Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  The pontiff said, “I’ve listened to every word, Dominic. I heard no insinuations. I heard a man of the law ask a man of the cloth questions about some things he doesn’t fully understand. I’m willing to accede to your request to stop now because I have other matters at hand. Gentlemen, this meeting is concluded for today. Officer Messina, if you have further questions you may contact Cardinal Conti directly. For the time being you will not require him to come to your police headquarters. Any discussions will be held here in the Vatican and you, Eminence, will make yourself available on reasonable notice from Officer Messina. I will be involved in future conversations if I deem it necessary. Should your interest in Cardinal Conti become more than it is today, you will notify me and I will give further direction then. Please give Signore Messina your contact information, Cardinal Conti.”

  Everyone stood, the visitors bowed and left the room. In the hallway outside the papal offices Conti handed the policeman a card with his email address and office phone number. Messina said, “I appreciate your help, Eminence. I apologize if I seemed aggressive. I certainly meant no disrespect.”

  Conti looked at him stonily and said nothing. He turned and strode angrily down the hall.

  Officer Messina walked to a staircase fifty feet away and took the broad stone steps down three flights to ground level.

  “I wonder what Cardinal Conti has to hide,” he thought to himself as he walked back to police headquarters. “He’s definitely lying about something. And I think even the Pope knows it. I’ll have to find out what it is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  London

  Brian and the librarian returned to the front desk with the things they’d discovered in the locker. They noticed the other visitor walking to the restrooms.

  Jeffrey Montfort glanced inside the binder and confirmed it was the one that hadn’t been returned. He then handed it to Brian. “I know you’re going to want to peruse this. Hopefully something here will help figure out what Lord Borland was doing.”

  Brian carried the laptop and binder to the carrel he had been assigned. He tackled the computer first; although an older Lenovo it powered up promptly then asked for a password. He had no idea what Arthur might have used so the laptop would have to wait until he could talk to Carissa Borland.

  He turned to the book. The binder’s spine was blank. On the front cover someone had written “Journal des Pauperes Commilitones.” He opened it and gasped. The title page said Opus Militum Xpisti. The Work of the Soldiers of Christ. Excitedly he turned to the next page – the entry was dated 1475. Brian was ecstatic. This was the missing book, a copy of the manuscript that had been stolen in the Fifth Avenue bombing. He flipped quickly through pages to the end. It looked as though it had a couple hundred pages. This could be a complete copy!

  He looked at Google on the computer in front of him then said, “Jeffrey, take a look at this.” The librarian walked from his desk to the carrel. “You said the library’s description of this book is ‘Journal des Pauperes Commilitones’ and it’s dated 1699. Right?”

  “Absolutely correct, Brian.”

  “I looked it up. Do you know what Journal des Pauperes Commilitones roughly translates to in English? It’s the diary of the poor soldiers.”

  “From my rusty schoolboy French I think that’s accurate. And your point?”

  “Arthur said that the original Knights Templars were called the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. So it doesn’t really matter what the listing in your records showed. This is what matters.” He opened the book to the first page. Opus Militum Xpisti.

  He spoke almost in a whisper. “It’s the missing volume, Jeffrey. It’s a copy of the book that was stolen when my gallery was bombed.”

  “My God, Brian. Is this what Arthur was looking for?”

  “I think it must have been. I need to do more work on this but I have to go to a meeting at the gallery shortly. Do you have a high-speed copier here?”

  “Yes. Even better, I could scan it.”

  “Excellent! Can you get to work on that while I call Lord Borland’s wife? I know I don’t need to tell you to be careful. That’s the only copy in existence, I’ll bet.”

  The librarian smiled and said nothing. He would be careful. He always was.

  Jeffrey Montfort took the binder back to his desk, snapped the rings open and removed the pages. He turned on a scanner and got everything ready. He hit the green button and the pages rapidly began to feed into the machine.

  The man who was using the other carrel had heard everything. He entered a text message into his phone.

  “There’s a copy of the manuscript. Sadler has seen it.”

  “Take care of it. Get me that copy. Do you understand?”

  “Affirmative, Eminence.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Vatican City

  It was nearly five pm when Dominic got back to his office. His secretary was wrapping things up for the day. Conti gave him a curt nod, walked into his office and slammed the door. He turned the lock on it, walked to the pantry by his office and put two cubes of ice in a highball glass. Sitting at his desk he reached into the bottom left drawer and pulled out a fifth of Chivas Regal. He poured the glass half full, knocked it back in a few steady gulps and fixed another. His heart rate slowed as the alcohol did its work.

  What the hell was this guy doing? How dare he treat a senior official of the Catholic Church like a common street thief? I didn’t appreciate his condescending attitude but I have to be careful now. He’s asking questions that could get me in trouble. I need to think this entire thing through, come up with an airtight story and stick to it. I can outwit this man.

  Nursing his next drink, Dominic Conti took out a legal pad and began to make a list. In one column were the events that had actually transpired with Moretti aka Spedino. Opposite those entries were the things Conti would say had happened. By the time the liquor began to dull his brain he had filled two pages – one side of each page with actual events and the other with fictitious explanations. Satisfied that he was on the right track, he hid the pad of paper where it would be safe. He turned off the lights, locked his office door from the outside and walked to his apartment.

  At 2:30 am Conti sat straight up in bed. A million hammers banged inside his head. He shouldn’t have come home and had another scotch. Or was it two? He had awakened with a sudden dread in his clouded mind. He shouldn’t have left that legal pad at the office. It had everything on it that would create his alibi. No one could challenge it except Spedino and he was in jail. But he should have brought it home. It wouldn’t do for that to get in the wrong hands. What if it were missing? What if someone had taken it?

  It was rare that a Cardinal would come to his office in the wee hours, but it wasn’t unprecedented. The security guard dutifully checked Conti’s ID even though he knew the man well. That was the rule and they both followed it. Conti signed in and noted the time – 3:13 am.

  “I won’t be long,” he said. “I left something in my office that I need.”

  He took the stairs to his floor then went to the wing where his office was located. Everything was completely quiet, the hallways and rooms dark. There were no security guards in this area; only the papal offices had such protection. Conti pulled out his key, unlocked the office door and turned on the light.

  He walked to his desk and pulled the middle drawer wide open to get the legal pad from the back where he had put it.

  But it wasn’t there.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Cardinal frantically searched his desk. He had forgotten exactly where he had hidden the notepad. He had been a little tipsy, in fact he still was, he admitted to himself. So he had put it somewhere else. He went through every drawer, examined folders and files in and on his desk and even looked in the wastebasket. It was empty; the cleaning crew had already been through. And he knew he hadn’t accidentally thrown it away. As fuzzy as his mind was, that little pad was too impor
tant. He wouldn’t have done that.

  The cleaning crew! There’s a spy here! They took my notepad!

  He spent ten minutes mulling that possibility in his addled brain, then decided he was making too much of all this. When people lose keys or other things it usually pays to forget about it. Then what you’ve lost turns up and you remember that’s where you put it in the first place.

  He was nervous. But he wasn’t going to panic. He hadn’t been in the best of shape when he put the pad away. It was somewhere. He just needed to wait until the naked light of day. It would turn up.

  Before he left he made sure the manuscript and decoder page were safely in a drawer of his credenza, well hidden underneath a stack of mundane reports no one cared about. Then he went home to bed, tossing and turning the rest of the night.

  The next morning Dominic had pressing business with the bank. There was no time to think about the missing legal pad or the coded page in the ancient manuscript. Two ibuprofen and massive quantities of coffee had helped a little but he still felt sluggish and drowsy. Thank God the things on his agenda were handled via emails and phone calls. He didn’t need the hassle of face-to-face meetings this morning.

  He found himself opening his middle desk drawer and peering into the back of it perhaps a dozen times during the morning. Every time he thought maybe he’d overlooked the pad or maybe it had slipped behind the drawer – a quick withdrawal of the entire drawer proved that theory wrong. So far he had no idea where it had gone but he still hoped against hope it would turn up. It had to.

  At noon he went out for lunch. A plate of pasta with shrimps and two glasses of Chianti at a nearby sidewalk café made things much better. By two pm he decided he would live to fight another day.

  Conti blocked off the remainder of the afternoon for the book project. He settled down at the worktable in his office and started decoding the remainder of the page he had worked on yesterday. His headache was gone and he felt practically human again; it would have been hard to work on this project earlier today, he knew. The intense concentration wouldn’t have been easy.

  Three hours later he was well down the page of symbols. His secretary gave a brief knock. Conti unlocked the door and bade the young cleric good evening. He decided to give it one more hour to see how far he could get. Today he hadn’t stopped to read what he was decoding. He wanted to concentrate on the difficult part – decoding each single symbol into a letter. He wouldn’t stop to read the decoded words until he was finished.

  It was nearly seven pm when Dominic put down his pen, leaned back in his chair and stretched. He had taken short breaks several times but for the most part he had been at the decoding job for four hours straight. It was tiresome at best; today it was doubly so given Conti’s lack of sleep the night before and his rather precarious condition before lunch.

  He put the manuscript and code page back into the credenza. As he turned he dropped his pen on the floor beside his desk. He bent to pick it up and saw something under the desk pedestal that held its drawers.

  On hands and knees he peered into the small space and saw a pad of paper. He pulled it out; it was his notes from the night before.

  He thought for a few minutes and then shook his head, relieved beyond belief that the pad was safe and sound. I must be losing my mind, he thought to himself. Undoubtedly the pad was exactly where he had hidden it. He gathered it and the couple of pages of words he had written from the code in the book. Sticking them both in an underarm leather satchel he walked home.

  Dominic fixed a light dinner and a glass of wine and then returned to the project. He picked up the folio into which he’d scribbled hours of translated material and began to read from the beginning of that page. He’d read the prayer yesterday but wanted to see it in context with the translation.

  O Lord, hear our prayer. By the grace of God our Father and his Son Jesus the Christ our Lord we have been appointed defenders and guardians of the faith. Let our words and deeds be pleasing to Him and through His holy guidance may we steadfastly continue our mission, guarding the secret with which we have been entrusted for these three hundred sixty-seven years.

  Now Conti read the new words he had decrypted.

  Carrying on the tradition of our forefathers, Pauvres Chevaliers du Temple, we the Templars risen from the ashes of our brethren like the Phoenix, do pledge to uphold the secrets given to us, to be faithful stewards of the wealth and treasure amassed and hidden by our forebears and to continue the good works of the Order.

  Conti paused. Pauvres Chevaliers du Temple was one of a number of titles by which the first Knights Templars were known. It meant “poor Knights of the Temple” – others called them simply the “Order of the Temple” or the more scholarly title Poor Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.

  In the twelfth century, the early days of the Order, the Templars truly had been poor. They did services for people as they traveled and received donations in return. One important aspect of their work was to serve as escorts or guardians for people making pilgrimages from Europe to Jerusalem, Conti recalled. Over a few years as the organization grew and received sanction from the Church their fortunes took a major turn for the better. It was well known that the Knights Templars were immensely wealthy when they finally were rounded up and murdered through the efforts of a weak Pope and a jealous French king.

  Dominic was intrigued by the paragraph he had just read. The writer spoke of the Templars’ pledge “to be faithful stewards of the wealth and treasure amassed and hidden by our forebears.” Very interesting. Many legends spoke of significant Templars treasure and money amassed during their crusades and put in secret places before their demise in 1310. None of it had ever been found, but here was yet another indication that the stories might be true. He resumed reading the medieval French, considering every exciting word carefully.

  We have willingly assumed the responsibility to maintain the precious objects, religious artifacts, silver and gold we have been given through the grace of God our Father. As the ancients have written in the Bible, “Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established. And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” We the sixteen who lead the Templars are humbled by the mighty weight of the responsibility God has laid upon us.

  A quiet ding on Conti’s phone interrupted the fascinating words pouring off the page in front of him. He had received an email, a rare event for him this time of the evening. Conti picked up his phone and read the message. The words were few but frightening. His hands shook and the phone fell to the carpet beside him. He leaned back in his chair, his chest contracting as breathing became labored.

  Calm down, Dominic.

  He forced panic from his mind.

  Everything will work out. You just have to think this through.

  Dominic Conti had developed a good plan on paper to explain the events that transpired between him and Giovanni Moretti. But he hadn’t thought about this.

  The email was from Frederico Messina, the head of the Gendarmerie Corps who had grilled the Cardinal earlier this afternoon.

  “Eminence, I’d like the original of the recording you made of your meeting with Giovanni Moretti, please. I’ll arrange to have it picked up from your office. Let’s say ten am tomorrow. If you’re not available please leave it with your secretary. Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.”

  In a panic, the Cardinal put aside the decryption project. Lying in bed he ran scenarios through his head. He slept an hour at most, only when he forced himself not to think about what a deep hole he had dug for himself.

  At last daylight arrived. Despite a second restless night, Dominic was ready. His plan wasn’t perfect but it would have to do. He would tell the officer he couldn’t find the recording. He was sure he’d put it in his desk at the office but it wasn’t there. Perhaps it had been stolen – more likely he had misplaced it. After all, he had given the relevant portion to the FBI – there
actually hadn’t been any need to keep it. So that was believable. Hopefully.

  The more he went over the explanation the better it sounded. It was weak – there was no question about that – but he couldn’t think of anything better.

  He arrived at his office around nine and walked to a beautiful eighteenth-century inlaid wood table sitting by a grouping of chairs. He opened the top drawer, pulled it out and reached into the space behind it. His hands wrapped around the microcassette that contained the entire recording of his meeting with the godfather. He slipped the incriminating tape it into his pocket. Tonight at home he would crush it with a hammer and throw the pieces into the dumpster behind the apartment complex.

  He composed an email in response to Officer Messina’s request.

  “I’m afraid I have misplaced the cassette. I’ve searched my office but it’s nowhere to be found. Fortunately the FBI has the relevant portion I provided and by now I’m sure you do too. That’s what you need. If at some point the cassette turns up I will let you know.”

  A short response appeared within seconds.

  “I will be at your office at ten am.”

  Precisely at ten the Cardinal’s secretary advised Conti that the policeman was here to see him.

  “I’m sorry but I’m not available this morning,” was Conti’s cocky response. This man needs to learn who’s in charge here. I’ll call the shots, not him.

  In a moment his assistant replied. “He’s choosing to stay, Eminence, in hopes you can work a few minutes into your schedule.”

  Fine. Let him stay. Let him sit here all day, for all I care.

  For two hours Dominic read reports, made calls and found himself unable to concentrate on anything. Every few minutes his hand went into his pocket to ensure the microcassette was still there. He was afraid to start working on the decoded Templars information with the policeman sitting just outside his office door. What he needed desperately to do was to copy the manuscript. He couldn’t do it here in the Vatican without arousing suspicion. The head of the Vatican Bank personally using a photocopier, instead of having a subordinate do it? And copying an obviously ancient book? No, that wouldn’t work. He had to copy the book elsewhere.