Brian Sadler Archaeology 04 - The Bones in the Pit

by Bill Thompson

  And in fact that was the Cardinal’s job. But he held another position within the Church as well. A secret one. Dominic Conti was also the leader of a shadowy group that operated under the auspices of the Church but far behind the scenes. He was head of the Poor Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. The Knights Templars.

  The men continued their conversation until the cleric’s coffee arrived. He took a sip and quietly said, “We need your help, Giovanni.”

  Moretti had often wondered when this day would come. He owed the Church a tremendous personal debt. Even as powerful as Moretti once had been, he had found himself unable to control his own fate at a crucial time. Cardinal Conti had arranged for the Church to willingly lend a hand and easily solve a problem. In exchange for a favor to be redeemed in the future. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. One never knew when dealing with people like this if they would ever call, or if the Church’s favor would forever go unrepaid. But now the day of reckoning had arrived for Giovanni Moretti. This was the day.

  “I’m at your service, Dominic.”

  -----

  After spending an hour with Cardinal Conti, Giovanni Moretti left the trattoria. He fully understood his mission although he had not been told why the job had to be done. For now that was fine. Moretti didn’t care. He wanted to repay the debt he owed this man and move on. It was the final impediment in the new life he had chosen and he had lived with the shadow for some time now. He was glad the repayment would come soon and had no concern he would be able to perform the tasks the Cardinal asked of him.

  Moretti’s previous work had left him with a wide network of contacts. And he could accomplish his goals for this project without having to reveal who he was. That was important.

  When he arrived in Italy a few months back Moretti had set up a shell corporation in Turkey. Its owners were two trust companies in Liechtenstein. A corporation in Libya in turn owned those trusts. There would be no tracing ownership in Moretti’s companies.

  Today, using a mail account set up through his front company, he emailed a private investigator in New York he had used for years. Moretti had never spoken with the PI or given the man his name. His identification was a string of numbers – a password – that identified him to the detective. Moretti gave the PI the name of a doctor in Georgia that Conti had provided – the doctor who owned the manuscript. The investigator accepted the job and Moretti wired $20,000 to an account he provided. Now Moretti waited.

  In three days Giovanni Moretti knew exactly where the missing Knights Templar volume was. And it was in a place that he hadn’t expected, one that excited Moretti.

  Locating the site satisfied only one part of the payback he owed Dominic Cardinal Conti. He knew what would come next.

  Moretti made a call. From his desk in the Vatican, Cardinal Conti answered on the first ring. “What have you found?”

  “It’s at an antiquities gallery. Bijan Rarities in New York.”

  “Get it. Discreetly.”

  The call ended, the cleric having given the response Moretti anticipated. This project was perfect. He could kill two birds with one stone, paying off one debt while collecting on another.

  -----

  Now that Moretti had been given instructions, the Cardinal was determined to push for a meeting with Pope Benedict. He wanted to know what the Pope had promised to show him – the key, perhaps, to the coded pages in the manuscripts. Dominic Conti pushed his chair back from his desk, laced his fingers behind his head and thought how to do it. As his mind considered various options a ding on his computer indicated he had incoming mail. He glanced at the screen and gasped as he opened and read an email from the Pope’s secretary.

  This is virtually unprecedented. Now I understand what’s been going on. And now I’ll never find out what the Pope was going to show me.

  On February 11, 2013 Benedict XVI became the first Pope in six hundred years to announce he was resigning. A month later he was out of office, his access to the secret vault in the Vatican now ended forever.

  -----

  In his spacious apartment Giovanni Moretti laid out his plan on a legal pad. The more he thought, the more elaborate his ideas became until he had designed a scheme. It was monumental and would completely mask the reasons behind it. The idea would take resources and effort, both of which Moretti could easily muster. He wouldn’t call upon the Church for help of any kind. Cardinal Conti would have the plausible deniability he required. All Conti wanted was the manuscript. All Moretti wanted, on the other hand, was revenge.

  He placed several telephone calls. The plan would take time to execute but the project was underway.

  Chapter Four

  New York City

  A month ago Brian Sadler had received a phone call from Dr. Sidney Crane of Athens, Georgia. The neurologist told him about the eight ancient books from his father’s collection. Brian agreed to take the manuscripts, estimate their worth and provide a proposal for disposition.

  Like most Americans, the Crane brothers had heard of Bijan Rarities. Brian Sadler was a frequent guest on news networks as a recognized authority on antiquities. The History and Discovery networks had produced several shows in which either he or the gallery were prominently featured. His discoveries in Mexico and Central America had made headlines worldwide and Sadler’s name was well known to those who collected or had an interest in ancient things and peoples. He had been involved with some of the world’s strangest and rarest things, including the Bethlehem Scroll and the discovery of ancient gold of the Maya kings deep in the Guatemalan rain forest.

  When Robert and Sidney Crane found the manuscripts in the old box they discussed what to do next. The find might be something really valuable but then again it might be eight old books that should be listed on eBay. Only an expert would know and they both came up with Bijan to fill their need.

  Dr. Sidney Crane emailed Brian photos of the book covers and the first couple of pages of each. Brian was immediately captivated by the beauty and condition of seven of the volumes. They had weathered time well. He called the physician and gave him a very preliminary guess of the possible value, with the caveat that seeing them in person and spending some research time in the office with them would be necessary to nail down a true value.

  Brian gave a ballpark estimate of the three bibles at perhaps $50-100,000 each and the four miscellaneous volumes of literature at roughly $20-40,000 each due to their age and unique binding. He reserved an opinion on the Knights Templars book. He agreed with Dr. Crane that the volume was very likely one of a set and no one had any idea where the others were or even if they existed. Its content guaranteed it had been written hundreds of years ago and the book’s cover looked as though it was from the early eighteenth century. It made the book interesting as an old tome but not particularly valuable standing alone, apart from the others in its set. There was also the matter of condition. The book was in poor shape at best – torn pages and a worn cover that was barely attached to the spine. Of the eight books it held the least possibility of any real value to Brian.

  Two weeks later the eight volumes were at Bijan Rarities. Dr. Sidney Crane had brought them personally to New York, unwilling to trust them to a delivery service or courier. He spent only an hour with Brian, got a receipt for the books and left.

  Brian laid the volumes on a side table in his office. The pictures hardly did justice to the beauty of the three bibles. And the four volumes of literature were clearly ancient and first editions, but they were by little-known writers. They had value not from their content but more for the age and beauty of the bindings, Brian mused.

  He looked at the worst book first, to get it over with. As he’d suspected from the picture, this book was no different than hundreds of others he’d seen at antiquarian booksellers worldwide. It was old, for sure. Brian carefully opened the torn, moth-eaten cover and looked at the first page. Opus Militum Xpisti. Latin. It was one volume of a set, for sure. Who knew where the others were? Who cared, for that matter?
The set had probably been separated long ago. If the others were in as bad shape as this one, Brian figured they’d been tossed in the trash.

  The Templars manuscript was written in a combination of Latin, ancient French and English between the 1400s and 1700s, according to the diary entries in it. There were no redeeming factors on this one – no beautiful binding, no exquisite colored drawings, nothing to make this one worthwhile. Brian wasn’t going to spend any time on it. This one looked like something for a garage sale, not a rarities gallery. He tossed it to the back of the table.

  Now the other seven books – these had possibilities. After a brief look he locked them in the vault for safekeeping.

  Chapter Five

  There were a dozen important projects on Brian’s plate so he delegated the valuation of the seven volumes to his assistant Collette Conning. Brian felt fortunate to have her – she had been with the gallery when its previous owner, Darius Nazir, first invited Brian to Manhattan. At that time Brian was a Dallas stockbroker responding to a proposal that been sent to his firm. Nazir was seeking to raise money through a public offering of stock. That New York meeting led to an unusual set of events, the mysterious death of Darius Nazir and a fortuitous bequest that caused Brian to become owner of Bijan Rarities.

  Much had happened in Brian’s five years at the helm and Collette had been a big part of it all. She was like a rock, steady and strong even when she was seriously injured in an attempted robbery at the gallery just over a year ago. As soon as she recovered, she was back at her job. Brian Sadler had depended on Collette even more when he had opened the London branch of Bijan. It was due entirely to Collette’s presence that he was able to be out of the office more often, either at the London gallery or in the field looking for artifacts.

  It was Collette who took the phone call late the afternoon before that fateful event.

  The caller asked for the senior person present, confirmed who she was then said, “This is the Archdiocese of New York. Please hold for the Archbishop.”

  As a practicing Catholic, Collette involuntarily straightened in her chair and fixed her hair as she waited for New York’s senior cleric to come on the line.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Conning. I have an inquiry to make, about a particular item I think is in the possession of your gallery. I read with interest the article in the Times about the ancient manuscripts that were found in Nova Scotia a few months back. Does Bijan Rarities have them now?”

  She confirmed they were in the gallery. Seven of them were locked safely in the vault and the eighth, the scrappy book about the Templars, was tossed aside on Brian’s office worktable. She told the Archbishop all this without thinking. Then she paused. I’m acting like a schoolgirl. He doesn’t want to know all this information. He just wants to know about the bibles, I bet.

  “Very good, Miss Conning. I’d like to send a representative from the Church to take a look at the Templar manuscript. He’ll be a Jesuit – I’m not certain which one I’m sending yet so I can’t give you a name. Would tomorrow around 12:45 be a good time? He won’t be long – he just wants to see the condition of the volume and look at the title page. He’s doing research for me and this volume might help us. If it’s what it purports to be we may be interested in making an offer.”

  “Of course, Your Excellency. Tell him to ask for me please.”

  “God bless you, Miss Conning. Thanks for your help.”

  Her heart was pounding as the call ended. This was the most important person she had ever spoken with, and she would remember this call for the rest of her life.

  Sadly on both counts, the caller wasn’t the most important person she had ever spoken with. And the rest of her life turned out to be very short indeed for Collette Conning.

  Chapter Six

  After the explosion Brian rushed out of the Fox studios and gave a fleeting thought to hailing a cab. He had less than eight blocks to go and quickly determined walking, running actually, was fastest. It was much faster this time of day in midtown Manhattan.

  He dodged traffic as he jaywalked across 47th Street and ran east toward Fifth Avenue. Turning north on the famous street and looking ahead, Brian saw emergency lights flashing from a dozen vehicles – police cars, fire trucks and a couple of ambulances. Policemen were setting up barricades a few blocks in front of him. He ran east across Fifth then north past Saks Fifth Avenue. All of Saks’ massive front windows were blown out from the blast’s concussion. Glass shards littered the sidewalk and he crunched over them. He passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral and glanced at a priest standing on the front steps looking north.

  The devastation ahead of him was mind-boggling. Where his gallery had been there was a gaping black hole. The façade of his building had been blown away at ground level and two stories above. Above street level, jagged girders and the interiors of offices were exposed to the elements. Bodies lay strewn on the streets. A half dozen cars and trucks that had been passing in front of the gallery were tossed like toys to the other side of the avenue, stacked on their sides against buildings as though a tornado had blown through. The smell of gasoline and a nasty stench carried south on the breeze to where Brian stood. He knew what the steely odor was but his mind went into shutdown mode. It didn’t let him deal with that reality.

  How could anyone have survived this? How could Collette…could she be alive?

  In shock and lightheaded, Brian kept walking north, closer and closer to the massive, almost unbelievable destruction. By the time he reached 54th Street, not far from what had been Bijan Rarities, there was so much debris on the sidewalk that he was forced to stop. Traffic was still crawling along on 54th and he absently walked directly in front of a cab, oblivious to its presence. In typical fashion the cabbie honked and waved a derogatory finger at him. “What the hell you doing?” he screamed in broken English at Brian as the taxi snaked its way through. Brian ignored him, looking only ahead at the devastation.

  Hands roughly grabbed his arms from behind. “Hey, buddy. Where do you think you’re going?”

  Brian turned and looked blankly at one of New York’s finest. Absently he said, “That’s my gallery. I own that place. People in there work for me. That’s where I work too.”

  The policeman immediately sensed that Brian was in shock. “Okay. You need to let me take you over here where you won’t get hurt. We don’t know what else may happen here and there’s a lot of stuff on the street.” The cop took Brian’s arm and guided him to the west side of Fifth Avenue where a group of men were standing on the curb talking. One of them, dressed in a dark suit and tie, saw the cop approaching.

  “Detective, this guy says he owns the place that was bombed.”

  Brian muttered quietly to himself. “Bombed. Bombed. That’s just crazy.” His words were slurred and suddenly his head lolled back. He began to fall to the pavement.

  “Hold on! Hold on, buddy,” the policeman shouted, glad he still had a grip on Brian’s arm. He lowered Brian to the sidewalk and leaned him against a pole. “I think he’s in shock, Detective. Not too surprising, I guess. I figure I would be too.”

  When Brian awoke a few minutes later a paramedic was kneeling in front of him holding an ampule of ammonia under Brian’s nose. The pungent odor jolted him back into reality.

  “What…what happened?”

  “Just take it easy, sir. You’re in shock and you passed out. The officer had your arm or you’d have fallen.”

  It took a moment for Brian to recall what was going on around him. Sirens wailed in the distance as additional help headed toward the site. Across the street and up a block he saw the huge hole that now occupied the place where his entire storefront had been. Everything was destroyed. He had no idea how anyone or anything inside the gallery could have survived. And although he knew vaguely he should be more attuned to what was going on, he couldn’t pull thoughts together in his head.

  “What happened?” Brian made an effort to stand up.

  The detective gave Brian a hand. �
��Let’s get some ID, sir, and confirm who you are before we talk. Sorry to put you through this right now but in this situation we have to be sure everything is what it appears to be.”

  Within minutes Brian had produced his driver license and a business card identifying him as the CEO of Bijan Rarities with his Fifth Avenue address a block away. His mind was beginning to clear and he said, “Was this a terrorist bombing?”

  Immediately wary, the detective shot back, “Why would you say that, Mr. Sadler?”

  “Because the first thing I thought of when I saw the destruction was 9/11.”

  “That’s a fair statement. I’ll admit I thought of 9/11 too.” The detective glanced up Fifth Avenue and watched a forklift unloading large concrete barricades off a semi-trailer. Until they knew more about what had happened today and why, Fifth Avenue would be blocked, ensuring a second truck bomber wouldn’t be successful, at least in the same place.

  “OK, Mr. Sadler. Let me get a few basics from you. Where were you at one pm?”

  After Brian’s response the detective made one quick call and confirmed Brian’s airtight alibi. He had been on live television at the time of the bombing. Next he asked Brian who likely was inside the gallery and took notes as Brian talked.

  Other than Collette, Brian hadn’t thought about who might be inside. The shock he experienced had dulled his mind and kept him from considering the terrible possibilities.

  “Uh, at the very least my assistant Collette Conning and our security guard were there. There could have been others.” Suddenly he felt panic overcoming him. He began to shout to workers across the street. “Have you found anyone? Is Collette OK? Help her! God, help her!” He grabbed the pole next to him, suddenly lightheaded again.

  The detective grabbed his arm to steady him. “Mr. Sadler, try to stay calm. The FBI is doing the initial check and with the extent of the damage it may be awhile. There’s no need to panic until we know something more. I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything about your staff. Now let’s think about something else. What kind of security systems do you have in place?”