hotel room across the street was the Art Historian's.
Growing weaker by the day, he was on a crusade as important as any undertaken by Christian knights to the Holy Land. If he didn't find his Holy Grail soon, leukemia would end his life. So while the Legionary spied on Liz and Wyatt, the dying man sat in the shadow of the priest, listening to Balsdon's screams and reading the sergeant's archive.
"Jesus Christ!" the German exclaimed, tearing the headphones off his ears when he could no longer take the confession his agent had extracted with the Judas chair.
The Legionary turned.
"Don't swear," he said, glowering at the cringing man.
"I can't hear what he's saying through the shrieks. Why's there an echo in the recording?"
"I held the recorder at the end of a tube from an oxygen mask on his face."
"Did he reveal anything new?"
"No, just what's in his archive. He repeated the name of the Judas agent several times."
"That's merely his suspicion. These papers contain no proof. Nor does the archive"—the Art Historian flicked a dis-missive hand at the other papers stolen by the Legionary—"of the crewman he suspected of betraying the Ace of Clubs"
"Let's pray there's a clue in the bomber itself," said the young priest.
"And use this fellow Rook."
"Do you know him?"
"No, but I just finished reading his books. He's a digger, and he's got an inquiring mind. In his search for Hitler's Judas, he might stumble across our Holy Grail."
"Who was Hitler's Judas?" the Legionary asked.
"I'll give you three clues, and you can puzzle it out. Play detective on the Internet.
"Clue one: Cyrenaica.
"Clue two: Blue Max.
"Clue three: Wiistenfuchs."
GRAVEDIGGERS
War of the Worlds.
Alien.
The Thing.
Standing on the rim of the pit above the Ace of Clubs, Wyatt felt as if he had wandered onto the set of one of those science fiction films in which a crashed UFO has cratered the ground.
He hoped aliens would emerge from the wreckage.
Nope.
What impressed him first was the size of the unearthed bomber. Its wingspan was a hundred feet, its length seventy feet, and its height twenty feet or more. He'd once seen a photo of squadron crews fronting a similar plane. Wingtip to wingtip, it took more than thirty men to span a Halifax.
Surprisingly, the aircraft was still intact. The Ace had belly-landed in a valley, skidding along this hollow flanked by trees.
The force of the crash had destabilized one slope, causing a landslide to crumble down and bury the plane. With bombs dropping night and day, churned-up dirt was the rule, not the exception. If a plane falls in a forest and there's no one around to see it, does that imprint a memory?
Evidently not.
So here the Ace had languished for sixty-odd years, camouflaged by the neglect of East Germany, a Communist country virtually frozen in time at the end of Hitler's war.
Only the fall of the Berlin Wall had lured development east, and now autobahns were reunifying its medieval cities with the west.
Highways like this one.
With the biggest pothole in the world.
"This reminds me of Gulliver's Travels," said Sgt. Earl Swetman. With the recent death of Mick Balsdon on the Judas chair, Sweaty—that's how he'd introduced himself at the hotel—was the sole survivor of the Ace's crew. Once a redhead with a freckled face, he now sported white hair and liver spots.
With a little imagination, this could have been Lilliput.
The gigantic plane did resemble a staked-down man—his head the cockpit, his crucified arms the wings, his belly button the mid-upper turret, his feet the double-finned tail. An anthill of little people swarmed around the castaway. By squinting his eyes, Wyatt could turn the salvage scene into Gulliver lashed to the beach in Jonathan Swift's novel.
"I don't like that," said Sweaty.
"What?" Wyatt asked.
"The rear turret. The guns point back."
"Shouldn't they?"
"Not for bailing out. The quickest way for Ack-Ack to escape would have been to swivel his turret
Growing weaker by the day, he was on a crusade as important as any undertaken by Christian knights to the Holy Land. If he didn't find his Holy Grail soon, leukemia would end his life. So while the Legionary spied on Liz and Wyatt, the dying man sat in the shadow of the priest, listening to Balsdon's screams and reading the sergeant's archive.
"Jesus Christ!" the German exclaimed, tearing the headphones off his ears when he could no longer take the confession his agent had extracted with the Judas chair.
The Legionary turned.
"Don't swear," he said, glowering at the cringing man.
"I can't hear what he's saying through the shrieks. Why's there an echo in the recording?"
"I held the recorder at the end of a tube from an oxygen mask on his face."
"Did he reveal anything new?"
"No, just what's in his archive. He repeated the name of the Judas agent several times."
"That's merely his suspicion. These papers contain no proof. Nor does the archive"—the Art Historian flicked a dis-missive hand at the other papers stolen by the Legionary—"of the crewman he suspected of betraying the Ace of Clubs"
"Let's pray there's a clue in the bomber itself," said the young priest.
"And use this fellow Rook."
"Do you know him?"
"No, but I just finished reading his books. He's a digger, and he's got an inquiring mind. In his search for Hitler's Judas, he might stumble across our Holy Grail."
"Who was Hitler's Judas?" the Legionary asked.
"I'll give you three clues, and you can puzzle it out. Play detective on the Internet.
"Clue one: Cyrenaica.
"Clue two: Blue Max.
"Clue three: Wiistenfuchs."
GRAVEDIGGERS
War of the Worlds.
Alien.
The Thing.
Standing on the rim of the pit above the Ace of Clubs, Wyatt felt as if he had wandered onto the set of one of those science fiction films in which a crashed UFO has cratered the ground.
He hoped aliens would emerge from the wreckage.
Nope.
What impressed him first was the size of the unearthed bomber. Its wingspan was a hundred feet, its length seventy feet, and its height twenty feet or more. He'd once seen a photo of squadron crews fronting a similar plane. Wingtip to wingtip, it took more than thirty men to span a Halifax.
Surprisingly, the aircraft was still intact. The Ace had belly-landed in a valley, skidding along this hollow flanked by trees.
The force of the crash had destabilized one slope, causing a landslide to crumble down and bury the plane. With bombs dropping night and day, churned-up dirt was the rule, not the exception. If a plane falls in a forest and there's no one around to see it, does that imprint a memory?
Evidently not.
So here the Ace had languished for sixty-odd years, camouflaged by the neglect of East Germany, a Communist country virtually frozen in time at the end of Hitler's war.
Only the fall of the Berlin Wall had lured development east, and now autobahns were reunifying its medieval cities with the west.
Highways like this one.
With the biggest pothole in the world.
"This reminds me of Gulliver's Travels," said Sgt. Earl Swetman. With the recent death of Mick Balsdon on the Judas chair, Sweaty—that's how he'd introduced himself at the hotel—was the sole survivor of the Ace's crew. Once a redhead with a freckled face, he now sported white hair and liver spots.
With a little imagination, this could have been Lilliput.
The gigantic plane did resemble a staked-down man—his head the cockpit, his crucified arms the wings, his belly button the mid-upper turret, his feet the double-finned tail. An anthill of little people swarmed around the castaway. By squinting his eyes, Wyatt could turn the salvage scene into Gulliver lashed to the beach in Jonathan Swift's novel.
"I don't like that," said Sweaty.
"What?" Wyatt asked.
"The rear turret. The guns point back."
"Shouldn't they?"
"Not for bailing out. The quickest way for Ack-Ack to escape would have been to swivel his turret
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