The Charlemagne Pursuit

by Steve Berry

  Davis nodded. “That sub was nowhere near the North Atlantic.”

  “What was the point?”

  “Rickover built two NR boats. They were his babies. He allocated a fortune to them during the height of the Cold War, and no one gave a second thought to spending two hundred million dollars to one-up the Soviets. But he cut corners.

  Safety was not the primary concern, results were what mattered. Hell, hardly anybody knew the subs existed. But the sinking of NR-1A raised problems on many levels. The sub itself. The mission. Lots of embarrassing questions. So the navy hid behind national security and concocted a cover story.”

  “They sent only one ship to look for survivors?”

  He nodded. “I agree with you, Stephanie. Malone is cleared to read that. The question is, should he?”

  Her answer was never in doubt. “Absolutely.” She recalled her own pain at the unresolved questions over her husband’s suicide and her son’s death. Malone had helped resolve both of those agonies, which was the precise reason why she’d owed him.

  Her desk phone buzzed, and one of the staff told her that Cotton Malone was on the line demanding to speak with her.

  She and Davis exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Don’t look at me,” Davis said. “I didn’t give him that file.”

  She answered with the handset. Davis pointed to a speaker box. She didn’t like it, but she activated the unit so he could hear.

  “Stephanie, let me just say that, at the moment, I’m not in the mood for bullshit.”

  “And hello to you, too.”

  “Did you read that file before you sent it to me?”

  “No.” Which was the truth.

  “We’ve been friends a long time. I appreciate you doing this. But I need something else and I don’t need any questions asked.”

  “I thought we were even,” she tried.

  “Put this on my bill.”

  She already knew what he wanted.

  “A naval ship,” he said, “Holden. In November 1971 it was dispatched to the Antarctic. I want to know if its captain is still alive—a man named Zachary Alexander. If so, where is he? If he’s not breathing, are any of his officers still around?”

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why.”

  “Have you now read the file?” he asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I can hear it in your voice. So you know why I want to know.”

  “I was told a short while ago about the Zugspitze. That’s when I decided to read the file.”

  “Did you have people there? On the ground?”

  “Not mine.”

  “If you read that report, then you know the SOBs lied. They left that sub out there. My father and those other ten men could have been sitting on the bottom waiting for people to save them. People who never came. I want to know why the navy did that.”

  He was clearly angry. So was she.

  “I want to talk to one or more of those officers from Holden, ” he said. “Find them for me.”

  “You coming here?”

  “As soon as you find them.”

  Davis nodded, signaling his assent.

  “All right. I’ll locate them.”

  She was tiring of this charade. Edwin Davis was here for a reason. Malone had obviously been played. She had been, too, for that matter.

  “Another thing,” he said, “since you know about the cable car. The woman who was there—I popped her hard in the head, but I need to find her. Did they take her into custody? Let her go? What?”

  Davis mouthed, You’ll get back to him.

  Enough. Malone was her friend. He’d stood by her when she really needed it, so it was time to tell him what was happening—Edwin Davis be damned.

  “Never mind,” Malone suddenly said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just found her.”

  SEVEN

  GARMISCH

  MALONE STOOD AT THE SECOND-STORY WINDOW AND GAZEDdown across the busy street. The woman

  from the cable car, Panya, calmly walked toward a snowy parking lot that fronted a McDonald’s. The restaurant was tucked into a Bavarian-style building, only a discreet sign with the golden arches and a few window decorations announcing its presence.

  He released his hold on the lace curtains. What was she doing here? Maybe she’d fled? Or had the police simply let her go?

  He grabbed his leather jacket and his gloves and stuffed the gun he’d taken from her into one of the pockets. He left the hotel room and descended to ground level, careful in his movements but casual in his gait.

  Outside, the air was like the inside of a chest freezer. His rental car was parked a few feet from the door. Across the street he saw the dark Peugeot the woman had walked toward, preparing to exit the lot, its right blinker flashing.

  He hopped into his car and followed.

  WILKERSON DOWNED THE REST OF HIS BEER.HE’D SEEN CURTAINSin the second-floor window part as the

  woman from the cable car strolled before the restaurant.

  Timing truly was everything.

  He’d thought Malone could not be steered.

  But he’d been wrong.

  STEPHANIE WAS PISSED. “I’M NOT GOING TO BE PARTY TO THIS,” she told Edwin Davis. “I’m calling

  Cotton back. Fire me, I don’t give a damn.”

  “I’m not here in an official capacity.”

  She appraised him with suspicious eyes. “The president doesn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “This one’s personal.”

  “You need to tell me why.”

  She’d only dealt directly with Davis once, and he hadn’t been forthcoming, actually placing her life in jeopardy. But in the end she’d learned that this man was no fool. He possessed two doctorates—one in American history, the other in international relations—along with superb organizational skills. Always courteous. Folksy. Similar to President Daniels himself. She’d seen how people tended to underestimate him, herself included. Three secretaries of state had used him to whip their ailing departments into line. Now he worked for the White House, helping the administration through the last three years of its final term.

  Yet this career bureaucrat was now openly breaking rules.

  “I thought I was the only maverick here,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have let that file go to Malone. But once I learned that you had, I decided I needed some help.”

  “For what?”

  “A debt I owe.”

  “And now you’re in a position to repay it? With your White House power and credentials.”

  “Something like that.”

  She sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Malone’s right. We need to find out about Holden and its officers. If any of them are still around, they need to be located.”

  MALONE FOLLOWED THEPEUGEOT. SAWTOOTHED MOUNTAINSsliced with streaks of snow stretched

  skyward on both sides of the highway. He was driving north, out of Garmisch, on an ascending zigzag route. Tall, black-trunked trees formed a stately aisle, the picturesque scene clearly something Baedeker would have reveled in describing. Winter this far north brought darkness quick—not even five o’clock and daylight had already waned.

  He grabbed an area map from the passenger seat and noted that ahead lay the Alpine valley of the Ammergebirge, which stretched for miles from the base of Ettaler Mandl, a respectable peak at over five thousand feet. A small village dotted the map near Ettaler Mandl, and he slowed as both he and the Peugeot ahead entered its outskirts.

  He watched as his quarry abruptly wheeled into a parking space before a massive white-fronted building, two-storied, ruled by symmetry, populated with gothic windows. A towering dome rose from its center, flanked by two smaller towers, all topped with blackened copper and flooded with light.

  A bronze placard announcedETTAL MONASTERY .

  The woman exited the car and disappeared into an arched portal.

  H
e parked and followed.

  The air was noticeably colder than in Garmisch, confirming a rise in altitude. He should have brought a thicker coat, but he hated the things. The stereotypical image of a spy in a trench coat was laughable. Way too restrictive. He stuffed gloved hands into his jacket pockets and curled his right fingers around the gun. Snow crunched beneath his feet as he followed a concrete walk into a cloister the size of a football field, surrounded by more baroque buildings. The woman was hustling up an inclined path toward the doors of a church.

  People were both entering and exiting.

  He trotted to catch up, dashing through a silence broken only by soles slapping the frozen pavement and the call of a distant cuckoo.

  He entered the church through a gothic portal topped by an elaborate tympanum displaying biblical scenes. His eyes were immediately drawn to dome frescoes of what appeared to be heaven. The interior walls were alive with stucco statues, cherubs, and complex patterns, all in brilliant shades of gold, pink, gray, and green, that flickered as if in constant movement. He’d seen rococo churches before, most so over-laden that the building became lost, but not here.

  The decorations seemed subordinate to architecture.

  People milled about. Some sat in pews. The woman he was following walked fifty feet to his right, beyond the pulpit, heading for another sculpted tympanum.

  She entered and closed a heavy wooden door behind her.

  He stopped to consider his options.

  No choice.

  He moved toward the door and grasped its iron handle. His right fingers stayed tightened around the gun, but he kept the weapon tucked into his pocket.

  He twisted the latch and eased open the door.

  The room beyond was smaller, with a vaulted ceiling supported by slender white columns. More rococo ornamentation sprang from the walls, but it was not as bold. Perhaps this was a sacristy. A couple of tall cupboards and two tables accounted for the only furnishings. Standing beside one of the tables were two women—the one from the cable car and another.

  “Welcome, Herr Malone,” the new woman said. “I’ve been waiting.”

  EIGHT

  MARYLAND, 12:15 PM

  THE HOUSE WAS DESERTED, THE SURROUNDING WOODS BARREN OFpeople, yet the wind continued to

  whisper his name.

  Ramsey.

  He stopped walking.

  It wasn’t quite a voice, more a murmur that drifted on the winter wind. He’d entered the house through an open rear doorway and now stood in a spacious parlor dotted with furniture draped in filthy brown cloths. Windows in the farthest wall framed a view of a broad meadow. His legs remained frozen, ears attuned. He told himself that his name had not been spoken.

  Langford Ramsey.

  Was that indeed a voice, or just his imagination soaking in the spooky surroundings?

  He’d driven alone from his Kiwanian appearance into the Maryland countryside. He was out of uniform. His job as head of naval intelligence required a more inconspicuous appearance, which was why he routinely shunned both official dress and a government driver. Outside, nothing in the cold earth suggested that anyone had recently visited, and a barbed-wire fence had long rusted away. The house was a rambling structure of obvious additions, many of the

  windows shattered, a gaping hole in the roof showing no signs of repair. Nineteenth century, he guessed, the structure surely once an elegant country estate, now fast becoming a ruin.

  The wind continued to blow. Weather reports indicated that snow was finally headed east. He glanced at the wood floor, trying to see if the grime had been disturbed, but saw only his footprints.

  Something shattered far off in the house. Glass breaking? Metal clanking? Hard to say.

  Enough of this nonsense.

  He unbuttoned his overcoat and removed a Walther automatic. He crept left. The corridor ahead was cast in deep shadows, and an involuntary chill swept over him. He inched forward to the end of the passageway.

  A sound came again. Scraping. From his right. Then another sound. Metal on metal. From the rear of the house.

  Apparently, there were two inside.

  He crept down the hall and decided a rushing advance might give him an advantage, particularly after whoever it was continued to announce their presence with a steady tat-tat-tat.

  He sucked a breath, readied the gun, then bolted into the kitchen.

  On one of the counters, ten feet away, a dog stared back. It was a large mixed breed, its head topped with rounded ears, the coat a tawny color, lighter underneath, with a white chin and throat.

  A snarl seeped from the animal’s mouth. Sharp canines came into view, and hind legs tensed.

  A bark came from the front of the house.

  Two dogs?

  The one on the counter leaped down and bolted outside through the kitchen doorway.

  He rushed back to the front of the house just as the other animal fled through an open window frame.

  He exhaled.

  Ramsey.

  It seemed as if the breeze had formed itself into vowels and consonants, then spoke. Not clear, or loud. Just there.

  Or was it?

  He forced his brain to ignore the ridiculous and left the front parlor, following a hallway, passing more rooms dotted with sheathed furniture and wallpaper bubbled from the elements. An old piano stood uncovered. Paintings cast a ghostly nothingness from their cloth coverings. He wondered about the artworks and stopped to examine a few—sepia prints of the Civil War. One depicted Monticello, another Mount Vernon.

  At the dining room he hesitated and imagined groups of white men two centuries ago gorging themselves on beefsteaks and warm crumb cake. Perhaps whiskey sodas served in the parlor after. A game of bridge might have been played while a brazier warmed the air with an aroma of eucalyptus. Of course, Ramsey’s ancestors had been outside, freezing in the slaves’ quarters.

  He gazed down a long corridor. A room at the end of the passageway drew him forward. He checked the floor, but only dust covered the planks.

  He stopped at the end of the hall, in the doorway.

  Another view of the barren meadow loomed through a dingy window. The furniture, like the other rooms, was sheathed, except for a desk. Ebony wood, aged and distressed, its inlaid top coated with blue-gray dust. Deer antlers clung to taupe-colored walls and brown sheets shielded what appeared to be bookcases. Dust mites swirled in the air.

  Ramsey.

  But not from the wind.

  He targeted the source, rushed toward a draped chair, and ripped off the sheet, generating another fog-like cloud. A tape recorder lay on the decaying upholstery, its cassette about halfway spun.

  His grip on the gun stiffened.

  “I see you found my ghost,” a voice said.

  He turned to see a man standing in the doorway. Short, midforties, round face, skin as pale as the coming snow. His thin black hair, brushed straight, gleamed with flecks of silver.

  And he was smiling. As always.

  “Any need for the theatrics, Charlie?” Ramsey asked, as he replaced his gun.

  “Much more fun than just saying hello, and I loved the dogs. They seem to like it here.”

  Fifteen years they’d worked together and he didn’t even know the man’s real name. He knew him only as Charles C.

  Smith Jr., with an emphasis on the Junior. He’d asked once about Smith Sr. and had received a thirty-minute family history, all of which was surely bullshit.

  “Who owns this place?” Ramsey asked.

  “I do now. Bought it a month ago. Thought a retreat in the country would be a wise investment. Thinking about fixing it up and renting it out. Going to call it Bailey Mill.”

  “Don’t I pay you enough?”

  “A man has to diversify, Admiral. Can’t be reliant on just a paycheck to live. Stock market, real estate, that’s the way to be ready for old age.”

  “It’ll take a fortune to repair all this.”

  “Which brings me to an information
al note. Because of unanticipated fuel cost increases, higher-than-expected travel fares, and an overall increase in overhead and expenses, we will be experiencing a slight rate increase. Though we strive to keep costs down while providing excellent customer service, our stockholders demand that we maintain an acceptable profit margin.”