Sign of the Cross

Maria gaped at the comment. It was the first time she’d ever heard him swear.

‘Jesus!’ Boyd continued. ‘Open your fucking eyes! The CIA doesn’t go out of house for help. They’ve got agents planted in every country in the world, ready to handle anything that could come up. There’s no way they’d turn to someone outside their network to hunt me down. That’s not how they work!’

‘Oh yeah,’ Jones challenged. ‘And what makes you such an expert?’

Boyd glared, locking his eyes on Jones’s. ‘Because I’m one of those agents.’

‘Excuse me?’ Payne said.

‘What?’ Maria shrieked.

‘You heard me. I’ve been with them for years, using my professorship to travel abroad.’

Jones rolled his eyes. ‘Oh really? What kind of secret agent comes right out and says he’s an operative? Not a real one, I know that.’

‘You know what? You’re right. In most situations that would be unheard of. Treasonous, even. But I’m afraid this isn’t an ordinary situation. Due to the false press I’ve been getting, my career as a spy is over. Plus, I get the feeling if you push that button, my life will be finished, too. So what do I have to lose?’

‘Wait a second!’ Payne demanded. ‘You’re trying to tell us you’re a CIA agent? Get serious! Can’t you come up with something better than that?’

‘Well I certainly could if I was trying to come up with something, but the fact is, I’m telling you the truth. Sure, I know I don’t look like an agent. But the truth is, most company men don’t. If we did, we would all stand out.’

Jones smiled at the logic. ‘He’s got a point there.’

‘What? Don’t tell me you believe him! He’s been working at Dover for thirty years!’

‘Yeah, but I’ve heard some crazy shit about the CIA. They’ve got NOCs everywhere, just waiting to help their cause.’

Payne knew NOC meant nonofficial cover, a government officer working behind foreign lines without diplomatic immunity, but wasn’t sure what Jones was insinuating. So Payne grabbed him by his arm and pulled him off to the side, never taking his eyes off Boyd and Maria. ‘What are you saying? We should believe this wacko?’

‘No, I’m not saying that at all. There’s a chance he’s bullshitting us to save his ass. Then again, he could be telling us the truth. The point is, I don’t really know.’

‘Then let’s push the button and talk to Manzak. Personally, I don’t give a damn what happens to these two as long as we’re out of the mix. We gotta deal with him at some point, so let’s just get it over with. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?’

‘Don’t do it!’ Boyd begged from a distance. ‘I’m telling you, if you push that button, we’ll all be killed. Just like the people on the bus. Don’t you understand that? These guys can’t afford to leave any witnesses. An entire religion rides on this.’

Payne laughed at his claim. ‘Rides on what? A buried treasure? What religion are you talking about, Greedism?’

‘Greed? You think this is about greed? Dammit, man, you don’t know anything! The scroll we found in the Catacombs isn’t about money. It’s about the truth! It will cast doubt over everything that you’ve been taught to believe. Even Christ himself.’

‘Professore!’

He turned toward Maria to explain. ‘They have to hear this, my dear. If he pushes that button, we’re going to die, and so is this secret. It’s as simple as that. The Church cannot allow this to get out. It will shake the foundation of Christianity.’

Payne looked at Jones and whistled. ‘Well, that settles it. I’m pushing the button. I mean, first he claims to be in the CIA, now he says the Church is trying to kill him. This guy’s a loon.’

Jones stared at Boyd. ‘Personally, I’ve always had my doubts about the pope. Anyone who wears a hat like that is up to no good.’

‘Good Lord!’ Boyd shouted. ‘I’m not saying the pope! But someone in the Church is linked to this. They have to be. I mean, they’re the only ones that — ’ Boyd stopped his speech in midsentence and inexplicably turned his head upwards. ‘Oh, no!’

‘What?’ Payne asked. ‘Is God talking to you now?’

‘Shhh!’ he ordered. ‘That sound. Don’t you hear it? I heard the same thing in Orvieto.’

Payne and Jones had no idea what Boyd was talking about, but when they stopped to humor him, they actually heard a rumble above the Fiat’s engine. They weren’t sure where it was coming from due to the echo in the alley. The sound was getting louder, though.

Jones turned off the Fiat and whispered, ‘Did you push the button by mistake?’

Payne shook his head as he walked down the alley, away from the others. He traveled nearly fifty feet before he tilted his ear toward the sky.

‘Choppers,’ he announced. ‘More than one. And they’re coming this way.’

‘How did they find us?’ Jones asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe this unit’s been tracking us the whole time.’ He slammed the device to the ground and smashed it. ‘Doesn’t matter. They won’t find us if we don’t want them to.’

Payne hustled toward Boyd and rammed his gun under his chin. ‘Where were you born?’

Boyd breathed deep, then said, ‘Do you want the truth, or what I’ve been taught to recite?’

Payne wasn’t in the mood for games so he pushed the Beretta even deeper into his throat.

‘Fine,’ he grunted. ‘Seattle, Washington.’

‘Where’d you go to school?’

‘The U.S. Naval Academy. Then Oxford.’

Payne eased up slightly, just in case he was a fellow midshipman. ‘Bad answer, Doc. It just so happens I know a thing or two about the Academy.’

‘Great! Ask me anything! Just do it quick, or we’re going to die.’

Payne paused for a second, trying to think of a good one. ‘Name a road on the Academy grounds.’

‘What? There are quite a few — ’

‘Name one, or I shoot.’

‘Fine, er, King George Street.’ Which, no matter how inappropriate it seemed, was actually the main road at the Academy. ‘I can continue if you’d like. Wood Street, Dock Street, Blake Road, Decatur Road, College Ave — ’

Payne nodded, half surprised by his response. ‘Where were classes held during the war?’

‘Which war?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I imagine you’re referring to the Civil War, since that’s the only time sessions were held elsewhere. And the answer is Newport, Rhode Island — moved there for safety reasons.’

‘Not bad,’ Payne admitted. ‘But this last one is the clincher. Any red-blooded Academy man would know the answer to this in a heartbeat. Are you ready? Because this is going to determine if you live or die. Got it? When you were in school, what was the name of the women’s dorm?’

Boyd smiled, quickly realizing it was a trick question. ‘Alas, there wasn’t one. Much to my disappointment, females weren’t admitted until after I’d departed. Around 1976, I believe.’

Begrudgingly, Payne lowered his gun. He still wasn’t certain about Boyd, but his gut told him that he was telling the truth. ‘So, you went to the Academy?’

Boyd nodded. ‘I take it you’re an Academy man, too?’

‘Yes, sir. Jonathon Payne, at your service.’

‘Well, Mr Payne, if you’re interested in survival, I recommend we get moving. Otherwise, we will be killed before we leave this alley.’

42

It happened years ago, right after finding the scrolls in the secret vaults. Documents that the Vatican didn’t even know it had. Following their intricate instructions, Benito Pelati journeyed to Orvieto and took pictures of the ground using geological prototypes that he had borrowed from Germany. High-tech stuff that no one else had access to. Equipment that allowed him to chart every inch of the town from the topsoil to more than a hundred feet below. Studies no one had conducted before and hadn’t been allowed to run since.

Needless to say, there was a very good reason.

More than fifty tunnels were detected near the surface, all of them starting in private property and branching through the tufa like a tangle of arteries. Most of them stopped abruptly — either because the locals hit a section of stone they couldn’t penetrate or they ran out of patience and quit looking — while others interconnected with their neighbors’ tunnels. The deepest anyone got was twenty-three feet underground. Impressive, considering their rudimentary digging techniques, yet not deep enough to reach what they were hoping to find: the Catacombs of Orvieto.

Benito knew the Catacombs existed. Or had at one time. The scrolls he found were proof of that. So were all the other documents he’d read in the Secret Archives. But prior to his geological testing, he had no idea if the Catacombs would still be there. Or what condition they might be in. One record at the Vatican mentioned a massive cave-in shortly after the Great Schism. If so, it could have wiped out everything he was hoping to find. All the proof he needed.

But thankfully, that wasn’t the case. One look at the geological report confirmed it. The Catacombs were still there and in great shape. Furthermore, they were more substantial than the Vatican had ever realized. Papal records from the time of the Schism indicated one floor of chambers and tunnels. Nothing else. But Pelati saw more than that on this report. He saw multiple levels. And stairs. And areas so far under the soil that he doubted the Vatican had ever reached them. He wouldn’t know for sure until he explored the tunnels himself, but from the look of their design, Pelati sensed the ancient Romans had built a lower tomb, then immediately sealed it off from the upper chambers. Why the Romans did this, he wasn’t sure. But if his family’s secret was to be believed, that was probably where he’d find the evidence he was looking for.

Of course, he had other things to worry about before he could investigate.

His first order of business was to stop all digging in Orvieto. Another cave-in was the last thing he wanted, so he went to the local police chief and told him that Orvieto was in danger of collapsing. To bolster his case, he showed the chief the seismic studies that he’d conducted — conveniently omitting the information about the Catacombs — then walked from house to house pointing out all the tunnels that had been constructed.

Locals still refer to it as the Shovel Act of 1982, because digging became a criminal offense.

Next Benito bought the land above the twenty-three-foot tunnel, claiming the government needed to stabilize the property, or Orvieto might implode. The owner was so embarrassed by his handiwork and mortified by what could’ve happened that he sold everything to Benito to ensure the safety of his hometown. Except Benito had no intention of filling the hole. Instead, he planned to lengthen it to the depth of thirty-six feet, for that was where the Catacombs began.

All told the process took several weeks. Benito eschewed attention, so he used unobtrusive equipment and a skeleton crew made up of miners from eastern Europe who couldn’t speak or read Italian. He knew if he used local workers they’d be familiar with the legend of the Catacombs and would figure out what Benito was doing. But the foreigners were clueless. He could keep them quiet without doing any of the digging himself. That is until his miners reached a depth of thirty-five feet. One foot short of history. From there he couldn’t risk their further involvement. So he thanked them for their effort with a big celebration. He put a bullet in each of their brains, then buried them with their own shovels. Just like the great explorers of yesteryear. Men who cared more about fame and fortune than the hired hands who helped them achieve it.

Ruthless. That’s what he slowly became when he found the scrolls at the Vatican. Until that point he was a passionate academician, nothing more, someone who wasn’t afraid to take chances and fight for what he believed in. But when he found the scrolls, his persona started to change. He slowly became wicked. Malicious. Immoral. All of it fueled by what the scrolls stood for: power and unimaginable wealth.

From that point on, Benito didn’t care about his workers. Or the town of Orvieto. Or the sanctity of the Catholic Church. All he cared about was himself and his family’s secret.

It had been dormant for several centuries. He planned to release it like a plague.

Benito had set things in motion once before, a few years ago. He had determined the best way to use the Catacombs and had scheduled a meeting with the Vatican to discuss his discovery.

But a potential windfall appeared. One that forced him to shift his timeline.

A translator working for Benito found a reference in an ancient manuscript that described the home of a Roman hero who lived in the foothills of Vindobona, Illyria. Inside a tomb of marble, he had placed a relic and a first-person account of the crucifixion. It threatened to contain everything that the world and the Church should know about the events in Jerusalem.

Details from before, during, and after the death of Christ.

Benito’s oldest son, Roberto, felt they should meet with the Vatican as planned. He reasoned their organization was ready to strike, and it would hurt their cause if there was a delay. But Benito disagreed. He canceled their meeting, reassuring his son that this discovery would actually increase their bargaining power with the Catholics. Roberto eventually relented.

From that point on, finding the Roman vault became the number-one priority in Benito’s life.

Everything else would be put on hold until the tomb was discovered in the hills of Illyria.

Recently, his goal had been accomplished.

43

Same agenda, different crew. That’s what Dial decided as he studied the haphazard way the blood had been splashed across the Green Monster, the way the message was scrawled as an afterthought instead of a fancy signature claiming responsibility. No way these were the same men who’d killed the priest in Denmark. The original sign had been painted with the skill and precision of a calligrapher, while the latest sign looked more like a kid’s finger painting. Like it was done by someone who didn’t understand what they were being asked to do but did it anyway. Someone who was going through the motions.

Alas, that made the middle case an enigma. The sign in Libya was painted with painstaking precision, yet blood was spread all over the Roman Arch in a spontaneous display of rage.

Dial wondered, why be precise and sloppy at the same crime scene? Could it have been done by a third crew? Or a mixture of the other two? Furthermore, did it even matter? Maybe he should be concentrating more on the message instead of the killers themselves. It was an interesting notion that he wanted to pursue. That is until he was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw an Asian man standing behind him, just looking at him as though he wasn’t sure what to do next. Dial said, ‘Can I help you?’

Mark Chang nodded and fumbled for his ID. He was a first-year agent at the NCB office in Boston, which meant he was Dial’s main contact while he was in town. The man in charge of the man in charge. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t meet you earlier. I would’ve, had I known.’

Dial looked at the kid and figured he was no more than twenty-two. His hair was a mess, and so were his clothes. They looked like he had found them at the bottom of his hamper. ‘Known what?’

‘Known you were in town. No one told me, I swear. I rushed down here as soon as I heard.’

And he looked like it, too. Like he jumped out of bed and caught the first bus he could find.

‘Don’t worry, Chang. I didn’t know I was coming until the last minute. I grabbed the last flight out of Paris and — ’

‘Wait. Paris, France?’

‘Yeah. Big country on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s listed on most maps.’

‘Yes, sir, I know where it is. It’s just, um, how did you beat me here? I thought maybe you were in town already, but to beat me from France? I mean, they found Pope’s body less than two hours ago, which means your plane had to — ’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down, son. Say that again.’

Chang double-checked his notepad. ‘According to 911, the groundskeeper reported Pope’s murder just after ten. From there, Boston PD notified Interpol, who then notified me an hour ago.’ He checked his watch to be sure. ‘I don’t understand, sir. How’d you get here so fast?’

But Dial ignored the question, turning his back on Chang to replay the past twenty-four hours. He’d started the day in Libya, where he caught a plane to France. That’s when Henri Toulon notified him that another victim had been found, this time in Boston. From there he hopped on another plane and flew to America.

That meant he knew about the victim several hours before his body was actually found.

‘Holy shit! We’ve got ourselves a taunter.’ Dial grabbed Chang’s notepad to be sure of the timeline. ‘I knew about the murder before it happened. The bastards called us ten hours ago.’

‘They what? Why would they do that?’

‘To taunt us, Chang. To taunt us. Hence the name.’

‘Yeah, but — ’

‘They’re letting us know that we can’t stop ’em, not even with a head start. They’re saying we can investigate them all we want, and it won’t make a damn bit of difference. They won’t stop until they’re ready to stop.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘Soon. They’re running out of words.’

‘Words?’

‘Yeah, Chang, words. You know, the things in a dictionary? I can’t believe you don’t know what words are. What, is English your second language?’

‘No, sir. I was born right here in — ’

Dial rolled his eyes. Rookies could be so dumb. ‘It was a joke, son. Just a joke.’

‘Oh, but — ’

‘Listen, Chang, I like you, so let me give you a piece of advice that my captain once gave to me. Just shut the fuck up and listen, OK?’

‘OK, sir, I’m listening.’

‘No, Chang. That was the advice. Just shut the fuck up and listen. Understand? There’s no need to repeat everything I say, and there’s no need to question everything I do. Your main job as a rookie is to observe. Learn the basic techniques, do the simple tasks that I give to you, and remember everything I say. Don’t question what I say, just remember it, write it down if you have to. Got that? There’s a big difference between listening and speaking.’

Chang nodded, not saying a word.

‘See? You’re learning already… Now, are you ready to go to work?’

Chang nodded again, this time smiling.

‘Good. Then this is what we need to do.’

44

Payne and Jones knew little about the streets of Milan, so there was no way they could outmaneuver a helicopter. Especially in a Fiat. The truth was, they probably could have in the Ferrari, except it was too small for four people, and they didn’t want to split up. That left only two options: hide in the warehouse or turn themselves in.

And guess what? All of them voted for number two.

Of course, that’s misleading. The truth was, they weren’t actually going to surrender. Payne felt if he offered Boyd as a sacrificial lamb, then he could buy Jones enough time to pull off a miracle. At least Payne hoped he could. If not, he knew he’d regret the decision for the rest of his very short life.

After finalizing their plans, Payne dragged Boyd into the middle of the darkened street where they stood, looking skyward, as two Bell helicopters settled in a neighboring lot. The insurgence of rotors kicked up enough wind and dust to rival a cyclone. But it didn’t stop Payne from seeing, thanks to his custom-fit sunglasses. Not only did they shield his eyes from the elements, but they concealed his true emotions, which would be even more important if his ruse was going to work.

‘It’s time to begin,’ Payne shouted over the tumult. ‘Don’t take this personally.’

He put his hand on Boyd’s back and shoved him to the ground, knowing that they were being watched by Manzak and his friends. He continued his charade, dropping to one knee and double-checking the cord around Boyd’s wrists. Boyd played along by squirming and making girly noises that sounded like they belonged at a sorority pillow fight. Payne let him know he was overdoing it by slapping him in the back of the head. ‘Knock it off, Suzie, and start acting like a criminal.’

The hatch on the front chopper swung open, and Manzak climbed out. Not smiling. Not waving. Not giving Payne a thumbs-up or any signs of approval. In other words, he was the same stoic bastard that had shown up in Pamplona. Part killer. Part robot. All asshole. Unfortunately, the biggest problem for Payne was he didn’t know if Manzak was going to honor their original deal. Sure, Payne knew he wasn’t the real Manzak, but the truth was, he still could’ve been with the CIA since he had enough clout to pull Payne out of prison. For all he knew, maybe Manzak was a name the CIA gave out to several undercover operatives just to confuse people.

If that was the case, it was definitely working because Payne was confused. He didn’t know if Manzak was going to take Boyd back to CIA headquarters and milk him for information, or if he was going to shoot him in the back of the head the moment they left Payne’s side. The truth was, he didn’t know who or what to believe, and neither did Jones. They didn’t know if Boyd had done any of the things that they had been told — the forgeries, the smuggling, the exploding bus — or if he was the victim of an elaborate setup. Simply put, Payne and Jones didn’t know shit.

Anyway, Manzak shouted, ‘Nice work, Payne! I’m impressed by your efficiency.’

‘And I’m impressed by your clairvoyance. How’d you know we had him?’

‘We have our ways. And they’re rarely wrong.’

‘I’m glad you’re on my side,’ Payne said without smiling. ‘So what’s the next step?’

Manzak moved closer. ‘I need to debrief you before you’re officially done.’

Payne wondered if he meant that literally. ‘Then what are we waiting for? Which one of those choppers is mine?’

‘You’ll be in the first one with me.’ He took another step forward. ‘But first I’ll need to check you for weapons.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Listen, Jon, I know how you must feel. But I can’t let a nonagent on board without searching him. It’s departmental policy.’

Payne stared at Manzak for several seconds, tempted to make a nasty scene, even though he realized it would hurt his plan in the long run. So instead of doing anything foolish, he placed his hands on top of his head and reluctantly agreed to the search. ‘Try not to touch my ass, OK? I don’t want to make Buckner jealous… Speaking of which, where is the big lug? I miss our conversations. He’s quite the intellectual.’

‘He’s shutting down the chopper. He’ll be out to greet you shortly.’

‘Oh, I thought maybe he was at home, making you dinner.’

Manzak forced a laugh. ‘You know, I find your humor ironic, especially since you’re the one with a boyfriend. Where is Jones, anyway? Getting his nails done?’

‘Well, I’ll be damned! You made a joke! Not a funny one, but still a joke. Wait until I tell D.J. He won’t believe me.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question. Where’s your partner?’

‘He’s around the corner in our Ferrari. One signal from me, and he’ll pull forward with the girl. That is, if you even know about her.’

‘Of course we know about Maria — and your Ferrari. Although for safety’s sake, it might be best if they stayed where they are.’

‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’

Instead of answering, Manzak pulled a Hantek detonator from his coat pocket and pushed the button. A second later, the Ferrari erupted in a massive explosion, one that shot flames and debris high above the warehouse roof, literally propelling the frame of the car more than twenty feet in the air. But that was just the beginning. The fallout pelted the surrounding terrain like meteors, igniting the adjacent buildings and shaking the ground beneath their feet like a California quake.

Normally, Payne would’ve flinched. Or grabbed Boyd and made a mad dash for cover.

But not tonight. Not when the flames in the sky paled next to the fire in his eyes.

He’d been set up, and he finally had the proof that he was looking for.

Without saying a word, he took a step toward Manzak, looking forward to the popping sound his neck would make when he twisted it 360 degrees like that bitch from The Exorcist. Unfortunately, Payne’s assault was interrupted by the swarm of bullets that buzzed over his head. Warning shots that had come from Buckner’s gun as he emerged from the chopper.

‘You vill stay still,’ he growled in a thick European accent. ‘I be seein’ to zat.’

Manzak grinned at his arrival. ‘Now you know why he didn’t talk in Pamplona. Otto’s still working on his English, but you can’t beat him as a bodyguard.’

His bodyguard? Who the hell were these guys? Payne knew they weren’t CIA the moment they blew up the Ferrari. Instead, he assumed they were part of the Italian crew that had covered up the two accidents. But now that he’d heard Otto’s accent, that didn’t seem likely. Otto/Buckner wasn’t Italian. German maybe, but definitely not Italian.

Shit, Payne thought, how many countries were involved in this mess?

‘Pick up ze doctor an’ bring him to me!’

Payne was tempted to flip him off, but one look at the Russian assault rifle in Otto’s hands changed his mind. If he’d felt like it, he could’ve ravaged Payne with multiple 5.56 mm rounds with the touch of a finger. Which put a whole new spin on the term Otto-matic weapon.

No, he decided, it would probably be best if he picked up ze doctor an’ kept his mouth shut.

At least for the time being.

Less than twelve hours before, Jones had been staring at Maria’s picture and dreaming of the romantic possibilities. Now he was lying next to her in the darkness, unsure if either of them were going to survive.

Jones said, ‘Since we’re risking our lives together, I figure we might as well introduce ourselves. My name’s David Jones. D.J. for short.’

She shook his hand. ‘Maria Magdalena Pelati. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?’

‘Pelati?’ He considered her name for a few seconds but figured it had to be some kind of a coincidence — especially since she spoke with a faint English accent. ‘Is that Italian?’

She nodded. ‘I’ve lived in England for most of my life, so I don’t really consider myself Italian. Or English for that matter. Hell, I don’t know what to consider myself.’

‘How about exotic temptress?’

Blushing, she smiled at his comment. ‘Works for me.’

‘Good! Now that your identity crisis is over, let’s get down to business. See those two helicopters over there? I need to take one of them out.’

‘And how are you going to do that?’

‘Sorry. You’re going to have to wait and watch. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.’

She sighed, disappointed. ‘Fine, but can you at least tell me when you’re going to — ’

Just then the Ferrari erupted, lighting the sky with a burst of flames that rattled their chests like a jolt from a defibrillator. Jones instinctively threw himself on top of Maria to protect her, and as he did, he found the composure to say, ‘I think now would be a good time, don’t you?’

Following orders, Payne walked over to Dr Boyd and picked him up off the ground, giving him a chance to whisper in his ear. ‘Stay very still… Things are about to get interesting.’

‘Silence!’ Otto screamed from several feet away. ‘No talkin’ to ze doctor.’

Payne nodded and placed his hand in the small of Boyd’s back. ‘Damn! I was just making sure he was all right. Show some compassion.’

‘Compassion?’ Manzak growled. ‘There was no compassion during the Crusades, so there’s no place for it now. Don’t you get that? This is a holy war, and to guarantee our triumph there must be no compassion.’

Payne lifted Boyd’s shirttail and grabbed the Beretta he had stashed in his belt. ‘But doesn’t that go against everything you’re trying to protect?’

‘You have no idea what I’m trying to protect! You probably think I’m fighting for Christ or some other fallacy. But I’m not. Those things have no meaning in my world, because I know the truth. I know what happened two thousand years ago. I know who the real hero is.’

Payne had no idea what Manzak was talking about but figured if he was in a talkative mood, the least he could do was listen. So he said, ‘Are you referring to the scroll? Hell, I know all about it. Boyd’s been so excited he’s been blabbing to everybody that he’s come in contact with. Hell, how do you think we found him so fast?’

Manzak’s face went pale. ‘Let’s hope that isn’t the case — for their sakes. I’d hate to see the death toll in this country continue to rise.’

‘Come on! What’s another exploding bus or two when you’re in the middle of a holy war? Just keep laying the blame on Dr Boyd, and you can keep your hands clean.’

‘Actually,’ Manzak said, ‘we’ve ridden that gelding long enough. Just to be safe, I think it’s time to put two new horses into the mix, a couple of Thoroughbreds with a history of violence. Personally, I think the press will find you and D.J. a lot more believable as cold-blooded killers.’

OK, now things were starting to make sense to Payne. They weren’t just recruited for their ability to track Boyd. They were handpicked because of their violent pasts, making them the perfect scapegoats for any bloodshed that happened during this case. A dead body here, an exploding car there. All of it could be blamed on them.

Of course, Manzak — or whatever his real name was — needed the backing of a powerful entity to make that happen. Someone with the resources to acquire classified data from the U.S. Defense Department, forge picture-perfect CIA credentials, and manipulate the world media. Someone who would never be suspected, no matter how violent things became or how deeply they were involved in this mess. Someone who was willing to take some awfully big chances because they were desperate and had everything to lose.

At that moment Payne decided there was only one organization in the world that had the power and the incentive to pull something like this off.

And they got their mail at the Vatican.

45

The metal squealed as Jones shoved his switchblade into the seam, a sound Payne couldn’t hear over the roar of the chopper’s engine. Once his knife was in deep enough, he wiggled it back and forth until the fuel tank popped open. The insulated cap came off next. And he was greeted by the overwhelming scent of aviation fuel until he took off his shirt and stuffed it in the mouth of the fuel tank. Not only would that seal the vapors inside, but he could use the cloth as the wick for his Molotov cockpit — Jones’s version of the original Russian cocktail. From there, all it would take was a single spark to do a hell of a lot of damage. With extra emphasis on the word hell.

Payne could see all of Jones’s actions in the background, although his adversaries couldn’t. He made sure of it by positioning Boyd and himself at a very precise angle.

‘So,’ Manzak taunted, ‘where’s your quick wit now? A minute ago you were teasing me about my clothes; now Otto shows up, and you’re completely silent. How disappointing.’

‘Don’t you worry. I’ll be taking some shots at you any minute now.’

‘Oh really? And what is it you’re waiting for?’

Several wisecracks ran through his mind. But instead of saying anything, he simply smiled and let the helicopter provide the punch line for him. The instant flame touched fuel, the chopper erupted, sending fire and metal in every direction. Payne used the tumult to his advantage, whipping out the Beretta from behind Dr Boyd and firing it at the biggest target he could find. His first shot ripped through Buckner’s collarbone about six inches lower than he’d been aiming. He adapted to the conditions and put his next shot through the bridge of his nose, shattering the back of his skull and spraying gray matter everywhere, including on Manzak’s face.

The sight and taste of Otto’s brain caused Manzak to panic. Instead of shooting back or fighting Payne like a man, he scrambled to his feet and tried to run away, an attempt Payne thwarted by putting a bullet into the back of his left knee. Just like that he crashed to the ground like a bat with a broken wing, an image that seemed kind of fitting.

In truth Payne was tempted to finish him off right there. Hell, it would’ve been easy, maybe even pleasurable. A quick shot to the dome and he would’ve been done. The only problem was all the questions that still danced through Payne’s mind. They needed to be answered before Manzak could be eliminated. That’s why Payne jumped on his back and frisked him for weapons, finding a knife and a SIG Sauer P226 service auto.

‘Hey, Dick! How ya doing? Not too good, huh?’

Manzak responded with a shriek that rose above the roar of the nearby flames.

‘That’s it, let it all out. You got a boo-boo on your knee, didn’t you? Well, you should’ve thought of that before you tried to blow up my friends. You see, that made me very angry.’

He screamed again, this time directing several vulgarities at Payne.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curse it up. That’s always a good idea when someone’s pointing a gun at you. Oh, speaking of guns.’ Payne glanced at Boyd and noticed that he was sitting on the ground, half-shaken. ‘Hey Doc? Don’t even think about going for Otto’s rifle. I’ve got the peripheral vision of a housefly and two handguns to work with.’

‘Fear not. My hands are bound behind me in some kind of elaborate knot.’

‘That’s a Payne special. You aren’t getting out of that without a knife.’ Payne glanced at Jones and noticed him giving a thumbs-up. ‘You’re able to walk, aren’t you? Why don’t you stumble over to D.J. and ask him to cut you free? I don’t want to dull this blade before surgery.’

‘Surgery?’

Payne gave him a hard look, one that told him he should know better. ‘Sorry. Doctor/patient confidentiality. It’s between Manzak and me.’

‘Ah, yes. How silly of me. Perhaps it would be best if I left the operating room.’

Payne kept his eyes on Boyd until he reached Jones. At that point he was able to relax and focus on Agent Manzak, who was still writhing in agony underneath Payne.

‘You know, Dick, I almost hate to admit this, but I’ve wanted to hurt you from the moment we met. I don’t know what it is about you — maybe it was the way you blackmailed me into helping you or maybe it’s because you just blew up an exquisite automobile. Whatever the reason, I thought you should know I’m gonna enjoy every minute of this.’

Grinning sadistically, Payne showed him a stick that he’d found on the ground. It was no more than six inches long, yet it was the perfect size for what he was about to do.

‘I once talked to a POW who said the most pain he’d ever experienced in his entire life was from a simple piece of wood. Hard to believe, huh? But if you think about it, I’m sure you can imagine some vicious and barbaric possibilities for a stick like this. Can’t you, Dick?’

Manzak didn’t want to, but his mind naturally focused on the most horrendous things he could think of. His eyes being gouged out. His eardrums being punctured. His anus being violated by the world’s largest splinter. Crippling acts that would scar him for the rest of his life.

And that was the reaction Payne was hoping for.

Back when he was training for the MANIACs, he learned one of the most effective ways to get information from a prisoner wasn’t through torture but rather the foreshadowing of torture — the act of planting a psychological seed in someone’s head, then waiting for panic to set in. If done right, some people would literally piss their pants long before they were touched. Of course mere threats wouldn’t work on everyone. But Payne figured anyone who traveled with a bodyguard would crack quicker than Humpty Dumpty in a mosh pit.

‘Hey, Dick,’ he said, ‘you’ve read my personnel file, right? So I’m sure you realize I’m fully capable of making a Dick-kabob. You know that, don’t you?’

Manzak grimaced and nodded his head.

‘Very good! Now all you have to do is keep answering my questions, and there’s a chance I’ll let you live. However, if I get the sense that you’re lying to me or you choose to remain silent, I’m going to show you the Vietnam stick trick. Understood?’

He nodded again.

‘OK, let’s start with some easy ones. You know, just to help you get into the flow of the game… How’d you know that we had Boyd?’

‘Your car. We put a sensor under the Ferrari. We were able to follow that.’

‘Bullshit!’ Payne threw a savage punch into his kidney. ‘Remember what I said about lying? Now tell me how you found us.’

Manzak gasped for air, yet somehow managed to answer. ‘I just did.’

‘No way! Even if you tracked the car, there’s no way you could’ve known we had Boyd. How’d you know we had him?’

‘The airport… we had a man at the airport… When we saw your beacon there, we had him investigate… just to make sure you weren’t leaving the country… He went outside and saw the girl… That’s when he notified us… from the airport… I swear!’

Payne was tempted to smile — Manzak had broken easier than an antique teacup — but he knew it would ruin the mood. For this to work, he had to maintain the austere glare of an executioner.

So he said, ‘Where else did you have men? Were you following us the entire time?’

‘There wasn’t a need. The beacon did it for us. We just followed you from afar.’

‘Dick, Dick, Dick. I find that so hard to believe.’ He took the chunk of wood and pressed it against Manzak’s neck. ‘You didn’t, for instance, have someone in Orvieto?’

‘No,’ he cried, ‘I didn’t have anyone in Orvieto. That’s the last place Boyd would be!’

‘Man, I’m so disappointed in you. I wanted to christen this stick on an important question. But if you keep lying, I’m gonna have to use it now.’

‘I’m not lying!’ he shrieked. ‘I swear to God I’m not!’

‘So your men weren’t in Orvieto?’

‘No!’

‘And you had nothing to do with Barnes’s death?’

‘Who the hell is Barnes?’

‘Donald Barnes, the American who was killed yesterday in Saint Patrick’s Well. Ring a bell?’

‘Yesterday? I swear I had nothing to do with that. That wouldn’t make sense. The police presence in Orvieto was already too high. Why would I want to bring more?’

It was an interesting question, one that Payne wanted to examine at length. However, he knew the Milanese police were probably on their way, meaning if he didn’t hustle, he wouldn’t have a chance to get to the information he really cared about.

‘So, who do you work for? And don’t say the CIA, because I know that’s bullshit!’

Manzak remained silent, so Payne slammed his elbow into the back of his head. It was his way of helping him reconsider. ‘Don’t make me ask you again! Who do you work for?’

‘I’ll never tell,’ he screamed in Italian. ‘Ever!’

Payne grinned in victory, even though he had no idea what he’d shouted. The truth was, his choice of language revealed a lot. ‘So, is that your native tongue? It sure sounded natural to me.’

Manzak realized his mistake and tried to wriggle free. Payne stifled his movement by slamming his face into the ground with another blow from his elbow.

‘I’m getting bored with this, Dick. I think it’s time for you to make a decision that’s gonna affect our session. Is it time for the truth or the twig? You decide.’

Once again Manzak refused to speak, and in Payne’s mind, that was the wrong answer. Grabbing the back of his head, he slammed it into the ground repeatedly, accenting every word with violence. ‘The… truth… or… the… twig?’

Blood gushed from Manzak’s forehead, yet Payne felt no pity for him. He’d tried to kill Jones and Maria with a car bomb and would’ve murdered Payne as well. So in his mind, he wasn’t doing anything immoral. ‘What’s it gonna be, Dick? Tell me now! Who are you working for?’

‘I don’t care what you do. I won’t tell!’

Payne shook his head. ‘You dumb bastard. This could’ve been so easy. All you had to do was answer my questions, and I would’ve let you go. But not now. Now you have to suffer.’

‘No!’ he shouted back. ‘It is you that will suffer when you ultimately discover the truth! I promise you, my pain will be temporary. But yours will last forever.’

Payne considered his words for a moment. Then showed him what he could do with a stick.

When Payne climbed into the chopper, he looked like a butcher at the end of a long shift. Blood covered his hands and face and leaked from the bulge in his shirt pocket. Jones said nothing, focusing his attention on the nearby power lines and the flashing lights that filled the ground below. Eventually, once they were out of danger, Jones turned toward Payne. ‘Stick trick?’

‘Yeah,’ he answered into the chopper’s headset. ‘Molotov Cockpit?’

Jones laughed. ‘How could you tell?’

‘You’re missing a shirt.’

‘Very observant of you… Speaking of shirts, what’s in your pocket?’

Payne shrugged. ‘Souvenirs.’

‘Of what?’

‘Their identities. Manzak wouldn’t tell me his name, so I borrowed some fingers.’

‘You mean the stick trick didn’t work?’

‘Actually, it worked too well. The bastard kept passing out on me.’

‘That’s been known to happen… So, how’d you leave him?’

‘Just like Otto.’

‘Otto? Who’s Otto?’

‘Oh, that was Buckner’s real name. He was Manzak’s bodyguard.’

‘Buckner was his bodyguard?’

Payne nodded. ‘And get this, he spoke with a German accent.’

‘Otto spoke? I didn’t know he could.’

‘Well, he can’t anymore.’

Jones smiled. ‘OK, funny man, any suggestions on where to go next?’

‘What are our choices?’

He checked the fuel gauge. ‘I’d say Switzerland or possibly Austria. We can’t risk farther.’

Payne clicked the button on his headset and talked to Boyd in the chopper’s backseat. ‘Hey Doc, any suggestions on where we should land?’

Boyd discussed things with Maria for several seconds before answering. ‘There’s a lovely research facility in Küsendorf that might be able to aid our cause.’

Payne glanced at Jones. ‘What do you think?’

‘What do I think? I think we’d be crazy to fly right there. The odds are pretty good we’re being tracked by radar, and I can’t risk flying underneath it.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

A smile crossed Jones’s lips. ‘Don’t worry. As long as we have some money and a few credit cards, I’m confident they’ll never find us.’

The squadron of black helicopters hovered over the Bern-Belpmoos Airport (six miles southeast of Bern, Switzerland’s capital city), searching for their sister chopper. When one of the pilots spotted it at the far end of the airfield, he ordered the tower to redirect all current air traffic to other Swiss facilities. Planes, he informed them, shouldn’t be landing in a crime scene.

A dozen men, each dressed in military fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, circled the craft, then stormed the chopper, searching the cockpit, backseat, and rear hatch for any available clues. Nothing turned up except a cold engine, which meant it had been on the ground for at least twenty minutes. Maybe more.

The team leader spoke into his headset. ‘The bird is clear. Starting ground surveillance.’

‘Be careful,’ the command post warned. ‘These men are clever and quite dangerous. Double-check all leads, then radio back to me. Is that understood?’

‘Don’t worry, sir. We’ll find them or die trying.’

After figuring out a way to get to Switzerland, Payne and Jones realized they had a decision to make, one that was more important than where they were going to spend the night. The sole reason they were in this mess was their agreement with Manzak and Buckner. Now that they were dead, Payne and Jones had to decide if they wanted to stay involved.

‘What do you think?’ Payne asked. ‘Have we completed our end of the deal?’

‘Technically, I’d say yes. We found Boyd and delivered him to Manzak, just like we agreed. Of course, you did kill Manzak during the exchange.’

‘Hey! Don’t pin this all on me. You blew up their chopper. Then stole another.’

‘Yeah, but only after they trashed our Ferrari. Come on, someone had to pay for that.’

Payne didn’t want to think about the car because his gut told him he was going to pay for it. ‘So what do you think?’ Payne asked again. ‘Should we stay involved with this mess?’

‘I think we better. At least until we know who’s running things and why they wanted us involved. I mean, if we don’t, we’re gonna have to watch our backs for a very long time.’

46

Küsendorf, Switzerland

(eighty-two miles southeast of Bern)

Clinging to the southern slopes of the Lepontine Alps, Küsendorf is a village of nearly 2,000 people in Ticino, the southernmost canton (or state) in Switzerland. Known primarily for its scenic views and local brand of Swiss cheese, Küsendorf is also the home of the Ulster Archives, one of the finest private collections of rare documents in the world.

The manuscripts themselves are housed in a well-guarded chalet. Built as a temporary haven for Austrian philanthropist Conrad Ulster, it eventually became his permanent home. During the early 1930s, Ulster, an avid collector of rare artifacts, sensed the political instability in his country and realized there was a good chance that his prized library would be seized by the Nazis. To protect himself and his books, he smuggled his collection across the Swiss border in railcars, hidden under thin layers of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, and dropped from public view until after World War II. He eventually died in 1964 but expressed his utmost thanks to the people of Switzerland by donating his estate to his adopted hometown of Küsendorf — provided that they keep his collection intact and accessible to the world’s finest academic minds.

Payne wasn’t sure if his ragtag group of fugitives would qualify under those high standards, but they were planning to find out the instant the facility opened in the morning. While they waited, he booked a large suite at a local lodge and bribed the night manager to open the lobby store so they could get a fresh set of clothes and something to eat. They took an hour to get cleaned up, then met in the main room of their suite to discuss Boyd’s affiliation with the CIA.

Boyd said, ‘I realize I don’t possess the suave looks of a spy. But there’s no need to. The fact is I’ve spent the better part of three decades working at Dover as a professor. The only time I do otherwise is when I’m asked to complete a task. Sometimes it’s something simple like smuggling documents out of a country. Other times it’s more complicated like convincing a diplomat to defect. The truth is, I never know what it’s going to be until I’m notified.’

Payne asked, ‘And what were you told in this case?’

‘That’s the amazing thing — this isn’t a case. This was strictly an academic dig. Or at least it was supposed to be. This had nothing to do with a CIA agenda. Absolutely nothing.’

Payne grimaced. ‘See, that’s where I’m having a problem. Unless I’m mistaken, most academic digs don’t involve helicopters, guns, and exploding buses. Right?’

Boyd was about to explain the legend of the Catacombs when he realized he could do better. Instead of dealing in myths and theories, he could use Maria’s video as the ultimate visual aid. Payne and Jones watched, speechless, as the tape documented the grandeur of the Catacombs and the bronze casing of the Tiberius scroll. Boyd chirped in whenever he felt it was necessary, but the truth was they barely listened to him, for the details on the screen were more than enough to convince them that Boyd and Maria weren’t a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

When the video ended, Jones focused his attention on Boyd. ‘Back in Milan you said something about your discovery killing a religion. What were you talking about? I didn’t see anything on this tape that would have a negative effect on the Church.’

Boyd shook his head. ‘The last object you saw — the bronze cylinder we found — contained a papyrus scroll with a very significant message. A message that casts doubt over the entire world of Christianity. If made public, people would simply stop believing. Churches would crumble. Coffers would turn to dust. In a word, ruin — both spiritual and financial.’

Jones glanced at Maria, then back at Boyd. ‘That seems a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m not the most religious guy in the world, but even if I was, I certainly don’t think an ancient piece of paper would have that much effect on my beliefs. If any at all.’

‘Well,’ Boyd sneered, ‘we’ll have to see about that. You wait right there, and I shall fetch the document that will make you feel the fool.’

Maria kept quiet until Boyd left the room. Then she apologized for Boyd’s tone. ‘Don’t take that personally. I just think it’s his way to blow off steam… Besides, the fact is you should have some doubts about this. I know I did — even about the Catacombs themselves. Of course, there’s nothing like some visual proof to contradict a childhood of lectures.’

Jones smiled. ‘A childhood? Just how long have you known Dr Boyd?’

‘Oh, not his lectures. My father’s. He’s always been a disbeliever when it came to the Catacombs. And trust me, his words carry more weight than most. He’s something of an expert.’

There was something about the way she said ‘expert’ that made Jones flash back to their conversation in Milan. Maria Magdalena Pelati. Her name was Pelati, and her father was an expert on Orvieto. Suddenly, Jones realized that wasn’t a coincidence.

‘Maria,’ he stuttered, ‘is your father’s name Benito?’

‘Yes,’ she said, confused. ‘How did you know?’

Jones rubbed his eyes. ‘Holy shit! You’re his daughter. Benito Pelati’s daughter!’

Payne winced. ‘What? Why didn’t you tell us you were his daughter?’

‘I didn’t know you knew who he was. Besides, what does he have to do with anything?’

Payne looked at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t be that naive. He has everything to do with this. He’s the goddamned godfather of Orvieto! He runs the whole town.’

Boyd heard the commotion and emerged from the other room. ‘People, what is it?’

Payne answered. ‘We just found out who she is. She’s Benito Pelati’s daughter.’

‘And that upsets you? Why would that upset you?’

Payne gaped at his response. ‘You gotta be kidding me! Her father runs Orvieto. He controls its security. You don’t think that’s relevant?’ He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. ‘Did it ever occur to you that the soldiers who shot at you in Orvieto might’ve been working for Benito? That maybe they shot at you because they didn’t want you digging there?’

‘Nonsense,’ Boyd scoffed. ‘His office gave us permission to dig there in the first place. You can’t start digging without the appropriate paperwork. If you did, you’d be arrested on the spot.’

Permission? They had permission? That didn’t make sense to Payne. If Benito Pelati was trying to protect his reputation like Frankie claimed, then why would he allow anyone to dig in Orvieto? And of all the archaeologists in the world, why his daughter? Wouldn’t he look even more foolish if his own child — his own female child — showed him up in the public eye?

Then again, maybe she was selected because she was a relative. Maybe Benito knew the Catacombs were there all along and figured if Maria made the discovery then he could bask in her spotlight. Benito could tell the media that he had discovered new evidence about the Catacombs and sent his own child into Orvieto to uncover the truth once and for all.

Payne and Jones discussed the possibilities until Boyd changed the subject, assuring them that there was something more important to discuss. The message on the scroll.

‘Jonathon,’ he said, ‘I was wondering if you could assist me for a moment. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the exact terms that your friend Manzak shouted at us in Milan, something about fighting a war. Do you recall with any clarity what he said?’

Payne nodded. ‘There was no compassion during the Crusades, nor during this holy war.’

‘Holy war, yes!’ Boyd jotted the phrase. ‘And Christ? What did he say of Christ?’

‘Something about how I thought he was fighting for Christ. Then he said he didn’t care about Christ because he knew what actually happened back then and realized who the real hero was.’

‘Real hero! Yes, those were his words! Splendid job, just splendid!’

‘And that means something to you?’

‘It might. It just might.’ He flipped to a clean sheet of paper. ‘And once I left, did he say anything else? Anything about God, or scrolls, or this holy war?’

Payne looked back on his conversation with Manzak and tried to recall what he’d said. Ultimately the tough part of being an interrogator is sorting through all the nonsense in order to expose value. ‘He said something about the truth at one point that kind of confused me.’

‘The truth?’ Boyd glanced at Maria for help. The term didn’t make any sense to her, either.

So Payne continued. ‘He said his pain would be temporary because he knew the truth and assured me that my pain would be eternal because I didn’t.’

‘Is that what he told you, that he already knew the truth?’

‘Or words to that effect.’

‘How bloody confusing! If he already knows what the scroll says, then there must be more than one. But how?’

Maria spoke up. ‘If Tiberius sent multiple scrolls to Paccius in England, couldn’t Paccius have sent several scrolls back to Rome describing his success?’

‘Paccius?’ Jones mumbled. ‘Tiberius?’

‘Of course!’ Boyd exclaimed. ‘How foolish of me! Paccius would certainly feel the need to update the emperor on everything that he accomplished in Jerusalem, and anyone reading those messages would become fully aware of their plot — even if they had no knowledge of our scroll!’

‘But wouldn’t — ’

‘Hold up!’ Payne demanded. ‘You two are getting way ahead of us. You’re starting to talk about other scrolls before you’ve even explained this one.’

Jones nodded. ‘Jon’s right. If you want our help, you have to fill us in. And the only way to do that is to start at the beginning.’

‘That might take a while.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Payne assured Boyd. ‘We bought ourselves some extra time at the airport.’

Lars knew his commander was expecting an update, but the truth was, he didn’t want to deal with him. At least not yet, not with such disappointing news.

At first he thought their mission was going to be simple, especially when they learned that Payne had used his credit card to buy four tickets to Geneva at the local train station. Unfortunately, while they were busy flagging down the angry conductor near Fribourg, they received a report that Jones and Boyd had both rented cars from an agency back in Bern. Confused, he ordered half his men back and told the others to continue their search of the train.

But that was only the beginning.

Before his men returned, Lars was informed that Maria Pelati had rented a limo to Zürich, and any attempts to contact her driver would be pointless, because of cellular interference in the Alps. Then he was told an American named Otto Buckner, a gentleman matching Payne’s description, had purchased eight pairs of tickets on eight different buses, and all of them were currently on the road and heading in opposite directions around Switzerland.

Of course what Lars didn’t know was that all of those purchases were false leads. The truth was that Payne and Jones had found their transportation in the long-term parking area at the Bern airport. They simply waited for a businessman to pull into the lot, then had Maria flirt with him to obtain his travel information. Once she discovered he was flying to Paris and would be gone for an entire week, Payne and Jones knew they could take his BMW to Küsendorf and wouldn’t have to worry about the car being reported stolen for days.

Dr Boyd managed to explain everything they needed to know: his discovery in Bath, his theories on Emperor Tiberius, and his translation of the scroll. Then, once he had answered all of their questions, Maria pointed out the mystery of the laughing man, described the statue on the roof of Il Duomo, and gave them some facts about Tiberius’s right-hand man, General Paccius.

Needless to say, their heads were swimming at the end of the session.

Just to be fair, though, they returned the favor by briefing them on their backgrounds, their deal with Manzak and Buckner, the cover-ups at the crime scenes, and everything else they could remember. By the time they finished, there were only two things that everyone was able to agree on. One, all of them were baffled. And two, if they had any hope of learning anything at the Ulster Archives, they needed to get some sleep.

Because tomorrow would be filled with even more excitement than today.

47

Nick Dial rented a hotel room a few blocks from the crime scene so he could walk to Fenway in the middle of the night if he felt the urge to reexamine the evidence. And the truth was, he probably would, since his body was still on European time. Or was it African time? Honestly, he didn’t know, since he’d passed through eight different time zones in the last day alone.

Dial checked his watch and decided he might be able to catch Cardinal Rose at the Vatican. They hadn’t spoken since Tuesday, and he was hoping Rose had found some additional information on Father Jansen. He already knew that Jansen was affiliated with the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), though he didn’t know his exact role. Dial needed to know if Jansen was interning with a cardinal from Denmark or Finland, or if his position was more substantial.

The phone rang eight times before someone answered. ‘This is Cardinal Rose.’

‘Joe? This is Nick Dial at Interpol.’

‘Nick! I was wondering when you were going to get ahold of me. I left several messages.’

‘Sorry about that. It’s been a busy couple of days.’

‘CNN just reported that another body was found in Boston. Is that true?’

‘Very true. I just left Fenway Park.’

‘Was the victim another priest?’

‘Nope. This time it was a Pope.’

‘Excuse me?’

Dial clarified his statement. ‘The victim was Orlando Pope, a ballplayer for the Yankees.’

Rose took a few seconds to absorb the news. ‘That can’t be a coincidence.’

‘Probably not.’

‘Was there another note?’

Dial grinned. ‘Are you sure that you’re a cardinal? You sound more like a cop.’

‘Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just that I’m trying to get a clear picture. I figure, with my knowledge of the Vatican and your knowledge of the case, we might be able to help each other.’

‘Speaking of which, what did you learn about Father Jansen?’

‘Nothing useful, I’m afraid. I talked to all my friends on the PBC, and they were saddened by the loss. It seems Erik was one of the good ones, one of those people that everyone knew and liked. In fact, the more I learned about him, the more I regretted not knowing him.’

‘What about his job? Did you find out what he did?’

‘A little bit of everything. Part clerical, part researcher, part messenger. He was a jack-of-all-trades, just trying to learn the ropes.’

‘What about funny business? Sex, drugs, anything?’

Rose took a deep breath. ‘The kid was clean.’

Dial made a note to himself. ‘So this wasn’t about him. That’s what you’re telling me, right? Father Jansen was the victim, but it wasn’t about him.’

Rose nodded. ‘That would be my guess.’

‘What about the Vatican? Anything going on that I should know about?’

‘What are you implying? That we had something to do with it?’

Dial shook his head. ‘I’m not saying that at all. I’m just wondering if there’s anything going on that I should be aware of. Any scandals? Controversies? Bitter feuds? Give me some help, Joe. People are dying, and I don’t know why.’

Rose stayed quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. When he finally spoke, he did so in a much softer voice. ‘All organizations — even the innocuous ones — have enemies. No matter what you do, whether it’s good or bad, someone’s bound to be offended. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the truth is, the Catholic Church gets more threats than any organization in the world. It’s so bad we have a special staff whose sole job is to sort through our mail and separate the real threats from the fake ones.’

‘Is that so? What do they do with the real ones?’

‘I guess that depends on the threat. We have a first-rate security staff that would handle things on our grounds. Anything else would be turned over to the police.’

‘What type of threats are we talking about?’

‘Bombs, fires, assassinations. Everything that you’d expect. Then, of course, there are the whitecollar threats. Lawsuits seem to be popular these days. So does blackmail. You know, “Give me a million dollars, or I’ll tell the press that a priest molested my son.”’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘I wish I was, Nick. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in today. What’s that expression? Money is the root of all evil… Whoever said that was a very wise man.’

Benito Pelati spent the night in his office, waiting for an update. Twenty years ago he would’ve been in Milan himself, doing the things that had earned him his reputation as one of the most feared men in Italy. Now he was relegated to the sidelines, stuck with Dante running things. Not that Dante wasn’t capable, for he was. Still, Benito would’ve preferred his presence in Vienna, working on the excavation that was so important to their cause.

When the call finally came, Benito was angry. He wasn’t one to tolerate inefficiency.

‘What took you so long? You were supposed to call me hours ago.’

Dante replied, ‘I would’ve if it wasn’t for her. Her involvement has complicated things.’

The comment stunned Benito. He wasn’t used to backtalk from anyone. ‘What are you talking about? Who’s involved?’

‘I’m staring at surveillance photos from the library, and Maria was there with Boyd. You know, I wondered why your guards in Orvieto waited so long to take him out.’

‘Maria? But why? Why would she risk everything that we hoped to achieve?’

‘We? She hasn’t been a part of we since you shipped her off to school. I don’t know when that’s going to sink in, but the sooner it does, the better we’ll be. Trust me, if we don’t get to her soon, she’s going to ruin everything you have planned. And she’ll love every minute of it.’

Benito stayed silent for several seconds. He was scheduled to meet with the Supreme Council later that day, and the last thing he needed was a distraction. He had worked too hard and waited too long to have his moment in the spotlight ruined by his insolent daughter. He was getting ready to drop the bomb of all bombs on the Vatican, and he needed to be focused.

He said, ‘Then you know what you need to do.’

Dante nodded, smiling. He’d been waiting for this day since Benito had sent her away.

48

The Ulster Archives sat nestled against an outcropping of rock, one that shielded the wooden fortress from the Alpine winds that roared through the region during the winter. Nut-brown timber, the color of surrounding trees, made up the bulk of the chalet’s framework and blended perfectly with the broad gables and deep overhangs of the reinforced roof. Square windows were cut into the front facade at regular intervals and were complemented by a triangular pane that had been carved under the structure’s crown. A large picture window ran vertically through the middle of the frame, giving people on the main staircase a spectacular view of the Alps.

‘That’s a library?’ Jones asked as they approached the gate. ‘It doesn’t look like one.’

‘That’s because it isn’t,’ Boyd said. ‘The goal of this facility is not to provide books but rather to bridge the ever-growing schism that exists between scholars and connoisseurs. As I’m sure you’re aware, several of the world’s finest treasures are hidden from public view, selfishly hoarded away by a prestigious minority. Did you know that the typical big-city museum displays only 15 percent of its accumulated artifacts? Which means most of the world’s historical wealth is currently sitting somewhere in crates.’

Payne whistled softly. ‘Eighty-five percent.’

‘Alas, that’s just the museums. If you factor in the billionaire collectors who have Monets hanging in their bathrooms, then I’m sure the overall percentage would be well over ninety. Thankfully, this institution is doing something about it. Since this building opened, the Ulster Foundation has promoted the radical concept of sharing. I know sharing doesn’t sound radical, but when you’re talking about priceless artifacts, it actually is.’

‘I’m not sure I follow,’ Payne admitted.

‘Let’s say you teach at Al Azhar University in Cairo. While authoring a book, you realize you’re lacking some critical information on the Nubian sites in Sudan — data that can be found in the Archives. So what do you do? Do you fly here empty-handed and use their books? Of course not. That would be selfish in the eyes of the Foundation. Instead, you loan them an artifact that other scholars might be interested in — perhaps a discovery that you made in Giza — and in return this institute will provide you access to the documents you requested.’

Jones nodded his approval. ‘Sharing… I like it.’

‘Well,’ Boyd argued, ‘you might not like it nearly as much in about ten minutes, because we have nothing to offer these people. Sure, we have the scroll, but I’m afraid this isn’t an appropriate time for its debut. There are still too many riddles to solve before we go public.’

‘What about your video?’ Payne suggested. ‘Would there be any harm in showing that?’

‘The video of the Catacombs?’ Boyd pondered the notion for several seconds. ‘Alas, I must admit that film is not my handiwork. Therefore, I must defer to young Miss Pelati. My dear, how does a premiere strike your fancy?’

A broad smile crossed her lips. ‘Since I haven’t had my fancy struck in quite some time, I confess the concept sounds exhilarating… Wouldn’t you agree, David?’

Jones glanced at her and winked. ‘Yes, Maria, I’m with you on that one.’

‘Outstanding!’ Boyd cheered, failing to pick up on the flirting. ‘Then let’s get to it. I can’t wait to see what we uncover.’

‘Me, neither,’ Jones mumbled to himself. ‘Me, neither.’

A team of armed security guards led the foursome across the wooded grounds and into the lobby of the chalet, where the director of the Archives was waiting to greet them. Petr Ulster, grandson to the institute’s patriarch, was a round man in his early forties with a thick brown beard that covered his multiple chins. Yet somehow he came across as boylike, mostly due to the twinkle in his eye and his enthusiasm for knowledge.

‘Hello,’ he said with a faint Swiss accent. ‘My name is Petr, and it is an honor to make your acquaintance. How is it I may help you?’

Under normal conditions, Dr Boyd would’ve taken charge, explaining who he was and what they were hoping to find. But his current standing as an international fugitive made that pretty impractical, so Payne took it upon himself to be the group leader.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Petr. My name is Jonathon Payne, and these are the members of my traveling party: D.J., Chuck, and Maria.’

Ulster shook hands with each. ‘And what type of excursion are you on?’

‘A confidential one.’ Payne nodded toward the guards. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘Of course. Follow me.’

Ulster practically skipped down the hallway, leading them to his private office. Bookshelves filled with leather-bound first editions dominated the suite. The rest of the wooden walls were covered in framed photographs depicting colorful scenes from Switzerland and abroad.

‘I must admit,’ he said, ‘I’m particularly intrigued by your appearance. Most academics call ahead before visiting Küsendorf. Very rarely do they show up at the front door.’

Payne took a seat next to Ulster. ‘Sorry about that, but the truth is, I’m not a scholar.’

‘Oh? Then I’m doubly fascinated by your appearance. What in the world are you then?’

‘Me? I’m the CEO of an American company named Payne Industries.’

Ulster beamed. ‘A businessman! How wonderfully wonderful! It has been a while since we’ve been visited by an American collector. Tell me, what’s your area of interest?’

‘Actually, Petr, I’m not a collector. I’d say I’m more like a financier.’

‘Marvelous! Simply marvelous!’ He put his hand on Payne’s knee and patted it a few times. ‘My grandfather would applaud your philanthropy. He really, truly would!’

Payne wasn’t sure how to handle Ulster’s enthusiasm or abundant use of adverbs, but he was tempted to recommend decaf. ‘It’s funny you should mention your grandfather, because from what I understand he came to Switzerland looking for the same thing that my team requires.’

‘Really? And what is that?’

‘Sanctuary.’ Payne leaned closer and whispered, ‘We’re at a critical point in our journey, and I’m afraid if word leaked out, a rival faction might be able to use it against us.’

‘A rival faction?’ Ulster rubbed his hands in anticipation. He wasn’t used to dealing with such excitement. ‘This information you seek, what is it?’

Payne nodded toward Boyd. ‘Chuck? Would you mind handling this one?’

‘We’re looking for any information you might have on Tiberius and his right-hand man, Paccius. Preferably data about their later years.’

‘Ah, the mysterious General Paccius. We’re blessed with several documents from the Empire that might help your cause. As luck should have it, my grandfather had a particular passion for the ancient Romans, since they once occupied his native Austria.’

‘Brilliant! Bloody brilliant!’

‘Regrettably your research might be difficult, for several pieces in his Roman collection have never been translated, and many others have never been logged.’

‘Not to worry,’ Payne assured him. ‘When we’re done, we’ll be more than happy to leave our translations behind. That is, the ones that won’t put us in harm’s way.’

Ulster chortled loudly. ‘Oh, Jonathon, you are mysterious. And I’m certainly glad I’ve made your acquaintance. Nevertheless, before I can let you upstairs, I’m afraid I must ask the one question that we pose to all visitors.’

‘And that is?’

‘What can you offer this institution as repayment for our services?’

‘I don’t know. We’re traveling kind of light, being in the field and all. What type of donation would be acceptable?’

‘I’d love to offer you a suggestion. Sadly, since I know very little about your journey, it’s tough for me to say. Perhaps if you threw me a hint or two, I could assist your selection.’

‘A hint or two?’

He nodded, sliding closer to Payne on the couch. ‘Or even a crumb. I can assure you whatever you tell me will remain in the strictest of confidence. The documents in this chalet would never have survived the war if it wasn’t for secrecy. My grandfather relied on it, and he taught me how precious it can be. So rest assured I would never dishonor his memory by breaking my word.’

Payne glanced around the room and noticed a large TV sitting in the corner. It would do nicely when the moment was right. ‘Petr, as I mentioned, I’m a businessman, not a scholar. And as a businessman, I always try to negotiate the best deal for myself before I agree to anything.’

Ulster leaned forward. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You see, my team requires more than just admittance to the Archives. While we’re in town we’d like round-the-clock access, a private room to conduct our studies, plus your services as an extra researcher. I figure no one knows your documents better than you.’

‘My services? Oh, Jonathon! You slay me, you really do! But I’m afraid it would take something staggering to consider such an agreement. Absolutely, completely staggering. But let’s be honest, what could you possibly be involved in that would make it worth my time?’

Petr Ulster started canceling his appointments before the video was half finished. He’d always believed in the existence of the Catacombs, and now that he’d seen visual proof, he could think of nothing he’d rather be working on. Payne didn’t even mention the scroll or the religious overtones of their mission, yet Ulster was bouncing around the room like a goat in heat.

‘Tell me,’ he begged. ‘What are you’re looking for? It must be something unbelievably important, or you wouldn’t be squelching this discovery.’

Boyd nodded. ‘There is some doubt in our minds why the Catacombs were built. We believe it was to celebrate a clandestine deal between Tiberius and Paccius, but we’re lacking proof.’

Ulster rose from his chair. ‘Then what are we waiting for? Let’s see what we can discover!’

The Roman Collection was stored in the largest room in the chalet, even though its basic design was similar to all the other document vaults. The floors were made out of fireproof wood — boards that had been coated with an aqueous-based resin — while the white walls and ceilings had been treated with a fire-retardant spray. The texts themselves were kept in massive fireproof safes, which were well-guarded behind bulletproof security doors.

Ulster invited them to find a seat before he accessed the control panel. Beeps filled the air as he entered his ten-digit security code, a sound replaced by the low rumble of the partitions as they inched across the floor in their motorized tracks. Once the glass had disappeared into the walls, the knobs on the individual vaults started to spin in unison, then popped open.

Ulster asked, ‘Have you figured out how you want to conduct this search? Like I mentioned before, much of this collection has not been logged or translated.’

‘And those that have been logged?’

‘Sorted by approximate date and/or subject matter, depending on my mood that day.’

Boyd took a deep breath. This was going to be far tougher than he had originally hoped.

Although far from home, Jones accessed the databank in his Pittsburgh-based office to retrieve background information on Boyd and Maria — specifically Boyd’s involvement with the CIA and Maria’s family history. If Payne and Jones were going to work side-by-side with them, they needed to know everything they could about their backgrounds.

Boyd’s real name was Charles Ian Holloway, and he graduated from Annapolis in the early sixties. After that, things got murky. He was loaned to the Pentagon for an ‘alternative tour of duty,’ at which time he dropped off the Academy radar. No more records. No forwarding address. Nothing. He was effectively wiped from their system, which, Jones assumed, was the moment that Charles Boyd was born and began his new career in the CIA.

To verify this fact, Jones downloaded a picture of Boyd from a local news agency and sent it to Randy Raskin at the Pentagon with a message that said: ‘Is Chuck safe to drink with?’

This was a coded way to find out if Boyd was viewed as a threat by the U.S. government. If Jones had wanted to know about Boyd’s access to top secret information, he would’ve asked if Boyd was ‘safe to dine with.’ If Raskin’s response mentioned a ‘one-course meal,’ then Boyd was cleared to discuss first-level documents. A ‘two-course meal’ meant second level, and so on. But Jones didn’t care about that. He wasn’t looking to share secrets with the guy. He simply wanted to know if Boyd was in good standing with the Agency.

Jones also wanted to know why Raskin didn’t warn them about Boyd’s duties with the CIA when Payne called him from Milan. That just didn’t make sense.

While he waited for Raskin’s response, Jones switched his focus to Maria Pelati and found everything he was looking for. She grew up in Rome, moved to an exclusive prep school in England before she reached her teens, and then enrolled in Dover, where she’d been studying for the past ten years. Interpol documents proved that she rarely left the U.K., even for the holidays, which suggested that her relationship with her father was, in fact, strained.

Her only extended visit to Italy in the past decade was the one she took recently, flying from London to Rome on the same flight as Dr Boyd two weeks ago. From there, Jones was able to track their whereabouts around Orvieto by following a string of credit card transactions. A hotel bill here, a store purchase there — always within their means — and absolutely nothing to suggest that they were treasure hunters on the verge of a big payday.

As Jones continued his research, his computer let him know that Raskin had replied to his e-mail. He opened the message with a click of his mouse. It said:

Drink away, my friend, but not in public. Foreign bouncers will be checking IDs.

49

At first Payne thought Dr Boyd was joking when he asked him to leave the Roman Collection room to give them more space. That is until he started talking about claustrophobia and claiming there wasn’t enough air to breathe with so many people around the table.

Needless to say, Payne was stunned. After giving it some thought, though, he realized Boyd was right: Payne was pretty useless in the research department. He couldn’t read Latin or log ancient scrolls. And he certainly didn’t have the computer skills that Jones possessed. In fact, when it came right down to it, there wasn’t anything that he could do except guard the door and fetch prosciutto sandwiches when they got hungry.

That’s right, he was their rent-a-cop sandwich bitch.

Anyway, Payne decided not to make a scene and asked Ulster if he could use his office to work on a project of his own. Ulster laughed and told him to help himself, which was probably a mistake on his part, because Payne was about to fingerprint two suspects who weren’t even there, using the specimens that he collected in Milan.

The process itself was rather straightforward. Press the specimen in ink, then roll it on paper. Just like finger painting in kindergarten. Only this time, Payne used someone else’s fingers.

When Payne was done, he put them in a brown paper bag that said DON’T EAT ME and returned them to Ulster’s freezer. Then he faxed the prints to Randy Raskin, figuring if anyone could determine who Manzak and Buckner were, it would be him. Payne included a short note that told him to send the results to Jones’s computer as soon as possible.

After that, Payne had time to kill, so he decided to explore the Archives. He walked up and down the halls looking at everything: the paintings, the statues, and all the display cases. The thing he liked the most was a series of black-and-white photos that Ulster’s grandfather had shot in Vienna in the 1930s. Most of them featured landmarks Payne didn’t recognize, but the final one, a photograph of the Lipizzaner stallions, instantly warmed his heart.

When he was a boy, his parents tricked him into watching a TV performance of the majestic white horses by telling him that they were unicorns that had lost their horns. Payne believed them, too, because he had never witnessed a more magical display of showmanship in his entire life. The horses entered the Imperial Riding Hall of the Hofburg to the violins of Bizet’s ‘Arlésienne Suite,’ then proceeded to glide through a gravity-defying series of pirouettes, courbettes, and caprioles. Payne never knew animals could dance or spin until that moment.

He took the picture off the wall and ran his fingers over the faded image. All the horses in the photo had died decades before Payne was born, but because of their careful breeding — each Lipizzaner was branded with specific marks to signify their historic bloodlines — they looked eerily similar to the ones he’d seen as a boy. The same high necks and powerful limbs, muscular backs and well-formed joints, thick manes and remarkably limpid eyes.

‘Didja know you saved their lives?’ someone growled down the hall. ‘Ja, ja, it’s true!’

Bemused, Payne glanced at the old man trudging his way. His name was Franz, and he was Ulster’s most trusted employee. ‘What was that?’ Payne asked.

‘You American, no? Ja, you rescued those horses.’

‘I did? How the hell did I do that?’

A smile exploded on Franz’s wrinkled face. ‘Not you! But men from your country. Ja, ja! They risked their lives to save them.’

Payne had no idea what he was talking about, so he asked him to explain.

‘Back in 1945, Vienna was under heavy attack by Allied bombers. Colonel Podhajsky, the leader of the riding school, was afraid for his horses — not only from bombs, but from hungry refugees who were scouring the city for meat.’

‘Did you say meat?’

‘Ja,’ he answered, the smile no longer on his face. ‘With Vienna unsafe, the colonel smuggled the horses many miles north to Saint Martin’s. Now, as fate would dictate, he came across an old friend who could help protect the horses. Do you know who he was?’

Payne had never heard of Podhajsky, so he was clueless. ‘I give up. Who?’

‘American General George S. Patton.’

‘Really? How’d he know Patton?’

Franz chuckled with delight. ‘Would you believe they met at the 1912 Olympics? Ja, ja, it’s true! Both men competed in pentathlon in the Stockholm Games.’

‘Patton was an Olympian? I never knew that.’

‘That is nothing. Wait till I tell you what happened next. To convince Patton that the horses were worth saving, the colonel staged a Lipizzaner performance right there on the battlefield. Can you imagine the spectacle? Horses dancing in the middle of a war!’ Franz laughed so loud it hurt Payne’s ears. ‘The general was so impressed that he made the horses official wards of the U.S. Army until Vienna was safe enough for their return.’

Payne smiled at the photograph. ‘I guess my parents were right. They are magical.’

‘Hmm? What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ he fibbed, half embarrassed. ‘Out of curiosity, could I borrow this picture for a few minutes? I have a buddy upstairs who always tries to impress me with facts about everything, and I doubt he knows that story. Would it bother Petr if I carried this upstairs?’

‘Petr!’ Franz groaned. ‘I’m glad you said his name, because I almost forget to tell you. Petr sent me to find you. He wants you to go upstairs at once. Your friends would like to talk to you.’

Excited by the possibilities, Payne thanked Franz for the news, then hustled upstairs with the photo. But when he entered the room he quickly realized he’d have to save his story for later, because the look on everyone’s face told Payne something bad had happened.

Dr Boyd’s complexion was paler than usual, which made the bags under his eyes stand out like layers of football eye black. Maria sat to his left, her face buried on the table under her tightly clenched arms. And Ulster, whose lips had been frozen in a perpetual grin since Payne had met him, seemed to be frowning, even though it was tough to tell through the thicket that he called a beard. Jones was the last person Payne noticed, since he was sitting in the far corner of the room, but it was the look on his face that told Payne everything he needed to know.

Somehow, some way, their mission had suffered a major setback. He just didn’t know how.

Since Ulster had sent for Payne, he decided to start with him. ‘Franz said you wanted to see me. Is everything all right?’

‘Metaphorically speaking, I’d say we hit an iceberg.’ He pointed to a scroll that sat on the table before him. ‘This was one of the documents in my grandfather’s collection. It was sent to Tiberius by an injured centurion right after a war in the Britains. If you look closely, you can see where the soldier gripped it, for his blood stained the papyrus as he wrote his message.’

Payne saw the stain yet had little interest in two-thousand-year-old plasma. ‘What did it say?’

‘He apologized for writing, which was an unspeakable breach of protocol for a centurion, then informed Tiberius that a hostile Silurian tribe had attacked his unit while they slept, slaughtering hundreds of Romans in the dead of night.’

‘And that’s important?’

‘Not by itself, but the next part is. You see, the soldier mentioned that General Paccius was one of the earliest victims of the raid, stabbed in his heart as he slept.’

‘And that’s bad, right?’

‘Bad?’ Boyd growled from across the room. ‘It’s bloody horrible! Since Paccius was slain, he obviously didn’t pilot the conspiracy against Christ, now did he?’

‘I guess not, although I don’t understand why that’s so horrible. Didn’t you just clear the name of Christ? As a Christian, I figured you’d be happy about that. You, too, Maria.’

She flinched at the mention of her name, surprised that a man was actually asking for her opinion. ‘I wish that were the case. The only thing we cleared up was Paccius’s disappearance. After all of these years, we finally know why he was never glorified in Roman history books. He died without dignity, slain while sleeping on the battlefield.’

‘But isn’t that good for you? I mean, shouldn’t that end your speculation about Jesus?’

Maria shook her head. ‘Now that Paccius is no longer a suspect, we have no idea who Tiberius would’ve turned to next.’

‘But that’s kind of what I’m getting at. How do you know he turned to anyone? Why are you positive he went through with his plan against Christ?’

She said, ‘Because the artwork in the Catacombs tells us as much. Remember the carvings that illustrated the crucifixion of Christ? The keystone figure is laughing at Christ, actually mocking his death. Why would it be there — in a vault that Tiberius built — if the plot hadn’t succeeded? The carvings were historically accurate, so they were obviously created after Christ’s crucifixion. That’s the only way they could’ve gotten the details right.’

The light finally clicked in Payne’s head. ‘Oh, I get it. See, I interpreted the artwork differently than you. You’re saying Tiberius was so thrilled with the outcome he decided to honor his accomplice in stone, chiseling his face up there as appreciation for a job well done.’

‘Exactly. Only we don’t know who helped Tiberius or what he did to convince everybody that Jesus was the Messiah. According to the scroll, Tiberius wanted to stage something so amazing that people would talk about it for years. But we don’t know what that was.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No,’ she assured Payne. ‘If we did, we’d have something to pursue. But as it stands now, we don’t know where to look next. Paccius’s death has knocked the wind from our sails.’

Payne leaned back, astonished. How could four of the smartest people he’d ever met be so blind to the obvious? ‘I don’t want to step on any toes, but I think I might be able to help.’

‘Oh?’ she said in a less-than-confident tone. ‘How is that?’

‘By telling you how the Romans amazed Jerusalem.’

‘Jon,’ Jones whispered, ‘this isn’t the time to be joking around.’

‘Who’s joking? The truth is, I have a theory about Tiberius. In fact, I’m surprised you guys haven’t figured it out by now. It’s actually kind of obvious.’

‘Obvious?’ Boyd snarled. ‘We’ve been thinking about this for two days now, researching day and night, trying to grasp this bloody thing, and you mock us by calling it obvious?’

‘Just a second. I wasn’t trying to insult you. The truth is, sometimes a person can become so immersed in things that he loses sight of the obvious. And I think that’s what’s happening here, because I’m pretty sure I know what the Romans did to fool the masses. Remember when I said I’d interpreted the archway differently than you? Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to fill you in on my theory. I think it could be the key to everything.’

‘Your theory is the key?’ Boyd laughed. ‘Oh, this ought to be rich.’

‘Professore! You’re being rude! If it wasn’t for Jonathon, we’d probably be dead right now.’

Payne looked at Maria and thanked her, glad to see at least one person was taking him seriously. ‘Now, I admit I don’t know a whole lot about first-century Jerusalem, but if I remember correctly, you’re searching for an event in Christ’s life that would’ve amazed everyone.’

‘Let me cut you off right there,’ Boyd snapped. ‘We examined each of Christ’s miracles — turning water into wine at Cana, feeding the hungry of Bethsaida, and so on — but didn’t feel any of them were miraculous enough to influence the masses. Furthermore, Tiberius claimed that his event needed to be staged in Jerusalem, and Christ’s miracles were performed elsewhere.’

‘Doc, if I’m not mistaken, Tiberius talked about staging a single event, an act so magical that people couldn’t possibly ignore it, no matter how hard they tried?’

‘Or words to that effect, yes.’

‘But only one event, not two or three?’

Boyd nodded. ‘That’s correct. The scroll refers to a single act that future generations would sing about for eternity. Something magical and mystifying in the heart of Jerusalem.’

Suddenly, Payne was more confident than ever. ‘If that’s the case, then there’s only one event in Jesus’s life that can fit your criteria… And trust me, people are still talking about it.’

50

Henri Toulon had a history of showing up late and going home early. So Nick Dial was far from surprised when he called Interpol and Toulon was nowhere to be found. It wouldn’t be the first time that they butted heads — partially because Dial got the position that Toulon had coveted and partially because Toulon was an agitator who loved picking fights with everyone. Yet Dial put up with all the bullshit because Toulon did his job better than anyone he’d ever worked with.

After leaving a message, Dial focused on the bulletin board in his Boston hotel room. He looked at the crime photos from all three cases and tried to figure out a connection. A priest from Finland who was kidnapped in Italy yet was killed in Denmark. A prince from Nepal who was kidnapped in Thailand but murdered in Libya. A ballplayer from Brazil who was kidnapped in New York, then crucified in Boston. What was the thread?

Jansen, Narayan, and Pope were healthy men under the age of forty. None of them were married, had children, or had significant others of any kind. In fact, all of them went out of their way to avoid relationships. Jansen had taken a vow of celibacy, Narayan preferred prostitutes, and Pope was a borderline recluse. On the other hand, their list of differences was twice as long. They practiced different religions, had different ethnic backgrounds, and came from opposite ends of the globe. They spoke different languages, had different jobs, and had no connections other than the way they died.

To Dial it was clear this case wasn’t about the victims. It was about the message.

While sipping coffee, he shifted his focus to the crime scenes themselves. Normally he would’ve worked with a single map because his cases were usually contained in a limited area. In this case, though, he had to look at the entire world because his victims and their locations were so scattered.

To keep track of things, he used a series of pushpins, each color representing something different. He marked the hometowns of all three men with white pins, placing one in Lokka, Finland, one in Katmandu, Nepal, and one in São Paulo, Brazil. Next he located their abduction points with blue pins: Rome, Bangkok, and New York. Finally he tracked the murder sites with red ones, a fitting color, considering how much blood was found at each scene.

Nine pins in total, scattered all around the map. Three in Europe, two in Asia, two in North America, one in South America, and one in Africa. The only continents not covered were Australia and Antarctica, which was fine with Dial. He didn’t feel like fighting dingoes in the Outback or frostbite at the South Pole.

A ringing phone snapped him back to reality. He hustled over to his desk. ‘This is Dial.’

‘This is not,’ teased Henri Toulon.

Dial wasn’t in the mood for games, so he got right to the point. ‘Last night when I arrived in Boston, I found an interesting fact about the latest victim… He wasn’t dead yet.’

‘What? You mean he’s still alive? I heard on the — ’

‘No, Henri, he’s dead now, although that wasn’t the case when I was landing at Logan. In fact, according to 911 logs, the cops didn’t know about it until I was in America.’

Toulon paused for a moment, letting the information sink in. ‘But how can that be? We were faxed about the murder last night.’

‘That’s my point. We knew about the case before there was a case. Looks like we’ve got another taunter.’

Toulon mumbled a bunch of curse words in French, then shouted to one of his assistants in German, which illustrated why Toulon was so valuable to the department. He could speak a dozen languages, which enabled him to talk to nearly every employee at Interpol, witnesses from multiple nations, plus NCB officers from around the world.

‘Sorry about that,’ he apologized. ‘I had the fax right here on my desk, but some asshole on the late shift messed with my things again. I’m telling you, Nick, if you want me to be efficient, I need an office of my own.’

‘I’m not in the mood, Henri. Just tell me about the fax.’

‘It came from a police station in Boston, maybe ten minutes before I called your cell phone. It said another victim had been found at the baseball stadium in Boston, and they needed someone from our office to verify its link to our other cases.’

‘Do you have a name or a number or a station location?’

‘I had all of that, Nick, right on the fax. It came in on stationery.’

Dial growled softly. This was the best lead they had, and someone at his office had lost it.

‘Nick?’ Toulon said. ‘Hans is checking the fax machine right now. It stores the last fifty documents in its memory, so there’s a chance we’ll be able to print another copy. I’ll also check our phone records to find out where the fax came from. That way, you can investigate the suspicious fax machine before you leave Boston.’

Dial took a deep breath. Maybe this wouldn’t be a total disaster after all. ‘Get me that info as soon as possible. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for.’

Frankie Cione loved hanging out with Payne and Jones. He didn’t know if it was their coolness under pressure, their good-natured teasing, or the fact that they were tall. Whatever it was, Frankie knew that they were special. Not only did they go out of their way to make him feel important — something his friends and colleagues rarely did — but he got the sense that they actually liked him for who he was, not what he could do for them.

After Payne and Jones left Milan, Frankie pondered ways he could continue to help them. It took him all day to figure it out, but he realized that they had left several scraps of evidence in his possession, including photographs of the helicopter crash site and data from the car rental office. Of course Frankie had no idea where any of it was going to lead, yet the thought of helping them in any capacity was enough to give him chills.

Francesco Cione, Italian private eye. No case is too big, although I’m quite small.

Laughing to himself, Frankie realized the pictures of Orvieto were the best place to start, since Payne and Jones had left his office before they had a chance to enlarge them all.

The initial picture he examined was one that Jones had scanned into the computer. Frankie took his time searching every centimeter of the film, blowing up the image to eight times its normal size and viewing it from four different angles, before he decided it was time to move on. After clearing the file from his screen, he thumbed through the rest of the photographs and settled on the last two pictures in the roll.

At first glance there was no visible reason for his selection, though Frankie figured if Donald Barnes was as obese as Payne and Jones had claimed, then something had to motivate him to walk halfway across the plateau and take additional photographs of the wreck. And since that something didn’t jump out at him, he hoped he might find it under magnification.

By moving his mouse, Frankie was able to slide the image in any direction. That allowed him to focus on several areas of the crash site that Payne and Jones had never seen.

The first section of the photograph proved to be nothing more than a shadow created by a wisp of smoke and the rays of the summer sun. The second was a rock, partially covered in green moss, while the third turned out to be part of the rotor blade that Boyd had fractured with his toolbox. The fourth section, though, proved to be much harder for Frankie to define. So much so that he was forced to magnify it to five times its normal size, then brighten the pixels of the image before he could even hazard a guess as to its identity. After doing all that, there was little doubt in his mind as to what he was looking at, for the scene was quite horrific.

Buried in rubble at the base of the cliff was the flattened corpse of an Italian soldier. His head had been crushed by the initial impact of the avalanche, while the rest of him was mangled by the 400-foot drop that followed. Limbs pointed backward. Entrails oozed from his midsection like uncooked sausage links. Blood covered everything nearby.

‘Mamma mia!’ Frankie said to himself. ‘This be why fat man is killed! Not because he speak to my friends. He dead because he film this body!’

And he was right, too. Of course, that was nothing compared to the evidence that Frankie was about to uncover next. Evidence that would help Payne and Jones put everything together.

51

The hush that filled the room reminded Payne of his days with the MANIACs. Everyone was staring at him, waiting to be briefed. Eventually, Maria couldn’t handle it any longer.

She said, ‘Tell us what you’re talking about. We’re dying to know.’

Payne grimaced at her choice of words. ‘It’s ironic that you mentioned dying because that has a lot to do with my theory.’

And just like that they realized Payne was talking about the crucifixion. The crucifixion. That was the event that Tiberius had used to trick the masses. It had to be. Nothing else made sense. Especially if you consider the artwork in the Catacombs.

In Payne’s mind the hand-carved images of the archway weren’t there to mock the death of Christ. They were there to honor a special moment in Roman history. And the only thing that would make Christ’s death an important event to the Romans was if it wasn’t a real crucifixion. It had to be a ploy, an event staged by Tiberius to help the Empire get a stranglehold on the new religion and the flood of donations that was bound to follow.

‘For the good of all things Roman, we shall begin at once, using the Nazarene as our tool, the one we have chosen as the Jewish Messiah.’

Boyd considered the theory. ‘Why are you so certain that Tiberius faked the crucifixion?’

‘Why? Because if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God, how can you explain his resurrection? Either they faked his crucifixion to make it look like he came back from the dead, or they didn’t, and Jesus is actually the Messiah. I mean, those are the two possibilities, right?’

Payne figured, without assistance from Rome, there was no way a mortal could’ve cheated death and made a triumphant return to society. Not after what they put him through — or seemed to put him through. If Jesus wasn’t the savior, the only thing that could’ve saved his life was the mercy of the Empire. However, mercy was the one thing they weren’t known for.

Maria said, ‘Not to play devil’s advocate, but wouldn’t it be impossible to fake a crucifixion in first-century Jerusalem? They’d be lacking the special effects that modern magicians have. Plus they’d be dealing with an unwilling subject.’

Jones motioned toward Payne. ‘Hey, you’re talking to an expert in that field. Jon’s been studying magic tricks for as long as I’ve known him.’

And he was right, too. Payne had been intrigued by magic since his grandfather pulled a quarter out of his ear back when Payne was still wearing pajamas with feet. The tricks. The secrets. The performers. The history. He’d been a connoisseur for as long as he could remember.

So he said, ‘The first documented magic tricks were performed in Egypt about 3,000 years before the Roman Empire. Their tricks ranged from the simplistic — the ball and cup tricks that are still prevalent today — to the complex. Around 2700 BC, an Egyptian magician named Dedi gave a performance where he decapitated two birds and an ox and then restored their heads.’

‘Really? How’d he do that?’ Ulster wondered.

Payne ignored his question. ‘With enough preparation the Romans could’ve figured out a way to make it work. In fact, it probably would’ve been easier than Dedi’s performance because everybody in his audience would’ve been expecting a trick, whereas the people in Jerusalem were expecting a crucifixion. I mean, nobody would’ve been looking for a sleight of hand or a last-minute substitution since they weren’t expecting a show.’

Maria grimaced. ‘That being said, how would you have done it?’

Payne gave it some thought. ‘Hypothetically, you could fake a crucifixion by drugging the victim. I mean, the victim would look like he died on the cross, right? And a large crowd would’ve witnessed it. From there you hide the victim until he wakes up. Just like that, the illusion of resurrection.’

The room grew silent as they considered Payne’s theory.

‘Of course, the toughest part would’ve been figuring out what drug and dosage to use. In addition, you’d have to administer the drug in front of an audience, which might’ve been tricky.’

‘Actually,’ Ulster stated, ‘the Romans had a great understanding of pharmaceuticals and had mastered the art of capital punishment. The guards sometimes killed up to 500 prisoners a day, so they would know the best way to accomplish this. All they’d have to do is slip the prisoner a drug while he was on the cross, and he’d fall into a comalike sleep within minutes.’

Jones asked, ‘But how would they do that? Wasn’t Jesus surrounded by his followers at the time? Surely they would’ve objected if the Romans had tried to drug him.’

Maria shook her head. ‘According to the Bible, Jesus sipped wine vinegar from the end of a long stalk while he was hanging on the cross. It was such a common practice during crucifixions that no one would’ve given it much thought.’

Boyd added, ‘I recall several historical references to mandrake, a plant that still grows in Israel today. The Romans used the ground-up root as a primitive anesthetic.’

‘Furthermore,’ Ulster added, ‘mandrake would explain the speed of Christ’s death.’

‘How so?’ Payne wondered.

‘To put it simply, crucifixion was a lengthy process, one that typically lasted more than thirty-six hours and sometimes as long as nine or ten days. In the end the victim usually died from hunger or traumatic exposure, not because he bled to death.’ Ulster paused for a moment, searching for the right words. ‘On occasion, when the Romans wanted to accelerate the process, they would smash the victim’s legs with a hammer or a war club to steal his ability to breathe. After that the victim was no longer able to prop himself up on the nail through his feet, and that put too much strain on his arms and chest to take in any air. Suffocation quickly followed.’

Payne asked, ‘But they didn’t do that with Christ, right?’

‘No, they didn’t,’ Boyd assured him. ‘Which is an issue that has bothered historians for centuries. Most victims lasted at least thirty-six hours, like Petr mentioned, whereas Christ died very quickly, spending no more than a few hours on the cross. Remember, Christ was crucified alongside two other criminals, men who had their legs broken to hasten their deaths. Yet when the Romans moved into position to shatter Christ’s legs, they realized he was already dead.’

‘“Not one bone of his will be broken,”’ Maria whispered, quoting the scripture. ‘The way Christ died fulfilled a prophecy. A prophecy that the Romans would’ve known about.’

Boyd nodded. ‘So did the actions of Longinus, the centurion who stabbed Christ in the side after his death. John 19:31–37 stated, “They will look to the one whom they have pierced.” And in time, the Romans looked to Jesus as their God. Just like Tiberius and his accomplice wanted.’

Jones asked, ‘Out of curiosity, what proof do we have that a drugging took place?’

Boyd frowned. ‘One panel in the archway does show Jesus drinking from the hyssop stalk. I failed to give it much thought at the time since it’s a fairly obscure moment to memorialize. Come to think of it, I can’t remember seeing that event honored in stone before.’

‘Nor I,’ Ulster said. ‘What about you, Maria?’

‘Not really.’ Then after a moment of silence, she surprised everyone by blurting, ‘Wait! The archway! I just remembered something about the archway.’ She leapt to her feet and bolted toward the door. ‘Nobody move. I have to check on something. I’ll be right back.’

The four of them nodded in unison, half afraid to disobey her order. At least for the first few seconds. After that, Payne’s curiosity got the best of him. He had a feeling that she was on the verge of a major breakthrough and wanted to be there when she had it.

‘Damn, D.J., will you look at the time? We’re missing my favorite show!’ He grabbed the photo of the Lipizzaner stallions and rushed toward the hallway. ‘Wait, Oprah! I’m coming!’

To keep from laughing, Jones nearly bit through his bottom lip. ‘Sorry you had to see that. Jon’s in a delicate place in his life right now and my ebony sister is teaching him how to cope.’

Payne and Jones hustled down the wooden stairs and found Maria sitting in Ulster’s office, scouring her videotape for new evidence about the crucifixion.

She said to them, ‘You must think I’m crazy, running out of the room. It’s just all that talk about the archway made me realize something. I think there’s a clue on one of the carvings.’

Jones raised an eyebrow. ‘What kind of clue?’

‘I barely gave it any thought until now, but when Petr started talking about the use of mandrake as an ancient Roman drug, it opened my eyes to a possibility.’

‘Just a second,’ Payne grumbled. ‘What’s this mandrake stuff you keep talking about? Some kind of exotic poison?’

‘Not exactly,’ answered Boyd as he burst into the office. Ulster arrived a few seconds later, his cheeks bright red from exercise. ‘Mandrake is a plant with a forked root that closely resembles the human body. Because of this resemblance, many early cultures believed the plant possessed magical powers. That’s how it got its name. Mandrake is an abbreviated version of the original Latin term, mandragora, which means the plant is part man and part dragon.’

Maria continued, ‘As I was saying, I think I found some evidence that might shed some light on the crucifixion. I’m pretty sure there’s an anomaly in one of the carvings.’

Boyd said, ‘An anomaly? What kind of anomaly?’

Instead of answering, she hit play on the VCR, then moved aside so everyone could witness the tragedy that was about to unfold. Images from the Catacombs rolled past like tanks toward a defenseless village. In her heart she knew the closer the camera got to the archway, the sooner Christianity was going to take a serious blow.

‘To be honest, I’m surprised that one of us didn’t notice this earlier. Focus on the archway. Look at the different scenes of the crucifixion. Do you notice anything that looks out of place?’

The two lowest blocks showed Jesus getting nailed to the cross and being hoisted into the air by a team of Roman soldiers. The next pair depicted Christ as he hung from the cross, blood pouring from his hands and feet onto the rocky ground below, a sign over his head that read, “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum.” The crowns, the two stones that sat near the top of the arch, revealed the events right before his death: the moment he drank wine vinegar from the end of a hyssop stalk and the instant his head fell to his chest in acceptance of death.

‘I’m sorry, my dear, this is pointless. I just don’t see anything anomalous.’

‘Then look closer!’ she ordered. ‘Ignore what you think you know about the crucifixion and view these carvings as a brand-new story. What’s the artist telling us about this moment?’

With a prolonged sigh, Boyd inspected the scenes even closer. In his mind it was hardly necessary, since the images were burned into his brain like a cattle brand. But in his heart he somehow hoped the videotape would reveal something his eyes had missed in the Catacombs. Possibly a name or a face that he’d somehow overlooked. Or even the location of another scroll.

Ulster gasped. ‘Oh my Lord, look at the ground in the fifth carving!’ To make his point clearer, he ambled to the TV and pointed to the block directly to the left of the laughing man. ‘Look beneath my finger, near the base of the cross.’

Payne studied the image. ‘Looks like a flower.’

‘Not just any flower,’ he corrected. ‘That’s a very specific flower.’

‘Specific? In what way?’ Payne studied the rest of the archway and slowly realized the image appeared in only one carving: the scene where Christ was drinking from the hyssop stalk. Oddly it was the only panel that had any background scenery at all — a fact that spoke volumes to Payne and the rest of the group. ‘Wait a second! Are you telling me that…?’

Payne glanced at Maria, and she nodded, letting everyone know that Ulster had found the clue that she was referring to. The flower in the picture was unmistakable to her and anyone who was familiar with the odd-looking species. It was Mandragora officinarum, better known as mandrake, the plant that fueled the most popular narcotic of the Roman Empire.

One that was on the verge of changing the course of religious history.

For the second time in the past two thousand years.

52

The Roman Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest organizations in the world, with an estimated worth in excess of one trillion dollars. In addition to their priceless art collection, they own more stock, real estate, and gold than 95 percent of all countries on earth. Yet, amazingly, the Church swears they’re broke, claiming they’re the caregivers for more than a billion people around the world, which has prevented them from stockpiling the assets that most experts insist they have. In fact, some Vatican officials have stated that the Church is losing money every year and has been operating in the red for nearly a decade.

Benito Pelati laughed the first time he heard that rumor because he knew the truth about the Vatican’s finances. He knew about their diverse accounts with the British Rothschilds, Credit Suisse in Zurich, and the Chase Manhattan Corporation. He knew about the gold ingots they kept at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the various depositories in Switzerland. Knew this for a fact.

Hell, he had seen the books himself, compliments of his best friend Cardinal Bandolfo.

Until a few months ago, the Supreme Council was run by Bandolfo, a charismatic public speaker who could’ve convinced the Keebler Elves to buy Girl Scout cookies. Neither slick nor grating, he had a way of expressing his views in such an eloquent fashion that the rest of the Council rarely contradicted him. It was the only reason that the Vatican turned to Benito when they needed things done outside of legal channels. Half the Council admired Benito for his tactics and his results; the other half despised him. In the end it was Bandolfo who always convinced the Council to call on Benito again and again.

But that was about to change. It had to. Three months ago Bandolfo passed away.

As Benito walked into the room, the look on their faces told him everything. The Supreme Council was upset. Upset with the situation. Upset with the negative publicity. And most importantly upset with his results. What had started off as a single death had turned into a major crisis. Now the onus was on him to explain. In person. And the fact that Benito had refused to meet with them Wednesday had made things worse. Especially with Cardinal Vercelli.

Vercelli, a native of Rome who was now in charge of the Council, preached that rules had to be followed in order to preserve the sanctity of the Church. Even so, he knew that Benito was so well-respected in the Italian community — mostly because people didn’t care about his criminal ways as long as he got the job done — that it would be foolish to take him on without provocation. So he opted to wait, all the while praying that Benito did something so reprehensible, so unforgivable, that the Council had no choice but to dismiss him.

Simply put, Vercelli was waiting for a day like today. A day when he could pounce.

What he didn’t know was that Benito was waiting, too. Waiting to launch a surprise attack on Christianity.

It would make for an interesting meeting.

‘As all of you know,’ Benito told the Supreme Council, ‘the first note arrived at Cardinal Vercelli’s office on Friday, July seventh. The demands were quite simple: one billion dollars or confidential information about the Church would be leaked to the media. We get nonspecific threats like this every day, so His Eminence did nothing wrong by putting it into the system.’

Vercelli spoke from the head of the table. ‘I did everything by the book.’

That included contacting the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an intelligence agency that operates out of the Vatican and has been compared to the Russian KGB. Five hundred years ago it was known as the Holy Inquisition. Now it was simply called the CDF.

Benito added, ‘In addition to the CDF, His Eminence felt it would be appropriate to bring in an outside handler, someone with the Council’s best interest in mind.’

All the cardinals in the room nodded. They knew why Benito was there and what he could do for them. The CDF was required to report directly to the pope, whereas Benito had the freedom to do what the cardinals wanted. It was a luxury that the Council had used many times before.

Benito continued, ‘The second letter arrived on Saturday, and it was much more specific than the first. It said an offshore bank account had been set up for a wire transfer. If their demands weren’t met in forty-eight hours, they would go public with the first clue.’

‘What kind of clue?’ asked the Spanish cardinal who was taking notes.

‘They didn’t say. But they hinted that their price would escalate as the clues advanced. They also threatened to harm a Council member so we would take them seriously.’

He glanced around the room, letting his words sink in. Everyone knew what had happened to Father Jansen, the priest who used to take the minutes at every meeting. Still, this was the first time that his death was put in the appropriate context. Jansen had been killed as a warning.

‘If they had chosen one of you,’ Benito said, referring to the cardinals on the Council, ‘there would have been a full investigation by the CDF, Vatican security, and the Italian police. Financial accounts would’ve been locked, and we would’ve been forced to issue a statement. By choosing Father Jansen, they got their point across without making a major scene.’

Vercelli cleared his throat. ‘If you think crucifying Father Jansen isn’t a major scene — ’

‘Not compared to a cardinal. Believe me, it could’ve been much worse. What if they had chosen you instead? Don’t you think that would’ve received more publicity than Father Jansen? His murder, as brazen as it was, let us know that we were dealing with professionals. These weren’t street hoodlums looking to make a quick buck. These were men who knew the inner workings of the Vatican. Men who knew our system. Men who we should fear.’

Vercelli stated, ‘Which is why I called you on Monday. With your intimate knowledge of the criminal mind, I figured you’d be the man to stop the bleeding. At least that was my hope.’

Benito ignored the insult. He’d deal with Vercelli later. ‘We received our third note on Monday, twelve hours after Father Jansen was discovered. Their asking price went up to 1.1 billion dollars. The message stated that four people would be crucified in the four corners of the world, each one bringing more attention to the sins of the Church — sins that we buried in Orvieto.’

‘Orvieto?’ asked the Austrian cardinal, the youngest member of the Council. He’d been brought in when Bandolfo passed away. ‘What did we bury in Orvieto?’

‘The past,’ the Spaniard grumbled. ‘We buried the past.’

While the cardinals whispered among themselves, Vercelli sensed the opportunity to make a speech. He was well-versed in Church history and liked to show off his knowledge.

‘When the papacy split in two, the holy father found shelter in the hills of Orvieto. He stayed there, secretly, for many years and was often joined by the wealthiest families in Europe, Catholics who feared for their lives due to their alignment with us. As you might imagine, the demand for those spots was very high, exceeding the space available. In time, the Church brokered a compromise: entrance to the city was sold to the highest bidder.

‘Later, once the factions settled and the papacy returned to Rome, there was plenty of rancor between the sides, enough to pressure the Church into making some questionable decisions. You see, while these wealthy patrons were hiding in Orvieto, dozens of them passed away. Something needed to be done with the bodies, so the Church stored them in a series of ancient tunnels that we’d found hidden in the plateau.’

The Austrian gasped. ‘The Catacombs of Orvieto?’

Vercelli nodded. ‘Over the years, the legend picked up a wave of momentum. What was nothing more than an underground mausoleum grew into a tomb of mythical proportions.’

‘Come, come,’ the Brazilian teased. ‘That isn’t true, and you know it. You have been telling the same story for so many years that you’re starting to confuse our fiction with the real facts.’ He turned toward the Austrian. ‘We have no one to blame but ourselves. If we had come clean in the very beginning, we would have ended the myth once and for all. The Italian cardinals wanted to protect the secrecy of Orvieto, just in case another schism occurred and we were forced back into hiding. The only way to do that was to pretend that they were never there. And it was that denial that got them into trouble.’

‘In what way?’ the Austrian asked.

‘In every way! We are the Catholic Church, not the U.S. Senate. We simply don’t know how to lie. I’m telling you, it will be our downfall.’

Everyone laughed, thankful for some humor in an otherwise tense meeting.

But Vercelli ended the levity. ‘The problem occurred when the families left Orvieto. They hoped to bury their ancestors in their family plots, just like they’d done for centuries. However, the decision makers at the Vatican felt it would be in everyone’s best interest if the bodies remained in the Catacombs, at least until the Church was sure that the schism was settled.’

The Brazilian chirped in. ‘Simply put, we kept the bodies as ransom. The families promised to stay quiet about Orvieto, and we promised to guard their loved ones for eternity. At least that’s what we told them. Two months later the main entrance collapsed, and we didn’t have the manpower to rebuild it. That’s when we decided to wash our hands of everything. From that point on, the Catacombs no longer existed to the Roman Catholic Church. We eliminated them from our records and denied that they had ever existed in the first place.’

‘Just like that?’ the Austrian asked.

The Brazilian nodded. ‘You must remember, all of this took place several hundred years ago, well before any of us were born. I’m sure the holy father had a good reason for his decision, one that undoubtedly helped us get through the greatest period of turmoil in our history.’

Vercelli glanced around the room, making sure no one had anything else to say. ‘The question we must ask ourselves is whether we need to keep this secret for any longer. I, for one, don’t understand why anyone would think that this story was worth a billion dollars. Furthermore, I don’t understand why Benito was unable to handle this problem on his own.’

He stared down the table at Benito. ‘As far as I can tell, you’re the only person who stands to lose anything here, since you put your reputation on the line years ago when you swore to the media that the Catacombs never existed… Isn’t that right?’

The temperature in the room seemed to rise several degrees as the cardinals waited for Benito’s retort. They knew he would say something — probably loud and persuasive — but none of them could’ve anticipated his response. Never in a million years did they expect Benito to turn on them and attack everything that they stood for. Never in their wildest dreams did they expect to hear something so scandalous that it made a billion dollars seem like the bargain of the century. Then again, none of them knew the secret that he possessed.

Or how long he had been waiting to use it.

53

Dr Boyd paced around Ulster’s office, trying to comprehend the mandrake carving on the archway. If Maria’s discovery was legitimate, then they were close to proving the biggest fraud of all time. Close to shattering an entire belief system. Close to killing the most popular religion on the planet. And the anxiety was starting to get to him.

‘Don’t you see what this means?’ he barked at no one in particular. ‘The Romans were the ones who started Christianity. Not the apostles or the Jews or even Jesus himself, but the bloody Romans! Can you believe that? Tiberius actually pulled this off.’

Payne said, ‘But why? Why would Tiberius do this? That still doesn’t make sense to me.’

Boyd stopped moving. ‘Tell me, my boy, what do you know about organized religion?’

‘Religion? It’s a set of beliefs that a person has about God.’

Boyd nodded. ‘And what do you know about the origin of religion?’

‘Not much. I know the basics about Christ from Sunday school but nothing more.’

‘Actually, my boy, I didn’t mean Christianity. I was referring to the origin of religion, not the genesis of a particular faith… Do you know why religion was started? To put it simply, religion was created for control. At the rudimentary level, religion is simply an organized system of control used by the upper hierarchy to keep the masses in line. Consequently, he who possesses the ear of God is a very powerful man.’

‘Makes sense,’ Payne conceded.

‘Yes, it does. So much so that men of intelligence have been using this for centuries, wielding the wrath of God as a weapon and using it to achieve supremacy over the masses. Of course this method of control isn’t permanent, for the world has a way of changing everything over time. Evolution, war, and technology have played their parts during history, eroding the fabric of society just enough to make sure that nothing human is permanent.

‘Hundreds of years passed before ancient Egypt crumbled and with it its widespread belief that Ra was the creator of the universe. Then came the Greeks and their notion of Zeus. The Incas had Viracocha. The Mayans had Hunab Ku. The Vikings had Odin and the great hall of Valhalla. Each of these deities was revered for centuries by legions of devoted followers, yet today they’re viewed by society as antiquated notions from our uncivilized forefathers.’

‘Out of curiosity,’ Payne wondered, ‘what does any of that have to do with Tiberius?’

‘Everything, my boy, everything! You see, the religious structure of ancient Rome came directly from Greece, stolen from the heights of Mount Olympus. In fact, there’s a term, interpretatio Romana, meaning the Roman understanding of things. Its roots can be traced to the third century bc, when the Romans pilfered the Greeks’ religion and made it their own. One minute Zeus was the ruler of the cosmos, the next it was Jupiter — same god with a new Roman name. Poseidon became Neptune, Hades became Pluto, Eros became Cupid, and so on.’

Boyd looked around the room to make sure that everyone understood.

‘Of course this type of transition has an incubation period. Just because a government wants its people to follow its official religion doesn’t mean they’re going to do it — especially since most Roman citizens weren’t even born in Rome. You see, ancient Rome was the original melting pot, a merging of several different cultures under one imperial flag. Alas, unlike the United States where its people longed to come to America, most families in the Empire had no choice. The Greeks, Gauls, Britons, and Jews were all conquered and assimilated into the Roman culture, as were the Egyptians, Illyrians, and Armenians. My Lord, by the time Tiberius came into rule in 14 ad, the Empire stretched from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.’

‘The lands of snow and sun,’ Maria stated. ‘That’s what Tiberius wrote in the scroll. He said Rome needed to do something drastic because the Empire had gotten too large for its own good.’

Payne asked, ‘And the something drastic was to fake the crucifixion of Christ?’

Boyd nodded, glad that Payne was starting to grasp the big picture. ‘As I mentioned earlier, men of intelligence have used the power of religion for centuries. It’s one thing to threaten the masses with punishments of the flesh; it’s quite another to threaten eternal damnation. Tiberius was never able to wield this ultimate power since most Roman peasants — especially those who lived on the fringes of the Empire — never believed in the same gods as he. Therefore, he never fully had control over them. Or their wealth.’

‘OK,’ Payne said, ‘now I’m beginning to understand. The only way he could unite everyone was to get them to support the same thing. And since they’d never unite for the sake of Rome, he knew he had to give them an alternative. Something they could believe in.’

Boyd nodded. ‘Tiberius started Christianity for one reason only: to gain control. He knew all about the unrest in Judea and figured the best way to placate the Jews was to give them the Messiah that had been prophesied. Then, once the Jews started to believe in Christ, he was going to take their Messiah away, which would allow him to grab control of this new religion.’

‘But how?’ Ulster asked. ‘Wouldn’t Jesus have to be in on things?’

Boyd shook his head. ‘Not if they drugged him like Jonathon suggested. Think about it. Jesus would have awoken in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and his disciples would’ve told him that he had died on the cross and the Lord brought him back. Furthermore, if skeptics needed evidence of Jesus’s identity, they could’ve done what was described in the Bible — because that part of the crucifixion probably wasn’t faked.’

According to John 20:25–27, Thomas told the disciples that he wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he could place his finger in the holes of Jesus’s palms and his hand in the wound in Jesus’s side. Eight days later Jesus reappeared, giving doubting Thomas the opportunity.

‘OK,’ Payne said. ‘Let’s pretend you’re accurate. Tiberius faked Christ’s death for the good of the Empire. What would he have done next?’

Maria answered for Boyd. ‘After giving them their new God, Tiberius planned to strengthen their unity by giving them a common enemy to fight against.’

‘A common enemy? What enemy?’

‘Rome,’ she answered. ‘Tiberius actually wanted them to unite against the Empire.’

Boyd smiled at the irony. ‘Don’t you see? For this to work, Rome couldn’t roll over and play dead. They had to fight back with everything — or in this case what Tiberius allowed them to fight with — or else people would’ve caught on. That’s one of the main reasons that he wanted Paccius to run things in Jerusalem. Not only could he trust him, but he knew his general had the experience to throw a battle or two to Christianity, which in turn would be a victory for Rome.’

Payne shook his head in disgust, staring at the photo of the stallions. He couldn’t imagine riding into battle on such a magnificent beast, fighting side by side with his armor-clad men, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to win.

‘Of course,’ Boyd theorized, ‘Tiberius would’ve required a long-term plan if he wanted the Empire to profit from any of this, for the switch to Christianity wouldn’t have happened overnight. In fact, it took three centuries before Rome actually made it their official religion.’

‘Did you say centuries?’

He nodded, letting that fact sink into Payne’s head. ‘That meant Tiberius couldn’t have pulled this off alone. He had to have a partner in this, someone who was in Judea at the time of Christ’s death. Moreover, Tiberius knew if the Empire was ever going to profit from this scam, he had to notify his line of successors of the entire plot and pray that they kept the ruse up long enough for it to take hold. Otherwise, everything would’ve been for naught.’

‘Perhaps,’ Jones suggested, ‘that’s the reason Tiberius built the Catacombs in the first place? Maybe he built them to protect his secret. That would explain why he made them so damn grand. It would’ve convinced future emperors that Rome had invested quite a bit in this plan, no matter how outrageous it seemed. And if they stayed the course, they had even more to gain.’

Maria looked at him, impressed. ‘That’s not half bad.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Boyd concurred. ‘Of course that doesn’t mean that his successors followed his wishes. Recorded documents prove that Tiberius feared for his safety during the last few years of his life. Consequently, he left Rome and lived on Capri, a tiny island off the western coast of Italy, until his death. During that time he only talked to his most trusted advisors, and later they admitted that he went a little crazy toward the end. Who knows? Maybe his bout of insanity prevented future emperors from taking Tiberius’s plot seriously?’

‘Which means what?’ Payne asked.

‘Which means we’ve hit another roadblock. Right now there are three distinct possibilities in my mind. And as far as I can tell, we’re lacking evidence to prove any of them.’

‘Three?’

‘Yes, three,’ Boyd assured Payne. ‘Number one, everything went as Tiberius had hoped, and the Empire milked Christianity for three centuries before adopting it as its official religion. Number two, the crucifixion of Christ was faked, but future emperors went against Tiberius’s plot, thereby preventing the Empire from taking full advantage of the anticipated windfall.’

‘And number three?’

‘The death of Paccius — or another unforeseen obstacle — ended Tiberius’s plan before it could be carried out, meaning Christ was actually crucified, died, and was buried, then came back to earth to prove that he was, in fact, the Son of God.’

All of them sat, silent, pondering the final scenario.

Eventually, Jones cleared his throat and spoke. ‘So what are you saying? We’re stuck?’

Boyd nodded. ‘It’s starting to look that way. Unless you’re keeping something from us.’

‘I wish. But the truth is, my mind is spinning from all of this new information.’ Jones turned toward Payne. ‘What about you, Jon? Are you holding something back?’

Payne looked up from the photo of the stallions, half stunned by what he had just seen. So he rubbed his eyes and looked at the picture again. ‘Holy crap. I might be holding something back.’

‘You are?’

Nodding, Payne handed him the framed picture. ‘Look at this. What do you see?’

Jones glanced at the photo. ‘If I’m not mistaken, those are the Lipizzaners… Hey, did I ever tell you the story about General Patton and those horses?’

Payne rolled his eyes, thankful that he hadn’t brought it up earlier. ‘Come on, D.J., focus! Do you really think this is an appropriate time to talk about Patton and those albino ponies?’

‘No,’ he said, embarrassed.

‘Tell me, what do you see behind the horses?’

‘Behind them?’ He studied the building in the background. ‘I’m not sure. Is that the Hofburg Palace in Vienna?’

‘Yes it is. Now look at the artwork on the building.’

‘The artwork? Why in the world — ’

‘Dammit, D.J.! Just look at the picture!’

The black-and-white photograph showed the horses on their home turf, parading gracefully in the stone courtyard of the Hofburg grounds. Yet Jones had to ignore their magnificence. He had to force his eyes to look beyond the focus of the lens, to search the shadows and crevices of the building itself while ignoring the heart of the picture. Of course, when he came across the image in question, a look of revelation filled his face. ‘Oh my God! Where did you find this?’

But Payne chose not to answer. Instead, he simply leaned back and laughed as Maria, Ulster, and Boyd tried to attach meaning to Payne’s lucky discovery.

54

Frankie was the official spokesman for Università Cattolica, so he was well-known at the campus police building. He nodded at the man behind the front desk, a sergeant who had more important things to worry about than the midget from the PR office. It was the reaction that Frankie had hoped for. If his plan was going to work, he needed to be left alone for the next few minutes.

After checking the roll-call sheet, Frankie knew which officers were gone for the day and went to one of their offices. Acting quickly, he turned on the computer and accessed the police database, which allowed him to search for the identity of the men who died in Orvieto.

Shortly after spotting the first victim, Frankie found visual proof of a second soldier twenty feet away. That meant four people had died in the accident, not two, a fact that struck Frankie as suspicious. What were the two soldiers doing at the time of the crash? And why in the world were they outside the helicopter? That didn’t make sense. Neither did the cover-up in the middle of the night. Why remove the wreckage before anyone had a chance to examine it?

From his perspective, it reeked of conspiracy, even though he didn’t have much to go on.

He scanned the photo of the first corpse into the police computer, then narrowed the parameters of his search by eliminating men over forty-five years old. It was tough to determine the climber’s exact age because of his bruised and bloodied features, yet Frankie assumed that he had to be young. An officer with any seniority wouldn’t have been climbing the cliff face.

Pictures started flashing across the screen. Sometimes they lingered for an instant as the program examined distinguishing marks on each person — the slope of the man’s brow, the curve of his jaw, the length of his nose — only to be discounted a half second later. This went on for several minutes. Face after face whizzed by like passengers on a speeding train until the computer beeped, a sound that told him it had found a name.

Jean Keller, thirty-three, was born and educated in Switzerland, then moved to Rome in his early twenties to join the Guardia Svizzera, an elite fighting unit known as the Swiss Guard. According to tradition, the Guard had only one mission — to protect the pope — although Frankie couldn’t understand what that had to do with modern-day Orvieto. In fact, he was so confused by the guard’s dossier he double-checked Keller’s address and read the details of his career before he was finally convinced that Keller was a member of the Guard.

Which left Frankie with even more questions than he had started out with.

But instead of jumping to conclusions, he scanned the next picture into the computer and started a second search. The details of this photo weren’t as clear as the first one — Keller was in the sunlight, whereas this victim was in the shadows — but he still hoped to find something.

Ten minutes later Frankie found the type of data he was looking for, evidence so shocking it made him run to the phone.

The picture of the Lipizzaners had been hanging on Ulster’s wall for decades. He had passed it thousands of times and had never noticed anything other than the stallions themselves. At least not until Payne pointed out the statue of the laughing man behind the horses. A statue that decorated a famous Viennese building known as the Hofburg.

As Boyd, Maria, and Jones argued its significance, Ulster went downstairs to dig up information on the photograph. He knew his grandfather had taken the picture in the 1930s. What he didn’t know was if the statue was still in Vienna or if it had been a casualty of World War II. But even if that was the case, they still had visual evidence of the laughing man and could always contact historians at the Hofburg for additional information.

Strangely, while excitement erupted around Payne, he found himself sitting in the corner, trying to decide if he wanted to stay involved. Two weeks ago he and Jones were eating lunch in Pittsburgh. Now they were in one of Europe’s premiere research facilities looking for evidence that would obliterate the world’s most popular religion.

Did he really want to be a part of this?

And if so, which side should he be fighting for? For the Christians or the Romans?

On the surface, it seemed like a no-brainer. He should be fighting for Christ, right? Yet this issue wasn’t as black-and-white as it seemed. What if they found indisputable evidence that Tiberius had pulled this off, that he handpicked Jesus as the Messiah and managed to trick the masses of Judea? If so, what was the morally responsible thing to do? Should he allow Boyd and Maria to announce their findings? Or should he do everything in his power to suppress it? Should he call the Pentagon and ask for their advice? Or should he call a priest and ask for his?

Anyway, he was about to ask Jones for his thoughts on the topic when his cell phone started to ring. Payne checked the caller ID and saw an unfamiliar number. An international number. He showed it to Jones, and he didn’t recognize it, either.

Payne asked, ‘Are you sure your encryption program will work?’

Jones nodded. Several weeks ago he placed a microchip in Payne’s phone that prevented it from being traced — something to do with tricking the relay stations into misinterpreting his signal location. Ultimately it prevented his cell phone from being used like a homing beacon. ‘The chip should buy you a minute. Maybe more. It all depends on who’s looking for you. To be safe, hang up within forty-five seconds.’

Payne hit the timer on his watch then answered the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Signor Payne? Is that you?’

He recognized the sound of Frankie’s voice. ‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Oh, I so glad. I no sure you gonna answer the phone.’

‘No time for small talk, Frankie. This call can be traced.’

‘But this be important. Life or death.’

Payne glanced at his watch. ‘If I hang up, wait an hour before calling back. Got it?’

‘Si, no problem. One hour.’

‘So, are you all right?’

‘Si, signor, I be fine. It’s you and D.J. that I be worried about.’

‘Us? Why are you worried about us?’

‘I just learn something you not know.’

Twenty-five seconds left.

‘What’s that?’

‘I know why they kill your American friend.’

Payne raised an eyebrow. ‘Friend? You mean Barnes?’

‘Yes, the red-necked fat man. Is that how you say?’

Twenty seconds.

‘Frankie, I thought I told you to stay out of this. It’s not safe.’

‘Yes, and not for you either. I learn why they hide bodies.’

‘Bodies? What bodies? What are you talking about?’

‘When I look closer at film, I see them. There be two bodies at crash. One, two!’

‘Yeah, the pilot and the shooter.’

‘No, signor, not inside. Outside.’

Ten seconds.

‘Outside? What do you mean? Outside the chopper?’

‘Si! Like they fell from cliff.’

‘There were four corpses? Two inside and two outside?’

Five seconds.

‘Si! And you no believe who one of them be!’

‘Who? Tell me who!’

‘I go to police station and I — ’

‘The names!’ Payne demanded. ‘Tell me the names!’

Unfortunately, the second hand on his watch hit zero before Frankie could reply.

‘Shit!’ Payne cursed as he hung up the phone. He didn’t want to hang up, but he had to. It was either that or risk being found. ‘Why didn’t he say the damn — ’ Payne stopped his rant midstream and took a deep breath. It didn’t help that everyone was staring at him.

Jones asked, ‘What did Frankie say?’

Payne focused on Boyd and Maria, hoping to catch their reaction. ‘It turns out Dr Boyd’s toolbox was more deadly than we thought. Frankie put Barnes’s photographs under the microscope and discovered four people had died. Two in the chopper and two on the rock face.’

Maria said, ‘But that doesn’t make sense. Why were they there if they had a helicopter?’

‘They were coming to kill you, up close and personal.’

‘But the guy in the chopper had the gun.’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Maria. They all had guns.’ Payne grabbed a sheet of paper and made a simple diagram. ‘Classic two-by-two formation. The men on the cliff were the assault team. The watchdogs in the chopper were backups.’ He drew a few more lines. ‘They planned to enter the Catacombs, making sure that they silenced you. It’s a good thing that Dr Boyd heard the chopper, otherwise they would’ve picked you off and left you to rot with all the others.’

‘But how did they — ’

‘Yeah,’ Payne said. ‘If your discovery was such a secret, who told them you were there?’

Boyd looked at Payne, speechless. So did Maria.

Jones said, ‘Back in Milan, you told us that you had permission to dig in Orvieto. Yet our friend said it was common knowledge that Benito Pelati — ’ He looked at Maria. ‘Your dad wouldn’t grant access to anyone… I take it you sweet-talked your old man.’

Maria blushed. ‘I did no such thing. I’d never ask him for a favor. Ask Dr Boyd. He wanted me to call him the moment we got to Milan, but I refused. I’d rather die than go to him for help.’

‘That’s a definite possibility if we don’t find out who’s after you.’ Payne stared at Boyd, who looked frazzled. ‘Doc, how’d you get the digging permit? Or was that just a big ol’ lie? You didn’t you have one, did you?’

Sheepishly, Boyd glanced at Maria. ‘I swear to you, if I had known about the acrimony with your father, I never would’ve used your name to…’

‘What?’ Her eyes filled with anger. ‘You used my name for what?’

‘To secure the permit.’

She jumped out of her seat. ‘Santa Maria! I don’t believe this!’

‘Maria, listen to me. I never talked to your father. I swear I didn’t. I tried to get the paperwork through the proper channels, but — ’

‘But what? You got turned down so you decided to use me!’

‘No, it wasn’t like that — ’

‘You swore that you invited me because I was your best student, not because of my name. Now I find out that was the only qualification you were looking for!’

‘Maria, I swear that wasn’t the — ’

Payne grabbed Boyd before he could say another word and eased him into the far corner. Meanwhile, Jones put his arm around Maria and tried to comfort her. It was a good move on his part because the last thing they needed was for her to start hating Boyd.

‘Doc,’ Payne said, ‘you can talk to her later, after she calms down. But right now I need you to focus on one thing. Who gave you permission to dig in Orvieto?’

‘What?’ he asked, distracted.

‘You said you never talked to Maria’s father about Orvieto. So who gave you the permit?’

Boyd blinked a few times. ‘Some chap named Dante who works for her father. I told him that Maria and I were looking to dig in Orvieto, and he said he’d take care of it. A week later he rang me and told me that he’d made all the necessary arrangements.’

‘So you never talked to Benito?’

‘No, I swear, Dante handled everything. The permits, the signatures, the guards. He cut through all the red tape for me in less than a week.’

‘And you’re sure the permit was authentic?’

‘Of course it was authentic. We were required to present the bloody thing the moment we arrived in Orvieto. Moreover, the guards double-checked it before we were allowed to dig. I’m telling you, we had permission to be there!’

Payne studied Boyd’s eyes and could tell that he was telling the truth. Up until now Payne kind of assumed that Benito Pelati was behind all the violence in Orvieto. He figured they were trying to keep the Catacombs a secret and had done everything in their power to stop Boyd and Maria from telling the world about their discovery. But since they had permission to dig, Payne no longer knew what to think. So he said, ‘What does your gut tell you about this?’

‘About what?’

‘About the violence. Who tried to kill you in Orvieto? Who blew up the bus?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Come on, Doc. I don’t believe that for a second. You’re in the CIA, for God’s sake. You have to have a theory. The CIA always has a theory.’

Boyd shook his head. ‘Not this time. I’ve been too wrapped up in the mystery of the Catacombs to consider my personal safety. My sole focus has been on the scroll.’

‘The scroll? Someone’s trying to kill you, and your focus is on the scroll? Give me a break! I don’t buy that at all. At some point self-survival has to enter your mind. It has to. That’s just human nature.’

‘Really?’ he argued. ‘If self-survival is so important, then why are you here?’

It was the question that Payne had been struggling with for the past few days. And the truth was, he didn’t have a solid answer until Boyd forced him to respond. ‘As crazy as this sounds, I think I’m here to figure out why I’m here.’

‘A bit of a paradox, wouldn’t you say?’

Payne nodded at Boyd’s assessment. ‘But if you think about it, it makes sense. Manzak wanted me involved in this mess for some crazy reason. Now I feel obligated to figure out why.’

55

Once everyone calmed down, Payne told Jones about Manzak and Buckner’s fingerprints. Jones’s computer was still in the Roman Collection Room, so they headed upstairs to see if Randy Raskin had sent the results from the Pentagon. Thankfully, there was an e-mail waiting for them.

hey guys,

i checked our records. neither dude is cia. definitely not the real manzak and buckner. you guys should’ve been more thorough… i ran their prints through some european databases and got 2 hits. the results are interesting. what are you guys involved in now?

r. r.

p. s. did i mention you guys should’ve been more thorough?

Payne read the message over Jones’s shoulder and sensed his stress over the thorough line. If there’s one thing that Jones prided himself in, it was his thoroughness. Then again, that’s probably the reason that Raskin mentioned it twice. Why have friends if you can’t bust their balls? Still, Payne didn’t want Jones to get upset, so he said, ‘Someone at the Pentagon needs to show Raskin how to use the shift key. Seriously, how hard is it to capitalize?’

Jones laughed as he clicked on the first attachment. ‘OK, who do we have first?’

Sam Buckner’s ugly mug filled the screen. Or in reality Otto Granz, because that was his real name. Born near Vienna, he entered the Austrian army at the age of eighteen for his mandatory six-month stint and decided to stay on for an additional ten years. From there he bounced around Europe, doing all kinds of mercenary work, before he took permanent residence in Rome.

Last employer: unknown. Last whereabouts: unknown.

‘We should tell Raskin he can update the second category. Otto’s on a slab in Milan.’

Jones nodded. ‘We probably should, just to be thorough.’

Payne laughed, while Jones opened the second attachment. They knew Manzak was running the show, so in their minds the organization he worked for would be the key to everything. ‘Richard Manzak, come on down. You’re the next contestant on the — ’

And that’s when they saw the name. A name that ended their joking.

‘No way,’ Jones groaned. ‘You gotta be shitting me.’

Payne looked at Manzak’s face. It was definitely him. Payne never forgot a guy he had recently killed. Jones knew it was him, too. But it took him longer to accept it. Mostly because he had the hots for Maria and realized he had to confront her with the new information. He had to march right up to her and ask her which side she was on. And her reaction would be the key. It would tell them everything they needed to know. Whose side was she really on?

Jones skimmed through Manzak’s personnel file as he printed a copy as evidence. When he was done, he said, ‘Let’s get her. We need to talk to her now.’

Payne nodded. ‘Lead the way. I got your back.’

Little did Payne know how prophetic his words would be.

As they hit the front stairs, Payne glanced out the window at a distant peak, half expecting to see snow, even though it was the middle of July. Instead, what he saw was a blur in the corner of the property grounds. Something human. Someone scrambling for cover.

‘Hold up,’ he said, grabbing Jones’s shoulder. ‘Check three o’clock.’

That was all it took. One simple phrase, and he entered war mode. From researcher to soldier in half a second, like Payne had flipped a switch in the back of his head. No debating or questioning. He trusted him enough to know if Payne was worried, then he should be, too.

They were halfway down the stairs, so Jones hustled to the bottom while Payne ran back to the top, figuring two perspectives were better than one. There was a vertical notch in the wood paneling of the left-hand wall. Payne squeezed his body into the crevice, hoping to get a clean view while still being protected. The sun was fading in the western sky, which meant the overhead lights were bound to give their position away on the stairs. Payne searched for a light switch but saw none. ‘What do you see? Anything?’

Jones was blessed with eyes that allowed him to see things that other people couldn’t. That was one of the reasons he was such an effective sniper. While most soldiers were busy adjusting their scopes, Jones was pulling his trigger. ‘Not yet… Wait! We have a man down. Eleven o’clock, near the boulder.’

The notch in the wall obstructed everything to Payne’s left. He dropped to the floor and scurried to the opposite side, where he verified what Jones had spotted. There was a guard lying facedown. The back of his shirt was stained red. ‘Get Boyd and Maria. I’ll get Petr.’

Jones flung the bottom door open while Payne bolted in the opposite direction. Neither of them had any weapons, since they weren’t allowed to bring them into the Archives. Somehow they doubted the enemy would follow the same rules.

At this time of day, most of Ulster’s employees had gone home for the night, making Payne’s job a lot easier. Protecting twenty is a lot harder than protecting one. Payne shouted Ulster’s name several times, hoping to get his attention. But the only person he spotted was Franz, the gentleman who’d told him about the Lipizzaner stallions. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.

‘We’re under attack. One guard’s dead. We need to get everybody out of here.’

Payne shouted for Ulster again. ‘We need weapons. Do you have any?’

‘Ja, in the basement. There is armory. Many weapons.’

Thank God, Payne thought to himself. ‘Do you have the key?’

‘Ja, I have the keys.’

‘Then you’re coming with me.’

‘What about Petr? We need to find Petr.’

‘We will once we’re armed. We can’t save Petr without guns.’

Franz moved fast for an old guy. Two minutes later they were standing outside the basement armory. Its door was made of German steel and was built to withstand an atom bomb. No way Payne could’ve kicked it in. Thankfully, Franz knew his keys, so they got inside without delay. The concrete room was smaller than he’d expected yet had enough weapons to overthrow a Central American country. Rifles lined the far wall while a variety of handguns hung on wooden pegs. To Payne’s right there was a series of wooden shelves jam-packed with ammo and gear bags, plus several military helmets and a wide variety of… Oh shit. Payne forced his eyes back to the helmets. They weren’t normal helmets. They were Nazi helmets. From World War II.

And that’s when it hit him. He wasn’t standing in a twenty-first-century armory. He was in a museum. A fuckin’ war museum. And everything around Payne was older than he was.

Franz sensed Payne’s concern. He said, ‘I assure you, they will kill just the same. I have seen it with my own eyes.’

That was good enough for Payne. He grabbed one of the gear bags and jammed it with three rifles, five handguns, and all the ammo he could carry. Franz did the same with a second bag and flung it over his shoulder. Payne wasn’t leaving the room unarmed so he loaded three Luger P-08 9 mm pistols and handed one of them to Franz. The look on his face told Payne he knew what to do with it, like he had been here before. The look on Payne’s face said the same.

Franz smiled. ‘Let’s go save some horses.’

An old guy talking smack. You had to love it.

Payne had two objectives as he left the basement: locate the members of his team, then find a way out. Küsendorf is in the middle of nowhere, nestled on top of a mountain, which meant there was no way in hell they were going to get police help. And even if they did, how helpful would it be? The Swiss weren’t exactly known for war. For all Payne knew, they might show up and say, ‘We will watch your fight, then serve cocoa to the winners.’ The pansies. In Payne’s mind they were worse than the French.

Anyway, they reached the ground floor with no resistance, though they had a surprise waiting for them when they opened the basement door: the distinct smell of smoke. The Ulster Archives was a wood-framed chalet that was jam-packed with thousands of books and manuscripts. The last thing anyone wanted to smell in this place was smoke. It was a library’s worst nightmare.

Payne whispered, ‘How good is your fire system?’

‘The best. All the rooms will be sealed behind fireproof doors. The rooms will be filled with carbon dioxide, protecting the safes where the documents are stored.’

As Franz finished speaking, Payne heard a loud rumble in the ceiling above. It sounded like someone pushing a grand piano down the hallway. First on his left, then on his right, then a sudden symphony of sound being repeated all over the building. The noise was so intense he could see the framed pictures rattling on the walls and felt it under his feet. He looked at Franz for reassurance, and he simply nodded. It was the fireproof doors moving into place. Soon it would be followed by the light spray of water from all the sprinklers. ‘Will people be trapped inside?’

Franz shook his head. ‘There is button by every door. People can get out but can’t get back in. Not until system is deactivated.’

Payne glanced down the corridor looking for movement. Water was falling from the ceiling, and all the doors were closing. Rooms that couldn’t offer them sanctuary as they moved down the hallway. For the next fifty feet or so, they were fighting naked. No turning back. No protection of any kind. A blind man could rip them to shreds with a slingshot. He didn’t even want to consider what a well-trained soldier could do. ‘How’s the heart, Franz?’

‘It is fine… How’s your bladder?’

More smack talk. Payne was still lovin’ it.

‘I’ll go first. Do not, I repeat, do not follow me until I reach the end of the hall. If anything happens, lock yourself in the armory. You’ll have better odds against a fire than multiple guns.’

He put his hand on Payne’s shoulder. ‘Be safe.’

Payne dashed down the hallway at half speed, trying to get there as quietly as possible. The gear hung over his right shoulder, occasionally clanging against the back of his legs as he moved. He clenched two Lugers in his hands. He’d never used one in combat, although he’d fired several on the range. He hoped like hell they would hold up in the downpour.

Halfway down the hall, he heard footsteps coming behind him. He dropped to one knee and spun, ready to take out his target. But it was a false alarm — just Franz disobeying orders. Payne waved for him to go back, but he continued to charge forward like a Brahma bull.

‘What are you doing?’ Payne demanded.

He knelt beside Payne. ‘I thought you reached the end of the hall.’

Payne looked him in the eye. He was dead serious. ‘You’re nearsighted, aren’t you?’

‘Ja. Nearsighted, farsighted, middlesighted. I’m an old man, what didja expect?’

Things just got harder. ‘Don’t shoot at anything unless I shoot first. You got that?’

‘Ja, ja.’ He gave Payne a mock salute while mumbling a few vulgar words in German.

Payne started down the hallway again, followed by his geriatric shadow. As they reached the end, they heard footsteps up ahead and the sound of Maria whispering. Ten minutes ago it would’ve been a welcome sound. Now Payne didn’t know what to think in light of the Pentagon information. Was she whispering to Jones or the enemy? Was she the one who called the soldiers, or had someone else from the Archives tipped them off? In Payne’s mind the next few seconds would tell them everything.

Payne signaled for Franz to get behind him, then positioned himself on the floor along the right-hand wall. It gave Payne a chance to fire without giving his adversary much of a target. He sat like that for thirty seconds, struggling to hear what she said. But the sound of whispering had stopped. Either they had turned and were headed in the opposite direction, or they were doing the same thing that Payne was: sitting and waiting. His guess was the latter. The smoke was getting thicker, so there was no reason to head deeper inside the building. The risks were too severe.

In truth Payne would’ve sat like that all night or until he felt flames, because he knew patience was a soldier’s best friend. However, their standoff ended quickly when he saw the tip of a knife slip out into the hallway near the base of the archway. The blade tilted back and forth like it was being pushed into a grapefruit, and he immediately knew what was happening. Jones was trying to see who was in the hallway by using the reflection of the stainless steel.

Payne growled, ‘Drop that blade, soldier!’

Jones paused before answering. ‘Come and make me.’

Payne grinned, then looked back at Franz. ‘He’s on our side. Don’t shoot.’

Once again, Franz mumbled in German. The same words as before.

The first person in the corridor was Jones, followed by Ulster, Maria, and Boyd, who had a backpack strapped over his shoulders. Payne was relieved that everyone was together, because he didn’t feel like heading upstairs on a rescue mission. Somewhere above them fire-resistant boards were burning. Same with the carpets, the pictures, and all the knickknacks. He hoped like hell that the sprinklers were working on every floor, or the Archives were about to become a pyre.

Payne handed his bag to Boyd and told him to start loading the weapons with ammo. Meanwhile Maria just stood there, watching, not really sure what to do. At the time Payne didn’t know if it was because she didn’t know how to help or didn’t want to, but her lack of action caused Payne to pull Jones aside. ‘Did you confront her yet?’

He shook his head. ‘Been kind of busy.’

‘Should we give her a gun?’

Jones looked over his shoulder and stared at Maria. She gave him a sweet smile. He didn’t smile back. ‘Maybe a rifle. That’ll be tougher for her to use against us.’

‘Fine, but I’m keeping an eye on her. One false move, and I’m taking her out.’

He nodded. ‘Shoot to maim, not kill. She might have helpful intel.’

His answer didn’t surprise Payne. Over the years they’d heard too many horror stories of soldiers getting killed because they were thinking with the wrong gun. That’s why Payne positioned himself as her executioner, not Jones, just to be safe. No sense letting Jones’s hormones cloud his judgment. Changing subjects, Payne asked, ‘What are we facing?’

‘Four-man team out front, wearing camo. No guards in sight. The peak to our rear has us pinned. So does the perimeter fence… You and I could clear it. Not them.’

Payne looked at his crew. A rusty CIA agent, a possible turncoat, an Austrian with an attitude, and a fat guy with a beard. Not to mention weapons built for World War II.

All things considered, he liked their chances.

56

The pushpins were pissing Nick Dial off. They were supposed to be helping his focus — marking the kidnappings, crucifixions, and homelands of the victims — but they were having the opposite effect. One dot here, another there. No rhyme or reason. Just random spots on the map.

Yet Dial knew it shouldn’t be that way. There should be a pattern, a logical pattern. But as far as he could tell, the only connection between the victims was their age and gender — two traits that they shared with Christ who also died in his early thirties. Dial wasn’t sure if that was a coincidence or not, but at this point he wasn’t going to rule anything out.

Find the pattern to find the killer. That’s how it was supposed to work. But three different victims killed by three different crews in an identical way? That was unique.

Frustrated, Dial removed the white pushpins — they represented the victim’s hometowns — and tossed them aside. He figured Erik Jansen hadn’t lived in Finland for years, and Orlando Pope had moved from Brazil when he was a child, so the odds were pretty slim that their hometowns had anything to do with this.

Next he examined the blue pins — they represented the victim’s abduction points. One was an apartment in Rome, one was a sex club in Thailand, and one was a luxury high-rise in New York. Two of the three were the victims’ homes, although that wasn’t enough to establish a pattern. To do that he needed something consistent, something that didn’t change. He needed to find a rule. A steady rule. He could study it, crack it, and follow it right to the killer.

But 66 percent? What could he do with that?

In his mind it wasn’t even worth the space on his board, so he pulled the blue pins, too.

That left only the red pins, which represented the murder scenes. One in Denmark, one in Libya, and one in America. Three victims scattered around the globe. None of the murders occurred on the same continent, let alone the same country, so how could there be a link? Then again, how couldn’t there be? There had to be a connection, maybe something so small that he’d overlooked it a hundred times. He just had to have the patience to find it.

‘Give it time,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Just give it time.’

Dial took a deep breath and glanced out the window. People wearing shorts and tennis shoes strolled by at a leisurely pace. It had been so long since Dial had taken a vacation that he almost forgot what it was like. To wake up feeling refreshed, to eat breakfast while reading a newspaper instead of a forensic report, to spend the day at the beach or the museum or a -

Tourist attraction. Somewhere like Disneyland. Or the Grand Canyon. Or the Eiffel Tower.

Or a famous castle. Or a historic arch. Or a storied ballpark.

A place where people go. Lots of people go. Where hundreds and thousands and millions of people go. Every day, every year. Guaranteed…

Holy shit! That was it. Crowds could be the thread. The killers wanted crowds. Big crowds. Massive crowds. But why? Why did they need crowds?

People. The killers needed people. Attention from the people. Of all races. And religions.

Good Lord! That’s why the victims were so different. They represented all types of people.

Dial rushed to his bulletin board, theories flying through his mind. Jansen. A priest. Crucified. In Denmark. IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER. The beginning of a prayer. But what did it mean?

Next case. Narayan. A famous prince. The son of a king. Crucified. In Libya. and of the son. The second part of the prayer. The same damn prayer.

A priest then a prince. The Father then the Son.

Keep going. Keep thinking. Put them together. String them together.

Third case. Pope. The Holy Hitter. Crucified. In Boston. AND OF THE HOLY. The third part of the prayer. Add ’em up. Add ’em all up.

A priest, a prince, and a Pope. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy.

What did it mean? What did the message mean? What were they saying?

A priest = a father.

A prince = a son.

Orlando Pope = the Holy Hitter. No, just Holy. The Pope = Holy.

The Father, Son, and Holy… shit! What’s missing? The Spirit was freakin’ missing!

Where’s the Spirit? Where’s the damn Spirit?

Wait! It hasn’t happened yet. The fourth murder hasn’t happened. Where will it happen? At a tourist spot. It’s gotta be a tourist spot. But where? Think, Nick, think!

The pattern. Follow the pattern. Find the pattern to find the killer. What’s the pattern?

The Spirit. Find the Spirit to find the killer. Wait, who the hell was the Spirit? He didn’t know any goddamn Spirit. How could he find the Spirit? That was ridiculous! He needed to find the spot. Beat the killers to the spot. Don’t worry about the Spirit. Just find the spot.

Dial glanced at the map, frantically searching for the spot. ‘People,’ he mumbled. ‘Millions of people. Where will people be this weekend?’ He ran dozens of events through his mind. ‘Think! Where are the most people? What’s the pattern? What’s the goddamn pattern?’

Denmark. He placed his finger on the red pushpin at Helsingør.

Libya. He drew his finger to the south to the pushpin at Tripoli.

America. He ran his finger across the Atlantic and stopped at Boston.

He held the fourth pushpin in his hand, not sure where to put it.

‘Dammit!’ Dial cursed as he punched the wall in frustration. He knew he was close. He knew he was on the verge of cracking this case wide open. All he had to do was finish the pattern, and the game was over. ‘Think, Nick, think. Where will they strike next?’

Getting agitated, Dial rubbed his eyes, trying to massage away the stress that was building. It was a simple act, one that he did all the time, yet there was something about his hand moving toward his face that made him realize what he was missing. It was the hand movement, the simple gesture that all Christians did.

‘IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER.’ The hand goes up to the forehead.

‘AND OF THE SON.’ The hand goes down to the heart.

‘AND OF THE HOLY.’ The hand goes to left.

‘SPIRIT.’ The hand goes to the right.

Dial looked at the map and suddenly realized that Denmark was near the top. Way up at the top. Just like the Father. Just like his forehead. It was the beginning of the sequence.

The next case was in Libya. Down near the bottom. Just like the prayer. That was the Son.

The third was in Boston. Way over to the left. Following the pattern. It was the Holy.

Which left the Spirit. Way over to the right. Somewhere on the right. But where on the right?

With a burst of energy, he fumbled for a pencil and ruler. Three seconds later he was putting them next to the pin in Denmark and lining them up with the pin in Libya. He was about to draw a line between the two when he realized one existed. A freaking line already existed.

Faintly, very faintly, he saw a thin blue line that stretched from the top of his map to the bottom, a line that arced ever so slightly along its path but went just to the right of Helsingør and Tripoli. Looking closer, he realized it was the longitude mark for 15° E, which meant the first two cities on his list were directly lined up at 12°E.

Thousands of miles apart but in a straight line.

Next he turned his attention to Boston, trying to remain calm, trying to stay focused even though he knew that he had cracked the riddle. He placed his ruler below the pushpin and ran the pencil from left to right, 5° below the 45° N line, near 40°.

He traversed the Atlantic, continued through France and Italy and Bosnia and extended through China and Japan before ending in the Pacific. Then he traced his finger from left to right, searching for major cities on the line, looking for anything that jumped out at him.

Nothing in France. Or Italy. Or the war-torn lands of eastern Europe. But there, just beyond the Gobi Desert, just before he reached the Sea of Japan and the warm waters of the Pacific, he found the spot that he was looking for. The perfect spot. The one that followed the pattern. A city that was directly east of Boston. Far east of Boston yet in a straight line. Right near 40°.

Located in China, the most populous country in the world. A nation where billions of people were suddenly looking to the West for organized religions. A place where the killers could get more bang for their buck than anywhere on earth.

The Spirit would die in Beijing.

57

The Forbidden City,

Beijing, China

This one was going to be special. Not only because it was taking place so far away but because it was the final clue in a massive puzzle that would rewrite the history of religion. This would be the pièce de résistance that revealed their secret to the world.

It would complete the sign of the cross.

The Forbidden City, called Gu Gong in Chinese, served as the imperial palace for several centuries, and ordinary citizens were prohibited from entering its grounds until 1911. Protected by a moat twenty feet deep and a wall that soared to over hundred feet high, the rectangular city is composed of 9,999 buildings on 183 acres of land. All told, it took over one million workers to finish the project. Most of the large stones were quarried from Fangshan, a local suburb, then moved into place during the winter months on giant sheets of ice. To make the process go smoothly, the Chinese built a well every fifty meters to have a steady supply of water to repair the frozen road.

Nowadays Gu Gong is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia, attracting millions of visitors a year, people of all ages, races, and backgrounds. People with cameras and sketch pads. People like Tank Harper. Except, unlike most tourists, the photos he’d taken over the past few days weren’t of paintings or shrines, but rather to illustrate the position of the armed guards and the weaknesses in the massive gates. Because unlike the tour groups who helped him blend in, Harper didn’t give a damn about China or their fucked-up Commie culture.

Why? Because Harper wasn’t a tourist. He was an executioner.

He’d been contacted a month earlier by a man named Manzak who’d heard of Harper’s exploits as a mercenary in Asia. One conversation led to another, and before long, Manzak was offering him a job. A big job. The one that would allow him to retire.

After hearing the terms, Harper was asked to choose three men he’d worked with before, three men he’d go to war with. Manzak took their names and ran a background check on each. They were natural-born killers, the scum of the universe, the type of men who would scare Satan.

Simply put, they were perfect.

Manzak insisted that he meet the four of them at once. Somewhere distant, somewhere private. It didn’t matter where, he’d said, just pick a spot and I’ll be there. Anywhere.

Harper wanted to see if Manzak was as good as he’d claimed, so he decided to test him. He picked a bar in Shanghai near the Huangpu River, a place that only the locals knew about. No way Manzak would find it. Not in forty-eight hours. It was next to impossible.

When Harper arrived, Manzak was waiting at the bar. He wasn’t smiling or gloating. He wasn’t even drinking. He was just sitting there, quiet, as if to say, Never doubt me again. Not surprisingly, Harper and the others agreed to his terms later that night.

Manzak’s rules were simple. Sixteen men had been chosen to commit four crucifixions. Four men were assigned to each location. ‘Do not discuss your mission in public. Do not split up at any time. If a member of your crew is caught or killed, your team is disqualified. Same thing if someone talks or walks. The murders must be done as outlined. Bodies must be left as planned. Do not improvise at the crime scene. There is a reason for everything, even if you don’t understand it.’

At the end of the week, everyone was to meet near Rome where the survivors would split up sixteen million dollars. In other words, if his crew didn’t choke, the least Harper would make was a cool million. And if the other teams fucked up, he could possibly take home four.

Not a bad payday for something he was going to enjoy.

Paul Adams was born in Sydney, Australia, the only child of two missionaries who spent their lives trying to make the world a better place. Whether it was bringing food to India or vaccinations to Africa, their only goal was to help those that were less blessed than they were.

Remarkably, even as a child, Paul Adams enjoyed the missionary lifestyle even more than his parents. Where most children would’ve crumbled under the severe conditions, Adams managed to thrive. He shrugged off the heat and the bugs and the lack of creature comforts because it was the only life he’d ever known. Why would he waste his time watching TV when he could be helping his fellow man instead? That’s what was really important.

When he reached his twenties, he knew it was time to leave his parents’ side and start his own ministry. Not because he didn’t love them or the life that he was living, but because he knew that he could do more on his own. And everyone around him sensed it. There was an energy about Adams, a glorious mixture of compassion and charisma that drew people to his side, a force that made people want to follow him and work for him no matter where he went.

In his native Australia, the Aborigines called it ‘the golden spirit.’ They claimed it was a gift that was bestowed by the gods every hundred years or so. In their culture it was the greatest quality that a person could possess, a quality that only the eldest Aborigines could recognize because they were the wisest members of their tribe, therefore closest to God. And according to the elders, Paul Adams was the man who had the spirit.

He was someone who would change the world. The chosen one for this century.

The media seemed to agree. Time magazine referred to him as the ‘Mother Teresa of the New Millennium’ while Newsweek dubbed him ‘Saint Sydney.’ He was young, charismatic, and loved throughout the world. Which was the main reason he was chosen to die.

The sun wouldn’t be up for hours, giving Tank Harper and his men plenty of time to work. They had grabbed Paul Adams two days before, nabbed him in Morayfield, Australia, while he was on his way to Brisbane. They’d done it so cleanly that it looked like Adams had been plucked off the face of the earth by the right hand of God.

No witnesses. No evidence. No problems.

A day later they were in Beijing going over their plans one last time. Advance surveillance told them that they couldn’t get inside the Forbidden City without being seen. It was surrounded by a moat and steeply angled walls that would’ve been doable with some light gear but not while carrying a 500-pound cross and a 175-pound victim. That meant his team had to figure out a different way to get inside. Something that the Chinese would never expect.

Harper considered many concepts, everything from a winch system that would hoist the cross over the wall to a giant Trojan horse. Nothing excited him, though, until he heard an ancient Chinese proverb about treasures falling from the sky. At that moment Harper realized that he was looking at the problem all wrong.

Why go up when it was much easier to come down?

58

As smoke filled the hall and sprinklers drenched them, Payne realized something was missing: the sound of a fire alarm. Most of the time the order went: fire, smoke, alarm, then sprinkler. But not today. He wondered why that was and if it was important.

‘The alarm should be on,’ Ulster assured him. ‘Both here and at the firehouse in Biasca… It must’ve malfunctioned.’

Somehow Payne doubted that. ‘Is there a manual turnoff?’

He nodded. ‘It can be deactivated with the proper key.’

‘Who has the keys?’

‘Me, Franz, and all the guards.’

Kill a guard, take his key, and turn off the system before it could warn the fire department. That’s what Payne would’ve done to stop help from coming. ‘Where’s the switch?’

He pointed to the eastern section of the house. ‘There’s an electrical panel in a back hallway. Everything can be run from there.’

‘Then that’s where we’re going.’

Ulster looked at Payne like he was crazy. So did Boyd, Maria, and Franz. The heat was starting to build and so was the smoke, yet Payne wanted to head deeper inside. The only one who understood was Jones, because they’d been stuck between a rock and an even bigger rock several times before. They knew in situations like this they weren’t going to outgun anyone. That meant they had to outthink them. They had to do something unexpected, or they were going to be slaughtered. ‘Trust me on this one. I know what I’m doing.’

Everyone nodded tentatively.

‘Petr, lead the way with D.J. Doc and Franz, you’re in the middle. Maria, you’re fifth, followed by me.’ Payne gave her a rifle. ‘This will be easier to aim than a Luger.’

The fear in her eyes told Payne that she was worried. Whether it was from the soldiers, the fire, or Payne, he didn’t know. In truth, he was tempted to tell her that they’d discovered her connection to Manzak just to clear the air. That way, he could stay focused on everything around them instead of keeping an eye on her. Unfortunately, if he told her he knew, he ran the risk of dealing with an emotional mess, which might be tougher to control than what he was facing. That’s why he decided to wait. He would hit her with it later. If both of them survived.

Sprinklers sprayed water through the billowing smoke, causing black rain to fall. It clouded their vision and affected their breathing. They tried to compensate by staying as low to the floor as possible, but that slowed their pace as they moved deeper inside the building.

As they approached the final hallway, Jones signaled for them to stop, then waved Payne forward. Refusing to take his eyes off Maria, he walked backward until he reached the front. At that point he turned to Ulster and said, ‘Maria’s getting a little jumpy from the stress. See if you can calm her down.’ He grabbed his arm for emphasis. ‘And if she does anything irrational, ask to inspect her gun, then refuse to give it back. I don’t want her hurting herself or anybody else.’

Ulster nodded and headed toward Maria. Payne watched them interact for a few seconds before he turned his attention to Jones. ‘How do you want to play this?’

‘You lead, I’ll follow.’

‘Works for me.’ Payne stepped forward and peered around the corner.

According to Ulster, the security panel was down the hallway to the left, so he stayed as close to the left wall as possible, hoping to hide his approach until he was on top of them. That is, if anyone was even back there. The truth was, all of this was an educated guess on Payne’s part. For all he knew, the fire alarm could’ve malfunctioned, and he was risking death for nothing. Then again, it wasn’t like they had a better alternative, because Payne knew if they ran out the front door they were going to be gunned down before they made it halfway to the fence.

At least this way they had a chance to get out alive.

Three steps from the bend, Payne heard two muffled voices. He pointed to his ear then raised both Lugers in the air to let Jones know that he had heard two men. Jones slid beside Payne and waved his gun near the floor. That let Payne know he was shooting low. Payne nodded while taking another step. One of the men was speaking in Italian, while the other answered in Schwyzertütsch, the German dialect that most people used in Switzerland. They were teamed together yet communicating in two different languages. Payne hoped Jones was listening, because he knew he’d have some theories on what that meant and what they were saying.

Of course, they’d have to worry about that later, because it was time to take them out.

Payne pointed to his watch, then mouthed, ‘Three… two… one… go!’

Jones stepped low and wide, while Payne stayed high and tight. Their movement was so quick the soldiers didn’t have time to react. Both of them wore military fatigues and gas masks, which accounted for their muffled voices. AK-47s hung off their shoulders on straps.

In a normal assault, Payne would’ve ordered them to surrender before he did anything violent. But not here. There was a language barrier to consider, so Payne decided to be aggressive. His first bullet went through the Italian’s biceps about the same time Jones put one through his calf, a shot that tore through his muscle and imbedded itself in his other leg. He dropped to the floor in a writhing pile of agony as blood oozed from him in several different directions. Meanwhile, the Swiss soldier stood there with a deer-in-the-headlights look, not really sure what was going on, even though he saw Payne and Jones at the end of the hall.

Payne knew they had to use one of the enemies to get them to safety, so Payne opted not to shoot him. Instead he rushed forward, disarmed both men, took off their masks, then put his Luger under the Swiss soldier’s chin, even though he knew the barrel would be hotter than a curling iron. ‘Do you speak English?’ Payne demanded as he heard the sizzle of burning flesh.

‘Yes,’ the Swiss soldier groaned. ‘Yes.’

‘Cooperate or die. How large is your squad?’

‘Six… Us plus four.’

The Italian continued to writhe in pain, so Jones kicked him and told him to shut up.

Payne continued. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Outside. All outside.’

‘How do you communicate?’

‘A radio… in my pocket.’

Jones grabbed it, making sure it wasn’t transmitting their interrogation.

‘Why are you inside?’ Payne demanded. ‘What’s your job?’

‘To prevent your retreat.’

That meant the moment Payne had stepped outside, they would’ve snuck behind him and stopped his crew from reentering. It was their way to guarantee a slaughter in the yard.

Payne pushed harder on his Luger. ‘What were you waiting for? What was your signal?’

‘Their call. We’d wait until their call.’

Payne shook his head. ‘Change of plans. You’re the one who’s going to call or you two are going to die. Got me?’

He tried to nod, but the barrel of Payne’s Luger prevented it.

Jones handed him the radio and told him exactly what to say. Then, just to be safe, Payne assured the soldier that Jones spoke several languages and if he heard anything that resembled a warning, Jones would tell Payne to pull the trigger. Payne knew the soldier didn’t believe him, so Jones said a few words to him in German and Italian and several other languages. The guy’s jaw would’ve dropped if Payne wasn’t holding it in place with his gun.

Payne growled, ‘Make the call. Now.’

The soldier turned on the mic and spoke in his native tongue. ‘Max, they’re getting away! We missed an escape tunnel! They’re running near the base of the mountain! Hurry!’

Jones grabbed the radio from the Swiss soldier and complimented him on his theatrics. Payne had no idea what the guy had said, but he could tell that he’d put his all into it. It was a performance that saved the soldier’s life. And Payne’s crew as well.

All of them stood there, patiently, waiting to hear Max’s reaction. Ten seconds later, they heard a stream of chatter going over the air. First Max. Then someone else. Then Max again. Payne looked to Jones for a translation, but he signaled him to wait. Another voice. Then Max. Then Max again, only this time much angrier. Payne could tell that from his tone.

Finally, Jones heard what he had hoped for. ‘They bought it. They’re heading for the back.’

Payne smiled at the news. ‘Call me crazy, but what do you say we head for the front?’

Everyone laughed except for the two guards. They knew it was just a matter of time before they were dragged outside and knocked unconscious.

59

The lodge in Küsendorf was two blocks away and probably under surveillance. That meant they needed to find an alternate means of transportation. Franz suggested one of the Archives’ delivery trucks. They were parked outside the compound in a separate lot.

There was room for two people up front and about twenty in back. Franz offered to drive, since he was familiar with the roads, and Ulster offered to keep him company. The rest of the crew made themselves comfortable among the boxes and crates. An overhead light let them see, or Payne would’ve opted for different arrangements. He was about to have a critical conversation with Maria, and her reaction would tell him more than her words, so visibility was a requirement.

Once they got settled, Payne retrieved everyone’s weapons. He made an excuse about old guns needing maintenance if they got wet, and everyone handed them over without suspicion. Next he asked Boyd what he was carrying in his backpack, and he told Payne it contained the videotape, the scroll, and as many books as he could grab.