One section, plus four men. Most of the men were crouching down, looking up at the walls, waiting for guidance.
“You three BAR men,” Carter roared. “Take cover behind some of those rocks and shoot anyone who comes through that gate—on second thought, hold your fire until you’re sure it isn’t one of us. We still have men out there.”
BAR men carried the Browning Automatic Rifle, a twenty-pound beast of a weapon that looked like an oversized rifle. The high rate of fire exhausted the twenty-round magazines in less than a second. Many of the Americans envied the Germans their MG-34 light machine gun, which accepted belt-fed ammunition and could lay a curtain of fire. The three BAR men, two from the section inside, and one a survivor from outside, ran over to hide behind rune-covered stones. Their helpers, carrying canvas packs full of extra magazines, scurried after them. Veterans knew that moving quickly kept them alive.
“Everyone else, rally to that big tree,” Carter called out as he ran back to the giant oak.
Even as the adrenalin pumping into his veins urged him to choose fight or flight, Carter’s intellect had retained control and he analyzed the situation. It was unique in his experience. The temple with its walls was like a fort defended by soldiers in a Western movie, with Indians on the outside. Of course, these Indians were much better armed. Carter didn’t read Westerns, but Napier liked to read all those pulp magazines: adventures, Westerns, mysteries, and science fiction. He suddenly remembered the sergeant and the girl, back up by the jeep and trucks. He hoped that they were safe.
The men clustered near Carter under the tree, keeping a wary eye back on the open gate. The temple was like a fort, but it didn’t have ramparts for defenders to look over. In many ways the fort was actually a trap. The real problem was that he had no idea what was happening outside the walls.
“Peterson, get up that tree and give me a report on what’s happening,” Carter said. Peterson was a small, wiry youth known for his wiggling ability. He handed his carbine to a friend, stepped into two pairs of waiting hands, and was hurled up into the branches. He grabbed hold of the lowest branch, some ten feet in the air, swung his legs up, and moved further up into the tree quick as a kid in a schoolyard.