by Steve Berry
She finished her tour and entered the den, taking a seat across from Malone, who'd had been reading Lars's journal since dinner.
"Your husband was a meticulous researcher," he said.
"A lot of it is cryptic--much like the man."
He seemed to catch her frustration. "You want to tell me why you feel responsible for his suicide?"
She decided to allow his intrusion. She needed to talk about it. "I don't feel responsible, I just feel part of it. Both of us were proud. Stubborn, too. I was with Justice, Mark was grown, and there was talk of giving me my own division, so I focused on what I thought was important. Lars did the same. Unfortunately, neither one of us appreciated the other."
"Easy to see that now, years later. Impossible to know then."
"But that's the problem, Cotton. I'm here. He's not." She was ill at ease talking about herself, but things needed to be said. "Lars was a gifted writer and a good researcher. All that stuff I told you earlier about Sauniere and this town? How interesting it is? If I had paid it any mind while he was alive, maybe he'd still be here." She hesitated. "He was such a calm man. Never raised his voice. Never a bad word. Silence was his weapon. He could go weeks and never say a word. It infuriated me."
"Now, that I understand." And he added a smile.
"I know. My quick temper. Lars could never deal with it, either. Finally he and I decided that the best thing was for him to live his life and me mine. Neither of us wanted to divorce."
"Which says a lot about what he thought of you. Deep down."
"I never saw that. All I saw was Mark in the middle. He was drawn to Lars. I have a hard time with emotion. Lars wasn't like that. And Mark possessed his father's religious curiosity. They were so much alike. My son chose his father over me, but I forced that choice. Thorvaldsen was right. For someone so careful with work, I was inept at handling my own life. Before Mark was killed, I hadn't spoken to him in three years." The pain from that reality rocked her soul. "Can you imagine, Cotton? My son and I went three years without saying a word."
"What caused the split?"
"He took his father's side, so I went my way and they went theirs. Mark lived here in France. I stayed in America. After a while it became easy to ignore him. Don't ever let that happen to you and Gary. Do whatever you have to, but never let that happen."
"I just moved four thousand miles away."
"But your son adores you. Those miles mean little."
"I've wondered plenty if I did the right thing."
"You have to live your life, Cotton. Your way. Your son seems to respect that, even though he's young. Mine was much older and far tougher on me."
He glanced at his watch. "Sun's been down twenty minutes. Almost time."
"When did you first notice we were being tailed?"
"Right after we arrived. Two men. Both similar to those from the cathedral. They followed us to the cemetery, then around town. They're outside, right now."
"No danger they'll come in?"
He shook his head. "They're here to watch."
"I understand now why you got out of the Billet. The anxiety. It's tough. You can never let your guard down. You were right back in Copenhagen. I'm no field agent."
"The trouble for me came when I started to like the rush. That's what'll get you killed."
"We all live a relatively safe existence. But to have people tracing your every move, intent on killing you? I can see how that would wear on you. Eventually, you have to escape from it."
"Training helps with the apprehension. You learn how to deal with uncertainty. But you were never trained." He smiled. "You're just in charge."
"I hope you know that I never intended involving you."
"You made that point quite clear."
"But I'm glad you're here."
"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."
She smiled. "You were the best agent I ever had."
"I was just the luckiest. And I had enough sense to say when."
"Peter Hansen and Ernst Scoville were both murdered." She paused and finally voiced what she'd come to believe. "Maybe Lars, too. The man in the cathedral wanted me to know that. His way of sending a message."
"That's a big leap in logic."
"I know. No proof. But I have a feeling, and though I may not be a field agent, I've come to trust my feelings. Still, like I used to tell you, no conclusions based on assumptions. Get the facts. This whole thing is bizarre."
"Tell me about it. Knights Templars. Secrets on gravestones. Priests finding lost treasure."
She glanced over at a photo of Mark on the side table, taken a few months before he died. Lars was everywhere in the young man's vibrant face. The same cleft chin, bright eyes, and swarthy skin. Why had she let things become so bad?
"Strange that's here," Malone said, seeing her interest.
"I set it there the last time I came. Five years ago. Just after the avalanche." Hard to believe her only child had been dead five years. Children shouldn't die thinking their parents had not loved them. Unlike with her estranged husband who possessed a grave, Mark lay buried under tons of Pyrenean snow thirty miles to the south. "I have to finish this," she muttered to the picture, her voice faltering.
"I'm still not sure what this is."
Neither was she.
Malone gestured with the journal. "At least we know where to find Claridon in Avignon, as the letter to Ernst Scoville instructed. He's Royce Claridon. There's a notation and address in the journal. Lars and he were friends."
"I was wondering when you'd find that."
"Anything else I missed?"
"Hard to say what's important. There's a lot in there."
"You have to stop lying to me."
She'd been waiting for the scolding. "I know."
"I can't help if you hold back."
She understood. "What about the missing pages sent to Scoville? Anything there?"
"You tell me." And he handed her the eight sheets.
She decided a little thinking would take her mind off Lars and Mark, so she scanned the handwritten paragraphs. Most of it was meaningless, but there were parts that ripped at her heart.
. . . Sauniere obviously cared for his mistress. She came to him when her family moved to Rennes. Her father and brother were skilled artisans and her mother maintained the parish presbytery. This was in 1892, a year after much was found by Sauniere. When her family moved from Rennes to take jobs in a nearby factory, she stayed with Sauniere and remained with him until he died, two decades later. At some point he titled every single thing he acquired in her name, which shows the unquestioning trust he placed in her. She was totally devoted to him, keeping his secrets for 36 years after he died. I envy Sauniere. He was a man who knew the unconditional love of a woman and returned that love with unconditional trust and respect. He was by all accounts a difficult man to please, a man driven to accomplish something for which people would remember him. His garish creation in the Church of Mary Magdalene seems his legacy. There is no record of his lover ever once voicing any opposition to what he was doing. All accounts say she was a devoted woman who supported her benefactor in all that he did. Surely there were some disagreements but, in the end, she stood by Sauniere until the day he died and then after, for nearly four decades. There is much to be said for devotion. A man can accomplish much when the woman he loves supports him, even if she believes that what he does is foolishness. Surely, Sauniere's mistress must have shook her head more than once at the absurdity of his creations. Both the Villa Bethanie and the Tour Magdala are ridiculous for their time. But she never let a drop of water fall on his fire. She cared for him enough to let him be what he needed to be, and that result is being seen today by the thousands who come to Rennes each year. Such is Sauniere's legacy. Hers is that his still exists.
"Why did you give me this to read?" she said to Malone when she finished.
"You needed to."
Where had all these ghosts come from? Rennes-le-Chateau might h
old no treasure, but this place harbored demons intent on tormenting her.
"When I received that journal in the mail and read it, I realized that I had not been fair to Lars or Mark. They believed in what they sought, just as I believed in my job. Mark would say I was nothing but negative." She paused, hoping the spirits were listening. "I knew when I saw that notebook again I'd been wrong. Whatever Lars was after was important to him, so it should have been important to me. That's really why I came, Cotton. I owe it to them." She looked over at him with tired eyes. "God knows I owed it to them. I just never realized the stakes were so high."
He glanced at his watch again, then stared toward the blackened windows. "Time to find out just how high. You going to be all right here?"
She grabbed hold of herself and nodded. "I'll keep mine occupied. You handle the other."
MALONE LEFT THE HOUSE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, MAKING no attempt to hide his departure. The two men he'd noticed earlier were stationed at the far end of the street, around a corner near the town wall where they could see Lars Nelle's residence. Their problem was, in order to follow him, they would have to traverse the same deserted street. Amateurs. Professionals would have split up. One at each end, ready to move in any direction. Just like in Roskilde, this conclusion lessened his apprehension. But he remained on edge, his senses alert, wondering who was so interested in what Stephanie was doing.
Could it really be the modern-day Knights Templar?
Back inside, Stephanie's lamenting had made him think of Gary. The death of a child seemed unspeakable. He could not imagine her grief. Maybe after he retired he should have stayed in Georgia, but Gary would not hear of that. Don't worry about me, his son had said. I'll come see you. Fourteen years old and the boy possessed such a level head. Still, the decision haunted him, especially now that he was once again risking his neck for somebody else's cause. His own father, though, had been the same way--dying when the submarine he commanded sank in the North Atlantic during a training exercise. Malone was ten and he remembered his mother taking the death hard. At the memorial service, she'd even refused the folded flag offered her by the honor guard. But he'd accepted it and, ever since, the red, white, and blue bundle had stayed with him. With no grave to visit, that flag was his only physical reminder of the man he barely knew.
He came to the end of the street. He didn't have to glance back to know that one of the men was following him, the other staying with Stephanie at the house.
He turned left and headed toward Sauniere's domain.
Rennes was clearly not a night place. Bolted doors and shuttered windows lined the way. The restaurant, bookstore, and kiosks were all closed. Darkness sheathed the lane in deep shadow. The wind murmured beyond the walls like a soul in pain. The scene was like something from Dumas, as if life here spoke only in whispers.
He paraded up the incline toward the church. The Villa Bethanie and presbytery were shut tight, the tree garden beyond illuminated by a half-moon broken by clouds racing past overhead.
The gate to the churchyard remained open, as Stephanie said it would be. He headed straight for it, knowing that his tail would come, too. Just inside, he used the thickening darkness to slip behind a huge elm. He peered back and saw his pursuer enter the cemetery, the pace quickening. As the man passed the tree, Malone pounced and jammed a fist into the other man's abdomen. He was relieved to feel no body armor. He pounded another blow across the jaw, sending his pursuer to the ground, then yanked him up.
The younger man was short, muscular, and clean-shaven with close-cropped light hair. He was dazed as Malone patted him down, quickly finding the bulge of a weapon. He reached beneath the man's jacket and withdrew a pistol. A Beretta Bobcat. Italian made. A tiny semi-automatic, designed as a last-resort backup. He'd once carried one himself. He brought the barrel to the man's neck and pressed his opponent firm against the tree.
"The name of your employer, please."
No response.
"You understand English?"
The man shook his head, as he continued to suck air and orient himself.
"Since you understood my question, do you comprehend this?" He cocked the hammer on the gun.
A stiffening signaled that the younger man registered the message.
"Your employer."
A shot rang out and a bullet thudded into the tree trunk just above their heads. Malone whirled to see a silhouetted figure standing a hundred feet away, perched where the belvedere met the cemetery wall, rifle in hand.
Another shot and a bullet skipped off the ground within inches of his feet. He released his hold and his original pursuer bolted out of the parish close.
But he was more concerned now with the shooter.
He saw the figure abandon the terrace, disappearing back onto the belvedere. A new energy swept through him. Gun in hand, he fled the cemetery and ran toward a narrow passageway between the Villa Bethanie and the church. He recalled the geography from earlier. The tree garden lay beyond, enclosed by an elevated belvedere that wrapped U-shaped toward the Tour Magdala.
He rushed into the garden and saw the figure running across the belvedere. The only way up was a stone staircase. He raced for it and skipped up three steps at a time. On top the thin air slashed his lungs and the stiff wind attacked him without interference, molesting his body and slowing his progress.
He saw his assailant head straight for the Tour Magdala. He thought about trying a shot, but a sudden gust snatched at him, as if warning against it. He wondered where the attacker was headed. No other staircase led down, and the Magdala was surely locked for the night. To his left stretched a wrought-iron railing, beyond which were trees and a ten-foot drop to the garden. To his right, beyond a low stone wall, was a fifteen-hundred-foot drop. At some point, he was going to come face-to-face with whomever.
He rounded the terrace, passed through an iron glasshouse, and saw the form enter the Tour Magdala.
He stopped.
He'd not expected that.
He recalled what Stephanie had said about the building's geometry. About eighteen feet square, with a round turret that housed a winding staircase leading up to a crenellated rooftop. Sauniere had once housed his private library inside.
He decided he had no choice. He trotted to the door, saw it was cocked open, and positioned himself to one side. He kicked the heavy wooden slab inward and waited for a shot.
Nothing came.
He risked a glance and saw that the room was empty. Windows filled two walls. No furniture. No books. Only bare wooden cases and two upholstered benches. A brick fireplace sat dark. Then he realized.
The roof.
He approached the stone staircase. The steps were short and narrow. He climbed the clockwise spiral to a steel door and tested it. No movement. He pushed harder. The portal was locked from the outside.
The door below slammed shut.
He descended the staircase and discovered that the only other exit was now locked from the outside, too. He stepped to a pair of fixed-pane windows that overlooked the tree garden and saw the black form leap from the terrace, grab hold of a thick limb, then drop to the ground with a surprising agility. The figure ran through the trees and headed for the car park about thirty yards away, the same one where he'd left the Peugeot earlier.
He stepped back and fired three bullets into the left side of the double windows. The leaded glass shattered, then broke away. He rushed forward and used the gun to clear away the shards. He hopped onto the bench below the sill and squeezed himself through the opening. The drop down was only about six feet. He jumped, then ran toward the car park.
Exiting the garden, he heard the rev of an engine and saw the black form atop a motorcycle. The driver whipped the cycle around and avoided the only street leading out of the car park, roaring down one of the side passages toward the houses.
He quickly decided to use the village's compactness to his advantage and bolted left, rushing down a short lane and turning at the main rue. A downward
incline helped, and he heard the motorcycle approaching from his right. There would be but one opportunity, so he raised the gun and slowed his pace.
As the cyclist popped out of the alley, he fired twice.
One shot missed, but the other caught the frame in a burst of spark, then ricocheted off.
The motorcycle roared out the town's gate.
Lights began to spring on. Gunshots were surely a strange sound here. He stuffed the gun under his jacket, retreated down another alley, and made his way back toward Lars Nelle's house. He could hear voices behind him. People were coming out to investigate. In a few moments he would be back inside and safe. He doubted that the other two men were still around--or if they were, that they'd be a problem.
But one thing nagged at him.
He'd caught a suggestion of it as he'd watched the form leap from the terrace, then race away. Something in the movement.
Hard to tell for sure, but enough.
His assailant had been a woman.
ABBEY DES FONTAINES
10:00 PM
THE SENESCHAL FOUND GEOFFREY. HE'D BEEN LOOKING FOR HIS assistant since the conclave dissolved and finally learned that the younger man had retired to one of the minor chapels in the north wing, beyond the library, one of many places of repose the abbey offered.
He entered the room lit only by candles and saw Geoffrey lying on the floor. Brothers many times laid themselves before the altar of God. During induction the act showed humility, a demonstration of insignificance in the face of heaven, and its continued use served as a reminder.
"We need to talk," he quietly said.
