Andre flared up. “You are wrong! I drew her into it when I took the Holy Grail. It is my war, not hers!”
“So, where is it?”
“Somewhere that no one—you nor them—can find it. It is safe!”
Andre looked at Olivia. “Miss Newton, let’s go. He can’t help us!”
“You need us, Andre, you need the Templars. Where are you gonna run to? You can’t make it on your own.”
“Watch me.”
Andre pulled Olivia by the hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“What’s going on?” asked Olivia as they came out the large doors.
Andre checked the hallway. There was a guard there. He was huge too. He had two guns on his hip. What’s with the Vatican and huge people? Olivia thought.
Andre ran back inside the room. The Cardinal watched them flounder around the place, looking for a way out. “You are surrounded, padre.”
Olivia had seen a large mirror in an inner room as she passed by earlier. She ran for the room. Andre followed closely behind.
“Hey, where are you going? Come back here!”
They heard the Cardinal’s heavy footfall come through the door. Olivia pulled her Glock and pointed it at the clergy.
“There’s a door behind this mirror,” she said to the cleric. “Pull it open.”
It opened, and there was a dark hall in there. The guard from the hallway burst into the room with his gun drawn. “Stop right there!”
Olivia aimed at the Cardinal. “Drop your weapon, or you’ll be scraping his brains off that painting on the wall!”
The guard let his gun down slowly; his eyes never left Olivia’s as he did.
“Don’t push me, do it faster!” Olivia barked.
The gun dropped, and Olivia slipped behind the mirror, and they were gone.
—
Back in the Cardinal’s apartment, three CIA agents just came in.
The clergyman waved at the mirror on the wall.
Two agents slinked through the crack in the wall. The third one spoke on his radio. “They escaped, sir.”
“Find them,” said Talbot.
—
Father Andre and Olivia came to a crossroads. The underground world of Rome was full of them.
They heard footsteps behind them.
Andre went to one of the tunnels. He rubbed his hand over the side of the wall, then he tried the next one. Heavy footfalls were coming from the opposite side.
“We are trapped.” Olivia’s voice shook.
As the cleric reached the third tunnel, someone poked their head out of it. Andre jumped back; Olivia let out a small cry.
“Padre, follow me,” said the small mouth on the face.
It was Julio at the gate. “Come on,” he urged them.
They followed him down a tunnel. A rotten odor hit hard; Olivia choked. It smelled like an unkempt poultry farm. They went in until they came out into a circular place. The walls here had grooves in them.
Julio stopped. “I have something for you.”
He went to one of the grooves and retrieved a small black bag.
“Padre.” He pulled the cleric away from Olivia. “I have been asked to give this to you by your people.”
Father Andre took a brown envelope from the bag. His heart lifted; the envelope bore the signs of the Dissenters. Although he had refused to join the group that was resisting the Templars, he welcomed the gesture.
The envelope contained veritable photos of the Half-face and the Snake himself. He didn’t show them to Olivia.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” The genial face smiled at the cleric. “You are a brave man. You taught us that.”
Andre looked at the lowly man. He smiled, and they shook hands.
“Now go, and I wish you Godspeed.”
“Be safe, Brother.” Andre squeezed the short man’s shoulder.
Olivia and the cleric went out from his presence.
—
9
In Miami, Sheriff Tom Garcia was making a stunning discovery. On a hunch, Charles Hoban had traced the ownership of the Pinecrest Florist and Balloons shop to the last owner.
The property had belonged to the city for a while on account of an ownership dispute. Two years ago, it was bought by a private company by the name of Miami Holographic Inc.
Two months before the murder of the lad called Scramm, whose real name was Mike Millard, the property was sold again to another man named Russo Finchley.
The name sounded ersatz to detective Charles Hoban. But there were names such as that all over Florida. Movie stars bore incongruous names all the time. Folks who were striking out for the first time often took on names that were better off on the cover of canned potatoes.
So, Hoban ran the name Russo Finchley through the database, and it turned up blank. That was when he called up the sheriff on the phone.
The seller was Miami Holographic Inc., and that was where they had to go if they needed to find the truth. The purchaser for the company left an address with the name Paul Aria.
“What a name,” Sheriff Garcia murmured.
Hoban observed that someone was definitely trying to hide something. “Well, we have an address, let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
The address was at the University of Florida, as it turned out. They drove out there, and Tom frowned when he saw the number on the letterbox on the overgrown drive. He had seen that address somewhere.
They walked up to the house and found it was empty.
Back on the lawn Sheriff Garcia saw a man pruning hedges in the next apartment.
“Hello, I’m Sheriff Garcia—”
“I've seen you on, maybe on TV,” said the man. He squinted at the sheriff from under his old baseball cap. “I know you.”
Tom Garcia thumbed back at his companion. “Detective Charles Hoban.”
The man said, “How do you do?”
“You've seen your neighbor recently?” the sheriff asked.
“Ted?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t get his name off the letterbox.”
The man looked over Garcia’s shoulder at the box. “I’ve meant to take that off. My family asked me to, it just slipped my mind, you know.”
The sheriff frowned. “Why would you wanna take it off? Ted ain’t coming back?”
“God bless his soul, he ain’t, nope.”
Tom looked at Hoban, and then he asked the man, “Ted died, huh.”
“Yeah, I was at the funeral.” The man cocked his head to the side. “Ain’t that where I saw you? Now when I think about it, it’s gotta be.”
Then it clicked in Sheriff Garcia’s mind. He looked back at the house again.
“Ted Cooper?”
“Yeah, that Ted,” the man said. “Shot dead by a cop is what I heard on the street.”
Sheriff Tom Garcia thanked the man. They told him they wouldn’t be bothering him anymore.
In the car, Tom Garcia said to Hoban, “Find that Malvern kid, Vinnie, we have to bring him in for questioning.”
Hoban bobbed his head. “Yup.”
—
In the morning, Vinnie Malvern was sitting before Hoban and the department's artist. His face was all eyes. A pitiful line of snot rolled down his nose. His eyes were red, and his hair was a tussle on his head.
Hoban gave him toilet paper for the snot.
“Don’t get those runners on the floor, will ya?” said Hoban. “Now let’s take it from the top again. We need this, Vinnie, you understand?”
Vinnie nodded that he understood.
“Good, no movie stuff again, alright? None of that Frankenstein shit you fed the other cops last week. I want you to tell this fella right here exactly what you saw, just as it is. Now go on.”
Vinnie’s lips trembled, and it looked like he might start crying.
“Hey, hey, you’re no softie, are you?”
“No, but I told you what I saw, you don’t believe me—”
�
��That’s because I checked you out, Vinnie. You’re a fan of Jeepers Creepers, Night of the Living Dead. Seen the new Mummy show yet? The one with Tom Cruise in it? Seen that one?”
Vinnie looked confused. He shook his head. “No.”
“No?”
“Yes, no.”
Hoban rolled his eyes. “Fuck, kid, you making it hard for me to concentrate on your stupidity.”
“I’m not stupid, I know what I saw.”
Hoban looked at the artist. “Sean, what have you got? Let me see.”
Hoban raised the sketch up and hissed.
—
Tom Garcia saw the sketch and shuddered.
“Oh my God, I’ve got to call Olivia.”
“What has this got to do with the journalist?”
“Everything,” Tom yelled as he reached for his telephone. “It’s why she’s out there in Rome!”
But Olivia Newton was lost from reception in the subterranean tunnels of Rome.
—
Three agents, two came up the stairs, and the other one climbed up the back of the apartment.
They were amateurs. Diggs wondered, Why would the agency send those after me? Something was not right.
The one that came through the back pulled himself up slowly and lowered his body down onto the small balcony. When he raised his masked face, his eyes met the dark, ominous hole of Diggs’ magnum special.
“Oh fuck,” the guy breathed.
Diggs changed his mind. He kicked him off the railing. The man fell ten feet and landed in an open dumpster; a cat jumped out of it and ran into the night.
The door opened slowly. Diggs hid behind the refrigerator. Two dark figures came in quietly; one walked into the kitchen, and the other approached the refrigerator.
Diggs shot that one in the kneecap. He fell; the other came blazing with his gun. Bullets punctured the side of the refrigerator. Then there was quiet.
Diggs rolled on the floor. The guy was crouching behind the couch and peeking over the back. He ducked as Diggs fired at him. Diggs lunged at the couch, toppled it, and was on top of the assassin.
Diggs struck him in the temple with the butt of his pistol. The man went limp.
Diggs walked out of the room.
—
It took the rest of the team twenty minutes to arrive at the rendezvous spot. According to the map, they were about fifty meters from Olivia’s position. Miller attempted to call her on her cell phone, but there was no reception.
“What do we do?” Anabia Nassif asked.
“We wait for Diggs,” said Liam Murphy. “If he leaves through what was coming to get him.”
Miller stared reflectively at the darkness that shrouded the cave they came in through. “He will, Diggs is the best I know.”
There were footfalls in the dark.
“What's that?” Liam jumped.
“Relax, if they were coming for us, we’d be dead already,” said Anabia Nassif.
Miller looked at the biologist and smiled.
Diggs appeared before them.
“Fellas, you having a good time without me?”
Liam jumped at the former agent and embraced him. “Thank God, you’re alright, man.”
Diggs said, “Miss Newton is alone with the priest, they’re going to need our help.”
Miller unrolled the map again.
Diggs touched a point on it. “We are here, right under the Piazza San Pietro. Miss Olivia said the Order want to meet right here.” He touched the top of a dome.
“Isn’t that the Basilica?” said Miller.
Diggs nodded. He turned the map around and gave it a closer look.
“Calamari Square is buried underground.”
“How are we supposed to find it?” asked Borodin.
Diggs pointed down at a slanting tunnel. “That way.”
“Is all of this necessary?” Liam Murphy complained. “I mean, can’t we just go over the top, get in the church, and find a way into the place, just like that?”
“No, we can’t. Come on, people,” Diggs charged. “Let’s go find the Holy Grail.”
—
Father Andre pushed the wooden door open and stepped onto shiny marble. They were in a cemetery. Olivia came out beside him. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Saint Bernard’s Cemetery, east side of the Vatican.”
“Is that the Basilica?” Olivia pointed at a cathedral on the far left, most of it hidden by trees in their bloom. The spires pricked at the grey sky.
“Yes. Now we have to make good time, it’s almost twelve noon.” Father Andre hustled and started towards the cathedral.
“We are going to the Church?”
Andre stopped. He looked at Olivia. “Miss Newton, Calamari Square is under the cathedral.”
“You’re kidding me…”
But the cleric was already trotting off.
—
Olivia’s cell phone started ringing.
“Olivia, we are close, somewhere under the Vatican.”
“We are meeting the Templars in a place called the Calamari Square,” she said. “You have to wait somewhere safe.”
“Do you have the Grail?”
“I have the priest.”
She hung up and caught up with the priest. His cassock was a flowing gown that covered most of him. It was difficult to tell if he had the golden cup or jug in a pocket.
“Do you have the cup with you, Father?”
“What cup?” he asked.
They went down a step beside the church. Their footfalls echoed in the wall. It was cold down here. The walls were like the others but without ancient writings on them.
“The Order is going to ask for the Grail. You don’t have it, do you?”
“The Lord will provide.”
The trail split in two hallways ahead. The cleric struck left into the semi-darkness. Olivia followed the sound of the cleric's feet on the cold hard floor.
They had gone about ten meters in the dark when the cleric stopped suddenly. He held out his hand. Olivia bumped into the man; her heart was beating very fast.
“Wait!” he whispered.
“Someone is coming?”
“People are coming,” he said.
The cleric stepped away from the middle of the corridor. He pulled Olivia with him and put his back to the cold wall. Olivia felt the hardness of the wall on her back.
The footsteps stopped too. Then, a torch brightened the world. It dazzled Olivia. The cleric's hold on her arm relaxed. The torch went off. Diggs appeared from the gloom, and with him the rest of the team.
The men embraced Olivia, one after the other.
“This is it, everyone,” she said. “We are almost at the end of this expedition. At the end of the hallway there is evil waiting for us. I don’t know how tonight’s going to end, but one thing I do know is, one life is as important as the life of everyone in this place, right now. We have a chance to stop an evil organization from taking over the world tonight.”
“Check your guns, everyone,” Diggs declared. “I have extra magazines here.”
When he was satisfied that they were ready, he said, “Now, here is the plan. Miss Olivia and the priest take the lead. The rest of you guys will take up the rear, stay far back in the shadows. We’ll let Miss Newton and the priest do their thing. We’ll watch your back.”
The group marched forward.
—
Meanwhile, a young lad sat by himself in the Bibliotheca Collegio located on the Pompeo Magno. He wore thick glasses, which were nothing but ordinary glasses. CIA agent Gerald Dietz was presently experiencing a dull day.
Before him, a sizeable tome was open, one that he had been visiting for two days. He came to the library to keep up appearances as a graduate student at the Saint John’s University. He was in for Aeronautics Studies.
His dreary day came to an end when his pager beeped; he had been activated.
The message came with a photo and a description of the target.
He hopped on his Ducati motorcycle that was parked under a tree in the parking lot and sped towards his new target.
—
Paul Talbot was aghast. He stood in the middle of the room where Lawrence Diggs was supposed to be bleeding out on the floor, dead.
There was no Diggs here, dead or alive. What he found was his own boys, two of them, moaning in pain. And the third one was in the alley behind the house. His arm was fractured from his fall.
He checked the map on the device he carried with him. Diggs was on the move, under the Vatican.
If Paul Talbot didn’t stop him fast, the Order would put someone on him.
His superiors would not be happy. And more importantly, Half-face would not be pleased.
Angry, he punched his organizer, and Dietz's telephone number popped up.
He dialed, and the agent answered on the second ring.
“Change of location,” he yelled. “Target has moved, I repeat, the target has moved. Be advised.”
“Roger that, sir.”
—
The hallway suddenly widened, the floor smoother, and the pattern of the stones of the floor changed. Diggs raised a fist, and Frank Miller, Anabia Nassif, Liam Murphy, and Victor Borodin stopped walking. They hung back behind Diggs.
Olivia and the priest continued walking in measured steps.
As they went, they saw light coming in the bed. Olivia saw in the ambient illumination that there were inscriptions and symbols on the wall all along. They hadn’t noticed them because of the lack of light.
The murmur of voices, the cold draught on her face, Olivia’s heart thumped in her chest. It was happening, they were meeting the Templars, and she was going to see Peter Williams again.
There was a tall figure standing in front of them. He looked like a black example of the KKK. He was covered in black flowing robes. There was a hood over his head. Olivia could not make out his face because the light source was further behind him.
The figure raised a hand. “Halt!”
Olivia and the priest stopped.
The figure seemed to contemplate them for a second. “State your business!” he said.
“Let us through, we are expected,” Olivia tried in a baritone.
“Names?”
Hunt for the Holy Grail Page 37
