Steve Berry: The Charlemagne Pursuit

Stephanie smiled.

"Edwin's my dog, Stephanie. What he does gets run straight to me. And right now, he's in a stink pile. Can you help me out on this one? Why are you interested in Captain Zachary Alexander?"

Enough. She'd gone way too far, thinking she was only helping out first Malone, then Davis. So she told Daniels the truth. "Because Edwin said I should be."

Defeat flooded Davis' face.

"Let me speak to him," Daniels said.

And she handed over the phone.

MALONE FACED DOROTHEA LINDAUER AND WAITED FOR HER TO explain.

"My father, Dietz Oberhauser, was aboard Blazek when it disappeared."

He noticed her continual reference to the sub's fake name. She apparently did not know much, or was playing him. One thing she said, though, registered. The court of inquiry's report had named a field specialist. Dietz Oberhauser.

"What was your father doing there?" he asked.

Her striking face softened, but her basilisk eyes continued to draw his attention. She reminded him of Cassiopeia Vitt, another woman who'd commanded his interest.

"My father was there to discover the beginning of civilization."

"That all? I thought it was something important."

"I realize, Herr Malone, that humor is a tool that can be used to disarm. But the subject of my father, as I'm sure is the case with you, is not one I joke about."

He wasn't impressed. "You need to answer my question. What was he doing there?"

A flush of anger rose in her face, then quickly receded. "I'm quite serious. He went to find the beginning of civilization. It's a puzzle he spent his life trying to unravel."

"I don't like being played. I killed a man today because of you."

"His own fault. He was overzealous. Or perhaps he underestimated you. But how you handled yourself confirmed everything I was told about you."

"Killing is something you seem to take lightly. I don't."

"But from what I've been told, it's something you're no stranger to."

"More of those friends informing you?"

"They are well informed." She motioned down at the table. He'd already noticed an ancient tome lying atop the pitted oak. "You're a book dealer. Take a look at this."

He stepped close and slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. He decided that if this woman wanted him dead, he would be already.

The book was maybe six by nine inches and two inches thick. His analytical mind ticked off its provenance. Brown calf cover. Blind tool stamping without gold or color. Unadorned backside, which pinpointed its age: Books produced before the Middle Ages were stored flat, not standing, so their bottoms were kept plain.

He carefully opened the cover and spied the frayed pieces of darkened parchment pages. He examined them and noticed odd drawings in the margins and an undecipherable text in a language he did not recognize.

"What is this?"

"Let me answer that by telling you what happened north of here, in Aachen, on a Sunday in May, a thousand years after Christ."

Otto III watched as the last impediments to his imperial destiny were smashed away. He stood inside the vestibule of the palace chapel, a sacred building erected two hundred years earlier by the man whose grave he was about to enter.

"It is done, Sire," von Lomello declared.

The count was an irritating man who ensured that the royal palatinate remained properly maintained in the emperor's absence. Which, in Otto's case, seemed most of the time. As emperor he had never cared for the German forests, or for Aachen's hot springs, frigid winters, and total lack of civility. He preferred the warmth and culture of Rome.

Workers carried off the last of the shattered floor stones.

They hadn't known exactly where to excavate. The crypt had been sealed long ago with nothing to indicate the precise spot. The idea had been to hide its occupant from the coming Viking invasions, and the ploy worked. When the Normans sacked the chapel in 881, they found nothing. But von Lomello had mounted an exploratory mission before Otto's arrival and had managed to isolate a promising location.

Luckily, the count had been right.

Otto had no time for mistakes.

After all, it was an apocalyptic year, the first of a new millennium when many believed Christ would come in judgment.

Workers busied themselves. Two bishops watched in silence. The tomb they were about to enter had not been opened since January 29, 814, the day on which the Most Serene Augustus Crowned by God the Great Peaceful Emperor, Governing the Roman Empire, King of the Franks and Lombards Through the Mercy of God, died. By then he was already wise beyond mortals, an inspirer of miracles, the protector of Jerusalem, a clairvoyant, a man of iron, a bishop of bishops. One poet proclaimed that no one would be nearer to the apostolic band than he. In life he'd been called Carolus. Magnus first became attached to his name in reference to his great height, but now indicated greatness. His French label, though, was the one used most commonly, a merger of Carolus and Magnus into a name presently uttered with heads bowed and voices low, as if speaking of God.

Charlemagne.

Workers drew back from the black yaw in the floor and von Lomello inspected their labor. A strange odor crept into the vestibule-sweet, musty, sickly. Otto had sniffed tainted meat, spoiled milk, and human waste. This waft was distinct. Like long ago. Air that had stood guard over things men were not meant to see.

A torch was lit and one of the workmen stretched his arm into the hole. When the man nodded a wooden ladder was brought from outside.

Today was the feast of the Pentecost, and earlier the chapel had been filled with worshipers. Otto was on pilgrimage. He'd just come from the tomb of his old friend Adalbert, bishop of Prague, buried at Gnesen, where, as emperor, he'd raised that city to the dignity of an archbishopric. Now he'd come to gaze at the mortal remains of Charlemagne.

"I'll go first," Otto said to them.

He was a mere twenty years old, a man of commanding height, the son of a German king and a Greek mother. Crowned Holy Roman Emperor at age three, he'd reigned under the guardianship of his mother for the first eight years and his grandmother for three more. The past six he'd ruled alone. His goal was to reestablish a Renovatio Imperii, a Christian Roman Empire, with Teutons, Latins, and Slavs all, as in the time of Charlemagne, under the common rule of emperor and pope. What lay below might help elevate that dream into reality.

He stepped onto the ladder and von Lomello handed him a torch. Eight rungs passed before his eyes until his feet found hard earth. The air was bland and tepid, like that of a cave, the strange odor nearly overpowering, but he told himself that it was nothing more than the scent of power.

The torch revealed a chamber sheathed in marble and mortar, similar in size to the vestibule above. Von Lomello and the two bishops descended the ladder.

Then he saw.

Beneath a canopy, Charlemagne waited upon a marble throne.

The corpse was wrapped in purple and held a scepter in a gloved left hand. The king sat as a living person, one shoulder leaned against the throne, the head raised by a golden chain attached to the diadem. The face was covered by a sheer cloth. Decay was evident, but none of the limbs had fallen away save for the tip of his nose.

Otto dropped to his knees in reverence. The others quickly joined him. He was entranced. He'd never expected such a sight. He'd heard tales but had never paid them much heed. Emperors needed legends.

"It is said that a piece of the cross was laid in the diadem," von Lomello whispered.

Otto had heard the same. The throne rested atop a slab of carved marble, its three visible sides lively with carved reliefs. Men. Horses. A chariot. A two-headed hell-hound. Women holding baskets of flowers. All Roman. Otto had seen other examples of such magnificence in Italy. He took its presence here, in a Christian tomb, as a sign that what he envisioned for his empire was right.