The man pointed a quivering hand at the door, “he left, ha lasciato.”
Diggs climbed into the office. He checked the back for the open door, and he went out in the hallway. A woman carrying a file waddled into an office and shut the door when she saw the guns.
Diggs went back around, his guns still at the ready.
Outside, Miller and Anabia were trying up Liam’s wound. He had been shut in his thigh, close to the crotch, a severed artery was bleeding rivers of blood. Liam’s eyes were hazy, and he was blabbering.
Anabia was mumbling, “this isn’t good, this isn’t good at all!”
People from the parking lot were gathering around. Cameras were up, and cellphones.
“We have to go, I’ll go get the car around,” Diggs said and jogged off.
Cameras followed him as he went.
Olivia and Andrew Gilmore appeared from the corner of the building just as Diggs drive the car over the embankment of the parking lot. They carried Liam into the back. Diggs drove through two buildings and joined the traffic on Via Cipro going up. The first three cop cars coming from the other side of the road never even saw them.
—
10
Paul Talbot was driving through the gut of Via Delle Fornaci in the Borgo. He headed towards the walls of the Vatican city. City lights twinkled in the tinted windows of the limousine.
Beside him was the concierge to the Financier. The man was not his usual suave self tonight because. He wore a rumpled beige pinstriped blazer, he had a growth of two days around his chin. He rubbed a threadbare spot on his knee.
Talbot looked out the window at an Italian night oblivious of a man like him or the concierge. A city living, yet dead to the influence that controlled its commerce, politics, and entertainment.
With great power came great responsibility. Some powerful men avoided this burden by chosen invisibility. They employed pawns like the concierge and goons like Talbot.
Talbot, in turn, employed cleaners like the Bogeyman because he’d rather not get his hands dirty.
This business had suddenly gotten out of hand. Shit was in the news this evening, Talbot had seen it and shortly after had gotten a call from the concierge.
They were being summoned to a meeting with the Financier.
The luxury car passed by the Pizza Zizza Roma. Talbot had eaten there many times. The car parked in front of it. The place was crowded tonight. The Chinese décor never got old; the hanging lights over a minimalists idea of furnishing was always a delight to see. As Talbot and the concierge walked through the aisle of tables, he checked to see if there was someone famous in their tonight. He didn’t find one.
A waiter in an impeccable suit was waiting with a smile at a door. Talbot had never seen nor gone through the door before. The concierge took the lead, his rumpled blazer looking sloppy on his lean frame.
They were ushered into a room lit with red lamps. The décor was even more Oriental here than in the main restaurant.
The couch was shaped like a half-moon, red leather, and a table with a glass top. A large man was seated in the corner. He was hunched forward, a lump on the back of his neck gave him a pious appearance. He wore small round glasses, and his eyes were soft behind the lenses. He wore a red skull cap. His white hair had wispy tufts from behind his ears.
He wore a black robe, like a monk.
The man looked at Talbot and invited him to sit. Then he tapped a spot beside him for the concierge.
“Surprised?” he said in a gruff voice.
“Cardinal Emilio?”
“Hello Paul, you have let me down too long,” the cleric said, “I asked Jack here to bring you tonight. Perhaps, we can talk like real businessmen, sort things out. What’d you say, Paul?”
The last time Paul Talbot saw the Cardinal, the cleric was being disgraced by the Vatican. What happened?
“Things are still going as planned, what we’re having are just glitches in the system—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Paul, things could get really nasty for you, si.”
The big man looked at the concierge.
“Jack, did you get the men I asked you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many?”
“Twenty mercenaries, all mob from Sicily.”
The cleric looked at Talbot again, “Paul, you have no excuse anymore, you have men, good men who’re ready to die for the Church—”
“What church?” asked Paul Talbot.
The concierge, jack, winced. The cleric stared at Talbot for a moment. For Talbot, it was like looking through a funnel from the narrow end: you never know just how much detail your eyes missed.
"Know your place, Paul," the cleric said in a voice like metal shavings, "I didn't put you there, but I could as hell remove you, like this—"
He snapped his finger.
"—with the snap of a finger! Just like that."
Talbot sighed. Deeply offended, deflated. Talbot was accustomed to giving orders. Now he was taking it from a corrupt cleric whom he helped disgraced. But even Talbot had fallen from Grace for the same reason as the cleric himself.
"Alright, I'll get your gold for you."
"Now we are talking business. You do this, maybe you could have your seat back," the cleric said with confidence.
Talbot rose, he'd heard such promises before. Talbot was done with the agency, he was doing better than he'd ever done when he was in the CIA.
And he was a man with a plan.
When he stepped back into the night outside, two cars were waiting with men in them, killers for money.
He looked at the concierge and asked if the crowd was necessary.
"The cardinal is paying, not me, just do your job."
"Yeah."
After all, I'm a hired hand as well. But not for long. When Talbot glanced at the concierge, he saw that the man had a plan too.
—
Olivia watched Lawrence Diggs do a field surgery on Liam Murphy's thigh. He got the bullet out and sewed it up.
In the middle of the night, Liam woke up feeling groggy. Olivia was beside him.
"Where am I?" he asked and grimaced, "I feel like shit."
"You look worse, trust me."
Olivia touched his face and smiled. "You were pretty banged up," she said.
"Yeah, my feet burns."
He raised himself in his shoulder and looked at his feet. He looked around. "What is this place?"
"It's a warehouse."
"Smells like fish."
"Seafood."
The others crowded around him. Anabia touched his shoulder. "How are you, man?"
"I feel rotten, can't lift my leg."
Miller said, "I'm flying you back to the States tomorrow, Liam. You'd be alright."
"Did we get the gold?"
Olivia chuckled, "we did not? Not yet."
"I ain't leaving then."
Diggs said, "you need to rest, man. You'll tear your stitches."
"I'll tear it for that gold."
They laughed. Liam looked around at the high ceiling, the three huge cooling vans in the rear of the dark warehouse. He asked if he could eat lobsters for dinner since he was infirmed.
"Only in your dreams," Anabia said.
—
Lawrence Diggs found the tiny chip embedded in Gilmore's neck. It was nanotech, he said. It was a transponder that worked for as long as the carrier was hot.
"New tech, only the CIA had it."
"That makes the Bogeyman CIA, right?" Olivia reflected.
"That makes him worse, a rogue agent at work."
"And there's only one rogue agent who knows we've been looking for Templars gold."
They all chorused, "Paul Talbot."
"Now, we are further away from Nat Poussin's location," referring to the map, Olivia said, "how do we get to him real quick?"
"We do it tonight," Diggs said.
Olivia watched her brother's reaction. He was staring at the group from underneath half
-opened lids.
"Andrew? What'd you think?"
"About what?"
Olivia had filled him in in the events of the past days. He had listened with calm concentration. It was strange to Olivia that Andrew hadn't asked any questions. He had nodded all the time but really veered off the subject when he asked about Paul Talbot.
And that was all.
Miller stepped forward, "Andrew, you were a priest, you know Rome more than anyone here. Do you have information about the gold that might help us?"
"You won't find it, and if you do, you can't have it."
There was silence.
"That was cryptic," Liam chirped from where he lay on a makeshift couch.
Olivia came closer to Andrew, where he sat on a plastic crate. He was wearing a DHL shirt and brown khaki trousers. He pulled and slapped a rubber band in his hand; Olivia pulled a crate and sat too.
"What do you want us to do, Andrew?"
"Go home," he said softly.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
Olivia rubbed her face. The morality of their search for the Templars gold after finding Andrew is alright has not eluded her. The reason for their adventure was Andrew's capture. Andrew was here now.
Olivia took her cellphone and dialed a number.
"Tami?"
The reception was terrible, so she had to redial.
"Tami Capaldi?" asked Andrew.
"Yeah."
Olivia had told him about the woman and how they almost lost the Capaldi's painting.
Once again, the lines wouldn't connect. So Olivia called Tom Garcia.
The sheriff answered on the first ring.
"Hey, Lara Croft."
"Hey, Tom."
"You're on the news again, you know that?"
"Old news, Tom. How's the wife?"
"Some cold, still Betty, as always."
"Say, have you seen Tami Capaldi?"
"Nope, why?"
Olivia hesitated for a beat then said, "I can't reach her, just gotta ask her something."
Tom was quiet for a moment, too, perhaps getting the vibe in Olivia's voice. Tom said he'd send some cops over and asked about Andrew Gilmore.
Olivia said, "Tom, you have to go down there yourself."
He sighed, "okay, I'll do it now. Are you alright, Olivia? You don't sound too gay."
"Just please check on Tami, and get back to me ASAP, I'll be waiting."
Olivia told the team what she was about to do. Borodin shrugged and spoke first.
"It's always the same every time, I guess I'm tired, and I just wanna get home."
"Are you serious, Olivia?" Liam hollered and sat up, he groaned, "come on, I got a bullet wound, man. I need something to show for all the trouble."
Anabia laughed.
Miller said, "Liam, you are pretty banged up, we should go home. Andrew is safe," Miller looked at the former priest, "he can even come with us if he wants to."
Andrew smiled and waved the suggestion off, "Nah, I'm staying here. This is my home."
Olivia's phone rang shortly.
"Tom?"
"She's gone, Olivia."
"Shit, oh, God."
"We don't know anything yet, she could have upped and gone back home to, where did she say came from again, Baha?"
"Peru."
"Yeah, I've put out an APB, you know, I'll let you know what we come up with."
After the call, Olivia told the group Tami Capaldi wanted them to get the guys who killed her husband. And to get the treasure, because it belonged to Gabriel Capaldi's family.
"Wait, what!" she froze.
She rushed to her bag and rummaged through it. She got the painting out, Liam adjusted on the makeshift bed of crates. Olivia spread the painting, then she got the book Dean Anson gave her.
The men bunched around her, except Andrew Gilmore, who seemed bushed.
"Look here," she said, "the initial under the feet of the Shepherd."
There was an almost illegible scribble under the feet of the woman on the right.
NPMISm
"But…" Liam said in observation, "she's a woman, she can't be the shepherd."
"Which is my point," Olivia said excitedly.
She looked at the men, their faces lovely to behold just then. The men who would follow her to the ends of the earth. If a woman could feel a brotherly affection for her men friends, Olivia definitely felt deeply about these men at that moment.
"NP, Nathaniel Poussin? Don't you see it? Was Gabriel Capaldi the same as Nathaniel Poussin, or was he the man's son?"
Miller breathed, "wow."
"But it can't be."
They all turned to look at Andrew Gilmore.
"Nathaniel Poussin died a long time ago," he said, his mood, pensive. "Nathaniel Poussin was a priest in a small convent up in the hills. He never had a wife, he couldn't have fathered a son. But he did have a boy whom he took on as a tutor, and that boy became like a son to him. For Poussin, that boy was all the son he could ever ask for, seeing as he loved him like one."
Andrew stopped talking, the strain of memory on his face. The lines around his mouth deepened, and he looked older, alien. Olivia could have sworn that he wasn't her brother at that moment, for he looked like one of those faces in the painting.
Olivia looked at the painting again. He consulted the red-covered book.
It was all fitting into a solid, whole picture.
"Where's that boy now?" she asked.
Andrew shook his head, he looked at Olivia squarely, "no one knows where he is, he's long forgotten."
Diggs said to Andrew, "a Nathaniel Poussin is living in Rome, half a quarter of a mile from here, Andrew. If he's dead, who's using that name?"
Andrew frowned.
"In Rome? Are you sure?"
"Yes, right here. And we are gonna find the man there, aren't we?"
Gilmore smiled and said, "you tell me."
Liam Murphy struggled on his feet with the help of Borodin. He steadied himself.
"Hold up, everyone, can we chose a struggle already? Are we getting this treasure or not? Cos the way I see it, it's looking like the Templars gold is real after all."
He gestured at Andrew, "I mean, you just talked about this Pussy guy—"
"Poussin," Borodin corrected.
"—yeah, Poussin, we just established that he's real, and that's kind of great, right. Now, if he existed, lived in a convent, then the treasure is real. Our real problem then isn't whether this pussy bloke is alive or dead. Our real problem now is, where is the goddamn treasure trove?"
They all turned to Andrew again.
But Andrew shrugged.
—
With the transponder in Andrew's bloodstream extracted, the team moved from the warehouse. The warehouse itself was behind the Istituto don, Calabria. The smell of truffles filled the air, steam rose from the bottom of the city through vents in the curb in front of the restaurant Calcio de Pepe.
Olivia's stomach grumbled. She couldn't recall the last time they had a decent meal.
"Can we drop in and get some crabs guys," Liam asked as he limped behind the group.
"There's our transportation."
Diggs pointed at an old delivery truck. It was missing its fender, the passenger's door was banged in, and the pink paint scraped. They entered and drive away.
Back in the warehouse, lying in a pile of crates in the middle, rigged with small explosives, two grenades that will lose their pin the second the door is rolled away.
—
Nathaniel Poussin lived in the Borgo. The house was a four-story building, hedged on both sides by other apartment buildings. Off to the east, a devotional piano song from the Vatican church drifted. Diggs tapped the side of the door, he wriggled the match stick in the corner of his lips. Miller suggested they check the place the out.
Olivia was looking at the flower pots.
"Hm, look at the flowers, what do you think they are?" she asked no one in particular.
/>
"Azaleas?" Liam volunteered.
Anabia said they looked like blazing stars. Liam said, "blazing what?"
"They are gladiolas."
Olivia glanced at Andrew. He wasn't even looking at the house. She went back to looking; the balcony was covered with blue, fading rococo.
Diggs said Nathaniel Poussin lived on the second floor. The windows were dark, the blinds were drawn, and general neglect exuded from that apartment.
"There's no one in that house. But the flowers…" she murmured.
There was a thump, and they all shivered except Diggs.
"There go the grenades," said Liam.
Shortly after, Diggs and Miller crossed the quiet narrow street.
—
It was a good thing for him that Talbot brought the new guys, they'd be scraping his own body from the walls of the warehouse if not so.
The smoke got blown away in the wind, the dust settles, what was left of the roller door was a twisted and charred claw of metal.
The bogeyman walked through the dust and smoke, and bloodied bodies of mercenaries sprawled among crates; he saw the tripwires that triggered the explosion broken on the floor. He examined what was remaining of it and smiled.
He limped now, a slight one, that was.
"What the hell!"
The bogeyman looked at the entrance, Talbot was standing there, mouth agape in shock.
He met up with the bogeyman.
"What happened here?"
"They found the transponder, that's what happened here, then they rigged the place with explosives."
"Why did you let them go in then?"
"You told them they were in charge, remember?"
Talbot exhaled. He was under pressure too.
"Okay, okay, just find them. We have to find the men."
The bogeyman walked into the circle on the floor of charred concrete and body parts. There was a gnarled arm in the middle. A piece of shrapnel was stuck to the point where it had been severed from the body. The bogeyman pulled the shrapnel off and kicked the arm away.
Talbot looked away.
The bogeyman showed the metal to Talbot.
"CIA."
"What?"
Talbot took the metal in his hand, the property of the USA army was written on the charred side.
He gritted his teeth.
"Lawrence Diggs," he said.
"He was one of your own, Talbot," the assassin said, walking away, "he should be your business."
Gold of the Knights Templar Page 18
