The Napoleon Affair

by Ernest Dempsey

  Sean glanced at Bodmer for confirmation. The commander gave a single nod.

  "That kind of attack produces almost no blood. It's quiet, too. There would have been no struggle. That tells me the killer was in the room, talking with Jarllson. If the priest had resisted, even a little, there would be some kind of evidence to that effect. According to what Commander Bodmer tells us, the crime scene was lacking in that regard, as well."

  Sean watched as the old priest considered his words. He raised one hand and cradled his chin with his index finger, rubbing the side of his jaw with his thumb as he contemplated everything he'd heard.

  "That is interesting," Klopp said after a long minute of thought. "All of it makes sense, except for one thing."

  "Why did Jarllson invite that person into his apartment under the cover of dark?" Tommy asked.

  "Yes."

  "If I had to guess," Sean said, "Cardinal Jarllson was coerced. Or perhaps you didn't know him as well as you thought you did."

  Sean gauged the cardinal's response with interest, hoping he hadn't jabbed the man in the wrong place with his comment.

  Klopp's reaction was stoic, his expression unchanged. "Do we ever really know anyone?" He nodded. "Of course, it's possible that the late cardinal was up to something, but I doubt it."

  "Why is that?" Adriana asked. She leaned forward and planted her elbows on her knees.

  "Because he warned me about the killer."

  8

  MALBORK

  Lucien Berger sat at his desk, watching the birds eat seeds from the platform feeder just outside the massive window to his right. There were several different varieties, each beautiful in their own way.

  He'd taken an interest in birds when he was younger. It was one of the few childish luxuries he'd been afforded as a young member of the order. Childhoods for the Teutonic Knights went by quickly, and there was very little time for play. Since early childhood, he'd been raised to be a warrior, a killer. He didn't regret that. There were no emotions buried deep within him that yearned for playtime with other kids, or for the toys he'd never received under the Christmas tree. Those sentiments were for the weak, for those who were bred to be society's puppets. Not him, not his kind.

  Beyond the shrubs and ornamental trees outside his window, he could see the roof of the castle in the distance. It had been the home of his order for centuries. Now it was a museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

  The notion angered him. World Heritage Site? The world had done nothing for them except steal what they'd rightfully gained so long ago.

  Berger pushed aside the foolish pity he'd momentarily allowed to creep into his mind. He wasn't that weak. He didn't want anyone's pity. The only thing he desired was justice, justice for a wrong that had been committed long ago.

  He stared at the red-tiled roof of the castle and the brick walls leading up to it. The towers and parapets looked much as they might have seven hundred years before when the castle was expanded. Berger never had the privilege of staying there, issuing orders from there, or sitting by the fire in a great hall with his fellow knights while they sipped wine and discussed their conquests.

  No, they were resigned to the shadows, hidden from the rest of the world as they conducted their operations in secret. That had been fine, for a while. But his predecessors had grown prideful and complacent. With the immense wealth they'd amassed over the centuries, the grand masters of the order had grown sloppy. Drunk on wine, power, and money, they had lost sight of the principles that had guided their kind for so long, principles that had kept them safe and out of the crosshairs of the papacy, along with most of the world's governments.

  The fatter the leaders grew, the more susceptible they became to infiltration, both from within and without.

  Berger understood why it happened, why the leaders of one of the greatest military states in history had become weak. Such was the nature of victory and peace. They'd become one of the most powerful organizations in the world at the time. They were feared, even by empires and kingdoms.

  Heavy lies the crown, he thought.

  With so much, the order became targets of jealousy. Kings and popes alike were not happy with the power the order wielded and the brazen way they went about their business. The knights believed themselves untouchable, not only because of their military prowess, but also because they believed themselves holy, above others, and in some cases, nearly equal to the pope himself.

  The result, in hindsight, was obvious. Berger wondered if he would have seen it coming were he the grand master in those days. He believed that he wouldn't have fallen prey to such snares, but it was impossible to say. He was also wise enough to know that no one was immune to such temptations. He'd made mistakes along the way, but he'd learned from them. That was the key to success.

  Throughout history, empires had risen and fallen. Kings had clawed their way to power through blood and sweat on the battlefield or through political subterfuge. The Knights of the Teutonic Order were no different than any other kingdom or government. They were composed of men, fallible human beings who made mistakes, who were prone to rust if left on the shelf too long.

  That, Berger knew, was exactly what had happened to his order, but like any other, he also believed that there would come a time when they would rise from the ashes, soaring into the stratosphere once more to bathe in the sun and assert their rightful place in the world.

  He'd watched with disdain as the pope, along with the church, had wilted under the pressure of politics and the growing infection that was spreading throughout the world like a virus. That virus was immorality, tolerance, acceptance of things that Berger knew to be unholy.

  Recently, the pope had gone too far. The pontiff had said on a live broadcast that a peace between Jews, Christians, and Muslims needed to be reached so that there could be a greater peace on Earth.

  When Berger received the news, he was angered, but there was nothing he could do about it. In the old days, centuries before, the grand master would have made it his personal responsibility to take care of the situation. The pope would have come down with an illness, one that would have been incurable and fast acting. Upon his death, the knights would appoint a new pope of their choosing from a selection of cardinals they approved.

  Things didn't work like that anymore. Their resources were thin. While their armory boasted enough weapons and ammunition to take over a small town, the order was a far cry from the wealth and power they'd enjoyed so long ago. Now, their number was down to almost nothing.

  They had their pawns, the members of the order who knew nothing of their real mission. Those men operated the charitable arm of the organization. It had always been a part of their way. The order, after all, was based on Christian values of assisting the needy. There was no need for that arm to know what the other was up to. That arm was the one that held the sword, and it hadn't had a blade to heft in many years.

  Berger had been resigned to watching and waiting, just as his predecessors had done. They operated according to business as usual, running their various charities, while in the shadows he and his operatives watched and listened.

  It was sheer luck that Jarllson had discovered that piece of parchment in the Vatican vaults. Why the man had been snooping around there in the first place remained a mystery to Berger, but he took it as a divine sign that their time to return to the light was close at hand.

  He believed he could turn Jarllson. The cardinal was one of the favorites to succeed the pope when the man died, though there was no telling when that would happen. The pontiff seemed to be in good health and could live another decade or more. Even with his considerable skills, Berger knew the pope was nearly untouchable. A cardinal, however, not so much.

  He'd insinuated to Jarllson that if he were to give him that letter, Berger would make sure the man was rewarded. He didn't have to say what the reward would be. It was implied. Being a man of the cloth, Jarllson didn't seek reward by nature, though there was one position he clearly desi
red. He believed he should be the one to guide the church into the next phase of its existence, but there was a roadblock in his way. Klopp had the support of the current pontiff and most of the conclave. It would be nearly impossible for Jarllson to achieve the office—unless he had outside help.

  The cardinal, it seemed, was above those sorts of tactics. He'd turned down Berger's offer and taken the precaution of giving the Napoléon letter to Cardinal Klopp for safekeeping.

  Now Klopp was being kept in the Vatican prison, if it could be called that. While the place was hardly maximum security, getting in there was next to impossible. This meant that if Berger wanted to get his hands on that letter and the information it contained, he would have to take another route.

  As luck would have it, his actions opened the door of opportunity. The death of Jarllson caused Klopp to reach out to a group of American archaeology experts. The IAA was renowned, apparently, for their exploits in recovering and safely delivering rare artifacts. Until Klopp's contact with the group, Berger had never heard of them or of the two men who were in charge.

  Tommy Schultz, it seemed, was savvy with money he'd inherited long ago. He'd built his agency into a powerful entity in the historical world and had gained tremendous respect for his work in salvaging important artifacts. The man didn't appear to be a threat, save for the fact he was now possibly in possession of the letter. That detail was still unclear.

  Sean Wyatt, on the other hand, had the potential to be trouble. Finding his records had been difficult. That was a huge red flag. All Berger could discover was a few things about the man's collegiate career. After that, it was as if he'd dropped off the map. The only current information about Wyatt was from news articles revolving around the IAA and their various missions.

  When Berger dug deeper, he learned information that was considerably more valuable, and disconcerting.

  When he combined information about Wyatt's exploits in taking out would-be killers or thieves with the lack of information about his past, it wasn't a difficult conclusion to jump to. The man was clearly former special operations of some kind. Which branch of the government was unclear, meaning it was probably one of the more secretive ones.

  Most people knew about the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and a couple other agencies that ran the spy game for the United States government. Very few people knew about the shadow organizations, the ones that didn't make the headlines or that weren’t paraded around in movies. Berger knew there were others, those that did the jobs the mainstream agencies didn't want to handle, or simply couldn't. Those suicidal jobs fell to the most hardened agents; those who had been trained in a fire unlike anything but a rare, hearty few could endure.

  That's what Berger believed he was dealing with now. This Wyatt character was like him, an elite warrior and one that could prove problematic. Berger was certain he could deal with Schultz. Wyatt would require care. As would the woman.

  She was something of a mystery. Now the wife of Sean Wyatt, she'd become more visible with the IAA over the last few years, but beyond the sparse collection of articles Berger could muster that featured her likeness, there was almost nothing about her anywhere in the world. She was a ghost, and Berger wasn't a man given to superstition. This woman, however, spooked him. There was nothing about her. Getting her name, Adriana Villa, was one thing, but there were no records of that person, at least not matching her physical description, anywhere in the world.

  Berger hadn't had a challenge like this in a while. He relished it in a way, excited to have a secret to unlock, a mystery to solve. Yet there was no key. At every turn, he was greeted with an abundance of wrong answers. Part of him wondered if she was an orphan who had changed names in the middle of her life. That could account for the lack of information, but based on the company she was keeping, Berger doubted that was the answer.

  His deeper suspicions about the woman were unsettling, even for a hardened warrior such as himself.

  There were whispers in the shadows, in the darkness of the criminal underworld, in the bowels of haunts only the foolhardy or the powerful would dare visit. Going to such places had become a necessity for survival: a fact Berger knew well. A holy man in an unholy place might have been frowned upon centuries before, but now it provided him and the order with vital information from time to time. Walking with sinners, after all, was the Christian thing to do.

  He bowed his head and scratched at the back of it for a moment as he considered the woman named Adriana. He shook off the notion for the hundredth time. She was no Assassin, no Templar, no member of some ultra secret organization of warriors. Those were just ghost stories, designed to keep people awake at night. She might be a former agent of some kind, perhaps MI6 or the KGB, though her Spanish origins refuted that possibility for the most part.

  Whoever she was and whatever she was, Adriana Villa would have to be handled with care.

  Berger stood from his desk and took a step to the window. Most of the birds took off in a fluttering fury of flapping wings and feathers.

  He continued to gaze out the window, peering at the red roof of the castle. That fortress was his by all rights. His order had designed and built it long ago. Now they were resigned to this place. He glanced around the room as he'd done hundreds of times before, with disdain and agitation.

  It wasn't that bad. Truth be told, most people would be grateful to have such a manor. The house was two hundred years old and had been renovated dozens of times. The building was two stories tall and occupied nearly six thousand square feet of space. By many standards, some would consider it a small palace.

  The home had been built on a small patch of farmland just outside the city of Malbork, right on the outskirts in the north of Poland. Its original purpose had been to serve as both a security outpost on that side of the city, as well as a steady source of agricultural goods for the Teutonic Order. The knights were highly progressive in that regard, depending more on their own abilities and hard work than on serfs or peasants. While kings and emperors relied on taxes on the poor to build their kingdoms, the Knights of the Teutonic Order earned nearly everything using business savvy, trade, and almost every form of commerce to establish themselves as the financial powerhouse in the region. They were truly a self-made government, built by common men with an uncommon purpose.

  This house was all that remained of that powerful regime and was a reminder of better days, days when the knights were feared and unquestioned rulers.

  The way it was meant to be.

  He planted his hands on the windowsill and watched the leaves flitting in the trees just beyond the double-paned glass.

  Their allies, however, had turned on them and stripped them of everything they'd worked so hard for. The grand master—one of the strongest, most brilliant military minds the order had ever known—had been unable to hold back the tides that surged through the gates.

  The combined forces of Rome, regional lords, and powerful monarchs had been too great. This home was all that remained in their possession, and only because it had been well disguised, positioned as a sort of safe house for those who opposed the Teutonic Order.

  People, it seemed, never changed. They believed what they were told to believe. The citizenry, the encroaching armies all visited the manor but found no signs of the knights, only a few nobles who swore their allegiance to the pope and to the kings of this land.

  The sheep had no idea the very nobles they were talking to were the grand master and his associates.

  The move had been a savvy one, and the only way that the order had survived in its military capacity.

  Under the grand master's leadership, they immediately adapted to their environment, as they'd always done since their founding at the doomed city of Acre. They became mercenaries, assassins-for-hire. It hadn't been their preferred way of operating, but necessity trumped all. They kept their identities secret, their allegiances in shadows. No one knew the knights still existed, at least not at the time. They were believed to have been vanqui
shed, but all the while the Teutonic Knights continued to reinvent themselves, rebuild their lives, and work toward reestablishing their order as a dominant force in the world. They'd evolved, becoming spies as well as hitmen. The information they sold was extremely valuable, often incriminating. Other times, it was of a military nature.

  One of the order's best customers was the fledgling nation across the Atlantic. The United States had built a rudimentary spy network during its revolution, but from the start the Americans’ efforts had been stymied by both the British themselves and allies of the crown, those who resented the early success of the upstart nation. The Teutonic Knights, being the astute observers they were, noted this weakness with the young country and were more than happy to offer their services—for a price.

  Most of the clandestine and intelligence operations systems and strategies that the United States used were derived from those early days of working with the knights. Of course, there was no history book that would shine a light on that fact. No one knew, and no one could, that the knights had become consultants, evolving again into something different and elusive, impossible to track or find, not that anyone was looking anymore. They'd successfully achieved something that was all but impossible for most organizations as prominent as theirs had been: they'd become invisible, both in the present and in the annals of history.

  The world was constantly changing. It had always been like that. Only the strong and those willing to adapt could survive.

  Over the centuries, the knights managed to accumulate a small measure of wealth that now sponsored a greater scope of activities. They were still nowhere near as powerful as they'd been at the height of their kingdom, but they were able to afford high-tech surveillance and intelligence equipment. Their land holdings were vast, purchased under names and titles that were designed as shelters that would never link back to the order, not that anyone would think such a link existed. The order, as far as most of the world was concerned, was dead.