The Last Con

by Zachary Bartels

  “But I thought John was the patron saint of the Knights of Malta,” Dante said.

  “There’re a lot of references to St. Paul in these letters,” Meg offered. “But what would Paulos Apostolos mean to the map and the monstrance?”

  “Well, we’ve got these conflicting reports—early sources say the Knights revered the hand of St. John, while the later accounts say they left with his skull. What if the skull was just a convenient place to store the necklace while the order switched up their patron saint to Paul, the man who had seemed like a god to the Maltese?”

  “But how would Apostle Paul 19.12 tell José Fonseca where to find the diamonds?” Dante asked.

  “Wait a minute.” Fletcher grabbed Meg’s Bible and began to flip. “Praxeis Apostolôn.”

  “Come again?” Andrew said.

  “That’s the name of the book of Acts in the original Greek. Here it is, Acts 19:11–12 . . . ‘God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.’ ”

  “That’s got to be their great relic, then,” Dante said. “I mean, every document we’ve looked at seems to associate the necklace with a particular cloth with a distinctive round stain. What if it’s all misdirection? Who would give the old cloth a second look if it’s wrapped around a hundred million in diamonds?”

  Fletcher nodded. “And the Alchemist was far more interested in the cloth in the altar than in what it contained. The Knights could have acquired a relic like this when they took Malta.”

  “A round stain,” Andrew said. “That might be how you line up the cloth with the monstrance so you can shine the light through it and find the location of the ship.”

  Meg shook her head. “What if the Alchemist isn’t after the necklace or the ship? What if he wants a cloth with the power to heal diseases?”

  “I don’t follow,” Dante said.

  “He calls himself the Alchemist. Remember what alchemy was all about: distilling things down to their essence.”

  Fletcher’s phone rang. He glanced at the display, then looked up at Meg, eyes wide.

  “What?” Meg asked. “Who is it?”

  “Courtney.” He answered the call on speaker. “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for Fletcher Doyle.” The voice was deep and resonant, the very opposite of Courtney’s.

  “This is he.”

  “Hello, Fletcher. This is Andre Foreman. I’m at the Orangelawn Shelter tonight.” The tension in the room increased.

  “Oh, Dr. Foreman,” Fletcher said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, a young lady named Courtney is with me. She says she was here volunteering with your group this week.”

  “Wait—she’s here? Or there?”

  “Yes.” He lowered his voice a bit. “She looks like she’s been through quite an ordeal. Someone has struck her, but she won’t tell me who and she won’t hear of calling the police or her parents. She’ll only talk to you.”

  “We’re actually not too far away,” Fletcher said. “Meg and I will be there in a few minutes.”

  “Sounds good.” Call ended.

  “We have to wait a couple minutes at least,” Fletcher said to Meg, who was hurriedly lacing up her shoes.

  “And you have to look concerned but not frantic,” Andrew said. “Remember what Cagliostro wrote: ‘Men who live by the art of misdirection are able to overcome their emotions so as to become whatever they need to be in a given moment, not to survive, but to thrive.’ ” Meg gestured at the bare, unfinished room around them. “You call this thriving?”

  “I INSISTED SHE LET ME CALL SOMEONE TO COME GET HER,” DR. FOREMAN said, “but she made it clear that she’d run if I called anyone but you. Must be making quite an impact on these young people.” He led Fletcher and Meg down a hall to a small nursery, where Courtney sat rocking slowly on a glider. The left side of her face was purple and bruised.

  Meg bit her lip. Fletcher knew she was in grave danger of losing it.

  Dr. Foreman said, “I’ll let you talk privately.”

  The moment they entered the room, Courtney rushed to Fletcher and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.

  Meg gave her just a moment to get it out before asking, “Where’s Ivy?”

  Courtney took a step back from Fletcher, rubbing at her eyes and nose with her sleeve. “She’s still there. With them.”

  “Did you escape?”

  “No, they let me out. The guy—the guy with the scar told me to find you and tell you . . .” Her chin quivered, a preamble to another crying jag.

  “Tell us what?” Meg asked.

  “He said you have one more day or he’s going to kill Ivy.”

  Meg slumped to the ground, face buried in her hands.

  “He said to stop screwing around looking for pirate treasure and find his prize. Whatever that means.”

  “Anything else?” Fletcher asked, down on one knee now, rubbing Meg’s back.

  “He said you’re close. But close doesn’t cut it.”

  “Listen, Courtney,” Fletcher said, “do you think you could describe the trip? We could try and backtrack it in the van.”

  Courtney shook her head. “He blindfolded me and put these giant headphones on my ears with this awful heavy metal music.”

  Meg stood and wiped her face with her fingers. “The man who did that to you—did he do the same thing to Ivy?”

  “I don’t know,” Courtney said. “After we tried to escape, he kept us in separate rooms.”

  Fletcher nodded. Without warning Courtney wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed her lips up to his ear.

  “One more thing,” she whispered. “He’s listening to you. All the time. I could hear them through the wall. The man with the scar was playing all these, like, sound bites of you guys talking.”

  “You’ve delivered your message,” Fletcher said. “I should take you back to your dad now.”

  “I’ll do it,” Meg said.

  “No, Andrew and I will go.” He opened the nursery door. “Don’t worry, Gorgeous—I’ll tell Brad you’re thinking of him.”

  CHAPTER 55

  MARCH 21, 1791

  ST. PETER’S BASILICA, THE VATICAN

  Your Holiness, there are men here to discuss the matter of Count Cagliostro.”

  His Holiness Pope Pius VI ran his hand absently along the velvet armrest of his chair—a habit that had worn it smooth. “I am familiar with the man and his detainment by the Office of the Inquisition. Tell me the particulars.”

  A papal clerk referenced the document in his hand. “Cagliostro, who was baptized Giuseppe Balsamo, was detained here in Rome two years ago and charged with alchemy, heresy, and Freemasonry, as well as a variety of more, er, fantastical claims.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as having been a guest at the wedding in Cana where our Lord turned water to wine and having borne witness to the crucifixion.”

  “I assume he recanted these claims when pressure was applied?”

  “No, Your Holiness. He denied that he had fabricated a single claim, nor did he admit to being Balsamo. He was sentenced to death this morning.”

  “And who dares to question our verdict?”

  “I do not know, Your Holiness. He would not give a name.”

  The pope snarled, “How did he gain entrance to St. Peter’s without giving a name?”

  “He was escorted in by the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. And he gave a word, rather than a name.”

  “What word?”

  “I have been forbidden by Your Holiness from speaking this word aloud,” the man said, visibly shaken. “They wait now in the antechamber.”

  The pope pulled at the fringe on his sleeve for a moment before saying, “Send him in.”

  The clerk bowed low to the ground and exited through the heavy doors, past two Swiss Guards, and approached the mysterious visitor.

  He was a
young man, perhaps twenty years old, dressed in a military uniform that the clerk could not identify. He was short, but his bi-cornered hat added to his height, as did the sense of power he exuded. He stood straight, his right hand wedged into his waistcoat.

  “The Holy Father will see you,” the clerk said. The visitor removed his hat and handed it to the clerk, who received it bewilderedly. He then entered the pope’s chamber, closing the doors behind him.

  Not more than a minute later the man came back out, snatched his hat and placed it firmly on his head, and left. When the Holy Father appeared a moment later, he looked pale.

  “Put this to paper,” he said, sitting on a padded bench and rubbing his temples. “ ‘I hereby commute, by special grace and favor, the sentence of death that is rightfully declared upon Giuseppe Balsamo, known to many as Alessandro Cagliostro. The heretic shall be perpetually imprisoned in a fortress, under constant guard and without any hope of pardon whatsoever.’ ” His eyes darkened. “ ‘But while the man may be spared the fire reserved for heretics, his books and papers shall be ceremonially and publicly burned by the executioner.’ See that the Office of the Inquisition receives this message.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Fletcher had texted Andrew with his own phone, summoning him and Dante to the van. When they arrived he held up a pad of paper with the words SOMEONE BUGGED written in large block letters. He took both of the cell phones from his pockets, powered them off, and set them down next to Meg’s. Andrew and Dante followed suit.

  Andrew pulled a crate of custom electronics from under the workbench and riffled through it until he found the Happy Scanner. He powered it up and slowly ran it over Meg’s phone, then Fletcher’s, then the burner from the Alchemist. The red light came on. He paused and exchanged a look with Fletcher, then resumed the scan. His own phone elicited no response, but Dante’s also lit up the device, causing the red light to flash rhythmically. He pointed at Fletcher’s phone and scrawled the words listening device on his pad, then to Dante’s and wrote “GPS beacon.”

  Fletcher stacked the two bugged phones and handed them to Dante. “You keep my wife safe,” he said. “Andrew and I are going to take Courtney back to her dad.”

  Courtney, who had been slumped in the passenger seat smoking a cigarette she’d bummed from Andrew, wheeled back and shot them all an angsty look. “I don’t want to go back.”

  “I don’t care,” Fletcher said.

  As Andrew drove, Fletcher barraged Courtney with questions, now free of the Alchemist’s listening ears.

  “Did anyone use names?” he asked.

  She thought for a moment. “No. They called the big guy the Alchemist, but he never called the other guys anything.”

  “The Alchemist—what did he look like?”

  “Big. Really big. I would say almost seven feet tall. Really muscled up, long black hair down past his shoulders.”

  They were nearing the church. “Would it be asking too much for you to tell your dad you ran away? If you tell him you were kidnapped . . .”

  She nodded. “Don’t worry.”

  Andrew pulled up to a curb about a block away from the church and killed the engine. “You want me to come in with you?” he asked Fletcher.

  “No, that’s okay. Just take a second.”

  Andrew caught his forearm. “Listen, kid, I know you’re looking for a head to bust, but don’t do anything stupid. Think about Ivy.”

  “Don’t,” Fletcher said, jerking his arm away. “Don’t say her name.”

  He and Courtney walked quickly up to the front stairs of the church, where Father Sacha sat looking out into the night, having a cigarette. He recognized them when they were ten feet away and began to rise to his feet, but Fletcher pulled her past the priest and into the church without saying a word.

  The sound of revelry—shouting, screeching, and loud music—wafted up from the fellowship hall. Fletcher pulled out his phone and texted Brad. The vestibule. Right now.

  A minute later Brad came rushing in, his face flushed. At the sight of Courtney, his hand went to his mouth and tears began to streak his face.

  “Daddy,” she said, beginning to cry as well. The two shared a long embrace.

  “Are you okay?” he kept asking.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you, God.”

  Fletcher was about to leave when Brad suddenly released Courtney and went to wrap his arms around him. Fletcher caught Brad’s ruddy face and shoved him, sending him stumbling backward.

  “What did I do?” he asked.

  “You know what you did.”

  Brad blinked innocently. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry. I owe you everything.”

  “I found a card you sent my wife,” Fletcher growled, “with a very familiar tone. She was keeping it in her Bible, Brad. Her Bible!”

  Brad pulled Courtney back in and looked down at the top of her head. “I know. I was wrong to try. I was just . . . so lonely. And I’d never met you. She needed help and I was just . . .” He finally met Fletcher’s gaze. “I never touched her. You have to believe me.”

  Fletcher glared at him silently.

  “You want the house? You can have it. You brought me back my daughter. You can have whatever you want.”

  Fletcher took a step back. “I don’t want anything from you. I was planning to come in here and put you down on the ground. But I realize now, I don’t hate you. I hate what you make me see in myself.” He turned and took a step, then paused and looked back at the reunited family. “I’m sorry you lost your wife, Brad. In a way, I know what that’s like.”

  Father Sacha was gone when Fletcher came back out, and Andrew was standing were he’d been.

  “You keep it together?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “That guy’s the least of my problems.”

  “That’s right, kid,” Andrew said, smiling. “That guy doesn’t have half the class and raw talent you possess. Don’t go down that road, okay? Don’t throw it all away.”

  “What road? What are you talking about?”

  “This Jesus Freak thing you’re playing with. I mean, look what’s come of it. Don’t get me wrong; when you’re Inside you do whatever it takes to get you through. Or to get you out. But you go telling everybody you found Jesus, you’re just handing them a big fat peg. You may as well wear a T-shirt that says Easy Mark.”

  Fletcher walked past him, back toward the van. “That’s not even how it works. You don’t find Jesus. He finds you.”

  Andrew caught up to him and matched his stride. “Come on. It’s a grift—same thing Cagliostro sold his marks. Follow my way and I’ll walk you up by degrees into the presence of the Great Architect and take away your original sin.”

  “But what if he cut out the middle man? That’s what the Bible says. Jesus is the middle man.”

  “You sound like a mark!”

  Fletcher came to an abrupt stop and grabbed Andrew by the collar. “Knock it off! I need this right now, all right? Let it go!”

  Andrew matched his volume. “This is important, Fletch! Your daughter needs you at the top of your game. It’s time to forget this superstitious junk!”

  “Oh, you got everybody pegged, huh?” Fletcher released his grip. “What about you, Andrew? What’s your peg? You never told us that.”

  “I want you back in the game, son. I want my protégé back.”

  “I’m not your protégé, and I’m sure not your son. Let’s just get back to the others and make a plan for tomorrow. We’ve got one more shot at this.”

  Andrew unlocked the van and the two men climbed in, Fletcher riding shotgun. The engine roared to life, and then they heard a voice behind them.

  “Hand over the gun, Bishop. And both of you come back here. We’re going for a ride.”

  THE BAG OVER FLETCHER’S HEAD DIDN’T BREATHE WELL, AND IT smelled strongly of sweat. He and Andrew had been instructed to lie down in the back of the van. The driver had turned the radio up full
blast, and Happy’s bass-heavy custom sound system was vibrating through the floor and into Fletcher’s skull.

  They drove for about twenty minutes. Then everything went still and silent. One of the men said to the other, “Make sure to wipe the memory on the navigation system.”

  “You kidding me? You think this Stone Age thing has NavStar?”

  The sliding door opened, and the bags were suddenly removed.

  Fletcher blinked at the light. They were inside a warehouse. The man holding the bags was older—in his seventies, maybe—wearing a button-up shirt that stretched and complained over his paunch.

  “This way,” the man commanded. Andrew and Fletcher followed him down a short hallway and into a large open area, at the center of which had been constructed some kind of building-within-a-building. “In here,” he said, opening the door and gesturing.

  They entered the conference room and took a seat. “Do you know who I am?” the man asked, sitting across the table from them.

  Andrew lowered his eyes. “I think so.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Fletcher said.

  “These are the people who bugged Trick’s phone,” Andrew said. “This guy’s Marcus Brinkman, works for the Syndicate.”

  “Oh. You the guy who sent those thugs to the church?”

  “Not directly.”

  “They shot Dante, you know. And my wife was there.”

  “That’s a shame,” Marcus said. “But we’re wasting valuable time. You’re here because of your connection to Mr. Watkins. You see—” He sat back in his chair and gave Fletcher a look. “Do you want to ask me something, Doyle?”

  “Me? No, sir.”

  “Sure you do. You’ve been staring at my ears since you laid eyes on me. Yes, they’re ragged. It’s called cauliflower ear. Comes from my younger years as a wrestler. ’Course, nowadays wrestlers wear headgear so their ears don’t wind up like mine. Should be called ear-gear, really, because it doesn’t protect your skull. Then again, we’ve been hearing all about these football players in five-thousand-dollar helmets still getting their brains beat out.”