The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  “Let me answer that by telling you what happened north of here, in Aachen, on a Sunday in May, a thousand years after Christ.”

  Otto III watched as the last impediments to his imperial destiny were smashed away. He stood inside the vestibule of the palace chapel, a sacred building erected two hundred years earlier by the man whose grave he was about to enter.

  “It is done, Sire,” von Lomello declared.

  The count was an irritating man who ensured that the royal palatinate remained properly maintained in the emperor’s absence. Which, in Otto’s case, seemed most of the time. As emperor he had never cared for the German forests, or for Aachen’s hot springs, frigid winters, and total lack of civility. He preferred the warmth and culture of Rome.

  Workers carried off the last of the shattered floor stones.

  They hadn’t known exactly where to excavate. The crypt had been sealed long ago with nothing to indicate the precise spot. The idea had been to hide its occupant from the coming Viking invasions, and the ploy worked. When the Normans sacked the chapel in 881, they found nothing. But von Lomello had mounted an exploratory mission before Otto’s arrival and had managed to isolate a promising location.

  Luckily, the count had been right.

  Otto had no time for mistakes.

  After all, it was an apocalyptic year, the first of a new millennium when many believed Christ would come in judgment.

  Workers busied themselves. Two bishops watched in silence. The tomb they were about to enter had not been opened since January 29, 814, the day on which the Most Serene Augustus Crowned by God the Great Peaceful Emperor, Governing the Roman Empire, King of the Franks and Lombards Through the Mercy of God, died. By then he was already wise beyond mortals, an inspirer of miracles, the protector of Jerusalem, a clairvoyant, a man of iron, a bishop of bishops. One poet proclaimed that no one would be nearer to the apostolic band than he. In life he’d been called Carolus. Magnus first became attached to his name in reference to his great height, but now indicated greatness. His French label, though, was the one used most commonly, a merger of Carolus and Magnus into a name presently uttered with heads bowed and voices low, as if speaking of God.

  Charlemagne.

  Workers drew back from the black yaw in the floor and von Lomello inspected their labor. A strange odor crept into the vestibule—sweet, musty, sickly. Otto had sniffed tainted meat, spoiled milk, and human waste. This waft was distinct. Like long ago. Air that had stood guard over things men were not meant to see.

  A torch was lit and one of the workmen stretched his arm into the hole. When the man nodded a wooden ladder was brought from outside.

  Today was the feast of the Pentecost, and earlier the chapel had been filled with worshipers. Otto was on pilgrimage. He’d just come from the tomb of his old friend Adalbert, bishop of Prague, buried at Gnesen, where, as emperor, he’d raised that city to the dignity of an archbishopric. Now he’d come to gaze at the mortal remains of Charlemagne.

  “I’ll go first,” Otto said to them.

  He was a mere twenty years old, a man of commanding height, the son of a German king and a Greek mother. Crowned Holy Roman Emperor at age three, he’d reigned under the guardianship of his mother for the first eight years and his grandmother for three more. The past six he’d ruled alone. His goal was to reestablish a Renovatio Imperii, a Christian Roman Empire, with Teutons, Latins, and Slavs all, as in the time of Charlemagne, under the common rule of emperor and pope. What lay below might help elevate that dream into reality.

  He stepped onto the ladder and von Lomello handed him a torch. Eight rungs passed before his eyes until his feet found hard earth. The air was bland and tepid, like that of a cave, the strange odor nearly overpowering, but he told himself that it was nothing more than the scent of power.

  The torch revealed a chamber sheathed in marble and mortar, similar in size to the vestibule above. Von Lomello and the two bishops descended the ladder.

  Then he saw.

  Beneath a canopy, Charlemagne waited upon a marble throne.

  The corpse was wrapped in purple and held a scepter in a gloved left hand. The king sat as a living person, one shoulder leaned against the throne, the head raised by a golden chain attached to the diadem. The face was covered by a sheer cloth. Decay was evident, but none of the limbs had fallen away save for the tip of his nose.

  Otto dropped to his knees in reverence. The others quickly joined him. He was entranced. He’d never expected such a sight. He’d heard tales but had never paid them much heed. Emperors needed legends.

  “It is said that a piece of the cross was laid in the diadem,” von Lomello whispered.

  Otto had heard the same. The throne rested atop a slab of carved marble, its three visible sides lively with carved reliefs. Men. Horses. A chariot. A two-headed hell-hound. Women holding baskets of flowers. All Roman. Otto had seen other examples of such magnificence in Italy. He took its presence here, in a Christian tomb, as a sign that what he envisioned for his empire was right.

  A shield and sword rested to one side. He knew about the shield. Pope Leo himself had consecrated it the day Charlemagne was crowned emperor two hundred years ago, and upon it was emblazoned the royal seal. Otto had seen the symbol on documents in the imperial library.

  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 as Edwin Davis 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 Highjump, 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 came from 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.”