The Invisible City (A Tom Wagner Adventure Book 3)

by M. C. Roberts

  “Let’s send this on a little trip so it can finally do what it’s meant to.”

  Two of the men lifted the unconscious priest between them.

  “Are you sure you want let the cross out of your hands?”

  “Don’t worry. It will find its way back again soon enough.”

  The men left the church and laid the priest inside a brand-new white delivery van. The man with the cross in the bag closed the church door and climbed into the van as well. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as the driver tapped the gas and drove away.

  5

  West Berlin, 1976

  Although he had spent the drive trying to concentrate on when the VW turned and how long it seemed to travel straight, Arthur had no idea where he was. But he felt certain he was still in West Berlin. When the microbus finally pulled to a stop in a dark courtyard, the driver pulled him from back and led him a few steps down into a cellar. They passed through seemingly endless passages until finally the man pressed Arthur down onto a chair. The room felt clammy and stank of mold. Water dripped ceaselessly from the ceiling.

  What had his friend dragged him into? Arthur wondered. Was he a spy after all, as Arthur had always suspected?

  Berlin was a Cold War hotspot. People, goods and information were smuggled across the border in the most creative ways. For some, it meant a lucrative trade, despite the danger. Many in the East saw Coca-Cola as a symbol of freedom, but was it worth putting your life on the line for?

  “Can I take this stinking sack off my head?” Arthur asked when he finally heard steps approaching, then whispering.

  “Yes, you can,” Arthur heard, and he recognized the voice of his friend.

  He peeled the sack off with relief, stood up and dropped it on the chair. Artjom was standing in front of him with his arms spread wide in greeting. Somewhat bewildered by this effusive welcome, Arthur threw his arms around his friend and at the same time looked around inside the gloomy room. After their call, Arthur had feared the worst.

  Artjom Lazarev—or better, Father Artjom Lazarev—was a Russian Orthodox priest. And as Arthur had always feared, he was also apparently a spy.

  After the Second World War, the orthodox church had found itself under strict state control, which led to its being infiltrated by the KGB and others. Clerics were forced to serve as informants, sometimes even as agents. Back then, Father Lazarev had made use of his state and KGB contacts and had had himself smuggled into Vietnam to help the poorest of the poor and, presumably, to do a little spying. Everything had its price.

  “What’s going on? Where are we?” Arthur asked.

  Father Lazarev indicated for him to wait a moment and went across to the man who had picked Arthur up on the street. He whispered into his ear and the man immediately left the two of them alone in the room.

  “This is a secret passage between East and West. A smuggling route. A group of young Easterners built it and managed to help more than fifty people get through it to freedom.”

  Father Lazarev swung his arm around Arthur’s shoulders and led him around the cellar. In the next room, Arthur saw a hole about three feet across in the center of the floor. A wooden framework with a winch had been erected above it.

  “From here it goes forty feet straight down. Then you have to crawl through a tunnel for a hundred yards.” Arthur eyed his friend. That explained his outfit: an old pair of overalls, smeared with mud from shoulder to foot. It was an unaccustomed sight for Arthur, who was more familiar with Artjom in his traditional black robes.

  “Why am I here? Why all the secrecy? You said you needed my help.” Arthur stared down into the hole in amazement. “So how can I help you?”

  “It is so good to see you again.” Father Lazarev beamed at Arthur, then grasped him by both shoulders and shook him a little. “Come, my friend. Come!”

  Arthur followed him into another room. On a rickety folding table stood a small but artfully worked wooden casket. Strangely, though, it appeared to be completely seamless, with no visible lid or lock. And it looked ancient. Father Lazarev picked it up and handed it to Arthur.

  “I want you to look after this for me. Get it as far away from here as possible and hide it where nobody will be able to find it.”

  Arthur was perplexed. He had been running through all kinds of scenarios, but this had not been one of them.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking at the box from all sides.

  “Please do me this favor. It is a matter of utmost importance.” He laid his hands on Arthur’s, which were wrapped tightly around the box. “It is safer if you know as little as possible about it. I hope that I will one day be able to protect the case myself, but until that day look after it well.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry to have to play this card, but . . . I believe you are still in my debt. Or do I have that wrong?” He smiled at Arthur.

  With resignation, Arthur smiled back. He nodded.

  “Now let us have a drink to the old days.”

  From a linen bag, Father Lazarev produced a bottle of Russian vodka and two glasses, and poured them full. They raised their glasses.

  “Twajó sdarówje!”

  6

  Fiumicino Airport, Rome

  The customs officer looked up in surprise at the man who had just handed him his passport: he was completely bald. More than bald, in fact. Hairless. Not a hair on his head, no beard, no eyebrows, no eyelashes.

  Madonna . . . the customs man thought. Day in, day out, he processed the most absurd spectrum of humankind. Oddballs and characters, drop-dead gorgeous women, indescribably ugly men, and everything in between. But an utterly hairless individual was a first, even for him. He had to make an effort not to stare at the man longer than absolutely necessary.

  “Benvenuto a Roma,” he said as he handed the passport back.

  The man’s expression did not change as he headed toward the exit. He left the baggage carousel to the left and passed through the automatic doors into the arrivals hall. It was the usual scene: people waiting expectantly for their loved ones, waving bouquets of flowers and holding banners that said “Benvenuto,” children running around, couples kissing, bored taxi and limousine drivers waiting with placards scrawled with unpronounceable names.

  He looked for the sign that read “Mr. Smith.” He was not in a good mood, and hated when plans changed. He detested having to improvise—too many imponderables, too many short-term variables over which he had no influence. The demands he placed on himself would normally have stopped him from accepting a job like this. But the pay was far too attractive. And the client was not someone you could simply turn down.

  The “driver” spotted him first and waved him over. Without a word of greeting, the hairless man, known professionally as the Kahle, followed him to the garage. When they reached an Alfa Romeo Stevio Quadrifoglio, the driver stopped and looked around. The garage was empty, and the car was parked beyond the range of the numerous security cameras. The man opened the trunk and drew a blanket aside. Looking inside, the Kahle found a backpack. He opened it to reveal a brand-new, dismantled G22A2 sniper rifle with a 25X riflescope, bipod, ammunition, a digital ballistic calculator and wind sensors, all laid out neatly in corresponding foam cutouts. He briefly checked the equipment and nodded, satisfied. Before closing the backpack again, he surreptitiously slipped the SOG Fusion Salute Black tactical knife from one of the rubber loops.

  “Configured exactly to your specifications,” the driver said, and handed him the car key.

  “Grazie per l’aiuto,” said the Kahle in perfect Italian, and a moment later stabbed the man expertly in the ear. Not a sound, no blood. His eyes rolled upward and he collapsed. The Kahle heaved the limp body into the back of the Alfa, pulled the trunk closed and drove away.

  7

  Office of the Swiss Guard, Vatican City, Rome

  “You’re late, Wagner.” Lorenzo Da Silva sounded peeved.

  “How can I be late, Commander? I’ve literally just
flown in.” Tom grinned as he held out his hand in greeting, but Da Silva ignored the gesture.

  Although they had never met, the commandant of the Swiss Guard could not abide Tom, and for one simple reason: Da Silva looked at Tom as a foreign body, nothing more. Tom was not Swiss and he had never trained as a Swiss guard. And because of that, he represented a break in a tradition that had stood the test of centuries. Da Silva would never question the word of the Holy Father, or even think about criticizing him, but for the life of him he could not understand what the Pope saw in this guy.

  “Every man is at his post. They all know what to do. But you could not even get here in time for the briefing.” Da Silva practically spat the words at Tom.

  “Take it easy, Lorenzo. I’ve been briefed by the very top. The Pope himself has told me all I need to know. He also put me in touch briefly with the head of the Patriarch’s security detail. I’m up to speed and ready to go. So where are our peas-in-the-pod now?”

  “Peas-in-the-pod?” Da Silva asked, his tone even icier than before. The fact that the Pope had gone over his own head and called Wagner personally was an affront that heated his otherwise cool and calculating Swiss constitution to the boiling point. He was the commandant of the Swiss Guard, godda— Da Silva almost cursed inwardly, but he caught himself in time.

  “The two P’s! P & P. Pope and Patriarch.” Tom gave the Swiss guardsman a crooked grin.

  Da Silva rolled his eyes. “Kyrill II, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, has come from Russia to discuss a number of important ecumenical matters with the Pope. Afterward, they will celebrate an ecumenical mass together. Given the terrorist threats we’ve received, we are at the highest level of alert.”

  Tom nodded. He took life as casually as he could most of the time and had no problem at all putting himself in harm’s way, but he was also a professional and he knew when it was time to stop messing around. He had a job to do. Without waiting for Da Silva, he strode off in the direction of the Pope’s chambers.

  Pope Sixtus VI smiled when he saw Tom, who immediately knelt and kissed the Ring of the Fisherman on the Pope’s hand. Etiquette aside, the Pope patted him warmly on the shoulder. “I hope Da Silva did not come down on you too hard. He is a good man, although his ego tends to get in his way sometimes. But who are we to judge?”

  The Pope shook his head vigorously and a smile flashed on his face. Tom smiled too. He liked this wise old man very much. And how Da Silva treated him was a walk in the park compared to Colonel Maierhofer, his former commander in the Austrian elite unit Cobra.

  Together, they left the Pope’s chambers on the third floor and went down to the floor below. There, in the Seconda Loggia of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope received the Patriarch and his entourage.

  8

  Vatican City, Rome

  When the mass and the subsequent media scrum were over, the Pope took Tom aside. “This is the Patriarch’s first visit to the Holy City. It would please me very much to show him something of the Vatican. I know that deviates a little from the day’s agenda, but it is important to me. Can you manage that?”

  “Of course, Your Holiness.”

  Tom saw no security issues within the walls of the Vatican, and so far the day had passed quietly enough. There had not been so much as a whiff of any kind of incident. But even though the terror warnings had apparently turned out to be false and a raised alert level was still in place at every entrance to the Holy City, Tom was not about to take his responsibility lightly. He insisted on remaining with the group, very much to the displeasure of Lorenzo Da Silva.

  “Your Holiness—” the guardsman began to protest.

  “Thank you for your patience and understanding, Commandant Da Silva. God will thank you for it.” The Pope laid a hand gently on Da Silva’s shoulder, and the commandant lowered his head reverently.

  “My thanks, Your Holiness.”

  Tom turned to Da Silva and gave him a friendly jab in the side.

  “See? We can all be friends here. Come on.”

  The Pope went first, leading the group through the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican gardens and onward to the library. Tom smiled to himself, knowing that a few very interesting parts of the library were not included in the tour. He was well aware of how great an honor Hellen, Cloutard and he himself had been accorded—not long ago, they had been able to visit the most secret section of the archive in person.

  At the end of the tour, the Pope wanted to pay a visit to the Tomb of St. Peter, which held special significance for Tom.

  Swiss Guardsmen were posted along the entire route. There was not a tourist in sight. Tom could easily imagine what that would mean. Right this minute, there were presumably hundreds of visitors to Rome standing at closed entrances, and no doubt the poor Vatican employees were suffering some strongly worded protests. Tom felt his own excitement grow as they descended into the Vatican Necropolis. At the front of the group were the Pope and Patriarch, the two men chatting away animatedly. One did not get an impression at all that they were the two highest church officials in the world; they seemed more like two old friends with a lot to catch up on. Deep in conversation, they took little notice of the centuries-old history all around them.

  “Ah, and here we are at last,” said the Pope when they reached St. Peter’s Tomb. He was just starting to say something about the gravesite and the crypt when he suddenly paused. He pointed to an object that lay atop the tomb. “What is that? What is it doing here?” he asked in surprise.

  9

  St. Peter’s Tomb, Vatican City, Rome

  Lorenzo and Tom looked at each other in surprise, then both moved to the tomb. Directly beside the Sword of Peter, with which Tom was already all too familiar, was an object that had no right to be where it lay. Tom picked up the elaborate-looking object and examined it.

  A strange sensation suddenly came over him. He felt as if he had seen the artifact somewhere before. There was something extremely familiar about it, but Tom’s thoughts were rudely interrupted by Da Silva.

  “Wagner!” he barked, snapping Tom back to the moment. Hesitantly, Tom handed the object to the Pope, much to Da Silva’s annoyance. It should have been examined first, the guardsman thought. For fingerprints, explosives, contact poison . . . just three of the things that immediately sprang to Da Silva’s mind as he glared disdainfully at Tom.

  Tom’s gut feeling was telling him that what they had just found was the start of something much bigger. Why else would someone go to this trouble and put themselves at so much risk, if not for something terribly important? The Pope and the Patriarch stared at the object in the Pope’s hands—an exceptionally ornate, gold orthodox cross. The Patriarch and those with him looked at each other in surprise.

  It’s old. Ancient, even, Tom realized, then smiled to himself as he thought: Hellen’s never around when you need her.

  “How did this get here?” Da Silva snarled at the two guardsmen posted at the entrance to the crypt. They were supposed to have checked the entire area for anything unusual or dangerous before the Pope entered.

  One of the guardsmen stepped forward. He seemed honestly surprised. “It wasn’t there when I checked the crypt, sir.”

  Da Silva snapped into crisis mode. He took the cross from the Pope’s hand. “Your Holiness, we have to have forensics examine the cross. The security of the entire city is in jeopardy if foreign objects start appearing from nowhere in this holy place.”

  “A foreign object? That is a cross, Commandant Da Silva.” The Pope’s voice suddenly carried a note of warning. Da Silva instinctively lowered his head and excused himself.

  “Your Holiness,” Tom said, “we could consult with Hellen. If this cross has any historical significance, she will recognize it,” he suggested.

  “We have enough experts in the Vatican. I don’t think we need to drag in another outsider,” Commandant Da Silva said with a sniff. Wagner was trying to bypass him once again. But the Pope narrowed his eyes coldly at Da Silva, and t
he guardsman dared not say another word.

  “Hellen will know at a glance what it is,” Tom went on.

  The Pope ignored the evil eye Da Silva was giving Tom. He nodded thoughtfully. “Let’s do it your way,” he said.

  10

  Office of the Pope, Vatican City, Rome

  When everyone had returned to the Apostolic Palace, Tom flipped open his MacBook and started a video call. He held the cross in front of the camera.

  “Whoa!” Hellen cried. “This is . . . this is incredible.”

  “What’s incredible?” said Tom, asking aloud what everyone in the room was thinking. The Pope, the Patriarch, the camerlengo and the Patriarch’s party were bursting with curiosity. Even Sister Lucrezia, who had just served tea to everyone and greeted Tom with her usual effusiveness, had stayed.

  “If it were not absurd and impossible, then I’d say that what you’re holding looks like”—she took a deep breath—“the Cross of Kitezh!”

  When the Patriarch heard Hellen’s words, he almost fell out of his chair in shock. He paled visibly as he looked wide-eyed at his secretary, Father Fjodor. “The Cross of Kitezh,” the Patriarch whispered, his voice trembling.

  “The cross of what?” Tom asked, still struggling to work out why the cross seemed so familiar to him.