The Cup

CHAPTER 30

Lamont and Ronnie had been sitting in the car for about ten minutes.

"Want to take a look around while we're waiting?" Lamont said.

Ronnie yawned. "Sounds like a plan. I need to stretch my legs."

They got out of the car.

"You see the pool when we came in?"

"Nope. It was on your side of the car," Ronnie said. "You want to go swimming?"

"Nah. I just want to check it out. It's down a flight of steps."

"Lead on," Ronnie said.

They walked around the corner of the villa to where the land fell steeply away from the building. A long flight of steps led down the side of a grassy slope to the pool. The pool was a narrow rectangle, long enough for an Olympic lap but only three lanes wide. The area around the pool was finished with gray granite tiles edged with flower beds. Beyond was a flat, grassy area bordering the side of a large hill covered with trees. There wasn't much else to see.

Lamont looked up at the steps they'd just come down.

"I make it ninety-eight," he said.

Ronnie shook his head. "Ninety-seven."

"I counted them."

"So did I. You counted wrong. There's ninety-seven."

"Ninety-eight. Ten bucks says ninety-eight."

"You're on."

"Now I'm gonna have to count them again just to prove I'm right. I'm looking forward to spending your money."

They started up toward the villa.

They were almost at the top when Ronnie dropped down and held up his hand. Lamont crouched down beside him. His voice was a whisper.

"What's up?"

"Trouble."

"What did you see?"

"Three men headed for the back of the house. Wearing dark clothes. Armed. They didn't look like the help to me."

"Shit. You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah. Come on."

They moved silently up the steps and drew their pistols. With the Sig there was no external safety to remember. There was no need to risk the sound of working the slides, both had rounds chambered. The guns were ready to use. The sun had dropped out of sight behind the mountains. It was nearly dark.

A door stood open on the ground floor. There was no one in sight.

They moved to the back of the villa and the open door. Ronnie risked a quick look then stepped through, his pistol held in both hands in front of him.

They were in a large kitchen. Potatoes were scattered across the floor. A large man in a white apron and chef's jacket lay sprawled on his back, his throat a ragged, bloody gash that stretched from ear to ear. His white uniform was beginning to turn red as it soaked up blood from a small lake forming around him. His mouth was open, his eyes open and staring at a ceiling he couldn't see. Water boiled unheeded on the stove. An overturned box lay on the floor with more potatoes scattered around it.

On the other side of the kitchen, a swinging door led into the rest of the house. It was closed. They stepped over the corpse of the chef and stopped in front of it.

Ronnie's pulse was pounding. His voice was quiet.

"Ready?"

Lamont nodded.

The door opened onto a hall that went from the back of the house to the front entrance. The front door was open, the rented Alfa visible outside under the portico. The woman in the blue dress lay sprawled face down on the floor, motionless. There was blood on the tiles around her.

"Shit," Ronnie said under his breath.

"More than three," Lamont whispered. "She answered the door while the others came in the back."

Ronnie pointed upstairs.

The stairs were made of marble. Their rubber soled shoes made no noise as they climbed. The stair ended at a T. As they neared the top, they heard voices coming from the right. One of them was Nick's. One spoke with a heavy Middle Eastern accent.

Ronnie gestured.

On three. Me on the right side, you on the left.

Lamont nodded. Ronnie held up his fingers.

One. Two. Three.

They cleared the top of the stairs, moving fast, and turned into the hall leading to Mercurio's study. Two men stood there talking. They were speaking Arabic and looking toward the study. Ronnie and Lamont fired at the same time. Two quick shots each, and the men went down.

Inside the study, Nick and Selena stood near the balcony doors with their hands in the air, Mercurio between them. Three terrorists stood in front of them, their backs to the hall. All three had the empty look of men who had traded away their souls long ago. Nick saw Ronnie and Lamont come off the stairs.

The shots echoed in the room.

Nick knocked Mercurio to the floor, drew his pistol and shot the man on his right. He swung toward the one in the middle as Selena moved and fired at the one on the left. She hit him as he pulled the trigger. His rifle was set on full auto. A stream of bullets burned by her, shattering the tall French doors leading onto the balcony and showering glass on the prone figure of Mercurio.

Four more shots came from the hall. The third terrorist arched over backward. As he went down his finger spasmed on the trigger, stitching holes in the 18th-century plaster ceiling. A large chandelier came crashing down on the rugs.

Lamont and Ronnie ran into the room. White dust drifted down from the shattered ceiling.

"What took you guys so long?" Nick said.

"We were thinking of going for a swim," Lamont said.

Mercurio got to his knees. Nick helped him up.

"Are you all right, Count? Sorry I had to do that."

Mercurio was shaken. "Yes, fine. I need to sit down."

Selena picked up the half-empty bottle of wine and poured a glass. Nick thought she was going to hand it to Mercurio but she downed it.

Mercurio sat on the couch. Selena poured another glass and gave it to him. The bottle was empty.

"We need another one of these," she said.

"Maria will bring it," Mercurio said.

"She can't," Ronnie said. "They killed her. They killed the cook, too."

Mercurio put his head in his hands.

"Well." Nick reloaded and put the pistol back in his holster. "This is a hell of a mess."

Lamont began going through the pockets of the dead men. He came up with a passport.

"This guy has a passport from Belgium. It says he lives in Brussels."

"Not anymore," Ronnie said.

Mercurio looked up. "I must call the police."

"No, don't do that," Nick said. "We'll handle it."

"But… "

Selena touched Mercurio on the shoulder.

"It's better this way, Count. Let him handle it."

Nick's satellite phone was programmed with encryption that was a cut above what the Pentagon used. No one was going to intercept whatever he said on that phone. He called Elizabeth Harker.

"Yes, Nick."

"We ran into a little trouble, Director. I need a cleanup squad."

In Virginia, Elizabeth sighed and put Nick's call on speaker so Stephanie could listen in.

"Someday I'm going to send you out on a mission and you're going to call and tell me everything went smooth as silk."

"Not today."

"Where are you?"

"In Mercurio's Villa, outside Milan."

"What happened?"

"Five Jihadis showed up, probably ISIS. They killed the cook and Mercurio's housekeeper. He's pretty shaken up."

"All dead?"

"Right about now they're finding out paradise isn't where they ended up."

"Are the police there?"

"No. Mercurio wanted to call them but I told him I'd handle it. We're way out in the country and everything happened inside the house. No one could have heard the noise."

"That's one piece of good news. I'll get a crew out to you. They'll be coming from Rome. You can expect them later in the day."

"I can think of worse places to kill a little time," Nick said.

Elizabeth tapped her fingers on her desk. Stephanie sat near by, listening to the conversation.

"One thing about your phone calls, Nick. You always have something interesting to say. Is Mercurio all right?"

"He's shaken up but he's tough. They killed people he cared about. That's upset him more than anything else."

"Did you learn anything about the Grail?"

"That's what Allah's little martyrs wanted to know. Yes, but we still don't have a clue where it is."

Nick told her about the document Mercurio had shown to them.

"It's a lock Theodosius gave the Grail to the priest to keep it safe. He took it to Turkey. But where it went after that, I don't know."

Stephanie said, "What if the two tiles are a code? Something to tell the right person where the Grail was taken?"

"Like a just man?" Nick said.

"Or woman." Steph scratched the end of her nose. "I’ll work on it and see what I come up with."

"Nick, stay with Mercurio for now," Elizabeth said. "These people never seem to give up and he needs protection."

"Copy that, Director."

Elizabeth ended the call.

"Never a dull moment with them," she said to Stephanie.

"I've been thinking about those tiles," Stephanie said. "Most people would look at them and just see a matching pair. Something to decorate the wall or whatever."

"What's your idea?"

"If we look at the tiles as though the images have a hidden meaning, some things stand out."

"Like?"

"Like the fact that the two religious figures are similar but different. One's a priest and one is a monk. But when did you ever see a monk carrying a staff like that? There are other similarities. The rays of light coming from the cup Anastasius has in his hand and the rays of light coming from above the monk. The fact that both figures seem to have light around them, like a halo."

"Go on."

"All that tells us we're dealing with a spiritual scene or message of some sort. Then both figures are pointing at something. That's not an accident. Anastasius points his index finger toward the ground. The other figure is holding the staff with his index finger pointing toward heaven."

"So?"

"I think it's a visual reference to the Latin phrase on the second tile: 'as below, so above.' That's the opposite of the way it's usually written. If it reads 'as above, so below' it's meant to make you think about your relationship to spirit and God. Why write it differently? I think it means that what happens down here affects what happens up there. That would fit with the prophecy in the book of Simon."

"Up there?"

Stephanie pointed at the ceiling. "Up in heaven."

"What else do you see?"

"The keys. Both figures have keys. They could be the keys to heaven, the keys to life, there are a lot of possibilities. You see the symbol of keys a lot in Christianity."

"Doesn't the Pope have keys?"

"His insignia features crossed keys of gold and silver, symbolizing the power to bind or loosen."

"I've never been very good at interpreting religious symbols," Elizabeth said. "There seem to be so many of them."

"The staff the monk carries must be another. It's very distinctive. I've never seen anything like that before. Sometimes you see a picture of a monk with a staff, but it's always something simple like a shepherd's crook or just a big stick. I believe the tiles are meant to send a message that Anastasius handed off the Grail to someone else."

"The question is, who did he give it to?"

"Oh, we know that," Stephanie said. "The monk with the staff."

"Okay, but we don't know who he is."

"Not yet," Stephanie said, "but we will."

Halfway around the world from Virginia, Haddad listened to Asif Nawabi's report on the failed mission to Italy.

"You sent experienced men?"

"Some of our best. They were veterans, good men. It would not have been easy to defeat them."

"You are watching the Americans?"

"They are still in Milan."

"They will continue to search for the relic of their false God. Next time, you personally will go after them. Assemble a team. Make sure they are reliable men."

"Easy enough to put together the men I need," Nawabi said, "but not so easy to follow the Americans when they leave Italy."

"Perhaps. It depends on where they go. If they go back to America, it means they have decided to give up the search. Anywhere else, we can find them."