The Book of Bones (Harvey Bennett Thrillers 7)

by Nick Thacker

  “Looks like they just sealed it off,” Ben said. “It’s dusty and dank in here. No one’s using this place anytime soon.”

  “Those guys behind us will,” Julie said, shuffling around Ben and out into the main room. “There’s got to be a door out of here, right?”

  She saw it before she’d finished the sentence, and in another few seconds they were standing in front of a standard-sized door. The knob was locked. Ben tried shimmying it, but the door seemed to be locked from the outside as well.

  “It won’t budge,” Ben said. “Hold on, I think I can break —”

  A tapping sound rang from the other side of the door. A nervous rattling joined in, and Julie looked at Ben.

  Then she heard a sound from behind them — footsteps.

  “We’re out of time,” she whispered. “The soldiers are here.”

  “And whoever’s on the other side of this door is unlocking it,” Ben added.

  They stood, hand-in-hand, waiting for the door to open.

  Footsteps fell upon the stairs behind the door in the nook. Heavy, brooding pounding from the soldiers’ boots.

  Julie closed her eyes.

  The door opened, and the entire room was filled with brilliant light.

  Ben rushed forward, pulling Julie along with him. He ran through the shape in the open doorway and out into the hall, and Julie nearly fell over as she stumbled out. Two shapes, each brandishing an assault rifle, swung by Ben and through the open door. Ben turned and slammed the door shut again behind them, already shouting before they’d even had a chance to see who had freed them. He heard gunfire being shared by both sides.

  “Get — the door — the soldiers…” he panted. “Chasing us… lock it down and get some guards. We’re —”

  “Right on time,” a man said. He had a thick Italian accent, but spoke with an authority and confidence that told Julie more than his words. “Although I am surprised you came with no weapons.”

  Julie saw the man just as he spoke. Wearing an all-black uniform, a holstered sidearm, and a grisly looking assault rifle slung over his shoulder. He had a short beard on a rounded face, but Julie could tell the man was far from pudgy. About fifty- or fifty-five years old, he wore his weight well, and she assumed that most of that weight was muscle mass.

  The man was flanked by two more similarly dressed men, but both seemed at least a decade younger. Their eyes were on Julie and Ben, but she could tell they were examining the door in their peripheral vision. Waiting. For whatever would come out of it.

  The leader casually stepped forward and placed his hand on a locking mechanism, then pushed the door closed. He locked it, then slid a bracing bar mounted onto the front of the door down into a cavity in the floor.

  He reached to a walkie-talkie on his belt and spoke into it; the words clipped Italian. “Rochat, Gerber, rapporto.” He waited a moment, holding a hand up to his ear as he listened to the response.

  Apparently satisfied, he nodded. Julie heard no more gunshots coming from the opposite side of the wall. The battle in the tunnel had ended.

  When he stepped back, Julie noticed that the door was completely camouflaged in the hallway wall. Even the molding and trim ran alongside the exterior of the door, a continuous line that split the light floral wallpaper on the top half of the wall from the dark blue paint on the bottom half.

  Aside from the tiny metal lock and the brace, the door leading into the old bathroom would have been invisible.

  “An old water closet, as you may have gathered.”

  “I thought this hotel was built in the ‘90s,” Julie said.

  “Indeed it was,” the man answered, turning to face her. “But it sits atop an older structure that was repurposed. The bottom floor — specifically this room and a few others like it — have remained sealed and unchanged.”

  “You mean hiding secret tunnels,” Ben said.

  “The tunnels are not a secret,” the man said, a curious expression on his face. “They are simply off-limits to most people.”

  Julie stepped forward, toward the man, and was surprised to see the two other men react in kind. She paused. “Sorry, I — we — are just lost. We can —”

  The man held up a hand. She looked at each man’s face, trying to understand their roles here. Are they on the same team?

  The leader spoke into the radio once again and one of the men next to him turned and faced the hallway. Rifle drawn, waiting.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Bennett — or Richardson, my apologies — I was told you would be here.”

  Julie frowned. She could sense Ben tensing up next to her.

  “We were informed of your arrival when you entered the hotel next door. Our cameras and security monitoring systems alerted me, and we followed your movements through the building. It appears as though you have led others to our location as well?”

  Julie knew it wasn’t a question as much as a scolding.

  “Please, follow me.”

  The man turned and began to walk away. Ben stiffened. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  The soldier next to Ben simply raised his rifle and pointed it directly at them.

  Ben paused, but Julie nudged him forward.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I want answers.”

  The leader kept moving, about ten feet away from them, and he spoke over his shoulder. “It is always answers we want, Mr. Bennett, but never questions.”

  48

  Ben

  Ben’s wrists were nearly bleeding, but he ignored the pain. They were secured to a huge oak tabletop by handcuffs that had been tightened far tighter than he would have thought necessary. The handcuffs were fastened to the table through a heavy metal ring, and he knew it would be useless to fight against them.

  But that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

  The guy in charge had led them to some sort of waiting room near the hotel’s lobby, where he had been joined by three more of the black-clad security guards, then led into a smaller chamber off of the waiting room. There he had been forced into the chair and his hands bound, then left to himself for nearly an hour.

  He and Julie had been separated immediately after entering the waiting room, and he tried to see where she had been taken. The men handling him were harsh, careless, and annoyed by him. No one spoke to them, and after a few minutes of yelling and trying to get someone to answer his questions, Ben gave up.

  He figured it out after about thirty minutes into his stay: he was a prisoner here.

  Ben and Julie would be questioned.

  His decision was now simple: he had two options.

  He could lie his way out. Hope that the men would understand that he and Julie were simply lost in the hotel — they’d come in through the main entrance and found the ‘secret’ door, and just wanted to look around.

  It was a long shot, but could he expect anything better with the second option?

  He could tell the truth. Tell the men they were here to steal property from the Pope, to send a fraudulent message to an archbishop that would allow them access to an ancient, top-secret document?

  He couldn’t decide which of the options available to him would lead to a better result.

  And worse: what decision would Julie make? If she were being questioned in a similar room, what outcome would she come to? What would she tell the men?

  He was contemplating these decisions when the door swung open and the same man who’d found them in the hallway entered. His face was blank, his expression a practiced nothingness. He was a professional, and this wasn’t his first time interrogating someone.

  “Mr. Bennett,” the man said.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “As I said, we saw you enter the hotel. Anyone who enters the St. Michael is watched, closely. In case something like this happens.”

  “Something like what?” Ben asked.

  “How about you tell me?”

  The man took a seat across from Ben at t
he oak table, then unfastened his collar a bit. Ben saw the gleam of a chain necklace around the man’s neck, the silver glinting against the fluorescent lights. He loosened his shirt and then sat back, looking at Ben.

  “I don’t know what you want from us,” Ben said. “You unlocked the door in the hallway, but we were just —”

  “Hoping you would walk freely right into the house of the Seat of the Vatican?”

  “I was going to say that we were just exploring, trying to see the hotel. The door shut, and —”

  “And somehow it latched itself and was secured from the outside.”

  Ben sniffed, then shrugged. “We were being chased.”

  “By whom?”

  Ben's eyes widened a bit. He tried to stop it, but it was too late.

  “What is it, Mr. Bennett?”

  “It was your own men, wasn’t it?” Ben asked. “The guys who chased us — they were following us all along. Shot our plane down, ran us directly toward you here. You faked a gunfight in the tunnels, in that abandoned room. Why?”

  “My men are loyal to the Vatican.”

  “Something tells me your men are loyal to you.”

  The man shifted in his seat, but didn’t take his gaze off of Ben. “Mr. Bennett — Ben, I believe? This investigation will end one of two ways: you tell me exactly why you are here, and why your girlfriend is here, and we decide where to go from there. Or you do not tell me, and I keep you here until I am satisfied.”

  “Are you easily satisfied?”

  The man didn’t respond.

  “Those endings sound a bit vague. What are we talking, like prison?”

  The man, again, didn’t respond.

  “Look,” Ben said, holding his wrists as high as they would go. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or what you think I’m doing here. And I don’t care. But I need something, and if I don’t get it, people will die.”

  The man’s eyebrow raised, and he leaned forward. “Can you be more specific?”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me who will die?”

  “Friends.”

  “Their names?”

  Ben frowned. “I thought you were tracking us. Knew our names and everything.”

  The man sighed. “Ben, this is not one of your American television shows. This is the Vatican. We know who comes and goes from our country, and we know what they want. When we do not know, we talk to them. We know your names because they are listed in private security databases that —”

  “You hacked into government servers?”

  “We have the internet, Ben. You flew here using your government-issued IDs. And you checked into the hotel using your real names. And those names are attached to numerous escapades, if I am not mistaken. We saw the two of you exploring the hotel, looking for something… and then we saw you enter the wine cellar, where you then found the entrance to a Vatican-controlled tunnel.”

  Ben sat back, his arms on the table now. “We need to find something here. That’s it.”

  “What do you need to find?”

  “A… souvenir. A stamp.”

  “A stamp. Like a postage stamp?”

  Ben didn’t answer.

  The man chewed the inside of his lip for a moment, squinting at Ben. He pulled out his phone, tapped a few times on its screen, then set it facedown on the table.

  “Mr. Bennett,” he said. “My name is Roger Godiva.”

  “Like the chocolates?”

  “Yes, like the chocolates. I am Head of Security for the Department of Papal Affairs in the Vatican. What that means to you is that I have total and final authority over any visitations within the Vatican, as long as I deem necessary. I have given my life to the Church, and to the Pope, and I do not intend for that life to be a wasted effort.”

  “Okay, Mr. Godiva,” Ben said. “We’re on the same page. I do not intend to get in the way of that… wonderful life.”

  Godiva stared at Ben for a long moment, then he stood up.

  “Are we done here?” Ben asked. “I really do have somewhere to be.”

  He waited another few seconds before answering. Godiva then moved forward, pressing his fists against the tabletop next to his phone. He leaned down, reaching his head toward Ben. His necklace fell out of his shirt and dangled for a brief moment, the pendant on it catching Ben’s eye. He pulled it back inside his shirt as he spoke.

  “We are investigating a threat that was called in earlier today. An assassination attempt on the Pope, Mr. Bennett. For that reason, we must detain you and your girlfriend until further notice, but I have just been instructed to move you outside the walls of the Vatican for security reasons. These matters can be… how should I put it? Rather exhausting.”

  “An assassination attempt?” Ben asked. “What are you talking about? We’ve got nothing to do with —”

  “Save your stories, Ben,” Godiva said. “There is little time for that. You of all people should know how serious this threat is.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you and I are intimately familiar with the man who warned us.”

  Ben’s face fell.

  “Archibald Quinones sent us an email earlier today, informing us of your intent.”

  49

  Julie

  “Come with me.”

  The man’s voice was blunt, clipped and to the point. Julie looked up at him, her hands shackled to the heavy table she was sitting behind, and rattled her wrists. It was the same man who had brought them to the Papal security headquarters within the hotel, but he was now alone.

  She rolled her eyes up, a look of annoyance, and the man stepped forward.

  “Right,” he said. “I am going to release you from the table, but I will be putting the cuffs back on. My men are stationed directly outside this door, so if there is any sound of fighting, they will enter. And they will kill you. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “Where’s Ben?”

  “Harvey is waiting for us.”

  She frowned, but didn’t ask any questions. The man unlocked her cuffs, removed them from the metal ring on the table, then pulled her chair out for her while he refastened the cuffs around her wrists.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Outside the Vatican.”

  “Why?”

  “Harvey will fill you in. For now, please walk to the door and open it. I will be directly behind you.”

  She did as she was told, and she found Ben, similarly handcuffed, waiting for her on the other side of the door in the hallway. The younger soldiers who had accompanied them here an hour ago were also waiting, their guns drawn.

  “Please,” the man said. “That way.” He pointed down the hallway and Ben and the two soldiers began walking. They were led to a doorway that led outside, and then Julie and Ben were corralled into the backseat of a tiny sedan.

  “Where are we going, Godiva?”

  “Get in the vehicle, Bennett.” Godiva’s voice was lower, nearly a grumble now. Whatever his plan was, Julie sensed he was running out of time.

  As Julie got into the car and one of his soldiers slammed the door shut, she heard Godiva speak once again into his radio. “… incontreremo in Peru.”

  Incontreremo in Peru?

  She didn’t speak or understand Italian, but it sounded like Godiva had said the word Peru.

  Julie turned to Ben, taking advantage of the few moments they had alone in the car. “He said something about Peru,” she said.

  “Peru? Like the country?”

  She nodded. “Ben, do you think —”

  “It has to be related. Whatever Garza’s up to, he’s involved in this… assassination attempt.”

  “Assassination attempt?”

  Ben looked at her like she were crazy. “Did Godiva not question you?”

  “No, he — I didn’t even know that was his name. They left me in there for an hour. No one came in.”

  “Hmm,” Ben said. “He left me alone for almost an hour. Then he c
ame in, asking about our plans and what we were doing here.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I guess I mentioned the stamp.”

  “You guess?”

  “He didn’t seem to care. Or if he did, he didn’t question me more about that. He just told me that we had to be moved outside the Vatican because there would be an assassination attempt on the Pope.”

  Julie shook her head. “But… why does he think we’re involved?”

  “Because he said Archie was the guy who tipped him off.”

  Julie’s eyes widened. “Archie. He said Archibald Quinones called him and told him there was going to be —”

  “Yes,” Ben said. “An assassination. And somehow he thinks we’re involved.”

  The car door opened, and one of the soldiers got in the driver’s seat.

  “Ben,” Julie whispered. “It’s a lie. We’re not —”

  “Silenziosa!” the soldier said as he started the small car’s engine.

  Ben ignored him. “I know. And I think he knows that, too. There’s something else going on here, and we’re going to —”

  “Stai zitto!” the young soldier said again.

  This time Ben stopped talking. The car lurched forward, and the soldier aimed it toward a narrow opening between two buildings. Julie craned her neck around and saw another car behind theirs, this one with Godiva in the front seat and his other soldier driving.

  Weird, she thought. Godiva’s coming with us, wherever we’re going. He must want to keep us in his sights.

  They drove for a few minutes and Julie saw the gates of the Vatican as they passed through them, once again back onto the streets of Rome. The soldier’s radio squawked to life, and she heard Godiva’s voice issuing orders in Italian.

  She couldn’t understand much, but she heard some of the street names he’d said as she saw them on the signs they passed. After fifteen minutes of driving, she saw the coast.

  And then she heard the radio again, this time with a few words she recognized.

  “… gli Americani… la sparizione.”

  She sat up straighter. While she had no knowledge of the Italian language, she did have a passing understanding of its Romance language cousin, Spanish. And one of the words she’d heard sounded oddly familiar to her.