Brian Sadler Archaeology 04 - The Bones in the Pit

by Bill Thompson

  “Mr. Sadler, please relax. You’ve been through an immense crisis. It’s going to be hard for you for a long, long time. You have a lot to do as far as your company’s future’s concerned. You’re free to travel to London since sadly there’s not much left here. I do promise you we’ll let you inside the gallery once we finish our preliminary investigation and the building inspectors determine it’s safe. You’re free to travel anywhere you wish, Mr. Sadler. Please consider us all on the same team. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be. I’ll keep you informed as much as possible about our findings. Please call me if you have any ideas, any thoughts at all, or if you hear anything I should know.” He gave Brian a business card.

  Brian dozed in the back seat as the FBI sedan took him uptown to his apartment. Every fiber of his body ached – he had never felt so drained, physically and emotionally.

  He stumbled as the doorman held the door for him and plodded to the elevator like a zombie. Finally at his condo he fumbled, finding it difficult even to insert his key into the lock. He was exhausted and wondered if he should just collapse in bed without even undressing. At the moment that didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

  He closed the door behind him and plodded into the living room. From his bedroom he heard, “About time you got here.”

  He felt a hundred percent better just hearing that totally unexpected voice. As exhausted as he was, everything was OK now.

  Chapter Eight

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”

  “Me too, sweetie. Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday but I came as quickly as I could.”

  Yesterday in Dallas Nicole Farber had petitioned the Court for a postponement of the trial that was to begin today. She and the Judge were friends – not close, but well acquainted. He knew she would never request a postponement if something weren’t seriously wrong. She was always just the opposite – pushing to go to trial while the prosecution tried to delay things.

  Like most Americans, the Judge had heard the news reports from Manhattan about the explosion on Fifth Avenue. Nicole told him it was her boyfriend, Brian Sadler, who owned the gallery and was facing the trauma of the losses of his valued employees and his New York location. He quickly granted a ten-day continuance and Nicole had caught the first plane from DFW to LaGuardia this morning. She didn’t tell Brian she was coming; he thought she was in trial and she hoped a surprise might perk him up.

  And it did. She was wearing sweats when he walked in the bedroom and he commented that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. They kissed and held each other for what seemed like forever but was only a minute or so. He hated to let her go.

  As he undressed she prepared a hot bath, got him settled into it and brought him one of his favorite things – an XO vodka martini in a glass he kept in the freezer along with the vodka bottle. It was ice-cold and wonderful. He lay back in the steaming bath and sipped on the drink. Meanwhile Nicole stuck a pizza in the oven.

  When he stepped out she knelt and dried every inch of Brian’s body. Ordinarily this would have been incredibly stimulating but they both knew better than to expect that tonight. Instead of the sexual overtone it normally would have, this was just another wonderful thing Nicole did to help Brian relax right now. She got him into bed, propped pillows behind him and brought in the pizza. They sat next to each other and ate.

  “I want to know all about what’s going on,” she said softly, “but not tonight. Let’s talk in the morning.”

  After a couple of pieces of pizza Brian felt himself drifting as though he were slipping into a coma. “How long…how long will you be here?” His words slurred.

  She took the plate from his lap and helped him scrunch down into bed. “For as long as you need me.” She pulled the covers up to his neck and he smiled.

  As his eyes closed he murmured, “That could be a really, really long time.” Then he was asleep.

  She smiled, patted his arm and walked to the kitchen to clean things up before she came to bed.

  Brian slept fitfully. His arms flailed and his thrashing woke Nicole more than once. In his sleep he yelled Collette’s name. He was obviously dreaming, rehashing the horrible events of the day. Nicole put her hand on him to calm him down and it worked for a while. But the dreams returned.

  She woke around 5:30 am and felt his side of the bed. He wasn’t there. She got up quickly to find him and be sure he was OK. He was sitting on the couch in his living room, staring out the window. The sun was just rising and the view from his balcony was beautiful – Central Park and beyond that the tall buildings of Fifth Avenue on the east side of the park. She knew how much Brian loved the city and hoped this crisis wouldn’t dim his appreciation for it.

  “How’s it going? Rough night, I think.”

  “Yeah. I feel like I’ve been run over.”

  She saw a coffee cup in front of him. “Need more?” she said, gesturing. He declined and she stuck a K-cup in the machine on the kitchen counter for herself. She took out a mug, added milk and a pack of sweetener and brought it to the couch. She sat close to him.

  Nicole leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Sorry for the dragon breath.”

  “No problem. You’re a dragon I’ll deal with anytime. And hey, I don’t think I ever said thanks for coming. Nicole, I just can’t tell you…” He broke down in heaving sobs. “I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here.”

  She held him tight. “I’ve got some time, sweetie. I’ll be here to help you with anything you need. And I’ve got some ideas on things I might be able to help with professionally. When you’re ready we can talk. Not now, though. Let’s just sit here and watch the sun rise.”

  “Let’s get in bed and watch the sun rise, dragon breath.” Brian smiled as he wiped tears from his eyes, stood up and took her hand.

  “I’ll brush my teeth first. That might help,” she laughed.

  The view from Brian’s bedroom window was the same spectacular one as in the living room. As they slowly, quietly made love the sun’s rays peeped over the massive skyscrapers on the other side of the park and enveloped their bed with soothing sunshine.

  When they finished Brian fell asleep. Thankful for his peaceful snores and afraid she might wake him, Nicole lay quietly next to him and ultimately dozed herself. The sound of Brian’s cellphone ringing woke them both. As he answered she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Twelve noon.

  Brian talked for a few minutes then said, “I’ll check and let you know.” He disconnected and told Nicole that was Agent Underwood, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI who was running the investigation. He asked Brian to try to access Collette’s email. He hoped to find something on the customer and the priest who had been in the gallery.

  It was simple and if Brian hadn’t been so emotionally drained yesterday he would have remembered that. He kicked himself for not thinking clearly when he was at the FBI office.

  Underwood had also asked Brian to tell him more next time about the book the priest had stolen.

  Invigorated from Nicole and his sleep, Brian went to work on Collette’s account. He knew the user ID and password Collette used to access mail. She knew his too – they worked so closely together on projects they often checked each other’s mail so no one missed anything. He also knew she always communicated with the guard by email so he would have a record. The guard viewed the mail on his phone then noted the information on the clipboard he carried. The clipboard was long gone at this point but email wasn’t.

  Brian accessed her account and quickly located the two mails she had sent to the guard. The first, sent the day before the bombing at 2:13 pm, read, “Paul Tremble from the Met will be here at 11:30 am.” That would have been the customer in the gallery who was looking at old vases in one of Bijan’s small offices.

  By now the world had connected the name Paul Tremble to the tragedy. The Metropolitan Museum of Art contacted the FBI within minutes after the bombing to advise he was most likely in the gallery at t
he time it happened. Once the bodies were removed fingerprints verified the man’s identity and the information was made public.

  The critical thing now for Brian was to find out about the priest. He saw the mail, sent at 4:17 pm the day before the bombing. Collette had told the guard, “A Jesuit priest will be here at 12:45 pm.”

  Not a name. Just “a Jesuit priest.” That was most unusual and certainly unhelpful. Now Brian had to figure out how Collette had been informed he was coming.

  “I’m going to call the FBI back and tell them what I’ve found,” he said to Nicole.

  “Before you do that, sweetie, I have a suggestion for you. Let me put the agency on notice that you’re represented by counsel. It won’t interfere with anything and I’ll explain that I’m also your friend. But it’ll change the rules – you’ll be less likely to give them anything they might use against you because they’ll have boundaries.”

  “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “You know that and I know that but for now everybody’s a suspect to them. It looks like you have no involvement but I promise they’ll keep you on the watch list until they figure out what happened and why. They have to make sure you had no motive.”

  “OK, if you think that’s a good idea. I sure don’t want to make them start suspecting me because I ran out and got a criminal lawyer. But you know, Agent Underwood told me they want my financial records going back several years. Does that sound like I’m a suspect?”

  “Don’t worry about it. The FBI’ll know why you got a lawyer – it’s pretty common, after all. And the financial records request is the most common one they make. Your records will help clear you of suspicion – they’ll see that things were going great and you had no motive to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Everything’s going to be fine about that. No worries.”

  She called Special Agent-in-Charge Underwood and advised that she was both an attorney and a close personal friend of Brian’s. She was in town and for the record she would be representing him. She asked that he keep her informed as to the status of the agency’s interest in Brian. If at any point his status changed from innocent gallery owner to possible suspect Nicole instructed that all questioning must stop.

  The man acknowledged and said, “Does Mr. Sadler have anything for me at this point?”

  She handed the phone to Brian. He told Agent Underwood about the two appointments and promised to work on every angle to see how Collette had been informed that a nameless priest would be coming to the gallery. Hopefully he could also find out why. He promised to get back with the agent as soon as he knew anything.

  “Now tell me about the book the priest took, please.”

  “It’s one of eight we received on consignment from the heirs of a collector in Nova Scotia. I have a Times article that explains everything pretty well. I’ll email it to you when we’re done. Seven of the books are in pristine condition with beautiful pages. Three are bibles and four are works of literature, all hundreds of years old. The last one, the book that was taken, is one volume of a set that chronicles the exploits of the Knights Templars. It’s nothing special, one of a set the rest of which are missing, and it’s in deplorable condition. It’s three or four hundred years old but I’d value it at maybe a few hundred bucks whereas the other books are worth tens of thousands each.”

  “Strange. Did you look inside the book? Could there be something hidden in it that makes it valuable enough to kill for?”

  “I thumbed through it. It’s partially in Latin, partially in medieval French and maybe English – I didn’t look too closely, frankly. There are random pages scattered throughout that are totally in symbols but I can’t believe that’s what made it so important. There was nothing hidden in it per se. It was just a moth-eaten ratty old book – in my opinion it had no value.”

  “But you’ll agree it did to someone. That appears to be the sole purpose of this entire episode. Any idea how many other books are in the set, and where they might be?”

  “There’s absolutely no way to know. I think the one I saw covered maybe 1500 to 1700 – as I said, I didn’t give it much of a look. The Templars started around 1100, if memory serves me. They were supposedly eradicated in the early 1300s but someone kept the Order alive. Today the Masons have a branch called the Knights Templars. I have no idea what connection, if any, it has with the original Templars.

  “I also read there’s a shadow group within the Catholic Church by the same name – Knights Templars. I saw an article once that said the Catholics have a secret sect of Templars led for hundreds of years by one Cardinal or another, answerable only to the Pope. I have no idea if that’s true, what their mission would be, and why it would be a secret. The idea of a person dressed as a priest stealing the book and destroying the gallery just makes no sense.”

  “That’s what we have to figure out, Mr. Sadler. See if you can google the article you read on the Catholic connection to the Knights Templars. One thing I think’s certain – some collector didn’t stage all this just to get that last remaining book for his collection of Templar exploits. There’s something in that book that someone was willing to commit murder for. We have to find out what it was.”

  Chapter Nine

  Vatican City

  Dominic Cardinal Conti had spent two weeks trying to get through to Benedict XVI, the former pontiff now retired. The Cardinal had been part of the inner circle when Benedict was Pope – reaching him by phone had been simple. It was not so now. Conti knew that the retired Pope remained out of touch on purpose. He would not take attention away from the new pontiff. He was out of the limelight – out of the picture – and he obviously intended to keep it that way.

  Another call to the ex-Pope’s secretary resulted in the same response he’d heard before. “Cardinal Conti, there is really no need to keep calling. I have given his Holiness your messages. He is aware that you have called. That is all I can do for you.”

  Frustrating.

  Conti had to find out what Benedict had promised to reveal after he finished reading the last Templar manuscript.

  The good news was that Giovanni Moretti had asked to meet. That could mean only one thing – he had what Conti wanted. They selected a different shady outdoor restaurant hidden in the twisted streets of Rome and spoke quietly over coffee.

  Moretti smiled and said, “I have the manuscript you want.”

  The Cardinal’s face was hard. “I’m certain you do, Giovanni. Like everyone else on earth, I saw the news. A terrorist-type bombing of the gallery on Fifth Avenue? Really? Is that how you interpreted my instruction to be discreet?” Conti had been surprised at the ferocity of what Moretti had implemented. Obviously the man had a bone to pick with someone. Perhaps it involved that woman – the Conning woman who was shot in the gallery. Or maybe it was the owner. Who knew? Moretti had once been a dangerous man. Now, Cardinal Conti mused as he sat across the table from the old man, I think he’s getting senile.

  “I’ve done your dirty work for years, Cardinal. Surely you’re not disappointed. I got what you wanted.”

  “I asked you to get a manuscript for me, Giovanni. Not to kill eleven people and blow up a building. Are you crazy? Did you think I would condone this atrocity?”

  “I followed your direction, Your Eminence. My enthusiasm in creating such a scene wasn’t because of you. It was an old score that needed settling. Someone needed a lesson and through my efforts, that person got one. You needn’t worry about how I handle my responsibilities. By now you should know that. We’ve worked together a long time, Dominic. Don’t start second-guessing me now. You’ll have your manuscript. Let it go, my friend.”

  The old man’s voice quivered as he spoke angrily. He’d been on top of his game for years and it damned sure wasn’t over yet. He didn’t need this cleric telling him how to do his business. He had never bowed down to anyone, even a Cardinal – except in the literal sense, of course.

  “Although I utilized what appeared to be a priest in the o
peration, it will ultimately be clear to the authorities that the Church was actually not involved at all. The man will easily be recognized as an impostor once they investigate.”

  That revelation was disturbing. Conti hadn’t heard about the priest – that detail hadn’t been released to the press yet. He would have done things differently. Regardless, nothing could be done now. For years Moretti had overseen operations of various sorts for Conti and he was very good at what he did. The Cardinal had to accept that the job had been accomplished since Moretti now had what the cleric wanted. The manuscript was now his.

  “Give it to me.”

  “It isn’t here, Eminence. I want to go over some things with you before I deliver it.” Moretti smiled and leaned back in his chair.

  The Cardinal’s countenance hardened. His eyes grew cold and his words were clipped, harsh. He spoke in a whispered hiss through clenched teeth, his face contorting in rage.

  “Giovanni, what are you doing? You owe me a great deal – your freedom, in fact. I’m sure you agree. You walk around Rome a free man with a Vatican passport, thanks to me. What can possibly be in your mind? Is this how you choose to repay me, by withholding the thing I asked of you in repayment of your debt? Don’t test my patience.” The Cardinal looked as though he were about to explode.

  “Don’t test mine either, Eminence.”

  “What things do you want to go over with me?”

  “All in good time. All in good time.” Moretti stood and walked out of the café.

  The Cardinal was speechless. No one had ever walked out on him before. I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr. Moretti. You’re an old fool going down a hazardous path. Even for a once-dangerous man such as yourself. The Lord giveth. And He can take away what He hath given. I can make sure of that.

  Conti reached in his pocket and switched off a recording device. He finished his coffee and allowed himself to calm down before returning to the Vatican. As powerful and ruthless as Giovanni Moretti once had been, Conti had access to other useful resources. This man would regret his actions today. Dominic Cardinal Conti would see to it.