The Sixth Seal полностью

“Of course you’re locked.” She drew her pistol and aimed it at the keyhole. “That’s a shame.” Zahra really hated defiling history.

She pulled the trigger and sent the nine-millimeter round flying. It didn’t pierce the doorlock entirely, but it did jostle it around enough to splinter the doorframe. Zahra stepped back and drove her foot into a spot two inches to the left of the knob. The impact forced the compromised door inward with a bang.

She holstered her sidearm and stepped through. This space was much more elegant than the last. Nevertheless, it was still dilapidated and covered in a layer of filth. The wall opposite the all-glass surface contained nothing but books from floor to ceiling.

More interesting than that was the fact that this office only contained one desk.

She smiled and hurried to it. Once she crossed the area between the door and the desk, she slowed and calmed her skyrocketing excitement. She loved this. The anticipation of what she might find was killing her.

“Better than a bullet.” Her skin broke out in goosebumps. “Or the cold.”

This desk — this office — belonged to a man of influence. The interior was lush and comfortable. Two equally inviting chairs sat facing it. Meetings were held here, it seemed. A framed map of Antarctica hung on the rear wall. Red pins pocked the map’s three-by-three-foot surface.

Explored areas?

Everything atop the desk had been left as it was. Nothing was tossed or scattered. To Zahra, it felt as if this room’s owner had expected to return. If not, then she would have expected a few of the belongings to have been brought along. She eyed a family photo, left, abandoned. It highlighted a man, woman, and child. She didn’t recognize any of them, and the man wasn’t in uniform, though she was pretty sure the scene behind them was of downtown Berlin.

She tested the chair before she sat. It was an eerie feeling, for sure. She wondered if this was Dietrich Krause’s office. She might’ve been sitting at a workspace that once belonged to a very powerful Nazi general.

And a founder of the Sixth Seal.

Her eyebrows lowered as she thought. This being Krause’s office didn’t make sense. He wasn’t a man of medicine. He’d been a top-level engineer. The aeronautics division would have suited him better.

“Unless this was the only office space available, and you’re looking too far into it.”

Zahra rubbed her tired face and opened the top right-hand drawer. It protested the movement at first but eventually popped free. Inside were run-of-the-mill office supplies. She was about to close it but thought back to her desk at the museum. Zahra once had a knife hidden inside. It had been magnetized to the underside of its top. She reached in but found nothing.

Dang.

The bottom-right drawer yielded much of the same.

As did the top-left drawer.

Frustrated, Zahra ripped the bottom-left drawer open and was surprised when the handle tore free. The lack of weight in her hand caused her to hurl the loose handle at the back wall. It clinked off the map’s glass facing and rebounded and smacked her in the back of the head.

“Suppose I deserved that.”

Zahra looked over her shoulder and saw that the handle had cracked the frame’s protectant. She cringed but relaxed when she remembered that the room’s owner was long dead. Zahra checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding before beginning her search anew.

She found more nothing. She slammed the drawer shut but paused any additional tirades. Something within the empty drawer shifted forward. It wasn’t much, but it had been there.

Zahra opened the drawer again and pushed out of the chair. She knelt and inspected the bottom drawer closer, feeling around inside. For shits and giggles, she opened and shut the drawer a second time, giving it a little juice when she did.

She beamed when the grinding noise started up again.

“Oh, you clever boy.” She reopened the drawer, unsheathed her knife, and dug at the inside corners. Zahra knew a false bottom when she saw one. “Come on… you bastard.” She couldn’t get the edge in deep enough to do much of anything except chip the wood.

Zahra growled. “Be that way.” She chewed her lip for a moment, wishing there was another way. Finally, she shrugged. “Fine. History be damned.” She stood, ripped the drawer free, and slammed the bottom of it on the corner of the desk. As a result of the initial blow, the family photo shook, then harmlessly fell face-first onto the desktop. It took Zahra a couple of tries before the entire drawer was turned to kindling.

But it worked.

An object fell free.

Zahra stared down at it, breathing hard.

“A book?”

No, not a book. It was black, skinny, and roughly six-by-nine inches. It’s a journal!