“I told you guys the boat show was worth the price of admission!”
Davidson hopped in, quickly stowing their limited gear. Brandt steadied her as she climbed in since they were still feeling the effects of Lopez’s entrance to the bay. Almost slipping on the slick deck, the corporal caught Rebecca’s arm.
“And there are sleeping quarters below deck for the lady,” Lopez said as guided her to a seat then raised his voice. “Actually there’s room for three down there so start picking straws!”
“Svengurd, get the moorings,” Brandt ordered as he jumped in.
Lopez turned on the engine, and it sounded like a Harley-Davidson with a broken muffler. Pure, raw, undiluted power. The deck rumbled under her feet as the blond corporal tossed the lines into the boat. He went to hop in when Brandt pulled his gun.
“Sorry, but you’re staying here.”
“Sarge, what—” Svengurd stopped as Brandt cocked his gun.
Rebecca went rigid in her seat as the other men turned to see what the commotion was. She had known something was wrong between the men, but this wrong? Bad enough for Brandt to aim at one of his team?
“Go to ground. Stay low until the heat is off, then get yourself to an American base, and we’ll sort it out from there.”
Davidson looked like he wanted to step between the two men, but then looked at Brandt’s stern face and decided against it. Instead he intervened verbally. “Boss, what’s up?”
“Svengurd has become a possible liability, so he’s staying.”
This time the private inched in front of Brandt as he spoke. “Yeah, that poison plus the antidote could produce some pretty severe paranoid tendencies, so why don’t we put down the—”
“We were ambushed in Belgium after he was on point, lost in the jungle for minutes at a time in Ecuador. Ambushed again in Paris after he was the only one alone getting the car at the airstrip.”
Rebecca could feel the shift in the mood as Davidson and Lopez digested their sergeant’s words. Svengurd must have felt it as well.
“Guys, come on. Didn’t I just torch their headquarters? How many men have I dropped on this mission alone?”
The sergeant’s jaw clenched. “Exactly as a deep cover mole would. You would act completely normally to keep your cover until you were instructed to act against the team, then it would be us that was dropped.”
“I was just poisoned, for Christ’s sake.” The corporal’s hand flexed over his weapon, but the action didn’t seem aggressive to Rebecca. Instead it seemed as if he didn’t know any other response when challenged than to go for his gun.
Lopez inched the boat away from the dock. “Sorry, man. See you back at the States.”
“Wait!” Davidson cried out. “Come on, Sarge. We’ve been tight together for a day, and we’re still getting our asses kicked. What about that?”
Brandt’s eyes flashed to his private, then to Svengurd. “Show them your watchband.”
For the first time, Rebecca saw fear in the corporal’s face. He even stammered, “We don’t have time for this.”
The sergeant leveled his gun, taking aim. “Show them.”
Slowly Svengurd unlatched his watch and displayed it in front of him. It looked like all the rest.
“The back,” Brandt demanded.
As if his hand resisted obeying his brain, the corporal slowly turned the watch over. “I know it’s against regs to alter any issue gear, but…”
Rebecca couldn’t tell what was wrong, then the light struck the surface, and she realized there was a pattern embossed on the back.
“Shit! That’s the Knot’s symbol!” Lopez announced, revving the engine.
Yes, it did look similar, but Rebecca wasn’t so sure. She had seen the outline before, but couldn’t place it.
“Worse, that could be a passive wire loop,” Davidson said, then continued sadly, “at rest you can’t tell it is there, but in contact with certain energy sources it can give off a pulsed signal. Morse code.”
Brandt nodded. “I saw a glint of it when you were retching in the car, but now I’m sure.” He leaned forward. “So step back.”
Svengurd sounded panicked. “It’s not! It’s just… It’s just a symbol of my devotion to…”
Would a double agent really sound this wounded? Rebecca wondered.
Finally the corporal bent his head. “My boyfriend.”
The boat rocked violently. Rebecca wasn’t sure if it was the rough seas or the reaction of the men that caused it.
“Nice try, Svengurd. Like playing the gay card is going to cloud the issue.”
“It’s true!” the corporal protested.
That’s when Rebecca realized where she had seen the symbol before. It wasn’t the Knot. It was a Buddhist Love Knot, an ancient Tibetan symbol of commitment. When secret lovers couldn’t marry, they would wear such a marking to honor their commitment.
Rebecca yelled out, “He might not be lying!”
“She’s right,” Svengurd said, rushing forward when a shot rang out and blood splattered over her face. The corporal grabbed his neck as blood poured through his fingers.
Clearly Brandt hadn’t been the one to fire, since he climbed up onto the boat’s railing, “Grab my hand!”
But the corporal teetered on the edge of the pier, his life gushing from the exit wound. “Go,” he said as he took another shot to the back.
“Fuck!” Lopez yelled as he hit the throttle, speeding the boat away.
“Turn around!” the sergeant ordered, but Lopez ignored him as Svengurd pitched face first into the water and simply floated there, turning the water crimson.
Dead.
He was innocent, and now he was dead.
CHAPTER 28
══════════════════
Sea of Marmara
It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, was all Brandt could think as his corporal’s body did the dead man’s float, his head banging off the dock. Svengurd was supposed to be nice and safe, holed up in some hot Turkish girl’s apartment until he could come in and sort this mess out.
“He’s gone, Sarge,” Davidson said as he pulled him back from the edge of the boat. “We’ve got to—”
More gunfire pelted them in their wake. Lopez was giving it everything he had to get them out of range.
Picking up his weapon, Brandt fired into the night. He fired long after they had pulled away from the island. Long after he had any chance of actually hitting anyone.
Brandt let Rebecca drag him down into the seat next to her. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said curling her fingers around his.
But how could it not have been? He had condemned his corporal based on what? A little opportunity and a glint of wire under his watch. He had felt so sure, at least up to the moment Svengurd took a bullet to the throat. The corporal had trusted him, but Brandt had sacrificed him.
His stomach churned knowing that Svengurd had taken a bullet meant for him. If the corporal hadn’t surged forward in that final second, the wound would have been Brandt’s. It would be Rebecca clinging to his lifeless body rather than the sea caressing Svengurd’s.
“I’m heading into the Aegean, but I’m going to need a little more direction after that,” Lopez said, not sounding like his usual cocky self.
Who would after witnessing something like that? They had, in effect, abandoned a comrade. They would never shake the stench.
“We’ve got to get to an airport,” Rebecca announced.
Davidson spread Lopez’s torn tourist map in front of Brandt, but the sergeant couldn’t really focus on the page. “Greece looks like the best bet.”
“No way, no how,” Lopez said. “Why do you think I stole this baby? Planes have not been our friends. We’re boating there.”
“Boat there?” the sergeant found himself asking.
“Yeah,” Davidson agreed. “It’s gotta be over a thousand miles.”
Lopez patted the dashboard. “And this baby can do over two hundred miles p
er hour, which means we’d be there by sunrise.”
He was about to interrupt yet another of the two men’s completely un-Special Forces-like argument when Brandt felt Rebecca squeeze his hand.
“Let them go at it,” she whispered. “It’s their way of dealing.”
The sergeant looked at Davidson and Lopez who were, in quite an animated fashion, disagreeing over everything from the engine’s stroke volume to Greek airport security. It didn’t take a double doctorate to see that Rebecca was right. They were just shouting to shout.
How then did he handle it? Brandt had lost men in combat before but never did he want to change places with the dead man.
“Where exactly in Rome are we heading?” Davidson asked, startling the sergeant out of his reverie.
Rebecca frowned as she asked, “Is there any way to get more ammo?”
The sergeant’s lips turned downward, too. “Why?”
“Well, you see the silver coins are the most unifying artifacts of the finds. In addition, they were minted circa AD 42 under the auspices of the Senate, which strangely changed after Constantine making one wonder—”
The sergeant put a hand on her knee. He knew this was how she dealt with things, getting all scientific on him, but he just wasn’t in any shape for a history lesson right now. “Where?”
She bit her lip before answering. “Well, um…” Then her voice strengthened. “Beneath the pope’s private quarters.”
“Of course it is!” Davidson said as he threw his hands up into the air.
Brandt rubbed his temple. Her words had brought a pounding to his skull. Despite the Vatican’s open courtyard and spacious museums, it was one of the most tightly guarded complexes in the world. In this day and age of religious extremism and after several attempts on the pope’s life, the Swiss Guard had been transformed from a primarily ceremonial attachment to one hundred and forty-seven of the best-trained soldiers on the planet. They were experts in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, and even automatic weaponry. At first glance, it seemed to be impossible to get inside the pope’s quarters.
“Sorry, Rebecca, but I’m going to need a little more convincing.”
* * *
Relieved to hear Brandt ask for more information, Rebecca took in a deep breath. History was like a balm to any wound. Through habit, Rebecca went to open her laptop, but of course, she hadn’t had that for ages now. She was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.
“All right, but don’t complain because I have to go back to the beginning.”
There was a communal groan, but no one voiced an objection.
“The few bones that were recovered of Magdalene’s only provided passages regarding her personal life, nothing to do with her association with the Knot.”
“Oh, crap!” Brandt said which seemed odd, but then again this was a very odd day. She went to continue when he unzipped his vest. “No, wait. Walker gave me this.”
The sergeant pulled out a fairly large chunk of a pelvic bone. Magdalene’s pelvis to be exact.
Carefully she took the fragment and began searching its surface for clues, but the inscriptions detailed events she already knew. Magdalene and Christ’s chaste bond. The Twelve’s disdain for her. The failed first attempt at Jesus’ ministry, which brought her into his life. Even Judas’ renowned leg injury, but nothing of what followed.
Eyes aching from focusing in such dim light, Rebecca was about to give up when she caught the word, “Quaestor,” the Roman equivalent of the secretary of the treasury—the person who supervised the mint.
Backtracking, she read the entire passage. “For he who sacrificed all, it was decided would be borne to the city without name to a place without name. The man without contempt who left and was late to return said unto us these thirty coins will seal our bond and the man of their making, the Quaestor, would hold close the sacred bed.”
Looking up, Rebecca found all three men watching her in anticipation. Even Lopez, who was driving the boat at over two hundred miles per hour.
“The scripture confirms my suspicion.”
“If we’re talking about assaulting the Vatican, would you mind elaborating?”
Rebecca’s mind was trying to catch up with her mouth. “As you know, each of the bones has clues, usually vague, sometimes more specific, to the location of the next set of remains.” After unanimous nods, she continued. “But beyond that there were the thirty coins. Each one designating a member of the conspiracy. It is the only other unifying factor beyond their allegiance to Christ.”
“Since the only body left is Jesus, you’re thinking the coins are a clue all by themselves,” Davidson added, showing his quick mind once again. He wasn’t Lochum, but he would do.
“Exactly. Once I mentioned that I thought the source of the coins was a factor, Tok brought out a passage from the Virgin’s bones with vague allusions that Jesus was hidden in Rome.”
The private’s tone was excited. “The last place any proto-Christian would look.”
“But why would anybody even be looking for him?” Lopez asked.
It was Brandt who answered, reminding Rebecca how well versed he was in biblical history, “At that time there was a huge power struggle amongst the high priests, the rabbis, and the commoners. There were probably a few dozen splinter groups wanting to claim Jesus as either their savior or the false prophet. The Twelve were trying to unify the religion, but everybody else, mainly other Jews, because nobody was a Christian yet, were trying to splinter the faith. To find his corporeal body would have undermined the belief that Jesus had risen from the grave and ascended.”
“Right again,” Rebecca said as she felt the weight of the pelvis bone in her hand, a tangible piece of history to solidify Brandt’s words. “You guys broke in before we discussed it any further, so the Knot knows the bones are in Rome, but not their exact location.”
“And you think the remains are under the pope’s residence because…?”
Everyone was jarred as the boat drifted off course, taking a wave at an awkward angle, nearly capsizing them. At this speed, they needed to pierce the wake head-on or suffer the consequences.
* * *
Lopez struggled to get the boat back on course, but everyone was wet for the effort. You would think after everything else that had happened, a little water wouldn’t bug the shit out of you, but it did. Brandt’s socks were soaked through and his pant legs were sticking to his calves. Just one more thing to make this the worst day of his life.
He had almost forgotten the topic when Rebecca finished wringing out her jacket and continued. “Vatican Hill has a history long before it became associated with the Catholic faith. In the mists of ancient times when Romulus and Remus came upon the marshy knoll, it was considered sacred by the locals and only those worthy were buried there. It was only much later, during the height of the Roman Empire, when the bureaucracy expanded so greatly and so quickly that the emperors finally got over their superstition and erected administrative buildings on and around Vatican Hill, the mint being just one of many.”
“So the popes built the Holy See on top of old Roman offices?” Lopez asked, this time keeping his eyes peeled forward.
Brandt hadn’t known of the old mint located on the hill, but he knew the rest of the story. However, the sergeant let Rebecca explain it. Her voice gained a strength that replaced barely contained tears.
“As I mentioned, the buildings were hastily constructed, and just like in our time, the land, being that close to the hub of Rome, became more valuable than the buildings themselves so Constantine relocated the mint to make room for his palace, which was renovated and restored over the centuries until Pope Sixtus the Fifth built the Apostolic Palace there.”
Davidson leaned forward, lapping up Rebecca’s words as if they were raindrops, and he was parched.
“But why on Vatican Hill?” the private asked. “I mean, the first Christian emperor was Constantinople, and he moved the capital to Turkey. Why not set up the Cath
olic headquarters there?”
Rebecca looked at Brandt as though testing to see if he knew the answer.
Which he did. “St. Peter, the rock on which the Catholic Church was built, is buried under his Basilica.”
Nodding, the doctor continued. “But even that brings up several questions. Like Catholics are all about saintly relics. They have thousands upon thousands of them, yet they have refused to allow any excavation under the City.”
Brandt felt that steel rod of defensiveness straighten his spine. He tried to keep any anger out of his voice, but the words came out harsher than he intended. “Are you implying the Church is involved with the Knot?”
“No, of course not. But just like at the Blue Mosque and the Jewish Ghetto, I think someone, at some time, had an inkling that there was something of vast importance underfoot, so they didn’t look too closely.”
“Kind of like hear no evil, see no evil kind of thing,” Davidson added.
Only partially soothed, Brandt nodded for Rebecca to go on. None of this sat well with him, but what had?
“So you can see there is a clear historical through-line. Magdalene’s bones state Rome. Mary’s bones implied the same thing. The coins were all minted from the same batch in Rome.” Her look was apologetic as she finished. “I’m sorry, but the most logical starting point is the site of the original mint which is smack-dab under the pope’s private quarters.”
* * *
Rebecca could tell that Brandt wasn’t happy. Well, more unhappy than usual with her suggestion. Not only was she asking him to come up with a plan to break into possibly the most secure location in the world, but also to launch a hostile breach of his faith’s most holy inner sanctum.
But as always, the sergeant was stoic. “All right, let’s get a plan.”
“Well, our cover is obvious,” Davidson said offhandedly. “We go in as visiting priests and a nun.”
“Along with a rabbi into a bar or what?” Lopez joked. Neither of the men must have seen the stricken look on Brandt’s face as they laughed.
The sergeant’s tone wasn’t amused. “I was thinking more workmen or a repair service.”
Both men looked askance. “You’re kidding, right?” Davidson asked. “I mean, it’s the Vatican. It’s its own country. I’m sure they’ve had contracts for all that stuff with the same local companies for decades.”
The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection Page 37