As he watched its thick foamy wake ripple out across the glistening waters of Lake Bracciano, apart from the pain in his head, there was only one thought on his mind, and it weighed heavily. Where were the relics? The Magi now had them both, the only bargaining chips he had for Claire’s life, and without them, well, the thought was too troubling to contemplate, and he tried to push it from his mind. ‘I’m sorry, Claire, but I’ve failed both you and Archie,’ he whispered to himself, the pain of his failure far worse than anything his battered body was serving up.
‘Mr Harker, you’re awake and standing! Excellent.’
The voice behind him bellowed with such ferocity that Harker almost tumbled over the side rail in surprise. He swivelled around to see a swarthy olive-skinned man wearing a well-worn, white naval jacket with a gold-crested hat perched coolly upon a nest of dazzling white hair.
‘The gods are smiling down on you today, eh?’ The captain’s husky voice was, no doubt, a result of smoking too many cigars similar to the one currently dangling between his forefingers.
Harker nodded graciously. ‘Anything for a good story.’
The quip brought a smile to the Italian’s lips. ‘And you still have your sense of humour. Very admirable, very British. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sergio Anatoly.’
Harker shook the captain’s hand with a wince, his muscles beginning to ache. ‘It’s a pleasure, Captain, and thank you for picking us up.’
‘Not at all. As I was telling your friend, Mr Lercher, I’m just glad to have been a part of this.’ Anatoly licked his lips, searching for the right words. ‘This death-defying miracle.’
Harker noticed Doggie raise his eyebrows comically. Captain Anatoly indeed seemed excited by this evening’s events – perhaps a little too much excited.
‘Here, we must keep you warm, eh. We don’t want you dying of pneumonia so soon after you’ve cheated death.’ He leant over and draped a bright yellow beach towel around Harker’s shoulders, which had the words ANATOLY’S PARTY CRUISE. BOP TILL YOU DROP tailored across it. ‘And you too, Mr Lercher.’ The enthusiastic captain said, passing an equally colourful one to the dean. ‘Now, both of you, please come sit down and relax.’
He ushered them both to a wooden bench situated in the middle of the deck, firmly pushing away some of the gawking passengers who were continuing to hover. Anatoly took a quick glance round at his paying customers, and then with a roll of his eyes, he leant forwards so only his two new best friends could hear.
‘You’re lucky you arrived when you did, otherwise in a few more hours, my clientele would have all been pissed out of their minds. Booze hounds the lot of them,’ he shrugged his shoulders acceptingly ‘but they’re my bread and butter, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.’
As Harker and Doggie settled themselves on the bench, Captain Anatoly’s demeanour became more serious.
‘As I was telling, Mr Lercher, I’ve contacted the police and they should be here shortly, so you’ll be in good hands.’ He straightened his cap importantly. ‘Also I believe the press have been alerted to this evening’s events. They may want to talk with the two survivors, but I’d gladly offer to speak on your behalf if you’re not feeling up to it?’
Harker threw Doggie a knowing glance. Clearly, the party-boat captain wasn’t one to miss an opportunity for self-promotion. ‘That would be so helpful, Captain, thank you.’ He hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but it just came out that way. Luckily, the Captain was far too absorbed in thoughts of his upcoming interview that he completely missed it.
‘So then …’ Anatoly pulled a small pad and pencil from his top pocket and surveyed them both with all the poise of a journalist. ‘What were the series of incredible events that drew you to the safety of Anatoly’s party boat then?’
Chapter 36
The worn floorboards of interrogation room 1A squeaked loudly under Superintendent Rino Perone’s weight as he sat down opposite the young man he had arrested earlier at the Monte Mario observatory. Next to him, Detective Angelo Barbosa shifted in his seat, the cheap plastic chair proving less comfortable than it looked.
‘OK …’ The superintendent took another long drag on his cigar and blew it across the interview table towards his suspect, who was securely cuffed to a pair of steel ringlets on either side of his chair. ‘Let’s try this again.’
The interrogation had been rattling on for over two hours by now, almost three if you included the time it took for Perone to get back from hospital where the on-call doctor had attempted to keep him in overnight. The policeman had laughed right in the young medical practitioner’s face. Like that was going to happen when bodies were turning up faster in one night than was usual for an entire month. He had needed sixteen stitches for the wound in his biceps – a personal record – before heading back to join the interrogation where Angelo had been having about as much luck as he himself was having now. In all those hours, the suspect hadn’t said a word, hell he had hardly moved an inch, his stare unflinching and constantly fixed on the table throughout. This kid was either very tough or totally fucking retarded. Whichever the case, he wasn’t talking.
‘You’re due to be charged with the kidnapping and attempted murder of a police officer. You’re also a suspect in the homicide of six people and a string of other offences including resisting arrest. My young friend, you’re racking up years in prison as if they were loyalty-card points.’ He took another drag on his cigar but, this time, blew it courteously towards the air-vent above. ‘You’re set to end up doing the hardest time there is and, seeing as you look too young to have ever spent much time in a correctional facility, allow me to enlighten you to the predicament you’ll find yourself in.’
Perone stubbed out his cigar in the makeshift ashtray, much to the relief of Angelo who had been throwing irritated glances his way ever since he’d first lit up in the strictly non-smoking interrogation suite.
‘For the first few days, you’ll be getting used to spending the rest of your life in an eight-by-nine cell. Then, just when you beginning to get settled in, the wolves will come a knocking because all animals need companionship, and, in prison, the inmates get lonely, real lonely. Some of them know they’ll probably never even see a woman again, let alone be with one. And that’s where you come in: young, supple-skinned, and looking all fresh.’ Perone rubbed his chin and winced painfully. ‘Usually, the first time round, a bunch of muscle heads will run a train on you. They’ll just line up outside your cell, all wanting to welcome you to the neighbourhood’. Afterwards, your poor little sphincter’s gonna feel like someone’s pried it open with a fucking crowbar. A few more years of the good life, and you’ll be able to crack off the biggest fart you can, and kiddo, no one will hear a goddamn thing. It’ll just sound like you’re letting out a deep sigh.’
The superintendent placed his elbows firmly on the table and cradled his head in both hands, offering a genuine look of sympathy. ‘I’m not trying to scare you. I mean, no one likes the thought of having their arsehole ripped to the size of an exhaust pipe. I’m simply trying to let you know what to expect, for if you don’t start playing ball “what will be, will be”, and I’d rather not see a young lad like you go down that road. Capisce?’
Perone’s robust description even had Angelo clenching his bum cheeks, but the young Magi associate said nothing. No words, no movement, no eye contact … nothing. He just continued to stare downwards as he had been trained to do.
This was one tough kid!
The interrogation room was getting pretty rank with the potent stink of sweat and body odour, so Perone got up and opened the interview room’s door, swinging it back and forth a few times to circulate the air before slamming it shut again.
‘Well, kid, get used to that sweet aroma of sweaty men because that’s what you’re in for.’ He reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of painkillers, and gulped them down. The doctor had prescribed them for the ache in his arm where the stitches were getting uncomfortably tigh
ter as the skin began its healing process. He took another sip from the white Styrofoam cup resting on the table, the coffee inside it cold and unpleasant. Perone wasn’t sure what was proving more painful – the wound in his arm or the lack of any response from this Lupis character. Back at the observatory, Angelo had overheard one of his kidnappers refer to him as Associate Lupis, whatever the hell that meant? At first, he had assumed they were part of some weird cult, but, after three hours of hard but useless interrogation, he was starting to think differently.
‘Was this youngster ex-military?’ It was hard to believe so since he looked no older than seventeen, just a boy. But the way he carried himself suggested otherwise.
‘You ever served in the forces, Lupis?’ Perone said, finally sitting back down at the table. ‘I find it pretty hard to believe that because you barely look old enough to have fluff on your balls, let alone military training.’ He sighed at the suspect’s vacant stare and began thumbing through a pile of colour photographs in a box file on the chair next to him. ‘But look at all these weapons we found at your little hideout, all in such good shape and properly taken care of.’
Perone dropped the images on to the table, one by one. ‘AK-47s, MP5s, silenced berretta. Shit, you’ve even got a military Barrett M107 sniper rifle. And … oops!’
The last picture to hit the table was of the dead Magi associate Toledo, whom Angelo had gunned down in the observatory’s lobby. The man’s jaw hung open loosely with two dribbles of blood running down from the blackened bullet holes in his forehead.
‘Your friend here, the one we had to put down, dumb bastard … he had the tools but not the talent, eh?’
Lupis didn’t show a shred of emotion.
Christ, Perone thought. It would have been easier to antagonise a Teletubby! In any other circumstances, he would have happily let this crook stew in the cells for three or four days and nights with his officers waking him up every time he looked to be getting comfortable, but the situation here was more urgent.
Since the brutal murder of the Vatican’s chief science advisor, Vito Malpuso, a few days earlier, coupled with the shoot-out at the villa, the top brass had been all over him. High command were worried it was the beginning of a new mafia turf war and were demanding prompt answers that they could feed to the press without creating a panic. After decades of effort, mafia violence had finally been contained, and no one wanted a return to the old days.
Perone massaged the back of his neck irritably. And how about the professor from Cambridge? His gut told him that man was somehow at the heart of this whole mess, yet he didn’t even know his current location. The Brit had simply disappeared. Yes, they needed answers – and they needed them right now.
As he stared across the desk at Lupis’s unresponsive gaze, he finally began accepting the inevitable: there was no way this kid was going to talk. Whether it was through brainwashing or a misguided sense of ideology, the boy intended going down in flames without saying a word. In Perone’s mind, there was only a single option left open to him if he was going to get the answers he needed. He didn’t like resorting to it and rarely did, but needs must as the devil drives, and tonight the devil’s upstairs were driving him hard.
‘Detective, why don’t you go and get a sandwich or something? I’ll continue this interrogation for the next hour or so.’ The instant the words left his mouth, he knew his second-in-command wasn’t going to swallow any of it. The glare Angelo sent his way was a firm mixture of unease and a wholehearted ‘Fuck you, boss’ as the younger officer guessed what would come next.
‘Not really hungry, sir. I’ll stay here if it’s all the same.’
Perone let out an unhappy grunt. Angelo was a good cop; no, he was one hell of a cop, but his generation was becoming altogether too honest. Most officers like Detective Angelo Barbosa had been taught to behave whiter than white if they were to succeed in dismantling organised crime. It was a way of thinking that Perone’s own generation had not been educated in. Still, he couldn’t help but admire the officer’s resolve, just a little.
He was still mulling over whether to approach this difference of opinions through force or diplomacy when there was a knock at the door to interrupt the uneasy stare passing back and forth between the two policemen. ‘Come.’
The door swung open, and one of Perone’s team strode briskly over and whispered into the boss’s ear. ‘The tech guys have managed to access the SIM card we found in the suspect’s mobile phone.’
When they had searched the prisoner earlier, only two items were found on his person apart from the weapons. They were a small metal crucifix and a BlackBerry, which the techies had gone to work on immediately.
‘They’ve been able to pull a contact number from it.’ The officer paused apprehensively, much to Perone’s annoyance.
‘Well, for Christ’s sake, cough it up,’ Perone barked before glancing over at Lupis, who, for the first time, was starting to look nervous.
‘The number was traced, and, because it’s not been turned off, the techs were able to triangulate its location. The recipient’s mobile signals are coming from somewhere inside the Vatican.’
The answer was gobsmacking to both interrogators, and they turned in unison to face their increasingly twitchy-looking suspect. A few beads of sweat were even forming across the Magi youth’s brow, although his gaze was still glued to the table top. Half a dozen murders, military hardware, and now the Vatican! Perone felt an uncomfortable knot tightening deep in the pit of his stomach.
This was turning into one long fucking night.
Chapter 37
The entire shoreline of Lake Bracciano was now alive with a mixture of concerned locals and inquisitive camera-toting tourists, all jostling to get a prime view of the feverish activity on its dark waters. The plane had come to rest on a rocky plateau one hundred metres offshore, and a group of boats were eagerly circling the white tip of the Lear Jet’s tail still jutting above the waterline. On the shore, local television crews had spotlights shining towards the wreck, illuminating the fuselage’s reflective white paint and giving it the chilling appearance of some ghostly leviathan lurking just below the water’s surface.
From the porch of a beach house just off the sands, Harker watched as the organised chaos unfolded. He wondered if this was what Brulet had in mind when he told him to keep everything low-key.
Harker gulped down the last dregs of the effervescent painkillers that had been supplied to him by the owner of the beachside property he was now sitting outside. The pills were supposed to help with the pain, but instead, they were making him feel sick, and he was struggling to keep them down. The police had not arrived yet, even though representatives of local news stations had appeared within minutes of them reaching dry land and had been hustling to interview the survivors ever since. He couldn’t believe how well Doggie was coping with the incident, for not only had his friend managed to escape without injury of any kind but was also brilliantly holding at arm’s length the same journalists and cameras that Captain Anatoly had been courting so passionately.
The savvy captain had made them both comfortable before setting off on a promotional campaign which included handing out free Anatoly’s party cruise ship towels to all the assembled newsmen. The skipper’s talent for PR was definitely being wasted out here in the midst of the Italian countryside.
On his return, Doggie left Anatoly in charge and headed back to join Harker inside the waist-height wooden fence that was keeping the excited crowd at bay.
‘What a commotion!’ Doggie exclaimed. ‘Honestly, you’d think they’d never seen two men fall out of the sky before.’ He glanced over his shoulder to make sure there was no one within hearing distance. ‘Alex, all those things Lusic mentioned about. The relics … the Templars. Isn’t it about time you came clean?’
Harker had been waiting for the question to arise ever since regaining consciousness and dreading it too, but if he ever wanted to rescue Claire, he was going to need all the hel
p he could get. The importance of keeping things secrets suddenly seemed immaterial and pointless. ‘OK, but, before I begin, I need you to swear on your life that you won’t utter a word of what I’m about to tell you unless I say you can.’
The Cambridge academic immediately nodded without hesitation.
‘No, Doggie, I need you to think seriously about this. You can’t tell a soul on pain of death. Do you hear me? No exceptions. Now say it. Swear on your life.’
His friend considered it for a moment, and then, with one eyebrow raised and in the most sober manner possible, he nodded slowly. ‘OK, you have my word. I swear on my life I will not tell a soul.’ He paused, chewing his bottom lip pensively. ‘Unless you say I can.’
A profound feeling of angst now swept through Harker’s stomach. He wasn’t sure that Doggie would believe him, after all, it was a tale even he was struggling to accept – and he was living it!
Over the next few minutes, Harker ran through the events of the past twenty-four hours, from the meeting with Brulet at Bletchley Park, the children known as the Angels, the attack at the monastery … This time, he told him everything, including the Templars, the – two-thousand-year-old quest of the Magi to dominate the Church and the role he himself was being forced to play in bartering for Claire’s life. As Harker gave up more of his story, Doggie’s breathing became noticeably heavier, each new revelation drawing louder gasps as the dean looked increasingly flabbergasted.
‘Jesus Christ! I mean, I knew you were embroiled in something serious but this … It’s hard to believe, Alex, but, damn it, Templars? Magi?’
Harker actually felt an invisible but, nonetheless, heavy weight lift off his chest as if the very act of saying it all out loud had removed a massive burden from his soul. ‘I know it’s all incredible, unbelievable.’ He struggled, and failed, to find a word that was suitably worthy for the story he was telling. ‘But my only concern now is Claire Dwyer. I have to find her immediately because if Brulet is telling the truth, then come nine o’clock this morning, she’s likely to disappear for good. Doggie, those relics were my only leverage, but, with that bastard Lusic pulling his skydiving stunt, I’ve only got one choice left now, and it’s a long shot at best.’
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