I, Saul (42 page)

“Well, I'll be,” Roger said. “Top cop sending Bible verses? That's got to be a first.”

Sofia put a hand to her trembling lips and whispered through her fingers. “Peace right now
would
surpass all understanding.”

Roger puffed his cheeks and exhaled loudly. “I heard that.”

Augie said, “We're claiming that promise.” He texted back, “u missed your calling, reverend.”

“As soon as Trikoupis arrives, take him to your suite. Whoever Sardinia sent is likely watching, waiting till you're all up there. Don't worry, we won't let him get to you.”

The three sat with their heads inches apart. “Only person we have to playact for is your dad,” Augie said.

“He's going to prison for a long time, Sofia,” Roger said. “You okay with that?”

“Guess who taught me that decisions have consequences?”

“I've heard that before!”

The three jerked around to see Trikoupis approaching. He carried a high-end leather attaché.
Just the right size,
Augie thought. Trikoupis beamed as he sat, throwing an arm around Sofia, who ignored him. “Mr. Michaels?” he said.

“That would be me,” Roger said, hesitating before shaking Malfees's outstretched hand.

“I wouldn't have recognized you.”

“Sort of the point,” Roger said.

“Not after this evening! You'll no longer be on the run. And all of you will be set for life.”

“Yeah, boy,” Roger said.

The man removed his arm from Sofia's shoulder and patted his case. “The goods go in, the cashier's checks come out.” “Now we're talkin',” Augie said, forcing a smile. Trikoupis raised a fist at him. “My boy.”

Augie led the way to the elevator. When they entered the suite, Sofia's father looked at his watch and whispered, “We have fifteen minutes. He's never late.”

Augie hung back to triple lock the door.

“Expecting someone other than my partner?” Trikoupis said.

Augie shook his head. “Can't be too careful.”

“Don't be so jumpy. Meanwhile, how about a sneak preview?”

“I prefer to wait—.”

“Just the first page then?”

Some partner. Didn't even tell you he'd stolen that.

“No.”

Malfees Trikoupis scowled. “Enjoy imagining yourself in charge, Augie. It'll soon be time for you to deliver.”

“Oh, I plan to. As you made clear, I have no choice.”

Trikoupis grinned and patted Augie's shoulder.

At 7:55 p.m., as Augie and his future father-in-law joined Sofia and Roger at the table, his phone vibrated. A text from Emmanuel:

“Revert to Plan A! Acknowledge, please.”

What was this? Now they
were
to keep playing along?

Augie texted back, “ok, what's up?”

“A.S. here. Careful.”

Augie heard a knock at the door, and when Trikoupis rushed to open it, Augie quickly showed Sofia and Roger his phone.

Sofia's father breezed in with Sardinia. “Allow me to make the introductions!”

“No need,” Sardinia said, smiling. “I met your beautiful daughter this morning—apologies again for our misunderstanding, and my sympathy on the loss of your friend.”

“Thank you.”

“And of course I know Mr. Michaels, though he looks a bit different from the last time I saw him.You'll be glad to hear the charade ends tonight.”

It sure does,
Augie thought.

“And you must be Dr. Knox! How nice to meet you.”

Augie responded by pointing to the table. Everyone took a seat, Trikoupis to Sardinia's left, then Sofia, Augie facing Sardinia, and Roger on Sardinia's right.

“I like to get right down to business,” Sardinia began. “Mr. Trikoupis is prepared to take immediate delivery and distribute compensation so we can all shake hands and be on our way. Miss Trikoupis, besides your two million euros, as a show of good faith I extricated you from an uncomfortable situation this morning as a courtesy to your father and in consideration of your fiance having informed him of this find. Dr. Knox, I assume the finder's fee of one percent of total profits over the life of the antiquity is acceptable.”

“It sure is.”

“Well put. And Mr. Michaels, I assume you're aware that your two million is in lieu of my arresting you and tying you up in our judicial system for the rest of your natural life.”

Roger nodded. “Getting my life back is almost as valuable to me as the money.”

That brought a laugh from Sardinia.
“Almost!
Very good! Now then, if there's nothing else ….”

Augie's phone vibrated and he peeked at another text from Emmanuel. “Hearing everything. Direct him to your ‘representative' at the address below, but not until he gives you Giordano's letter.”

“Dr. Knox?” Sardinia said, smiling. “We have agreed on terms. The ball, as they say, is in your court.”

“I've got a problem,” Augie said.

Sardinia's smile disappeared. “You understand negotiations are over.” “There's been a wrinkle.”

“This is a straightforward deal with a lot of money going one direction. If this is some ploy—.”

“Your plan was to go around us for the manuscript.” “I don't know what you—.”

“You stole Klaudios Giordano's letter, hoping it would lead you to the original document and make us unnecessary.” “You're accusing me of—.”

“You're the only person who had knowledge of both what it was and where it was, and the authority to take custody of it. But the letter must not have told you what you needed to know, did it? Because if it had, we wouldn't be here. We would have been as expendable as Klaudios and Dimos.”

“What is it you want, Dr. Knox?”

“You said negotiations were over, Mr. Sardinia. But they're not, are they? I want the letter before I give you and Mr. Trikoupis what you came for.”

Sardinia appeared to be thinking. “Two people died over this, so naturally you want to protect yourselves. I respect that. The letter is in my pocket. You're right that it proved meaningless to us, and it is a relief to know that you were able to decipher it. I am willing to surrender it as part of the transaction.”

“And what guarantees do we have that we won't meet the same fate as the others?”

“You will have Mr. Trikoupis's money, Dr. Knox.”

“Which guarantees our safety how?”

“It ensures your silence. What credibility would you have if you tried to expose me after being paid for your roles in the theft? Dr. Knox, my appreciation for you has risen. I assumed you were just a naïve professor dragged into this by a petrified friend.”

“And now all you need to satisfy me is the return of a letter.”

“At least tell me how you made sense of it, Doctor. It stymied several experts in code breaking. They gave me nothing more than I knew from a cursory glance. It's the first two lines from the first verse of an old Catholic hymn based on a twelfth-century poem by St. Bernard.”

Augie tried to appear as if he had known this all along, and that it had told him where Klaudios had stashed the manuscript. “When I have it in my hands again, I'll tell you what I know.”

Sardinia pulled an envelope from an inside jacket pocket and slid it across the table. Augie extracted the single sheet of white paper, on which was written in lavender marker:

Daily, daily sing to Mary,

Sing, my soul, her praises due.

“We know Klaudios traveled to Greece,” Sardinia said. “But we had
no idea where he might have hidden the memoir. There are so many potential clues in even a short biography of Bernard that we'd have been months trying to make sense of it. So humor me. How did this lead you to the manuscript?”

“I'm sorry. Did I say it did?”

“Something must have.”

Roger said, “Maybe the old man just told me where to find it, and this was a red herring in case it ever fell into your hands.”

“Clever, Mr. Michaels.”

“Can we not lose sight of the fact that Klaudios was a friend of mine?” Roger said.

“Mine too,” Augie said.

“His death is on you, sir,” Roger said.

Sardinia appeared to suppress a smile. “Perhaps your check will assuage your grief.”

“What about his family's?”

“Feel free to share your largesse with them.”

Roger turned away, looking disgusted.

“Okay, Dr. Knox, can we get on with this?”

“You'd love to get rid of all of us, wouldn't you, Aldo? Mr. Trikoupis included.”

“You have no idea.”

“It's written all over you.”

Malfees Trikoupis did a double take. “He'd be hard pressed to do without me.”

“Once he has the goods, he doesn't even need you, sir,” Augie said.

Sofia shook her head. “So it's okay with you, Dad, if he eliminates the three of us, me included, as long as he keeps you around?”

“Oh, honey, you know—.”

“Yeah, Dad, I do.”

Augie peeked again at his vibrating phone. Emmanuel: “Wrap this up.”

“Just tell me what you gleaned from it, Doctor. I don't like puzzles I can't solve.”

The word
puzzles
gave Augie an idea.

“No idea,” Augie said. “This is the first I've seen Klaudios's letter.”

“All right, fine! Let's have the manuscript and you all get paid.”

“Were you under the impression I had it here?”

“To tell you the truth, I hoped I'd find it at the bank. So where is it?”

Augie jotted the address Emmanuel had texted him and handed it to Sardinia. “My representative is waiting for you.”

“This is next door. What, the cafe? You're telling me someone's sitting at a cafe with a priceless antiquity? You
are
new to this game. All right, Malfees stays here, I call him when I have it in hand, and then he distributes the checks.”

Augie laughed. “I'm not
that
new! What keeps you from disappearing and leaving Mr. T. holding the bag?”

“Ridiculous,” Malfees said. “We're partners. He'd have to kill us all if he tried that.” A look came over him, as if he finally understood Sardinia's plan. “We will all go.”

As they headed to the elevator, Augie got another text from Emmanuel telling him where to send Sardinia.
Then get as far away from him and Trikoupis as possible.

The cafe wasn't more than a hundred feet from the hotel. Whoever Emmanuel and his people worked with had succeeded in leaving empty an area near the bathrooms and the office. The five of them took a booth there and told the waitress to give them a few minutes.

Sardinia said, “Now what?”

“Knock twice on the manager's door,” Augie said, nodding toward it.

“Classy. Hope he's got the thing packaged properly.”

“You should worry more about whether our checks are good.”

Sardinia approached the office, and when he raised his hand to knock, Augie said calmly, “Sofia, Roger, follow me, right now.”

They slid out of the booth and headed for the entrance. Trikoupis hollered, “Where are you going? Aldo! It's a setup!”

Augie pushed open the door and held it for Sofia and Roger as he looked back. The manager's door burst open and Art Squad agents poured out. Some surrounded Trikoupis, still frozen in the booth, as Sardinia bolted toward a rear entrance, pulling his gun. He sprinted around to the front of the cafe and met Roger and Sofia as they emerged. Leveling his sidearm, he ordered them to kneel.

Augie watched from the door as a dozen more agents swarmed from every direction. “Everybody stand down!” Sardinia screamed. “I've got them! Hold your fire!” While he couldn't know he'd convicted himself on Augie's recordings and in the suite that had been wired for sound, he had to know he was almost out of options.

As Augie stepped out behind the kneeling pair, his hand on the butt of the nine millimeter at his back, Sardinia said, “You too, Knox! On the ground!” When Sardinia cocked his weapon, Roger and Sofia lunged at him. He took aim at Sofia, but Augie was too fast. From less than ten feet away the high velocity hollow point slug slammed into Sardinia's shoulder, and the back of his head hit the pavement.

In an instant carabinieri were atop him while others checked on Sofia and Roger and Augie. “We're trained not to shoot into a crowd,” one said.

“Well, I wasn't trained, and he was about to kill my fiancee.”

Augie felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Emmanuel. “Going to have to confiscate that Smith & Wesson for a while,” he said.

“I've got a permit.”

“Do you now?”

Sofia scrambled to Augie and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You hurt?” she said.

“No, I'm great.”

“Me too, thanks to you.”

Augie turned back to Georgio. “I'd hug you, Colonel, but I've got priorities.”

“And taste. I've heard a lot about you, ma'am.”

“As I have about you.”

Roger, who had stayed on his hands and knees until Sardinia had been secured, joined them. “Looks like he'll survive to face charges.”

“I don't expect it'll be much of a trial,” Emmanuel said. “We've never given the prosecution as much as we've got on him and Trikoupis. We even found the original first page and the photocopies in the trunk of Sardinia's car. I almost feel sorry for him.”

“Feel sorry for Augie,” Roger said. “I drag him halfway around the world to save my tail and we're no closer to finding the original memoir than the day Klaudios hid it.”

“Rest assured,” Emmanuel said, “the Art Squad will never quit searching. And in the meantime, the first page can be authenticated and you can testify that the photocopies are of the real manuscript.”

“No, no,” Augie said. “Klaudios wasn't pulling Roger's chain. He wants us to find the memoir. The clues are in the letter. We just have to figure it out.” He looked at his watch. “It's early afternoon in the States. I'm going to call somebody who might be able to help.”