The Charlemagne Pursuit

by Steve Berry

  He watched as the man rose from the sofa and headed for a green-clothed table beside the hearth, pouring himself a glass of ice water.

  Smith stood and casually walked over, refilling his teacup from a silver server. The service was a nice touch.

  Refreshments for guests all day. He added a little Splenda—he hated sugar—and stirred.

  Theman retreated toward the alcove, sipping his water, to where the woman was ending a cell phone call. The fire in the hearth had burned low, barely sputtering now. One of the attendants opened an iron grate and added a few logs. He knew he could follow those two and see where it led, but luckily he’d already decided on amore definitive tack.

  Something innovative.

  Guaranteed to produce results.

  And fitting for the great Douglas Scofield.

  MALONE REENTERED THEL’ARLEQUINANDHEADED FOR ITS RESTAURANT, where colorful rugs covered

  an oak-planked floor. His entourage followed him inside and peeled off their coats. Isabel spoke with the man who’d worked the registration desk earlier. The attendant left, closing the restaurant doors behind him. Malone shucked his jacket and gloves and noticed that his shirt was damp from perspiration.

  “There are only eight rooms upstairs,” Isabel said, “and I’ve let them all for the night. The owner is preparing a meal.”

  Malone sat on one of the benches that lined two oak tables. “Good. I’m hungry.”

  Christl, Dorothea, and Werner sat opposite him. Henn stood off to the side, holding a satchel. Isabel assumed a position at the head of the table. “Herr Malone, I’m going to be truthful with you.”

  “I seriously doubt that, but go ahead.”

  Her hands tightened and her fingers eagerly tapped the tabletop.

  “I’m not your child,” he said, “and I’m not in the will, so get to the point.”

  “I know that Hermann visited here twice,” she said. “Once before the war, in 1937. The other time in 1952. My mother-in-law told Dietz and I about the trips shortly before she died. But she knew nothing of what Hermann did here. Dietz himself came about a year before he disappeared.”

  “You’ve never mentioned that,” Christl said.

  Isabel shook her head. “I never realized a connection between this place and the pursuit. I only knew that both men visited. Yesterday, when you told me about here, I immediately realized the link.”

  The adrenaline rush from the church had drained, and Malone’s body felt heavy with fatigue. But he needed to focus.

  “So Hermann and Dietz were here. That’s of little use since, apparently, only Hermann found anything. And he didn’t tell anybody.”

  “Einhard’s will,” Christl said, “makes clear that you clarify this pursuit by applying the angel’s perfection to the lord’s sanctification. That gets you from Aachen to here. Then only those who appreciate the throne of Solomon and Roman frivolity shall find their way to heaven. ”

  Dorothea and Werner sat silent. Malone wondered why they were even here. Maybe they’d already played their part in the church? He pointed at them and asked, “Have you two kissed and made up?”

  “Is that important to anything?” Dorothea asked.

  He shrugged. “Is to me.”

  “Herr Malone,” Isabel said. “We must solve this challenge.”

  “Did you see that church? It’s a ruin. There’s nothing there from twelve hundred years ago. The walls are barely standing and the roof is new. The flooring is cracked and crumbled, the altar eroding away. How do you plan to solve anything?”

  Isabel motioned and Henn handed her the satchel. She unbuckled its leather straps and removed a tattered map, the paper a pale rust color. She carefully unfolded and laid the sheet, maybe twenty-four by eighteen inches, flat on the table. He saw that it was not of any country or continent, but was a sectional representation of a jagged coastline.

  “This is Hermann’s map, used during the 1938 Nazi expedition to Antarctica. It’s where he explored.”

  “There’s no writing,” he said.

  Locations were denoted by ’s. X’s seemed to note mountains. A pinpointed something central, and a route was shown to and from, but not a single word anywhere.

  “My husband left this behind when he sailed for America in 1971. He took another drawing with him. But I know exactly where Dietz was headed.” She held up a second folded map from the satchel. Newer, blue, titled International Travel Map of Antarctica, Scale 1:8,000,000. “That information is all on here.”

  She reached into the satchel and brought out two final objects, both sheathed inside plastic bags. The books. One from Charlemagne’s grave, which Dorothea had shown him. The other from Einhard’s tomb, which Christl had possessed.

  She tabled Christl’s and lifted Dorothea’s.

  “This is the key, but we can’t read it. The ability to do that is here, in that monastery. I fear that, though we know where to go in Antarctica, the trip would be unproductive unless we know what’s on these pages. We must have, as Einhard wrote, a full comprehension of heaven.”

  “Your husband went without one.”

  “His mistake,” Isabel said.

  “Can we eat?” Malone asked, tired of listening to her.

  “I understand you’re frustrated with us,” Isabel said. “But I came to make a bargain with you.”

  “No, you came to set me up.” He stared at the sisters. “Again.”

  “If we discover how to read this book,” Isabel said. “If it seems worth the trip, which I believe it will be, then I assume you’ll be going to Antarctica?”

  “Hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”

  “I want you to take my daughters with you, along with Werner and Ulrich.”

  “Anything else?” he asked, almost amused.

  “I’m quite serious. It’s the price you’ll pay to know the location. Without that location, the trip would be as futile as Dietz’s.”

  “Then I guess I won’t know, because that’s insane. We’re not talking about a romp in the snow. This is Antarctica. One of the toughest places on earth.”

  “I checked this morning. The temperature at Halvorsen Base, which is the closest landing strip to the location, was minus seven degrees Celsius. Not all that bad. The weather was also relatively calm.”

  “Which can change in ten minutes.”

  “You sound like you’ve been there,” Werner said.

  “I have. It’s not a place where you want to hang out.”

  “Cotton,” Christl said. “Mother explained this to us earlier. They were headed for a specific location.” She pointed to the map on the table. “Do you realize that the submarine could be lying in the water near that location?”

  She’d played the one card he’d been dreading. He’d already assumed the same thing. The court of inquiry’s report had noted NR-1A’s last known location— 73° S, 15 ° W, approximately 150 miles north of Cape Norvegia. That could now be matched with another reference point, which might be enough to allow him to find the sunken vessel. But to be able to do that, he had to play ball.

  “I assume that if I agree to take along these passengers, I won’t be told anything until we’re in the air?”

  “Actually, not until you’re on the ground,” Isabel said. “Ulrich was trained in navigation by the Stasi. He’ll direct you, once there.”

  “I’m positively crushed at the lack of faith you have in me.”

  “About as much as you have in me.”

  “You realize that I won’t have the final say on who goes. I’ll need help from the US military to get there. They may not allow anybody else.”

  Her morose heavy face lightened by a fleeting smile. “Come now, Herr Malone, you can do better than that. You’ll have the power to make things happen. Of that I’m sure.”

  He faced the others sitting across the table. “Do you three have any idea what you’re getting into?”

  “It’s the price we have to pay,” Dorothea said.

  Now he understood
. Their game wasn’t over.

  “I can handle it,” Dorothea said.

  Werner nodded. “I can, too.”

  He stared at Christl.

  “I want to know what happened to them,” she said, her eyes downcast.

  So did he. He must be insane.

  “Okay, Frau Oberhauser, if we solve the pursuit, you have a deal.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  RAMSEY OPENED THE HATCH AND EXITED THE HELICOPTER. HE’Dflown directly from Washington to Fort

  Lee in the chopper that naval intelligence maintained around-the-clock at administrative headquarters.

  A car waited for him and he was driven to where Diane McCoy was being held. He’d ordered her detainment the

  moment Hovey had informed him of her visit to the base. Holding a deputy national security adviser could present a problem, but he’d assured the base commander that he’d assume full responsibility.

  He doubted there’d be any fallout.

  This was McCoy’s jaunt, and she wasn’t about to involve the White House. That conclusion was fortified by the fact that she’d made no calls from the base.

  He left the car and entered the security building, where a sergeant-major escorted him to McCoy. He entered and closed the door. She’d been made comfortable in the chief of security’s private office.

  “About time,” she said. “It’s been nearly two hours.”

  He unbuttoned his overcoat. He’d already been told she’d been searched and electronically swept. He sat in a chair beside her. “I thought you and I had a deal.”

  “No, Langford. You had a deal for you. I had nothing.”

  “I told you that I would make sure you were a part of the next administration.”

  “You can’t guarantee that.”

  “Nothing in this world is a certainty, but I can narrow the odds. Which I’m doing, by the way. But recording me?

  Trying to get me to admit things? Now coming here? This is not the way, Diane.”

  “What’s in that warehouse?”

  He needed to know, “How did you learn about it?”

  “I’m a deputy national security adviser.”

  He decided to be partially honest with her. “It contains artifacts found in 1947 during Operation Highjump and again in

  ’48 during Operation Windmill. Some unusual artifacts. They were also part of what happened to NR-1A in ’71. That sub was on a mission concerning those artifacts.”

  “Edwin Davis talked to the president about Highjump and Windmill. I heard him.”

  “Diane, surely you can see the damage that could be done if it was revealed that the navy did not search for one of its subs after it sank. Not only didn’t it search, but a cover story was fabricated. Families were lied to, reports falsified.

  You might have been able to get away with that then—different times—but not today. The fallout would be enormous.”

  “And how do you figure into that?”

  Interesting. She wasn’t all that informed. “Admiral Dyals gave the order not to search for NR-1A. Even though the crew agreed to those conditions before they left port, his reputation would be destroyed if that came out. I owe that man a lot.”

  “Then why kill Sylvian?”

  He wasn’t going there. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  She started to speak, but he stopped her with a halting hand. “I don’t deny, though, that I want his job.”

  The room grew tense, like the descending weight of a hushed poker game—which, in many ways, this encounter

  resembled. He bore his gaze into her. “I’m being straight with you in the hope that you’ll be straight with me.”

  He knew from Aatos Kane’s aide that Daniels had been receptive to the idea of his appointment, which ran contrary to McCoy’s theatrics. It was vital that he maintain a set of eyes and ears within the Oval Office. Good decisions were always based on good information. Problem that she was, he needed her.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said. “Interesting that you have personal control of that warehouse.”

  He shrugged. “It’s under naval intelligence. Before I headed the agency, others looked after it. That’s not the only repository we maintain.”

  “I imagine it’s not. But there’s a lot more happening here than you want to admit. What about your Berlin station chief, Wilkerson? Why did he end up dead?”

  He assumed that tidbit would make it into everyone’s daily briefing booklet. But there was no need to confirm any linkage. “I’m having that investigated. The motivations may be personal, though—he was involved with a married woman. Our people are working the case right now. Too soon to say anything sinister.”

  “I want to see what’s in the warehouse.”

  He watched her face, neither hostile nor unfriendly. “What would that prove?”

  “I want to see what this is about.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He watched her again. She had a pouting mouth. Her light hair hung like two inward-curving curtains on both sides of a heart-shaped face. She was attractive and he wondered if charm might work. “Diane, listen to me. You don’t need to do this. I’ll honor our agreement. But to be able to do that, I have to do this my way. You coming here is jeopardizing everything.”

  “I’m not prepared to trust my career to you.”

  He knew a little of her history. Her father was a local Indianan politician who’d made a name for himself after getting elected lieutenant governor, then proceeded to alienate half the state. Maybe he was witnessing some of that same rebellious streak? Perhaps. But he had to make things clear. “Then I’m afraid you’re on your own.”

  He sensed comprehension washing over her. “And I’ll end up dead?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  No, he didn’t. But there was still the problem of damage control. “How about this. We’ll say there’s been a

  disagreement. You came here on an exploratory mission, and the White House and naval intelligence have worked out an arrangement whereby the information you want will be provided. That way, the base commander will be satisfied and no more questions, aside from what’s already been raised, will be asked. We leave smiling and happy.”

  He spotted defeat in her eyes.

  “Don’t screw with me,” she said.

  “I haven’t done a thing. You’re the one going off half-cocked.”

  “I swear to you, Langford, I’ll bring you down. Don’t screw with me.”

  He decided diplomacy was the better tack. At least for the moment. “As I’ve repeatedly said, I’ll keep my end of our bargain.”

  MALONE ENJOYED DINNER, ESPECIALLY SINCE HE’D EATEN LITTLEall day. Interesting how, when he

  worked in the bookshop, hunger came with a predictable regularity. But in the field, on a mission, the urge seemed to completely disappear.

  He’d listened to Isabel and her daughters, along with Werner Lindauer, talk about Hermann and Dietz Oberhauser. The tension between the daughters loomed large. Ulrich Henn had eaten with them, too, and he’d watched Henn carefully.

  The East German had sat in silence, never acknowledging that he was even hearing, but not missing a word.

  Isabel was clearly in charge, and he’d noted the waves in the others’ emotions as they rode her unsteady current.

  Neither daughter ever rose to challenge her. They either agreed or said nothing. And Werner said little of anything useful.

  He’d passed on dessert and decided to head upstairs.

  In the foyerlike lobby logs burned with a warm glow, filling the room with the scent of resin. He stopped and enjoyed the fire, noticing three framed pencil drawings of the monastery on the walls. One was an exterior sketch of the towers, everything intact, and he noticed a date in one corner. 1784. The other two were interior images. One was of the cloister, its arches and columns no longer bare. Instead carved images sprang from the stones with mathematical regularity. In the center garden the fountain
stood in all its glory, water overflowing from its iron basin. He imagined cowled figures flitting to and fro among the arches.

  The last drawing was of the inside of the church.

  An angular view from the rear vestibule facing toward the altar, from the right side, where he’d made his advance through the columns toward the gunman. No ruin was shown. Instead stone, wood, and glass assembled in a miraculous union—part gothic, part Romanesque. Artwork abounded on the columns, but with a delicate modesty, inconspicuous, a far cry from the church’s current decay. He noticed that a bronze grille enclosed the sanctuary, the Carolingian curlicues and swirls reminiscent of what he’d seen in Aachen. The flooring was intact and detailed, differing shades of gray and black denoting what would have surely been color and variety. Dates on each print read 1772.