The Excalibur Codex

XXIX

‘Why would something called the Bialystok Foundation transport a demolished Polish castle to New York?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jamie admitted. Back in the hotel he still felt guilty about what he’d done to Marmaduke Porter. Maybe he could justify it by telling himself that if he hadn’t passed on the message, the Israelis would have got someone else to do it, but he knew that was lily-livered hogwash. On the one hand he wished he’d never got involved with Adam Steele, but on the other was the tantalizing possibility that it was true. That Excalibur existed and he, Jamie Saintclair, hitherto purveyor of other people’s second-rate daubs, was the man who might discover it. He thrust the thought from his head and tried to concentrate. ‘I’m certain the five swords were part of the shipment, but there are easier and less expensive ways to smuggle them to the States. Maybe this isn’t about the swords at all. The answer could be something to do with the castle itself. Remember that the Teutonic Knights based themselves on the Templars. When the Order was disbanded and Philip of France had their leader Jacques de Molay burned at the stake, they were said to have gathered a great treasure that later vanished. Who’s to say they didn’t hand it over to their brother knights in the East for safe keeping? Perhaps Nortstein Castle was the repository of that treasure? I think we need to go back to London to talk to Adam.’

Charlotte nodded. ‘I’ll let him know once I’ve checked out the foundation.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll call him now.’ Jamie reached for the sat-phone, but she laid her hand on his.

‘Leave it until we reach the airport. We have better things to do with our time.’

David Van Buren III closed his eyes as he lay back in the Jacuzzi on the after deck of the MV Diana, a beautiful classic motor yacht, the loan of which was the three-week gift of a grateful Italian industrialist to the United States ambassador to NATO. A satisfied smile wreathed his face as the squeals of his children drifted up from the bathing platform where they played at the port side. He knew he needn’t worry about their safety because the au pair and one of his five bodyguards would be with them. His ever-beautiful wife, Maryanne, was reading as usual up on the sun deck.

Christ, he’d needed this break, and the offer of the yacht had come just at the right time. Things had gone quiet in Afghanistan, or as quiet as they ever did in that benighted country, after a start to the year that had stretched him to the limit with multiple IED casualties, helicopter crashes and the usual European pissing contests and threats to pull out their military contingents. He’d managed to calm things, but it had worn him down to the point where he felt fifty going on ninety. Later in the year there’d be the running sore of Kosovo to consider and the negotiations over missile defence. But, for now, he could relax, even if his cell phone was never more than two feet away.

They’d flown down from Brussels to Venice and boarded the yacht after two wonderful nights at the Cipriani. MV Diana could carry up to twenty-six passengers in complete luxury, but her crew of twenty-four were having it easy with only eleven on board. She sure was a beauty, a real Sophia Loren of the seas, all sophistication and sleek lines, with the polished brass and glowing mahogany that came with her pedigree. She’d been launched way back in the twenties, before the Crash had given her kind of extravagance a bad name, but she’d been refitted in the last decade and kitted out with the kind of modern amenities no self-respecting super-yacht would be without: the pool, the cinema, the sauna and the gym. Two hundred and sixty feet long, with a beam of thirty-nine and a top speed of ten knots from her quadruple steam engines, she was a floating home from home, with the added benefit that the sun was guaranteed to shine every day. Not that they’d only spent their time sunbathing. On the way south they’d marvelled at the opulence of the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace in Split, walked the walls of ancient Dubrovnik and only yesterday they’d wandered the narrow streets of Corfu Town, visiting the New Fortress while the Diana was resupplying. To cap a perfect day, the kids had been able to watch a crazy cricket match in the park from a restaurant on the Liston Arcade.

Later, there’d be reports to read — you couldn’t totally escape the job. But for now he was happy to enjoy the tranquillity of Agni Bay after a lunch enlivened by the proximity at the next table of the crew of the Russian oligarch’s yacht moored about two hundred yards off the starboard bow. The way they’d eyed up his security detail reminded him of stags at the beginning of a rut, but a round of drinks and a few toasts had ended that particular Cold War.

He was still smiling at the memory when he noticed a curious phenomenon. The world turned first red, then blue and he seemed to be spinning above what had once been the yacht, but was now a spreading ball of fire. A dream, surely? The reality only became clear when gravity regained its grip on the body of David Van Buren III, minus both legs and one arm, and he plunged back into the flaming wreck of the Diana with a scream that the waiters at the Taverna Agni would have nightmares about for a very long time.

Even before the echo of the explosion died, Stefano, who ran the boat taxi business from the jetty, had cast off. He gunned the boat out towards the pool of flame surrounding the sinking boat and plucked three children and the nanny from the waters. The tender of the Russian billionaire’s yacht picked up most of the crew, but it would be days before divers from the Greek navy recovered what was left of the ambassador and his wife.

Two hours later Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack for its Albanian wing in a phone call to an Athens news agency. They cited brotherhood with the Taliban and justice for the indiscriminate slaughter of Afghan civilians by NATO forces.

‘This will harden attitudes in the United States against Islamic extremists,’ Adam Steele predicted, waving the rolled-up newspaper as if it was a conductor’s baton. Jamie and Charlotte had flown in from Corfu the previous evening and the banker had insisted they come to a breakfast meeting in the vast dining room of the Mayfair house. ‘The Senate is already calling on the President to authorize drone strikes in Albania and extend those against Al-Qaida targets in Somalia and the Yemen to camps in Uganda and even Kenya—’

‘I doubt his Kenyan relatives would be too impressed.’ Nobody laughed and Gault’s grin faded under his employer’s glare. Adam Steele didn’t like to be interrupted.

‘The world’s fault lines are becoming more defined and deeper,’ he continued. ‘We’ve had America and the Twin Towers, and now this. Russia and the Moscow tube bombings. The Bali bombings aimed at Australian tourists. The Mumbai terror attacks in India. Explosions across the European mainland and the M25 massacre in the United Kingdom. China, too, has its own problems with Islamic extremists, but it does not advertise them and has an effective and very permanent way of dealing with them.’ Jamie looked up and found Steele’s eyes on him. ‘Perhaps we could learn from them.’

The art dealer shook his head. ‘All you’d do is create martyrs for the cause. Abbie wouldn’t have wanted to see any more blood spilled.’

‘As it happens, I agree.’ Steele nodded. ‘But what I’m trying to say is that we are reaching a tipping point, and not just in Britain, when, if Governments do not act, the people will.’

‘I was wondering if there’s a link between Al-Qaida and the sword,’ Jamie frowned. ‘Or the search for the sword. It’s as if they’re shadowing us wherever we go. Madrid, Poland, and now Corfu.’ Steele laid the newspaper down on the mahogany table beside the evidence they’d gathered: the codex, the envelope containing the medals Inge Lauterbacher had given Jamie, the Lauterbacher journal, and Charlotte’s slim file on Heinrich Himmler’s Knights of the Round Table. Jamie wondered if the collection had been put there to embarrass them. It was such a paltry return for all the time and money Steele had invested. ‘I suppose you can explain Madrid and Corfu as unlikely coincidences, but what about Poland?’

He saw Steele and Gault exchange glances. The former SBS man nodded. ‘It is not widely known,’ Adam Steele said carefully, ‘but Mr Gault was involved in certain operations in Afghanistan that resulted in terminal damage to the higher echelons of the Al-Qaida leadership. He was even given a shiny piece of silverware for his efforts, which unfortunately he is not allowed to wear in public. Not the highest level of terrorist leadership, but high enough to make him a target for revenge. That would go some way to explaining their pursuit of you and the attack in Poland.’

‘It’s one explanation,’ Jamie conceded, but he wondered, if that were the case, why Rashid and Hassan had been so keen to remove his head, but had never even mentioned Gault.

‘It is the only explanation. Come, we’re being side-tracked.’ Steele must have made some kind of signal, because Charlotte produced a handful of printed reports, which she distributed to the three men, keeping the last for herself. ‘Your theory about a possible Templar treasure is fascinating, Jamie,’ the banker smiled, ‘but immaterial. My only interest is in Excalibur.’

He nodded to Charlotte and she turned to the first page of the report with a nervous smile at Jamie. ‘The Bialystok Foundation was set up in the early nineteen seventies to strengthen cultural links between Poland and the United States in the wake of the Communist takeover,’ she said, her voice becoming more confident with each word. ‘It makes sense because Polish Americans make up the largest ethnic group of Slavic origin in the United States and at the last count there were at least ten million of them. The foundation sponsored exchanges between arts groups, sporting organizations, Polish-language classes, and that sort of thing. Its offices were in a rather prestigious area of Washington, not far from Langley. At one point there were rumours it was a CIA front, but that’s never been proved. The fact that the Ministry of Public Security allowed it to operate and the Polish government actively encouraged its activities is evidence the authorities there certainly believed it was clean. The reason for those suspicions may be the accounts, which are a little murky and involve a number of offshore banks, but again nothing illegal has ever been proved.’ She frowned. ‘For that reason we have no insight into the incomings and outgoings in and around the summer of nineteen eighty-seven when Mr Porter was doing business with them.’

‘Who was behind it?’ Jamie asked.

Charlotte consulted her notes. ‘The trustees have included a number of eminent Polish Americans and expatriates. Businessmen, scientists, professors of the arts and philanthropists …’

‘Any war heroes?’

‘We’re having their backgrounds checked,’ she assured him. ‘There are no public records of the meetings, but we have uncovered one thing that might be of interest. At some point in nineteen eighty-seven three of the six directors either resigned or retired.’

‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ Gault growled.

‘No, it doesn’t, but the timing is interesting, don’t you think?’ She looked to Jamie for support, but he was frowning at the piece of paper in front of him.

‘An organization like this would normally have a patron or a founder?’

She checked her notes again. ‘Sorry, I should have thought of that. Give me five minutes.’

When she’d left the room Steele turned to Jamie. ‘What do you think?’

‘Charlotte’s right, the timing of the board changes is interesting, but it doesn’t really take us anywhere. Maybe we could have someone interview them to find out why they quit? Say some magazine is thinking of doing an article on the foundation’s good work. Maybe the fact that the Bialystok Foundation is so secretive is a clue in itself. An organization like that would normally be much more transparent — trumpeting their good works to the world.’

‘Unless those good works included stealing Polish castles?’

‘Exactly,’ Jamie said.

‘Then—’

Charlotte swept back into the room before Steele could answer. ‘The current patron of the organization is Lukasz Pisarek, a fifty-four-year-old Professor of Eastern European Studies at Harvard University.’

Jamie shook his head. ‘Too young.’

‘He took over eight years ago from the previous patron, Mr Harold Webster, an industrialist of Reno, Nevada.’

Adam Steele banged his fist on the table in frustration. ‘This is getting us nowhere. We’re running out of time.’

Jamie stared at him. This was the first time he’d heard of a timescale. ‘I …’ Something Charlotte said flicked a switch in his head. ‘Wait a minute. What did you say?’

‘Harold Webster, an industrialist?’

‘No, the other part.’

‘Reno, Nevada.’

Steele frowned as Jamie went to the table and emptied Rolf Lauterbacher’s medals onto the polished surface. The art dealer studied the postmark on the empty envelope. ‘What do you know.’ He smiled. ‘Whoever was corresponding with our Nazi friend was doing it from Reno, Nevada.’

Adam Steele’s face split into a shark-toothed grin and he turned to Charlotte. ‘I think you should book flights to the States.’

When the others had left to make their preparations, Adam Steele flicked through the pages of the newspaper. The item, on the International page, was so small, only a single paragraph not even worthy of a headline, that he almost missed it.

He wondered for a moment whether to tell them, but decided not. He didn’t want Jamie Saintclair side-tracked at this stage of the operation. Otherwise, his only reaction was curiosity. Whoever was responsible had saved him a great deal of trouble.