'That could be the case, but the really dangerous people are all dead or locked away. I'm more inclined to think he's in league with Chernoff as some sort of partner in assassination. He may also be supplying mercenaries and weapons to different places. At least, that is how he profiles.'

  'Maybe Carlisle wasn't working for Kenyon,' Ethan said. 'Maybe he was working for the other side.'

  'That would explain the low profile, but not his association with the paladins.'

  'Carlisle sounds like a man we ought to talk to,' Kate said.

  'I had three viable choices other than Giancarlo or Luca

  Bartoli when we started looking at this thing last year: Jack Farrell, Hugo Ohlendorf, and David Carlisle. There were a lot of reasons to go to Farrell, but obviously Carlisle is the only choice left. So if we can find him, by all means we'll talk to him!'

  Ethan looked at Kate. 'Giancarlo might know where he is. It wouldn't hurt to ask him, would it?'

  'He might be willing to tell Carlisle how to find us. . .'

  Malloy smiled and shook his head. 'After what happened in Hamburg, I'm not sure that's such a good idea.'

  'So what do we do?' Ethan asked.

  'Mend,' Malloy told him. 'Wait. Look at some fresh information from Chernoff's computer that's coming in tomorrow. If she was partnering with Carlisle the information ought to be there. If it comes fast enough, we might even find the guy before he goes to ground. But for now, unless you want to talk to Giancarlo or Luca about their involvement in Robert's death, that is where it stands.'

  'They're out of the question,' Kate answered.

  'You want to know what happened,' Malloy answered, 'and they have the information. . .'

  'They're family, T. K.'

  'That's where most violence occurs.'

  'It's not an option.'

  Malloy looked at Ethan for support, but in this he had no ally. 'Then we'll find David Carlisle,' he said.

  Zürich, Switzerland

  Tuesday March 11, 2008.

  Malloy called Gwen on the hotel phone when he got back to his room. It was late in the evening in New York, but Gwen answered like she had been waiting for his call. Nothing was certain yet, he said, but he thought he might be coming home in a few days. He was running out of leads. Gwen told him she missed him terribly. He said he missed her as well and realised just how lonely he was as he said it. Home had a nice sound to it.

  He started getting ready for bed after his call but decided he wasn't really ready to go to sleep. His nights and days had got turned upside down. Cracking open his purloined Hart Brothers Scotch, he sat down and began going through the files on Hugo Ohlendorf that he had taken from Dale's computer.

  Dale Perry of course had found Ohlendorf through his contact with a Hamburg hoodlum on the rise. From those meetings Dale knew Ohlendorf was involved in something, but he didn't know what it was or the extent of Ohlendorf's involvement. Accordingly, Dale had made a comprehensive study of the man over a period of several months. He had listed every organisation to which Ohlendorf belonged, including the Knights of the Holy Lance, and his involvement as the representative of Johannes Diekmann and the three Berlin socialites who had helped to found the Order in the summer of 1961. Despite nearly a thousand hours spent on the investigation Dale had unearthed very little Malloy did not already have.

  The Order of the Knights of the Holy Lance had taken shape under the direction of Sir William Savage, an Englishman living in West Berlin in the early years of the Cold War. Sir William had been a VP in a major construction company, but as records now indicated he was in reality part of British Intelligence. As soon as West Berlin came under siege Sir William persuaded one of his key operatives, a German aristocrat and a former SS officer named Johannes Diekmann, to help establish a resistance organisation. . . if the unthinkable occurred. Diekmann had suggested they recruit a number of socially prominent individuals in the city who would dedicate themselves to raising consciousness in the West about the importance of keeping West Berlin free. Using these individuals to conduct a public relations campaign, Diekmann and Savage had then gone quietly about recruiting individuals capable of crossing into East Germany and establishing covert operations amongst the disaffected and quasi criminal classes.

  As tensions had eased over the years, Sir William's operations reached farther into the Communist-run countries of the East Bloc. Whilst the operations were undoubtedly funded by British Intelligence at the beginning, Sir William and his fellow paladins had taken pains to create a financial base through corporate contributions that were in fact only partially legitimate. By the 1980s the paladins had established a complex and a rather cosy relationship with a number of the major criminal factions in Europe.

  With nine paladins sitting on the council, each with one vote, the Order had been seemingly independent of Sir William from the very beginning. In fact, Savage had appointed friends and family to the council, starting with his daughters' husbands, the fathers of Jack Farrell and Robert Kenyon, and two Italian businessmen with whom he had a long and intimate relationship, Giancarlo Bartoli and Giancarlo's father.

  By the time of German reunification Lord Robert Kenyon was representing Sir William's interests on the board. Following Sir William's death, Robert Kenyon had assumed his grandfather's seat with the full authority of a paladin. By the time Luca and Jack Farrell became paladins, the world had changed. The threat of Communism had faded, and the paladins responded by changing the mission of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Lance. What had not changed, at least until the death of Robert Kenyon, was the control of the paladins. Sir William's faction of five had trumped Johannes Diekmann's four votes - effectively guiding the Order in all things great and small. This meant that until 1997 the paladins sanctioned no activity that was not at least marginally in the interests of the Crown.

  The dynamic had changed when the next two paladins joined the Council. David Carlisle and Christine Foulkes had no allegiance to either faction. That gave them the power to forge temporary alliances with either Ohlendorf or Bartoli. It was tempting to imagine that Kenyon's death was connected to some kind of internal discord within the paladins, but Malloy had found no evidence of it. The paladins seemed to have a direct interest in large sections of the black market economy throughout Europe. That was indisputable. Whether or not there was discord amongst the leadership, he could not say.

  This much he had worked through. First, Hugo Ohlendorf had access to, if not control of, a great deal of criminal talent. These were individuals willing to commit murder in league with one of the most notorious assassins in Europe. David Carlisle, with his mercenary and perhaps political contacts in various countries, was undoubtedly capable of dealing in weapons, drugs, and mercenary soldiers. Jack Farrell, like his father before him, had worked with Giancarlo Bartoli in a number of ventures on both sides of the Atlantic - sometimes legitimately and sometimes otherwise.

  Finally, there was Christine Foulkes. She was an oddity. A one-time celebrity party girl, Foulkes had joined the Council of Paladins and virtually withdrawn from public scrutiny. Like Carlisle, one found file photos in the annual reports, one read about her activities on behalf of the Order, but no one else encountered her. That meant the paladins were lying about her activities, or she was travelling under assumed identities. David Carlisle might use multiple identities to travel, but Malloy could not see why Foulkes would take that kind of risk.

  After skimming Dale Perry's summaries, Malloy ran file searches on Christine Foulkes, David Carlisle, Giancarlo and Luca Bartoli, as well as the inactive paladins whom Ohlendorf had represented: Johannes Diekmann, Sarah von Wittsberg, Lady Margarite Schoals, and Dame Ann Marie Wolff. The result was a gold mine of information, but like any gold mine, most of it was rock and mud. At five, almost ready to close down, he came across a series of surveillance photos of David Carlisle. When the photographs were taken, Carlisle had been meeting Hugo Ohlendorf in Paris in 2005.

  As these were relatively current and showed a somewhat different face from the file photographs of David Carlisle that the paladins published each year, Malloy copied them to a memory stick, along with a number of general files about the paladins. He thought Ethan would have most of this, but it did not hurt to be thorough. He hoped to have something more substantial after picking up the summaries Jane was sending him the following morning.

  In the meantime, he closed down his computer and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

  Berlin, Germany

  Spring 1936.

  After his trip to Wewelsburg Rahn promised himself he would not see the Bachmans, at least for a while. He was certainly too angry with Bachman to spend an evening as if nothing were wrong! But when Saturday came round, he showed up at their door. He had a picture book for Sarah, wildflowers again for Elise, and a bottle of good Riesling wine for Bachman. He took the kisses of the girl and her mother - all that he really had in the world - and settled down to drink and talk. Nothing at all was different between them.

  As he was leaving, Elise said to him whilst they kissed goodnight, 'Dieter tells me you might be having problems with Himmler. . .' She looked worried. He had not seen worry in her eyes before and understood suddenly that his dismissal of Himmler's absurd idea might create serious problems for Bachman, and by extension for Elise.

  He shook his head and tried not to show the tension he suddenly felt. 'Not at all,' he said. 'I was simply confused about something Dieter told me.'

  'You must be careful, Otto. Himmler is fickle with his affection. Keep him happy and the world is yours.'

  'So perhaps I should find him his Holy Grail!'

  'Keep him hopeful, as Dieter suggests, and he will feed you honours and acclaim. Ignore him and—'

  Bachman walked toward them. 'What are these whispers?' 'We are plotting to kill Hitler!' Rahn answered, but he forgot to smile as he said it.

  Bachman blanched at the joke, but then he laughed. 'And I thought it was something I should be worried about!'

  Rahn found Bachman at his office late the following week. 'I have been thinking about what you said. I want you to arrange a meeting for us with Himmler - whatever time is good for the two of you.'

  'You are not going to do something foolish, I hope?'

  'On the contrary, I have a proposal for the both of you.'

  Bachman looked relieved. 'That is wonderful news, Otto!'

  'Will he fund an expedition, do you think?'

  'If you think there is some chance of success he will!'

  'Are you interested in joining me?'

  'Only say the word, and I am there!'

  The meeting came the following evening in Himmler's office. Himmler had put in another long day and seemed only to want to get home to his family. 'What can I do for you?' he asked. His smile flickered politely and died.

  Feeling a moment of panic take hold of him, Rahn's voice came out with trembling uncertainty. 'Major Bachman tells me. . . that is, I understand. . . from him.. .' Rahn took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He was like a school boy facing examinations before the master! 'I understand you have some hope of my finding the Grail.'

  Himmler did not look at Bachman, nor did he appear surprised. His curious gaze remained settled on Rahn. 'You said in your book that it was at Montségur before the surrender. As I recall, you tell a story in your book about how it was taken and hidden somewhere in Mount Tabor.'

  'I said it was a legend the locals told amongst themselves - something no outsider had ever heard.'

  Himmler's face remained expressionless. 'That was what appealed to me. I am curious, have the caves all been thoroughly explored?'

  'There is of course a great deal of interest at the moment, but no, I think there are many that have been overlooked. The thing is I am not convinced the Grail is even an object.'

  Himmler's eyes cut to Bachman, and Rahn understood everything. Bachman had given Himmler more than his book. He had convinced Himmler that Rahn needed only the funding in order to find the Grail. He had probably told Himmler that Dr Rahn had secretly been in search of the Grail for over a decade but had not had the funds to make a proper go of it. Once upon a time Rahn had thrown himself into the search, but that had given way to the actual beauties of history he had discovered along the way and ultimately to the story that he had realised he wanted to tell. But Himmler had no interest in history unless it served him. He wanted to believe the Cathars were Aryans and keepers of the Grail and of course persecuted by an evil and corrupt Church.

  'That is not to say,' Rahn added, 'that there was no sacred object at Montségur.' He had the sensation suddenly of listening to himself as if from some perspective beyond his own body. 'In fact, I have always believed they worshipped the Blood Lance that Percival witnessed in the Grail Castle.'

  Himmler moved in his chair. 'The Blood Lance?'

  'The Blood Lance, of course, was never identified as the spear that had pierced Christ at the Crucifixion. It was simply a lance of pure ivory that dripped blood into a gold chalice.'

  'You think that is what they possessed?' Himmler asked excitedly. The exhaustion Rahn had seen in his eyes only moments ago had simply vanished.

  'From what I can see, the Cathars accorded the Blood Lance a higher honour by far than the Cross. If you recall Eschenbach's narrative, Percival saw it carried through the banquet hall at the Grail Castle and no one gave a word of explanation about its origins. For many years, I have to admit, I imagined the Lance guarded the Grail, which was either the cup or something inside the cup that Percival could not see. I think now, however, that the Grail refers to the blood - that which dripped from the tip. You have only to look at the word Sangraal to see the possibility. We normally break the word down into San Graal, the Sacred or Holy Grail, but if we break it down as Sang Raal you see that Sacred becomes instead blood and raal is a pun on real - meaning Royal. In other words Sangraal means Royal Blood - the blood which flows continuously from the Lance!'

  'You are telling me the Grail is the Blood Lance?'

  'More precisely the blood of the Lance is the Grail.' Rahn held up his hands. 'This is only theory, you understand, and I do not mean to suggest that there is actually an ivory lance that bleeds. This is what you have to understand: the Blood Lance and gold chalice are divine visions. The Cathars, after all, were a spiritual people. They rejected the world and its treasures. They took no succour from its pleasures because they sought something much finer in the world of the spirit. And that spirituality was embodied in their vision of the bleeding Lance.'

  Himmler's eyes lost their lustre. He did not care to be disillusioned.

  'That is not to say they did not possess something. The problem for me has always been to determine just what the relic was exactly. It is difficult, as you can imagine, to be certain without actually finding it, of course, but I am now convinced that the relic they possessed is the Holy Lance Peter Bartholomew discovered at Antioch during the first Crusade. If you recall your history, Reichsführer, the Crusaders had laid siege to Antioch for seven months, all the while hoping for reinforcements and supplies that never came. Just when they were convinced they were going to have to retreat, one of the barons arranged for someone inside the city to open one of the gates. That was all it took. By the end of the day, Antioch belonged to the Crusaders. The following morning, however, an army of two hundred thousand Turks arrived on the plain before Antioch. A day sooner and they would have annihilated the Christians. As it was, the Turks were forced to lay siege to the city, whilst the Crusaders enjoyed the protection of Antioch's impressive defensive works, including some four hundred towers. The problem for the Christians was this: they had no supplies and no way of getting any.

  'They consumed what rations they had within the first few days of the siege. After that it was every man for himself and all that comes of an army in the grip of famine. Soon the army could barely climb the walls to defend the city. When a fire broke out one evening - a common enough occurrence in medieval times - the men did not even roll out of their beds to try to put it out. Against Christians they would have sued for peace. Against the Turks surrender meant massacre. So they starved instead and prayed for a miracle. Then even the prayers ceased. They were dead men, every last one of them, and every last one of them knew it.

  'Now it was just at this point that a cleric named Peter Bartholomew went to his priest and told the man about a vision he had had on a number of occasions. In it St. Andrew would tell him the Holy Lance - the spear that had pierced the side of Christ - was buried under the floor of a church somewhere inside the city. In those times, something like this was more than a curiosity. It was a sign from God to be taken very seriously, and the priest went at once to Bartholomew's feudal lord, Raymond, Count of St. Gilles. Raymond went to his fellow barons with the news. After some obvious skepticism the barons agreed to lead Peter from church to church through the city and see if he could recognise the place he had seen in his vision. When they came to the church of St. Peter, Bartholomew cried out, "This is the place I saw!" Within a few hours they had dug a deep trench under the floor in front of the altar. Exhausted and discouraged the last of the enthusiasts were ready to leave when Peter threw himself into the trench and began clawing into the mud. A moment later he screamed to them it was here, he had found something. Then as they waited he brought a piece of mud-caked iron out of the earth.

  'He had not even got out of the trench when Raymond fell to his knees at the edge of the trench and, according to the chronicles, bathed the mud-smeared object with his tears and kisses. Naturally word of the discovery spread through the army, and a faith that had gone dead suddenly stirred again inside every man's heart. God himself might as well have appeared in the skies to promise them victory. This was a sign and every man knew it: the Lord had willed them to take Jerusalem from the infidel and the Jews. They had only to stand up and fight. Victory was theirs for the asking!

  'Instead of manning the walls to defend the city, the army insisted they be given the chance to face the enemy in the open. The Lance held high on a stake so that every man might see it, the Crusaders marched out in formation and broke the enemy's force in the course of a single afternoon.