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

Their walk ended at the wooden door.

Kurt came to a stop. “What is in there?”

“Open and see.”

Kurt stepped forward and pulled on the iron handle.

The plank door opened without a sound.

The room beyond was spacious and backlit from wall sconces. The far walls were lined with glass-fronted cases, each one illuminated by a ceiling-mounted floodlight. All of the oak shelves behind the glass teemed with odd-shaped volumes packed tight in long rows. The spines glowed in the light with a variety of color. But what dominated the room were the three sarcophagi in the center, each flooded in a pool of blue-white light. The exteriors were all of marble, one gray, the other pink, both similar in size, and one, much smaller, in a combination of taupe and gray.

Kurt entered the chamber and stepped immediately to the tombs. “Who are they?”

“My mother, father, and brother.”

Kurt faced him. “Why keep them here?”

“Because they are not safe anyplace else.”

“Your mother and father were not people of ill repute. What places their graves in danger?”

“My father was Martin Bormann. My mother was Eva Braun.” He spoke the words with pride, so rarely had he ever been given the privilege of stating that declaration.

Kurt Eisenhuth stared at him in amazement. “You speak nonsense.”

“Do I?” He stepped toward the shelves. “The words contained in these diaries do not speak nonsense. They were written by my mother and father, in their own hands.” He stopped at the shelves. “They tell the story of their lives, from after the war. Their words have taught me so much.”

Kurt said nothing.

“I am on the verge of accomplishing what my father and his contemporaries could not. Leaders are poised all across the European continent ready to spring forward. The electorate merely requires a spark, and Germany will be that spark. My election will signal the charge. It will be a new-right revolution. Europe will reclaim itself from all those who have tried to dilute us. When the effort ends, the liberals and moderates will be no more, and the new unified Europe will be strong and glorious.”

He stepped close to Kurt.

“Now I ask you. Please, tell me all that you know.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19

12:10 A.M.

Cassiopeia spotted the castle, its dirty gray walls splashed with a sodium-vapor glow, the spectacle matted by a velvet sky. Löwenberg was impressive. The citadel stood in clear defiance to the surrounding lowland, once surely the home of regional barons, now the bastion of a man linked with an unspeakable past.

Marie had remained silent on the drive from Hildesheim. She’d left the minister alone with her thoughts, wondering just exactly what was going to happen once they were face-to-face with Pohl. Surely he wasn’t going to confess to any assassination attempt. In fact, just them coming here would raise far more questions than answers. But the chancellor was not to be dissuaded, wanting to speak with Pohl tonight, so that was precisely what they would do.

She wound the car up the road toward a gate in the wall curtain. A solitary guard stood outside the entrance dressed in a peacoat.

She eased forward and stopped.

“We are here to see Herr Pohl,” she told the guard.

“It is after midnight.”

“He called for us. This is the chancellor of Germany. Surely you recognize her.”

The man glanced in through the open driver’s-side window, and it was clear he knew the face.

“Herr Pohl telephoned earlier and requested we come. He is waiting for us,” Marie said in a polite voice.

The man hesitated an instant before waving them through.

Worked every time. Speak clear, act authoritative, accept no rebuke, and most people backed down. Especially when you had the head of the country in the car.

She motored through the gate and entered a spacious inner courtyard that seemed to serve as a parking lot. Stone walls for the various buildings enclosed its perimeter. Some of the mullioned windows glowed with light, but most loomed dark and silent. She took in the height and depth of the courtyard, studying her surroundings, preparing herself for anything, then parked off to one side between a Volvo coupe and a Mercedes van.

They stepped out into a warm, clear night.

“That lighted entrance, there, seems the way in,” she said, pointing to an illuminated archway.

They started across the cobbles, passing other dark cars. Near the archway, Marie suddenly stopped.

“What is it?” Cassiopeia asked.

The minister’s gaze was on a BMW, its shiny exterior reflecting the glow from the nearby entrance. Marie stepped close to the car. She then rounded the trunk and approached the driver’s-side door. She glanced in through the window and studied a sticker affixed to the front windshield.

“This is my husband’s car. The sticker is a company identification. It is his personal vehicle.”

There was amazement in her voice.

“What is it doing here?” she asked.

“Not it,” Marie said. “What is he doing here?”

Shock filled the older woman’s face, the look one of utter betrayal. But Cassiopeia was wondering the same thing.

What was Kurt Eisenhuth doing here?

Resolve came into Marie’s eyes. Then the older woman marched to the door and, without knocking or otherwise announcing her presence, opened the latch.

They both stepped inside.

Engle stood beside the window on the second floor. He’d watched as Marie Eisenhuth and Cassiopeia Vitt drove into the courtyard, then proceeded to the only lit door. He’d noticed the chancellor’s examination of the BMW and concluded that she now realized her husband was inside the castle. He’d also watched earlier as Pohl led Kurt Eisenhuth down into the subterranean chamber. That was unusual, as his employer held that particular secret quite close.

The chancellor’s presence here was puzzling.

Whatever Pohl had in mind, events were definitely unfolding.

He walked over to the bed, reached for the phone on the nightstand, and punched in the intercom code.

The sharp ring of the phone across the underground chamber cut Pohl’s concentration like a cleaver.

“Wait,” he said, raising a hand to Kurt.

He marched to the wall unit and yanked off the receiver.

“You have more guests,” Engle said.

He listened as his acolyte reported what was happening above. Incredible. The chancellor herself had come. He glanced across at the figure of Kurt Eisenhuth. Perhaps there was still a way to flush his opponent from the race and save his own chances. He turned away from Kurt and faced the wall.

“Send her down below,” he whispered.

“What about Cassiopeia Vitt?”

“Amuse her.”

“Understood.”

He hung up the phone, returned to his guest, and said, “Please, go on.”

Engle left the bedchamber and proceeded quietly through the upper corridors. He stopped just short of the open balustrade and carefully peered down to the foyer below. Cassiopeia Vitt and Marie Eisenhuth stood looking about, admiring the opulence. The stewards were all gone for the night. Pohl had planned to retire early, supposedly upset over the news of Eisenhuth’s death. His employees would later make excellent witnesses to an earlier scene of sadness and concern, shock and dismay.

But that had not happened.

He stepped to the open railing and said, “Guten nacht.”

Both of the women’s heads angled upward.

“Who are you?” the chancellor asked.

“Josef Engle,” Cassiopeia answered.

“At your service,” he said.

“Where is Herr Pohl?” Eisenhuth asked.

“Follow the corridor ahead into the master bedchamber. There is an open door there to a stairway. He is at the bottom.”