“He won’t get it. Besides, I couldn’t do it like that.” She glanced back over her shoulder, saw Silvio, his gun in his coat pocket, the barrel jutting slightly through the wool, close the room door, then follow them. “I couldn’t just let them kill Tex outright.”
“Adami’s not going to release Tex,” he whispered. “And now, thanks to you, we need damage control. We can’t let him have that damned map.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I-”
“You two shut the hell up,” Silvio called out. “Onto the elevator, and no more talking.” They rode the elevator to the ground floor and the lobby. Silvio motioned for everyone to exit the front door, as he held it open. Out front, she saw a black Mercedes. A taxi pulled in behind it, honking its horn, perhaps in hopes of getting the larger car to move forward. It didn’t budge, and the tinted rear window of the Mercedes rolled partway down.
Adami peered out at them, smiling. “Signore Griffin.”
Silvio moved to the car, standing beside it, keeping watch. Griffin dropped Sydney’s arm, started toward the Mercedes, just as Adami looked over at the priest and said, “Ah, Father Dumas. I suppose I should offer my thanks to you for keeping me so well-informed.”
Griffin paused, looked over at Dumas.
The priest shook his head. “A lie,” he said, when he finally found his tongue.
Griffin turned back to Adami. “You expect me to believe that Dumas works for you?” he asked, taking another step forward.
Adami gave a shrug. “Perhaps indirectly. He managed to keep the ambassador apprised, and the ambassador, in turn, kept me very well informed of most of ATLAS’s next moves. The death of his daughter, and his return to the States, unfortunately, left me on my own these past few days, or you wouldn’t have had the advantage you had in Tunisia.”
“You killed Alessandra?”
“If you hope I’ll confess to murder, you’re wrong. I believe the man who killed her, Niko, met an untimely death in some apartment in Washington,” he said, looking right at Sydney, before turning his attention back to Griffin. “But I suspect you may know more about that than I, seeing as how it was your FBI agent who killed him.”
“You’re saying the ambassador willingly gave you information on our operations?”
“He’s not the only one. You might want to ask him who he reports to.”
“I’ll certainly look into the matter,” Griffin said, trying to peer into the Mercedes.
“The map,” Adami said.
“That map belongs to the Vatican,” Dumas replied.
Adami narrowed his gaze, and a vein pulsed in his temple. “What is it the church is so fond of saying? An eye for an eye? This map will almost make up for the warehouse I lost along with the year’s worth of work, as well as the personnel within. You’re lucky I don’t lay claim to each life lost. But a deal’s a deal, and I am in a benevolent mood.”
Benevolent? Or counting on finding the lost plagues and rebuilding his bioweapons? What better source than something that hadn’t seen the light of day in two thousand years? Something that hadn’t been studied, something that might be deadlier because of its very isolation? And that was when Sydney realized the foolishness of her plan-and why Griffin had insisted on destroying that map.
The window rolled down the rest of the way, and Sydney saw Tex, still dressed in his tuxedo. Adami held a gun pointed at Tex’s gut, just low enough that most passersby wouldn’t see. Tex looked out the window at Griffin, cocked his head slightly. His face was bruised, dried blood crusted around his eyes and his mouth. His breathing was shallow, and he looked like hell.
But he was alive, Sydney thought.
Griffin returned his attention to Adami, took another step forward, his hand held to his side, and Sydney wondered if he was going to pull an empty gun trying to bluff Tex out of that car alive. Griffin and Sydney had no ammunition. Dumas carried no weapons. She was sure Adami wouldn’t hesitate to kill Tex right there, was probably going to do it anyway. That was precisely what Griffin had thought, and she watched as he turned, leaning as though he was merely looking into the car. His strategic placement told her he was going for Adami’s guard, Silvio.
She looked at Tex, saw he was also watching Griffin, then saw him close his eyes, a look of utter defeat overtaking his features. He expected the worst. When he opened his eyes again, he looked right at Sydney. Shook his head. Glanced at Griffin, then back at her in warning. No, he mouthed silently.
Sydney’s pulse pounded with each passing second. She wasn’t sure what Griffin was planning. To dive past the goon and through the window, grab the gun? Surely he wasn’t foolish enough to think that Adami was the only man armed in there? The driver was surely armed, as was the man Adami had sent to fetch them. Griffin would be dead before he ever had a chance to pull Tex out. Worse yet, the moment they handed the map over, Tex was dead. He clearly knew it, was warning them off.
Once again why Griffin had wanted her to destroy the map.
She needed to stop him. But Griffin edged closer. Before she could get his attention, a young couple, laughing as they walked arm-in-arm, crossed in front of Sydney, blocking her view, and she had to step aside as the man leaned forward to toss a smoldering cigarette into the ashtray on top of the garbage bin near the door. She felt helpless. As out of control as the smoke that swirled up, and drifted away.
Adami said, “Time is up…” He raised the gun to Tex’s head.
She had to do something, or Griffin was going to lose Tex, and maybe his own life.
“Here it is,” Sydney shouted.
“No!” Griffin said.
She slid the strap from her shoulder, opened the tube, and slid the parchment out, unrolling it slightly, revealing the lower left corner with the fleur-de-lis and Templar cross, and the very edge of the labyrinth, before she let the map roll shut. But she didn’t move forward, just stood there by the door.
“Hand it over,” Adami said.
“First,” she said, “you hand over Tex.”
“You’re in no position to argue.”
“But I am,” she replied. “I’ll bet two-hundred-year-old paper would burn pretty damned quick if lit.” She held it over the ashtray, allowing the smoke from the cigarette to drift right up to the paper. Francesca cried out. When Adami’s goon started forward, Sydney lowered the parchment toward the cigarette. “I wouldn’t try it,” Sydney said.
“Stop!” Adami ordered. Silvio stilled, and Adami dropped the gun slightly, as though weighing Sydney’s resolve against his. “As I said, the map for your friend.”
Sydney said, “Have your man open the door.”
“Agreed. Silvio, the door.” Silvio walked around to the far side of the car and opened the passenger door. “Now your turn,” Adami said.
She didn’t remove the parchment. Instead, she picked up the cigarette, and held it closer to the paper. “Tex first.”
Adami motioned for Tex to slide out. His hands were tied behind him, and he moved stiffly. “Hand me the map, and I will allow Griffin to assist him from the car.”
“Get your man away,” Sydney ordered.
“Silvio,” Adami said. “In the car.”
Silvio walked back around and opened the front door, got in. Just before he closed the door, she saw the driver, his gun pointed toward the passenger compartment. “Tell your driver, and anyone else with a gun, that if I so much as hear a click, this thing is going up in smoke.”
“Lower your weapons,” Adami called out.
Sydney looked at Griffin. He ignored her, walked to the other side of the car. As he pulled Tex out, she dropped the rolled parchment into the tube, leaned forward, handed it to Adami. Tex was in Griffin’s arms, and he dragged him back, away from the car. Sydney let go of the leather strap, tossed the cigarette into the gutter as Adami rolled up the window. “Go!” he said to the driver.
The Mercedes took off.
Griffin looked at Sydney, defeat and anger written across his face.
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38
Griffin shook himself. Sure, with Sydney’s help they’d rescued Tex, but at what price? The map was lost and he had no one to blame but himself for their failed mission.
“Easy does it,” Tex said, as Dumas cut the cords at his wrists. When he was free, he rubbed the circulation back, glaring at Griffin. “I spent how many days tied up in some room of his, and you let him get that map? You do realize what it leads to? Why he wanted it?”
“It’s not his fault,” Sydney interjected. “There’s something I-”
“Now isn’t the time,” Griffin told her.
“Hell if it isn’t,” she said. “When Adami figures out that that map isn’t quite what he bargained for, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”
“What are you talking about?” Griffin asked.
She lifted her shirt.
Francesca sucked in her breath. Tex whistled. “That what I think it is?”
“When Griffin sent me into the bathroom to destroy it, I figured why not cut out the important parts? Give him what’s left over?”
“Jesus Christ,” Griffin said. “We need to get the hell out of here. Now!”
“Xavier is waiting at the café for Alfredo,” Dumas said. “My car is there.” Dumas took one side of Tex, Griffin the other, just in case he needed help, but Tex held his own as they raced around the corner.
“Where are they?” Griffin asked.
Dumas looked about the piazza. “There!” he said, pointing to a table at the café.
Alfredo and Xavier saw them and ran across the cobbled piazza, Alfredo carrying Sydney’s black bag on his shoulder. He held it out. “This was left in my van.”
Griffin took the bag and handed it to Sydney. “Right now, the farther you are from us, the safer you’ll be,” he told Alfredo. “Adami will undoubtedly be coming after us and the map.”
“Where should we go?” Alfredo asked.
“Take Xavier to the nearest carabinieri office. Have them contact the vice-comandante generale in Rome. Give them my name and they’ll know what to do.”
“Very good,” Alfredo said.
“And thanks for your help. Both of you.”
The two took off toward Alfredo’s van, and Dumas directed the others to his car parked nearby. He unlocked it, then threw Griffin his keys. “You’re better at evading,” he said, getting into the front passenger seat.
Francesca and Sydney got into the back. Tex was just about to slide in beside them when Griffin looked up, saw a black Mercedes drive past the intersection. The telltale sound of tires skidding on pavement told them that he and Tex had been spotted. “Hell,” he said, digging out his phone and tossing it into the backseat for Tex, before he got in. “HQ has a chopper on standby at the airport. Get it here.”
Tex called HQ as Griffin hit the gas, sped off. Traffic was incredibly thick on the main street. He pulled in at the first opening, not pausing to see if Adami was following.
“May I see it?” he heard Francesca ask Sydney.
Griffin eyed Sydney in the rearview mirror. “Do not pull that thing out under any circumstances.”
Francesca wasn’t about to let the matter drop. “I have to know how you did it?”
“Did what?” Sydney asked.
“Fooled Adami into making him think he had the map?”
“Technically he did have it. Just not all of it.”
“But I saw it!”
“Only what was left of it. I unrolled it just far enough so he couldn’t see that I’d cut out most of the labyrinth from the middle and the list of words of what I presumed was some sort of key or legend.”
Francesca gave a horrified gasp. “Do you realize what you’ve done? The history you’ve decimated?”
“And the lives she saved?” Griffin replied, braking to avoid a motorcycle that pulled out in front of him.
That, at least, shut Francesca up, but any chance of peace was lost when Dumas slammed his hand on the dashboard. “What about the lives I may have lost?”
Griffin checked the mirrors, saw the roof of a black vehicle about four cars back. “You sure it can’t wait for Sunday confessional? I could use your help trying to save the lives in this car right now. He’s behind us.”
“But what he told you about the ambassador.”
“What the hell? You didn’t think I believed that shit?” When there was no answer, Griffin glanced over, saw the look of self-loathing on the priest’s face. “For Christ’s sake. You mean you knew the ambassador was relaying info to Adami?”
“No. But I should have known.”
“How?” Griffin said, looking into the mirror. Adami’s driver veered into the opposing lane, passed two cars, then jumped in again. “He was as much a part of ATLAS as you and I.”
“Yet you didn’t pass on information, thereby endangering the team.”
Griffin felt Sydney’s gaze on him. “No, but my failure to pass on information caused issues.” He hit the horn, trying to get the car in front of him to pull aside.
“That makes us quite the pair. You trust no one, and I put all my trust in God.”
To which Tex said, “This Kumbaya shit is all well and good, but I could sure use a shot of Johnnie Walker and a shower, and if Adami catches up to us, I’m not getting either.”
Griffin checked his mirror. The black Mercedes was closing in on them. He whipped the wheel, made a hard right turn down a narrow street. “Find out where that chopper is, Tex.”
Tex made the call. “They’re tracking our cell now.”
Griffin turned left down an alley, then down another street that opened into a plaza. He blasted the horn. Pedestrians fled. The Mercedes was on their tail. Silvio leaned out the window, pointed a gun at them. And then the welcoming thrum of helicopter rotor blades filled the air. Griffin looked up, saw the military helicopter hovering above an Egyptian obelisk in the plaza’s center.
The chopper maneuvered down, and two uniformed carabinieri leaned out, submachine guns in hand. He saw Giustino behind the crew, talking to someone on his headset. “The cavalry’s here,” Griffin said.
“Adami’s backing off,” Tex replied.
“They’re leaving!” Dumas cried, and he made the sign of the cross.
Not until they’d landed safely at the carabinieri helipad, and Giustino guided everyone into an office, did Griffin agree to let Sydney pull out the map. She spread it out on the table and he studied the portion of the labyrinth she’d cut out, as well as the words listed down the side. “Not bad, Fitzpatrick,” he said. “But it would’ve been nice to have gotten us the whole thing.”
“I was working on a time crunch.”
Francesca ran her fingers against the cut edge, looking sick to her stomach. “Ruined. Almost half of the labyrinth is missing. To be so close…”
“These words,” Sydney asked her. “Any idea what they mean?”
It was Dumas who answered. “Possibly Old French, archaic. They’d need to be researched. That of course can be done once it is rightfully returned to the Vatican.”
“Like hell it will be,” Griffin replied. “And even if it does belong to the Vatican, you think the pope will do a better job protecting the world from the threat of a plague released by a madman?”
“With God’s help.”
“What were you saying earlier about putting all your trust in God? Maybe a little trust in ATLAS’s capabilities?”
Dumas gave a heavy sigh. “Agreed. There has been too much death where this thing has been concerned.”
“Maybe you should put it away,” Griffin told Sydney, taking out his phone to call headquarters. “Less temptation for everyone.”
Sydney removed her sketchbook from the bag Alfredo had returned. She opened it to slip the map in, and Father Dumas saw one of the sketches of the loculi in the columbarium. “May I?”
“Sure,” she said, handing him the sketchbook. “I wish I’d had more time there. It was an amazing place.”
Giustino was talking to a f
ellow carabinieri near the door, arranging vehicle transportation for Griffin and the others back to Rome. He looked up, stopped when he realized Griffin was trying to make a call, and signaled for the other officer to step out with him. Even so, Griffin moved to the far side of the room for some privacy. The thought of telling McNiel about Ambassador Harden weighed on him, but he had no choice.
McNiel answered.
Griffin heard several people talking in the background. “You’re up late.”
“Damage control,” McNiel replied. “The thing we tried to avoid by keeping Alessandra’s murder from the press? It’s happening now. Ambassador Harden unwittingly started a firestorm at his daughter’s funeral, stating he wouldn’t rest until he learned who had killed her. We barely got him away from the press, before they started asking if he knew if his daughter was having an affair with Congressman Burnett. It’d be nice to bury this thing without exposing ATLAS.”
“About that,” Griffin said, watching as Sydney pointed out the details on one of the sketches, talking avidly about the columbarium to Dumas and Tex. “It might be too late. Who’s there with you?”
“I’m sitting here with the directorate and half the ATLAS oversight committee. What do you have to report?”
“Good news and bad. I’ll give you the good first, which you can relay,” he said, emphasizing the word as a warning. “We found Tex. He’s safe.”
“Thank God.” He heard McNiel repeat the information. Heard the congratulations being passed around the room. After a moment, McNiel said, “And this other news?”
“Ambassador Harden. He’s been passing on information to Adami. And Adami hinted that Harden was reporting to someone higher up.”
A long stretch of silence on the other end, then finally, “Yes, of course we heard about the warehouse and the bioweapons being destroyed. Everyone here is ecstatic.”
Translation: McNiel wasn’t about to reveal to anyone in that room that he knew there might be a mole. “Unfortunately,” Griffin continued, “Adami got part of the map. A very small piece if that’s any consolation. But it also renders the part we have as unusable. There was nothing we could do.”
The Bone Chamber Page 37
