Sign Of The Cross (4 page)

‘What happened!’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong? Did you see something?’

Boyd took a deep breath and laughed, completely embarrassed. ‘I am
so
sorry… I just scared myself silly.’ His face turned a shade of red. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. Truly I didn’t. I’m just jumpy. That’s all… I just bumped into a hand, and it startled me.’

‘A hand? You bumped into a hand? Good lord,
professore!
You almost gave me a stroke.’

‘Trust me, I know the feeling. I almost had one myself.’

Maria put her hand on her chest and closed her eyes. Her heart felt like a jackhammer pounding against her rib cage. She took a deep breath, trying to cope with the rush of adrenaline. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’

He nodded sheepishly. ‘Yes, my dear, I swear.’

‘Then let’s get moving. I need to burn off all this energy.’

They traveled together for several seconds, passing grave after unmarked grave, never stopping to examine the bodies. They were still too jumpy to do that. Thirty yards later, the corridor split in two. The path on the left led to a stairwell that slowly curled into the darkness below. The hallway on the right continued forward past hundreds of more bodies.

Boyd turned to Maria. ‘Lady’s choice.’

‘Let’s go downstairs. I hear there’s a wonderful gift shop in the basement.’

He nodded, then started down the steps. They were no more than six inches deep – perfect for the feet of yesteryear but small for the modern-day traveler – which forced Boyd to lower himself sideways. To steady his descent, he used the jutting stones in the walls as a handrail.

At the halfway point, he stopped and turned toward the camera. ‘I believe we’re under the upper hallway now, more than twenty feet down. What an incredible achievement, carving this much rock yet keeping it hidden from the outside world. Simply remarkable!’

She asked, ‘Do you think the Empire built these stairs, or was it done in the Middle Ages?’

He paused, soaking in everything – the vaulted ceilings, the high arches, the colors, the smells, the sounds – before he answered. ‘My guess would be the Empire. The shallowness of the steps is the first clue, followed by the basic design. It’s very typical of the ancients.’

Smiling, Boyd continued forward at a methodical pace. Normally he would’ve zipped down the stairs at top speed, but the heat of the outer chamber had sapped his strength. Combine that with a lack of food and sleep, and he was lucky to be standing.

‘
Professore?
What do you think is down here?’

He was about to answer when the hallway came into view, stretching out before him like an arroyo. No crypts, no graves, no doors. Just an empty corridor for as far as his eye could see.

‘Strange,’ he mumbled. ‘I feel like we’re in a different world down here.’

Maria nodded. ‘It looks like it was decorated by the Amish.’

Boyd ignored her comment and crept down the hall searching for clues. Fifty feet later, he spotted a stone plaque on the left-hand wall. Its color was the same shade of brown as the rest of the passageway, yet its surface was remarkably different. Without saying a word, Boyd ran to it, immediately placing his hands on its cold surface. Then, like a blind man reading, he slid his fingers across it, probing the shallow grooves with slow, tender strokes.

Maria stood back, confused by his strange behavior. She wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, why he was acting more bizarre than he normally did, but all it took was a single glance and she knew the answer. One look at his face and everything made sense.

Her mentor, the one man she actually trusted and believed in, was hiding something.

Walking to the shore near the rear of the castle grounds, Nick Dial realized the Danish police would never solve the case. Unless, of course, there was a witness that he didn’t know about or a security camera that had inadvertently taped the crime. Otherwise the cops’ methods were too sloppy to nail anyone. No pun intended. Not only had they moved the body, but they had done very little to protect the integrity of the crime scene.

In a perfect world, they would’ve sealed off the entire area, building temporary barriers that would’ve kept people out and cut down on the gusts of wind that blew in from the sound. Instead, officers strolled across the beach like they were on vacation, kicking up sand and blatantly ignoring the rules of evidence.

‘Excuse me, are you Mr Dial?’

Dial turned to his right and stared at a well-dressed woman who was heading his way. She pulled out her badge and held it up for him to scrutinize.

‘Yeah, I’m Dial,’ he finally said.

‘I’m Annette Nielson from the
NCB
in Copenhagen. I was the agent who phoned in the initial report this morning.’

Dial shook her hand and smiled, half surprised that the local field office had sent a woman to handle such a high-profile case. Not that he had anything against female investigators, because he didn’t, but he knew most executives at Interpol were far less open-minded than he. ‘Nice to meet you, Annette. Please call me Nick.’

She nodded and pulled out her notepad. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to get the local chief to talk to me. He keeps making excuses, though.’

Typical,
Dial thought to himself. ‘What can you tell me about the victim?’

‘Caucasian male, mid-thirties, no tattoos or piercings. Death occurred sometime this morning, probably around dawn. Puncture wounds in his hands, feet, and rib cage. Severe damage to his face and mouth. Leads us to believe that he was beaten into submission.’

‘Do we have a name?’

She shrugged. ‘The locals took his prints, but I don’t know if they have the results yet.’

‘Point of access?’

‘Best guess is the beach. The front of the castle is well-lit and guarded. So is the interior. Unfortunately, by the time I got here, the locals had covered any footprints with their own.’

‘Number of assailants?’

‘Multiple. The cross is too heavy for just one.’

‘Anything else?’

‘They left a note.’

‘They left a
what
? Show it to me.’

She led him to the cross, which sat in the lawn near the edge of the sand. The body was nowhere to be found. ‘The note was painted on a walnut sign and affixed to the top of the cross with a long spike driven vertically.’

Dial read the message aloud. ‘IN
THE
NAME
OF
THE
FATHER
.’

He kneeled next to the sign for a closer look. The letters were five inches high and hand-painted in red. Very neatly done. Like the killer had taken calligraphy lessons in his spare time. Right before his advanced course in woodworking. ‘I’m assuming this isn’t blood.’

‘Red paint,’ she concurred. ‘We’re tracking down the shade and the manufacturer. Who knows? We might find a bucket of it in a nearby Dumpster.’

‘I doubt it. This sign wasn’t made around here. The killers brought it with them.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Dial put his nose next to the board and took a whiff. ‘Three reasons. One, the sign is dry, which wouldn’t be the case if they’d painted it this morning. There’s too much moisture along the shore for anything to dry quickly. Two, if they’d painted it around here, they would’ve made a mess. The wind would’ve been whipping across the beach causing sand to stick to the paint like a magnet. No way they did it out here. It’s too neat.’

‘And three?’

He stood from his crouch and grimaced, knowing that this was the first of several victims yet to come. ‘The sign was just the icing. The killer’s way of taunting us. His real work of art was the victim, the way he killed the guy. That’s the thing we need to focus on.’

The sound of clapping emerged from behind, followed by a mock ‘Bravo!’

Dial took a deep breath and turned. There was no doubt in his mind that it was the local chief of police because he had dealt with this type of idiot many times before, and it was always the same. They taunted Dial because he was an Interpol big shot who was infringing on their so-called turf. Then, once they got it out of their system, he made a phone call to their immediate supervisor, and they were forced to kiss Dial’s ass – usually in a very public ceremony – and cater to his every whim for the rest of the week.

But Dial just wasn’t in the mood today. Not for some dipshit who didn’t know how to run a crime scene. So instead of letting the guy speak, Dial whirled around as quick as he could and charged toward him like an angry rhinoceros. ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been looking for you for the last half hour, but you’ve been too scared to show yourself.’

‘Excuse me?’

Dial whipped out his badge and shoved it in the guy’s round, bloated face. ‘If you’re the man in charge, then you’re the guy who’s been avoiding me.’

‘No one told me -‘

‘What? That Interpol was involved in this case? I find that hard to believe since Agent Nielson has been here all morning. According to her, your staff has been anything but helpful.’

The chief looked at Nielson, then back at Dial, trying to think of something clever to say. But Dial refused to give him a chance. He had heard all of the excuses before and wasn’t about to listen to them again. Time was too precious in a case like this.

‘And don’t even start with your jurisdiction bullshit. The victim was brought in through the sound, and half of that water belongs to Sweden, meaning this is an international case. International means Interpol, and Interpol means
me
. You got that?
Me!
That means you need to get off your ass and tell me everything I need to know, or I swear to God I’ll call every reporter in Europe and tell them that you’re the reason that this case hasn’t been solved yet.’

The man blinked a few times, stunned. Like he had never been on this end of an ass-chewing.

‘Oh yeah,’ Dial added, ‘one more thing. Once I hop on my plane and get out of this godforsaken country, I expect you and your staff to treat Agent Nielson with the utmost respect. She works for Interpol, which means she’s an extension of me. Got it?’

The chief nodded at Nielson, then returned his gaze to Dial.

‘So, what have you got for me, Slim? You’ve wasted enough of my time already.’

The chief hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, searching for something to say. ‘We got word on the victim. His name was Erik Jansen, a thirty-two-year-old from Finland.’

‘Finland? That’s a thousand miles away. Why in the world was he in Denmark?’

The chief shrugged. ‘Our customs office has no record of him being here. Not ever.’

‘Annette,’ Dial said, ‘call headquarters and find out where he’s been during the last year.’

She nodded and hit the button on her speed dial.

‘Chief, while she’s on the phone, let me ask you a question. Where’s the body?’

‘We moved it to the morgue.’

‘Before or after you photographed the scene?’

‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘my men tried to revive the victim. And the quickest way to do that was to pull the cross out of the ground.’

Dial grimaced. ‘Please tell me you took some pictures before you pried him off the beams?’

The chief nodded and ran off to get the photos; at least that’s what he said he was doing. The truth was, he was looking for an excuse to get away from Dial and had no plans of coming back until he regained his composure. But that was fine with Dial because it left him in charge of the entire scene and prevented the chief from hearing a key piece of information that Agent Nielson had just acquired from Interpol.

‘Rome,’ she said. ‘Jansen has been living in Rome for the past eight years, not Finland.’

‘Rome? What in the world was he doing there?’

‘Our victim was a priest who worked at the Vatican.’

The last time Payne had seen Jones was when they were being arrested. From there both of them were taken to the penitentiary in separate squad cars, stripped of their clothes and possessions, and locked in cells on opposite sides of the building. Mostly for the protection of the staff.

That was Friday, nearly seventy-two hours before.

Payne was on his cot, pondering his next move, when a team of guards interrupted him. They burst into his cell and chained his hands and legs together with a device that looked like it was from
Cool Hand Luke
. The men were of average size and training. That meant Payne could’ve gotten free if necessary. But he let things slide, allowing them to drag him to an isolation room where he assumed he was going to be interrogated. Or tortured. Or both.

In the center of the room was a metal table bolted to the floor. A large iron loop was fused to each side, used to restrict the movement of the prisoner. The guards locked Payne in place, taking extra precautions, making sure he was secure. They had to be careful with a prisoner like Payne. He was
that
dangerous. Once they were satisfied, they left the room without speaking. No words. No instructions. Nothing. The only sound Payne could hear was the rattle of his chains and his own shallow breathing. The distinct smell of old vomit hovered in the air.

They left him like that for several hours, allowing him to sweat. Allowing him to think of all the horrible things they could do to him. Hoping it would make him break. Little did they know they were wasting their time. They could do whatever they wanted to Payne, and he wouldn’t feel it. He was trained not to feel it. To join the MANIACs, soldiers were required to pass a rigorous torture test that had two basic parts: getting torture and giving torture. Payne excelled at both.

So instead of dwelling on what might happen, Payne focused on other things. Mostly events of the past few years. All the things that had led him to his current predicament.

Sadly, family duties had forced him to leave the military long before he was ready. His grandfather, the man who had raised him, passed away and left him the family business. A multimillion-dollar corporation named Payne Industries. In truth Payne wanted no part of that world. It was one of the reasons he had gone into the military, to avoid such obligations. He wanted to forge his own identity and make a name on his own. He wanted to be his own man. But all that changed when his grandfather died. Suddenly he felt obligated to come home and take charge. Like it was his destiny. His burden.