Austrian officials note the same train was loaded with much of that country's own art objects for the same reason.
The train, intercepted by the Allies within days of the end of hostilities in Europe, was never completely inventoried and an unknown part of its cargo was used to furnish the headquarters of the occupying army and subsequently disappeared.
Descendants and relatives of Holocaust victims claim Austria is making no effort to differentiate between objects from that country and those stolen from Jewish families.
Hungary, originally one of the Axis Powers, was prepared to surrender separately to Russia when a German- backed coup replaced the government with one friendly to the Nazis.
Lang reread the article. Nothing to connect Skorzeny with any of it. He had been involved in the 'coup' described by the article but had been in Belgium in December '44 and January '45, the Battle of the Bulge. Was it possible he had gone back to Hungary? Either way, how had the inscription at the Vatican's necropolis figured in?
In forty-eight hours, he might have his first solid answer.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Lake Red Cloud, Minnesota
Mugwanee County Courthouse
The next morning
Charlie Clough used a wrinkled handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. Only fifty-five degrees outside, but the effort of hauling his three hundred pounds-plus across the square was real effort. So far, though, things were working out better than he had anticipated. First-class ticket to… where? Sioux City, South Dakota. Or was it North Dakota? Charlie was fairly certain he didn't really believe North, Dakota existed anyplace but on maps, so it must have been South Dakota. He had gotten a real rental car, not one of those fuckin' compacts he could hardly get into. The drive had taken about three hours, including one stop for gas and two more for snacks.
He'd been lucky, arriving at the Holiday Inn, the town's only accommodation, just before the dining room closed for dinner. According to the desk clerk, he'd gotten the very last super-king-sized bed. Good thing. A queen simply wasn't big enough. His arms draped over the side. Charlie figured the world was configured to fit the little people, folks who barely tipped the scales at two fifty. Some even less. It was tough making your way in a universe where you were already super-sized.
This morning, he had pretty well decimated the breakfast buffet before driving the mile or so into town. Town was too big; village was a better word. All tricked up like some fuckin' Alpine hamlet, even though the highest ground he'd seen so far was a speed bump across from the school.
He slapped at an insistent buzzing. Fuckin' mosquitoes! He'd suffered from gnats in South Georgia, every kind of biting insect in Florida, but he'd never known mosquitoes grew this large. These babies could stand flatfooted in the road and fuck a turkey!
The inside of the courthouse looked like something out of an installment of In the Heat of the Night. Only thing missing was that actor, Carroll O'Connor, same one who played Archie Bunker. He took the stairs down to where a sign indicated he would find records.
After an hour, he hadn't even come close to what he was looking for. Puffing with exertion, he climbed back up the stairs to the clerk's office and went in.
A red-cheeked young woman put down her copy of People magazine and came up to the desk-where Charlie stood, again mopping his face.
'The records,' he said in response to her polite inquiry. 'I can't seem to find any records, births, deaths, before 1950.'
She looked at him quizzically. 'Those are on computers, the ones in the record room.' He shook his head. 'I know, but I want to see the actual records, the physical pieces of paper.'
She looked at him again, this time as though he wasn't quite right in the head, potentially dangerous. 'Those are archived, sir. They're not here.'
Charlie looked around, found a secretary's chair, and eased his bulk onto it gingerly. He had been standing for an hour down in the fuckin' record room, and now he was standing here, jawing with this nitwit who seemed not to understand the difference between electronic copies and the real thing. His feet hurt. They weren't made to hold up as much weight as he put on them.
'Where are they?'
She pointed as though the documents were just across the room. 'Follow Main Street to the city-limit sign, take your first left. There's a warehouse where we keep the archives.'
He stood, turning to go. 'Thanks.'
'Sir! Wait a minute. That warehouse isn't open all the time. I'll call to see when you can get in.'
Swell.
Well, at least he could take time for an early lunch at the cafe he had seen across the square. 'Thanks. I'll be back in a few minutes.' Forty minutes later, Charlie paid the tab and walked out onto the sidewalk. He'd had better chow, but he'd had worse, too. A lot worse. At the corner, he looked both ways before stepping into the street toward the square. He was no more than a few paces from the curb when he heard the growl of a large engine. He looked up straight into the grille of the biggest fuckin' truck he had ever seen.
His last thought was that there wasn't going to be time to stop.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Rome
Santa Maria della Concezione, Via Veneto 27
The next afternoon
Lang had intentionally waited until the church was about to close for the midday siesta..The narthex was empty, and the nave and single aisle were empty except for an older woman in a nun's habit whose lips moved in what Lang supposed was prayer as she ticked off the beads of her rosary. Voices from the apse and transept behind the altar told him that a smattering of tourists had paid to see the macabre crypt displays of bones for which the church was noted. Arranged in rosette patterns, bones of equal or different sizes were displayed in varying designs featuring femurs, ribs, vertebrae, and other skeletal parts Lang could not identify.
Art is truly in the eye of the beholder. Some beholders' anyway.
The chapel of St. Michael was little more than a small room to his right just inside the nave. There was room for only three rows of five uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs each. The side chapel was empty of worshipers, but a brown paper shopping bag occupied a corner seat on the right front. If someone was watching, they were either invisible or the Agency had exempted the nun from its already liberal retirement age.
He picked up the bag and left.
It was when he was about to descend the twin staircase to the street that he saw her: a young Gypsy woman squatting just at the foot of the steps. When Lang had entered less than two or three minutes earlier, there had been a wrinkled crone crying out in the most pitiful tones imaginable. Entrances to churches were prime real estate in the begging business, spots not to be given up without a fight. Yet the old woman was gone, replaced. Stranger still, the bowl in front of the newcomer had a number of coins already in it. She had either seeded the dish or was one of the city's more accomplished beggars, a mendicant whose attention was fixed on the front of the church, not passersby. Her clothes, though far from fashionable, were neat and clean, not the soiled and torn attire he was used to seeing. Unless he was seriously mistaken, her fingernails were evenly trimmed and polished.
He dug into a pocket and dropped a handful of change into her bowl. She was watching him, not the money. A dead giveaway.
'Grazie, signor, ' she said.
