The Arminius Codex: The Hunt for the Last Roman Eagle

Somewhere in the mountain is the last Roman eagle, and the only clue is a two thousand years old codex or book by the German King Arminius. While hiding their stolen art in the mountain, the Nazis found the book, and Adolph Hitler demanded a translation. Kurt Ewald’s father claimed to have translated the first 38 pages, telling how Arminius massacred three Roman legions and hid their eagle, but World War II ended before he reached the last page, and the eagle remained lost. Set during the War and the late sixties, the novel follows Kurt’s search for the truth about his father’s Nazi past, redemption from his own horrific experiences in Vietnam, the missing 39th page of the Codex, and the golden eagle.

The cave is still guarded by two SS men, Kurt has an ally or a competitor in Rachael Gottlieb, who is trying to discover what happened to her grandfather, Germany’s greatest philologist, and the CIA and the East Germans are competing to find the eagle to claim a victory in the Cold War. Kurt must decide whether to risk his life and his sanity by going into the mountain to save Rachael or live out his life as broken and terrified as his father.