Read Online The Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry - Free Book Online Page A

that was not the reason why she so readily agreed, and her compatriot surely realized it. The court of inquiry report. She’d read it, at his insistence.
    No William Davis was listed among the crew of NR-1A.

 
    TWELVE
    ETTAL MONASTERY
     
    M ALONE ADMIRED THE BOOK LYING ON THE TABLE. “T HIS CAME from the tomb of Charlemagne? It’s twelve hundred years old? If so, it’s in remarkable shape.”
    “It’s a complicated story, Herr Malone. One that spans that full twelve hundred years.”
    This woman liked avoiding questions. “Try me.”
    She pointed. “Do you recognize that script?”
    He studied one of the pages, filled with an odd writing and naked women frolicking in bathtubs, connected by intricate plumbing that appeared more anatomical than hydraulic.
    He studied more pages and noticed what seemed to be charts with astronomical objects, as if seen through a telescope. Live cells, as they would have appeared from a microscope. Vegetation, all with elaborate root structures. A strange calendar of zodiacal signs, populated by tiny naked people in what looked like rubbish bins. So many illustrations. The unintelligible writing seemed almost an afterthought.

     
    “It’s as Otto III noted,” she said. “The language of heaven.”
    “I wasn’t aware that heaven required a language.”
    She smiled. “In the time of Charlemagne, the concept of heaven was much different.”
    He traced with his finger the symbol embossed on the front cover.

    “What is it?” he asked.
    “I have no idea.”
    He quickly became aware of what was not in the book. No blood, monsters, or mythical beasts. No conflict or destructive tendencies. No symbols of religion, or trappings of secular power. In fact, nothing that pointed to any recognizable way of life—no familiar tools, furniture, or means of transport. Instead the pages conveyed a sense of otherworldliness and timelessness.
    “There’s something else I’d like to show you,” she said.
    He hesitated.
    “Come now, you’re a man accustomed to situations like this.”
    “I sell books.”
    She motioned toward the open doorway across the dim room. “Then bring the book and follow me.”
    He wasn’t going to be that easy. “How about you carry the book and I’ll carry the gun.” He regripped the weapon.
    She nodded. “If it makes you feel better.”
    She lifted the book from the table and he followed her through the doorway. Inside, a stone staircase angled down into more darkness, another doorway filled with ambient light waiting at the bottom.
    They descended.
    Below was a corridor that stretched fifty feet. Plank doors lined either side and one waited at the opposite end.
    “A crypt?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “The monks bury their dead in the cloister above. This is part of the old abbey, from the Middle Ages. Used now for storage. My grandfather spent a great deal of time here during World War II.”
    “Hiding out?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    She navigated the corridor, lit by harsh incandescent bulbs. Beyond the closed door, at the far end, spanned a room arranged like a museum with curious stone artifacts and wood carvings. Maybe forty or fifty pieces. Everything was displayed within bright puddles of sodium light. Tables lined the far end, also lit from above. A couple of wooden cabinets painted Bavarian-style abutted the walls.
    She pointed at the wood carvings, an assortment of curlicues, crescents, crosses, shamrocks, stars, hearts, diamonds, and crowns. “Those came off the gables of Dutch farmhouses. Some called it folk art. Grandfather thought they were much more, their significance lost over time, so he collected them.”
    “After the Wehrmacht finished?”
    He caught her momentary annoyance. “Grandfather was a scientist, not a Nazi.”
    “How many have tried that line before?”
    She seemed to ignore his goad. “What do you know of Aryans?”
    “Enough that the notion did not begin with the Nazis.”
    “More of your eidetic