The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  “By the time Nero finally sent enough reinforcements to defeat the queen’s army, the bloodshed from her rampage was already enormous. Boadicea escaped during the final battle but accidentally left the Spear behind. The Romans captured it, and from that point it went underground for more than two hundred years.”

  Cotten gave Zanini an anxious keep going motion with her hand as he took a sip of coffee.

  “Is she always this impatient?” he asked John.

  “This is mild,” John said with a shrug.

  Setting his cup down, Zanini said, “In 286 AD, the Spear of Longinus, now called the Holy Lance, popped up in the possession of Maurice, a devout Coptic Christian and the commanding officer of a Roman legion stationed in Thebes in the northern part of Egypt. A dispute erupted when Maximian issued an order to his legions to take an oath naming him a god. The Roman soldiers under the command of Maurice were predominately Christian, and they refused. In a rage, Maximian had over six thousand soldiers executed for insubordination, including Maurice, and he ordered the Lance be brought to him. It all backfired on Maximian because Maurice was viewed as a martyr and later became Saint Maurice.”

  “Paybacks are hell,” Cotten said, lifting her coffee mug in a toasting gesture.

  “The influence of the Spear is undeniable,” Zanini said. “This was approximately the time that its legacy was defined. Legend says that ‘Whosoever possesses the Holy Lance and understands the powers it serves, holds in his hand the destiny of the world.’”

  “Who got it next?” John asked.

  “The next time we hear of it, the Holy Lance is in the possession of the illegitimate son of a Roman general and an innkeeper’s daughter. The boy grew up to be one of the most powerful historical figures of all time, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.”

  “Did Maximian give it to him?” Cotten asked.

  “Indirectly,” Zanini said. “Constantine married Maximian’s daughter. The emperor presented it to the couple as a wedding present. Constantine eventually converted to Christianity. With the Spear in hand, he declared himself to be the ‘thirteenth Apostle’ and proclaimed Christianity as the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire. As emperor, he established Constantinople—today’s Istanbul.

  “In 443, Attila the Hun laid siege to the city and said he would spare Constantinople in return for two things from then emperor Theodosius—six thousand pounds of gold, and the Holy Lance. Theodosius paid. Nine years later, Attila reached the gates of Rome but had to withdraw out of disgust because famine and disease ravaged the city. The legend says that when the Roman officers surrendered the city, Attila threw the Holy Lance at their feet in disgust and left.

  “It came back to bite him in 451 when King Theodoric assembled the Visigothic army and joined up with the Romans and other tribes to defeat the Huns during the invasion of Gaul. But Theodoric was killed.” Zanini smiled up at Cotten. “And the story is that he died within moments of the Holy Lance slipping from his hand.”

  “Is that really true?” Cotten asked.

  Zanini arched both brows. “Legends all have some nugget of truth embedded.” He took a sip of his coffee before studying the document on the computer screen, then continuing with the history. “The next owner was the Burgundian prince Sigismund who was a descendent of Theodoric. He didn’t have it long, though. He was killed by his brother-in-law, King Clovis of the Franks. The Lance stayed in the family until the mid-700s when one of Clovis’ descendants, Charles Martel, carried it into victorious battle to prevent Islam from spreading across Europe. Martel passed the Lance to his grandson, who became the second giant historical figure to possess the Spear of Longinus.”

  “Charlemagne,” John said.

  Zanini nodded. “In the course of changing the face of the world, it was said that the Holy Lance never left his side.

  “Seventy-five years later we again see reference to the Lance when the German King Henry I received it as a gift from King Rudolph of Burgundy. Relying on the power of the Holy Lance, Rudolph defeated the Hungarian Magyars in 933. After his death, the Lance passed to Otto I and then on to Otto II and Otto III. Around the year 1000, a nail claimed to be from the Crucifixion of Jesus was inserted into the blade of the Lance, making it a double-powered relic.

  “A hundred or so years later, the German King Henry IV had the Holy Lance fitted with a silver sleeve bearing the inscription Clavus Dominicus, meaning Nail of Our Lord, and it was about this time that the wooden shaft of the spear disappeared, leaving only the actual spear point remaining.”

  The phone on John’s armrest chirped. “Yes?” A few seconds later, he hung up. “The pilot says we’re forty-five minutes out of Vienna International Airport.”

  “Is there a lot left to the story, father?” Cotten asked Zanini as she sank back into the thick leather. “So far, it’s been fascinating.”

  “We haven’t even gotten to the best part,” the Italian priest said with a smile. “Through a string of family bloodlines, the Lance head, minus the shaft, eventually came into the possession of the House of Hohenstaufen, who were the descendants of the Saxon dynasty, and finally to the Roman Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa. He called for the Third Crusade to free Jerusalem from the Muslims, and carried the Holy Lance into battle. On June tenth in 1130, he fell from his horse into the Saleph River, broke his neck and drowned seconds after accidentally dropping the Lance.

  “From there, the Lance went through a series of European kings including Frederick II who made the Holy Lance a central focal point of his monarchy, and used it as he led the Crusades. At one point, he allowed Saint Francis of Assisi to carry it on an errand of mercy.

  “The Lance continued through the hands of three Hohenstaufen emperors. In 1424 Sigismund of Luxembourg sold the Lance to the town council of Nuremberg. It stayed on display there until 1806 when Napoleon came looking for it. German authorities smuggled it to Austria just ahead of the French troops so Emperor Bonaparte could not have it.

  “In 1913, Kaiser Wilhelm tried to get his hands on the Holy Lance before declaring war. He petitioned the Hapsburg Emperor, Franz Joseph, in Vienna for use of the Spear, but was denied.

  “The Holy Lance sat in a display case inside the Hapsburg Museum for years until along came the third giant historical figure to finally possess it—Adolf Hitler. His fascination with it probably began from his love of Richard Wagner’s opera, Parsifal. The Spear played a major role in the work.”

  “Now we’re into an area where I’ve done some research,” John said. “Hitler annexed Austria, then ordered his SS troops to seize the Holy Lance, right?”

  “Yes, Eminence,” Zanini said. “Under Hitler’s orders, the relic was transported on a heavily guarded express train to Nuremberg where he could have access to it whenever he wanted. It was kept in a fortified bunker beneath Saint Katherine’s church. The vault was built in secret and at a huge expense to protect the relic from Allied bombs. Hitler hoped to rebuild the Holy Roman Empire with himself as supreme Emperor, and he believed he needed the Lance to do so.

  “And in an ironic twist, on the afternoon of April 30, 1945, the Holy Lance was discovered and fell into the hands of American forces almost at the exact moment that Adolf Hitler committed suicide.”

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Cotten said. “If the Lance is so powerful, why is it that some of its owners succeeded at using it while others, like Hitler, failed?”

  “Just a theory,” John said, “but I believe that success or failure is determined by what’s in the heart of the person who possesses it.”

  The three seemed to ponder John’s statement for a moment. Then Zanini said, “Here’s another strange twist. While Adolf Hitler waited for so many years between his first sight of the Lance and the day he finally possessed it, Heinrich Himmler was so captivated by it that he had an exact replica made in 1935—three years before his Fuhrer marched into Austria.�
��

  “What happened to the replica?” Cotten asked.

  Zanini shrugged. “No one knows for sure.”

  “So after the American forces captured the Holy Lance, its new owner was Harry Truman?” John asked.

  “Technically,” Zanini said. “Although he never actually touched it, while he had control over it, he introduced the world to the most destructive power in history—the atomic bomb.”

  “When was the Lance returned to Vienna?” Cotten asked.

  “There was a bit of a debate about that between the U.S. and the Soviets. It seems that Stalin wanted to claim it after the Red Army raised their flag on the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin. But, in the end, Truman and Stalin agreed to let a U.S and Soviet delegation deliver the relic to the Austrian government, who then gave it back to the museum. That’s where it’s been ever since.”

  The phone in John’s armrest chirped again. “Yes,” he said, then listened for a moment. Replacing the phone, he turned to Cotten then back to Zanini. “That was the Vatican ambassador to Austria. The director of the Hapsburg Museum has agreed to the direct request from the Holy Father and will allow us to take the Spear from Vienna and transport it to CyberSys headquarters in Miami. Alan Olsen and our friends are scheduled to land about an hour behind us.”

  Cotten sighed out loud. “Once we have the Spear of Destiny, the threat of the Hades Project could be over in a matter of days.”

  the collection

  The curator of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which housed the enormous Hapsburg Dynasty art and antiquities collection, waited patiently near the display case containing the Holy Lance. He glanced at his watch. 7:56 PM.

  Nearby stood two museum guards holding assault rifles and wearing protective vests and helmets. Two more guards waited in an armored truck parked outside the museum, ready to transport the precious cargo to a restricted hangar at the Vienna Schwechat International Airport. There it would be loaded aboard a private jet and flown directly to Miami.

  For the third time, the curator adjusted the position of a rolling cart on which rested a silver Anvil Ion case the size of a large attaché. Also on the cart was a black Kevlar outer sleeve that would fit snuggly over the case once the relic was securely inside. The Anvil Iron’s lid lay open—the interior filled with thick foam padding. A precise cutout in the shape of the Lance head awaited the treasured relic.

  The curator would not remove the Holy Lance from the display until Cardinal Tyler and Cotten Stone had arrived to witness the event. Once properly packed and ready for transport, there would then be numerous papers and forms to sign and exchange, starting with a guarantee from the Holy See that the Vatican’s insurance would cover loss or damage in the amount of $20 million.

  There was a letter of authenticity from the museum stating that the ancient artifact referred to as the Holy Lance was the same object presented to the Hapsburg Collection on January 4, 1946, by U.S. Army General Mark Clark, who did so at the direct order of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower.

  Another document specified the dimensions and location of the tiny sample to be extracted by CyberSys from the Lance’s surface—in a place hidden beneath the gold and silver outer sheaths. That way, it would not be visible to any museum visitors after the relic was returned to its home in Vienna.

  The curator looked at his watch again. 7:59 PM.That’s when he heard the galloping horse.

  _____

  “The official name is the Kunsthistorisches Museum,” Zanini said from the front passenger seat of the Mercedes as he spoke over his shoulder to Cotten and John. “That means art history museum. But everyone refers to it as the Hapsburg Museum because it contains the royal family’s collection spanning centuries.” He turned to the driver, a young Austrian Venatori agent. “If you look up the word ‘opulence’ in the dictionary, you’ll probably see the name Hapsburg in the definition.”

  The driver gave Zanini a courteous nod as he steered the performance sedan past the Karlsplatz Plaza near the center of Vienna, a few blocks from their destination.

  “Are you sure we aren’t going to run into any snags or red tape problems?” Cotten asked Zanini.

  “No, all is set. Just a few forms to sign—pure formalities,” Zanini said. “The security firm supplying the armored car is already there and ready to go. I have been in contact with the crew of the CyberSys corporate jet. All flight plans and government documentation have been filed and cleared. They are fueled and ready. Mr. Olsen, his son, and Max Wolf, his director of engineering, are there. Lindsay Jordan and her daughter are with them, relaxing onboard and anxiously awaiting our arrival with the relic. I’m told they all had a pleasant flight over from the U.S. We should be at the private hangar and airborne in the CyberSys jet within an hour of leaving the museum. Customs and Immigration formalities were resolved in advance through the Vatican embassy.”

  “Good work,” John said. He turned to Cotten. “We’re almost there.”

  “I know there was some hesitancy about allowing Lindsay and Tera to come along, but think about it from her point of view,” Cotten said. “I wouldn’t want to sit by like a bystander in some corporate conference room when I knew someone was out to harm my daughter. I’d have insisted to be right here as things were happening, too.”

  “Absolutely,” John said. “It didn’t take much persuading. I think Alan understood completely.”

  _____

  The curator spun around at the sound of horse hooves cracking like gunshots on the marble floor. The two guards snapped around just as quickly. The three men stared with open-mouthed shock as what appeared to be an armor-clad Greek warrior, sword in hand, charged across the gallery on the back of a giant gray steed.

  Even from a distance, the curator saw that the warrior’s teeth were clenched and his eyes aflame. The warhorse’s breathing resounded throughout the museum like an accelerating steam locomotive. The warrior raised his muscular arm, his razor-edged weapon ready for the kill. With a gasp, the curator realized his identity—the Greek cavalryman depicted on the Greco-Hellenistic frieze from the Ephesus section of the museum.

  “What is this?” the curator whispered, dropping back against the wall. In some nightmarish manner, beyond his comprehension, the two-thousand-year-old stone carving had come to life. The curator was witnessing a third century BC warrior from the epic battle between the Galatians and the Greeks barreling down on him. As real as his own skin, he saw the horseman’s flesh glistening with sweat. This was no illusion, and the warrior looked hell bent on killing him.

  The sound of automatic weapons filled the gallery as the two guards opened fire on the charging warrior. But the bullets ricocheted off the surface of the soldier and his mount—their forms seeming as impenetrable as the stone from which the frieze was carved.

  From his right came a shriek so piercing and feral it could have come from a wild cat. A woman rushed toward him, her hair a squirming and slithering mass of snakes. Rubens’ Medusa.

  Another female rushed across the floor at the curator—blue tunic, bare breasts, bronze war helmet—Minerva.

  The walls sprang alive with Roman soldiers, Greek warriors, gods and goddesses, emperors, kings, pouncing tigers, clawing bears—all with burning eyes, screaming mouths, and flashing teeth.

  The Greek warrior on his battle steed swung his sword and sliced off the head of a guard with the ease of a gardener snipping a rose from its stem. The second guard dropped to the floor, his body riddled with arrows that rained from the same executioners’ bows that ended the life of Saint Sebastian in Mantegna’s masterpiece—their shafts piercing the guard’s body armor as if it were paper.

  The curator screamed when Medusa’s coiling knot of snakes struck his face and neck. As he went down, the metallic flashes of daggers and swords, the meaty odor of blood, and the sound of flesh ripping and bones crunching saturated his senses.

  With
his cheek flat on the cold marble floor, the dying curator’s eyes took in what was left of the guards—heaps of tendons and entrails, pools of blood spreading across the marble like spilled red ink.

  Then, from out of nowhere, the face of an elderly gentleman stared down at him.

  The curator’s eyes fluttered as the Old Man went to stand over the case containing the Holy Lance. The curator tried to speak, but only a thin wheeze gurgled in his throat.

  He saw the Old Man open the display and firmly grasp the Holy Lance. The echo of the Old Man’s retreating footfalls faded as the curator drew his final, shallow breath. His last vision was of the army of antiquities melting back into their canvases and carvings.

  crime scene

  A police car, blue lights flashing, raced past the Mercedes. Cotten saw the emblem of the Bundespolize on the side and the word Polizei on the back.

  “Federal police,” the Austrian Venatori agent said as he stared in the rearview mirror. “Here comes more.” A second and third car raced by.

  Cotten glanced at John. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

  “I know, I know,” he said.

  “Federal police?” she said. “They’re not rushing to a traffic accident or other routine crime.”

  As the agent steered their car into the wide, park-like area between the Naturhistorisches Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Cotten saw that it already contained many emergency vehicles. The classical statues and sculptured hedges in front of the majestic buildings were awash in red and blue. A group of men in military-style gear gathered near a large black van parked at the front entrance of the art museum. Probably the Austrian equivalent of a SWAT team, Cotten assumed. A couple of news trucks were also pulling up—one bore the SNN logo on the side.