Стив Берри - The Kaiser's Web--A Novel

“She is quite restless. Troubled even,” Kurt said.

“As she should be. That stunt yesterday was foolish. Please, as I said, encourage more of the same.”

“I am afraid she listens to nothing I have to say.”

“Oh, there you are wrong, old friend. She listens and promptly does the opposite. Remember that. An angry dog is best led by its tail.”

Kurt laughed. “I will keep that in mind. But you seem unconcerned that people may be investigating you.”

“It would not be the first time, nor I am sure the last. It comes with running for public office. I have nothing to hide, so let them investigate.”

“Are you going to win this election?”

“That is the goal.”

“Marie believes you to be a demon. The embodiment of everything she abhors.”

He could not care less. “She cannot grasp much beyond her own centrist philosophy. To her, anything contrary to that is a return to the past. She will soon learn that Germany is stronger than she believes.”

“But is it strong enough to survive what you have in mind?”

He chuckled. “I assure you, Kurt, this nation has the backbone for anything, as history has proven.”

Men like Kurt Eisenhuth could never comprehend what he envisioned. They were followers. He was the leader. The emperor.

The Kaiser.

“Spoken like a chancellor-to-be,” Kurt said. “I will not take any more of your time. I simply thought you would want to know the information.” A touch of resignation laced the declaration.

“I appreciate your efforts.”

And he hung up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Cotton and Cassiopeia followed Ada and the two armed men back through the house. He’d seen the urgency in the old woman’s face and realized that she was there to help.

So they had not argued.

“I have learned that this place has become a target,” Ada said. “We must hurry and leave.”

They crossed the ground floor and found the kitchen. Through a storage room a door opened to a staircase down into a cellar. Incandescent bulbs lit the way. The air turned progressively cooler as they descended.

“What’s happening?” he asked as they hustled down the stairs.

“Minister Vergara is doing the Kaiser’s bidding,” the old woman said. “Theodor Pohl wants the two of you dead. Now.”

Always a bit disconcerting to hear.

They came to the bottom, and he saw an expansive basement that seemed to traverse the entire ground floor. Tools and other equipment were neatly piled everywhere. Doors opened into a laundry and a refrigerated wine cellar. Furnaces, too, for winter heat. Other doors stood closed with hasp locks. Ada seemed to know exactly what she was doing as they threaded a path toward a far wall of cement block.

“This house was built in the late 1940s,” she said. “But it has been modernized several times since.”

She stopped before the wall and pointed to one of the men with rifles, who seemed to know what to do. The young man handed off his weapon, then jumped up and grabbed hold of one of the metal pipes that ran along the ceiling beneath the floor joists. He pulled himself up and slammed a fist into the side of the joist.

A panel in the cement block wall swung open.

“The men who frequented this house for decades always required an emergency exit,” Ada said. “In case of trouble.”

“Like Nazi hunters closing in?” he said.

“That certainly would have qualified.”

Everyone hustled through the open portal into a tunnel about three feet wide and six feet tall, straight as an arrow for a long way, bulbs every twenty feet or so lighting the way.

“Move quickly,” Ada said. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll keep up.”

She wore a coffee-colored dress that fell just past her knees with a thick jacket covering her midsection. She carried a walking stick, which seemed to help with her balance. And she moved surprisingly fast for a woman in her nineties.

The panel shut behind them.

They were now encased within a tight space, nothing but earth and rock around them. A familiar panic swept over him and he felt Cassiopeia’s hand on his shoulder, reassuring him. She knew how much he hated this kind of enclosed space. But there was no time for phobias. Thankfully, they were moving fast, headed away from the mansion, the tunnel angling downward.

To take his mind off the uncomfortableness he studied the construction. Horseshoe shaped. Rough brick walls. Dirt floor. Most likely not a tunnel, but built into a trench dug from the house, then filled over to conceal it.

Which brought no comfort.

They rushed ahead for about fifty yards, where the route veered slightly left and dropped sharply downward. More bulbs illuminated the way for another thirty yards.

He steeled himself and kept pace.

At the end rose a metal ladder. One of the young men scaled the rungs and pushed open a wooden door in the ceiling.

Everyone followed him upward.

They were standing in what appeared to be a barn. Two tractors, hand tools, and a riding lawn mower filled the shadows. The only light leaked in from a dingy window high up on one wall.

“This shed is away from the main house,” Ada said. “And below it, past a berm.”

Cotton nodded at Cassiopeia and they both withdrew their guns, aiming them at the other three.

“Lay those rifles down. Nice and slow,” he ordered.

The young men complied.

“Herr Malone,” Ada said. “There is no need for that.”

“Forgive me if I’m a little distrustful.”

“Might we go outside?” the old woman asked. “There’s something you should see and hear.”

He glanced at Cassiopeia, who shrugged. Okay. Why not.

“Lead the way.”

A side door was opened and they stepped out into the cool morning. Branches of old-growth trees interlocked overhead, creating a barrier against the cloudy sky. He saw that they were indeed away from and below the main house, a treed berm rising up on one side. A narrow dirt road led away from the barn. Patches of sunlight striped through the trees. Overhead, the sky rattled with a distant roar.

A familiar sound.

“A fighter jet?” he asked.

Ada nodded. “It followed you here on Vergara’s order.”

Nothing about that sounded good.

A thunderous boom broke the silence, followed by a scorching wave of hot air that engulfed the sky above them.

An explosion.

Instinctively, they all ducked and shielded their faces.

The treetops were cuffed by the ripple of disturbed air, flung back on the wave of a detonation. Luckily, they were far enough away, and below, that the blast did not affect them. He heard the crash of rubble, the crackle of fire, and the flit-flit of debris falling through the trees.

He waited for it all to subside, then hustled up the forested incline.

Cassiopeia followed.

The house was engulfed in a ball of flame, reduced to a crumpled, glowing form, the cindered shape of what had been an elegant schlöss gone. Fire probed up through the dirty smoke, roiling and billowing. Debris littered the ground in all directions.

“Air-to-ground missile,” he said.

A roar approached.

Growing louder.

They stayed hidden among the trees.

High-caliber rounds strafed the burning rubble and thumped into the wet ground beyond the house. The fighter shot passed overhead, disappearing up into the cloud cover.

“Making sure we’re dead,” he muttered, staring at the smoldering ruins. The air hung thick with the stench of charred wood.

The fighter returned.

But farther off.

Then a second explosion in the distance.

“Your plane,” Ada called out from below.

He turned and asked, “You knew this was going to happen?”