She doubted very much she would win any friends if she used either of those.
Turning, she saw a long wooden processional staff slotted into a brass hoop on the end of a nearby pew.
If there was going to be a fight, she was not going to wait for the guard to attack her first. Taking control of the situation had been lesson number one in combat training.
In a fluid movement, she ripped the pole from the slender bracket holding it to the pew, and swung it at the bodyguard’s head.
He raised an arm to protect himself, and the wood crashed hard into his shoulder, sending him sprawling into a table piled high with leather-bound prayer books.
His face contorted into a grimace of pain as he reached into his underarm holster and pulled out a small black PSM pistol.
“That’s enough!”
The authoritative command came from the doorway.
Ava recognized the voice instantly, and turned to see Durov entering the chapel, glaring at her with an expression of intense hatred.
“Not in God’s house,” he ordered the guard, never taking his eyes off Ava.
“Get out.” The priest was stalking towards the two men. “How dare you bring violence into this sacred place.”
Durov nodded slowly at the guard, who re-holstered his gun, and walked back to the door.
Durov’s eyes were still locked on Ava, radiating rage.
He turned to the priest. “Good day, father,” he spat, before striding out and down the corridor, followed by the guard.
The priest was now level with Ava, equally angry. “You’d better explain yourself.” He glared at her.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “Not to me.”
Chapter 37
Palazzo Malta
68 Via del Condotti
Rione IV (Campo Marzio)
Rome
The Republic of Italy
THE PRIEST LED Ava to the door she had earlier seen Durov and the other man enter. Behind her, an armed soldier in camouflage moved into the doorway, shutting off her exit.
She was in a large Italianate salon, which stretched the full width of the building. The decoration was intense, with thick red damasked wallpaper and gilding on every piece of detailing – from the intricate coving on the ceiling to the finials ornamenting the extravagant fireplace. The whole space was illuminated by a gentle light coming through the thin cream silk coverings over the tall graceful windows.
The sign on the main entrance door had said the building was a palazzo, and she could now clearly see that it was.
The man Durov had followed earlier was sitting in a heavily upholstered chair.
As she stepped forward, Grand Master Joaquín de Torquemada put down the sheaf of papers he had been reading, and looked across at her, giving her a full view of his face for the first time. It was long, with large hooded eyes, overly full lips, and a heavy jaw. It was crowned by a thick mane of white hair, swept back from a sharp widow’s peak.
He was looking at Ava coldly. “My Russian guest told me that his men captured a thief in the building.”
Ava winced.
It was not a good start to a meeting.
“You understand where you are, don’t you?” His tone was not friendly.
Even if Mary had not told her what the building was, the banners and objects she had seen downstairs had left her in no doubt, and nor had the room she was now in. It was hung with three rows of portraits running around the walls, and she quickly calculated that there must be around eighty individual pictures.
Each painting was of a man wearing the cross of the Order. Some bore it emblazoned on a tunic, others on a cape, and most also wore it as a jewel around their necks, or pinned to their breasts.
Under each portrait was a name and a date. The collection was arranged chronologically, and her eyes alighted on the oldest canvas at the far end of the room. The plaque under it read: BLESSED FRA’ GERARD. The painting was distinctly Renaissance, but the date inscribed under it was centuries earlier: AD 1040–1120.
She swallowed hard.
That meant the Order dated from a time when the Anglo-Saxons were still running England – a period closer to the Roman Empire than the modern world, and long before any of the countries of Europe had assumed their current borders and systems of government.
As she took in the portraits, she realized that the gallery of Grand Masters before her represented a slice of European nobility spanning a millennium – from France, England, the Crusader States, Portugal, Aragon, Italy, Malta, and Germany. There was even a Borgia.
“You are trespassing,” he continued. “You left Italy the moment you illegally entered this building, and you are now subject to my jurisdiction and justice.” Torquemada was eying her with suspicion. “I would like to hear your explanation.” He looked at her expectantly.
Ava returned his gaze, and that is when she saw it.
The picture was in the centre of the wall behind him, in pride of place. It was smaller than the others.
And it was a woman.
As Ava focused on it, she began to feel a tingling running up her spine.
At the centre of the picture was a woman’s face. It was long and mournful, although the details were almost impossible to make out from the years of smoke, oil, grease, and dirt obscuring it. She had a long Greek nose, sad yearning eyes, and her head was tilted slightly to the left, as if she was looking at something in front of the frame.
“You’ll never see the icon,” Durov had taunted her, back in the library.
And yet here was an icon.
A Greek Madonna.
A Theotokos.
Ava peered at it more closely, and saw that the icon was actually made up of several layers. A thin covering had been placed over the painted wood, with a hole cut to reveal just the Madonna’s face underneath. The covering was decorated with a Maltese cross, making the eight points look like a sunburst around her head. On top of the covering was a jewel-studded border of gold, which encircled the Madonna’s face like a scarf, and the whole ensemble was encased in an ornate golden frame.
She stared at it, transfixed.
Rasputin’s second cryptograph.
Was this what he was referring to?
The head of John the Baptist, and the anagrams of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta all pointed to the Knights of Saint John.
CHILD OF THE THEOTOKOS and the Virgo symbol referred to the Virgin Mary.
Was the cryptograph supposed to lead to this icon?
Is that what Durov had worked out?
It was an odd-looking icon, but there was something vital missing.
Rasputin’s clue said: CHILD OF THE THEOTOKOS. Yet on the icon in front of her, there was no infant Jesus in Mary’s arms.
The picture was just her face.
Ava frowned.
Maybe this icon was not what Durov was after.
“Did your Russian guest show any interest in the holy icon?” Ava asked the Grand Master, indicating the image behind him.
Torquemada remained silent for a moment. “Now, why would you enquire about that?” His voice was pensive. “As it happens, he did.”
“What did he want to know?” Ava asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
The Grand Master fixed her with a penetrating glance. “Its history.”
“Is it unusual?” Her insides were beginning to knot.
“It’s the Order’s most holy relic,” the Grand Master answered. “Our Lady of Philermos…”
Ava could not believe her ears.
“Philermos?” she repeated.
Torquemada nodded. “It’s been in the Order’s possession since at least the 1300s, when we held Rhodes. It was kept in our chapel on the island, at Philermos, now called Filerimos. Legend has it that the image was painted by Saint Luke himself.”
Ava’s heart was hammering.
That definitely was part of the clue.
PHILERIMOS.
So now she knew. Ra
sputin had not meant the Greek word philerimos, a lover of solitude. He meant the place on the island of Rhodes.
She was too far away to see the details of the icon.
“Is that the original?” She struggled to stifle her excitement.
The Grand Master’s manner changed. “I have answered your questions. Now you owe me the courtesy of answering mine. I repeat: what are you doing here?”
“I’m not a thief,” she replied. “Your guest – Oleg Durov – is a very dangerous man.”
Torquemada pulled a white cotton handkerchief from his jacket’s breast pocket and stepped forward, handing it to her. “You appear to be injured.” He pointed at her neck.
Ava had forgotten about the cut.
She took the soft laundered cotton and held it under her ear. When she pulled it away, she was surprised by the amount of blood.
“If you’re not a thief, then what are you?” Torquemada sat back down in his chair.
Ava did not want to lie to him, but doubted he would believe the real story. “I’m keeping an eye on Durov,” she answered simply.
He gazed thoughtfully at the window. “But for whom, I wonder.”
“He’s not what he seems,” Ava persisted.
After a few moments, Torquemada turned back to face her. For the first time, she noticed the tired look in his eyes.
“I can assure you that he’s not the first of his kind to enter this palace,” he answered in a matter-of-fact way. “The centuries have been kind to us. These days we carry out our work on many different continents. But you cannot suppose we do that – from the corridors of Washington to the most violent shanty town in Brazil, not to mention hundreds of warzones from Somalia to Indonesia – without having to deal with men like him?”
Ava was not listening.
Something he said had sparked an old memory.
“What was the name of your Order’s first monastery in Jerusalem, before the crusades?” She pictured it on the model she had seen earlier in the library. It was the large church, just to the south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
He eyed her closely. “Saint Mary. Known as Saint Mary of the Latins, to distinguish us from the Eastern Greek Church that had historically run the city.”
A shudder passed through her as the pieces of the puzzle finally slotted into place.
Durov had been right.
This icon was the answer to Rasputin’s clue.
She took a short step closer towards it, elation washing through her.
The child in Rasputin’s notebook was not the infant Jesus.
That was why he was not in the icon.
The child was the Order of Malta itself, which had been born of Saint Mary’s, in Jerusalem.
The Order was Mary’s offspring.
“Grand Master, please may I see the icon?” Ava asked, taking another step forward.
He shook his head slowly. “Whatever you are both up to, you are wasting your time. There’s nothing for you here.” He nodded at the soldier by the door. “Escort her from the building.”
As the guard approached to lead her away, Torquemada gave her a parting look. “If you’re found on the property of the Order again without permission, there’ll be consequences. I don’t know what you’re involved in, but do it somewhere else.”
Chapter 38
Saint Hilarion Castle
Kyrenia Mountains
The Republic of Cyprus (Occupied)
THE TAXI FROM Ercan International Airport had taken José Ramos north out of Nicosia, and towards the ancient city of Kyrenia, traditionally said to have been founded by the victorious Greeks returning from the Trojan war.
In less than thirty minutes, the car had crossed the Mesaoria plain, and headed up into the limestone and marble mountains that fell away the other side to the northern coast.
Nearing an enormous moutaintop statue of a soldier in full battledress, they turned left, and onto a narrower winding road. It led them past a military base with two armed guard posts and a smaller statue of a soldier in action, before ending in a dusty car park, where a sign in Turkish announced:
ST HİLARİON KALESİ
Ramos told the driver to wait for him, then got out of the car, purchased a ticket in cash, and entered the castle’s monumental curtain wall at the barbican.
Once through, he was in the lower ward, which had formerly swarmed with the garrison’s men-at-arms. Hundreds of yards above him, high on the craggy mountaintop, he could see the castle’s upper buildings clinging to the jagged rocks – still fiercely dominant and aggressive after centuries.
As he climbed, he caught snatches of a monologue from a tour guide, whose small group was ascending the ancient steps just behind him. The guide was excitedly explaining the building’s extraordinary past, from its earliest days as a hermitage in the tenth century, down to its key role in the scarring royal battles for medieval Cyprus.
Ramos had no interest in the history of the island and the old fortification. Who cared that Richard the Lionheart bound the island’s tyrannical ruler in silver chains because he promised not to clap him in iron ones? He was far more focused on the business to be done with the man he was about to meet.
Arriving at the middle ward, he ignored the Byzantine chapel and assorted chambers and towers. He passed through, following signs to a rougher and steeper series of worn stone steps cut into the mountainside. He began to ascend them confidently, oblivious to the fact that a slender metal handrail was the only thing between him and a vertiginous drop.
After a hard climb, he arrived at the mountain’s peak, and the castle’s third ward – the area formerly reserved for the Lusignan royal family.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, he headed across to the northern side, and spotted a sign declaring that he was now seven hundred and thirty-two metres up. He peered down the dizzying masonry walls and cliffs falling away beneath him, before looking out to the azure blue of the Mediterranean.
He turned away quickly.
He was not here for the sightseeing.
Looking about, he spotted the man he had come for, standing by a dramatic fragment of wall encasing a large gothic traceried window.
The man was dressed all in black – combat trousers, a long loosely buttoned shirt, and a matching shemagh wrapped around his neck.
Ramos knew him only as al-Irlandi, which he had been told was Arabic for ‘the man from Ireland’.
Al-Irlandi was average height, muscular, and in his early forties. His face was long and angular, with fleshy lips and several days’ beard growth. His long dark greasy hair was pushed back, reaching down over his collar. A healed injury to his right eye socket had left his eye-lid slanted and frozen.
Ramos was no expert, but he would hazard a guess al-Irlandi was originally Pakistani.
“You’re late.” Al-Irlandi’s accent was a mix of Asian and the strong sound of Northern Irish.
Ramos had no idea where al-Irlandi had flown in from. It could have been anywhere – Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria. They were all only a short flight away. A lot closer than London.
The jihadi paused to look out over the Mediterranean. “Once, the Khilafah encircled this ocean: Spain, North Africa, Palestine, Turkey, Sicily. The crescent of Islam ruled the shores, and billowed from the corsairs cutting the waves.” He paused. “Insh’allah it will be so again.”
Ramos had no interest in his contact’s agenda. He had no idea who the Irishman’s allegiance lay with, and he did not especially care. He was only interested in looted conflict antiquities, and was happy to work with whoever could supply him.
“Where’s the statue?” Ramos demanded.
“Bonded, in Rotterdam,” al-Irlandi answered. There was no apology for the three-month delay.
Ramos heard the arrogance in the jihadi’s voice.
If they had been back in Mexico, he would have thrown the arrogant cabrón over the railings. But they were not. And Ramos needed him. There was a hierarchy. Al-
Irlandi supplied the artefacts, and Ramos offloaded them through his shop in Old Bond Street. They were tied by a chain of interdependence. Besides, he knew al-Irlandi’s reputation, and did not want a gang war upsetting the lucrative arrangement they had going.
“How long?” Ramos insisted.
The jihadi did not answer. He was gazing out over the mountain peaks. “Did you give the woman the test, like I said?”
Ramos nodded.
“What did she say when she saw the object?”
Ramos shrugged. “I don’t know. She saw something.” His men had not been able to put her reaction into words. “She wanted it badly.”
Al-Irlandi’s eyes narrowed. “How can you be sure?”
Ramos snorted. “My men grew up on the streets of Ciudad Juárez. They know when someone wants something.”
Al-Irlandi turned to look directly at Ramos. “Did she tell you what it was?”
He nodded. “A list. Some kind of commemoration.”
The jihadi was attentive now. “Anything else? What did it say?”
He shrugged. “Names.”
“What names?”
Ramos had no idea. “Just names.” He passed al-Irlandi a piece of paper with a handwritten Liechtenstein address. “Send someone to here. The owner has your cut of the last deal.”
The jihadi took it and lapsed into thought. “She might be able to help us.” He paused. “Find out who she is. Do some digging.”
Ramos was reaching breaking point. He could not care less about the woman. “I’ve done you the favour you asked. Now I need the statue.”
“Soon,” al-Irlandi replied. He pulled out his phone and opened a photograph, which he held out for Ramos to see.
It showed a large stone sculpture of a regally-dressed man with earrings and a corkscrew beard. Around it, a band of militiamen were waving AK–47s. “You’ll get this one, too, at the same time. Meanwhile, stay close to the woman. Ask around. Find out what you can.”
Al-Irlandi pressed a number on speed dial, then looked up at Ramos, indicating the meeting was over.
The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2) Page 22