Dahl watched his friends and team-members jump down from the chopper. From old comrades to new they all had their secrets.
But who fitted which ones?
He exited, knowing that, even now, he was running from a decision. Recently he’d learned he couldn’t juggle family life with a soldier’s lot. The two would never gel. So where did he go from here?
Outside, the German town was bathed in sunshine. Hayden herded them all into a hangar where a large vehicle waited and Lauren chose that moment of relative peace and quiet, and dim coolness, to transmit all she had learned during the flight.
“I believe I’ve found what Saint Germain was doing here. Apparently, he decided he would die here after arrival. He was weary of life, careworn and melancholy. Feeble. He died leaving nothing, not even a gravestone. He was the guest of a man called Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel, who would later give no details of Germain’s death, or of what he had left behind, and turned the conversation every time he was asked. Further discrepancies exist. Reliable witnesses say he died here in 1784, yet the documents of Freemasonry, relatively reliable, say the French took him as their representative in 1785. The Comtesse d’Adhémar reports a long conversation with him in 1789, a matter of record.”
Lauren took a long breath. “But I digress. This Prince of Hesse-Kassel also had a vested interest in mysticism and was a member of several secret societies. Gems and cloths were passed around, it seems, and Charles was convinced that Germain could invent a new way of coloring the cloth and preparing the gems. He then installed the Count in an abandoned factory in Eckernförde.” Lauren grinned. “Which was later converted into a hospital.”
“How the hell did you learn all that?” Alicia asked.
“As I mentioned, it’s a matter of record. This is the greatest part of Saint Germain’s mystery — that all the facts are out there, in the public domain, and attested to by princes, kings, queens and heads of state. We’re not talking mysterious grails, legendary kingdoms or mythical weapons. We’re talking fact after fact after fact. Alchemy. Freemasonry. The arts. Diplomacy of the highest order. Councilor. Linguist. Virtuoso. Every title earned and documented. This mystery—” she shook her head “—runs deep.”
“To the Philosopher’s Stone and the secret of immortality?” Mai said wonderingly. “Now you’re back in fantasy land.”
“I’ve been to Fantasy Land,” Dahl laughed. “There’s no Saint Germain ride there.”
“Mock all you like,” Lauren said. “The facts, as they say, will out.”
“All right,” Hayden took up the reins. “So Germain’s final workplace was a laboratory, you say? Converted to a hospital. Where is it now?”
Lauren reeled off an address not thirty minutes from where they stood.
“We moving out?” Drake asked.
Hayden hesitated. Dahl knew she’d be wrestling with the facts. Hospital or gravesite? Or even this prince’s castle, where Germain had stayed? More importantly, were they even in the right country?
“Workplace,” she said. “So far, it’s all been workplaces. The bedroom in Versailles. The library. The first laboratory. The compositions were removed from where they were written, which was the initial clue.” She looked relieved. “It’s the workplace.”
Dahl liked her reasoning and was anxious to get into gear. “So wrestle it into the satnav and let’s go.” He took the shotgun seat whilst rummaging through the supplied holdall that held the real things.
“Do we think Amari’s cult will make it this time?” Alicia asked. “Missed those little weasels in London.”
“Could be they were watching the old theater,” Hayden returned as she fastened her belt. “Could be they don’t have all the details. Could even be they left London alone as it’s so well guarded and chose—” she nodded out at the hills that surrounded them, the big sky and the small town “—this.”
The vehicle set off, Smyth at the wheel. Forewarned by Hayden’s lateral thinking the team checked and readied weapons. The busy, narrow streets soon gave way to wider, less populated roads and a rolling hillside. Smyth turned the air conditioning up high and tapped at his communication device.
“This thing’s so friggin’ quiet I thought it was busted.”
Dahl agreed. “No help. No info. Not even DC chasing our tails. And Armand? Where’s he? On any normal day you have to make him shut up.”
Hayden double-checked her cell. “You shouldn’t say it out loud. Could be the calm before the storm.”
Drake stared out the window. “Since this is the penultimate clue I’d say you were right.”
“Fuck, yes,” Alicia said. “This would be a good time to stop him.”
“Perfect,” Drake said with satisfaction. “So close but so far. No closure for Webb, ever.”
“And here we are.” Smyth slowed outside the hospital and searched for a parking space. Dahl viewed the structure, finding it entirely incongruous to be at the tail end of what had been a varied but classical journey so far. The walls were square, rough gray concrete, spanning two floors, with dirty, draped windows in uneven lines and a small entrance out front. Patients, workers and visitors used the sidewalks and threaded through parked vehicles. An ambulance filled the road directly outside the entrance, awaiting some calamity.
Dahl pointed out the obvious problem. “Easy access,” he said. “For everyone. But only Webb knows where he’s going. Yes, it’s a small hospital, but where do we start?”
Lauren held up both hands and several sets of eyes swiveled toward her. “Beyond me, I’m afraid. Maybe Karin could have dragged up blueprints from the depths of the Internet. Maybe not. But I sure as hell can’t.”
Dahl blinked on hearing their missing companion’s name. He missed Karin Blake and wondered when she might return.
“Assuming the lab or factory was knocked down to make way for the hospital,” Hayden said. “Assuming Germain was savvy enough to know what might happen, the true lab would be underground. Hidden. And it would still be there.”
“Mahalo.” Kinimaka nodded. “My thoughts too.”
True as it was, it didn’t help them much. “We need the manager of the hospital,” he said.
“No,” Hayden said, now smiling. “We need the janitor.”
“Ah, so do you mean the tunnels? Or the secret passageways?”
Dahl stared and seconded Drake’s outburst: “Come again?”
“When you have an old site and you build on top, on top, on top.” The janitor used his arms and fingers to explain just as much as his words. “Soon get… many passages. Unused places. Forgotten storage and boiler rooms, sewers and access passageways. Soon—” he threw both arms aloft “—you have warren. Hidden warren. Secret warren.”
Dahl studied the man, who looked as old as the hospital. Rat-faced and clean-shaven from the top of his head to at least his chin, standing wrapped in a protective sheet, he looked a little like a missile. Oddly, he also resembled the manager from the Haymarket Theater to a certain degree. His fingers were uncomfortably long and Dahl wondered if some of the patients had nightmares after catching a glimpse of the janitor flitting up and down the corridors.
“The hospital don’t… police it?” Hayden asked, looking like she couldn’t find the right words.
“They have more important things on their minds. So, tunnels or secret passageways?”
Drake’s face took on an expression of intense excitement. “Let’s make it both.”
Dahl shook his head at the Yorkshireman. The child was never far from the surface.
“I am Lars,” the janitor said. “Follow me.”