She was almost to the base of the stairs when the man stopped and half turned. She saw the rough skin of his cheek. The first thing that flashed through her mind was that she had seen him before. He was familiar. Then she realized he was the driver of the car that rear-ended them.
He was also lifting the gun and pointing it at her. She heard the sound of running feet behind her.
“Cole! Gun!” she shouted as she dove behind one of the shacks.
The gun boomed.
Riley lay on the ground, curled into a fetal position, gritting her teeth. She had landed on her bad shoulder. The pain from the old burn injury, even after months of skin grafts at Bethesda, could feel like it was still on fire if she hit it just right.
The sound of the swells rising and falling against the rocks seemed much louder. She knew it was the adrenaline making all her senses more acute. “Cole?” Her voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Are you okay?” She struggled to her knees behind the shack, and then, with one hand on the wall, she lifted herself to her feet.
The pain in her shoulder caused her right arm to hang useless at her side.
When she peered out from behind the building, the man on the stairs was gone. She started back down the path, calling Cole’s name.
She heard scratching noises, then what sounded like her own name. It seemed to be coming from behind the houses. Around the side of one house she saw a length of clothesline tied to an eyebolt on the side of the shack. Just before it trailed over the cliff, there was a child’s pink dress pinned to the line with clothespins. The rope moved, sawing back and forth on the cliff edge.
“Cole?”
“Down here.”
When she reached the edge and looked down, she saw him hanging, clutching the line with white-knuckled hands, more clothing wrapped around him and lying on the rocks below. His eyes were squeezed shut, his skin deathly pale.
“Stop wiggling,” she said. “You’re chafing the line on the rocks.”
He made a whimpering noise.
“You weigh more than I do, so I can’t pull you up alone.” Especially not with this shoulder, she thought. “I’ll take a look around.”
Behind her she heard footsteps on gravel. When she turned, she saw the same large lady—who was now eyeing her distrustfully—and a small, wiry man.
“Could you help me?”
Together, she and the man pulled Cole up the cliff. He stood and dusted himself off.
“How’d that happen?” Riley asked.
“When I saw the gun, I ran for cover behind this house. I ran through the hanging clothes, not realizing there was a drop-off right on the other side.”
“You’re lucky you broke the clothesline.”
“I’d consider myself lucky if I hadn’t fallen at all.”
Riley turned to the man. “Thanks for the help. Are you folks all right?”
The woman said, “That crazy man forced all of us into the house with his gun.”
“I saw a baby all alone back there.” Riley pointed.
“He took her mother first. She’s back home now. She called the police.”
Cole glanced at Riley. “We need to go back and retrieve the backpack.” He turned to the Maltese couple. “We were having a picnic. We need to go get our things.”
The man and woman nodded.
Cole took Riley by the arm and steered her toward the path. “I really don’t want to get involved with the cops.”
“Me neither. We don’t have enough time here to do half of what I want to do. That doesn’t include spending all afternoon talking to the police.”
When they returned to their picnic spot, they packed up and headed back, retracing their steps. Cole walked ahead, keeping up a brisk pace. Neither of them attempted to make conversation.
Riley thought back to those few short weeks when she and Cole had first met. Riley had rescued him swimming out at sea, but he was gone again before she ran into Diggory Priest in Pointe-à-Pitre. She walked herself through those weeks in her head. There was only one time that Cole and Diggory had met face-to-face. It was at the mouth of the Indian River, when Dig told her that her father was ill and she needed to return home. Cole had only seen Dig for about five minutes, six years ago.
But if it wasn’t Dig, who was it?
Once they got to the road, they found a shortcut into the city through a tunnel. They made their way to Republic Street and started walking uphill toward the center of the old city.
“I can’t believe that bastard was spying on us with a nano drone,” Cole said.
“I didn’t think anyone outside the military had access to drones that small yet. I’ve heard they have even smaller ones now. They literally look like little mosquitoes.”
“So you did see him, didn’t you?”
“See who?”
“Diggory.”
“Cole, I saw a man.”
“Oh, don’t start. What’s the matter with you?”
“It was the same man who rear-ended us back in Turkey, Cole. But it wasn’t Dig. What about all that scar tissue all over his face?”
“What are you talking about, scars? Other than the long hair, the man I saw on those rocks hasn’t changed one iota since the day I first met the bastard in Dominica.”
The Palazzo Magistral
Via Condotti, Rome
April 12, 2014
When Virgil entered the office, it was as though Signor Oscura had not moved since their last meeting. It was always like that. Virgil suspected that if he ever saw the man out on the street, he might not even recognize him. He seemed to exist only in this office.
Virgil nodded when the man looked up from his desk.
“So, how are things going out at the villa?”
“My men are settling in, sir. Getting the lay of the place. It’s a big property for four guys to cover, but they are some of the best in the business.”
“While the guest list is not the same as the Sovereign Council, this group is more controversial. We certainly don’t want anything about the meeting leaking to the press. And it’s possible some of our more outspoken members may attract unwanted attention. Threats could come from many different directions.”
“I understand.”
“Easter Sunday is the twentieth of April, and some guests will only be staying for that. Others will stay on for the dual canonization mass the following week. And not all of our guests are Catholic. Many are Protestants and actively anti-Catholic, but they like to come look at all the pomp and ceremony. We need to make sure we can keep the peace within the house as well as without.”
“Not sure we can do that, sir. If an actual fight breaks out, you can count on us to break it up, but my men and I aren’t trained to be diplomats.”
Signor Oscura wore a half smile when he said, “I guess not. Frankly, I don’t know what to expect from many of our newer members. Back when acceptance to the Order required proof of noble blood, we could count on a certain level of decorum.”
Virgil stood silent with his hands clasped behind his back and stared out the window behind the executive director.
“No insult intended, Virgil.”
“None taken, sir.”
“Before the weekend of the canonization, on Friday evening, we are going to have the strategic planning meeting of the Guardiani in the villa’s chapel. Everything else, having all the other guests in for the Holy Week celebrations and the canonization, these are all excellent camouflage for this event. There cannot be any evidence that this meeting took place. I’d like to have all your men on hand to secure the chapel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what’s happening with the search?”
“Thatcher and the woman flew to Malta last night. My man arrived in Valletta this morning. He phoned me a couple of hours ago to check in.”
“And?”
“He was using a drone for surveillance. He recorded them discussing some code or cipher that Thatcher’s father left in his journal. We have
the cipher text now, and I’ve texted it on to a pal of mine who’s a hacker. He’s got password-breaking programs that might be able to crack it.”
“You know the Order has many resources. If your associate has no luck, I can put you in touch with our talent pool.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“This is all excellent news.” The man reached forward and awakened his computer. He began to read on the screen.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
The man lifted his hand and made a motion as though shooing him out of the office.
Virgil stepped slowly down the stairs, his eyes staring straight ahead. He hadn’t told the story of his man being seen, the couple chasing him, and his man getting a shot off in Malta. His guy had had to lay low for a while after that. The Malta police had been all over that part of the island. He’d lost the couple and was heading back to the apartment where they were staying.
Dude was a fuckup. Virgil would have to do this himself. When he’d hired his old buddy, he hadn’t realized how important this mission was. He still might be able to use him at the villa for security. He’d bring him back to Rome.
Once out on the street, he turned right and walked down to the intersection, where he hailed a taxi. He checked his watch. He was supposed to call her at 7:00 p.m. That didn’t leave much time. He handed the driver his card with the address of his apartment. It was the only way he could communicate with these damn cabbies who didn’t even speak English.
The traffic was bad at that time of the evening, and it was already after seven by the time the driver let him off. Virgil unlocked the door and hurried up the stairs. His apartment was on the third floor. Once inside, he turned on the laptop computer on the table in his small kitchen.
While it was booting up, he went into the bathroom to take a piss. When he was finished, he paused in front of the mirror. The black shirt was okay. He’d adjust it so she couldn’t see the cross on the pocket. His white-blond hair was sticking straight up. He didn’t want her thinking he looked like fucking Einstein. He leaned over the basin and wetted his hair, then grabbed a comb and combed it straight back. He stared at the mirror. The ex always said she fell in love with his blue eyes. At least, she used to say that, before she started screaming at him and calling him a monster and a murderer.
Virgil hurried out to the computer and sat down in the straight-backed wooden chair. He clicked on the icon for Skype and felt his heart rate increase at the familiar sound of the program starting up. He had been practicing for this call for a week. The video image on the screen cut off the top of his face, so he pressed a finger against the top of the screen to adjust the internal camera. There was only one number in his contact list. When he was satisfied with how he looked, he clicked on it.
She answered almost immediately. Her face filled his screen. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, sweetheart. Happy birthday.” He wondered if he should have said something about it being her sweet sixteenth. It had been so long since he’d been around kids; he had no idea if that was cool, or if she’d think he was stupid.
“Thanks.”
Neither one of them spoke then. There was always a time lag with this computer stuff, and he didn’t want to interrupt her in case she started talking. He could see her mother in the shape of her face, but she had his icy blue eyes and blonde hair. She had grown into a beautiful young woman.
“So, where are you?” she asked.
“In Rome. I’ve been working here for a while.”
She had reached out to him. She’d found an old email address on her mom’s computer, and they’d been writing back and forth for just over a month now. Bonnie had been the one to suggest Skype.
She appeared to be squinting at her monitor. “You know, Mom never says much about you. Well, nothing nice, anyway. And you weren’t around much even when you and Mom were still married. And I was pretty little when you left. I don’t really remember you.”
“I remember you, Bonnie. Real well. Cutest baby I ever saw, even if you did cry all the time, and sometimes that crying made me crazy. I remember teaching you to ride a bike with training wheels. And carrying you on my shoulders to go to the Fourth of July parade in Charleston.”
“That’s it? That’s all you remember?”
“No, I just don’t want to do all the talking. Tell me about what you’re doing for your birthday.”
“Not much. Mom said I couldn’t have a party because I’m failing two classes at school, and she doesn’t like my boyfriend. She can be such a bitch sometimes.”
Virgil had no idea how to respond to that. While he agreed with his daughter about her mother, he thought he ought not to tell her that.
“Which classes are giving you trouble?”
She rolled her eyes and flipped her long hair over her shoulder. Virgil reckoned there were lots of boys showing plenty of interest.
“Health class and English. Coach Nader is such a perv. He stares at the girls’ boobs all the time. I can’t stand going to his class. Me and Jenny skip seventh period and go over to Circle K, where the clerk likes us. He sells us cigarettes. And the other class is English. I’m good in English, but the teacher hates me. Just ’cuz I was late turning in two assignments, and she caught me texting in class, she failed me.”
Again, he had no idea how to respond. He’d always known this wasn’t going to be easy, but he hadn’t realized she would sound like she was from another planet. And Coach Nader? He didn’t like the sound of that.
He heard a muffled voice in the background, shouting, “Bonnie! Who’s that you’re talking to?”
She looked over her shoulder, then turned back to the screen. He saw fear in her eyes. “Shit, Daddy. Mom’ll kill me if she catches me talking to you. Gotta go. Bye.”
He opened his mouth to say good-bye to his daughter, but the computer chimed and the video window closed.
Virgil sat there staring at the screen showing his Skype contacts page, the sound of her voice seeming to echo in the empty room. Over and over he heard her voice say, “Daddy.”
The Grand Master’s Palace
Valletta, Malta
April 12, 2014
Dr. Günay came running down the hall, her flats slapping the marble. Her hands flopped through the air like a pair of birds trying to alight on her shoulders. “Oh, I’m delighted to see you!” she called out. The girl who stood at the base of the staircase directing tourists giggled behind her hand.
“Great to see you, Dr. Günay,” Riley said.
Riley extended her hand, but the stocky historian brushed it aside and moved in for the embrace.
“It’s Najat, remember?” She stood on her tiptoes and smacked air kisses at both cheeks.
Cole she embraced even more enthusiastically, and from the color of his face, Riley reckoned the woman had a good grip on him.
“We had another delay in the boatyard,” Riley said, “so we decided to fly over here for a couple of days.” As they had walked the streets to the Grand Master’s Palace, Riley and Cole had agreed to say nothing to Dr. Günay about the shooting.
“How wonderful! Now you are on my home turf, I would like to show you around.”
“We’d like that, too. Nothing like having the museum’s boss as your tour guide.”
“Come upstairs. We’ll start with the armory.”
Judging from Cole’s reaction, the collection here in Malta was far more extensive than what he had seen in Rhodes. They walked through halls with paintings, tapestries, suits of armor, swords, and jewels.
But after a while, Riley listened with only half her attention to the conversation between Cole and Najat. Riley was thinking about the cipher. Cole’s background was archeology, and he retained all this history stuff, but after twenty minutes Riley’s eyes started glazing over.
She thought about Hazel’s words. Stop doubting him and start helping him. She couldn’t figure out who the shooter was, but maybe she could solve the cipher.
She had memorized the
letters: VYIPMMLU. Cole had mentioned a shift cipher. If she remembered correctly, that was where you wrote out the alphabet and then wrote out the alphabet again on top, but you shifted over a few places so the second alphabet might start with the letter A written above the letter E. Since E is the fifth letter of the alphabet, that meant the key to that cipher was the number five.
Dr. Günay’s voice droned on in her ear. “The Maltese armorers became fabulous craftsmen as the Knights demanded more and more battle and ceremonial armor. You see, this suit of armor for Grand Master Adrien de Wignacourt is inlaid with gold over the steel.”
“It’s a work of art,” Cole said.
“Indeed. Many craftsmen came to Malta from other parts of Europe. Often, they followed a Knight here, stayed on, married, and then taught the trade to their children. By the eighteenth century, Maltese metal craftsmen were renowned throughout Europe.”
Riley tuned them out and thought about a number key. Cole’s birthday was November 19, 1973. She pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and opened the calculator. If she wrote out the date numerically as 11-19-1973 and then added up all the integers, she got 32. With 26 letters in the alphabet, an offset of 26 would result in no change—but if she were to offset 32 times and overlap, the result would be 32 minus 26, which is 6.
“Are you okay, Riley?” Dr. Günay asked.
Riley looked up. The others were more than thirty feet ahead of her, looking back in concern. She realized she had stopped walking.
“I’m fine, but a bit tired. We’ve been walking around the city since early this morning. I really would like to sit down for a bit.”
Cole hiked the backpack up higher on his shoulder, and she heard a long sigh from his direction. He was still angry over her refusal to accept that the shooter had been Diggory Priest.
“I understand.” Dr. Günay waved her hand at the docent standing by the gallery door. “Peter,” she said. “Would you please take this young lady to my office?”
Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3) Page 10
