The Vivaldi Cipher

by Gary McAvoy

  “From the details you found in Feudatario’s files,” Contini explained, “I have marked the locations of those paintings we must examine. This will save us a bit of time, I think.” He had slashed red ‘X’s along certain walls in each of the many galleries, halls, and pavilions of each institution.

  “I have called ahead to the directors of each gallery, informing them of our arrival and mission. They will be most cooperative.”

  “I’m still not sure why it’s necessary that we come along,” Hana said, “not that I ever mind visiting Florence.” It being a warm day, she drank thirstily from her water bottle.

  “Well, first,” Dominic said, “Agent Contini might need help from the Vatican, which I can more easily accommodate. Second, look at this as a great story idea—Historical forgeries through the centuries! Not that the Church wants that kind of publicity, but you could surely work around the more sensitive parts, if you were so inclined. And last, who doesn’t want unrestricted access to two of the foremost art galleries in the world?! I have to admit, it’s that last part that intrigues me most. Amazing how many doors a badge can open.” He looked at Contini, who smiled self-importantly.

  “Besides,” the agent added, “the more proof we have, the faster we can shut down those scoundrels at Feudatario. They’ve been getting away with this for far too long. It would be good to see them all find a new home in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison.”

  “Where they can join our old nemesis, Cardinal Dante,” Hana said with some satisfaction, referring to the former archbishop of Buenos Aires who had been incarcerated as a result of their last adventure together.

  “From what I recall,” Dominic said, “Marcello Sabatini had already notified the curator at the Uffizi, Giancarlo Piovani, about Operation Scambio. He’s probably the one we should speak with there.”

  “Yes, it was he with whom I spoke,” Contini confirmed. “We will meet with him first.”

  Begun in 1560 as a repository for the vast personal art collection of Cosimo I de Medici and his family—along with administrative offices for Florentine magistrates at the time—the Uffizi Gallery is one of Italy’s most prominent museums and undoubtedly its most popular.

  Home to an immense and comprehensive collection of Florentine paintings from the Late Gothic, Renaissance, and Mannerist periods, the Uffizi’s needs for restoration were frequently outsourced to qualified specialists known for their dedication to preserving the finest of the finest.

  After the taxi bus dropped them off at the entrance to the gallery on the banks of the Arno River, Dominic and the others walked through the grand façade on Piazzale degli Uffizi and on into the grand atrium, where they were met by Signor Piovani, the chief curator.

  “Let us go to my office upstairs,” he offered.

  “Michael,” Karl said, “Since you’re in good hands here, Lukas and I are just going to explore the museum, if that’s alright. Call us if we’re needed?”

  “You bet, Karl, have fun.”

  Leading the others down the West Corridor, Piovani walked them up the great 16th-century marble Buontalenti Staircase to the second floor, then past the Barocci and Lombard Rooms, the Tintoretto and Veronese Halls, and across the second corridor to the administrative offices overlooking the river.

  Dominic, Hana, and Marco’s heads were spinning, trying to take in the stunning works of art they passed despite the speed Piovani was traveling, hoping they might have time to see more of the treasures after their meeting.

  After introductions were made, they each took a seat in the curator’s office, then Contini began.

  “It is my understanding, signore, that you have been in contact with Signor Sabatini at the Vatican regarding this Camorra operation they call Scambio. Is that right?”

  “Si, I have spoken with Marcello. This is all very disturbing, since we have done business with Feudatario Restorations for decades. In fact, I have only learned today that we just shipped Tintoretto’s Leda and the Swan to Venice yesterday for some minor work. On its return, I shall inspect it most carefully myself to ensure it is the authentic one we sent.”

  “May we see these paintings on which Feudatario has done work in the past?” Contini presented a list of some twenty artists and titles. “We got these names from their own records, and I would like to make sure you have the originals and not the forgeries.”

  “Of course, signore. We will begin with the Titians.”

  Piovani led them through various rooms and smaller galleries dedicated to each artist, where Contini, wearing white cotton gloves, inspected various sections of each selected piece closely with a magnifying loupe and a blacklight pen, lightly touching the paint in certain sections to ensure nothing rubbed off on his gloves, and generally looking for telltale forgery flaws.

  “If you have not yet had these X-rayed, signore, I would suggest that you do so at once,” Contini suggested, “and while you are at it, put tiny grains of the paint through spectroscopic analysis. It would be a wise investment of your time, I assure you.”

  Signor Piovani swallowed hard as he nodded, the obvious insinuation from Contini’s words disturbing.

  Looking down the hall, Hana excused herself to use the ladies room.

  “I’ll go with you and find the gent’s,” Marco said. “They must be next to each other.”

  “I know what you’re doing, you know,” she said, looking into Marco’s eyes.

  “No, really! I do need to use the men’s room… but I still have a job to do.” He smiled at her as they turned back toward the west corridor and down the stairs to the entrance and restrooms.

  Dominic watched them walk away arm in arm and took a deep breath. I’ve got to let this go… What the hell’s wrong with me?!

  With their footsteps echoing down the marble hall, Hana took in the ancient statuary and Renaissance paintings as they walked, while Marco instinctively looked at people. Not being peak tourist season yet, the museum was sparsely occupied.

  Turning the corner to the restrooms, Marco stopped in his tracks. Looking toward the entrance of the museum, he recognized a man he had seen before heading to the door. Before exiting, the man turned and looked directly at Marco, then ran outside.

  It was the guard from Feudatario who Karl had taken down!

  “I’ll be right back, Hana. I think I saw someone I know.” Rather than run and draw attention to himself, Marco walked hurriedly toward the exit.

  The housekeeping staff had been cleaning the ladies’ room as Hana approached the doorway. The maid had parked a large rolling janitor’s trolley just outside the door as she was coming out.

  “You can go in now, signorina. I’m finished,” she said, avoiding Hana’s eyes.

  As Hana entered the room, her phone rang. It was her grandfather, Armand de Saint-Clair. As she made her way to a stall, she answered it.

  “Bonjour, Grand-père! So lovely to hear from you. Can I call you ba—”

  Just as she was about to open the lavatory door, someone in the next stall was coming out. Before she said another word, she was grabbed from behind by a man, pushed inside the cramped stall, and a cloth with the distinct smell of chloroform was pressed firmly over her mouth and nose. Trying to fend off her attacker, she let go of the phone, which clattered to the floor. She flung her arms futilely to escape as darkness enveloped her mind. In ten seconds she hung limp in the stranger’s grip.

  The maid quickly came back in rolling the trolley in front of her. She and her male accomplice picked Hana up and squeezed her body in the lower section, which was hidden by cloth drapes on all sides. Wheeling the bin out of the room, they headed down the hall to a door marked Privato. Using a key from a ring on his belt, the man unlocked it, then pushed the trolley through, closing the door behind them. They were now in the maintenance area, with a loading dock on the outside wall.

  The woman ran to an exit door next to a truck ramp and opened it. A white delivery van was waiting for them just outside, its engine rumbling. The man took Hana’s
body out from under the trolley, tossed her over his shoulder, then placed her in the back of the van. Both of them jumped in behind Hana and slammed the door shut. The vehicle started up and made its way out of employees’ parking lot, losing itself in the heavy traffic of Florence.

  Exiting the museum, Marco raced after the Feudatario guard, who had just turned a corner. Running as fast as he could, he finally reached the corner, only to see a green Peugeot SUV speeding away. No one else was in the vicinity. The car had obviously been waiting, motor running. Merde! MERDE!

  Have I been played?

  Racing back into the Uffizi, Marco ran toward the restrooms. He pounded on the door to the ladies room.

  “Hana?” he shouted. “HANA?!” No answer. He opened the door and asked if anyone was in there. Again, no answer. Pushing his way inside, he slammed open every stall door. Hana wasn’t there. But he found an iPhone on the floor in one stall, the glass face of it covered in cracks. He picked it up and pocketed it.

  Running back through the museum, taking the steps two at a time back upstairs to where they had left Dominic and the others, he finally found the group. Gasping, he asked, “Has Hana come back here?”

  Dominic looked surprised. “No, last time we saw her was when you two left.”

  Breathing heavily, Marco cursed again, hands on his hips, walking in tight, frenzied circles.

  “They have her, Michael… The bastards took Hana!”

  Chapter 40

  Pierluigi Falco snapped open a vial of smelling salts under Hana Sinclair’s nose. Awakening with a jerk of her head, she turned away from the acrid smell of ammonia and groggily opened her eyes.

  “What happened? Where am I? Who are you?”

  “You can call me Pierluigi. As for the other questions, we’ll have time for those,” Falco replied softly with a vague lisp. “First, sit up and have some water.”

  Hana pulled herself up from the bed she had been lying on. The youngish man standing over her was of average height and bony thin, with sparse blond hair and a sallow, pitted face. He seemed kind enough. But then she remembered this wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

  “So, I assume you’re part of the Camorra, and that I’ve been kidnapped?” she asked almost matter-of-factly. After smelling the water, she took a sip.

  “Kidnapping brings up such crude images. Let’s just say you’re our guest here for a while.”

  “How long is a while, Pierluigi? And where is ‘here’?”

  “So many questions, and such a clever girl,” Falco said, feyly cocking his head and smiling mischievously. “I can’t tell you that now, can I?”

  What a strange creature, Hana thought. She looked around the room, which was decorated in purple themes, with whimsical furniture and crazed wall hangings, an orange lava lamp on the nightstand and bookshelves packed with creepy dolls of every nationality. Hana felt like a captive in Alice’s Wonderland.

  She also noticed the windows had bars on the outside, and she was in a building three or four stories up. Maybe this was an asylum.

  “Now you just relax here for a while and I’ll bring you a nice dinner later on,” Falco singsonged. Wriggling his fingers as he waved back to her, he left the room, then closed and locked the door from the outside.

  “I never should have let myself be drawn out like that,” Marco said, punishing himself for leaving Hana unprotected.

  “While I wouldn’t argue with you on that,” Dominic said, “now is not the time for self-recrimination. What does your instinct tell you they might do to her, Marco?”

  The former Green Beret paced the room, thinking.

  “I expect this might be in retaliation for something I did at Feudatario yesterday. Without going into details, I retrieved Livia’s computer and got in some payback for her murder. But they know we mean business now.”

  “Oh, great,” Dominic sniped. “And look what ‘meaning business’ has gotten us into now.”

  “Michael, I truly am sorry. But insulting me won’t help matters. Let’s try to work this out together, alright?”

  Dominic reddened, then softened his tone. “Alright. Sorry. So now what?”

  “I have to think that bringing harm to Hana will not further their interests. Quite the opposite, it will bring down an army of hurt on them, and they know that, given the authorities are helping us out. No, I think something else is at play here. We’ll just have to wait and see, hoping they contact us. Florence is a big place, and Hana would be impossible to find here.”

  There was something about what Marco had just said that struck Dominic as familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. What was it? What’s so familiar?

  Then he remembered.

  “Marco! Hana might still have an AirTag in her wallet! We tested this about a year ago and it came in handy during a similar emergency. Hana had been kidnapped by the Ustasha, and we used an AirTag to find her!”

  “What is this AirTag?” Marco asked.

  “It’s an ultra-compact disc, a tracking device developed by Apple that carries Bluetooth and ultra-wideband signals. You can affix them to most any object you want to keep track of, and locate them from any distance using the ‘Find My’ app. All the tag needs is any iPhone within a ten-meter range to relay its low-energy encrypted signal, even a phone belonging to someone else in a crowd! The tag then sends its location signal to the home device—that would be my iPhone—using iCloud and, as you French would say, et voila! The tag is found. Hopefully Hana still has it in her bag, and they’ve let her keep it.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?!” Marco urged him excitedly. “Open your iPhone!”

  Just then, Dominic’s phone rang. Surprised at the timing, he looked up at Marco, then answered it on speaker so they both could listen.

  “Is this Father Dominic?” the voice asked.

  “It is. Who’s this?”

  “My name is irrelevant. But I imagine you know by now that we have your friend, Signorina Sinclair. Be assured no harm will come to her as long as you do exactly as I ask.”

  “And that is…?”

  “She is the granddaughter of Baron Armand de Saint-Clair, chairman of Banque Suisse de Saint-Clair in Geneva, yes?”

  “I’m sure you already know she is,” Dominic snapped. “So what’s your point?”

  “We are holding your friend in exchange for two million euros. It should be a simple matter for the baron to arrange, in small denominations, non-sequential. You have twenty-four hours. Keep your phone near you, Padre. We will call back then with further instructions.” The caller hung up.

  Dominic’s fingers raced to locate the Find My app, then tapped on it to open. He punched the menu option for “Hana’s Wallet,” then waited for it to find the signal.

  It showed the last known location was at the museum, in the restroom most likely, and the time shown was about fifteen minutes ago.

  “Well, this means one of two things. First, no one near her has an active iPhone—at least not yet. Second, she may have previously removed the AirTag from her bag. Though I can’t imagine her doing that, since she knows it’s come in handy more than once. Unless she’s changed bags.”

  “Didn’t you say she kept it in her wallet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, women may change bags frequently, depending on the outfit, but the wallet usually remains the same,” Marco asserted confidently. “But you could not be expected to know that. After all, you are not French.”

  Dominic sighed and rolled his eyes. “I also happen to be a priest, one with little experience in women’s handbag etiquette.”

  Marco regarded him, then nodded. “Oui. That makes sense too.”

  “We just need to keep checking back, hoping someone with an iPhone comes near her bag.”

  “I don’t know that I have the patience for that,” Marco agonized. “I’m still kicking myself for such a foolish rookie mistake.”

  “Again, no argument from me,” Dominic said, then quickly added, “but it isn’
t like I haven’t also made serious mistakes. We just go on from here.” He wanted to resent Marco’s error for other reasons beyond his failure at protecting his best friend but the tension between them served no purpose. Nothing mattered at the moment but saving Hana.

  “I suppose I’ll have to call the baron and get things moving.” Marco said. “But if we do find Hana’s location, be prepared for battle. Let’s get Karl and Lukas prepped, too. Good thing they came with us.”

  Dominic’s phone rang again. “Speak of the devil, it’s Armand. You should take it.”

  Marco snatched the phone from Dominic’s hand, answering it.

  “Baron, it’s Marco. Yes, Michael is with me here. I’m sorry to report I have some bad news.” He listened to the baron say he had just been speaking with Hana when the line went dead. Marco then related the events and the kidnappers’ demands, asking how he would like to handle the situation.

  “Well, of course money is not an issue. I’ll arrange for that immediately,” Saint-Clair said tersely, “but how could you let this happen, Marco? I trusted you to protect Hana from just this kind of thing!”

  “Sir, you know I will do everything in my power to get her back. Michael and I have a plan but it depends on technology and logistics; I won’t go into details, but if it works, I will personally handle the situation and bring Hana back safely. We also have two very capable Swiss Guards here to help us out. You must trust me, Baron. I will not fail you.” With a mixture of fury and embarrassment, Marco’s face was glistening with a light sheen of sweat as he paced the room while speaking.

  The baron was just as apprehensive. “I will have two million euros wired to the BNP Paribas bank in Florence when we’re finished here. It will be in my account there, accessible in your name, Marco. Do whatever it takes to get my granddaughter back safely. Based on what she’s already told me, I assume you’re dealing with the Camorra?”