The Julian secret

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Southwestern France

Montsegur

The present

How the hell had Skorzeny gotten up there? From where Lang stood, the south face of the hill went straight up, crowned by what could have been a pile of scree or the ruins of some sort of building. Two of the other sides, east and west, were even steeper. The north of the hill, Lang guessed, could have been conquered by experienced climbers hammering pitons into the few crevices in the white rock. That was it, he decided. The Germans had made a technical climb up the north face, then rappelled down to the cave's mouth.

''You will not be climbing that," Gurt said from the car, where she had retreated after one glance at the slopes.

"There is nothing left there, anyway," added Guillaume, the guide they had hired for the day. Montsegur was not exactly on the maps tourists bought. "Half the cave collapsed a few years ago, anyway."

Alternating his gaze between the hillside and the rock strewn ground, Lang began to circle the incline. "Maybe so, but I still need to get up there."

Guillaume sighed with a Galic shrug that conveyed his frustration with people who did not understand. Americans never admitted something was impossible; they just went ahead and did it. In this case, ascent of Montsegur was not only impossible but pointless. A number of nearby mountains had as good or better views of the tortured landscape of the Languedoc, with the Pyrenees little more than a blue dream in the west. Some of these views came along with small restaurants where the food was passably good and, if one was a local, you were not cheated on the wine.

Guillaume had mentioned this both to the tall German woman who had the sense to sit in the car out of the sun and to the taller American who did not. But nothing would dissuade him from this specific hill. His hand went to his pocket, as though assuring himself it would be available for the euros he had been promised. That was another characteristic of Americans, his favorite: They paid without haggling over the price.

Suddenly, the American was gone, vanished as suddenly as if he had evaporated.

Guillaume moved toward the place he had last seen him. Having a man disappear like that was frightening, almost as frightening as the chance Guillaume would not be paid if he didn't reappear.

Then he was there again, seeming to step right out of the rock of the mountainside.

"Gurt," Lang called, "come take a look at this!"

Gurt's height made her look as though she were unfolding as she got out of the car and walked over.

"Look." Lang was pointing.

"It looks like a small hole to me," Gurt said, careful not to slip on loose rocks. ''A hole, yes," Lang said. "But notice the edges." Gurt reached an exploratory hand out to run along the sides of the opening. "They are smooth, as if they were carved."

Lang sank to his knees and began to pull rocks away from the orifice. Within minutes, a symmetrically arched aperture about four feet high was visible.

Still kneeling, Lang crept forward. "This isn't natural, either. There's some sort of path inside."

And for the second time he disappeared, returning with a grin on his face. "Stairs. Leading to the top, I'll bet."

"Now we know how Skorzeny got up there," Gurt observed.

Lang stood, dusting himself off. "Not this way. There's rubble, stones, dust piled up inside." He turned to Guillaume, who was showing renewed interest. "You said part of the cave collapsed a few years back. Do you remember when?"

Guillaume frowned. Part of the roof of a cave, visible from the road but of no use to anyone except this American, falls in. Rocks fall down mountains, sometimes blocking the road; some days it rains, others it does not. Who keeps track of such things? It is difficult enough to decide if temperature and rainfall have combined to produce good vintages and rich clover that, by way of the cows, will be converted to cheese.

But the American wanted to know, and the American would decide the question of whether there would be a gratuity above the price agreed upon.

Guillaume screwed up his face in thought. "It was shortly after Easter the year my sister's first child was born." Lang waited, hoping for a date of somewhat more general recognition.

"Two, no, three years ago," Guillaume said, now nodding. "We made much rain." He spread his arms as though precipitation came in armloads. "The Aud flooded and much mud washed onto the road from the hills. I was driving past one day and noticed I could see sky where before there had been only the top of the cave."

"The same thing that caused mud slides caused water to fill the tunnel inside that mountain," Lang said, "washing away the rocks and junk that covered the entrance that leads to the top."

"You hope," Gurt said. "Part of the tunnel could also have washed away. If that is actually a tunnel."

Lang was bending over, looking inside again. "Has to be. Place was besieged for over a year, if I remember from the last time I was in the area. The Cathars had to have a way to get supplies and -water up there. If there had been an outside way to the top, the king's army would have found it long before a year."

"They also would have found that entrance," Gurt said.

"It was probably pretty well hidden behind rocks and vegetation. Even if the entrance was found, no more than one man at a time could have gotten through, and the stairs wind counterclockwise so that only a defender at the top could use his right hand, his sword arm."

Lang looked from Gurt to Guillaume and back again.

"Well?"

Gurt squatted, duck-walking into the tunnel.

Lang followed, pausing only long enough to ask Guillaume, "Coming?" Guillaume shook his head. It was a long way to the top, if the stairs were sufficiently intact to be usable.

Inside, a gray light filtered down a narrow, round shaft no more than three feet across. Carved into the wall were steps, each no more than a foot long and perhaps ten inches wide. They ended in rubble around the first turn. It took Lang only a couple of minutes to realize a slip in the dimness was likely to be fatal.

He stopped. "Let's go back down. I'd feel safer with a couple of flashlights and rope." Gurt was backing down the stairs uncertainly. "Rope?"

"Tie ourselves together so if one slips, the other can arrest the fall."

"Or fall, too."

Gurt, the optimist.

Although he missed his wife, Fabian, Guillaume was glad she had chosen this particular week to visit her sister in Rochefort. Now there was no need to tell her how much money the American had paid him this afternoon and he could enjoy as much of it as he wanted. Or all of it, for that matter.

That was why he had made an unaccustomed trip to the town's bistro to let someone else prepare his dinner while he drank wine and shared local gossip in the cool of sunset. Moving inside the restaurant, he was wondering how much of the American's money he should put aside to buy a gift for Fabian, if any. Although only about half of the place's eight tables were occupied, a man he had never seen before motioned him over, indicating he should have a seat.

''You are Guillaume Lerat?" the man asked in French marred only by an accent Guillaume had never heard before.

A quick look at the stranger's clothes also told Guillaume that the man was not local. No one around here could afford American-made jeans. Guillaume nodded and gave the man a smile, fueled partially from the wine he had consumed and partially from the prospect of another well-paying customer.

''You are a licensed guide for this area."

It was a statement, not a question.

Guillaume nodded again. "Yes."

Not quite true. Being a licensed guide required the payment of an annual fee, one much more expensive than simply having a commercial driver's permit. But then, who could distinguish between a professional guide who drove his customers around the area and a driver who simply pointed out the sights as he drove? Only governments could make such distinctions.

Instead of asking about specific locations, the man glanced furtively around the room before laying his hand on the table. Beneath his palm was a stack of euros. No matter how hard he stared, the man's hand prevented Guillaume from ascertaining exactly how much money he was seeing.

''You had customers today?" the man asked. Guillaume was trying, with little success, not to appear overly focused on the bills on the table. "Qui." The man thumbed the currency, letting Guillaume see the thickness of the stack. "Who were they?"

Guillaume's eyes flicked to the man's before returning to the money. "Information, like anything else, has its price."

The man across the table twisted his lips into what might have been intended to be a smile. It reminded Guillaume of a dead shark he had once seen washed up on the beach. He used one hand to slip a bill from the pile. "I agree. Who were your customers today?"

Guillaume pursed his lips, trying to feign indifference even as he slipped the money into his pocket. ''A man, an American, and a woman. I think she was German." He had the distinct impression the stranger was not surprised.

He dealt another bill. "Where did they go?"

"They were interested in the ruins of old castles and fortresses."

This time there was no move to hand over more money. "I know where they went. I want to know what in particular interested them, where was their attention?"

For an instant, Guillaume considered the possibility of holding out for more money. A look at the stranger's face told him that might be both unwise and unhealthy. He told him about Montsegur.

Guillaume's dinner, demi poule en vin blanc, half a chicken roasted with vegetables in white wine sauce, arrived as the stranger stood up, pushing the remainder of the euros across the table. "I paid you to remember. This is to forget-forget you ever saw me."

For the first time in his life, Guillaume was oblivious to food and a bottle of wine in front of him. Hardly noticing the savory aroma, he watched the man's back as he walked across the square and disappeared into the deepening shadows. Minutes ago, Guillaume had been ravenous. His appetite had somehow disappeared.