by Steve Berry
“Henrik’s no fool.”
“Maybe not. But every man meets his match.”
“How old are you?”
He wondered about the sudden shift in topic. “Thirty-two.”
“You’ve been with the service how long?”
“Four years.”
He caught Malone’s drift. Why had Henrik needed to connect with a young, inexperienced Secret Service agent who ran an off-the-wall website? “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” Malone said.
“Actually, you don’t. Thorvaldsen has been aggravating a situation that can’t stand much more irritation. He needs help.”
“That the conspiratorialist talking, or the agent?”
Malone gunned the Mazda and sped down a straightaway. More black ocean stretched to their right, the lights of a distant Sweden on the horizon.
“It’s his friend talking.”
“Obviously,” Malone said, “you have no idea about Henrik. He’s afraid of nothing.”
“Everybody’s afraid of something.”
“What’s your fear?”
He pondered the question, one he’d asked himself several times over the past few months, then answered honestly. “The man Thorvaldsen’s really after.”
“You going to tell me a name?”
“Lord Graham Ashby.”
SIX
CORSICA
ASHBY RETURNED TO ARCHIMEDES AND HOPPED FROM THE TENDER onto the aft platform. He’d brought the Corsican back with him, after acquiring the man’s undivided attention atop the tower. They’d shed the ridiculous soutane and the man had given them no trouble on the journey.
“Escort him to the main salon,” Ashby said, and Guildhall led their guest forward. “Make him comfortable.”
He climbed three teak risers to the lighted pool. He still held the book that had been retrieved from the Corsican’s house.
The ship’s captain appeared.
“Head north, along the coast, at top speed,” Ashby ordered.
The captain nodded, then disappeared.
Archimedes’ sleek black hull stretched seventy meters. Twin diesels powered her at twenty-five knots, and she could cruise transatlantic at a respectable twenty-two knots. Her six decks accommodated three suites, an owner’s apartment, office, gourmet kitchen, sauna, gym, and all the other amenities expected on a luxury vessel.
Below, engines revved.
He thought again about that night in September 1943.
All accounts described calm seas with clear skies. Bastia’s fishing fleet had been lying safe at anchor within the harbor. Only a solitary motor launch sliced through the waters offshore. Some said the boat was headed for Cape Sud and the River Golo, situated at the southern base of Cap Corse, Corsica’s northernmost promontory—a finger-like projection of mountains aimed due north to Italy. Others placed the boat in conflicting positions along the northeastern coast. Four German soldiers had been aboard the launch when two American P-39s strafed the deck with cannon fire. A dropped bomb missed and, thankfully, the planes ended their attack without finishing off the vessel. Ultimately, six wooden crates were hidden somewhere either on or near Corsica, a fifth German, on shore, aiding the other four’s escape.
Archimedes eased ahead.
They should be there in under thirty minutes.
He climbed one more deck to the grand salon where white leather, stainless-steel appointments, and cream Berber carpet made guests feel comfortable. His 16th-century English estate was replete with antiquity. Here he preferred modernity.
The Corsican sat on one of the sofas nursing a drink.
“Some of my rum?” Ashby asked.
The older man nodded, still obviously shaken.
“It’s my favorite. Made from first-press juice.”
The boat surged forward, acquiring speed, the bow quickly scything through the water.
He tossed the Napoleon book on the sofa beside his guest.
“Since we last talked, I have been busy. I’m not going to bore you with details. But I know four men brought Rommel’s gold from Italy. A fifth waited here. The four hid the treasure, and did not reveal its location before the Gestapo shot them for dereliction of duty. Unfortunately, the fifth was not privy to where they secreted the cache. Ever since, Corsicans like you have searched and distributed false information as to what happened. There are a dozen or more versions of events that have caused nothing but confusion. Which is why, last time, you lied to me.” He paused. “And why Gustave did the same.”
He poured himself a shot of rum and sat on the sofa opposite the Corsican. A wood-and-glass table rested between them. He retrieved the book and laid it on the table, “If you please, I need you to solve the puzzle.”
“If I could, I would have long ago.”
He grinned. “I recently read that when Napoleon became emperor, he excluded all Corsicans from the administration of their island. Too untrustworthy, he claimed.”
“Napoleon was Corsican, too.”
“Quite true, but you, sir, are a liar. You know how to solve the puzzle, so please do it.”
The Corsican downed the rest of his rum. “I should have never dealt with you.”
He shrugged. “You like my money. I, on the other hand, should never have dealt with you.”
“You tried to kill me on the tower.”
He laughed. “I simply wanted to acquire your undivided attention.”
The Corsican did not seem impressed. “You came to me because you knew I could provide answers.”
“And the time has come for you to do that.”
He’d spent the past two years examining every clue, interviewing what few secondary witnesses remained alive—all of the main participants were long dead—and he’d learned that no one really knew if Rommel’s gold existed. None of the stories about its origin, and journey from Africa to Germany, rang consistent. The most reliable account stated that the hoard originated from Gabès, in Tunisia, about 160 kilometers from the Libyan border. After the German Afrika Korps commandeered the town for its headquarters, its three thousand Jews were told that for “sixty hundredweight of gold” their lives would be spared. They were given forty-eight hours to produce the ransom, after which it was packed into six wooden crates, taken to the coast, and shipped north to Italy. There the Gestapo assumed control, eventually entrusting four soldiers with transporting the crates west to Corsica. What the containers contained remained unknown, but the Jews of Gabès were wealthy, as were the surrounding Jewish communities, the local synagogue a famous place of pilgrimage—the recipient, through the centuries, of many jeweled artifacts.
But was the treasure gold?
Hard to say.
Yet it had acquired the name Rommel’s gold—thought to be one of the last great caches from World War II.
The Corsican held out his empty glass and Ashby rose to refill it. He might as well indulge the man, so he returned with a tumbler three-quarters full of rum.
The Corsican enjoyed a long swallow.
“I know about the cipher,” Ashby said. “It’s actually quite ingenious. A clever way to hide a message. The Moor’s Knot, I believe it’s called.”
Pasquale Paoli, a Corsican freedom fighter from the 18th century, now a national hero, had coined the name. Paoli needed a way to effectively communicate with his allies, one that assured total privacy, so he adapted a method learned from the Moors who, for centuries, had raided the coastline as freebooting pirates.
“You acquire two identical books,” Ashby explained. “Keep one. Give the other to the person to whom you want to send the message. Inside the book you find the right words for the message, then communicate the page, line, and word number to the recipient through a series of numbers. The numbers, by themselves, are useless, unless you have the right book.”
He tabled his rum, found a folded sheet of paper in his pocket, and smoothed the page out on the glass-topped table. “These are what I provided you the last time we spoke.”
His captive examined the sheet.
“They mean nothing to me,” the Corsican said.
He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re going to have to stop this. You know it’s the location of Rommel’s gold.”
“Lord Ashby. Tonight, you’ve treated me with total disrespect. Hanging me from that tower. Calling me a liar. Saying that Gustave lied to you. Yes, I had this book. But these numbers mean nothing with reference to it. Now we are sailing to someplace that you have not even had the courtesy to identify. Your rum is delicious, the boat magnificent, but I must insist that you explain yourself.”
All his adult life Ashby had searched for treasure. Though his family were financiers of long standing, he cherished the quest for things lost over the challenge of simply making money. Sometimes the answers he sought were discovered from hard work. Sometimes informants brought, for a price, what he needed to know. And sometimes, like here, he simply stumbled upon the solution.
“I would be more than happy to explain.”
SEVEN
DENMARK, 1:50 AM
HENRIK THORVALDSEN CHECKED THE CLIP AND MADE SURE THE weapon was ready. Satisfied, he gently laid the assault rifle on the banquet table. He sat in the manor’s great hall, beneath an oak beam ceiling, surrounded by armor and paintings that conveyed the look and feel of a noble seat. His ancestors had each sat at the same table, dating back nearly four hundred years.
Christmas was in less than three days.
What was it, nearly thirty years ago that Cai had climbed atop the table?
“You must get down,” his wife demanded. “Immediately, Cai.”
The boy scampered across the long expanse, his open palms threading the tops of high-backed chairs on either side. Thorvaldsen watched as his son avoided a gilded centerpiece and raced ahead, leaping into his outstretched arms.
“You’re both impossible,” his wife said. “Totally impossible.”
“Lisette, it’s Christmas. Let the boy play.” He held him close in his lap. “He’s only seven. And the table has been here a long time.”
“Papa, will Nisse come this year?”
Cai loved the mischievous elf who, legend said, wore gray woolen clothes, a bonnet, red stockings, and white clogs. He dwelled in the lofts of old farmhouses and enjoyed playing jokes.
“To be safe,” the boy said, “we’ll need some porridge.”
Thorvaldsen smiled. His own mother had told him the same tale of how a bowl of porridge, left out on Christmas Eve, kept Nisse’s jokes within limits. Of course, that was before the Nazis slaughtered nearly every Thorvaldsen, including his father.
“We shall have porridge,” Lisette said. “Along with roasted goose, red cabbage, browned potatoes, and cinnamon rice pudding.”
“With the magic almond?” Cai asked, wonder in his voice.
His wife stroked the boy’s thin brown hair. “Yes, my precious. With the magic almond. And if you find it, there will be a prize.”
Both he and Lisette always made sure Cai found the magic almond. Though he was a Jew, Thorvaldsen’s father and wife had been Christian, so the holiday had found a place in his life. Every year he and Lisette had decorated an aromatic fir with homemade wood and straw baubles and, per tradition, never allowed Cai to see their creation until after Christmas Eve dinner, when they all gathered and sang carols.
My, how he’d enjoyed Christmas.
Until Lisette died.
Then, two years ago, when Cai was murdered, the holiday lost all meaning. The past three, including this one, had been torture. He found himself every year sitting here, at the end of the table, wondering why life had been so cruel.
This year, though, was different.
He reached out and caressed the gun’s black metal. Assault rifles were illegal in Denmark, but laws did not interest him.
Justice.
That’s what he wanted.
He sat in silence. Not a light burned anywhere in Christiangade’s forty-one rooms. He actually relished the thought of a world devoid of illumination. There his deformed spine would go unnoticed. His leathery face would never be seen. His bushy silver hair and bristly eyebrows would never require trimming. In the dark, only a person’s senses mattered.
And his were finely tuned.
His eyes searched the dark hall as his mind kept remembering.
He could see Cai everywhere. Lisette, too. He was a man of immeasurable wealth, power, and influence. Few heads of state, or imperial crowns, refused his requests. His porcelain, and reputation, remained among the finest in the world. He’d never seriously practiced Judaism, but he was a devoted friend of Israel. Last year he’d risked everything to stop a fanatic from destroying that blessed state. Privately, he supported charitable causes around the world with millions of the family’s euros.
But he was the last Thorvaldsen.
Only the most distant of relatives remained, and damn few of them. This family, which had endured for centuries, was about to end.
But not before justice was administered.
He heard a door open, then footsteps echoed across the black hall.
A clock somewhere announced two AM.
The footsteps stopped a few meters away and a voice said, “The sensors just tripped.”
Jesper had been with him a long time, witnessing all of the joy and pain—which, Thorvaldsen knew, his friend had felt as well.
“Where?” he asked.
“Southeast quadrant, near the shore. Two trespassers, headed this way.”
“You don’t need to do this,” he said to Jesper.
“We need to prepare.”
He smiled, glad his old friend could not see him. For the past two years he’d battled near-constant waves of conflicting emotion, involving himself with quests and causes that, only temporarily, allowed him to forget that pain, anguish, and sorrow had become his companions.
“What of Sam?” he asked.
“No further word since his earlier call. But Malone called twice. I allowed the phone to ring, as you instructed.”
Which meant Malone had done what he’d needed him to do.
He’d baited this trap with great care. Now he intended to spring it with equal precision.
He reached for the rifle.
“Time to welcome our guests.”
EIGHT
ELIZA SAT FORWARD IN HER SEAT. SHE NEEDED TO COMMAND Robert Mastroianni’s complete attention.
“Between 1689 and 1815, England was at war for sixty-three years. That’s one out of every two in combat—the off years spent preparing for more combat. Can you imagine what that cost? And that was not atypical. It was actually common during that time for European nations to stay at war.”
“Which, you say, many people actually profited from?” Mastroianni asked.
“Absolutely. And winning those wars didn’t matter, since every time a war was fought governments incurred more debt and financiers amassed more privileges. It’s like what drug companies do today. Treating the symptoms of a disease, never curing it, always being paid.”
Mastroianni finished the last of his chocolate tart. “I own stock in three of those pharmaceutical concerns.”
“Then you know what I just said is true.”
She stared him down with hard eyes. He returned the glare but seemed to decide not to engage her.
“That tart was marvelous,” he finally said. “I confess to a sweet tooth.”
“I brought you another.”
“Now you’re bribing me.”
“I want you to be a part of what is about to happen.”
“Why?”
“Men like you are rare commodities. You have great wealth, power, influence. You’re intelligent. Innovative. As with the rest of us, you are certainly tired of sharing great portions of your results with greedy, incompetent governments.”
“So what is about to happen, Eliza? Explain the mystery.”
She could not go that far. Not yet. “Let me answer by explaining more ab
out Napoleon. Do you know much about him?”
“Short fellow. Wore a funny hat. Always had a hand stuck inside his coat.”
“Did you know more books have been written about him than any other historical figure, save perhaps Jesus Christ.”
“I never realized you were such the historian.”
“I never realized you were so obstinate.”
She’d known Mastroianni a number of years, not as a friend, more as a casual business associate. He owned, outright, the world’s largest aluminum plant. He was also heavy into auto manufacturing, aircraft repair, and, as he’d noted, health care.
“I’m tired of being stalked,” he said. “Especially by a woman who wants something, yet can’t tell me what or why.”
She decided to do some ignoring of her own. “I like what Flaubert once wrote. History is prophecy, looking backwards.”
He chuckled. “Which perfectly illustrates your peculiar French view. I’ve always found it irritating how the French resolve all their conflicts on the battlefields of yesterday. It’s as if some glorious past will provide the precise solution.”
“That irritates the Corsican half of me sometimes as well. But occasionally, one of those former battlefields can be instructive.”
“Then, Eliza, do tell me of Napoleon.”
Only for the fact that this brash Italian was the perfect addition to her club did she continue. She could not, and would not, allow pride to interfere with careful planning.
“He created an empire not seen since the days of Rome. Seventy million people were under his personal rule. He was a man at ease with both the reek of gunpowder and the smell of parchment. He actually proclaimed himself emperor. Can you imagine? A mere thirty-five years old, he snubs the pope and places the imperial crown upon his own head.” She allowed her words to take root, then said, “Yet for all that ego, Napoleon built, specifically for himself, only two memorials, both small theaters that no longer exist.”
“What of all the buildings and monuments he erected?”
“Not one was created in his honor, or bears his name. Most were not even completed till long after his death. He even specifically vetoed the renaming of the Place de la Concorde to Place Napoleon.”