The Crimson Code Read online

  She could honor them, in this moment, with her tears. And once she had done that, she knew, there was a job to do. An important job. A job worth doing well. And if she did her job well, the Brotherhood would pay, not only for the lives of her parents but for all the lives it had so callously swept aside.

  That would be her parents' legacy.

  They would not have died in vain.

  Guatemalan Highlands

  On the side of a volcano, the soil was rich, full of nutrients brought forth by centuries of eruptions. That combined with the rain to produce dense undergrowth, and Miguel sometimes needed his machete. He kept its use to a minimum, however, for fear of alerting the man who was hunting the people of Dos Ojos.

  As often as he could, he chose to climb over or under obstacles, or simply move very slowly through them, allowing his trail to close up behind him.

  The villagers could not do that. There were too many of them, too many children. Their machetes had been carving paths through the forest for a long time now. Along with the fire pits, this was guiding the Hunter behind them.

  But now, as the people climbed higher on the side of the mountain, the forest changed. The undergrowth lessened, making it possible for them to move without carving their way.

  It occurred to Miguel that if the Hunter realized this, he would make his move soon. Miguel was determined not to let that happen. He doubted he could take the pursuer mano a mano. The Hunter was clearly well trained, and a much bigger man than he himself was. Nor did he have a gun. While his sturdy AK assault rifle would hold up forever, even with minimal care, he had long since run out of ammunition.

  Paralleling the trail the villagers had taken, Miguel was certain he could backtrack until he came up behind the Hunter. Then he would find a way of stopping the man, or sending him in another direction.

  Guilt goaded him as much as love for the people of Dos Ojos, as much as his love for his sister and her family. Guilt because he knew his village would not now be running except for him. In quiet moments he wondered why he could not have seen what was going to happen to them if it became known that he had participated in the assassination of the American ambassador. He wondered that he could have been so heedless and naive.

  Padre Lorenzo said, Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Once he'd explained the saying to Miguel, the young man had nodded agreement and accepted that this was so. But he continued to feel guilty anyway. Neither the forgiveness of God, nor the freely given forgiveness of the villagers and his sister, could quite wash away his sense of guilt.

  He owed them. And now he was going to find a way to protect them, whatever the cost.

  Finally he had traveled far enough back that he felt it was time to cross over to the path carved by the villagers as they had moved through yesterday. Then he would follow the one who hunted them until he could take action.

  He was sweating, despite the relatively cool temperatures at this altitude, by the time he once again emerged on the newly hewn path. Yes, he was behind the place where he had last seen the man.

  It was good. Stealthily and alertly, he moved forward, trying to emulate the jaguar of sacred myths older than his people. He would become the jaguar, silent, patient, deadly.

  Between one step and the next, it happened. Something hard hit the back of his head, causing him to see bursts of light before he sank into utter darkness and fell to the ground.

  11

  Frankfurt, Germany

  Niko and Assif had donned workers' uniforms with the name Deutsche Telekom emblazoned on them. Even now, Renate knew, they were entering the utility tunnels that wound beneath Frankfurt's streets.

  Law was studying the blueprints for the Berg & Tempel building, so Renate sat by herself, listening to Niko and Assif's brief snippets of conversation on the radio. This was probably the easiest part of the operation in terms of safety: they were going to locate the junction box where the lines from the bank connected with the rest of the system. On paper it sounded so easy as to be not worth the effort, but they all knew that in the real world of darkened tunnels, where even real utility workers sometimes tore at their maps in exasperation, nothing could be taken for granted.

  And that maze posed a far greater danger than the remote possibility that Niko and Assif might be detained for a few minutes by some overeager Polizei. Each carried a handheld GPS tracker, as well as a tunnel map. But neither the maps nor their link to the Global Positioning System satellites was a firm guarantee against getting lost in an underground warren where landmarks were nonexistent and time seemed to stand still.

  At least, Renate reasoned, the Brotherhood itself was no threat at this stage of the operation. Its world was also a rabbit's warren, but the bankers would never sully their wingtips in a utility tunnel. Instead, they tunneled through the ones and zeroes of the international banking networks, silently shifting huge sums of money to tip the scale here or balance it there.

  When she had first caught their scent, as a forensic accountant with the BKA, it had been the whiff of transactions that seemed to have no rhyme or reason: money from here to there, then to somewhere else, and then back to its source. Soon she had become persuaded that the bank was involved in some kind of shell game, shuffling money around so that it could not easily be traced. Money laundering, perhaps. But what money were they laundering? Where did it come from?

  As she had pursued those answers, she had begun to uncover an unpalatable truth. The conspiracy had little or nothing to do with money laundering. They were buying influence, and peddling it. And, she had noted uneasily, one of their major profit centers lay in the world's arms manufacturers.

  Indeed, the same collections of shell companies—all of them ultimately run by a handful of bankers—seemed to hold significant or even controlling interests in many of the world's largest arms dealers. That in itself did not shock her; weapons research and production was both very expensive and highly speculative. Of course businesses would need to diversify their holdings and thus protect themselves against a single calamitous canceled contract.

  No, her growing sense of unease had come from the tight nexus between the bankers, the arms dealers and the political elites of Europe and the United States. The further she dug, the more she saw the connections repeated across national and even ideological borders. Power, guns and money had become an unholy worldwide triumvirate. And whether a given transaction was legal seemed to be entirely irrelevant to the men who made the connections.

  It was as if these men saw the law—and morality itself—as little more than an impediment to be ignored, swept aside or purchased outright. In their minds, it mattered nothing whether an arms deal, or a war, was legal. The question was simply whether it was likely to be profitable. If so, then the pieces were quietly moved around the board—the politicians corrupted or co-opted, the news colored, the public distracted—and the plans put in motion.

  She hadn't been able to prove it back when she'd worked for the BKA, and her strategy of leaking information to the press had come to an abrupt end as the power of money did its work and they tried to kill her. Now she lived in a shadow world, yet somehow they had discovered that she was still alive.

  "Be careful," she heard herself whispering to Assif and Niko. "These people…"

  "We know," Assif said. "We know."

  Of course they knew. They wouldn't be doing this otherwise. While she still could not prove all of what she knew about the Frankfurt Brotherhood, she had been relieved to discover that her superiors at Office 119 not only believed her but had information and suspicions of their own. It was one such investigation—into the murder of a U.S. ambassador in Guatemala and the attempted murder of a leading contender for the U.S. presidency—that had taken her to the United States and given her the opportunity to recruit Tom Lawton, now Lawton Caine, into Office 119.

  She smothered a sigh and cursed the circumstances that forced her to sit here, listening to the radio, while Niko and Assif were out and actively pursuing her enemies
. She wouldn't have an active role in this operation again until they were hooked into the bank's SWIFTNET lines and could begin to decrypt their messages. Until that time, she was more spectator than participant. But once they began to decrypt the data…then would come her time to strike.

  For the sake of her sanity, she hoped that was soon.

  Then, crackling over the radio, came Assif's voice. "We have found it."

  She snatched the radio. "You're sure."

  "As much as we can be."

  Lawton reached for the fleece-lined wind-breaker that was draped over the chair behind him.

  "He's leaving now," Renate said into the radio.

  It was time.

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  "Look back to the thirteenth century for your enemies."

  Ahmed Ahsami read the cryptic note one of his aides had scribbled and attributed to "Yusefi." Veltroni, of course. But what did he mean?

  Ahmed almost crumpled the slip of paper with the anger he had been feeling since Black Christmas, but he stayed himself just before he clenched his fist.

  Veltroni was trying to tell him something. Perhaps even Veltroni didn't understand the message he had passed. Ahmed had known from the beginning that Veltroni, while higher than many in his secret society, was far from the top. Perhaps someone above him had told him this. Had ordered him to send this message.

  If so, Ahmed knew no more than before except that the Stewards of the Faith were at least pretending they had played no part in the unexpected turn of events that had become Ahmed's nightmare.

  Closing his eyes, he mentally reviewed every contact he had ever had with Veltroni, seeking any hint of deception. But no, Ahmed believed that Veltroni and his group really wanted what they said: a more peaceful world, one that all faiths could inhabit without conflict.

  But that didn't necessarily mean they hadn't alerted U.S. and European authorities to the presence of the terrorist cell in Vienna.

  He put his forehead in his hand and looked at the slip of paper in front of him, covered with the graceful Arabic script of his aide.

  Perhaps the Stewards of the Faith hadn't realized the statement Ahmed had wanted to make after the cell was taken out. Perhaps they were concerned only to see those who had attacked their church brought to justice. He could understand that.

  But no more than that.

  The thirteenth century? The era of the Crusades? What did that mean? How could his enemies today arise from those times?

  He had studied the history of the Middle East and knew something about that period, but not nearly enough. Rising, he went to the bookcases that covered most of one wall and searched through them. He had some English books about the history of the Crusades, and while he had preferred those written by Muslim sources because of the bias of the English, he nevertheless pulled one of them out now.

  Go back to the thirteenth century? He would do exactly that. He certainly wasn't finding his answers in the present.

  La Rochelle, France, October 12–13, 1307

  Silently, in the dead of night, the ships belonging to the Knights Templar slipped their moorings and headed toward the open ocean. Soon they would be joined by the rest of the fleet, even now sailing silently from Paris.

  The wooden ships creaked mightily and sat low in the water, burdened as they were with the immense weight of fleeing men and holds full of gold.

  Chevalier Maurice d'Valmy stood at the stern of one of the ships, watching the dark hulks of the others following them. No lights guided them, for fear they might alert those ashore to the Templars' flight. Captains and crews were relying on their intimate knowledge of these waters, with only starlight to show the way.

  D'Valmy gripped the wooden rail so tightly that he wouldn't have been surprised if his hands left permanent prints in the wood.

  Betrayed! The word chimed in his head with every heartbeat. To this very moment, even as he and his fellows were in the midst of flight, he struggled to believe it was truly happening.

  Over the past week, messengers had spread silently throughout France and neighboring countries with the scarcely believable news that the French king, Philip le Bel, had conspired with the pope, and that upon the morrow, soldiers would be arresting every Templar they could find as heretics.

  This, after all their service to the pope, after all they had done to support and finance the monarchies of Europe.

  But that was the problem, wasn't it? he thought bitterly. Philip was heavily in debt to the Templars, and rather than attempt to repay them, he wanted to steal their entire fortune for his own coffers. According to the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, they were all fated to be tried by the Inquisition.

  So he had ordered the majority of the Templars to take to sea with the fleet and the great treasure that Philip so desperately wanted. The heroic de Molay and a handful of other Templars would remain behind to face the Inquisition and defend the order…and probably die.

  Flight ran against every inclination in d'Valmy's heart and soul. Given a choice, he would have remained behind and faced those devils and their devious schemes. He would have called the Templar Army to the sword and fought back. He would have done anything but this.

  But the Grand Master wouldn't hear of it. "This is better, Chevalier," he'd said when d'Valmy had confronted him two days ago. "It is time for us to vanish. The pope no longer cares for us and fears our power. If we cannot serve the pope, then we must serve only our God."

  Maurice d'Valmy had long ago sworn to do that very thing. To serve the Cross, to serve the son of David, to protect the secrets that had come down to them from a past so distant it was hardly mentioned in any history he had ever come across.

  But of course it had not been mentioned. The Church had strangled the knowledge, fearing it as godless. Even so, the Church had willingly profited from it, and from the Templars' good relations with the Muslims in Jerusalem…at least until Saladin had driven the Templars out.

  Maurice touched the leather bag hanging from his sword belt, checking that the real treasure, the treasure greater than gold, was still with him.

  "You must hide," the Grand Master had said. "You must melt into the shadows, into far countries.

  "We shall continue our banking businesses, and one family has agreed to run it for us. You will know them when they come to you and speak of the Red Shield."

  D'Valmy had nodded acquiescence. Red Shield, red cross, rosy cross…they were all names for the same thing. The same Rose.

  "As for the rest," de Molay had continued, "they shall become a new order. The Order of the Rose. In Scotland you will find as much safety as you and the others can. England will shelter you, but there is a royal marriage with France that may eventually become a problem, so take the greatest treasure to Scotland. The money will be spread out over the years throughout Europe. Many banks will begin to appear. But it is not the money and gold I worry about. They were only a way to conceal the greater power."

  He had leaned forward and gripped d'Valmy's forearm. "You must guard the fire-stone with your life, Chevalier. It must never fall out of our hands. The gold—" he waved a hand "—when the time comes, pass most of it to the family of the Red Shield, but also pass some of it to the Teutonic Templars. They will stay strong despite the evil to come. They will defend their territory, and I have given them permission to do so. But the rest of you…flee."

  Remembering the conversation now, as La Rochelle fell away behind them, d'Valmy understood why he had been chosen. Only a few understood the power of the stone in his pouch. Only a few knew how to use it, and d'Valmy was one of them. To him had been entrusted the secret and the power.

  A power, he realized now, he must never use in a way that might draw attention. He must see that his brothers escaped and reached safe shores, see that the gold fell into hands that would use it to advance the well-being of the others and righteously exercise the power that money gave.

  But the fire-stone must never fall into other hands. It was too danger
ous, too powerful. Its misuse was the very thing the Knights tried so hard to prevent, even at the cost of sacrificing some of their numbers to the Inquisition and vanishing into the mists of myth.

  Maurice d'Valmy squared his shoulders and turned to face forward into the night. Much as it went against his nature, he would do as he had been ordered.

  12

  Frankfurt, Germany, Present day

  "Es ist sehr kalt," Lawton said as he entered the bank, the parcel tucked beneath his left arm. It's very cold. He glanced at the clipboard in his right hand. "Ich habe ein Paket für Herr Stolzmann."

  "Ja," the receptionist said, her mouth smiling, but her eyes betraying impatience. She was obviously ready for the workday to end. "Im ersten Stock."

  "Ja, danke," he replied.

  Although she had directed him to the first floor, in Germany that was the one immediately above ground level. He headed for the elevators at the back of the entry hall. Once inside, he pressed the button marked 1 and dutifully exited after ascending one level.

  But rather than turning left toward the office of Mr. Stolzmann, to whom the package was addressed, he walked to the stairwell. He paused for a moment at the landing, listening, then descended to the basement, where the bank's computer room lay. Three doors past the computer room, he knew, was a janitorial supply closet. He opened that door and slipped to the back, wedging himself between tubs of floor wax and stacks of toilet paper. Then he keyed the microphone on his walkie-talkie.

  "I'm in."

  * * *

  "He's in."

  Renate's voice crackled in Niko's ear. At that moment, having left Assif at the junction box, Niko was shucking his uniform coverall at the tunnel's entrance. After pulling a nondescript wool coat from the toolbox he had carried with him, he slipped it on and emerged from the tunnel, his posture ever so slightly hunched, looking for all the world like a homeless man who, having slept the day away safely removed from the disapproving eyes of the Polizei, was now headed out in search of a meal.