Steve Berry: The Charlemagne Pursuit

"Who gives a rat's ass?" Daniels asked.

"Did you know we went back to Antarctica in 1948? Operation Windmill. Supposedly those seventy thousand photographs taken during Highjump were useless because no one thought to put benchmarks on the ground to interpret the pictures. They were like sheets of blank white paper. So they returned to establish the benchmarks."

"Edwin," Diane McCoy said, "what's the point? This is meaningless."

"We spend millions of dollars sending ships and men to Antarctica to take pictures, a place we know is covered in ice, yet we don't establish benchmarks for the pictures while we're there? We don't even anticipate that may be a problem?"

"You saying that Windmill had an alternative purpose?" Daniels asked.

"Both operations did. Part of each expedition was a small force-only six men. Specially trained and briefed. They went inland several times. What they did is why Captain Zachary Alexander's ship was sent to Antarctica in 1971."

"His personnel file doesn't note anything about that mission," Daniels said. "Only that he was assigned command of Holden for two years."

"Alexander sailed to Antarctica to look for a missing submarine."

More silence from the other end.

"The sub from thirty-eight years ago?" Daniels asked. "The court of inquiry report Stephanie accessed."

"Yes, sir. In the late 1960s we built two highly secret subs, NR-1 and 1A. NR-1 is still around, but 1A was lost in Antarctica in 1971. No one was told about its failure-that was covered up. Only Holden went looking. Mr. President, NR-1A was captained by Commander Forrest Malone."

"Cotton's father?"

"And your interest?" Diane asked, with no emotion.

"One of the crew on the sub was a man named William Davis. My older brother. I told myself if I ever was in a position to find out what happened to him, I would." Davis paused. "I'm finally in that position."

"Why is naval intelligence so interested?" Diane asked.

"Isn't it obvious? The sinking was covered up with misinformation. They just let it be lost. Only Holden went to look. Imagine what 60 Minutes would do with that."

"Okay, Edwin," Daniels said. "You connected the dots pretty good. Round two to you. Carry on. But stay out of trouble and get your ass back here in two days."

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate the latitude."

"One piece of advice," the president said. "It's true, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

The phone clicked.

"I imagine Diane is furious," Stephanie said. "She's clearly out of the loop on this one."

"I don't like ambitious bureaucrats," Davis muttered.

"Some would say you fit into that category."

"And they'd be wrong."

"You seem to be on your own with this one. I'd say Admiral Ramsey at naval intelligence is in damage-control mode, protecting the navy and all that. Talk about an ambitious bureaucrat-he's the definition of one."

Davis stood. "You're right about Diane. It won't take her long to get into the loop, and naval intelligence won't be far behind." He pointed to the hard copies of what they'd downloaded. "That's why we have to go to Jacksonville, Florida."

She'd read the file, so she knew that's where Zachary Alexander lived. But she wanted to know, "Why we?"

"Because Scot Harvath told me no."

She grinned. "Talk about a Lone Ranger."

"Stephanie, I need your help. Remember those favors? I'll owe you one."

She stood. "That's good enough for me."

But that was not the reason why she so readily agreed, and her compatriot surely realized it. The court of inquiry report. She'd read it, at his insistence.

No William Davis was listed among the crew of NR-1A.

MALONE ADMIRED THE BOOK LYING ON THE TABLE. "THIS CAME from the tomb of Charlemagne? It's twelve hundred years old? If so, it's in remarkable shape."

"It's a complicated story, Herr Malone. One that spans that full twelve hundred years."

This woman liked avoiding questions. "Try me."

She pointed. "Do you recognize that script?"

He studied one of the pages, filled with an odd writing and naked women frolicking in bathtubs, connected by intricate plumbing that appeared more anatomical than hydraulic.

He studied more pages and noticed what seemed to be charts with astronomical objects, as if seen through a telescope. Live cells, as they would have appeared from a microscope. Vegetation, all with elaborate root structures. A strange calendar of zodiacal signs, populated by tiny naked people in what looked like rubbish bins. So many illustrations. The unintelligible writing seemed almost an afterthought.

"It's as Otto III noted," she said. "The language of heaven."

"I wasn't aware that heaven required a language."

She smiled. "In the time of Charlemagne, the concept of heaven was much different."

He traced with his finger the symbol embossed on the front cover.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I have no idea."

He quickly became aware of what was not in the book. No blood, monsters, or mythical beasts. No conflict or destructive tendencies. No symbols of religion, or trappings of secular power. In fact, nothing that pointed to any recognizable way of life-no familiar tools, furniture, or means of transport. Instead the pages conveyed a sense of otherworldliness and timelessness.

"There's something else I'd like to show you," she said.

He hesitated.

"Come now, you're a man accustomed to situations like this."

"I sell books."

She motioned toward the open doorway across the dim room. "Then bring the book and follow me."

He wasn't going to be that easy. "How about you carry the book and I'll carry the gun." He regripped the weapon.

She nodded. "If it makes you feel better."

She lifted the book from the table and he followed her through the doorway. Inside, a stone staircase angled down into more darkness, another doorway filled with ambient light waiting at the bottom.

They descended.

Below was a corridor that stretched fifty feet. Plank doors lined either side and one waited at the opposite end.

"A crypt?" he asked.

She shook her head. "The monks bury their dead in the cloister above. This is part of the old abbey, from the Middle Ages. Used now for storage. My grandfather spent a great deal of time here during World War II."

"Hiding out?"

"In a manner of speaking."

She navigated the corridor, lit by harsh incandescent bulbs. Beyond the closed door, at the far end, spanned a room arranged like a museum with curious stone artifacts and wood carvings. Maybe forty or fifty pieces. Everything was displayed within bright puddles of sodium light. Tables lined the far end, also lit from above. A couple of wooden cabinets painted Bavarian-style abutted the walls.

She pointed at the wood carvings, an assortment of curlicues, crescents, crosses, shamrocks, stars, hearts, diamonds, and crowns. "Those came off the gables of Dutch farmhouses. Some called it folk art. Grandfather thought they were much more, their significance lost over time, so he collected them."

"After the Wehrmacht finished?"

He caught her momentary annoyance. "Grandfather was a scientist, not a Nazi."

"How many have tried that line before?"

She seemed to ignore his goad. "What do you know of Aryans?"

"Enough that the notion did not begin with the Nazis."

"More of your eidetic memory?"

"You're just a wealth of info on me."

"As I'm sure you'll gather on me, if you decide this is worth your time."

Granted.

"The concept of the Aryan," she said, "a tall, slim, muscular race with golden hair and blue eyes, traces its origins to the eighteenth century. That was when similarities among various ancient languages were noted by, and you should appreciate this, a British lawyer serving on the Supreme Court of India. He studied Sanskrit and saw how that language resembled Greek and Latin. He coined a word, Arya, from Sanskrit, meaning 'noble,' that he used to describe those Indian dialects. More scholars, who began noticing similarities between Sanskrit and other languages, started using Aryan to describe this language grouping."