The Ludwig Conspiracy(150)

“This is the police!” a croaking voice suddenly announced through a megaphone. “We know you’re up there, Frau Manstein! Give yourself up. Any resistance is useless!”

Luise froze, her face distorted in a grimace of horror, insanity, and bewilderment. For a moment Steven thought she would put the letter down on the ground and surrender. But then she drew out her small pistol from under her suit and put it to Steven’s head.

“Not a step closer!” she shouted. “Or I’ll blow his brains all over the castle!”

With a strangely calm demeanor, she tucked the envelope into her neckline and gave her two paladins a sign.

“Open fire,” she ordered, and then ran with Steven into the shelter of the castle courtyard. “Distract them until the chopper comes back.”

Tristan and Galahad looked at each other uncertainly. Then they threw down their shovels, drew their semiautomatics, and got into position behind the embrasures of the ruined building. Soon after that, the clatter of the Uzis rang out, interrupted by occasional shots from the police officers. Looking through a moss-covered window opening, Steven saw at least four masked men, wearing bulletproof vests and armed with sniper rifles, sprinting from tree to tree and constantly looking for cover. Just before reaching the peak, they finally crouched down behind some rocks and waited.

“I don’t know who tipped them off,” Luise snarled, “but don’t think it changes your situation in any way.” Her voice was close to Steven’s ear now; he could smell her expensive perfume. “The helicopter was really just supposed to take the new antenna over to the tower at Neuschwanstein. But now I’ll have to get myself rescued from here in genuinely majestic style.” She held her cell phone to her ear and waited impatiently for someone to answer.

But however long she waited, no one did.

“Damn it!” Luise shouted at last, throwing her BlackBerry down on the stony ground of the courtyard, where the display smashed into tiny splinters. “That filthy bastard of a pilot has run for it. When I get my hands on him, I’ll . . .”

“Whip him until the blood comes and put his eyes out?” Steven suggested, trying to ignore the cold muzzle of the Derringer against his temple. “Have him sent to a penal colony in Papua New Guinea? Oh, come on, Luise. Don’t make things worse than they already are. Even if you were to get away from here—you heard it for yourself: the police know who you are.”

“You think I should surrender?” Luise laughed as her paladins launched into a new orgy of noise with their Uzis. Splinters of stone sprayed off the rocks where the police marksmen had taken cover. “Never! I have plenty of money in my overseas accounts. More than Ludwig could ever have dreamed of. I’ll move to a small, unknown island and realize his dream there. Away from this sick civilization that gives romantics like us no scope. I will . . .”

A scream was heard, and Steven saw Tristan stagger back with a bleeding wound gaping in his left arm. One of the snipers behind the rocks had aimed through the embrasure and hit him.

“The battle of the Burgundians in King Etzel’s hall,” said Luise. “You remember the Nibelung saga? Hundreds now lie slain, by my hand alone . . . The heroes fall one by one, and the floor of the hall is wet with blood.”

“You are totally out of your mind!” Steven yelled. “Give up! It’s not too late!”

“Would Ludwig have given up? What do you think?” But Luise seemed unsure of herself. She gnawed her lower lip, and the mascara ran over her mud-stained face, making her look like a vampire drained of blood.

Then she seized Steven’s arm.

“No. I don’t think Ludwig would have given up. On the contrary.”

She pulled him away behind the castle and toward the abyss. Only now did the bookseller see, to his horror, that sparkling new iron rungs led down the precipitous wall, now wet with rain.

“Follow me, Cousin,” Luise commanded, with a grave and majestic expression. “It is time for you to set foot in our great-great-grandfather’s halls.”





44





THEY CLIMBED DOWN THE rocky wall one after the other, while the bullets went on rattling overhead.

Steven looked down, his heart thudding, as he made his way from rung to rung, using those above him as handholds. It must have been a good hundred thirty feet down to the grassy ground below, overgrown with small bushes. Flight was out of the question; Luise was right above him. She had slung the nylon bag with the little treasure chest inside it over her shoulder, and she kept stopping and threatening Steven with her pistol to make him hurry.