The Napoleon Affair

by Ernest Dempsey

  Now, it seemed the vacation was over. Not just their literal one, but the period of time where nothing insane popped into their lives had, apparently, gone out the door the second Commander Bodmer walked through it.

  "It's…confusing," Adriana said. "Is this real?"

  "I assure you," Bodmer said, "it is legitimate. The problem is that we don't understand what it means. It would seem that he didn't fully trust those around him when he died. The question is, what was he trying to keep from them and, if he was trying to hide a secret, why the letter?"

  "Heavy lies the crown," Sean chirped.

  "Yes, except he had no crown when he died. He was in exile. And toward his end, he began saying things that were nonsensical. He descended rapidly into madness, and once that happened there were only bits and pieces that his friends and family could interpret."

  "But he wasn't going crazy," Adriana said. "Was he?"

  "No, I don't believe so. Although the unbearable pain from the cancer eating away at his gut likely did create new mental issues for him. It's a natural progression of the mind to take one's thoughts to another place, another plane where the pain goes away."

  "So, what's with the flower at the bottom of the page?" Adriana asked, looking over her shoulder and pointing to a faded rose.

  "Funerary," Sean said, glancing at Bodmer for confirmation.

  "That's what we assumed as well," the commander agreed. "Since it is customary to give flowers when someone dies, we think that might be what this flower is doing on the letter."

  "A single rose," Sean whispered, contemplating the meaning. "He was so egotistical that he gave himself a rose before dying."

  "Read the letter to us," Tommy said to Adriana.

  She didn't hesitate. "It says that he feared that the Battle of Waterloo was not going to go as planned. He claims to have had a premonition, a vision of the outcome in which he and his men were defeated."

  "That would explain the desperate tactics he used in the battle," Tommy said.

  "Indeed," Bodmer agreed.

  "It goes on to say that without the relic the odds were too great against him. He also says that with his greatest strength missing, there was no chance they could be victorious."

  "What relic?" June asked. "Does it say which one he's talking about?"

  "No," Adriana answered, looking back over the letter. "No mention of a specific item by name. He just calls it the relic. I wonder what relic could have made a man as skeptical as Napoléon believe in its power."

  "And you have no idea what he could be talking about?" Sean sounded like he wasn't sure if he should buy what the commander was selling.

  "I do not. If I did, I assure you, I would tell you. The sooner this entire mess can be solved, the better. It is my desire and that of the Vatican for this to be resolved quickly and discreetly. It seems, however, that there is some sort of riddle here, one that none of our top experts could solve."

  "And that's where we come in," Tommy said.

  "This letter seems incomplete," Adriana said, still looking at the page.

  "Again, this is why we need your assistance," Bodmer reiterated.

  Sean looked over his wife's shoulder at the letter, and then it hit him. "It's incomplete because this is, get ready for it, the first in a series of clues!" He used his best game show announcer voice, elevating his volume and tone toward the end of the sentence.

  Bodmer stared blankly at him, clearly not understanding the joke.

  Tommy figured it was appropriate to explain. "We get this kind of thing a lot, Commander. A clue that leads to another clue and so on."

  "Yes, well, if Napoléon hid a powerful relic somewhere and this is the beginning of the trail, then you surely must see the inherent danger involved with a search of this kind."

  "You mean the danger that led one of your cardinals to be murdered within the confines of the Vatican?" Sean asked. "Or that led to more threats?"

  "Yes." Bodmer said the word plainly and without hesitation.

  Sean decided to cut to the chase. They'd wasted enough time already if the commander truly did want them to be part of the investigation. "What do you want us to do, Commander Bodmer? You flew all the way here to show us this letter and those pictures of the crime scene. I guess that means you would like us to come back to the Vatican with you?"

  "If you think that is the best place to start."

  "Vatican?" Tommy groused.

  "What's the problem?" June asked.

  "I mean, it's our last day of vacation." He turned to his wife and looked at her longingly. He looped his hand around her waist and pulled her close. "I was hoping to hit the beach one more time and just relax, maybe check out the stars over the gulf tonight, sit by a fire in the sand and listen to the waves lapping against the shore."

  "Honey, we've literally done that every night we've been here. It's okay."

  Tommy sighed. "I know. I just…I'm enjoying it, and I know that you're going on an assignment for Emily in two days."

  "Which means I can't come with you. Aww, honey, that's very sweet of you. You're going to miss me, huh?" She put her arm around his neck and kissed him.

  Bodmer looked away, casting a stare out the window toward the water as he was immediately uncomfortable with this situation.

  "Hey, guys. There are still some of us here in the room with you," Sean said. "You want us to leave, or you gonna go up to your room?"

  "Can you shut up, ever?" Tommy said. It came out as a muted, squished sentence with his lips pressed against his wife's.

  "Anyway, Commander," Sean turned back to Bodmer, "yes, I think we need to visit the Vatican. Would it be possible for us to investigate the crime scene? I know you said it has been cleared, but it might be helpful if this weekend we take a look around."

  "Certainly. I'll make all the necessary arrangements. I know you have your own plane with your organization," he said to Tommy, who was just now letting go of his wife, "but I would be honored if you would accompany me on the Swiss Guard's private jet. We will get through customs faster, and you will be able to bring anything you need, including weapons."

  Sean raised an eyebrow at this last statement.

  "I see you've done your research on us," Sean said with a smirk. "We find it best not to leave home without some protection."

  "Protection…" There was doubt in the word.

  "Well, we don't start fights," Tommy said.

  "But we certainly finish them," Adriana completed the thought.

  "We will find your killer," Sean said. "And we will figure out what relic Napoléon was talking about in this letter. Usually, it works in the reverse order, though."

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean, what typically happens when we take a job like this is that we'll start looking for whatever lost artifact needs finding, then we get chased by the bad guys, in this case it seems like that would be Teutonic Knights or someone impersonating them."

  "The knights have been gone a long time," Bodmer corrected. "At least in their military form."

  "You don't think it's possible they laid low for the last couple hundred years, waiting, biding their time until the right moment?" Tommy asked.

  "No. I don't. The symbol left on the body of Cardinal Jarllson was a distraction. Nothing else."

  "You didn't happen to keep that piece of cloth, did you?"

  "Of course. It's evidence. We never discard evidence. We operate exactly like a police department would when it comes to solving crimes. If you would like to see this cloth, though I have no idea why you would, I can present it to you when we arrive in Rome."

  Sean seemed satisfied. He turned to his friend with the question in his eyes that the two of them always shared just before they began a new project.

  "What do you think, Schultzie?" Sean asked.

  Tommy Schultz ran a hand through his thick brown hair, his fingers combing chunks of strands as he pushed them to the back of his skull.

  "Sounds too interesting to pass up," Tommy
said. "Besides, no one has tried to kill us in the last couple of months, so I'd say we're due for some bullets and death threats to come our way."

  "There you have it, Commander," Sean said. "Count us in."

  He glanced over at Adriana, who crossed her arms and flung an irritated glare at him.

  "What?" he asked, putting his hands out wide like a child who claimed to have done nothing wrong, all the while standing around a broken cookie jar.

  "You forgetting someone?" She put her hands on her hips and kicked her left hip out. It was both cute and terrifying. That stance meant she wasn't happy, and he was going to catch grief for it.

  "Honey, of course I figured you'd want to go. You love this kind of stuff."

  "Oh, so you're speaking for both of us now?"

  He felt his skin blushing bright red. Heat swelled in his cheeks and on his forehead. "No, I'm…I'm sorry. I just thought you would enjoy it. You're the one that always says we don't go to Italy enough."

  She cracked a smile, revealing the truth. "I know. I'm just messing with you."

  Tommy shook his head. "He's so easy, right?"

  "He really is," Adriana said.

  "You guys are hilarious." Sean turned to the commander. "I'm coming alone."

  "Are you sure?" Bodmer asked, taking Sean's comment literally. "I thought they said they were coming, too."

  Sean rolled his eyes. "Okay, we're going to need to work on your sense of humor if we're going to be spending a lot of time together."

  6

  THE VATICAN

  Sean listened to the echoes of shoes clicking on the marble-tiled floor as he and the others stalked purposefully through the Vatican. No one paid them any mind save for a few tourists who thought, curiously, that perhaps Sean and his entourage were famous or of some importance.

  The group followed Commander Bodmer through the immense corridors, under frescoes depicting scenes from the Bible, set between high-vaulted Gothic domed arches. The splendor rivaled the beauty of any palace or temple that was ever built, no doubt an effort by the architects to provide the Most High with a suitable home on Earth.

  They had entered through one of the side doors, both to avoid attention and because they weren't there to see the grandeur of the Sistine Chapel. They were there to find the reason a cardinal had been murdered in cold blood and to see what, if anything, the killer may have left behind.

  Bodmer led the way through the corridors of the Apostolic Palace and up to the floor that housed the guest apartments. Some of the priestly quarters were used by cardinals and other men of the cloth on a more permanent basis, while many were reserved for those who were only visiting temporarily. The most notable of the latter happened upon the unfortunate death of a pope, when cardinals would assemble for the conclave to vote on who would become the next head of the church.

  Sometimes, papal conclaves would last for weeks, requiring much deliberation, debate, and prayer over who should be the next to lead the papacy. That required accommodation for the many cardinals to sleep, not to mention all of the other preparations that were needed. They would need to be fed, given clean linens, have their vestments and other clothing laundered, and provided with bathrooms, all things that most people took for granted.

  These men did not support themselves. For most of their lives, they had lived to serve the church, and so the church took care of them in exchange for their service.

  The hallways were beautiful, and more than once Sean caught Adriana admiring their opulent décor.

  Bodmer stopped in front of a door on the left and fished out a key from his pocket to open the door. He stepped inside, giving no concern for contaminating the area simply by being there, not to mention smearing his fingerprints all over the door latch.

  It was this action that caused Sean to raise an eyebrow, though he didn't say anything. Once they were inside, he understood the lack of caution on the commander's part. The room had been cleaned, thoroughly. The body was long gone, and any sign of a struggle or forced entry were likewise unnoticeable. The apartment was tidy, just as it would have been on the day the late cardinal arrived.

  "Looks like you did a little cleaning," Sean said.

  "Yes. And we took down the crime scene markings on the door. We don't want to distress the rest of our tenants. The police tape only served to remind other priests of what happened here and what could happen to them. That's not good for anyone. Besides, all of the evidence has been collected and is being analyzed, although I doubt we will find anything useful."

  "Why's that?" Tommy blurted.

  Bodmer turned to him. "Because whoever did this didn't leave a trace of evidence that could identify them. The room was scoured for clues as to the mysterious killer's identity. We looked everywhere but could find nothing, nothing of course except for the emblem we found on the body."

  "The Teutonic Cross," Sean said.

  "Correct. That was the lone item the killer left behind. Other than that, there was nothing."

  Sean looked around in wondrous disbelief. The room was the complete opposite of the grand hallways just beyond the door. While the corridors that interconnected the immense structure were richly decorated to look more like a king's palace, this apartment was ordinary by comparison. The walls were white; the furniture a dark brown, almost black; and the windowsills dark brown to match the furniture.

  Sean liked the interior decorating. He was pleasantly surprised at the elegant simplicity that was used to put the apartment together. He had half expected to find portraits of dead saints and popes in gilded frames, furniture overlaid with gold, enormous beds that could sleep a soccer team, and vast closets full of fine clothing.

  There was none of that.

  The room defined minimalism the same way most palaces defined grotesque overabundance.

  "As you can see," Bodmer went on, "there isn't much to find in here."

  "So why did you want to bring us here?" Adriana asked. She had an idea but wasn't sure.

  "I wanted you to see this place first because I thought you could use some context."

  "Context?"

  "The killer entered through the window."

  "How do you know that?" Tommy asked.

  "Because if they had gone through any of the corridors leading to these apartments, we would have seen them." His face turned deathly serious. "We watch everything very closely. As you can imagine, protecting His Holiness is no easy feat."

  "I guess not."

  Adriana still looked befuddled. "You don't have cameras outside?"

  "We do," Bodmer confirmed. His response was curt but not rude. "Unfortunately, we experienced several thunderstorms during the night in question. Our external camera system had a few technical issues."

  He could see the three guests were about to ask what that meant. "Over the course of the night, we noticed three significant times when our camera systems failed."

  "Failed?"

  "The monitors went dark. We corrected the situation each time, and after the third, there were no more issues. We believed it was lightning strikes close by."

  "But now you're not so sure," Sean offered.

  "Precisely." Bodmer turned away from the group and stepped around the bed. "The cameras were only down for a few seconds on two of those occasions. They blinked off and then came back almost immediately. The other time, however, the system was down for nearly a full minute."

  "Doesn't sound like a lot of time," Tommy said. "Especially if the killer had to scale the wall outside, break in through the window, do the deed, and then get out."

  "Indeed. We are dealing with a professional of the highest order, an assassin of immense skill."

  Sean and Tommy glanced at each other at the mention of an assassin. They'd had a run-in with that sort before, and things had gotten messy. The two would have much preferred to never deal with their kind again. The thought caused them both to cringe.

  Sean had faced his share of challenges as a special agent, and many times after leaving t
hat line of work. Few were as tough as the bout he'd had with the Assassins, an ancient order bent on waging war with the Templars.

  He shrugged off the concern and forced his mind to stay focused on the facts at hand, not the past. Besides, as far as he knew, those assassins were gone, extinct. Bodmer wasn't necessarily insinuating it was an actual member of their secret organization, simply a stealthy killer. That didn't change the fact that the word sent a chill up his spine.

  "So, you're telling us that whoever got in here went up the wall and through that window in less than a minute?" Tommy asked as he drew nearer to the window and looked down. It wasn't the highest room, but it would have taken incredible skill and agility to make that climb and get through the window without detection.

  "Impressive," Sean added. "They would have had to know the layout."

  "Agreed," Bodmer managed.

  Sean stepped closer to the window as well and looked down into the alleyway below. It was narrow, too narrow for a car, and barely wide enough for a large motorcycle. It took him less than five seconds to realize how the killer got up the wall and into the apartment. While he didn't know how the murderer might have opened the window from the outside, a short inspection of the locking mechanisms told him that even the most inexperienced of thieves could have gained entry, more so for someone who was an expert. And that was exactly what they were dealing with.

  "Whoever killed your cardinal used both walls," Sean stated. There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his voice or in his mind.

  "What?" Everyone turned to face him, but it was Bodmer who spoke.

  Sean pointed out the window at the narrow gap between the two buildings. The wall across from them was only four or five feet away.

  "It's too far for someone to push their back against one wall and their feet against the other. And they certainly didn't do the splits and shimmy up. That would have taken too long, and we'd be looking for someone nearing seven feet tall. I doubt there are that many people out there that tall, and also with the agility to accomplish that particular task."