The Charlemagne Pursuit

  He’d talked enough. There were things to do before he slept. So he ended the meeting on a note Diane McCoy should not forget. “The right members will not only endorse my candidacy, they’ll insist on it.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ETTAL MONASTERY

  1:05 AM

  MALONE WATCHED ASCHRISTLFALK UNLOCKED THE DOOR FORthe abbey church. Clearly, the Oberhauser

  family had considerable pull with the monks. It was the middle of the night and they were coming and going as they pleased.

  The opulent church remained dimly lit. They crossed the darkened marble floor with only their leather heels echoing across the warm interior. His senses were alert. He’d learned that empty European churches, at night, tended to be a problem.

  They entered the sacristy and Christl headed straight for the portal that led down into the abbey’s bowels. At the bottom of the stairs, the door at the far end of the corridor hung ajar.

  He grabbed her arm and shook his head, signaling that they should advance with caution. He gripped the gun from the cable car and kept close to the wall. At the end of the hallway he peered inside the room.

  Everything was askew.

  “Maybe the monks are pissed?” he said.

  The stones and wood carvings lay scattered on the floor, the displays in total disarray. Tables at the far end had been toppled. The two wall cabinets had been rifled through.

  Then he saw the body.

  The woman from the cable car. No visible wounds or blood, but he caught a familiar scent in the still air.

  “Cyanide.”

  “She was poisoned?”

  “Look at her. She choked on her tongue.”

  He saw that Christl didn’t want to look at the corpse.

  “I can’t take that,” she said. “Dead bodies.”

  She was becoming upset, so he asked, “What did we come to see?”

  She seemed to grab hold of her emotions and her gaze raked the debris. “They’re gone. The stones from Antarctica that Grandfather found. They’re not here.”

  He didn’t see them, either. “Are they important?”

  “They have the same writing on them as the books.”

  “Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “This is not right,” she muttered.

  “You could say that. The monks are going to be a little upset, regardless of your family’s patronage.”

  She was clearly flustered.

  “Are the stones all we came to see?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. You’re right. There’s more.” She stepped toward one of the gaily decorated cabinets, its doors and drawers open, and glanced inside. “Oh, my.”

  He came up behind her and saw that a hole had been hacked into the rear panel, the splintered opening large enough for

  a hand to pass through.

  “Grandfather and Father kept their papers there.”

  “Which somebody seems to have known.”

  She inserted her arm. “Empty.”

  Then she rushed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “We have to hurry. I only hope we’re not too late.”

  RAMSEY SWITCHED OFF THE LIGHTS ON THE GROUND FLOOR ANDclimbed the stairs to his bedroom.

  Diane McCoy was gone. He’d considered several times expanding their collaboration. She was attractive in body and brain. But he’d decided that it was a bad idea. How many men of power had been brought down by a piece of ass? Too many to even recall, and he did not intend to join that list.

  Clearly, McCoy had been concerned about Edwin Davis. He knew Davis. Their paths had crossed years ago in Brussels with Millicent, a woman he’d enjoyed, many times. She, too, was bright, young, and eager. But also—

  “Pregnant,” Millicent said.

  He’d heard her the first time. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Marrying me would be good.”

  “But I don’t love you.”

  She laughed. “Yes, you do. You just won’t admit it.”

  “No, actually, I don’t. I enjoy sleeping with you. I enjoy listening to you tell me about what goes on in the office. I enjoy picking your brain. But I don’t want to marry you.”

  She snuggled close. “You’d miss me if I were gone.”

  He was amazed at how seemingly intelligent women could care so little about their self-respect. He’d struck this woman too many times to count, yet she never fled, almost as if she liked it. Deserved it. Wanted it. A few jabs right now would do them both good, but he decided patience would serve him better, so he held her in a tight embrace and softly said, “You’re right. I would miss you.”

  Less than a month later, she was dead.

  Within a week, Edwin Davis was gone, too.

  Millicent had told him how Davis always came when she called and helped her through his constant rejection. Why she confessed such things, he could only guess. It was as if his knowing might prevent him from hurting her again. Yet he always did, and she always forgave him. Davis never said a word, but Ramsey many times saw hatred in the younger man’s eyes—along with the frustration that came from his utter inability to do anything about it. Davis then was a low-level State Department employee on one of his first foreign assignments, his job to resolve problems not create them—

  to keep his mouth shut and his ears open. But now Edwin Davis was a deputy national security adviser to the president of the United States. Different time, different rules. He has free access to Daniels, as I do, per the president’s order.

  That’s what McCoy had said. She was right. Whatever Davis was doing involved him. No proof existed for the

  conclusion, just a feeling, one he’d learned long ago to never doubt.

  So Edwin Davis might have to be eliminated.

  Just like Millicent.

  WILKERSON TRUDGED THROUGH THE SNOW TO WHEREDOROTHEALindauer had parked her car. His

  vehicle was still smoldering. Dorothea seemed unconcerned with the lodge’s destruction, even though, as she’d told him weeks ago, the house had been owned by her family since the mid–nineteenth century.

  They’d left the bodies among the rubble. “We’ll deal with them later, ” Dorothea had said. Other matters demanded their immediate attention.

  He was carrying the last box brought from Füssen and loaded it into the trunk. He was sick of cold and snow. He liked the sun and heat. He would have made a much better Roman than Viking.

  He opened the car door and worked his tired limbs in behind the wheel. Dorothea already sat in the passenger seat.

  “Do it,” she said to him.

  He glanced at his luminous watch and calculated the time difference. He didn’t want to make the call. “Later.”

  “No. He has to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Men like that have to be kept off balance. He’ll make mistakes that way.”

  He was torn between confusion and fear. “I just escaped getting killed. I’m not in the mood for this.”

  She touched his arm. “Sterling, listen to me. This is in motion. There’s no stopping. Tell him.”

  He could barely make out her face in the darkness, but easily visualized in his mind her intense beauty. She was one of the most striking women he’d ever known. Smart, too. She’d correctly predicted that Langford Ramsey was a snake.

  And she’d also just saved his life.

  So he found his phone and punched in the number. He provided the operator on the other end his security code and the day’s password, then told her what he wanted.

  Two minutes later Langford Ramsey came on the line.

  “It’s mighty late where you are,” the admiral said, his tone amicable.

  “You sorry SOB. You’re a lying piece of shit.”

  A moment of silence, then, “I assume there’s a reason you’re speaking to a superior officer this way.”

  “I survived.”

  “What is it you survived?”

  The quizzical tone co
nfused him. But why wouldn’t Ramsey lie? “You sent a team to take me out.”

  “I assure you, Captain, if I wanted you dead you would be. You should be more concerned with who it is that seems to want you dead. Perhaps Frau Lindauer? I sent you to make contact, to get to know her, to find out what I needed to know.”

  “And I did exactly what you instructed. I wanted that damn star.”

  “And you’ll have it, as promised. But have you accomplished anything?”

  In the quiet of the car Dorothea had heard Ramsey. She grabbed the phone and said, “You’re a liar, Admiral. It’s you who wants him dead. And I’d say he’s accomplished a lot.”

  “Frau Lindauer, so good to finally speak to you,” he heard Ramsey say through the phone.

  “Tell me, Admiral, why do I interest you?”

  “You don’t. But your family does.”

  “You know about my father, don’t you?”

  “I’m acquainted with the situation.”

  “You know why he was on that submarine.”

  “The question is, why are you so interested? Your family has been cultivating sources within the navy for years. Did you think I didn’t know that? I simply sent you one.”

  “We’ve known there was more,” she said.

  “Unfortunately, Frau Lindauer, you’ll never know the answer.”

  “Don’t count on that.”

  “Such bravado. I’ll be anxious to see if you can make good on that boast.”

  “How about you answer one question?”

  Ramsey chuckled. “Okay, one question.”

  “Is there anything there to find?”

  Wilkerson was baffled by the inquiry. Anything where to find?

  “You can’t imagine,” Ramsey said.

  And the line clicked off.

  She handed him the phone and he asked her, “What did you mean? Anything there to find.”

  She sat back in the seat. Snow coated the car’s exterior.

  “I was afraid of this,” she muttered. “Unfortunately, the answers are all in Antarctica.”

  “What are you searching for?”

  “I need to read what’s in the trunk before I can tell you that. I’m still not sure.”

  “Dorothea, I’m tossing my whole career, my whole life away for this. You heard Ramsey. He may not have been after me.”

  She sat rigid, never moving. “You’d be dead right now if it weren’t for me.” Her head turned his way. “Your life is locked to mine.”

  “And I’ll say it again. You have a husband.”

  “Werner and I are through. We have been for a long time. It’s you and me now.”

  She was right and he knew it. Which both bothered and excited him.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “A great deal for us both, I hope.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  BAVARIA

  MALONE SURVEYED THE CASTLE THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD, THEponderous edifice clinging to a sharply

  rising slope. Mullioned, dormer, and graceful oriel windows shone to the night. Arc lights cast the exterior walls with a mellow medieval beauty. Something Luther once said about another German citadel flashed through his mind. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

  He was driving his rental car, Christl Falk in the passenger seat. They’d left Ettal Monastery in a hurry and plunged deep into the frozen Bavarian woods, following a forlorn highway devoid of traffic. Finally, after a forty-minute ride, the castle appeared and he drove them inside, parking in a courtyard. Above, dotting an ink-blue sky, shone a brilliance of sparkling stars.

  “This is our home,” Christl said as they exited. “The Oberhauser estate. Reichshoffen.”

  “Hope and empire,” he translated. “Interesting name.”

  “Our family motto. We’ve occupied this hilltop for over seven hundred years.”

  He surveyed the scene of order, meticulous in arrangement, neutral in color, broken only by stains of snow that oozed from the ancient stone.

  She turned away and he caught her wrist. Beautiful women were difficult, and this stranger was indeed beautiful. Even worse, she was playing him and he knew it.

  “Why is your name Falk and not Oberhauser?” he asked, trying to throw her off balance.

  Her eyes dropped to her arm. He released his grip.

  “A marriage that was a mistake.”

  “Your sister. Lindauer. Still married?”

  “She is, though I can’t say it’s much of one. Werner likes her money and she likes being married. Gives her an excuse for why her lovers can never be more.”

  “You going to tell me why you two don’t get along?”

  She smiled, which only magnified her allure. “That depends on whether you agree to help.”

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Your father. It’s why I’m here, too.”

  He doubted that but decided to quit stalling. “Then let’s see what’s so important.”

  They entered through an arched doorway. His attention was drawn to a huge tapestry that draped the far wall. Another odd drawing, this one stitched in gold upon a deep maroon-and-navy background.

  She noticed his interest. “Our family crest.”

  He studied the image. A crown poised over an iconic drawing of an animal—perhaps a dog or cat, hard to say—

  gripping what looked like a rodent in its mouth. “What does it mean?”

  “I’ve never received a good explanation. But one of our ancestors liked it, so he had the tapestry sewn and hung there.”

  Outside he heard the unmuffled roar of an engine gunning into the courtyard. He stared out through the open doorway and saw a man emerge from a Mercedes coupe with an automatic weapon.

  He recognized the face.

  The same one from his room, earlier, at the Posthotel.

  What the hell?

  The man leveled the gun.

  He yanked Christl back as high-velocity rounds whizzed through the doorway and obliterated a table abutting the far wall. Glass shattered from an adjacent floor clock. They rushed forward, Christl leading the way. More bullets strafed the wall behind him.

  He gripped the gun from the cable car as they turned a corner and bolted down a short corridor that emptied into a grand hall.

  He quickly spied the surroundings and saw a quadrangular-shaped room adorned with colonnades that rose on four sides, long galleries above and beneath. At the far end, illuminated by weak incandescent fixtures, hung the symbol of the former German Empire—a black, red, and gold banner emblazoned with an eagle. The black yaw of a stone

  fireplace, large enough for several people to stand inside, opened beneath it.

  “Split up,” she said. “You go up.”

  Before he could object, she rushed ahead into the darkness.

  He spotted a staircase that led up to the second-floor gallery and moved lightly toward the first step. Blackness numbed his eyes. Niches were everywhere, dark voids where, he worried, more ill-disposed retainers could lie in wait.

  He crept up the stairs and entered the upper gallery, embracing the darkness, hovering a couple of yards away from the balustrade. A shadow entered the hall below, backlit by light slanting in from the corridor beyond. Eighteen chairs lined a massive dining table. Their gilded backs stood rigid, like soldiers in a line, except for two, which Christl had apparently crawled beneath since she was nowhere to be seen.

  A laugh permeated the stillness. “You’re dead, Malone.”

  Fascinating. The man knew his name.

  “Come and get me,” he called out, knowing the hall would generate an echo and make it impossible to pinpoint his location.

  He saw the man probe the darkness, surveying the arches, noticing a tiled stove in one corner, the massive table, and a brass chandelier that loomed over it all.

  Malone fired below.

  The bullet missed.

  Footsteps rushed toward the stairway.

  Malone darted ahead, turned the
corner, and slowed as he found the opposite gallery. No footsteps could be heard from behind, but the gunman was definitely there.