The Magdalene Cipher (21 page)

Still, they hadn't tried to kill him yet, either. Which suggested that their brief was limited to baby-sitting. And, in fact, while making no effort to conceal their interest, they seemed content just to keep him in view. And while they didn't encourage eye contact, neither did they avoid it. It was, in other words, a very passive surveillance. Similar, perhaps, to the one he'd run on Schidlof
.

Slowly, Dunphy's adrenaline dwindled to a trickle. His breathing slowed and, with it, his pulse. Studying his adversaries in the reflection of the window at Jil Sander, it occurred to him that being followed was in some ways like being on stage, however involuntarily. Suddenly, the world was screaming
lights! camera! action!
Your heart began to race, your lungs seemed to collapse, and then . . . well, then, if you weren't snatched or blown away
,
you got on with it
.
Because, in the end, there wasn't anything else you could do. People were watching. So what?

They must be Blémont's people, Dunphy thought. They can't be the Agency's. He'd lost the Agency in London—left its finest bleeding in the foyer of Clementine's apartment. Curry and his goons didn't know where he'd gone. They'd been in too much pain. So these guys were Blémont's
.

Which wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst case, either. Unless he was badly mistaken, the Agency didn't want to question him. It simply wanted him dead—because that was the most efficient way to end the inquiry that he'd begun. Blément, on the other hand, had lots of questions to ask—beginning with where his money was, and how he could get it back. There was nothing to fear from the Frenchman, really, except kidnapping and torture
.

On reflection, Dunphy thought, it might be better to be dead—though not, perhaps, under the present circumstances. To be found in a pool of blood, surrounded by shopping bags with designer labels, was not his idea of a good way to go. He could imagine the headlines in the
Post:
CIA MAN SHOPS TILL HE'S DROPPED
.

Up ahead, the Zum Storchen's flags fluttered from the hotel's rooftop, and Dunphy quickened his pace. The thing about it was, Blondie and the Jock were not going to follow him forever. It wasn't a
study
,
after all. It was a
hunt
.
And they'd reached the point where the fox was treed, and there was nothing left for the dogs to do but wait for the shooter to arrive. Which meant that Dunphy was in the crosshairs of an interregnum, and that, if he hoped to survive, he had better figure out a way to lose the surveillance
.

Entering the Zum Storchen, Dunphy took the lift to the fifth floor and let himself into his room. The walk seemed to have done him some good. His cough had abated, and he was breathing more easily than he had for days. Tossing the overnight bag on the bed, he began to pack the clothes that he'd bought—when a soft knock came at the door
.

I have to get a gun, he told himself. Or a baseball bat—or something. Glancing wildly around the room, his eyes settled on a stand of andirons beside the fireplace. Grabbing a poker, he crossed the floor as quietly as he could, and put his eye against the peephole in the door
.

“Jack?” Clem's voice, soft as fog
.

He pulled open the door, drew her into the room, then into his arms. “I thought you'd never get here,” he told her
.

“Are you making a fire?” she asked, nodding at the poker in his hand
.

For a moment, he didn't know what she meant. And then he felt foolish. “Oh, this,” he said. “This is . . . well, I was just . . 
.
yes
.
A fire.” He returned the poker to its stand as Clem went to the window and looked out
.

“Verrry nice,” she declared. “Much nicer than Val's.”

“Who's Val?”

“My girlfriend. And I see we've been shopping,” she added, gesturing to the empty bags at the bottom of the bed. “What fun you've been having! And here I was, worried about you!”

“Well—”

“Is there anything for? . . .”

“Who?”

“Moi?”
a A demure smile
.

And Dunphy thought, She's winding me up. But that wasn't what he said. What he said was, “Oh! Yeah, but . . . they had to have it
reset
.
a”

“Reset?!” A suspicious look from the Clemster as she perched on the arm of an easy chair beside the windows
.

“Yeah, it was too big, but—otherwise, I just got a couple of things for myself. Necessities.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, “Jack.”

“What?”

“Gucci doesn't make necessities.”

He decided to change the subject. “You'd be surprised,” he said, “and, anyway, we've got a bigger problem than what you obviously think is my shopping jones.”

“And what would that be?”

“I was followed from Jersey.”

She didn't say anything for a long while, as he made each of them a drink from the minibar. Finally she asked, “By who? What do they want?”

He rattled the ice in her drink and handed it to her. Then he sat down on the side of the bed and told her about Blémont
.

“So you
are
an embezzler!” Once again, the round-eyed, exclamatory look
.

“It wasn't his money,” Dunphy said. “It's not like he earned it.”

“Maybe not, but—”

“And since he didn't earn it, how could I
steal
it from him?” He used his forefingers to enclose the verb in quotation marks
.

Clementine gave him a sort of look-
sans
a-look. “Good point,” she said (rather dryly, he thought). “
Now
what do we do?”

Dunphy fell back on the bed, so that he found himself gazing at the pixilated ceiling tiles. The pillow cases gave off a whiff of laundry detergent. “They don't know you,” he replied, as much to himself as to Clementine. “So they don't know you're here.” He raised his head and cocked an eye at her. “
Do
they?”

Clementine shook her head. “I don't think so.”

His head fell back on the pillows. “You didn't ask for me at the desk?”

“No. I came straight up.”

They must have changed the sheets when he was out, because they were nice and crisp. “I was thinking,” Dunphy said, “maybe you could get a room—across the hall, or something. And I could check out of this one and move in with you.” He gave her an expectant look
.

“Ye-esss . . . we could do that . . . and then what?”

“I don't know—maybe they'd think I'd left.”

For a moment, Clementine didn't say anything. Finally she cleared her throat and asked, “That's your plan?” There was a tone in her voice, and when she said the word
plan
,
a she made a face and gave her head a funny little shake. Suggesting, perhaps, incredulity. Or dumbfoundment. Or worse—incredulous dumbfoundment. Soon, perhaps, to turn to anger
.

Dunphy rose to the occasion, propping himself up on his elbow. “It's not a
plan
,
a” he explained. “It's just an idea.” Taste of whiskey (very nice, and good for the cold, too)
.

“But there is a plan, right? I mean, you do have one?” Clem asked
.

“Of course I have a plan,” Dunphy answered. “Do I look like a man who doesn't have a plan?” Was it Lemon-Fresh—or what? Some sweet perfume, acquired in the wash. There must be a laundry, Dunphy thought, where they wash the linens and towels of all the big hotels
.

“Uhhh, Jack?”

The chambermaids collect the sheets in the morning, and take them somewhere—probably to the basement. Is there a basement in the Zum Storchen?

“Earth to Jack?”

There must be. And a truck would pick them up—

Dunphy looked up. “What?”

“The plan. You were going to tell me what the plan is.”

“Oh,” he said, “yeah, I was.”

“Go on.”

“Well . . . the plan is . . . what I was thinking was, you get a room in the hotel—”

“What's the matter with
this
room?”

“Nothing, except . . . I want to check out—you can do it on the TV. So, when I move over to your room, and they don't see me for a while, they'll call
this
room and get someone else. And when they ask the front desk where I am, they'll say I took off. And maybe they'll believe that.”

“And then what?” Clementine asked
.

“Then I want you to get another room—in Zug—for tomorrow night.”

“What's Zug?”

“It's just outside of Zürich—about twenty miles. So we'll need a car, too. Ask the concierge.”

“So I get a room, and a car.”

Dunphy swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up, and reached into his pocket. Removing a small key, he tossed it to her
.

“And this is what? The key to your heart?”

“Better,” Dunphy said. “It fits a safe-deposit box at the Credit Suisse. On the Bahnhofstrasse. Number two-three-zero-nine. Can you remember that?” She nodded. “Ask to see the manager and give him the key. He'll want to see your passport—”

“Which one?”

“Veroushka's. I put both our names on the box, so there won't be any hassle.”

“Then what?”

“There's a lot of money in the box. Take some. In fact, take about fifty grand.”

“Fifty
what
a?”

“Thousand.”

She hesitated a moment. “Francs?”

Dunphy shook his head. “Pounds.”

Her jaw dropped
.

“Just take the money,” Dunphy told her, “and meet me in the parking lot at the train station in Zug. I'll get there as soon after six as I can.”

“But—”

“It's just a commuter stop. You'll see me as soon as I come out.”

“That's not what I mean. What I mean is, how are you going to get out of the hotel? Without those people seeing you?”

Dunphy picked up one of the pillows and fluffed it. “Don't worry about it,” he said. “Now, come here.”

Chapter 21

From the basement of the Zum Storchen to the steps of the train station was barely a mile, but it cost Dunphy one hundred pounds to get there. The Turk who drove the laundry truck was surprised, at first, to find an American businessman in the basement of the hotel. But, once he saw the money, he was more than happy to help his fellow man flee what Dunphy claimed was an angry husband
.

The trains to Zug ran all day long, and it would have been a simple matter for Dunphy to get there in time for lunch. But then he'd have hours to kill before Clem arrived, and Zug didn't seem like a good place to do that. The only thing he knew about the town was that it was home to the most secret archive in the world, a font of data so important—or so dangerous—that it could not be kept in America. And since this archive was at once the focal point of his investigation and the reason that he was being hunted, screwing around in Zug did not look like a good idea
.

Better to get in and get out
.

So a day trip was in order, and he knew exactly where he wanted to go: to Einsiedeln. To see the lady in the hologram—
la protectrice
.

There were trains every thirty minutes, which was about as long as it took to get there. The tracks followed the shoreline of the
Zürichsee
,
wending their way through the suburbs. In a perverse way, the trip seemed a neatly scrubbed and altitudinous version of the ride out to Bridgeport. A montage of half-seen vignettes, glimpsed along the route, revealed the Swiss in the most ordinary of ways: it showed them in their backyards and daily lives, which, as it happened, were not so very different from other people's backyards and daily lives. The men and women he saw were leaning out their windows, smoking cigarettes, hanging laundry, riding bikes, sweeping stairs, chatting, arguing, and generally going about their business
.

When the train turned inland and began its climb into the mountains, the suburbs—Thalwil, Horgen, and Wädenswil—gave way to a series of pleasant little towns, each of which was snowier than its predecessor
.

Biberbrugg
.

Bennau
.

Einsiedeln
.

Leaving the station, Dunphy picked up a tourist brochure and, following the map on its cover, began walking uphill along the diminutive main street, past ski shops and restaurants, heading in the direction of the Benedictine Abbey consecrated to Our Lady of Einsiedeln. The word, he saw, meant
hermits
a—which made her (in postmodern terms, at least) Our Lady of the Homeless. In any case, the black Madonna
.

The town itself was a ski resort or, if not quite a resort, a place where
some
people came to ski—though not, it seemed, all that many. Dunphy passed two or three small hotels on his way to the abbey, but there were only a few cars on the street and not that many passersby. The impression he got was of a quietly prosperous village whose only claim to fame was the peculiar statue in its midst
.

About six blocks from the train station, this impression gave way to astonishment, as he emerged from the high street into a square of vast proportions. In the center of the square, maybe fifty yards away, was a fountain, its waters frozen. Beyond the fountain, hunkering atop a broad expanse of steps, was the abbey itself. Flanked by a string of souvenir shops selling trinkets and postcards, the building was as graceful as it was massive. Seeing it for the first time, Dunphy was astounded by its size and, also, by the building's simplicity and lack of ornamentation. At once beautiful and immensely plain, it made Dunphy think of a Mona Lisa carved in stone
.

Mounting the steps one by one, he turned at the top to look out over the square, the town, and the surrounding mountains. A soft breeze filled his lungs with the wet scent of melting snow—and hay, and manure. Glancing at the brochure, he saw that the abbey had been a working farm for more than five hundred years. The monks were said to be famous for the horses and cattle that they bred
.

Turning, he entered the church through a towering doorway and stood, blinking, in the voluminous gloom. Larger than some cathedrals, the church was a hive of flickering candles, redolent of beeswax and the lingering fragrance of incense. As his eyes adjusted to the building's eternal twilight, he realized that he was standing in an architectural oxymoron, the spectacular interior of the church revoking the simplicity of the walls that contained it. Simply put, the interior of the church was a bedlam of flowers and ornament, tapestries, paintings, frescoes, and gold. Cherubim peeked from every crevice. Candelabra blazed. Angels leaped and spread their wings across pillars and walls. It was as if a medieval Disney had been given free rein and a palette of three colors: ebony, ivory, and gold
.

This isn't the church I went to as a child, Dunphy mused. This is something else . . . but what?

Moving deeper into the building, which seemed to brighten as his eyes adjusted and it drew him in, he found himself standing at the entrance to the Lady Chapel. This was a freestanding inner sanctum fashioned entirely of black marble, with alabaster saints standing on the roof and bas-reliefs etched in gold. About the size of a large gazebo, the chapel was banked with armloads of flowers, so that the air was pregnant with the scent of wet ferns and roses. Nearby, a strange assortment of people—pilgrims from every country, he supposed—knelt on the unforgiving floor, praying with an intensity that Dunphy could not imagine
.

The focal point of their adoration was a statue, about four feet tall, of what seemed to be—what
had
to be—the Virgin Mary. Dressed in robes of gold wrought with images of fruit and grain, she wore a crown while cradling a child in her left arm
.

And the thing about it was: she was black—and so was the child. Not brown, but black. Black as pitch. Black as anthracite. Black as space
.

The improbability of the image was so startling that it took Dunphy's breath away and forced the sacrilegious question: What the fuck . . . is this doing . . . in Switzerland? And, immediately, the answer came back: What's it doing . . . anywhere?

Taking a few steps back from the shrine, Dunphy pulled out the tourist brochure from the pocket of his coat and, standing behind the prayerful, began to read:

For seven years, a Hohenzollern count (Meinrad) lived as a hermit in the Dark Forest above the site where the abbey church now stands. In the winter of 861, Meinrad was beaten to death by robbers, who were then followed to Zürich by Meinrad's only friends—magical ravens whom the hermit had befriended during his long years of solitude. In Zürich, the ravens attacked the old monk's murderers, causing such a stir that the brigands were quickly brought to justice
.

The abbey and church were built on the site above Meinrad's cave in 934. In the centuries that followed, the abbey suffered a series of fires until it was rebuilt in its present form in the eighteenth century
.

In 1799, agents of Napoleon were sent to Einsiedeln to capture the black Madonna, but the abbey's monks learned of the foray in advance and smuggled Our Lady over the mountains to Austria. There, she was painted white in an effort to conceal her identity. After three years in exile, the statue was restored to its original color and returned to Einsiedeln
.

Today, Saint Meinrad's skull is preserved in a golden casket beneath the feet of the Madonna. Each year, the skull is taken out and blessed at a special mass
.

“Sie ist verblüfft, nicht ist sie?”

The question came at Dunphy in an awed whisper, so close that it knocked him back on his heels, an involuntary little jump that he couldn't conceal. Thinking he'd been followed, he turned toward the voice, expecting the worst. But it wasn't Blondie, and it wasn't the Jock. It was a pale American in a black trench coat. Vandyke beard
.

“Excuse me?” Dunphy asked
.

It was the man's turn to look surprised. “Oh!” he said. “You're American! I was just saying . . .” His voice returned to a whisper. “I was just saying, she's really something, isn't she?”

Dunphy nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

The man looked embarrassed. “I thought you were German,” he confided. “I can usually tell.”

Dunphy frowned in a thoughtful way and cocked his head to the side, as if to say, It happens
.

“I go by the shoes,” the man added, nodding toward the floor. “The shoes are the giveaway, every time.”

Dunphy cocked his head the same way as before, as if to say, No shit, when, over the man's shoulder, he saw a very unlikely tour group shuffling toward them. It consisted of eight or nine pallid-faced men in their late thirties, wearing identical black trench coats
.

“My fan club,” the man next to him explained
.

For a moment, Dunphy thought they were there for
him
.
But, no, it really
was
a tour group, albeit one that seemed to consist entirely of middle-aged vampires. Then Dunphy noticed, with a frisson of anxiety, that at least two of the men in the group were wearing string ties and bolos—accoutrements that somehow made him nervous
.

Suddenly, one of the tourists turned on his heel and, with his back to the shrine, addressed the group in an accent straight out of
Deliverance
.
a “The question ah asked earlier—about Meinrad's life befo' he came heah? Who knows the ansuh?” No one moved, which made the man smile in a self-satisfied way. “It's a stumpah, ah'll admit, but the ansuh is: Paracelsus!” He looked from face to face, nodding at their amazement. “That's raht. Ole Paracelsus—probably the greatest alchemist of all time—bawn right up there on Etzel peak, same place Meinrad was livin'. Now, you tell me! How 'bout
them
blue apples?”

With little nods, and chuckles, and looks of bemused astonishment, the men in the group exchanged glances with one another. To Dunphy, it was apparent that they shared a secret, or imagined that they did
.

“Well, I gotta get back,” Dunphy said. “Nice talkin' to you.” And with a little salute, he backed away from the shrine, turned, and left
.

Outside, snowflakes curled through the air in such small numbers that it seemed to Dunphy he could count them. Jamming his hands into the pockets of his topcoat, he descended the steps to the plaza, walking double-time. He was thinking about the man in the trench coat and the people he was with, wondering who they were and if they were whom he thought they were—when his suspicion was confirmed. At the edge of the square, a black minivan sat in the cold, its engine running, wisps of smoke curling from its tailpipes. On its side, a peculiar crest—a crown with a halo, flanked by angels, and the words:

He met Clementine (or Veroushka, as she now preferred to be called), in the parking lot at the commuter rail station in Zug. She was driving a rented VW Golf and told him excitedly that she'd already checked into the Ochsen Hotel—which was “fab”—and had been “on a jaunt” around the town
.

“There are more corporations registered in Zug than there are people!” she gushed. “Did you know that?”

“Uh-uh,” Dunphy replied, looking over his shoulder. “And where's the hotel?”

“It's just down Baarstrasse—which means Bear Street—that's what we're on. And the waterfront's only a hop, skip, and a jump.”

Dunphy adjusted the side mirror to see if she'd been followed, but he couldn't tell. Baarstrasse was a busy street, and there were lots of cars behind them. “Why would we want to go to the waterfront?”

“Because it's beautiful,” she said, “and because I'm hungry. And that's where the nicest restaurants are.”

Might as well, Dunphy thought. We're going to be busy in the morning
.

The town surprised him. It was tastefully modern and obviously high-tech, an attractive collection of modern office buildings that stood shoulder to shoulder with more traditional structures—including some that were very old. This might have been an architectural disaster, but it was not because what was new was built to human scale. There were no skyscrapers that Dunphy could see, and lots of trees
.

And in the center of it all, only five minutes from the train station, was the medieval quarter, a warren of cobblestone lanes whose antique city walls housed an array of exquisite little shops selling jewelry and art, ancient maps and fine wine. Leaving their car in the courtyard of the Ochsen Hotel, Dunphy let Clem lead him across the street and into the Old Town
.

Entering through a passage in the wall outside the Rathaus, they wandered along a gaslit lane until they reached a small park at the edge of the Zuger See. The twilight was fading now, and a full moon was rising over the Alps. Putting his arm around Clem's waist, he pulled her close to him. “What are you thinking about?” he whispered
.

“Food,” she said
.

They settled on a bistro with mullioned windows and lace curtains, overlooking the water. As early as it was, they had the restaurant almost to themselves. Seated at a wooden table with their backs to a softly hissing fireplace, they ordered lake fish and
longeole
with a plate of rosti and a chilled bottle of Château Carbonnieux. Then they got down to business
.