The Charlemagne Pursuit

by Steve Berry

  Otto rose to his feet.

  One of the reasons he’d come was for the scepter and crown, expecting nothing to greet him but bones.

  But things had changed.

  He noticed bound sheets resting on the emperor’s lap. Carefully, he approached the dais and recognized an illuminated parchment, its writing and artwork faded but still legible. He asked, “Can any of you read Latin?”

  One of the bishops nodded and Otto motioned for him to approach. Two fingers of the corpse’s gloved left hand pointed to a passage on the page.

  The bishop cocked his head and studied. “It’s the Gospel of Mark.”

  “Read it.”

  “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

  Otto glared at the corpse. The pope had told him the symbols of Carolus Magnus would be ideal tools for reestablishing the splendor of the Holy Roman Empire. Nothing enwrapped power with greater mystique than the past, and he was staring straight at a glorious past. Einhard had described this man as towering, athletic, massive in shoulder, great-chested like a steed, blue-eyed, tawny of hair, ruddy of countenance, abnormally active, incapable of fatigue, having a spirit of energy and mastership that even when in repose, as now, overawed the timid and the quiescent. He finally understood the truth of those words.

  The other purpose of his visit flashed through his mind.

  He stared around the crypt.

  His grandmother, who’d died a few months ago, told him the story that his grandfather, Otto I, told her. Something only emperors knew. Of how Carolus Magnus had ordered certain things be entombed with him. Many knew of the sword, the shield, and the piece of the True Cross. The passage from Mark, though, was a surprise.

  Then he saw it. What he’d truly come for. Resting on a marble table.

  He stepped close, handed the torch to von Lomello, and stared at a small volume coated in dust. On its cover was imposed a symbol, one his grandmother had described.

  Carefully, he lifted the cover. On the pages he saw symbols, strange drawings, and an indecipherable script.

  “What is it, Sire?” von Lomello asked. “What language is that?”

  Normally he would not have allowed such an inquiry. Emperors did not accept questions. But the joy of actually finding what his grandmother had told him existed filled him with immeasurable relief. The pope thought crowns and scepters conveyed power, but if his grandmother was to be believed, these strange words and symbols were even more powerful. So he answered the count in the same way she’d answered him.

  “It is the language of heaven.”

  Malone listened with a skeptical ear.

  “It is said Otto cut off the fingernails, removed a tooth, had the tip of the nose replaced with gold, then sealed the tomb.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe the story,” he told her.

  “That time wasn’t labeled the Dark Ages without reason. Who knows?”

  On the last page of the book he noticed the same design that she’d described from the shield in the tomb—a curious combination of the letters K, R, L, S, but with more. He asked her about it.

  “That’s the complete signature of Charlemagne,” she said. “The A of Karl is found in the center of the cross. A clerk would add the words left and right. Signum Caroli gloriosissimi regis. The mark of the most glorious King Charles.”

  “Is this the book from his grave?”

  “It is.”

  ELEVEN

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  STEPHANIE WATCHED ASEDWINDAVIS SQUIRMED IN THE CHAIR, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Talk to me, Edwin,” Daniels said through the speaker. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I went to college. Served in the military. Was a governor and a US senator. I think I can handle it.”

  “I need to do this myself.”

  “If it were up to me, Edwin, sure, go for it. But Diane is having a hissy fit. Naval intelligence is asking questions we don’t know the answers to. Usually, I’d let the children in the sandbox fight this out among themselves, but now that I’ve been dragged out into the backyard, I want to know. What’s this about?”

  In Stephanie’s limited experience with the deputy national security adviser, he’d seemed a man who always exhibited a calm, placid exterior. Not now. And Diane McCoy may have reveled in witnessing this man’s anxiety, but Stephanie wasn’t enjoying the sight.

  “Operation Highjump,” Davis said. “What do you know about it?”

  “Okay, you got me,” the president said. “Round one to you.”

  Davis sat silent.

  “I’m waiting,” Daniels said.

  • • •

  The year 1946 was one of victory and recovery. World War II had ended and the world would never be the same.

  Former enemies became friends. Former friends became opponents. America was burdened with a new responsibility, having overnight become a global leader. Soviet aggression dominated political events and the Cold War had begun.

  Militarily, though, the American navy was being taken apart, piece by piece. At the great bases in Norfolk, San Diego, Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, and Quonset Point, all was gloom and doom. Destroyers, battleships, and aircraft carriers were slipping into quiet backwaters alongside remote docks. The US Navy was quickly becoming a shadow of what it had been only a year before.

  Amid this turmoil, the chief of naval operations signed an astounding set of orders establishing the Antarctic Developments Project, to be carried out during the Antarctic summer from December 1946 to March 1947. Code-named High-jump, the operation called for twelve ships and several thousand men to make their way to the Antarctic rim to train personnel and test materials in frigid zones; consolidate and extend American sovereignty over the largest usable area of the Antarctic continent; determine the feasibility of establishing and maintaining bases in the Antarctic and investigate possible sites; develop techniques for establishing and maintaining air bases on ice, with particular attention to the applicability of such techniques to operations in Greenland, where, it was claimed, physical and climatic conditions resembled those in Antarctica; and amplify existing knowledge of hydrographic, geographic, geological, meteorological, and electromagnetic conditions.

  Rear Admirals Richard H. Cruzen and Richard Byrd, the famed explorer known as the admiral of the Antarctic, were appointed mission commanders. The expedition would be divided into three sections. The Central Group included three cargo ships, a submarine, an icebreaker, the expedition’s flagship, and an aircraft carrier with Byrd aboard. They would establish Little America IV on the ice shelf at the Bay of Whales. On either side were the Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern Group, built around an oiler, a destroyer, and a seaplane tender would move toward zero degrees longitude. The Western Group would be similarly composed and head for the Balleny Islands, then proceed on a westward course around Antarctica until joining the Eastern Group. If all went according to plan, the Antarctic would be encircled. In a few weeks, more would be learned of that great unknown than had come from a century of previous exploration.

  Forty-seven hundred men left port in August 1946. Ultimately, the expedition mapped 5400 miles of coastline, 1400 of which had been entirely unknown. It discovered 22 unknown mountain ranges, 26 islands, 9 bays, 20 glaciers, and 5

  capes, producing 70,000 aerial photographs.

  Machines were tested to the limit.

  Four men died.

  “The whole thing breathed life back into the navy,” Davis said. “It was quite a success.”

  “Who gives a rat’s ass?” Daniels asked.

  “Did you know we went back to Antarctica in 1948? Operation Windmill. Supposedly those seventy thousand

  photographs taken during Highjump were useless because no one thought to put benchmarks on the ground to interpret the pictures. They were like sheets of blank white paper. So they returned to establish the benchmarks.”

  “Edwin,
” Diane McCoy said, “what’s the point? This is meaningless.”

  “We spend millions of dollars sending ships and men to Antarctica to take pictures, a place we know is covered in ice, yet we don’t establish benchmarks for the pictures while we’re there? We don’t even anticipate that may be a problem?

  ”

  “You saying that Windmill had an alternative purpose?” Daniels asked.

  “Both operations did. Part of each expedition was a small force—only six men. Specially trained and briefed. They went inland several times. What they did is why Captain Zachary Alexander’s ship was sent to Antarctica in 1971.”

  “His personnel file doesn’t note anything about that mission,” Daniels said. “Only that he was assigned command of Holden for two years.”

  “Alexander sailed to Antarctica to look for a missing submarine.”

  More silence from the other end.

  “The sub from thirty-eight years ago?” Daniels asked. “The court of inquiry report Stephanie accessed.”

  “Yes, sir. In the late 1960s we built two highly secret subs, NR-1 and 1A. NR-1 is still around, but 1A was lost in Antarctica in 1971. No one was told about its failure—that was covered up. Only Holden went looking. Mr. President, NR-1A was captained by Commander Forrest Malone.”

  “Cotton’s father?”

  “And your interest?” Diane asked, with no emotion.

  “One of the crew on the sub was a man named William Davis. My older brother. I told myself if I ever was in a position to find out what happened to him, I would.” Davis paused. “I’m finally in that position.”

  “Why is naval intelligence so interested?” Diane asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? The sinking was covered up with misinformation. They just let it be lost. Only Holden went to look.

  Imagine what 60 Minutes would do with that.”

  “Okay, Edwin,” Daniels said. “You connected the dots pretty good. Round two to you. Carry on. But stay out of trouble and get your ass back here in two days.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate the latitude.”

  “One piece of advice,” the president said. “It’s true, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

  The phone clicked.

  “I imagine Diane is furious,” Stephanie said. “She’s clearly out of the loop on this one.”

  “I don’t like ambitious bureaucrats,” Davis muttered.

  “Some would say you fit into that category.”

  “And they’d be wrong.”

  “You seem to be on your own with this one. I’d say Admiral Ramsey at naval intelligence is in damage-control mode, protecting the navy and all that. Talk about an ambitious bureaucrat—he’s the definition of one.”

  Davis stood. “You’re right about Diane. It won’t take her long to get into the loop, and naval intelligence won’t be far behind.” He pointed to the hard copies of what they’d downloaded. “That’s why we have to go to Jacksonville,

  Florida.”

  She’d read the file, so she knew that’s where Zachary Alexander lived. But she wanted to know, “Why we ?”

  “Because Scot Harvath told me no.”

  She grinned. “Talk about a Lone Ranger.”

  “Stephanie, I need your help. Remember those favors? I’ll owe you one.”

  She stood. “That’s good enough for me.”

  But that was not the reason why she so readily agreed, and her compatriot surely realized it. The court of inquiry report.

  She’d read it, at his insistence.

  No William Davis was listed among the crew of NR-1A.

  TWELVE

  ETTAL MONASTERY

  MALONE ADMIRED THE BOOK LYING ON THE TABLE.“THIS CAMEfrom the tomb of Charlemagne? It’s

  twelve hundred years old? If so, it’s in remarkable shape.”

  “It’s a complicated story, Herr Malone. One that spans that full twelve hundred years.”

  This woman liked avoiding questions. “Try me.”

  She pointed. “Do you recognize that script?”

  He studied one of the pages, filled with an odd writing and naked women frolicking in bathtubs, connected by intricate plumbing that appeared more anatomical than hydraulic.

  He studied more pages and noticed what seemed to be charts with astronomical objects, as if seen through a telescope.

  Live cells, as they would have appeared from a microscope. Vegetation, all with elaborate root structures. A strange calendar of zodiacal signs, populated by tiny naked people in what looked like rubbish bins. So many illustrations. The unintelligible writing seemed almost an afterthought.

  “It’s as Otto III noted,” she said. “The language of heaven.”

  “I wasn’t aware that heaven required a language.”

  She smiled. “In the time of Charlemagne, the concept of heaven was much different.”

  He traced with his finger the symbol embossed on the front cover.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  He quickly became aware of what was not in the book. No blood, monsters, or mythical beasts. No conflict or

  destructive tendencies. No symbols of religion, or trappings of secular power. In fact, nothing that pointed to any recognizable way of life—no familiar tools, furniture, or means of transport. Instead the pages conveyed a sense of otherworldliness and timelessness.

  “There’s something else I’d like to show you,” she said.

  He hesitated.

  “Come now, you’re a man accustomed to situations like this.”

  “I sell books.”

  She motioned toward the open doorway across the dim room. “Then bring the book and follow me.”

  He wasn’t going to be that easy. “How about you carry the book and I’ll carry the gun.” He regripped the weapon.

  She nodded. “If it makes you feel better.”

  She lifted the book from the table and he followed her through the doorway. Inside, a stone staircase angled down into more darkness, another doorway filled with ambient light waiting at the bottom.

  They descended.

  Below was a corridor that stretched fifty feet. Plank doors lined either side and one waited at the opposite end.

  “A crypt?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “The monks bury their dead in the cloister above. This is part of the old abbey, from the Middle Ages. Used now for storage. My grandfather spent a great deal of time here during World War II.”

  “Hiding out?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She navigated the corridor, lit by harsh incandescent bulbs. Beyond the closed door, at the far end, spanned a room arranged like a museum with curious stone artifacts and wood carvings. Maybe forty or fifty pieces. Everything was displayed within bright puddles of sodium light. Tables lined the far end, also lit from above. A couple of wooden cabinets painted Bavarian-style abutted the walls.

  She pointed at the wood carvings, an assortment of curlicues, crescents, crosses, shamrocks, stars, hearts, diamonds, and crowns. “Those came off the gables of Dutch farmhouses. Some called it folk art. Grandfather thought they were much more, their significance lost over time, so he collected them.”

  “After the Wehrmacht finished?”

  He caught her momentary annoyance. “Grandfather was a scientist, not a Nazi.”

  “How many have tried that line before?”

  She seemed to ignore his goad. “What do you know of Aryans?”

  “Enough that the notion did not begin with the Nazis.”

  “More of your eidetic 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.”