"Are we going hunting?" she asked.
She saw a twinkle in the president's eye. "Oh, yes. But the great thing about this trek is, the foxes don't know we're coming."
MALONE WATCHED AS CHRISTL UNFOLDED A MAP AND SPREAD IT out on one of the tables. "Mother explained it to me."
"And what made you so special?" Dorothea asked.
"I assumed she thought I'd keep a level head, though apparently she believes me to be a vengeful dreamer out to ruin our family."
"Are you?" Dorothea asked.
Christl's gaze bore into Dorothea. "I'm an Oberhauser. The last of a long line, and I plan to honor my ancestors."
"How about we focus on the problem at hand," Malone said. "The weather is great out there. Weneed to take advantage of that whilewe can."
Christl had brought the newer map of Antarctica that Isabel had tempted him with in Ossau, the one she'd failed to unfold. Now he saw that all of the various continental bases were denoted, most along the coast, including Halvorsen.
"Grandfather visited here and here," Christl said, pointing to spots marked 1 and 2. "His notes say that most of the stones he brought back come from Site 1, though he spent a great deal of time at Site 2. The expedition brought a cabin, disassembled, to erect somewhere to firmly stake Germany's claim. They chose to build the cabin on Site 2, here, near the coast."
Malone had asked Taperell to stay. He now faced the Aussie and said, "Where is that?"
"I know it. About fifty miles west of here."
"It's still there?" Werner asked.
"Deadset," Taperell said. "She'll be right-wood doesn't rot here. That thing would be like the day they erected it. And especially there-the entire region is designated a protected area. A site of 'special scientific interest' under the Antarctica Conservation Act. You can only visit with an okay from Norway."
"Why is that?" Dorothea asked.
"The coast belongs to seals. It's a breeding area. No people allowed. The cabin sits in one of the inland dry valleys."
"Mother says that Father told her he was taking the Americans to Site 2," Christl said. "Grandfather always wanted to return and explore more, but was never allowed."
"How do we know that's the spot?" Malone asked.
He caught mischief in Christl's eye. She reached back into her pack and retrieved a thin, colorful book titled in German. He silently translated. A Visit to Neuschwabenland, Fifty Years Later.
"This is a picture volume published in 1988. A German magazine sent a film crew and a photographer. Mother came across it about five years ago." She thumbed through, searching for a particular page. "This is the cabin." She showed them a striking, two-page color image of a gray wooden structure set within a black rock valley, streaked with bright snow, dwarfed by bare gray mountains. She turned the page. "This is a shot of the inside."
Malone studied the picture. Not much there. A table with magazines scattered on top, a few chairs, two bunks, packing crates adapted into shelving, a stove, and a radio.
Her amused eyes met his. "See anything?"
She was doing to him what he'd done to her in Ossau. So he accepted her challenge and carefully scanned the picture, as did the others.
Then he saw it. On the flooring. Carved into one of the planks.
He pointed. "The same symbol from the book cover found in Charlemagne's tomb."
She smiled. "This has to be the place. And there's this." She slid a folded sheet of paper from the book. A page from an old magazine, yellowed and brittle with a grainy black-and-white image from inside the cabin.
"That came from the Ahnenerbe records I obtained," Dorothea said. "I remember. I looked at it in Munich."
"Mother retrieved them," Christl said, "and noticed this photograph. Look on the floor-the symbol is clearly visible. This was published in the spring of 1939, an article Grandfather wrote about the previous year's expedition."
"I told her those records were worthwhile," Dorothea said.
Malone faced Taperell. "Seems that's where we're going."
Taperell pointed to the map. "This area here, on the coast, is all ice shelf with seawater beneath. It extends inland about five miles in what would be a respectable bay, if not frozen. The cabin is on the other side of a ridge, maybe a mile inland on what would be the bay's west shore. We can drop you there and pick you back up when you're ready. Like I said, reckon you're in luck with the weather, it's a scorcher out there today."
Minus thirteen degrees Celsius wasn't his idea of tropical, but he got the point. "We'll need emergency gear, just in case."
"Already have two sleds prepared. We were expecting you."
"You don't ask a lot of questions, do you?" Malone quizzed.
Taperell shook his head. "No, mate. I'm just here to do my job."
"Then let's eat that tucker and get going."
EIGHTY-FOUR
"MR. PRESIDENT," DAVIS SAID. "WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO simply explain yourself. No stories, no riddles. It's awfully late, and I don't have the energy to be patient and respectful."
"Edwin, I like you. Most of the assholes I deal with tell me either what they think I want to hear or what I don't need to know. You're different. You tell me what I have to hear. No sugarcoating, just straight up. That's why when you told me about Ramsey, I listened. Anybody else, I would have let it go in one ear and out the other. But not you. Yes, I was skeptical, but you were right."
"What have you done?" Davis asked.
She'd sensed something, too, in the president's tone.
"I simply gave him what he wanted. The appointment. Nothing rocks a man to sleep better than success. I should know-it's been used on me many times." Daniels' gaze drifted to the refrigerated compartment. "It's what's in there that fascinates me. A record of a people we've never known. They lived a long time ago. Did things. Thought things. Yet we had no idea they existed."
Daniels reached into his pocket and removed a piece of paper. "Look at this."
"It's a petroglyph from the Hathor Temple at Dendera. I saw it a few years ago. The thing's huge, with towering columns. It's fairly recent, as far as Egypt goes, first century before Christ. Those attendants are holding what looks like some kind of lamp, supported on pillars, so they must be heavy, connected to a box on the ground by a cable. Look at the top of the columns, beneath the two bulbs. Looks like a condenser, doesn't it?"
"I had no idea you were so interested in things like this," she said.
"I know. Us poor, dumb country boys can't appreciate anything."
"I didn't mean it that way. It's just that-"
"Don't sweat it, Stephanie. I keep this to myself. But I love it. All those tombs found in Egypt, and inside the pyramids-not a single chamber has smoke damage. How in the crap did they get light down into those places to work? Fire was all they had, and lamps burned smoky oil." He pointed at the drawing. "Maybe they had something else. There's an inscription found at the Hathor Temple that says it all. I wrote it down." He turned the drawing over. "The temple was built according to a plan written in ancient writing upon a goatskin scroll from the time of the Companions of Horus. Can you imagine? They're saying right there that they had help from a long time ago."
"You can't really believe Egyptians had electric lights," Davis said.
"I don't know what to believe. And who said they were electric? They could have been chemical. The military has tritium gas-phosphor lamps that shine for years without electricity. I don't know what to believe. All I know is that petroglyph is real."
Yes, it was.
"Look at it this way," the president said. "There was a time when the so-called experts thought all of the continents were fixed. No question, the land has always been where it is now, end of story. Then people started noticing how Africa and South America seem to fit together. North America, Greenland. Europe, too. Coincidence, that's what the experts said. Nothing more. Then they found fossils in England and North America that were identical. Same kind of rocks, too. Coincidence became stretched. Then plates were located beneath the oceans that move, and the so-called experts realized that the land could shift on those plates. Finally, in the 1960s, the experts were proven wrong. The continents were all once joined together and eventually drifted apart. What was once fantasy is now science."