The Charlemagne Pursuit (15 page)

TWENTY-NINE

WASHINGTON, DC
4:30 AM

R
AMSEY SLIPPED ON HIS BATHROBE
. T
IME FOR ANOTHER DAY.
I
N
fact, this could well become the most important day of his life, the first step on a life-defining journey.

He’d dreamed of Millicent and Edwin Davis and NR-1A. A strange combination that wove themselves together in unsettling images. But he was not going to let any fantasy spoil reality. He’d come a long way—and within a few hours he’d claim the next prize. Diane McCoy had been right. It was doubtful he’d be the president’s first choice to succeed David Sylvian. He knew of at least two others Daniels would certainly nominate ahead of him—assuming that the decision would be the White House’s alone. Thank goodness free choice was a rarity in Washington politics.

He descended to the first floor and entered his study just as his cell phone rang. He carried the thing constantly. The display indicated an overseas exchange. Good. Since speaking to Wilkerson earlier, he’d been waiting to know if the apparent failure had been reversed.

“Those packages for Christmas you ordered,” the voice said. “We’re sorry to say they may not arrive in time.”

He quelled a renewed anger. “And the reason for the delay?”

“We thought there was inventory in our warehouse, but discovered that none was on hand.”

“Your inventory problems are not my concern. I prepaid weeks ago, expecting prompt delivery.”

“We’re aware of that and plan to make sure delivery occurs on time. We just wanted you to be aware of a slight delay.”

“If it requires priority shipping, then incur the cost. It does not matter to me. Just make the deliveries.”

“We’re tracking the packages now and should be able to verify delivery shortly.”

“Make sure you do,” he said, and clicked off.

Now he was agitated. What was happening in Germany? Wilkerson still alive? And Malone? Two loose ends he could ill afford. But there was nothing he could do. He had to trust the assets on the ground. They’d performed well before and hopefully would this time.

He switched on the desk lamp.

One of the things that had attracted him to this town house, besides its location, size, and ambience, was a cabinet safe the owner had discreetly installed. Not flawless by any means, but enough protection for files brought home overnight, or the few folders he privately maintained.

He opened the concealed wooden panel and punched in a digital code.

Six files stood upright inside.

He removed the first one on the left.

Charlie Smith was not only an excellent killer, but also gathered information with the zeal of a squirrel locating winter nuts. He seemed to love discovering secrets that people went to great lengths to hide. Smith had spent the past two years collecting facts. Some of it was being used right now, and the rest would be brought into play over the next few days, as needed.

He opened the folder and reacquainted himself with the details.

Amazing how a public persona could be so different from the private person. He wondered how politicos maintained their façades. It had to be difficult. Urges and desires pointed one way—career and image jerked them another.

Senator Aatos Kane was a perfect example.

Fifty-six years old. A fourth-termer from Michigan, married, three children. A career politician since his midtwenties, first at the state level then in the US Senate. Daniels had considered him for vice president when a vacancy came available last year, but Kane had declined, saying that he appreciated the White House’s confidence but believed he could serve the president better by staying in the Senate. Michigan had breathed a sigh of relief. Kane was rated by several congressional watchdog groups as one of Congress’s most effective purveyors of pork barrel legislation. Twenty-two years on Capitol Hill had taught Aatos Kane all of the right lessons.

And the most important?

All politics were local.

Ramsey smiled. He loved negotiable souls.

Dorothea Lindauer’s question still rang in his ears.
Is there anything there to find?
He hadn’t thought about that trip to Antarctic in years.

How many times had they gone ashore?

Four?

The ship’s captain—Zachary Alexander—had been an inquisitive sort, but, per orders, Ramsey had kept their mission secret. Only the radio receiver his team brought on board had been tuned to NR-1A’s emergency transponder. No signal had ever been heard by monitoring stations in the Southern Hemisphere. Which had made the ultimate cover-up easier. No radiation had been detected. It was thought that a signal and radiation might be more discernible closer to the source. In those days ice had a tendency to wreak havoc with sensitive electronics. So they’d listened and monitored the water for two days as
Holden
patrolled the Weddell Sea, a place of howling winds, luminous purple clouds, and ghostly halos around a weak sun.

Nothing.

Then they’d taken the equipment ashore.

“What do you have?” he asked Lt. Herbert Rowland.

The man was excited. “Signal bearing two hundred and forty degrees.”

He stared out across a dead continent swathed in a mile-thick shroud of ice. Eight degrees below zero and nearly summer. A signal? Here? No way. They were six hundred yards inland from where they’d beached their boat, the terrain as flat and broad as the sea; it was impossible to know if water or earth lay below. Off to the right and ahead, mountains rose like teeth over the glittery white tundra.

“Signal definite at two hundred and forty degrees,” Rowland repeated.

“Sayers,” he called out to the third member of the team.

The remaining lieutenant was fifty yards ahead, checking for fissures. Perception was a constant problem. White snow, white sky, even the air was white with constant breath clouds. This was a place of mummified emptiness, to which the human eye was little better adjusted than pitch darkness.

“It’s the damn sub,” Rowland said, his attention still on the receiver.

He could still feel the absolute cold that had enveloped him in that shadowless land where palls of gray-green fog materialized in an instant. They’d been plagued by bad weather, low ceilings, dense clouds, and constant wind. During every Northern Hemisphere winter he’d experienced since, he’d compared its ferocity with the intensity of an ordinary Antarctic day. Four days he’d spent there—four days he’d never forgotten.

You can’t imagine,
he’d told Dorothea Lindauer in answer to her question.

He stared down into the safe.

Beside the folders lay a journal.

Thirty-eight years ago naval regulations required that commanding officers on all seagoing vessels maintain one.

He slid the book free.

THIRTY

ATLANTA, 7:22 AM

S
TEPHANIE ROUSED
E
DWIN
D
AVIS FROM A SOUND SLEEP
. H
E CAME
up with a start, at first disoriented until he realized where he lay.

“You snore,” she said.

Even through a closed door and down the hall, she’d heard him during the night.

“So I’m told. I do that when I’m really tired.”

“And who tells you that?”

He swiped the sleep from his eyes. He lay on the bed fully dressed, his cell phone beside him. They’d arrived back in Atlanta a little before midnight on the last flight from Jacksonville. He’d suggested a hotel, but she’d insisted on her guest room.

“I’m not a monk,” he declared.

She knew little of his private life. Unmarried, that much she did know. But had he ever been? Any children? Now, though, was not the time to pry. “You need a shave.”

He rubbed his chin. “So good of you to point that out.”

She headed for the door. “There’s towels and some razors—girlie ones, I’m afraid—in the hall bath.”

She’d already showered and dressed, ready for whatever the day might hold.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, standing. “You run a tight ship.”

She left him and entered the kitchen, switching on the counter television. Rarely did she eat much breakfast beyond a muffin or some wheat flakes, and she detested coffee. Green tea usually was her choice of a hot beverage. She needed to check with the office. Having a nearly nonexistent staff helped with security but was hell on delegating.

“—it’s going to be interesting,” a CNN reporter was saying. “President Daniels has recently voiced much displeasure with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a speech two weeks ago he hinted whether that entire chain of command was even needed.”

The screen shifted to Daniels standing before a blue podium.

“They don’t command anything,” he said in his trademark baritone. “They’re advisers. Politicians. Policy repeaters, not makers. Don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for these men. It’s the institution itself I have problems with. There’s no question that the talents of the officers now on the Joint Chiefs could be better utilized in other capacities.”

Back to the reporter, a perky brunette. “All of which makes you wonder if, or how, he’ll fill the vacancy caused by the untimely death of Admiral David Sylvian.”

Davis walked into the kitchen, his gaze locked on the television.

She noticed his interest. “What is it?”

He stood silent, sullen, preoccupied. Finally, he said, “Sylvian is the navy’s man on the Joint Chiefs.”

She didn’t understand. She’d read about the motorcycle accident and Sylvian’s injuries. “It’s unfortunate he died, Edwin, but what’s the matter?”

He reached into his pocket and found his phone. A few punches of the keys and he said, “I need to know how Admiral Sylvian died. Exact cause, and fast.”

He ended the call.

“Are you going to explain?” she asked.

“Stephanie, there’s more to Langford Ramsey. About six months ago the president received a letter from the widow of a navy lieutenant—”

The phone gave a short clicking sound. Davis studied the screen and answered. He listened a few moments then ended the call.

“That lieutenant worked in the navy’s general accounting office. He’d noticed irregularities. Several million dollars channeled to bank after bank, then the money simply disappeared. The accounts were all attached to naval intelligence, director’s office.”

“The intelligence business runs on covert money,” she said. “I have several blind accounts that I use for outside payments, contract help, that kind of thing.”

“That lieutenant died two days before he was scheduled to brief his superiors. His widow knew some of what he’d learned, and distrusted everyone in the military. She wrote the president with a personal plea, and the letter was directed to me.”

“And when you saw Office of Naval Intelligence, your radar went to full alert. So what did you find when you looked into those accounts?”

“They couldn’t be found.”

She’d experienced a similar frustration. Banks in various parts of the world were infamous for erasing accounts—provided, of course, enough fees were paid by the account holder. “So what’s got you riled up now?”

“That lieutenant dropped dead in his house, watching television. His wife went to the grocery store and, when she came home, he was dead.”

“It happens, Edwin.”

“His blood pressure bottomed out. He had a heart murmur for which he’d been treated and, you’re right, things like that happen. The autopsy found nothing. With his history and no evidence of foul play, the cause of death seemed easy.”

She waited.

“I was just told that Admiral David Sylvian died from low blood pressure.”

His expression mingled disgust, anger, and frustration.

“Too much of a coincidence for you?” she asked.

He nodded. “You and I know Ramsey controlled the accounts that that lieutenant found. And now there’s a vacancy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”

“You’re reaching, Edwin.”

“Am I?” Disdain laced his tone. “My office said they were just about to contact me. Last night, before I dozed off, I ordered two Secret Service agents dispatched to Jacksonville. I wanted them to keep an eye on Zachary Alexander. They arrived an hour ago. His house burned to the ground last night, with him inside.”

She was shocked.

“Indications are an electrical short from wires beneath the house.”

She told herself never to play poker with Edwin Davis. He’d received both bits of news with a nothing face. “We have to find those other two lieutenants who were in the Antarctic with Ramsey.”

“Nick Sayers is dead,” he said. “Years ago. Herbert Rowland is still alive. He lives outside Charlotte. I had that checked last night, too.”

Secret Service? White House staff cooperating? “You’re full of crap, Edwin. You’re not in this alone. You’re on a mission.”

His eyes flickered. “That all depends. If it works, then I’m okay. If I fail, then I’m going down.”

“You staked your career on this?”

“I owe it to Millicent.”

“Why am I here?”

“Like I told you, Scot Harvath said no. But he told me nobody flies solo better than you.”

That rationalization was not necessarily comforting. But what the hell. The line had already been crossed.

“Let’s head to Charlotte.”

THIRTY-ONE

AACHEN, GERMANY
11:00 AM

M
ALONE FELT THE TRAIN SLOW AS THEY ENTERED THE OUTSKIRTS
of Aachen. Even though his worries from last night had receded into better proportion, he wondered what was he doing here. Christl Falk sat beside him, but the ride north from Garmisch had taken about three hours and they’d said little.

His clothes and toiletries from the Posthotel had been waiting for him when he awoke at Reichshoffen. A note had explained that Ulrich Henn had retrieved them during the night. He’d slept on sheets that smelled of clover then showered, shaved, and changed. Of course, he’d only brought a couple of shirts and pants from Denmark, planning to be gone no more than a day, two at the most. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Isabel had been waiting for him downstairs, and he’d informed the Oberhauser matriarch that he’d decided to help. What choice did he have? He wanted to know about his father, and he wanted to know who was trying to kill him. Walking away would lead to nothing. And the old woman had made one point clear.
They knew things he didn’t.

“Twelve hundred years ago,” Christl said, “this was the center of the secular world. The capital of the newly conceived Northern Empire. What two hundred years later we called the Holy Roman Empire.”

He smiled. “Which was not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”

She nodded. “True. But Charlemagne was quite the progressive. A man of immense energy, he founded universities, generated legal principles that eventually made their way into the common law, organized the government, and started a nationalism that inspired the creation of Europe. I’ve studied him for years. He seemed to make all the right decisions. He ruled for forty-seven years and lived to be seventy-four at a time when kings barely lasted five years in power and were dead at thirty.”

“And you think all that happened because he had help?”

“He ate in moderation and drank carefully—and this was when gluttony and drunkenness ran rampant. He daily rode, hunted, and swam. One reason he chose Aachen for his capital was the hot springs, which he used religiously.”

“So the Holy Ones taught him about diet, hygiene, and exercise?”

He saw she caught his sarcasm.

“Characteristically, he was a warrior,” she said. “His entire reign was marked by conquest. But he took a disciplined approach to war. He’d plan a campaign for at least a year, studying the opposition. He also
directed
battles as opposed to participating in them.”

“He was also brutal as hell. At Verden he ordered the beheading of forty-five hundred bound Saxons.”

“That’s not certain,” she said. “No archaeological evidence of that supposed massacre has ever been found. The original source of the story may have mistakenly used the word
decollabat,
beheading, when it should have said
delocabat,
exiling.”

“You know your history. And your Latin.”

“None of this is what I think. Einhard was the chronicler. He’s the one who made those observations.”

“Assuming, of course, his writings are authentic.”

The train slowed to a crawl.

He was still thinking about yesterday and what lay below Reichshoffen. “Does your sister feel the same way about the Nazis, and what they did to your grandfather, as you do?”

“Dorothea could not care less. Family and history are not important to her.”

“What is?”

“Herself.”

“Strange how twins so resent each other.”

“There’s no rule that says we’re to be bonded together. I learned as a child that Dorothea was a problem.”

He needed to explore those differences. “Your mother seems to play favorites.”

“I wouldn’t assume that.”

“She sent you to me.”

“True. But she aided Dorothea early on.”

The train came to a stop.

“You going to explain that one?”

“She’s the one who gave her the book from Charlemagne’s grave.”

D
OROTHEA FINISHED HER INSPECTIONS OF THE BOXES
W
ILKERSON
had retrieved from Füssen. The book dealer had done well. Many of the Ahnenerbe’s records had been seized by the Allies after the war, so she was amazed that so much had been located. But even after reading for the past few hours, the Ahnenerbe remained an enigma. Only in recent years had the organization’s existence finally been studied by historians, the few books written on the subject touching mainly on its failures.

These boxes talked of success.

There’d been expeditions to Sweden to retrieve petroglyphs, and to the Middle East, where they’d studied the internal power struggles of the Roman Empire—which, to the Ahnenerbe, had been fought between Nordic and Semitic people. Göring himself funded that journey. In Damascus, Syrians welcomed them as allies to combat a rising Jewish population. In Iran their researchers visited Persian ruins, as well as Babylon, marveling at a possible Aryan connection. In Finland they studied ancient pagan chants. Bavaria yielded cave paintings and evidence of Cro-Magnons, who were, to the Ahnenerbe, surely Aryan. More cave paintings were studied in France where, as one commentator noted, “Himmler and so many other Nazis dreamed of standing in the dark embrace of the ancestors.”

Asia, though, became a true fascination.

The Ahnenerbe believed early Aryans conquered much of China and Japan and that Buddha himself was an Aryan offspring. A major expedition to Tibet yielded thousands of photographs, head casts, and body measurements, along with exotic animal and plant specimens, all gathered in the hope of proving ancestry. More trips to Bolivia, Ukraine, Iran, Iceland, and the Canary Islands never materialized, though elaborate plans for each journey were detailed.

The records also detailed how, as the war progressed, the Ahnenerbe’s role expanded. After Himmler ordered the Aryanization of the conquered Crimea, the Ahnenerbe was charged with replicating German forests and cultivating new crops for the Reich. The Ahnenerbe also supervised the relocation of ethnic Germans to the region, along with the deportation of thousands of Ukrainians.

But as the brain trust grew, more finances were needed.

So a foundation was created to receive donations.

Contributors included Deutsche Bank, BMW, and Daimler-Benz, which were thanked repeatedly in official correspondence. Always innovative, Himmler learned of reflector panels for bicycles that had been patented by a German machinist. He formed a joint company with the inventor and then ensured the passage of a law that required pedals on all bicycles to include the reflectors, which earned tens of thousands of Reichsmarks yearly for the Ahnenerbe.

So much effort had gone into fashioning so much fiction.

But amid the ridiculousness of finding lost Aryans, and the tragedies of participating in organized murder, her grandfather had actually stumbled onto a treasure.

She stared at the old book lying on the table.

Was it indeed from Charlemagne’s grave?

Nothing in any of the materials she’d read talked about it, though from what her mother had told her, it had been found in 1935 among the archives of the Weimar Republic, discovered with a message penned by some unknown scribe that attested to its removal from the grave in Aachen on May 19, 1000, by Emperor Otto III. How it managed to survive until the twentieth century remained a mystery. What did it mean? Why was it so important?

Her sister, Christl, believed the answer lay in some mystical appeal.

And Ramsey had failed to alleviate her fears with his cryptic response.

You can’t imagine.

But none of that could be the answer.

Or could it?

M
ALONE AND
C
HRISTL EXITED THE TRAIN STATION.
M
OIST, COLD
air reminded him of a New England winter. Cabs lined the curb. People came and went in steady streams.

“Mother,” Christl said, “wants
me
to succeed.”

He couldn’t decide if she was trying to convince him, or herself. “Your mother is manipulating you both.”

She faced him. “Mr. Malone—”

“My name is Cotton.”

She seemed to restrain a surge of annoyance. “As you reminded me last night. How did you acquire that odd name?”

“A story for later. You were about to berate me, before I knocked you off balance.”

Her face relaxed into a smile. “You’re a problem.”

“From what your mother said, Dorothea thought so, too. But I’ve decided to take it as a compliment.” He rubbed his gloved hands together and looked around. “We need to make a stop. Some long underwear would be great. This isn’t that dry Bavarian air. How about you? Cold?”

“I grew up in this weather.”

“I didn’t. In Georgia, where I was born and raised, it’s hot and humid nine months out of the year.” He continued to survey his surroundings with a disinterested appearance, feigning discomfort. “I also need a change of clothes. I didn’t pack for a long trip.”

“There’s a shopping district near the chapel.”

“I assume, at some point, you’ll explain about your mother and why we’re here?”

She motioned for a taxi, which wheeled close.

She opened the door and climbed inside. He followed. She told the driver where they wanted to go.

“Ja,”
she said. “I’ll explain.”

As they left the station, Malone glanced out the rear window. The same man he’d noticed three hours earlier in the Garmisch station—tall, with a thin, hatchet-shaped face seamed with wrinkles—hailed a cab.

He carried no luggage and seemed intent on only one thing.

Following.

D
OROTHEA HAD GAMBLED IN ACQUIRING THE
A
HNENERBE
records. She’d taken a risk contacting Cotton Malone, but she’d proved to herself that he was of little use. Still, she was not certain that the route to success was more pragmatic. One thing seemed clear. Exposing her family to more ridicule was not an option. Occasionally, a researcher or historian contacted Reichshoffen wanting to inspect her grandfather’s papers or talk to the family about the Ahnenerbe. Those requests were always refused, and for good reason.

The past should stay in the past.

She stared at the bed and a sleeping Sterling Wilkerson.

They’d driven north last night and taken a room in Munich. Her mother would know of the hunting lodge’s destruction before the day ended. The body in the abbey had also surely been found. Either the monks or Henn would dispose of the problem. More likely, it would be Ulrich.

She realized that if her mother had aided her, by providing the book from Charlemagne’s grave, she’d surely given Christl something, too. Her mother had been the one who insisted that she speak to Cotton Malone. That was why she and Wilkerson had used the woman and led him to the abbey. Her mother cared little for Wilkerson.
“Another weak soul,”
she called him.
“And child, we have no time for weakness.”
But her mother was nearing eighty and Dorothea was in the prime of her life. Handsome, adventurous men, like Wilkerson, were good for many things.