The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (33 page)

Rothenburg ob den Tauber

Thirty Minutes Earlier

T
HE SOUND OF FRIEDRICH GRATZ'S CELL
phone woke him suddenly, pulling him from a sleep deepened by the last of the schnapps. Beside him, Otto was snoring regularly. Without turning on a light, his fingers fumbled across the bedside table until they closed around the annoying sound.

     He put it to his ear.
"Ja?"

     "He went to the camp this morning," a voice said without introduction. "Made some notes from the records."

     "Which were?"

     There was a pause. "I was not able to get them, but I did find out his plane was going to depart for Salzburg. Then I got a flight that arrived just minutes after he did, followed him from the airport."

     Gratz was fully awake by now. The idiot had totally failed in what he had been hired to do. "And?"

     "I got into his hotel room. I could find nothing of interest. But I can guess why he's here."

     Gratz sucked in his breath, trying not to scream in frustration. "We do not care why he's there," he snarled. "We know he is trying to find the
kind.
How many times do I have to tell you, get rid of the meddling bastard before he does!"

     "I thought you first wanted . . ."

     Gratz forced himself to lower his voice. "Never mind what I originally
wanted! You are not being paid to think. Make sure Reilly is no longer around to interfere and do it
now!
"

     He pushed the end button.

     Next to him, Otto stirred. "What . . . ?"

     Giving up on returning to sleep any time in the immediate future, Gratz finally turned on the light. "That fool we sent to Cracow, he . . ."

     Gratz jerked straight up in bed. Otto followed his gaze. The boy's bed was empty.

At the same time hundreds of miles away, Father Steinmann was having almost as bad a night. Unable to sleep, he had crossed the dark piazza and dimly lit corridors until he was once again in the most restricted part of the Secret Archives. Even at this hour, another elderly priest was there to have him sign in.

     Fluorescent bulbs stuttered above as he passed the stacks where he had been on his last visit. He stopped, staring at the seemingly innocuous cabinets that held the dusty scrolls. The label on the shelving indicated that they had been "Recently Acquired." A little more investigation and he would find that they had been removed from a monastery in Kashmir more than fifty years ago. He took one volume down. Although written in ancient Tibetan, someone had kindly made a Latin translation. Until now, Steinmann had considered that a misuse of resources. After all, the true purpose of these archives was not research; the accumulation of dust attested to that. The real motive for locking the works away was to keep them out of the hands of the growing number of unbelievers, debunkers, and scandal mongers.

     If Steinmann were pope—an unlikely event—he would have most of these documents committed to the same flames in which their heretical authors belonged.

     He knew the Vatican stole these particular scrolls from a Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, a remote place at the Roof of the World, near the Indian border with Tibet. Unfortunately, a Russian adventurer had gotten there first and translated the works into Russian. At least the originals were now safely in the possession of the Holy See. The heretical Russian's version would remain unsubstantiated, and the connection between the Cathars and the documents would remain unknown.

     The sight of the scrolls did nothing to make the priest rest easier this night. He had to deal with the failure of the two men in Cracow earlier. He had ordered them to follow Reilly to see if they could learn anything about where he thought the child might be, but obviously the American had spotted them with disastrous result. Perhaps the next pair, the ones he had sent to Reilly's next destination, Salzburg, would fare better.

     Steinmann stared at the scrolls with genuine hatred, for they contained the seeds of the destruction of the Holy Mother Church.

     His cell phone chirped. The number on his screen belonged to a prepaid phone which he had provided to a new pair of thugs he had hired to tail Reilly. Did he know where Reilly was staying in Salzburg? Yes, but Steinmann realized he had left that information back in his quarters. He would have to call them back.

     Forgetting the scrolls for the moment, he dashed for the exit. In his haste to get to Reilly and the kidnapped child, he had neglected to return the scrolls to the shelves.

Rothenburg ob den Tauber

At the Same Time

W
YNN-THREE HAD NEVER SEEN SNOW
like this before. At home, snow was something that fell at night or in the early morning and melted before lunch. This snow was different. Here the white stuff piled up higher than his untied shoes, and his feet were wet. They had been cold but now were numb. He couldn't even feel his soggy socks anymore. His whole body shivered, and he was getting sleepy.

     Something in his memory, perhaps the bad dreams, told him he could not stop, not to lie down in the soft snow and take a nap. He wanted to but he could not rest. He had to keep trudging on.

     He turned corners and dragged his feet down narrow streets. Mommy and Daddy must be here somewhere. They would come after him just like the time Mommy had found him when he had wandered off and gotten lost in the park last summer. He smiled, secure in the memory. Mommy always found him.

     Finally, his small legs simply would go no further, and drowsiness was making it hard to keep his eyes open. He found a spot under overhanging eaves where the wind had blown the snow away and sat down on the freezing ground with his back against the building. Maybe Mommy and Daddy would find him here. If not, he would look for them in the morning.

     He was asleep within a minute.

* * *

Gratz was out of the bed with a single motion. "The boy? Where is . . . ?"

     Otto stared dumbly at the empty bed formerly occupied by Wynn-Three. "He was here. I took him to the bathroom."

     Gratz's hand was on the doorknob. "And forgot to lock the door when you returned."

     It was all Gratz could do not to swing a fist into Otto's surprised face as he hurriedly pulled on trousers and slipped his arms into a coat.

     "Where are you going?" Otto asked.

     "To find the boy, you dolt! Hurry! No telling where he could be by now."

     Suddenly comprehending, Otto was struggling into his clothes, too. Within a minute, both men were standing outside the
Gasthaus.

     "There!" Otto pointed, eager to undo what had obviously been his fault. "Tracks in the snow!"

     Gratz bent down, squinting to see the irregular impressions that might or might not have been left by the child. He shrugged. Following them was as good a course of action as any.

     They had only gotten to the end of the street when the tracks, if that was what they were, merged into those of the town's residents. The light breeze and the falling snow were rapidly erasing all of them. Gratz wanted to scream, to yell at his idiot partner who very well may have let Gratz's only chance at true wealth get away, to rail against a fate so cruel as to lead him this far only to have riches beyond imagination drift away with the blowing snow.

     Instead, he tried to decide what to do next.

Salzkammergut (Lake District)

9:20
A.M.
Local Time

The Next Morning

H
ALF A DOZEN SMALL LAKES WERE
liquid pewter under a brilliant sun. As it steadily climbed, the road snaked along the edge of deep valleys still in morning shadow far below. Above were craggy mountains, towering white with snow like giant icebergs. Lang would not have been surprised to see Julie Andrews and her troupe of Trapp children dancing down a hillside, singing something from
The Sound of Music.

     He grimaced at the thought. Not one of his favorite movies. Angelic children, a devoted father, a faithful and resourceful nanny. A tale sweeter than sugar, more sappy than a maple tree in spring, a story of a family too good, too happy to be believable, particularly against the backdrop of Nazi Austria, an evil that somehow never made itself felt in the film.

     Gurt watched it every time it appeared on television.

     He turned his mind back to the road, thankful for the efficiency of whoever maintained the highway. Last night's snow had already been pushed to the side, in some places mounded higher than the BMW's roof. As the sun climbed into a cloudless sky, he could see mountainsides pocked with what looked like old mine shafts. He recalled reading that the area's past included mining salt and, occasionally, gold.

     It had been in similar mines that the victorious allies had found a treasure trove of art, priceless antiques, and jewelry at the end of World War II. One such stash had contained an entire railroad train filled exclusively with
the loot acquired by Hermann Goering, Hitler's second in command. The chubby
Reichsmarschall
had considered himself a connoisseur of fine art, particularly Old Masters. A joke had gone around the Allied camps that the man took the news he would be tried for war crimes far better than he received the revelation that his favorite Vermeer was a forgery.

     Mines.

     Treasure.

     Something was hovering around the periphery of Lang's mind like a wary bird circling a feeder. Experience had taught him to ignore it and it would come in to feed on its own.

     His attention shifted to a road sign announcing Oberkoenigsburg was only nine kilometers away.

     The town could have been contrived by Walt Disney. Rows of slender A-frames displayed huge antlers above doors and window boxes with bright red flowers braving the cold. Some houses had Alpine scenes painted on facades. Here and there, down comforters hung from windows to freshen in the crisp mountain air. The streets were full of brightly dressed young people with skis over their shoulders, their voices steaming as they shouted back and forth. Faces were partially hidden behind designer sunglasses. Most signs on businesses and on the streets were painted in Gothic script. In the center of it all, a small fountain sprouted icy wings.

     Lang found an angled parking spot in front of an outdoor
Biergarten
and slipped the BMW into a row of sleek Mercedes, Audis, and an occasional Porsche, all adorned with ski racks. Waiters, apparently oblivious to the temperature, wore Alpine hats and
Lederhosen
with high socks, their knees rosy from the chill, as they carried three or four foaming liter steins in each hand.

     Lang doubted there was an Alpine stereotype not represented here.

     But he did notice two men in the far corner, men older than most of the establishment's clientele. Although they wore gaily colored ski attire puffy with down stuffing, something about them didn't fit. Lang sat a moment after turning off the car's ignition, feeling the last traces of the heater fade. It wasn't the low-pulled ski caps; the weather justified covering as much skin surface as possible. It wasn't the sunglasses that prevented him from seeing exactly where they were looking; the glare of the day made them necessary.

     What was he missing?

     The boots, the ski boots.

     The soles of every other pair he saw were crusted with ice, snow from the wake of moving skis, melted and frozen again. These two had not been out on Oberkoenigsburg's picture-postcard slopes. They were the only ones without a lift ticket clipped to their jackets.

     Lang felt the hair on the back of his neck come alive. There was a chance the two were simply having an early beer before making it to the lifts. But he didn't think so. Years of experience had taught him to trust that instinct which homed in on anomalies: a street beggar wearing expensive shoes, someone lingering too long where there was no reason.

     He got out of the car, taking the cane with him. Like any prudent tourist, he locked the door. Turning away from the
Biergarten
, he strolled down a narrow street, stopping in front of a store selling, what else? Ski equipment. In the reflection of the glass display window he watched the two men. Neither took so much as a sip from the steins before them. The sunglasses made it impossible to be certain, but they could have been watching him.

     He went inside.

     Now he had the advantage. He had a clear view of the beer drinkers, but the two men could not see him. Apparently they had come to the same conclusion. One stood, gesturing in the general direction of the ski shop.

     Lang made a decision.

     Taking a jacket and matching pair of trousers from the rack, he held them up for the sales girl, the only other person in the store, to see. "Is there somewhere I can try these on?"

     She smiled, pointing to the rear. "Fitting rooms are that way." Her accent sounded British.

     Clothes under one arm, cane in the other, Lang made his way in the direction she had indicated. He passed two curtained stalls before he came to the back door. Tossing the jacket and pants into the nearest cubicle, he tried the knob.

     Locked.

     A quick look around revealed another door. This one led into a small toilet, a sink, and a commode. Above the sink was a window of opaque glass hinged at the top. Using the commode as a stepping ladder, Lang was
standing on the sink in the next second. It took but another moment to slip the latch and push the window open.

     He was greeted by a blast of arctic air made even colder when contrasted with the warmth behind him. He slipped through the opening, holding onto the sill for a second before dropping into a mound of soft snow that cushioned the impact. He was in an alley more narrow than the streets he had seen, a passageway that looked like it dead-ended into the square with the fountain. His feet were soaking wet as were the bottom of his pants, but that was something he could deal with later.