by James Becker
Bronson reached down into the cavity with both hands. “It’s round, like a cylinder, or maybe a pot,” he said.
The material that shrouded the relic crumbled away even as he touched it, and he quickly brushed away the last remnants.
“It looks like a ceramic container of some kind,” he said.
Angela breathed in sharply. Her excitement was tangible.
“Get it out so we can look at it. Take it to that end of the table, near the door,” she suggested. “The light’s better there.”
Bronson lifted out the object, carried it carefully over to the end of the dining table and put it down gently. It appeared to be a green-glazed pottery jar, the outside decorated with a random pattern, and fitted with two ring handles. There wasn’t a lid, but the opening was plugged with a flat wooden stopper, its circumference coated with what looked like wax to form an airtight seal.
“It looks like a Roman or Greek skyphos, ” Angela said, examining the pot carefully.
“That’s a kind of two-handled drinking vessel. This is exactly what we should have expected, given the second verse of the Occitan inscription.”
“Let’s open it,” Bronson said, picking up the penknife again.
“No, hang on a minute. Remember what else the verse said: Within the chalice all is naught, And terrible to behold. What if that refers to something physically dangerous inside the pot? Perhaps some kind of poison?”
Bronson shook his head. “Even if this was stuffed full of cyanide or something when it was hidden, the possibility of it still being viable after six hundred years is virtually nil. It would have decayed centuries ago. Anyway, I don’t think the verse means the vessel contains something dangerous in that sense. It says whatever it contains is ‘terrible to behold.’ That suggests it’s something dangerous to look at, and that probably means forbidden knowledge or a terrible secret.”
“But the jar is clearly very old and it’s possible that sudden exposure to the air might destroy the contents,” Angela objected.
“I know,” Bronson said. “But whatever’s inside that pot was indirectly responsible for the deaths of both Jackie and Mark, and possibly Jeremy Goldman as well. I’m not prepared to wait around for weeks for some man in a museum to open it under controlled conditions. I’m going to take a look inside it right now.”
“OK,” Angela said, “but just wait a few seconds. We should photograph the stages in finding and opening this.”
She pulled a compact digital camera out of her pocket and took several shots of the sealed pot, and a couple of the cavity in the floor.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Unseal the lid.”
Bronson took his pocketknife and carefully cut away the wax seal. He waited while Angela took another two pictures, then used the point of the knife blade to ease up the wooden stopper. It was stiff so he had to lift it by stages, but finally it came out of the neck of the vessel. Again Angela took pictures, before he removed the stopper completely, and then snapped a further image looking down directly into the pot.
“Before you reach inside it,” Angela said, “wrap your fingers in a handkerchief or something. The moisture on your hands could damage whatever’s in there.”
“OK,” Bronson replied, doing as she instructed. “Here we go.” He reached inside the jar and pulled out a small cylindrical object.
Angela gasped.
“Be careful,” she said urgently. “It looks like an intact papyrus scroll. That’s an incredibly rare find. Hold it for a second.”
She trotted across the room, picked up a seat cushion from one of the dining chairs and put it on the table. “Rest it on that,” she instructed.
“How rare, exactly?” Bronson asked, placing the relic where she indicated.
“Scrolls are fairly common, but it’s the condition that matters. Over the centuries most scrolls, including those from sites like Qumran—you know, the Dead Sea Scrolls—have largely disintegrated. Papyrologists have had to study individual fragments and attempt to reconstruct entire scrolls piece by piece, trying to match up tiny slivers of papyrus.”
“I didn’t know papyrus could last that long—so how old do you think it could be?”
“Give me a minute, will you? It’s not like looking inside a modern novel. Scrolls don’t have publication dates.” She drew a chair closer to the table and took a pair of latex gloves from her pocket.
“You’ve come prepared,” Bronson observed.
“I’m always prepared,” she said, “at least for some things.”
For some time she didn’t touch the relic, just looked at it, turning the cushion this way and that to reveal different areas of the scroll. Although her specialization was ceramics, it was obvious to Bronson that she knew quite a lot about early documents as well, and that it was a necessary part of her job. After a couple of minutes she leaned back in the chair.
“Right, from what I can tell it’s early, precisely because it is a scroll. Scrolls normally had writing on only one side of the papyrus, though some later examples have been found with writing on both. This scroll looks as if it has text on one side only, so that’s another indication that it’s an early document.
“One of the obvious problems the ancients discovered,” Angela went on, carefully checking the inside of the pottery vessel on the table, “was that the only way to find out what was written on a scroll was to open it and read the text, which is why someone invented the sittybos. That was a tag attached to the handle of the scroll to identify it to the reader or seller, and they used it the way we use the writing on the spine of a book these days. I’ve just checked the pot, and there’s no sign of one in there, and there’s nothing on the scroll itself.”
“Which means what?” Bronson asked.
“Nothing very significant, just that there’s probably not a lot written on the scroll. It suggests it’s not what you might call a commercial document, that it’s not a known text, which probably would have a sittybos attached. It’s more likely to be a private text of some sort. I’m happy to take a quick look at it, but it’s not my field and, no matter what you think, this should be examined by an expert.”
Carefully, Angela opened the scroll, just far enough that she could see the first few lines of characters, then gently closed it again.
“It’s written in Latin,” she said, “and the letters are unusually large. I think the text is continuous, which also suggests it’s early. Later writing would normally include both a spatium—that’s a gap between the verses—and a paragraphus, a horizontal line under the beginning of each new sentence.”
“So how old do you think it is?” Bronson asked, as they both bent forward over the dining table, their backs to the door, staring at the relic.
“If I had to guess I’d say second or third century A.D. It’s got to—”
Angela screamed as someone grabbed her arm. She was pulled violently backward away from the table and slammed into the wall beside the door.
Bronson spun around. He’d heard no footsteps, no noise of any kind.
A heavily built man wearing a light gray suit had grabbed Angela and pinned her against the wall. But it was the other man who held Bronson’s attention, or rather the semiautomatic pistol he was holding in his right hand. Because it looked to Bronson as if he knew exactly how to use it.
19
I
“You’re wrong,” the big man in the gray suit corrected Angela. His English was fluent and almost devoid of any accent. “It’s first century.”
“Who the hell are you?” Bronson demanded, silently berating himself for not checking that all the doors and windows had been locked.
Bizarrely, the man holding Angela could almost have been a banker or a businessman, judging by his appearance—immaculate suit, highly polished black loafers and neat, well-cut dark hair. Until, that is, Bronson looked into his eyes. They were black, and as cold and empty as an open grave.
In contrast to his companion, the man holding the gun was wearing je
ans and a casual jacket. Bronson guessed these were probably the men who’d broken into the house. And killed Mark Hampton and Jackie and possibly Jeremy Goldman as well.
Anger rose in him like a tide, but he knew he had to remain focused.
“Who we are isn’t important,” the bigger man said. “We’ve been looking for that”—he gestured toward the scroll on the table—“for a very long time.”
Still holding Angela’s arm, he strode across to the table and picked up the scroll while the second man kept his pistol trained on Bronson.
“What’s so important about this scroll that both my friends had to die? You did kill them, I presume?” Bronson balled his fists, and forced himself to take deep, even breaths. He couldn’t afford to get things wrong.
The man in the suit inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I wasn’t personally responsible,” he said, “but my orders were being followed, yes.”
“But why is that old scroll so important?” Bronson asked again.
The man didn’t respond immediately, but instead pulled a dining chair away from the table and pushed Angela toward it.
“Sit down,” he snapped, and watched as she obeyed him.
He unrolled one end of the scroll, looked at the first few lines and nodded in satisfaction, then he slid it into the pocket of his jacket.
“I will answer your question, Bronson,” he said. “You see, I already know who you are. I’ll tell you exactly why this scroll is worth killing for. I think you know why I’m prepared to do that,” he added. “You understand the situation.”
Bronson nodded. He knew exactly why the Italian was happy to talk—the two intruders had no intention of leaving either him or Angela alive when they left the house.
“Who are these people, Chris?” Angela asked, and Bronson noted that her voice was steady but tinged with anger. She could have been inquiring about the identity of a couple of uninvited guests at a party. He felt a sudden rush of admiration for her.
Bronson focused on the big man. “Tell us,” he said shortly.
The Italian smiled, but without any humor in his eyes. “This scroll was written in A.D. sixty-seven, on the specific orders of the Emperor Nero by a man who routinely signed himself ‘SQVET.’ The people who employ us have been looking for it for the last fifteen hundred years.”
Bronson looked at Angela.
“What on earth do you mean?” she asked, looking shocked.
The Italian shook his head. “I’ve said enough. All I will tell you is that we believe the scroll holds a secret that the Church would far rather remain hidden. In fact, it suggests that the entire Christian religion was founded on a lie, so perhaps you can guess what’s going to happen to it?”
“You—or your employer, which I presume is the Vatican—will destroy it as soon as possible?” Bronson suggested.
“That won’t be my decision, obviously, but I imagine they’ll either do that or lock it away in the Apostolic Penitentiary for all eternity.”
Bronson had been watching the two Italians carefully. He’d tried to keep them talking, stalling for time while he figured out his next move.
The big Italian took a step back toward the door and glanced at his companion. “Kill them both,” he hissed in Italian. “Shoot Bronson first.”
And that was the moment Bronson had been waiting for. The second man half-turned his head toward the bigger man as he received his orders, nodded, and then began bringing his automatic up to aim at Bronson.
But Bronson was already moving. The Browning Hi-Power hadn’t been out of his immediate possession since he’d left his house in England. He reached under his jacket, grabbed the pistol from his waistband, clicked off the safety catch and leveled the weapon at the Italian.
“Lower your weapon,” he yelled, in fluent Italian. “If you move that pistol even one centimeter I’ll shoot.”
For several long seconds, nobody moved.
“Your choice,” Bronson shouted, his eyes never leaving the man’s weapon. “Take the damned scroll and get out of here, and nobody gets hurt. Try anything else, and at the very least one of you is going to die.”
II
But even as Bronson aimed his pistol at the armed man about fifteen feet in front of him, the big man in the gray suit moved, as quick and lithe as a cat. He grabbed Angela by the hair, dragged her out of the dining chair and held her in front of him as a shield.
“Chris!” Angela yelled, but there wasn’t a thing Bronson could do to stop him. If he’d fired, he’d probably have hit her.
In seconds, the big Italian had pulled Angela, struggling in his grasp, out through the door.
Bronson was left facing the second man. For a long couple of seconds they just stared at each other, then the Italian muttered something and moved his pistol. Bronson had absolutely no option. He adjusted his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. The Browning kicked in his hand, the report of the shot shockingly loud in the confined space, the ejected cartridge case spinning away to his right in a blur of brass.
The Italian screamed and tumbled backward, his left shoulder suddenly blooming red. He clutched at the wound, his pistol falling to the floor.
Bronson ran forward and scooped up the weapon, which he recognized immediately as a nine-millimeter Beretta. But he didn’t even give the injured man a second glance. His whole attention was focused on Angela and whatever was happening behind the closed dining-room door.
His military training kicked in. Pulling open the door and stepping through it could be the last thing he ever did if the big man had a pistol, because he’d be a sitting duck, framed in the doorway. And that wouldn’t help Angela.
So he stepped forward cautiously, flattened himself against the stone wall beside the door, and turned the handle. Then he peered through the gap into the living room.
The big Italian wasn’t waiting for him. He was almost at the far door, the one that led into the hall, one beefy arm around Angela’s neck as he dragged her roughly across the floor.
Bronson wrenched open the door, stepped into the room, took rapid aim and fired a single shot into the stone wall beside the hall door. The Italian turned, his expression confused and almost frightened, and at that moment Angela acted.
As the big man paused, she lifted her right leg and scraped her shoe hard down the man’s left shin and then drove her heel as hard as she could into the top of his foot.
The Italian grunted in pain and staggered backward, releasing his hold on Angela’s neck as he did so. She dived to one side, getting out of Bronson’s line of fire, as the big man hobbled toward the door.
Bronson aimed the Browning straight at the Italian, but he immediately vanished into the hall, and seconds later Bronson heard the front door slam shut. He ran across to the window and looked out to see the man jogging away from the house, his limp now markedly less pronounced.
Bronson turned back to Angela. “Are you OK?” he demanded.
Her hair tousled and her face flushed with exertion, Angela nodded. “Thank God for aerobics and Manolos,” she said. “I always liked these shoes. What happened to the other one?”
“I winged him,” Bronson said. “He’s in the dining room, bleeding all over the floor.”
“They were going to kill us, weren’t they? That’s why you drew the gun.”
“Yes, and we’re not safe yet. We need to get out of here as quickly as we can, in case that big bastard decides to come back with reinforcements.”
“What about him?” Angela said, pointing toward the dining-room door, behind which moans and howls of pain could be heard. “We should take him to the hospital.”
“He was going to kill us, Angela. I really don’t care if he lives or dies.”
“You can’t just leave him. That’s inhuman. We’ve got to do something.”
Bronson looked again toward the dining room. “OK. Go upstairs and grab all your stuff. I’ll see what I can do.”
Angela stared at him. “Don’t kill him,” she instructed.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Bronson went into the downstairs lavatory, found a couple of towels and walked back into the dining room, the Browning Hi-Power held ready in front of him. But the pistol was unnecessary. The Italian was lying moaning in a pool of blood, his right hand trying to staunch the flow from the bullet wound in his shoulder.
Bronson placed the two pistols on the table, well out of reach, then bent down and eased the injured man into a sitting position. He pulled off his lightweight jacket and removed the shoulder holster he found underneath it. Then he folded one of the towels and placed it over the exit wound, laying the man down again so that the weight of his body would help reduce the blood loss.
“Hold this,” Bronson said in Italian, pressing the man’s bloody right hand onto the other towel, positioned over the entry wound.
“Thank you,” the Italian said, his breath rasping painfully, “but I need a hospital.”
“I know,” Bronson replied. “I’ll telephone in a minute. First, I need answers to a few questions, and the quicker you tell me, the sooner I’ll make that call. Who are you?
Who do you work for? And who’s your fat friend?”
The ghost of a smile crossed the wounded man’s face. “His name’s Gregori Mandino, and he’s the capofamiglia —the head—of the Rome Cosa Nostra.”
“The Mafia?”
“Wrong name, right organization. I’m just one of the picciotti, a soldier,” the man said, “one of the capo’s bodyguards. I do what I’m told, and go where I’m needed. I have no idea why we’re here.” He said it with such conviction that Bronson almost believed him. “But let me give you a piece of advice, Englishman. Mandino is ruthless, and his deputy is worse. If I were you, I’d get away from here as quickly as you can, and not come back to Italy. Ever. The Cosa Nostra has a very long memory.”
“But why should someone like Mandino care about a two-thousand-year-old scroll?” Bronson asked.
“I told you, I’ve no idea.”
The “need to know” concept was one Bronson was very familiar with from his time in the army, and he guessed that a criminal organization like the Mafia probably worked in a similar way. The wounded man very probably didn’t know what was going on. Employed because of his skill with a gun—though he hadn’t been quite good enough on this occasion—he would have been told only what he needed to know to complete whatever tasks he was set.