Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask

by Alex Archer

“It is going to take as long as it takes. I don’t think you realize just how serious your situation is. Let me spell it out for you, just in case something has been lost in translation between us. I’ve got two dead bodies and I have you. There is a definite connection between you and one of the victims. Let me tell you what will happen next—ballistics will match your gun with the bullets we’ve pulled from the bodies, and you’ll be going to jail.”

  “Interesting theory, but for the fact that the only bullet of mine you’ll find is in the kneecap of the man who was lying in the street.”

  The interrogator raised an eyebrow. “And what about the one in his head?”

  “He didn’t have a bullet in the head when I last saw him.”

  “You’re saying that he was shot by his own men? Or maybe it was one of my men? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Roux struggled to keep the smile off his face. “More like his own people, but it isn’t inconceivable that one of them is also one of you. It’s about loose ends. He was a loose end. Leaving him behind alive meant leaving a living, breathing link back to them in your hands. Why would they do that? In their position, I wouldn’t. Would you?”

  The policeman leaned back in his chair and gave Roux a long, cold stare.

  “How about my phone call?” the old man asked.

  “Phone call? What do you think this is? You have no rights here. You are not the victim, no matter what you want me to believe, so you will get a phone call if and when I say you do. That won’t be for a long time yet.”

  “How about an attorney?”

  “You will be given court-approved representation when the time comes.”

  “I’d rather use my own, if it’s all the same. I find you get what you pay for, and as we’ve already established, I’m not averse to paying for the very best.”

  The policeman opened a manila folder and spilled out a collection of photographs across the table between them. Some were the dead men’s faces, others were of their hands.

  “What can you tell me about this?” the interrogator asked, jabbing a finger at a picture of the tattoo on the back of what he assumed was Mateo’s hand. Roux picked up the photograph to take a closer look.

  “Very little. I’ve never seen it before today. And now it’s on the back of two men’s hands.”

  “And you don’t think it’s strange that two dead men have the same tattoo?”

  “Oh, very much so, but thinking it is peculiar sadly doesn’t mean I know anything about its origins. I assume it is some kind of gang mark?” It was a reasonable conclusion. He had nothing else to offer. It meant nothing to him.

  “What do you know about the Fraternidad de la Quema?”

  “Ferdinand what?”

  “The Brotherhood of the Burning.” The interrogator spoke slowly, enunciating each word very precisely.

  Roux made a moue. Shook his head. “Sorry. Nothing. Alas, I am not up on the gang culture of Spain.”

  The policeman said nothing for a moment, weighing his next words. He obviously knew something about the tattoo’s origins but wasn’t sure he wanted to reveal it. Finally, he said, “They have been behind a series of hate crimes both here and in other cities across the country.”

  “Hate crimes?” That was unexpected. Roux leaned forward in his chair, interested now.

  “They’ve been targeting Muslims. It started with little more than graffiti and threats, but has escalated recently to a number of severe beatings. Now, it would appear, they have managed to get their hands on weapons and escalated to attempted murder. Am I correct in thinking that you are not a Muslim?” Roux nodded. “Then that would be a flaw in my understanding. I do not like making mistakes or working on misunderstandings.”

  Roux could hazard a few reasonable guesses that might connect the men with his visit to the museum, but he wasn’t about to share them. It wasn’t his job to solve the policeman’s puzzle. Right now, he needed to get out of here before the detective started asking better questions.

  “And your understanding would be what? That this Brotherhood is drawing some kind of inspiration from the Inquisition?”

  “I didn’t say that, but it’s interesting that you did. Why would that be your first conclusion?”

  “Pure luck. Now how about my phone call?”

  “There is something I don’t like about you, something that doesn’t ring true. I will find out how you are involved in this, because I don’t for a minute believe you are as innocent as you’d have me think.” The interrogator slipped the photos back into the folder, then took a cell phone from his pocket and handed it across to Roux.

  It looked as if he was going to get his call, though he knew the detective had given him his own phone so that the number would be stored in its memory.

  “It’s an international call,” he said. “Sorry. I don’t suppose I could have a little privacy?”

  The interrogator shook his head. “I don’t think so. But that’s fine, isn’t it? It’s not like you have anything to hide.”

  “Nothing at all,” Roux said, punching in the number.

  The call was answered on the second ring.

  There was no need to exchange names. Roux was the only one who called this number, and the man on the other end the only one who answered.

  “I’m in a police station in Seville,” Roux began, giving the address to make sure there was no confusion about which one. The voice on the other end read it back to confirm its accuracy. “I need you to get me out of here,” Roux continued. “I don’t care how much it costs, do you understand?”

  “Understood,” the man on the other end said, killing the call.

  All he could do now was wait and trust his man to do what needed to be done.

  “This isn’t Rome, you know,” the interrogator said, shaking his head. “You can’t just buy your way out of a murder charge.”

  “Oh, I know that, but my lawyer is quite...creative.”

  11

  18:15—Valladolid

  Of course it had been too much to hope for. Life wasn’t like that. It didn’t just give you what you needed when you needed it. It made you work for it.

  There was no mask hidden in the secret compartment.

  But it wasn’t empty.

  Annja’s fingers closed on something. She fished it out carefully, fingertips brushing against what felt like oilskin. Slowly, not wanting to risk damaging whatever lay inside, she unwrapped the skin. The ribbon that had secured it all those years crumbled into decay and fell away as she tried to release the bow. The only thing that didn’t simply turn to powder was the red wax seal. The wrapping itself was in better condition. It creaked and strained as she peeled it back, but it had done its job protecting the contents. She held a book in her hands. It appeared to be in excellent condition, but she wasn’t about to take any risks with it.

  Carefully, the flashlight between her teeth, Annja opened the heavy boards of the cover and turned over the first few pages one at a time.

  The script wasn’t easy to decipher, but even so, it didn’t take Annja long to realize she had to be looking at some kind of ledger. On the left-hand side of the page there was what seemed to be a list of items, and on the right a column of numbers. But that was as deep as her understanding went. Even without knowing what the ledger contained, someone had thought it was important enough to keep it so well hidden. This was not the place to try to examine it, though. Not with the secret chapel door still ajar upstairs. Still, she couldn’t resist taking a look at a few more of the pages in case something leaped out at her.

  Somewhere in those fragile pages was a clue to the whereabouts of the mask.

  She needed to believe that.

  But it didn’t help if she couldn’t read it.

  At first glance, she’d thought that the details in the ledger
were in some sort of medieval Spanish, but they weren’t. The unusual hand the script had been written in was deceptive, she realized, recognizing a few words of Latin as she skimmed over the page. The names set above the list of items were not. She could have been mistaken, but her gut instinct was that the ledger contained a list of Moorish names and Latinized notations, but what did any of it mean?

  She ran a finger down one page after another, looking for words she might recognize.

  All she wanted was a single red thread she could unpick in search of the truth, whatever that might be.

  She found her answer in the date that ran along the far left-hand side. The first was shortly after Torquemada’s rise to power and the last entry was made months before his death.

  Annja knew that more than a million Moors and Jews had been driven out of the Iberian Peninsula or put to death during the course of the Inquisition. A million people. Did this ledger represent a fraction of those? She thought about the treasures that had been seized by the Nazis during the Second World War, only to be rediscovered more than a generation later, hidden in the vaults of Swiss banks. The Germans had kept meticulous records about many things. It was a shot in the dark, but Annja began to wonder if there were similarities, if this ledger contained a list of assets seized by the Inquisition. If it was, it was unlikely the Mask of Torquemada would be recorded as such an asset. And right now, as tempting as this treasure and the truth it represented were, she didn’t have time for distractions. When this was over, though, she promised the dead men listed in the ledger, she would solve the riddle she held in her hands. But until then, she could only think about one thing. The mask.

  She carefully wrapped the book back in the oilskin, then slipped it and the fragments of decayed ribbon into her pocket before closing the compartment and easing the statue of Christ back into place.

  If the ledger was a record of a vast amount of confiscated treasure—probably only the tiniest fraction of the amount collected over the years—it could be one of the most important finds of her career. The book had been kept safe all of these years... Did that mean the treasure was hidden somewhere? It was possible, wasn’t it? She was getting ahead of herself, but it was hard not to. If any such horde had been discovered, even centuries ago, she would have heard about it.

  With that in mind, she retraced her steps back up to the church.

  She needed to get out of there.

  Ticktock. Ticktock.

  The one nagging thought she had was that everything had pointed to the mask being hidden here, and yet she had found the book instead.

  The two had to be connected somehow.

  This couldn’t just be some random discovery; she was still on the right track; her Grail Quest was progressing, even if it didn’t feel like it right now. She was one step closer to finding the mask. One step closer to saving Garin Braden.

  12

  17:00—Seville

  “Okay, time to face the music,” the interrogator said. Roux still didn’t know his name. He hadn’t announced himself for the recording in the interview room and hadn’t repeated it since he introduced his team in mumbling Spanish deliberately intended to mask their names. He’d been given a cup of weak coffee and left alone for a while to think about what would happen next. It was a fairly basic technique—rather than keep hammering away at an intractable object, sometimes it was more effective to just let the sea of doubts lap up around it, chipping away at the edges until something worried free.

  “You taking me to the ball?”

  “Sorry, Cinderella, we’re off to the courthouse.”

  That caught Roux by surprise. So much for due process. “My attorney hasn’t arrived yet.” He glanced at his watch, for the first time that day worried that too little time had passed.

  The interrogator shrugged. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. Think of it this way—it just gives you longer to make up a convincing cover story. We’re not in the habit of holding suspects in custody without charging them. Maybe that’s how they do it in France, but here we believe in the rule of law. So, we can do this nice and quietly, or we can make a big song and dance out of it. I would say your choice, but it’s not. It’s mine. Look lively. The magistrate doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken to my attorney,” Roux said.

  “You’re going to make this as difficult as possible, aren’t you? If your legal representative is unavailable, the court will supply you with one. Now, I have had to pull a number of strings to make sure that a magistrate will be ready for us, and to keep you off the front page. Best not make this any more uncomfortable than it already is.”

  Reluctantly, Roux rose. He was cuffed hand and foot, so any ideas of making a break for it had to be kept on hold for now. The opportunity would arise, though; he was sure of that.

  “Fine, let’s get this over with, then, shall we?”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “I am going to take great pleasure in suing your ass off when you realize just how badly you’ve screwed this up.”

  “I’d expect no less.” The interrogator smiled and led him out by the rear of the station house.

  An armed escort was waiting for them.

  Roux hadn’t expected such blatant heavy-handedness; it was a declaration from the police that they’d got their man and he was dangerous. It was grandstanding. Despite what the detective had said, he had almost certainly tipped off the media and intended to try Roux in the most public way possible. Maybe he was trying to shake the tree and see what came spilling out. It wasn’t how Roux would have done it, but there was always more than one way to win a battle of wits.

  The drive was only a matter of a few minutes. He should have been grateful they hadn’t decided to frog-march him through the streets.

  His lawyer still hadn’t arrived by the time the entourage reached the courthouse steps. He was bundled out of the car and led inside. He didn’t struggle against them. That wasn’t how he’d win this. He needed to be sharp and to know his surroundings, so as they pushed him toward the courtroom, he took the time to look around and fix key geography points in his mind—staircases, doorways, windows, areas of ingress and egress, the balcony that swept around the foyer, giving the armed court officers above a panoramic view of the marble floor, the security scanners and X-ray machine that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Homeland Security, and the cameras. Roux was always interested in the cameras. Someone who lived an unreasonable span of years needed to be. It didn’t do him any favors to turn up at crime scenes decades apart looking exactly the same. Someone always noticed, then came looking and needed to be taken care of.

  The bailiff led him into the courtroom, releasing his cuffs. Roux stretched, working the tight, aching muscles in his back, then turned to face the front. There were no spectators in the gallery. The magistrate’s chair was empty, and there was no sign of his representative, though the state prosecutor was already shuffling paper earnestly at his desk. The bailiff knocked twice and called “All rise” as a side door opened and the magistrate entered the room.

  He motioned for those assembled to sit. “Do we have a list of charges?”

  “Your Honor,” the bailiff said, reciting a list of charges grievous enough to see Roux locked up for several lifetimes at least. Before the final counts of murder in the first degree had been read out, his attorney came barreling into the courtroom, face flushed and panting as he struggled to catch his breath. He set his briefcase down beside the wall, beneath the room’s only window, and mopped at his brow with a dirty white handkerchief before addressing the bench.

  “This is outrageous.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. “What kind of kangaroo court is this? You have no evidence to link my client to any of the events today. You have a list of spurious charges and are look
ing to bury him rather than risk justice being done. He is the victim here.”

  “This isn’t the time for opening arguments, counsel. How does your client plead?”

  “He doesn’t.” He took a sip of water from a glass that stood on the table in front of him.

  The magistrate wasn’t amused. “Your client must enter a plea. Am I to assume it will be one of ‘not guilty’?”

  “No, Your Honor. My client will not be offering any such plea. I move that the case against him be dismissed.” He looked at the clock on the wall, then back to the magistrate. Roux watched him, wondering what the man had in mind. “This entire thing is a sham. An outrage. My client’s detention is unlawful, lacking in sufficient cause or evidence.”

  “Be careful, counsel. I do not know how you do things where you come from, but in my city, we adhere absolutely to the letter of the law.”

  “I object, Your Honor!”

  That made Roux smile. He was impressed how convincing his man had been up until that moment. The magistrate, however, was far from impressed. He slammed his gavel down, about to demand order, when all hell broke loose.

  The first explosion shook the building savagely, bringing down a rain of plaster on the proceedings. There was a moment of shocked silence before the air filled with shouts and screams. Beyond the doors, people struggled to stay calm in the midst of the whirlwind, fear overwhelming them as the foundations of the building shook again and it became obvious they were under attack.

  Roux remained motionless, letting it happen.

  His attorney was the only other man in the room not to betray his fear. He looked at Roux and nodded. This was what the old man would pay so handsomely for. A third explosion rocked the place. The quality of the screams changed. People were hurting out there. Smoke and debris filled the air as more plaster came raining down. The bailiff moved to secure Roux’s chains. The old man wasn’t about to let that happen. He planted an elbow in the man’s throat. He went down hard, gagging. Roux looked around the courtroom as doors burst open. Guards came streaming in, bringing with them the stench of explosives and a wave of dust. Roux identified the window at the far end of the room as the weak point. The guards moved toward him, but before they were halfway across the floor, another explosion shook the room, this one much closer to home.