He entered the chateau through the kitchen, an enormous room loaded with stainless steel. Fifteen minutes had passed since he gave the order to take the house and the siege had proceeded without a shot. In fact, the occupants had been eating their breakfast when the brothers made their way through the ground floor. Men stationed at all the exits and outside the dining room windows had destroyed any hope of escape.
He was pleased. He did not want to attract any attention.
As he moved through the many rooms, he admired the walls covered in colorful brocade, the painted ceilings, carved pilasters, glass chandeliers, and furniture sheathed in varying shades of damask. Cassiopeia Vitt possessed taste.
He found the dining room and prepared himself to face Mark Nelle. The others would be killed, their bodies buried in the forest, but Mark Nelle and Geoffrey would be returned to face discipline. He needed to make an example of them. The death of the brother in Rennes must be avenged.
He stepped through a spacious foyer and entered the dining room.
Brothers ringed the room, their weapons drawn. His gaze raked the long table and he registered six faces.
None of which he recognized.
Instead of seeing Cotton Malone, Stephanie Nelle, Mark Nelle, Geoffrey, and Cassiopeia Vitt, the men and women gathered around the table were strangers, all six dressed in jeans and shirts.
Workers from the construction site.
Damn.
They'd escaped right before his eyes.
He contained his rising anger. 'Hold them here until I return,' he said to one of the knights.
He left the house and calmly strolled down the treed lane toward the car park. Only a few vehicles present this early. But Cotton Malone's rental, which had been parked there when he arrived earlier, was gone.
He shook his head.
Now he was at a loss, with no idea where they'd gone.
One of the brothers he'd left inside the chateau ran up from behind. He wondered why the man had left his post.
'Master,' the man said. 'One of the people inside the chateau told me that Cassiopeia Vitt asked them to come to the chateau early today, dressed in their work outfits. Six of them switched clothing and were all told by Vitt to enjoy their breakfast.'
That much he'd already surmised. What else?
The man handed him a cellular phone. 'That same employee said a note was left that indicated you'd be coming. When you did, he was to give you this phone, along with this.'
He unfolded and read from a scrap of paper.
The answer has been found. I will call before the sun sets with information.
He needed to know, 'Who wrote this?'
'The employee said it was left with his change of clothes along with an instruction that it be given directly to you.'
'How did you get it?'
'When he mentioned your name, I simply told him I was you and he handed it to me.'
What was happening here? Was there a traitor among his enemy? Apparently so. Since he possessed no idea where they'd gone, little choice remained.
'Withdraw the brothers and return to the abbey.'
FIFTY-SIX
10:00 AM
MALONE MARVELED AT THE PYRENEES, WHICH WERE SO MUCH like the Alps in appearance and majesty. Separating France from Spain, the crests seemed to roll to infinity, each jagged peak crowned with bright snow, the lower elevations a mixture of green slopes and purple crags. Between the summits lay sun-scorched valleys, deep and foreboding, the haunts of Charlemagne, the Franks, Visigoths, and Moors.
They'd taken two cars-his rental and Cassiopeia's Land Rover, which she kept parked at the construction site. Their exit from the chateau had been clever-the ruse apparently working, since there'd been no tails-and, once away, he'd given both cars a thorough searching for any electronic trackers. He had to give Cassiopeia credit. She was imaginative.
An hour ago, before heading up into the mountains, they'd stopped and purchased clothes at a shopping plaza outside Ax-les-Thermes, a thriving spa resort that catered to hikers and skiers. Their colorful tunics and long gowns had won them some strange looks, but they were now dressed in jeans, shirts, boots, and fleece jackets, ready for what lay ahead.
St. Agulous perched on the rim of a precipice, surrounded by terraced hills, at the end of a narrow highway that corkscrewed a path up through a cloud-dimmed pass. The village, not much larger than Rennes-le-Chateau, was a mass of time-worn limestone buildings that seemed to have merged with the rock beyond.
Malone stopped short of entering the town, easing off into the trees, down a narrow dirt lane. Cassiopeia cruised in behind him. They climbed out into sharp mountain air.
'I don't think it's a good idea for all of us to just ride in there,' he said. 'This doesn't look like a place that receives a whole lot of tourists.'
'He's right,' Mark said. 'Dad always approached these villages cautiously. Let me and Geoffrey do it. Just a couple of guys out hiking. That's not unusual for summer.'
'You don't think I'd make a good impression?' Cassiopeia asked.
'Making an impression is not your problem,' Malone said, grinning. 'Getting folks to forget that impression is the problem.'
'And who put you in charge?' Cassiopeia asked.
'I did,' Thorvaldsen declared. 'Mark knows these mountains. He speaks the language. Let him and the brother go.'
'Then, by all means,' she said. 'Go.'
MARK LED THE WAY AS HE AND GEOFFREY STROLLED THROUGH the main gate and into a tight plaza shaded by trees. Geoffrey still carried the rucksack with the two books, so they appeared as a couple of hikers out for the afternoon. Pigeons circled above the jumble of black slate roofs, dueling with a blast of wind that whistled through the clefts, shoving clouds northward over the mountains. A fountain in the center of the plaza trickled with water, green with age. No one was in sight.
A cobbled street radiating from the plaza was well kept and checkered with scattered sunlight. The tap of horned feet announced the appearance of a shaggy goat, which vanished down another side lane. Mark smiled. Like so many in this region, this was not a clock-driven place.
One vestige of any former glory came from the church, which rose at the end of the plaza. A set of wide narrow steps led up to a Romanesque door. The building itself, though, was more Gothic, its bell tower an odd octagonal shape that immediately arrested Mark's attention. He could not recall seeing another like it in the region. The size and grandeur of the church spoke of a lost prosperity and power.
'Interesting that a small town like this has a church that size,' Geoffrey said.
'I've seen others like it. Five hundred years ago, this was a thriving market center. So a church would have been a must.'
A young woman appeared. Sun freckles gave her the air of a country girl. She smiled, then entered a small general store. Next door stood what appeared to be a post office. Mark wondered about the strange vagary of fate that had apparently preserved St. Agulous from the Saracens, Spaniards, French, and Albigensian Crusaders.
'Let's start in there,' he said, pointing at the church. 'The local priest may be helpful.'
They entered a compact nave topped by a star-spangled ceiling of vivid blue. No statuary decorated the plain
