She saw consternation grip the old man. "You know I've never spoken of this before." He seemed unable to submerge his depression. "I wanted to be a captain. I deserved it, but the navy disagreed."
"It was a long time ago," Davis said. "There's not much we can do to repair the past."
She wondered if Davis meant Alexander's situation or his own.
"This must be important," the old man said.
"Enough that we came here today."
"One was a guy named Nick Sayers. Another, Herbert Rowland. Both cocky, like most lieutenants."
She silently agreed.
"And the third?" Davis asked.
"The cockiest of 'em all. I hated that prick. Trouble is he went on and got his captain's bars. Then gold stars. Ramsey was his name. Lang-ford Ramsey."
TWENTY-ONE
The clouds invite me and a mist summons. The course of the stars hasten me and the winds cause me to fly and lift me upward into heaven. I draw to a wall built of crystal and I am surrounded by tongues of ice. I draw to a temple built of stone and the walls are like a tessellated floor made of stone. Its ceiling is like the path of the stars. Heat generates from the walls, fear covers me, and a trembling takes hold. I fall upon my face and see a lofty throne, its appearance is as crystalline as the shining sun. The High Adviser sits and his raiment shines more brightly than the sun and is whiter than any snow. The High Adviser says to me, "Einhard, thou scribe of righteousness, approach hither and hear my voice." He speaks to me in my language, which is surprising. "As He hath created and given to man the power of understanding the word of wisdom, so hath He created me also. Welcome to our land. I am told you are a man of learning. If that be so then you can see the secrets of the winds, how they are divided to blow over the earth, and the secrets of the clouds and dew. We can teach you of the sun and moon, whence they proceed and whither they come again, and their glorious return, and how one is superior to the other, and their stately orbit, and how they do not leave their orbit, and they add nothing to their orbit and they take nothing from it, and they keep faith with each other in accordance with the oath by which they are bound together."
Malone listened as Christl translated the Latin text, then asked, "That was written when?"
"Between 814, when Charlemagne died, and 840, when Einhard died."
"That's impossible. It talks of orbits of the sun and moon and how they're bound to each other. Those astronomical concepts had yet to be developed. Those would have been heresy then."
"I agree, for men living in western Europe. But for men living elsewhere on this planet, who were not constricted by the church, the situation was different."
He was still skeptical.
"Let me place this in a historical context," she said. "Charlemagne's two elder sons both died before him. His third son, Louis the Pious, inherited the Carolingian empire. Louis' sons fought with their father, and among themselves. Einhard served Louis faithfully, as he'd served Charlemagne, but was so sickened by the infighting that he withdrew from court and spent the rest of his days at an abbey Charlemagne had given him. It was during this time that he wrote his biography of Charlemagne and"-she held up the ancient tome-"this book."
"Recounting a great journey?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Who's to say that's real? Sounds like pure fantasy."
She shook her head. "His Life of Charlemagne is one of the most renowned works of all time. Still in print today. He was not known for crafting fiction, and he went to a great deal of trouble to conceal these words."
He still wasn't convinced.
"We know a lot about Charlemagne's deeds," she said, "but little about his inner beliefs. Nothing reliable describing those has survived. We do know that he loved ancient histories and epics. Before his time, myths were preserved orally. He was the first to order them written down. We know Einhard supervised that effort. But Louis, after inheriting the throne, destroyed all of those texts for their pagan content. The destruction of those writings would have disgusted Einhard, so he made sure this book survived."
"By writing it partially in a language no one could understand?"
"Something like that."
"I've read accounts that say Einhard may not have even written his Charlemagne biography. Nobody knows anything for sure."
"Mr. Malone-"
"Why don't you call me Cotton? You're making me feel old."
"Interesting name."
"I like it."
She smiled. "I can explain all of this in much more detail. My grandfather and father spent years researching. There are things I need to show you, things I need to explain. Once you see and hear those, I think you'll agree that our fathers did not die in vain."
Though her eyes suggested a readiness to take on all his arguments, she was playing her trump card and they both knew it.
"My father was the captain of a submarine," he said. "Your father was a passenger on that sub. Granted, I have no idea what either one of them was doing in the Antarctic, but they still died in vain."
And no one gave a damn, he silently added.
She pushed her soup away. "Will you help us?"
"Who's us?"
"Me. My father. Yours."
He caught the sound of rebellion, but needed time to hear from Stephanie. "How about this. Let me sleep on it, and tomorrow you can show me what you want."
Her eyes softened. "That's fair. It is getting late."
They left the cafe and followed the snowy pavement back toward the Posthotel. Christmas was two weeks away, and Garmisch seemed ready. Holiday time, for him, was a mixed blessing. He'd spent the past two with Henrik Thorvaldsen at Christiangade, and this year would probably be the same. He wondered about Christl Falk and her Christmas traditions. A melancholiness seemed to dominate her, and she made little effort to disguise it. She appeared intelligent and determined-not all that different from her sister-but the two women were unknowns who demanded caution.
They crossed the street. Many of the windows in the gaily frescoed Posthotel were lit to the night. His room, on the second floor, above the restaurant and lobby, had four windows on one side, another three facing the front. He'd left the lamps burning and movement behind one of the windows caught his attention.
He stopped.
Somebody was there. Christl saw it, too.
Curtains were yanked back.
A man's face came into view and his gaze locked onto Malone's. Then the man glanced right, toward the street, and fled the window, his shadow revealing a rushed exit.
Malone spotted a car with three men inside, parked across the street.
"Come on," he said.
He knew they needed to leave, and quickly. Thank goodness he still carried the keys to his rental. They rushed to the vehicle and leaped in.
He fired up the engine and whipped from the parking spot. He slammed the transmission into gear and roared from the hotel, tires spinning on the frozen asphalt. He powered his window down, turned onto the boulevard, and spotted a man in his rearview mirror emerging from the hotel.
He gripped the gun from his jacket, slowed as he approached the parked car, and fired a shot into the rear tire, which sent three forms inside ducking for cover.
Then he sped away.
TWENTY-TWO
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12
12:40 AM
MALONE TWISTED HIS WAY OUT OF GARMISCH, USING TO MAXIMUM advantage its maze of unlit narrow streets and his head start on the men who'd been waiting at the Posthotel. He had no way of knowing if they had a second vehicle handy. Satisfi
ed that they were not being pursued, he found the highway leading north that he'd traveled earlier and, following Christl's instructions, realized where they were headed.
"Those things you need to show me are in Ettal Monastery?" he asked.
She nodded. "No sense waiting until morning."
He agreed.
"I'm sure when you spoke with Dorothea there, you were told only what she wanted you to know."
"And you're different?"
She stared at him. "Totally."
He wasn't so sure. "Those men at the hotel. Yours? Or hers?"
"You wouldn't believe me no matter what I said."
He downshifted as the highway began to descend back toward the abbey. "A piece of unsolicited advice? You really need to explain yourself. My patience is about gone."
She hesitated, and he waited.
"Fifty thousand years ago a civilization arose on this planet, one that managed to progress faster than the rest of humankind. Leading the way, if you will. Was it technologically developed? Not really, but it was highly advanced. Mathematics, architecture, chemistry, biology, geology, meteorology, astronomy. That's where it excelled."
He was listening.
"Our concept of ancient history has been strongly influenced by the Bible. But its texts dealing with antiquity were written from an insular point of view. They distorted ancient cultures and completely neglected some important ones, like the Minoans. This particular culture I'm talking about is not biblical. They were an oceangoing society with worldwide commerce, possessing capable boats and advanced navigational skills. Later cultures like the Polynesians, the Phoenicians, the Vikings, and finally the Europeans would all develop these skills, but Civilization One mastered them first."
He'd read about those theories. Most scientists now rejected the idea of a linear societal development from the Old Stone Age through the New Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Instead, scholars believed that humans developed independent of one another. Proof of that existed even today, on every continent, where primitive cultures still coexisted with advanced societies. "So you're saying that, in times past, while Paleolithic peoples occupied Europe, more advanced cultures could have existed elsewhere." He recalled what Dorothea Lindauer told him. "Aryans again?"