“It’s got to be here, right?” Reilly was craning his head back for another look in the direction of the fallen priest and the air lock into the archive. Apart from the constant hum of the climate control system, all was quiet—for now.
“That’s what Simmons said. He was sure of it. It’s here somewhere.” He put down the ream of bound folios and picked up another volume.
The Templar fond occupied three entire shelves at the far end of the archive, eclipsing the fondi around it. Which wasn’t surprising. The affair had been the biggest political and religious scandal of its time. Various papal commissions and a small army of inquisitors had been assigned to look into the Order, from before the arrest warrants were issued in the fall of 1307 to the ultimate dissolution of the Order in 1312 and the burning of the last Grand Master in 1314. Although the Templars’ own archive had been lost—it was last known to have been in Cyprus, where it had been moved from Acre following the fall of the city in 1291—the Vatican had, over the course of its investigation, built up an extensive record of its own. Reports from roving inquisitors, transcripts of interrogations and confessions, witness statements, minutes of papal deliberations, lists of holdings and confiscated paperwork from Templar houses across Europe—it was all here, an exhaustive forensic account of the warrior-monks’ infamous end.
And, it seemed, it still had secrets lurking within its fading pages.
As if to confirm it, the historian turned, his face alight with excitement. “This is it.”
Reilly stepped in for a closer look. The Iranian was cradling a thick, leather-bound volume. It was heavy and cumbersome, the size of a large photo album. Its covers were tattered and brittle, the hardwood boards inside the tooled leather bindings peeking out from the corners. He had it open, exposing its first page. It was bare, except for a large, brown-and-purple stain in its bottom right corner—the result of a bacterial attack—and a title in its center: Registrum Pauperes Commilitones Christi Templique Salomonis.
The Registry of the Templars.
“This is the one,” the professor insisted, turning the pages with careful strokes. Most of its linen-based paper leaves seemed to be covered with blocks of prose, written in a cursive Blackletter script. A few had crude maps on them, while on others were lists of names, places, dates, and other information Reilly couldn’t decipher.
“You’re sure?” Reilly asked. “We won’t get a second crack at this.”
“I think so. Simmons never actually saw it, but it’s just as he described it, I’m sure of it.”
Reilly took one last glance at the remaining volumes on the shelf and knew he had to trust Sharafi’s judgment. Precious seconds were flitting away. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”
Just then, a low groan echoed down the aisle from them. Reilly froze. The Vatican archivist was coming to. Keeping a vigilant eye out for any CCTV cameras he hadn’t spotted on his way in, Reilly sprinted down the narrow passageway and reached him just as he was straightening himself up. Bescondi leaned back against a shelf, mopping his face with his hands. Reilly bent down, closer to his face.
The archivist looked at him through confused, jittery eyes. “What … what happened?”
“I’m not sure.” Reilly put a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder. “You just blacked out there for a second. We were about to call for help.” He wasn’t enjoying the lie.
Bescondi looked lost, visibly trying to make sense of the situation. Reilly knew he wouldn’t remember anything—not yet, anyway. But he would. And soon.
“Stay there,” Reilly told him. “We’ll go get help.”
The archivist nodded.
Reilly shot Sharafi a “let’s-go” flick of the head, his eyes darting discreetly to the codex he was carrying.
The Iranian got the message. He tucked the bulky book under his arm, away from the archivist, as he sidestepped around him and followed Reilly.
They reached the air lock. The two sets of sliding doors seemed to mock them as they plodded through their slow, synchronized two-step—then the outer doors finally parted and Reilly and the Iranian professor were in the reception area. The guard was already on his feet and alert, his brow furrowed, clearly reading the urgent tension in their movement and wondering why the archivist wasn’t with them.
“Monsignor Bescondi—something happened to him, he just fainted,” Reilly blurted, pointing at the archive while doing his best to shield Sharafi from the guard’s sight line. “He needs a doctor.”
The guard reached for his radio with one hand while holding his arm out, the heel of his palm in Reilly and the Iranian’s faces, signaling them to stay put. “One moment,” he ordered.
Reilly didn’t let up. “He needs a doctor, do you understand? He needs one now,” he insisted, his finger still jabbing the air, trying to spur the guard into going through the air lock.
The guard hesitated, mindful about leaving the two visitors unattended but needing to check on the archivist, while—
—INSIDE THE ARCHIVE, THE ARCHIVIST had just started to feel some glimmers of clarity and cast his gaze down the aisle to his right, then over to his left—and saw the messy stacks of codices and box files cluttering the floor.
The significance of their location speared through his dulled senses with the ferocity of a defibrillator. Dumbstruck, gasping with shock, he clambered to his feet and stumbled over to the air lock, reaching it in time to see Agent Reilly and his Iranian colleague in heated debate with the guard. The groggy archivist hit the doors’ command button, then started slamming his hands repeatedly against the air lock’s inner door while waiting for it to slide open, his cries for help bouncing off the reinforced glass and echoing deafeningly around him, and—
—EERILY MUTED FROM THE RECEPTION AREA by the air lock, the surreal sight snagging the guard’s attention.
The guard’s reflexes were quick—his stance went all tense and feral as he reached for the handgun in his holster while bringing up his mike to sound the alert, two actions that Reilly had to stop in their tracks if he and Sharafi were going to make it out of there. And though the guard was, like all the other members of the smallest army in the world, a soldier who’d been trained in the Swiss Army, he was a split second slower than Reilly, who launched himself at him, thrusting his left arm out to ward off his gun while using his other hand to wrench the radio from his opponent and fling it out of reach. The guard swung his free arm back at Reilly, the uppercut aimed at his head. Reilly avoided it by leaning back and countered with one of his own that slammed into the guard’s rib cage and winded him. The guard’s right hand slackened under the blow—enough for Reilly to wrest his handgun from him while ramming his body weight into him and shoving him back onto his desk. Reilly watched the gun skitter across the hard floor, away from the guard, who looked groggy from his collision with the desk—and turned and grabbed Sharafi.
“Move,” Reilly yelled as he dragged him forward and bolted for the stairs.
Chapter 5
They burst onto the ground floor and flew across the palatial halls unchallenged, though Reilly knew it wouldn’t last. Sure enough, within seconds, whistles and heavy footfalls were chasing after them—the Swiss Guard from below had recovered, and he wasn’t alone anymore—while up ahead, at the far end of the third chamber, four carabinieri were charging their way with raised handguns.
Not going according to plan, Reilly chided himself as he skidded to a stop and cut left, flicking a glance back at Sharafi to make sure he was still behind him. The archivist had woken up too soon. Reilly knew it could happen. The dose of incapacitant that he’d given Bescondi was intentionally on the mild side. He couldn’t risk killing the man or putting him in a coma, and had had to play it safe. Too safe, evidently. And right now, Reilly had to figure out another way out of the holy city, as there was no way they were going to make it back to the driver who was waiting for them by the Apostolic Palace—and even if they did, they weren’t about to be chauffeured out of there, not with a poss
e of Vatican cops chasing after them.
“This way,” he yelled to the Iranian professor as they flew through another opulent room and into the contemporary halls of the new wing of the Chiaramonti Museum. There were many more visitors around, turning the vast space into an obstacle course of people of all sizes that Reilly and his accomplice had to slalom through, leaving a trail of startled screams and indignant outbursts behind them, knowing that any collision would be disastrous. Behind, their pursuers had merged into one frantic pack and were cutting through the crowd, hot on their heels.
Reilly saw a main entrance looming on the right and veered toward it—only to stumble to a halt when three other cops stormed in through its big glass doors. He glanced left—there was another exit on the other side of the hall, directly opposite it. He scrambled toward it, with the Iranian tucked in right behind him, and blew out of its doors and onto an open-air terrace-like landing that was at the top of a pair of ceremonial, mirror-image flights of stairs.
The summer heat hit him like the exhaust of a transit bus. Sucking in big gulps of air, Reilly turned to Sharafi, hands beckoning. “Give me the book, it’s slowing you down.”
The Iranian was disconcertingly composed as he shook his head and clenched the book tight. “I’m fine with it. Which way?”
“No idea, but we can’t stay here,” Reilly answered before bounding down the stairs, his feet landing hard on every third step.
He heard the squawk of a two-way radio, and glancing over the marble balustrade, he glimpsed the caps of a couple more carabinieri who were surging up the lower flight of steps, aiming to box them in. In a second or so, they’d be face-to-face with the Italian cops on the landing—not ideal.
Screw that.
He steeled himself and banked off and hurdled the handrail, clearing it and landing heavily on top of the cops, knocking them down while clearing a path for the professor.
“Keep going,” he yelled to Sharafi as the downed carabinieri flailed around him, lashing out and grabbing at his arms and legs—but he managed to free himself from their grip and was soon hurtling down after the professor.
They were side by side as they sprinted across the manicured lawn of the central courtyard before ducking into a barrel-vaulted passageway that cut through the building and led back out onto the open ground of the Stradone del Giardini and the long row of parked cars on either side of it. Reilly paused, allowing a handful of precious seconds to flit by, scrutinizing the vicinity, searching for someone getting in or out of a car, a motorcycle, anything, just willing an opportunity to present itself, a chance to jack something with wheels to get them the hell out of there. But they were out of luck—there was no movement anywhere, no chirps of a remote control deactivating a car alarm, no obvious target for him—and then another clutch of carabinieri appeared, charging at them from the far end of the road, maybe a hundred yards away.
He racked his brain, trying to get a lock on his bearings and compare it to the map of the Vatican that he hadn’t had enough time to study properly before setting off on this ill-fated incursion. He knew where they were—roughly—but the holy city was haphazardly laid out, a maze of intersecting buildings and winding paths that would stump even the most orientation-ally gifted. No escape route epiphanies popped up, and his survival instinct took over again, spurring his legs forward and propelling him away from the oncoming danger.
He led the professor across the bank of parked cars and up a long, narrow street that opened onto a wide patch of lawn split by two intersecting pathways, the Giardino Quadreto, which fronted another museum—only to realize they’d boxed themselves in. Vatican cops and Swiss Guards seemed to be coming at them from all sides. They’d be on them within seconds—the two men were in open ground with no clear routes to any buildings to duck into for cover. Reilly spun around, scanning the periphery, refusing to accept the inevitable—and then it struck him. His mind cleared long enough to realize where they were and what was lurking nearby, tantalizingly within reach.
“This way,” Reilly spurred the professor, pointing at the far end of the ceremonial garden—and a tall concrete wall with no openings in it.
“Are you insane? There’s nothing there but a wall.”
“Just follow me,” Reilly shot back.
The Iranian tore after him—and just before they reached the wall, the ground opened up before them in the shape of a wide concrete ramp that sloped down and led into some kind of underground structure.
“What’s down there?” the Iranian wheezed.
“The Carriage Museum,” Reilly said, breathing hard. “Come on.”
Chapter 6
Reilly and the Iranian professor reached the bottom of the ramp and just kept running.
The Carriage Museum, the most recent addition to the museums of the Vatican, was a vast underground showcase that looked like it tunneled on forever—which suited Reilly. He slowed right down as he entered the first exhibition hall, giving his mental MapQuest a second to kick in. The space around him was sleek and modern, in stark contrast to the gaudy displays that it housed: from sumptuous sedan chairs to nineteenth-century horse-drawn carriages of gold, velvet, and damask, an astounding collection of twenty-four-carat masterpieces on stilts and wheels.
His accomplice looked around, confused. “Why are we down here? It’s a dead end, and—I don’t think these are going to get us anywhere, not without horses.”
“We’re not here for the carriages,” he replied, before leading Sharafi deeper into the museum.
The gilded carriages gave way to an array of motorcars. They stalked past a trio of hulking black limousines from the 1930s that were straight out of an Al Capone movie, their hand-built coachwork, drum headlights, and flowing fenders harking back to a more elegant age.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Sharafi allowed himself a mild chortle.
Before Reilly could answer, he heard some commotion behind them, by the entrance. A clutch of carabinieri and Swiss Guards were bursting into the exhibition hall, storming past startled tourists. One of the cops had spotted Reilly and the Iranian through the clusters of tourists and was pointing at them and shouting frantically.
Reilly frowned. “Have faith,” he told Sharafi as he got moving again. He drew the Iranian past a white three-wheeled rickshaw—complete with papal crest on its canvas doors—and into the farthest section of the museum, where more recent Popemobiles were housed. Heading for the very back of the museum, they blew past a Mercedes 600 landaulet, a Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, and a Chrysler Imperial, all from the 1960s and gleaming like black obsidian.
Sharafi glanced back. The posse was closing in. “How are you going to get us out of here? Can you hot-wire one of these cars?”
“I’m hoping I won’t have to,” Reilly replied as he spotted what he was looking for: a doorway next to a wide roller shutter, tucked into the rear wall and painted to match. “There,” he pointed as he took off toward it.
The professor followed in his wake.
As they reached it, the door swung open and two maintenance technicians in white overalls came through, oblivious to the mayhem. Reilly shoved them aside as he swooped past them, catching the door before it slammed shut. As angry shouts echoed behind him, he ushered Sharafi through the door and followed him into a tunnel that was wide enough for a car to get through. He sped up, his lungs and thigh muscles burning, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the professor was keeping up—which, to Reilly’s surprise and relief, he was. The tunnel ferried them to a large garage where three mechanics were working on the current Popemobiles: an open-top Mercedes G500 SUV, which the pope used locally, and a couple of modified Mercedes ML430 “Popequarium” SUVs with the elevated bulletproof glass boxes out back, for when he traveled abroad, all finished in what the German manufacturer called “Vatican-mystic white.” Another ramp led away from the garage, in the opposite direction to the way they’d come in.
A way out.
Maybe.
Reilly did a split-second triage in his mind and beelined for the ML that was being worked on. It was facing the wrong way, its back to the exit ramp, but trumping that was the fact that it had its hood propped up—and its engine running. The startled mechanics did a double-take and moved to confront them, but Reilly was overflowing with adrenaline and out of time. He didn’t break step. He just strode straight up to the first mechanic, grabbed him by the arm, twisted it around, and used it to fling him at his colleague, sending them both toppling back into a set of tool trays. The third mechanic hesitated and faltered back, reached into a tool tray and pulled out a big wrench, and started moving forward again.
“Get in,” Reilly barked to Sharafi, yanking the hood’s support arm out of its cradle and slamming it shut before scrambling into the driver’s seat.
He watched as Sharafi hustled around the back of the car, losing sight of him behind the big glass box—then spotted the mechanic with the wrench rounding the passenger side of the car and heading straight for him. He hesitated, unsure about whether or not to jump out and help the professor, then glimpsed him in the side mirror of the car—and was stunned to see the Iranian dispatch the mechanic with a surgically efficient and vicious pair of kicks to the knee and face.
Sharafi climbed in next to him, breathing hard but looking unruffled, his hands still clutching the heavy book. Their eyes met—a split-second, unspoken acknowledgment of the Iranian’s efficient handling of his challenge—then the carabinieri burst into the garage from the museum side, yelling at them and waving handguns. A deep whirr coming from behind snagged Reilly’s attention. He spun back to see the roller shutter at the far end of the exit ramp gliding down. One of the mechanics had recovered and stood by the wall, his hand on the shutter’s control button, his face locked in a self-satisfied grin.
“Hang on,” Reilly roared as he slammed the car into reverse and floored the pedal. The four-ton vehicle lurched backward, its tires squealing loudly on the acrylic floor. Reilly guided the SUV through the tunnel and up the short ramp—trying to avoid bouncing off the side walls, eyeing the shutter as it inched its way down—and just managed to slip through under it, the edge of the glass box scraping harshly against the lip of the shutter, metal biting into toughened safety glass—then they burst into daylight, at the far end of the road he and Sharafi had cut across only minutes earlier.
The Templar Salvation (2010) ts-2 Page 4
