“So if we take the cable cars up to Furggen,” Nick said, “how many Swiss police officers will be waiting for us? Or the Brotherhood’s men? Or maybe this time it will be both.”
“The monastery was abandoned shortly after the war,” Lewis said. “A few years after that, an ice storm brought down the cable lines. So the good news is, for once there won’t be anybody else waiting for you when you get up there.”
“I have a feeling there’s going to be some bad news now,” Nick said.
Professor Lewis brought up another image, a more recent photo of the abandoned building. In several spots, the roof had caved in from the weight of the ice and snow. He kept scrolling through more photos, wider aerial shots of the upper sections of the mountain. The towers where the cables once ran were now empty. There was nothing else surrounding the monastery but sheer walls of rock and ice.
“The bad news is,” Lewis said, “there’s no way to get up there.”
* * *
Early the next morning, they all gathered outside the motel. There was a cold edge to the predawn air. All five members of the team packed into the stolen Honda, a tight fit with Professor Lewis wedged into the back with Nick and Kate. The drive would be ten hours, across Austria, through the tiny nation of Liechtenstein, into Switzerland, then finally through a pass in the Alps to the Italian border. Even though the monastery itself was on Swiss soil, or rather on Swiss rock, the cable car leading halfway up Furggen was based in the town of Breuil-Cervinia in the Aosta Valley, the very northwest corner of Italy.
When they were safely out of Vienna, and with the sun coming up behind them from the east, the team stopped in the Austrian city of St. Pölten. They abandoned the stolen car in the center of town, leaving a couple hundred euros in the glove compartment, and Nick used one of his fake passports and many more euros to rent a much larger and more comfortable Peugeot 5008. Then they settled in for eight more hours of driving.
“I don’t understand why this next link is in such a remote place,” Kate said when they stopped for a quick lunch. “Everywhere else has been such a major landmark.”
“You raise an interesting point,” Lewis said, a man who clearly lived for discussing interesting points. “Of course, these links were hidden seventy-five years ago, so perhaps you’re looking at this through a different cultural filter.”
Kate just looked at him.
“It may have seemed like more of a major landmark back then,” he continued.
“A monastery hidden away on the top of a mountain?”
“Or, I have another theory,” Lewis said. “You realize that every place we’ve been so far has been in the former Axis-occupied nations of Europe.”
“Well, we started in the Vatican.”
“Which is in the middle of Rome,” Lewis said. “But let’s not split hairs.”
“Fair enough,” Kate said. “Go on.”
“Whoever hid these clues couldn’t have done so in the middle of Switzerland, because that country was of course neutral. Although let’s be clear about that. Hitler absolutely despised Switzerland, and if the plans for Operation Tannenbaum had ever been executed, Germany and Italy would have invaded and they would have broken Switzerland into two pieces. It’s actually a fascinating story, how Hitler and Mussolini met in secret to draw up—”
“Professor,” Kate said, “your theory?”
“Of course,” he said. “My theory is that there may have been an extra-special reason to pick such a remote place for this link, in a country where technically the person hiding it was not even officially allowed to go. What I’m trying to say is that, in all the years I’ve been doing academic research, I’ve learned to trust this little voice in my head. In fact, my entire doctoral thesis was based on an idea I had when I was in the shower and it occurred to me that—”
“And that little voice is saying something to you now?”
“Yes. That voice is telling me that this may be the last link in the chain.”
Everyone absorbed this. Quentin nodded and pursed his lips in a grim smile. “That’s good to hear, Professor Lewis.”
“But that same voice is also telling me that this link was meant to be the hardest of all. If you think about it, it’s on the top of a mountain, with a group of monks who back then were probably not all that accommodating to strangers.”
“Unlike the polar bears,” Quentin said. “They were quite welcoming.”
“Hey, they invited us in for dinner, didn’t they?” Nick broke in. “We just happened to be on the menu.”
The professor pressed on. “I don’t know what could be more dangerous than polar bears. But I’m afraid that, if you insist on going up there, you might find out.”
* * *
Six hours and three countries later, they reached the town of Breuil-Cervinia. It had originally been known by the French name of Breuil, then was renamed Cervinia in 1939 when the Fascists were “Italianizing” all of the town names in the Aosta Valley. Now it went by both names joined together, the ultimate alpine ski resort town, a place that would have taken Kate’s breath away if she wasn’t there on such dead-serious business.
The town would have been bustling during the winter, but was still half full in the late summer with the more dedicated year-round skiers hitting the nearby Plateau Rosa Glacier. The sun was just starting to touch the mountaintops as they got out of the car and stretched their legs, looking up at the vast peaks of the Matterhorn and Testa Grigia, and between them, like a forgotten middle child, Furggen.
“I don’t see any extra police here,” Nick said, looking all around him at the shops and lodging places. “Doesn’t mean we’re still not being watched.”
“Let’s take the gondola,” Kate said. “See what it looks like up there.”
The gondola from Breuil-Cervinia led up to the Plan Maison station, where it connected to other cars leading farther into the mountains, one to Theodul Pass, another to the Plateau Rosa Glacier and Testa Grigia. Most of the traffic at this time of day was summer skiers on their way down. Going up, the team had a car to themselves. It was a slow, eight-minute ride, a rough trip with the car bouncing up and down on the cable. Kate went over to stand with her father as he looked out at the rocks and snow passing beneath them.
“I parachuted into a monastery once,” Kate said to her father. “Remember?”
“Of course. I arranged the drop for you.”
It had been on the Greek island of Athos, when Nick Fox had “escaped” from custody and Kate had traveled halfway around the world to find him. That was the night she learned that Nick hadn’t escaped at all, but rather had been recruited to work for the FBI. Finding him had been her test. To this day she couldn’t decide if acing that test had been the best move of her life, or the worst.
“A lot has happened since then,” Jake said, seeming to read her mind. “Look at the two of you now.”
“Yeah, I’m still trying to stay on top of him. Not the easiest job in the world.”
“Nope,” he said, glancing at the scenery outside the window. “Nick’s a lucky man to have you.”