Which actually sounded appealing.
As a boy he and his brothers had tended the cows his parents owned. Lazy animals. They loved nothing more than to loiter in the pasture all day, chewing cud. The horseflies were relentless. Nasty little creatures that left whelps with their bites. Some of the cows would run to get away from them. But most just stood there, chewing grass, using their tails to swat the flies away. Oblivious to any assault. Those cows that didn’t run were bold suckers.
Like him.
“I can’t leave, and you know it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Cotton held the parchment flat as the bright light scanned the image and produced a copy. They’d fled the oratory and returned to the curator’s office. The two Gallo brothers had stayed quiet, watching as he studied the prior’s puzzle. He rolled up the original and set it aside, then laid the copy on the curator’s desk, grabbed a pen, and wrote H Z P D R S Q X on a pad.
“Give me the Latin alphabet letters for those.”
Pollux took the pen and wrote the corresponding Latin letters. Cotton immediately saw that he was right. All eight appeared on the drawing, scattered at intervals around the island.
He circled them on the map copy.
“They’re markers. Reference points,” he said.
But they were useless unless read together. So he studied them, arbitrarily deciding the ones closest together along the coast had to be connected by short lines.
“You don’t know that’s right,” the cardinal said.
“No. I don’t. It’s a guess, but it seems reasonable. We can try other combinations if this doesn’t work.”
Common sense demanded that the map had to lead to a single point on the island, and the only way that could be accomplished was by intersecting lines. In his mind he drew those lines, connecting differing points of the eight circles. Only one combination seemed to provide what he was after, the rest mere noise to confuse the searcher.
“It’s like the X out there on the floor,” he said. “You connect them diagonally across the grid.”
He took a ruler the curator supplied and drew the lines.
“It’s a rough Maltese cross,” the cardinal said. “A bit stretched, but one nonetheless.”
“Which means where those lines intersect is where we have to go,” he said. “Somewhere near the northwest coast, not far from St. Paul’s Bay, if I’m not mistaken. Any idea what’s there?”
“It can only be one place,” the curator said.
Pollux Gallo nodded. “St. Magyar’s.”
* * *
Luke glanced out the window.
St. John’s Square fronting the cathedral still loomed dim and quiet. Malone and the Gallos had not, as yet, emerged.
He still had time.
“Mr. Daniels, the church is facing a direct threat,” Roy said, the voice resonant, controlled, logical. “This threat is made even more dangerous by the coming conclave. Once the cardinals are locked away inside the Sistine, we’ll lose all control. It has to be dealt with right now. Archbishop Spagna discovered the threat and was working, in his own way, to eliminate it. He came here, personally, to deal with the situation. He planned to enlist both you and Ms. Price with his efforts. Unfortunately, the threat found him first.”
“What threat?”
“I can’t say. But I assure you, it’s real.”
“You have one of the best intelligence agencies in the world at your disposal. Deal with any threat. There’s no need to kill anybody.”
“Sadly, given what’s happened this evening, only violence will end this now. Archbishop Spagna’s murder cannot go unavenged. These people have to know there are consequences to their actions.”
Something didn’t add up. He said to Laura, “You said Spagna set this kill up for you. But when that happened, nobody had died yet. So what is this? A hit?”
“Again,” Roy said, “this is not a matter that concerns the United States. Please, Mr. Daniels, you and Mr. Malone need to leave. Now.”
“And let you kill Cardinal Gallo?”
“Mr. Daniels, as you just noted, the Entity has many resources. It has existed for centuries. We’ve survived by always doing what has to be done.” Roy paused. “Killing is not unfamiliar to us. Never have we been afraid to do what was necessary. In centuries past, if the Holy Father ordered the elimination of someone in defense of the faith, we carried out that order. He is God’s voice and we are his hand.”
“This isn’t the Middle Ages, and the pope is dead.”
“Yet a threat remains.” Roy shook his head. “But killing a prince of the Church is not part of our agenda here.”
He’d assumed with the mention of the conclave that Cardinal Gallo was the target. That had been the entire reason for Stephanie Nelle involving him in the first place.
“His brother is our problem,” Roy said. “Archbishop Spagna dealt extensively with Pollux Gallo. Too much, in my opinion. But the archbishop was not a man who accepted much in the way of … counseling. Sadly, my personal suspicions regarding Pollux Gallo have proven true.”
Which Luke would love to know more about.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
“Leave this to us,” Laura said.
“I wish it were—”
Two pops broke the silence.
Like hands clapping.
Roy lurched forward, grabbing his chest, then collapsed to the floor, his face slamming the planks hard. Nothing had come through the window, so the attack had to be from outside in the hallway. Laura reacted by whirling around and aiming her weapon at the darkened doorway. Luke used the moment to drop to the floor and grab the rifle off the table on the way down, flattening himself out, becoming the smallest target possible. Before he could warn Laura to do the same, he heard another pop and her head snapped back as a bullet smashed through her face, up through the brain, and out the back of the skull.
Her body dropped to the floor beside the monsignor.
He sent three sound-suppressed rifle rounds into the blackness beyond the doorway.
Footsteps rushed away.
He sprang to his feet, pressing his body to the wall adjacent to the exit. Beyond, the corridor was much darker. But he neither saw nor sensed anyone. He switched the rifle for his pistol, which he grabbed from the floor. Then took a moment and checked for a pulse in Roy. None. Laura was clearly dead. Dammit. She hadn’t deserved that.
He made his way to the stairs, then down. The door leading out to the alley was partially open.
Careful. Trouble could be outside.
He used the building’s stone wall for protection and, with his right foot, kicked the door open. A few quick glances past the jamb and he still saw no one. He stepped outside. To his right, at the far end of the alley, a hundred feet away, where it merged with another street, he caught the image of a dark figure.
Running away.
He raced after it.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Cotton could see that both Gallos and the curator seemed certain of the location.
“What is St. Magyar’s?” he asked.
“It’s one of the oldest chapels on the island,” Pollux said. “It was built in the mid-16th century, not long after the knights arrived.”