The Charlemagne Pursuit

SIXTY-SEVEN

"That's too damn many coincidences for me," he said. "He's not part of this conference. He's scoping out his target."

Their killer was certainly cocky and confident. Being here, out in the open, with no one knowing who he was would certainly appeal to a daring personality. After all, over the past forty-eight hours he'd managed to stealthily murder at least three people.

Still.

Davis marched away.

"Edwin."

He kept going, heading for the billiard room. The rest of the tour was scattered throughout the banquet hall, Scofield starting to herd them in Chinos' direction.

She shook her head and followed.

Davis was headed around the gaming tables toward where Chinos stood, near a pine-garland-decorated fireplace and a bearskin rug that lay across the wood floor. A few others from the tour were already in the room. The rest would be arriving shortly.

"Excuse me," Davis said. "You."

Chinos turned, saw who was speaking to him, and drew back.

"I need to talk to you," Davis said in a firm voice.

Chinos lunged forward and pushed Davis aside. His right hand slipped beneath his unbuttoned coat.

"Edwin," she hollered.

Davis apparently saw it, too, and dove beneath one of the billiard tables.

She found her gun, leveled the weapon, and yelled, "Stop."

The others in the room saw her weapon.

A woman screamed.

Chinos fled out an open doorway.

Davis sprang to his feet and rushed after him.

MALONE AND CHRISTL LEFT THE HOTEL. SILENCE CLAIMED THE cold, clear air. Every star glowed down with an improbable brightness, suffusing Ossau with a colorless light.

Christl had found two flashlights behind the reception desk. Though he was working in a fog of exhaustion, a blur of combative thoughts had roused his vitality. He'd just made love to a beautiful woman whom, on the one hand, he did not trust and, on the other, he could not resist.

Christl had swept her hair up from her neck and clipped the curls high on her head, a few tendrils escaping and framing her soft face. Shadows played over the rough ground. The dry air carried the scent of smoke. They trudged up the snowy inclined path with heavy footsteps, stopping at the monastery's gate. He noticed that Henn, who'd cleaned up the earlier mess, had repositioned the snipped chain so that it appeared as if the gate was locked.

He freed the chain and they entered.

A dark silence, unbroken by the night or the ages, loomed everywhere. They used the flashlights and negotiated dark passages through the cloister to the church. He felt like he was walking inside a chest freezer, the parched air chapping his lips.

He hadn't really noticed the flooring earlier, but he now searched the moss-grown pavement with his light. The masonry was rude and wide-jointed, many of the stones either cracked into pieces or missing, leaving frozen, rock-hard earth exposed. Apprehension crept into his bones. He'd brought the gun and spare magazines, just in case.

"See," he said. "There's a pattern. Hard to see with what little remains." He glanced up to the choir, where Isabel and Henn had appeared. "Come on."

He found the stairway and they climbed. The view from up high helped. Together they saw that the floor, if all there, would have formed a Nine Men's Morris board.

He stopped his beam at what he estimated would have been the board's center. "Einhard was precise, I'll give him that. It's in the middle of the nave."

"It's exciting," she said. "This is exactly what Grandfather did."

"So let's get down there and see if there's anything to find."

"ALL OF YOU, LISTEN TO ME," STEPHANIE SAID, TRYING TO REGAIN control. Heads turned and a quick silence swept the room.

Scofield rushed in from the banquet hall. "What's happening here?"

"Dr. Scofield, take all of these people back to the main entrance. There'll be security there. Tour's over."

She still held the gun, which seem to add an extra aura of authority to her command. But she couldn't wait around to see if Scofield obeyed.

She darted after Davis. No telling what he was doing.

She fled the billiard room and entered a dimly lit hall. A placard announced that she was in the bachelor's wing. Two small rooms opened to her right. A stairway descended to her left. Nothing ornate, probably a servants' path. She heard footsteps thudding below.

Moving fast.

She followed.

MALONE SURVEYED THE FLOORING IN THE CENTER OF THE NAVE. Most of the pavement was there, the joints earth-filled and lichen-encrusted. They'd descended to ground level and he shone his beam on the center stone, then crouched.

"Look," he said.

Not much was left, but carved into the face were faint lines. A slash here and there of what was once part of a triangle and the remnants of the letters K and L.

"What else could it be but Charlemagne's mark?" she asked.

"We need a shovel."

"There's a maintenance shed past the cloister. We found it yesterday morning when we first came."

"Go see."

She hustled off.

He stared at the stone embedded in the frozen earth while something nagged at him. If Hermann Oberhauser had followed the same trail, why would anything be here now? Isabel said that he first came in the late 1930s, before he traveled to Antarctica, then returned in the early 1950s. Her husband came in 1970.

Yet nobody knew a thing?

Light danced outside the church, growing in intensity. Christl returned, shovel in hand.

He grabbed the handle, surrendered his light, and wedged the metal blade into one joint. Just as he suspected, the ground was like concrete. He raised the shovel and slammed the point down hard, working the blade back and forth. After several blows he began to make progress and the ground gave way.

He again spiked the shovel into the joint and managed to wiggle it beneath, working the wooden handle like a fulcrum, loosening the stone from the earth's embrace.

He withdrew the shovel and did the same thing on the other sides.

Finally, the slab began to wobble. He pried it upward, angling the handle.

"Hold the shovel," he told her. He dropped down and worked his gloved hands underneath, freeing the edges from the ground.

Both flashlights lay beside him. He lifted one and saw that only dirt was visible.

"Let me try," she said.

She kneaded the hard ground with short jabs, twisting the blade, working deeper. She hit something. She withdrew the shovel and he stirred the loose dirt, scooping out cold earth until he saw the top of what at first looked like a rock, but then he realized it was flat.

He brushed away the remaining dirt.

Carved in the center of a rectangular shape, clear and distinct, was Charlemagne's signature. He cleared more earth from the sides and realized that he was looking at a stone reliquary. Maybe sixteen inches long, ten inches wide. He worked his hands down either side and discovered that it was about six inches tall.

He lifted it out.

Christl bent down. "It's Carolingian. The style. Design. Marble. And, of course, the signature."

"You want the honor?" he asked.

A blissful half grin claimed her mouth and she grasped the sides and lifted. The reliquary parted in the middle, the bottom portion framing the shape of something wrapped in oilcloth.

He lifted out the sheathed bundle and untied the drawstrings.

Carefully, he opened the bag as Christl shone a light inside.