The concierge’s directions led her down a hallway, passing a huge tapestry of a Knight on a horse, to the door of the library’s reading room. The long, narrow room was lined with bookshelves. On either side of the central aisle, a row of tables stretched to the back of the room. There were no more than a half dozen people seated at the tables, their heads bent over books. At the rear of the reading room, sunlight shone through the windows onto a graceful, curving staircase. If she didn’t know the place was owned by the Knights, she would count it as one of her favorite rooms in the world.
“So,” the tiny woman said, “how may I help you?”
“I understand you have an extensive geographical collection?”
“Yes, we have maps and sea charts dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.”
“I’m interested primarily in sea charts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”
“Let me see.” The little woman stood, slipped on her glasses, and stepped over to the computer on the desk. After tapping the keys and tilting her head back to read through the lower half of her glasses, she wrote a couple of numbers on a paper. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared through the door into the rear stacks.
When the woman returned, she was carrying three large books in her arms. She went around the desk and walked over to the closest table.
“The first one is the Isola di Malta, olim Melita, by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli.” She moved that one aside and pointed to the largest leather-bound volume at the bottom of the pile. “This is volume one of the Atlante Novissimo, a four-volume atlas of the world by Antonio Zatta. And this last one is Recüeil de Plusieurs Plans des Ports et Rades de la Mer Méditerranée, by Henri Michelot. I will leave you to look these over and let me know when you are finished.”
Riley sat in a chair with her back to the librarian’s desk and set her bag on the floor next to her. Who knew there would be so many titles to choose from? Not wanting to call too much attention to the one book she wanted, she had decided to try to get the librarian to select the Joseph Roux sea atlas for her. That hadn’t worked. She opened the last volume the librarian had given her.
The title page was decorated with an elaborate drawing of mermaids, mermen, whiskered fish, angels, and lots of curly designs. A cartographer in those days was clearly as much fine artist as surveyor. She flipped through the pages of maps, trying to look interested, but feeling the pressure to go back and get the one book she had come for.
Riley slid the three volumes onto the reference desk and said, “Thank you. This one on Malta was especially good. I’m really interested mostly in the Mediterranean. Do you have anything else that covers just that area? Perhaps in a special collection?”
“Not at this time.” The librarian pulled the books off the top of the checkout desk and set them on a cart behind her.
“I’m not sure I understand you. Not at this time?”
“There is one volume in our Demontras collection that is out on interlibrary loan at this time. It is Carte de la mer Méditerranée en douze feuilles, by Joseph Roux.”
“And may I ask what library requested it? Perhaps I could view it there.”
The little woman smiled. “That might be a bit of a challenge. Especially this week.”
“Really? Why?”
“With the dual canonization and all. It’s on loan to the Vatican Library.”
Before leaving the Magistral Palace, Riley asked the librarian for directions to the restroom. The door to the ladies’ room was just across the hall outside the library. Like the rest of the palace, it was decorated with antique furniture and original art on the walls.
After using the toilet, she set her bag on the fancy antique chair and crossed to the sink. She stood holding her hands under the running water and stared at her own reflection in the small mirror before her.
All this effort to put together a disguise, and it was all for nothing? The Vatican Library? She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when Cole heard this. It was one thing to try to steal a 250-year-old book of charts from the Knights of Malta, but to steal from the Vatican? She wasn’t sure she was up for that.
She looked back down at the faucet and turned it off with the back of her wrist.
The hand came out of nowhere, flew past her face, and grabbed the left side of her neck. Her neck was in the crook of his elbow, his bicep pressed hard against her carotid artery. She knew what was happening. She’d been taught the sleeper hold in her training at Langley. As she squirmed and fought against the black that was closing in around her vision, she caught sight of the strange two-sided face leering over her shoulder.
Diggory Priest.
Then she lost the fight against the darkness.
Aboard the Ruse
Off the Island of Crete
June 18, 1798
On their second day at sea, Alonso had been watching her drawing designs on a scrap of paper. He remarked on what a good artist she was. Then he disappeared into the cabin. When he emerged, he surprised her with the small collection of tools he’d bought when the inquisitor had auctioned off the contents of her father’s shop. It included gravers and burs, a small hammer, and a couple of clamps. But by the third day, the seas and winds had grown so strong, she didn’t think she would ever be able to work on board. The powerful winds continued for nearly a week, and Arzella’s strength continued to ebb. She worried for the health of the baby inside her.
That morning, the ninth day since their departure from Gozo, when Alonso had awakened her for her turn at the helm, she felt rested for the first time. The sea had calmed at last, and steering the small ship no longer took all her strength and concentration. As the sun climbed into the cloudless sky, she lounged in her pantaloons, steering the Ruse with one foot and an occasional glance at the compass. With her hands free, she had started engraving a flower design onto a pewter tankard she’d found in the ship’s galley.
Up until now, their meals had been quite simple. Dates and oranges, dried meat and fish, and a hard bread Alonso called biscuit. Fortunately, the sea did not make her sick, and any sickness due to the baby had long since passed. But with the bad weather, neither of them had the strength or the desire to cook hot food. Now she was looking forward to preparing a hot meal. Everything looked so much better once the sun came out.
“I’m glad to see you working.”
Arzella looked up from her work to see Alonso climbing the steps from the lower deck, their chart atlas tucked under one arm, his navigational instrument in his other hand. “You surprised me,” she said. “I did not think I would see you so soon.”
“I’ve had enough sleep. And, as I expected, there is an island there ahead.” He pointed off the bow.
She got to her feet and peered through the sails. “I can barely make it out. Is it far?”
“We should reach the coast by nightfall. Assuming my calculations are correct, that is the western end of Crete.”
“How can you be so certain after so many days of bad weather?”
He held up the instrument. “Because of this. It is called an octant. With it, I can measure the elevation of the sun off the horizon, and using mathematics, I can calculate our latitude.” He set the sea atlas atop a deck box and opened to the page showing the eastern Mediterranean.
Arzella said, “I know from our compass we have been sailing south of east.”
He pointed to Malta and dragged his finger across to the southwestern corner of Crete. “Yes, like this.”
“So our latitude is decreasing.”
“Very good. How quickly you learn.”
Arzella reached over and ran her fingers through his hair. “You are an enthusiastic teacher.”
“Only you, my dear, would think sailing and navigation are romantic.”
When Arzella looked through the sails again, the outline of the island was more distinct. “What do you know of this island?”
“The people here are mostly Ottoman Turks, but I do not think they
bear us ill will. The people on this end of the island are farmers and fishermen, and they will be happy to trade some water and fresh food for a gold coin or two.”
“I’ve never met an Ottoman.”
“They are not so different from us.”
“But in Malta, they have been the enemies of the Knights for hundreds of years.”
“Yes, and I have sunk their ships at sea. But I have always respected the men I fought against. We fought not out of a personal enmity, but rather because of power and politics. We were merely pawns. Lately, even the grand master was talking treaties with the Ottomans. We will present ourselves as simple pilgrims stopping only for supplies. I do not anticipate any troubles.”
“And after this island, how much farther?”
“This end of the island marks the halfway point.”
“If the weather and sailing stay like this, I don’t want it to ever end.”
“As you know from the start of this voyage, we have no control of the weather. I have never sailed these waters before. But my grandfather told me stories about the Aegean Sea.”
“He is the one Nikola always used to talk about? Le Rouge de Malte?”
“That was my grandfather’s father. His real name was Jacques-François de Chambray.”
“French?”
“Umm. He had an affair with a Spanish noblewoman. Their son was my grandfather. He became a sailor, too, in his youth, but he never sailed far. That was his dream, so he used to tell me the stories his father told him, about the Ottoman Turks and the Greeks and the great battles he fought.”
“So that is why we sail eastward?”
“Yes, in part. I have a thirst to see new lands. There is a castle my grandfather told me about. It was built in the Middle Ages when the Knights were at Rhodes.” Alonso turned over all the pages of charts in his book. He showed her the paper that lined the inside cover of the atlas. There was an ink drawing there of a small castle on top of a hill. The castle walls flowed down the hillside. Just outside the walls, the artist had drawn a half dozen little houses. “This sea atlas belonged to my great-grandfather, and he drew this when he was there. The people in the village knew Le Rouge de Malte, and they protected him once. My grandfather recounted to me the many tales he told about their kindness. I hope they will be as good to us.”
“You said that was one part of your reason. What is your other reason for finding this castle?”
“Because I plan to take the Religion to the last place anyone would look for it. We are going to sail off the edge of the map.”
The Palazzo Magistral
Via Condotti, Rome
April 25, 2014
Diggory Priest lifted the limp body and held it in his arms. He didn’t have much time. She would come around in less than a minute. He cracked open the door and checked the hallway. Empty. He slipped out and walked toward the exit door, his strides purposeful, his demeanor daring anyone to question him. But he encountered no one, neither in the building nor in the parking lot. He pushed the button on the car key fob and the trunk popped open. He dropped her in, closed the lid, and walked around to the driver’s door.
He couldn’t believe his luck. He’d been up at the villa on the Aventine when Virg had asked him to drive one of the guests down to the palace. They let him take the Bentley that belonged to the Order and was normally used only for driving the grand master or the director. The guy he’d driven was Italian, and he didn’t want to talk, so Dig hadn’t been the least distracted. If he had been, he might not have seen Thatcher loitering in the doorway of that Jimmy Choo store up the street from the palace. He was wearing a ball cap pulled down over his face, but there was no doubt it was him.
If he was hanging around outside, there was a good chance Riley was inside.
Dig had pulled the big car into the palace driveway and told the guard he was going to park and use the facilities before returning to the villa. He’d dropped his passenger there close to the front door, and then had done a three-point turn. He’d parked in the back corner with the car facing out. Which also meant the trunk was well screened from view.
At first he had looked right past the funky-looking student in the library reading room. The overalls sagged on her body, and she was of no interest to him. The girl was talking to the librarian at the reference desk and patting her hand on a stack of books as Dig scanned the other faces in the room. Abruptly, she’d turned and started for the door. That was when he saw her face.
Dig stepped into the men’s room. He’d left the door open a crack so he could watch. And his luck had held when she went into the women’s restroom. He’d followed her in while she was in the stall. A screen that blocked the view into the ladies’ room had hidden him when she came out. From there, it had been easy.
When he turned onto the Via Condotti, he drove past the Jimmy Choo store. Thatcher was gone. The girl started to move around, then she beat on the trunk lid. She was awake, and it would be dangerous driving around the city with her making all that noise back there, but she couldn’t get out.
Virg wouldn’t approve. This wasn’t on his agenda. But she wasn’t the one Virgil needed. Thatcher would find whatever the Knights were looking for. Riley was his.
He took the Via Tiburtina in the direction that took him away from the city center. When he saw a side street that looked like it had little traffic, he turned and pulled to the curb. When the car stopped, her hollering and pounding grew louder.
“Listen,” he yelled.
She grew quiet. He was certain that if he could hear her so loudly, she must be able to hear him, no matter that the car was a Bentley and built like a tank.
“I have a gun, and you know I won’t hesitate to kill you, Riley. I’m taking you someplace where we can talk. When I park the car and let you out, I will have the gun trained on you. Then we’re going to go for a little walk in a park. And we’re going to talk. Afterward, you’ll be free to go. I just want to talk to you. I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
He turned around, put the car in gear, and circled the block back to the Via Tiburtina. He drove as fast as he dared. He didn’t want to attract attention, but he also did not want to be gone too long. Already Virgil didn’t trust him.
She remained quiet. Of course, he had no special information to tell her. He just wanted her to think she would have a better chance of taking him out later, while they were walking. He needed to get her underground where it wouldn’t matter how much noise she made.
Dig had first read about the Christian catacombs in a book he found at the villa. The idea of several enormous underground cemeteries beneath the city of Rome fascinated him. In the early days, when the Christians were persecuted, they buried their dead in these underground tunnels they’d carved out of the volcanic soil. They’d started as family tombs, but they grew and were opened to others of their faith. There were some special large chambers that had once been used for secret worship, but mostly there were simple tunnels with three levels of crypts carved out of the walls on each side, where once-wrapped bodies and occasionally stone sarcophagi had rested.
When he had a day off, he’d gone and taken a tour of the catacombs of Saint Callixtus. On the tour, he had learned that there were nearly sixty different catacombs, with so many miles of burial chambers that, if placed end to end, they would stretch the entire length of Italy. Though all were considered the property of the Church, not all of them had been excavated, and only a handful were open to the public. Online, he’d found a map showing the locations of all the catacombs, and he’d taken to exploring the nonpublic sites in his free time.
The catacombs Diggory had come to think of as his own were entered via an unmarked stairway that descended within a small park, one block away from a bank in one direction and a big traffic-circle piazza in another. Fortunately, there was plenty of parking, and he soon found a spot along the park’s perimeter.
Standing next to the trunk, he said, “I’ve got the gun under my ja
cket. I’m going to open the trunk slowly. If you make any move I don’t like, I will shoot. You know I will.”
He stood off to one side, then checked up and down the street. No one close enough to take notice. He pressed the fob, and the trunk popped open a crack.
She lay on her side in a fetal position, her hand shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness.
“Climb out,” he said.
She sat up and swung her legs out of the trunk.
“Move.”
She stood.
Dig closed the trunk lid and grasped her arm with his free hand. He led her down the sidewalk to the park entrance. He felt her looking at him, but she hadn’t said a word.
They passed a woman walking a small, almost-hairless dog, and he tightened his grip on her arm when he felt Riley tense.
He spoke softly, his mouth close to her ear. “You don’t want this woman to get hurt. She’s nothing to me, you know. Killing her would be so easy.”
When they got alongside the old woman, the dog started yapping and pulling at his leash. Its eyes bulged. Dig was tempted to kick the damn thing.
The old woman said something in Italian to the dog, and she and the dog hurried off. Dig guided Riley around the hedge that hid the stairwell. He looked around to make sure no one was watching them.
“Down here,” he said.
Riley looked down the stone steps, and he felt her tense and start to move back. She lifted her head and scanned the area. Even the woman and her dog were nowhere to be seen.
“Move it.” He jerked her arm forward. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”
He felt her take a deep breath, then she took the first step.
When they got to the iron gate, he checked the lock and chain. No one had replaced the chain since he’d cut it a couple of days ago. Judging from the amount of rust on the chain and the gate, he doubted anyone ever came down. What was one more catacomb in Rome?
Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3) Page 28