The Rome police were cooperating. They had set up a barricade at the entrance to the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta. No tourists had been allowed to come visit the famous keyhole in the gate since early morning. That made a car-bomb attack unlikely. He’d put Hawk on the front of the estate, his best man. Jacko and Priest were working the hillside perimeter, while he and Dutch were working the main house.
They’d made it through most of the meal, and the twenty-five guests and wives were moving out of the big dining hall into the salon, where they were to be served coffee and dessert. Actually, it was some sort of chocolate fountain. The kitchen at the villa didn’t have the capacity to feed such a large group, so they’d brought in a catering crew that had been working for the Order for more than ten years.
The crew was moving in to clean up the dining area. Virgil watched for faces he didn’t recognize or workers who had managed to slip through some crack in their vetting process. After all his years in this business, Virgil was at the point where nothing could surprise him anymore.
Signor Oscura had told him to meet the other Guardiani in the Church of Santa Maria del Priorato at ten that night. The small chapel was on the grounds of the villa. He would check in with all his men and then slip off for an hour or so.
When Virgil walked into the church, the only light came from the candles burning at the altar straight ahead. He paused just inside the door to let his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. Catholic churches always felt strange to him. He had been brought up a Methodist, and they hadn’t had any sculptures or artwork that showed Christ with blood on him. The Catholics, he’d learned, really seemed to be into that. Virgil smiled. As many men as he had killed, it was odd that it bothered him to see Jesus with his hands nailed to the cross wearing a crown of bloodied thorns.
He walked forward down the center aisle. Before he reached the altar, he noticed more lit candles in a small alcove to his left. Inside the alcove, there was a single man with his back to Virgil.
When the noise of Virgil’s footsteps on the stone floor reached the man, he turned and waved a welcome. As he approached, Virgil saw that there were several occupied chairs in the shadows. He counted five men in all.
One of the seated men stood and stepped forward with his hand outstretched. Virgil recognized Signor Oscura.
“Welcome, Cavaliere Vandervoort.” Oscura introduced him to the other men. One of them, a Frenchman, he had met before at an event at the villa. The other two he had never seen. They all spoke excellent English, and they were dressed in business suits—undoubtedly because they had come for the dinner that evening. Virgil noticed they were all either gray-haired or bald, but they looked fit, confident, and rich. That last part made Virgil wonder why they had picked him.
“The Order has always tried to have Guardiani from the different langues. In this way, we ensure that the men of this brotherhood will work for the Order, not for their own nationality. You are the first American to be invited to join.”
“I am honored,” he said.
“Each man here has been invited because of a certain skill set. We have a lawyer, banker, historian, and diplomat.” He pointed at the individual men around him and introduced them. “What we have not had in many decades is a soldier, a warrior, a true military Knight. That is why, after looking at your record, we are now inviting you to join our ranks. What say you?”
Virgil nodded but said nothing at first. He turned around, looking each of the five men straight in the eye, sizing them up. He could smell the power on them, see it in their shoes, watches, haircuts. Teaming up with these guys would mean he wouldn’t be eating in the kitchen with the security detail anymore. That sounded damn good to him.
“I’m in.”
The German stood up and said, “Take off your shirt.” The man reached under his chair and pulled out a large Pelican case. He opened the lid to reveal a tattoo kit with the machine, power supply, inks, needles, and an extension cord.
Signor Oscura went to the small altar that held all the candles and reached into a crevice behind it. He withdrew a fat black garment bag and unzipped it. He handed each of the men a black robe. When they pulled them over their heads, Virgil saw that a white Maltese cross graced the front of each robe while a long black hood hung down the back. One robe remained folded next to the candles on the altar.
“This is going to take some time. While I work, they will talk. Take a seat.”
Virgil sat, and the man took a pen from his kit and began to sketch the cross just above Virgil’s left breast.
The Brit had a briefcase, and from it he took a scroll and unrolled it. “Every initiation requires that you swear to what is written on this scroll. When the Guardiani were formed, they spoke many different languages, but the common language was that of Rome. Therefore, this is in Latin.”
The others had all gone to the altar and taken candles. They now stood around him, their candles illuminating his chest, where the black ink was starting to form the shape of the Maltese cross. Virgil wasn’t superstitious and he didn’t believe in magic, but he was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t speak Latin, so how do I know what I’m swearing to?” It wasn’t really that he was having second thoughts, he just wanted to be informed.
“That is what I will explain to you,” the Brit said. “From the beginning, our Order has defined different jobs for different Knights. In Jerusalem, some Knights worked in the hospital, some were clerics, while others were military. The Guardiani were a sect apart: established to guard the Order’s treasury and most treasured possessions. Among the treasures were religious relics like the manuscript that has come to be called the Religion.”
Over the next two hours, the tattoo machine buzzed close to his left ear and the men around him told him about how the early Crusader Knights had found the relic in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. That church was built on top of the site of the cave where Jesus was buried. The ancient manuscript was believed to be one of the earliest copies of a gospel written by one of Christ’s disciples. These early Knights were shocked by the words in the manuscript, but they recognized the power it gave them over popes and kings. For seven hundred years, the Knights protected the Religion, but in the late eighteenth century, the Religion disappeared at the behest of the grand master. He ordered a Knight to save the manuscript, to keep it out of the hands of the invading French. He sailed off with the precious relic, but that Knight was never heard from again.
Signor Oscura said, “Without the great source of their power, the Knights were disbanded by Napoleon, and the Order has never regained the status it once held in the world.”
Then they told him the Legend of the Silver Girl in Malta. They explained that the Order only knew of her story from her son, who had left his entire library to the Order upon his death in 1882. They believed that, somewhere among the volumes that were currently housed in the Magisterial Library on the Via Condotti, was the answer to what had happened to the Religion. What they did not have, however, was the key that would help them find that answer.
Signor Oscura said, “When you swear to become one of the Guardiani, you will vow to do anything in your power to return the Religion to the Order. Now, more than ever in our history, we need to find this manuscript. Our sources in the intelligence world tell us that there is a new power rising in the world of Islam. This group is even more extreme than al-Qaeda. They follow a literal translation of the Qur’an, and they will even kill other Muslims for not following their medieval traditions.”
The German turned off the tattoo machine for a moment and said, “If only we could count on them just killing each other, it would make things easier for us.”
“We cannot wait for that. They are about to appoint a caliph. They plan to take over certain territories in Syria and Iraq that are described in the Qur’an as the place where the End of Days will occur. There they will establish their medieval caliphate, called the Islamic State. There has not been a caliphate since
the Ottoman Empire, and even that one is not seen as legitimate by this brand of Islamist, since the Qur’an says the caliph must be a descendent of the tribe of their prophet. And this new chap, al-Baghdadi, is from that tribe. This is going to be heady, powerful for Islamists worldwide.”
“I don’t understand what that word caliph means,” Virgil said.
“A caliph is a leader of all Islam, and his arrival is the fulfillment of a prophecy. According to their texts, the prophet Muhammed foretold that a caliphate would be declared sometime in the future, and all the Islamists would rise up and defeat Rome. These Islamists think that time is now.” The man placed his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Son, with your help, we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
When the tattoo of the small cross was complete, they ceremoniously placed the black robe over his head and cinched it at his waist. Oscura produced a sword that he said had once belonged to a member of the Guardiani.
The Brit read all the Latin off the scroll, and they made him kneel.
When Virgil had first become a Knight of Malta, he had hoped they would make him kneel and tap him with the sword, but it never happened. This night, he would get to live out this little fantasy. They said lots more Latin stuff when the Brit tapped him on both shoulders. Then he rose, and the others all embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks.
Virgil was officially a member of the Guardiani.
Aboard the EV Shadow Chaser II
Mediterranean Sea off Djerba Island
April 21, 2014
Cole stood on the aft work deck, preparing to launch the ROV using the aft crane. It had been excruciating to have to wait all night before investigating the wreck with their little robot, but by the time they had finished surveying the wreck site with sonar imaging, it had been nearly dark.
This would be their first launch of Theo’s newly designed Remotely Operated Vehicle, and they decided to use it alone for their initial investigation of the wreck. This new underwater vehicle carried the same name as his first effort, Enigma, but Theo had outdone himself on this one. He claimed their new Enigma could safely travel to depths of fifteen hundred meters. With her four horizontal thrusters she could achieve eighty kilos of forward thrust. The two robotic arms could carry a hundred-kilo payload, and she was currently outfitted with two HD pan-and-tilt video cameras and four bright LED lights. Her cables, one for data and another for power, were spooled onto a drum mounted near the transom.
Cole hooked the lifting cables onto the pad eyes in Enigma’s frame, one on either side of her bright-yellow water-ballast tanks. The ROV was neutrally buoyant when the water-ballast tanks were empty, but once they were filled with water, she would start sinking. This trip down to about a hundred and fifty feet would be a good test dive for their new toy. Cole spun his finger in the air. Riley was standing in the shade under the aft deck overhang, holding a metal box with the crane controls. She toggled the switch and Enigma lifted off the deck. Shadow Chaser II was rolling a bit in the swell, so Cole held tight to the frame to keep the ROV from swinging.
Riley maneuvered the crane around as Cole stepped out to the edge of the aft work deck following the ROV. Theo was spooling out the cable according to Cole’s commands.
“Okay, she’s loose,” Cole said. “Happy hunting, girl.”
Theo pulled a phone out of his pocket and spoke to it. “Yoda, take Enigma down and hold position five meters above the southern end of the wrecked sub.” Thrusters whirred, and the yellow ROV disappeared under the surface.
“I’ve got a tablet here,” Riley said. “I’m logged on to Enigma’s video.”
Cole joined her in the shade where they could watch the Enigma’s progress more easily on the small screen. When the sub reached her hover depth, Cole used the on-screen controls to pan the camera down.
The image on the screen showed the entire surface of the sub covered in algae and sediment. Using short bursts of the thrusters, Cole took Enigma down alongside what was left of the forward end of the sub’s hull. He took the little ROV down almost to the sea floor.
“It looks like she hit bow-first.” It had become Cole’s habit to narrate for Theo whenever they were working. “A significant amount of her forward hull appears to be buried in the sand.”
Since the ROV lights were fixed, Cole had to turn the entire vehicle to see in a specific direction. He turned it to face the center section of the sub.
“Turning to look aft from here, we can see the sub is basically in two halves and the center section’s nothing more than a debris field. I almost wonder if there wasn’t some explosion of their own torpedoes.”
He turned the vehicle around again and took the ROV along the sea floor to the very front end, then up along the stem and over the top of the bow.
“Got a view now looking down what remains of the deck. The bow section is lying tilted over on her side at about a forty-five-degree angle. There’s a tangle of cables that trails off the deck into the sand. Looks like the forward hatch is missing, maybe blown off when the sub exploded.”
Trying to find anything in this wreck, Cole thought, would require more luck than even he had.
He maneuvered the ROV back over the side of the sub and began a survey of the port side of the hull. When he panned aft from the bow, the outline of an enormous anchor was visible. Cole was surprised that there were no fish, even in the growth around the anchor flukes.
“I don’t know enough about what the Upholder looked like to determine if this is her or not. We’ll have to compare these images to the file photos we have.”
“It looks like there is some kind of marking there on the bow,” Riley said. “I can’t make it out, though.”
“If there’s too much growth on the hull,” Theo said, “you can try using the thrusters to pressure wash it.”
“Yoda, rotate ROV one hundred and eighty degrees,” Cole said.
The image on the screen turned dark blue. The headlights of the ROV penetrated only a short distance into the open sea.
“Full ahead thrust. Stop. Rotate one hundred eighty degrees. Ahead slow. Pan camera up ten degrees.”
Riley said, “There’s too much silt in the water now.”
“Give it a minute,” Theo said. “It will clear.”
No one spoke as they waited.
“Okay,” Riley said. “It’s almost visible. There. It says U-702.”
“Crap,” Cole said.
“What’s wrong? Dr. Günay told us the Upholder was a U-class submarine.”
“Yeah, but the Brits didn’t number them like that. I’m afraid we’re looking at a Nazi U-boat.”
Theo said, “Brilliant. We found the wrong submarine.”
The Grand Master’s Palace
Valletta, Malta
June 9, 1798
In the courtyard before the palace door, Nikola put his hand on Alonso’s arm. “L’Angel, before you enter, may I speak?”
Alonso turned to face his friend. “Of course.”
“This morning, when we stood together on the ramparts of Fort Saint Angelo and looked out to sea at that fleet—”
“Nikola, my friend. I understand.”
“Please, let me say what I must.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Nikola raised his arm and pointed his forefinger toward the mouth of the Grand Harbour. “I have never seen a fleet such as that.”
“Nor have I. Masts to the horizon and beyond.”
“Yes! And I have a wife who is heavy with our sixth child. It has always been my honor to fight by your side, my friend. We fought against the infidels and to feed those five hungry mouths. But this, a French fleet of warships and troop transports? An army thousands strong?”
“Against a few hundred Knights and a handful of Malta militia who have never fought in battle and rarely ever trained. Against Bonaparte, the most brilliant general the world has seen. I understand, my friend.”
“L’Angel, half the Knights are either too old or too drunk to
fight.”
“This is true.” Alonso grabbed his friend by the forearms. “Nikola, this is not your war. Go home to your beautiful wife and children and keep them safe. If it comes to it, fight for them. I do not expect you to fight for the Order.”
“Thank you, L’Angel. May that angel namesake of yours keep watch over you and keep you safe.”
The two men embraced. Without another word, Nikola walked out of the courtyard heading toward the city’s gate.
Alonso watched him go. He hoped the grand master had not called him to prepare the Ruse for war. Without Nikola, the rest of his crew would bolt as well.
The sentry at the door knew Alonso well and nodded as he passed. Inside, he met Father Vincent in the corridor.
“He is waiting for you on the balcony outside his chambers.”
“How is he?”
The priest shrugged. “I do not think he fully realizes the situation he is in. He talks as though he still believes the Russians and the Bavarians will come to his aid.”
Alonso shook his head. “Even now, when the wolf is at the door.”
“Yes. Good luck in the days ahead, my son. God be with you.”
Alonso found Grand Master Hompesch pacing on the balcony. From that height, with the late afternoon sun turning the sea silver, the fleet looked like a vast winter forest. Without any verbal greeting, the grand master turned and placed his hand above his heart.
Alonso followed with the same salute.
Grand Master Hompesch turned back to the sea. “I wasn’t certain you would come, after our last conversation.”
Alonso said nothing. He had threatened to leave the Order if the grand master did not intercede between Arzella and the grand inquisitor. Grand Master Hompesch had refused to do so.
The grand master then said, “An hour ago he sent a messenger from that monstrous ship of his. Look at the size of her. L’Orient.” He spoke the ship’s name as though it were a curse.
Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3) Page 19