A Tsar's Gold (Parker Chase Book 6)

by Andrew Clawson

  Jane’s phone light bobbed up and down as she walked past the tombstones before stopping in front of the first painting again. Parker opened his mouth. And then stood there, the words forgotten. Those are burial vaults. People we can’t see.

  “What about the vaults?” The idea in his head tumbled out before checking with his brain. “We can’t see what Claus left behind because it may be in the vaults.”

  Jane went still. Several beats passed before she turned her light to the nearest vault. Its silver marker flashed, like the opening to an old, expensive furnace.

  “How will we get inside?” she said.

  “Then you think it’s possible.” She nodded, and he moved beside her, looking up and down the row of markers. “There are at least twenty of these. Which one first?”

  A row of vaults stretched to his right, with another row below them. All had simple inscriptions, names and dates. Each door was identical to the others, with an inset handle on the right side, two hinges on the left. He reached out, gripped the nearest handle with both hands, and pulled.

  It didn’t budge. He tried again, leaning into it. Teeth gritted, muscles tense, he pulled with all he had. The door didn’t move. “Damn. This thing is sealed.”

  Then a memory surfaced of the grate on his parents’ fireplace. His father didn’t show him how to open it until he was nearly ten. Parker never realized you had to lift the handle before pulling. He tried again, lifting the handle as he pulled.

  It opened. The hair rose on Parker’s arms. He blinked as a fine cloud of dust filled the air.

  “There’s a body in there,” Jane said. She leaned into him, not slipping by, not pushing him out of the way like she normally did. She kept his torso between her and the darkness.

  “What’s left of one.” He pulled the grave door open as far as it would go. “Look. Bones.”

  Timeworn cloth covered parts of the occupant, now nothing but bones and dust. They were looking at the top of a skull. A few stray hairs nestled around the polished cue ball that had once been someone’s head, wiry and brittle. A moldy pillow supported it all.

  “Who is it?” Jane asked.

  Parker checked the vault door. “Otto Dalberg. He died in 1822.”

  “I assume he’s a church statesman of some sort.” Now she read the inscription on the vault door. “It doesn’t say. Just the name, birth and death dates, and a piece of scripture.” Jane glanced over Parker’s shoulder. “If anyone comes in here, we’re trapped.”

  “Then we need to hurry and check them all. Look for anything that’s not old bones or ragged clothes,” Parker said. “You’ll know when you see it.” He took a deep, dusty breath, coughed once, then reached into Otto Dalberg’s final resting place. “Sorry about this,” he said under his breath.

  He reached in and bones clattered. A dusty cloud burst forth and filled his nostrils. Parker sneezed.

  “Find anything?” Jane asked.

  “Not yet.” Parker steeled himself and dug deeper, pushing Otto aside until he had a clear view all the way in. Nothing but bones back there. Parker extricated himself and closed the vault door. “Nothing unusual in here.”

  “Check the next one.”

  He reached for the next vault door, then stopped. “Before I dig through all of these, what about Claus’s message? I doubt he’d send his sister rummaging through bodies if he could avoid it.”

  Jane pulled the letter out. “There aren’t any unusual names on here. Nothing suggesting a German cleric or other noted citizen.” She rattled the paper at him. “Mundane notes to his sister, vague details regarding his work, assurances Nazi Germany will triumph. Only what’s expected and what will pass the inspection of any censors. Beyond that, he uses mostly fake biblical passages.”

  Parker raised a finger to his lips. What was that? Voices, maybe. Or his mind playing tricks on him.

  “Keep moving,” Jane said in an urgent whisper. “There are two rows of these vaults.”

  Parker hauled the next door open to find more dust, bones smooth as ivory, and nothing else. Parker slid the vault shut. Grit and fibers covered his arms. Tears blurred his vision, and he blinked hard. Jane was already waiting in front of the next vault door, her flashlight making the headstone come alive, the elegant writing on it flashing into view.

  The writing. A thought buzzed through Parker’s head, fleeting out of range before he could catch it. This vault belonged to Hans Bauer. He wiped another tear from his eye and glanced to the vault below Hans. He angled his head for a better look. The block lettering below Hans’ name came into focus. Parker’s hand stopped in mid-air.

  “Luke Grab.” Why did he know that name? It called to him, like the thought he couldn’t catch. He ignored Jane’s tapping foot, her narrowed eyes. Luke, Luke. Then it clicked.

  “Luke was in one of the passages Claus used.”

  Jane’s foot stopped tapping.

  “There was more. A word he scribbled out.”

  “He wrote it in ink,” Jane said. “I assumed Claus didn’t want to rewrite the entire letter.”

  “Then why was the crossed-out word this man’s last name?”

  She leaned closer. “You’re right. Luke Grab.” Her voice was soft. “Grab is German for grave. Claus is pointing his sister to Luke’s grave.”

  Parker ripped the door open. More bones, another old pillow. Nothing else. No paintings, no gold bars. Parker turned to Jane and shook his head in frustration.

  “What about under the pillow?” she asked.

  “One way to find out.” Parker slid Luke Arnold’s skull aside, first checking the jaw to see if anything had been secreted inside. Nothing. He reached farther. “Feels like a ribcage. That’s his spine, and a hip below that.” Parker leaned in, reaching beyond the pelvis. He’d about run out of room. “We need to pull the skeleton out. I can’t—”

  A crinkling sound filled the vault. The rustle of skin on something man-made, and not an old shirt. “I found something. Hold on.” Heart pounding, throat dry, Parker fought every natural instinct and moved with care. No telling how fragile whatever he’d found was, whether or not it would fall to pieces in his hands. Rectangular, rough yet pliable – he knew exactly what it felt like. Which made no sense, because you didn’t find these in graves. When he pulled it out of Luke Arnold’s vault, he was proven correct.

  “An envelope?” Jane grabbed his wrist with an iron grip. “Hold still.”

  Parker held a small, thick envelope made of heavy paper, half the size of a modern one. He noted the sealed edge running along one side. His fingertips told him it wasn’t empty. “There’s something in here.”

  “Hold still.” She studied the front side, which he couldn’t see. “There’s writing on it. One word. No, wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “A name. Margot. That’s Claus’s sister.”

  Parker pushed it into her hand. “Hold this. Maybe something else is inside.” Once more he dug in Luke’s vault. It didn’t take long. “There’s a second envelope in here.” He gasped in the dusty vault air, immediately regretting it. He grabbed the envelope and extricated himself, tried to open the flap and dropped it. His phone clattered to the floor and the envelope floated away. “Damn. This one isn’t sealed, and there’s another paper inside it.” He blinked, feeling around for his phone. “Shine your light down here. I can’t find—”

  Bright light filled the room. Blinding, piercing, it burned his eyes. Parker threw an arm up to stop it.

  “Nicht bewegen!”

  A man’s voice, harsh in the small chapel. The man repeated the phrase, overwhelming Parker’s senses for an instant. With his eyes covered, no real sense of where the threat came from, he could only scrabble back, his phone and the envelope forgotten. He only stopped moving when he crashed into Jane.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered in his ear. “He’s saying don’t move.”

  Footsteps pounded toward them. The intense circle of light bounced as it moved, growing larger. A flashlight, a damn bright one at that, aimed
straight at his face. Only once it stopped mere feet away did he catch a glimpse of the man behind it. Along with the outline of a second man.

  “Steh auf,” the first man said.

  Gut instinct made Parker reach back and grab Jane, holding her in place. “Get that light out of my face.”

  The man repeated whatever he had said in German, though Parker didn’t react. Instead, he kept one arm covering his face, using the other to hold Jane down when she tried to stand.

  “We don’t speak German,” Parker said. Two quick squeezes on Jane’s arm. Hopefully she got the message.

  The man switched to English. “Stand up. Now.”

  Parker studied the man as he stood, stepping back, putting a few more feet of distance between them. At least a decade older than him, likely mid-forties, and nearly a head shorter, his hair buzzed. Parker picked all that up in an instant, then just as quickly realized it didn’t matter whether or not he could take the older man down. Not when the guy had a pistol, held beneath the flashlight and pointed at Parker’s chest. A suppressor was attached to the barrel.

  “Hands up,” the man said. “Both of you.”

  Only after they complied did the second man get closer, stepping around his partner. A priest? The cleric’s white collar contrasted with his black shirt. Why would a priest come down here with an armed guard? This priest stood over six feet, thick shoulders straining his shirt, with a scowl cracking the wide expanse of his face. He also held a gun.

  The shorter man kept talking. “Why are you here?” He had a heavy German accent.

  “We got lost.”

  The man looked around Parker, toward the open vault. “You lie. You are stealing. From a grave. Come with us.”

  Jane spoke up from behind. “We weren’t stealing anything. We got lost, and the door was open. We were trying to close it.”

  The short man didn’t blink. Before he could respond, the priest bent down and came back up with full hands. Parker’s phone and the envelope. A low conversation ensued in German. Clearly the short man was running this show, and moments later the bigger man handed over the envelope.

  “You opened this grave,” the short one said.

  “That was already open,” Parker said. “The paper fell out when I tried to close the vault door, and I dropped my phone when you two charged in here. Put the guns away before you shoot someone.”

  Parker knew he was pushing his luck. Could these guys be overzealous security? Parker stepped aside, out of the line of fire.

  The suppressed pistol was smack against his forehead before he could blink. The shorter man tapped it between Parker’s eyes. “I said, do not move. If you move again, I shoot.”

  Parker believed him. He stood rooted to the spot as the short man stepped away, the big priest replacing him with his gun held low. The short guy pulled a phone out, pressed it to his ear and said something Parker knew was a curse word even without speaking German. It was then that Parker looked at the chapel door. It had been closed tight. I left it open.

  The shorter man clicked off before closing the vault door and growling at the priest. The big fellow’s gun disappeared under his shirt before he wrapped a meaty hand around Parker’s wrist. Not a bicep or forearm, but the fragile wrist bones, which snapped like twigs if you knew where to twist. Parker’s arm was twisted around his back. “Do not try to run,” the big man said. “I will break it.”

  Parker wasn’t going anywhere as long as the shorter man had control of Jane, pushing her in front of him using the same wrist hold. “You’re not police,” Parker said. “You can’t kidnap—”

  The big man’s fist slammed into his liver and Parker’s world exploded in pain. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak as he fell to his knees. A second later the big man latched on to his wrist and hauled him up. “You want more?”

  Parker did not. He was too busy trying not to vomit. The four of them exited the underground chapel and marched up the stairs and around the still-closed rope. More visitors filled the church now, though Parker barely had time to look for help before they slipped out a side door into the daylight. Nobody gave them a second glance. And why would they? The big guy had his other arm on Parker’s shoulder, as though they were friends.

  Their captors guided them toward a side path, away from the crowds and toward the street. Traffic had picked up, cars zipping around the narrow roadways. They passed under a tree that threw spiderwebs of shade across the chapel grounds. The short guy pulled Jane toward the tree, off the sidewalk and away from anyone walking by. Parker found himself beside her, his wrist shouting in pain with the priest still behind him.

  The other guy put his phone to his ear. Parker glanced over his shoulder and saw the priest was watching traffic and looking at the people passing several feet away on the walkway. The short man spoke rapidly in German. When Parker feigned a cough and leaned over, Jane caught his eye.

  She shook her head, so slightly only Parker caught it. Her eyes flashed down, again and again, until Parker followed them to find one of her hands in the shape of a gun. First, she pointed it at Parker, thumb going down as though to fire. She repeated the gesture at herself.

  These men were going to shoot them. They didn’t know Jane understood German and so were speaking freely. Before Parker could even try to think of a plan, the phone call ended and the short guy spoke to the priest. Parker caught one word. Schiessen. Which sounded an awful lot like shoot. The false priest grunted before resuming the frog march, forcing Parker back onto the walkway. Scanning their surroundings, he weighed every option. He might be able to get away from this big guy, catch him by surprise and even overpower him. Which still left Jane vulnerable.

  He decided two things. One, they weren’t getting in a car. The suppressed pistol wouldn’t make enough noise to draw attention inside a vehicle. Second, he wouldn’t let them take Jane. Even if it meant putting himself between her and the gun. He’d dragged her into this search to follow a path he didn’t understand for reasons he wasn’t ready to admit, even to himself. His decisions had put Jane in this spot. He would get her out.

  As he struggled to figure out how, the walkway curved and the traffic noises grew louder. They’d leave the church grounds soon. In a city he didn’t know, facing enemies he never knew existed, they had one choice. To act, now. Parker gritted his teeth. The big priest would most likely break his wrist before he could get away. Be ready for it, and whatever happens, don’t stop.

  A man appeared on the walkway ahead. Only, ‘man’ didn’t do him justice. He was taller than anyone around by nearly a head, and so wide that people washed around him like a river split by an immovable boulder. This man walked their way, and, right before Parker was going to make a move, met his eyes.

  Nick Dean knew trouble when he saw it. This CIA man and former Navy SEAL had seen plenty in his day. Like now, when he realized it was Parker walking right at him with a priest at his back.

  Nick pulled a newspaper from his jacket pocket, his long strides eating up the distance to Parker as he held the paper up like a map in front of his face at arm’s length. Then Nick started shouting at the shorter man in Spanish.

  “Hola! Dónde está la iglesia?” Nick peered over top of the newspaper, heading right for them. “Dónde está la iglesia?” Nick asked again, planting himself in front of the shorter man.

  The guy moved to go around Nick. When Nick danced a quick tango to stay in his way, the man shouted in German. “Zur seite gehen!” That had no effect so he tried English. “Step aside!”

  The big priest holding Parker stopped walking. Parker caught sight of Nick’s face for the first time. Nick winked and pulled his fist back.

  During his time in the U.S. Navy, Nick Dean had enjoyed boxing. Enjoyed it so much he’d become heavyweight champion at the Naval Academy. At the same time Parker spun and got his wrist back, Nick unloaded a rocket right hand through the paper, aimed at short guy’s nose.

  The punch landed with a cartilage-shattering crunch. Short ma
n landed ten feet behind them. He did not get up.

  Surprised by the sight of his partner going airborne, the false priest didn’t even react when Parker twisted free, dropped to one knee and punched him square in the junk. He crumpled in a heap, doing Parker the favor of bending down directly into the oncoming path of an uppercut. He didn’t go airborne, but the end result matched Nick’s. Both men down.

  Parker grabbed Jane. “Go with Nick.” She didn’t resist when Nick took her hand. Parker ignored the stares of people around them as he rifled the men’s pockets, pulling out both envelopes from Shorty’s pocket and a cell phone from each man. He grabbed both guns and raced to catch up with Nick and Jane, who were nearly to the sidewalk. “Good timing, Agent Dean.”

  “I have a car down the street.”

  “Lead the way. We’ll figure out what’s next once we get out of here.”

  Nick led them to a nondescript sedan. They clambered in, Jane speaking only after Nick expertly juked through several side streets to shake out anyone following them. Finding nothing, he glanced at Parker in the seat beside him. “Didn’t know you had Germans looking for you too.”

  “Neither did we,” Parker said. The two envelopes came out of his shirt. “They were after these.” He briefly relayed how they’d found the documents in the burial vault, then nearly jumped out of his skin when Jane reached from the back seat and took them from his hands. “Careful with those,” he said.

  “I need to translate them.”

  Parker thought Nick may have smirked at that. With him, it was hard to tell. “Fair point. What do they say?”

  “One is addressed to Claus’s sister Margot. There’s a letter inside. The other envelope is blank and has something inside, but it’s not a letter.” She removed a folded sheet from inside the second envelope. “It’s a map. It looks like the coastlines of Sweden and Denmark. Yes, that’s the Baltic Sea.”