Brimstone

{ 70 }

The church where Carlo Vanni was interred lay in the foothills of the Apennines above the town of Pistoia, at the end of a winding road that seemed to climb forever through darkness. Their replacement Fiat wound back and forth, the headlights stabbing into darkness at each turn.

"We should be prepared for company," said Pendergast.

"You think they know we're here?"

"I know it. A car's trailing us. I glimpsed it a couple of times three or four switchbacks down the mountain. He'll have to park below the church, and I don't intend to be surprised. Are you familiar with the move-and-cover approach to an objective?"

"Sure."

"You'll cover me while I move, then I'll signal you to follow, like this." And he gave a low hooting sound indistinguishable from an owl's.

D'Agosta grinned. "Your talents always manage to surprise me. Rules of engagement?"

"We're dealing with a potential killer, but we can't shoot first. Wait for the first shot, then shoot to kill."

"Meanwhile, you're down."

"I can take care of myself. Here we are." Pendergast slowed, making the final turn. "Check weapons."

D'Agosta removed his Glock, ejected the magazine, made sure it was at its maximum fifteen-round capacity, slammed it home, and racked the slide. Pendergast drove past the church and parked in a turnout near the end of the road and exited the vehicle.

The smell of crushed mint rose around them. It was a chill, moonless night. There was a scattering of bright stars above the dark line of cypresses. The church itself stood below, faintly silhouetted against the distant glow of Pistoia. Crickets trilled in the darkness. It was a perfect place for a tomb robbing, thought D'Agosta-quiet and isolated.

Pendergast touched his shoulder and nodded toward a dark copse of trees about a hundred yards downhill. D'Agosta crouched in the shadows of the car, gun drawn, as Pendergast darted silently down toward the copse, disappearing into the darkness.

A minute later, D'Agosta heard a low hoot.

He rose, moved quickly toward the trees, and joined Pendergast. Beyond stood the church: small and very ancient, built of stone blocks with a square tower. The front entrance-a Gothic arch over a wooden door-was closed.

Pendergast touched D'Agosta's arm again, nodded this time toward the entrance. D'Agosta retreated into the shadows, waiting.

Pendergast shot across the courtyard in front of the church. D'Agosta could just make out his silhouette, black against black, before the door. There was the sound of a locked door being tried. This was followed by the faint scraping of iron against iron as Pendergast picked the lock, and then a dull creak as the door opened. Pendergast slipped quickly inside. Within moments, another hoot of an owl. Taking a deep breath, D'Agosta ran across the open piazza and past the door. Pendergast immediately closed it behind him and, inserting a narrow device into the keyhole, relocked it.

D'Agosta turned, crossed himself. The interior of the church was cool and smelled of wax and stone. A few candles guttered before a painted wooden statue of the Virgin, throwing a dim orange light across the small nave.

"You take the left side, I'll take the right," said Pendergast.

They moved down opposite walls of the ancient church, guns drawn. It was empty save for the statue of the Virgin, a confessional with a drawn curtain, and a rough altar with a crucifix.

Pendergast crept up to the confessional, took hold of the curtain, jerked it aside.

Empty.

D'Agosta watched him put his gun away and glide to a small, rusted iron door set into a far corner. He bent over the lock and-with another rattle and scrape-opened it to reveal a descending stone staircase. Pendergast switched on his flashlight and probed into the murk.

"This isn't the first tomb I've disturbed," murmured Pendergast as D'Agosta drew up beside him, "but it promises to be one of the most interesting."

"Why was Vanni buried down here, and not in a cemetery outside?"

They passed through the doorway, and Pendergast gently closed and locked the door behind them. "Because of the steep hill, the church has no outside camposanto . All the dead are buried down in the crypts, cut into the hillside underneath the church."

They descended the staircase to find themselves in a low, vaulted space. D'Agosta's nostrils filled with the smell of mold. To the left, the flashlight revealed some medieval sarcophagi, several with the bodies of the deceased carved in marble on the lids, as if asleep. One was shown in a suit of armor; another was dressed as a bishop.

D'Agosta followed Pendergast to the right. This passageway led past more old tombs, decorated with sculptures and relief, ending in another iron door. In a moment, Pendergast had it open.

The flashlight disclosed a much cruder tunnel beyond, fashioned out of the rock itself. Shelves were cut into the rude walls, each with its own pile of bones, a skull, and bits of rag. Some of the skeletons had rings on their bony fingers, or bits of jewelry and necklaces scattered among the rib cages. There was the faint rustling of mice, and a few furry bullets shot across the dirt floor, heading for cover. Farther on were rows of newer tombs, narrow edge out, as in a mausoleum. Each niche was covered with a marble plaque.

As they walked, the dates on the plaques grew more recent. Some had photographs of the deceased affixed to the front, unsmiling nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century faces marked by hardship and disappointment. A scattering of vacant crypts with blank marble plaques appeared. Others had a name and birthdate but no date of decease. Pendergast swept his flashlight from left to right and back again as they progressed. Ahead, D'Agosta could make out the terminal wall of the crypt. And there, isolated at the end, in the bottom row, was the tomb they were looking for:

CARLO VANNI

1948-2003

Pendergast reached into his suit coat and removed a thin cloth, which he quickly spread on the stone floor in front of the crypt. Next, he produced a narrow crowbar and a long metal blade with a curved end. He shimmed the blade behind the marble plaque, moved it slowly along all four edges, then stuck the crowbar into the newly created joint and gave a sharp tug. The plaque popped loose with a faint cloud of dust. Pendergast caught it deftly and laid it on the cloth.

The dark hole exhaled a nasty, burned smell.

Pendergast shone his flashlight into the niche. "Give me a hand, please."

D'Agosta knelt beside him. He avoided looking in the hole; it didn't seem decent somehow.

"You grab the left foot, I'll grab the right, and we'll slide him out. It's our good fortune that Vanni's niche is at floor level."

Now D'Agosta forced himself to look. In the dimness, all he could see were the soles of two shoes, each with a hole in it.

"Ready?"

D'Agosta nodded. He reached in, grabbed the shoe.

"On second thought, grasp it above the ankle. We wouldn't want the foot coming off at the anklebone."

"Right." D'Agosta moved his hand up, around the pant leg. It felt like grabbing a knotty bone, except there was a crackle of something else under there, like parchment, that almost turned his stomach. The smell was appalling.

"At the count of three, pull slowly and easily. One, two, three . "

D'Agosta pulled, and after a moment of sticky resistance, the body came free and began sliding out, surprisingly light.

"Keep going."

D'Agosta backed up, pulling as he went, until the corpse was entirely out of the niche. A nest of earwigs was exposed, the panicked insects racing off in all directions. D'Agosta jumped back, slapping at several that had dashed up his leg.

Carlo Vanni lay before them, arms crossed, hands folded around a crucifix, eyes wide open but black and wrinkled. The lips had drawn back from the teeth, which were no more than rotten stumps. The man's white hair had been slicked down with some formidable substance, because not a strand was out of place. The suit had holes in it from insect activity but was otherwise intact, if a bit dusty. The only obvious sign of burning was on the hands themselves, which were black and twisted, the fingernails curled up in little scrolls.

"Hold the light, please, Vincent."

Pendergast bent over the body, placed a knife at the corpse's throat, and in one motion slit the clothes from neck to navel. He pulled them aside. Paper wadding, used to bulk up the suit, filled the sunken abdomen. Pendergast pulled this away to reveal a blackened torso, skin peeling away in dusty burned sheets. Burned ribs sprang from the rib cage, charred ends exposed.

D'Agosta made an effort to keep the light steady.

Pendergast removed a piece of paper from his pocket and laid it beside the body. D'Agosta saw it was the copy of the M.E.'s report, a photocopy of an X-ray showing the location of the drops of metal. Next, he fitted a jeweler's loupe to his eye, bending close to the body as he adjusted the objective. With the knife in one hand and a pair of surgical tweezers in the other, he began to poke into the abdomen. Faint crackling sounds rose up.

"Ah!" He held up a frozen droplet of metal, suspended between the tweezers, then dropped it into a test tube and reapplied himself to the corpse.

From the darkness behind them came a sound.

D'Agosta straightened immediately, turning the light back down the crypt. "You hear that?"

"A rat. The light, if you please?"

D'Agosta returned the light to Vanni, heart pounding. There was a lot to be said for waiting for the paperwork to come through. A year? Make that two.

There was another sound and D'Agosta swept the light back. A rat the size of a small cat crouched and blinked, showing its teeth with a little hiss.

"Shoo!" D'Agosta kicked some dirt at it and it slunk away.

"The light?"

D'Agosta swung the light back. "Nasty buggers."

"Here's another." Pendergast put a long dribble of frozen metal into the test tube. "Interesting. This metal penetrated more than six inches of flesh. These droplets weren't merely splattered on the corpse: they entered the body at high velocity. The result, I would guess, of a small explosion."

Pendergast extracted a third and fourth droplet, stoppered the tube, removed the loupe. Everything disappeared back into his suit. "I think we're done here," he said, glancing up at D'Agosta. "Let's return Mr. Vanni to his resting place."

D'Agosta bent and, once again taking hold of the corpse, helped shove him back into the niche.

Pendergast whisked the bits and pieces of the body that had broken off onto the M.E.'s report and tipped them into the niche. He then removed a small tube of construction cement, dabbed it around the edges of the marble plaque, and fitted it back in place, tapping here and there to seal it.

He stepped back, looked at his handiwork. "Excellent."

They exited the crypt and climbed into the church. The door was still closed and locked. Pendergast unlocked it, and D'Agosta covered him while he flitted across the courtyard. A moment later he heard Pendergast's voice. "It's all right."

D'Agosta stepped out into the warm night, immeasurably relieved to be free of the tomb. He brushed at his arms and legs, feeling the smell, the mold, still clinging to his clothes. Ahead, Pendergast was pointing toward the darkness of the hill. A pair of taillights could be seen winding down the mountainside a half mile below them.

"That's our man." His light came on, revealing unfamiliar shoe tracks clearly outlined in the short, dew-laden grass.

"What was he doing?"

"It seems they no longer want to kill us. Rather, they are merely anxious to keep track of how much we know. Now, why do you think that is, Vincent?"