Sign of the Cross

‘Maria, I know this will sound melodramatic, but what I’m about to tell you is so shocking, so cancerous, it has the potential to destroy Christianity.’

‘You’re right,’ she scoffed. ‘That sounds ridiculous. How in the world is that possible?’

Boyd breathed deeply, trying to think of appropriate words of warning. ‘If knowledge is the enemy of faith, then the Orvieto scroll is poison.’

22

Arch of Marcus Aurelius,

Tripoli, Libya

Nick Dial knew there was going to be another crucifixion. His theory was confirmed with an early morning phone call. Another victim had been found. This time in Africa.

When Dial arrived in Tripoli, he didn’t know what kind of reception he was going to get. Libya was a member country with an active NCB office, yet one thing kept gnawing at him. He was an American walking into Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi’s backyard. And he was unarmed.

Not exactly a dream getaway.

Of course, this wasn’t a vacation. It was a business trip. He was greeted at the airport by a polite NCB agent named Ahmad, who showed no anti-American bias.

During their drive to the crime scene, Dial steered the conversation away from the case, choosing to talk about the city instead. The most interesting fact he learned was about the streets, which were laid out in a narrow, crisscross pattern and filled with dozens of blind alleyways that were built to confuse would-be attackers. A trick that was taught to them by the Romans.

Most remnants of ancient Rome were destroyed long ago, but not the Arco di Marco Aurelio a Tripoli. Chiseled out of white marble in 163 ad, the four-way arch soared to fifteen feet in height and was surmounted by an octagonal dome used to conceal the arch’s crown. Time had eroded the outer stones, slowly chipping away at the corners, yet somehow the deterioration only added to its presence. So did the palm trees that surrounded it like centurions on guard duty. They made the monument seem like a mirage, rising out of the marketplace like an oasis. A bloody oasis.

The victim was found just before dawn. An Asian male, early thirties. Very athletic. Very naked. He was strung beneath the monument like a sacrifice to the gods, stretched out on two wooden beams and held in place with three wrought-iron spikes. Two through his wrists and one through his feet. Blood had been smeared across the monument — which arched over his body like a red rainbow — and dripped onto the ground where it collected in puddles of crimson mud.

Ahmad drove his car into the marketplace, honking in hopes of clearing the road ahead. But people continued to haggle for vegetables and handbags and fish, ignoring his horn blasts like he wasn’t there. Dial sat fascinated, soaking in the local color from the passenger seat, listening to the Arabic chatter as they bickered back and forth for a better price.

‘We will get not further,’ Ahmad declared, pointing straight ahead. ‘Crowd too many.’

Dial nodded, slowly realizing that the people in front of them weren’t bartering for baked goods or a straw basket. They were there as spectators, hoping to see something at the far end of the plaza. Dial looked closer and noticed a slew of satellite trucks on the other side of the monument. Big trucks. The type that could beam TV broadcasts to the four corners of the world.

Dial tried to open his car door but couldn’t, due to all the people that engulfed them. A moving, swaying wave that surrounded his car like the ocean surrounds a boat. Undeterred, he stood on his seat and thrust himself through the sunroof, squeezing his body through the opening. Ahmad followed, and before long the two of them were forcing their way through the crowd, literally throwing people out of the way so they could get to the monument. An arch that had been there for nearly two thousand years. An ancient relic that was now a crime scene.

With a single glance, Dial could tell that the Libyan police were better prepared than their Danish counterparts. Armed soldiers carrying Russian assault rifles stood on the sandstone walls that separated the Roman plaza from the curious throng, each soldier ready to pull his trigger at the first sign of trouble. Ahmad got the attention of one of the guards, who let Dial climb over the four-foot barrier where his ID was scrutinized and he was patted down for weapons.

Yet none of this surprised Dial. He was an American in a hostile land. An outsider with a badge. No reason for them to welcome him. He was surprised, though, when he realized that Ahmad wasn’t allowed inside. That meant Dial would have to face the cops without a translator.

‘You will be good,’ Ahmad assured him.

Dial nodded but didn’t say a thing, quickly turning his focus to the interior of the garden. It was thirty feet by seventy-five feet and filled with a variety of flowers that added color to an otherwise bleak landscape. But in Dial’s mind, that was the reason that the arch was so striking. Its pure white surface looked like it had come from another world. Like an iceberg sitting in the middle of hell.

‘Pardon me, Mr Dial?’

Dial turned and saw an elderly man resting against one of the walls, just leaning there in the hot sun like a lizard on a rock. He wore an olive suit and vest, even though the temperature was in the mid-nineties. Oddly, he seemed to be recharging in the sunlight, for his eyes were closed, and his head was tilted back at a forty-five-degree angle. ‘I understand there was a similar scene in Denmark.’

Intrigued, Dial took a few steps forward. ‘That’s correct. And you are?’

‘Pardon my manners.’ The man opened his eyes and shook Dial’s hand. ‘My name is Omar Tamher, and I am in charge of this investigation. Normally I would’ve been reluctant to contact Interpol for a single murder, but due to the circumstances I felt it would be wise for both of us.’

‘Thank you for thinking of me.’

Tamher nodded, sizing up Dial before he revealed any details. Dial returned the favor by doing the same with Tamher. Both men were impressed by what they saw.

‘At five thirty this morning, a vendor noticed the stains and stopped for a closer look. He was expecting to find paint. He found blood instead.’ Tamher took out his pen and pointed to the bottom left-hand corner of the monument. ‘The killers started their painting here and finished over there. You can actually see the brush marks on the marble.’

Dial leaned in for a closer look. ‘What kind of brush?’

Tamher shrugged. ‘It had a wide tip. Wider than the one they used on the sign.’

‘Let’s talk about the sign later. If I get sidetracked, I tend to get confused.’

Tamher smiled. ‘As you wish.’

‘Were the stains made with the victim’s blood? Or someone else’s?’

‘No, that’s his blood. He had a deep gash in his side, caused by the tip of a sword or a very thin spear. I could be wrong, but I think they used the wound as their paint source, dipping their brush inside his rib cage on more than one occasion.’

Dial didn’t blink. ‘Why do you think that?’

Tamher crouched, pointing at the dirt. ‘We found a thin trail of blood that started under the victim’s chest. The path fanned out in several different directions. I’m assuming they kept going back for more, dripping blood as they walked.’

Dial nodded, pleased with Tamher’s conclusion. ‘Time of death?’

‘Approximately five a.m., give or take thirty minutes.’

‘Really? That’s kind of ballsy, don’t you think? Leaving someone to die right before sunrise. Why take a chance like that? Why not slit his throat?’

‘I have no idea. Then again, I am not a killer.’

‘And why paint the monument? How tall is it, anyway? Fourteen, fifteen feet? That means the killer climbed on someone’s shoulders to finish the job. Either that, or this guy’s a giant.’

‘No ladder marks or signs of giants.’

‘What about handprints? Maybe the killer leaned against the arch for balance.’

‘No such luck. The monument was clean. The cross was clean. Everything came back clean.’

Dial nodded, expecting as much. The killers had been efficient in Denmark, too. ‘Where’s the cross now? I can’t help but notice that it’s missing.’

‘Very observant of you, Mr Dial. We wanted to protect it so we moved the entire cross, body and all, to the coroner’s office. Forensic specialists are examining it now.’

‘What about pictures? Please tell me you took pictures.’

He nodded. ‘We documented the entire scene. If you’d like, we can go to my office and look at them. They should be developed by now.’

‘In a minute,’ Dial said. ‘First tell me about the sign.’

Tamher smiled. ‘Are you certain you’re ready? I don’t want to confuse you.’

Dial laughed, glad to see the old guy had a personality. ‘I’ll try to keep up.’

‘It was written in red paint in very neat Arabic script. Four simple words. Very distinct. If you’d like, I’d be happy to translate it for you.’

Dial shook his head. ‘Let me take a wild guess. Did it say, AND OF THE SON?’

Tamher nodded, half impressed. ‘How did you know?’

‘Because I dealt with his father up in Denmark.’

‘His father?’

‘Never mind… So, what can you tell me about the victim? Do we have a name yet? I can run his prints through our database if you think it would help.’

‘No, that won’t be necessary. We’re all very aware of his identity.’

‘Good. That’ll save me some legwork.’

Tamher paused, trying to decide if Dial was joking. He quickly decided that he wasn’t. ‘You have no idea who he was, do you? I can’t believe no one told you. I just assumed that — ’

‘Assumed what? What are you talking about? No one told me anything about the victim.’

‘Not even your assistant?’

‘You mean Ahmad? He wanted to discuss the case on the drive in, but I wouldn’t let him. I like forming my own opinions based on what I see, not what someone else has seen.’

‘And the crowd? What about the crowd?’ He made a wide sweeping motion, indicating the thousands of people that surrounded them. ‘You have no idea why they’re here?’

Dial shrugged. ‘I just figured they were rubbernecking. Same with the media. I deal with crowds all the time. They aren’t always this large, but they’re crowds nonetheless.’

‘Rubbernecking? What is this rubbernecking?’

‘Sorry. It’s an American term. It means to stare at the scene of an accident.’

‘Interesting. We have a similar phenomenon in Libya. We call it khibbesh.’

‘Khibbesh? What in the world does that mean?’

‘Rubbernecking.’

Dial smiled. He rarely came across a foreign cop that shared his sense of humor. ‘So, tell me, what’s the deal? I’m dying to know why everyone’s here. I mean, if they aren’t khibbeshing.’

‘Some people are, while others are paying their respects.’

‘Their respects? To who, the dead guy?’

Tamher nodded but remained silent.

‘Come on! Why would they pay their respects? Who the hell died? The king of England?’

He shook his head, suddenly serious. ‘Close. Raj Narayan was the prince of Nepal.’

23

Payne gazed over the edge of the 900-foot precipice, trying to find the site that Barnes had described. No helicopter, no truck, no physical evidence of any kind. Only the fertile farmland of the southern Orvieto valley. ‘Where’s the damage? There should be some serious damage down there. Scattered debris, scorched earth, loss of vegetation, the works.’

They spotted a path about one hundred feet to the left, which took them to the valley floor in a steep, zigzagging pattern. At the bottom they noticed several sets of tire tracks in the grass that were too shallow to be spotted from the high cliffs above.

Jones sank to his knees and studied the wheel prints, an art he’d learned in the military police. ‘I’d say there were three trucks heading east at a slow rate of speed, probably within the last twelve hours. Large, industrial trucks. Fully loaded. Possibly salvage equipment. Not your typical four by four pickup. The treads are too large.’

‘So we’re in the right area.’

Jones nodded. ‘It would seem so, yeah.’

They proceeded east, following the tracks like bloodhounds. They ran parallel to the plateau, bisecting the open space between the olive groves to the right and the rock face to the left and swerved for nothing. The trucks had plowed through a vegetable garden, a small wooden fence, and a patch of white oleander before stopping near a massive pile of rocks. Payne stared at them and realized the front edge of the stones surpassed knee level. There was no way a loaded truck could’ve cleared this obstacle without gutting its underbelly. There had to be a different solution, something they were overlooking. ‘Could these have been dump trucks?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What if these trucks arrived with stones? Couldn’t they have dumped their payload right here? That would account for the abrupt end to the trail. The rocks would’ve covered it up.’

Jones considered this as he walked several meters to the far side of the pile. ‘You might be right. There are dozens of tracks here, fanning out in a wide variety of angles. And unless I’m mistaken, the depth of the tread keeps changing. That means they lessened their weight significantly in a short period of time.’

‘So the trucks came speeding along in the middle of the night and dropped several tons of rocks right here in the middle of nowhere… Is that what we’re saying?’

Jones shook his head. ‘This was more than just dumping rocks. This was about picking up, too. Not only did someone beat us to the crash site, they decided to take it with them.’

Tourists were usually the only people to visit Il Pozzo di San Patrizio (aka Saint Patrick’s Well), the artesian well built in 1527. But due to a rumor that swept through Orvieto, locals were drawn to the beige brick building like freshmen to a keg party.

Payne and Jones spotted them on the other side of the Piazza Cahen, a large square in the center of town, and assumed it was the line to see the well. They passed the bus station and approached the back of the throng. Hundreds of people, young and old, clogged the courtyard ahead of them, surrounding the circular building with a silent intensity quite similar to the tone of the earlier funeral. For a better view, Jones climbed on a nearby wall and searched for Donald Barnes. He wanted to see his photos of the Orvieto crash site, hoping they would reveal something important, possibly the reason that the wreckage was hauled out by trucks in the dead of night. ‘I don’t think they’re even letting people inside the well. The door looks barricaded.’

‘Maybe tourists go in as a group? Hopefully, Barnes is inside and will come out shortly.’

The comment attracted the attention of a dark-haired man standing nearby. ‘I mean not to bother you,’ he mumbled in broken English. ‘But visits are no more today due to death. No one is inside Il Pozzo but the polizia.’

‘Really? They stopped the tours because of Monday’s accident?’

‘No, you no understand. Not Monday, today. Another person is dead today.’

Jones leapt off the wall. ‘What do you mean?’

The man frowned, as if he had trouble understanding the question. ‘Ah, like you friend say: two persons on Monday and one person today. We no have violence in Orvieto for long time, now three dead real quick.’ He snapped his fingers for effect. ‘It’s a funny world, no?’

Funny wasn’t the f word that came to mind. They had come to Orvieto looking for a nonviolent criminal, at least according to Manzak’s intel. Now there were three casualties in the small town where Boyd was last seen.

Payne said, ‘I thought the pilot was the only person who died on Monday?’

‘No, no, no, no,’ the man stressed, waving his index finger for emphasis. ‘The pilot is from Orvieto. Very good man. Worked with polizia for many years. I know him long time. The other man, he no from here. He visit polizia, they go for ride, they no come back.’

A theory entered Payne’s mind. ‘Out of curiosity, was the stranger bald?’

‘Bald? What is this bald?’

Payne pointed to his head. ‘Hair? Did the guy have hair?’

‘Si! He have hair, just like you. Short, brown hair.’

Payne glanced at Jones. ‘Who do you think it was?’

‘Could’ve been anyone. We don’t even know if Boyd is involved in this. We could be jumping the gun.’

‘Speaking of guns,’ Payne said. ‘What can you tell us about today’s murder?’

The man frowned, then paused to kiss a silver crucifix that dangled around his neck. ‘Shhh,’ he pleaded. ‘Silenzio is very important tradition in Italy from long time ago. We show respect for the dead with no words. Let the dead sleep in peace, no?’

But Jones wasn’t buying it. ‘You’re not allowed to talk, yet everyone in town is already here. How in the world did that happen? ESP?’

The man eyed the hundreds of people around him, then grinned. ‘Sometimes my people not very good at tradition. Word of this crime spread quick.’

Payne smiled. ‘What do you know about today’s victim?’

The man lowered his voice. ‘I hear he found at bottom of well on donkey bridge. He was, how do you say?’ He slammed his two hands together in a violent clap. ‘Splat!’

‘Was it an accident?’

‘No, I never say that.’ He slid his thumb across his neck in a slow, slashing motion. ‘It be tough for him to slip without help. The windows of the well are very small, and American was very fat. He would need much help — ’

‘American?’ Payne blurted. ‘The victim was an American?’

‘Yes, that is what I heard. A big, fat cowboy.’

Payne looked at Jones, irritated, realizing that Donald Barnes fit the description.

The Italian picked up on their tension. ‘What is wrong? I have insulted you?’

‘No, not at all. It’s just, we think you’re describing a friend of ours. We were supposed to meet him here, but we haven’t been able to find him.’

The man turned pale, stunned at the revelation. ‘Mamma mia! I so sorry for my manners.’ He grabbed them by their arms and pulled them into the crowd. ‘Please! I lead you to your friend. I talk to police and let you pay your respects! Come with me! I get you inside the well!’

24

When the Vatican hired Benito Pelati, they knew they were getting one of the top academic minds in Italy. A man of passion. Someone who had dedicated his life to the art of antiquities and had risen to the top of his field. Remarkably, what they didn’t know was what fueled his desire. For if they had, they would’ve done everything in their power to have Benito terminated.

Not just fired but killed. Before he could do any damage.

And the reason was simple: Benito’s secret. One passed down from father to son for centuries. Started in Vindobona, Illyria, many generations before, spoken by a guilt-stricken man on his deathbed. Miraculously the secret had survived wars and plagues and tragedies of all kinds. Two thousand years of whispering, concealing, and protecting. And only one family — Benito’s family — knew the truth about what had happened so long ago.

Still, in all that time, no one had the guts to do anything about it.

No one until Benito’s father told him the secret so many years ago.

From that moment on he did everything in his power to take advantage of the information. He studied longer, worked harder, and kissed every ass he needed to kiss in order get into the inner circle of the Church. And he did it with one goal in mind: to prove that the secret was real. In his heart he knew it was. Yet he realized he needed tangible evidence from the Vatican to back up his family’s claim. Otherwise, his ancestors had wasted their breath for the past two millennia because no one in their right mind was going to believe it. And there was no way he was going to let that happen. He’d find evidence in the Archives or die trying.

Benito worked at the Vatican for more than a decade when he came across the first shred of proof. Twelve years of cleaning statues and logging paintings when he found a small stone chest filled with several untranslated scrolls. No one knew where they had come from or what they said due to their archaic language. Yet Benito sensed something special about them, a kind of cosmic connection that made him shove everything else aside and focus exclusively on the scrolls and the carvings on the stone box. There was just something about the main figure that gave him chills. The way the face looked at him. Laughed at him. Like he had a secret he wanted to reveal but was waiting for the right moment. Benito identified with him at once.

He couldn’t explain why, but somehow he knew this was the discovery he was looking for.

Word by word, line by line, Benito translated the scrolls. Each one giving him another clue to a giant puzzle that spanned two thousand years and affected billions of people. A puzzle that started in Rome, spread to the Britains and Judea, then ended up buried in the mythical Catacombs of Orvieto and forgotten by time. A plan hatched by a desperate emperor and carried out by his distant relative. A laughing man immortalized in stone for a secret he possessed.

Finally, Benito had the evidence he was looking for. The proof his family needed.

Now all he had to do was figure out what to do with it. How to take advantage of it.

That proved harder than he thought.

Benito left his office with his bodyguards in tow. One of them carried an umbrella, shading Benito’s face from the hot sun as he made his way down Via del Corso. Streams of tourists strolled by at a casual pace, most of them heading toward the Pantheon, the Palazzo Venezia, and the rest of the sites in the center city. The sound of music could be heard above the growl of nearby traffic. The faint scent of garlic wafted from the corner pizzeria.

An hour earlier the Supreme Council had summoned him to give an update on Father Jansen’s death. They wanted to know what he had learned since they asked him to look into things on Monday and what the murder meant to the Vatican. But Benito declined their invitation. He told them he wasn’t ready. He needed more time to investigate.

This infuriated Cardinal Vercelli, the head of the Council, who was used to kowtowing and ass-kissing from everyone but the pope. Benito stood his ground, though, and told Vercelli that his day was filled with urgent meetings related to the investigation. Benito said he could meet with them on Thursday, if they were interested, but no sooner. This angered Vercelli to no end. Yet he had no leverage when it came to an institution like Benito Pelati, so he eventually relented.

Their meeting was set for Thursday. He would fill them in at that time. When he was ready.

Victorious, and with nothing better to do, Benito decided to go for a walk.

25

Dr Boyd knew that Maria would have her doubts about the document, so he started from the beginning. ‘When I came to Italy, I was on a specific quest. I was looking for an artifact inside the Catacombs of Orvieto. A scroll that was more important than the vaults themselves.’

Maria pointed to the document. ‘You mean our scroll? You came here looking for this and didn’t bother to tell me? Santa Maria! I don’t believe this! What’s so special about it?’

‘Instead of telling you, let me show you.’ He removed a single sheet of paper from his fanny pack. ‘This is a photocopy of the Bath document. Notice how the script matches the handwriting on the Orvieto scroll.’ He pointed to the similarities in flow and spacing. ‘The first scroll was written by Tiberievm, better known as Tiberius Caesar. Penned by his own hand in 32 AD.’

Maria’s eyes widened. She’d been reading about the second emperor of Rome only a few hours before. ‘Tiberius? Are you positive?’

‘As sure as a historian can be. Not only was the document signed and dated, but I ran the papyrus and ink through a number of tests. The results came back remarkably clear: the Bath document is approximately two thousand years old.’

‘But couldn’t it have been written by someone else, a scribe or an assistant of some kind? How do you know it was Tiberius?’

‘Good question,’ he admitted. ‘But I do have an answer. Take a look at the canister we found in Orvieto. Remember the engraving I showed you? I chose not to tell you at the time, but that’s a very specific symbol assigned to Tiberius by order of the Roman senate.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘In his later years, Tiberius became something of a recluse, opting to live on the Isle of Capri, which was a terrible inconvenience for the senate. All decisions had to be delivered over land and sea, and that was a risky proposition. Therefore, the senate devised a way to seal their documents in metal, then added an extra safeguard by assigning a specific symbol to Tiberius. When it appeared on a chambered document, such as the one we found, it meant the information was written by Tiberius’s own hand and too critical to be read by a messenger.’

Maria considered the information and accepted it. Two scrolls written by Tiberius, found over a thousand miles apart. Unfortunately, that still didn’t explain Boyd’s outburst and failed to clarify the connection to Christ. ‘Professore, not to be rude, but what did the document say?’

‘The Bath scroll was addressed to Paccius, the top general in Tiberius’s army. You see, the general and his troops had been sent to the Britains to survey the land explored by Julius Caesar several decades before. It was a critical mission, one that would spark further expansion of the Empire. Alas, while Paccius was there, something happened back in Rome, for Tiberius sent a fleet of his fastest ships to locate him and request his immediate return.’

‘What had happened?’

‘The document didn’t say, simply hinting at “a swelling among the slave ranks of Galilee that needs to be profited from.”’ Boyd paused, letting that information sink in. ‘But if you think about it, history gives us a pretty solid clue as to what was taking place. What significant event occurred in that territory less than a year later?’

The color faded in Maria’s tanned face. ‘The crucifixion of Christ.’

‘Exactly! Now maybe you’re beginning to understand the importance of this.’

She nodded, trying to retain her focus. ‘What else did it say?’

‘Tiberius said if he died before Paccius’s return, then Paccius should complete the plot by using the records that would be stored in the newly built haven at Orvieto. He said the plans would be “locked in bronze and sealed with the Emperor’s kiss.” Obviously a reference to the engraved canister that we found.’

‘But since the scroll was still sealed, we can assume that Paccius returned before Tiberius’s death, right? They had a chance to talk in person?’

Boyd shrugged. ‘That’s an assumption at best. You must remember that both canisters were found sealed. Not only the one in Orvieto but the one in Bath as well.’

‘So what are you saying? Paccius never got the message?’

‘That’s one possibility. Another is a duplicate set of messages. I figure, why dispatch a single canister when you’re sending an entire fleet to locate someone? What if the message ship sank? The scroll would’ve been lost forever. So for safety’s sake, why not send two scrolls or more?’

Maria nodded her acceptance. It seemed like a reasonable theory. ‘What does history say about Paccius? What happened to him?’

‘For some reason, his death was never chronicled. One minute he was the second most powerful cog in the Roman Empire, the next minute he was gone. Vanished, without a trace. Of course, his disappearance could mean many things. He might’ve died in the Britains or drowned at sea on his journey home. Or he might’ve sailed directly to Judea in order to carry out the emperor’s wishes.’ Boyd shook his head in confusion. ‘Whichever it is, I do know this: Tiberius was a tactical genius, known for his brilliant mind and precise planning. And according to this scroll, he figured out a way to use Christ as a pawn in the most ruthless plot of all time.’

‘How in the world did he do that?’

Boyd took a deep breath, struggling to find the appropriate words. How do you challenge someone’s belief system without upsetting her?

‘Maria,’ he stuttered, ‘why do you believe Christ is the Son of God?’

‘Why? It’s what I was taught as a child. It’s what I was raised to believe.’

‘But you’re no longer a child. You reached the age of independent thought long ago. At some point you started challenging your parents. Whether it was Santa Claus or politics, you eventually questioned what you were taught.’

‘Yes, but — ’

‘But what? You should draw the line at religion? If anything, religion should be the first concept that you challenge because it’s the most personal thing that a person can have. Religion is what you believe, not what you’re told. It’s what you feel, not what others expect.’

‘But I believe in Christ! I’ve studied the Bible, gone to Mass, and spoken to several priests. And guess what? I believe in God and Jesus Christ. It just feels right to me.’

His tone softened. ‘If I challenged your faith, would it bend under the weight of my words?’

‘Not a chance. I believe what I believe. Your comments aren’t going to change that.’

‘And what about evidence? Would your faith crumble in the face of new evidence?’

She pondered the word evidence. ‘Does this have something to do with the scroll? You have new evidence about my religion?’

‘Our religion. I’m a Christian as well.’

‘So this isn’t about the Church? This is about Christ?’

Boyd nodded, unwilling to look her in the eye. ‘And the news isn’t good.’

Maria didn’t know what he meant, yet the claws of doubt started ripping at her faith. If the scroll’s message was as devastating as Boyd insinuated, there was a chance that her entire belief system was about to be shattered. ‘What does it say? I need to know what it says.’

Boyd took a deep breath. ‘You realize, once I tell you, there’s no turning back.’

‘We reached that point long ago. Please, tell me what the scroll says.’

‘I will, but first you must realize their writing style was different than ours. Run-on sentences were common. They just rambled on incessantly, rarely stopping for changes in subject.’

Maria knew all about it because Boyd was doing it at the moment. ‘Just read it, sir. Please.’

‘OK, OK. This is what Emperor Tiberius wrote.’

Tiberius Caesar Augustus to my heirs and successors.

The matters of wealth, whether trivial or colossal, rest on our shoulders, the task of all rulers, past and present, for all eternity. By doing my duty, I have filled the coffers of this great land, seizing a share from all citizens that is rightfully Rome’s, recording their riches while eliminating the Empire’s burden, alas their gifts are not sufficient, for Mercury thirsts for more. Upon conquering the Britains, the vastness of our domain will be detrimental, the management of snow and sun, lands more varied than Cupid and Mars, will further divide the lives of our people, the rich shall welcome the gifts from abroad as the poor suffer from the onus of our foreseeable debt. To avoid the impending poverty of our citizens, I have concluded that drastic measures must be taken, the scarcity of -

‘Hold up! What does any of that have to do with Jesus?’

Boyd sighed at her impatience. ‘Nothing directly, but indirectly it has everything to do with him. The scarcity of wealth in the Empire forces Tiberius to hatch this drastic scheme. According to the text, it is the central reason for his plot against Christ.’

Maria half nodded, still unsure of the scroll’s opening section. ‘That part about seizing a share from all citizens — was he talking about taxes?’

‘He was indeed. Tiberius was known as a top-notch fiscal administrator. Most historians feel that economic policy was the strength of his reign, at least until his mental demise. At the end of his emperorship, he was something of a loon.’

‘And when he wrote about the Empire’s burden, he was talking about balancing the budget?’

‘Exactly.’

Maria impressed herself. She understood more than she’d originally thought. ‘What was that thing about the Britains? You read something about winter and summer, and I got lost.’

‘Not winter and summer,’ he corrected. ‘Tiberius mentioned snow and sun. He said, “the management of snow and sun… will further divide the lives of our people.” Meaning once they conquered the Britains, the Empire would be too large for its own good. Rome would stretch from the land of snow, Britain, to the land of sun, Egypt. And in Tiberius’s opinion, that was too much for their economy to handle.’

‘But if Tiberius knew Britain was going to hurt the Empire in the long run, why go after it?’

‘He claims it was for Mercury, the Roman God of Commerce. Tiberius said that Mercury thirsted for more. I guess that’s his way of saying he didn’t have a choice in the matter. He felt the gods would grow unhappy if Rome became content with what they had.’

‘Even if acquiring more was a bad thing?’

Boyd nodded. ‘But the greed doesn’t stop there. You haven’t heard anything yet.’

To avoid the impending poverty of our citizens, I have concluded that drastic measures must be taken, the scarcity of public wealth must be avoided at all cost, as a failure to maintain the excellence of the Empire would be attributed to a delinquency of leadership, a claim that would insult the accomplishments of Augustus before.

Word has arrived from the east that the latest Messiah has surfaced, a man, unlike the dozens that have come before him, he who reeks of piety and selflessness, a charmer blessed with throngs of disciples, power of persuasion, the gift of miracles. Tales of healing and resurrection emerge from the desert with the regularity of scorpions, but twice as deadly, for insects are easily squashed. Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, speaks of pride swelling among the slaves, rebellions against Roman authority, gathering of masses near Capernaum. Some feel that this threat should be extinguished, eliminated through force of will and power of sword, disposed of in its infancy like the sons of Bethlehem. But I am not one to concur, why kill a cow that has been presented by the gods? Milk it, and its sweet nectar can nourish for a lifetime.

Boyd paused, allowing Maria to absorb the message of the scroll’s middle section.

She said, ‘There’s no doubt that this is about Jesus. The reference to healings and resurrections, the gathering of masses in Capernaum. That’s where his ministry was located, right next to the Sea of Galilee.’

He nodded. ‘The Old Testament referred to it as the Sea of Chinnereth, but you are right. Jesus used Capernaum as a gathering place for his flock.’

‘I can’t believe this. We’re holding a document that refers to Christ in the present tense. This is so wrong! I mean, it compares him to a cow that should be milked!’

‘But to Tiberius, Jesus wasn’t God. He was a dangerous con man. Like he mentioned, dozens of men had already come forth and claimed to be the Messiah, and most of them had throngs of followers as well. So to Tiberius, Jesus was just another in a long list of frauds.’

‘I guess so, but… I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel about this.’

‘Don’t feel, my dear. That’s not your job. Your duty is to examine. Try to distance yourself from the message, especially from the part I’m about to read. If you don’t, you’ll be completely consumed by its message, because it’s worse than you can possibly imagine.’

If the hungry are promised bread, they’ll fight until their bellies are full; this much is assured by history, written by the action of men and the nature of their spirit, but a question plagues my slumber: does it matter where the feast comes from? Would a starving man turn down a meal if it is offered by his enemy? Perhaps, for fear of poison, but what if the food is presented in a manner that he’d welcome? Would the bread not be accepted with outstretched hands? I proclaim it would. Yea, the people of Judea are famished, clinging to hope and the promise of salvation, completely ignorant of Roman gods and the rightful way to live, they look for the promised one to emerge from their flock, the one who is truly their Messiah. This cannot be prevented; no war, no punishment shall remove the coming of the one from their scripture; they search for him, they pray for him, they wait for him and shall anticipate him until his arrival has been trumpeted by the masses. Why not give him to them? Let us feed their hunger with our choice of food, allowing them to feast on the coming of their savior, they can drink in their Christ and revel in his teachings, words that shall threaten us not, for we know he is merely a pawn that we have lifted to the level of Jupiter.

For such a ruse to succeed, there must be no doubt among the Jews; they must witness an act of God with their own eyes, a feat so magical, so mystifying, that future generations will sing of its splendor for eternity, ending their search for the coming Messiah once and for all, for they will think he has already come. Belief in his presence must be widespread, not birthed on the fringes of their sun-drenched land, passed from traveler to traveler in rumor alone, it shall begin in their greatest populace, spread from the heart of Jerusalem like an unstoppable plague, devouring everyone in Judea like a hungry beast. Once this occurs, once no doubt of the Christ remains, Rome shall be in a position to profit, using the Jews’ unyielding faith against them and their riches to our advantage. We will mock their beliefs in public while collecting their donations in private; we will order them to worship Roman gods, knowing they will cling to their Messiah like children to a teat, but this is what we want, for the more they worship a fake God, the weaker they shall become, and from this weakness, we shall profit, yea, we shall control their bodies and their spirits as well. For the good of all things Roman, we shall begin at once, using the Nazarene as our tool, the one I have chosen as the Jewish Messiah.

Farewell, 29th August

Boyd pushed his notebook aside after reading the passage, and braced for her response. In truth, he half expected a dozen questions about the text or a volatile shouting match where she challenged everything that he had said. But what he got was the exact opposite. Maria remained quiet, distant, the color in her cheeks completely vacant, her bloodshot eyes filled with moisture.

There was no need to clarify anything. Maria grasped the scroll’s significance on her own.

Amazingly, if the message on the scroll was accurate, then the miracle of Jesus Christ and the foundation of Christianity were based on the biggest scam of all time.

26

The office was bare except for some furniture and a few filing cabinets. No personal touches of any kind. It was the type of room that would make Nick Dial quit his job if he had to call it his own. Yet it was exactly what he expected in a Tripoli police station.

Omar Tamher walked in with photos of the autopsy and spread them across the desk. Sheepishly, Dial took out his bifocals and hooked them over his ears, somehow embarrassed that he couldn’t see well enough on his own.

‘Nick, what do you think? Any similarities to Denmark?’

Dial nodded, even though this was his first time with the pictures. ‘Jansen had the same body type as Narayan. Roughly the same height and age. Both men were in good physical condition, which tells me they weren’t chosen at random. They were picked for a reason.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘If you were looking for an easy target, would you choose these guys? No, you’d go after someone who was older or injured. Someone you could overpower. Maybe even a female. But a young guy in good shape? Not likely. Too many things could go wrong.’

‘Anything else?’

‘These wounds are consistent with Jansen’s. Spikes were driven through the wrists and feet while he was unconscious. Too much screaming otherwise.’ He pointed to one of the autopsy photos, a close-up of Narayan’s left wrist. ‘See how the wound spreads away from the spike? The same thing happened in Denmark. The body weight is too heavy for the rods to handle. Something had to give, and it wasn’t going to be the spikes. In time the surrounding tissue starts to tear, same with the veins, tendons, etc. A very messy way to die.’

Tamher nodded. ‘The coroner said the chest wound was the fatal blow.’

Dial sorted through the pile until he found a close-up of Narayan’s rib cage. ‘Looks identical to Jansen’s. Probably done with a spear. At least that’s what the Bible tells us.’

‘And the vandalism? Any theories?’

He shrugged. ‘They didn’t paint anything in Denmark, even though there were plenty of walls nearby. That suggests that the arch was an impulse act, not a premeditated one.’

Tamher frowned. ‘They used a brush, Nick. That seems planned to me.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. The brush could’ve been in the back of their van or in the toolbox where they kept their spikes. I mean, you didn’t find any ladder marks, did you? That means they weren’t completely prepared for the painting.’

‘True, but…’

‘Listen, I’m not ruling out the possibility. It might be an important clue or nothing more than a killer marking his territory. I can’t tell you how many bodies I’ve found that were soaked in somebody else’s piss.’

‘Really?’

Dial was surprised that Tamher had never seen that in Libya. Then again, maybe it was a European thing. ‘We’ll know more once we find the next vic. Patterns will start to emerge.’

‘The next one?’

‘You don’t think they’re done, do you? Not with the Holy Ghost waiting in the wings.’

‘The Holy Ghost?’

‘You know, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? There’s bound to be a victim for him. And after that, who knows? They might start on the Hail Mary.’

Tamher frowned as he took a seat behind the desk. Dial could tell that something was bothering him so he put the crime photos down, waiting for Tamher to fill the silence. It was a tactic that worked on cops and criminals alike.

‘Why did they come here? We’re a Muslim nation not a Christian one. Where do we fit?’

‘Beats me,’ Dial admitted. ‘Then again, maybe the killers were looking for some R amp; R after they dumped the body. I’ve traveled all over the world to every continent on the globe, but I’ve never seen a country like this. Libya is simply gorgeous.’

Tamher beamed with pride, which was what Dial was hoping for. He knew how crucial it was to stay on Tamher’s good side. Without him, his access to the crime scene would disappear.

‘Unfortunately, it’s way too early to label these as Christian murders. I wish that wasn’t the case, but what choice do we have? The fact is that Narayan wasn’t a Christian — he was a Hindu — so this might not be about religion.’

‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘Not really. Then again I don’t know what to believe.’

In Dial’s mind the only common thread between the murders was the way that they killed. These men were kidnapped, shipped to a specific location, and then crucified like Jesus Christ. But why? What were the killers trying to say? What did these guys have in common?

Not much, according to Interpol.

Jansen was a devout Catholic who grew up in Finland as the middle child in a middle-class family. He lived a clean life — no drugs, no sexcapades, no legal problems — and knew at a very early age that he wanted to join the priesthood. Dial was still waiting for additional information from Cardinal Rose, but according to preliminary reports, everyone thought very highly of him.

The same could not be said about Narayan, who spent half his time in bars and the other half in bed. He was one of several princes in Nepal, a country that had seen its share of royal tragedies in recent years, the most famous occurring in July 2001, when Crown Prince Dipendra pulled out an M16 and an Uzi at a family party and killed the king, queen, and princess.

Dial shook his head as he pondered the two victims. What did these guys have in common? Different religions. Different homelands. Different lifestyles. Their only connection was their gender and the way they died. Tortured, then nailed to a cross.

Crucified like Jesus Christ.

27

By claiming to be friends of the victim, Payne and Jones were granted immediate access to Il Pozzo di San Patrizio. To guarantee their cooperation a young deputy was assigned to lead them down the 248 steps to the bottom of Saint Patrick’s Well, a sixteenth-century landmark named for its supposed similarities to the Irish cave where Saint Patrick used to pray.

As they began their descent, Payne lagged behind, trying to figure out how they had built it. Two diametrically opposed doors led to separate staircases, each superimposed over the other, which prevented descenders from colliding with ascenders. The original concept was conceived by Leonardo da Vinci, who devised the stairs for an Italian brothel so its patrons could sneak in and out of the whorehouse with their anonymity intact. The customers were so pleased that word spread about the stairs, and the design was implemented in a number of new structures, including the pope’s well. Another stroke of genius was the way the architect took advantage of natural light. The stairs were illuminated by a spiraling series of seventy hand-carved windows that allowed sunlight to flow through the gaps in the roof and filter to the outer circumference of the well, providing travelers with more than enough light to fetch water.

‘Jon?’ Jones called from below. ‘Are you coming?’

Payne picked up his pace until he encountered Jones around the next turn in the stairs.

‘Our escort was worried about you. Barnes died in here an hour ago, and the cops don’t want a repeat performance.’

‘I don’t blame them. This place would be a bitch to clean.’

‘Plus it’s a historic landmark. The cop told me while Pope Clement VII was hiding in Orvieto, he was afraid his enemies would cut off his water supply. To prevent that from happening, he ordered this well to be dug. All told, it’s 43 feet wide and 203 feet deep.’

‘Damn! The pope must’ve been thirsty.’

‘It wasn’t just for him. See how wide the steps are? That’s so pack animals could make it down the slope without falling. They were actually allowed to drink right from the source.’

Payne winced. ‘That’s pretty disgusting. No wonder Barnes had the runs.’

‘Thankfully, the town doesn’t rely on the well anymore. Otherwise I’m sure their water would taste funny for the next few weeks.’

‘Oh yeah, why’s that?’

Instead of speaking, Jones pointed to the violent image that gleamed in the natural spotlight. Donald Barnes lay facedown in the center of the well, his ample body bisecting the wooden bridge that connected the two staircases. Members of the local police poked and prodded him for clues as blood oozed from his ruptured gut, dripping into the water and turning it dark crimson.

The cop in charge of the investigation saw their approach and tried to prevent them from seeing Barnes sprawled in a puddle of his own blood. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quick enough. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said in clear English. ‘I know this must be difficult for you.’

Payne and Jones nodded, not knowing what to say.

The detective pulled out a notebook and pen. ‘We heard his name was Donald.’

‘Yes,’ Payne said, ‘Donald Barnes. He was an American.’

‘As are you,’ the cop said, never lifting his eyes from his pad. He took their names and addresses, then asked, ‘Were you friends with the deceased for long?’

‘Not really. We just met him today at the funeral.’ Payne studied the cop, waiting for some kind of reaction. ‘He willingly gave us assistance when we needed it. Directions, a list of sites to see, and so on. He also described the helicopter crash that killed your colleague on Monday.’

The cop nodded, still not reacting. ‘Any idea where he was from, or where he was staying?’

Payne shrugged. ‘Midwestern U.S., maybe Nebraska. At least that’s what his T-shirt says. And as far as his hotel goes, we’re not sure. We didn’t know him long enough to find out.’

As Payne finished speaking, the young officer who’d led them down the steps approached the detective. He whispered a number of Italian phrases, then held up a single key adorned with the monogram GHR. The detective smiled at the discovery. ‘Gentlemen, are we through here?’

Jones shook his head, then lied. ‘Actually, there’s one more thing. We took a few pictures with Donald in front of the cathedral. Could we possibly have the film as a remembrance?’

The detective glanced at the body and frowned. ‘Camera? We didn’t find any camera. No wallet, film, or anything of value… In my opinion this was just a robbery that went bad.’

Payne and Jones knew that was bullshit. But the last people they were going to tell were the cops. If they did that, all the cops were going to do was get in their way.

Regrettably, that ended up happening anyway.

As they emerged from the well, Jones growled, ‘This wasn’t a robbery. It was an assassination.’

Payne pushed through the crowd of onlookers. ‘An assassination? How do you figure?’

‘Because it’s too coincidental to be anything else. This town hasn’t seen violence in years, now there are three deaths in two days. Plus the latest victim just happens to be someone with proof of the crash site. C’mon! What else could it be?’

‘So let me get this straight. We started with one case, and now we’re up to three: Dr Boyd, the stolen crash site, and Donald Barnes.’

‘Yep, that about sums it up.’

‘Damn! We aren’t very good at this.’

Jones laughed. ‘Any ideas on where to start?’

Payne nodded. ‘Let’s stick to Boyd, since that’s the reason we’re here. Let’s assume it was his truck at the bottom of the cliff. I mean, no one’s come forward to claim it. Plus there was a police chopper hovering above it and rumors of a grave robber in the area. That means either he died in the explosion, he’s still in Orvieto, or he left town some other way.’

‘Makes sense to me.’

‘And unless he had an accomplice, he either stole a car or bummed a ride.’

‘Or used public transportation.’

‘And since there aren’t any airports in town, the odds are pretty good that he used a bus.’

Payne looked at Jones, then both of them looked at the row of buses parked on the far side of the piazza. Seconds later they approached the one-story terminal that sat on the northern end of the square. A silver bus idled near the entrance, delayed by an elderly porter who checked tickets with one hand while grabbing the butts of unsuspecting females with the other.

Jones said, ‘I’ll talk to the guy at the front counter and show him Boyd’s picture. Why don’t you look for a map so we know where we’re going?’

Payne glanced around the lobby and spotted a rack of brochures leaning against the far wall. Restaurant guides, museum tours, and hotel listings — most of which were written in English. A pamphlet for La Badia, a twelth-century ecclesiastical complex that had been converted into a local hotel, caught his eye. The blend of wooden beams and tufa walls reminded him of ancient times until he noticed a television stuffed in a tiny stone alcove. Talk about a feng shui killer.

Payne returned the brochure and picked up another, this one for the Grand Hotel Reale. It wasn’t as well-maintained as La Badia, yet he got the feeling that it used to be something special. He marveled at the beautiful frescoes and the antique furniture in the lobby, plus the large fountain that was carved out of a shade of marble that -

‘Jon? Are you ready?’

Payne turned toward Jones who was standing near the entrance. ‘Yeah, I’ll be there in a second. I was just — ’ He stopped in midsentence, thinking back to Saint Patrick’s Well. Payne couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to put everything together.

‘You were just what?’ Jones walked toward him. ‘I got some good information from the front counter and… Are you OK? You look kind of puzzled.’

‘Not at all. In fact, I’m feeling rather enlightened.’ Payne handed him the brochure for the Grand Hotel Reale. ‘What do you think?’

Now Jones was the one who was puzzled. ‘About what?’

‘The hotel. Could this be where Barnes was staying?’

He flipped through the brochure. ‘I have no idea. Why?’

‘Remember the young cop in the well? What did he find in Barnes’s pocket?’

Jones replayed the incident in his mind. ‘A key with his initials on it, right?’

‘Close, but not quite. It had someone else’s initials, not his. It had GHR, not DB.’

‘Yeah, that’s right: GHR. But what’s that have to do with — ’

And that’s when he realized the same thing that Payne had. The key chain didn’t have Barnes’s initials on it because he didn’t own the keys. And where does a tourist get keys? At a hotel. And what hotel in Orvieto had the initials GHR? The Grand Hotel Reale.

‘Holy shit! Do you think the cops are there yet?’

‘Probably not,’ Payne guessed. ‘They lost one of their officers on Monday, and the rest are probably at the well. No way they’re there yet.’

‘So?’ The mischief in Jones’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. He was going to the hotel whether Payne was joining him or not. ‘What do you think?’

Payne smiled. ‘I think we should see how long it takes you to pick an Italian lock.’

28

Maria Pelati was a woman torn, an archaeologist with a guilty conscience. She was possibly sitting next to the most important document ever written, yet all she wanted to do was set it on fire. But how could she? If it was real, it would bring her more fame and fortune than she’d ever dreamed possible. At the same time she knew she’d never be able to enjoy it because of all the suffering the scroll would cause.

A billion Christians suddenly doubting the existence of Christ because of her discovery.

There were so many thoughts swirling through her brain she didn’t know what to focus on first. The scroll. Its ramifications. Her beliefs. The truth was, she needed to think about everything, but before she could do that, she needed to ask Dr Boyd one simple question. And his answer would help determine her plan of attack.

‘Sir,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you sure that the scroll is real?’

The sound of her voice startled Boyd, who was lost in thought. ‘I believe so, yes. I still need to run some tests to be certain. However, the grandeur of the Catacombs seemed beyond reproach, too real for this to be a ruse.’

‘And your translation… is it accurate?’

‘There’s always a chance that I misinterpreted a word or two. Still, the basic message would remain the same. Tiberius handpicked Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and did so for the financial gain of the Empire.’

‘But how is that possible? I mean, how does someone create a Messiah?’

‘That, my dear, is a mystery that wasn’t addressed in the scroll.’

She nodded, a million questions racing through her mind. ‘And what about you? What do you think? Is any of this feasible?’

He paused, looking for the courage to answer. ‘The possibility had crossed my mind. Although I was raised a Christian, I’m also a scholar, which means I’m forced to leave myself open to a world of possibilities. Even if the evidence goes against my beliefs.’

He paused, figuring out what to say next. ‘Maria, the truth is we found Tiberius’s seal on the cylinder and his handwriting on the parchment, which gives us plenty of reason to believe that he composed the note. And if he wrote it, then we’d be foolish not to examine every alternative, including the possibility that he found a way to pull this off.’

Maria swallowed hard. ‘Even if that means Jesus wasn’t the Son of God?’

Boyd nodded.

Silence filled the room for several seconds. The only thing heard was the rumble of the room’s air conditioner. Finally, Maria said, ‘I’m sorry, professore, I don’t think I can be a part of this anymore.’

Then, before he could say anything, Maria left the library and went on a long walk, oblivious to the fact that she would soon be making a key discovery during her journey through Milan.

Tourists marveled at the view from the roof of Il Duomo while Maria Pelati sat in the corner, motionless, like one of the 2,245 marble statues that decorated the cathedral. On a normal day, she would’ve mingled with the rest of the people, admiring the spires that soared above her or contemplating the 511 years it took to build. However, this wasn’t a typical afternoon.

After pondering the scroll for over an hour, she emerged from her trance and realized she was dripping with perspiration. In an attempt to cool off, she eased down the thirty-degree slope of the slate roof toward a portal in one of the spires, yet found neither the breeze nor shade she was hoping for. The heck with this, she thought. I’m probably going to hell for finding the scroll so I might as well sit in some air conditioning while I still have the chance.

Maria passed an elaborate row of statues that depicted a medley of saints, knights, and sinners in a variety of poses. Despite their exquisite craftsmanship, none of them grabbed her attention until she approached the final one, a majestic man in a flowing toga. Strangely, there was something about his face that seemed familiar. The sweeping curve of his lips. The lighthearted twinkle in his eyes. The arrogant protrusion of his jaw. The cocky smile on…

‘Oh my God!’ she blurted. ‘The laughing man!’

Stunned by her discovery, Maria considered racing back to tell Dr Boyd but realized if she didn’t scour the church for information, he would insist on a return trip — a trip where he would lead the investigation. And that was something she wanted to avoid.

Thinking quickly, she decided the easiest way to get background material on the statue would be to have a conversation with one of the tour guides. There were several on the roof alone, so she infiltrated a group near the tallest spire and listened to the guide’s lecture. ‘The tower stands three hundred and sixty-seven feet above the plaza, an astonishing height when you consider the age of this remarkable building. To comprehend how high we are, let’s walk toward the edge of the roof…’

When the group trudged forward, Maria approached the tour guide, a man in his early thirties. ‘Excuse me,’ she said in Italian. ‘I was wondering if you could answer a question.’

One glance at her smoldering brown eyes was all it took. The rest of the group could fend for themselves. ‘Yeah, um, sure. Whatever you need,’ he replied.

‘Thanks.’ She placed her arm in his and pulled him away. ‘There’s a statue over here that looks so familiar. Do you think you could tell me about it?’

The tour guide grinned confidently. ‘I’d be happy to. I’ve been working here for nearly five years. I know everything about this place.’

‘Everything? That’s amazing. Because this place is so big.’

‘You’re telling me,’ he bragged. ‘It’s five hundred and twenty feet long and two hundred and eighty-four feet wide. That’s bigger than a soccer field. In fact, it’s the third-largest cathedral in the world.’

‘And yet you know so much about it. You must be so smart.’

He beamed. ‘Which statue did you want to know about? I’ve got stories about them all.’

Maria pointed to the laughing man. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

The guide’s cocksure smile quickly faded. ‘Not very much. That’s one of the few objects that’s shrouded in mystery. When I was first hired, I asked the curator of the local museum about it, and he claimed it was the oldest artifact in the church, predating the other statues on the edifice by hundreds of years. Plus it’s made from a different type of stone than the others. Most of Il Duomo is made of white Carrara marble, but not this guy. He was made from marble that’s foreign to Italian soil. The only place that it can be found is in a small village near Vienna.’

‘Austria? That seems kind of strange.’

He agreed. ‘Even stranger is this monument’s placement. Look at the other statues around us. Does he seem to belong with any of them? The others depict the struggle of the common man in their quest for God, but not him. He’s anything but a peasant. Yet someone in the Church decided to place him here at the end of the series. Why they did we’re not really sure.’

Maria closed her eyes and thought back to the Catacombs. There, just like here, the laughing man seemed completely out of place. First, in the middle of Christ’s crucifixion scene, grinning his evil grin. Next, on the hand-carved box that contained Tiberius’s scroll. And now, his unexplained appearance on Il Duomo.

This guy had a habit of popping up where he didn’t fit. But why? Or better yet, who?

‘One more question before I let you go. Do you have any theories on who he might be?’

The guide shrugged. ‘The only clue that we’ve found is the letter on his ring.’

‘Letter? What letter?’

The tour guide pointed at the statue’s hand. ‘You can’t really see it from down here. The man who cleans the monuments noticed it last year. Still, we have no idea if the letter is the subject’s initial or the artist’s — or neither.’

‘What letter is it?’ she demanded. ‘A, B, C?’

‘The letter P, as in Paul.’

Or in Paccius, she thought to herself. Excited by the possibility, she kissed the tour guide on both cheeks.

‘Thank you! Thank you so much! That’s the letter I was hoping you’d say.’

‘It was? Why’s that?’

But instead of answering, Maria ran off to tell Dr Boyd the good news, convinced she had discovered proof of the laughing man’s identity.

29

Nick Dial unzipped his portfolio and carefully removed its contents. Inside, he had the portable bulletin board that he’d filled with a series of pictures, notes, and maps.

After hanging it in the Libyan police station, he tried to figure out what he needed to add. Definitely some pictures of Narayan. Maybe some close-ups of the bloody arch. He also needed to start drawing connections to the Jansen case, pointing out similarities, no matter how ridiculous they might seem. He knew the preposterous often turned out to be the most profitable.

Glancing at Jansen’s side of the board, the first thing he noticed was his unblemished skin. Why savagely beat the second victim, tearing his back to shreds, but leave the first victim untouched? Did they run out of time with Jansen? Did something spook them? Or were they following the pattern that Dial had seen several times before: the more victims that someone kills, the more comfortable the killer becomes?

Or maybe, Dial thought, this had nothing to do with comfort. Maybe this had something to do with religion, something he was overlooking. Just to be safe, he decided to call Henri Toulon at Interpol headquarters to get additional background information on Christ’s death.

‘Henri,’ Dial said, ‘how are you feeling after your night of drinking?’

Toulon answered groggily, ‘How did you know I was drinking? Are you back in France?’

‘No, but you always have a night of drinking.’

‘Oui, this is true.’

‘Did you have a chance to research that Shakespeare stuff that we discussed?’

Toulon nodded, jiggling his ponytail like a tassel. ‘Yes I did, and I decided it was bullshit. Nothing more than a red herring to lure you away from the truth.’

‘I was hoping you were going to say that. My gut told me to follow the religious side of this case, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I would’ve been so screwed if Hamlet came into play.’

Toulon smiled as he placed an unlit cigarette between his lips. ‘Was there anything else?’

Dial stared at Narayan’s autopsy photos. ‘Just one more thing. The victim here is different than the one in Denmark. I thought you might have some theories on it.’

‘What kind of differences?’

With his finger Dial traced the marks on Narayan’s back. ‘This one was beaten with some sort of a whip. And I mean beaten badly. We found more blood than skin.’

‘The victim was scourged?’

‘Scourged? Is that what the Bible calls it?’

‘That’s what everyone calls it. It was so common back in the day that John didn’t even have to explain it in his Gospel. In John 19:1, he wrote, they “took Jesus and had him scourged.” No need to go into details. Everyone knew what it meant.’

‘Everyone but me,’ Dial muttered. ‘What did the weapon look like?’

‘They used a whip called a flagellum. In Latin it means “little scourge.”’

‘There was nothing little about Narayan’s injuries. It cut right through his muscle.’

Toulon nodded. ‘That was its intent. The flagellum is a leather whip with tiny balls on the end. They were made of bone or metal barbells, some had tiny claws like barbed fishing hooks. That way when soldiers withdrew their weapons they would rip out chunks of flesh.’

‘Pretty barbaric.’

‘Yet common. Ultimately, it was done to weaken the criminal so he’d die quicker on the cross. In a twisted way, they did it out of mercy.’

Dial shook his head at the logic. There was nothing merciful about these wounds. He could see Narayan’s rib cage through the slashes in his flesh. ‘How long would the scourging last?’

‘Roman law limited it to forty lashes. Most soldiers stopped at thirty-nine, one below the maximum.’

‘Another way to show their mercy?’

‘Exactly. After that the patibulum — the horizontal beam of the cross — was tied to the victim across both shoulders, right behind his neck.’

‘Like a squat bar?’

‘Yes, just like you use in the gym, only much heavier. Probably fifty-five kilos.’

Dial wrote approximately 125 pounds in his notebook. ‘Then what?’

‘He was forced to carry it to the stipes crucis, which was already planted in the ground.’

‘And what would that weigh?’

‘Twice as much as the patibulum.’

Dial noted the entire cross would’ve been too heavy for one man to carry. ‘Out of curiosity, why do artists show Christ carrying the whole cross instead of just a beam?’

‘Because it’s more dramatic that way. Even Mel Gibson used a whole cross for his film, though it would’ve been physically impossible for Christ to carry after his scourging. As it was, he fell three times on his way to Golgotha.’

‘That’s right! I forgot about that. And his hands were tied, right? So he wouldn’t have been able to break his fall. He would’ve gone face-first.’

‘Undoubtedly. In fact, many people use that fact to explain the facial disfigurement that appears on the Shroud of Turin. The image shows a clean break in the nose.’

Dial shook his head at the direction that his case was headed. Here he was in Libya, working on a twenty-first-century case, yet he was talking about the crucifixion, the Shroud of Turin, and Christ’s facial scars like they were relevant to his investigation. And the most amazing thing was that they were. Not only relevant but crucial. He’d finally found significance in Jansen’s broken nose. Maybe that wasn’t an accident. Maybe that was done to make him more like Christ.

‘Was there anything else, Nick? I’m in serious need of some nicotine.’

‘Just one last thing. What do you know about the history of crucifixions?’

Toulon licked the cigarette, trying to savor the taste. ‘Supposedly they were invented by the Persians, who passed them on to the Carthaginians, who passed them on to the Romans. Most people think they were invented by the Romans, but they’re simply the group who perfected it. They got so proficient at it that they used to bet on the exact time that someone would die, based on the weather, the victim’s age, and how much food he’d had. “Hang ’em high and stretch ’em wide,” they used to say. Then they’d put money on it.’

‘That seems so wrong.’

‘Maybe to you. But to them it was a necessary evil in an unfair world. The quickest and most effective way to solve their problems.’

Dial thought about Toulon’s comment, wondering if that’s what he was dealing with in his current case. And if so, what problems did these murders actually solve?

Later, Omar Tamher knocked on the door and peeked into the tiny room. He was expecting to see Nick Dial working at the desk, not pacing back and forth like a caged puma.

‘May I?’ Tamher asked, not wanting to interrupt. ‘I don’t mean to — ’

‘No problem. I think better when I’m moving. Something about blood flow to my head.’

He nodded in understanding. ‘I think better with no shoes… Airflow between my toes.’

Dial glanced downward and noticed Tamher’s bare feet. ‘Interesting.’

Tamher laughed as he walked over to Dial’s bulletin board. ‘Whatever works, you know? Take your vertical scrapbook, for example. I could never use that here. Too many prying eyes.’

‘Coworkers?’

He shook his head. ‘Military.’

Dial didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

‘Will you be staying another day, Nick? If so, you’d be wise to take your materials to your hotel. There’s no telling what will be missing if you leave them overnight.’

Dial nodded, reading between the lines. His access was guaranteed by Interpol’s agreement with Libya, but that didn’t mean that he was welcome. ‘I appreciate the advice.’

This time it was Tamher who was silent.

‘Out of curiosity, if I were to leave tonight, would you be willing to keep me in the loop?’

He nodded. ‘As long as you’re willing to return the favor.’

‘You got it.’

Tamher wanted to tell him it wasn’t personal, that this was simply his way of protecting his new friend from the Libyan government. But Dial nodded his head in understanding. No explanation was needed. He was an American, and that made him the most loved/hated mammal in the world, depending on where he went and what day of the week it was.

That was one of the reasons that he kept his work on a portable bulletin board. It gave him flexibility and allowed him to leave on a moment’s notice. Just like he would later that night.

30

Dr Boyd knew Maria would eventually come back to the library. The thing that worried him, though, was her mental status when she arrived. He remembered how he felt when he initially translated the scroll — being the murderer of one’s own religion was not good for the soul — and he knew Maria had to be dealing with worse feelings since she was far more religious than he.

Yet he realized he didn’t have time to help her through her spiritual crisis, not with the fate of Christianity in his hands. That meant he needed to block Maria out of his mind and focus on the only problem in the world that mattered: What should he do with the scroll?

Before he had a chance to answer that question, Maria burst into the conference room.

‘Professore,’ she blurted, ‘you’ll never believe what I just saw!’

Confused by her enthusiasm, Boyd motioned for her to take a seat. This wasn’t the Maria he was expecting. He assumed she’d return to the library guilt-ridden, not giddy as a cheerleader. ‘Are you all right? Have you had some sort of breakdown?’

‘What? No, I haven’t had a breakdown. Why would you ask me that?’

‘It’s just, you’re extremely upbeat, and…’ His voice trailed off.

‘And what? That’s not allowed?’

‘Of course it’s allowed. But when you left here, you were anything but ecstatic.’

‘And for good reason. I left here without hope but came back with my faith restored. I found new evidence that might contradict what we know.’

‘New evidence?’ His tone was full of doubt. ‘And where did you get this new evidence?’

‘At Il Duomo,’ she answered. ‘I went to the cathedral to do some soul-searching. I figured, if I was going to ponder God, that was probably the best place in Milan to go. Anyway, I was up on the roof, battling the ungodly heat, when I saw him.’

‘You saw Him? Just how hot was it up there?’

‘Not God! I didn’t see God. I saw the laughing man.’

‘Once again, let me ask you how hot was it up there?’

‘Not in the flesh. I saw a statue of the laughing man at Il Duomo!’

‘Wait a moment. You’re serious?’

‘Yes, I’m serious. Our friend from the Catacombs is on the roof of the cathedral.’

‘What? But that doesn’t make any sense. The cathedral wasn’t built by the Ancient Romans. In fact, if my memory is correct, it was built some time in the 1300s.’

‘Hold on, there’s more.’ Maria smiled, enjoying her chance to teach her teacher. ‘The laughing man had a letter carved into his ring. There’s no guarantee that it’s actually his initial, but I think there’s a good chance that it was.’

‘Which letter?’ he demanded. ‘Was it the letter P?’

She nodded, half disappointed that he was able to figure it out. ‘P as in Paccius, right?’

He held up his hand to silence her. ‘Maybe, but not definitely. We mustn’t jump to any conclusions. We must find conclusive proof before we move on.’

‘Come on, professore, who else could it be? Tiberius ordered Paccius to execute his scheme in Judea, and we have the scroll to prove it. Later, during that same year, Paccius disappeared from the Roman history books altogether. That can’t be a coincidence. I’m telling you, Paccius has to be the laughing man. He has to be.’

Boyd rubbed his eyes, considering her theory. Everything she said made sense, all but one thing. ‘Maria, I don’t mean to ruin your mood, but this news about Paccius only strengthens the case against Christ. It means Paccius received the scroll, then went to Judea to carry out the plot. It also suggests that his results were so positive that Tiberius felt obliged to honor him by building a shrine underneath Orvieto.’

‘True,’ she admitted. ‘But I think you’re the one who’s missing the big picture, not me. I left here lost and depressed, filled with doubts about God, Christ, and everything else that I believe. In order to gather my thoughts, I went to the closest church I could find, looking for solace in God’s house, hoping to find something, anything, that would get me through my personal crisis. And guess what? I was given a huge piece of the puzzle. Talk about working in mysterious ways! Santa Maria! I’ll never doubt God again.’

She gazed at Boyd and noticed that his eyes were still filled with doubt.

‘I know you think I’m crazy and that this was all a coincidence. But I honestly believe that this was God’s way of telling me to keep looking, to keep searching, to never give up on him. And in my heart I know if I keep doing that, then everything will be all right.’

Several minutes later Maria was still riding high from her discovery at Il Duomo. ‘You know, it’s pretty obvious to me we’re onto something. I mean, the historical evidence alone is mind-boggling. Throw in the assassination attempts, the lies in the newspaper, and the statue at the cathedral, and we’ve got the makings of a first-rate conspiracy.’

Boyd glanced at her, focusing his icy blue eyes on her face. One minute she was soul-searching, the next she was defiant. ‘Yet you think that this is all a ruse.’

‘Not all of it,’ she stressed. ‘I believe we found the Catacombs and the scroll. But I don’t believe that Jesus was a fraud. I’m willing to accept that other stuff with little proof, but when it comes to my religion, I’ll need a lot more evidence to convince me that I’m wrong.’

‘Truthfully, I think I would’ve been disappointed if you’d taken any other stance.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Keep in mind that two millennia have passed since our scroll was written, and several critical events have occurred since then, things that Tiberius couldn’t have foreseen. In any case, I hope you’ll keep an open mind during our search for evidence. Once we’ve rounded up all the data, we can sit back and hypothesize as to what really happened two thousand years ago. Then we can tackle the consequences together. All right?’

‘Deal!’ she said, thrilled that he understood her position. ‘Let’s get started.’

Using the evidence they had found, Boyd and Maria drew a timeline, trying to figure out how all the pieces of their theory fit together.

32 AD

• Tiberius senses uprising

• Proven by Orvieto scroll

among the slaves of Judea

• Tiberius plans to profit

• Mentioned in Orvieto scroll

from the promised one

• Tiberius sends a message to

• Document found in Bath

Paccius in the Britains

• Paccius returns to Rome

• Paccius = laughing man???

and participates in plot

33 AD

• Paccius goes to Judea to

• This has not been verified.

carry out plot

• Paccius uses his power to

• In what way? Proof

manipulate Jesus

needed.

• Jesus becomes the

• How was Paccius involved?

Messiah in the eyes of the

masses

• Tiberius uses Jesus’s

• How is this possible???

power to finance the

Empire

34–37 AD

•Paccius disappears; never

• Historical mystery

heard from again

•Tiberius balances the

• Proven by history books

Empire’s budget

•Tiberius becomes

• Dies in 37 AD (smothered

mentally unstable; shuns

by a Roman soldier?)

Rome for Isle of Capri;

rumors of foul play

involved in death

Boyd said, ‘If my math is correct, Tiberius wrote this scroll approximately eight months before the death of Christ. That would have given Paccius enough time to read it, return to Rome, and get to Judea to start his assignment.’

‘Whatever that assignment might’ve been.’

‘The thing that makes no sense is why Tiberius felt Judea was so important. Egypt was Italy’s most reliable source of food because of its agriculture, and Greece was a major contributor of culture. But Judea? There was nothing there but sand and an angry populace.’

Boyd considered her statement. ‘Unless that was his reason. Maybe he chose Judea because it was so darn troublesome? He figured if he could whip the Jews into shape, so to speak, then the rest of the Empire would be a snap.’

Maria frowned. ‘You mean Judea was a testing ground?’

He nodded, pleased with his theory. ‘We’ll still need to verify Paccius’s presence in Judea and what he ultimately hoped to accomplish, but I think that sounds reasonable, don’t you? Now all we have to do is fill in some of the voids on our chart.’

‘Well, we know some things, don’t we? Look here. “Let us feed their hunger with our choice of food, allowing them to feast on the coming of their savior… for we know he is merely a pawn that we have lifted to the level of Jupiter.” That means Tiberius wanted to create a fake god for Jerusalem. He actually wanted them to believe that the Messiah had surfaced.’

‘Yes, my dear, that’s quite obvious. But how does one accomplish that? If you continue to read the text, Tiberius says, “… there must be no doubt among the Jews; they must witness an act of God with their own eyes, a feat so magical, so mystifying, that future generations will sing of its splendor for eternity…” That means he planned to stage something in public, something that would eliminate skepticism from even the toughest of cynics.’

‘Like a miracle?’

‘Or, at the very least, an impressive magic trick. Keep in mind, the very definition of a miracle is an event that contradicts the laws of nature, something that’s regarded as an act of God. And I have a strange feeling that the Romans didn’t have heaven’s help on this.’

‘What do the history books tell us? If Tiberius’s ruse actually worked, there must be a record of this “miracle” somewhere in biblical folklore.’

‘I already considered that, my dear, but the accounts of Jesus’s life are so varied it would be impossible to separate fact from fiction. In the Gospels alone, there is talk of thirty-six miracles, everything from turning water into wine at Cana to walking on water at Lake Gennesaret. And in my opinion, none of those events left the kind of impression that Tiberius was hoping for.’ He shook his head in confusion. ‘Furthermore, we must remember what the New Testament is. It’s a piece of propaganda that was intended to turn people on to Christianity, not a book of facts that was written by the hand of God… Even the pope would admit to that.’

Maria knew what the Bible was and wasn’t, yet there was something about Boyd’s tone that made his explanation sound harsh, no matter how accurate it was. Take the Gospels, for example. She knew the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John detailed the life of Jesus, and most Christians believed these accounts were infallible. However, what most people failed to realize is that John’s Gospel disagreed with the other gospels about several important events in Christ’s life, meaning that large portions of the Gospels had to be wrong since they contradicted each other. Furthermore, she knew that many modern scholars claimed the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written by men who’d never met Christ (although some early-Christian scholars would disagree) nearly forty years after his crucifixion. That meant none of their writings were first-person accounts of Jesus’s life. Instead, they were based on rumors, stories, and exaggerations that had been passed through two generations of religious turmoil.

Maria also realized the fourth Gospel, the one by John, was penned by an unknown writer with unknown credentials, although some fringe scholars have theorized that it was actually written by Lazarus, the man who Christ supposedly raised from the dead. And if that was true, his version of Christ’s life would’ve been more than a little bit biased.

Wait a second, she thought to herself. Could that be the miracle they were looking for?

She asked, ‘What about Lazarus? Jesus brought him back four days after he’d been buried.’

‘Hmmm, I admit I forgot about that one. I think that’s probably the type of event that Tiberius would’ve had in mind, something that would have been unexplainable. Unfortunately, the Lazarus miracle didn’t occur on the great stage of Jerusalem, the place where Tiberius wanted the Jews to discover their Lord. Therefore, I doubt that was the one.’

‘OK, tell me this: Which of Jesus’s miracles actually occurred in Jerusalem?’

‘Truthfully, none of his miracles seem to match the criteria. None of them possessed the pizzazz that Tiberius was striving for.’

‘Meaning?’

‘We must be overlooking something. We need to keep on digging until we find a fact, no matter how large or trivial, that supports our hypothesis.’

Frustrated, Maria sank back into her chair. ‘That sounds kind of tough, sir. I mean, there are so many places we could look. It would be so much easier if we had some idea where to begin.’

‘True, but that is not the reality of things. In this business nothing is ever handed to you, and nothing is sitting out in the open, waiting for you to notice it. That’s just not how it works.’

But in this case Boyd was wrong, for the answer they were looking for was within their grasp. In fact, it was lying on the table in front of them.

31

Opened in the 1930s, the Grand Hotel Reale used to be the most elegant hotel in town. Nowadays the hand-painted frescoes that once enhanced the lobby were tarnished, the result of fingerprints, tobacco stains, and years of neglect. Payne noticed the outside of the hotel was faded, too, as he and Jones scurried alongside the building to reach the back entrance. A few minutes later they were inside Barnes’s room, slipping a pair of his socks over their hands to conceal their fingerprints. After that it didn’t take long to find something of interest.

‘Well, well, well,’ Jones said. ‘Look what we have here.’

Payne turned and saw him kneeling on the floor, holding a 9 mm Beretta in his sock glove. After checking the safety, Jones put the barrel under his nose and took a whiff, trying to determine if it had been recently fired. ‘Found it under the bed,’ he said. ‘Smells clean.’

‘The gun or the sock?’

Ignoring the question, Jones handed him the weapon. ‘I wonder why he had it?’

Payne took it in his sock-covered hand. Suddenly he looked like a performer in a twisted puppet show who was about to kill Kermit the Frog. ‘Who knows? He was traveling alone in a foreign country. He might’ve brought it for protection.’

Jones shrugged as he continued looking through the room.

‘Speaking of protection, I’m going to borrow the Beretta. Just in case.’

‘Fine with me. But I don’t want to see you borrowing his watch or his wallet. We’re here for his film and nothing else.’

Payne nodded as he dug through Barnes’s suitcase. It was filled with shirts, shorts, and a wide variety of toiletries. ‘And once we find his film, what are we going to do?’

‘We’ll leave. For some reason I got a bad feeling about this place.’

Smiling, Payne held up a Ziploc bag and jiggled it. ‘If that’s the case, then let’s get going.’

Payne tossed the bag to Jones, who inspected the three canisters of thirty-five-millimeter film. ‘If we’re lucky, one of these will show yesterday’s crash scene.’

‘And if we’re unlucky, we might see Donald sunbathing in a thong.’

‘Good God, I hope not. I don’t think the CIA will give us hazard pay for that. In fact, I don’t think they’ll… shit!’

Confusion filled Payne’s face as he tried to determine what the CIA’s bowel movements had to do with anything. ‘What does that mean? You don’t think they’ll — ’

Shit! When Payne heard the noise, he finally understood what Jones was talking about. It was the sound of a key going into the lock and the squeaking twist of a doorknob.

‘Oh shit!’ Jones repeated. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’

Thinking quickly, Payne pushed Jones toward the door and urged him to block it. Meanwhile, Payne scoured the room for a barricade, hoping to find something that was sturdy enough to keep the visitors at bay — at least until he could figure out an alternative.

‘The bed,’ Payne blurted. ‘Let’s move the bed.’

He leapt over the mattress, then pushed the entire thing forward, a task that was harder than it looked. The bed’s legs dug into the hardwood floor like talons, causing a screech that sounded like 10,000 fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard.

‘Polizia!’ shouted one of the men in the hall. He punctuated his statement by pounding on the door with such force that Jones could feel the vibrations in his chest. ‘Aprire!’

‘We know you’re in there!’ screamed another in English. ‘Open up, or we’ll shoot the lock!’

Jones’s eyes doubled in size when he realized his crotch was currently at lock level. In desperation, he yelled, ‘If you shoot, the hostage gets it!’

‘The hostage?’ Payne whispered. ‘Quit teasing them and give me a hand.’

Jones walked across the room and helped Payne tip the antique dresser on its side, wedging it between the foot of the bed and the closest wall. It eliminated any chance of the door being opened without a stick of dynamite. A fact that bothered Jones.

‘Great!’ he growled. ‘Now we aren’t getting out and they aren’t getting in.’

‘Of course we’re getting out. Just relax. Have a little faith.’

But Jones wasn’t the only one losing patience. The policemen were getting pissy, too. They emphasized this fact by slamming into the door with a makeshift battering ram. The sound echoed through the room like a Civil War cannon, even though it had no effect on the barricade.

Jones said, ‘Now what? The door’s the only way out, and they have it covered.’

Boom!

‘Don’t worry, we’re not going through the door. We’re going through there.’

He followed the path of Payne’s finger and realized he was pointing at a stained glass window in the bathroom. ‘No way, Jon. We’re too big for that. Especially your fat ass.’

Payne stared at the window for several seconds. ‘I’m pretty good with spatial relations, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we can fit. My ass included.’

Boom!

‘No way,’ he argued. ‘Besides, we have company.’

Jones pointed to movement behind the window. A shadow in the shape of a human head. Someone was trying to see into their room. Someone who was about to get the shock of their life.

‘No problem,’ Payne bragged. Then, without warning, he launched himself toward the window, kicking his legs in front of him in a martial arts leap. The glass shattered on contact, sending multicolored shrapnel through the air like an explosion at a Skittles factory. The cop on the other side got a mouthful of glass and a taste of Payne’s shoe. Unfortunately, his face stopped Payne’s momentum, preventing him from making it all the way through the window. A moment later he crashed to the tiled floor as glass fell around him in a melodic song.

Jones rushed to his side. Laughing, he said, ‘Damn, Jon. You need to work on your landing.’

He took a moment to catch his breath. ‘I think you’re right.’

‘Out of curiosity, why didn’t you use the desk chair to break the window?’

Payne sat up and tried to shake the glass out of his hair. ‘My parents used to drag me to church every week, and I used to sit there wondering what it would feel like to jump through the stained glass window and run toward freedom. Never had a chance to try it until now.’

Boom! The sound of the battering ram brought them back to reality.

Quickly they scurried through the window and over the unconscious cop, somehow reaching the Ferrari without being seen. While waiting for Jones to unlock the car, Payne noticed he was leaking blood in about twenty places — mostly scrapes on his arms and legs. Suddenly his dream of jumping through a stained glass window didn’t seem too bright.

‘Do me a favor and stop at the first store you see. I need to patch up.’

‘No problem. There should be plenty of stores between here and Perugia.’

‘Perugia? What the hell’s in Perugia?’

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? When you were looking for maps at the bus station, I found out where Boyd was heading. The guy behind the counter knew exactly who I was talking about before I even showed him a picture, like he’d been asked the same question a hundred times before.’

‘And?’

‘And Boyd was going to Perugia, a small city about two hours from here.’

They drove fifteen miles outside of Orvieto before they found a gas station that met Payne’s medical needs. He went to the bathroom to wash out his cuts while Jones went into the store and bought some bandages and whatever else he could find. Five minutes later he came into the men’s room, carrying a first aid kit and a copy of the local paper.

‘Hurry up,’ Jones said. ‘We’ve got somewhere to go.’

‘Back to prison?’

He shook his head and held up the newspaper. ‘Another crash site.’

Payne glanced in the mirror and tried to read the headline. Unfortunately, two things stopped him from reading it. The reflection was backward, making the article look like a feature story from Dyslexia Today. And secondly, the damn thing was written in Italian.

That being said, he was still able to make sense of things from the photos on the front page. You know the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, these photos were worth a million because they were graphic. Real graphic. The kind that could make a butcher puke. Mostly they focused on the burnt shell of a bus, but Payne saw some arms and legs in there, too, jutting out from the wreckage at impossible angles. He also spotted a head pinned to the ground under a massive metal panel. At least he thought it was a head. It was tough to tell since the flesh and hair had melted off the skull like a cadaver that had been dropped into a volcano.

Everything he saw — both man and man-made — was a dark shade of black.

Payne took a deep breath, rage boiling in his belly. ‘Let me guess. Boyd’s bus?’

But Jones didn’t answer. The anger and determination on his face spoke volumes.

32

One of the major drawbacks of using espresso as an energy source was its debilitating effect on the human bladder. At least that’s what Maria Pelati thought as she visited the library’s restroom for the second time in an hour. After finishing her business, she headed toward the long row of sinks. Just then a heavyset intruder jumped from the far stall and grabbed her, covering her mouth while pinning her frame against the tiled wall.

‘Don’t make a sound,’ he threatened in Italian. ‘Do you understand me? Silence!’

Normally Maria would’ve been quick to respond. She would’ve bitten the man’s hand, stomped on his foot, and screamed. In this case, though, she decided not to. She wasn’t sure why — it might’ve been the man’s body language or just a gut instinct — but she got the feeling that he wasn’t there to hurt her. Strangely, she sensed he was there to help.

He said, ‘If you promise to be quiet, I’ll let you go. Otherwise, we must stay like this.’ He stared at her for several unnerving seconds, waiting for her decision. ‘Tell me, will you behave?’

Maria nodded her head.

‘Good,’ he grunted as he removed his hand. ‘I hope I didn’t scare you, but it was important to speak to you immediately. And in private.’

‘You needed to talk to me? Why?’

‘Why? Because you’re in a tremendous amount of danger.’

Danger. The word caused the past few days to rush through her head. First, the blitzkrieg from the chopper, then the avalanche, followed by the screams of the bus victims as they fought to avoid death. Then the nauseating smell of burnt flesh as they failed.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Who sent you to talk to me?’

A bittersweet smile crossed his lips. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? I’m the guard who let you in the library, the one you flirted with.’

Her face flushed with embarrassment. ‘You are? I thought you were wearing a uniform.’

The guard nodded, glad that she’d remembered something. ‘My shift ended an hour ago. And you’re lucky it did, because that’s when I realized the danger you face.’

‘Danger? What kind of danger?’

‘You mean, you don’t know? The lead story on every channel was about the man you came with today. Did you know that he’s wanted? Every policeman in Europe is looking for him.’

Damn! she cursed to herself. Keeping her cool, she said, ‘You must be mistaken. I’ve known him forever, and he’s not a criminal. He’s a well-known professor.’

‘The TV showed several pictures of him. He’s definitely the one.’

‘OK,’ she countered, ‘let’s pretend you’re right. What do you think we should do about it?’

‘It’s not what I think we should do. It’s what I’ve already done.’

Maria felt her heart skip a beat. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Once I saw his picture, I came back to make sure he was still here. Then I waited for you to leave his side — I didn’t want you to be taken as a hostage — before I called the local police. If we’re lucky, they’re already arresting him.’

A wave of panic swept over Maria. Suddenly, before she realized what she was doing, she found herself bolting toward the door, hoping to inform Boyd before it was too late.

‘It won’t do you any good. You can’t get out of here without a key.’

She tried the door anyway, but it wouldn’t budge, just like the guard had warned.

‘You have no right to lock me in here!’ she shouted. ‘No right at all!’

‘Actually, I have every right. I’m the one who let you in without an ID, so that makes you my responsibility.’ He strolled toward the door, hoping to calm her. ‘Let’s just wait in here until the authorities arrive, then we can sort everything out. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?’

Maria sighed, then gave him the warmest smile she possibly could. ‘Maybe you’re right. I mean, all of this stuff is so damn confusing. I’m so tired right now I can hardly think straight. I don’t know. Maybe waiting in here is the best thing to do.’

The guard nodded at her change of heart and stepped forward to comfort her. But the instant he got close, she slammed her knee into his crotch. The strike was so unexpected and so crippling, the guard doubled over in pain, giving Maria a chance to finish him off with a vicious kick to the chin, a blow that sent him sprawling onto the bathroom floor.

‘Then again,’ she taunted, ‘maybe not.’

Maria stole the guard’s keys and ran to warn Boyd. It took them less than a minute to gather all their materials and leave the conference room. But they weren’t quick enough. An Italian SWAT team had just arrived and was streaming into the building through the library’s front doors. Undaunted, the duo turned in the opposite direction and scrambled toward the back exit, hoping to sneak out. As they approached the women’s restroom, the injured guard stumbled out in front of them and tried to block their path.

‘Stop!’ he ordered.

But they were in no mood to listen. Boyd hit him first, using Tiberius’s bronze canister like a club, smashing it against the guard’s head. Then Maria finished him off, knocking him out with a mighty swing of the Latin dictionary that she carried.

‘Lord, that felt good,’ Boyd cackled.

‘Didn’t it? That’s the second time I nailed him.’

Their mood quickly soured when they saw several policemen enter the back door.

Stopping immediately, Boyd said, ‘We’re trapped!’

‘Not if we go up.’ Maria led him to the nearest stairwell and said, ‘Go ahead. I’m going to slow these guys down.’

‘Don’t be silly, dear — ’

‘Just go!’ she ordered. ‘They want you more than me. Get out of here! Now!’

Maria listened for Boyd’s footsteps before she focused her full attention on the stairwell door. She fiddled with the guard’s keys and tried inserting the first one into the lock but had no success. Cursing softly, she tried the second, then the third, and the fourth. Finally, on her fifth attempt, she found the right key and locked the door an instant before the police got there.

‘Yes!’ she shouted as she scrambled up the stairs to hunt for Boyd. She found him quickly, waiting for her on the second floor landing.

He said, ‘There are metal bars on all the windows, and the front stairwell has been sealed for renovations. This is the only way up or down.’

‘No freight lifts?’

‘Nothing like that. This building is too old for elevators.’

She pondered the information. ‘What’s being fixed?’

Boyd pointed skyward. ‘The roof. They’re redoing the roof.’

‘That’s right! I noticed that on the way in. Come on, I have an idea!’

With a burst of energy, she charged up the stairs at a pace that Boyd was unable to maintain. By the time he reached the top, he was forced to slump against the wall in oxygen-starved agony.

‘Are you all right?’ she demanded.

‘No,’ he blurted, gasping for air. ‘But I’ll live.’

‘Are you sure? Because — ’

Her concentration was broken when she heard voices and footsteps on the stairs below. Acting quickly, she used the guard’s key to open the service entrance to the roof, then helped Boyd inside just as the police lunged for his foot. Miraculously, Boyd fought them off, using the cylinder to beat on the lead cop’s hand while Maria slammed the door in his face.

‘That’s the second time I beat you,’ she teased in Italian. ‘You must be quicker than that if you’re going to catch a woman.’

The SWAT team replied with several curse words while trying to break down the door.

‘Good Lord,’ Boyd said, still gasping for breath. ‘They sound terribly upset.’

‘You think they’re mad now? Wait until we escape. They’re going to be furious.’

Boyd laughed as he watched her climb a twenty-foot ladder that extended to a trapdoor in the ceiling and work on the metal hatch. Psssssssssss. The waterproof seal hissed as it was being opened and was followed by a burst of daylight that temporarily blinded her. But she didn’t mind. She was never happier to see the sun in her entire life.

‘Is it safe?’ he yelled from the bottom of the ladder. ‘Is it all right?’

‘Just a second.’ She searched the roof for problems and found none. ‘We’re fine.’

‘Thank goodness.’ Boyd climbed to the roof at a methodical pace, trying to catch his breath as he did. Several seconds later, he asked, ‘Now what? Are we just going to sit here and wait?’

‘Wait? Of course we’re not going to wait! For now I’m going to unscrew the bolts on the ladder so we can steal it before they have a chance to use it.’

Boyd stared at Maria for several seconds before breaking into a wheezing laugh. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been chased by the police before? Because you seem to be at ease.’

She shrugged. ‘If you watch enough movies, you can be prepared for anything.’

‘I certainly hope so because our situation is still precarious… Or are you keeping something from me?’

Maria laughed at the irony of his statement and gave him a confident smile. ‘Everyone has some secrets. Right, Dr Boyd?’

It didn’t take long for her to disconnect the ladder and pull it to the roof. To slow the cops even more, she jammed the hatch shut by wedging the guard’s keys between the door and its sturdy metal frame, a trick she’d learned from a Bruce Willis movie.

‘That ought to hold them.’

Boyd didn’t answer, but his smile was a welcome sign to Maria. A few minutes earlier she was afraid that he was going to have a heart attack.

‘I hope you’re feeling better, because you’ll need all your strength to survive our next trick.’

‘And if I may ask, what do you have in mind?’

Instead of answering, she helped Boyd to his feet and led him to the edge of the hundred-foot building. ‘If you’re up to it, I figured we could just jump for it.’

‘What?! You’ve got to be kidding me!’

Maria pointed to a long metal tube that ran from the rooftop at a seventy-degree angle until it flattened out near the bottom. The purpose of the chute was to aid in the disposal of unwanted materials during the construction project. Instead of carrying debris down the stairs or flinging it off the side of the building, the workers dumped their scraps down the slender tube and into a Dumpster below.

She said, ‘I noticed it when I walked to Il Duomo. I figure if it can hold bricks and wood, it should be able to support us.’

Boyd tapped on the tube, trying to gauge how much weight it could handle. Then, after running a few calculations, he eyed the pile of rubble at the bottom and realized it wouldn’t be a comfortable landing.

‘All right, my dear, I’m willing to give this a shot, although I think it would be best if we attempted this one at a time. No sense putting extra strain on the chute by climbing in together.’

‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’

‘Now all we need to do is decide who shall take the initial plunge. In most situations I would follow the rules of chivalry and insist on ladies first. However — ’

‘Great! Sounds good to me!’

Grabbing the top of the chute before Boyd could argue, Maria swung her body inside, giving her all the momentum she needed to get started. From there, it was all downhill as she sailed down the pipe like a bobsledder at the Winter Olympics. The ending was a little rough for her taste — she was shot feet-first into a large pile of wood and plaster — but figured that was much better than the alternative: being shot on the roof by an angry SWAT team.

After dusting herself off, she glanced toward the roof and gave Boyd a big thumbs-up. Reluctantly, he nodded his head, took one last gasp of air, and followed her lead, plunging into the escape tunnel.

In truth, their adventure was just starting. And most of the craziness was yet to come.

33

Jones could speak some Italian, so he was able to translate the article on the bus crash. Which, it turns out, wasn’t a crash after all. According to the newspaper, Dr Boyd was more than just a professor/forger/thief. He was also an escape artist/munitions expert, capable of blowing up a bus in front of half the cops in Italy without getting injured or caught. Pretty good trick, huh?

The story claimed that Boyd shot down a helicopter, hijacked the first bus leaving town, and then fled down a country road that the cops were able to block. After a brief standoff, Boyd detonated a device that killed everyone except himself and managed to escape capture while the heroic police force risked their lives trying to pull injured passengers from the raging inferno.

Payne laughed when he heard that, because he knew it was total bullshit. He knew the worst thing a criminal could do was kill a cop, because it guaranteed a motivated police force, a group looking for retribution even if it meant breaking some laws along the way. Why? Because the police knew if they didn’t strike quick, then every punk with a gun would think they could kill a cop and get away with it. And the next victim could be the cop’s partner. Or even himself.

Therefore Payne knew there was a major problem with the story. There was no way an entire police force was going to surround a bus that had been hijacked by a cop-killer and let him get away. Not a chance. So how did Boyd survive? Furthermore, what type of explosive did he use that could blow up the bus but let him walk away? None that Payne knew, and he knew them all.

Anyway, those were just a few of the things running through Payne’s mind when he listened to the details of the story. They were running through Jones’s mind, too, because he insisted that they drive to the crime scene before it was too dark to see.

To get to the site, which was less than ten miles from the gas station where Payne had cleaned himself up, they pulled off the main highway and went down a country lane that wasn’t built for buses, let alone a Ferrari. A wooden barricade blocked their path a few miles from the site. Plants, flowers, and a few dozen pictures surrounded the barrier, items left behind by the victims’ families in a makeshift shrine. Some people were able to shrug off scenes like that without a second thought, often driving past them like they were street signs or mailboxes. But Payne wasn’t one of those people. His parents were killed by a drunk driver when he was a teenager, so he got reflective every time he saw a bundle of flowers near the road. Of course, Jones knew this about Payne so he got out of the car and moved the barricade by himself.

For as long as he could remember, whenever Payne started thinking about his parents, he found that music helped ease the pain. He knew they still had a few minutes to drive to the bus site, so he decided to test the audio system in the car. Sadly, the only stations Payne could find in the middle of the Apennine Mountains were filled with the depressing sounds of Andrea Bocelli and Marcella Bella. Not exactly what he had in mind. Flipping from station to station, he hoped to find something more upbeat when Jones started yelling at him from near the barricade

‘Go back!’ he demanded. ‘Hurry!’

Payne did as he was told, hoping there wasn’t going to be opera when he returned to the previous station. Much to his surprise, there was no music at all but rather an Italian newscaster rambling in rapid Italian. It could’ve been the weather or a traffic report. Payne wasn’t sure, because the only Italian he knew he learned from The Sopranos. Whatever it was, though, he knew that Jones liked it because he had a grin on his face the size of a small dog. This went on for over two minutes before Jones turned off the stereo, saving Payne from the tortuous sound of Pavarotti or whatever fat guy was about to start singing.

‘You aren’t going to believe this,’ Jones said. ‘But Boyd was just spotted in Milan.’

Payne rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, I wish.’

‘I swear to God, Jon. He was just spotted in Milan. The cops tried to grab him, but he got away. Again.’

‘Wait a second, you’re serious? How did he get away?’

‘He vanished from the roof of a library. And get this: he’s running with a woman.’

‘Boyd took a hostage?’

Jones shook his head. ‘No, he took a partner. Apparently the two of them are in this together.’

34

The crucifixion in Denmark barely made a blip in the United States, and he couldn’t understand why. The murder had everything that Americans usually looked for in a story — a brutal execution, a famous setting, and a Vatican priest as a victim — yet the only attention it received was a small story in the Associated Press. Nothing in USA Today, nothing in the New York Times, and nothing in the National Enquirer.

God, what was wrong with these people? Were they really that numb from all their horror movies and video games that they didn’t care about a crucified priest? Who did he have to kill to get their undivided attention? The fucking president?

Obviously, he realized, that would be going too far. He wanted to attract as much attention as he possibly could without starting a worldwide manhunt. That was the only way that he and his partners could get this to work.

They needed attention, not intervention. A spotlight without the heat.

In his mind, the second murder was a step in the right direction. CNN sent a camera crew to Tripoli and Nepal, hoping to get a reaction from the royal family. Their footage popped up on newscasts across the U.S., which led to stories in 90 percent of the newspapers in North America, including most major cities. Not front-page coverage like they’d hoped for, but enough to make the Vatican take notice, which was the ultimate goal of the murders.

The clock was ticking, and the stakes were high. It was time to tighten the vise.

Nicknamed the Holy Hitter because of his surname, Orlando Pope was one of the best players in baseball. He hit for power, ran with speed, and did all the little things that made his team win. Simply put, he was the type of guy that every club coveted.

During the off-season, two teams — the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees — did everything to sign him. Not only to get Pope, which would be a coup on its own, but also to keep him off the other’s roster, which was even more important in their way of thinking. Why? Because no teams in baseball hated each other more than the Red Sox and Yankees. The players hated each other. The fans hated each other. Even the cities hated each other.

This was Sparta versus Athens, only with bats instead of spears.

The bidding between the teams went back and forth for nearly a month. Ten million. Twenty million. Fifty million. One hundred million. And more. In the end, Pope signed with the Yankees. It also made Pope public enemy number one in Beantown.

Due to a scheduling quirk, the teams wouldn’t play in Boston until the upcoming weekend. They’d split an early-season series in New York and would play a dozen more times later in the year, but this was the match-up that every sports fan in New England was waiting for.

The Pope was coming to Boston, and they were going to let him have it.

Orlando Pope hated the limelight and all the attention that he got as the highest paid player in sports. He loved it on the baseball field where he had the confidence and the talent to thrive, yet hated it in his personal life. He grew up in a biracial family from Brazil — black father, white mother — which led to self-image problems. Was he black? Was he white? Was he both? In the end, he didn’t feel comfortable with any group, so he spent most of his time alone, reading books and watching movies in his luxury high-rise, instead of enjoying his hero status in the Big Apple.

In his mind people led to problems, so he stayed away from everyone whenever he could.

The pizza he ordered from Andrew’s was forty minutes late, and he was angry. He’d bought a brand-new DVD, The Lesson, and didn’t want to start it until his food was there. Nothing pissed him off like interruptions when he was trying to watch a flick.

He was tempted to call and complain when he heard a knock on his door. With wallet in hand, Pope undid the lock and opened the chain without looking through the peephole.

It was the biggest mistake of his life.

Four men stood in the hall. Different men than Denmark or Libya. But a foursome with the same objective. Grab their target, take him to a predetermined location, and nail him to a cross.

The leader of the group held an M series Taser and shot Pope in his chest before he could react. The weapon sent a burst of electricity to Pope’s central nervous system, causing an uncontrollable contraction of his skeletal muscles. A moment later, one of the best athletes in the world was lying on his floor in the fetal position, unable to protect himself in any way.

From there it would be easy. Carry Pope to the van, take him to a predetermined location, and then wait for the news to hit. And oh how it would hit!

This would be a home run, the biggest one yet.

Every murder was a clue. Every clue led to a secret. The secret would change the world.

In the end the Vatican would be helpless. Completely helpless.

Finally forced to honor his ancestor two thousand years after the fact.

35

Thursday, July 13

Milan, Italy

Payne and Jones’s journey to northern Italy covered several hundred miles. Thanks to the liberal speed limits on the autostrada and the F1 power of the Ferrari, they got to Milan just after midnight. It was too late to get Barnes’s film developed but was early enough to get some detective work done. With that in mind, they wasted no time and headed directly to the Catholic University campus.

Jones said, ‘The first thing we need to do is find out if Boyd’s been caught. Why don’t I snoop around, maybe talk to a couple of reporters, while you walk around the perimeter and look for weaknesses? If all else fails, we might need to sneak inside.’

‘Yeah,’ Payne joked, ‘and we better do it quick. If the current trend continues, Boyd’s liable to blow up the library to conceal evidence.’

Laughing to himself, Payne walked past the right-hand alley and noticed several cops staring at a garbage chute and a Dumpster. He didn’t want to deal with them, so he headed past the main entrance, hoping there’d be less cops on the other side of the building. That’s when he noticed a security guard at the front door, deciding who got in and who didn’t, like a bouncer at a local discotheque. In a heartbeat his plan of attack changed. Instead of sneaking in, he decided to be invited in, compliments of the rent-a-meathead.

Payne didn’t have a badge or anything official-looking, so he knew he’d have to lay the bullshit on pretty thick. He also knew there was a damn good chance that the guard couldn’t speak English any better than Payne spoke Italian, so he decided to use that to his advantage. He figured he might be able to make the guard feel so uncomfortable that he’d let Payne go inside just so he’d leave him alone. With that in mind, Payne went right up to him and started babbling in a fake accent, claiming that he was with the British embassy and was there to protect the legal rights of Dr Boyd. The fact that he sounded like Ringo Starr, had bandages all over, and carried a stolen handgun in his shorts made no difference to the guard. He looked at Payne, shrugged, and let him inside. No questions asked.

Snooping around the first floor, Payne looked for anything that might explain why Boyd was at the library. He figured it might’ve been something perverted, since the women’s room was sealed off with yellow tape that said Polizia. Then again, that didn’t make much sense, since Boyd was too smart to do anything that would draw attention to himself, like peeping into the ladies’ room. Unless this had something to do with the mysterious female who was mentioned on the radio. Maybe she was the one who did something in the restroom? Maybe she was the reason he was running for his life after all these years toying with Interpol?

Whatever the case, Payne needed to find out what had happened in that bathroom.

Paranoid, he crept over to the door, not sure what to expect. A corpse? Some bloodstains? A battered female? At the very least he was hoping to overhear some juicy facts about Boyd and his partner, yet the only thing he saw was a technician dusting for prints. Disappointed, he turned from the door and started walking when he felt someone latch on to his arm.

‘Where is you going?’ demanded a man in a thick Italian accent.

Son of a bitch, Payne thought to himself. The security guard at the front door must’ve told some of the cops about him, and they were getting ready to haul his ass out. Payne turned around, half expecting to see a gun pointed at his chest. Instead, he found a tiny man with a smiling face and a head filled with the curliest black hair he’d ever seen in a nonpubic region.

Payne was so stunned he started babbling. ‘I was, just, ah, I was — ’

‘Just what? Running off and no introducing yourself?’

Confused, Payne stood there trying to size up this guy who was at least a foot shorter than he was. He wore a light-gray suit and a starched white shirt. A picture ID hung from his coat pocket, but the writing was microscopic and in Italian, so he had no idea what it said.

‘Well,’ he laughed, ‘if you no gonna speak, I do the talking. My name is Francesco Cione. My English-speaking friends call me Frankie. I am university’s media man, which, as my feet tells you, makes me busiest man in all of Milan — at least on this night no?’

And just like that, Payne knew Frankie would be a wonderful ally.

Thinking quickly, he whispered, ‘Are you really the media liaison for the Boyd case?’

Intrigued by the hushed tone, Frankie looked around for eavesdroppers. ‘Yes, I am media man for this school. Why do you ask?’

Payne put a finger to his lips. ‘Shhhhh! Not here. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘In private?’ he asked softly. ‘Yes, I can do that. I can do anything. Follow me.’

In all honesty, Payne didn’t have anything to speak to him about — at least not at that moment. But he figured he couldn’t risk standing in the hallway with a dozen cops liable to spot him. Plus, he realized he had to give Frankie some kind of explanation and figured a long walk to a secluded part of the library would give him enough time to develop a believable cover story.

Frankie led Payne to a private reading room filled from floor to ceiling with stacks of leather-bound books. Then he asked, ‘What is this? Some secret, no?’

Payne countered the question with one of his own. ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’

He shook his head. ‘One of guards tells me you are from British embassy, but after listening to you voice, I knows that he is wrong. You an American, no?’

‘Very good.’ Payne applauded. ‘That means you’re smarter than your guards.’

Smiling at the half compliment, Frankie said, ‘So, tell me, who you are?’

‘Not yet. We’ll get to that in a second. But first I have another question for you. Do you like what you do for a living? I mean, I get the sense that you’re capable of doing so much more. I picture you as someone who should be making news instead of helping others report it. And do you know what? I’m the type of guy who can make that happen. If that would appeal to you.’

Intrigued, Frankie invited Payne to sit down. ‘What, are you some kind of magic wizard? You can go poof and fix my life?’

‘How would you like to help me and my team capture Dr Boyd? Not a behind-the-scenes job, but one in which you actively participate in his capture. Would that interest you?’

Drool practically leaked from his mouth. ‘Would that interest me? Mamma mia! I have been trying to help the polizia all night, but they no have been receptive. What do you need?’

‘I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, I need your help with something trivial.’

‘You need my help before you need my help. This is very confusing, no? What is you need?’

‘Actually, I just need help getting my partner inside.’

‘Is that it? I can do that with my eyes tied behind my back.’

That sounded painful, but Payne didn’t have the heart to correct him. Instead, he gave him all the information he needed and told him where he could find Jones. ‘Before you go, though, let me officially introduce myself. My name is Jonathon Payne, and I’m working for the CIA.’

‘The CIA?’ he gasped. ‘I heard of that in cinema, no? It is an honor to meet you Signor Payne. Yes, a big honor… So, is there anything you need besides your friend?’

‘Yeah, Frankie, now that you mention it, there is…’

Dante marched into the library like he owned the place, around the crowd of onlookers, past the worthless security guard, and through a dozen cops in the lobby. He never slowed to make small talk, never gave anyone a chance to ask him what he was doing or where he was going until he reached the police tape outside the women’s bathroom.

‘What happened?’ he growled at the lead detective.

The officer recognized him immediately and knew his connection to Benito Pelati. ‘Multiple assaults followed by a well-planned escape. They eluded a SWAT team like they were statues.’

‘Who was assaulted?’

‘An off-duty library guard was attacked more than once. The girl hit him first. Boyd got him next, then the girl got him again. She must’ve been coked up or something, because he said she had the strength of ten men.’

Dante grimaced, surprised at the detective’s gullibility. Didn’t he know that every guy who had his ass kicked by a female was going to have an excuse? ‘How’d they get off the roof?’

‘A scrap tube. They slid to the alley.’

‘Do we have pictures of anything?’

‘Maybe. We’re looking through security tapes as we speak.’

Dante frowned. The last thing he needed was for a batch of photographs to be leaked to the press. In his mind that would be more difficult to contain than the bus explosion had been. ‘What about fingerprints? Are we even sure it was Boyd?’

The detective shrugged as two men — one of them short, the other one black — walked past them down the hall. ‘The guard swears it was him, and so do several witnesses. We won’t know for sure until later. There are a lot of prints to sort through in a building like this.’

The longer, the better, thought Dante. He needed all the time he could get to paint the appropriate picture with the media. ‘Last question: Do we know what they were doing here?’

‘Research, I think. They spent most of the day in a study room working on some kind of project. I can show you if you’d like.’

Dante nodded, hoping to hell that they weren’t working on anything that they’d found in Orvieto. That’s the one thing he couldn’t contain if Boyd decided to go public.

Jones strolled into the library, bemused. He’d been standing outside, trying to find anyone who would talk to him about Boyd, when a tiny man grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the steps. His initial reaction was to pull away, which wouldn’t have been hard, considering Frankie’s size. Then Frankie said he was a friend of Agent Payne’s and Jones was needed inside.

As they walked down the corridor, Jones kept his head on a swivel, memorizing the layout while trying to figure out what had taken place. A murder? A kidnapping? A rape? The only thing that stood out was the police tape sealing off the women’s bathroom. Jones wanted to lean in for a closer look, but his view was blocked by an imposing man in a fancy suit who appeared to be interrogating a detective, not the other way around. That struck him as odd, so he made note of the guy, figuring he might come into play later.

Little did he know that their paths would cross again with a much more violent outcome.

36

While sipping coffee, Payne thumbed through police documents until Frankie brought Jones into the back room of the library. Payne could tell that Jones was confused because his ears had a red tint to them, and that only happened when he was scared or confused. ‘D.J., glad you could make it. We’ve got so much to discuss.’

Jones glanced at Frankie, then back at Payne, trying to figure out the connection. Eventually, he decided it would be easier to ask. ‘Jon, do you mind if I have a word with you in private?’

Payne turned toward Frankie. ‘Be a champ and get D.J. a cup of coffee, would you?’

Jones waited until Frankie left the room before saying anything. ‘What the hell is going on? I told you to look around, not hire an intern.’

‘Calm down. Frankie’s been hooking us up. He’s already done more than you can imagine.’

Jones rolled his eyes. ‘Like what?’

‘First of all, Frankie isn’t an intern. He’s the media liaison for this school, which means he’s privy to police documents before they go to the press.’ Payne held up a stack as a visual aid. ‘Secondly, he has legal access to every building on campus, which is bound to be useful. And third, he makes a great cup of coffee. You gotta try this stuff.’

The anger softened in Jones’s eyes, as did the color of his ears. ‘What does he know about us? I hope I didn’t ruin anything by calling you Jon.’

‘Not at all. I’ve been honest with the guy from the start. I told him our real names, that we’re working for the CIA, and we’re looking for Boyd. I also told him that we wanted to keep a low profile, so he hooked us up with this back office.’

‘And he’s OK with that? What’s in it for him?’

‘A chance to live a dream. I guess you aren’t the only one who longs to be a super spy.’

Jones shrugged off the insult. ‘What else did your playmate tell you?’

‘It seems Boyd and the female were here for several hours doing some kind of research before a guard spotted them. When he tried to detain her, she knocked his ass out and ran to warn Boyd. Then, somehow, they got to the roof and escaped from an entire SWAT team.’

‘From the roof? Was another helicopter involved?’

Frankie heard the comment as he reentered. ‘What do you mean another?’

Payne did his best to explain. ‘The police were close to nailing Boyd in Orvieto before he shot down their chopper.’

‘He shoots down a helicopter? With what? Big gun?’

Payne shrugged. ‘We tried to investigate the crash site, but the wreckage had been removed.’

‘Is that normal?’

He shook his head. ‘Not where we’re from.’

Jones added, ‘Our colleague took some pictures of the scene, but we haven’t had a chance to develop them yet. We’re kind of hoping they can clear up the mystery of the wreckage.’

Frankie raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you still have film?’

‘Maybe,’ Jones answered. ‘Why?’

‘Because I have school photo lab. I can do pictures for you now, if you like.’

Pleased by the development, Payne looked at Frankie and said, ‘Yes, we like.’

‘Good! Just give me film, and I do my job quick!’

Reluctantly, Jones handed the film to Frankie and watched him leave. The instant he was gone, Jones said, ‘I hope you’re right about this guy. We just gave a big piece of evidence to a stranger. We don’t even — ’

‘Relax! I got a good feeling about Frankie. He’s going to be a big help to us.’

As if on cue, Frankie walked back into the room, holding a photocopy in his hand. ‘Special delivery, Signor Payne. I think you want to see this.’ He accented his statement by kissing his fingertips in a classic Italian gesture. ‘The guard was right. This woman is bellissima!’

‘Really?’ Jones grabbed the picture before Payne had a chance to see it. ‘Wow! You weren’t kidding. This woman is beautiful. Where’d you get this?’

‘The polizia find image on security camera, and I get from them. I hope you is pleased.’

‘Very pleased,’ Payne said. ‘Exceptionally pleased.’

Frankie grinned at the praise. ‘Good! Is there anything else before I go make film?’

Payne shook his head, then waited for Jones to respond. Unfortunately, he was somewhere in la-la land, soaking up every nuance of the woman’s face. The intensity of his gaze told Payne his interest was something less than professional.

So Payne said, ‘D.J.? What do you think? Do we need anything else?’

Smiling, he looked at Payne. ‘Just time. Give me some time, and this woman is mine.’

37

The abandoned warehouse was crawling with spiders, yet Maria Pelati didn’t mind, since it gave her a safe place to rest. Dr Boyd felt the same way, even though it took him a lot longer to warm to the concept. To him, the thought of sleeping like a hobo seemed preposterous until he stretched his tired frame atop the concrete floor. Within seconds his body whispered its approval.

‘Professore,’ she said, adjusting the rag under her head. ‘May I ask you a personal question? I was wondering if you’ve ever been married.’

‘I should’ve guessed; the age-old query that has plagued me for years. No, my dear, I’ve never been married. Between teaching and traveling, I never found the right person… And what of you? Why is there no man in your life?’

‘In some ways I guess I’m following your lead. I’ve been working too long and too hard to screw things up now, especially with my doctorate close at hand. But I’ll promise you this: Once I obtain my degree, my life is going to change drastically.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes, just like that,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve always wanted a family. So there’ll come a point in the near future when my personal life becomes my number-one priority. And when it does, look out. No guy on the planet will be safe.’

‘A beautiful girl like yourself shouldn’t have difficulty finding a suitor. Or hundreds of them, for that matter.’

Maria blushed at the compliment.

‘And what does your family think about all of this? I’ve heard you grumble about your father on more than one occasion. Does he really look down on your choices as much as you claim?’

The color in her cheeks grew even brighter. ‘I don’t think he looks down on my choices as much as he looks down on me. My father has an old-world mentality, one in which women are considered the weaker, dumber sex. He truly believes that we were put on earth to serve men.’

‘Old-world, indeed! And how does your mother feel about his barbaric views?’

She paused before answering. ‘I wish I knew, sir… My mother passed away before I ever had the chance to ask her.’

‘Oh, Maria, I had no idea. I’m so sorry for bringing it up.’

‘That’s all right. I think it actually does me some good to get this stuff off of my chest.’

Boyd offered her a smile, then laid back to listen.

‘When I was growing up, my mother and I were best of friends. We played together, went to the park together, read books together. My father didn’t allow her to do any work — we had a staff of servants to take care of the house — so she had plenty of time to spend with me. And let me tell you, she was the greatest mother in the world. So loving, so thoughtful. Always encouraging me to pursue my dreams. Just the way you’d want a parent to be…’

Her voice trailed off as she searched for the words to continue.

‘Unfortunately, my dad was just the opposite, at least toward me. I have two half brothers, and my father treated them like gold. Especially Roberto. Always showering him with attention. Always bragging about his potential. Always taking him to work and on business trips. But I wasn’t jealous. I had my mom and my brothers had my dad. I just figured that was the way things were supposed to be.’ She paused, her eyes focusing on the moonlight that streamed through the warehouse’s dirty windows. ‘At least I thought that way until I was nine.’

Maria took a deep breath. ‘I’d never heard my parents fight until that year. And I mean really fight. Screaming, crying, threats of all kinds. It was a nightmare. The two people in the world that meant the most to me were going head-to-head in a heated battle. God, when you’re a child, there are never any winners in a situation like that. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it got even worse when I figured out what they were fighting about.’

‘And what was that?’

‘They were fighting about me.’

She nodded her head, slowly, like she was still coming to grips with the memory. ‘They were in the kitchen, and my dad was screaming right into her face. The veins bulging in his neck. I still find this next part hard to believe, but my father ordered her to stay away from me. He told her that I was a girl and nothing could change the fact that I was worthless. Then he insisted that she start paying more attention to my brothers because they still had a chance to be something. Can you believe that? I’m nine years old, and my dad was already giving up on me.’

Boyd didn’t know what to say.

‘My mother argued that I could be just as good as a man, but he laughed at that. Literally laughed in her face. Then, when he was done laughing, he informed her that he was sending me away to boarding school so they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore.’

‘You have to be joking.’

A tear rolled down Maria’s cheek. ‘I didn’t even know what boarding school was, yet I could tell from my mother’s reaction that it wasn’t a good thing. She immediately burst into tears and ran from the kitchen.’

‘My God! You were sent away?’

Maria nodded. ‘Nine years old and I was shipped off to the Cheltenham School for Girls.’

‘The one in Gloucestershire? That’s a top-notch academy, my dear.’

‘Maybe so, but it couldn’t make up for the things that were taken from me.’

Boyd flinched at her tone. ‘Maria, I didn’t mean to suggest that — ’

The anger in her eyes softened slowly. ‘I know. At least they had the decency to get me a good education, right? Well, that was my mother’s doing, not his. She figured, if she couldn’t stop him from sending me away, the least she could do was find me a school where women were treated with respect. And do you know what? For the most part, things turned out well. Once I adjusted, I started to thrive in my new environment. I was introduced to girls from several countries and backgrounds. I learned half a dozen languages. In fact, I got to the point where I started to look down on all things Italian. The language, the culture, the food. I figured if I wasn’t good enough for Italy, then Italy wasn’t good enough for me. It wasn’t until much later that I even set foot in this country again.’

‘Not even for the holidays?’

‘Why would I want to ruin my holidays? There was nothing in Rome but my father, and he didn’t want anything to do with me, remember?’

‘And what of your mom?’ he asked delicately. ‘I take it she passed on shortly thereafter?’

Maria took another deep breath. ‘My mother rang me a few weeks after I arrived in England. The call was against the rules, but she managed to get through by claiming a family emergency. I was expecting dreadful news — I mean, the headmistress was ashen when she came to get me, so what else could it be? — but I couldn’t have been more wrong. My mother was ecstatic. She told me she’d been looking for a way to get me home and finally stumbled upon a way to do it. She wouldn’t tell me what it was but assured me that I would be by her side very soon.

‘Well, as you can imagine, I was thrilled. I ran down the hall and started to pack, expecting her to be at the front gate that very night. Of course, she wasn’t. Nor the next night. Nor the night after that. This went on for weeks and not a single word from her. Finally, after two months, my headmistress retrieved me again, her face even worse than the first time. I picked up the phone, dying to hear the sound of my mother’s voice, but it wasn’t her. It was my brother, Roberto. Without so much as a hello, he informed me that my mother had died a few months back, although the official inquiry had only been wrapped up that day. The Italian courts ruled that she became depressed over my departure and had taken her own life.’

Boyd winced at the news. It wasn’t what he was expecting.

‘It was bad enough that my mother was gone, but to be told that I was the cause…’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘To be called several weeks after her death by one of the people who forced my departure, well, that somehow made it worse.’

Boyd had always assumed that Maria was a pampered rich kid who was biding her time until she inherited her father’s throne as the minister of antiquities. Now he knew different. This trip had revealed a side of Maria that he never knew existed. She was a fighter.

‘And out of curiosity, how is your current relationship with your father?’

Maria wiped her eyes while she thought of the appropriate words. ‘I wouldn’t call it cordial, but he’s definitely an important part of my life.’

‘Are you serious? That’s awfully surprising, considering the story you just told.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, Professore. I hate the man for what he put me and my mother through. But after giving it some thought, I decided it would be foolish to exclude him from my life.’

‘And why is that, my dear?’

‘Why? Because I want him to see that my mother was right, that his worthless little girl was able to make something of herself. I want that bastard to have a front row seat in my life so I can rub his nose in everything that I achieve.’

38

All of the police files were written in Italian, so Payne wasn’t very useful as Jones translated them and took notes. After ten minutes or so, Payne couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to do something productive while waiting for Frankie to develop the film, or he was going to start bouncing off the walls. Jones sensed it, too. ‘Did you forget to take your Ritalin?’

‘You know how I get. I’m not wired for this office crap.’

Jones laughed while pulling a phone number from his wallet. ‘Do you remember Randy Raskin? I introduced you two a few years ago.’

‘Computer guy at the Pentagon, right?’

‘Yep, that’s him.’ He handed Payne a card. ‘That’s his direct line. Tell him I need to cash in a favor — he’ll know what I mean. Have him search his system for any background info on Boyd. See if he’s dating anyone or has ever been married. Maybe this woman is his long-lost daughter.’

‘What about Donald Barnes? Maybe there’s something there that we don’t know about.’

‘Same with Manzak and Buckner. He might be able to find some dirt on them. I didn’t have enough time to dig into their files.’

Thankfully, Randy Raskin was more helpful than any computer-tech guy Payne had ever talked to. At first Payne figured Jones was just humoring him, giving him some busy-work so he’d leave him alone. Turns out that wasn’t the case at all, because Raskin hooked Payne up with some serious information. Payne scribbled furiously as Raskin told him everything that he needed to know about Dr Boyd and their friends at the CIA, Manzak and Buckner. He was so forthcoming Payne was tempted to ask him if the U.S. government still kept aliens in Area 51.

Anyhow, after thanking Raskin, Payne hustled back to Jones to brief him on his conversation. ‘Let’s start with Boyd. He’s been a member of the Dover faculty for over a decade. During that time he’s taken several leaves of absence to go on archaeological digs around the world, including the privately funded excavation he was on in Orvieto.’

‘No shocker there.’

‘Hang on, I’m getting to the good part. In addition to funds he received from private donors, he also received a yearly stipend from American Cargo International.’ He glanced at Jones and waited for a reaction. ‘Does that name ring any bells?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, it should. We’ve done business with them on more than one occasion.’

And that’s when the name clicked in Jones’s head. American Cargo International wasn’t a business. It was a front, a company in name alone that enabled groups like the MANIACs to carry out their missions. The money for their operations had to come from somewhere, and it obviously couldn’t be a public source — that would be too difficult to explain to the taxpayers. So dummy companies were established to help foot the bills. The FBI had Red River Mining, the Navy had Pacific Salvage, and the Pentagon had too many companies for Payne to remember.

Yet that wasn’t the case with ACI, because the men who ran that particular fund were so egotistical, so sure that they’d never get caught, that they barely bothered to hide what they were doing. Scramble the initials of American Cargo International, and the identity of its parent organization could quickly be discovered: ACI stood for the CIA.

‘So what does that mean?’ Jones asked, still trying to connect the dots.

‘It means that Boyd was onto something big, and the CIA wanted to be a part of it. By financing his dig, they had a rightful claim to anything he discovered.’

‘So that’s why Manzak has such a hard-on for him. He thinks Boyd found what they were looking for, then decided to skip town.’ Jones chuckled to himself, half-embarrassed. ‘Man, I feel so used! We’re nothing more than Manzak’s bill collectors.’

‘Not exactly… The news gets worse from here.’

He looked at Payne, concerned. ‘What did we do now?’

‘Nothing. It’s what Manzak and Buckner did that scares me.’

‘Oh God, what did those schmucks do?’

‘It seems that they got themselves killed.’

‘As in dead? Manzak and Buckner are dead? Who the hell killed ’em?’

‘Strangely, a team of Serbian rebels outside of Kosovo.’

‘Kosovo? What the hell were they doing there? We just talked to them…’ Click. His mental lightbulb went on. ‘Ah, son of a bitch! I can’t believe this shit. What year did they die?’

‘According to the Pentagon computer, 1993. Of course, the CIA still lists them on their active roster because they’re unwilling to admit that Manzak and Bucker were even in Kosovo. I mean, that might cause a scandal.’

Jones sighed, ignoring the sarcasm. Payne could tell he was pissed that he hadn’t discovered the Kosovo information two days ago. If he had, it would’ve radically altered their plan of attack. Instead of searching for Dr Boyd, they would’ve spent all of their time trying to uncover Manzak’s true identity and what he wanted from them.

‘That’s why they were clean when I searched their backgrounds,’ Jones explained. ‘I only have partial access to the database, but my intel listed them as active agents in good standing.’

‘Of course they were in good standing. It’s tough to break the rules when you’re dead.’

‘Good point.’

‘Speaking of which, why do I get the feeling that we’re going to end up dead if we don’t figure out what we’re involved in?’

Jones nodded, sensing the same thing. They weren’t dealing with petty criminals who’d let them walk away without completing their agreement. These men had enough power to swing a deal with the Spanish government, forge impeccable CIA credentials, and uncover their top secret backgrounds without any problems at all. There was no way in hell that they would let Payne and Jones turn their backs on them without finding Boyd.

They were loose ends that they’d have to deal with whether they finished their task or not.

That’s why Payne and Jones decided to push on. They figured the more cards they had, the safer they’d be.

Manzak and Buckner had died in 1993, yet Payne had talked to them a few days ago without a séance. Dr Boyd could be linked to the CIA through a series of payments, although the dead spooks failed to mention anything about that. Plus, more than forty people had been killed near Orvieto in the last week, yet Payne didn’t know why. Or by whom. Or where all the evidence was. These were just a few of the things Payne discussed with Jones as they walked to the university’s photo lab to see the photos that Frankie had developed for them.

‘You know,’ Payne grumbled, ‘the more I learn about this case, the more I get confused.’

‘Really? I think things are coming together nicely. Let’s assume that Boyd was paid to steal some antiques from some key European countries. That way, when the CIA needed some top secret information, they could trade the artifacts for whatever they needed. But let’s assume that Boyd got greedy and decided to keep the relics for himself. In that case, what were Manzak and Buckner — or whatever their real names are — supposed to do? Chase Boyd all over Europe and risk getting caught? Why do that when they could get two ex-MANIACs to track him for free?’

Not too shabby, Payne thought to himself. His theory didn’t explain everything — like the exploding bus, the identity of the brunette, or the true identity of Manzak and Buckner — but it utilized everything else. Of course, Payne didn’t have anything to support Jones’s hypothesis, things like proof or evidence. But he wasn’t a cop, so he didn’t give a damn about that crap. All he cared about was finding Dr Boyd. Payne figured by getting ahold of him he’d have enough leverage with Manzak and Buckner to break away cleanly.

Anyhow, they reached the darkroom a few minutes later and were pleased to find Frankie waiting with the film. He said, ‘I not sure what you learn from these. There is hotel, and the church, and the helicopter… Orvieto is quite beautiful, no?’

‘Very,’ Payne said as he flipped through the prints. ‘How’d you recognize the town?’

‘Orvieto is known to my people. Just like Egyptians know the pyramids of Giza or Chinamen know Xi’an, we know about Orvieto — and the stories of its treasure.’

‘Treasure?’ Jones asked. ‘What treasure?’

‘Mamma mia! You been there and not know its treasures? How can this be?’

‘We weren’t exactly on a sightseeing tour.’

‘Ah, yes, I forget! You there on official business. Please, since this is so, let me explain Orvieto to you. It will make you — how you say? — understand photos good.’

Jones shook his head. ‘Maybe some other time. We’re in a hurry right now.’

‘Please! This may explain why Dottore Boyd was in Orvieto and what he is wanting.’

They somehow doubted that, but they humored Frankie anyway.

‘For years there are stories about Orvieto. When pope looked for shelter during holy war, people say he no live on top of rock. They say he live under rock, deep inside land. No one knows how this be since no one dig for him, but too many stories for me not to believe.’

‘What are you saying?’ Payne asked. ‘He lived underground?’

‘Yes! He so scared for his life he do what he can. He make tunnels to escape. He grow crops to eat. He make well to have water. All of this to hide from enemies.’

‘We saw the well,’ Payne admitted. ‘Regrettably, so did our friend with the camera.’

‘But what of tunnels? Did you see the tunnels? They are — how you say? — very cool crap. They go beneath the street like sewer. I feel like Indian Jones when I crawl through them!’

Payne smiled at the reference. ‘Didn’t you say something about a treasure?’

‘Si! A magnificent treasure, one that no one has found.’

Jones shook his head. ‘Sorry, but I find that hard to believe. I’m a huge history buff, and I’ve never heard anything about Orvieto’s treasure. How famous could it be if I’ve never heard of it?’

Frankie shrugged. ‘Maybe your country no make it famous? I do not know. In my country Orvieto be famous. Catacombs be famous. Everyone in my country know Catacombs.’

‘Fine,’ Jones relented. ‘If that’s the case, how come no one has found the treasure? Orvieto isn’t a big place. I mean, if there was gold in them there hills, someone would’ve found it.’

‘No! The land beneath town is illegal for shovels. No digging allowed. Not for treasure seekers. Not for anyone. If you caught, you go to jail. You see, big hill is like old mine, filled with many caves. People is worried if someone dig in wrong place, then all of Orvieto go splat!’ He slammed his tiny hands together. ‘And that would suck big one, no?’

Payne laughed until he realized Jones wasn’t. ‘You OK?’

Jones blinked a few times. ‘You know how there’s been a hole in this case, something out of our grasp? What if this turns out to be a treasure hunt? It would explain Boyd’s presence in Orvieto and the CIA’s interest. If the Feds were able to get data with a few trinkets, imagine what they could get for an entire site.’ He paused, thinking things through. ‘Furthermore, a jackpot of this size would explain the Italian authorities. I mean, there’s no way a local bureau could’ve pulled the cover-ups that we’ve witnessed. To hide a helicopter crash and manipulate a bus wreck, you have to have the backing of some very serious people.’

‘True, but where do we fit in?’

‘Our friends at the CIA must’ve known Boyd was onto something. That’s why they panicked when he disappeared. They knew if the Italians found him first, they’d be screwed out of everything they’d been financing for years. That’s why they came to us. They needed to find him ASAP and thought we could do the job.’

In Payne’s mind the theory made sense. Of course, he realized it might make even more sense if he knew more about the Catacombs. ‘Hey Frankie, tell us about the treasure.’

‘My people say that Clement VII feared for Church’s wealth. Even when pope return to Vatican, he still be scared for it. That is why people say he leave the best things in Orvieto.’

Jones whistled softly, thinking of the Vatican’s treasure. ‘Frankie, if we wanted to dig in Orvieto, who would we have to talk to? Is there a local bureau that could give us permission?’

‘No, there is nothing like that in all of Umbria… But in Rome, yes, there is an office. It is called Department of Antiques, and it be very high power in government.’

Payne assumed he meant the Department of Antiquities. ‘How so?’

‘The minister of antiques is named Benito Pelati, and he very important man. He is very old, very well-respected throughout Italy. He is done so much to save our treasures, our culture, that people line up to kiss his feet.’

‘This Pelati guy, would he have the authority to let someone dig in Orvieto?’

‘Si, but this is something that Signor Pelati no gonna do. We Italians is very proud. And because of pride, sometimes we is very stubborn. For long time, Signor Pelati has said to my people that Catacomba di Orvieto is made-up. He even go on TV and say it no real, that people should forget tales because they not true. But some scholars want proof. They no even want to dig. They just want pictures of ground with giant X-ray to see if anything is there, and he no even allow that. Too much at stake for him.’

Payne nodded in understanding. ‘Out of curiosity, how does Mr Pelati prevent illegal digs?’

‘He has special team who live in Orvieto and watch everything. Many people sneaked into town to find the Catacombs and many people not come back. In time, people no longer look for treasure… Myth not worth dead.’

‘Hypothetically,’ Jones said, ‘if someone wanted to dig there, what would it take?’

Frankie shrugged. ‘Permission from Signor Pelati. But, like me say, that no gonna happen. Signor Pelati is no gonna let someone find treasure in Orvieto. In nessun momento! In Italy, an important man like Benito Pelati would rather be dead than look foolish.’

Payne and Jones continued talking with Frankie until he was called back to the library on business. They stayed in the photo lab, though, using a work-table to examine the photos of the crash site. Each of the pictures had been taken atop the plateau. The initial shot revealed a panoramic view of the landscape, followed by several of the wreckage itself, concentrating on Boyd’s truck and the left side of the helicopter. Most of the chopper’s rear section was scorched, but not enough to obscure the last three digits of its serial number.

‘That’s about all I found, unless you count these,’ Payne said.

Oddly, the final two pictures of the roll were taken from the opposite end of the ridge, which meant Barnes walked several hundred feet to film the reverse angle of the crash. To Payne’s eye it seemed like a huge waste of time, because they didn’t reveal anything of value — mostly scorched grass, huge rocks, and chunks of burnt metal. ‘So, what did we learn?’

‘We learned that Barnes was telling the truth. The helicopter crashed on top of the truck, even though the truck wasn’t mentioned in the newspaper. That seems strange to me.’

‘Maybe it has something to do with the truck’s location,’ Payne suggested. ‘There isn’t a road at the bottom of the plateau, which tells me that Boyd went way out of his way to get down there. Why would he do that? If he was a thief like the CIA claims, why would he risk driving down there unless it was necessary? If he wanted to blend in, he would’ve parked in the lot where we parked then walked into Orvieto like a tourist.’

Jones nodded. ‘Furthermore, if Boyd was there for an illegal dig, there’s no way he would’ve parked at the bottom, not with Pelati’s men running around. They would’ve spotted him for sure. Unless, of course, he wasn’t worried about Pelati’s men… Wait, maybe that’s the thing we’ve been missing. Maybe he wasn’t hiding from Pelati because he was working for him?’

‘Doing what? Searching for buried treasure?’

‘Maybe. That would explain why Boyd’s truck was in the valley. He wasn’t worried about being spotted and wanted his equipment as close to the site as possible.’

‘And the helicopter?’

Jones shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe it was there to protect Boyd and some interlopers shot it down. Or maybe it belonged to treasure hunters and Pelati’s crew took them out?’

‘Or maybe it belonged to the CIA. Ever think of that?’

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’ He studied the chopper’s rear section. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say this bird was made by Bell. Perhaps part of their 206 series. Possibly an L–I.’

‘You can tell all that from one picture?’

‘Trust me, this was a Bell. Just like the chopper that Manzak and Buckner used. Same color, too. As black as my uncle Jerome.’

Payne took the picture out of Jones’s hand. ‘Probably not a coincidence, huh?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Which means one chopper was in Pamplona while a second was in Orvieto.’

Jones nodded. ‘But that’s where things get tricky. No one knows what the chopper was doing there. Furthermore, we don’t know who we talked to in Pamplona, because Manzak and Buckner are dead. Speaking of which, why kill Donald Barnes and all the people on the bus?’

‘Yeah, that doesn’t make sen — ’

The sound of ringing stopped Payne midword. He probably shouldn’t have answered it, but it was after midnight, and he was curious. Thankfully, it turned out to be a good choice because Frankie was on the line, and he sounded very excited. ‘I leaving library right now. Bring pictures and meet me in my office. I promise, you will like! This will be good!’

39

The thought of asking her father for help was enough to keep Maria awake. No matter how she rationalized it, she just couldn’t get past his basic ideology of life. Women were weak, and men were strong. God, it infuriated her. How could someone living in the twenty-first century think in such an old-fashioned way? To make matters worse, she knew if she went to him for assistance, he’d use it as proof that when the going got tough, all women turned to men for help.

Then again, what choice did she have? She realized if she wanted to go public with the Catacombs, she needed to get everything documented by her father’s office. Otherwise she and Boyd would be labeled grave robbers, not archaeologists, and they would lose the rights to everything they found. The fact that he was a blatant sexist and an asshole of a father shouldn’t factor into it. He was the minister of antiquities, and he needed to be notified immediately.

Both she and Boyd knew it. Yet it was a call she was unwilling to make.

The thought of him saying that he would rescue her was one she couldn’t bear. The bastard had abandoned her as a little girl and turned his back on her when she needed him the most. So she refused to turn to him now. Not if she could help it. No way in hell.

‘Professore,’ she whispered. ‘It’s time to wake up. The sun will be up shortly.’

Boyd opened one eye, then the other, desperately searching for clues to his location. The first thing he noticed was the intricate design of the spiderwebs that hung from the ceiling. Next he felt the coldness of the concrete floor against his back. Breathing deeply, he noticed the distinct stench of urine in the air. Ah, yes! The memories came flooding back. He was in a warehouse.

‘Come on,’ she snapped. ‘We need to get out of town before breakfast.’

‘Why’s that, my dear?’

‘Because we’re bound to be on the front page of the local paper. Once people see that, the odds of us being spotted go up significantly.’

The moment Payne and Jones got to Frankie’s office they could tell he was bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘One of my jobs is making monthly bulletin for our school. Lotsa pictures, lotsa stories, lotsa nothing.’ Frankie rummaged through his desk and found an old newsletter. It was the type of thing sent to graduates and big-money donors. ‘I do whole thing myself from here.’

‘That’s great,’ Payne said. ‘But what’s that have to do with us?’

Frankie walked over to his computer and opened his scanner. ‘We scan pictures. We make pictures big on screen. We see why pictures is so important. Good idea, no?’

Payne agreed and handed him the pictures. Frankie put the first photo in and hit start.

The basic purpose of a scanner is to convert a document into a digital format (i.e., a computer file) so it can be stored on disk or manipulated on-screen. They were interested in option two, hoping to magnify Barnes’s pictures to several times their original size. Ten seconds passed before the first signs of color started to appear. The three of them stared at the image as it slowly filled the screen. A rainbow of dots here, a massive shape there. After a while it was obvious that the photo was coming in upside down. Jones had the most experience in the computer field, so he offered to man the keyboard.

‘Not to worry,’ he bragged. With a touch of his mouse, the image flipped 180 degrees and continued to grow. ‘OK, what do you want to look at first?’

Payne pointed to a section of wreckage. ‘Zoom in on the helicopter. I want to see if we can make out more of the serial number besides the last three digits.’

Jones clicked a few of buttons on the toolbar and waited for the image to be redrawn. Charred metal filled the screen, but no additional numbers could be seen. ‘Now what?’

‘I don’t know. I was hoping the chopper would show us something useful. Maybe if we — ’ That’s when Payne thought of a different approach. ‘Hey Frankie, give me the photos.’ He glanced through the pile until he found the one he wanted. ‘Try this instead.’

Frankie put it in the scanner, and soon they were looking at the picture on-screen.

‘Zoom in on the truck,’ Payne said. ‘Maybe we can see a make or model.’

Jones moved his mouse across the desk. ‘And what good will that do?’

‘I bet Boyd’s truck was a rental. And if we figure out where he rented it, we might be able to get some additional information, right?’

The moment the close-up of the truck filled the screen, they realized they were on the verge of a major discovery. Jones attacked the keyboard with zeal, hoping to magnify the picture. Soon they were able to see the make and model of Boyd’s truck and his license plate as well.

‘Mamma mia!’ Frankie blurted. ‘You guys is good!’

‘Thanks,’ Jones said as he sent the image to the printer. ‘But we ain’t done yet.’

Seconds later, Jones logged on to the Internet and went to his personal website, where he punched in his secret code. Even though he rarely used his system outside the office, he’d set it up so he could access it from any terminal in the world. Once his password was accepted, he typed the truck’s license plate number into a military search engine where he was given the name of the vehicle’s title holder. The truck belonged to Golden Chariots, a rental agency on the outskirts of Rome. Next, with a quick click of the mouse, he went to the company’s website, looking for anything that might help their search.

‘What you looking for?’ Frankie wondered. ‘Name? Address? Money-saving coupon?’

Jones shook his head. ‘I need a twenty-four-hour hotline that I can call this late at night.’

Frankie pointed to the screen. ‘Look! Right there. That is number, no?’

Jones nodded. ‘And since you found it, I’m going to let you make the call.’

‘Me? Why me? Why do I make call?’

‘Frankie, relax. I’ll do the hard part. All I want you to do is call this number and pretend you’re the manager of a local hotel. I don’t care which hotel, just pick one, OK? Then I want you to find out if the rental agent speaks English. If he does, tell him one of your guests needs to talk to him about a car problem. Got it?’

‘Si, I got it. And if he no speak English?’

‘If that’s the case, I’ll talk to him in Italian. But our charade will work better in English.’

Frankie nodded and dialed the number, although he had no idea what Jones was planning. Neither did Payne, for that matter, yet he patted Frankie on the shoulder and assured him he’d be fine. A woman answered on the fourth ring, and Frankie spoke to her in rapid Italian, explaining who he was and what he needed. Thankfully, she said she could speak English and would be willing to talk to Jones. Frankie handed him the phone and whispered, ‘Her name is Gia.’

Jones thanked him with a wink. ‘Gia, I’m so sorry to call you at such a late hour, but there’s been an accident.’

‘Are you all right?’ she asked in near-perfect English.

‘I’m fine. A little banged up but fine. Although I can’t say the same about your truck.’

‘The vehicle is in bad shape?’

‘Yeah, the whole side’s caved in. I plowed into it something good.’

‘Pardon me?’ she said, confused. ‘I don’t understand. You hit your own truck?’

‘What? No!’ Jones sighed loud enough for her to hear. ‘I’m sorry. I guess I’m doing a pretty bad job of explaining this. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m still a little shaken up from things.’

‘Not a problem, sir. Just take a deep breath and tell me what happened.’

He sucked in a gulp of air for her benefit. ‘Boy, let me try this again. I rented my car from a different agency, not yours, and as I was backing out of my parking space, I slammed into one of your trucks. I should’ve seen it because it was just sitting there. But, man, I hit it pretty good.’

The sound of typing preceded her next comment. ‘And the vehicle is heavily damaged?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I caved in the whole side and shattered its window.’

More typing. ‘And why are you calling us instead of the actual renter?’

‘Well, that’s just the thing. I don’t know who it belongs to. I assume it’s someone at the hotel, since it was parked in their lot, but I don’t know who. I came inside and asked the manager if he knew, but he didn’t. That’s when he suggested that we call you to find out.’

The clicking of keys continued. ‘And you’re sure it’s one of our vehicles?’

‘I think so. When I checked to see if anyone was inside, I noticed a pamphlet on the front seat with your company’s name on it. That’s how I got this phone number to begin with.’

Silence engulfed the line for the next few seconds. ‘Do you have any other information, sir? The make of the truck, the registration number, the — ’

‘I wrote down the license plate. Will that help?’

‘Yes, sir, that would be great.’

Jones read off the digits and waited for her reply.

‘Sorry, sir, there seems to be a discrepancy here. The license you gave me belongs to one of our vehicles, but its itinerary says nothing about Milan. That’s where you are, right?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Then I don’t see how you could have hit this truck. The vehicle with this particular license should be in Orvieto, not Milan.’

‘Orvieto?’ he said, feigning confusion. ‘Is that near here?’

‘Not at all. That’s why I’m guessing you’ve made a mistake.’

‘But I’m not. There’s no doubt in my mind I hit this truck. If you don’t believe me, I can put the hotel manager back on the phone. This truck is sitting twenty feet from us.’

The sound of clicking started up again. ‘Hold on, sir. I’ll double-check my records if you’d like. Can you give me that license plate again?’

Jones repeated the numbers, even though he started to doubt his plan. He figured, if she was reluctant to believe that the truck was even in Milan, then there was little chance that she’d answer any of his questions about Boyd.

‘Sir,’ she finally said, ‘while I was rerunning the license plate, something caught my eye. The customer you’re looking for is obviously in Milan, just like you suggested.’

‘Really? Why’s that?’

‘I noticed on my computer that she just rented a second vehicle.’

‘Excuse me?’ It took a few seconds for things to sink in. ‘Wait a second! Did you say she?’

‘Yes, sir. The driver of the truck just rented a Fiat from our Linate Airport office.’

Jones mouthed holy shit to Payne before he talked to Gia. ‘And how long ago was that?’

‘About a minute, sir. The order just came up on my screen.’

40

Fenway Park,

Boston, Massachusetts

Nick Dial had always wanted to see Fenway Park. There was something about the Green Monster, the thirty-seven-foot left-field wall, that captivated his imagination. His obsession started when he was a boy, during the summer he lived in New England. He and his father used to listen to games on the radio, then they’d go in their backyard and imitate their favorite Red Sox players.

Dial smiled as he thought about the ballpark on his flight to Boston. He imagined what the grass was going to smell like, the dirt was going to feel like, and the Monster was going to look like. He’d been waiting for this moment his entire life and couldn’t wait to get there.

All that changed, though, when he walked out of the tunnel and saw the crime scene spread before him. The playground of his dreams had been stained by the reality of his job.

Dial wasn’t there for a baseball game. He was there to catch a killer.

The cross had been planted on the pitcher’s mound with the victim facing home plate. His muscular arms stretched toward first and third, while his feet were angled toward the pitching rubber. A garbage bag had been slipped over the victim’s head to protect his identity from the news choppers that hovered over the field. Meanwhile, several officers searched around the cross for physical evidence.

Strangely, Dial saw a second team of cops standing in front of the Green Monster. He tried to figure out what they were doing, but the fence was over 300 feet away, and his already shitty vision was being obscured by the spotlights. Throw in the wattage of the stadium lights, and Dial felt like he was standing in the harsh glare of the afternoon sun, even though it was midnight in Boston.

‘Hey you,’ a cop yelled in an accent thicker than chowder. ‘Get outta here. This field is off-limits.’

Dial whipped out his credentials. ‘Where can I find the man in charge?’

‘Probably takin’ a leak in the dugout. Captain’s got a wicked large prostate. Can’t last ten minutes without hittin’ the crapper.’

Dial nodded, pulling out his notebook. ‘What can you tell me about the vic?’

‘He was an asshole. Wicked bat, wicked arm, but nothin’ more than a cock tease. Can you imagine him in our lineup? No way the Yanks beat us.’

‘Hold up. The vic was a ballplayer?’

The cop stared at Dial with a mixture of amusement and disgust. ‘That’s right, Frenchie. He was a ballplayer. You guys have baseball over there in Paris? Or are you too busy eatin’ cheese and watchin’ Jerry Lewis movies to play sports?’

Ouch! Dial wondered, Where did that come from?

The truth was, he’d been told very little about the case from Henri Toulon, only that a third victim had been found. Dial knew if he wanted to see the crime scene, he needed to take the quickest route to Boston, even if it meant not being fully briefed on the case.

Unfortunately, now he was paying for his haste.

At least until he decided to do something about it.

Dial took a step toward the cop. ‘First of all, you Beantown piece of shit, if you were half the cop that I am, you would’ve noticed that I can speak English better than you. So your theory that I’m French is as misplaced as my assumption that you’re drunk just because you’re a Boston cop. Secondly, I grew up in New England, so I know more about the Sox’s history than half the players on the team, which isn’t saying much, since most of them aren’t American. Finally, if you would’ve taken the time to read my badge, you would’ve noticed that I run the Homicide Division at Interpol, which means if someone dies on planet Earth, the odds are pretty good that I’m in charge. You got that? Now why don’t you run off like a good little batboy and tell your captain that his boss is here.’

The cop blinked a few times, then did what he was told. Five minutes later Captain Michael Cavanaugh was introducing himself with a firm handshake. ‘Sorry about our lack of hospitality. We’re spread a little thin right now. Hell, if we had known a bigwig was coming to town, I’m sure the mayor would’ve greeted you himself.’

‘I’m glad he didn’t. I’m here to find a killer, not get my ass kissed.’

Cavanaugh laughed and patted Dial on his shoulder. ‘Then you’ll fit right in with me. Just tell me what you want to know, and I’ll be happy to help.’

‘We can start with the vic’s name. I understand he’s an athlete.’

‘Yes, sir, a helluva athlete. Truth be told, we were kind of looking forward to booing the bum all weekend. I guess the good Lord decided to protect him from the abuse.’

This was protection? Holy shit! That meant the victim could only be one person. The most hated man in Boston: Orlando Pope. Stunned, Dial tried to figure out how a Yankee fit in with the others. First a priest, then a prince, now a Pope. Maybe the killers had something against the letter P? If so, the plumbers of the world should be very afraid. ‘Mind if I take a look?’

‘I don’t mind if he don’t mind.’

Dial nodded, his eyes searching for anything that seemed out of place. He dealt with copycat crimes on a regular basis, so his first order of business was figuring out if Pope was victim number three or just a copycat corpse, someone’s sick way of stealing the spotlight from the real killer.

Most investigators would’ve started with the body, but not Dial. He knew most copycats got the body right — at least until the forensic experts got involved with all their high-tech toys and found fifty things that didn’t belong. But the place they normally screwed up was in the minutiae, the small facts that were never released to the press, all the things that couldn’t be known by simply looking at a picture that had been published on the Internet.

In his world, the trivial was sometimes more important than the significant.

Dial started with the construction of the cross, making sure that the wood was similar in color and age to the African oak. Then he examined the three spikes, eyeing their length and making sure that the victim was positioned in the same way as the others.

When that checked out, he turned his attention to the body, first looking at the wounds on his back, the way his skin had been sliced open with repetitive blows of a metal-tipped whip during the scourging process, then examining his rib cage, probing his puncture wound with a gloved finger, hoping that the tip of the blade had fractured and remained imbedded in his chest.

‘Whatcha lookin’ for?’ Cavanaugh wondered. ‘The wound’s clean.’

‘Just doing my job. I tend to double-check everything.’

‘Yeah, I noticed.’

Dial smiled, then glanced at the choppers still hovering overhead. ‘Can’t you do anything about them? I need to remove the bag to see the handwriting on the sign.’

Cavanaugh stared at him like he was crazy. ‘There ain’t no sign under there. Just Pope’s ugly mug, which we’re trying to keep out of the papers.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘He’s been crucified enough in our sports pages.’

Dial ignored the joke. It was typical police humor. ‘I’ll be damned. The most famous vic yet, and they eliminate the sign. Why would they do that?’

Cavanaugh shrugged. ‘Then again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What type of sign were you expecting? I didn’t hear anything about a sign.’

‘That’s because we’ve been keeping it quiet.’ Dial took a step toward Cavanaugh, making sure no one else was listening. ‘The first two bodies had signs that referred to the cross. “IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER” was on the first. “AND OF THE SON” was with the second. I was kind of expecting the third one tonight. Makes me wonder if this is a copycat.’

Cavanaugh nodded, like something finally started to make sense in his mind. ‘No, this isn’t a copycat. I can promise you that.’

‘Really? How can you be so sure?’

‘Because of the sign.’

Dial winced. ‘What sign? I thought you said there wasn’t a sign.’

‘Not under the bag, at least.’ Cavanaugh searched Dial’s face, trying to figure out if he was kidding. ‘I guess you haven’t made it to the outfield yet.’

‘The outfield?’ Just then it hit Dial. ‘Ah, son of a bitch. Not the Monster.’

Dial took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the left-field wall, which was blurry to him. Several cops were still out there, and Dial finally knew why. They were taking pictures of the message, debating if they should hose the blood off the wall or rip it down as evidence.

Plus they were trying to figure out what the killer meant when he wrote, ‘AND OF THE HOLY.’

Disgusted, Cavanaugh sighed, ‘After tonight, it’s gonna be called the Red Monster.’

41

The Linate Airport was about four miles from the Università Cattolica campus. Frankie told Payne and Jones the fastest way to get there, which they hoped would be fast enough to grab Boyd, if he even appeared. Since a female had rented both vehicles, they knew there was a good chance that Boyd wouldn’t show his face. If he did, great. They’d take him down quickly before he knew what hit him. But if he didn’t, they’d follow his accomplice, hoping she led them to his hideout. Payne asked, ‘Do we know what color the car is?’

Jones shook his head. ‘The lady said it was a ’98 Fiat. And since Fiat stands for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, there’s bound to be plenty of ’em floating around Italy.’

Due to the early morning hour, they got to the rental office in less than five minutes. They parked across the street and spotted the female instantly. She was wearing a silk scarf over her dark brown hair, but the rest of her clothes were the same as they were in the surveillance photo.

This would be easier than they thought.

*

Paranoid, Maria glanced in her rearview mirror and saw nothing that concerned her. Traffic near the airport was virtually nonexistent, and the only visible light was from the iron lampposts that lined the roads of the desolate textile district. If all went well, she figured she’d be out of the city before the streets filled with the prying eyes of the Milanese workforce.

At least that was her plan.

The return trip to the abandoned warehouse was an uneventful one. As an extra precaution, she drove around the block two extra times, making sure that no one was following her. Once she was certain, she pulled her yellow Fiat down the cobblestone alley near the warehouse and parked behind a Dumpster, where she left the headlights on in order to find her way back inside.

‘Professore,’ she called as she entered the building. ‘I’m back.’

Boyd emerged from the shadows and greeted her with a warm smile. ‘Thank goodness, my dear. I’ve been worried sick. I kept having these dreadful thoughts that you were apprehended.’

She shook her head as she removed her silk scarf and replaced it with a ball cap. ‘Are you ready? We need to take advantage of the darkness while we can.’

‘Yes, by all means. Let me gather our things, and we can depart. Just give me a moment.’

Earlier that morning she’d wanted to take Boyd with her to the rental agency, although after much discussion, they decided it would be best if she went alone. It would’ve been faster if he’d tagged along, but he assumed the polizia would be staking out the airports and figured the farther he stayed away from the place, the better. And it was a good thing, too, for she noticed a number of officers near the terminal, and most of them were carrying Boyd’s picture.

‘Professore!’ she urged. ‘We have to get going. Please hurry.’

But unlike before, he didn’t respond. In fact, the only noise she heard was the beating of her own heart, a sound that suddenly increased in volume and rapidity.

Curious and slightly concerned, Maria crept past several wooden crates and headed toward the area where they’d slept. Unfortunately, the deeper she ventured into the building, the darker it got, and before long she found herself struggling to see even a foot in front of her.

‘Professore? Where are you? What’s wrong?’

When she heard no response, her curiosity was replaced with fear. What if someone had found him? What if he’d tripped in the darkness and hurt himself? What if someone…?

Just then Maria heard movement behind her. She ducked under several cobwebs and sidestepped a stack of boxes while heading toward the car’s headlights. To her surprise she saw Boyd sitting on the hood of the Fiat the moment she reached the alleyway.

‘Professore! I’ve been looking all over for you. How’d you get out here?’

‘With a little help, my dear.’

She smiled, glad that he was safe. ‘The lights were helpful, weren’t they?’

He sighed, ‘Regrettably, that’s not what I meant.’

‘It wasn’t? Then what are you talking about?’

At which point Payne introduced himself. ‘He’s trying to tell you I dragged him out.’

She whirled and saw his Beretta, his eyes completely hidden behind dark shades.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded in Italian. ‘What do you want from us?’

But Payne refused to answer. Instead, he grabbed her by her hair and threw her against the car. She briefly resisted until he let her know that he was in charge, shoving her face against the warm metal of the Fiat. Then he strengthened his hold by ramming his knee between her thighs and pinning her in place with his body weight. From there he was able to frisk her and tie her hands behind her back with a piece of cord that he’d found inside the warehouse. Finally, once she was secured, he spoke. ‘Now, what were you asking?’

She looked at him, confused. She had assumed that Payne was with the polizia because of his dark hair and his Beretta. But the more she heard his voice, the more certain she was that he was an American. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded in English. ‘What the hell do you want?’

Payne grinned at her profanity. ‘Hey, Doc! Where’d you find her? She’s feisty.’

‘You’re damn right I’m feisty. Now answer my damn question before I start screaming.’

‘Excuse me?’ Payne took a step forward and placed his gun under her chin. ‘Listen up, lady, I’m not sure you understand the situation, so I’m going to break it down for you. First of all, what’s your name? I don’t think it’s appropriate to call you “lady” when you don’t act like one.’

‘Mmrria.’

He eased up slightly so he could understand her.

‘My name’s Maria.’

‘OK, Maria, here’s the deal: I currently have a gun buried in your throat. Do you feel it?’

She nodded carefully.

‘Good. I thought you would. It’s kind of hard to miss, huh?’

She nodded again.

‘Wow! You’re getting pretty good at this. I ask a question and you answer it. Very softly. OK? There’s no shouting, no anger, and no feistiness. Men with guns don’t like feistiness. Do you understand me?’ She nodded one more time. ‘Now then, my partner and I have a few questions that we’ve been dying to ask you guys.’

‘Your partner?’

Jones announced his presence by opening the Fiat’s door.

‘Oh,’ she grunted.

‘Oh?’ Jones mocked. ‘I make a cool-ass entrance, and all you have to say is, “Oh”?’

She looked at him and sneered. ‘What would you like me to say?’

‘I don’t know. I figured a good lookin’ lady like yourself would at least try to butter me up. You know, turn on the sexual charm to sweet-talk your way out of this. And if that didn’t work, I figured you’d club me like the security guard at the library.’

Maria turned a bright shade of red. ‘I swear to God I didn’t mean to hurt that guy. I just wanted him to let go of me. That’s all! I had to warn — ’

Payne waited for her to finish, but she never did. ‘You had to warn who? Your boyfriend?’

‘Good heavens!’ Boyd snapped. ‘I’m not her boyfriend. What kind of man do you think I am? Maria is simply a student of mine! Nothing more!’

Payne said, ‘A student? A student in crime, maybe. I mean, you guys have been on quite a roll. The helicopter in Orvieto, the exploding bus, the library guard with the swollen nuts. Tsk, tsk, tsk. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

‘Ashamed?’ she cried. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong! The helicopter and the guard were self-defense. And the bus was an attempt on our lives.’

‘On your lives? Please! Why would anyone murder so many people just to kill you?’

She was ready to answer until she noticed Boyd shaking his head.

‘Come on,’ Payne goaded. ‘We know all about the treasure in the Catacombs. Or is there some other secret that you’re trying to keep from us?’

Boyd’s mouth fell open. ‘But how? Who?… Who are you two?’

‘Now, Doc, why should we answer that? You guys won’t answer our questions, so why should we answer yours?’

Jones chuckled. ‘I don’t know, maybe we should introduce ourselves? It would be the polite thing to do.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ Payne turned toward Boyd and grinned. ‘Hi! I’m Jon and this is my buddy, D.J. We work for the CIA.’

‘The CIA?’ Boyd echoed.

Payne replied in a thick German accent. ‘Yes, Herr Doctor! And ve know you are a spy!’

‘A spy? What in the world are you talking about?’

Jones laughed. ‘Quit the games, Doc. We know all about your past.’

‘My past?’

‘You know,’ Payne said, ‘where you steal antiquities from half the countries in Europe, then figure out how to hide the stuff. Not a bad scheme, but why in the world would a smart guy like you double-cross men like Manzak and Buckner? Those guys are kind of scary.’

Suddenly Maria’s eyes filled with doubt. ‘Professore?’

‘Good Lord, you mustn’t believe these chaps! I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in all my life! Double-crossing the CIA? That’s bloody preposterous!’

Payne pushed the issue. ‘What about American Cargo International? Does that name ring a bell?’

Cracks started to surface in Boyd’s veneer. ‘Yes, but…’

‘But what? They’ve been financing you for years, haven’t they?’

‘Yes, but, that doesn’t mean — ’

‘Doesn’t mean what? Doesn’t mean you’re connected to the CIA? Come on! I got the information straight from the Pentagon. I know you’re on the CIA’s payroll.’

Boyd blinked a few times, trying to hold his facade. ‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I’ve double-crossed them. I mean…’ His voice trailed off.

‘Go on,’ Payne insisted. ‘What do you mean? You obviously did something to piss them off. They wouldn’t have brought us into this if you weren’t a priority.’

Suddenly, horror filled his eyes. ‘They what?’

‘You heard me. They brought us in to track you down. We’re what you call specialists.’

‘Wait a bloody second! You mean you’re not in the Agency?’

‘Hell, no!’ Payne said. ‘We’re world-class bounty hunters, hired to find your ass.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out Manzak’s tracking device. ‘One touch of this button, and our obligations are done. They’ll come running, and we’ll get to go home.’

Boyd stared at the device for several seconds. ‘Yes,’ he finally said, ‘you’ll get to go home all right… in a fucking body bag.’