The Bone Chamber

18

Sydney looked around the room, grabbed an unopened wine bottle from a table, positioned herself between the priest and Francesca. Priest or no priest, she wasn’t about to take a chance with the professor’s safety. “What do you want?”

“It’s important I speak with the professor. Urgent,” he said in impeccable English, but with a slight French accent.

“Why?”

“The professor has something I’ve been waiting for. Something of great importance to me. You do not realize the danger she is in.”

“I think I do.”

“Well I don’t,” Francesca said.

“Mademoiselle Alessandra meant for me to receive the package. She would have explained this in her letter.” He took a step closer, and Sydney raised the bottle in warning. “She did not mention a code?”

Francesca stared in disbelief. “How did you know?”

“It’s our code.”

The shrill ring of the telephone interrupted the discussion, and the priest raised his hand in warning. “Don’t answer it,” he said. “They may be checking to see if you’re home. I think they’re watching the ambassador’s residence, maybe even this place as well.”

“And who are ‘they’?” Sydney asked.

“Those who’d think nothing of killing any one of us.”

That she did believe. And still she hesitated. Until the sound of screeching tires on the street below brought her to her senses. She strode toward the window, looked out, saw the small gray sedan pulling up out front, then the driver leaning out, asking the guard something. “Now would be a good time to take a back exit,” she said, while the telephone continued to ring. “Don’t suppose either one of you have a car nearby?”

Griffin turned into Via Angelo Masina, drove up, parked just down the street from the academy gate, then phoned Giustino. “Any word?”

“No answer. Phone just rings.”

He disconnected, pulled on an SIP jacket, deciding that the phone company was the best disguise for the institution, as that would allow him to walk around unnoticed. He grabbed his toolbox, then walked up the street just as a small gray sedan pulled slowly away from the academy gate. Griffin stopped at the gate to speak with the guard, identifying himself as the telephone repairman, a plausible pretense, since Italian telephones were perpetually guasti-on the blink.

Toolbox in hand, Griffin said, “Il telefono di professoressa Santarella è guasto. Cos’è il numero del suo studio?”

The guard glanced at the SIP logo on his jacket, then telephoned up to the professor’s studio, but after several seconds, told Griffin there was no answer, and that he couldn’t let him in, to which Griffin responded that there couldn’t be an answer if her phone wasn’t working.

The guard muttered something about too many people looking for the professor, and that set Griffin’s senses on alert. “Duecentocinquantasette!” said the guard, pointing to the great windows over the academy doors. “La scala alla sinistra!” Number 257. Up the stairs and to the left.

Griffin nodded, then strode toward the building, just as the guard called out that if she wasn’t in her room, she might be in the kitchen. Once inside, Griffin headed straight for Professor Santarella’s, climbing the stairs two at a time. When he turned into the hall, and saw the partially open door, he lowered the tool chest to the ground, drew his gun. Pressing himself against the wall, he stopped just before the threshold, listened. He heard nothing.

Not necessarily a good sign, and gun at the ready, he stepped in, scanned the room.

Empty.

He saw papers dumped on the floor, and a wine bottle lying beside them. The bottle, he figured, could have been used as a makeshift weapon, one that was dropped, perhaps at the sight of a gun. Or maybe it had simply been knocked over. Even the papers on the ground weren’t enough to make him think there was a struggle. But there by the door was Sydney Fitzpatrick’s travel bag.

So they either left willingly, or something alerted them, sent them running.

The best bet, he figured, was to rule out one or the other scenario. With the exception of Sydney’s bag, maybe the papers on the ground, there was nothing inside the studio that shouldn’t be there, at least nothing he could see. He glanced outside, saw the academy entrance, the fountain, the street beyond the gate. The gatekeeper had the iron gate closed, and Griffin doubted anyone was getting in or out without the gatekeeper’s knowledge-unless they’d taken a back way. Perhaps they were still on the premises, in the kitchen as the guard had surmised.

Griffin retrieved his toolbox, set his weapon just inside it, then left the studio, walked down the long hall. None of the residents milling about in the upstairs halls paid him the least attention in his SIP jacket. Apparently telephone repairs were commonplace at the academy. At the end of the hall, he turned into an open door that led to the kitchen, where a heavyset woman in thick-lensed glasses was cooking something that looked indigestible. No one else present there, or in the adjoining television room.

“Telefono!” he said to the woman at the stove, and she hardly glanced at him as he walked over to the red telephone by the window. “Professor Santarella was having problems with her phone, but I can’t find her.”

“She was here a minute ago, but left in a hurry.”

Not exactly a telephone repairman’s business, but he sized up the woman, decided she wasn’t paying too much attention to give his questioning much notice. “Was she with someone?”

“Yes. Another woman.”

“Problems with the phone here?” he asked, picking up the red phone, and placing it to his ear.

She shrugged, then went back to her cooking.

He hit the flash a few times to make it look good as he glanced out the window and saw there was a clear view of the ambassador’s residence across the street. He also noticed the guards were gone, and the flag was down, which meant the ambassador wasn’t there-he’d returned to the States to claim his daughter’s body.

Either way, he saw little that seemed to present a threat. Perhaps Fitzpatrick and the professor had gone for a stroll on the premises, though judging from the papers scattered on the floor, it seemed they left in a hurry, and why would they leave in a hurry for a casual stroll? The events of the past few days and his instincts told him otherwise. He had to assume that Fitzpatrick’s training gave her an advantage, perhaps let her notice something that wouldn’t stand out to the ordinary person. His gaze swept the street, the garden beyond, and then the ambassador’s residence, first the windows on each floor, and then the rooftop. Nothing there, and he kept searching. And that was when he saw the man in the palazzo two doors down, standing in an open tower room, watching the ambassador’s residence and the street around it through binoculars. No doubt it was how Griffin’s arrival was observed at the ambassador’s residence his first day back in Rome. And how he’d been so easily followed back to the hotel by the assassin that Adami had sent after him.

He hung up the phone, stepped back, not sure if he’d been seen in the apartment, if they were even watching the academy. Either way, if the two women had come into the kitchen, and Fitzpatrick had looked out the window, seen the rooftop surveillance, it could very well have spooked her enough that she’d left in a hurry with the professor, and perhaps left her bag behind as a sign.

And now all he had to do was find her.

Griffin walked past the goggle-eyed woman who was now carrying her meal toward the table. His “Arrivederci!” went unnoticed, and he walked the long hall back to Professor Santarella’s studio, grabbed Sydney’s bag and walked out, pulled the door shut behind him. He descended the stairs, asked the guard if the professor had any visitors who might have used the phone, and was told that the professor had not one, but two visitors. An FBI agent and a priest who came by to use the academy library. When the guard was called away by the arrival of a young woman, Griffin glanced at the guard’s clipboard, saw the name Dumas written upon it.

Griffin walked casually to the SIP van, then drove off down the street, trying to see if there were any more sentries watching the area. The academy didn’t appear to be the main object of the surveillance, which meant it was more than likely the ambassador’s residence-but they might notice the comings and goings here at the academy as well.

He had to think about this. What reason would Adami have to still be watching the ambassador’s residence?

To await Griffin’s arrival, and take him out? He doubted that. He was fairly certain that on that first day in Rome, his appearance at the ambassador’s and the ensuing assassination attempt on his life had been an opportunity of circumstance. No one had known he was en route to Rome. Even he hadn’t known until the last minute, once Fitzpatrick had finished the drawing, confirmed that Alessandra was, in fact, the victim.

So what was the purpose of still manning the operation? What were they waiting for? And why had Dumas suddenly showed?

It struck him then. They had figured the same thing he had figured. The day he’d made the death notification, he’d asked Alessandra’s father if she’d sent anything home. Why would Adami think anything different? And how had Dumas known to retrieve Alessandra’s package from Professor Santarella?

Quite simply, no one had suspected that Alessandra would send the package to her friend, Professor Santarella, across the street, or that her friend wouldn’t discover it until later, because she had been out of town.

Until now.

And just when he was convincing himself that Adami’s men were focusing on the ambassador’s residence and not the academy, and that he was worrying for nothing, a faded red Peugeot, driven by a priest, pulled out of the lot down the street from the academy. There were two passengers in the car, and though he had no doubt as to their identities, that wasn’t what concerned him. They were being followed. By the same gray car he’d seen at the academy gate.

Tunisia

Marc di Luca headed toward the Medina-the old quarter, which dated back to the Middle Ages. He thought about Griffin, wondering if he shouldn’t call HQ, mention that maybe they should pull Griffin from the case. It was no small feat that Marc had managed to convince Griffin that he needed to stay in Italy, that they had enough operatives to manage the mission to destroy the bioweapons that Adami was trying to smuggle into Italy via the Tunisia warehouse. The last time he’d seen Griffin that upset was after that operation two years ago…The ambush. He hadn’t been the same since. As it stood, the only reason Marc hadn’t called HQ was that, miracle of miracles, Griffin backed off at the last minute and told Marc to head the bioweapons mission.

Marc glanced over his shoulder, checked for the umpteenth time that he wasn’t being followed, then turned into the wide Avenue Bourguiba, where a small regiment of shoeshine boys, sheltered from the sun by shaded arcades, called out to him in French, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was wearing suede-topped hiking boots. He made his way into the narrow-laned maze of the Medina. With its rough-hewn paving stones, the quarter had lost none of its charm, despite the number of tourist shops peddling red carpets, brass hookahs, and fezzes of all colors. A spice shop displaying huge bowls of powdered saffron, cumin, and harissa filled the air with pungency.

Just before the covered suq displaying leatherwork, he turned into an alley away from the tourist path. Here men in fezzes and women with shawl-covered heads and more traditional dress occupied the street. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he ducked into another alley, where his Tunisian contact, a microbiologist and French agent named Lisette Perrault, lived above an herbalist’s shop. He stopped at a faded and peeling blue-green keyhole-shaped door, which with its artfully studded hobnails looked as if it belonged in the Arabian Nights.

A few moments later, the door opened. The shabby exterior masked the bright tiled courtyard, where a fountain splashed in the center, but he didn’t have time to admire it. Lisette motioned for him to follow her up the inner staircase to her apartment.

Marc had to duck through the low doorway as he entered the apartment. It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust to the dark interior after the brightness of the sun on the white stucco before he could really see Lisette. He’d known she was going to be here, but even so, the sight of her after all these months hit him like a rock. She looked past him, out the door, then back. “How was your flight?”

Not How are you? How have you been? Good to see you’re still around. Just How was your flight? “Rough.”

Lisette nodded. If she was disappointed that it was he and not Griffin or even Giustino who had come, she didn’t mention it. “We heard about Tex.”

Marc nodded, unable to discuss it. Thinking about Tex all night, he hadn’t slept, and the short doze on the quick flight to Tunisia did little to ease his exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then reached out, touching his arm.

The feel of her cool fingertips against his skin shocked him, and he looked down at her hand, an onslaught of memories of nights together flashing through his mind. He shoved those thoughts aside, gave a brisk nod, then asked, “Where are the others?”

Moment over. She dropped her hand. “They’re already on point, waiting to hear from us,” she said, leading him to a high-ceilinged room at the back of the house, where crimson Oriental rugs on the polished terra cotta floors gave the space a look of elegance. An open window let in a soft breeze, bringing with it scents of lavender and sage from the herbalist’s shop below. “Rafiq set out for the compound the moment we received word. He should be back any moment. This is big. A bioweapons lab in Adami’s Tunisian warehouse, one he allegedly uses to ship food and first aid to war-torn countries. Should your information prove accurate, it will be the first time we’ve ever had knowledge of their activities beforehand.”

“His warehouse aside, what have you heard on your end?”

“The same as you,” she said, motioning for him to have a seat on the divan. “The Black Network is active again. We’ve heard it’s centered in Rome and Washington, D.C.” Aptly named, the Black Network was the deadly enforcement arm of a vast and powerful network of criminals, politicians and businessmen, all board members of the Bank of International Commerce Trade and Trust, or BICTT, one of the largest and most profitable-yet illegal-world banks. While BICTT had been shut down after an almost successful run on the U.S. banking industry twenty years ago, a good portion of the money was never recovered and the power brokers who ran it-Adami being one of them-were still in business. They met under the guise of Freemasonry, which gave them a way to conduct their meetings in secret.

“What are they after?” he asked, watching as she took a small kettle of mint tea from a samovar. She poured the steaming liquid into glasses that contained pine nuts. “Besides brokering information and selling weapons, that is.”

“You mean you haven’t heard the rumor of la terza chiave,” she said, handing him a glass of the tea.

“Is it possible you mean C3?” She gave him a blank look, and he added, “Ci-Tre. We heard it the other night at Adami’s villa. Someone mentioned it in conjunction with P-Due.”

“Propaganda Due,” Lisette said. “You think this C3 is a clandestine Masonic lodge in the same vein?”

“After the way Tex’s body was desecrated, there is no doubt in my mind.”

“I do not believe la terza chiave, this third key, has anything to do with P-Due, which is, to our knowledge, still running under Adami’s watchful eye. But that Adami mentioned C3, it confirms our suspicions that he is after the third key, perhaps for the very reasons we feared. We have overheard chatter that this third key is a means of unlocking the sources of plagues not seen on earth for two thousand years. Biblical plagues.”

“Isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

“According to the academic studies I have read, the possibility is very real. Does the actual source of these plagues still exist? That I do not know.”

“If it does exist, what is the possibility that these sources could remain viable after that long?”

“If contained under the right conditions, it is a very real threat. And what makes it particularly dangerous is that, if true, these plagues have remained untouched for that many years and have survived, whether dormant and intact in their original form or evolving in a protected environment for so long…The possibility is great that it will devastate a population, since there are no vaccines for something that hasn’t been seen on earth in two thousand years.”

“Is that why Adami kidnapped Dr. Balraj?”

“Undoubtedly. Balraj is probably the world’s foremost expert on the evolution of plagues. If Adami is able to gain his cooperation-and under duress, who is to say Balraj won’t cooperate?-Adami is that much closer in his attempt to create a super-plague.”

“Do you think he has any chance of succeeding?”

“Unfortunately, yes. His past attempts to genetically modify the plagues to better control them have failed. We’re certain that’s why Dr. Zemke was targeted. Her expertise was on genetic engineering.”

“You do not believe she’s dead? Killed like the others?”

“We have yet to find Dr. Zemke’s body, and right now we believe she is worth more to him alive than dead. Her expertise fits with his plan to genetically mutate these plagues and combine his current bioweapons with this new, or rather much older plague, to increase its virulence.”

The news worried Marc. They knew Adami intended to create bioweapons, but this was much worse than any of them had dared imagine. “And if he is successful?”

She stared into the cup of tea before looking up at him, her dark eyes reflecting her worry. “Past attempts to weaponize plagues and viruses have been largely unproductive, due to heat and shock from explosives, never mind simple exposure to sun. And any biomatter that survived and found its target in the population was quickly contained, because the disease did not spread fast enough. But if Adami is able to develop this super-plague-genetically engineer it so that it will survive the heat, retain its virulence, in fact make it hypervirulent-he could wipe out whole cities before the world is able to do a thing. Adami is trying to create a hypervirulent, antibiotic-resistant, airborne plague. Airborne pneumonic plague would spread from person to person, and by the time the first fever appeared, it would be too late. Within days, thousands would be dead and the remaining population would be dying. The only answer would be to isolate the city, restrict travel so that no one could leave-hope no one has left-then let the population die out.”

“And since he is eliminating all the microbiologists one by one, if we uncover what he has done, we can’t control it?”

“That is one of the most frightening aspects about this. By the time the world caught up with what was happening, by the time they even realized the need for massive antibiotics-if such measures even worked with this new super-plague he intends to develop-it would be too late. Even more frightening is this: What if Adami’s scientists can’t control it? If he is effectively eliminating anyone in the free world who has a hope at containing such a threat, and he controls the scientists who have developed this new strain, who will put it back in the bottle once it is released?”

“Then let’s hope this information we’ve gotten about his lab being here in Tunisia is accurate. We can at least eliminate that part of the threat. What is your next step?”

“The warehouse is located near a small private strip at a compound south of here, used by Adami’s Tunisia corporation. Should they suspect that we are on to them, they could possibly move their lab and we are back to square one, so whatever we do, we’ll have to move quickly. We’ve had our eye on this place since you called. They’re very meticulous about who they let in, turning anyone away who is not on their schedule of deliveries. If we can’t figure out a way to get to that schedule and get the proper IDs, we won’t be able to pass the guards into the compound.”

“And what is it you need me to do?”

She sipped her tea, then smiled that smile he knew so well. “Break into their security building and get a copy of the schedule, of course.”