by Rachel Lee
“Shit,” Lawton said simply.
Renate merely nodded, a faint, strained smile on her face. “Despite your American gift for vulgarity, you’re right. This is very bad.”
“So we know it was murder,” Margarite said, stepping over to Renate’s desk. “Lawton’s source, Miriam Anson, gave us the same information.”
“Yes, she did. And it probably was murder,” Jefe said, also joining them. “But how can anyone prove that without knowing what the toxin was?”
“Be reasonable, Chief,” Lawton said. “Even if it were some bizarre compound, why would it kill Vögel and not his security people or anyone at the hospital? It’s too well-targeted to be an environmental toxin. Nothing else makes sense except assassination.”
“I agree with you, Lawton,” Jefe said. “But there’s what we know intuitively and then there’s what the German police can prove. They’re not going to unravel this on the basis of speculation, however rational. They’ll need hard evidence to get at whoever did this.”
“Why do I smell an assignment coming?” Lawton asked.
“Because you’re not the dullest knife in the drawer,” Jefe said, producing two airline tickets from a file. “You and Margarite are off to Berlin.”
“But…” Renate began.
“Don’t even start,” Jefe said. “You’re far too well known in Berlin. And even if none of your old friends at the BKA knows you’re still alive, the Frankfurt Brotherhood does. The last time I sent you to Germany, they nearly killed you.”
“They tried,” Renate agreed, remembering the attack at the Rome train station on her way back from an operation in Frankfurt. She also remembered how quickly and brutally she had dispatched her attacker, and the rage she had felt afterward. At some point that, too, had joined the rest of her feelings in a frozen vault. “But they know I came to Rome. I’m no safer here than anywhere else.”
“You’re also my best, my only, German agent,” Jefe said, ignoring her point. “Most of what we get is going to be in German, and I don’t want this operation to fail over a mistranslation. I need you here, where you can give me context and subtext in addition to plain meaning. That’s how it’s going to be.”
“My German is improving,” Lawton said. “But it’s still spotty.”
“Ich spreche fließend Deutsch,” Margarite said. I speak fluent German. “I studied it both in lycée and at university.”
“Her German is more than sufficient for your needs,” Renate said. However much she wanted to be part of the operation in Berlin, Jefe had made his decision, and she knew she had to support it. “And I will tell my people you’re coming. But be careful when you approach Ulla Viermann.”
“Who is she?” Lawton asked.
Renate handed him a slender file. “She’s the doctor who treated the chancellor. We don’t have much on her yet. But she has an excellent reputation, and right now it looks as if they are setting her up as the scapegoat.”
“How could she know Vögel was going to collapse during her shift?” Jefe asked.
“Oh, they’re not saying she caused his collapse, or even that she murdered him,” Renate replied. “They’re saying she misdiagnosed him, and her treatment killed him. Apparently she pursued an unorthodox method when the usual steps failed. My source says that as soon as she heard what was being said, she stopped talking to the Polizei.”
Lawton shook his head. “Let me get this straight. The chancellor collapses when the Reichstag dome does and arrives at the hospital near death from an unknown cause.”
Renate nodded. “Right.”
“And because she couldn’t save him, they’re accusing her of causing his death through malpractice?”
“They need someone to blame, Lawton,” Margarite said through a cloud of smoke. “Until they know who caused his collapse, the doctor who couldn’t save him is the only convenient target for people’s shock and outrage. I don’t blame her for refusing to talk. They can’t charge her with anything, but they could strip her of her license.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Poor woman.”
“That’s usually how it goes,” Renate said. “Are you surprised?” She was looking at Margarite.
“Someone has to take the blame,” Margarite said, shaking her head. “Right now, the idiots in the BKA can’t find anyone else. So let us go find someone else for them to blame.”
Rome, Italy
The dream came over Steve Lorenzo slowly, as if he passed through layer upon layer of mist before he arrived in the otherworldly plain. Even in his dream, he found it strange that the place felt so familiar. Featureless, nearly colorless, yet everything was visible as if light were coming from everywhere, yet there were no shadows. And beyond the place where he and the guardians stood, there was the inkiness of nothing.
For the first time in these dreams, he sensed that the plain beneath his feet and the physical appearance of the others were more for his comfort than any kind of necessity.
“Welcome,” Nathan said. “You were slow to answer tonight.”
“I have been tired.”
“You have been worrying. I am sorry to tell you that before this night ends, you will worry more.”
Steve wanted to sigh. Life had been so much simpler in Guatemala.
“Yes, it was,” Nathan said, clearly reading his thoughts. Steve felt unnerved. “It was simpler, but your mission there was accomplished. Now you have a more important one.”
“And that is?”
“When you awake in the morning, you will hear of the death of the German Chancellor, Karl Vögel. He was assassinated, though they do not yet know how. You will have to show people how it was done.”
Nathan stepped forward. “Leave your church behind for a while, as it will only hinder you. Find the codex. You will see its trail in recent events and in some yet to come. It must be recovered, whatever the cost.”
“Wait,” Steve said as Nathan’s figure began to fade. At once it came into clear focus. “What does the pyramid have to do with any of this?”
“Find the pyramid and you will find the murderer of Chancellor Vögel. But more importantly, you will find the source of great troubles to come.”
“What do you mean?”
Nathan hesitated. “The pyramid was used to murder the chancellor.”
This was too much for Steve. “You expect me to believe that? How could it possibly do that? And who could make it do that?”
Nathan sighed. “I will not tell you everything. The only way for you to answer your questions and clear your doubts is to learn for yourself. Go to the library in Toulouse. Investigate the Merovingians. Read about the Cathars. Follow the trail.”
Slowly the dream dissolved into mist, and a short while later, Steve opened his eyes to a bright dawn. Moments later his clock radio clicked on, and the shocking news poured out into the quiet morning air.
Chancellor Vögel had died during the night, possibly from poisoning.
Steve sat bolt upright, the last of the effects of sleep wiped away in an instant. He had known in the dream. He had known. And to him that could mean only one thing. Throwing back his covers, he rose and reached for the jeans and sweatshirt he had recently purchased secondhand. Then he went out to get some strong coffee.
6
Vatican City
P ablo Cardinal Estevan frowned at Monsignore Veltroni. “I don’t understand. Why can you not persuade Father Lorenzo to take the apartment I have had prepared for him? There is hardly a priest on this planet who would not be thrilled to have a sumptuous Vatican apartment and a high position in the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith.”
“Father Lorenzo,” Veltroni replied, ignoring the glass of fine Irish whiskey the cardinal had placed at his elbow, “is not that sort of priest.”
Estevan’s frown deepened. “He has seen and touched the codex. We cannot simply let him wander all over, doing as he pleases.”
“His pleasure, at present, seems to be caring for the poor. You must understand, Eminence
, that Father Lorenzo spent the last two years in Guatemala running for his life. He was living in the most primitive of conditions, where even the day’s succor was not assured. He watched people die, people he knew and who had come to trust him. Culture shock after such experiences is quite common. One has only to look at the reentry problems of soldiers returning from war to understand his state of mind.”
Estevan waved a hand. “Father Lorenzo was not a soldier, and he can readjust to civilization as well here in the Vatican as out there in the warehouse district. Besides, Monsignore, we have only his word for it that the codex was stolen from him.”
“Surely you don’t think…” Veltroni was absolutely aghast. “Steven is as honest and righteous a man as I have ever known.”
“Power can corrupt even the purest soul.”
Oddly, Veltroni found himself suddenly thinking that it might have corrupted Estevan, a possibility he had not considered before. “Not Steven Lorenzo,” he said firmly. “He told the absolute truth when he said the codex was stolen. Our own sources tell us the Hunter was after him.”
“Yes, but the Hunter has vanished, and Lorenzo might well have hidden the codex from him.”
Veltroni shook his head vigorously. “Had that been his purpose, he would tell us where to find it.”
“So sure, Giuseppe?”
The monsignore hated it when Cardinal Estevan called him by his first name. It implied an intimacy they did not share, and it always preceded an unpleasant order. Once again, that proved the case.
“I want Lorenzo watched at all times. Assign personnel from the Stewards who are practiced in such matters. He must never be out of sight of the Church.”
The order gave Veltroni an immediate case of dyspepsia, which he hoped didn’t show on his face. The burning in his stomach would ease, but his anger wouldn’t. “I think that may be a bit extreme,” he finally said.
“I don’t.” Estevan waved a hand in a way that said as clearly as any words that no argument would be heard. “Trust me, Giuseppe, you have no idea of the importance of that codex.”
“And what is its importance?” Veltroni asked. For the first time in all his years as a Steward, he began to wonder if the group had another purpose, apart from simply defending the faith. “Why is the church so worried about this artifact?”
“You have no need to know. All you need to know is that that codex could present a serious problem for the Church. We must possess it to protect the faith.”
Circles and more circles, and very little in the way of answers. Veltroni steepled his hands, inwardly offering a little prayer. He must not let Cardinal Estevan suspect in any way that he might be having doubts.
“Very well, your eminence,” he said, his face smooth. “I will see to it immediately.”
And he most definitely would, since Estevan would certainly know if spies were not sent to keep an eye on Steve Lorenzo. Still, that did not mean that Monsignore Veltroni could not let Steve know the situation. As long as he did so carefully.
Estevan smiled. “You are a good servant, Monsignore. I have no doubt that your rise among our companions will continue.”
“I am most grateful.”
Like hell, Veltroni thought as he walked away from Estevan’s apartments a short while later. It was a phrase he had learned from Steve, one for which he had developed a fondness. “Like hell,” he said aloud, savoring the words.
First to alert Steve, then to set the spies. Then…perhaps a visit to the Trevi Fountain. It just might be that his old friend Nathan Cohen would show up. The man had an amazing way of doing that. And right now, Veltroni felt a strong need for a different perspective.
Berlin, Germany
Of all the traveling companions to have on his first trip to Berlin, Margarite would not have been Lawton’s first choice. The Second World War had been over for more than sixty years now, but for Margarite, whose parents had been mere babes at the time, it was as fresh as yesterday.
Lawton understood that war left bitter scars, and that Europe had been so rent by the two world wars that the history was bound to feel fresh.
It would, he supposed, have been possible to see mostly the new Berlin, the city that had risen from the ashes of the war to become a great economic and political power in Europe and the world. But it was impossible for him not to look with a sharper eye and note where old buildings still bore the creases hewn by bullets and bomb fragments, where some that were new had been cobbled together from the rubble of those that had been destroyed.
But for all that Margarite frowned sourly, as if the revival of Berlin offended her, even she paused with wonder before the new Reichstag. The old one had burnt in 1933, and although reconstruction had been attempted at one point, it wasn’t until after the reunification of Germany that it was fully restored by Norman Foster, a British architect. Foster had added the symbolic and beautiful glass dome that had become one of the most popular tourist attractions of the city.
The dome contained two inclined walkways that circled the inside, offering panoramic views of the city from different angles, and at the top one could peer down through a large pane of glass as the Bundestag sat in session. The symbolism of the openness seemed to quiet even Margarite’s disgust. Unfortunately, they were not allowed within. The part of the dome that had broken was covered with thick black plastic, and every entrance to the building was marked Verboten. Do Not Enter.
“Just behind the Reichstag building,” Margarite said, “used to be The Wall.”
She spoke the words as if they were capitalized, and Lawton supposed they ought to be. It horrified him at some very deep level that any country should build a wall to keep its citizens inside. Not to keep an enemy out, but to keep its own citizens from leaving.
“Well,” she said, placing her hands on her hips and tipping her head back to view the broken dome, “I wish we could see a bit more of the damage.”
“I wonder if the local press managed to get photos.”
“If they did, the police probably seized them as evidence. I am not certain that they would wish, this early in the investigation, to have such photos out before the public.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Why give some malcontent ideas?”
She gave him an amused smile. “I think the malcontent already had his idea. And if there is another one, he already has that idea, too.”
“But the attention can induce copycats.”
She arched a carefully shaped brow. “I forget you were with the American FBI. You make much of their vaunted profiling, oui?”
“Only when it works.”
She laughed and for once looked pleasant. “I hate this city. It is so…German. Have you been to Paris?”
“Not yet.”
“You will like it. We have a great deal of charm there. Even Hitler considered Paris to be a jewel worthy of protection. When the Allies neared the city in 1944, he ordered it to be declared an open city.”
“So there’s one thing the Germans did right?”
First she frowned, then pursed her lips. “Are you mocking me?”
“Merely thinking that most of the people here and now had little if anything to do with the last war.”
She waved a hand. “It is the German temperament.”
“I doubt it. At least not anymore. The ones I’ve talked to seem to have learned the evils of war to their very bones.”
“Perhaps it is so.” She shrugged. “Europe must have peace. We have spent too long tearing one another apart.”
“On that we most definitely agree.” He looked up again at the dome, shaking his head. “I’m not sure the collapse of the dome is relevant to our investigation.”
“What do you mean?”
“The glass broke at the same time the chancellor fell. Isn’t that what the informant said?”
Margarite opened a notebook and scanned notes written in her own private shorthand. “So it seems, but the timeline is not perfectly clear, owing to confusion.”
“Oka
y, so they happened about the same time. But it wasn’t the shattering of the glass that killed him, nor were his companions hurt, apart from falling glass. Now if some kind of poison had been delivered through the shattered opening, it would have affected everyone inside to some extent.”
“Unless it struck him only.”
“But there is no residue in his blood that would support that. And I’m trying to think of who could shoot through that dome with such accuracy…” He shook his head. “It’s like shooting into water, Margarite. Unless you are looking straight through, the light bends and you miss your target. And the thicker the glass, the more refraction you get. Plus, any projectile heavy enough to penetrate that glass would have done more than administer some poison. There would be a puncture wound, at least.”
Her eyes widened a shade; then she nodded. “So maybe the two are not directly related.”
“Sometimes things are just coincidence.” Lawton had a suspicious mind, one that had led him to notice an almost insignificant paramilitary organization in Idaho and thus unravel the attempted assassination of then presidential hopeful, now National Security Advisor, Grant Lawrence. But he could see no connection here.
He turned from the dome, allowing his thoughts to percolate before they tried to talk to the physician who had treated the chancellor. His gaze fell upon a row of slate plates, all free-form, set on end in the ground in a neat row. There must have been nearly a hundred.
“What are those?” he asked, pointing.
She shrugged. “Berlin is not a city of pleasant memories, and here less than anywhere. I wish they had salvaged none of the look of the original Reichstag.”
Suppressing annoyance at her persistent bigotry when no wrong had been done to her, he walked over to the row of slates, thinking that from one angle they almost looked like the opaque ribs of a tunnel through time. Then he found the plaque that identified them.
After a moment he looked back at Margarite. “You should appreciate this.”
“Why so?” she asked, looking bored.
