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Authors: Steve Berry
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memory?”
“You’re just a wealth of info on me.”
“As I’m sure you’ll gather on me, if you decide this is worth your time.”
Granted.
“The concept of the Aryan,” she said, “a tall, slim, muscular race with golden hair and blue eyes, traces its origins to the eighteenth century. That was when similarities among various ancient languages were noted by, and you should appreciate this, a British lawyer serving on the Supreme Court of India. He studied Sanskrit and saw how that language resembled Greek and Latin. He coined a word, Arya, from Sanskrit, meaning ‘noble,’ that he used to describe those Indian dialects. More scholars, who began noticing similarities between Sanskrit and other languages, started using Aryan to describe this language grouping.”
“You a linguist?”
“Hardly, but Grandfather knew these things.” She pointed at one of the stone slabs. Rock art. A human figure on skis. “That came from Norway. Maybe four thousand years old. The other examples you see are from Sweden. Carved circles, disks, wheels. To Grandfather, this was the language of the Aryans.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“True. But it gets even worse.”
She told him about a brilliant nation of warriors who once lived quietly in a Himalayan valley. Some event, long lost to history, convinced them to abandon their peaceful ways and turn to warmongering. Some swept south and conquered India. Others surged west, finding the cold, rainy forests of northern Europe. Along the way they assimilated their own language with those of native populations, which explained later similarities. These Himalayan invaders possessed no name. A German literary critic finally gave them one in 1808. Aryans. Then another German writer, with no qualifications as a historian or a linguist, linked Aryans with Nordics, concluding them to be one and the same. He wrote a series of books that became German bestsellers in the 1920s.
“Utter nonsense,” she said. “No basis in fact. So Aryans are, in essence, a mythical people with a fictional history and a borrowed name. But in the 1930s the nationalists seized on that romantic notion. The words Aryan, Nordic, and German came to be spoken interchangeably. They still are today. The vision of conquering, flaxen-haired Aryans struck a chord with Germans—it appealed to their vanity. So what started out as a harmless linguistic investigation became a deadly racial tool that cost millions of lives and motivated Germans to do things they would have otherwise never done.”
“Ancient history,” he said.
“Let me show you something that isn’t.”
She led him through the exhibits to a pedestal that supported four broken pieces of stone. Upon them were deeply carved markings. He bent down and examined the letters.
“They’re like the manuscript,” he said. “Same writing.”
“Exactly the same,” she said.
He stood. “More Scandinavian runes?”
“Those stones came from Antarctica.”
The book. The stones. The unknown script. His father. Her father. NR-1A. Antarctica. “What do you want?”
“Grandfather found these stones there and brought them back. My father spent his life trying to decipher them and”—she held up the book—“these words. Both men were hopeless dreamers. But for me to understand what they died for—for you to know why your father died—we need to solve what grandfather called the Karl der Große Verfolgung. ”
He silently translated. The Charlemagne pursuit.
“How do you know that any of this is connected with that sub?”
“Father wasn’t there by accident. He was part of what was happening. In fact, he was the reason it was happening. I’ve been trying to obtain the classified report on Blazek for decades, with no success. But you now have it.”
“And you still haven’t told me how you knew that.”
“I have sources within the navy. They told me your former boss, Stephanie Nelle, obtained the report and was sending it to
“You’re just a wealth of info on me.”
“As I’m sure you’ll gather on me, if you decide this is worth your time.”
Granted.
“The concept of the Aryan,” she said, “a tall, slim, muscular race with golden hair and blue eyes, traces its origins to the eighteenth century. That was when similarities among various ancient languages were noted by, and you should appreciate this, a British lawyer serving on the Supreme Court of India. He studied Sanskrit and saw how that language resembled Greek and Latin. He coined a word, Arya, from Sanskrit, meaning ‘noble,’ that he used to describe those Indian dialects. More scholars, who began noticing similarities between Sanskrit and other languages, started using Aryan to describe this language grouping.”
“You a linguist?”
“Hardly, but Grandfather knew these things.” She pointed at one of the stone slabs. Rock art. A human figure on skis. “That came from Norway. Maybe four thousand years old. The other examples you see are from Sweden. Carved circles, disks, wheels. To Grandfather, this was the language of the Aryans.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“True. But it gets even worse.”
She told him about a brilliant nation of warriors who once lived quietly in a Himalayan valley. Some event, long lost to history, convinced them to abandon their peaceful ways and turn to warmongering. Some swept south and conquered India. Others surged west, finding the cold, rainy forests of northern Europe. Along the way they assimilated their own language with those of native populations, which explained later similarities. These Himalayan invaders possessed no name. A German literary critic finally gave them one in 1808. Aryans. Then another German writer, with no qualifications as a historian or a linguist, linked Aryans with Nordics, concluding them to be one and the same. He wrote a series of books that became German bestsellers in the 1920s.
“Utter nonsense,” she said. “No basis in fact. So Aryans are, in essence, a mythical people with a fictional history and a borrowed name. But in the 1930s the nationalists seized on that romantic notion. The words Aryan, Nordic, and German came to be spoken interchangeably. They still are today. The vision of conquering, flaxen-haired Aryans struck a chord with Germans—it appealed to their vanity. So what started out as a harmless linguistic investigation became a deadly racial tool that cost millions of lives and motivated Germans to do things they would have otherwise never done.”
“Ancient history,” he said.
“Let me show you something that isn’t.”
She led him through the exhibits to a pedestal that supported four broken pieces of stone. Upon them were deeply carved markings. He bent down and examined the letters.
“They’re like the manuscript,” he said. “Same writing.”
“Exactly the same,” she said.
He stood. “More Scandinavian runes?”
“Those stones came from Antarctica.”
The book. The stones. The unknown script. His father. Her father. NR-1A. Antarctica. “What do you want?”
“Grandfather found these stones there and brought them back. My father spent his life trying to decipher them and”—she held up the book—“these words. Both men were hopeless dreamers. But for me to understand what they died for—for you to know why your father died—we need to solve what grandfather called the Karl der Große Verfolgung. ”
He silently translated. The Charlemagne pursuit.
“How do you know that any of this is connected with that sub?”
“Father wasn’t there by accident. He was part of what was happening. In fact, he was the reason it was happening. I’ve been trying to obtain the classified report on Blazek for decades, with no success. But you now have it.”
“And you still haven’t told me how you knew that.”
“I have sources within the navy. They told me your former boss, Stephanie Nelle, obtained the report and was sending it to
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