Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  At 12:30 Cardinal Conti emailed his secretary and learned that the policeman was still in the waiting area. Dominic was getting hungry but so was the officer, he presumed. Five minutes later his secretary called, advising that Officer Messina had gone to the bathroom. “Instead of letting him use the one here, Eminence, I directed him to the public restrooms on the second floor. I thought it might give you a chance to leave your office if you wish.”

  “Good thinking,” Conti said to himself. He put the Templars manuscript in his satchel along with the legal pad containing the story he’d created about his involvement with Spedino. Laying the code solution sheet in his desk drawer he walked out of his office with the satchel under his arm.

  In the hallway outside his office he turned to go to the elevator. Frederico Messina was standing just across the hall, obviously waiting for him. Damn this man. He was clever.

  “I’m so glad to have run into you, Eminence,” the officer said as though it were purely by chance. “I won’t take long but I need to ask you more about this missing tape. This is very disturbing news at this point in my investigation.”

  “I’m actually on my way to a luncheon,” Conti replied breezily, his hand involuntarily closing around the tape in his pocket. His other arm clutched the satchel tightly as if he thought Messina was going to grab it. “Perhaps another time.”

  “I’ll just walk with you if you don’t mind. We can talk a moment while we go downstairs.”

  The Cardinal had no options if he wanted to appear helpful. They took the elevator then walked across the expansive square toward the walls that separated Vatican City from the sprawling mass that was Rome. As they walked the policeman talked.

  “Do you mind if I offer some assistance, Eminence? I have a team of men who are experts at finding things. I’d like to have them do a complete search of your office. We can be in and out in an hour. Perhaps this afternoon? Would that be satisfactory?”

  Conti looked at him coldly. “No, it wouldn’t. I’ve told you I will let you know if the tape turns up. And I will do just that.”

  “It’s critical, Eminence, because it will give me a feel for exactly what was said by you both. I can hear the conversation before and after the segment where Moretti admits complicity in the New York bombing. I really must insist on your cooperation, sir. It’s so much easier with your help than…well, than getting a search warrant, for instance. I’m sure the Pope…”

  The Cardinal’s face went ashen. He swallowed hard, hoping the officer couldn’t see his discomfort.

  “Don’t you think you’re carrying all this a bit too far?”

  “Eminence, in my business you follow every trail as far as you can and see where it takes you. This missing cassette is vitally important in my opinion. It may gain us nothing but I really do intend to hear it. And I’d appreciate your cooperation.” He touched the Cardinal gently on the sleeve and Conti involuntarily jerked back. His satchel fell on the ground and the top came open. The legal pad was partially exposed.

  “My apologies, Cardinal Conti, if I startled you.” The policeman bent down to pick up the case. He was close enough to read the words on the pad.

  Conti stooped, retrieved the case from the ground and stuck the legal pad inside. He closed the flap, tucked it under his arm and said, “I have nothing to hide, Officer Messina. I get the impression you think I do, but you’re wrong. I’m a very busy man, as you can imagine. I will cooperate with you. I have told you twice I will keep looking for the cassette. There will be no policemen searching my office. There will be no search warrant, my friend, unless you can convince the Pope himself to allow it. You have nothing on me. I have done nothing but assist you in bringing a violent criminal to justice. And your thanks for this is to harass me?”

  Conti walked to the taxi line in front of him, Messina following behind. “Eminence, my apologies but I am not harassing. I’m doing my job…”

  The Cardinal entered the cab and shut the door as the policeman was talking. The car drove away leaving Frederico Messina standing at the curb wondering why Dominic Conti was so afraid.

  Conti had the cab take him to a restaurant a few miles away. He had intended to go home but once Messina saw him the cleric had no choice but to get away. He spent an hour having lunch then took another taxi to his apartment.

  At home Conti destroyed the cassette, crushing it into tiny pieces, putting all of them in an envelope that he placed in his satchel. He changed from his robe to a sweater and jeans, tennis shoes and a ball cap. With dark glasses he looked like a tourist instead of a Cardinal. Perfect. No one would recognize him.

  He took the satchel, walked downstairs and hailed another taxi. Soon he was in a photocopy shop far from the Vatican and people there who might know him. He paid some Euros and began to copy the two hundred-page book. Some of the pages were brittle so it took time. He was careful.

  When he left the shop he emptied the envelope containing the crushed pieces of microcassette into a trash bin on the street. No one would find the tape now. That put him at ease.

  Back at home Cardinal Conti did something that pained him deeply because he loved old things – he loved the history that surrounded the Church and his Order, the present-day Knights Templars.

  He carefully took the Templar manuscript that had been stolen from Brian Sadler’s gallery, turned through it carefully and removed the thirteen pages of coded symbols. They came out easily – the book was old and the binding was in poor shape at best.

  Cardinal Conti would now skim the diary entries one last time while he still had the original. Then he’d give the FBI the manuscript. “They’ll never know it had extra pages,” he told himself.

  That evening Dominic flipped through the entire book and read the entries from the 1400s to the late 1600s. He saw nothing except historical exploits, pillaging of enemy villages and references to tribute paid and booty claimed. At this point the Cardinal believed the coded pages would tell specifics of where all that treasure was. And when the time was right he would get back to deciphering the code.

  The next day Conti called Agent Jack Underwood in Manhattan. Underwood thanked him for his efforts to get the manuscript back to its rightful owner. He suggested Conti contact Brian Sadler, the man from whose gallery the book was stolen. The Cardinal and Brian could deal with it going forward. Underwood gave the cleric Brian’s cellphone number.

  Conti felt as though he already knew Brian Sadler from his conversations with Giovanni Moretti. He would call Mr. Sadler and work out the handover of the document.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  London

  The stranger in the Monument Club’s library surveyed the situation. Brian was reaching for his cellphone and the librarian’s back was turned as he monitored the scanner’s progress.

  Suddenly Brian became aware of someone standing just behind him – that was the last thing he was aware of. Everything suddenly went black as he slumped onto the desk in front of him.

  The man withdrew a tiny needle from Brian’s neck. He’d be incapacitated for fifteen minutes and wake with a headache, but he’d be fine. He turned and saw the librarian looking at him from across the room.

  “What are you doing?” Jeffrey Montfort shouted. “What do you want?”

  The man walked quickly toward the librarian, another tiny needle tight in his fingers. He smiled and said, “You really need to cooperate and everything will be fine.”

  Montfort backed up, his fingers grazing the top of the scanner. As the man plunged the needle into the librarian’s arm Montfort pressed a button then collapsed in a heap. The man took the pages from the scanner tray and threw the machine to the floor. It crashed into a dozen pieces.

  Next he rushed to Brian’s carrel and attempted to lift Brian’s upper body off the laptop where it lay, but the tiny booth was too small. He’d have to pull Brian backwards onto the floor. He didn’t know if the laptop was important or not; his boss hadn’t mentioned it but he thought he’d get it if he coul
d. Since it was found in that locker with the copy, maybe it was important.

  As he grabbed Brian’s shoulders and prepared to give a heave the front door of the library suddenly swung open. Engaged in conversation, two men entered the room and walked toward the front desk. They hadn’t noticed him. Now he had no time to get the laptop; he moved to a shadowed corner and waited for the chance to escape.

  The newcomers stood for a moment at the desk. “Jeffrey?” one called out. “This is odd,” he told his friend. “Jeffrey’s always here.”

  “Look! He’s there, on the floor!”

  The men rushed behind the front desk area and knelt down to feel the librarian’s pulse. As they did the stranger calmly walked out, took an elevator to the ground floor and left the building. He had accomplished exactly what he was told to do – he had the copy of the manuscript. He was certain he had destroyed the scanner. Hopefully the pages that had been scanned wouldn’t be retrievable from the ruined machine. Too bad that he had been interrupted, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d make his fee by delivering the copy. He wouldn’t mention the laptop or the scanner. What the boss doesn’t know won’t hurt me, the man thought.

  Later that afternoon he dropped a bulky envelope into a UPS box on Charing Cross Road in central London. It would end up at the Vatican tomorrow. Job complete. Twenty thousand dollars earned. Another satisfied customer.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  London/Dallas

  The library’s entryway buzzed with activity. Paramedics attended to Jeffrey Montfort and Brian Sadler, who lay on the floor awake but woozy. The two members who had happened upon the crime in progress sat at a desk with a policeman giving their statements. The general manager of the Monument Club conversed quietly with a detective from Scotland Yard who was glad to learn there were security cameras everywhere.

  Brian and the librarian declined to go to the hospital; although their heads throbbed mercilessly they were otherwise OK. The EMTs drew blood for testing; it was their opinion the men had been drugged with a powerful, fast-acting sedative.

  Within a couple of hours the Scotland Yard man had gathered facts and viewed video footage. What he learned was that a man entered the Club through a door that opened to the alleyway behind the building. As they did every day at the same time, the kitchen help had taken a smoke break, propping the door open to allow re-entry. The man easily slipped into the building unnoticed. The first video camera showed him walking down the rear service hall and through an empty kitchen.

  He rode an elevator to the third floor library where he presented a fake membership card to Jeffrey Montfort and requested to see two volumes. Montfort had dutifully registered the man’s fictitious name and brought the books he requested. The stranger had sat in his own carrel as Brian and Jeffrey worked on the Borland project. After accosting the men and stealing the binder, the intruder had left the building through the front entrance, simply blending into the pedestrian traffic along the Thames.

  “The intruder wanted the laptop,” the detective said. “What’s the significance of it?”

  Brian explained that it had belonged to the late Lord Arthur Borland, who was working on a project to find a lost manuscript. He truthfully told the officer that he had no idea exactly what the significance of the book was and explained how it played a part in the Fifth Avenue bombing.

  Brian was left with the laptop and a promise to call Scotland Yard immediately if he had anything more to report. After everyone cleared out he and Jeffrey went downstairs to the bar. As a member of the staff the librarian ordinarily wouldn’t be allowed in the member areas, but after today’s events the general manager made an exception. They sat by the window, Brian with his usual late afternoon martini and Jeffrey with a gin and tonic.

  They discussed the events of the afternoon. Their heads were clearing, thanks both to the passage of time and the soothing effects of the alcohol. Brian mentioned how unfortunate it was, when they were so close to having the manuscript copy, they had lost it to the thief.

  Suddenly Jeffrey Montfort perked up and said, “How hard do you think it would be to access Lord Montfort’s email account? Would you have to access his laptop to get to mail or is there another way?”

  Surprised that the librarian had suddenly changed the subject, Brian responded, “I don’t get where you’re going with this, but to answer your questions, I bet he got email on his laptop. So all I need to know is how big a password freak he was – if both his laptop and his mail account are password protected I’ll have to figure them out. Maybe his wife knows what they are. I’ll check it all out tonight at the flat. Why do you ask?”

  “If you can get in, I feel confident we’ll have the manuscript again!” Jeffrey explained that Lord Borland had requested scans often as he reviewed things in the library. To make it simpler Jeffrey had programmed Borland’s email address into the scanner. He could press a single button and send the scan to Arthur’s email account instead of having to enter the information every time.

  “While the pages were scanning today I scrolled to Lord Borland’s information so all I had to do was push a button when the scan was finished. The last page went through just as the intruder came towards me and I tried to push the ‘send’ button before I passed out. I hope it worked. The man destroyed the scanner but I would think the scan would have been sent instantly when I pushed the button. Don’t you?”

  “We can only hope,” Brian said excitedly. “Good thinking, Jeffrey. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Later that evening Brian sat in the flat with Arthur’s laptop on his dining table. He called Carissa Borland and gave her a rundown of the afternoon’s events. She was shocked at what she heard and apologized for his involvement in Arthur’s problem.

  “I was already involved, Carissa. Remember this all started with the bombing in New York.”

  Brian told her how he had found Arthur’s laptop. He requested permission to try to access it and she immediately agreed.

  “You may not find much. I think he used it mostly to organize things. He had email but we really didn’t use it. He used the Internet for research but that’s about it.”

  They talked about passwords. She had no idea what his might have been. Brian asked her for a lot of things to try – names of current and past pets, dates of birth, mother’s and maiden names and nicknames they called each other. He thanked her for the help and soon was entering word and number combinations. It proved less difficult than Brian had expected. On the eleventh try he entered “CarissaSwann0917,” her maiden name and date of birth. The locked screen went away and desktop icons appeared.

  He clicked on Mail and entered the same password. It worked. “Arthur, you should have been more careful,” he murmured, “but thanks for being low-tech.” He eagerly opened the inbox and saw just a few entries. Only one was new – from the library of the Monument Club. He opened the mail and its attachment and saw the now-familiar first page of the Templar Manuscript. He was thrilled. “I’ll be damned. Thank God for Jeffrey’s quick thinking.” He emailed the librarian and told him the good news.

  Just to be safe he forwarded the email to his own mailbox then he hid the laptop behind the gas logs in his fireplace. He called Nicole’s office but got her voicemail. He gave her a summary of the afternoon’s events and said he was off to bed. He asked her to call tomorrow when she got a minute.

  After the things he had gone through, Brian Sadler slept like a rock. He heard nothing until his phone alarm woke him at six am.

  -----

  This afternoon in Dallas had been spectacular. After a long week of trial and another stunning victory for Nicole Farber, she had taken the afternoon off. Dallas was hot as hell in the summer but in the months before and after it was a wonderful place for those who loved to be outdoors. She put the top down on her Mercedes convertible and drove from her office in Uptown to the West Village. She took a table on the shaded patio at Cru Wine Bar and ordered a glass of her favorite, which happened to be the best Ch
ardonnay offered. Nicole certainly could afford it – she was the highest paid female lawyer in Dallas and her success rate at defending those accused of white-collar crimes was unparalleled. After her lunch she relaxed a bit longer over a second glass, then drove to the Ritz-Carlton Residences where she lived. She parked her car in the building’s garage, raised the top and took an elevator to her condo.

  Nicole changed into shorts and a t-shirt and walked to a park a few blocks away. She jogged for awhile, stopping when the wine from lunch made her more tired than usual. She sat on a park bench under a tree for an hour and enjoyed the day. Walking home in a small breeze felt nice. As she strolled down McKinney Avenue she glanced at her phone and saw she’d missed a call from Brian. She listened to his voicemail, concerned when she heard that he’d been accosted but relieved to hear everything was OK. She desperately wanted to call him back – this news was one more reason to be concerned about what was going on – but it was after ten in London. He’d be dead to the world by now, she figured. She had to wait until tomorrow.

  She ran in to the grocery store around the corner from her condo building and grabbed a few things for dinner. Dinner on the patio tonight after this gorgeous day.

  At home she opened two huge sliding patio doors of glass. The breeze made her place feel better – there was no need for air conditioning today, although it wouldn’t be long before it was a necessity.