“But there’s more to the dream than the water.”
“Yes. I’ll never know what happened to Johnny that day.”
“You deserve to know the truth,” said Beckett. There was an odd expression in his eyes.
“Sugar doesn’t think that your husband’s death was an accident. He believes that your husband was murdered.”
Her entire body began to tremble. Blood hammered in her ears, blinding lights burst behind her eyes. Her fingers tightened on his arm. “But I was told it was an accident! I never questioned it. I just accepted…”
Beckett put his arms around her and held her, as if he could keep her from shattering. “Months before Sofia died, your husband was working on a story about the financing of terrorists. When he went off in search of your godson, all the dots began to connect and he realized who Victor Orsini was. He was ready to expose Orsini,” Beckett said. “He was endangering Orsini’s operation.”
Her eyes reflected her horror… “Please, no.”
“There’s no way to prove it, Maggie. Two people who’d gotten close to Orsini in the past disappeared. There are too many subtle ways to disguise a killing. Hit and run, mugging, heart attack. A boating accident…”
That’s why Johnny has been coming to me in my dreams all these months. For the truth. For justice.
Victor Orsini had my husband killed.
“I think some part of me always knew,” she whispered.
The mantel clock struck two a.m.
“I need to help you find him, Michael. Victor Orsini is the man responsible for my husband’s death. The closer I can get to him, the more I can hurt him.”
“And the more he could hurt you. Leave this to me. And Sugar. We have the resources to—”
“He killed my husband, Michael!”
“We don’t know for sure. So we find him, get a confession, bring him to trial—”
“Confession…” A chill raced through her.
“What is it, Maggie?”
“That’s it. You said ‘confession.’ I’ve remembered what Dane said to me on the beach.”
Immediately Beckett’s head came up, listening and alert. “Tell me. It could be important.”
“He had me pinned beneath him, I couldn’t move. He called me his Juliet. Then he—” she shuddered—“he tore my jeans and murmured something religious. It didn’t make sense. He talked about.’priestly vestments,’ and ‘dancing at a wedding.’ He was going to rape me, Michael, and he behaved as if it were some sort of ceremony.”
“Goddamned bastard,” he said, holding her against his chest. He stiffened. “Christ, that’s it! He’s going to be disguised as a priest.”
Beckett jumped up, clicked the locks on his briefcase, and ran his eyes down a list of scheduled events. “That must be the target! I have to get a military flight to DC.” He reached for his phone.
“Can’t Simon do it?”
“He’s already on a flight to New York.” He bent to touch her cheek. “Dane and I have a score to settle.” Then he stopped. “I don’t want to leave you to deal with your husband’s death alone.”
“It’s the only way I can deal with it.” She looked steadily into his eyes. “You’ve got to go. Dane must be stopped. And for me, after all these months, the knowing is better than the not knowing. Just come back to me.”
He dropped to one knee, tilted her head back, and kissed her. “I’ll come back to you. That’s a promise.”
Beckett shouldered his duffel bag and looked down at her. He reached for his computer case, called to the Golden, and moved toward the door.
“Making love to you, Magdalena O’Shea,” he said, “is as inevitable as sundown.” And then, “Count on it.”
Then he and his dog were gone, back into the shadows.
* * *
Maggie stared at the closed door. You’ve given me so much, Michael. And now, one more gift. Now I have a way to say goodbye to Johnny.
You have a job to do. But so do I.
“I made a vow to you, Johnny O’Shea,” she said out loud in the flickering darkness. “I damn well intend to keep my promise.”
It was time to confront the man who ordered the death of her husband.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
THE UNITED STATES. MORNING, JULY 12
10:45 a.m.
Dane stood in a narrow, dark bedroom, fingering the hand-crafted plastic weapon that would be taped to his leg. “The Secret Service are the best at what they do,” he murmured. “But—”
But he was better. He had all the right credentials, the disguise. The plan. The key was to act as if he belonged. And he did that perfectly. There would be no reason to suspect him.
He looked into the mirror over the bureau, took in the curling gray hair, the darkened eyes beneath the glasses, the stooped shoulders, the puffed cheeks above the tight collar. “Even if the agents have photographs,” he said aloud to the image, “no one here could recognize you.”
He turned away from the mirror, smoothing the heavy black costume with a steady hand.
He was ready. One more glance in the mirror, a minor adjustment, a final check of his weapon, and then he moved toward the door.
“I have done a thousand dreadful things,” he quoted, “As willingly as one would kill a fly.”
* * *
11:02 a.m.
The bomb dogs had come and gone. All clear. So far.
In the glittering glass-enclosed Boat House Restaurant in New York City’s Central Park, Sugarman gazed out over the sea of faces that gathered for the First Lady’s birthday celebration luncheon. He could see her, just past the flowers, smiling at the German Chancellor and her husband.
The small phone on his hip buzzed to life. The Jesuit priest had just entered the restaurant.
Sugarman moved through the crowd.
* * *
11:58 a.m.
Three hundred miles to the south, deep within the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, there was an air of expectancy in the small Dahlgren Chapel.
Masses of white roses had transformed the simple chapel into a snowy garden. In the flickering candlelight, an array of prominent faces waited, watching each other while the organist filled the arched nave with the beauty of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The scent of roses was heavy in the air.
Several members of the Cabinet and Congress were already seated on the red, cushioned chairs. The British Ambassador whispered with newspaper scions, celebrities, and captains of industry. The newest Supreme Court Justice, a friend of the bride’s mother, took her place in a front pew with family and close friends. In the rear of the chapel, paparazzi pressed against velvet ropes while cameras flashed.
Just to the right of the altar, beneath stained glass windows glowing with high noon sunlight, a row of Jesuits and nuns sat with heads bowed in devotion.
At both entrances to the little church, watchful men in dark suits waited, eyes constantly moving over the candlelit faces.
A smiling young man in a tuxedo escorted the Admiral’s wife and family to their seats in the front row. Twenty young men and women in blue robes rose, sheet music open in their hands. A Jesuit in snowy vestments walked out onto the altar. The tall and slightly bemused young groom took his place and looked expectantly down the white-carpeted aisle.
The organist struck the first stirring chords of Mendelssohn’s triumphant Wedding March. The guests stood. Beyond the altar, a stooped old nun in a black habit dropped her missal and stooped to retrieve it. As she bent forward, her long black veil swung forward to hide her face.
* * *
12:33 p.m.
In New York City, just moments before the President was about to toast the First Lady and their distinguished luncheon guests, Sugarman moved to the front table and leaned down until his mouth was against the Jesuit’s ear. “I’m your nightmare, pal. Better finish your prayers, because those folks coming toward us across the room? They’re all pals of mine, from the FBI.”
The old pries
t looked at him with shocked eyes.
* * *
1:07 p.m.
In the Georgetown University chapel, the Admiral kissed his granddaughter’s cheek before she turned toward her groom. The long white satin skirt brushed his wheelchair as his radiant grandchild passed by.
Colonel Michael Beckett entered the chapel and moved down the side aisle.
“Almighty and Eternal Father,” intoned the celebrant, “we ask your blessing on this man and this woman…”
Beckett stopped beneath an archway and stared at the clergy seated beyond the altar. One of the Jesuits leaned forward. Just behind him, an elderly nun knelt down, bowing her veiled head in silent prayer. The bride bent toward her groom.
“…today we have come together in God’s house to celebrate the union…”
Beckett moved forward, stopping behind a white pillar. Very carefully, he scanned the faces of the black-clad priests and nuns who sat in the rows so close to the Admiral and his wedding guests. Where are you, Dane? asked Beckett, staring at each face. Too old, too young, wrong sex. Too dark, too heavy, too short. In the flickering light of the tall tapers, the faces of the priests swam before his eyes.
“…to love and honor, in sickness and in health…”
He has changed his appearance, Beckett reminded himself.
A gray-haired priest raised his head slowly.
A tall, stooped nun grasped the wooden crucifix on her breast with a gloved hand.
Beckett stopped, alerted by the unexpected movement. There was something wrong. Damn, what was he missing?
The glove…
“…so long as you both shall live…”
The old priest closed his missal.
The nun’s hand moved beneath a fold of her black habit. The dark veil fell forward to shield her face. Why a glove?
The bride and groom knelt down.
The priest’s hand moved upward.
“Pronounce you man and wife…”
The choir stood and began to sing a triumphant Hallelujah.
The Admiral took his wife’s hand and looked toward the bride.
The tall nun turned slightly. Beckett’s eyes were on her hands. The gloves.
The dark veil shifted, fell back. A pale face, narrow lips moving in prayer.
The profile! thought Beckett, staring at Dane’s hawk-like nose. The gloved hand…to hide an injury? To hide a man’s hands?
He was dressed as a nun.
The bride smiled at her husband.
Beckett shouted a warning.
The nun spun around, stood quickly and took aim.
Beckett launched his body across the aisle.
The Admiral turned in shock.
In the front row, several women screamed.
Beckett’s fist smashed into the nun’s arm just as a shot was fired.
Unaware of the unfolding tragedy, the organist high in the loft reached his crescendo. As twenty choral voices soared into the high spaces, the blast of Dane’s weapon echoed outward, shattering the small chapel with reverberating sound.
In the front pew, the Admiral fell back as a bright red rose bloomed like a grotesque flower on the side of his face and spilled down onto the starched formal shirt.
* * *
Several hundred miles to the north, at a secure and very private airfield in Queens, Sugarman watched the President and First Lady of the United States shake hands with the German Chancellor and the embattled President of France. Listened as the somber president said, “The Middle East is our next focus. We will go forward together.”
Sugarman shook his head. Sometimes, a priest is just a priest.
He stood on the shadowed tarmac and watched until all three Lear jets disappeared into the shining sunlit sky.
CHAPTER NINETY
SOUTH OF FRANCE. LATE AFTERNOON, JULY 12
It was almost sunset in Provence when Maggie stood at the tall, carved gates of Saint Paul de Mausole monastery in the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
She looked cautiously through the heavy grillwork into a small shaded garden. All quiet. She’d been told that the beautiful old building where Van Gogh had lived was now actually part monastery and part convalescent home.
And a place to hide. A place for a monster to go to ground.
She pulled her sweater more tightly around her shoulders. She had gone to the hospital that morning, as soon as Michael left for the airport. She had kissed a sleeping TJ, then gone to Zach’s room. There, deep in the pocket of Zach’s jacket, she’d found the pearl-handled revolver he’d taken from Celeste LaMartine’s hands at the Cézanne museum in Aix. Then she had curled into a chair and kept vigil over her son’s father until, just after three p.m., Zach had opened his eyes.
She told him that TJ was fine. She told him that his son, Brian, was safe. She asked him where Victor would go to hide, and he whispered the answer. She kissed his forehead and went to find his doctor.
He’s going to live, Madame.
Then she was gone, driving east in the small rental car as fast as she dared.
Now, standing outside the monastery’s thick stone walls, her hands were shaking. She touched the hard cold metal of Celeste’s revolver in the pocket of her jeans. Could you kill him if you have to, she asked herself once more. Could you?
A deep and terrible fear washed over her. If you let this go, she told herself, you won’t be able to live with yourself. She slipped her hand into her pocket, her fingers closing around the smooth handle of the pistol.
Who have I become?
The setting sun slanted over the high tiled roof and touched her face. The bright day is done, she thought, and we are for the dark.
Just do it. Zach had told her that there was a hidden walled garden, beyond the fountain, where the monks went to pray at sunset.
She pushed open the heavy wooden gate.
* * *
“It’s over, Admiral.”
Sugarman stood in a small curtained room in Georgetown University Hospital’s ER. Monitors beeped softly behind him.
The older man in the hospital bed shook his pale, bandaged head. “You’re wrong, Sugar. We don’t have Orsini. We don’t have Dane, thanks to Beckett’s bumbling. We don’t have jack shit.”
“You have your life, Admiral. And so does your granddaughter, her groom, and all your wedding guests, thanks to Colonel Mike Beckett.” Sugarman shook his head. “Dane’s a goddamn Houdini. He counted on the crowd’s panic, set off the smoke bombs, used the choir for cover. Beckett had to choose between the bride—your granddaughter—and the terrorist. What would you have done?”
“A true soldier would have sacrificed the bride,” said the Admiral without a moment’s hesitation. Then his breath rasped out. “But I’m grateful he didn’t. So Dane got away once again.”
“Disappeared into the university’s underground tunnels. But we’ll find him.”
“I wouldn’t hoist my sails just yet. Now, if there’s nothing else, help me into my wheelchair. We’ve got work to do.”
“Just one tiny problem, Admiral. It’s not ‘we’ any longer.” Sugarman dropped a sheaf of papers onto the lap of the CIA Deputy Director.
“What’s this?”
“A few photocopies. Read ’em and weep, as they say.”
The watery blue eyes scanned the first lines, then flew to Sugarman’s face.
“From Orsini’s files?” The scraping voice was as dry as tinder ready to burst into fire. “But—you told me you found nothing.”
“I lied.”
“Damn you, Sugar. Why?”
“Three little words, Admiral. ‘Skull and Bones’.”
“Don’t go there, Sugar.”
“You were—still are—a member of Yale’s oldest secret society, right? So is Orsini. Yeah, you’d already graduated. But you knew each other, didn’t you. Fellow Bonesmen and all that. He called you for help, didn’t he, way back when he discovered his father’s war crimes. You helped him hide those paintings. And then you blackmaile
d him. Demanded he join the CIA, use his father’s fortune to do your bidding—”
The old man threw the papers to the blanket. “The thing about a secret society, Sugar, is…it’s secret”
“You had an account with Orsini, Admiral. You became one of his clients, using CIA money you transferred to a private Cayman bank account. It’s right there in black and white, pal. All the names and account numbers. Under your watch, the CIA has been transferring major funds into Orsini’s empire for years. Money that’s been used to finance acts of terrorism against our allies. And against the United States, you sick bastard.”
“You won’t find my name anywhere in Orsini’s journal.”
“You’re too smart for that, aren’t you, Admiral? Sure you are. So you used a Cut-Out.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A pardon is probably not in your cards. You couldn’t afford to use your own name, so you had someone else front for you. Someone else, who invested CIA money with Orsini for you.” Sugarman leaned closer to the Admiral. “Vanessa Durand,” he said.
“Vanessa Durand is an art gallery owner in Paris and Rome, nothing more.”
“Admit it, Admiral. Durand really worked for you.” Sugarman stared at him and waited.
“Dammit, Sugar, you don’t know everything. It all came from our eighties CIA op, under Casey. Veil. Good God, man, we had Prince Bandar in our pockets, funding covert operations for ten mil. We funded anti-Quaddafi efforts in Chad, we prevented the communists from coming to power in Italy…”
“And Orsini?”
“For years he took care of things for us, financing terror groups through his network. In the Gulf, Eastern Europe, Africa. Central America. Assassinations, coups, troublesome leaders. Disrupting anti-US elections. All paid for with our money…until Ravello.”
* * *
The narrow blue door set in the monastery wall swung open. Victor Orsini walked out into the first evening shadows of the hidden garden.
The Lost Concerto Page 35