She shrugged. 'Suit yourself. To answer your question, I'm Dorothea Lindauer. I live near here. My family is Bavarian, with ties back to the Wittelsbachs. We're Oberbayer. Upper Bavarian. Connected to the mountains. We also have deep ties to this monastery. So much that the Benedictines grant us liberties.'
'Like killing a man, then leading the killer to their sacristy?'
The skin between Lindauer's eyebrows creased. 'Among others. But that is, you must say, a grand liberty.'
'How did you know that I'd be on that mountain today?'
'I have friends who keep me informed.'
'I need a better answer.'
'The subject of USS Blazek interests me. I, too, have wanted to know what really happened. I assume you have now read the file. Tell me, was it informative?'
'I'm out of here.' He turned for the door.
'You and I have something in common,' she said.
He kept walking.
'Both of our fathers were aboard that submarine.'
STEPHANIE PUSHED A BUTTON ON HER PHONE. SHE WAS STILL IN her office with Edwin Davis.
'It's the White House,' her assistant informed through the speaker.
Davis kept silent. She immediately opened the line.
'Seems we're at it again,' the booming voice said through both the handset she held and the speaker from which Davis listened.
President Danny Daniels.
'And what is it I did this time?' she asked.
'Stephanie, it would be easier if we could get to the point.' A new voice. Female. Diane McCoy. Another deputy national security adviser. Edwin Davis' equal, and no friend of Stephanie's.
'What is the point, Diane?'
'Twenty minutes ago you downloaded a file on Captain Zachary Alexander, US Navy, retired. What we want to know is why naval intelligence is already inquiring about your interest, and why you apparently, a few days ago, authorized the copying of a classified file on a submarine lost thirty-eight years ago.'
'Seems there's a better question,' she said. 'Why does naval intelligence give a damn? This is ancient history.'
'On that,' Daniels said, 'we agree. I'd like that question answered myself. I've looked at the same personnel file you just obtained, and there's nothing there. Alexander was an adequate officer who served his twenty years, then retired.'
'Mr. President, why are you involved in this?'
'Because Diane came into my office and told me we needed to call you.'
Bullshit. No one told Danny Daniels what to do. He was a three-term governor and one-term senator who had managed twice to be elected president of the United States. He wasn't a fool, though some thought him so.
'Forgive me, sir, but from everything I've ever seen, you do exactly what you want to do.'
'A perk of this job. Anyway, since you don't want to answer Diane's question, here's mine. Do you know where Edwin is?'
Davis waved his hand, signaling no.
'Is he lost?'
Daniels chuckled. 'You gave that SOB Brent Green hell and probably saved my hide in the process. Balls. That's what you have, Stephanie. But on this one, we have a problem. Edwin's on a lark. He has some sort of personal thing going here. He grabbed a couple of days leave and took off yesterday. Diane thinks he came to see you.'
'I don't even like him. He almost got me killed in Venice.'
'The security log from downstairs,' McCoy said, 'indicates that he's in your building right now.'
'Stephanie,' Daniels said, 'when I was a boy, a friend of mine told our teacher how he and his father went fishing and caught a sixty-five-pound bass in one hour. The teacher was no idiot and said that was impossible. To teach my buddy a lesson about lying, she told him how a bear came from the woods and attacked her, but was fended off by a tiny hound who beat the bear back with just a bark. 'You believe that?' the teacher asked. 'Sure,' my pal said, 'because that was my dog.' '
Stephanie smiled.
'Edwin's my dog, Stephanie. What he does gets run straight to me. And right now, he's in a stink pile. Can you help me out on this one? Why are you interested in Captain Zachary Alexander?'
Enough. She'd gone way too far, thinking she was only helping out first Malone, then Davis. So she told Daniels the truth. 'Because Edwin said I should be.'
Defeat flooded Davis' face.
'Let me speak to him,' Daniels said.
And she handed over the phone.
TEN
MALONE FACED DOROTHEA LINDAUER AND WAITED FOR HER TO explain.
'My father, Dietz Oberhauser, was aboard Blazek when it disappeared.'
He noticed her continual reference to the sub's fake name. She apparently did not know much, or was playing him. One thing she said, though, registered. The court of inquiry's report had named a field specialist. Dietz Oberhauser.
'What was your father doing there?' he asked.
Her striking face softened, but her basilisk eyes continued to draw his attention. She reminded him of Cassiopeia Vitt, another woman who'd commanded his interest.
'My father was there to discover the beginning of civilization.'
'That all? I thought it was something important.'
'I realize, Herr Malone, that humor is a tool that can be used to disarm. But the subject of my father, as I'm sure is the case with you, is not one I joke about.'
He wasn't impressed. 'You need to answer my question. What was he doing there?'
A flush of anger rose in her face, then quickly receded. 'I'm quite serious. He went to find the beginning of civilization. It's a puzzle he spent his life trying to unravel.'
'I don't like being played. I killed a man today because of you.'
'His own fault. He was overzealous. Or perhaps he underestimated you. But how you handled yourself confirmed everything I was told about you.'
'Killing is something you seem to take lightly. I don't.'
'But from what I've been told, it's something you're no stranger to.'
'More of those friends informing you?'
'They are well informed.' She motioned down at the table. He'd already noticed an ancient tome lying atop the pitted oak. 'You're a book dealer. Take a look at this.'
He stepped close and slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. He decided that if this woman wanted him dead, he would be already.
The book was maybe six by nine inches and two inches thick. His analytical mind ticked off its provenance. Brown calf cover. Blind tool stamping without gold or color. Unadorned backside, which pinpointed its age: Books produced before the Middle Ages were stored flat, not standing, so their bottoms were kept plain.
He carefully opened the cover and spied the frayed pieces of darkened parchment pages. He examined them and noticed odd drawings in the margins and an undecipherable text in a language he did not recognize.
'What is this?'
'Let me answer that by telling you what happened north of here, in Aachen, on a Sunday in May, a thousand years after Christ.'
Otto III watched as the last impediments to his imperial destiny were smashed away. He stood inside the vestibule of the palace chapel, a sacred building erected two hundred years earlier by the man whose grave he was
