When the elevator stopped and the door in the top cabin opened in the bank’s lobby, he heard shouts from security guards at the sight of the empty compartment. He then pressed the button and exploded the puck containing the knockout gas sufentanil. There was more shouting, and a body dropped with a crash in the cabin above him.
It took him a minute longer than he expected to pop the trapdoor open, but then he crawled out into the lobby and stood up, hearing loud hacking coughs as he stepped over the bodies.
The porter at the front door had managed to press a silent alarm before going down, and when Conrad finally stepped outside and ripped off his mask, the sound of sirens blared.
He walked quickly down the street, turned a corner, and hailed a cab. He was opening the door when the sound of a helicopter forced him to look up. To his astonishment, he saw the screaming face of Abdil Zawas pressed against the window of his limousine before it disappeared with the chopper over the roof of the UBS building.
Conrad quickly climbed into the back of the cab and said, “American embassy.”
25
Midas stood in what he considered to be his rightful place next to the French president, his wife, and Papa Le Roche at the curb outside Saint Roch as they silently watched pallbearers load Mercedes’s flag-draped coffin into the back of the hearse, which would take it to the more intimate burial service at the family’s tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Midas did his best to look somber before the crowds and cameras, but those next to him had more practice, and he had to work at keeping his chest from swelling with pride from his arrival at the pinnacle of European society. He’d had to buy his way in with the Brits, and even then his acceptance had felt forced. The Parisians were far more accommodating of his violent reputation, which for them only seemed to add a dash of romance to his otherwise mysterious background.
“Mercedes did love her rogues,” he heard Papa Le Roche repeat outside, although the plural reference reminded Midas of Conrad Yeats, and the thought that he and Yeats had shared Mercedes disturbed him. He took comfort in the knowledge that shortly, Yeats would be joining the dearly departed in the afterlife. It was all Midas could do to keep from checking his BlackBerry for word from Vadim in Bern.
Papa Le Roche then clasped arms with Sarkozy, Carla, and Midas. To great effect, he upstaged Midas by climbing into the front of the hearse himself—there was room for only one passenger, presumably the most important man in Mercedes’s life—to ride with his daughter to the cemetery.
As soon as the black Volvo hearse drove off down the Rue Saint-Honoré past the throngs of onlookers held back by police and metal fences, Midas turned to Sarkozy. “Are you going to the burial?”
The French president shook his head. “Rhodes calls. The world is a mess. Turmoil in the markets. War in the Middle East. We do what we can. I am to give the opening and closing presentations at the summit. I am but a bookend.”
“I will see you there, then,” said Midas, and clasped arms with Sarkozy and then enjoyed a double kiss with Carla before France’s first couple climbed into their presidential limousine.
As Midas watched their motorcade drive off, led by police on motorcycles, he felt the pleasant vibration of power in the form of his BlackBerry calling. He picked up the call from Vadim. “So we are rid of Yeats once and for all?”
There was a pause on the other end. Midas didn’t like it. “We got Zawas. But Yeats escaped.”
Midas felt stomach acid flare up in the back of his throat. “And the contents of the box?”
“Yeats.”
Midas dropped the phone and leaned on a loitering pallbearer for support. Several cameras captured the moment, confusing the expression of loss on his face to be one for Mercedes. The Rhodes summit started tomorrow, and Midas needed that coin to join the Thirty. Even the Flammenschwert couldn’t help that. All his leverage would be gone by Friday.
Midas scanned the crowds and saw Serena making for the side entrance and her car. He took a breath, stood up, and thanked the concerned onlookers. “I’ll be fine. Life goes on. Thank you.”
He retreated back to the church and then broke into a run to catch Serena before she drove off.
26
The U.S. embassy in Bern was at Sulgeneckstrasse 19, and Conrad’s cabdriver took his sweet time getting across the city’s River Aare. Conrad clocked it on his new official Black Order Rolex: almost nine minutes to make it over a four-lane bridge, merge into the far-right lane, and reach the next intersection just in time for the light to turn red.
“What are you waiting for?” Conrad demanded. “Take a right.”
“This isn’t America,” the Syrian driver replied rudely in English. “There is no turn on red light unless permitted by green arrow.”
“I’ll pay you extra.”
The Syrian looked over his shoulder at him with contempt. “I am a law-abiding citizen.”
Two minutes later, they turned right onto Monbijoustrasse and then took another immediate right onto Giessereiweg. Two minutes after that, the road turned into Sulgenrain, and they followed it until finally turning left onto Sulgeneckstrasse.
The street was one-way for security purposes; Conrad spotted the embassy about two hundreds yards down the street on the right. It was a white office building surrounded by an ugly security fence.
“I’ll look for your picture inside,” Conrad said as he paid the driver and watched him drive off.
He started walking quickly to the gate. He was half a block away and passing a paid parking area when a Swiss police Land Rover started to drive slowly alongside him. As soon as the window lowered, Conrad didn’t wait for the arm to pop out with a pistol. He dove behind a parked car just in time to see Vadim’s ugly face in the car’s side mirror before Vadim blew the mirror off.
Conrad made a dash the opposite way up the one-way street, using the parked cars as a hedge. The Land Rover tried to back up, but oncoming traffic put a stop to that, and Vadim had to jump out and pursue on foot.
Conrad cut across the corner of Sulgeneckstrasse and Kapellenstrasse and ran downhill about three hundred yards to a blue arrow tram leaving the stop at Monbijou. He bought a ticket from the vending machine and hopped on just as Vadim ran up from behind, no doubt noting that it was Tram 9 Wabern heading for the city’s train station just two stops away.
The tram began to snake beneath the storybook archways and through the arcades of old Bern. Conrad caught his breath as he stood among the tourists and commuters. The next tram was ten minutes away, so he had to assume Vadim would drive like a madman to beat him or radio someone at the end of the line.
As much as he hated the idea, he had to call Packard and ask for a secure pickup. He reached inside his pocket for the Vertu cell phone that Abdil had given him and realized that he must have lost it when he dove for cover near the embassy.
All too soon the tram stopped at Bubenbergplatz, opposite the main train terminal. Conrad had to make a run for it and hop a train out of Switzerland. Between the Swiss police, Interpol, and the Alignment, he was dead if he stayed here.
He scanned the plaza and was making a beeline for the station when he saw the Land Rover pull up and Vadim get out. He also saw legitimate police cars at the entrance and a number of patrolmen on foot talking into their radios.
In a heartbeat, he doubled back in the opposite direction to the towering Heiliggeist church. Built in the early 1700s, the Heiliggeistkirche, or Holy Spirit Church, was supposed to be the finest example of Protestant church architecture in Switzerland, with its magnificent baroque interior and encircling gallery.
The choir was rehearsing the “Easter Oratorio,” as composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1735. Several soloists in costume sang the parts of the two Marys and the disciples who followed them to the empty tomb of Jesus. They were accompanied by three trumpets, two oboes, timpani, strings, and the church’s massive organ. The musicians were considerably younger than the choir, the church organist considerably older.
Conrad took a seat next to a young man wearing angel wings and watched the rehearsal. The angel handed him a flyer. It was in German and titled OSTER-ORATORIUM. Conrad had to think up something. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asked the angel.
“No, dude, I’m American,” the angel said. “Semester abroad. Chicks dig this shit. So do guys. But I dig chicks. So don’t dis my wings.”
Perfect, Conrad thought, glancing around the vast church. He looked up at the oblong pastel ceiling high above the rows of curved wooden pews. It was held up by fourteen sandstone columns. “Do you actually have a part?”
“I get to announce the resurrection and that Jesus is alive.”
“That’s awesome.”
“Yeah, and then I get to score with the second Mary Magdalene over there from Copenhagen.”
“Never going to happen,” Conrad said with an earnestness born of experience that shocked even him. “Hey, my phone battery is gone. Can I borrow yours?”
The angel handed him a Nokia and said, “Got an emergency?”
“You could say that,” Conrad said. “I definitely need to call God.”
“Well, you’ve come to a house of prayer, so pray.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got her number.”
27
Benito had the engine running by the time Serena reached the limousine. Her phone rang. It was Conrad.
“Where on God’s green earth are you?” she demanded as she climbed in the back.
Conrad said, “It’s time we lay our cards on the table. Meet me at the Villa Feltrinelli at Lake Garda tonight at six. You’re the Baroness von Berg.”
“You must be joking,” she said. “I’m supposed to be in Rhodes tomorrow.”
“Then you better know what’s on the agenda,” he said, and hung up.
She met Benito’s eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “What’s our status on the globes?”
“Brother Lorenzo says they are prepared and will arrive separately in Rhodes as art for the exhibit at the Palace of the Grandmaster. By keeping them roped off, he feels closer inspection will wait until after the summit.”
Serena’s mind was racing while the engine ran in neutral and Benito waited for her signal. Lake Garda was in northern Italy, a good three hours by plane, train, or automobile. And she had duties to perform at Mercedes’s grave site.
“Get me a seaplane, Benito. I’m going to fly myself to Rhodes—after an unscheduled stop. You get yourself back to the Vatican and accompany the globes to Rhodes. Don’t let them out of your sight.”
Benito nodded and moved the car into drive just as Serena’s door opened and Midas climbed in next to her.
“What are you doing, Midas?” she nearly screamed.
Benito hit the brakes, and before she and Midas even stopped bouncing, he had a 9mm Beretta pointed over the front seat at Midas.
Midas put up his hands and said, “I needed a ride to Père Lachaise for the burial. I thought I could take the opportunity to seek your spiritual counsel. Look, I have none of my aides with me.”
“You mean assailants.”
“Whatever.”
Serena sighed, exchanged a glance with Benito in the mirror, and nodded.
They drove slowly out the side, past a gate, and onto Rue Saint-Honoré, where the crowds had quickly dispersed and the boutiques had opened for business again, as if the orgy of stage-crafted grief had never happened.
“Conrad Yeats stole something of great value from me,” Midas said firmly.
“Mercedes will be missed,” Serena said calmly.
“I am speaking of the contents of a safe deposit box in Bern,” Midas said. “Yeats broke into my bank and stole my box.”
Serena realized that she had to meet with Conrad. “Well, you’ll need to employ better security to reassure your other customers.”
“No, you’ll need to get it back for me and kill Yeats when he contacts you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Don’t play me for a fool. Mercedes told me everything about your sordid relationship with the man. So did Sorath.”
With the mention of Sorath, Midas wanted her to know that he was a member of the Alignment and that he knew she was, too.
“All the more reason for Sorath to be upset to learn of your loss. If you tell me what it is, maybe I can help you.”
Midas turned his gaze from the Dei medallion dangling around her neck to the Eiffel Tower in the distance. “A few minutes ago I wondered if Sorath was Sarkozy, that pompous French prick.”
“If you’re asking me whether he’s the Antichrist, no,” Serena said. “But I’m sure a man like Sarkozy would give the position some serious consideration if it were offered to him. You, too.”
“And the pope?”
“The Vatican can’t be bought off like the Russian Orthodox Church.”
“No, it was bought off far earlier by Constantine and the Dei,” Midas snarled. “And just who do you think you are? You’re a little ecclesiastical whore of the pope, a false prophet if there ever was one.”
Serena let that one go and allowed silence to fill the car. They were on the Boulevard de Ménilmontant. Soon they’d reach the cemetery. “I’m sorry, you were asking me for help?”
Midas looked at her with quiet rage. “I hope for your sake you have the globes.”
She retorted, “I hope for your sake you have whatever it is you think that Conrad Yeats stole from you.”
“Oh, I will,” Midas said. “Because you will take it from him after you kill him. Only then will your loyalty to the Alignment no longer be in question.”
“And yours isn’t?”
“I have leverage, Sister Serghetti,” Midas said. “It is the most important tool in business. It is having something the other party wants. I have something Sorath and the Alignment not only want but desperately need.”
“And what would that be?”
He smiled. “You think you have something the Alignment needs in those globes from Solomon’s Temple. But here, too, I have leverage: I know you don’t have both of them. The Americans still possess one. And if two globes show up in Rhodes, I will know that one of them is a fake. And then where will you be?”
Serena felt a chill. Midas had sources within the Pentagon or the Dei, maybe both. If the Pentagon, her thoughts turned to Packard; if the Dei, they immediately went to Lorenzo. Either way, her plan to unmask and ultimately thwart the Alignment was at risk—along with any future she hoped to share with Conrad in this lifetime.
“Benito, I think Sir Midas is threatening to kill me.”
“Sí, signorina. The family will take care of him.”
“The cardinals will be thanking God in their prayers once you’re gone, Sister Serghetti,” said Midas. “Or do they still call you Sister Pain in the Ass behind your back in Vatican City?”
“I think Benito was referring to his family,” Serena said, then lowered her voice to a whisper for effect. “The Borgias.”
The name clearly registered with Midas. The Borgias had been the Church’s first crime family in the Middle Ages and included eleven cardinals, three popes, and a queen of England. They killed for power, money, and wanton pleasure. That was centuries ago, of course, and Benito’s branch of the family had long left the Church to establish the Mafia.
“You crazy bitch,” Midas said. “You play us all off each other. The Americans, the Russians, the Alignment, the Mob. You are the devil.”
“Well, we all have our issues,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I’m curious, Midas. What exactly is the Alignment promising you? You already have more money than just about anybody else in the world. And you seem to recognize what the Church has known for centuries—that those in power are more often defined by history rather than the other way around.”
“A new world order is coming,” Midas said. “The old order, including the Church, will pass away.”
They drove past the Métro station Philippe Auguste and through the main entrance of th
e Père Lachaise Cemetery, which had been established by Napoleon in 1804.
Serena took advantage of the scenery. “I’ve heard that before.” She made a point of looking at his trembling hand and then out her window at the rows of crosses, tombstones, and burial monuments. “What good is the new world order, Midas, if you’re not around to enjoy it?”
Midas smiled. “That is this thing, is it not?”
“Yes,” she said as Benito parked behind the convoy of cars trailing the black Volvo hearse. “I know where I’m going when I die. So, unless there’s another heaven I don’t know about, where are you going to end up?”
Midas’s eyes were black and shining with a secret he seemed to be dying to tell her. He leaned over. “I have news for you,” he whispered. “There won’t be a heaven or an afterlife.”
She looked at him curiously. He seemed more certain of what he was telling her than he had seemed of anything else.
“Who knows,” Midas added. “Even you might enjoy the new world order and forget all about Conrad Yeats. While you’ve been worrying about him, he certainly hasn’t been worrying about you.”
Midas pulled out his BlackBerry and played a video clip from a private file on his smartphone’s memory card. The video showed Conrad frolicking in bed with a young girl in a Miami Dolphins jersey. The time stamp at the bottom of the frame showed that it was barely forty-eight hours old.
“That’s enough, Midas.”
“Good.” Midas put away the phone in triumph. “Then we are agreed. You kill Conrad Yeats to prove your loyalty to the Alignment and bring what Yeats stole from me to Rhodes.”
“Or else?” she asked.
“Or else I’ll expose your sham with the globes, and it will be your funeral I’ll eulogize at next week.”
28
GRAND HOTEL A VILLA FELTRINELLI
LAKE GARDA, ITALY
It was half past four when Conrad’s Town Car turned off the country road and onto a long private drive lined with stately palms and cypresses. The end of the gravel drive opened like a dream to reveal the majestic Villa Feltrinelli and its octagonal tower overlooking the waters of Lake Garda.
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