Exodus

by Tom Fox

  Once again, Alexander wished Gabriella were with him. How could he have left her asleep on the bed as he rushed away into … into all this?

  “I believe you,” Molinaro answered, and his eyes looked sincere. “But I still don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either. I only know that last night I had one of the worst nightmares of my life.”

  “You’ve been having them a while. You told me on your last visit that they were inspiring you to later nights at work.”

  “But not like this,” Alexander protested. “Never anything like this. I got home very late last night, I’m not sure when. I must have collapsed on to my bed. I was still fully dressed. And this dream was so vivid, like it was real.” He looked straight into Molinaro’s eyes. “And it is real, Carlo. The things I saw, they’re coming true all around me. I saw the Sistine Chapel, and the hand. I know how that first bomb was constructed. And I knew … I knew we would find something here.”

  Molinaro stared hard at him.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense,” Alexander continued, imploring, “but I swear to you it’s the truth. From the moment I woke up, a few minutes before you rang, my mind has been filled with memories of that dream. Memories of all this.”

  And that was it. He’d said it. Whether Molinaro would believe him or not, Alexander couldn’t control, but he’d spoken the truth as fully as he could comprehend it.

  Remo Deubel stepped up to the two men, turning away from the macabre scene at the foot of the statue. Behind him, officers in squad uniforms knelt down, examining the bomb that lay beneath Beatrice Pinard’s remaining hand.

  “It’s live,” Deubel announced somberly. “On a digital countdown, and designed almost exactly as you described back in the Gallery of Maps.” He glared at Alexander with something that very nearly amounted to open hatred.

  “I’m sorry,” Alexander said, “I don’t know how to—”

  “Don’t give me you don’t know how!” Deubel barked. “My men are telling me that this bomb’s a hell of a lot more powerful than the last one. It’s not a kid’s toy—it could destroy the whole wing, including exterior walls. And that’s just the assessment of non-specialists, probably an underestimation.” He glanced at Molinaro, irritation mixed with anger. “Our resident explosives experts in the Guard were both killed two months ago. We’ve called in the city’s team, but their full bomb squad’s got to get through the rush hour to reach us.” The words seemed to further accuse Alexander, to whom Deubel turned with renewed ferociousness. “People outside could be hurt or killed, Mr. Trecchio. It’s getting to be the busiest time of morning. Even if we start an evacuation now, there are going to be plenty of people around.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Until that city squad gets here, you’re the only one who knows about this device!” Deubel grabbed Alexander forcefully by the shoulder. “And you’re damned well going to tell us how to disarm it.” He spun him toward the display case and the bomb.

  “Because I may be no expert, but I know that’s a timer,” he said, pushing Alexander’s face closer, “and that countdown is for just over sixty minutes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  6:59 a.m.

  With Alexander in the custody of Remo Deubel, there was little further that Carlo Molinaro could do at the scene. The guardsman was obviously—and perhaps not unreasonably—convinced that Alexander was behind the bombs, as well as whatever had taken place in the Sistine Chapel. But Molinaro was equally convinced the situation had to be otherwise, and time was now at a premium to prove it.

  Leaving the hall that housed the colossus of Ceres, he turned a sharp right from the scene and passed back into the museums’ entrance foyer. Beyond the exterior doors, the darkness was as pure as before, though the lights from the assembly in the courtyard glanced off the sheering rain in a way that gave the space outside a great multicolored halo. Beyond the yellow tape that now roped off a substantial area around the entrance, Molinaro could see that a crowd had begun to form on the Viale Vaticano, despite the rain and the early hour. Curiosity was a powerful force.

  The guard station, normally just inside the massive doors, had been moved to a temporary structure outside, a short distance away. With the growing throng of onlookers, an active presence out on the street appeared to have been deemed a necessity.

  It was that station that Molinaro needed. Grabbing an umbrella from a basket near the doors—it wasn’t his, but that could hardly matter at this moment—he strode out into the rain and the noise.

  As he crossed the space, moving as quickly as his arthritic legs would carry him, the crowd on the opposite side of the yellow tape drew his attention. Molinaro had always been a curious scholar, ever since he was a boy, but he had never understood the fascination with crime. The same compulsion that caused major traffic delays on motorways due to nothing more than drivers slowing down to gawk at roadside accidents was bringing people out of the comfort of their own homes to stand in a storm, staring at flashing blue lights in the hope of catching sight of some evidence of crime they could share with their friends.

  What sort of people succumbed to this compulsion? As Molinaro raced toward the guard station, he glanced over the assortment of faces. There were businessmen garbed in their finery, covering their hair with briefcases. There were two women dressed as domestic help, one attempting to keep a cigarette lit in the rain. There was a young man still in his pajamas, his wild hair proof that he’d lumbered out of bed directly to the scene; and another man beside him, a bit older, with strange eyes, wide and set slightly too far apart, staring in amazement at the scene in the courtyard—as, indeed, was the whole motley assembly.

  A strange, strange world.

  Finally Molinaro reached the guard station at the left of the main gate. The tall guard who had objected to letting Alexander into the premises was still on duty, which was exactly what Molinaro needed.

  Bruno Nencini had been a security officer at the Vatican Museums for the past six years, ever since retiring from the Polizia di Stato, and Molinaro had got to know him a little in that time. If anyone would be able to help, it would be Bruno.

  “Signore Molinaro, what are you doing back out here in the rain?” The guard looked up, surprised, as Carlo stepped into the doorway of the makeshift station. “Need me to walk you out through the crowd?”

  “Not at the moment, Bruno. But I do need your help.”

  “Help?” Nencini stood up. He seemed pleased to be approached in circumstances like this. “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “I need eyes, Bruno. Eyes that will let me see what took place here last night.”

  “Eyes?” Bruno Nencini was a man of one-word questions.

  “It’s not looking good inside. Things are mounting up. The finger is being pointed squarely at Alexander Trecchio, the nephew of an old family friend—the man I had you let in earlier. He’s being blamed for … for the severed hand, and the bomb.” Molinaro wasn’t sure how much the police had shared with the routine security staff. “And he’s become the suspect for a second one.”

  “Another bomb?” News of the second device clearly hadn’t yet reached the guard station.

  “But he couldn’t possibly have done these things,” Molinaro stressed. “I need to be able to see inside, take a look at the Sistine Chapel, the Gallery of Maps and the other locations during the night. I’m sure that whatever’s recorded will show that Alexander wasn’t involved, and maybe it will tell us who was.”

  “You’re talking about the CCTV coverage.”

  “Yes, that’s it. The cameras.”

  “Keep dreaming, old man,” Bruno answered, wagging his head. “All the feeds were cut. First thing the investigators asked, and first place they looked. Someone really knew what they were doing, too. Recording for the cameras throughout the museums was disabled, but the feeds themselves were left live. Kept the watchmen from seeing static and investigating. The cameras where the action took place were fed a loop, so
they’d appear normal on the monitors.”

  His expression told of a sorrow that he couldn’t give Molinaro better news, but also the smallest puff of pride that he was able to provide such detailed information. Perhaps he’d helped the investigators examine the feeds himself.

  Molinaro shook the rain from his umbrella in frustration.

  “Something happened here during the night, Bruno, and somehow Alexander Trecchio was exposed to it.” He paused, the rain still pelting his back. The pieces didn’t yet fit. “Without some sort of footage, I don’t know how to proceed.”

  There was a slight delay before Bruno spoke.

  “There’s nothing I can do about the feeds inside. So unless he was in one of the surrounding Vatican buildings …”

  “No, he was at work, at La Repubblica’s annex, just a few streets over.” Suddenly Carlo’s face brightened. “But he does often come to the Apostolic Palace late at night. Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio was his uncle. Alexander has access to his study.”

  “Maybe he was in the area.”

  Molinaro nodded. It was the first hint of a connection he’d been able to establish.

  “What time might that have been?” Bruno asked.

  “Sometime late, I’d assume, from his habits.”

  Bruno looked thoughtful. “Well if that’s the case, there might be something we can do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  4 hours 51 minutes ago

  Removing the woman’s hand had been far bloodier than the deliverer had imagined. He’d known there would be blood; he’d even prepared a tray to collect it. He’d need it for what he’d termed “the decorations,” to be crafted down at the far end of the long building. But the quantity had been enormous. Once he’d thinned it out with a little water, there was more than enough for what he had planned.

  What had been most surprising—and, he didn’t mind admitting, more than a little disturbing—was the way Beatrice Pinard had simply sat there, silently, while he went about his task. The drug was even more powerful than he’d realized. In the end, his blade had been insufficient to saw through the bone, and he’d been forced to snap the wrist free. The sound had churned his own stomach, but the woman had given only the tiniest wince of pain at the corners of her eyes.

  He looked at his watch. There was not much time left.

  He set the hand aside in the little tray, then dragged the woman’s body off the chair and on to the pedestal that grounded the great statue of the goddess. He positioned her as she ought to be: knelt in humility before the ancient lady. Gently, very gently, he placed her intact hand upon the bomb he’d set between the feet of the statue, allowing her other, bloodied wrist to stretch out before her.

  The scene was set.

  The only thing left to do was make it permanent.

  Taking the knife back in his grip, the man with the slender fingers plunged it through Beatrice Pinard’s back: once, twice, and then a third time. Each strike was certain to have gone through her lungs. Maybe one hit her heart.

  In any case, he could hear her wheezing breath sputtering out of her lips. Long, slow, and then finished.

  “May your soul find peace,” he whispered. His eyes softened with something that, for an instant, looked close to compassion. But it fled as fast as it came.

  He turned to the betrayer.

  “It’s time for us to bring this to its conclusion.”

  He wiped his bloodied hands on a gray T-shirt, then picked up the tray that contained Beatrice Pinard’s hand and blood, the blindfold already back in place over the other man’s eyes.

  “It’s time to let our kingdom crumble. Just a few more preparations, and the exodus can begin.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  7:14 a.m.

  “What do you have in mind?” Molinaro asked Bruno Nencini, as the guard grabbed his own umbrella and stepped out of the makeshift station. The rain immediately started to rattle over the extended fabric.

  “As far as I know,” Bruno answered, “whoever broke in and … did all this”—he motioned toward the general chaos surrounding the entrance of the museums—“knew enough to disable all the CCTV feeds inside. And do it well. But the Apostolic Palace runs on a separate system. If your man was inside, as you suspect he might have been, the footage there should catch him.”

  “You have access to the CCTV feeds of the Palace?” Molinaro asked. There was surprise on his wet features.

  “Of course not.” Bruno paused long enough to flash a grin at the older man. “At least not officially. Those are all under the control of the Swiss Guard.”

  “I sense a ‘but.’”

  “But,” Bruno continued, regaining his step and leading Molinaro away from the main entrance, “there’s a common control interface for all the camera networks in Vatican City. And if someone should know how to … tamper with the interface a bit, well, he might be able to see things he doesn’t technically have proper access to.”

  Molinaro clasped his eighty-year-old hand on the shoulder of the post-retiree guard. No words were needed to convey that the two old men were pleased with the little secrets passing between them. Bruno Nencini had clearly learned a few more skills during his days in the Polizia di Stato than his current job as a door porter let on.

  “How many angles do you have covered?” Molinaro asked a few minutes later, as Bruno sat himself down at the CCTV feed control desk in a room nestled into a building further inside the Vatican City walls. The room was marked “Digital Archives: Access Only,” but Nencini had a key that worked. Molinaro didn’t ask after the hows or whys.

  “The CCTV network inside the Apostolic Palace is extensive,” Bruno answered. “Outside of private offices, you’d be hard pressed to find a square centimeter in the Holy See that isn’t covered and recorded twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Then the task is going to be narrowing it down.”

  “You said that this friend of yours … what’s he called?”

  “Alexander Trecchio.”

  “You said Mr. Trecchio had access to a specific office?”

  “The rooms formerly assigned to his uncle, Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio,” Molinaro answered.

  Bruno worked quickly at the modified keyboard that controlled the small data center, and Carlo noticed that he was capable at the controls.

  “We’re good,” the guard announced eventually. “The directory lists that as room 77A, and the data recorders for that corridor haven’t been touched.”

  “Splendid. Can you look inside?”

  The other man was shaking his head. “Cardinals’ quarters are always free from interior surveillance. Bit of privileged privacy with the rank, I suppose. But we should be able to get a good view of the door and the hallways just outside it.” He tapped at the keypad. “How far back do you want me to look?”

  Molinaro quickly paced through the timeline of the night. Alexander had said he’d awoken from his nightmare a few minutes before he had received Carlo’s phone call, and that had been at around 4:15 a.m. Molinaro himself had been called into the museums at 3:50, and security and police had been there for at least thirty minutes before he was summoned. So Alexander couldn’t have been in the Palace after 3:15, but even that late was unlikely.

  He was having trouble pinning down a time.

  “Can you scan the footage backward?”

  “Sure. It’s all digital,” Bruno answered. “We can look at it whatever way we want.”

  “Then run the feed in reverse, starting at about three a.m.”

  A few seconds later, three displays appeared. Two camera angles covered a long, dimly lit corridor which had six or seven unmarked wooden doors along each side. The dim lighting was compensated for by a rather advanced night-vision filter, which managed to brighten the scene substantially without transforming it into the ghostly green shades normally associated with the technology. A third camera was focused on a single door which Molinaro knew from his own past visits to be 77A. The door to Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio�
�s study.

  “These are the primary views. We’ve got cameras on connecting corridors, too,” Bruno noted as the images continued to wind in reverse, “but if he was where you say he was, then one of these ought to catch him.”

  “This will be fine,” Molinaro muttered, keeping his eyes on the displays. In the early morning, the corridors of the Apostolic Palace were vacant. Only the painted visages of long-dead saints and framed moments of history peered out from the dark depths of the halls. Twice, a cleaner appeared on the feeds, pulling a long mop over the stone floor, almost comically laying a path of dust in its backward path. But apart from this, there was nothing to see.

  “Can you speed it up?”

  “Sure, boss.” Bruno rotated a dial anticlockwise, and the reversed images sped faster through the time stamps at the corner of each display. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

  “I’m not sure,” Molinaro answered. “For now, anything. Anything out of the ordinary.”

  Bruno sighed. Thus far the feeds were as standard as they came. He wanted to help the old man, but at this rate he couldn’t see how. They’d just have to hope for something in the digital files other than a cleaner and a mop.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  7:18 a.m.

  “How do we disable the timer?”

  “I’ve told you already, I don’t know.”

  Remo Deubel looked as if he was only a hair’s width from punching Alexander, and Alexander wasn’t sure how wide that hair really was.