The Crown that Lost its Head

by Jane Thornley

  I was rushed into the street by my priestly captors, Head Honcho joining us with four of his guards seconds later. A black limo sat parked by the curb, five similar cars behind it. Now I was sure I heard sirens. A helicopter was flying by overhead, someone was speaking Spanish from a loud speaker. Holy Honcho called commands in his booming voice as he and the priest holding the casket bolted for the limo. A guard tried to drag me behind. No hands, no gun, what could I do? I dropped to my knees.

  One of the honcho guards tried to yank me to my feet but I kicked him away. He had his rifle aimed ready to shoot when someone slugged him on the head. As he fell to the ground, there stood a battered Luis.

  “Luis!”

  He grinned, helped me to my feet, and sliced off my bindings with the flick of a knife.

  “Where’s Salvi?” I asked.

  He got the gist. In response, he ran a finger across his throat while making faces and then proceeded to air-throttle someone. Got it: Salvi had been our mole.

  Meanwhile, everything was in chaos. Soldiers had appeared dressed in camo and a gun battle broke out between the two sides. Holy Honcho was now shouting from the limo as the car zoomed down the lane. More soldiers appeared from Humvees coming from the other direction.

  “Don’t let him get away!” I pointed to the car and held up my phone to transcribe my words into Spanish. “He has the crown!”

  Luis translated, too, his voice traveling farther than mine. Next he was dashing up the stairs to the church when Evan, Sofia, and Ilda came down, along with a posse of soldiers, their hands now free.

  “He’s getting away with the crown! Catch the head honcho!” I cried.

  Evan shouted to one of the soldiers, who in turn spoke into his head mike.

  Sofia threw her arms around my shoulders. “I thought we were all going to die!”

  “But your employer came through,” I whispered.

  The gunfire began to taper off as we watched an army helicopter land in the center of the parking area.

  Evan turned to me. “They’ve caught them—ambushed the car and blown out their tires at the bottom of the hill.”

  My body nearly sagged with relief. I, in turn, threw my arm over Ilda’s shoulders as the young woman stood shivering by my side. Sofia was walking toward the soldiers talking on her cell phone and Luis stood nearby with a soldier.

  “Where’s my backpack?” I asked no one in particular. Ilda translated and a soldier soon returned from the church with our bags. I took out a sweater and gave it to Ilda. We stood there like some kind of family unit still holding one another when we heard cars coming up the lane.

  Moments later, a camo Humvee appeared with the holy honcho cuffed in the back seat. Once the vehicle braked, four soldiers piled out, nudging the priest toward us at gunpoint. One of the soldiers now carried the casket as if holding a ticking bomb.

  “This is sacrilege!” Holy Honcho cried in two languages. “We are on God’s mission!”

  Sofia, who had been pacing in circles talking into her phone, stopped before me. “My employer, he thanks you for helping us find the crown. He commends you for your insight and bravery. We will go now someplace safe until he can take possession of it.”

  “Take possession of it? Sofia, that thing must be destroyed!” I cried.

  She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Destroyed? A priceless artifact destroyed? Never! My employer will take possession of it, I said. It will go to the Prado Museum.” Her eyes were alight with excitement as she returned her phone before nodding to me. “We will be transported by helicopter until a plane can take us to Madrid where my employer awaits. He will also ensure your transportation back to Portugal. Father Lorenzo and the other Divinios will go with the army to be dealt with through the law.”

  Father Lorenzo? The priest had never stopped praying since he’d been removed from the Humvee and dragged to the middle of the drive. Now he was lifting his bound hands toward the sky, no doubt invoking the angels to join his war. Occasionally he’d cast a particularly vicious glance in my direction.

  Evan, with his arm around my shoulders, caught my eye as he stood tense beside me. “He says you’re the scourge of the modern world.”

  “I feel the same way about him. Evan, we need to bring the holy honcho with us.

  He almost managed to smile. “His name is Father Lorenzo—where’s the respect?”

  “Filed under serial killers in the ancient history department, subcategory religious orders,” I said. “He gets no respect from me but we still need answers.”

  He called to Sofia. “Sofia, let’s bring Father Lorenzo with us. This will be the last time we can question him about the Divinios before our efforts are absorbed by the Spanish legal system.”

  She considered this and nodded. “Yes, I would like to ask him many things.” She turned to one of the army men and gave instructions and soon we were all being bundled into the waiting army helicopter. I had no doubt that Sofia was in command of this mission.

  An expansive troop-carrying variety, the helicopter was impressive. That said, it wasn’t big on amenities so all we could do was buckle up and wait.

  I was in a window seat, Ilda next to me, with Evan and Luis opposite the aisle. Sofia sat in front of us with the casket in the seat next to her and the soldiers in the other seats surrounding a still-praying Father Lorenzo. Soon we were lifting off, affording me a brief view of a night-lit Granada as the chopper sped away.

  I tried to relax but couldn’t, not with that thing sitting only two rows in front. Pulling out my phone, I scanned my messages, zeroing in on a text from Peaches: More smoothing lotion needed! Followed by Rupert’s demand for tea bags. I tried to catch Evan’s eye but his attention remained fixed on the priest sitting one seat ahead.

  Less than an hour later, we were crossing a dark expanse that could only be the ocean. I checked my GPS long enough to see that we were in the North Atlantic somewhere between Spain and Portugal. A long lighted rectangle came into view below. Ilda pointed and cried out, my phone translating, “Airline carrier!” Why not an airport?

  When the helicopter landed on the illuminated bull’s-eye minutes later, all I could think of was that casket. It could not go to a museum, no matter how right that sounded in theory. This was no ordinary priceless artifact.

  Everyone followed Sofia’s instructions including the upper ranks as the object was carried with great care down to the next deck, us following behind. I managed to catch Sofia’s attention to ask about those reinforcements that had supposedly been sent to Sintra. “My friends are in trouble,” I said.

  “I was ensured that the Portuguese forces were on their way.”

  After that, everything passed in a blur of steely gray as we were ushered into a plain room centered by a long table.

  Father Lorenzo sat at the head of the table until Sofia ordered the soldiers to move him one seat down. She then took the seat of command, catching my eye in what she saw as a shared moment of triumph. I was instructed to sit opposite her at the other end, which I did.

  Evan, Luis, and Ilda sat around the table along with two soldiers as a man entered wearing a snappy white jacket designating a captain’s rank. He was obviously so annoyed that his place was taken that he preferred to remain standing. Introductions were kept brief after which he gave us a curt nod and exited.

  One of the soldiers positioned the casket in the center of the table, opened the receptacle, and set the crown on its velvet covering. Again that collective gasp.

  I averted my eyes while Sofia began firing questions at Father Lorenzo. She asked him if he was the head Divinio, where was the sect based, and to give her names and locations. When no answer came, she moved on to the historical beginnings of the sect and demanded to know if he knew the identities of the order’s opposition in King Philip’s court. Though he gave no direct reply, I sensed that we knew more than he did in that regard.

  Evan interrupted to ask where the skull resided—was it in Sintra as we supposed
? To that, Holy Honcho only cast him a little sorrowful smile.

  Sofia pulled out his phone. “We have now traced your calls to your allies and sent help to Sintra where your men are being rounded up as we speak. It is over, Father Lorenzo. Accept your defeat. Your order will now be crushed like so much dust between our fingers.” To illustrate she rubbed her fingers together and wiped her hands on her pants legs.

  “It is not for you to ask questions of me,” he said finally, “and it is for me to pray for your souls as you plunge humanity into who knows how many years of further darkness.” His gaze seldom left the crown.

  Eventually Sofia gave up and turned to one of the soldiers. “Take him to your brig and ensure he is guarded. And bring us food and drink,” she added.

  “At least we have the crown in our possession,” she said to me once they had taken him away. “This priceless sacred artifact will be treasured as it deserves.”

  “Sofia, have you forgotten what this crown represents, where it’s been, what it’s done?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “It represents a piece of history that has had a far-reaching impact on Spain. Never has such an item been recovered with so much brilliance and insight! And look at it, Phoebe—a work of art. The gold, the jewels! I am thinking that that sapphire may actually be the famed blue diamond stolen in the thirteenth century from the Ratnashastra mines in India, and—” she genuflected “—in the crystal, a piece of the True Cross!”

  I stared at her, baffled. “But, Sofia, there must be enough pieces of the True Cross around Europe to reconstruct a forest. You know that. How likely is it that this is real?”

  “You are not Catholic. You do not understand,” she said.

  “I understand this: Pérez designed this crown to fire up a group of fanatical monks who were already riled up by the Inquisition. He pounded that thing onto the head of a deranged man unfortunate enough to have royal blood.” I leaned toward her. “It was designed as a political and religious weapon and in time took a life if its own. Think, Sofia: as long as it exists, it gives the Divinios the oxygen they need to rebuild and inflict more havoc in the future. It’s a time bomb!”

  “But we will round up and destroy the Divinios.”

  Evan shook his head. “More likely they will remain underground and rebuild in one form or another. Like a virus, we won’t be able to catch them all, you said so yourself. They will mutate and proliferate. Phoebe’s right: that crown is a global liability.”

  Sofia sat back, a brief flicker of panic crossing her face. She closed her eyes and crossed herself as a tear rolled down her cheeks. “It belongs to my employer; it belongs to Spain,” she whispered. “I cannot be part of this. I could not live with myself.”

  Slowly she rose and walked around the table, taking pictures of the crown from all angles. Several minutes passed with her gazing at the thing without speaking. Finally, she whispered something in Spanish, crossed herself, and cast me a tremulous smile. “You, Phoebe, you are the brave one. You carry on the work of our las mujeres, our Damas. They were Catholic, too, and could never destroy something that had the possibility of being sacred. I must leave now and call my family. They will be worried.”

  Once she’d exited, Luis, Ilda, Evan, and I sat alone with the crown. I swallowed, my hands gripped together in my lap.

  “Do you want me to do it, Phoebe?” Evan asked.

  “Thank you but no. I have to do it—for the Damas.” I gazed up at Ilda and Luis, surprised to see that they were holding hands. Ilda was crying, he was comforting her—how sweet. “You are all such good friends and I thank you. Forgive me if what I’m about to do causes you pain. It’s not easy for me, either, but maybe for different reasons.”

  Evan translated while I photographed the object before he carefully packed the crown into his duffel. “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  But they all came, the four of us leaving the room and heading for the upper deck. Sailors and soldiers asked us where we were going and Evan replied convincingly. “I said that we all needed air after our ordeal.” One of the sailors was instructed to take us to an area of the deck believed safest for our promenade and then stood by around a corner out of sight, respecting our privacy.

  I gazed around at the huge deck expanse, relieved that on this clear night the sea was calm and our progress measured in a relatively sedate level of knots. “Where are we again?”

  “In the Atlantic approximately halfway between Spain and Portugal. I won’t tag the coordinates just in case. Suffice to know that it’s deep enough here to almost guarantee that no one will see the crown again.”

  “We need to video this, Evan.”

  “Yes—a social media moment. Just get it over with, Phoebe,” Evan said. “Let’s make sure the evidence of the crown’s absence hits the news.”

  Luis and Ilda shielded us from view while Evan lowered the duffel and lifted out the crown to pass to me. He then raised his phone to video what came next.

  This was no proud selfie moment for me but an act of total desperation. Here was Phoebe McCabe, the woman who had spent her life retrieving and preserving rare objects, about to throw a priceless artifact of historic and artistic importance into the sea.

  The moment Evan passed me the crown it felt as if the cold metal seared my fingers. “This object is the crown of the Divinios,” I said as Evan leaned forward to get a close-up. “It represents hundreds of years of pain and suffering. Now I consign this thing to the sea.” A flash of pain and anguish shot through me moments before I tossed it over the railing, Evan filming every second.

  Maybe I caught the glint of gold in the starlight seconds before the wash pulled the crown under or maybe that was my imagination under fire. Either way, my relief was bottomless and my anguish equally so.

  In an instant, Evan had posted the clip worldwide.

  24

  It was a chilly mountain morning when Evan and I drove our rental car up to Sintra. The Portuguese police had proceeded us by days and most if not all of the known Divinios and sympathizers had been rounded up. But there had been no sign of the Carvalhos when the police swarmed the castle and we had been unable to contact Peaches or Rupert by phone.

  “They must be there somewhere,” Evan muttered as he drove through the forest. “They can’t just disappear. I’m not even picking up Rupert’s tracking device.”

  Neither of us would utter our deepest fear: that the Divinios had retaliated against the family and their supporters once the news of the crown’s destruction hit. And it had hit—hard. The clip of me throwing the Divinios crown into the sea was all over the Internet.

  After the deed was done, we had convinced Sofia to let us go directly to Lisbon rather than accompany her to Madrid. Apparently, her employer was dumbstruck once he’d seen the footage, but she had managed to convince him of the ultimate truth: that the crown could not be permitted to exist on this earth. Under water was bad enough. Had a forge been handy, I would have melted it down to bullion but, as it was, no one would find it any time soon, if ever.

  Sofia had hugged me tightly before we left, the two of us crying at the loss of the crown and all the trials we had experienced these past two days. She had arranged for an army plane to deliver us from the aircraft carrier to Lisbon, leaving her to do the explaining to her employer. We had waved goodbye to our new friends, my hug for Ilda especially tight and long.

  Now anxiety clawed my gut as the car drove up the drive, through the open gates, to the dark castle. Both Evan and I were exhausted and taut with worry.

  “This makes no sense,” he said. “That house was a community and communities don’t just evaporate.”

  We climbed out of the car and gazed up at the castle. “I presume it will do no good to ring the bell?” I had my phone in hand and flipped through my photos until I found the one with Peaches’s code. “Let’s try this.”

  I tapped in the code, shocked when the door clicked open. Someone had to have been around to activate the se
curity system in the first place. That gave me hope.

  We stepped inside, the dark central hall that echoed with our footsteps, the place suffused with that heavy emptiness that occupies a deserted home.

  “Let’s try upstairs,” Evan suggested, and together we bolted up the three flights to our bedroom wing, me to Peaches’s room, Evan to Rupert’s.

  I looked around Peaches’s space, shivering. Flicking on a light, I studied everything—the unmade bed, the towels on the floor, her missing bag. Peaches never left her room a mess and there’s no way a kidnap victim gets to pack her bag, either. Plucking up an empty bottle of smoothing lotion left on her pillow, I smiled.

  Immediately I was back in the hall, Evan striding toward me from the opposite end. “They have to be somewhere nearby!” he said, holding up a single unused tea bag. “His main Vuitton bag is gone but he left this.”

  I caught his eye and held up the smoothing lotion. “But where could they be?” Then I had a thought. “Follow me.”

  In seconds, I was back downstairs dashing into the library, making a straight line to the conservator’s closet. “I’ll call you from upstairs,” I told Evan as I got down on my hands and knees to pull away the boxes blocking the hatch.

  “Wait, I’ll come with you,” he said in that manly “I exist to protect you” way of his.

  I paused to look up at him, taking in his poor bruised face, healing but still discolored. “Evan, you won’t fit. Could you just wait and watch my back?”

  “Against what—mice?"

  I smiled. “I’ll call the minute I get up there.”

  He didn’t look happy but he left me to it. And so I crawled into the dark dusty passageway and up those narrow stairs, my phone lighting the path. Two little notes scribbled on pink paper had been dropped like bread crumbs along the way. One said Follow me and the other just said Ana Marie.

  When I reached Senhor Carvalho’s closet, I didn’t know what I expected—to see the entire Carvalho family sitting around having breakfast, maybe—but the room was as empty as the house.