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Another sheet.
Thinner.
Browner.
More fragile.
Paper.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Luke hung in the air, held aloft at his hands and calves by the two assailants. His head drooped down, still spinning. They were moving him toward one of the windows, intent on tossing him through the glass. In the open doorway behind him he saw the upside-down image of Laura rushing inside, pouncing on the man to his right, who released his hold and turned his attention toward her. He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and grabbed his wits, wiggling free from the other man’s grasp, dropping to the floor and clipping the legs out from under his attacker. He rolled and wrapped his right arm around the man’s throat and clamped hard, cutting off air and sending the guy into unconsciousness. Laura had already taken down her target, who lay still on the floor.
“Any idea who these idiots are?” he asked, breathing hard.
“Not a clue. But they came straight here, to an Entity safe house, which means they know Spagna’s business.”
“Where is the Lord’s Own?”
“At another house, not far from here. He and my boss took me there when we left earlier.”
That subject begged further investigation but, for the moment, he let it go and quickly searched both men. No ID. No weapons.
Forget them. Focus.
“Get a sheet off the bed,” he said. “We’ll rip it into strips and tie these bastards up for later.”
He stepped to the table and grabbed the cell phone, car keys, and his gun.
They had to find Spagna.
* * *
He and Laura hustled west toward the piazza where everything had started, the sounds of cars fading as buildings began to soundproof the pedestrian-only zone. He kept a lookout behind them but noticed no one following. The only noise came from the occasional chatter of people and the whistle from a breeze.
Wispy high-level clouds veiled and unveiled a luminous moon, the storm having passed, the buildings and streets being strobed like a light turned on and off in a dark room. Floodlights encased the co-cathedral, bathing the ancient stone in a warm chalk-white glow. The building squatted like a massive four-legged creature, the bell towers ears, transepts paws, silently studying its territory. He followed Laura deeper into the old city. Past the cathedral zone the sidewalks became deserted. Streetlights periodically cast a lambent glow into a raisin-black night. Cars hunched close to the curb on both sides of every route, a few decorated with yellow summons, revealing the length of their illegal stay. Protective shutters were drawn tight on most of the apartment windows, only cracks of light indicating people inside. As he looked ahead, fifty yards, a new sound broke the silence.
One of the third-floor windows exploded.
A body flew out headfirst, flipped in midair, then slammed onto the hood of a parked car.
He raced forward.
Laura followed.
He instantly recognized the face.
Laura grabbed at the bloody shirt. “Spagna.” Her voice carried a plea for a response. “Spagna.”
He tried for a pulse. Faint. Blood poured from slashes across the face. The archbishop’s nose bled profusely. But amazingly, he opened his eyes.
“Can you hear me?” Luke asked.
No response.
He saw panic in Laura’s face. A first.
Spagna’s bloody right hand jerked up and grabbed her arm. “Do … what I … told you. Both … of you.”
A soft pop came from above and something whizzed close to Luke’s right cheek. Spagna’s chest exploded. Another swoosh and the skull ripped apart right before his eyes, blood and sinew splattering on him and Laura.
He whirled around and looked up.
In the shattered window three floors above, two men stood, guns pointed. Obviously, their first priority had been to finish what they’d started. In the instant it took them to re-aim their weapons at two unexpected intruders, he leaped at Laura, shoving her behind a car. They slammed onto the damp pavement, she on the bottom, he shielding her on top.
More soft pops echoed.
Bullets rained down.
One struck the hood next to Spagna’s body, another shattered the windshield. Thankfully, the row of parked cars provided an ideal angle of protection, the third floor seemingly one story short of being high enough to shoot over them.
“We need to get out of here,” she said.
“We can take these guys.”
“Gallo is the priority now. That’s what Spagna meant. We have to get to Gallo. Come on, and stay down.”
She followed his lead, crouching low, using the cars as a shield while working down the street. More bullets tried to find a way through metal and glass. Fifty yards away he glanced back. The faces had disappeared from the window. Two forms suddenly popped out the building’s front entrance. He and Laura took off running, turning at the first corner. He figured they had half a football field’s lead. So he started making turns, trying to find a way out of the labyrinth of alleys.
They found a main boulevard.
He gulped in the humid air and looked around. The pavement was well lit and lined with more parked cars. Their pursuers were approaching, confirmed by the sound of running steps, coming closer.
Enough running. “Let’s take these bastards out.”
She didn’t argue. He gripped his Beretta and they assumed a position on either side of the alley’s end. But the footsteps could no longer be heard. They waited, but no one came.
What the hell?
Laura seemed surprised, too.
“In just a short time there are going to be a lot of police around here,” she said.
He still had the car keys and phone with directions on it Spagna had supplied.
“Let’s go find Cardinal Gallo.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Cotton reached down and lifted the single sheet that had fallen free. He was careful with his grip at the edges, mindful of how to handle something so rare, which was, after all, his main business.
He unrolled and studied the page.
Six lines. Typewritten.
He translated the German in his head and read it out for Stephanie, in English.
Deliver the contents personally into the hands of von Hompesch. This must be done at once and with all possible discretion. Where oil meets stone, death is the end of a dark prison. Pride crowned, another shielded. Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file. H Z P D R S Q X
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“Let’s leave here, before we’re found out,” Gallo said. “I can explain some of it along the way.”
Good advice.
They both hopped down and replaced the tools in the duffel bag. Gallo re-rolled the parchment and the single page, slipping them back into the metal tube. Cotton carried the tube as they retraced their steps down the avenue toward the stadium.
“The knight who wrote those words served Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch, on Malta, as the prior of la nostra ronti maggiore della sacra religione,” Gallo said.
“Our major church of the sacred religion,” Cotton translated for Stephanie.
“The conventional church of the knights,” Gallo said. “The co-cathedral in Valletta. We’ve long thought the secret lay there, simply because of the connection of its prior to von Hompesch.”
“There has to be more than that,” Stephanie asked.
They kept walking.
“There is.”
He listened as Gallo told them about a man tortured by Napoleon during his invasion of Malta. A man whose hands had been nailed to a table and still refused to tell the French invaders a thing.
“Legend says that the dead man left a way to find the Nostra Trinità. He was the prior of the cathedral and part of the Secreti. After Napoleon slaughtered him, he was buried along the east shore of Malta in a church cemetery. He lay there in quiet repose until his grave was violated in the 1930s.”
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