Chapter 91

 

 

München, Germany

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski

Maximilianstraße 17

 

2:00 a.m.

 

 

Calla gripped the balcony railing and ignored the tightness in her gut. As much as she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking of the child she’d lost. Though her body had recovered, she wasn’t sure her mind and emotions had. What warning was there?

None.

She heard a noise behind her as she stood on the balcony overlooking the Bavarian skyline from the Kempinski suite of her hotel.

Built in the city center, they’d parked the BMW near Lehel U-Bahn station. The deluxe room gave them the added security from onlookers on the lower floors. And Nash had insisted on the privacy.

Minutes from Marienplatz public square, Calla breathed in the night air as Nash advanced over to where she stood by the balcony door and drew her to him. His eyes were a mask of concern.

He was thinking about the map.

Any hidden map, digital or otherwise, spelled greed, danger and corruption. They’d been here before. Just hunting for it would leave a digital imprint somewhere, be it a website, a trace on a phone, the use of a government service satellite.

A digital footprint would remain registered on some server they could not locate. No one knew where they were, but technology could still penetrate their walls. It was what they relied on for just about anything. The risk now was more that they could share with the British government. They’d so far failed to neutralize the hacker.

She now had a name, Archimedes.

The breeze from the square caressed her cheek as Nash held her in view. “Congress have just confirmed what I’ve feared all along.”

Her eyes met his. “What’s that?”

“Cyber operations that change or manipulate digital data to compromise integrity are now our new enemy. Deleting or releasing the prime minister’s stolen data isn’t the biggest threat. By tomorrow a criminal could be running the UK government. That same criminal controls this digital map.”

She smiled and remembered exactly why she loved him. Nash had always put her first and they’d been through much together.

She eyed the little scar on his chin that reminded her of the bizarre way they’d met at Colorado airport.

 

It had been at Denver International Airport, three years ago, at check-in. He was traveling back from a skiing vacation and she’d been on an anthropological trip.

She scuttled to the counter, certain she’d missed her flight. In her haste, she knocked over his skis. He attempted to retrieve them, plummeted to the waxed floor and an awkward fall sliced his clean-shaved jaw. Embarrassment stirred in her. Had she caused severe damage to his teeth? She flipped her head, horror-struck. “I…I’m so sorry.”

Nash cupped his chin with both of his hands as gasps and concerned glares from the queue followed at the American Airlines counter. He gave her the okay sign and threw back his head. His laugh started as a chuckle, then a hiss and ended in a roar. Nothing was missing or broken. Just a small cut.

Calla chuckled and begged for someone to produce a first-aid kit. In the end, she found a Band-Aid in her cosmetics bag and placed it over the wound. “Phew. I guess no damage. By the way, why are you taking skis to London?”

The long flight back to London with adjacent seats had been one of mutual discovery. With his background in political science, languages and intelligence analysis, their conversation and reciprocated interests for travel, history and cultures were well matched. They chatted the entire nine hours and forty minutes. By the time they stepped off the 747 flight at London Heathrow they knew their lives had changed.

“Sometimes I think all of this isn’t happening,” Nash said.

“If you want me to quit now, I will. We both can. I never ever want to face losing you again. I almost lost you twice and that feeling is the worst I’ve ever had. Those three days when I thought you’d gone. I didn’t know what to think. I don’t know why we lost the baby, but I know that we can’t just let them scare us. We would live in fear all our lives and you and I decided a long time ago never to do that.”

“Calla, we don’t have to.”

“It’s important to me, Nash.”

He smiled, his eyes sparkling. Nash was extremely handsome and had a way of melting her insides like chocolate on an open flame.

He had a way of letting her know that even if everything was all screwed up, together it somehow was bearable. She was an operative and her special assignment with them had always meant she couldn’t have a relationship with Nash. Yet they’d defied the odds.

“When we eloped ago, I was scared, scared to love you, but even more scared of a life without you.” He kissed her eyelids. “When my former commanding officer, someone I trust more than most, agreed to perform the private ceremony in Colorado well…” He drew out his cellphone and scrolled through the main interface. “Here.”

She stared at the phone as Nash stopped at a photo they’d snapped with him in uniform and her in a white jump suit. Somehow it had been right for their commitment. Though not planned, they’d welcomed the pregnancy even though they’d been warned by Merovec that a baby together would be a huge gamble.

Calla couldn’t help wonder if something, aside from the jump, had caused her to abort. She needed to know from her mother if there had been a history in their family of miscarriages. Dr. Bertrand had examined her and presented some theories. But they seemed highly unlikely.

It didn’t help that her lifestyle wasn’t suited for a baby. But the five weeks she’d carried Nash’s child seemed to have been the most rewarding and the most normal in their relationship.

It had only been for five weeks, too short to recall any real change in her body. Yet, one thing she could always rely on was Nash’s word and that was stronger than life to her. It was the closest bond they had.

Calla breathed hard. “I want us to be normal. No one in either of our families has ever had that.”

“I’m beginning to question what normal is,” said Nash. His jaw tightened and he took her hand. His fingers were warm and strong as they laced through hers. “You weren’t responsible for losing our baby. It was just…”

“I think you blame me. I didn’t lose our baby by being reckless. I wasn’t careless.” A tear welled in her eyes. “I felt something on my leg that seeped into my abdomen with a pain I’d never known as I took that jump. I just can’t remember everything.”

Nash’s phone beeped. He checked the text message.

“Nash...?”

She surrendered to the fact that he’d stopped listening. He was still grieving. The conversation would have to wait.

She watched him scroll to an icon. “Who is it?” Calla said.

“Not sure. A message.”

“Could be a virus, a hoax, spam maybe? Like the one you got before?”

“Let me check this out. It used my NSA identity. That’s only reserved for NSA special communication.”

Nash walked over to the balcony table and opened the application via link on his laptop. He glanced at the screen for several moments.

“What?” Calla said.

He angled the laptop her way.

 

You have seven days to deposit one billion dollars to an account that will be communicated in acknowledgment of this message.

In exchange, the genetic intelligence we have gathered on the Calla Cress child will not be auctioned off in a digital auction that starts in less than forty-eight hours.

 

 

Calla wasn’t sure how long she stared at the message, and then Nash’s face.

A dark weight settled in her gut.

Her child was now worth one billion.

However long she stared at the message, she couldn’t shrug the feeling that either way, she’d been cheated.

Violated.

 

 

 

 

Loire Valley, Central France

 

Day 9

Tuesday, July 15, 12:37 p.m.

 

Killed!

She couldn’t find the emotion, words or mental strength to grasp the complexity of what had happened.

Her child had been stolen, not miscarried.

Stolen!

The lunchtime sun behind the château’s chimneystacks caught her eye. Calla glanced at the local town’s website as they drove up the pebbled ground to the entrance.

The eighteenth-century château had been redone into a Neo-Gothic, Italian-inspired residence. The courtyard of outbuildings now housed a chapel, a theater, stables, a large garage for seven cars and an orangery.

They crossed the formal gardens patterned with parterres and terraces and a newly installed swimming pool. This seat of nobility had survived a great fire and German occupation, and now overlooked a country estate giving off a sense of calm, contradicting Calla’s true sentiment.

What were they after? She’d observed Nash all night try every network he knew to locate the origin of the message. It had been agony watching what last night’s hack had done to him. He’d been up all night. Nash could go a couple of nights with no sleep. God knows he’d done so many times in the military. But this was something he’d never dealt with before. A faceless threat had come too close. And not knowing who was trying to harm them was something they’d never dealt with before. Somebody wanted a billion dollars in exchange for own their own flesh and blood. Was it murder? Kidnapping?

Jack had joined the digital hunt.

And still nothing.

They made their way toward the main entrance. Calla pressed the doorbell, her face void of emotion.

Nash squeezed her hand briefly. They waited several minutes before the front door dragged open and a man’s face appeared.

He put Calla in mind of an unavoidable bloodhound with his round blue eyes, like two windows on the afternoon sky. His thick, neck-length hair was the color of dark chocolate. Tall and almost level with Nash’ six-foot-three, he had on hunting gear and draped a gun over his broad-shouldered build. “Oui?”

“Est-que Count de Melun, est-il ici?” Calla said, asking for count Melun.

“Qui-êtes vous?” he replied, wanting to know who they were.

Calla replied in French. “I’m a curator from the British Museum in London and my friends and I want to speak to the count about his historic château.”

“What do you need to know about the castle?” the man said in English glancing at Nash and Jack.

“It won’t take much of your time. We understand that the count is quite knowledgeable about rare art and can help us understand a recent discovery I’m curious about,” Calla said.

“This part of the property is not open to tourists. You need to come back during open hours.”

“We’re not tourists,” Nash said.

“Today you sound like it.”

The man started to close the door and Nash set his right hand on the edge of the door. “It’s a French national security matter and I urge you to co-operate. We’re here on full knowledge of the General Directorate for Internal Security, Paris Branch.”

Nash had worked with the French investigative authorities on many occasions and to use that influence meant one thing. He was after answers, just as she was.

“Who did you say you were?”

“I didn’t, but if you’re asking, Nash Shields and I work with the US government.”

“The man squinted.”

“Did you say, Shields?”

“Yes. Why? “

“Come in.”

Calla shot Jack and Nash a quizzical glare. Why had he changed his mind?

The man led them into the inner part of the chateau. Calla couldn’t help noticing that several original features in the interior dated back to the fifteenth century. Most of the structure was intact but the castle had been transported into a modern milieu.

They advanced toward a spiraling granite staircase, whose steps were set in internal flagstones. Would they find a digital map? What did this map look like?

“Please wait in here,” the man said, pointing to a brightly lit expansive receiving room. When they were seated, he left them in silence.

The room faced south and opened onto a terrace overlooking a glistening river beside which deer and red squirrels roamed the gardens.

“Now what?” Jack said.

“Something about this place is familiar,” Nash replied.

“It should be.”

The voice came from behind them.

“I’m Count Melun,” said the deep voice.

Calla’s eyes lit with expectation. “The count?”

“Some like to call me that.”

He wore comfortable slacks, hunting boots and a tweed waistcoat over an expensive shirt. On his left arm a scorpion tattoo poked out from the rolled-up sleeves. His brown eyes were kind. Tall like the door man before him, despite his graying blond waves, he had been a handsome man in his younger years.

Nash reached out a hand. “Nash Shields. This is Calla, and that’s Jack.”

The man kept a keen eye on Nash as he gripped his firm handshake.

“Are you the owner of this estate?” Calla asked.

“Yes.”

They’d been told by the woman in Munich that the count came to live here in the castle when he inherited a family fortune kept in a Swiss vault since the Second World War. The count reached for a pipe by the table, which explained the sweet smell of tobacco in the room. “What can I do for you?”

Calla’s smile took every effort. “Help us.”

The words softened his granite-like face.

Calla continued. “What can you tell us about the missing Bayeux Tapestry and rumors that it was once in this castle?”

When he didn’t respond, Calla continued. “What do you know about digital maps?”

“Are you treasure hunters?” His eyes darted to Nash once more and pinned him with long silent scrutiny. “Nash Shields? What do you know of Americans in the war?”

“Come again?”

“Do you have a relative who served in the army in Europe during the war?”

“Not off the top of my head.”

“Know the name Christopher Shields?”

Nash squinted an eye. “My great-grandfather.”

“You asked me about the Bayeux Tapestry. Well your great-grandfather confiscated it from Nazi loot after the war. He was an art restorer before the war and when he saw the hideous condition it had been kept it. The allies allowed him to authenticate and restore it, and before he finished, it went missing from this castle. Convinced he needed to stay in Europe to find it, he decided to buy the property and look for it. He never found it.”

“Come with me.” He took them to an adjoining den. “Christopher Shields was the son of Jules Melun. The castle went to Christopher’s family when Jules died in the war. Prior to his death, he’d placed his will which included this castle in a wealth management account. Christopher’s son…”

“…My father…” Nash said.

“…moved to the US and changed the family name to untangle himself from the past which he must have hidden from you. You should ask him about it.”

Nash’s eyebrows drew together.

“And I take it your father is oddly one who’s never joined the military?” the count added.

“I don’t know... How—”

“Your father left his French connections when he divorced, had an affair, shortly after he married your mother. I’m sure you know about your half-brother.”

Nash was an only child but had frequently mentioned a brother, or he called him, cousin. He was a lawyer, mostly in trouble and lived in Rome.

Nash studied the man. Calla wasn’t sure he believed Melun, but he bore a strange resemblance to Nash.

“How are you connected to the Shields family, Melun?” Calla said.

“His father and I are distant cousins. When the estate was unclaimed, I used his connection with the French lady he cheated your mother for. The banks asked me to claim the estate on his behalf. Your father didn’t budge and we settled our differences.”

“Sounds like a George Shields move. Ignore all responsibility,” Nash said.

“Nash, the only reason I jumped on the idea is because of his connection to the Blackhorse Group. Your colleague Allegra had been watching him for years with her involvement in MI6 and the organization’s curiosity in the Group. She told me you’d be coming for the digital map. You see all Blackhorse Group members are invited to auction for the map and the key to unlock the map. But with your father’s denouncement of the Group, we only have the map not the key. That’s why I’m prepared to help you.”

“Why exactly?” Nash said.

“The Group needs to be stopped. It needs to be penetrated and if this is the way then so be it.”

Calla wanted to help Nash with whatever he was digesting. It was hard for him: first losing his child, then discovering his father’s shady past.

“Count Melun,” Calla said scanning his face. “Where did Christopher restore the Tapestry, or keep it when it was here?”

“It used to hang in his private study.”