The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (34 page)

     For the moment, he was more concerned about not being around when the two non-skiers came looking for him. Hugging a wall, he moved toward the square until he could see the
Biergarten.
Sure enough, one of the men was standing, counting out bills while his companion was walking toward the ski shop.

     Lang moved in the opposite direction, turned a corner, and found himself staring at an open door. Oompah music of a German brass band blared inside. A sign over the door in the old Gothic script read
RATHSKELLER.

     Lang went in and down a flight of stairs, the music growing louder with each step. At the bottom was a large room with long tables. A few customers were already lunching on sausages, sauerkraut, and black bread. He recognized the slices of hot radishes, large as a grapefruit, so popular in Bavaria.

     A waitress, also in Alpine costume, said something to him, something he could not hear over the music. Lang pointed to a sign announcing
HERREN
, men's room, and quickened his pace.

     By the time he reached his destination, he saw another entrance. Following the steps back up, he came out on another street. With a little luck, he had at least temporarily lost the two watchers.

     Now he had a little time to see what Oberkoenigsburg might have to reveal.

     First, though, he needed to blend in. He stopped at another ski shop and opened the door.

Rothenburg

The Previous Evening

T
HE OLD WOMAN WALKED SLOWLY, PICKING
her way around places the wind had mounded the snow deep enough to top her cheap, worn boots. Her name was Lena Rauch. She took in sewing, did a little baking, and occasionally helped out at dinner parties to supplement the meager pension payments the Federal Republic provided to persons her age.

     Tonight she had delivered her locally famous strudel to a small birthday party just outside the town's walls. The celebrants had offered to summon one of Rothenburg's few taxis that operated during the off-season when there were few tourists. But they had not offered to pay for it. Lena did not indulge herself in luxuries such as taxicabs when she had a perfectly good set of legs. Well, perhaps not quite as good as they once had been, but good enough to carry her home without extravagance.

     She had accepted her customer's offer of a couple of glasses of schnapps to fortify herself against the cold, and she could still feel the warmth in her stomach. Unfortunately, she could also feel the effects in her head, making her steps a little less steady than she would have wanted. She certainly didn't want to blunder into a pile of snow that could come over her boot tops and get her feet wet. That might lead to a potentially terminal case of pneumonia.

     She stopped, suddenly oblivious to the snow and the cold. Was that a bundle of rags there by that building? Who was so well off they could
afford to throw away perfectly usable things like a child's pair of shoes and small jacket? Forgetting the prospect of pneumonia, she crossed the cobbled street and bent over to inspect her find.

     At first, she was certain the schnapps was affecting her vision, her mind, or both.

     A small boy, sleeping on the ground. Blond hair reflected the streetlights. No hat, untied shoes. Who would let a child out in this weather like that? The child reminded her of Hans, her only son who had died at an age not much older than this. The memory brought warm tears that grew cold as they coursed down wrinkled cheeks.

     She looked up and down the street. Few people would be out this late or in this cold and none of those who would were in sight. She couldn't leave him here. It would be a matter of only a brief time before he . . .

     The thought sent a bolt of panic through her as she knelt and touched his cheek. She said a silent prayer of thanks when she determined he was still breathing.

     She shook him gently and got no response. She sighed, praying again, this time that she had the strength in her to do what was necessary. Lifting him, she was grateful he weighed far less than she had feared.

     But now?

     She should take him to kindly old
Herr Doktor
Griff, she knew she should. But the doctor's house was so far away and it had been so long since she had had a child under her roof. She would give him dry clothes—she thought she still had some of Hans's—and a warm bed. She would take him to the doctor in the morning, take him there before calling the police to find his parents.

     Again she looked up and down the street, this time relieved no one was in sight, no one to tell her what she should do, no one to rebuke her for not doing it. No one to prevent her from enjoying having a child again, no matter how temporarily.

     She set off the short distance to the rooms she rented, staggering under the weight of a burden she was delighted to bear.

     An hour later, the child still would not wake up. His breathing was shallow.

     Lena put a hand to his forehead. Cold as ice. She shook her head, realizing she couldn't postpone calling the doctor until tomorrow. As much as
she would like to keep him here, she couldn't take the chance that exposure might have already put him into a coma. She had heard of such things, people exposed to the winter for so long they simply slipped into a sleep from which they never awoke.

     Reluctantly, she reached for the phone.

Heim had dozed off in front of the fire in his small apartment. So deep was his sleep that the sound of the phone on a table beside his chair only partially woke him.

     
"Ja?"

     "
Herr Doktor
Griff?"

     It took a second for Heim to become fully alert and remember his assumed name and confirm the woman had the person she sought. Lena Rauch, an old woman he had treated for a number of ailments, most imaginary. As he listened, he became not only alert but excited. The child she had found in the snow, could it be . . . ?

     Minutes later, he was listening to the arthritic grinding of his ancient VW Beetle's ignition, urging the damn thing to start. At last it caught and he eased in the choke, desperate not to starve an engine with far too many kilometers on it. He tried not to be impatient. It took little to stall the machine, particularly in the cold. If the child Lena had found in the snow was that little boy, the one he had been hypnotizing for the last few days . . .

     Ah, the gears protested but finally agreed to go into first and he was off, peering through a windshield the decrepit wipers seemed unable to clear of snow. He tried to curb his sense of urgency. Now was not the time to skid into something.

     But he had to get there before Gratz and his companion found where their young captive was. He was not exactly sure what secrets the little boy held, but it had something to do with Oberkoenigsburg. And, he was sure, a great deal of money. Otherwise, why would those two risk kidnapping a child clearly no kin to them no matter what wild tale they told?

     They had wanted to know if the boy could be retrogressed while actually at the ski resort. Now why would they want to do that? Heim was unsure but he was more than willing to try it and find out.

     If he was right and money was involved, a lot of money, his problems
were over. A new passport, a flight to someplace warm where snow appeared only in pictures, where the authorities were not interested in ancient history and the Wiesenthal Center would never find him. His last few years could be peaceful.

     All he had to do was get the child to Oberkoenigsburg before Gratz found him. Pick the child up from the old woman under the pretext of taking him to Rothenburg's small hospital and drive to the northern edge of Austria.

     He could be there in a few hours.

Oberkoenigsburg

Geshaft Ski Kleidung

(Ski clothing shop)

L
ANG LOOKED AT HIMSELF IN THE
full-length mirror as the ski shop's proprietor beamed behind him. Ski pants, gloves, cap, and reversible down jacket, nearly four hundred euro. He liked the jacket in particular, red on one side, black on the other. Boots, another two fifty. Lang debated renting a pair of skis to carry over his shoulder but, to the store owner's clear disappointment, decided against it. With the cane, both hands would be full. He would rather have at least one free.

     His street clothes neatly packed to be picked up later, Lang stood before a counter, watching a machine feast on his credit card and feigning fascination with a map of the various ski trails the owner was describing.

     More out of curiosity than interest, Lang pointed to the one ending closest to the top of the mountain. "What about this one?"

     "
Hoch und Schnell
," High and Fast, as it is named?" the storekeeper shook his head. "
Ach!
Closed."

     "In the middle of the season?"

     "The police, there was a shooting up there and the police have closed the lift until they finish their investigation. They promise to have the lift in operation again in two more days."

     Lang's mental antennae instantly went up. "A shooting? Here?"

     The man shook his head again. "A ski patrol, shot. It is the only murder anyone can ever remember here. His body was found near where the
few older residents say the entrance to an old mine shaft used to be. It was closed in when the resort was built a few years ago." The man tore the card receipt from the machine and presented it for signature. "It was actually in an area closed to skiers." He watched Lang sign. "But you have nothing to fear. Oberkoenigsburg has had little crime."

     Knock on wood.

     "Mine shaft?" Lang asked.

     The man shrugged. "There are many in these mountains. Few, if any, remember the precise location of the one here."

     Lang left the shop and joined the throng of skiers, feeling a little bit foolish. The clothes may often bespeak the man, but they did little for the age difference. He looked up and down the street and saw no trace of the two men who had shown an interest in him.

     Now what?

     For lack of a better idea, he turned to follow the crowd toward the lifts, deep in thought.

     No reason to think a murder was related to the reason he was here, but its proximity to a mine made it more interesting, although Lang could not yet explain why.

     He continued down the street until it ended at a series of three lifts, one from the bottom of the mountain below, and two that formed a "V" as they threaded their way upwards in different directions.

     Lang was looking at the map the store owner had given him, trying to ascertain the place of the shooting by comparing the paper in his hand with the view he had. One thing was obvious: these slopes were neither as well-groomed nor as well-marked as those he had seen in Colorado or Utah. Nor as well-cleared. Rocks, unmarked, jutted through the snow in several spots he could see. In some parts of the downhill run, the slopes narrowed to twenty, twenty-five feet by towering conifers. The vegetation got progressively more sparse the further uphill one went until the summit jutted upward in a jumble of boulders, ice and snow.

     That must be the place. The shopkeeper had said the shooting—no, the body—had been found in an area not open to skiers, and the top of this mountain looked about as inhospitable to skiers as could be imagined.

     Lang was being jostled by the good-humored crowd making its way to the lift lines. He moved to stand atop a hummock of snow for a better
view. The small hill bristled with skis and poles stuck upright, left for the moment by those taking a break from the slopes.

     He lifted the map again and was still making comparisons between it and what he could see when he felt a blunt object jabbed into his side. There was little doubt it was the muzzle of a pistol.

     "Mr. Reilly," said a German accented voice from behind him, "you will come quietly with me."

Less than ten kilometers away, a faded green Volkswagen Beetle chugged its way upwards along the crest of the Land Salzburg, the high Alpine ridge that roughly parallels the German-Austrian border just north of Salzburg. The late morning sun sparkled on the windshield despite the grime left by recently melted snow. The driver, an old man, held one hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the glare. Occasionally, he turned to check the back seat, where a small boy was swaddled in a down comforter.

     At first the child had wept, something about his parents, the old man gathered. A slap across the face would likely have reduced the cries to a muted whimpering, but the last thing the driver wanted was to upset the child even more. He wanted the child as calm as possible. Over his shoulder, he extended a candy bar, a gift reluctantly taken.

     It had been a near thing. The child had been close to fatal hypothermia, that process by which the body's natural heat is leached away by surrounding cold until vital functions shut down. A few gentle pats across the face woke him enough to administer nearly scalding tea. That was followed by a steady stream of high-energy foods, chocolate bars, anything with high caffeine content, to stimulate the heartbeat. As it was, shock was still a possibility. Hence the comforter and pillows to keep feet elevated, assuring maximum blood flow to the brain.

     The old man was well aware of the symptoms of shock and hypothermia. He had studied both. In one of his experiments, he had compared the time it took for a man tossed naked into the snow to die against that for a man to die in boiling water. Those findings were now lost to a world too horrified by the scientific process to care about the results.

     A great pity.

     His thoughts returned to the present as he pulled into a parking lot
next to a ski lift. It was crowded with empty cars. The mountains towered above. About halfway up, he could see the town of Oberkoenigsburg.

     He had considered driving into the town itself but decided against it for a number of reasons. First, he would be less likely to be noticed here than in the ongoing carnival that was the ski resort. Second, hypnotizing the child would require relative quiet free of distractions, something he doubted he would find in the town above. Finally, a vantage of not just the town itself but its surroundings might be helpful if he really could hypnotize and retrogress the little boy to the point that his previous soul, persona, or whatever it was could point out the place Gratz was seeking.