Chapter Twenty-Seven
London
The call from Special Agent-in-Charge Underwood came at 4 pm London time. He reported to Brian that John Spedino had been captured in Rome earlier today. The mobster had been living in Italy for a few months with a new identity, apparently having somehow obtained a Vatican passport.
The FBI agent said that a person in the Catholic Church was instrumental in the apprehension of Spedino. His identity would remain confidential but Underwood said there was no reason to suspect the Church itself had any involvement in the bombing. NYPD and FBI agents believed the man dressed as a priest who stole the manuscript was just that – a person using a costume as a diversion.
Underwood told Brian they listened to a taped conversation. If it proved genuine then Spedino orchestrated the bombing of Bijan Rarities. To his old drug trafficking charges they now added murder and unlawful flight. He said other charges might come later.
“From our source we understand John Spedino had the stolen manuscript. It’s now in the hands of the Catholic Church in Vatican City.” That was important information – the book rightfully belonged to the Crane family who had given it to Brian for valuation. Agent Underwood said he was contacting the Church to see if they would return the manuscript to Brian.
Brian said, “Do you think John Spedino caused the murder of Arthur Borland here in London?” He thought it couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Sorry I can’t answer that. I don’t have details on the Borland case. That’s being handled in London. I’m sure my counterparts there are going to investigate the possibility and once they know something we’ll see if anything ties together.”
“Which brings me to one last question, Agent Underwood. Is there anything you know that would cause you to think my friend Nicole Farber is in any danger?”
“We don’t have anything concrete. I know you think Spedino was systematically retaliating against the three of you. Maybe that’s true, but I think we got him before he could put anything in place against Miss Farber. And I’m sure you know she turned down my offer to give her some added protection. We’ll continue to keep an eye on that angle though. You have my word on that.”
Later on, Brian called Nicole and gave her the news. She was relieved that Spedino was in custody and no longer a potential threat to Brian or her.
Then she brightly said, “I’m rearranging some things at the office, sweetie, and I’m taking off a few days. In a couple of weeks will you still be in London or will you come back to New York by then? I’m hoping London – I haven’t been there in forever and you know how much I love it!”
He said his plans were to remain in London for now – there was nothing other than checking on his New York apartment that couldn’t be handled by phone or email. And his neighbor was periodically ensuring things were good at home. She offered to fly over for a week and Brian jumped on it. He’d be damned glad to see her again. It seemed like ages since they were last together.
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There was a comfortable feeling in both libraries of the Monument Club. Brian was an occasional user of the one in New York, which was almost as extensive as the library here in London. The Club was famous for having the world’s largest collection of reference works on archaeology, anthropology and a plethora of related subjects. As in New York, the top two floors of the London building contained shelf after shelf of books, manuscripts and other written documents, just like a traditional library. Carrels were placed here and there, allowing members a quiet place to study and do research. Each carrel contained a computer that accessed the Club’s microfiche archives. Although many members preferred for one reason or another to see the original book or copy thereof, others preferred microfiche. There were several advantages – all documents held by the Monument Club in either location were on one computer and every single thing had been microfilmed. Members therefore could find one of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand works, examine it at their leisure, photocopy anything they needed from fiche, and order up the original item if necessary. It was very helpful and one of the things that made the Monument Club so popular among archaeologists, explorers and the like. Research was critical in the world of antiquities and for that, this place was the best on earth.
Armed with a letter of authorization from Carissa Borland, Brian sat in the office of Jeffrey Montfort, the librarian who managed the sixty thousand volumes at the London Monument Club. The man was gaunt, pale, bookish – exactly as you’d expect for a librarian, Brian thought – and had held his position for twenty years. He was reputed to be extremely knowledgeable about the resources he oversaw.
The man gave Carissa’s letter a brief glance, smiled and said, “Jeffrey Montfort, at your service. Please, call me Jeffrey. What can we do for you, Mr. Sadler?” He appeared glad to have a visitor. The place was otherwise as solemn as a church.
“Call me Brian, please. You’re aware, I’m sure, of the death of Lord Borland. I’m interested in seeing anything you can give me about the research he was doing.”
“Ah, yes. I was saddened to hear of the Earl’s demise. Of late he had become my best customer, as it were. He was here almost every day for the past few months. I’ll be glad to show you everything I can.”
Jeffrey wheeled his chair to a computer on a side table, typed some entries and looked at the screen.
“He looked at several things early on. Most recently he had been spending time with a set of Knights Templars manuscripts. Our volumes are copies. They were donated by the Caboto family of Italy. Marco Caboto died and his heirs donated a few thousand books, manuscripts, drawings and other documents to the Monument Club. Caboto gave the original Knights Templars books to the Vatican in the late 1800s, I believe.
“Lord Borland told me there was a missing volume, one covering roughly the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He and I spent a lot of effort trying to ascertain if the Club had a copy. The day before he died, in fact, I finally acknowledged drawing a blank on the search. He didn’t seem disappointed. In fact I gathered he had an idea. I’m not certain, but he just wasn’t as upset as I thought he’d be.”
The librarian was savoring the conversation. Brian figured he spent a good deal of time alone.
“Please go on.”
“Since Lord Borland was so determined to find that manuscript I presume it holds information he desperately needed for whatever project he was working on. You know, I rarely know what’s behind the searches our members do. Sometimes I find out – now and then a book gets written, I read it and think to myself, ‘I found the information he’s using in that description.’ That’s gratifying, to think I can help people find things they need. You know? Sort of makes you feel good inside!”
Brian smiled and nodded.
“We’ve been talking about his search for a copy of a missing manuscript. The book itself actually exists – a week or so ago Arthur told me the missing volume had turned up. He said it was found in a collector’s library in Nova Scotia and that man’s heirs turned it over to a gallery in New York City – a friend of his owned the gallery, I think he said. Then I heard on the news something about a terrible accident at the gallery. The book was either destroyed or somehow went missing. I didn’t get a chance to ask Arthur more about it.”
“The explosion at the gallery was no accident,” Brian said quietly.
“Oh, so you heard about it too…oh my.” His face suddenly showed recognition. “Please forgive me, Brian. I just recalled what else Arthur told me about his friend. The gallery belonged to one of our members, a Yank who owned a London gallery as well. Oh my. Oh my. That would be you, wouldn’t it? My apologies, sir, if I spoke out of turn. I do that sometimes.” He smiled ruefully.
“No problem. Yes, it was my gallery. It was bombed and the manuscript was stolen. Several people died. I’m here to find out why.”
“Oh my God. So there really is something very important in that missing volume, it appears. If it’s here, I’ll help you find it, in memory
of my good friend Arthur Borland. I also want to help you figure out why someone stole the manuscript after bombing your shop. What a reprehensible crime.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vatican City
As Cardinal Conti read six more pages of the Templars manuscript he saw the same routine diary entries as were in the Vatican’s own volumes. There was nothing surprising. Many months separated the individual entries – the six pages he had just finished covered a twelve-year timespan. Like the others, this book contained the highlights of events in the lives of crusading soldiers, this time from the late 1400s to around 1700. Battles were fought, church relics saved from marauding bands of heathens, tribute demanded and collected from those under the protection of these roaming knights. The entries in the book were consistent with the activities generally attributed to the Knights Templars as the Middle Ages transitioned into the European rebirth, the Renaissance.
Skimming the routine entries, Dominic saw nothing that captured his interest. He was in the year 1496. He turned the page and his adrenalin spiked – here were more tiny symbols. Conti had a quarterly bank meeting in thirty minutes so he quelled the urge to start decoding. Although it was frustrating, his project would have to wait until the afternoon.
It was a beautiful morning as Cardinal Conti walked to the medieval tower that housed the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican Bank. Every quarter the five men who served on the Supervisory Commission of Cardinals gathered from around the world to review the bank’s activities and results.
Conti had been elected President of the Commission two years previously with the overt blessing of Pope Benedict. The bank’s meetings were held behind closed doors and no minutes were recorded. Cellphones were not allowed in the room. The five members therefore were free to discuss anything they wished; what happened in the bank’s conference room was revealed to the outside world only if all of those men determined it would be so.
Cardinal Conti presided over today’s meeting, hastily pushing agenda items through the process and frequently gazing out the ancient tower windows as mundane fact-filled reports were presented. His lack of attention wasn’t lost on the others. The Archbishop of Santiago sat next to Conti – he leaned over at one point and whispered, “Dominic, are you all right? You seem preoccupied.”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I just have a lot going on right now. You can’t imagine how busy things are.”
The Archbishop truly couldn’t imagine. He had no desire to work in Vatican City. There were many, many men here whose political ambitions were as strong as their godly ones. He loved being in Chile, a vast ocean and a continent away from the politics and intrigue that festered in any seat of government, including the holiest one on earth. Put the Church and the State together in one place, the Archbishop thought with a smile, and you get nothing but problems.
Cardinal Conti forced his mind back on the issues at hand as the presentations droned on. Everything on today’s agenda was totally routine – if he hadn’t been President of the group he might have begged off and stayed with his exciting project. But he had to carry on for another hour or so.
His mind drifted again to the Templars manuscript. He felt both excitement and dread at the prospect of tackling the symbols. He hoped to find information so secret, so important that it was painstakingly encoded for protection. At the same time he feared he would find nothing but another page of Bible verses. If the latter happened he’d have to figure out why someone went to that effort. There had to be more than there appeared.
“Ahem. Eminence, may we proceed?”
Dominic was jolted back to the reality of the bank meeting from his reverie. The Vatican Secretary of State and the other men around the table looked expectantly at him.
“Ah, my apologies, gentlemen.” He glanced at the agenda in front of him and had no idea whose report had just concluded. “Let’s see. Who’s next?” He smiled as one of his colleagues gave him a quizzical glance and began the next discussion.
Mercifully the meeting ended around noon, Conti having kept his mind on the subjects at hand for the remainder of the session. He avoided the usual small talk and conversation that followed each meeting – these men only saw each other quarterly and all had become good friends. There was always a period of catching up, usually including lunch, but today Dominic Conti excused himself and hurried back to his office.
Ensuring he had nothing on his agenda for the afternoon and all calls were held, Dominic poured himself a glass of wine from a small refrigerator in an adjoining pantry, took it, a piece of cheese and a slice of crusty bread to the table. He sat and began to decipher.
As before, the process was painstakingly slow. The symbols were so tiny his eyes ached. After about an hour he had several lines printed out in the ancient French language. He stopped, poured another glass of wine and walked around his office a few times to loosen his aching shoulders and legs. Then he sat down to read what he had decoded.
O Lord, hear our prayer. By the grace of God our Father and his Son Jesus the Christ our Lord we have been appointed defenders and guardians of the faith. Let our words and deeds be pleasing to Him and through His holy guidance may we steadfastly continue our mission, guarding the secret with which we have been entrusted for these three hundred sixty-seven years.
Conti stopped and reread the words in front of him. A prayer. But what does it mean? What secret have the Templars guarded for 367 years? The date of the last diary entry was 1496. Three hundred and sixty-seven years previously would be the year 1129.
As head of the Knights Templars today, Conti was familiar with the historical significance of that time period. Led by Hugues de Payens, the original Knights Templars were officially endorsed by the Catholic Church at the Council of Troyes in 1128. Thus began two centuries of religious and martial fervor, the meteoric rise of the soldiers of the order and its deadly eradication in the early 1300s.
In 1129 the original Templars would have been immensely popular among the population, revered as soldiers of the cross, defenders of the faith and guardians of the church. And if the prayer he just translated were true, these crusading Christian soldiers were entrusted with a secret in that year. Those early Templars had been completely wiped out in 1310, their members burned to death. But as Dominic Conti knew well, that wasn’t the end of the Knights Templars. Successors arose, in secret at first. These were dangerous times but men bravely continued the work. The Templars secrets were passed to them. According to legend they knew where vast treasure was hidden, spoils of the Templars’ activities. That knowledge had gone missing over the centuries but the rumors of unimaginable riches persisted.
Of course this wasn’t the group also called Knights Templars who ultimately became a subset of the Masonic organization. These Templars were part of the Church just as the original ones had been. And that continued today.
What had they been entrusted with? What had they guarded for three and a half centuries? Hopefully the rest of the coded symbols would provide the answer.
The phone on the desk across the room rang, startling Cardinal Conti. He had explicitly instructed his secretary that no calls were to be put through. Angrily he strode across the expansive office, punched a button on his phone and curtly said to his assistant, “This better be important.”
“The secretary to His Holiness is on the line, sir. I’m so sorry to disturb you. I told him you were in conference and he insisted on being put through immediately.”
Wonder what this is all about? Dominic punched a flashing button on his phone and said, “Good afternoon. This is Dominic Conti.”
“Good afternoon, Eminence. My apologies for disturbing you but His Holiness asks that you meet with him today at four pm. Is that time acceptable?”
Is that time acceptable? How ridiculous, Conti thought. There’s not a person in Vatican City who wouldn’t drop anything when the Pope asked for a meeting.
“Of course. I’ll be there. May I ask what is the subject of our m
eeting?”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t told, Eminence. We’ll see you at four.”
There was a time, Dominic thought, when things were different. When Benedict was Pope the call would have come directly from him, not an assistant. He and the retired pontiff had had a close working relationship, one of mutual respect. Not so with the new one. Although he was widely respected and admired, he was also just that – new. No one knew exactly what to expect, and he didn’t yet have an infrastructure of colleagues. That would come in time but at this early stage he was an enigma. Dominic Conti could speculate forever on the purpose of his summons to the papal office but he had no idea what the meeting would be about. And he was slightly miffed that his decoding project would have to wait for another day. He had just over an hour to wrap things up, walk to the Pope’s office and be on time for the meeting.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cardinal Conti felt uneasy standing at the same office doors he had surreptitiously entered just a few nights ago. Since the Pope was in his office today, two Swiss Guards stood at attention outside the office, a marked difference from the solitary guard who had lounged in a chair the other night.
The papal secretary opened the door and gestured Conti inside, closing it behind him. The pontiff sat behind the desk where Dominic had gone through drawers and stolen the photocopy that decrypted the Templars manuscript. Suddenly he became aware of another person in the room. He glanced to his left and saw a man sitting in a chair.
The Pope came around his desk and presented his ring to the Cardinal, who knelt and kissed it. The Pope said, “Cardinal Conti, do you know Frederico Messina?” He gestured to the man sitting in the chair, who rose and extended his hand.
A wave of fear caused Dominic Conti to shudder involuntarily. He had never seen Messina although the name was immediately familiar to him and to everyone else in Vatican City. Frederico Messina was head of the Directorate of Security and Civil Protection Services. More directly to the point, he was commandant of the Gendarmerie Corps. This was the police and security organization of the tiny country of Vatican City. Unlike the Swiss Guard, who provides personal security for the Pope and his offices, the Gendarmerie Corps was the national police force, roughly equivalent to the FBI.
Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet Page 80