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mysterious martial art called “Te-lo.”  He could, if he chose, kill several of them before they even realized they were under attack, but there were too many for him to kill them all.  Besides, killing was something he had hoped never to do again.  The faces of those whose lives he had taken during the war still haunted his dreams. 
                But sometimes there were things worth killing for, worth enduring more ghosts.  To protect Bridget, he was more than prepared to kill again, God have mercy on his soul. 
                The sound of more gunfire - not just the Germans' sub-machine guns, but also the loud report of a big caliber handgun - erupted from above, but it was faint, perhaps originating on the roof.  He felt an unaccustomed smile twitch across his lips.  So Hannigan had gotten her out of the building and away. 
                McKenzie faded back into the shadows, becoming one with them, determined to wait the Nazis out.  When they left, he would take the boat back to the Mission to rendezvous with his daughter and the others.
     
                                       *****
     
    Sturmscharfuhrer Hans Wessel cursed under his breath as his men spread out across the roof.  Degiorno had escaped.  The Fuhrer would not be pleased. 
    Still, he had the original map.  He only suspected that the Italian had somehow made a copy of it, he couldn't be sure.  Killing Degiorno had simply been a matter of tidying up loose ends. 
    He removed his brown cap and ran long thin fingers through his thin blond hair, brushing it back from his face. A torrent of perspiration coursed down his high forehead beneath the heat of the African sun.   What a forsaken place this is, he thought.
     
    He and his men had arrived the night before after a long voyage aboard the zeppelin Valkyrie.   Their solemn task was to find the lost city in Africa where the fabled Emerald of Eternity was said to have been entombed eons before.  Personally, Wessel felt that the Fuhrer’s obsession with this occult relic was ridiculous.
     
    Hitler himself had admitted the truth of Marx's statement that religion was the opiate of the masses; he manipulated the Church in Germany like a puppet master, promising them a return to the Holy Roman Empire, yet in his private counsels called Christianity a model for Bolshevism.  Yet for all his scorn of their faith, he entertained a fascination with the supernatural. 
    It was Himmler’s influence; it had to be.  Just as the propaganda minister had filled the nation's head with dreams of the Thousand Year Reich, so too had he played on the Fuhrer’s youthful fascination with the ancient mysteries.
    Wessel knew of other special teams that had been sent out in search of mythical treasures.  Some combed the deserts looking for the fabled lost ark of the Israelites, another group, after receiving special - some would say dubious - information from a psychic medium, had been sent to learn if the so-called Spear of Destiny, which Hitler had personally removed from the Hofmuseum in Vienna and taken to Nuremburg, was actually the lance which had killed Christ.
               And now the Emerald of Eternity… superstitious nonsense.
    According to Himmler, the gem was a supposed remnant of the lost city of Atlantis.  He shook his head and replaced his cap.  “Recall the men,” he announced, sending the command out through the officers.
     
    Degiorno and the others were gone.  It would take far too much time and energy to root them out.  It would be more prudent, he thought, to simply accomplish the mission: to follow the map to the lost city.  If the Italian truly was trying to double-cross them, they could always deal with him later.  Perhaps he could spare a couple of agents to stay in town with orders to shoot the Italian on sight.  
    As eager as he was to return to the Valkyrie, he dreaded another encounter with Doctor