by Alex Lukeman
"Maybe he's checking you out," Ronnie said.
"Nah. You're more his type."
Nick sighed. "You guys want to cut it out?"
"Here comes Selena." Ronnie nodded in her direction.
"Any luck?" Nick asked.
"Nothing useful. When they went back for the icon they recovered a few other things they'd hidden when they were forced to leave. He didn't say anything about a cup."
"He wouldn't, would he? I wonder if there's an archive, a record of what they hid away when they abandoned the monastery."
"There's no way they'll let us see any records."
"Not if we ask. We'll come back tonight."
CHAPTER 24
They parked down the road from the church and walked the rest of the way. Dressed in dark clothes, they were almost invisible under a moonless sky.
Breaking into the church was easy. The doors and entrances were stout in the old tradition and locked at night, but the locks were modern. Ronnie worked his picks and within a minute they were inside the building. Nick waited to see if an alarm would sound. All was silent.
Most of the cavernous space was in shadow. A few candles burned in the darkness, creating a feeling of a time long past. The miraculous icon was lit in its alcove across the way. It gave off a soft, golden glow.
"The office is that way," Selena said.
"Stay away from the icon," Nick said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they have an alarm set for that."
The office door was unlocked. Inside was a desk, a computer, and a row of gray filing cabinets. An old-fashioned floor safe on wheels sat against one wall. It was painted green and decorated with leaves and vines painted in fading gold leaf. There was a large combination dial in the center of the door, with a brass handle underneath.
A single nightlight lit the room. A glass display case with religious artifacts, documents and several old books sat against one wall..
Selena looked at the filing cabinets. "I'm surprised they don't have everything on computers by now."
"They might keep the files as physical backup," Nick said.
"How do you want to start?" Selena asked.
"With the display case."
He tried the lid of the case. It was locked.
"I'll get it open," Ronnie said.
"Lamont, you've got sentry duty."
"Right."
Lamont went back into the main area.
Ronnie lifted the lid of the case and rested it against the wall.
"All yours, Kemo Sabe."
"See if you can get the safe open while we look here."
Ronnie went to the safe and knelt in front of it, leaned his ear against the door and began turning the dial. Selena started looking through the contents of the case. She ignored everything except the books and documents. After fifteen minutes, Ronnie was still working on the combination.
Nick was getting impatient.
"We can't stay here all night. Someone might check on the building once in a while."
Selena placed a leather bound journal back in the case. "This is hopeless, Nick. There's too much material to go through in a short time. Everything here is from when the monastery was in Turkey, but I haven't found anything dating back to the time of Anastasius."
"You think we're wasting our time?"
"There could be something in here but I don't see how we're going to find it without cooperation from the church authorities. We need permission to examine everything at leisure."
"Does anything stand out at all?"
Selena shook her head.
"What about the file cabinets?"
"We're here, we might as well take a quick look."
Selena pulled open a drawer at random.
"These are construction invoices from nineteen fifty-two." She opened another drawer. "Comments about the annual Feast of the Dormition. It's the major celebration here."
"I never heard of that."
"It's a Greek Orthodox celebration. In their teachings, the Virgin Mary fell asleep when she died and was taken in her sleep to heaven. The feast is a celebration of her ascension."
Across the room, there was a loud sound of metal against metal as Ronnie unlocked the safe.
"Got it." He swung the door open.
"Good work, amigo."
"Not much in here. Looks like a few hundred dollars in cash, probably from the entrance donations. Some legal papers. A box."
"What's in the box?"
Ronnie stood, holding a flat metal box in his hands. The box was rusty and sharp cornered, made of tin. Ronnie pried back the lid and swore.
"Damn. Cut my finger on the edge of this thing."
He put the finger against his mouth and sucked on it. Then he looked down at the box.
"Whoa. We've got another tile here."
"Jackpot," Nick said.
Selena came over. "Let's see."
The tile was a mate to the one in Sweden. This one, too, showed a figure, but it was not the same man.
He was bearded like the emperor's confessor but was dressed differently, in a brown robe that hung to his sandaled feet. A rope belt encircled his waist. Keys hung from it.
There were other differences between the two tiles. This figure faced to the right. On the other tile, the priest had faced left. On the first tile, Anastasius was pointing at the earth with the index finger of his left hand and holding the Grail in front of him. On this one, the figure held a golden staff in his right hand, his index finger pointing to heaven. Toward the top of the staff, two snakes curled toward each other. At the top was a cross composed of four diamonds. His left arm was held out in front of him, his hand open in anticipation of receiving something. Rays of light streamed down on him from above.
Beneath the figure was a phrase in Latin.
Et infra , ut supra
"As below, so above," Selena said. "This man looks like a monk, not a priest."
Lamont came into the office. "I think I saw someone outside."
"Time to boogie," Nick said. "Ronnie, you take the box."
The candles in the church cast enough light to see where they were going without flashlights. They moved in a fast crouch across the floor. At the side entrance where they'd come in, Nick paused.
"If we run into someone out there, chances are he'll be local. Don't hurt him."
There was no one outside. If someone had been there, he was gone. Their car was on the side of the road about fifty yards from the parking lot. They were almost to it when three men stepped out of the darkness. They were holding AK carbines that had been concealed under their winter jackets.
The leader pointed his weapon at Nick. He was stocky, bearded. He wore a wool watch cap pulled down over his ears.
"Far enough. You stop there. Hands up."
The three I saw in the church, Nick thought. That accent is Middle Eastern, probably Iraq.
They raised their hands. "What do you want?" Nick asked. "We don't have much money."
"Not money. You look for something in church. Tell us what you find."
"Now hold on there, buddy," Lamont said. "We just went in there to pay our respects to the Virgin."
"Virgin?" one of the men said to the leader.
"Shut up, Abdul."
Ronnie glanced at Nick. His raised hand moved toward the back of his head. The three men were close, no more than ten feet away, but that was still a long way to go against someone holding an AK.
Nick moved a step closer.
The leader was nervous. "You stay where you are. No move."
"Sorry," Nick said. "There was a stone under my shoe."
In a blur, Ronnie drew his throwing knife from the sheath behind his neck and hurled it at the leader. It took him under the right eye. He screamed and staggered back, blood spouting from the wound, the knife protruding from his face.
His finger spasmed and the gun fired into the ground, a hard sound in the cold night. He fell forward onto the pavement, clawing at the knife.
The sudden
violence shocked the other two, long enough to delay them a critical second. Lamont drew his knife and went for the man on the right. With the haft held in his left hand and the blade facing outward, he brought the knife across with a backslash motion that opened the terrorist's throat to the spine. A fountain of blood sprayed from the wound. The dying man fell to the floor.
Selena went after the man on the left and got inside his guard. He blocked her elbow strike and clubbed her in the side with his carbine. She grunted and drove a rigid fist into his throat. The strike came all the way from her shoulder, aimed at the space behind his neck. It was a killing blow, crushing the larynx. He choked and stumbled away trying to breathe, then collapsed. His body spasmed as he gasped for air. Selena backed away and watched until he stopped moving.
"Search them," Nick said.
A quick search turned up passports and an assortment of currency, a set of car keys, pistols and knives. Ronnie stuffed everything in his pack.
"We'd better get out of here," Lamont said. "That was a lot of noise. Someone might come looking."
Nick looked around. "Where's their car?"
"Over there."
He pointed at a car parked about fifty feet away.
"Move it here," Nick said. He tossed Lamont the keys. "We'll put them in it and send them down the side of the mountain. It will confuse things."
Lamont ran to the car, got in, started it and drove up to where they stood over the bodies. He got out and left the car running.
"Get these guys inside."
It didn't take long to move the dead men into the car. They tossed the AKs in after them. Nick propped the leader up behind the wheel and patted him on the shoulder.
"Say hello to Allah for me."
Lamont found a large rock by the side of the road. Nick jammed it against the accelerator and the engine roared. He turned the wheel so that the car would go off the road, down a steep incline and through a grove of trees. He reached through the open door, put the car in gear and jumped away.
The car shot forward, sailed off the side of the road and dropped into the trees. The sound of crunching metal and breaking branches seemed to go on for a long time.
They got in their rented Toyota and headed back toward town.
CHAPTER 25
Elizabeth and DCI Clarence Hood were eating dinner in a private room on the second floor of an exclusive restaurant in Georgetown, not far from Elizabeth's brownstone. The room was decorated with Victorian furniture and textured, flowered wallpaper. The lighting was subdued and warm, mimicking the oil lamp wall sconces of the nineteenth century.
The restaurant was noted for discretion and privacy and boasted of security measures to protect against unauthorized eavesdropping. Even so, Hood had placed a small black box on the table, a product of CIA technology that made it impossible for unwelcome ears to listen in on their conversation.
"A little more wine, Elizabeth?"
"No, I'm fine, thanks."
"Dessert? They do an excellent crème brûlée here."
"I'll settle for a cup of coffee."
"Cognac?"
"Why not?".
A nineteenth century oil painting of George Washington hung on the wall by their table. Beneath it was a button set in a polished brass fitting. Hood pressed it and summoned the waiter. He ordered coffee and drinks for both of them.
"That was wonderful, Clarence, thank you."
"These dinners are fun, aren't they?" Hood said. "I'd almost forgotten what a good meal and pleasant conversation can do to restore a little balance in one's life."
"So had I."
The waiter reappeared with a cart bearing the coffee service, snifters and a bottle of Louis XIII cognac. He poured the coffee and drinks, placed a silver plated coffeepot and the bottle of cognac on the table, and left the room.
Hood added cream to his coffee.
"Do you mind if we talk about work for a bit?"
Elizabeth laughed. "No, not at all. You've been itching to talk to me about something all night."
"Am I that transparent?"
"Perhaps not to others. You're less guarded around me. I take it as a compliment."
"I find it easy to relax around you. And it helps that we both have the same security clearance."
"Why Clarence, how romantic of you. "
"I didn't mean... "
"I'm just teasing. What is it you want to talk about?"
"We've picked up a rumor about ISIS."
"There are always plenty of those."
"This one is different. They may have obtained a nuclear device."
The words vibrated in her body. "A bomb?"
"A nuclear warhead, an old one, but with enough material to make a low yield bomb."
"When you say low yield, what do you mean?"
"One or two kilotons. Enough to do a lot of damage. Especially if it were set off in a major city."
"How reliable is this rumor?"
"Very reliable. That's the problem. This particular source has always been accurate in the past. He's embedded in Raqqa and close enough to ISIS leadership to pick up things. They're close guarded but they lack discipline in some areas. People talk about things they've seen. They speculate. And speculation now is that Allah is soon going to strike the enemy with the fire of heaven."
"How poetic," Elizabeth said. "It could just be religious wishful thinking."
"It could, except we know that a black market Russian warhead was being shopped around in Turkey. We lost track of it. It could have ended up in Syria and Raqqa is right on the Euphrates. It would be simple enough to bring it down the river once you got across the border."
"If it's true, we have to find and destroy it." Elizabeth picked up her cognac. "I think I need this."
"We have an idea where it is," Hood said. "I need to confirm it before anything can be done. You're right, of course, we have to destroy it. But this is the kind of mission that can get complicated if it goes through the Pentagon."
Elizabeth poured more cognac in her glass. "I can see where you're going with this."
"What's the status of your team? I know about what happened in Sweden."
"They're in Greece, following up on that fourth century tile."
"Do you think the Grail exists?"
"Unless they find something to tell us where it is, I don't see how we'll ever know."
"Judging from what happened in Sweden, ISIS is taking the possibility seriously. Things are bad enough in the Middle East without having something like that turn up. All we need is more fuel on the religious fire. Hell, finding the Grail could start a new crusade, twenty-first century style."
"It would be bad news if they got their hands on it," Elizabeth said.
Hood drained his glass. "Then let's hope your team can put this to rest, one way or another."
"What about that warhead?"
"I need more information before we can pinpoint the location with accuracy. When I have that, I'd like you to consider using your team to go after it. You're the best choice if we want to keep everything out of the press. The media gets wind of it, we'll be accused of making up an excuse to start a new war."
"Echoes of Iraq," Elizabeth said.
"Yes."
Elizabeth looked at her watch. "I hate to end this, Clarence, but it's a long day tomorrow."
"Would you like to get together this weekend? I have a cottage on Chesapeake Bay and there aren't many people around at this time of year. The view is wonderful and we'll have privacy. What do you say?"
Elizabeth smiled at him. "I'll think about it."
CHAPTER 26
Elizabeth had just settled down at her desk with her first cup of coffee when Nick called. She hadn't slept well and she had a headache.
Probably that cognac I had. Or maybe it's thinking about ISIS getting a bomb.
"Good morning, Nick."
"We ran into a problem."
"Please don't tell me you had to shoot up the church," Elizabeth said.
She listened while Nick briefed her on what they'd discovered in the church. Then he told her about the three men who'd confronted them.
"You killed them?"
"They didn't give us any choice. We found French passports but they had to be ISIS."
"Tell me about the tile you found."
"It was in the church safe. Ronnie's got quite a career ahead of him once he stops working for the government."
"The tile, Nick." Elizabeth's voice was strained.
"It's the same size as the other one, only more beat up. It has to be a mate, but it's different. The figure on the tile looks like a monk, not a priest. Selena is sending you a picture right now."
In Virginia, Elizabeth waited as the picture of the tile appeared on her phone and on the wall monitor. Stephanie sat next to her.
"He's right," Steph said. "It has to be a mate to the other one."
Nick's voice came over the speaker. "Selena says that the Latin means 'as below, so above.'"
"That's just the opposite of how it's usually written," Stephanie said. "It's a metaphysical saying: 'As above, so below.'"
"Where are you now?" Elizabeth asked.
"On the road, headed for Bulgaria. It's not far to the border. From there we'll drive north to Sophia and get a flight. It will take the Greek cops a little while to ask themselves why we left town in the middle of the night. By the time they do, we'll be in the air."
"All right. Go to Milan and pay a visit to Count Mercurio. Steph will send you directions to his villa outside the city and the intel we've got about him and his religious group."
"Did the Swedes follow up on this? If they know Mercurio was trying to buy the tile, they've got him on a criminal charge."
"It's a little more complicated than that, Nick. Mercurio is one of the richest men in Italy and he has a lot of friends. The chances of him getting busted because he was trying to buy an illegal artifact are so slim, they're nonexistent."
"Then why should he tell us anything? We can't interrogate him."
"I want you to show him that second tile. You did take it with you when you left the church, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Use it to get his attention and gain his cooperation. He's after the same thing we are, if for a different reason. Everything Steph has found out about him indicates that he's one of the good guys."