Marie shrugged and boosted herself up on the railing. “She kicked me out. Kicked everyone out. Klaus and the chemists, too. Says she figures her life depends on this, and she’s not going to let any of us get her killed.”
“Damn. There’s an awful lot riding on one weird woman.”
“Nothing we can do about it now. The ball’s in her court. She makes the rules. She says jump, we jump.”
Callahan looked up at the room Jean had chosen for the final forgery. “Well, let’s get out of here. You know the soft spot she has in her heart for me.”
They walked to a picnic table two hundred yards up the slope from the house.
“How long did she say it would take?”
“Shouldn’t be long at all, but it depends on when she really starts,” said Marie. “When she does these, she writes at the same speed the original scribe would have. She moves right across the page. She doesn’t pay a lot of attention to each letter. She just does the whole thing in one whack. But you never know when she will start. She might draw circles for an hour, or jump right into it.”
“That’s just plain weird.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve watched her do it. You know all those practice treaties she wrote? Once she gets the pattern right, she just sits down and knocks them out like she was writing a letter home.”
Marie looked at the surrounding mountains. “I’ll miss this. I’ve always wanted a place like this.”
Callahan looked up the mountain. “I had a place like this in Taos.”
“Taos?” Marie asked. “I’ve traveled a lot in the States, but never got there.”
“New Mexico. Up north. The mountains look a lot like these.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Oh, no. Part of another life.”
Well, that’s all I’m going to get out of him, she thought. Bit by bit.
Then she looked straight at Callahan and asked, “Do you know what happens to her, Jean, when she finishes? Will she live or die?”
“Zurich ask you about it?”
“Yeah. I had a long talk with the Archivist. I get the idea it’s his decision. At least he’ll have the most influence with the Master.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said we could use her. She’s strange, but I think she could finally find a home with the Templars. She’s like a gypsy who gets trapped everywhere she goes. She needs to be on the move.”
Callahan raised an eyebrow. “Working for a Templar company, or as an actual Templar?”
“Real Templar, with a cover job. Like the rest of us.”
“She’s a thief.”
“Yeah, and we’re assassins and a lot more. I hear you like to play with explosives.”
“You have a point there.”
Marie waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she asked, “Did they ask you about her?”
“The Marshall called me. I told him I didn’t have a good reason, but my gut told me to hang on to her.”
“What did he say?”
Callahan laughed. “The Marshall? What do you think he said? He said ‘Death in Battle.’ Then he hung up.”
Two hours later, Marie saw Jean sitting in a deck chair in the afternoon sun. When they walked back, Jean inclined her head to the house and said, “In there, on the table, in that plastic box. Don’t open it. Don’t even touch or move it.”
The two chemists were already staring at the manuscript in the box and discussing the aging step that was ahead of them. “How’s it look?” asked Marie.
They both looked up at her. “Looks good to me,” answered the one with the pony tail, “but I can’t read Latin, either. I just age the thing.” He stepped back. “Take a look.”
Marie bent over the manuscript and carefully read every word, then she stood back and considered the entire product. “She did it,” she said quietly. “Good Goddamn, she did it.”
She ran to the next room and returned with a picture of the original and laid it next to the plastic box. Even Callahan could see both pages looked identical, except for the brownish tinge on the original.
“When do you guys make it old and brownish?” he asked the chemists.
One consulted his watch and said, “Forty-three minutes. But we’re going to set up now.” He picked up the plastic box and both chemists disappeared to their improvised lab.
An hour later, the chemists came back with the plastic box. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Treaty of Tuscany, properly and perfectly aged.” He laid the box on the table next to the picture of the original.
Marie bent over the table and swung her head from Jean’s forgery to the picture of the original. “We’ve done it. By God, we’ve done it.”
* * *
Jean was still stretched out in the mountain sun when Callahan went back out on the deck.
“Happy?” she asked without looking at him.
“Marie says it’s perfect. The guys managed to turn it brown. Just by looking, I couldn’t tell the real thing from your forgery.”
“Good.” She sat up in the chair. “Do I get to live, now?”
“Not my decision. But I did put in a good word for you.”
“How about Marie? What does she think?”
Callahan shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”
Now she swung her legs sideways on the chair. “What’s with you two? Don’t you talk?”
“Sure we talk. We talk all the time.”
“No, not for the stupid job. I mean… here you are… two attractive people… both single… what’s the problem?”
“No problem. I don’t know. I just don’t think I’m her type.”
She shook her head in disgust. “God save you both from yourselves.”
“Yeah, maybe he will.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “But back to the treaty. I have to leave today with that forgery, and I need to know how to take care of it, even if I have to improvise. Say… maybe I’m running for my life… or maybe I have to hide it. What are the basics?”
She gave him a brief outline of how to keep the forgery in good condition. Water, she said, would immediately ruin it.
“Ok, thanks.” He turned to leave, then stopped. “And I meant it when I said I put in a good recommendation for you. I hope it all works out.”
“And I meant it, too,” she answered.
“You mean about keeping the treaty dry?”
“No, you ass. About Marie.”
Vatican - Sunday, April 26
“Here is the list you asked for, Eminence.” Agretti’s secretary handed him two pages.
Agretti scanned the pages. America, France, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and half the nations in the world had approached the Vatican, informally, of course, asking about the Treaty of Tuscany.
“How did these come in, DeSantis?” he asked the secretary.
“You know, our ambassadors, their ambassadors, quiet questions at diplomatic receptions, lots of low-level inquiries. Nobody really tipping their hands.”
They are in as much danger as we are, but they will let us slowly swing in the wind as long as they know what direction the wind blows. Damn that Pope.
Vatican - Sunday, April 26
Mancini, Carlos Perez, and Monsignor Herring stood back while the technician worked on the door to Santini’s office safe. They were the three witnesses Vatican policy required when any safe was opened upon the death of its owner. Herring was a linguist and historian, and one of Santini’s assistants at the library.
The technician hit keys on his computer, watched the red numbers changing, and slowly turned the dial on the safe. He held up a finger, snapped it down, and turned the handle of the safe. He pulled the door half an inch open, handed Mancini a slip of paper with the combination, then gathered up his tools and equipment and left the room to the witnesses.
Carlos pulled the door all the way open and they all stared at the one hundred and three priceless medallions that had been stolen from the Vatican Library while St. Peter’s w
as being bombed.
* * *
Later that day Mancini spread towels on the floor in front of Santini’s safe and began to roll up the medallions so they didn’t touch each other.
Carlos pointed at the medallions. “You have any idea what’s going on here? I mean with Santini? Here’s the loot he said was taken, right here in his safe. And the theft on Easter? All that?”
“I don’t know. This gets more and more twisted. Santini was out there telling the whole world about the priceless history that was stolen. Everyone is on the lookout for it.” He picked up a medallion. “And here it is. It’s all connected somehow. I just don’t know how.”
Neither man knew what the other knew, nor what they should know, so neither was about to reveal anything.
“Do you have Monsignor Herring under control?” Mancini asked. “You can’t very well give these things to me to stash somewhere and then have him running to the TV news guys saying they were found.”
“Yeah,” Carlos said. “The Monsignor and I had a talk.”
“One of those special kinds of talks?” Mancini asked.
“Yeah. That kind of talk. He’ll keep quiet. He’s a pretty good guy, and he’s as dedicated to this library as Santini was. The last thing he wants is to see the library and Santini dragged through the mud over a bogus theft. He doesn’t need any convincing, but I didn’t let that stop me.”
Carlos picked up a medallion and turned it over. “What do you know about preserving priceless art, Mancini?”
“I think I know about as much as you do.”
“In that case, we are in very big trouble.”
“Is this what you thought you’d be doing as the Pope’s assistant when you got here?”
Carlos laughed. “You know, with that guy, you never know what’s going to happen. I mean it. There’s either a dark cloud or a ray of sunshine following him all through life. Nothing in the middle. Things are either going great, or they are headed straight to hell.”
“How long have you been with him?”
“It’s fifteen years now. I was a seminarian with a bunch outside a government office in Mexico City protesting some arrests, I think. I forget. The cops came out swinging, and we started swinging back. Turns out I was back to back with this big guy. I didn’t know who he was. When it starts to go bad for us, he says, ‘Follow me,’ kicks his way through the cops and we haul our butts down the street, through a few alleys, and in the back door of a bar he knows.”
Mancini grinned. “Was that your employment interview?”
“Yeah, I guess so. He was just a regular priest then, hadn’t made bishop yet. Anyway, we kept in touch, and just after I was ordained a priest, he gets made a bishop, pulls some strings, and has me transferred to his office.” Carlos sat back on the floor against the wall and rested his hands on his knees. “And can you believe it? We’ve come all the way from a street brawl with the Mexican cops to the Vatican. Like I said, nothing surprises me anymore.”
They managed to get all the medallions into four document cases and carried them over to Mancini’s office.
“Well,” said Carlos, “the boss wants you to get these things out of the Vatican, the farther away the better, until things settle down. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few years. I don’t know. Think you can remember where they came from?”
Mancini smiled. “They’ll be in a safe place within twenty-four hours, and all you have to do is ask, and they’ll be back here.”
“Where they going?”
Mancini studied Carlos. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. You said you and the Pope shouldn’t know.”
“Yeah, I know. So, just get them out of here.”
Zurich - Monday, April 27
Callahan and the Templar Marshall looked at each other, then at the Master’s back as he stared at the morning sun out his office window. The Marshall brusquely checked Callahan with a hand when he was about to say something.
Callahan had seen the Master only once, when he had been fully vested as a Templar, and this was his first visit to his office.
The Master spun his chair back around and pointed a long finger at Callahan. “Callahan, you’re a loose cannon. You might complete missions, but it’s just luck that keeps them from going straight to hell.”
Callahan remembered the Marshall telling him to shut up every time he had something to say. “No matter what you have to say,” the Marshall said before the meeting, “I guarantee it will be wrong. So just shut up.”
Now the Master swung his cane over the desk and pointed at the Marshall. “You and the Archivist think Callahan’s the one to go after Hammid Al Dossary in Saudi Arabia. I think we have better people than him. In fact, I know we do.” He paused for a moment. “But they haven’t been involved in this mess from the beginning.”
Callahan saw the Marshall out of the corner of his eye and looked for some signal. Nothing.
Now the cane swung toward Callahan. “The Marshall correctly points out that most of the breaks in all this treaty business have come from your bumbling. Actually, the way you operate, I’d much rather have you out there with a gun, grenade, and battle-axe. There’s a time for your kind of recklessness, and it’s now.” He squinted at Callahan. “But I don’t always get what I want. And neither do you.
“So, my job,” he laid the cane across the desk and leaned forward on his elbows, “is to decide, and I’ve decided. I’m stuck. I don’t like it, but I’m stuck. I don’t care if it’s luck, or divine intervention, but I’m going to go along. It’s your mission, Callahan, because of just one simple reason. No matter what I think of you, this whole thing stinks, and you stink so much already, you get to jump in the crap to fix it.”
Callahan said nothing and kept his face frozen.
“But listen to this and listen good. This mission is of the highest importance, it has a very low probability of success, but a huge payoff if you manage to pull it off. So, you go down there and do whatever, that means whatever, you have to do to make it work. Blow ‘em all to hell if you need to. I mean it. You need help from Zurich?” He pointed at the Marshall. “Tell him. He knows how to get it.”
The cane came up again and targeted Callahan. “And remember this. You know you can’t be taken. And you know what that means for a Templar. With today’s drugs, they’ll get everything you know, and you know too much. We all do. So, if you have to take yourself out, that’s still Death in Battle.”
Now the Marshall slammed a palm down on the arm of his chair and looked at Callahan. “But if it comes to that, make sure you take a bunch of the bastards with you. The more the better. That’s the best Death in Battle. It’s a thing to be shared. And when you’re born again, make sure you come back to us.”
The Marshall stood up, and Callahan followed. “I think Mr. Callahan understands.” Callahan nodded, but kept silent. “Now can we get about our business?”
“Get out.”
Vatican - Monday, April 27
Father Girard took ten deep breaths, said a quick prayer and strode briskly to the front of the briefing room where the world’s media had gathered. Cameras circled the outside perimeter of the room, herding the reporters with their recorders and notebooks to the center. He stepped up to a slightly raised podium with a dozen microphones clamped to the front, clasped his hands behind his back and calmly stood watching the chattering media crowd.
Luc Girard, the Pope’s spokesman, the official voice of the Vatican, Jesuit, Frenchman, modern man of the world was about to enter battle over a medieval treaty. The Crusades had never died. They were like a vampire that kept coming back to life. Well, he had his orders, and they wouldn’t do anything to quiet the situation. Probably do just the opposite.
Pope Dominic had personally told him to, “Kick some ass out there. Stir ‘em up. This isn’t a refined academic discussion anymore, this is a knife fight. Everyone brings a gun to a knife fight, so I want you to bring a big bomb. I want the world to know the Church is standing up to these pend
ejos.”
If that’s what the Pope wants, then that’s what the Pope gets. You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.
“My name is Luc Girard, and I have an official statement to read. Then, and only then, I will take questions.”
Girard picked up a piece of paper and balanced a pair of reading glasses on his nose. “There is no Treaty of Tuscany, and there never has been one. It does not exist, and it has never existed. The Church does not have a policy to rid the world of Islam, and it never has had such a policy. The Church offers the hand of friendship to all Muslims.”
Girard cleared his throat, put down the paper, stuffed the glasses into a pocket and said, “Questions?”
“Father, what do you say to Hammid Al Dossary’s claim he has the Treaty of Tuscany?”
“Nonsense. He can’t have what has never existed.”
“Father Girard, what do you think Al Dossary has?”
“What does he have?” Girard scanned the room and shrugged. “I don’t know, but he does not have the Treaty of Tuscany. He may have acquired millions of other things over the years,” Girard smiled, “but I can’t comment on that.”
“Is Al Dossary a fraud?”
“Yes.”
“Is it the Vatican position that the treaty is a hoax?”
“Yes. A malicious hoax.”
“What would you say if impartial experts tested the treaty and found it authentic?”
“I would say they were neither impartial nor expert.”
“Would the Vatican cooperate in testing the treaty?”
“Look,” Girard took a sip of water, “all we have from Mr. Al Dossary is a lot of inflammatory words and stacks of dead Muslims in major Islamic cities around the world. His own people. Dead. It’s time for Mr. Al Dossary to put up or shut up. Let him show the world what he has instead of playing the coy virgin peeking out from behind a veil.”
That should do it, thought Girard. The Pope wanted to rile this guy up, insult him, throw down the gauntlet. Publicly comparing him to a woman, and alluding it was a veiled Muslim woman, was about as insulting as it got.
The Templar Concordat Page 29