Blood of the Reich Read Online Free Page A

immediately forgotten and had failed to file, a packaged condom with an embarrassingly old shelf date, a wallet with thirty-two dollars (she had been going to get twenty more on her debit card at Safeway), forgotten souvenir wristband from a Dave Matthews concert, glasses . . .
    She popped out her other contact and put on the spectacles. Her sight hadn’t been lost after all. Somewhere in there was a comb with a wicked pointed handle. Nail clippers. Loose earrings with a tip; she had inserted studs for shopping and brought along the others in case Erica texted about Happy Hour.
    A veritable arsenal.
    Frozen Foods glanced at her. “You wear glasses.”
    “Duh.”
    “They look nice.”
    She regarded him with disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “No, I mean . . .” He looked impatient but also somewhat intriguingly frustrated. Was he frightened, too? “Look, we’re going to be friends, okay?”
    “The pickup door won’t open.”
    “It’s an old truck.”
    “Stop and let me out.”
    “It’s not safe.”
    “I can’t even roll down the window.”
    “Give me a chance, Rominy.” It was a plea, not a threat.
    She took a breath. “Tell it to the cops.” She pulled out her cell phone. How did he know her name?
    “If you dial that, they’ll track us.”
    “Who will track us?”
    “The guys who blew up your car.”
    “And who are they?” Her finger was poised.
    “Men who are looking into your past like I have.”
    “I don’t have a past worth looking into.”
    “I’m afraid you do. I’m an investigator.”
    “Is that why you have a gun?”
    “What? I don’t have a gun. Wish I did, right now.”
    “I saw it on your waist. In the grocery store.”
    “This?” He pulled his jacket aside. “It’s my cell phone. What, you think I’m a dick? A private eye?”
    “More along the lines of a serial killer. And where’s the twelve-gauge to fit into the gun rack here?”
    “I’m a reporter for the Seattle Times . Investigative journalist with low pay, stingy budget, and an eye for a Ford pickup deal when he sees one. She’s a beast when I punch the gas, though I pay for her eight cylinders at the pump. The environmental writer gives me hell.” He held out his hand. “Jake Barrow. Harmless, when I’m not behind a typewriter. Or, well, terminal.”
    She didn’t shake his hand but set her phone in her lap, still gripping it. “You tackled me like a linebacker.”
    “You’re not the first girl to complain about my lack of finesse. Look, I’m new at this, too.”
    “New at what?”
    “Hiding from the bad guys.”
    “What bad guys? And why are you looking into my past?” Her fist curled around her comb. How could she get out? Stab and climb over him at a stoplight, maybe. Make a scene. Holler. Anything but wait like a nitwit. Did she have the courage? Did he deserve her doubt?
    He glanced, as if to seek alliance.
    But then he accelerated up an on-ramp, merging into crowded Interstate 5 heading north, and took a breath, hesitating. She glanced back. The Space Needle was receding like some signpost to reality, Lake Union shimmering like a mirage.
    “Because you’re not really Rominy Pickett.”

5
    Wewelsburg Castle, Germany
    March 30, 1938
    T wo hundred miles west of Berlin, in the Westphalian countryside not far from where Arminius had destroyed Varus’s Roman legions in A.D. 9, a triangular sixteenth-century castle crowned a rocky outcrop above the village of Wewelsburg. The triangle’s apex pointed, with less deviation than a compass needle, to true north.
    “The Reichsführer ’s Camelot,” said the SS pilot who’d flown Raeder from Berlin. Bruno Halder banked the light civilian Messerschmitt and circled to give the zoologist a view. “Its reconstruction is far from complete, but there are plans the castle will be the tip of a spear-shaped complex of modern buildings. A ceremonial avenue will provide the lance’s shaft. The Spear of Destiny, inspired by the legendary