How much clearer did things have to be?
All was prepared outside. His men were ready to act.
The severest vengeance had arrived.
* * *
Kastor stared down at the tomb of Bartolomeo Tommasi di Cortona and read its Latin epitaph. Bailiff, son of Nicolao of the house of Cortona, a nobleman of his city is wasting away. Admitted to the Sacred Militia of the Jerusalemite Knights, from the year 1708 onward he was dedicated to its service, fulfilling, as long as he lived, his duties on land and sea with the utmost faith. He lived for 79 years, 6 months, 18 days.
The inscription at its top seemed prophetic.
MORS ULTRA NON DOMINABITUR.
Death will not reign beyond.
Three symbols appeared above the epitaph.
Alpha. Omega. The first and last. The Chi Rho in between, formed by superimposing the first two letters of the Greek word for “Christ.” It was not used much today, but in Roman times things had been different.
He knew the connection.
On the eve of a decisive battle to decide the future of the Roman Empire, Constantine had a vision. A cross in the sky with the words IN HOC SIGNO VINCES. In this sign thou shalt conquer. Unsure of the meaning, that night he had a dream in which Christ himself explained that he should use the sign against his enemies. Of course, nobody had a clue if that tale of a vision was true. So many versions of it existed that it was impossible to know which one to believe. But it was a fact that Constantine directed the creation of a new labarum, superimposing the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ.
The Chi Rho sign.
He then ordered that symbol inscribed on his soldiers’ shields, and with his new military standard leading the way he drove his rival into the Tiber River. Eventually, he defeated all challengers and unified the Roman Empire under his rule. He came to honor the sign of his salvation as a safeguard against every adverse and hostile power, and decreed that it be carried at the head of all his armies.
Kastor smiled.
That prior had chosen his clues with clarity.
* * *
Cotton translated as much of the Latin from the tomb as he could understand, which was most of it.
“This is significant,” Cardinal Gallo said. “That symbol there, in the center, is the cipher of Christ. The Chi Rho. Constantine the Great created it.”
“I agree,” Pollux noted. “This was intentional on the prior’s part. He led us straight here.”
Which was all fine and good, Cotton thought, but it didn’t solve the riddle. He studied the imagery on the memorial. A skeleton, shield, crown, staff, skulls and crossbones, anchors, and a table with a broken clock, on a plinth, beneath an arch.
“It’s the clock,” the curator said. “It exists, here, in the cathedral.”
Cardinal Gallo pointed downward. “He’s telling us to open that clock.”
“Where is it?” Cotton asked.
“In the oratory.”
They followed the curator to one of the massive gilded arches that led into a side nave and a magnificent doorway adorned with four marble columns topped by a white marble dove and lamb. The room beyond spanned a long, tall rectangle encased by more gilded walls, the floor dotted by more marble tombs. At the far end, through another gilded arch, past an altar, hung a huge oil painting depicting St. John the Baptist’s gruesome murder.
“Caravaggio’s Beheading of St. John,” the curator said, pointing to the painting. “Our greatest treasure.”
Cotton gave the image only a passing glance, then focused on the room. Maltese crosses were everywhere, the ceiling another grandiose baroque expression in gilt. A few pieces of furniture were pressed against the walls, one a paneled sideboard that supported a marble clock. About thirty inches tall, it was identical to the one depicted in the memorial back in the main nave. Except this one was intact.
He walked over and tried to lift it. Way too heavy.
“We’ve not moved it in years,” the curator said.
He examined the exterior, gently running his fingers across the marble.
“That’s a valuable piece of history,” the curator said, in a tone that advised caution.
“I don’t have a good track record with those.” He’d already noticed that this clock had a glass front across the face that opened, exposing the hands—a way to wind it and surely to access the inner workings. The face was set to twenty minutes before two.
“Does this thing work?” he asked.
“Not to my knowledge. It’s sat here since the 18th century.”
Why was he not surprised. “You don’t change a lot of things, do you?”
“It’s important that the building remain as it was. History matters, Mr. Malone.”
That it did.
Something occurred to him. “I thought Napoleon looted everything?”
“I doubt a heavy marble clock that doesn’t work would have interested him. There’s nothing special about it, beside the fact that it’s old. It survived, as did a lot of other artifacts, because it carried no obvious value.”
No way to determine if there was anything rattling around inside, but he assumed if that had been obvious somebody over the course of the past two hundred years would have noticed. Within his eidetic memory he visualized the targeted memorial.
“On the cracked-open clock out in the nave,” he said, “if you close the hinge the time would read twenty minutes before two. Just like here. This one is also identical in size, shape, and color.”
“It was not uncommon for items in the cathedral to become part of the tombs,” the curator said. “Either the knight himself would fashion the memorial, or a relative or a friend would do it in honor of him. It all depended on the ego and resources of the knight.”
The cardinal examined the clock. “What we want is inside this thing?”
“It certainly seems that way,” Cotton said.
Though the sides and base were marble, the ornate, pointy top was fashioned of ceramic, cemented to the stone by a mortar joint.
Cotton examined the seam.
Solid and old.
“We’re going to need a hammer and chisel,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Luke studied the buildings facing Republic Street. All were dark and quiet, most of their windows shielded by metal accordion screens. Few people milled about on the sidewalks. Valletta had finally settled down for the night. But Laura Price had not. What was she doing in that shop? She’d clearly wanted to get there, as it had been her idea back inside the cathedral to check outside. He’d been suspicious of her ever since the safe house. He could not isolate one particular thing that had tripped his suspicion button, but something about her simply had not rung right.
He kept the gun at his side, close to his thigh, the barrel pointed down as he left the square, crossed the street, and approached the door she’d entered. It sat ten feet past Republic, in a darker narrow alley that ran on forever to another distant street. He tested the knob. It turned.
The door was open?
Nothing about that was good.
Why would she use a key to gain entrance, then leave it unlocked? Was she expecting someone else who didn’t have a key? Or was this a trap laid just for him? Being the deer in the hunt was never fun. But like those cagey animals back in frigid Nebraska twenty years ago, he wasn’t stupid. He pushed open the door, entered, then closed it, leaving it unlocked.