The Charlemagne Pursuit

11:00 AM

MALONE FELT THE TRAIN SLOW AS THEY ENTERED THE OUTSKIRTS of Aachen. Even though his worries from last night had receded into better proportion, he wondered what was he doing here. Christl Falk sat beside him, but the ride north from Garmisch had taken about three hours and they'd said little.

His clothes and toiletries from the Posthotel had been waiting for him when he awoke at Reichshoffen. A note had explained that Ulrich Henn had retrieved them during the night. He'd slept on sheets that smelled of clover then showered, shaved, and changed. Of course, he'd only brought a couple of shirts and pants from Denmark, planning to be gone no more than a day, two at the most. Now he wasn't so sure.

Isabel had been waiting for him downstairs, and he'd informed the Oberhauser matriarch that he'd decided to help. What choice did he have? He wanted to know about his father, and he wanted to know who was trying to kill him. Walking away would lead to nothing. And the old woman had made one point clear. They knew things he didn't.

"Twelve hundred years ago," Christl said, "this was the center of the secular world. The capital of the newly conceived Northern Empire. What two hundred years later we called the Holy Roman Empire."

He smiled. "Which was not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

She nodded. "True. But Charlemagne was quite the progressive. A man of immense energy, he founded universities, generated legal principles that eventually made their way into the common law, organized the government, and started a nationalism that inspired the creation of Europe. I've studied him for years. He seemed to make all the right decisions. He ruled for forty-seven years and lived to be seventy-four at a time when kings barely lasted five years in power and were dead at thirty."

"And you think all that happened because he had help?"

"He ate in moderation and drank carefully-and this was when gluttony and drunkenness ran rampant. He daily rode, hunted, and swam. One reason he chose Aachen for his capital was the hot springs, which he used religiously."

"So the Holy Ones taught him about diet, hygiene, and exercise?"

He saw she caught his sarcasm.

"Characteristically, he was a warrior," she said. "His entire reign was marked by conquest. But he took a disciplined approach to war. He'd plan a campaign for at least a year, studying the opposition. He also directed battles as opposed to participating in them."

"He was also brutal as hell. At Verden he ordered the beheading of forty-five hundred bound Saxons."

"That's not certain," she said. "No archaeological evidence of that supposed massacre has ever been found. The original source of the story may have mistakenly used the word decollabat, beheading, when it should have said delocabat, exiling."

"You know your history. And your Latin."

"None of this is what I think. Einhard was the chronicler. He's the one who made those observations."

"Assuming, of course, his writings are authentic."

The train slowed to a crawl.

He was still thinking about yesterday and what lay below Reichshoffen. "Does your sister feel the same way about the Nazis, and what they did to your grandfather, as you do?"

"Dorothea could not care less. Family and history are not important to her."

"What is?"

"Herself."

"Strange how twins so resent each other."

"There's no rule that says we're to be bonded together. I learned as a child that Dorothea was a problem."

He needed to explore those differences. "Your mother seems to play favorites."

"I wouldn't assume that."

"She sent you to me."

"True. But she aided Dorothea early on."

The train came to a stop.

"You going to explain that one?"

"She's the one who gave her the book from Charlemagne's grave."

DOROTHEA FINISHED HER INSPECTIONS OF THE BOXES WILKERSON had retrieved from Fussen. The book dealer had done well. Many of the Ahnenerbe's records had been seized by the Allies after the war, so she was amazed that so much had been located. But even after reading for the past few hours, the Ahnenerbe remained an enigma. Only in recent years had the organization's existence finally been studied by historians, the few books written on the subject touching mainly on its failures.

These boxes talked of success.

There'd been expeditions to Sweden to retrieve petroglyphs, and to the Middle East, where they'd studied the internal power struggles of the Roman Empire-which, to the Ahnenerbe, had been fought between Nordic and Semitic people. Goring himself funded that journey. In Damascus, Syrians welcomed them as allies to combat a rising Jewish population. In Iran their researchers visited Persian ruins, as well as Babylon, marveling at a possible Aryan connection. In Finland they studied ancient pagan chants. Bavaria yielded cave paintings and evidence of Cro-Magnons, who were, to the Ahnenerbe, surely Aryan. More cave paintings were studied in France where, as one commentator noted, "Himmler and so many other Nazis dreamed of standing in the dark embrace of the ancestors."

Asia, though, became a true fascination.

The Ahnenerbe believed early Aryans conquered much of China and Japan and that Buddha himself was an Aryan offspring. A major expedition to Tibet yielded thousands of photographs, head casts, and body measurements, along with exotic animal and plant specimens, all gathered in the hope of proving ancestry. More trips to Bolivia, Ukraine, Iran, Iceland, and the Canary Islands never materialized, though elaborate plans for each journey were detailed.

The records also detailed how, as the war progressed, the Ahnenerbe's role expanded. After Himmler ordered the Aryanization of the conquered Crimea, the Ahnenerbe was charged with replicating German forests and cultivating new crops for the Reich. The Ahnenerbe also supervised the relocation of ethnic Germans to the region, along with the deportation of thousands of Ukrainians.

But as the brain trust grew, more finances were needed.

So a foundation was created to receive donations.

Contributors included Deutsche Bank, BMW, and Daimler-Benz, which were thanked repeatedly in official correspondence. Always innovative, Himmler learned of reflector panels for bicycles that had been patented by a German machinist. He formed a joint company with the inventor and then ensured the passage of a law that required pedals on all bicycles to include the reflectors, which earned tens of thousands of Reichsmarks yearly for the Ahnenerbe.

So much effort had gone into fashioning so much fiction.

But amid the ridiculousness of finding lost Aryans, and the tragedies of participating in organized murder, her grandfather had actually stumbled onto a treasure.

She stared at the old book lying on the table.

Was it indeed from Charlemagne's grave?

Nothing in any of the materials she'd read talked about it, though from what her mother had told her, it had been found in 1935 among the archives of the Weimar Republic, discovered with a message penned by some unknown scribe that attested to its removal from the grave in Aachen on May 19, 1000, by Emperor Otto III. How it managed to survive until the twentieth century remained a mystery. What did it mean? Why was it so important?

Her sister, Christl, believed the answer lay in some mystical appeal.

And Ramsey had failed to alleviate her fears with his cryptic response.

You can't imagine.

But none of that could be the answer.

Or could it?

MALONE AND CHRISTL EXITED THE TRAIN STATION. MOIST, COLD air reminded him of a New England winter. Cabs lined the curb. People came and went in steady streams.

"Mother," Christl said, "wants me to succeed."

He couldn't decide if she was trying to convince him, or herself. "Your mother is manipulating you both."

She faced him. "Mr. Malone-"

"My name is Cotton."

She seemed to restrain a surge of annoyance. "As you reminded me last night. How did you acquire that odd name?"

"A story for later. You were about to berate me, before I knocked you off balance."

Her face relaxed into a smile. "You're a problem."

"From what your mother said, Dorothea thought so, too. But I've decided to take it as a compliment." He rubbed his gloved hands together and looked around. "We need to make a stop. Some long underwear would be great. This isn't that dry Bavarian air. How about you? Cold?"

"I grew up in this weather."

"I didn't. In Georgia, where I was born and raised, it's hot and humid nine months out of the year." He continued to survey his surroundings with a disinterested appearance, feigning discomfort. "I also need a change of clothes. I didn't pack for a long trip."

"There's a shopping district near the chapel."

"I assume, at some point, you'll explain about your mother and why we're here?"

She motioned for a taxi, which wheeled close.

She opened the door and climbed inside. He followed. She told the driver where they wanted to go.

"Ja," she said. "I'll explain."

As they left the station, Malone glanced out the rear window. The same man he'd noticed three hours earlier in the Garmisch station-tall, with a thin, hatchet-shaped face seamed with wrinkles-hailed a cab.

He carried no luggage and seemed intent on only one thing.

Following.

DOROTHEA HAD GAMBLED IN ACQUIRING THE AHNENERBE records. She'd taken a risk contacting Cotton Malone, but she'd proved to herself that he was of little use. Still, she was not certain that the route to success was more pragmatic. One thing seemed clear. Exposing her family to more ridicule was not an option. Occasionally, a researcher or historian contacted Reichshoffen wanting to inspect her grandfather's papers or talk to the family about the Ahnenerbe. Those requests were always refused, and for good reason.

The past should stay in the past.

She stared at the bed and a sleeping Sterling Wilkerson.

They'd driven north last night and taken a room in Munich. Her mother would know of the hunting lodge's destruction before the day ended. The body in the abbey had also surely been found. Either the monks or Henn would dispose of the problem. More likely, it would be Ulrich.

She realized that if her mother had aided her, by providing the book from Charlemagne's grave, she'd surely given Christl something, too. Her mother had been the one who insisted that she speak to Cotton Malone. That was why she and Wilkerson had used the woman and led him to the abbey. Her mother cared little for Wilkerson. "Another weak soul," she called him. "And child, we have no time for weakness." But her mother was nearing eighty and Dorothea was in the prime of her life. Handsome, adventurous men, like Wilkerson, were good for many things.

Like last night.

She stepped to the bed and roused him.

He awoke and smiled.

"It's nearly noon," she said.

"I was tired."

"We need to leave."

He noticed the contents of the boxes scattered across the floor. "Where are we going?"

"Hopefully, to get a step ahead of Christl."