The Marked Ones : Family: The Marked Ones, #1

By Sam Ivy

When a woman in Mexico innocently posts a series of strange tattoos online, she sparks the interest of a powerful German family who have been seeking these symbols for decades. What initially seemed like mere tattoos reveal themselves to be cryptic symbols concealing a dark secret. A secret so coveted that the German family is willing to go to any lengths to possess it. Now, a humble family in Mexico, unaware of the significance of their discovery, finds themselves thrust into the path of the formidable German family, facing consequences far beyond what they ever imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Ivy
• Release date: Mar 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223370383

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Table of Contents

The Marked Ones : Family

It was late afternoon, just after 7 PM. Darkness had set in over the bustling Mexican town. Hans Schmidt stood in the shadow and watched a young lady collect her package from the counter of a deli across the street. In another world, or in another lifetime, he would've considered her beautiful. She wore a light T-shirt and a spring jacket along with a tight jeans that fitted her frame. She allowed her long black hair to flow about her shoulders.

Hans knew almost everything about her.

Her name was Valerie Hernandez, she was twenty six years old, and a single mother. She lived in a two bedroom apartment just on the outskirts of Tijuana Mexico with her mother and daughter. She usually worked long hours as a front desk clerk at a local hotel.

He watched as she grabbed her food, popped in her earbuds into her ears and headed out towards her apartment. He was amazed how naïve and complacent people in some parts of the world were.

Bag in her hands, with her head down, her eyes focused only on her phone, she did not even glanced in his direction. Hans quickly crossed the street and fell into step behind her, careful not to get too close.

He knew exactly where she was going, after having spent the previous three days watching her.

Hans had  never been to Mexico, it had never been on his wishlist. He had lived most of his life in Germany, he spent a few years in the USA.  Where he went to college in Boston. This was his first time he had ventured anywhere outside of those two continents. He and his brother were drawn here by something Valerie posted online. Something she had no idea what it was.

But it was something his family has been searching to find for generations.

She had posted a picture of someone with what appears to be a series of tattoos, along their forearm from the inside of their wrist to the inside bend of their elbow. In the picture both the persons arms held similar tattoos.

The image she posted just showed the person arms, with a question.

Does anyone knows what this means?

She was careful not to show the person whose arms the tattoos was on.

That was the only smart thing she did.

Hans had long given up hope of ever finding anyone with those symbols on their arms.

He would have thought it was fake except for the exact order and the place where the tattoos where displayed was in the exact order of the drawings in their great grandfather’s diary.

The symbols and the exact order they were in was not found anywhere else on earth.

His great grandfather called them the Marked ones

His father had told him and his siblings stories about them, stories told to him by his father who was told by his father about events that happened with the marked ones during World War 11.

Stories that if true would explain a lot how Germany rose to be such a frightful force at the start of the 20th century.

How they could have almost win the war because of the actions of four men.

Four men with similar markings as the ones she posted online.

As he walked behind her he allowed his mind to wander to the stories his father told him.

How Germany stumbled across possibly the most important discovery in its military history.

In 1937 Reinhart Hendrich, one of the upcoming leader of German SS, was called to the scene of an explosion in a shipyard in the harbor of Kiel.

What appeared to be the work of saboteur, left three hundred and thirty men dead. Most of them burnt alive or suffocated in the smoke down in the basement of the main building. The fire burned all the way down to the subterranean level. That level housed a secret lab that was developing advance weaponry, and contained plenty of ammunitions and flammable material. That, in turn, aided in the swift and total engulfing of flames and cause several explosions that completely level the building.  The entire three story building was burnt and reduce to rubble, nothing was salvageable.

Impossibly, inside the total destruction, there was a single survivor.

It was not one of the brilliant minds that Germany so desperately needed, but a lowly janitor on his first few weeks on the job.

The loss was a devastating blow.

His superiors had promise the Chancellor advanced weaponry that would make Germany great again. But the saboteur had destroyed everything. Along with some of Germany’s most brilliant minds. It was a total loss and would normally lead to execution of all persons involved in the failure.

But as fate would have it, Out of the ashes rose a phoenix.

General Gunter Schmidt was first on the scene after the flames were extinguished. He made the call to Hendrich  to inform him of the incident and insist that Hendrich rush down to the docks.

When Hendrich arrived General Schmidt did not offer to show him the scope of the destruction, instead led him to a waiting ambulance that held the only survivor. The janitor that was working on the main floor at the time of the fire.

Hendrich was told where they found him after the blaze. That he was trapped under a heavy crossbeam that had collapse from the ceiling. Not only should he have been burnt alive like everyone else but he should have been crushed by the cross beam.

Hendrich thought they made a mistake when they showed him an unconscious but healthy looking man lying half covered in the ambulance.

Hooked up only to a oxygen mask, The man appear to not have a scratch on him.

Hendrich looked incredulously back at the ruble of the building then at his general,  who nodded at him.

The General pointed to what look like burnt black rags on the floor of the ambulance.

" Half of that is the rags we used to clean him up, the other half is the clothes we took off