“Carissa, we left the club shortly before four pm. We went to Charing Cross Station and I took the tube to the office. I’m pretty sure he was heading home then.”
“He should have been here before five. That’s three hours ago. I’ve tried his mobile a dozen times. It goes to voicemail.” Her voice broke. “I’m worried, Brian. This isn’t like him not to call and check in. And he’s really late. Really late.” She was crying now.
“What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure you’re at dinner and I’m probably imposing on you for nothing. Let me give it another half hour or so. If I don’t hear anything by then I’ll start checking hospitals, I guess. But I’ll call you back first.”
Brian filled Cory in on the situation as they snagged tiny dim sum pieces with chopsticks. They decided they would take on the task of calling the police and hospitals if Arthur hadn’t shown up in a half hour.
Twenty minutes later Carissa Borland’s home phone rang. She took the call, hung up and dialed Brian’s number.
Brian’s phone vibrated and he answered immediately. “Any news, Carissa?”
He heard nothing but heaving sobs on the other end.
“Give me a moment,” she finally whispered.
A few seconds later she composed herself and began to speak. “My phone rang – it was Arthur’s number and I was prepared to give him a piece of my mind. But it wasn’t him, Brian. It wasn’t him.” She sobbed. “It was an officer from the Metropolitan Police in London. He was calling me…” She stopped again. “Oh, Brian. He was calling me because he saw my number on Arthur’s phone. He’s dead, Brian.”
“Oh God. Carissa, what…how did it happen?”
She was so overcome she couldn’t speak. Brian knew she was probably by herself. They had no children and lived in a nearby suburb, in one of the row houses so common in outlying parts of London. She would need someone to be with her.
Finally Carissa Borland took a deep breath and said, “All right. I have to get through this. He was riding the train, Brian. All this time. Sometime after he got on at Charing Cross Station he died, somehow. The officer said his head was slumped on his chest and everyone thought he was asleep. He had just been sitting there riding the train for hours, Brian. Dead. His phone kept ringing – those were my calls, of course – and finally one of the passengers heard it and alerted a policeman on the train. That policeman called my number.”
Brian pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket and jotted things down as she continued. The body was being taken to a London hospital where the coroner’s office would investigate the cause of death. The policeman had assured her there was no reason to think foul play was involved but Carissa wondered. She said he had no real health issues other than being slightly overweight, in his fifties and maybe drinking a little too much now and then. Brian agreed with her. The officer had given her his contact information and promised to call her in the morning.
“Carissa, one thing that might be important, or maybe not. Did the policeman tell you he had Arthur’s briefcase? When I last saw him at the station he was carrying it.”
“He didn’t mention it. I’ll check with him tomorrow about that. I can’t imagine anything in it’s very important. Arthur spent a lot of time researching a lot of strange things. I doubt anyone would want what was in his case but people do steal. Someone could have taken it.”
Carissa thanked Brian when he offered to come be with her. “Thanks but I’ll be OK tonight. I’m still in a daze and my dear friend next door is coming over to stay with me. I told her I didn’t need her to do that but…oh, Brian, I’m going to miss Arthur so much.” She cried.
Brian told her how much Arthur’s friendship had meant to him. “A lot of people are going to miss him too, Carissa.”
Brian said he would have a car pick her up first thing tomorrow to bring her to London. They would go to the police station together and talk to the investigating officer. He told her once again how sorry he was and renewed his offer to help, any way, any time. His words came from the heart – Arthur Borland had been one of Brian’s best friends.
-----
“He’s dead. He died peacefully on the train heading home this afternoon.”
“Very good. Everything’s nice and quiet there?”
“Oh yes. He just went to sleep. Like we’d all want to go. All’s well and no one will ever be the wiser.”
“It seems so.” The man hung up, satisfied.
One score settled, this one about halfway wrapped up, and one to go.
Chapter Nineteen
Vatican City/New York
Cardinal Conti gazed for the hundredth time at the photocopied page he had taken from the Pope’s office. He was anxious to compare it to the ancient manuscripts to see if it really represented a way to break the coded pages, but he was forced to be patient. He was playing a game of cat and mouse with Giovanni Moretti.
And when I am through playing the old man will be dead like the rat he has turned out to be. The Cardinal smiled.
As leader of the Church’s Knights Templars, Dominic Conti knew that the four volumes in the papal archives weren’t the ones he needed. He had read each one – they were for the wrong time period. The single volume that mattered was the one that had been missing for over a hundred years, the one that Moretti had. That volume held the coded secrets Conti needed to unlock. Something had happened between 1475 and 1700 – the years covered by the missing manuscript – and Dominic Conti believed he knew what it was. Nova Scotia. Legends of priceless treasures guarded by the Templars. A relic so important it required an engineering accomplishment almost beyond comprehension in the 1600s.
Oak Island. The Templars somehow went to Oak Island. That’s what’s in the missing manuscript, along with the answer to the riddle of what the relic actually is.
While the waiting game with Moretti was going on, it would have been good to see one of the existing volumes of Knights Templar exploits from the archives. Without one of the coded pages in front of him Conti couldn’t try out the decryption page he had stolen from the papal office. He had to wait for Moretti’s manuscript and the others were locked up in the secret archives. Pope Benedict would have retrieved a volume for him but that pontiff was gone. He couldn’t ask the new Pope. Such a request would require too much explanation. And at this point Cardinal Conti was very close to unlocking a mystery. He needed to keep things quiet. So he had to be patient.
Two days later the Cardinal received a call on his cellphone.
“Hello, Giovanni,” Conti answered. “Have you come to your senses?”
“Meet me day after tomorrow at Paolucci Restaurant in Little Italy on Mulberry Street. Twelve noon. You’ll get what you want.”
And you’ll get what you deserve, my friend. “New York, Giovanni? I’m not sure I can clear time so quickly for a trip…”
“Your choice, Eminence. If you want the manuscript you’ll be there.”
“Isn’t it a little dangerous for you to be traveling to the States, Giovanni?”
But there was no response. Moretti had hung up.
Fuming at the continued insolence of this man whose very existence Conti had saved, he forced himself to calm down. He summoned his secretary and booked a seat on tomorrow morning’s Alitalia flight from Rome to New York. She also noted the Cardinal’s request for a room at the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue. It was unusual but not unheard of for Conti to stay somewhere other than the Archbishop’s residence so she didn’t question his instructions.
His next statement did surprise her, though.
“I’ll notify the Archbishop in New York that I’m coming. Leave that with me.”
It was policy that the Archbishop be notified when high-level members of the clergy would be spending the night in New York. She couldn’t recall a time when Cardinal Conti had reserved that right to himself. Something was different this time but she didn’t know what it was. And she certainly wasn’t going to ask.
Wearing the black shirt and slacks of a priest instead of the distinctive red garb of a Cardinal, Dominic Conti flew to New York. He carried a Vatican City diplomatic passport, a privilege accorded to the highest members of the Church’s entourage in Italy, and it enabled him to clear Customs in seconds. Ordinarily the Archdiocese would have had a limousine whisk the cleric to midtown but since no one had been told he was coming, he took a cab.
The desk clerks at the Palace gave the priest no more than a brief glance as they checked him in and swiped his personal credit card. The Palace dealt daily with dignitaries from around the world. When he presented his diplomatic passport from the home base of the Catholic Church no one so much as raised an eyebrow. The clerk might have recognized Conti’s name but discretion was the byword at this posh New York hotel. No one said a thing and Cardinal Dominic Conti, the head of the Vatican Bank and one of the Church’s most powerful people, was soon unpacking his light valise in his room, staying under the radar of his fellow clerics in Manhattan.
An hour later Conti stepped out onto the street. He was wearing a cotton shirt, sweater and blue jeans. This was a serious breach of church rules and Cardinal Conti felt strange wearing street clothing but he couldn’t afford to be seen as a priest. He needed to blend in with thousands of other people hurrying up and down the crowded midtown sidewalks.
Careful to avoid the Archdiocese and St. Patrick’s Cathedral less than two blocks away Conti walked to Fifth Avenue and strolled past the boarded-up hole that had been Bijan Rarities. He wanted to look at the site but there turned out to be nothing to see. A lone NYPD officer stood guard on the sidewalk, nonchalantly watching pedestrian traffic go by. There seemed to be no activity – the wooden door that had been cut into the plywood was securely padlocked.
It was almost six pm and Conti was getting hungry. Thirsty too. He’d had a couple of glasses of wine on the plane but didn’t overindulge. Wearing the clerical garb pointed him out as a man of God. But now he was out of God’s clothes and he wanted a drink. It was dangerous to stay in this part of town so close to the hub of activity for the Archdiocese. Around here he could run into any one of a hundred people he knew so he hailed a cab and gave the driver a downtown address several miles away.
Traffic wasn’t bad going south and within a half hour Dominic Conti was at the bar of Vincent’s, a quiet place frequented by tourists that was across the street from the South Street Seaport. The Cardinal would have far preferred Harry’s at Hanover Square, a great old bar three blocks from Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. He loved the place but in his position as head of the bank he was a well-known patron. Anonymity this time. Perhaps indulgence the next.
Vincent’s was noisy and he sandwiched himself at the bar between two groups of people who had just visited Ground Zero only a few blocks west. Ignoring them as best he could, he ordered a Johnny Walker Blue, water back, and enjoyed the feeling as the premium Scotch went down smoothly. Fine Scotch was one of Dominic Conti’s weaknesses. He had a few others but those wouldn’t be satisfied on this trip. This time he had a mission. He would return with the manuscript. No matter what.
The next morning at 10:30 am Dominic Conti, again dressed in black as a priest, hailed a cab in front of the Palace Hotel and was dropped on Broadway in Chinatown, a teeming, bustling touristy place just north of downtown Manhattan. A hundred tiny stores in a two-block stretch sold knockoffs of everything from Coach bags to Hermes watches to Dior perfume. Barkers called to passersby browsing the crude displays. “Priest! Hey priest!” A Chinese vendor motioned for Conti to come closer. “Want Rolex? Genuine! Only twenty dollar!”
Dominic Conti kept moving, walking slowly and taking his time. Making his way east along Broadway he would eventually come to Little Italy and Mulberry Street. He meandered, looked at the knockoffs for sale and enjoyed the sunny morning. He wanted to arrive at the restaurant ten minutes early so his apparently aimless stroll actually wasn’t that at all. He would be at Paolucci’s a little before twelve.
The Cardinal thought about Giovanni Moretti. Strange that he wanted to meet in Little Italy, a place Conti thought might frighten him at this point in his life. Moretti had a lot of history, a lot of water under a very large bridge, and much of it had involved this scenic, historic part of New York. Little Italy was an area of restaurants, shops and gelato stores today. Once it had teemed with immigrants crowded into dirty tenement buildings. La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, had taken hold when Sicilians brought the ways of the old country to their new home in the United States. A hundred years ago many of Little Italy’s wretched residents looked up to the made men, the enforcers, numbers runners and drug dealers. They were the few who made it out of the environment of the ghetto. They became wealthy, albeit at the expense and lives of others. They were revered, honored, considered great men. But they were actually ruthless criminals – murderers, thieves, bookmakers, creators of prostitution and drug rings. They didn’t make life better. They made it worse.
He turned off Broadway onto Mulberry Street and walked north. The five- and six-story buildings that had been built in the late 1800s to house immigrants looked today much as they had then. It was an interesting, quaint part of New York with narrow streets and another group of street vendors selling clothing, purses and the like. Paolucci Restaurant was two blocks ahead on the left, just past Grand Street.
Conti arrived and saw a couple of waiters putting umbrellas on tables set up on the sidewalk. Another put place settings around – they were almost ready to open. As he walked in a couple of tourists entered behind him, hoping to catch an early lunch.
“Good morning, Father,” the maître d’ said as the Cardinal entered the restaurant. “We’re opening in ten minutes but you’re welcome to take a seat. Will there be just one?”
Conti requested a table for two in the back. He ordered a glass of Chablis, sipped and watched as arriving guests took a couple more tables. About 12:10 a man walked into the restaurant. Expecting Moretti, Conti looked closely. It wasn’t him. Or was it? He watched the man walk straight toward his table. Then he pulled out a chair and sat.
“Who are you?” Conti asked.
The man was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt covered by a light jacket. A baseball cap and dark glasses obscured his face. The man had a moustache and neatly trimmed beard. He was easily four or five inches taller than Giovanni Moretti and had more girth.
“Why, Dominic. I’m disappointed in your abilities to recognize your old friend.”
The Cardinal was astonished at the transformation. He noticed the platform shoes Moretti was wearing and saw that his jacket was well padded, giving the man a hefty look in his chest. “I didn’t think you’d pick Little Italy without doing something to alter your appearance. So why go to all this trouble, Giovanni? Why didn’t we meet in Rome?”
Moretti ignored the cleric and raised a finger to the waiter, placing an order for a bottle of Italian Chardonnay. He said nothing until the bottle arrived, was uncorked and a glass filled. He sat back, savoring the taste.
“I can get this wine all over Italy, Dominic, but somehow it tastes better right here at Paolucci. It must be the atmosphere – the scenery of Mulberry Street just outside. Or maybe it’s just memories.”
The Cardinal sat impassively, seething inside but saying nothing. He let the old man waste time talking, doing it his way.
“I love this place, Dominic. It was my favorite restaurant when I lived in New York. Our waiter – his name is Salvatore. He’s from Sicily, where I’m originally from. He knew me well five years ago. But he doesn’t recognize me now. I’ve transformed, Dominic. I’m a new man!” He looked smugly at the cleric.
“Everyone in Little Italy knew you well five years ago, Giovanni. Can we get to the subject?”
“You’ll get indigestion if you don’t stop worrying so much, Dominic. We’re going to have a nice lunch like old friends do when they get together. You’re going to be civil and so am I. And in the end maybe everything will turn
out the way you hope it will.” He smiled broadly and opened his menu, ignoring the Cardinal’s glare.
Dominic controlled his emotions. Keep calm. Let him think he’s winning. All I want is what I came for. We’ll see who ultimately wins this battle.
The men each ordered a light lunch. As they ate Moretti said, “It should be obvious why we’re meeting in New York, Dominic. The manuscript you want is here. You have a diplomatic passport. You can carry it back to Rome without so much as a raised eyebrow. I, on the other hand, would have a problem transporting the manuscript that precipitated the Fifth Avenue bombing. Thanks to the press the world knows there’s a old book somewhere and a huge reward tied to it. So now do you see my logic?” He smiled.
The Cardinal was tired of all this. “All right, Giovanni. Enough games. Where’s the manuscript?”
The old man ignored the question. “This job was expensive, Dominic. I have plenty, yes, but the Knights Templars order is gaining something you obviously want very much. A priceless object, I think. Am I correct?”
It took all the patience Conti had to maintain his composure. What on earth was this idiot doing? Was this an extortion attempt?
“Are you holding the manuscript for ransom, Giovanni?” the Cardinal said calmly.
“The Church has unlimited assets, Dominic. And I, I’m just a poor peasant from Sicily who’s made a few fortuitous investments in the past. I’ve been blessed, certainly, but one can always use a bit more to ensure a comfortable retirement. I think five million dollars would be fair for this document you want so badly. What do you think?” Moretti smiled and leaned back in his chair.
“Bastardo! You made your millions running a drug syndicate, Giovanni. You helped untold thousands of American children become drug addicts. You smug bastardo. You and I had a deal. A quid pro quo. You owe me for your very existence and I asked you to repay the favor. Now you’re trying to extort five million dollars? How quickly you’ve forgotten how confining your prison cell was. Perhaps I can help you learn again. Eh, Giovanni?”
Brian Sadler Archaeology 04 - The Bones in the Pit Page 10
