The Excalibur Codex

XVI

Jamie hunched over the desk in the Madrid hotel suite, peering at the first lines of the diary as if the harder he stared the more likely they were to give up their secret. At first glance it was in an impenetrable code …

XH CLIQYAQL OBIONBQO BXOIOKRXBLNXJ DILKB XGQ XO KAE VILS HBXOBE RSLJBEBTNTBO EE SVJLPCLBL YSEBC KXBTLXGQ JBLICBO XGQ ESWWTB XQO AIC BXOB JBQBXHB HXEEXSO RSO JLSEETBL VBJWBXTBO — but …

Gault and Charlotte joined him in his room before dinner. The SBS man had recovered his humour after being left out of the interview with Lauterbacher’s daughter. Jamie was more convinced than ever that it would have been a mistake to take him and he tried to explain his reasoning, but Gault just shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge, old son.’

Charlotte was still excited about the discovery of the coded journal, but sceptical about its significance. ‘I don’t see what you’re so excited about,’ she complained. ‘It could be his laundry list.’

‘You don’t put your laundry list in code. I think Rolf Lauterbacher was killed for this …’

Gault sniffed. ‘There’s no solid evidence that he was murdered and the book is no good to anybody without the code to decipher it. That information died with Rolf Lauterbacher, so what was the point of killing him?’

‘All right,’ Jamie conceded, ‘not killed for, killed because of. There are too many coincidences about Lauterbacher’s death. What are the odds of some old friend turning up out of nowhere to see him before he died? Or of him being killed the week before we arrived to talk to him about a secret lost almost seventy years ago? It just doesn’t add up, especially when the old man hadn’t stirred from his bed for eight years and dies when he suddenly has an urge to see downstairs just one more time.’

Gault nodded slowly, conceding the possibility, at least. ‘We should get the book back to Steele. He’ll be able to lay his hands on a cypher expert who’ll crack it in no time.’

But Jamie didn’t feel like giving up the prize just yet.

‘Let me take a look at it first. In the meantime, you can try to identify these.’

He spilled the contents of the blue envelope Inge Lauterbacher had handed him on the bed. ‘Easy,’ Gault grinned, picking up a dark Maltese cross. ‘Das Iron Cross.’

‘Yes,’ Jamie said patiently. ‘But what are the others and is it First or Second Class? Is it the Iron Cross or is it a Knight’s Cross, which from memory is very similar? Remember that in the codex, Ziegler says Lauterbacher told him something about a Knight’s Cross …’ He retrieved the copy of the letter Adam Steele had entrusted him with. ‘Here it is: Beneath the Knight’s Cross, one round table, five swords formed in the shape of a pentagram, twelve Knights of the Black Order — and one other element of which I will not speak. The key to the first part of the Excalibur ceremony could be somewhere in those medals.’

‘I’ll take them back to my room and work on them there. So what happens tomorrow?’

‘There’s not much point in moving on until we have somewhere to go.’ Jamie looked around the palatial room Charlotte had booked him into. ‘There are worse places to hang about for a few days. I’ll work on the code tonight and I plan to take look at the galleries in the morning.’

‘Galleries?’

‘The Prado, you Philistine,’ Jamie laughed. ‘Then the Reina Sophia to feast my eyes on old Pablo’s most famous daub.’

‘Ooh, can I come?’ Charlotte chirped. ‘I’ve never seen it before and I’ve heard it’s incredible.’

‘Sure, we can all go if you like. What about it, Gault, jump on the underground after breakfast and head down to Atocha? The galleries are right next door.’

The former soldier frowned and shook his head. Was it his imagination or did Gault go a little paler at the thought of being introduced to a bit of culture?

With Gault gone, Jamie turned back to the code, acutely aware that he was alone in the room with a woman, and an attractive one at that. To compound his unease, Charlotte sat disconcertingly close to his shoulder so his head was filled with her perfume and something else, an underlying earthy, human scent.

‘What are we looking for?’

‘Patterns.’ He edged away a little, but she moved with him. ‘There are lots of different kinds of codes, and some of them would be impossible to break without getting one of Steele’s experts involved. During the war, British SOE agents used what were called one-time pads where every message sent was in a different individual code, which was then burned. You could only read the message if you had a duplicate of the original pad. The Germans created a machine called Enigma — you must have heard of it — that automatically generated a code with billions of possible letter combinations. That code was only broken because the Allies were able to get hold of one of the machines and a bunch of geniuses at Bletchley Park figured out how to use it to break the codes.’

‘It looks impossible.’

‘Maybe.’ He studied the diary’s pages. ‘But I have a feeling this one might be simpler. Look at the pattern of letters in the first line. If this was a sophisticated code the letters would probably be in blocks or groups of, say, five. But they’re not. We have one group of two, two eights and a thirteen. That indicates the groups correspond to actual words, which makes the code so much easier to break. One of the three letter groups is very likely to be “the” and the two letters at the start will be “if” or “as” or “it”. This wasn’t written to stop someone like us reading it. It was written to keep prying eyes away. Specifically, his daughter’s. And it wasn’t written during the war or even shortly after it when Rolf Lauterbacher, undoubtedly a very resourceful man, was at the height of his powers. It looks as if it’s only a couple of years old. When he wrote this Lauterbacher was an old man, and old men get forgetful. Could you hand me the King Arthur book, please.’ Charlotte got up to fetch the battered volume and returned to his side. He leafed through the yellowing pages, but found it difficult to concentrate because of her presence. When he resumed his voice sounded unnatural and he felt himself blushing. ‘The main point of my fascinating little lecture,’ he swallowed, ‘is that every code has a key. And I have a feeling Lauterbacher would have kept the key close by. One kind of code is a substitution code, where the code maker chooses a phrase, sometimes from a handy book, and uses it to replace the letters of the alphabet. We’ll start with that.’

Charlotte leaned closer to get a better view of the book and he felt the curve of her breast against his arm. ‘Er, why don’t you go to your room and fetch a pencil and paper?’

‘That’s not necessary.’ Her voice was almost in his ear and he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. ‘I have one here.’

Abbie’s face came into his head and he found it difficult to breathe. Had it really been just over a month? Charlotte had made it plain she was attracted to him, and any man would be attracted to her, but it felt wrong even to consider the possibility. He stood up and took a step away. ‘Good.’ He gave her an unconvincing smile. ‘I’ll take the first line of the book.’ He scribbled the words in a pad and gave her back the Malory. ‘You take a look through it for any memorable phrases he might have used. They’ll need a minimum of twenty-six characters.’

He turned away and studied the words in front of him. It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all England …

With a frown of concentration, he began writing. I (A) T (B) B (C) E (D) F (E) forget the second E, L (F) N (G) H (H), unlikely but not impossible, D (I) A (J) Y (K) S (L) O (M) U (N) R (O) P (P). He pursed his lips at the second unlikely coincidence of the letters synchronizing. This was looking less promising by the minute. Still, it would get his mind in the right gear. G (Q) W (R) K (S). Not bad, nineteen out of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and the two coincidences might actually make it more confusing for anyone trying to break the code. A double bluff that Lauterbacher, the intelligence officer, would have been familiar enough with. He checked the letters that weren’t in the sentence — CJMQVXZ — and substituted them for those he hadn’t reached in the alphabet — TUVWXYZ. Now he was ready.

He took the first three groups of letters of the coded diary. XH CLIQYAQL OBIONBQO. So, in this cypher, XH became VH, which wasn’t a great start, and CLIQYAQL translated as BSDGXIGS, which didn’t work in any language he knew and seemed an unlikely acronym. Just to be certain he tried the third group with a similar lack of success and sat back to rethink his strategy. He looked up to find Charlotte staring at him.

He shrugged. ‘It would have been too much to ask to break it at the first go.’

‘So it definitely isn’t the first sentence in the book?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple. The first sentence may still be the foundation of the code, but Lauterbacher could have added another twist to it — a sort of combination code. The simplest way would be to add a shift.’ He saw her look of bemusement. ‘At the moment ABCDEF translates as ITBEFL in this cypher, but add a shift of one and A becomes Z, not I, B becomes I and so on through the alphabet. Add a shift of two and it changes again. We need to test all those possibilities before we discard the first line. It will be quicker if we both do it.’ He handed her a piece of paper and pulled the room’s other chair up to the desk so that they could both see the original course code. ‘I’ll take the odd shifts. You take the even. Don’t worry about the whole message, the first three or four words will tell you.’ He frowned. ‘Unless he’s been really clever and made the first three or four words of the journal gibberish.’

‘You really think he might have done that?’

‘I bloody well hope not,’ he laughed.

An hour later, Gault came to the door. He took in the pile of crumpled paper on the desk with a look that said: I told you so.

Jamie smiled. ‘Nobody said it was going to be easy.’

‘You planning to come down for dinner?’

‘I don’t think so. Get them to send up some room service, would you?’

‘What about your ladyship?’

‘Oh, I’m having much too much fun here.’

The former soldier’s face split in a sly smile. ‘Who’d have thought …’ And before either could react he slipped out of the room, his laughter echoing along the hall.

They looked at each other and Charlotte grinned. ‘Filthy beast.’

It was close to midnight by the time they exhausted the possibilities of the first sentence. ‘Maybe we should call it a day,’ Jamie suggested.

‘I’m not tired. Let’s give it one more try.’

‘All right. Did you have any luck finding a memorable sentence?’

She frowned. ‘I got so involved in what we were doing that I completely forgot.’ She reached for Tales of King Arthur and flicked through the pages until she found the passage she was looking for. Here it is. What do you think?’

His heart beat a little faster as he read the words. Whoso pulleth out this sword from this stone anvil, is rightwise king of all England. ‘I like it and it’s definitely worth a try.’

He found a new sheet of paper and began to transcribe the code. W (A), H (B), O (C) … The first attempt produced TF UGCEIWEG, but he wasn’t dismayed. ‘Same as before. I’ll take the odd shifts. You take the even.’

They worked steadily and as combination after combination was cast aside his optimism began to fade. Before long they’d run out of pieces of paper and he picked up a crumpled note that Charlotte had been working on earlier, meaning to recycle it, when something caught his eye. ‘What shift was this?’

She caught the excitement in his voice and looked up sharply. ‘It should be on there. Yes, it says the twelfth.’

Jamie studied the letters, chewing his lip. IM FRUHJAHR. ‘Idiot, of course it would be the twelfth.’ Charlotte gave him a look of alarm. ‘Not you. I’m the bloody idiot. Twelve Knights of the Black Order. Look, all this time we’ve been looking at that first two-letter word and thinking “is” or “if” or “as”. English words, because Tales of King Arthur is an English book. But Rolf Lauterbacher was German. Of course he’d write in German. What does the next group say?’

‘NEUNZEHN.’

‘Neunzen. Nineteen.’ He felt like grabbing her by the waist and kissing her, but that might have given her the wrong signal, so he contented himself with a fatherly pat on the shoulder, which produced a puzzled smile. ‘And the next one?’

‘EINUNDVIERZIG.’

‘Im Frühjahr neunzehn einundvierzig … In the spring of nineteen forty-one …’

Quickly they worked their way through the rest of the first few lines.

‘Im Frühjahr neunzehn einundvierzig wurde ich in das Büro meines Vorgesetzten, SS Obgrpfrer Josef Dietrich gerufen. Ich sollte ihn auf eine geheime Mission von größter begleiten …’

Jamie translated. ‘In the spring of nineteen forty-one I was summoned to the office of my superior, SS Obergruppenführer Josef Dietrich. I was to accompany him on a secret mission of the utmost …’

It was almost daylight when they reached the final part of the journal. As she read the passage, Charlotte let out a gasp and put a hand to her mouth. Jamie came to the same sentence and an icy hand gripped his heart. The element of which I will not speak.

‘I think we need to get Gault in here.’

While she went off to fetch the former soldier, he picked up the journal and flicked idly through the pages. He froze as he spotted a tiny anomaly. Could it be?