Good advice then, and now.
He found the corner of the cathedral and peeked around, seeing Laura about thirty yards ahead, halfway to the next corner. He watched, hoping he was wrong and she would turn right and continue her patrol of the perimeter, supposedly catching up to him. But she hooked left, doubling back toward him, just on the opposite side of the street.
He shook his head, both pleased and disappointed that his instincts had been right. He quickly retreated to the line of trees so he could use the shadows for cover, watching as she hustled down the sidewalk, past the church and the square, negotiating an intersection, then entering, through a side door off an alley, one of the many shops lining Republic Street, all closed for the night.
Interesting that she possessed a key to the door.
Like those deer, she’d been flushed back. But not by some other hunter’s shots. This was done solely on her own. Thankfully, he was waiting, downwind. And like those deer, she had no idea what awaited her.
He reached back and palmed his Beretta.
Holding it gently.
Like a baby.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Cotton glanced up from the tomb with the shielded lion, staring across the nave, back toward the altar where the other memorial, the one with the crowned pride, waited sixty feet away. The line between the two ran diagonally across the nave.
He turned his attention to the last few words of the puzzle.
Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file.
Another reference to something here on the floor.
In 1798 its obtuse wording may have been a deterrent, but in the 21st century it might not be much of a problem. He reached into his pocket and found his smartphone, noticing he had a solid connection to a local carrier. Technology was a great thing, so why not use it.
He accessed a search engine and typed in BLUSHES.
The expected came up first. Makeup. All sorts of blush for sale from various vendors.
“What are you doing?” Cardinal Gallo asked.
“My job.”
He scrolled down and noticed an entry toward the bottom of the first page of hits. A definition site. The Free Dictionary. To become red in the face. To feel embarrassed or ashamed. A red or rosy color. A glance, look, or view. Makeup used on the cheekbones to give a rosy tint. Middle English blushen, from Old English referring to roses.
Flowers.
He’d seen a lot of those on the memorials.
He glanced up from the screen. “Search for roses.”
The two Gallos and the curator fanned out.
He typed in RANKS AND FILE.
“Over here,” the curator called out, from near the altar.
They all hurried that way and he saw three roses on a shield, above a Maltese cross. The first memorial, the one with the three crowned lions, was only twenty feet away, toward the other side of the nave.
“There are two markers at this end,” he said. “The one with the shielded lion is at the other end. There has to be one more down there, in its vicinity.”
He glanced at the smartphone’s screen to see what came up for RANKS AND FILE. A military term realting to horizontal “ranks” (rows) and “files” (columns). Enlisted troops, noncommissioned officiers. People who form the major part of a group. A row on a chessboard (rank). A column on a chessboard (file).
Several possibilities.
A lot of officers and knights lay beneath the cathedral’s floor. Too many of each for any reference to the military being the correct answer.
It had to be the chessboard.
“Look for a checkerboard of some sort,” he said. “Let’s do it together.”
They knew exactly what he had in mind, lining up in a row, each taking about a quarter of the floor, ten feet separating them. Slowly, they walked in unison from the altar at one end toward the huge set of double doors at the opposite side of the nave that served as the cathedral’s main entrance. Eleven vertical columns of tombs stretched across, running the long side of the nave’s rectangle. He’d counted six horizontal rows across the short side and they were just coming to the center. Another six or seven rows spanned ahead toward the main doors.
So far, no ranks and files.
They kept going, slow and steady, their heads down studying the myriad marble images.
At the thirteenth and final row, Pollux Gallo said, “Here it is.”
Cotton stepped over and examined the tomb, a particularly macabre scene with a trumpeting angel, a pointing, accusatory skeleton, and a curious baby, all atop a checkerboard floor.
“This has to be it,” Cotton said. “Ranks and files. What the rows and columns on a chessboard are called.”
Four points on the floor.
Two toward the altar, the other two opposite.
Coordinates.
“We need to flag the four memorials.”
The Gallo brothers walked back across the nave, Pollux heading left toward the lion pride, the cardinal finding the memorial with the shielded animal. The curator stood on the three roses. Cotton stayed with the checkerboard. Their positions formed a warped X, one line longer than the other, but an X nonetheless.
This had to be the solution.
“Keep your eyes on the man diagonally opposite and walk slowly in a straight line toward him. Try and meet at the center point of your line. We can adjust that once we’re closer together.”
They started walking, he toward Cardinal Gallo, the curator closing in on Pollux. He and the cardinal were on the longer line of the X, so Pollux and the curator met first. He and the cardinal kept approaching each other and met at a point a little off from where the other two had joined, which meant they hadn’t found the center of their lines. So they adjusted to a spot where all four men stood together at the joining of the oblong X.
One tomb lay beneath their feet.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The knight watched what was unfolding inside the cathedral, pleased that progress was being made. His patience finally was going to be rewarded.
The words of the Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, Most Pius Request, one third of the Nostra Trinità, written in 1113, had suddenly taken on a new meaning. Every member of the Secreti memorized that sacred document. When Pope Paschal II established the Knights Hospitallers he wrote in the Voluntatis that it shall be unlawful for any man whatsoever rashly to disturb, or to carry off any of the order’s property, or if carried off to retain possession of it, or to diminish anything from its revenues, or to harass it with audacious annoyances. But let all its property remain intact, for the sole use and enjoyment of those for whose maintenance and support it has been granted.
That directive had been violated.
The Turks tried and failed, but Napoleon stole everything he could. Hitler bombed and wreaked havoc, but it was Mussolini who killed to find what he wanted. The Voluntatis dealt with the consequences of such actions.
If, therefore, at a future time, any person, whether ecclesiastical or secular, knowing this paragraph of our constitution, shall attempt to oppose its provisions, and he shall not make a suitable satisfaction and restitution, let him be deprived of all his dignities and honors, and let him know that he stands exposed to the judgment of God, for the iniquity he has perpetrated, and let him be deprived of the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ, and of the benefits of the redemption of our Lord, and at the last judgment let him meet with the severest vengeance.