The Charlemagne Pursuit (10 page)

EIGHTEEN

BAVARIA
10:30 PM

W
ILKERSON DOWNSHIFTED THE
V
OLVO AND SLOWED.
T
HE HIGH
way was descending, on its way into a broad Alpine valley cut between more towering ranges. Snow appeared from the darkness, swept free from the windshield by the wipers. He was nine miles north of Füssen, in black Bavarian woods, not far from Linderhof, one of mad King Ludwig II’s fairy-tale castles.

He came to a stop and turned onto a rocky lane that wound farther into the trees, a dreamy stillness surrounding him. The farmhouse came into view. Typical for the region. Gabled roof, bright colors, walls of stone, mortar, and wood. Green shutters for the ground-floor windows hung shut, just as he’d left them earlier in the day.

He parked and exited the car.

Snow crunched beneath his soles as he walked to the front door. Inside, he switched on a few lamps and stoked the fire he’d left smoldering in the hearth. He then returned to the car and toted the boxes from Füssen inside, storing them in a kitchen closet.

That task was now completed.

He retreated to the front door and stared out into the snowy night.

He would have to report to Ramsey shortly. He’d been told that within a month he would be reassigned to Washington, inside naval intelligence headquarters, at a high administrative level. His name would be submitted in the next batch of officers hoping for flag rank and Ramsey had promised that, by then, he would be in a position to ensure a successful outcome.

But would that be the case?

He had no choice but to hope. Seemed his whole life lately was dependent on others.

And nothing about that seemed good.

Burning embers settled in the hearth with a hiss. He needed to retrieve a few fresh logs from the pile on the side of the house. A strong fire would be needed later.

He opened the front door.

An explosion rocked the night.

Instinctively, he shielded his face from a sudden flash of intense light and a quick burst of searing heat. He looked up to see the Volvo ablaze, little left but the burning remnant of the undercarriage as flames devoured metal.

He spied movement in the darkness. Two forms. Headed toward him. Carrying weapons.

He slammed the door.

Glass in one of the windows shattered and something thudded onto the plank floor. His gaze locked on the object. A grenade. Soviet configuration. He lunged forward into the next room just as the ordnance exploded. The lodge’s walls were apparently well constructed—the partition between the rooms diffused the blast—but he heard wind swirling in what was once a cozy den, the explosion surely annihilating an exterior wall.

He managed to come to his feet and crouched down.

Voices could be heard. Outside. Two men. One on either side of the house.

“Check for a body,” one of them said in German.

He heard pottering through the black rubble, and a flashlight beam pierced the darkness. The assailants were making no effort to mask their presence. He steadied himself against the wall.

“Anything?” one of the men asked.

“Nein.”

“Move farther in.”

He braced himself.

A narrow beam of light plunged past the doorway. Then the flashlight itself entered the room, followed by a gun. He waited for the man to step inside, then grabbed for the weapon as he slammed his fist into the man’s jaw and wrenched the weapon free.

The man staggered forward, flashlight still in hand. Wilkerson wasted no time. As his assailant regained his balance, he fired once into the man’s chest and readied the gun, as a new beam of light probed in his direction.

A black object swished through the air and slammed to the floor.

Another grenade.

He dove over the top of a settee and rolled the sofa onto him just as the bomb exploded and debris rained down. More windows and wall were blown out and the night’s bitter cold invaded. The triangle formed by the upended settee had shielded him from the blast, and he thought he’d escaped the worst until he heard a crack and one of the ceiling beams crashed onto the settee.

Luckily, he wasn’t pinned.

The man with the flashlight crept closer.

In the attack, Wilkerson had lost the gun, so he searched the darkness. Spotting it, he wiggled free and alligator-crawled forward.

His assailant entered the room, picking his way over the debris.

A bullet ricocheted off the floor just ahead of him.

He scampered behind more rubble as another bullet searched for him. He was running out of options. The gun lay too far away. Cold wind parched his face. The flashlight beam found him.

Damn. He cursed himself, then Langford Ramsey.

A gun blast erupted.

The flashlight beam jiggled, then its rays scattered in all directions.

A body thudded to the floor.

Then silence.

He pushed himself up and spied a darkened form—tall, shapely, feminine—standing in the kitchen doorway, the outline of a shotgun in her arms.

“Are you all right?” Dorothea Lindauer asked.

“Nice shot.”

“I saw you were having trouble.”

He walked over to Lindauer and stared at her through the darkness.

“I assume this resolves all doubts you might have about your Admiral Ramsey and his intentions?” she asked.

He nodded. “From now on we’ll do this your way.”

NINETEEN

M
ALONE SHOOK HIS HEAD.
T
WINS?
H
E CLOSED THE DOOR.
“I
JUST
met your sister. I wondered why she let me go so easily. You two just couldn’t speak to me together?”

Christl Falk shook her head. “We don’t speak much.”

Now he was puzzled. “Yet you’re obviously working together.”

“No, we’re not.” Her English, unlike her sister’s, contained no hint of German.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“She baited you today. Drew you in. I was wondering why. I planned to speak with you when you came down from the summit, but thought better after what happened.”

“You saw?”

She nodded. “Then I followed you here.”

What the hell had he stumbled into?

“I had nothing to do with what happened,” she made clear.

“Except knowing about it, in advance.”

“I only knew that you’d be there. Nothing else.”

He decided to get to the point. “You want to know about your father, too?”

“I do.”

He sat on the bed and allowed his gaze to dart to the far side of the room and the built-in wooden seat beneath the windows, where he’d been talking to Stephanie when he’d spotted the woman from the cable car. The report on
Blazek
still lay where he left it. He wondered if his visitor had peeked.

Christl Falk had made herself comfortable in one of the chairs. She wore a long-sleeved denim shirt and pleated khaki pants, both of which flattered her obvious contours. These two beautiful women, nearly identical in appearance, save for differing hairstyles—hers was shoulder-length, brushed smooth, falling free—seemed quite varied in personality. Where Dorothea Lindauer had conveyed pride and privilege, Christl Falk telegraphed struggle.

“Did Dorothea tell you about Grandfather?”

“I got a synopsis.”

“He did work for the Nazis, heading up the Ahnenerbe.”

“Such a noble endeavor.”

She seemed to catch his sarcasm. “I agree. It was nothing more than a research institute to manufacture archaeological evidence for political purposes. Himmler believed Germany’s ancestors evolved far off, where they’d been some sort of master race. Then that supposed Aryan blood migrated to various parts of the world. So he created the Ahnenerbe—a mix of adventurers, mystics, and scholars—and set out to find those Aryans while eradicating everyone else.”

“Which one was your grandfather?”

She looked puzzled.

“Adventurer, mystic, or scholar?”

“All three, actually.”

“But he apparently was a politician, too. He headed the thing, so he surely knew the Ahnenerbe’s true mission.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Grandfather only believed in the concept of a mythical Aryan race. Himmler manipulated his obsession into a tool for ethnic cleansing.”

“That rationalization was used at the Nürnberg trials, after the war, with no success.”

“Believe what you want, it’s not important to why I’m here.”

“Which I’ve been waiting—rather patiently, I might add—for you to explain.”

She folded one knee over the other. “Script and symbol studies were the Ahnenerbe’s main interest—looking for ancient Aryan messages. But in late 1935 Grandfather actually found something.” She motioned at her coat, which lay on the bed beside him. “In the pocket.”

He reached inside and removed a book sheathed in a plastic bag. In size, shape, and condition it looked like the one from earlier, except no symbol was embossed on its cover.

“Do you know about Einhard?” she asked.

“I’ve read his
Life of Charlemagne.
”

“Einhard was from the eastern part of the Frankish kingdom, the portion that was distinctly German. He was educated at Fulda, which was one of the most impressive centers of learning in the Frankish land. He was accepted into the court of Charlemagne around 791. Charlemagne was unique for his time. Builder, political governor, religious propagandist, reformer, patron of the arts and science. He liked to surround himself with scholarly men, and Einhard became his most trusted adviser. When Charlemagne died in 814, his son Louis the Pious made Einhard his private secretary, too. But sixteen years later, Einhard retired from court when Louis and his sons started fighting. He died in 840 and was buried at Seligenstadt.”

“You’re just a wealth of information.”

“I hold three degrees in medieval history.”

“None of which explains what the hell you’re doing here.”

“The Ahnenerbe searched many places for those Aryans. Tombs were opened throughout Germany.” She pointed. “Inside Einhard’s grave, Grandfather found that book you’re holding.”

“I thought this came from Charlemagne’s tomb?”

She smiled. “I see Dorothea showed you her volume.
That
one did come from Charlemagne’s tomb. This one’s different.”

He couldn’t resist. He slipped the ancient volume from the bag and carefully opened it. Latin filled the pages, along with examples of the same strange writing and odd art and symbols he’d seen earlier.

“In the 1930s Grandfather found that book, along with Einhard’s last will and testament. By Charlemagne’s time, men of means were leaving written wills. In Einhard’s will, Grandfather discovered a mystery.”

“And how do you know that it’s not more fantasy? Your sister didn’t speak too kindly of your grandfather.”

“Which is another reason why she and I detest each other.”

“And why are you so fond of him?”

“Because he also found proof.”

D
OROTHEA KISSED
W
ILKERSON GENTLY ON THE LIPS.
S
HE NOTICED
that he was still shaking. They stood in the ruins of the lodge and watched the car burn.

“We’re in this together now,” she said.

He surely realized that. And something else. No admiralty for him. She’d told him Ramsey was a snake, but he’d refused to believe her.

Now he knew better.

“A life of luxury and privilege can be a good substitute,” she told him.

“You have a husband.”

“In name only.” She saw he needed reassuring. Most men did. “You handled yourself well in the house.”

He wiped sweat from his forehead. “I even managed to kill one of them. Shot him in the chest.”

“Which shows you can handle things, when necessary. I saw them approaching the lodge when I was driving up. I parked in the woods and approached carefully while they made their initial assault. I was hoping you could hold them off until I found one of the shotguns.”

The valley, stretching for kilometers in all directions, belonged to her family. No neighbors anywhere close.

“And those cigarettes you gave me worked,” she said. “You were right about that woman. Trouble that needed eliminating.”

Compliments were working. He was calming down.

“I’m glad you found that gun,” he said.

Heat from the car fire warmed the freezing air. She still held the shotgun, reloaded and ready, but she doubted there’d be any more visitors tonight.

“We need those boxes I brought,” he said. “They were in the kitchen closet.”

“I saw them.”

Interesting how danger stimulated desire. This man, a navy captain with good looks, modest brains, and few guts, attracted her. Why were weak men so desirable? Her husband was a nothing who allowed her to do as she pleased. Most of her lovers were similar.

She propped the shotgun against a tree.

And kissed Wilkerson again.

“W
HAT KIND OF PROOF?
” M
ALONE ASKED
.

“You look tired,” Christl said.

“I am, and hungry.”

“Then let’s get something to eat.”

He’d had enough of women jerking his chain, and if not for his father’s involvement he would have told her, like her sister, to stuff it. But he actually wanted to know more.

“All right. But you’re buying.”

They left the hotel and walked in falling snow to a café a few blocks away in one of Garmisch’s pedestrian-only zones. Inside, he ordered a slab of roasted pork and fried potatoes. Christl Falk asked for soup and bread.

“Ever heard of the
Deutsche Antarktische Expedition
?” she asked.

The German Antarctic Expedition.

“It left Hamburg in December 1938,” she said. “The public purpose was to secure a spot in Antarctica for a German whaling station, as part of a plan to increase Germany’s fat production. Can you imagine? People actually bought that story.”

“Actually, I can. Whale oil was then the most important raw material for making margarine and soap. Germany was a huge purchaser of Norwegian whale oil. About to go to war and dependent on foreign sources for something that important? Could have been a problem.”

“I see you’re informed.”

“I’ve read about Nazis in Antarctica. The
Schwabenland,
a freighter capable of catapulting aircraft, went with what—sixty people? Norway had recently claimed a chunk of Antarctica they called Queen Maud Land, but the Nazis charted the same region and renamed it Neuschwabenland. They took a lot of pictures and dropped steel-barbed German flags all over the place from the air. Must have been quite a sight. Little swastikas in the snow.”

“Grandfather was on that 1938 expedition. Though one-fifth of Antarctica was mapped, its real purpose was to see if what Einhard had written in the book I showed you was true.”

He recalled the stones from the abbey. “And he brought back rocks with the same symbols on them as in the book.”

“You’ve been to the abbey?”

“At your sister’s invitation. But why do I get the feeling you already knew that?” She did not reply, so he asked, “So what’s the verdict? What did your grandfather find?”

“That’s the problem. We don’t know. After the war the Ahnenerbe’s papers were confiscated by the Allies or destroyed. Grandfather had been denounced by Hitler at a party rally in 1939. Hitler didn’t agree with some of his views, especially his feminist slants, which asserted that ancient Aryan society may have been ruled by priestesses and female seers.”

“A far cry from the baby machines Hitler believed women to be.”

She nodded. “So Hermann Oberhauser was silenced, his ideas banned. He was forbidden from publishing or giving lectures. Ten years later his mind began to fail him, and he lived the last years of his life senile.”

“Amazing Hitler didn’t simply kill him.”

“Hitler needed our factories, oil refinery, and newspapers. Keeping Grandfather alive was a means to have legitimate control over those. And unfortunately, all he ever wanted to do was please Adolf Hitler, so he willingly made all those available.” She removed the book from her coat pocket and freed it from the plastic bag. “There are many questions raised by this text. Ones I’ve been unable to answer. I was hoping you’d help me solve the riddle.”

“The Charlemagne pursuit?”

“I see you and Dorothea did have a long talk.
Ja. Da Karl der Große Verfolgung.
”

She handed him the book. His Latin was okay, so he could roughly decipher the words, but she noticed his struggle.

“May I?” she asked.

He hesitated.

“You might find it interesting. I know I did.”