Tomb of the First Priest: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  Tina made a noise like a dog being kicked. “No. Please...”

  “But the good news is, new hostage! So it’s like this now: we won’t kill your daughter if you cooperate. Okay?”

  Before he could observe the woman’s reaction, Jules ducked back into the office. Who else could be with Giovani Trussot right now? The people who stole the manuscript from Windsor?

  Or, more likely...

  Jules reactivated his earbud, hoping the cell phone network connected out here. It did. Just took a second. “Anyone hear me?”

  No answer.

  “Anyone?”

  A rattle sounded. Charlie’s voice: “I can. Is that you, Jules?”

  “Yeah. I gotta ask, are the others meeting with Giovani Trussot? At his apartment?”

  “Yes. Dan and Toby agreed they couldn’t get into the airfield—”

  “Well I did. I been listening. Giovani’s being watched. There’s a bomb in his place, and it’s about to go off.”

  “What?”

  “Betcha they’re jamming the cell signal again. Ask ’em.”

  Movement on the other end. Then, “They can’t hear me. I can’t warn them.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The penthouse elevator required a keycard, which was less of a problem than the front gate. Picking that would have taken fifteen minutes, even for someone as skilled as Harpal, but Charlie had engineered eleven cards of differing sizes for such electronic measures. Each was chipped with administrator privileges for the eight biggest manufacturers and software providers of elevators in Europe and the US, the sizes varying by only millimeters, meaning Harpal simply had to find the correct one to override security.

  Sure enough, Giovani’s building owners had opted for a top-five specialist.

  The elevator hummed to a stop on ten. Dan’s and Harpal’s Glocks were already drawn. The doors parted.

  They stepped out into a thickly carpeted hallway. As expected, the elevator car opened directly into the apartment, a pair of double doors directly ahead. Not the type to be dead bolted or armored.

  Bridget and Toby held back while Harpal followed Dan’s silent orders.

  Dan knelt by the handles that met in the middle. Nodded. Harpal took that to mean there was no need to pick them. Dan rose and, yes, drew back his leg and kicked forward. The door burst inward, and Harpal trailed in Dan’s wake, splitting off exactly as the ex–military man rehearsed with him many, many times.

  Now wasn’t the time for second-guessing him.

  While Dan arrowed right into the open-plan living area, Harpal pealed left into a spacious kitchen with a massive stove and long, stone-topped counters. Very clean. Bright.

  “Clear.”

  Harpal turned and followed his gun out into the next corridor, delving into the dark and throwing open the first door. No noise. He flicked on the light. A bedroom. He checked under the silk-adorned bed and in the walk-in closet. No one.

  “Clear.”

  Back out and down to the next room. Another bedroom, a spare by the looks of it, draped in netting and fine cotton linen. He performed the usual sweep.

  “Clear.”

  Then it was the corridor again. They had a basic layout in mind, so it wasn’t unexpected that this passage circled around to the living area that Dan was taking on. When Harpal poked his gun and head around the corner, he found a sunken section with couches and chairs, an open fireplace in the middle with no flames, and around the upper level was dotted the latest technology—curved TVs, a digital stereo, two impressive computers at desks with state-of-the-art monitors. What was missing, however, was any artwork.

  The owner was seated on one of the cream leather sofas with his hands linked atop his head, Dan perched on the end, holding the man at gunpoint. “You just ignoring me again?”

  “I didn’t hear you,” Harpal said.

  “Updates, Harpal. Key here is communication.”

  “I called ‘clear’ on every room.”

  Dan held still. Flicked his eyes to Giovani. “You got a cell jammer in here?”

  Giovani shook his head.

  From the elevator, Toby and Bridget approached tentatively.

  “It’s okay.” Harpal beckoned them. “Just him.”

  “We couldn’t hear you, and you can’t hear us.” Toby indicated his ear.

  “They’re coming,” Bridget said, “aren’t they?”

  Dan gripped his gun. A half smile. Like he was dying for the opportunity to prove something. “Yeah. They’re coming.”

  Jules skirted the edge of the aircraft hanger’s mezzanine, trying not to think about the fate of Bridget and her gang.

  For the first time in his life, Jules felt bad about going his own way. He should have waited, brought them, showed them he was right instead of shutting them down and taking off. Nothing he could do about it, though, so he had to press ahead with his own business, hoping Charlie found a way to get in touch with them.

  One ex-girlfriend called him a sociopath, but that wasn’t true; he felt sad. He wanted to explore the notion of friendship, especially since he was so close to his goal, and Bridget was a smart one. Toby was dull but smart, someone Jules could probably hold a conversation with once he trained the old man to temper his unnecessary filler chat. Harpal was interesting enough, and Charlie knew her own mind, which was always a plus, while Dan was a closed-off alpha who would likely never really warm to Jules no matter what. Four out of five wasn’t bad.

  On the mezzanine, no one had turned on the lights, but he wasn’t invisible. He stuck to the walls, making slow progress. The stairs were out because he would simply emerge into the lit section. Neither could he leap out onto the jet itself for fear of the noise and the sudden shift in weight.

  So—inventory.

  Three throwing knives.

  His multitool with—among other things—snips, screwdrivers, Allen wrenches, and pliers.

  Cell phone routed through a satellite comms system.

  He’d used all his flashbangs, and his bungee cord was dangling from a low-end clothing boutique above Rome.

  Which left an option he didn’t like: jump down, beat up Valerio, steal the manuscript.

  The possibility of silence while doing that was slim but not impossible. If Valerio raised the alarm, Jules would be facing two armed mercs of indeterminate skill; they might be local knuckle-dragging thugs hired at the last minute, or they could be ex–Navy SEALs.

  Big risk.

  Valerio stood over the woman, Tina, who examined the first pages.

  “I will be some time,” the woman said glumly. “Coffee would help.”

  Valerio rocked on his heels and glanced around as if expecting a servant to pop up with a tray. When no one emerged, he shrugged, gave a mild chuckle, and turned with his hands in his pockets. Jules lost sight of him as he wandered beneath the mezzanine to a presumed kitchen.

  A kettle started to boil.

  The woman turned a page. Read for several moments. Made notes.

  Jules hated guesswork, yet he couldn’t help hypothesizing.

  If Toby and Bridget were correct, Thomas commenced his ministering with this document already in place—his transcription of Herodias’s stolen book concerning the bangle that her brother had gifted her. He then added to it as he learned more about the bangles that Philip had held on to for safekeeping. When Thomas discovered where it led him, he sent for the bangles. Then—because Philip was murdered in the meantime—he split them up.

  The reasons were irrelevant. What mattered was that Thomas authored a document concerning his travels while in possession of the bangles. A document that was already partially written before he departed for Syria. Meaning the bulk of the earlier pages were nothing to do with Thomas’s travels.

  Conclusion?

  The juicy business was at the back, perhaps even the location of the Mary bangle.

  Either the prisoner did not know, or she was stalling intentionally.

  The kettle clicked to a finish, and Ju
les listened to Valerio stirring a cup. Assuming Valerio would return at roughly the same angle he exited, Jules made a decision: he was going to drop the eight feet to the hangar’s floor, render Valerio unconscious before he could raise the alarm, then swipe the book, and work out an exact escape route afterward.

  That all rode on the notion that the Aradia bangle—the one belonging to Jules—was not present. If it were here, Jules would take it and Valerio could keep the damn book. Mission over.

  Footsteps.

  Jules crouched, hands on the rail. Waiting for that mop of blond to pass beneath him. He again ran through how fast he’d hit the floor, how much he’d need to cushion it through bent knees, and the biology of how much pressure to exert on Valerio’s carotids while applying a sleeper hold.

  An engine’s low growl accompanied the crunch of tires on loose stone, and a headlight swept into the hangar. Jules didn’t need to see who was here; he recognized the noise. Horse killed the engine of the Ducati Monster 1200 and strode toward Valerio, who emerged carrying a steaming coffee cup. Horse now had a bandage poking out of his cuff, courtesy of Jules’s blade, adding to the injury sustained in Prague.

  “Is it done?” Valerio asked.

  “Just waiting for confirmation,” Horse replied. “Soon as we got the woman’s kids in sight, we’ll light the others up.”

  “I am cooperating,” Tina Trussot said. “Please do not do this.”

  The two men looked at her. Horse deferred to Valerio, an air of sympathy about him.

  Valerio shook his head. “Do it. Do it now.”

  Horse keyed his cell phone, held it to his ear, and stepped away toward the bike to speak.

  Valerio leaned over the table and put the coffee down. He lowered his face to the same level as Tina’s. His hand pressed down over the book, closing it. “We have to leave now. You’re coming with us.”

  “But—”

  “No, no.” Valerio wagged his finger at her. “No buts. Just take this...” He slid the manuscript toward her. “Continue on the plane.”

  Jules couldn’t just drop in now, not with Horse there. And as Tina boarded Valerio’s jet with the document, swiping it and running like the wind was suddenly so much harder.

  Jules took in the space again just to be sure. On his second sweep, in the very top corner, he spotted a possibility. He slowly, silently retreated into the office and tapped his earpiece back on.

  “Charlie? You there? I got an idea.”

  “You’ll have to hold,” Charlie replied. “I’m busy.”

  In her Greenwich home, Charlie Locke spun between three PCs. Phil was bathing Joan, the youngest of their three kids, while Alexander read a story to his older sister, Boadie. The den was part of their double garage, converted for just this purpose. She had paired the setup with the Demon Server in Brittany, but the original plan had been to program her bespoke IT project with algorithms that were supposed to perform most of her job for LORI without her physically being around.

  It was no longer her world. Not after the scramble for historical artifacts and straight-up treasure hunting had intensified into a fight for people’s lives. At one point, she found Toby planning an almost paramilitary operation, seeking to recruit the sorts of mercenaries contracted to Valerio Conchin’s payroll and maybe even Colin Waterston’s. That was the first time she quit the institute.

  The second was when her lover—now her husband—almost died.

  There had been other resignations and other one-last-jobs, but it wasn’t until Bridget came on board and softened Toby’s ambitions somewhat—or at least his outlook—that Charlie recommitted her skills, albeit part time. The Demon Server was one of only two demands.

  First, allow her to develop algorithms for code breaking, facial recognition software to scrub LORI’s images from the net, and the rendering of geographical imagery.

  And second, to avoid the type of situation they’d been sucked into tonight—work that endangered her friends.

  Once Jules hit her up with the fact a bomb was about to kill four of the best people she’d ever known, she performed some of her most intense work, hoping the baths would stall Phil long enough for her to escape having to explain why she was breaking her promise to him again. It should all be behind her, yet she had to do this, contacting authorities via blind comms links, tracing the source of the jamming beacon, and tapping into someone’s security feed in their home across the street to observe.

  The Internet of Things was wonderful for people like her; she could hack a toaster or a washing machine if she chose.

  After calling the Italian emergency services and failing to find an English speaker, all she could do with regard to the police was issue an alert that terrorists were making bombs in the penthouse apartment where Giovani lived. She manufactured intelligence that appeared to be from Europol that an attack was imminent. Still, no squad of armed polizia had swarmed forth. So she tried something else.

  Something that she didn’t think could work, but it was her final shot.

  Three minutes later, her screen filled with white light.

  “Still nothing.” Dan stepped away from the window, tension squirming through every limb.

  Harpal kept his gun aimed down the elevator corridor. “Think they’re waiting for us to come out?”

  Toby had been watching the back windows from the safety of the kitchen island in case the glass exploded inward. He called to them, “Nothing here either.”

  Dan had stashed Bridget and Giovani in the walk-in closet, the back of which opened into a panic room. All Giovani’s camera feeds entered there although only the hardwired signals remained. One of those was the roof, which looked empty. Bridget ran in every five minutes to tell Dan this, although he only wanted to know if contact was imminent, not that everything was fine.

  He massaged his brow, the stiffness in his skin suggesting he’d been frowning for some time. “They’re waiting for us to come out. We got the high ground, we got a swanky neighborhood. One gunshot, one phone call, the cops’ll be here in minutes.”

  Bridget wandered in. A vacant expression this time, not the whirlwind of information as she had been the past three times.

  “What?” Dan said.

  “Come look at this.” She twisted her head behind her and back again. “It’s weird.”

  Reluctant to leave his post, he figured following her was quicker than getting her to talk; she’d picked up Toby’s bad habit of overexplaining everything from historical oddities to which direction she walked home from the store.

  In the panic room, Dan found Giovani staring at the monitor, a cathode ray model that likely came with the room when it was installed circa 1985.

  “So instead of the wide angle I instructed,” Dan said, “you’ve zoomed in, narrowing the field of view and leaving us vulnerable. Nice.”

  It was one of the things he never got used to outside the army. When an officer or team leader says something, you do it. If someone in your unit with vastly more experience outlines a danger, a good team leader listens, and in most cases follows the suggestion. When tracing an ancient Hebrew map through a cave system, Bridget and Toby had an edge, but when defending a position against superior odds, Dan was king.

  “No, look.” Bridget tapped her fingertip on one of the apartments across the street. The camera didn’t zoom particularly well, but it was clear what she meant. “Is this intentional?”

  A light in the apartment turned on and off at semiregular intervals.

  “Can’t be,” Dan said.

  “What is it?” Giovani asked. “Is the power going to go out? I have a backup, I think, but—”

  Dan held up a hand to cut him off, concentrating on the Morse code flashing. “o-m-b-o.”

  “Ombo?” Bridget said. “What’s ‘obmo’ mean?”

  “It’s Charlie.” Dan hustled Giovani from his seat and pushed them toward the exit. “o-m-b-o-o-m-b-o. Or b-o-o-m.”

  Bridget rushed out ahead. “Boom?”

 
Dan guided them harder, faster toward the exit. “She probably means ‘bomb.’ Charlie sucks at Morse code.” Back in the living space, he didn’t stop. “Out. Now. Evac.”

  Neither Harpal nor Toby questioned him, just trailed behind quickly, Harpal bringing up the rear with his Glock pointed to the floor. Dan pulled the fire alarm, which set off a wailing siren, and red bulbs flashed nearby. Then he hit the crash bar to the emergency stairs and took point as they dropped one flight after another. He urged them to remain one floor behind him in case Horse planned an ambush.

  On the ground floor, Dan slipped into the lobby, other residents joining them, some milling around in their comfortable evening wear, some in pajamas, a couple in suits looking incredibly annoyed. Not upscale enough for a doorman, it nonetheless boasted impressive faux-marble fittings and a solid bank of mailboxes. Dan was about to take charge, using Giovani as a translator, when a thunderous roar shook the building.

  Lights flashed, the floor trembled. People fell. Others ran out the front but quickly ducked back inside as debris rained down.

  Smoke and dust billowed as everyone froze, awaiting a signal that they were safe.

  When the shower outside ceased, residents ventured out a handful at a time. Dan took the others with him, keeping low, using the crowd as cover. After a moment of quiet, Dan led them into the street, virtually dragging Giovani as he wafted at the remnants of the gray dust cloud hanging in the air.

  He could just about make out that the top floor was gone. There weren’t many flames, but a couple licked the night air. The floor below the penthouse was toast too, and Dan hoped they’d acted quickly enough to get everyone clear.

  The racket of emergency vehicles closed in.

  Dan led the group back to their car, a block away, eyes peeled for tails or loitering individuals. He saw no one. After a swift but thorough check under the SUV, Dan unlocked it, and everyone scrambled inside.