The Bone Chamber

22

Sydney watched as Francesca pulled a book from the package. A photograph of a pyramid was displayed on the dustcover beneath a title that read Egyptian Influence on Ancient Roman History. Griffin took it, flipped through the pages, then looked at Francesca in question. “This is what she sent?”

“It appears she bought it at the Smithsonian gift shop and had it mailed here,” Francesca said.

“There’s nothing in it. Why was it so important that she get it to us?”

“I have no idea. I’m only the messenger.”

He flipped through the book once more, then handed it to Dumas. “See if you can find something in it.”

Dumas opened it, doing a more thorough perusal of each page as Griffin started up the van, then pulled back onto the road. Dumas found nothing. Sydney was tempted to ask to see the book herself, but one look at Griffin’s face when he glanced back at her told her he was not even remotely close to forgiving her for not flying home this morning-a feeling that persisted long after they’d dropped off Dumas and the professor at the Vatican.

Still, she thought, once they started the long and circuitous trip back to the safe house, someone was going to have to talk first, and Sydney figured it might as well be her. “Exactly who does Father Dumas work for?”

Griffin looked at her, his anger over her actions still evident on his face. He turned back to the road, let out a tense breath. Then, surprising her that he was even going to talk to her at all, said, “The Vatican first and foremost. After that, he is, for all intents and purposes-and to my objection-part of our team.”

“I take it you don’t trust him?”

“I trust him as long as the needs of the Vatican and ATLAS coincide. It’s when they don’t that I have concerns.” He glanced in his rearview mirror, then over at her. “His loyalties to the church aside, his placement in the Vatican is a valuable resource, one that can’t be ignored.”

“It never occurred to me that the Vatican would be working covert operations.”

“It never occurred to the Vatican, either, at least not officially, until Pope John Paul I decided to investigate the Mafia’s involvement in the Vatican finances that uncovered the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. Unfortunately for him, the Mafia and the Black Network, another criminal organization, had infiltrated more than just the Vatican’s bank. They’d also penetrated the most venerable walls of the Vatican’s governing body, the Curia. There’s no doubt why he died thirty days after becoming pope.”

“So you believe his death was a murder?”

“Some historians might believe otherwise, but he was poisoned-not, however, before he handpicked a few of his most trustworthy associates to look after the Vatican’s true interests. Dumas is the second generation of the team that Pope John Paul I started. They are covert, but not black ops. They are rarely called out on our business, and only as a liaison to the church.”

“Why was Dumas called out on this operation?”

“That’s the problem. He wasn’t called out, though we had considered it initially. So either Alessandra brought him into this, or he is here for the church. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It does present problems. It’s clearly understood that Dumas has divided loyalties. Where our team must answer to the director of operations, Dumas must answer to God. And since God usually makes himself unavailable for personal interviews, the current pope stands in.”

“And the pope is aware of Dumas’s actions?” she asked, watching the side view mirror for any tails, and making sure she looked up at the corner buildings to read the street placards in case she ever had to navigate this place on her own. “He knows what you do?”

“The pope is aware of anything that directly involves the church. That does not necessarily mean he knows what we are doing.”

Griffin turned off the Corso Vittorio into the Via dei Chiavari, then drove into a horseshoe-shaped parking lot. He pulled into a slot marked “Riservato per SIP.” The telephone company, Sydney recalled, thinking of the phone company cover he’d used earlier. The van currently had the ENEL logo on it. That, of course, made her wonder if the sign was legit, or if he’d had it erected for his operation. At the moment, she was more interested in Dumas. “Hard to imagine a priest working covert ops.”

“Don’t let the clerical garb fool you. The man is as dangerous as any of our full-time operatives. And he’s been a valuable resource at times. By the way, your bag is in the back. You left it at the academy.”

Only because she wanted there to be some sign of where she’d been. This didn’t seem the time to point that out, and she grabbed her bag, exited the vehicle. “Then what is the problem with Dumas?” she asked, as Griffin walked up to the sign, casually removed it, then replaced it with one that read “Riservato per ENEL” which matched the logo currently on the van. So much for the question of its legitimacy.

“The problem?” Griffin replied. “He saved my damned life two years ago in an operation that went bad. And I hate owing favors to guys I can’t trust.”

Trust. Now there was a word Sydney had difficulty embracing. She didn’t trust herself, and apparently Griffin didn’t trust anyone. Quite a team. Especially when it came to this case. Not that she was about to mention this to him. Instead, she asked, “Do you get the feeling that the professor was holding something back?”

“Right now I’m more interested in why you aren’t seated on a plane that should be across the Atlantic right now.”

Too much to hope that he was going to let that slide. “Had I been, the professor and your spy at the Vatican would both be dead, and Adami’s men would have the book that Alessandra sent.”

“Or they’d never have been followed to begin with.” He placed the SIP sign in the back of the van, picked up the book in question, then shut and locked the van door.

“Don’t try to blame this on me,” she said, as they walked over the cobbled street toward the dark green door of the apartment house. “If I had to guess, they saw Father Dumas enter the ambassador’s residence, then saw him head to the academy and followed us from there. There were sentinels posted, maybe even the same ones who followed you to my hotel.”

“The outcome doesn’t excuse the fact you should have been on that plane.”

“Had I been, you wouldn’t have rushed hell-bent to find me, thereby saving the day. You got to play hero.” She glanced over at him, saw him clench his jaw as he rang the bell for Giustino to unlock the door. He jabbed the bell a second time, then held it far too long, clearly annoyed with her, and she realized he was right in some respects. “Look, I’m sorry. But Tasha was my friend, and just as you’re not about to let Tex’s murder go by without a fight, I wasn’t about to let Tasha’s go.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then by all means, clue me in.”

He looked over at her as though contemplating just what it was he was going to tell her. But then suddenly looked away, and under his breath, said, “I could have you ordered back with one call.”

“Yeah, you could,” she said as the lock clicked and Griffin pushed open the door, revealing a whitewashed stairwell, with flagstone steps that wound upward in a square around the broken lift cage. At the moment she was thinking he should make that call. Somehow in the midst of all this, she’d forgotten just why it was that she’d gone off to Quantico. She’d lost her edge on that last case she’d worked, not trusting herself that she could do her job without endangering others. And now, because of her headstrong foolishness, she’d been shot at more times in the last week than in all her years of law enforcement service. And what bothered her the most was that a simple operation up at Adami’s villa had resulted in the loss of one of Griffin’s friends, and she couldn’t absolve herself of that blame, either.

Griffin held the door for her, and she moved past him, then up the stairs, a number of emotions washing over her. Halfway up the first flight, she stopped, turned, looked him right in the eye. “Fine. Send me home. I’ll go. You’re right. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have jumped the gun on this, but I needed to do something and-” She stopped, unable to keep her train of thought under the intensity of his stare. She was no longer sure of herself. Hell, she wasn’t sure she’d ever been sure of herself. And now, the way he watched her…“Goddamn it, was there something wrong with me last night? I haven’t slept with a guy in close to a year, and I’d like to know if it’s just me or-” Too late she clamped her mouth shut, then looked away, her face turning hot, unable to believe those words had even slipped from her mouth. Idiot.

The resulting silence made her feel an even bigger fool, and she wanted to get as far from him as she could. But when she tried to head back up the steps, he grabbed her arm, held her there, his expression unreadable.

It was everything she could do to gather her thoughts. “Can we pretend like I never brought up the subject? Just put me on a plane, send me home?”

In answer, he pulled out his cell phone, flipped it open, pressed a button, and she figured this was it, he was making that call to have her sent back to the States.

“It’s Griffin,” he said into the phone. “Turn off the camera in the stairwell.”

A camera in the stairwell? Great. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she wished she could melt into the walls or slither down past him and never come back.

He closed the phone, returned it to his belt, saying nothing, his grip on her arm firm, unyielding. Several seconds passed by before he said anything, then, “I do not like racing through the streets, feeling helpless because someone is walking into danger. Not in this country, not in our own. And I especially don’t like the feeling I get when it’s you walking into that danger.”

She tried to smile, felt her lips tremble. “Does sorry work?”

“You’re a distraction, and I don’t like distractions.” He stepped so close, his face was mere inches from hers, and she didn’t dare move. Couldn’t move. He glanced at her mouth, and just when she thought, knew he was going to kiss her, he pulled away, looked her in the eye. “I barely know you. I don’t want to, Sydney. I can’t be worried about you. You were supposed to be a rule follower…”

He took a step back, then down, and she tried to make light of the situation. “I’ve changed.”

“I can’t afford distractions.”

“You mentioned that.” She stepped away from him, brushed her hands over her clothes, surprised to feel her pulse racing. She wanted him. He didn’t want the distraction. She was tempted to quip something about not worrying, because she damned well would be staying out of his bed from this point on. After all, they’d be separated by an entire ocean, never mind that her ego wasn’t that fragile, no matter what stupid things she might utter about her nonexistent sex life.

Without another word, he indicated she should precede him up the stairs, and just like that the matter was dropped. As it should be, she figured. She had a life of her own, and it did not involve Zachary Griffin.

Professor Francesca Santarella tried to get past the horrific details of how she’d come under such tight security. As if Alessandra’s murder hadn’t been bad enough, and never mind the attempt on their lives, Dumas had told her that the anthropologist whom Alessandra had chosen for her dig was also dead, apparently from a hit-and-run back in the States.

All twists of fate? Francesca didn’t believe it for an instant, and in her mind the weak link in all this was Father Dumas. No one had shot at her until he’d showed up on her doorstep. He had also been involved with Alessandra, and apparently the dead anthropologist, Dr. Natasha Gilbert.

Perhaps it was some chance alignment of the stars that Dumas wasn’t currently standing over her shoulder at the moment while she read the centuries-old documents before her. Somehow she doubted that Dumas would have let her near them if he’d known that the very subject of her research had been imprisoned under orders of the pope for his involvement with Freemasonry, then held until he gave up the names of every member in his lodge. The church was and always had been anti-Masonic, but she knew for a fact the arrest over Freemasonry had been but a pretext. The church wanted what her subject had hidden, the third key. But perhaps Dumas was not up on church history from the 1700s. He had looked at the time period she’d requested and gave his approval to the priest assigned to assist in finding the documents. The silver lining, if one could call it that, was that she was sitting here in the Vatican, reading transcripts from the secret archives, and was given more freedom than most in that she had no time constraints.

The only thing that hindered her was that Father Dumas had insisted on being her guide while she was here. She gathered that his activities with Mr. Griffin were known to none but a select few, and that set her to contemplate just what it was they did. Some sort of governmental agency, which made her wonder how it was that Alessandra had become involved. And why? Somehow it had never occurred to her that Alessandra might have had her own agenda.

Then again, no one had checked with Francesca to determine what her agenda might be, and that was something she had no desire to reveal. She was quite certain that if Dumas even suspected what it was, she would never have been allowed in here.

She glanced around, saw Father Dumas sitting in a chair not too far away, and decided that he was probably more guard than guide. He smiled when he noticed her look up, and she smiled back, then forced her gaze back to the transcripts in front of her. Her mind kept wandering to the message Alessandra had sent, what she’d tried to convey. The proof, she figured, was probably buried in these transcripts, and she scanned the text, hoping she was right. And if she was right, her next step needed some careful contemplation. Slipping out of the Vatican was one thing. Escaping the notice of Dumas, not quite the mild-mannered priest he portrayed, was quite another.

“Sir?”

Giustino’s voice cut into Griffin’s thoughts about the latest turn of events on this case, and it took him a moment to realize he was being spoken to. He drew his attention from the security screen that covered one wall of the safe house, and looked over to see what it was Giustino wanted.

“Marc just called in on the secure line. He says it’s urgent.”

Griffin slid his chair over, took the phone. He hadn’t even heard it ring, he’d been so wrapped up in getting Sydney home, and trying to figure out what the hell he was missing in this case. “Marc. Talk to me.”

“I believe Tex is alive.”

Griffin froze. The image of the faceless man at the morgue, his throat cut-He’d seen the ring, Tex’s ring…If not Tex, then who? “Alive? Where? How?”

Marc told him what he’d learned.

“Why would they take him to Tunisia?”

“Perhaps for you not to follow, should you think he’s alive?”

Griffin’s first thought was to fly out to Tunisia, to look for Tex himself, but he knew that Marc could handle the matter as well if not better. “Do what you have to do to bring him home.”

“A problem with that. The warehouse I saw him in? It’s the one that we’re going to take out. HQ wants us to proceed. I did not want to until I called you.”

Griffin’s pulse thudded at the realization of what Marc was saying. Tex had been considered collateral damage from the moment he was taken in Adami’s villa. HQ wasn’t about to stop the operation now for one man who was already considered dead. Should the bioweapons make it out of that warehouse, too many lives could be lost. And now Marc was looking for further direction, something outside the standing orders, direction he couldn’t give-at least not explicitly. “Do just as I would. As ordered.”

The slightest of hesitations, then, “Yes, sir.”

“Marc?”

“Griff?”

“Let me know the moment you find anything further.” Griffin hung up, not sure what to think.

Alive.

He clung to that small hope. Tex was alive.

Or was it a trap? Meant to lead them astray? The body in the morgue, no prints or identifiable features. Much like Alessandra’s body. It took a week to get her identified. Here in the chaos of Rome…

“Marc thinks Tex may be alive,” he told Giustino. “He thinks he saw him in the warehouse they have to take out.”

“He will go in for him?”

“He’s going to try.”

Sydney walked into the room at that moment, just as Giustino said, “This I cannot believe. Tex? Alive?”

She turned to Griffin. “Did I hear right?”

“Yes.”

“Then who is at the morgue?” she asked.

“I have no idea. But if what he is saying is true, they killed someone else who matched Tex’s physical description to make us believe he is dead.”

“Why would they want you to think he was dead?” Sydney asked.

“Who searches for a dead man?” He stared out the window, barely seeing the sunset gilding the scalloped cupola of Sant’Andrea della Valle. He didn’t want to think what his friend had been going through since that night at the villa. “Assuming the information is correct, of course. It has yet to be verified.”

“I will check the databases on missing persons,” Giustino said, his expression somber. He sat at his desk, picked up the phone to call his carabinieri contact.

Sydney watched him a moment, as though trying to decipher the man’s rapid-fire Italian as he spoke on the phone. “They had to think Tex had something they wanted. Information, maybe.”

“Undoubtedly,” Griffin replied.

“The Tunisia operation Marc is working on?” Sydney asked. “Maybe they know. Maybe they’re trying to keep Tex there to protect it somehow.”

“But Tex didn’t know. We found out that information afterward.”

She looked at the radio that Giustino had been manning. “Clearly they didn’t know of the bug…”

“Not at first, but we haven’t heard a word since we learned of the bio arms shipment.”

“Which means they very well may have learned of the bug by now…From Tex…”

She’d only said what he’d been thinking. And it could be true. What Adami couldn’t have known was what his team intended to do with that information, because that was something they’d only decided on after the fact.

After about a half hour, Giustino finally dropped the phone onto the cradle. “One of our investigators, he is searching for someone missing, who looks much like the victim in the morgue. This he discounts, because the pathologist, he tells him this victim, he is already identified. They are going to look more.”

Griffin paced the room. “If it’s not Tex, they killed this man and put Tex’s ring on his hand, because he fit the general description. I need a positive identification. Now.”

“You forget. This man’s fingertips they are removed with his face, and the backlog for DNA is worse than in your country.”

Griffin stopped, looked right at Sydney. “What about doing a forensic sketch, like you did for Alessandra?”

“That’s a possibility,” she said, “but before you go that route, it might help to look at the missing person’s report. Maybe there’s something in it-something no one noticed, because they weren’t thinking it was anything beyond the routine.”

“Have them fax you a copy,” Griffin told Giustino.

Giustino made the call. A few minutes later, the fax purred to life. The moment the missing person’s report dropped into the tray, Griffin picked it up. He spoke fluent Italian, but his grasp of the written language wasn’t as good, and after looking it over, he gave it to Giustino to translate.

“The victim, Enzo Vitale, he goes for a walk with his dog that evening. He never returns. I see nothing else. He and Tex, they are very close in size, but there is no more to identify. Niente.”

To which Fitzpatrick said, “Something I didn’t take into consideration. How many overworked officers bother to ask for minute details on a standard missing person’s report? Especially when nine times out of ten, the victims turn up safe and sound?”

Griffin stopped at that. “Good point. Giustino? Call the family. See if there’s some detail, some identifying detail they might have forgotten to tell the officer…And do it gently, in case it is this Enzo Vitale.”

Giustino nodded, took the report, and made the call. When he hung up, he looked hopeful. “The wife of Enzo Vitale, she describes a heart-shaped mole about four centimeters below his navel.”

Something only a wife would know. “Call the morgue.”

Giustino dialed, related the information to the investigator on duty, then waited. Time stilled. No one moved, no one said a thing while Giustino sat there, the phone pressed to his ear. From the open windows, they could hear bits of conversation drifting up several stories from the piazza below, as diners arrived at Arnaldo’s ristorante. Almost eight o’clock, and the three of them had yet to eat. After several minutes, Giustino sat up, said, “Certo. Grazie, Commissario.”

He hung up the phone, closed his eyes, seeming to sink in his seat, and Griffin had no idea if it was good news or bad, until Giustino said, “It is him. Enzo Vitale. They found the mole.”

University of Virginia

“Professor Denise Woods?” Carillo held out his shield and credentials for the petite woman to see.

“You’re here about my missing student? Please tell me you’ve found him and he’s okay?”

“Actually,” Carillo said. “I’m here on a somewhat related matter. My partner saw you earlier in the week? Special Agent Fitzpatrick?”

“Yes. She’s the one I gave the papers on conspiracy theory to. I’ve had so many people here asking about my students lately, I can’t keep it straight.”

“You’ve spoken to other agents?” he asked. Fitzpatrick had indicated there was more to this case than met the eye. “From which agency?”

“Come to think of it, they didn’t really say.”

“And what’d they ask you?”

“Same thing as your partner. Sort of. They were interested in my assistant. Wanted to know when was the last time I saw Alessandra, if she’d discussed anything out of the ordinary with me.”

“And did she?”

“No. That was the gist of it, and they left.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“About Alessandra? No.”

“What about the other student?”

“Xavier, the young man Alessandra had befriended. Normally I don’t encourage my assistants to become so closely involved in the projects of my students, but Alessandra had said she’d seen something in his work, something she’d like to explore further.”

“What sort of something?”

“Two things, actually, the first being the conspiracy report I gave to your partner. What Alessandra saw in it besides the usual rubbish found on the Internet, I’m not sure.”

“And what was the other?”

“An odd thing on genealogy he’s working on with another professor who is away on sabbatical. It was, in fact, the reason that Alessandra befriended him.”

“My partner see that report?”

“Actually, no. I didn’t think of it at the time, because she specifically asked if he was working on conspiracy theory.”

“You don’t still have it, do you?”

“Of course.” She opened a file on her computer and printed something out. “Here it is, along with a copy of the conspiracy report.”

“Mind if I copy it?”

“If it helps you in your investigation, it’s yours.”

“Thanks,” Carillo said. “One other thing. You have the name of this professor on sabbatical that your student was working with?”

“Francesca Santarella.”

Carillo handed Professor Woods a card, asking her to call if anyone else inquired into the matter, regardless of what governmental agency they said they were from. He left, sat in the car and sipped at his lukewarm coffee he’d picked up earlier that morning, and read the papers he’d been given.

The odd thing on genealogy turned out to be a report on family trees and the skeletons one might find in their closets if they dug back far enough in their research. It was titled: “Six Degrees to a Serial Killer or King.” Starting with the fact that everyone has two sets of grandparents, who each have two sets of grandparents, who have two sets of grandparents, and so on and so on. A tongue-in-cheek look at the pyramidal scheme of family trees. Even those who might lay claim to royalty no doubt had some nefarious relatives tucked in their closets. And to prove his point, the author researched his own history, discovering that, while there were no serial killers in his tree, he was directly related to the Prince of Sansevero, reported to be the first Freemasons Grand Master in Naples.

Carillo flipped through the report, and there were a couple of things that bothered him. The biggie was that the kid was missing after drafting such a report, whether it was this report or the other one he’d done on conspiracies. Now maybe it was merely coincidence that the kid happened to be friends with the daughter of the ambassador to the Holy See, who also happened to be missing-well, was missing, now dead. But Carillo didn’t like coincidences, and this thing smacked of conspiracy all over the place. The other thing that bothered him was, as Professor Woods mentioned, under the list of references on his report, the kid noted a Professor Francesca Santarella. That in itself wouldn’t bother him, since he had no idea who she was. It was her current address at the American Academy in Rome that made him look twice, something he might not have noticed if not for the fact Sydney was looking into the death of the ambassador’s daughter. First thing he did once he found out that little tidbit was look up the ambassador’s residence on a nice, big, fat Internet map. That, of course, was the only reason he even knew that the American Academy was directly across the street.

And that was one hell of a coincidence he wasn’t about to overlook.

He hit a number on his speed dial for the San Francisco office. Michael “Doc” Schermer picked up on his end of the phone. “I need you to check into something,” Carillo said. “It’s below the radar. That thing Fitz is working on. We need you to work your research magic, figure out what the common thread in all this is.”

“Between you and Fitzpatrick, I should be getting paid double time.”

“That’s the beauty about government salaries. No double time. Saves the taxpayers’ money.”

“Yeah, well, I suppose they have to give me a lunch break sometime. What’dya got?”

“I’m gonna fax you over a couple reports,” he said. “And I want you to dig up some information on a Professor Francesca Santarella.”

About an hour later, Doc Schermer called him back. “These look like college term papers.”

“They are.”

“Some of this conspiracy stuff’s swiped straight from the Net. I have to admit, the one he’s working on with this Professor Santarella on six degrees of separation? At least it’s interesting.”

“And your point?”

“This stuff is pretty far out there. Any idea what you’re looking for?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Griffin, not trusting Sydney for an instant, handed her his cell phone, then listened intently to her conversation with her partner, Carillo, while she told him that she was booked on a flight out that very night. Suddenly her voice dropped, and she turned her back. Griffin should have put her on speakerphone, but he didn’t want to tie up the secure line, and a good thing, too, because a moment later, it rang. Griffin grabbed it, hoping it was Marc with more information on Tex, now that the carabinieri had made a tentative ID on the man at the morgue as their missing person, Enzo Vitale.

It was Dumas. “We have a situation.”

“What is it?” Griffin asked, shaking his head at Giustino to let him know it was not about Tex.

“The professoressa. She slipped out of the Vatican.”

“Slipped out for what? A cappuccino?”

“Somehow I don’t think that is foremost on her mind.”

“Great. This is all I need right now.”

“Something else going on?”

“Nothing,” he said, not willing to share his hopes that Tex might be alive. Not yet. “Why would the professor leave?”

“According to Father Martinez, who was assisting her with her research, he noticed her taking numerous notes, and happened to walk past to see what had caught her interest.”

“I don’t suppose you happen to know what her notes said?”

“Actually I do. She only took the top sheet when she left. Father Martinez was able to bring up the remnants. The name Raimondo di Sangro came up. Apparently she was looking at transcripts that had to do with this prince in the 1700s, who managed to find himself jailed for matters that now would seem inconsequential, but back then were the height of scandal. Something to do with his involvement with Freemasonry.”

“Freemasonry was a jailing offense?”

“Let us just say that back then the church held far more sway when it came to dissuading its congregation from embarking down the path of darkness. The other matter she was looking into had something to do with columbaria.”

“Columbaria?”

“Ancient burial sites.”

“She did say she was doing research on ancient burial sites. Anything else?”

“You have the same information I have.”

“I appreciate the call.”

“I know you would do the same.”

Griffin wasn’t so sure about that, but he muttered, “Of course. I’ll let you know if we hear anything.” He disconnected, trying to determine if it was even worth their effort to try to find the professor. “Santarella took off,” he said to Giustino, who was busy perusing the book on the Egyptian influence on Roman history in hopes of discovering why it was sent.

“If she is stupid enough to leave on her own after being shot at, she deserves her fate.”

“I tend to agree with you.” He didn’t have time to run after the professor. Not with Tex’s situation unresolved, and not until he personally put Sydney safely on her flight out.

At least that was his thought until Sydney handed him back his cell phone, her look somewhat smug. “If I told you something you didn’t know,” she said, “would it change your mind about sending me home just yet?”

“I doubt it. But try me.”

“Two things. One, that book. Carillo said the security video from the gift shop showed that wasn’t the only thing Alessandra mailed.”

“It wasn’t?”

“She bought a postcard with a mummy on the front of it. On the back she wrote something and mailed it separately.”

“Any idea what she wrote?” Griffin asked.

“As a matter of fact I do. She drew a triangle, then the word Egypt inside the null sign.”

“A triangle?” He saw the image carved on Alessandra’s face, tried not to think of it, failed, and it took him a moment to recover his thoughts. “Like the triangle carved on her face?”

“It could be a pyramid,” she said. “Especially considering the word Egypt is next to it. Carillo thought the literal translation would be ‘pyramid no Egypt.’”

“They were in Egypt,” Griffin said. “Digging in a pyramid. Pyramid not in Egypt? But why mail the book?”

“Maybe as a decoy.”

“More importantly, what does this have to do with Adami building and smuggling bioweapons?”

“Maybe she was trying to tell you that the dig was a ploy?”

The same thing that Tasha had suggested…It made no sense. “This second thing?”

“You’ll never guess which professor’s name Carillo saw on a reference page to a research paper written by a second missing person from UVA-a student who was last seen with Alessandra.”

“Why do I not want to hear this?”

“Because the student also listed this professor’s address as being at the American Academy.”

Giustino set the book on the table. “What is that saying? The story fattens?”

“The plot thickens,” Sydney said.

“I can think of a few other choice sayings,” Griffin muttered. “None of them remotely polite.”

Sydney gave a shrug. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly plausible explanation, and I’d love to help you, especially with all the maps and notes tucked away in her office that probably have something to do with all this, but”-she made a show of looking at her watch-“have a plane to catch.”

Giustino’s smile turned into a full-blown grin, and Griffin glared at him before turning his attention back to Sydney. “Tell me about this paper Carillo found.”

“According to Carillo, genealogy, something about some long-lost relative in Naples who was a prince. The other paper, the one I brought a copy of, was on conspiracy theory.”

Hell. Dumas said Santarella was looking up something about a prince. “Like I said, what would either have to do with the smuggling of bioweapons?”

“Good question. Clearly the professor is hiding something.”

He hated to admit she was right, but she was. He’d been bothered by the same thing, something he might have taken more heed of had he not been so distracted by Sydney’s presence-which was another reason to get her on that plane tonight.

“Of course,” Sydney continued, “you could always ask her.”

“If I knew where she was.”

“You mean Dumas lost her?”

“She was looking up information on a prince,” he said, ignoring yet another smug look from her, “as well as something to do with the columbaria.”

“When I was in her office, I saw a lot of stuff on her walls that had to do with the columbaria.”

“What sort of stuff?”

“Maps, diagrams, photos, notes. I gathered it was sort of a specialty. What she was here to study. Maybe if we-if you stopped by her studio, you might find something that would give you an indication on where to look.”

The thought bore merit. “Even if we did find something, how would we even know what we were looking at? It would have been nice to have an expert solidly in our own court. Someone we could trust without question.”

Sydney walked over, picked up her travel bag, then placed it by the front door. “Too bad I’m leaving. I actually do have a go-to man when it comes to digging up obscure bits of information. If anyone can put a spin on some long-forgotten columbarium, Doc Schermer can.”

“Doc Schermer?”

“My ex-partner Carillo’s current partner.”

“May I ask you something, Special Agent Fitzpatrick?”

“Fire away.”

“Back in Quantico, when I mentioned that this case was not to be discussed with anyone, at what point did you disobey that directive?”

She gave a light shrug. “Couple hours into it when I called Carillo from my dorm room.”

“Figures,” he said, wondering how it was he’d so totally misjudged her. Then again, maybe had he given her free rein as she’d insisted, they might be further along.

Or she might be dead.

He’d had a number of good reasons for keeping things from her. Even now it was a risk. But like it or not, she was involved, not likely to change her mind, and he could use the help. Unlike Professor Santarella, Sydney Fitzpatrick knew most of the risks, was well-trained by the Bureau, and any knowledge she and her fellow agents brought to the table was a plus. He looked at Giustino, said, “I need two calls made before we move out. First, bring in someone to cover for you here. I don’t want this unmanned while Tex is still out there.”

“And the second?” Giustino asked.

“Call the airport and cancel Fitzpatrick’s flight,” he said, ignoring her catlike smile.

Sydney rolled up the cuffs on her ENEL coveralls, trying to make them look more like they fit her, when they belonged to Giustino, who stood about four inches taller. When she finished, she smoothed out the uniform, and Griffin, also in ENEL coveralls, nodded.

“Not to worry,” he said. “No one will pay much attention.”

She could only hope, she thought as they walked across the street to the van where Giustino, dressed all in black, was waiting.

The moment she slid into the front passenger seat, Griffin said, “Do me a favor, Fitzpatrick. When we get to the American Academy, don’t say a thing.”

“Like the four words of Italian I know are going to do much good?”

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely.”

A little after ten, they drove to the academy, the ENEL electric company logo still on the van, a perfect cover for their plans this evening. Griffin dropped Giustino off around the corner from the entrance, then waited a short way down the street. About five minutes later, every light at the academy went out.

They waited a couple of minutes before Griffin drove up to the electric gate and parked. It was still open, which meant it would remain that way until Griffin called Giustino to restore the power.

“You don’t think we should have waited longer?” Sydney asked him.

“Trust me. The utility companies are notoriously slow. He’ll be grateful to see us.”

And sure enough, as the two of them, small toolboxes in hand, walked up to the open gate, the guard hurried toward them, smiling as he waved them through, saying, “Non ha perso tempo!”

Griffin rattled off something in Italian so fast that Sydney recognized only ENEL. Whatever he said worked. The guard returned to his shack, allowing Griffin and Sydney to enter the premises on their own. Their boots crunched the gravel path that circled the fountain, and just before they left the path, Sydney glanced back to see the guard standing near the open gate.

Flickering candlelight appeared in several windows, the academy residents quickly adjusting to the power outage. Upstairs, just over the main entrance, the windows of Professor Santarella’s studio were dark. Griffin and Sydney climbed the marble stairs, walked the short distance down the hall to studio 257. The door was locked. Griffin took a pick from his toolbox, slipped it into the lock, and had the door open in less than a minute. Sydney used a blue LED light for her search, while Griffin stood guard at the window, watching the gate. She wasn’t even sure where to begin, there were so many papers and books strewn about, as though someone else had already been there and done a hasty search. She glanced over at the desk, where Francesca had been working on her laptop earlier in the day, thinking there might be something there. The laptop was gone. Which meant the professor had returned.

Or someone else had. No doubt, she thought, realizing that the professor wouldn’t need to throw her things around to find them. She’d know where to look. Someone else had definitely been there.

But that didn’t mean they’d found whatever they were looking for, and Sydney checked the long table, the desk, the walls. Nothing screamed, Look at me, the answer is here. More like there were too many answers, and it would take days to search through them.

Griffin stepped back from the window. “We have to go. Now.”

“I need more time.”

“Now,” he whispered. “Someone’s out there, distracting the guard from his post.”

She gave one last look around, saw the hand-drawn maps on the wall, the weird lines drawn across them. What the hell, she thought, and pulled both down, rolled them together. “Ready.”

They walked out the door, and Griffin turned the lock, then pulled it shut. When she started toward the stairs they’d come up, he stopped her, listened. Someone was ascending, the quiet of the footfall enough to warn her it was someone who didn’t want to be discovered. They hurried to the back stairs down the hall, past the kitchen. Griffin drew his weapon, then signaled for her to start down. They walked through the darkened archways of the cortile, slipped out past the fountain, and toward the guard in his shack. Sydney glanced back toward Francesca’s studio, saw a dim light bouncing off the wall as someone searched the room.

Griffin saw it, too. They walked up to the guard, and Griffin waved, told him something in Italian about the power. The guard looked up, nodded as they walked out. “Probably Dumas,” he said, when they’d gotten back in the van, as he picked up the phone to tell Giustino to restore the power in a few minutes. He didn’t want to do it too soon.

“How do you know it’s him and not the guys that came after us at the Passegiata?”

“Because the guard’s still alive. Adami’s men have no consciences.”

“Good point.”

Only when they were well away did he ask, “What was it you took from the wall?”

“A couple maps. Of what, I have no idea.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing in the time we had.”

“She’s on too many radars. That doesn’t bode well for her.”

“I’m more interested in what’s on her radar,” Sydney said.

Griffin looked over at her, then back at the road. “You might make a good spy, after all.”

“The word spy has connotations I don’t care for.”

“Secret agent, then.”

“Special agent.”

“FBI, through and through. Except when you’re busy breaking the rules.”

“Not rules. Guidelines,” she said, unrolling the parchment. Pale yellow moonlight washed the paper, but it was too dark to see.

Sydney turned on the small LED she’d used in the break-in. The light was amazingly bright for such a tiny device, and he glanced over as she studied it. “Sort of looks like a map of the sewer system,” he said.

“Why would a professor intent on ancient history have a map of the sewer system, unless it was the aqueduct, which I don’t think this is.”

Back at the safe house, she unrolled it on the kitchen table. “I’m beginning to think this might be maps of different columbaria,” she said, seeing the arrows drawn on it and the notations, trying to decide what it was Francesca found so important that she went to the trouble of mapping it out on her wall. “Her writing’s terrible.” She squinted, tried to make out the tiny notations scrawled at various locations.

“I’d settle for finding which place she might be heading.”

“If I had to guess,” Sydney said, pointing, “it would be here.”

“Why there?”

Sydney couldn’t forget the image of Alessandra’s disfigured face. “Because the note she jotted on here looks like it says ‘pyramid skull.’ Alessandra’s killer used that symbol for a reason.”

“As damned good a place to start as any. Call your Doc Schermer and see what he can dig up on this.”

“When do we leave?”

“In the morning. The professor has to sleep, too.”

But the professor wasn’t sleeping. She sat at her desk in the dark, even after the power had been restored, not sure if she should cry, scream, or laugh. How stupid to wait for dark to break into her own studio at the academy. Or go to the trouble of calling the guard away, to explain that she needed to enter without being seen, and could he just let her through the gate?

Someone had already been here.

The maps were missing from the wall.

And her laptop.

Neither was good without the other, but someone had them both.

It had taken her months and months to plot out the maps. They were important. But so was the info on her computer, and she seriously questioned her ability to find the final location of the Prince of Sansevero’s crypt without it. How had she been so careless as to leave it on her laptop-believing that a lone guard at the gate would keep it safe?

If it was so damned safe, why’d she feel it necessary to sneak in herself?

“Idiot,” she whispered. She should have grabbed the computer at the same time she grabbed the package Alessandra had sent. A lot of good that did her friend, getting involved with the government. Killed.

The thought of her own close call on the Passegiata with the men chasing after them brought her to her feet. Time enough to mourn her friend later. Right now she had to figure out what the hell she was going to do next. Her gaze strayed to the desk, where her laptop had been, her sight adjusting to the dark. A shaft of moonlight fell across the floor, washing the terra cotta tile in a pale blue glow. There beneath her desk, she saw what looked like a long dark shoestring upon the pattern of octagons…

Francesca crossed the room, reached down, picked it up. Not a shoestring, but the lanyard connected to a flash drive. She’d thought she’d left it in the laptop right after the FBI agent had knocked at her door this afternoon…It must have fallen off when whoever it was came in and stole her computer.

Not completely lost after all.

She slipped the lanyard around her neck, tucking the drive beneath her shirt, then grabbed her coat, locked her door, then walked down the hall. If anyone was looking for her, they’d search her studio or her apartment. She doubted anyone would bother looking in the TV room off the kitchen. As good a place to sleep as any, she figured. And then at first light, to the Columbarium of the Nile Frescoes.

There was little traffic in the predawn hours, and Griffin made good time on their drive. After the immense Baths of Caracalla, the long narrow road forked, and Griffin veered to the right. He glanced over at Sydney, who was studying the map. “Well?” he asked, as he drove the van slowly down the Via di Porta San Sebastiano, which was almost pitch dark with its high walls and dense foliage.

“According to Doc Schermer’s instructions, the entrance to the Columbarium of the Nile Frescoes is somewhere on the left past the Tomb of the Scipios.”

“And according to the map?”

“Assuming the professor is talking about the same columbarium, I’d say it puts the entrance just over there,” she said, pointing up ahead and to the left. Griffin drove past, caught sight of a staircase between the massive walls that lined the road, shielding the mansions and surrounding properties from view. He parked the van farther up the road, just out of sight. Sydney rolled up the map, put it in her travel bag, and then they walked back toward the staircase, where they hoped the entrance to the columbarium would be. The sun had not yet risen, not even a sliver of moonlight illuminated the road, the high walls on either side making it seem darker, more forbidding. They reached the break in the wall, where a Z-shaped staircase led up, and they ascended, waited in the dark just beyond the west bend. As the first light began to penetrate the needles of the umbrella pines beyond the Aurelian Wall, Francesca emerged from the street below and mounted the steps.

Griffin stepped out. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Francesca froze in her tracks. She looked from him to Sydney. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering you stole my computer last night.”

“I’m afraid your computer was already gone by the time we got there.”

She stared at him for several seconds. “So someone else was there?”

“Let me be frank,” Griffin said. “What part of your life is in danger don’t you get?”

“The part that tells me this can’t be happening.”

“It’s happening. I don’t suppose you want to share with us what is so important that you felt it necessary to avoid your protector and risk your own life as well as ours?”

The sound of someone else coming up the steps caught Griffin by surprise. He looked at Francesca, who didn’t seem the least worried, as she said, “That would be Signore DeAngelis, the property owner.”

A moment later, a man in his sixties turned the corner, slightly out of breath, his white hair looking a bit windblown, as though he’d been running. “I left it on the table,” he said in Italian, holding up a large Byzantine key, before stopping short at the sight of Griffin and Sydney. He turned an accusing stare on Francesca. “You led me to believe you were coming alone, professoressa. The columbarium is very delicate, and we cannot have people just traipsing around.”

“Yes, well-”

“These old columbaria,” Griffin said. “They can be notoriously dangerous, and the professoressa asked us at the last minute to help her with her research.” Griffin smiled, pulled a business card from his pocket, handing it to the old man. “As you can imagine, we are very interested in helping her complete her research so that she can get it to the publisher in time.”

The man looked at the International Journal business card. “He is your editor?” he asked Francesca.

“One of them,” she replied, which told Griffin she was desperate to get down there, and hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with the property owner about her real purpose-whatever that might be.

“And this is?” the man asked, eyeing Sydney.

Griffin replied, “The artist.”

“Artist?”

“My understanding is that flash photography can sometimes harm ancient works of art, and so we have brought a sketch artist to document the professoressa’s research.”

The man nodded. “Yes, this is true. We have never allowed cameras in there. You will show me your sketches?”

“She does not speak Italian,” Griffin said. “American.”

The property owner looked at Sydney, and in clear, precise English, said, “You will show me what you have drawn when you finish?”

“Of course,” Sydney said, patting her travel bag. “I think you’ll be pleased.”

The man smiled, handed the key to Francesca, then said, “Do not forget to lock up the door tight before you leave. I must go, eat my breakfast.”

“Thank you, signore.” The three of them continued up the steps, while the property owner returned from the direction he came. After he was gone, Francesca said in a low voice, “How did you find me if you didn’t take my computer?”

“The map on your wall. Special Agent Fitzpatrick has a friend who was able to discern the location of this columbarium based on the notations you had concerning a skull and pyramid. Now, about the real reason why you’re here?”

“I explained that to you. Finishing up research for a grant.”

“Then you won’t mind if we come along.”

“Surely you have something better to do with your time?”

“Your safety is our main concern.”

She looked from him to Sydney, then shrugged. “Feel free. But you’re wasting your time. Now that I’ve given you the book, I’m sure whoever you thought was looking for me, will have given up.”

Griffin could only hope. “Lead the way, Professor. You have promised some drawings to the signore, and we’re eager to see what it is you’d be willing to risk your life for.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of history, Mr. Griffin.”

“As long as you don’t underestimate the power of a bullet ripping through your flesh.”

She led the way up the steps just as the sun started to break over the wall. By the time they followed her down a long path through the trees, the sounds of morning traffic began to drown out the chorus of birds, and exhaust fumes started to mix with the spiced scent of the pines. Eventually they reached an iron gate, and then just beyond it a heavy wooden door. Griffin kept watch behind as she unlocked and pushed open the door, the hinges protesting as she ushered them into a long dark passage.