Blood Pact (McGarvey) (33 page)

Around nine o’clock Dr. Vergilio showed up on a Vespa motor scooter and slowly circled the building before pulling up on the sidewalk and parking just across the street from the Cathedral.

She seemed cautious to al-Rashid, almost as if she expected to see the rioters still lurking somewhere around a corner, ready to do damage to her Archives, which had come out unscathed so far.

He waited for a full fifteen minutes after she went inside before he paid his bill and walked back to where he’d parked the car. Traffic was normal for a workday, and once he was away from the Centro section of the city he headed north to the Barrio de la Macarena, which was a huge neighborhood covering most of Seville’s historic section. Here were market squares, churches and convents, little gardens and pocket parks, plus Dr. Vergilio’s apartment on the ground floor of an ancient four-story building just one block off the river.

Parking a block and a half away, he walked past the building. A tall archway enclosed by tall iron gates, open at this hour of the day, gave access to a narrow cobblestone walkway that ran straight to an outdoor courtyard at the rear of the building. Just inside the gates an old woman sat on a wooden chair smoking a cigarette and cleaning mushrooms with a brush. No one else was around, and back here only the occasional car passed on the street.

Al-Rashid turned around and walked back to the woman, who looked up curiously when he appeared at the open gate.

“May I help you?” she asked, her voice raspy from years of smoking.

“Yes, please, Señora,” al-Rashid said in his rudimentary Spanish. “But I am looking for the building of Dr. Adriana Vergilio. I was told this was the address.”

“Yes, this is the correct number. But she has already left for the Archives.”

“I was just there. I must have missed her.”

“Well, she’ll be there by now.”

“But I haven’t the time. May I leave a message for her with you?”

The old woman hesitated, but then shrugged. “I am an old woman with a terrible memory. So if it is complicated you will have to make the time to return to her office.”

“I’ll write it down. If you have a pencil and a piece of paper.”

The woman sighed, but put her cigarette in a small tin can at her feet and led him into her apartment, where she got a pad of paper from a small table beneath a wall phone.

Before she could turn around, al-Rashid was on her, breaking her neck, her body convulsing once before she went limp.

He carried her into the bedroom at the rear of the small apartment, and covered her with the blanket, arranging her body with her head turned away from the window so that it would look as if she were merely taking a nap.

He checked at the front door to make certain that no one was around, and he got her chair, the bowl of mushrooms and brush, and the tin can and brought them inside. A set of seven keys were on hooks next to the phone. He took the set marked AV, and again checking at the door to make sure that the passageway was still empty he went back to Dr. Vergilio’s place and let himself in.

Standing just inside an entry vestibule, al-Rashid listened for any sign that someone might be here, or for a dog or some other animal, but the apartment was silent and he went the rest of the way into a very large living room.

Tall bookcases, with a wooden ladder on brass rails, lined three walls. The shelves were overstuffed with books, most of them very old. More books and piles of newspapers and magazines were stacked on the one couch, and on a big wingback chair. Books were stacked in the corners, on the coffee table in front of a second wingback chair, beside which were even more books.

A large map of the New World, which looked as if it had been drawn by hand a very long time ago, was framed and hung on a wall between a pair of windows, the heavy drapes drawn.

A small kitchen with a two chairs and a butcher block table were to the left just beyond a dining room, the table of which was piled with maps and what appeared to be a half-dozen expedition journals, these in modern field notebooks. The cover of each was marked with a date, starting in November 12, 1984, along with what were likely the names of archaeological digs Vergilio had been on, in various spots around Mexico City and north.

Al-Rashid quickly leafed through them, but nowhere was New Mexico, or Cibola, or the Mother Church, or treasure mentioned. If she had been looking for the gold—which she claimed did not exist—there was no evidence here.

A short corridor led back to a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which was used as a filing room mostly for maps in long flat drawers. Nothing here gave any hint of an expedition or expeditions to anywhere near the U.S. border.

The corridor’s walls were covered with dozens of framed photographs showing Vergilio and others out in the field at various digs. None of the photos were captioned, but most of them appeared to be in dense jungle settings out of which had been hacked clearings where trenches were being dug by hand. In one shot, a younger Dr. Vergilio, a broad-brimmed hat in hand, stood atop a small Aztec or Mayan ruin looking down at what had to be more than a hundred workmen ringing the pyramid and looking up at her. She had a broad smile on her face. Triumphant.

More books were stacked beside her bed, and on the nightstand, and even on the floor beside the tall, ornate wooden wardrobe.

For a long moment or two al-Rashid stood very still, his head cocked to one side, trying to absorb the place, trying to see Dr. Vergilio working here alone every night. There’d been no television in the living room and none here, only a small radio on a shelf in the kitchen. Here was not a home; it was nothing but an office away from the Archives. She worked all day downtown then came back here to work more.

He walked back out into the corridor and looked at the photograph of Vergilio standing atop the pyramid, a broad smile on her face. The only time she was free to enjoy herself was out in the field.

Turning, he looked in the map room again, then walked back to the living room and into the dining room and kitchen.

She had written several books. It was all here in her apartment; all the journals and maps and references that she would need.

But there was no typewriter, and more important there was no computer.

Al-Rashid smiled. The woman was hiding something.

SIXTY-ONE

The same sort of aluminum coffin used to transport the bodies of American soldiers killed in the field was taken from the hold of the Embraer by two men, who loaded it onto a wheeled cart and brought it over to a waiting hearse.

McGarvey and Otto, who’d been told to remain aboard, watched as a tall man in jeans and a military styled khaki shirt, the sleeves rolled up and buttoned above the elbows, accompanied the casket from the plane and before it could be loaded into the hearse he blessed it.

When it was aboard and the men drove away, the man in the jeans turned and came back to the airplane.

He hesitated just inside the hatch and asked the crew if they wouldn’t mind waiting outside for a few minutes. They agreed and left.

The interior of the Gulfstream was laid out with several very large and plush leather seats on swivels all within reach of a highly polished cherrywood table. It was obviously used to transport VIPs, and was fitted out with a luxurious bathroom at the rear, and a small but complete galley, including a credible wine stock, just aft of the cockpit. A flat-panel television dropped down from the ceiling, and in the armrest of each chair was a telephone. The plane was equipped with its own sophisticated communications system.

The man sat down across the table. “Gentlemen, thank you for bringing home the body of our son,” he said, his English nearly accentless.

McGarvey recognized him from the Skype call Otto had intercepted. “Monsignor Franelli, you must know the circumstances under which he died.”

“Father Unger told me that he committed suicide, which is a terrible crime for those of our faith. Do you know the circumstances of his death?”

“He was in my apartment, and I was forced to shoot him.”

“Pardon me, Señor McGarvey, but that would not have been possible under normal circumstances. He was much younger than you, and in superb physical condition. If he’d wanted to defend himself it would be you who was dead.”

“I know. He was waiting for me when I came home, and he could have killed me the moment I walked in the door. But he didn’t. He told me that he’d been sent to help me find the diary. I told him that I didn’t know where to begin.”

“You lied.”

“I wanted to see what he would tell me.”

Msgr. Franelli nodded. “Did he mention Seville or Bern first?”

“Seville.”

“Then why have you come here?”

“To deliver Father Dorestos’s body to his controller and to find out why the Order came to me for help. What do you think that I can do for you, that your soldiers and trained assassins can’t?”

Msgr. Franelli’s lips pursed. He was irritated. “Certain restrictions have recently been placed on the Order.”

McGarvey sat forward. “Bullshit. Your priest killed a Spanish intelligence officer in Florida.”

“You killed the three others.”

“But I didn’t kill four helpless men in their hospital beds, or an unarmed trauma room nurse whose only job was to help save lives, not take them.”

Msgr. Franelli held McGarvey’s gaze. “Mistakes were made. Father Dorestos was not completely stable. Terrible things happened to him when he was young, and by the time he came to us he was a damaged soul.”

“That you used,” Otto said angrily.

The priest turned to him. “You’re Otto Rencke, a computer genius, I’m told, who once worked for the Church until you were excommunicated. I think for some sexual dalliance, so don’t judge lest you yourself are judged.”

“But then there has always been that element within the Church that condoned murder and torture to further its own aims and its own power. The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind.”

“Strictly speaking at the hands of the Spanish government.”

“Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion espanola.”

“Yes, established by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. The king and queen of Spain, if I might remind you, Señor Rencke. Play with your computers but leave the history of the Church to us.”

The priest had a sharp edge to his voice and his manner, and McGarvey realized all at once that the man was being defensive because he was frightened. “You sent Father Dorestos to the States to help me. It wasn’t meant to be an assassination mission.”

“We weren’t sure who was watching you, though I suspected it was Spanish intelligence. They want the treasure, which they believe belongs to the government, and they were willing to kill for it.”

“What can you tell me about the Voltaires?”

Msgr. Franelli’s temper flared. “They are apostates.”

“It is their diary.”

“Our diary, written by one of our priests who went on the second Spanish expedition to find the gold and silver.”

“A treasure that the Church stole from the Spanish authorities in Mexico City.”

“It’s a moot point, Mr. McGarvey. The treasure, if it exists in your New Mexican desert, is being claimed by a host of people, all of whom are ready to kill for it. My Order was merely trying to direct you.”

“The man who was killed in the college parking lot was a Voltaire who came to ask for my help. His wife and son were murdered two days ago in Paris.”

“Yes, I know. Their souls will also burn in hell.”

“Was it one of your operators in Paris who did it?” McGarvey asked.

“No.”

“Who then? Do you have any ideas?”

“Not the Spaniards. It is some someone else, but we’re not sure who.”

“Another treasure hunter?”

“Presumably. The Cuban government is interested. Maybe the same agent who you worked with several months ago.”

“No,” McGarvey said.

Msgr. Franelli was about to say something but he stopped, and cocked his head. “You know who it is?”

“We have a possibility.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“I want the use of this jet and crew for the next few days.”

“In return for what?”

“Your Father Dorestos was correct. The answer is in Seville.”

“At the Archives. But what answer?”

“We think that the diary was written in code, and the cipher key is either at the Archives in Seville, or in a vault in the Vatican.”

“It’s not in the Vatican, I can tell you that much. If it were I would not have sent Father Dorestos to help you.”

“You need the diary itself to make the cipher key worth anything.”

“You’ll have to trust me that we do not have the key. But I agree that the diary or the key alone are worthless.”

“And then what?” McGarvey asked. “If we find the diary and the key and we make the translation, then what?”

“We find the treasure.”

“It does not exist,” McGarvey said.

“If that’s the case, then why are you doing all of this? Why are you risking your lives?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“For two innocent kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” McGarvey said. “But we’re also here for help getting to Seville.”

“The aircraft and crew are yours for as long as you need them. But the Spanish authorities will place you under arrest the moment you step off the plane.”

“Which is how you can help,” McGarvey said, and he told the monsignor what he had in mind.

SIXTY-TWO

Al-Rashid drove back downtown where he parked a couple of blocks from the Archives and walked to the Cathedral directly across the street from where Dr. Vergilio had chained her motor scooter to a light pole.

Cleanup efforts were still going on, and police were setting up barricades, blocking the streets leading from the open space of the Murillo Gardens where the crowd had gathered last night, and from where they had marched to the Archives, the Cathedral, the Alcazar, and the Hospital de los Venerables.

Killing the old woman manager at the apartment building had been a necessity, though once her body was discovered any further cooperation with Dr. Vergilio would be impossible. But he’d needed to search the good doctor’s apartment on the chance she had taken records of the second Spanish military expedition to New Mexico. She hadn’t, nor had she left her computer, which could only mean that the cipher key, if it existed at all—and now he thought it did—would be in the Archives.