Blood Pact (McGarvey) (39 page)

For a long time he stood stock-still in the deeper shadows away from the windows, listening for sounds, any sound that might indicate someone was still here. But the Archives building was deathly still, the only noise coming from the low murmurs and occasional laughter of the people outside.

Their silence was unexpected and somewhat ominous as if it were the calm before a very large storm. He had counted on more noise to mask the sounds of any trouble he might run into here.

At the far corner of the first floor, a large area was filled with long steel cabinets, slender drawers filled with maps starting in the fifteen hundreds. He opened several of the drawers at random, took out the maps, all of them protected by clear plastic sleeves and dumped them in a pile. He took a brick of Semtex out of the haversack and laid it on the pile of maps. He stuck one of fuses into the plastique but did not set the time. Then he spread several handfuls of the magnesium dust accelerant around the area. The fire when it started would be very bright and hot.

Walking around the long open corridor to the opposite corner that looked back toward the main stairs, he pulled armloads of books from the dozen or so tall stacks and dumped them on the floor, making another pile of what he knew had to be priceless material. He set another brick of Semtex with a fuse and spread more magnesium dust, then headed to the second floor noiselessly, taking the broad marble stairs two at a time.

If it came to it, which he expected it might, he would set the fuses and step back out of the blast radii. His intent here was to cause enough damage and make enough noise so that Dr. Vergilio would come on the run to save the one artifact she valued the most, which was almost certainly the cipher key for the diary. He was indifferent to the damage, though he didn’t consider himself callous enough to bother destroying the entire Archives, though if it happened he could see himself walking away with an untroubled conscience.

Upstairs he went to the side of the building that looked across at the Cathedral. The street was packed with people, but from his vantage point he could see the entire front façade of the large building, including its bell tower and its main entrance and the iron gates that were slightly ajar.

Dr. Vergilio had taken the bait, she was already there. He was sure of it.

Her suite of offices occupied one corner of the building. He walked to the opposite corner, and pulled a large number of books from the stacks and piled them on the floor in front of a window that would be clearly visible from the Cathedral. He laid another brick of Semtex on the pile and inserted a fuse but did not crimp it.

Halfway back to the offices, he piled another twenty or thirty books in front of a window, and set his last brick of Semtex and acid fuse but no accelerant. If he was caught up here he didn’t want to risk a large fire.

It was quarter to nine, and by now the woman would be getting nervous. Somewhere with her would be the Cuban intelligence officer he’d seen at the doctor’s apartment and had spoken with on the phone. She would be somewhere across the street in the Cathedral, but watching from a safe distance for him to show up.

She would come on the run with the doctor, but separately, when the fires started, and he would kill her. Once Dr. Vergilio had retrieved the cipher key, he would kill her and take it.

When the fire department arrived, he would continue his masquerade as a security guard and slip away into the mob.

He looked down at the Cathedral. Fifteen minutes.

“Do you mean to destroy this place for the key?” María asked from behind him.

SEVENTY-TWO

The police station housed in a squat unattractive building across the river from the Jardines del Guadalquivir had been nearly deserted when McGarvey was brought through a rear sally port and taken immediately to a small interrogation room.

His pistol, cell phone, Vatican passport, and everything else in his pockets had been taken from him, but once he was in the windowless room furnished only with a metal table and two chairs, all bolted to the concrete floor, the handcuffs were removed.

The arresting officer, Captain de la Rosa, sat down across from him. “You are working for the Vatican police now?”

“No,” McGarvey said. In less than a half hour the situation was going to come to a head, and he needed to get the hell out. “Nor am I working for the CNI, who wanted me dead.”

“On the contrary, Señor McGarvey, Spain is not your enemy.”

“In that case give my things back and let me out of here.”

“You shot four of our people to death, you son of a bitch! You’re not going anywhere!”

“Then let me talk to someone in authority. Someone from the CNI. Before it’s too late.”

“Before what’s too late?” de la Rosa asked. McGarvey’s pistol, spare magazines, and silencer were gone, but his cell phone was on the table. The cop picked it up and pushed several buttons. He looked up. “Nothing.”

“Seven-seven-Q-nine.”

“Is this going to blow up in my hands?”

“I’m expecting a call. The phone is password protected.”

De la Rosa entered the numbers, and immediately the phone chirped. He answered it.
“Sí?”
After a moment, he shook his head. “No one,” he said.

“Put it on speaker phone,” McGarvey said.

After a moment the cop did it.

“I’m in a police building not too far from you,” McGarvey said. “What’s your situation? We’re on speaker phone.”

“Are you under arrest?” Otto asked.

“Yes.”

“You need to get out of there post haste,
kemo sabe,
’cause the shit is about to hit the wall at the Archives.”

“What happened?”

“Dr. Vergilio is dead, María shot her. She means to make the rendezvous herself, with the doctor’s laptop, which she thinks contains the cipher key. Or at least she’s going to offer it to Montessier as such.”

A very tall, ascetic-looking man, thin with wide eyes, a severe white sidewalls haircut, beak of a nose, and a long angular face, came into the room. He was dressed in a crumpled suit and white shirt but no tie. He seemed angry.

“Who is on the telephone?” he demanded. “Is it Señor Rencke?”

“Yes, and I expect that you may be Major Prieto, from the sound of your voice, and from the images Mac’s phone is picking up.”

De la Rosa reached to shut it off, but Prieto waved him away.

“Dr. Vergilio I know, but who is María?” the CNI officer asked.

“Colonel María León, Cuban intelligence. She’s here looking for the same thing you’re looking for. The diary,” McGarvey said. “Any sign of Montessier?”

“No,” Otto said. “After she sent the guards away, she shot the doctor and told me to leave. It was a present, she said, to Louise and Audie.”

“Where are you exactly?”

“In the crowd about twenty yards from the front entrance to the Cathedral. The iron gates are open. But listen, Mac. A guy wearing a security guard jacket showed up and went inside.”

“Montessier?”

“That’s what I figured. He was carrying a haversack.”

“Christ,” McGarvey said. “Keep your head down, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Otto canceled the call.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Prieto said. “Who is Montessier?”

“He’s an assassin working for the Saudi government, maybe for a member of the Royal family. We think that he managed to steal the diary from a bank vault in Bern. But it was written in code, and he came here looking to make a deal with Dr. Vergilio for the cipher key. At this moment he’s inside the Archives and unless I miss my guess he’s going to destroy the place rather than let the key fall into the wrong hands.”

“Whose hands?”

“Yours. The Vatican’s. Mine.”

“But you’re working for the Vatican.”

“Despite what it looks like, no. I’m working for no one. But, Major, unless you get your ass in gear you’re going to lose a lot of priceless historical documents.”

“Send a couple of your men over to check it out,” Prieto told de la Rosa.

“Almost everybody is doing crowd control,” the cop said.

“Then you go.”

“If he goes over there alone he’ll wind up dead,” McGarvey warned.

“Take your partner.”

“They’ll both die,” McGarvey said.

De la Rosa got to his feet, but he looked uncertain.

“Then what do you suggest?” the major demanded.

“Get me down there right now, and watch the doors and windows to make sure he doesn’t get past me.”

“You’re a murderer!” Prieto roared.

“Self-defense. Your people shot at me first when I went to ask them why the hell they had me under surveillance.”

The major knew that it was not a lie and McGarvey saw it in his eyes.

“I have a car and driver outside,” Prieto said. “We’ll go.”

“What about me?” de la Rosa asked.

“Organize the people already down there to watch the Archives as well as the crowd. Now, move it!”

“Better call the fire brigade to stand by,” McGarvey said, pocketing his phone.

Prieto nodded, and on the way out McGarvey’s pistol and spare magazines were returned to him.

Outside they got into the back of a black C-class Mercedes and the major told the driver to get them as close to the Archives as he could, as fast as he could.

Traffic was light this far away, but McGarvey didn’t think they would be able to get within a block or two of the place by car. He phoned Otto.

“I’m on my way. Anything yet?”

“No, as far as I know he and María are still inside. It’s possible they’re making a deal, because if the cipher key does exist—though Dr. Vergilio swore up and down that it didn’t—it’ll be on her laptop.”

“Once he finds that out he’ll kill her.”

“If he actually has the diary, I think she means to kill him. And she’s not bad.”

“Are you still in the mob?”

“Yeah, a little closer to the Cathedral entrance. But it looks as if it’s going to get ugly around here pretty quick. Don’t dawdle.”

“No,” McGarvey said, and he hung up.

“What about your Vatican passport?” Major Prieto asked.

“It was one of their soldiers from Malta who took out one of your people in Florida. Like you he was sent to help me look for the diary. They still hope that I’ll find it and the key and share it with them.”

“Will you?”

“I’ll share it with anyone who wants the damned thing. Let your people work it out, along with the Cubans, and the Voltaire Society—one of whose people your agents killed in Sarasota. Along with two innocent students.”

Prieto didn’t turn away. “I’m truly sorry it happened that way.”

“Your surveillance team weren’t sorry.”

SEVENTY-THREE

Al-Rashid held up at the end of the stacks, the Beretta in his right hand, a little blood seeping from the flesh wound high on his left arm. He hadn’t thought that the bitch would fire. She wanted the diary above everything else and she was evidently ruthless enough to do whatever it took.

“We can still make a deal, if you have the cipher key,” he said.

“I have the key,” María said from somewhere to the right, down the corridor in the direction of the offices. “But you said that you didn’t bring the diary with you.”

“No, but it is very close at hand. Produce the key and I will produce the book.”

“The deal is no longer that simple, Señor Harris, or whatever your real name is.”

“What are your terms? I am listening.”

“We each have something that the other wants. But you came here intending to kill me and Dr. Vergilio.”

“Only if you couldn’t provide the key.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Your terms?” al-Rashid said. He laid the pistol on one of the shelves, and began pulling books just below eye level and quietly laying them on the floor. “What do you propose?”

“Throw out your pistol and we’ll go get the diary.”

“I won’t do it. There’d be no reason for you not to kill me.”

“There’s every reason in the world. I want the diary and you’re the only one who can lead me to it.”

Al-Rashid had cleared about two feet of books from the shelf, exposing the row face in, on the opposite shelf. “I’ll take you to the diary, what’s to prevent you from killing me?”

“We’ll meet someplace public, where neither of us will have the advantage, for the exchange.”

Al-Rashid picked up his pistol. “What did you say?” he asked, but before she could answer, he shoved the books on the opposite side off the shelf.

María stood just beyond the end of the next stack, and al-Rashid fired three shots in rapid succession.

She fell back with a cry and fired four shots in return, all of them slamming harmlessly into the spines of the books on either side of the opening, before she disappeared around the corner.

The building fell quiet, except for the noise of the crowd outside. They had begun chanting something about fair wages, fair prices, fair humanity. Like most mob-led slogans, this one made no sense to al-Rashid.

“You missed,” María called from around the corner.

“Perhaps I’ll go over to the Cathedral and meet with Dr. Vergilio after all,” al-Rashid said. He was becoming frustrated. Job one was killing the Cuban bitch. “Perhaps she’ll be a little more cooperative.”

One of the bricks of Semtex landed on the floor at the end of the stack not five feet away from where he was hiding. He stepped back reflexively until he realized that the acid fuse had been removed.

María laughed. A moment later the long, thin pencil fuse landed a couple of feet away from the plastique and two seconds later it popped off like a flare.

“
Cristos!
My aim was off. Maybe I’ll get luckier next time.”

Al-Rashid reached around the corner and emptied the Beretta’s fifteen-round magazine. He ducked back, ejected the spent magazine, slammed another in the handle, and charged the weapon.

“Tell you what, I’m getting out of your way for the moment,” María called. She had moved farther down the corridor. “You might want to take a look in the doctor’s office. I’ll wait for you downstairs, and we can get serious about our options. The deal is still possible.”