Katherine Kurtz & Scott MacMillan - Knights of the Blood 1 -

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Katherine Kurtz & Scott MacMillan

Knights of the Blood

This one's for my mom and dad.

Prologue

Los Angeles, 1972

Jack Sprague surveyed the crime scene before returning to the body. The

alley showed signs of a struggle, and judging from all the blood between the trash

cans and the dumpster, that was probably where the murder took place. It was

Sprague's guess that after killing their victim, the assailants had placed the body in

the dumpster, where it had been found by the driver of the refuse-collection truck at

approximately four-thirty that morning.

It was now five forty-five, and Sprague was developing a headache from too

much coffee, too little sleep, and a lot of pressure from Parker Center to "keep it

out of the papers." He walked back to the dumpster, where his partner stood talking

to the driver of the garbage truck.

"Jack"—Demitter sounded as tired as Sprague—"I don't think we'll get much

more out of Mr. Fuentes here." He gestured toward the fat man in greasy overalls

and Angels baseball cap. "Think we oughta cut him loose?"

"Sure." Sprague was looking at the body again. "Let him go." The victim was

a white male, early twenties, blond, and well-built.

"Looks like half the surfers at Zuma," Demitter commented.

"Yeah," said Sprague, "except that none of them have wooden stakes

pounded through their hearts."

"I dunno, Kingfish. The last three we've met were all dressed that way."

Demitter shook his head. "Stark naked, except for the stake."

Sprague ran a coffee-colored hand across the pepper-and-salt frizz on the top

of his head. Demitter was the only person in the LAPD to call him "Kingfish" to his

face, which was probably why Sprague refused to work with any other partner.

"Come on, Brother Andy, let's head back to the station."

Demitter grinned at his partner from under a thinning thatch of carrot-red

hair. "Yassum, boss."

Back at the station, the two police detectives reviewed their files for the

umpteenth time.

"Okay," Demitter began. "Let's go over all of this again."

"Right," said Sprague, walking over to the chalkboard set up against one wall

of their cramped office. "Here's what we've got."

He reached across to his desk and picked up an envelope marked "Los

Angeles County Coroner," pulling out photos of the three victims, which he taped

across the top of the chalkboard. Demitter fumbled in one of his coat pockets and

produced a Polaroid photo of the most recent victim, taken earlier that morning at

the crime scene. He tossed the Polaroid to Sprague.

"Here, might as well make the collection complete."

Sprague looked at the photo for a minute or so, then taped it up next to the

glossy morgue shots.

"All right. Now we have four victims, all killed in the same manner, and all

found in the same neighborhood." Sprague fiddled with a piece of chalk. He and

Demitter had gone through this procedure with each of the previous killings, and

would continue to do it until the murderer was caught. Somewhere there had to be a

clue, a lead that would point them in the direction of the killers. "What else have

we got?"

"Age. All in their late teens or early twenties." Demitter leaned back at his

desk and looked at the ceiling. "All about the same size, between five foot ten and

six feet tall. Same weight, 160 to 175 pounds."

While Demitter recited the vital statistics of the group, Sprague's precise

printing made neat columns of facts under the four photos.

"And," Demitter continued, "no one has come forward to claim the bodies,

and Missing Persons doesn't have anything on any of them."

Sprague turned to his partner. "That's almost as weird as the killings. These

aren't street kids. They're in too good shape for that. But no one's looking for them.

We hear back from the Army yet?"

Demitter rummaged through some papers on his desk. "Yeah. And the Navy,

Air Force, and Coast Guard, too. I don't know about Number Four there, but the

first three aren't AWOL."

Sprague was staring at the photo of Number Four. It had been taken by the

crime scene boys, and showed the head and upper torso of the body as found in the

dumpster. The face was contorted in a horrible grimace of pain, and the left arm

was bent back, with the hand behind the head. As Sprague looked at the Polaroid

for the hundredth time that morning, he saw something that he hadn't noticed

before. Inside the left arm, up high near the armpit, was a small tattoo.

"Hey, Amos. There anything in those coroner's reports about any of the

bodies having tattoos?" Sprague asked, pulling down the photo for a closer look.

Demitter picked up another batch of files and quickly sifted through them.

"Naw. Although Number Two had scars that were similar to those inflicted by

shrapnel. Why?"

Sprague flipped him the photo of Number Four. "Inside of his left arm.

What's it look like to you?"

Demitter squinted, and then went back to the morgue photos in the coroner's

reports. "Here, look at Number Three."

Sprague took the photo from Demitter's outstretched hand. Staring up at him

from the eight-by-ten glossy morgue shot, Number Three was stretched out naked

on the dissecting table, with an ugly black hole the size of a fist in his chest. Like

the others, he was well-muscled, although he didn't look much over sixteen or

seventeen.

Sprague slipped on his glasses and brought the photo close to his dark face.

Peering intently at the inside of Number Three's exposed left arm, he could just

make out what might have been part of a crude tattoo.

"Call Yamaguchi's boys and have them check these dudes for tattoos." He set

the photo down and turned to Demitter. "I think we've found our link."

That afternoon, the county coroner's office confirmed that all four corpses

were similarly tattooed under their left arms. Photos of the tattoos were sent to the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's forensic services lab, who identified the

tattoos and forwarded their report back to Sprague at LAPD's Hollenbeck Division.

When Sprague walked into his office the next morning, Demitter was already there.

"Heil Hitler!" Demitter snapped to attention, his arm upraised in a Nazi

salute, a comb held under his nose in imitation of the Führer's moustache.

"I don't get it, Demitter. What's the joke?" Sprague removed his holster and

gun and tossed them onto the back of his desk before plopping into his chair.

"Ze rrreports have just ingecomming from der coroner's office, meine

Kingfish!" Demitter clicked his heels. "Und guess vass?"

Sprague just shook his head.

"All of our dead surfers have Nazi army tattoos." Demitter dropped his

phoney German accent. "To be precise, the guys in the Sheriff's Department have

identified the marks as SS tattoos."

Sprague took the report from Demitter's desk and quickly scanned through it.

"I don't get it. What would a bunch of surfers be doing with Nazi tattoos?"

"How the hell should I know?" Demitter got up and poured himself a cup of

coffee. "These surfers wear Iron Crosses and German army helmets. . . . You see

'em at the beach all the time. Maybe these guys are involved with the neo-Nazis out

in El Monte. Who knows?"

Sprague was intently studying the chalkboard. "Let's go visit the Master

Race."

———«»———«»———«»———

A light rain was falling as they drove out to El Monte, turning the Pasadena

Freeway into a slippery ribbon of concrete that snaked its way from downtown Los

Angeles out toward the San Gabriel Valley. The dark-blue unmarked police car

turned east past El Monte Legion Stadium and headed out toward the bean fields

and ramshackle houses that marked the boundary between the Anglo and Chicano

neighborhoods in less-than-affluent East L.A.

The faded yellow house stood back from the street, about halfway down the

block. Parked in front was an ex-Highway Patrol car, one of the black-and-white

"freeway flyers," its doors crudely spray-canned black. In the drive was an old

army command car, anchored to the driveway by spider-webs and four flat tires.

Demitter drove past, made a U-turn, and parked across the street. "This is it."

Sprague grinned in anticipation of the coming confrontation. "The paperwork

says the house number is 16421. This is 22006."

"These guys aren't exactly rocket scientists. We're parked across the street in

front of 16422, and the only other houses on that side of the street are 16417 and

16429." Demitter shook his head. "Dumb shits. Real dumb shits."

The bell didn't work, so Sprague used his fist. Muffled voices answered the

knock at the door, and Demitter eased his gun out of his holster. Sprague knocked

again, and the door was opened by one of the Master Race.

The kid was skinny, about six feet tall with pimples and dirty, greasy-blond

hair. His brown shirt was sweat-stained and grubby, and above the red-and-black

armband could be seen the stitch marks where an army corporal's stripes had been

removed. The shirt was loosely tucked into a pair of filthy Levis buttoned only at

the waist, the legs wadded into a pair of scuffed-up motorcycle boots. The voice

was adenoidal, revealing broken yellow teeth when he spoke.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

Sprague nearly recoiled from the breath. "Police. We'd like to speak with

Commandant Steele." He held his badge up for the superman to see.

"Yeah? Wait here." The door closed. "Fuckin' nigger."

Demitter and Sprague looked at each other, and Demitter bolstered his gun.

A march started playing inside, and the young Nazi returned to the door, this time

with his fly buttoned.

"This way. The commandant will see you."

Shabby doesn't begin to describe this place, Sprague thought. It's more like

pathetic.

Even in the dim light screened by the tattered curtains, Sprague and Demitter

could tell the place was filthy. On the wall was a large Nazi flag, and next to it was

a photograph of Hitler. There were also framed photos of other Nazi bigwigs, along

with snapshots of neo-Nazis armed with a variety of surplus army junk. Busted-up

furniture lined the walls, and a stained and torn carpet covered the linoleum-clad

floor.

They followed along down a short hall, and Demitter held back just enough

to get a quick look into two more rooms before they entered the "commandant's"

office.

Steele was sitting behind a large desk, and stood up as the two policemen

were ushered in by the pimply-faced storm trooper. Against one wall, a rack held

two-dozen cheap surplus rifles—Carcanos, like the one Lee Harvey Oswald used to

kill Kennedy. There was a large bronze bust of Hitler behind Steele's chair, flanked

on either side by an American and Nazi flag. A collection of Nazi daggers hung on

one of the dark-green walls next to a diploma from UCLA, and two wooden

captain's chairs were drawn up in front of the desk. Unlike the squalor of the rest of

the house, Steele's office was the very model of military spit and polish, as was

Steele himself.

The commandant's uniform was as crisp as a new dollar bill. His black tie

was neatly tucked into the front of his military creased shirt between the second

and third buttons, and the brass buckles on his Sam Browne belt shone like gold

against the deep russet of the leather. He was wearing a pair of old-fashioned

cavalry-twill riding britches that slid smoothly into the tops of his glossy brown

field boots. An SA leader's dagger hung at his left hip, and a red-and-black

armband encircled his left arm precisely two inches above the elbow. Three rows of

military ribbons were centered above the left pocket of his heavily-starched khaki

shirt, and below these, in the middle of the pocket, was a Nazi Party Leader's

badge: a gold wreath surrounding the red-and-white roundel with the black

swastika set spider-like in its center.

Stopping just inside the door of Steele's office, the young Nazi stood at

attention, giving Steele the stiff-armed Nazi salute.

"Two policemen to see you, Herr Kommandant." He remained at the salute

until it had been returned.

"Thank you, Trooper. Show them in."

Awkwardly he pointed Demitter and Sprague to the chairs in front of the

desk, then saluted once again.

"Heil Hitler!"

Steele perfunctorily returned the Nazi salute. "Heil."

Sprague had seen combat in 'Nam with his army reserve unit, and quickly ran

a soldier's eye over the ribbons on Steele's chest: Purple Heart, Silver and Bronze

Stars, Soldier's Medal, and the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in action.

Steele had won these the hard way in Korea, fighting at Inchun, Pusang, and the

Yalu River. He might be a looney, but there was no questioning his personal

bravery.

Before they were seated, Steele leaned slightly across the desk and extended

his hand to the two officers. "How do you do? I'm Commandant Steele."

"Detective Sergeant Demitter, and this is Detective Sergeant Sprague,"

Demitter said, shaking the offered hand. Sprague also reached out, expecting Steele

to withdraw his hand rather than touch a black man, but to his surprise, Steele

grasped his hand in a firm grip and shook hands with him like he meant it.

The formalities over, Steele settled back into his chair and surveyed the two

officers before speaking.

"Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" His voice had the same casual

formality of a loan officer at a bank.

"Mr. Steele—" Despite the uniform, Sprague refused to call him

Commandant. "We're investigating the death of four young men whom we believe

may have had some connection with your organization." Sprague slid an envelope

containing the morgue photos of the four dead men across Steele's desk. "We were

wondering if you might be able to identify them for us."

Steele glanced at the envelope on his desk but made no move to touch it.

"Am I, or some member of my staff, under suspicion of having killed anyone?" he

asked.

Demitter cleared his throat. "Look, Commandant, what we have here are four

dead surfers. The only thing they have in common are some German army tattoos

on their arms. We just want to know if you can help us identify them, that's all."

"Very well, then." Steele gave them a very impersonal smile. "I'll look at

your photos."

Reaching across, Steele scooped up the envelope and dumped its contents

out on the desk in front of him.

Sprague grunted. "Not very pretty is it?"

"Neither is the six o'clock news, Detective Sergeant Sprague," Steele replied

without looking up from the photos on his desk.

Carefully Steele arranged the photos on his desk—but not, both Sprague and

Demitter noted, in the order in which the victims had been killed. Steele reached

into his desk and brought out a magnifying glass and stared intently at each photo

for several minutes. Finally, he set down the glass and looked at the two policemen.

"Well, gentlemen, there are only three things I can tell you about these

photos."

Steele waited, until finally Sprague spoke. "Okay. What?"

"First," Steele held up the index finger of his right hand, "I've never laid eyes

on any of these guys before. They don't belong to my organization. Second—" the

two fingers of his right hand made a vee "—I don't think they're surfers. These guys

are butt-white all over—no tan lines. In fact, they don't look like they've been out in

the sun for a long time. Finally, I doubt they're even Americans."

Sprague interrupted him. "How do you figure that?"

"Simple," Steele continued. "None of your victims are circumcised. Here in

America, the medical profession is totally dominated by Jews, so virtually all boys

are routinely circumcised at birth. In Europe, very few Jews are doctors, so their

violation of newborn Aryans does not often occur."

Sprague and Demitter exchanged sidelong glances, and then Demitter spoke

up. "Ah, aside from a shortage of Jewish doctors in Europe, is there anything else

you'd care to expound on?"

"No, not really." Steele smiled his cold smile again, then added, "Except this.

These tattoos are the sort that the SS used during the war to identify the blood-type

and regiment of their soldiers, in case they were wounded or killed." He picked up

the photo of Number Two and passed it over to the detectives, along with his

magnifying glass. "Now, see that mark that looks like a diamond balanced on the

center point of a W? That's the mark of the Prinz Eugen SS Regiment. They were

really tough front-line soldiers." He handed Sprague and Demitter another photo.

"This guy has the tattoo of the Death's Head Regiment. They were camp

guards and special field police. I'd be willing to bet that the other two are probably

from different regiments as well."

Sprague passed the photos and magnifying glass back to Demitter, who had

been busily taking notes. "So you think these men were in the SS?" Sprague asked.

"Of course not. They aren't old enough to have served in the armed forces of

the Reich. I'd guess that their fathers may have been in the SS, and that they

probably belong to some sort of SS family association." Steele was staring at the

daggers hanging on the wall.

Setting down the magnifying glass, Demitter broke in. "So who killed

them?"

Steele let out a long breath and adopted the tone of voice used to explain

things to a young child. "The Jews, of course. That pack of Bolshevik-Zionists

down on Fairfax probably found out that they were in town, kidnapped them, and

killed them, just as Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac."

Sprague had a low tolerance for bullshit and had heard just about all he was

willing to take from Steele. "Are you absolutely certain that these men aren't part of

your organization?" His voice was hard-edged and cold.

"If they had been my men, Detective Sprague—" Steele's voice was

detached, but his expression was as hard as Sprague's "—they'd be alive now, and

you'd be carrying around pictures of four dead Kikes."

It took all of Sprague's self-control to walk out of the Nazi headquarters

without leaving two maimed and dying "supermen" lying on the beer-stained

carpet. At the car, his anger was such that he tossed Demitter the keys.

"You drive, dammit. I'm too pissed off to get behind the wheel."

They were halfway to the Hollenbeck Precinct station when Demitter broke

the silence. "Nazi Surfers From Hell. Sounds more like a movie than a lead."

Sprague just grunted and stared out at Los Angeles.

Chapter 1

The Holy Land, 1291

A plume of dust followed the riders across the desert floor, slowly settling as

they thundered into the small oasis village of Wadi-al-Hifra and quickly dispersed

among its buildings. From a vantage point on a hillock nearly a mile away, Henri

de Beq and his armored men watched the operation with predatory interest. They

had been hunting this quarry for weeks.

"Water for the horses, then for yourselves," de Beq ordered. "We'll give them

time to get involved before we attack."

He was lean and grizzled, with a short-clipped salt-and-pepper beard and

pale eyes permanently crinkled at the corners by more than two decades' squinting

under harsh desert suns. He swung down off his small Arabian mare without a

wasted motion and loosened her girth, then unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet

and removed it, slinging it over the pommel of his saddle. From a goatskin bag he

poured warm water into the helmet, holding it under the mare's nose so she could

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[Version1.0—proofreadandformattedbybraven]KatherineKurtz&ScottMacMillanKnightsoftheBloodThisone'sformymomanddad.PrologueLosAngeles,1972JackSpraguesurveyedthecrimescenebeforereturningtothebody.Thealleyshowedsignsofastruggle,andjudgingfromallthebloodbetweenthetrashcansandthedumpster,thatwasprobablywhe...

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