Marcotte fixed his tie, walked past Cam toward the tuxedoed man, and made introductions as if at a dinner party. “This is Grand Master Ferdinand Silva.”
Cam nodded curtly and turned back to the monsignor. “Why am I here?”
“Because we are at a crucial point in solving this mystery, in finding this treasure.” He looked over Cam’s shoulder and offered a relieved smiled. “And because I thought you would want to be reunited with your wife and daughter.”
“Dad!” Astarte called, rushing toward him as he turned. Confusion washed over him again, this time accompanied more by relief than anger. Why had Marcotte brought them here? He pushed the thought away. For now, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were safe. They were his treasure, the thing that mattered most to him.
He quickly embraced them, eyes closed. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
Opening his eyes, he was hit with yet another surprise: A pair of figures he knew to be Roberto and Emmy strolling up the stairs toward him. Could it be? As if adding to the mystery, Emmy’s hair was down and her chin up as he had never seen her before. Astarte explained, the words rushing out like a torrent. “Emmy’s not really Emmy. She’s Emanuela. She didn’t really have an accident. She’s not really developmentally disabled. It was all an act, a cover.” Astarte lowered her voice. “She’s actually kind of mean.”
Cam’s level of confusion had almost reached the stage of paralysis. He shook his head. Emmy not disabled? He never saw that one coming. Never saw any of this coming. He turned to Marcotte. “What’s going on?”
The priest smiled and again straightened his tie. “Now that we are, hopefully, done with the theatrics, I’d like to get to that. To explain everything.” He bowed his head. “As I said, we need your help.”
Cam took a deep breath as he eyed the priest. “Most people who want help just ask for it. Truthfully.”
“Yes.” The monsignor pursed his lips. “I suppose you are correct about that. But most people are not asking for help finding something that will change history.” He paused. “Something that some would die for and many would kill over.”
Cam was about to bring up Ruthie’s murder. But Amanda spoke before he could. She, too, was angry. “Perhaps you could give specifics rather than just speaking in platitudes.”
“Very well. Let’s all sit down.” Marcotte motioned toward a gallery of seats lining a long wall of the Lodge room, not unlike a movie theater. They sat in two clusters with a few seats between them—Cam with Amanda and Astarte, and Brian with Roberto and Emanuela. Two rival teams, preparing to do battle. Or perhaps brought together to face a common enemy.
Marcotte stood, addressing his small audience. The Masonic leader, Silva, sat in an ornate arm chair off to the side, likely wondering why a thug in bright green pants and a man who would assault an elderly priest were littering his Lodge.
“First, I want to thank Grand Master Silva for allowing us to meet here tonight. We need a safe haven, a place to plan our next move away from prying eyes.” Cam doubted that was the monsignor’s sole motivation. He looked up, searching for hidden cameras and microphones. The Freemasons, as a secret society, were experts at both keeping secrets and discovering them. Cam guessed that, later, this entire scene would be replayed and analyzed by experts called in to evaluate body language and voice tone to see if anyone was lying. Someone might even be watching them now on a monitor. But for now, Cam merely nodded. He wanted answers. And, not forgetting where he was fifteen minutes ago, he had a fresh understanding that being monitored was preferable to being cattle-prodded.
Marcotte continued. “The Freemasons are not involved in this mystery directly.” He smiled. “But they have been the caretakers of the Cumberland Monastery lands for over fifty years, since the Cistercian monks left. And, of course, they have long been the custodians of the Newport Tower. What happens here, in Rhode Island, obviously concerns them.” Marcotte smiled. “Plus, I expect we may need their assistance at some point. So my sharing this information with them is partly a gesture of respect and partly pure selfishness.”
Silva, his arms crossed at his chest, inclined his head. “I am here to listen. We want, simply, what is best. And we will take necessary steps to ensure that result.”
The monsignor smiled at his host. “Excellent. Moving on. As Astarte deduced, Emanuela’s injury was a fake, a way for her to hide in plain sight.” He took a deep breath, pausing dramatically. “What I’m guessing even Astarte has not deduced—and, Cameron, this will help explain some of my lies—is that Emanuela is Archbishop Marcinkus’ daughter.”
Cam’s chin jolted up. Wait, what?
Marcotte looked toward Emanuela, who continued the narrative. She spoke matter-of-factly, tall in her chair, her accent a curious blend of Italian and Irish just as her single brown eye and single blue eye were reminders of the double-life she had been living. “At around age twelve, my mother told me the truth. Told me who my real father was. It answered a lot of questions for me—why I did not resemble my father, why he seemed to favor my brother over me, why I was so much taller than anyone in my family. And the Archbishop came to visit me. At the time, I was going through the typical adolescent struggles.” She shrugged. “He was a charismatic man, a powerful man, a mysterious man. And I was at an impressionable age. He brought me gifts, treated me like a young lady. It took a while, but we became close.” She paused, her eyes focused on a distant spot on the wall. “I had always had a father, but now it felt like I had a papa. He began to worry for my safety, concerned his enemies might harm me or use my existence to embarrass or blackmail him.”
Roberto picked up the narrative. “I was a young priest assigned to his staff. The Archbishop came up with the idea of having Emanuela disappear. A runaway. He believed it would be safer for her to be outside of Rome, living a normal life. At his instructions, I arranged for a gangster by the name of De Pedis to whisk her away after school one day.”
Amanda interrupted, turning to Emanuela, asking the question that would come to most mothers’ minds. “Did your mother know?”
Emanuela nodded. “She supported the plan. Or at least did not object. She would do almost anything the Archbishop asked. But in this case she honestly believed it would be good for me to be out of Vatican City. She reported me as missing. But somehow the story exploded. The press sensationalized it. Instead of just a common teenage runaway, it became a kidnapping.”
“What happened,” Marcotte interjected, “was that the Vatican began getting anonymous calls—leaked to the press—demanding the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, jailed for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II, in exchange for Emanuela’s release. Other sources tied her disappearance to Marcinkus, theorizing this was a way to keep Emanuela’s father, who worked at the Vatican Bank, quiet. Either way, once the press got hold of the story, the Vatican had to respond. Had to investigate.”
Emanuela sniffed. “The irony was that people believed I was taken to keep my father—my stepfather, actually—quiet. The reality was that he was happy to be done with me. I was a constant reminder of my mother’s infidelity. And the person blamed for my abduction, the Archbishop, was my real father. The one who really cared.”
Cam turned his palms up to the sky. Marcotte had been truthful in one respect: There were many layers, many secrets, to this mystery. “So how did we get to here, to today?”
The monsignor and Emanuela looked at Roberto. He smiled, the same kind face that had welcomed them to Milano Farm less than a week earlier. “Archbishop Marcinkus was never one to pass up an opportunity for a windfall. He knew the Vatican wanted to put this scandal behind them. So he told them that the gangster, De Pedis, had contacted him and told him that Emanuela had been injured during the abduction. A head injury. Now he wanted to wash his hands of the whole mess. Marcinkus convinced the Pope that we couldn’t return the girl to her mother in that condition, given the press—it would just refocus attention on the inept Swiss Guard. So he arranged for the Va
tican to pay her expenses and upkeep. And he sent me with her to Ireland to serve as her chaperone.”
Brian guffawed, the first contribution he had made to the conversation. “Big surprise what happened next.”
Roberto glared for a second before sighing and sitting back. “Yes. We fell in love. The Archbishop arranged for a local girl, a young nun, to serve as our foil, someone for me to pretend to be married to. A cover. I believe in America you would call her a beard. Kaitlyn.”
Emanuela interjected. “A spy, not a beard. Always running to Dublin to report on our activities to the bishop. The bishop was supposed to be a friend of my father’s, charged with protecting us. But his idea of protection is to keep us under house arrest. With Kaitlyn’s help.” She raised her chin. “We could have found the treasure ourselves had we been free to travel.”
Nodding, Roberto continued. “In any event, as far as the world knew, Kaitlyn and I were married, together raising Emanuela, my disabled sister.” He smiled again. “With, thanks to Archbishop Marcinkus, the Vatican paying our expenses.”
With a fake spitting sound, Emanuela interjected again. “They can keep their dirty money as far as I’m concerned. They are devils on earth.”
The Monsignor exhaled, waving her insult away with a motion of his hand. “That brings us to today. How we got here. But not why.”
“Treasure,” Brian declared. “No other reason.”
“Not true,” Emanuela replied. “I am here for revenge.”
Amanda shook her head. “We don’t particularly care about treasure, and we don’t care a whit about revenge. We want to know what secrets the Templars were hiding. We want answers.”
“And I,” Marcotte said, “am only interested in a treasure to the extent it helps me in my efforts at reforming the Church.”
Brian leered. “Good. Since none of you cares about the treasure, I’ll take it all myself.” He sat back, clearly pleased with himself.
“What do you mean about revenge?” Cam asked Emanuela.
“Against the Church. Apparently my mother truly loved the Archbishop, and he … was fond of her. But of course there was no way for her to divorce my father and marry a priest. And Roberto and I, in the eyes of the Church, cannot marry unless he requests to be laicized, which of course would draw unwanted attention to our situation.” She set her jaw. “They poisoned my childhood, now they deny me fulfillment as an adult. They are backwards, misogynistic. The monsignor wants to reform the Church. I support him in this, but I personally would not object if it were burned to the ground.”
The Monsignor lowered his head and smiled indulgently at Emanuela. “I understand your anger. But let’s try to channel it into something positive rather than something negative.”
She bit her lip, her mismatched eyes narrowing. “Revenge is just revenge, Monsignor. It is neither positive nor negative.”
Astarte sat in the theater seat in the fancy Masonic Lodge, her eyes glued on Emanuela. How had she been so easily fooled? The woman had played her part expertly, adopting both the behavior and mannerisms of a young girl. But it was her vulnerability which had been most convincing. Emmy truly was a sad, confused, lonely little girl. Astarte imagined the real Emanuela, the angry adult Emanuela, must also be sad and confused and lonely in order to have pulled it off. Astarte didn’t know if this revenge she spoke of would bring her any peace, but she hoped so.
The Monsignor interrupted her musings. He paced in front of them. “We all have our reasons for being here—wealth, revenge, knowledge, power. But for us to succeed, we need the contents of that safe deposit box.” He turned and focused on Cam and Amanda.
Astarte wondered how forthcoming they would be.
“We don’t have it,” Cam said simply.
“We left it in the vault,” Amanda added.
“It belongs to me,” Emanuela said. “The Archbishop, my father, wanted me to have it. He gave me the box number. It is my birthright, my legacy.”
Cam shrugged. “We don’t even know what it is. We didn’t have time to examine it.”
“But we know it is a scroll,” Emanuela countered.
“Yes,” Amanda said. “Apparently an ancient one.”
“In the interest of proving our good faith,” Marcotte said, “I will tell you what I believe it is. What I am certain it is, based on the writings I have seen describing it. It is a ketubah, a marriage contract. But not just any ketubah. This is the marriage contract between, and I quote, A Hasmonian princess, Myriam of Migdal, and Yeshua ben Josef of the Royal House of David, at Cana.” The monsignor nodded, the room completely silent. “As I’m sure you’ve all ascertained, what I have just described is the contract of marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.”
The room remained silent. Astarte understood the stunning importance of the document. If authenticated, it completely changed the history of Christianity. More specifically, it dramatically elevated the status of women in the Church, making Mary Magdalene, rather than the Twelve Apostles, the key confidant of Jesus. It also—and this was where Monsignor Marcotte’s goal of reforming the Church came into play—removed any doctrinal justification for the ban on priest marriage or prohibition on female clergy.
After a few seconds, Emanuela stood. “The scroll, the ketubah, belongs to me,” she repeated, her arms across her chest.
“Nuts to that,” Brian replied, turning in his seat. “It’s worth a fortune.”
“It does not belong to bloody anyone,” Amanda declared. “It is a priceless piece of history, one that must be shared with the world.”
“I agree it is priceless,” Marcotte said, “but I’m not certain the world is ready for it. I think instead it can be used to influence the Vatican into making certain much-needed reforms. Pope Francis is receptive to these reforms, but only if he is on firm ground doctrinally. In short, he needs a game-changing revelation, like this ketubah, to justify such a radical change in policy. Otherwise the Synod of Bishops, which essentially serves as his cabinet, will never go along.”
Astarte looked around. The people in the room all had different goals and agendas, but had been pulled together like those comic book characters in the movies to fight a common enemy. But those alliances were always fleeting. She doubted Monsignor Marcotte actually liked the boorish Brian. She wouldn’t be surprised if the ancient document, should they recover it, got torn to shreds in some kind of epic adult tug-of-war. But first they had to retrieve it from the bank vault heating vent. And even that assumed that Cam and Amanda trusted the others in the room enough to tell them where it was hidden.
“I think we need to tap the brakes a bit,” Amanda said. She focused on the monsignor. “You’re assuming we will agree to cooperate with you.” She made a sour face and glanced at Emanuela, Roberto and Brian. “And with them. We don’t associate with murderers.”
Roberto angled his head. “What are you talking about?”
“My friend Ruthie,” Cam replied. “On Long Island.”
“We had nothing to do with any murder. On Long Island or anywhere else,” Emanuela replied.
It was a short defense, simple and to the point. To Astarte, it sounded sincere. But she had been fooled by Emanuela before.
“Tell me what happened,” Marcotte said.
Cam described the attack. “Whoever did it was after the map.”
The monsignor closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He bowed his head. “I was afraid something like this might happen.” The priest crossed himself. “God rest her soul.” He shook his head and blinked a few times, clearly distraught. “We have enemies in the Vatican. Hardliners who want to stop our reforms, who want to preserve the old ways. I have long suspected they have been watching me, intercepting my calls. I tried to be careful, but they must have begun to also track Cameron, knowing I had been in touch with him.”
Emanuela interjected. “Kaitlyn,” she spat. “She must have reported your visit to us.”
Marcotte le
t out a long breath. “Either way, your friend’s death is on my hands. Cameron, I am so very sorry.”
Astarte noticed Cam set his jaw. “They didn’t just track me. They know about the map.” Cam described his encounter with the thugs both in Dublin and Galway. Apparently he believed the monsignor’s claims that he had nothing to do with Ruthie’s murder. “Makes sense they would be Vatican hardliners. Unless,” he said, looking at Roberto, “they were your guys.”
Roberto shook his head. “We don’t have guys.” He shrugged. “We just have ourselves. We followed you to Galway, and saw you get chased along the river walk. We even drove around looking for you afterwards.”
That explained how their pickup truck ended up on the security camera.
“Well, if the hardliners know about the map, they probably know about the ketubah,” Marcotte said. He sighed. “It has long been rumored that Marcinkus was close to finding it. They, like me, have been searching for it for decades.”
Brian leaned forward. “Well, if they’re going to all this trouble to kill old ladies and chase Cam, it sounds like they haven’t found it yet either.”
Cam leaned in. Astarte moved closer to huddle with her parents. “Do you believe them?” Cam whispered.
Amanda exhaled. “Yes. It seems unlikely they could have mobilized quickly enough from Ireland to get to Ruthie before you did.”
Astarte added, “And they had no reason to attack you in Ireland. You were already doing what they wanted, following the clues.”
Cam rubbed his face. “Twenty minutes ago I was ready to throw Marcotte through a wall. So I can’t believe I’m saying this. But I believe them also. Everything in their story adds up; I can’t find a single hole.” He blinked. “But that doesn’t mean I trust them.” Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the safe deposit key, stood, and handed it to Monsignor Marcotte. “A show of good faith to match yours,” he announced. “I’d rather see you with the ketubah than the Vatican hardliners.” Astarte hid her reaction with a fake cough. Cam hadn’t mentioned, of course, that the ketubah was no longer in the box that the key opened.
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