“Us?” she said. “I’ll talk to him if you won’t.”
“You’re a big talker now. Last night? Not so much.”
“I know,” Sidney said. “I was the one with my mouth duck-taped and the gun to my head, remember? We’re running out of time, and if we have to talk to this guy to get some information, then that’s what we have to do.”
“A guy who just tried to kill us?”
“You keep saying that. What’s this ‘us’ business? He tried to kill me. Look, he wants the Unriddled Manuscript. We have to play that angle. We want to know when the next prophecy is. We may be able to make a deal.”
“But we don’t know where the manuscript is,” Crow said.
“He doesn’t know that.”
THE TWO MUSCULAR bodyguards at the office entrance parted and allowed the nervous man to pass. He carried urgent information. Otto sat at his ornate desk with a phone to his ear. The mountains that rose in the distance behind him were stark and snow-capped, so high that clouds rested between their peaks. They seemed to blur out of focus beyond the two suited men who stood as sentries outside just beyond the bulletproof windows. The man waited. Otto jotted down a number on a piece of paper.
“And she said if I wanted to know where Phillippe Babineaux was I should phone her?” Otto said.
“That is correct,” the desk clerk at Hotel Arenas said.
“Very well.” Otto hung up the phone.
“Your Excellency,” the nervous man said.
“What is it?”
“We have decoded the location of the wedding,” the man announced.
“Where?”
“Figueres, Spain.”
“And you are sure?”
“We are. Everything fits. But…”
“But what?” Otto asked angrily.
The man handed him a piece of paper across the desk. “This is the guest list.”
Otto ripped the paper from his hand and threw his reading glasses atop his nose. He read with an irritated countenance until he came across the name. His irritation turned to shock.
“He is definitely on the list?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. Still no word from Herr Babineaux?”
“He has failed in his mission.” Otto rested his elbows on the desk and propped his chin on his interlocked fingers. After pondering the situation for a moment he said, “The American is en route to Figueres as we speak. If he is successful in stopping the prophecy, then everyone at that wedding lives.”
“That is correct,” the man said.
He nodded his head slowly a few times. “Then he must never make it to Figueres.”
“But Your Excellency, the prophecy.”
“The prophecies come and the prophecies go,” Otto said. “We have an opportunity we have not been afforded in 500 years. We must take advantage of it.”
“Yes, Your Excellency. How are we going to stop the American?”
“Leave that to me.” Otto dialed a number and leaned back in his seat. “This is Otto. Listen very carefully. The mission has changed.”
CROW AND ROSENFELD drove in silence. Crow tried to assimilate all the information he had accumulated over the past few days. What would he say to Otto if he called? He knew he was in way over his head. Otto was working on a much larger scale than anything Crow had ever seen. Otto crushed people like bugs under his feet. Crow had to figure out how to avoid his shoe. He looked over at Rosenfeld then back straight ahead. “I know I’ve said it before, but I really am sorry for getting you involved in all this. It’s more than you bargained for, I’m sure.”
Sidney didn’t respond. Her phone rang. Crow tensed up.
“It’s Tom,” she said.
“Already? That was fast.” He pressed the bluetooth button on the display. “Tom?”
“Benson, I think I may have something for you. My sources tell me there actually is a royal wedding, of sorts, taking place today somewhere in Spain.” Crow and Sidney exchanged smiles. “They know the when, what, and who. They just don’t know where.”
“Who’s getting married?” Crow asked.
“Reginald Wentworth is marrying Lady Grace Rich. Wentworth is the Earl of Stockland. It’s a small, private ceremony. They’ve tried to keep a lid on this, but one of the tabloids got wind of it.”
“And they don’t know where?” Crow asked.
“Well, that’s the thing. Nobody knows.”
“But you’re sure it’s Spain.”
“That’s what my source tells me.”
“How do they know?”
“Well, Wentworth’s office moved an expensive painting from the UK into Spain. It flew from London to Barcelona, but they don’t know where it went to from there.”
“What kind of painting?”
“A Salvador Dalí,” Tom Browning said.
Crow let out an excited laugh.
“Does that help?” Tom asked.
“Boy, does it. That’s fantastic work,” Crow said.
“Apparently the earl and Lady Grace met on vacation last year in Salou on the Mediterranean while the earl was vacationing at a villa owned by the King of Spain. They’re both big Dalí fans, he and Lady Grace. The earl is great friends with the king who will be one of a handful in attendance. They tell me the earl’s cousin, the prince, will be there. Daniel Mercer, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—an old college buddy of his—will also be there.”
“You say they know when?” Crow asked.
“Yes. At noon local time. Wherever local is.”
“Damn, Tom,” Crow slapped the steering wheel, “you hit the frickin’ jackpot! I owe you big time.”
“Yeah, you owe me a boo—“
Crow hung up the phone.
“That’s it!” he said. “Count on good stock. The Earl of Stockland. An earl is also known as a count in many countries. And Lady Grace Rich. Rich in grace, from the quatrains. He said the wedding’s at noon. The quatrain said ‘When the clock strikes twelve.’ This has to be it. You said there were three churches in Figueres?”
“Yes,” Rosenfeld said.
“Run a cross-reference. See if there’s a Dalí connection.”
Rosenfeld typed into the tablet. A smile formed across her face. Crow looked down at her in anticipation.
“St. Peter’s Church in Figueres,” she said. “It’s where Salvador Dalí was baptized. It’s also right next door to the Dalí Museum.”
“Damn.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Check this out.” She turned the tablet so Crow could see it.
He took a quick look at an interior shot of the church. “What am I looking for?”
“Nostradamus’ quatrain says, ’Within the well vestals inundated.’ We’ve been looking for a drinking well, but what if it’s a place?”
“A place?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The well deck of a boat is the lower deck. The well of the Senate is the lower section of the Senate where the senators speak. Look at this photo.”
Crow looked back down at it.
“It steps down into the sanctuary,” she pointed out on the photograph. “It’s the lowest area in the church. ‘Within the well vestals inundated.’ Remember what Delacroix said? ‘Inundated’ means ‘overwhelmed.’ Within this area of the church the bride and bridesmaids will be overwhelmed.”
“Wait a minute,” Crow said. “Wait just a damn minute.”
“What?”
“Delacroix said Nostradamus’ predictions have to do with events of monumental importance, but the importance may not be readily apparent. It’s not the bride and bridesmaids.”
“The King of Spain will be in that church,” Sidney said.
“It’s not him.”
“The prince?”
“Much more important.”
“Who?”
“Daniel Mercer, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.”
“What’s so important about some government bureaucrat from the U
K?”
“Mercer’s a lot more than just a bureaucrat,” Crow said. “The Chancellor of the Exchequer also represents the UK in the World Bank. Daniel Mercer is a very vocal and active member of the board of governors for the World Bank. There’s a power struggle going on inside that organization. I saw a news story on that in Montreal. Mercer dies and their annual autumn meeting will be dramatically different. I remember Alejandro told me the goal of the Custos Verbi was ‘to take their place as the rightful custodians of Catholicism and, second, to control all of the world’s banks.’” He looked over at Sidney then back at the road. “‘In place of the bride the daughters slaughtered,’ the quatrain says. They’re just collateral damage. The event of monumental importance is not the wedding. It’s the death of a man whose absence at the autumn meeting will alter control over the largest bank in the world.”
“If that’s true, then what do we do?”
“What do you mean?” Crow asked.
“Is Mercer good or is he bad?”
Sidney’s phone rang again. They both looked at the caller ID. ‘Unknown.’
“Shit,” Crow said. “It’s him.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The only indication that anything was at all unusual inside St. Peter’s Church in the small city of Figueres, Spain, was the sprinkling of plainclothes agents who tried not to be noticed on the plaza that separated the church from the Salvador Dalí Theater and Museum by mere feet. One agent was stationed by the church door, two in staggered positions down the street in front of the church, and three roamed amongst the tourists on the small plaza named for Salvador and his promiscuous bride of nearly fifty years. Gala was ten years his senior and the subject of many of his nude paintings. Fans of the great artist lined up on the plaza to buy tickets to the theater and museum designed by Dalí himself. They had no inkling of what was about to take place just a few feet from where they stood. The officers from both the Spanish Royal Guard and the Royalty and Specialist Protection, or RaSP, of the United Kingdom wanted to keep it that way. The former protected His Majesty The King. The RaSP was charged with protecting not just the Earl of Stockland and his family, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Security would increase, as would the size of the security force, the closer they edged toward noon. No need to call attention until it was absolutely necessary.
Inside the church, the woman with the auburn hair scurried about to make sure every flower was meticulously arranged and every candle was perfectly straight. Beatrix Cambridge had seen to it that the ordinarily dark interior had been brightened befitting a royal wedding. Greenery and white roses adorned the altar. The first rows of the Cordavan-stained wooden pews on either side were draped in white linen indicating they were reserved for the family. A floral arbor of more white roses and greenery arched over the aisle creating a stunning entrance for the bride.
Just inside the right side of the front doors of the church sat an easel. Resting atop the easel was the wedding present from Reginald Wentworth to Lady Grace, the special gift that Ms. Cambridge had made sure passed through customs without a hitch. A rare original Dalí oil painting purchased from an auction house in London and shipped for the auspicious occasion. The odd shapes and angles and oversized eyes looked as out of place inside the magnificent church as did Dalí’s museum just outside of it.
Beatrix Cambridge checked her watch. The bride and her wedding party would arrive just before the ceremony and both bride and groom would be carried away in a horse-drawn carriage specially loaned for the occasion by His Majesty the King of Spain. Arrangements had been made to transport the family and guests from their hotel to the church. Still so much to do, so many details. She grabbed her notepad and began to go down her checklist.
“DO YOU WANT me to talk to him?” Sidney asked.
“No.” Crow took a breath. “No, I’ll talk to him.”
Crow hit the speaker phone again. “Yes.”
“Mr. Crow,” the baritone voice with the German accent said.
“You would be Otto, I presume.”
“You would presume correctly,” Otto said.
“You keep trying to reach Babineaux. He won’t be calling you back.”
“How unfortunate. And what do you want?”
“What do I want? What I want, you asshole, is to know why you tried to have us killed.”
“I can assure you it was not personal.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Crow said sarcastically. “It wasn’t personal? Are you kidding me? We’re going to the police.”
Otto laughed a laugh that chilled Crow to the bone. “You are not going to involve the police. If you were, you would have called them instead of leaving your number for me.”
“You want the Unriddled Manuscript,” Crow said.
“That is my only interest. I am willing to pay handsomely for it.”
“Purely from a historical perspective, I’m sure.”
“My motivations are none of your affair,” Otto said.
“I’m not concerned about the money, so it seems we find ourselves at an impasse.”
“I would like to speak to Ms. Rosenfeld.”
“She’s right here.”
She was hesitant to answer. “What do you want?”
“I want to offer my sincere apologies. It was never my intention to hurt you. It is just that Mr. Crow was not being cooperative and things, well, things escalated.”
“What do you mean I wasn’t being cooperative?” Crow said.
“You were supposed to turn over the Unriddled Manuscript.”
“You seem rather confident that I have it.”
“If you do not have it, you certainly know where it is.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You got close enough to write down the quatrains,” Otto said.
“I didn’t write down the quatrains. They were given to me—”
“By some unfortunate man in Montreal. Yes, I heard. You said he was murdered.”
“That’s right.”
“The Montreal police have no such record of a murder.”
“Maybe they think it was suicide or an accidental drowning,” Crow said.
“Stop with the theatrics, Mr. Crow. They have no record of any death of a man as you described because no such man ever existed. Ms. Rosenfeld, he is lying to us both. He is a sociopath. A very convincing one, I might add, but a sociopath nonetheless.”
Crow could see concern in Sidney’s eyes. “Sidney, don’t listen to him. He’s trying to manipulate you.”
“I am trying to manipulate her?” Otto roared. “I have not made up two murder stories that turned out to be false. I have not lured her halfway around the world on some wild goose chase.”
“No, all you did was try to have her killed.”
“We were never going to harm her. We were just trying to get the information from you and you were more than willing to let her die. How does she know that you are not going to kill her?”
“Me? You’re wasting your time, Otto. I have no reason to kill her.”
“Perhaps not yet. Maybe you are waiting until you get your hands on the Unriddled Manuscript and you have authenticated it. That is why you brought her along, now is it not?”
“Don’t listen to him, Sidney. He’s trying to get inside your head.”
“He knows where the Unriddled Manuscript is, Ms. Rosenfeld. He was willing to let you die to keep it a secret. Once you have authenticated it, he will kill you, too. Just like the others.”
“That’s a lie and you know it!”
The line went dead.
Crow looked over at Sidney. “You know he was just trying to turn you against me, right?”
Sidney looked out the window. “I don’t know what I know.”
“But, you’re not buying Otto’s crap, are you?”
“No,” she said unconvincingly. She curled up next to the door with her eyes to the sky.
Crow drove on down the Mediterranean Expressway. The view was breathtak
ing at times with glimpses of sanding beaches one moment, then postcard villages, then rocky shorelines meeting the Mediterranean Sea, but Crow hardly noticed. He let his thoughts overtake him. Who the hell was this Otto character? Was Marcus Foster working for him, too? Maybe Otto’s muscle man? Or was he working for someone else, someone competing with Otto?
Crow retraced every step of the journey, every clue, every everything. Despite the sidetracks and miscues, he was still on pace to rendezvous with the prophecy. That much added up. The upcoming wedding in Figueres fit perfectly with Nostradamus’ quatrains. Apparently Otto didn’t know that much or he would never have taken the time to call. Then why did he? He gained nothing from the conversation. Just a sense of satisfaction for having put doubt in Sidney’s mind. A petty gain for someone who was evidently so calculating.
Crow gazed over at Sidney then back at the road. Babineaux may have been a snake, but he was rather astute in his assessment. His words played over and over in Crow’s mind. Your life has been filled with one vagarious relationship after another. Hot and cold. Love and hate. You are a loner because of your persistently unstable self-image. You are reckless. You spend too much. You take unnecessary risks. You go to extremes. Your life is chronically empty hoping the next book or the next purchase or the next adventure or the next girl will somehow fulfill you.
An hour or more passed and Crow was lost in his thoughts while Sidney dreamed in the seat beside him. Or so he thought. She was acutely aware of Crow’s every move. Her mind raced through her options and settled on a course of action. He reached over and nudged her.
“Better wake up.” Crow pointed at kilometer marker 47. “Won’t be too long before our exit comes up.”
Sidney stirred and stretched and pretended to awaken from her nap. At kilometer marker 46.5 was an exit for a small rest area. Not the conventional kind like Crow was accustomed to in the States. It looked more like a pitstop at the track. Crow wished he could take it, but there was no time for rest. He had to get to Figueres and stop that wedding. How? Would anyone listen to him? They would have to. He would have to make them listen.
Just as they were passing the lane that merged back onto the highway from the rest area, out of nowhere, their car was rammed from the side. The loud crash of the impact made them both nearly jump out of their skin. Sidney let out an involuntary scream. Crow caught a glimpse as they spun around. A large black sedan with tinted windows. It struck them on the rear quarter panel of the passenger side and almost turned their car completely around. They slid sideways for a moment. Crow fought the wheel but managed to right the car. The sedan did a 360 then fell quickly in behind them. An arm appeared from the passenger side. Crow hit the gas. A handgun was attached to the arm. A shot was fired. The bullet caught metal on the passenger side. Sidney ducked.
The First Face of Janus Page 26
