Lisa Emmer Historical Thrillers Vol. 1-2 (Lisa Emmer Historical Thriller Series)

by Rob Swigart

  Something about it rang false.

  Yet it clearly revealed the location of the inner disk, the keyword to the cipher, and the very clever location of the message itself.

  It had to be true. After all, the Order had long experience extracting information from reluctant witnesses. The tradition had come down through the Inquisition and all the shadowy organizations that preceded it.

  He could trace it back to the destruction of the witch Hypatia herself. Her death was that event that in retrospect seemed to have put into motion the whole long Struggle. First pagans, then heretics, had fallen under the inexorable march of the Church’s inquisitors.

  Yet, he thought, extorted confessions were sometimes unreliable. Rossignol could have sent him here to the very edge of Europe for nothing.

  Ridiculous! They already had part of the disk. The rest was here in Istanbul. The end was in sight.

  The Order’s black Mercedes E 320 was just pulling up to the curb. The Prior General pursed his lips and hurried outside. The heat stunned him and when the driver opened the door for him he settled gratefully into the air-conditioned comfort of the back seat.

  They left the airport behind, and soon they were cruising on the highway along the water’s edge. Lacatuchi stared through the darkened windows at the landscape sliding by.

  Perhaps the Struggle had been a tragic mistake. If Saint Cyril hadn’t killed the witch, would it have come to pass at all? Would the Order still have been forced to wage this war, with its terrible losses and more terrible triumphs? Would they have had to kill so many people, crush so many heresies, begin so many crusades? Would the Order even exist? The Pythos?

  No, he thought, the Order and the Pythos were reflections, one of the other. It was useless to play this game of What If.

  He sighed. There was no turning back. It had to end. This was the twenty-first century and again secularism, humanism, evangelicals and infidels beset the Church from all sides. Compromise and concessions were always failures in the long run, weakening the power of true doctrine. This was war, not blessing the flock or granting indulgences. The Pythos was a threat and always had been, a sharp and possibly mortal danger to the body of the Church. It must be eliminated once and for all.

  The Sea of Marmara sparkled darkly in the early afternoon. Ships dotted the surface, their twin reflections rippling. A few puffy white clouds floated over a freighter steaming toward the entrance to the Bosphorus. The Mercedes rolled smoothly between the sea and the old district of Sultanahmet.

  Much as the burden of his office weighed on him, and much as he would have desired the advice and counsel of the Holy Father, the current Pope was unaware of the Struggle. Lacatuchi knew it was better that way. The Vatican had other matters to weigh and resolve. Best to continue in the shadows, separate from the official, and very public, world. Only those directly involved knew how important the work of the Order of Theodosius really was. It must remain a closely held secret.

  It was here, today, in this ancient Byzantine capital, once seat of the Eastern Church, capital of the Ottoman Empire, and now the greatest city of the country of Turkey that he, Prior General Gabriel Lacatuchi of the secret tribunal of the Order of Theodosius, would sew up one more rent in the fabric of the Church. He would have in his hands the second part of the Alberti disk, and with it would be that much closer to gaining the final knowledge of the Pythos. Once the Order had the disk, the Founding Document would not be far from their grasp, and once they had that, there could be no more Pythos, no more Oracle, no more of its satanic knowledge surviving to be used against them.

  For this he prayed. Soon he would know for certain.

  They left the highway and wound slowly through the narrow streets of the old city, patiently inching through dense throngs of pedestrians, cars and motorcycles. The Mercedes pulled up at last in front of a mustard-colored building with a Turkish neo-classic façade, the century-old prison now converted into the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel.

  His suite was everything he remembered from his last visit, from the thick Turkish bathrobe to the huge bed. The Prior General allowed himself few luxuries, but he was self-aware enough to know how much the Struggle drained and demoralized its soldiers. The banker’s screams still echoed in his ears. He needed some moments free from care.

  They would have to wait, though. He changed into an open-necked shirt and blue jeans and went back to the waiting car. While they drove he went over the transcript one more time. A few minutes later the driver let him off at the main gate to the famous Grand Bazaar, the Kapalı Çarşı. “Would you like me to come with you?” the driver asked. His English was perfect, but the Prior General said only, “If you could wait? I hope this won’t take too long.”

  “Of course, efendim.”

  The Grand Bazaar had been updated into something like a modern Western shopping mall. The enormous maze of covered streets was packed with up to four thousand shops and restaurants, many of them now enclosed, selling gold jewelry, carpets, glassware, leather, cotton and wool textiles, calligraphy, glazed tiles and pottery, copper and brass ware, alabaster bookends. Though he missed the shouting, haggling and quaintly oriental chaos of the old days when the Bazaar had been more open, it was still astounding.

  The flags and tapestries that had once hung at intervals from metal rods set into the vaults of the painted ceilings had been replaced by brilliant plasma screens animated with advertising for cosmetics and perfumes, but the real smells of spice, leather, wool and metal swirled around him, and thick crowds of tourists still trudged slowly along the maze of fifteenth century streets. The shopkeepers still beckoned and called. He ignored them, but inwardly he was pleased to be back amid all these signs of tradition reluctantly giving way to modernity.

  He turned right toward the Takkeçiler Cad, carefully followed the instructions of Rossignol’s confession. He searched along the lines of shops until he came at last to a narrow booth with the single name Ahmet written in gold letters beside the door. Through the glass he could see a man with a narrow face and a pencil mustache under a completely hairless scalp examining something through a large magnifying glass mounted on an arm clipped to the counter. The man looked up when the bell attached to the door jangled. “May I help you?” he asked politely in English.

  The Prior General gave a nod and looked around the shop. There was little to see besides a few common trinkets gathering dust on shelves, two chairs, the counter, and a stack of old inexpensive leather-bound nineteenth century copies of the Koran. The glass case under the counter contained nothing but a small sea of dust. “I’m looking for Ahmet.”

  “I am Ahmet. How can I help you? You would like to buy an antique Koran, perhaps? Very old, very valuable.” The shopkeeper put his hand on the stack of books as though they were a treasure beyond price.

  Lacatuchi cleared his throat. “Don’t be foolish, Ahmet, and don’t think I’m a fool. Those are cheap nineteenth century copies, not at all valuable. No, I’m looking for an orrery. Early eighteenth century. Bronze, lapis and coral.”

  The man frowned. “An orrery? That would be a model of the planets?”

  Lacatuchi faltered. Could he have made a mistake? This was not part of the exchange. “Yes, of course! That’s correct, a model of the planets.”

  “No need to speak loudly, efendim, sometimes even my memory fails me. Please wait.” The shopkeeper put down the object and disappeared through a door at the back, leaving his client alone. Lacatuchi watched people amble along the corridor outside the glass enclosure but no one paid any attention to this small stall. He remained the only customer.

  He tired of the game and leaned over the counter to take a look at the object Ahmet had left. He couldn’t quite make out what it was and shifted the magnifying glass so he could examine it more closely.

  He saw a piece of coral intricately carved into a starkly pornographic image of a couple engaged in mutual oral sex, their miniscule genitals exquisitely detailed. A tiny lever on the side of the ma
n’s head seemed to compel him to tug on it with a pair of tweezers lying nearby. The couple performed a harmonious, sinuous and remarkably lifelike movement together.

  “Do you like it?”

  Lacatuchi turned. “It’s quite unusual.”

  “Yes, fine workmanship. Late sixteenth century Persian. It is worth quite a large sum of money.”

  “This time I’m sure of it, but I’m here…”

  “About the orrery,” Ahmet continued smoothly, emphasizing the article. He took the tiny sculpture from Lacatuchi’s hand, put it in a box and placed it carefully in a safe behind the counter. “I’m afraid there has been some kind of mistake. The orrery of which you speak was withdrawn from the market. The planets no longer revolve.”

  Lacatuchi relaxed. “It is true there have been mistakes,” he said. “Since Copernicus.”

  “Since Copernicus, yes. Perhaps I could interest you in something else? A bronze, for instance.”

  “That would depend on the bronze,” the Prior General answered. “If it were part of a set, for instance, I might be interested.”

  “Ah, well, then, I may have just the item.”

  He seemed to materialize a plain box of dull silver about ten centimeters square. This he placed on the counter. When Lacatuchi reached for it the man seized his wrist. “Please, efendim. There is the matter of the fee,” he said.

  “Fee?” The Prior General retrieved his hand. “I was aware of no fee.”

  “Indeed. This item is nearly five hundred years old.”

  “But I understood…”

  “This is the Grand Bazaar, sir, not a charity. We must discuss the arrangements like civilized men.”

  “Very well. How much do you want?”

  But Ahmet had already turned to a small two-burner stove and was heating water. He looked over his shoulder at Lacatuchi with a thin smile. “We’ll have tea, you and I. You would like tea? It is customary, for easing the negotiations.”

  “We’re not negotiating and I don’t want tea,” Lacatuchi said, his patience wearing thin.

  “Then we have no further business.” The shopkeeper removed the box from the counter, turned off the burner and started for the back door.

  “Wait.”

  He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Fluorescent light gave a blue glow to his smooth scalp.

  “Tea, then,” Lacatuchi said, resigned. “Tea would be nice.”

  “Very well.”

  Ahmet offered a chair as if there had been no unpleasantness. He methodically prepared and with great gravity poured tea into two glasses set into intricately worked silver holders. “You have come far today?” he asked, sitting in a second chair by the counter.

  “From France.”

  “Ah, yes, that is far. Or perhaps it is not far in this age of air travel and such. I myself have been to France.”

  “Have you?”

  Ahmet sipped noisily and proceeded to tell the Prior General of the Order of Theodosius about a trip to Marseilles when he was fourteen years old. His father had taken him to visit cousins, who had moved there in the early part of the twentieth century. There was the sea journey on an Italian passenger ship. “We could not go on a Turkish boat,” he explained, sipping his tea. “There were complications with Greece in those days, you understand, over Cyprus. But there were no storms, only smooth seas. It was truly a trip blessed by Allah.”

  Lacatuchi felt out of his depth, but knew better than to take the bait. Though this was not going quite as expected and taking far too long, he wasn’t even going to get a glimpse of the disk unless he continued to play this charade. Besides, he was not here in the dress of his Order, but as a civilian. A theological discussion would help no one.

  “It was a magical time, efendim, that voyage to Marseilles,” Ahmet concluded. “I should have another such one day, insh’allah.”

  At last the matter of price arose. “For an object of such antiquity, and such provenience,” he said, naming a ridiculous figure. “It is from the sixteenth century, you understand. From Rome.”

  “I haven’t even seen the object,” Lacatuchi objected.

  “Of course, that can be arranged, you have only to ask.” Ahmet stood and placed the box once more on the counter. When Lacatuchi took his place opposite he carefully opened the lid.

  A disk of tarnished bronze lay on a bed of crushed maroon velvet. There was a hole in the center where it could be fixed to the outer part, waiting in the safe in Lacatuchi’s room. A series of letters and numbers were engraved around the edge. This was certainly the other half of the Alberti cipher disk.

  “I believe this is the item I’m looking for,” Lacatuchi admitted. “But I can’t be sure.”

  Ahmet gently replaced the cover. “This is the item I have,” he said.

  Lacatuchi always traveled with an ample supply of cash, a necessity for the discreet operation of the Order. He offered half the asking price. Ahmet looked insulted, and claimed his mothers’ mothers would sooner have strangled their children in the crib than accept such an offer.

  They bargained through two more glasses of tea but in the end the Prior General carried the box away with him. He almost collapsed with relief when it fell into place in the rest of the Alberti disk. He had succeeded! Defago and his nun had not let him down, not this time. Tomorrow he would retrieve the document this device was meant to decipher and it would all be over. With the Pythos dead, the Struggle was moving into its final phase. He could taste the triumph.

  He ordered food and wine from room service, took a hot bath and for a change shaved himself. This he did with enormous attention and care. He was unused to this act, but it was a sacrifice he was prepared to make, this ritual shave. After all, he was celebrating a triumph.

  The masseur who appeared later that evening was large and muscular and silent. The bruises on Lacatuchi’s buttocks and thighs would be visible for weeks, the pain had been exquisite, the culmination in all ways fulfilling. The Prior General had no reason to be dissatisfied, no reason at all.

  26.

  Ted had just twisted the lock on the kitchen door when fragments of the wrought iron table and chairs rained against the oak. The seat of one of the chairs crashed through the window, sending a spray of glass fragments into the room and sucking in filaments of smoke behind it. Dishes shattered on the other side of the room.

  The sound of the explosion rang in Lisa’s ears. “What the hell was that?” she cried.

  “Grenade,” Ted answered brusquely, leading the way around a stack of official parish records. In one of the dead ends in that strange chamber made of books he leaned against another stack. It reluctantly swung aside in one mass, revealing the parquet. He kneeled and pressed a series of the planks in a complex pattern. A small wooden lever popped up. This he pulled and a square section of floor dropped away, revealing a ladder.

  “Go!” he commanded. “You first, Lisa.”

  The front door was splintering under a concerted attack. She climbed down, followed by Steve and the others. When they were safely out of the way, Ted pushed the trap door closed and began manipulating a series of wooden levers set into the ceiling.

  “Perhaps we should pick up the pace,” Steve suggested. “You clearly have an escape route, Ted, and as it happens I don’t have a gun. I feel a certain urgency for Lisa’s sake, if not for the rest of us.”

  Ted held up one hand. “Just resetting the lock,” he whispered.

  Footsteps thumped on the floor above them. Someone stopped just overhead.

  Satisfied, Ted led the way to the back of the cellar. Just enough daylight filtered through narrow gaps between the ceiling and the wall to see the dirt floor and a few sticks of rotting furniture.

  Ted pushed a section of wall and an irregular mass opened outward to darkness. Lisa started through but Ted grasped her arm. “Wait,” he whispered, pointing back at the trap door.

  Suddenly a section of the ceiling dropped and a man in the habit of a Dominican monk tumbled through wit
h a shout of surprise. He struggled to his feet, looking around. His face twisted in hatred and Lisa was sure he had spotted them, but a rumbling sound overhead jerked his gaze upward. He raised both hands in a useless attempt to block the cascade of books that quickly buried him. He fell silent. The books continued to fall until a mound reached nearly to the opening in the ceiling.

  “Old dictionaries,” Ted muttered. He urged them through the opening and shut it behind them.

  They were in a narrow, pitch dark space. Lisa felt rough stone on either hand. The ceiling grazed the top of her head. She jerked her foot back when something ran over it. With a reassuring touch of his hand on her back Ted said softly, “Let me lead.” He squeezed past and produced a tiny penlight. “These houses date back to the twelfth century, when this was Cathar country. Pierre Roger, who led the knights defending Mt. Ségur, was from Mirepoix. The Cathars had became adept at evading the Pope’s more zealous representatives in the Inquisition, though of course in the end they were all massacred. Passages like this allowed them to move freely without going outside. This one runs along the back of this whole row of houses, which, by the way, we own.”

  “That’s why you stay in a town like this, because of the Cathars?”

  “Call it tradition,” Ted said, leading them through a series of cellars. “Langedoc has always had a reputation for independent thinking. It’s been a good home. But,” he added cheerfully, looking back, “things change.”

  A hundred meters later he stopped. “End of the line.” Another doorway opened into a basement empty of everything but cobwebs and a narrow set of stairs leading up to a wooden door.

  Beside the stair was a tiny opening, visible by the small amount of light leaked from it. To this he put his eye. “All clear,” he said. “We can go up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Periscope. Following the Cathars, we stay as low tech as possible. Electronics are too easy to detect and track and no one thinks of using mirrors and peepholes any more.” He pushed the door upward and they climbed into the light. Down the block behind them smoke rose into the air. In the distance they could hear sirens.