Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  Diggs waited for Lin.

  —

  14

  When Olivia came out into the grassy square from inside the Civil Protection Movement building, she noticed the opposite building lacked any indication that it was part of the department.

  There were no doors or windows. Only the pillars. Olivia instinctively knew that she was close to the cleric's location.

  It was now 12:15 pm.

  She was sure that there would be a link somewhere between the two buildings, and it was in a hidden corner. There was a metal gate there, unlocked. She slipped through the metal and entered another courtyard; she followed a small path in it, and she came out into an airy place.

  "It's a museum," she mumbled.

  There was no one about, except a man sitting by himself; the man was looking at the writhing figure of a statue. The place was filled with other grotesque-looking statues.

  The man who contemplated the statue could have been in his fifties, she could not be so sure. He wore a dark blue trench coat and a wide-brimmed cap that covered most of his face. His straight nose and firm cheeks, and his straight back, all gave a picture of a man who could spring on his feet and disappear in seconds.

  Olivia walked towards him slowly, her feet echoed in the narrow hall. No one was about but the man.

  Without turning to look at Olivia, he said, "You are late."

  "Father Andre?"

  "This statue is 12th century, hewn out of the side of a granite hill in Appalachia. The sculptor remains unknown to this day. It is a celebration of purgatory in the expression of Grace."

  The man turned to her.

  "But purgatory is nothing but pagan." He smiled. "The pagan's heaven. Welcome to the Museo Della Anime del Purgatorio."

  "The museum dedicated to purgatory," Olivia murmured in awe. The riddle had been very simple all along. If she had checked out the name of the building, she surely would have solved the mystery faster.

  Father Andre came closer. His face was narrow. If he wasn't a cleric, the man would have been a favorite with the ladies. And he was not as old as Olivia assumed.

  He rose from the concrete bench with such a snake-like movement that Olivia stepped back.

  "I'm not going to hurt you," he said quickly. "Are you by yourself?"

  "No."

  "Then we must hurry, the Polizei does not treat lightly Americans who cause a civil disturbance."

  Olivia glanced back at the way she had come when she heard gunshots, the cry of someone being hit, and silence. She stiffened. She hoped the team was alright.

  "Come." Father Andre pulled her hand. "This is no decent place to die."

  They started down a corridor Olivia had missed as she came in. It was narrow, perhaps deliberately so, like the way to heaven, she thought. It was almost unbelievable how well adherents of the faith had represented scriptures in everyday life. Her shoulders scraped against the sides of the wall as they went through.

  They came out into another courtyard, this one definitely a part of the museum, and here there were tourists and the sculptures here were equally aberrant if not more flamboyant.

  The cleric slowed his pace, walked ahead of Olivia.

  When they were out in the street, he said, "please try to keep up."

  "Where are we going?"

  "I am taking you to the thing you seek," he said as he trotted across the street. "But I have to be sure you understand the responsibilities of such an important relic."

  "What is the Holy Grail?" Olivia asked the question that had bugged her since the first time she heard of the relic.

  "Nobody knows exactly."

  There was a crowd on the intersection at Via Ulpiano. Two Polizei cars blocked the road, and a policeman was running a tape to cordon the street off. It looked like the Polizei was staging a standoff.

  As the Father Andre darted through an alley, Olivia saw up in the street, the Polizei pushing Anabia Nassif and Liam Murphy into a squad car.

  "You can't help them now, Olivia," the cleric said. "We have to go."

  She followed the cleric.

  —

  The events that followed after Olivia dived into the Civil Protection Department, and after Diggs went after her, happened fast.

  Diggs waited behind the pillar, he waited for the Asian, but he never came. He heard gunshots and then silence. So, he went to investigate.

  When he came out, he saw the police had already cordoned off the street. Anabia and Liam were cuffed and being led into a waiting car.

  The Asian assassin was sprawled on the ground where he had been hiding. The street was filled with a speculative crowd. Three cops were closing in on the prone body on the floor.

  The cops hadn't seen what he was seeing. The Asian wasn't dead, he was waiting.

  As the cops came near the body, the Asian sprang up and shot the three cops. The crowd exploded in fear. A black van broke through the tape barrier, and the Asian jumped into it. Diggs' eyes met the Asian's as the van sped onto the highway and was gone.

  More police sirens wailed in the distance, and the ones in the street here quickly turned around to pursue the fleeing van.

  Curious eyes stared at Diggs in the lobby of the department. The folks were getting off the floor and crawling out from under desks and from behind doors. The woman behind the desk found her voice. She took off her heavy glasses and eyed the gun in Diggs' hand. She began pointing at the former agent.

  Diggs slipped out quietly as the woman brayed in angry Italian.

  —

  Diggs met Miller outside. He walked nonchalantly to where the former agent stood with a couple of other tourists.

  They started walking away.

  "Anabia did it to save you," Miller said. "He shot the Asian."

  "He didn't have to."

  Miller shrugged.

  "Where's Olivia?" Miller asked.

  "She's gone."

  "What'd you mean gone? She was your charge," Miller said in a controlled voice.

  "Relax, she's safe. I think she is."

  They walked in silence until they rounded the corner on Via Paulo Mercuri. Up ahead, there was the red roof of the Scalella Satoria antique store. The sun was already on its way down on the other side of the city.

  "Right, I'll deal with the Polizei, you find Olivia," Miller said, checking his watch. "Can you find her?"

  "I put a tracker on her, I'll find her."

  "Good, I made reservations for us at the Roma Centro, we'll meet there."

  "Ditch the coms, we don't need it anymore."

  Miller threw the buds into an alley.

  Diggs nodded and watched the billionaire walk away.

  He brought out his tracking device, punched buttons into it, and it started beeping. He looked across the street.

  "Gotcha."

  —

  "The Templars have resources beyond your imagination. Do you know what happens when they find the Holy Grail?"

  "No."

  "Neither do I," the cleric said. "But I know the power of the Grail, and that is why we have to take these precautions."

  They had been briskly walking for five minutes. Olivia was getting breathless, trying to keep up with the cleric who seemed to go effortlessly along. Olivia saw that they had gone around the Castel Sant'Angelo and were back in Borgo.

  Now they went down a step. The step led to a mildewy passageway, dusty stone walls, and cobwebs. The next passageway was better, but the walls were made of a strange material.

  The cleric stopped. "They were able to track you every time, how's that possible?"

  "I don't know, Diggs never found a bug—"

  "Who's Diggs?"

  "He's part of the team."

  The cleric frowned. "The CIA agent?"

  "Former."

  "Give me your cell phone."

  Olivia gave it to him. Father Andre opened the back of the phone and searched through it. He asked Olivia if she was ever away from the device at any time.

  "I do
n't think I…except—"

  She tried to piece her itinerary from the past two days together. She recalled one time when she had left her bag in her car on the street.

  "But it's impossible." Her face clouded.

  "Nothing is impossible where the Templars are involved."

  "It was just for a few minutes, I was at a payphone in Miami, I left my bag in the car, just across the street."

  Father Andre looked at the cell phone again. "To clone your phone, a professional requires just a few seconds, Miss."

  Olivia felt something inside her drop. It made perfect sense now.

  The cleric opened the phone up and extracted the sim. "Have you ever had a reason to open this cell phone?"

  "No."

  "Then I think your sim was cloned, they could hear your conversations, and that's how every step you take, the Templars are there, waiting."

  "What are we going to do now?"

  "We set our own trap."

  Olivia held the cleric as he turned to leave. "If my cell phone is off, the others can't reach me, and I don't think these buds work down here."

  She took out her radio receiver and gave the thing a regretful glance.

  "If he is half as good as I've heard, then he'll come and find you in time—"

  "In time for what?" Olivia asked as she ran after the man, trying to keep up.

  "This game is life or death, don't you see? You want to save your boyfriend; I want to save my…my." He broke off.

  "He's not my boyfriend," Olivia said. "Save what? What's this thing to you, all of these?"

  He stopped walking and looked at her.

  "The Templars have a man, a leader who is not content with his mortality. He needs the Grail to be more."

  "He wants to be immortal?"

  "Not just that, he is scared, at least that's what I have heard." He started off again.

  They rounded a corner and up another three flights of steps. Here there was a preternatural light, its source was not clear. But by its illumination, Olivia could see the walls were strewn with an intaglio of symbols and scribblings. She identified ancient Egyptian symbols images.

  She touched the rough surface as they went by. When she looked up, she saw grooves in the wall close to the ceiling. The light seemed to come from there.

  —

  Police presence was heavy on Trattoria Della, a restaurant that served Chinese and Italian food. Diggs hadn't expected to find the street lined with them. He dashed into a clothes store and purchased a grey jacket and a blue baseball cap. He bought a black hold-all, he bought new tennis shoes, and hid his leather shoes in the bag.

  Diggs paid cash.

  He walked through the police and people. He snatched snippets of what the commotion was about. Someone had called in about the presence of a black van.

  Diggs called Miller immediately. Miller said the team's van was safely parked where they had left it.

  "What's going on?" the billionaire asked.

  But Diggs was already sprinting along an alley, a shortcut.

  —

  The black van was blocking the alley between two buildings in the Borgo area. Diggs entered one of the buildings and went up. It was a low rent building with lousy plumbing and broken vents. The walls steamed in places, and on the roof, the air vents worked surprisingly. He checked the area for exits. There was only one, and the black van was in it.

  According to Diggs’ device, Olivia was in the next building.

  It distressed him that the Asian found Olivia so quickly. But this time he was determined to know how this was possible.

  When Diggs looked over the edge of the building again, he saw the Asian stepping out of the van, he was scoping the area, and he was giving orders to four more killers. They began surrounding the building, the Asian taking the lead.

  Diggs took a small camera he had also purchased at the store from his bag and quickly took a photo of the Asian. It took him thirty seconds to upload the photo into a database he still had access to, and for the base to relay back to him the identity of the man.

  Eiji Fumihiro, known as Lin in the professional circle, trained on almost all the continents of the earth. Master shooter. Black belt in judo, karate, aikido, and proficient to the point of death with hand-to-hand combat. His profile contained so many other high spots, but Diggs was becoming impatient to get down to Lin.

  Diggs' tracker indicated that Olivia was in the middle of this building.

  Like air, the former agent moved down the steps.

  —

  Lin had been wearing a vest under his jacket. He looked at his ruined vest dolefully and dropped it. He picked another one from the rack and wore it. His crew watched without much curiosity. Lin was just Lin.

  He strapped himself and stepped out to the van.

  His cell phone started ringing, and he answered it.

  The voice that spoke to him sounded choked. It always reminded Lin of the legend of the samurai who died and came back to life, but for him to stay so, he needed to breathe with someone else's nose. Because his nose was ruined.

  "You are sloppy, getting soft," the ghostly voice whispered.

  When the voice accused you, it was the Order that accused you. You shut your mouth and listened. So, Lin listened.

  "I saw you on TV. I thought you died, which would have been better, you understand?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Good, the Order counts on you. I'm counting on you. If you let me down, you know how I don't like to be let down."

  "Yes, I—"

  Click, came the sound of disconnection, as dry and lifeless as the voice that was behind it.

  Lin's jaw tightened in silent rage, his eyes, red from lack of sleep, itched him. He started to touch it, he dared not show weakness. Weakness is for weak people. He killed vulnerable people for a living, and he ate the strong ones with his gun.

  He put his phone in his pocket, his eyes focused on a spot in the distance.

  "Let's move."

  Three men followed him, all of them former hitmen for clandestine agencies.

  They spread out and surrounded the source of the beeping signal on the transponder each man held in his hand. Lin had just now given everyone an equal opportunity to kill the woman and the Catholic Father upon acquisition of the Holy Grail.

  The signal put the woman on the last floor of the three-story apartment building. They fanned out. Two men went around the building. They'd enter through the kitchen or any door or window. Lin and the third hitman would take the front door.

  If the woman was here, so was the cleric. And the Holy Grail.

  The street door was open. Lin and the others walked casually through a lighted hallway and stopped in front of a door with the Roman numeral XI. The hitman with Lin pulled down his black face mask and picked the lock while Lin stood aside. He watched the door for an unwanted interruption.

  The hitman pushed the door open slowly; the muzzle of his silenced gun went in before him.

  First, Lin aimed at the corners of the room. Then, he pointed at the back of the door where a vacuum cleaner stood against the wall, and then at an open door at the far end of the room. It was a kitchen, but there was no one there except used plates in the sink, a small white cat under the table, and the smell of stale coffee.

  Lin came back out, fuming.

  The two hitmen that went around came out of the bathroom, and together they searched the house. They found a cell phone that Lin recognized on the threadbare couch.

  Rome was a city with two layers. The woman had come out, which meant she was either in the room, invisible, or was under it.

  Lin stamped the floorboards in the anteroom. He went down to see that there was a step in the darkness below.

  "Nemo, pull up a map of the city below, home in my location," Lin said, and he dropped into the hole.

  —

  The bullet sunk in the wall just inches from where his head had been. Diggs ducked, and as he did, he returned the shot but missed. He lay
against the wall and slid along it till he got to the landing where he waited for a moment.

  More shots sprayed dust in the air as the wall behind which he took cover exploded again. He waited. Then he crouched just as the hitman was coming for another shot.

  Diggs shot him in the legs, and the man buckled. Diggs rushed in and delivered more rounds into the falling body; he waited in the hallway and listened. Diggs counted ten seconds and crouched again. Gun first, he pumped his thighs and jumped into the living room. Another hitman was there, but the man's aim was wrong. His shots took out the light switch and also pulled wood particles out of the frame.

  Diggs shot him twice, center mass. The hitman was strong. He fell on one knee and tried to shoot again, but Diggs was already on top of him.

  The former agent parried the man's right hand with his left hand, the gun fell. Diggs punched him in the neck, breaking the man's windpipe. He grabbed his head and snapped his neck.

  It took the former CIA operative six seconds.

  He went through the apartment, making sure he was alive, alone. He was.

  In minutes he was down the hole in the anteroom and following the muffled steps of Lin and his men.

  —

  Lin had heard the struggle as he was leaving. He overheard the shots, like an infant's delicate cough.

  "Go on, find the woman and the priest!" he ordered two of his men.

  He turned around and whispered, "I will deal with this one."

  Lin stationed himself behind the next curve in the passageway. Then he heard footsteps. Then it was gone.

  Lin smiled. The American is smart, he thought.

  Diggs stayed and had two guns, magnum specials, buddies that had been with him since back in the days. All he needed was to get the Asian in his sight. But he also knew that the assassin would be wearing body armor.

  Diggs wasn't wearing any.

  He ducked as he came around the corner. Bullets riddled the wall above his head and the far side of the passage too. Diggs rolled over to the other side of the wall and quickly regained his balance.

  The Asian admitted that the American was fast on his feet. A bullet scraped his thigh as he jumped behind the wall again.

  The hunters waited for their next move, each knowing they would not leave that spot until one of them was bleeding on the cold hard floor.