The first man turned to Heidi. ‘If you attempt to deceive us the consequences will be grave.’ He waved at the satchel. ‘The choice is yours Doctor.’
The second man then opened the door, and held it open for the first man to leave, before following and closing the door behind.
Heidi was in no doubt that they would remain nearby in case they were needed.
***
There was a moment of silence in the room after the closing of the door and Heidi took a deep breath.
Slowly Professor Ilmann came to his feet.
‘The Sword of Gilgamesh,’ he began, ‘A sword of great power that has existed since the most ancient of times. That is the subject of your thesis is it not?’ he asked harshly, and it seemed obvious to Heidi that this was the man who she needed to convince more than any other.
‘That’s correct,’ she replied quietly.
‘The Sword of Gilgamesh,’ he repeated, ‘A sword of such great significance, and yet, in all my years as a Professor of Antiquities I have never heard of such a sword until your extremely ‘interesting’ revelations. Our great leader has actively looked for an item such as this for a very long time, yet I had found not a trace, not even a hint of such an items existence.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Heidi asked coldly.
Ilmann stepped closer to Heidi and fixed her with a stare from his hawk-like eyes. Heidi could feel the frigid gaze pierce her. ‘My friend here, Professor Samal and I have been making discreet enquiries, not only throughout the Middle East but throughout the world, and do you know how many people we have located who knew of the sword before your treatise? None! None!’ He raised his hand and pointed a stick-like finger at her, ‘This entire story is a charade. A fiction created by an inferior academic who was too lazy to do any sort of real research to achieve her current position.’
‘Simply because you hadn’t heard of the sword doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,’ she spat back at the man towering above her. ‘You obviously haven’t been looking in the right places.’
‘Right places!’ he scoffed, ‘Are you telling me that the entire antiquities world doesn’t know what they’re doing and that you are the one and only person in the world who does?’
‘There have been years, generations, of work done to locate the sword. My entire life has been devoted to finding it.’
‘Years? Generations?’ roared Ilmann. ‘What rubbish is this? You’re nothing but a fraud!’
Ahmad Samal clambered to his feet and rushed to stand between pair. ‘Please! Please calm down, both of you. This is getting us nowhere.’
‘The woman is obviously attempting to dupe us,’ Ilmann exclaimed.
‘It’s true I tell you!’ Heidi responded.
‘Calm down! Both of you. Please return to your seat Professor while I have a quiet word with Doctor Schmidt.’
Reluctantly Ilmann did as his associate asked. He slumped into a chair and stared at Heidi with a look of utter loathing. If the woman was proved to be a liar it would look badly on him for agreeing to bring her to Tripoli, but even worse, if she were able to prove her story to be correct it would make matters even worse. For a Professor of Antiquities to have spent over a decade looking for something as significant as the sword and finding nothing, and for a mere woman to succeed where he had failed was intolerable.
In the meantime, Ahmad Samal leaned over Heidi and spoke softly to her. ‘I’m afraid he’s right. We found no reference to the sword anywhere other than your thesis. We need more information before we can proceed.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then the consequences for you may be dire.’
‘Are you trying to threaten me?’
‘Of course not!’ he exclaimed in a hurt voice, ‘But there are others who do not take kindly to being deceived, especially by a woman.’
Heidi considered her current position. She was in a foreign country and to the best of her knowledge none of her friends or colleagues had the least idea where she was. These people could do whatever they wished and the world would never know.
‘Alright,’ she sighed resignedly, ‘I’ll tell you the full story.’
Ahmed Samal turned toward his seat. With his back to Heidi she failed to see the look of superiority the shorter man gave to his hostile associate.
Heidi took a deep breath as Samal sat down and slowly began her story.
Chapter 5
My great-grandfather was Emil Schmidt, and like his father before him was employed as a teacher of history.’
‘During World War I he served in the ghastly terror of the Western Front and earned the respect of his fellow soldiers not only by his bravery but for the stories he told.’
‘Life in the mud and stench of the front line was hard and often short. Constant bombardment by the enemy artillery meant that much of the men’s time was spent in the darkened shelters dug deep below the earth, and with little light they had to rely on voices alone for entertainment.’
‘My great-grandfather would relate to his hushed audience the stories from Germany’s most ancient times. He would tell them the legends and describe exactly what the world had been like when the gods of old ruled the earth.’
‘Amongst the dedicated listeners was a certain corporal who took more than a passing interest in his tales, and who kept in contact with my great-grandfather when the war was over.’
‘The pair exchanged long letters throughout the damaging years of the Weimar Republic, particularly when the corporal spent a term in prison. On his release, the former corporal named Adolf Hitler began his rise to power the close personal friendship that had been cemented in adversity proved most beneficial to my family.’
‘My father Franz Schmidt was a historian as well and became a Professor at Berlin University. His preferred field of study was ancient artefacts and my great-grandfather used his friendship with Hitler to obtain permission for my grandfather to visit Rome and search through the ancient archives held there by the Catholic Church. He knew that the Vatican held some of the most significant items of historical interest that world had ever seen, but few, if any, of these items were ever allowed to be studied by people outside the Church. Instead they were left to lie unseen and mouldering in the vaults of the catacombs beneath the Holy City.’
‘And your grandfather discovered the sword?’ interrupted Samal.
‘No, unfortunately my father wasn’t allowed anywhere near the catacombs. The holy fathers restricted his research to the Vatican library alone. Besides, if he had gained access to the vaults he wouldn’t have found the sword because by then it was no longer there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s what my grandfather found in the library that really excited him. In a pile of discarded ancient texts he came across a reference to the sword, and with it was a complete history, revealing where the sword had come from and how it had come to be in the Vatican.’
‘Why would that excite him?’
‘It was for precisely the same reason that you’re excited by its existence. The sword comes from a time that is so far removed from our own, and the very fact that it still existed at all is incredible. Added to that is promise of untold power that goes to the sword’s owner.’
‘Power?’
‘It was a part of the legend my grandfather found in the archives. I’ll explain it all to you when you hear the story of the sword.’
Ilmann was eager to hear more about the legend but decided to wait till he had heard more of her family’s