Steve Berry: The Charlemagne Pursuit

A shield and sword rested to one side. He knew about the shield. Pope Leo himself had consecrated it the day Charlemagne was crowned emperor two hundred years ago, and upon it was emblazoned the royal seal. Otto had seen the symbol on documents in the imperial library.

Otto rose to his feet.

One of the reasons he'd come was for the scepter and crown, expecting nothing to greet him but bones.

But things had changed.

He noticed bound sheets resting on the emperor's lap. Carefully, he approached the dais and recognized an illuminated parchment, its writing and artwork faded but still legible. He asked, "Can any of you read Latin?"

One of the bishops nodded and Otto motioned for him to approach. Two fingers of the corpse's gloved left hand pointed to a passage on the page.

The bishop cocked his head and studied. "It's the Gospel of Mark."

"Read it."

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Otto glared at the corpse. The pope had told him the symbols of Carolus Magnus would be ideal tools for reestablishing the splendor of the Holy Roman Empire. Nothing enwrapped power with greater mystique than the past, and he was staring straight at a glorious past. Einhard had described this man as towering, athletic, massive in shoulder, great-chested like a steed, blue-eyed, tawny of hair, ruddy of countenance, abnormally active, incapable of fatigue, having a spirit of energy and mastership that even when in repose, as now, overawed the timid and the quiescent. He finally understood the truth of those words.

The other purpose of his visit flashed through his mind.

He stared around the crypt.

His grandmother, who'd died a few months ago, told him the story that his grandfather, Otto I, told her. Something only emperors knew. Of how Carolus Magnus had ordered certain things be entombed with him. Many knew of the sword, the shield, and the piece of the True Cross. The passage from Mark, though, was a surprise.

Then he saw it. What he'd truly come for. Resting on a marble table.

He stepped close, handed the torch to von Lomello, and stared at a small volume coated in dust. On its cover was imposed a symbol, one his grandmother had described.

Carefully, he lifted the cover. On the pages he saw symbols, strange drawings, and an indecipherable script.

"What is it, Sire?" von Lomello asked. "What language is that?"

Normally he would not have allowed such an inquiry. Emperors did not accept questions. But the joy of actually finding what his grandmother had told him existed filled him with immeasurable relief. The pope thought crowns and scepters conveyed power, but if his grandmother was to be believed, these strange words and symbols were even more powerful. So he answered the count in the same way she'd answered him.

"It is the language of heaven."

Malone listened with a skeptical ear.

"It is said Otto cut off the fingernails, removed a tooth, had the tip of the nose replaced with gold, then sealed the tomb."

"You sound like you don't believe the story," he told her.

"That time wasn't labeled the Dark Ages without reason. Who knows?"

On the last page of the book he noticed the same design that she'd described from the shield in the tomb-a curious combination of the letters K, R, L, S, but with more. He asked her about it.

"That's the complete signature of Charlemagne," she said. "The A of Karl is found in the center of the cross. A clerk would add the words left and right. Signum Caroli gloriosissimi regis. The mark of the most glorious King Charles."

"Is this the book from his grave?"

"It is."

STEPHANIE WATCHED AS EDWIN DAVIS SQUIRMED IN THE CHAIR, clearly uncomfortable.

"Talk to me, Edwin," Daniels said through the speaker. "What's going on?"

"It's complicated."

"I went to college. Served in the military. Was a governor and a US senator. I think I can handle it."

"I need to do this myself."

"If it were up to me, Edwin, sure, go for it. But Diane is having a hissy fit. Naval intelligence is asking questions we don't know the answers to. Usually, I'd let the children in the sandbox fight this out among themselves, but now that I've been dragged out into the backyard, I want to know. What's this about?"

In Stephanie's limited experience with the deputy national security adviser, he'd seemed a man who always exhibited a calm, placid exterior. Not now. And Diane McCoy may have reveled in witnessing this man's anxiety, but Stephanie wasn't enjoying the sight.

"Operation Highjump," Davis said. "What do you know about it?"

"Okay, you got me," the president said. "Round one to you."

Davis sat silent.

"I'm waiting," Daniels said. • • • The year 1946 was one of victory and recovery. World War II had ended and the world would never be the same. Former enemies became friends. Former friends became opponents. America was burdened with a new responsibility, having overnight become a global leader. Soviet aggression dominated political events and the Cold War had begun. Militarily, though, the American navy was being taken apart, piece by piece. At the great bases in Norfolk, San Diego, Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, and Quonset Point, all was gloom and doom. Destroyers, battleships, and aircraft carriers were slipping into quiet backwaters alongside remote docks. The US Navy was quickly becoming a shadow of what it had been only a year before.

Amid this turmoil, the chief of naval operations signed an astounding set of orders establishing the Antarctic Developments Project, to be carried out during the Antarctic summer from December 1946 to March 1947. Code-named High-jump, the operation called for twelve ships and several thousand men to make their way to the Antarctic rim to train personnel and test materials in frigid zones; consolidate and extend American sovereignty over the largest usable area of the Antarctic continent; determine the feasibility of establishing and maintaining bases in the Antarctic and investigate possible sites; develop techniques for establishing and maintaining air bases on ice, with particular attention to the applicability of such techniques to operations in Greenland, where, it was claimed, physical and climatic conditions resembled those in Antarctica; and amplify existing knowledge of hydrographic, geographic, geological, meteorological, and electromagnetic conditions.

Rear Admirals Richard H. Cruzen and Richard Byrd, the famed explorer known as the admiral of the Antarctic, were appointed mission commanders. The expedition would be divided into three sections. The Central Group included three cargo ships, a submarine, an icebreaker, the expedition's flagship, and an aircraft carrier with Byrd aboard. They would establish Little America IV on the ice shelf at the Bay of Whales. On either side were the Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern Group, built around an oiler, a destroyer, and a seaplane tender would move toward zero degrees longitude. The Western Group would be similarly composed and head for the Balleny Islands, then proceed on a westward course around Antarctica until joining the Eastern Group. If all went according to plan, the Antarctic would be encircled. In a few weeks, more would be learned of that great unknown than had come from a century of previous exploration.

Forty-seven hundred men left port in August 1946. Ultimately, the expedition mapped 5400 miles of coastline, 1400 of which had been entirely unknown. It discovered 22 unknown mountain ranges, 26 islands, 9 bays, 20 glaciers, and 5 capes, producing 70,000 aerial photographs.

Machines were tested to the limit.

Four men died.

"The whole thing breathed life back into the navy," Davis said. "It was quite a success."