The Julian secret lr-2

by Gregg Loomis

  Turning from the mirror, he frowned as she lit it. "Those things will eventually kill you." She ejected a stream of blue smoke. "Not if you get us shot by the police first."

  Touche.

  She glanced around for an ashtray, found one, and deposited the spent match. "Did you find anything at the professor's house besides the police?"

  "Somebody had pretty thoroughly tossed it, papers scattered all over the place. Gestapo showed up before I had time to really look through any of it."

  She sat on the edge of the bed, the hand without the cigarette in it twisting the small glass ashtray around and around. "I suppose we will be leaving Heidelberg soon."

  He turned back to the mirror to inspect the dye job. "Shortly. As in 'shortly before the cops can get my picture spread even wider than the newspaper.' "

  "And we go where? They will be looking at every airport."

  Satisfied, Lang reached for the hotel's hair dryer. Before turning it on, he said, "How 'bout a nice drive-say, to Montsegur?"

  She stubbed out her cigarette and raised her voice to be heard above the whine of the dryer. "Why Montsegur?"

  He turned to face her, his hair multidirectional. "If we can find out what this guy Skorzeny was looking for, we may learn why someone wants us dead and who that someone might be."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Berlin (Wilhelmstrasse)

  The Reich Chancellery

  March 1944

  Adolph Hitler usually worked standing up behind the massive marble desk. Today he was not only on his feet but pacing, waiting for the news that would arrive any moment. Plans for the defense of the French coast, crucial orders for the movement of troops, could wait just as he, the most powerful man in Europe, possibly the world, had waited.

  Although he was expecting it, the knock at the door of his office made him jump.

  An immaculately clad SS Feldwerbel, sergeant, stood in the doorway, arm outstretched in salute. Well over six feet, his blond hair and blue eyes could have been taken from a recruitment poster had the SS needed to seek members. "Mein Fuhrer!" he almost shouted, eyes locked onto a spot several feet above Hitler's head, "Reichsfuhrer Himmler!"

  Small by comparison, Heinrich Himmler entered, giving the same salute as the sergeant withdrew, quietly shutting the door. The light from the windows reflected from Himmler's glasses, making it impossible for Hitler to see the man's eyes. He was dressed in the black dress uniform of the SS: pressed jodhpurs stuffed into jackboots that gleamed with polish, a blouse resplendent with party, rather than military, decorations. The most feared man in Germany, Himmler commanded both Gestapo and SS as well as the latter's own intelligence agency, the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD. It was in connection with this latter function that Himmler had come today.

  "Well?" Hitler asked, too eager to observe the pleasantries with which he normally greeted old comrades from the early Nazi party. "What have you found?"

  Unfazed by the unusual brusqueness, Himmler smiled. "Good news, Mein Fuhrer! The priest Kaas has confirmed the rumors."

  Hitler looked puzzled. "Kaas?"

  "The Vatican priest, the one whose family lives in Munich. He has confirmed the discovery made while excavating for the last Pope's tomb."

  Hitler's eyes took on that faraway look Himmler knew so well. "Excellent! All we have to do is verify it for ourselves. That whining Pope in the Vatican will be silenced!"

  Himmler was unsure exactly what difference papal pronouncements could possibly make. After all, the total army at the Vatican's command, Swiss Guards, numbered only a hundred or so, but he knew better than to question Germany's leader. Hitler was, after all, following the advice of his astrologer, the infallible prophet who had advised action in the Rheinland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia when the generals had wavered.

  Hitler had a fascination for religion and the occult. Himmler winced when he thought how much had been spent to obtain the spear of Longinus, supposedly the spear that had pierced Christ's side but actually a very ordinary piece of ancient military hardware that looked suspiciously contemporary. Hitler had thought nothing of the expense and risk of sending a team to British controlled Palestine in a fruitless search for the Ark of the Covenant. He had had four truckloads of what looked like pure junk removed from a cave in southwestern France, a cave Himmler understood had served as the last refuge of some medieval group of heretics. Only the threat of a cross-Channel invasion had delayed a further expedition to southwestern France, where Hitler was convinced the Holy Grail was hidden.

  But then, who was Himmler to question the mind that had defied first the political geniuses of Germany by becoming Chancellor perfectly legally, and then the best military minds by the bloodless annexation of what was rightfully Germany's? If Der Fuhrer said the Pope needed to be cowed into silence, so be it.

  "Imagine, Himmler," Hitler continued, "no longer having to be concerned about that damned Dago meddling with world opinion." He glanced around the room as though he anticipated seeing someone or something not there before. "In fact, Himmler, I have additional plans for the Pope." Himmler recognized the onslaught of one of Hitler's famous monologues that frequently went on for hours. Feeling only slightly disloyal, Himmler tuned him out and began to make mental plans to accomplish his Fuhrer's wishes. "… And you have just such a man," Hitler finished. Uncertain if he had been standing there an hour or only a few minutes, Himmler came back to the real world. "Who would that be, Mein Fuhrer?"

  He was not surprised at the answer.

  It was then Himmler had one of his few original ideas, an inspiration so brilliant he could not keep it to himself. "Mein Fuhrer, why bother? Would it not make more sense to simply take this potentially bothersome Pope prisoner, do so secretly? That would shut him up. We could also ransom him off for the considerable treasure of the Catholic Church."

  Himmler could see from the flare in Hitler's blue eyes that his plan was recognized as potentially brilliant.

  "Say nothing of this," Hitler said slowly. "Let us keep it to ourselves while I consider it. First, though, let us see about obtaining this new discovery from under the Vatican."

  The door had hardly closed behind Himmler when Hitler picked up the phone on his desk. "Get me General Wolff, SS commander in Rome."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Southwestern France

  Montsegur

  The present

  How the hell had Skorzeny gotten up there? From where Lang stood, the south face of the hill went straight up, crowned by what could have been a pile of scree or the ruins of some sort of building. Two of the other sides, east and west, were even steeper. The north of the hill, Lang guessed, could have been conquered by experienced climbers hammering pitons into the few crevices in the white rock. That was it, he decided. The Germans had made a technical climb up the north face, then rappelled down to the cave's mouth.

  ''You will not be climbing that," Gurt said from the car, where she had retreated after one glance at the slopes.

  "There is nothing left there, anyway," added Guillaume, the guide they had hired for the day. Montsegur was not exactly on the maps tourists bought. "Half the cave collapsed a few years ago, anyway."

  Alternating his gaze between the hillside and the rock strewn ground, Lang began to circle the incline. "Maybe so, but I still need to get up there."

  Guillaume sighed with a Galic shrug that conveyed his frustration with people who did not understand. Americans never admitted something was impossible; they just went ahead and did it. In this case, ascent of Montsegur was not only impossible but pointless. A number of nearby mountains had as good or better views of the tortured landscape of the Languedoc, with the Pyrenees little more than a blue dream in the west. Some of these views came along with small restaurants where the food was passably good and, if one was a local, you were not cheated on the wine.

  Guillaume had mentioned this both to the tall German woman who had the sense to sit in the car out of the sun and to the taller American who did not. But noth
ing would dissuade him from this specific hill. His hand went to his pocket, as though assuring himself it would be available for the euros he had been promised. That was another characteristic of Americans, his favorite: They paid without haggling over the price.

  Suddenly, the American was gone, vanished as suddenly as if he had evaporated.

  Guillaume moved toward the place he had last seen him. Having a man disappear like that was frightening, almost as frightening as the chance Guillaume would not be paid if he didn't reappear.

  Then he was there again, seeming to step right out of the rock of the mountainside.

  "Gurt," Lang called, "come take a look at this!"

  Gurt's height made her look as though she were unfolding as she got out of the car and walked over.

  "Look." Lang was pointing.

  "It looks like a small hole to me," Gurt said, careful not to slip on loose rocks. ''A hole, yes," Lang said. "But notice the edges." Gurt reached an exploratory hand out to run along the sides of the opening. "They are smooth, as if they were carved."

  Lang sank to his knees and began to pull rocks away from the orifice. Within minutes, a symmetrically arched aperture about four feet high was visible.

  Still kneeling, Lang crept forward. "This isn't natural, either. There's some sort of path inside."

  And for the second time he disappeared, returning with a grin on his face. "Stairs. Leading to the top, I'll bet."

  "Now we know how Skorzeny got up there," Gurt observed.

  Lang stood, dusting himself off. "Not this way. There's rubble, stones, dust piled up inside." He turned to Guillaume, who was showing renewed interest. "You said part of the cave collapsed a few years back. Do you remember when?"

  Guillaume frowned. Part of the roof of a cave, visible from the road but of no use to anyone except this American, falls in. Rocks fall down mountains, sometimes blocking the road; some days it rains, others it does not. Who keeps track of such things? It is difficult enough to decide if temperature and rainfall have combined to produce good vintages and rich clover that, by way of the cows, will be converted to cheese.

  But the American wanted to know, and the American would decide the question of whether there would be a gratuity above the price agreed upon.

  Guillaume screwed up his face in thought. "It was shortly after Easter the year my sister's first child was born." Lang waited, hoping for a date of somewhat more general recognition.

  "Two, no, three years ago," Guillaume said, now nodding. "We made much rain." He spread his arms as though precipitation came in armloads. "The Aud flooded and much mud washed onto the road from the hills. I was driving past one day and noticed I could see sky where before there had been only the top of the cave."

  "The same thing that caused mud slides caused water to fill the tunnel inside that mountain," Lang said, "washing away the rocks and junk that covered the entrance that leads to the top."

  "You hope," Gurt said. "Part of the tunnel could also have washed away. If that is actually a tunnel."

  Lang was bending over, looking inside again. "Has to be. Place was besieged for over a year, if I remember from the last time I was in the area. The Cathars had to have a way to get supplies and -water up there. If there had been an outside way to the top, the king's army would have found it long before a year."

  "They also would have found that entrance," Gurt said.

  "It was probably pretty well hidden behind rocks and vegetation. Even if the entrance was found, no more than one man at a time could have gotten through, and the stairs wind counterclockwise so that only a defender at the top could use his right hand, his sword arm."

  Lang looked from Gurt to Guillaume and back again.

  "Well?"

  Gurt squatted, duck-walking into the tunnel.

  Lang followed, pausing only long enough to ask Guillaume, "Coming?" Guillaume shook his head. It was a long way to the top, if the stairs were sufficiently intact to be usable.

  Inside, a gray light filtered down a narrow, round shaft no more than three feet across. Carved into the wall were steps, each no more than a foot long and perhaps ten inches wide. They ended in rubble around the first turn. It took Lang only a couple of minutes to realize a slip in the dimness was likely to be fatal.

  He stopped. "Let's go back down. I'd feel safer with a couple of flashlights and rope." Gurt was backing down the stairs uncertainly. "Rope?"

  "Tie ourselves together so if one slips, the other can arrest the fall."

  "Or fall, too."

  Gurt, the optimist.

  Although he missed his wife, Fabian, Guillaume was glad she had chosen this particular week to visit her sister in Rochefort. Now there was no need to tell her how much money the American had paid him this afternoon and he could enjoy as much of it as he wanted. Or all of it, for that matter.

  That was why he had made an unaccustomed trip to the town's bistro to let someone else prepare his dinner while he drank wine and shared local gossip in the cool of sunset. Moving inside the restaurant, he was wondering how much of the American's money he should put aside to buy a gift for Fabian, if any. Although only about half of the place's eight tables were occupied, a man he had never seen before motioned him over, indicating he should have a seat.

  ''You are Guillaume Lerat?" the man asked in French marred only by an accent Guillaume had never heard before.

  A quick look at the stranger's clothes also told Guillaume that the man was not local. No one around here could afford American-made jeans. Guillaume nodded and gave the man a smile, fueled partially from the wine he had consumed and partially from the prospect of another well-paying customer.

  ''You are a licensed guide for this area."

  It was a statement, not a question.

  Guillaume nodded again. "Yes."

  Not quite true. Being a licensed guide required the payment of an annual fee, one much more expensive than simply having a commercial driver's permit. But then, who could distinguish between a professional guide who drove his customers around the area and a driver who simply pointed out the sights as he drove? Only governments could make such distinctions.

  Instead of asking about specific locations, the man glanced furtively around the room before laying his hand on the table. Beneath his palm was a stack of euros. No matter how hard he stared, the man's hand prevented Guillaume from ascertaining exactly how much money he was seeing.

  ''You had customers today?" the man asked. Guillaume was trying, with little success, not to appear overly focused on the bills on the table. "Qui." The man thumbed the currency, letting Guillaume see the thickness of the stack. "Who were they?"

  Guillaume's eyes flicked to the man's before returning to the money. "Information, like anything else, has its price."

  The man across the table twisted his lips into what might have been intended to be a smile. It reminded Guillaume of a dead shark he had once seen washed up on the beach. He used one hand to slip a bill from the pile. "I agree. Who were your customers today?"

  Guillaume pursed his lips, trying to feign indifference even as he slipped the money into his pocket. ''A man, an American, and a woman. I think she was German." He had the distinct impression the stranger was not surprised.

  He dealt another bill. "Where did they go?"

  "They were interested in the ruins of old castles and fortresses."

  This time there was no move to hand over more money. "I know where they went. I want to know what in particular interested them, where was their attention?"

  For an instant, Guillaume considered the possibility of holding out for more money. A look at the stranger's face told him that might be both unwise and unhealthy. He told him about Montsegur.

  Guillaume's dinner, demi poule en vin blanc, half a chicken roasted with vegetables in white wine sauce, arrived as the stranger stood up, pushing the remainder of the euros across the table. "I paid you to remember. This is to forget-forget you ever saw me."

  For the first time in his life, Guill
aume was oblivious to food and a bottle of wine in front of him. Hardly noticing the savory aroma, he watched the man's back as he walked across the square and disappeared into the deepening shadows. Minutes ago, Guillaume had been ravenous. His appetite had somehow disappeared.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Southwestern France

  Montsegur

  The next morning

  Lang had insisted on spending the night in Lyon, where they had taken up the earlier part of the evening shopping for equipment: several lengths of nylon rope, flashlights, heavy work boots, and a grappling hook, the sort mountaineers might use. He then visited a camera shop. It was only when he backed out of the parking space on the town square that he remembered he had made similar purchases at both stores the year previous, only to leave them on a hillside.

  That, as they say, was another story. Before the sun was up, they were on their way back to the same hill they had visited the day before.

  Gurt climbed out of the car, a large, comfortable Mercedes with such little power, Lang was certain that was the reason the class and number were not on the trunk, as was customary with other models of the marque. The factory was ashamed of the thing.

  Gurt yawned and drained the dregs of cold coffee from a paper cup. "This has been here how long? Seven, eight hundred years?"

  Lang was unloading the trunk. "The ruins? Yeah, I guess so."

  She wadded the cup with a crunching sound and tossed it into the rubbish bag hanging from the glove box. "Then why so early do we come?"

  Lang shut the lid with a soft thump. "I'd just as soon finish whatever we're gonna do before anyone knows we're here."

  Gurt followed him into the entrance they had found. She squatted as he tied the rope around his waist and stuck a flashlight in his belt. Climbing the first two steps, he swung the hook on a rope, tossing it upward. He was rewarded with the dull clunk of metal on stone as the hook fell back.