“I agree. Our marriage has been over a long time.”
“That’s not what I meant. No more men. I’m your husband and you are my wife.”
She laughed. “You have to be joking.”
“Actually, I’m quite serious.”
“And what has suddenly evolved you into a man?”
He retreated to the wall. “At some point the living must let go of the dead. I’ve come to that point.”
“You brought me here to tell me that?”
Their relationship had started through their parents. Not an arranged marriage in the formal sense, but nonetheless planned. Thankfully, an attraction blossomed and their early years had been happy. The birth of Georg brought them both great joy. His childhood and teenage years had likewise been wonderful. But his death created irreconcilable differences. There seemed a need to assign blame, and they each directed their frustrations at the other.
“I brought you here because I had to,” he said.
“I haven’t come to the point you apparently have.”
“It’s a shame,” he said, appearing not to have heard her. “He would have been a great man.”
She agreed.
“The boy had dreams, ambitions, and we could have fueled his every desire. He would have been the best of us both.”
He turned and faced her. “I wonder what he’d think of us now?”
The question struck her odd. “What do you mean?”
“Neither of us has treated the other kindly.”
She needed to know, “Werner, what are you doing?”
“Perhaps he’s listening and wants to know your thoughts.”
She resented his pressing. “My son would have approved of whatever I did.”
“Would he? Would he have approved of what you did yesterday? You killed two people.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Ulrich Henn cleaned up your mess.”
She was confused and concerned, but she was not going to discuss the issue here, in this sacred place. She stepped toward the gate, but he blocked the way and said, “You cannot flee this time.”
A wave of uneasiness swept through her. She hated him for violating Georg’s sanctuary. “Move.”
“Do you have any idea what you are doing?”
“Go to hell, Werner.”
“You haven’t a clue about reality.”
His expression was not one of a man angry or afraid, so she was curious. “Do you want me to lose to Christl?”
His expression softened. “I wasn’t aware it was a contest. I thought it more a challenge. But that’s why I’m here—to help you.”
She needed to know what he knew and how, but could only bring herself to say, “A dead child does not make a
marriage.” Her gaze bore into his. “I don’t need your help. Not anymore.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I want to leave,” she said. “Will you let me pass?”
Her husband remained frozen and, for an instant, she was actually afraid. Werner had always clung to emotions like a drowning man to a life preserver. Good at starting fights, terrible at finishing them. So when he retreated from the doorway she wasn’t surprised.
She stepped past.
“There’s something you need to see,” he said.
She stopped, turned, and saw something else she’d not seen in this man for a long time. Confidence. Fear again swept through her.
He left the church and walked back to the car. She followed. He found a key and opened the trunk. Inside, a weak light revealed the contorted, dead face of Sterling Wilkerson, a bloody hole in the center of his forehead.
She gasped.
“This is quite serious, Dorothea.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why did you do that?”
He shrugged. “You were using him, as he was using you. Here’s the point. He’s dead. I’m not.”
FORTY
WASHINGTON, DC
2:40 PM
RAMSEY WAS USHERED INTO THE LIVING ROOM OFADMIRALRAYMONDDyals Jr., four stars, retired, US
Navy. The ninety-four-year-old Missourian had served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, then retired in the early 1980s. In 1971, when NR-1A was lost, Dyals had been chief of naval operations, the man who’d signed the classified order not to launch any search and rescue for the missing sub. Ramsey had then been a lieutenant, the one chosen by Dyals for the mission, afterward personally briefing the admiral about Holden ’s covert Antarctica visit. He’d then been quickly promoted to commander and assigned to Dyals’ personal staff. From there, the moves upward had been fast and easy.
He owed this old man everything.
And he knew Dyals still carried clout.
He was the oldest living flag officer. Presidents consulted him, the current one no exception. His judgment was considered sound and meaningful. The press afforded him great courtesy, and senators routinely made pilgrimages to the room into which Ramsey now walked, before a raging fire, a wool blanket spread across the old man’s spindly legs, a bushy cat nestled in Dyals’ lap. He’d even acquired a label— Winterhawk—which Ramsey knew the man relished.
Crinkly eyes flashed as Dyals spotted him entering. “I always like it when you come by.”
Ramsey stood respectfully before his mentor until he was invited to sit.
“I thought I might hear from you,” Dyals said. “I heard this morning about Sylvian. He served on my staff once. An okay aide, but too rigid. He seems to have done all right, though. Nothing but glowing reports all day on his life.”
Ramsey decided to come to the point. “I want his job.”
The admiral’s melancholy pupils lit with approval. “Member, Joint Chiefs of Staff. I never made it that far.”
“You could have.”
The old man shook his head. “Reagan and I didn’t get along. He had his favorites, or at least his aides had their favorites, and I wasn’t on that list. Besides, it was time for me to leave.”
“What about you and Daniels? Are you on his favorites list?”
He caught something hard and unbending in Dyals’ expression.
“Langford,” Dyals said, “you know that the president is no friend of ours. He’s been hard on the military. Budgets have been slashed, programs curtailed. He doesn’t even think we need the Joint Chiefs.”
“He’s wrong.”
“Maybe. But he’s the president, and he’s popular. Like Reagan was, just with a different philosophy.”
“Surely there are military officers he respects. Men you know. Their support of my candidacy could make the
difference.”
Dyals lightly stroked the cat. “Many of them would want the job for themselves.”
He said nothing.
“Don’t you find this whole business unsavory?” Dyals asked. “Begging for favors. Relying on whore politicians for a career. It’s one reason I opted out.”
“It’s the way of our world. We don’t make the rules, we just play by the ones that exist.”
He knew that many flag officers and a good number of those “whore politicians” could thank Ray Dyals for their jobs.
Winterhawk had lots of friends, and knew how to use them.
“I’ve never forgotten what you did,” Dyals quietly muttered. “I often think about NR-1A. Those men. Tell me, again, Langford, what was it like?”
A haunting bluish glow seeped through the surface ice, its color gradually deepening with depth, finally evolving into an indigo blackness. Ramsey wore a bulky navy dry suit with tight seals and double layers, nothing exposed except a tiny strip of skin around his lips that had burned when he’d first entered the water but was now numb. Heavy gloves made his hands seem useless. Thankfully, the water dissipated all weight, and floating in the vastness, clear as air, he felt as if he were flying rather than swimming.
The transponder signal Herbert Rowland had detected led them across the snow to a narrow inlet where freezing ocean licked icy shore, a place where se
als and birds had congregated for summer. The signal’s strength compelled a firsthand inspection. So he’d suited up, Sayers and Rowland helping him don his gear. His orders were clear. Only he went into the water.
He checked his depth. Forty feet.
Impossible to know how far down to the bottom but he was hoping he could at least catch sight of something, enough to confirm the sub’s fate. Rowland had told him that the source lay farther inland, toward the mountains that rose from the shoreline.
He kicked through the water.
A wall of black volcanic rock peppered with a dazzling array of orange anemones, sponges, pink staghorns, and yellow-green mollusks rose to his left. But for the fact the water was twenty-eight degrees he could have been on a coral reef.
Light dimmed overhead in the frozen ceiling, and what had just appeared as a cloudy sky, in varying shades of blue, steadily went black.
The ice above had apparently been replaced with rock.
He unclipped a light from his belt and switched it on. Little plankton floated around him. He saw no sediment. He shone his light and the beam seemed invisible, as there was nothing to backscatter the photons. They simply hung in the water, revealing themselves only when they struck something.
Like a seal, which shot past, barely flexing a muscle.
More seals appeared.
He heard their trilling call and even felt it in his body, as if he were being sonar-pinged. What an assignment. An opportunity to prove himself to men who could literally make his career. That’s why he’d instantly volunteered. He’d also personally chosen Sayers and Rowland, two men he knew could be depended on. Rowland had said the signal source was maybe two hundred yards south. No more. He estimated that he’d swum at least that far. He searched the depths with light that penetrated maybe fifty feet. He was hoping to spot NR-1A’s orange conning tower rising from the bottom.
He seemed to be floating in a massive underwater cavern that opened directly into the Antarctic continent, volcanic rock now encircling him.
His gaze searched. Nothing. Just water dissolving into blackness.
Yet the signal was here.
He decided to explore a hundred more yards.
Another seal rocketed past, then one more. Ahead of him, their ballet was entrancing. He watched as they glided with no effort. One of them whirled in a broad somersault, then beat a hasty retreat upward.
He followed with his light.
The animal disappeared.
A second seal flicked its fins and ascended.
It, too, broke through the surface.
How was that possible?
Only rock should be above him.
“Amazing,” Dyals said. “What an adventure.”
Ramsey agreed. “My lips felt like I’d been kissing frozen metal when I surfaced.”
The admiral chuckled. “I would have loved to have done what you did.”
“The adventure’s not over, Admiral.”
Dread punctuated his words and the old man now understood that the visit contained a dual purpose.
“Tell me.”
He recounted the Magellan Billet’s breach of NR-1A’s investigative file. Cotton Malone’s involvement. His successful effort to retrieve the file. And White House access into the personnel records of Zachary Alexander, Herbert Rowland, and Nick Sayers. He omitted only what Charlie Smith was handling.
“Someone’s looking,” he said.
“It was only a matter of time,” Dyals said in a whisper. “Secrets seem so hard to keep anymore.”
“I can stop it,” he declared.
The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Then you must.”
“I’ve taken measures. But you ordered, long ago, that he would be left alone.”
No name was needed. The he was known between them.
“So you’ve come to see if that order still stands?”
He nodded. “To be complete he must also be included.”
“I can’t order you any longer.”
“You’re the only man I willingly obey. When we disbanded thirty-eight years ago, you gave an order. Leave him alone.
”
“Is he still alive?” Dyals asked.
He nodded. “Sixty-eight years old. Lives in Tennessee. Teaches at a college.”
“Still spouting the same nonsense?”
“Nothing has changed.”
“And the other two lieutenants who were there with you?”
He said nothing. He didn’t have to.
“You’ve been busy,” the admiral said.
“I was taught well.”
Dyals continued to stroke the cat. “We took a chance in ’71. True, Malone’s crew agreed to the conditions before they left, but we didn’t have to hold them to it. We could have looked for them. I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing.”
“You did.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The times were different. That sub was our most secret weapon. There’s no way we could have revealed its existence, much less that it sank. How long would it have been before the Soviets found the wreckage? And there was the matter of NR-1. It was on missions then, and it’s still sailing today. No question—you did the right thing.”
“You believe the president is trying to learn what happened?”
“No. It’s a few rungs lower on the ladder, but the man has Daniels’ ear.”
“And you think all this might destroy your chances at nomination?” “Without a doubt.”
No need for him to add the obvious. And also destroy your reputation.
“Then I rescind the order. Do as you see fit.”
FORTY-ONE
AACHEN, 9:50 PM
MALONE SAT ON THE FLOOR IN A TIGHT EMPTY ROOM THATopened off the upper gallery. He and Christl
had taken refuge inside after avoiding the tour group. He’d watched through a one-inch space beneath the door as lights inside the chapel were dimmed and doors banged shut for the night. That had been over two hours ago and there’d been no sounds since, except the hushed murmur of the Christmas market leaking in through the room’s solitary window and a faint whistle of the wind that ravaged the exterior walls.
“It’s strange in here,” Christl whispered. “So quiet.”
“We need time to study this place without interruptions.” He was also hoping that their disappearance would confuse Hatchet Face.
“How long do we wait?” she asked.
“Things need to settle down outside. You never know, there still could be visitors inside before the night is finished.”
He decided to take advantage of their solitude. “I need to know some things.”
In the greenish light from the exterior floodlights he saw her face brighten. “I was wondering when you’d ask.”
“The Holy Ones. What makes you think they’re real?”
She seemed surprised by his inquiry, as if she’d expected something else. More personal. But she kept her composure and said, “Have you ever heard of the Piri Reis map?”
He had. It was supposedly created by a Turkish pirate and dated to 1513.
“It was found in 1929,” she said. “Only a fragment of the original, but it shows South America and West Africa in correct longitudes. Sixteenth-century navigators had no way to confirm longitude—that concept wasn’t perfected until the eighteenth century. Gerardus Mercator was one year old when the Piri Reis map was drawn, so it predated his method of projecting the earth on a flat surface, marking everything with latitude and longitude. But the map does just that. It also details the northern coast of Antarctica. That continent wasn’t even discovered until 1818. It wasn’t until 1949 that the first sonar soundings were made under the ice. Since then, more sophisticated ground radar has done the same thing. There’s a near-perfect match between the Piri Reis map and the actual coastline of Antarctica, beneath the ice.
“There’s also a notation on the map that indicates the drafter used information from the time of Alexander the Great a
s source material. Alexander lived in the early part of the fourth century before Christ. By then Antarctica was covered in miles of ice. So those source materials showing the original shoreline would have to be dated somewhere around ten-thousand-plus years before Christ, when there was much less ice, to around fifty thousand yearsBCE. Also, remember, a map is useless without notations indicating what you’re looking at. Imagine a map of Europe with no writing. Wouldn’t tell you much. It’s generally accepted that writing itself dates from the Sumerians, around thirty-five hundred years before Christ. That Reis used source maps, which would have to be much older than thirty-five hundred years, means the art of writing is older than we thought.”