“Yeah.” Xavier took a breath, stood a bit straighter. “I’m fine.”
“It’s not easy losing someone you’re close to. I know,” he said, trying but failing to keep from thinking about those he’d lost, and now there was Tex and he wondered if he was safe…
“We weren’t close. Not like that. I mean, I liked her, she just wasn’t interested, you know?”
Griffin merely nodded, since it seemed the right thing to do at the moment.
“She was sort of married to this thing. Wanted to know all the answers. I admired her a lot.”
“Me too,” Griffin said.
“You knew her?”
“For about a year. I worked at-for her father at one time.”
“I didn’t know her father. I met her at the university…All these crazy ideas I had, all this conspiracy stuff I wrote about for my class at UVA, no one believed me. When she talked about it, it was like she knew, really knew this stuff went on. She was the only one who didn’t think I was crazy.”
Griffin glanced at the door, hoped no one would wander their way and interrupt the kid’s flow. “What sort of things did she talk about?”
“I appreciate what you’re doing, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to trust you. The professor said you work for the government.”
“In the end, I work for myself.”
“What does that mean?”
What it really meant was that when the shit hit the fan, the government wasn’t about to take the blame for anything Griffin and his crew did, not something he was about to relay to Xavier, or anyone else for that matter. “That means I’m my own boss. I answer to me.” As if, he thought. “I do what’s right, and what is needed to finish the job.”
“And your job is?”
“To find out who killed Alessandra, and rescue my friend. And to do that, I need to know what she was involved in, who she was involved with.”
“That’s it? You’re only here to help solve her murder?”
“That’s it.” As long as one didn’t count that if the map did exist, and it led to the Templar treasure, and there really were some sort of bioweapons that could come from finding it, and that if it fell into Adami’s hands, he’d use it to manipulate world governments even more than he was currently doing. Something else that bothered him about this was that they had yet to learn who Adami was working for. “But there is one thing you need to understand. I need your cooperation in all things if you want to stay alive. We’re working against some very bad people, who won’t hesitate to kill you, if given the chance. We have very little time.” He looked at his watch. “Six hours before they kill my friend if we don’t find whatever this is that is buried and bring it to them. So any background on what you and Alessandra were working on can only help.”
Xavier nodded. “I was helping her with some of the research when all these weird things started happening. We assumed it was the government,” he said, with a dark look.
Since Griffin wasn’t even aware the kid had existed until now, he seriously doubted the government was involved-at least not the legitimate government. “What sort of weird things?”
“Like we were being followed, or I’d hear clicks on my telephone, like someone was listening in. And then someone shot into my apartment, and the police called it a gang-related drive-by, but I’m not so sure. Alessandra said that she was being followed, too, and that’s when she asked me to stop, back off, you know? But by then, I was too far into it. My cousin works for the Department of the Underground here in Naples, and with his help, I found all this information on the tunnels, and we figured that the prince had to have used the underground caverns to hide the map. My job was to come to Naples, and explore the tunnels to find the one that we’d pinned down, then wait for Professor Santarella to meet up with me here as soon as she got back from some dig she was on.” He looked away, tried to compose himself. “I’ve been here for two weeks, and the entire time, Alessandra’s been dead, and I didn’t even know it…”
“What happened the last time you saw her?”
It took a moment for Xavier to shake off his grief. “By then there was no doubt that she was being followed, and so we borrowed my girlfriend’s car, you know, to throw them off. Alessandra dropped me off at a restaurant, and I slipped out the back, took a taxi to the airport. She stayed on, because she had to do some more research in the States. She was supposed to meet up with that forensic anthropologist who had been working out on that same dig. The one where Alessandra had discovered that they were searching for the first key. Then she was supposed to meet up with some scientist to find out…well, if there was any way this stuff could be true. The biblical plague thing. And then she was going to follow me out here.”
“Did you hear from Alessandra after you arrived in Naples?”
“One call when I got here to let her know I’d arrived safe. She said not to worry if I didn’t hear from her for a bit, because she was going to lay low, and if her phone was being tapped, she didn’t want to lead anyone to me. But I do know this. Whatever it was she was looking for, she’d found it, and she was sending it home, so it would be there when she got back.”
Which verified why Adami’s men had been watching the ambassador’s residence. “Were you on a cell phone when you called her?”
“No, I used a pay phone at the airport. But I called her cell phone.”
Alessandra’s phone had no doubt been compromised, and they’d heard every word. He wondered how long they’d been watching her. “And do you have any idea what she was about after you left for Naples?”
“Like I said, research. She wanted to talk to some scientist about the viability of some virus or plague laying dormant for a couple thousand years, and what would happen if it was suddenly released into the wild, or disturbed. She wasn’t sure if what she was looking for might contain these old plagues, or if they were maybe somewhere else.”
“Do you know the name of this scientist?”
“Dr. Raj? Raja? Something like that.”
“Could it have been Balraj?”
“That was it.”
“Any idea where they were to meet?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Yeah. The Smithsonian,” Xavier said.
“Why the Smithsonian? The Templar display?”
“She wasn’t there for the display, not really. She’d seen all that stuff before, but she knew there was lots of security. She wanted someplace public, just in case she was being followed.”
And a lot of good that did her. The real security guard was probably killed the moment that Alessandra and the microbiologist entered the Smithsonian, and Alessandra’s killer needed a cover. “Any idea if she found what she was looking for? This information on the plagues?”
“You might check with Francesca, since she’s the one that Alessandra sent the flash drive to.”
“She sent what?”
“You know. A mini hard drive? Francesca said she found it stuffed into the spine of some book that Alessandra had mailed to her.”
Griffin wondered how many times he’d be blindsided on this case, and it was all he could do to keep his temper in check. Last thing he needed was to spook the kid, because he wanted to throttle the professor. “Go drink your coffee. We don’t have much time.”
Xavier walked out, joined Sydney and Francesca, and Griffin watched Francesca’s face as Xavier took a seat beside her. Relief. That boded well, he decided, and he called McNiel and related what Xavier told him about why Alessandra wanted to meet with Dr. Balraj, the query into how many centuries a plague or virus could survive under optimal conditions.
“You think this map really exists?” McNiel asked.
“A good chance, considering the research the professor did at the Vatican. She no doubt knew Alessandra was inquiring into the viability of dormant plagues and viruses, since she’s the one who told us that the map was believed to lead to them. It certainly explains Adami’s interest.”
McNiel gave a sigh of
resignation. “Do what you can to rescue Tex, but that map is not to fall into Adami’s hands. If it ends up a suicide mission, I want that map destroyed. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll send a chopper out from Rome and have them stand by at the Naples airport.”
Griffin disconnected, knowing there was no way he could break the news to Sydney. Her world was not so black and white as his. How was he going to tell her that their mission was to destroy the map if it left their hands, even if it meant Tex’s life? Or their lives?
Her instinct would be to save Tex. He would deal with that when the time came. Now, he had to worry about what Francesca knew, what she was holding back, and if she assumed Xavier had kept all her secrets. He returned to the others, sat down across from the professor, smiled. “You didn’t forget to mention anything that might have come from Alessandra, did you?”
Her gaze darted from him to Xavier, then back. “What do you mean?”
“Say, a flash drive? Perhaps one that has information about this map on it?”
“I-I didn’t think it was important. I couldn’t access it, so I figured it had been damaged…”
“Let me make one thing perfectly clear. As long as Tex is being held captive, you do not get to choose what is important. And in case that isn’t clear enough, should I find out you are withholding any other information, I’ll ship you back to the States. In handcuffs if I have to.”
She reached into the collar of her shirt, pulled a lanyard from around her neck, one that had escaped his notice until now. Hanging from it was a flash drive, which she handed over. “You’ll see. There’s nothing on it. Just a copy of my notes on the tunnels.”
“We need a computer,” Griffin said.
Xavier hefted his backpack to the table. “I have one.”
Xavier took out his laptop, booted it up, and slid it toward Francesca, so that she could insert her flash drive into the USB port. She typed something on the keyboard, then slid the computer to Griffin. “As you can see,” she said, “there’s nothing on there but a copy of my notes on the tunnels, which I e-mailed to her. And then a photograph of di Sangro’s family crest at his chapel, which, at the time, we thought was the location of the third key. But the key is supposed to be with him, and his body is not in the crypt. In fact, it has never been found.”
“The actual crypt is supposed to contain the map,” Xavier said. “That’s what I’ve been searching for.”
Griffin clicked on the icon for the flash drive. Two icons appeared in the folder. Francesca’s documents on the tunnels, which he opened, scanned, then closed out. The other was an icon showing a photograph. He clicked on it. Nothing happened.
“As I told you,” Francesca said, “I couldn’t open it, either.”
“It’s encrypted,” Griffin replied.
“Encrypted?”
He typed in a command to have the computer open the photograph. Appearing in the very center near the bottom was a long white box, with a blinking cursor, waiting for a password to be entered.
Xavier stared at it. “Great. What the hell is the password?”
Francesca leaned over, and before Griffin could stop her, typed in a password and hit enter. Nothing happened. “This makes no sense. Where’s the information from my flash drive? My notes?”
“Actually,” Griffin said, putting his hand out to keep her from typing anything further, “it’s part of the program.”
“How would you know?” Francesca asked.
“I gave the program to Alessandra.”
A look of distrust filled Xavier’s face. “Why?”
“She wanted to embed some information and was worried about someone in her father’s household gaining access to her computer should she visit. At least that’s what she told me. What that was, I have no idea.”
Francesca leaned forward, trying to get a better view. “Then how do we access what is embedded?”
Griffin pushed his coffee cup aside, then angled the computer so they could all see it. “She didn’t give either one of you the final access code?”
“No,” Francesca said. “Clearly the code isn’t my password. Unless I made a mistake. You want me to retype it and see what happens?”
“Only if you want to chance destroying whatever information is on the flash drive,” Griffin replied. “We need to be sure. This particular program gives us three tries. First one is gratis. You already took that. Second, the cursor stops moving, indicating you are about to be locked out. Third mistake is fatal. It erases whatever information she embedded into it.”
The four of them stared at the screen, the cursor blinking, blinking, blinking in the empty box just begging for a password. Sydney sat up, looked over at Griffin. “She did pass on the final code. She said you knew it.”
“Of course,” Francesca said to Griffin. “She insisted I ask for the code, and that was how I would know you. Dumas told us the code this morning. You confirmed it. All for one and one for all.”
“That can’t be right,” Griffin said. “There has to be a combination of letters and numbers, or the program wouldn’t accept the password to begin with.”
Francesca said, “Maybe substituting the numeral one for the word one?”
Two chances left, he thought. “Try it.”
Francesca typed in the new variation, “Allfor1and1forall.” The cursor stopped blinking.
“Damn it,” Francesca said.
Not good, Griffin thought. Alessandra hadn’t counted on dying, obviously, but she’d certainly taken the precaution to protect the information if she couldn’t be there. “If not that, what code would she have used?”
“Maybe,” Xavier said, “there isn’t anything so drastic as a special code. She knew the professor and I were going to meet. Maybe we simply enter our individual codes together. They have the letter numeral combination.” Xavier angled the computer his way to look.
Griffin stopped him. “Alessandra was too meticulous to combine two known codes. We have one try left. If we don’t get it, it’s over.”
Francesca said, “Surely the government has something they can hook up to it, and figure out what the hell it should be?”
“Which,” Griffin said, “entails time and resources we don’t have at the moment. We need to think about this.” And quickly, he realized. With less than six hours to search unknown caverns for something they didn’t even know existed, the odds were not stacked in their favor.
Sydney reached for a napkin. “I’ve got it.” He certainly hoped so. “I think Francesca was on to something, replacing the words with numbers, but if Alessandra was as meticulous as you say, and as paranoid as Xavier, she’d go further if at all possible. She’d replace everything.”
Francesca said, “Like the word ‘for’ with the numeral four?”
“Even more so. Especially if she was entrusting that someone else was going to bring that code back, and there was the possibility of being overheard or intercepted. Think license plates.”
“License plates?” Griffin asked.
“Anyone have a pen?” Sydney said. Xavier pulled one from the pocket of his backpack. She wrote on the napkin, then turned it for everyone to see. L41N14L. “L equals all and N equals and.”
“Yes,” Xavier said. “I can see her doing that.”
“Well?” Sydney asked.
“Type it in,” Griffin said.
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Sydney typed in the combination, let it sit there a moment, her finger poised over the enter key. It seemed they all held their breaths. What if she was wrong? What if she was the one responsible for the loss of all the information? She glanced at Griffin. He gave a slight nod. Reassurance. She needed that, and she pressed the key, felt Griffin tense beside her. How long would it take to send the computer to forensics, recover the info, if she screwed this up?
Suddenly the picture disintegrated into pixels that dropped to the bottom of the screen. What was left was a white background, with a few lines of type, reading: “Ob
serve with an attentive eye and with veneration the urns of the heroes endowed with glory and reflect with astonishment on the precious homage to the divine work and the tomb of the deceased and when you have given due honor, contemplate profoundly and distance yourself.”
“What does it mean?” Sydney asked.
“It’s the translation from the side entrance to di Sangro’s chapel,” Francesca said.
“Then we’re on the right track.”
“Yes, but we knew that. This is something else. Almost as important as the third key. Maybe it is the third key. I remember overhearing a phone conversation she had with her friend, the anthropologist, talking about this very thing.”
Griffin ignored the dark look Sydney tossed him at the mention of Tasha’s occupation. “This conversation you overheard,” he said. “Do you recall what Alessandra or this friend of hers thought it meant?”
“A hidden meaning. Subtext,” Francesca replied. “Now that I think about it, I wonder if that has something to do with the second key, the one we couldn’t find.” She gave Xavier a brief rundown on their trip through the Capuchin Crypt, then added, “Di Sangro was all about hidden meanings. His entire chapel is filled with Masonic symbolism and iconology.”
“So we have to interpret it right or we’re caught in this trap he’s set up?”
“Exactly.”
And Xavier said, “We believe he modeled it much like the deadfall traps in the ancient Egyptian tombs. That may be why everyone thought Egypt was the location of the first key.”
Griffin leaned back in his chair, pushing his coffee aside. “Deadfall. As in a wall falls on top of someone?”
“More like the entire tomb comes crashing down on the tomb raiders,” Francesca said.
“That’s my theory,” Xavier said. “I also think that when you find this hidden crypt, it’ll lead you to di Sangro’s body. And the treasure map. But Alessandra said that maybe the plagues were hidden there, and that’s why she wanted to connect with Dr. Balraj. She wanted to be prepared for either scenario. So whatever we find, extreme caution needs to be taken.” He pointed to a location on his map of the tunnels. “This,” he said, “is where we will enter. The basilica houses the entrance to the tunnels behind its altar. We have a lot of ground to cover. According to my cousin, who works for the city, all of Naples and the surrounding area sits upon a honeycomb of about a million square meters of caves, grottos, tunnels, and catacombs, all carved from volcanic sandstone, tufo.”
The Bone Chamber Page 31