The Key

63

Vatican City

Clementi had been pacing in his office, waiting for confirmation of his earlier order, when the phone rang in his pocket. He stubbed out his cigarette and answered it. ‘You have news?’

‘Yes.’ The voice was thickly accented and unfamiliar. ‘I have news from beyond the grave.’

Clementi said nothing, fearing a trap.

‘Don’t worry,’ the voice continued, ‘I am not angry that you ordered me killed. I understand better than most the need for these rules of absolute secrecy. I am only surprised you did not try it sooner. Unfortunately, the priest you sent did not manage to bring death to me, rather the other way round. By God’s grace I am now back where I belong, inside the Citadel.’

He sounded Slavic. The personnel records Clementi had read indicated that the last Sanctus was a Serbian monk. It could be him, but he needed to be sure. He moved over to his desk and opened the top drawer where he kept the files relating to the crisis in Ruin. ‘Tell me your name,’ he said.

‘I am Dragan Ruja. Born in the city of Banja Luka on the twenty-fourth of October 1964. I entered the Citadel in 1995 following the death of my family during the Bosnian War.’

It was him. No question. The facts checked out. ‘I am glad you have found your way home safely,’ Clementi said, a slight shudder running through him as he realized he was talking to someone actually inside the Citadel.

‘Thank you for your concern. However I have returned here only to discover there has been a theft. Tell me, do you know where Liv Adamsen is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I presume you have issued a similar silencing order regarding her.’

Clementi didn’t reply.

‘You must cancel it immediately. She is not to be killed. She is to be brought here to the Citadel as quickly as possible. She is to be brought here alive.’

‘I’m not sure that will be possible.’

‘This is not a request, this is an order. You are familiar with the Constantinian decree of 374, ceding the Church’s power to Rome?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you know that the Prelate of Ruin remains de facto head of the Church, even though the Pope is its public and temporal figurehead.’

Clementi swallowed drily. If he’d had any doubts as to the identity of the man he was speaking to they had now been entirely banished. Only the most senior clerics in the Vatican and the governing elect of the Citadel knew these secret edicts.

‘I will do all I can,’ Clementi said, ‘but the field agent is close to his target and I may not be able to contact him in time. There is a very real chance that the girl may already be dead.’

There was a pause on the line and Clementi could sense the anger in it. ‘I hope for your sake that she is not,’ the Sanctus replied. Then the line went dead.