The Second Messiah (57 page)

UMBERTO CASSINI RACED
down the hidden stairway, clutching the hem of his cardinal’s crimson gown. The patter of his feet on the stone steps moved at a frantic rhythm. His body pumped adrenaline, his gown drenched with the stench of perspiration, his pounding chest on fire. He came to a landing and a solid door with a handle.

Cassini clutched the handle, pushed in the door, and found himself in the old armory. It was a room familiar to him, used by the Vatican’s security officers to store caches of weapons in case of emergency. Three long, sturdy, black metal boxes, with heavy locks, were pushed against one wall.

Cassini knelt in front of the first box and slipped the letter opener’s blade between the underside of the lid and the bottom frame. He grunted as he pried. The blade stressed, but the metal box didn’t budge. Cassini rattled the padlock in frustration. The lock was solid.

He wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve and tried the other two boxes, but clearly the blade wasn’t strong enough to pry them open. Cassini had managed to raise the last box lid open about an inch when he heard footsteps and voices from beyond the open passageway door.

Ryan
.

Cassini darted back into the passageway and raced farther down the winding steps.

BRACCIANO

NEAR ROME

“IT’S COMPLETELY EMPTY.
They could be long gone.”

“Gone where?”

“How should I know, Lela? They’ve been here but now the place is deserted. There’s not a soul.”

Lela stood on the lawn in front of Hassan Malik’s luxury mansion. It looked majestic, with colonnades and gushing ponds, Roman and Greek statues. A turquoise swimming pool at the back was all lit up, just like the villa.

Except that the mansion was hollow, echoing.

A furious Ari and his men searched the property from top to bottom after Cohen scaled the walls, then managed to admit them through the front gate after picking the lock. Prepared for trouble, Cohen and Mario were armed with Uzi machine pistols, but they met none, every room deserted.

Ari vented his frustration as he stood beside the pool. “Wherever Hassan and his men have disappeared to is anyone’s guess. Maybe he expected trouble and just decided to wind things down and get out of here.”

Lela said, “Is this the only Italian property belonging to Hassan that Mossad knows of?”

Ari kicked out at a pool chair and sent it skittering across the tiles and splashing into the water. “This is it. And we’ve no other leads.”

He stormed over to the patio doors on the back of the mansion. They were thrown open, lights blazing inside. Cohen and Mario with
their
Uzi machine pistols and powerful flashlights wandered the gardens searching for any evidence.

Ari had found the room at the back, with the chair and discarded lengths of rope, the oxyacetylene blow torch attached to a bottle, a few bloodstains on the floor. But no sign of Jack Cane.

“They probably brought him here and tortured him,” Lela said worriedly.

Ari lingered by the patio doors, clutching his pistol and slapping it against his leg in nervous agitation. “They obviously think he knows something.”

Lela fell silent.

Ari turned to her. “You look guilty.”

“Jack has the scroll.”

“What?”

“He’s hidden it in a safe place.”

Ari fumed. “How long have you known this?”

“Since after I escaped from the underground.”

Ari’s fury was instant. “And you never told me? Whose side are you on, Lela?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Withholding information like that could have cost us the scroll, never mind what happens to your friend Cane. Weiss will have your head for this.” Ari yanked out his phone and began to punch in a number.

“Who are you calling?” Lela asked.

“Weiss. He’s still in Rome and isn’t due to fly back to Israel until tonight.” Ari’s mouth twisted ironically. “But I’m pretty sure he’ll delay his departure to talk to you.”

Cohen came running up. “I’ve noticed something. Take a look over here.”

Ari stopped making his call and they all followed Cohen around the side of the property and onto a huge lawn.

“You see what I see?” Cohen first pointed with his Uzi toward a wide concrete pathway. At the end was an empty aircraft hangar of
some
sort. Then with the barrel of his Uzi, Cohen followed the line of the path toward the lawn’s center.

Ari stared at where Cohen’s barrel ended—at a large circular marking on the ground, with a giant H in the center. “Yeah, it’s a helicopter pad. So?”

“Where’s the helicopter?”

CASSINI STEPPED OUT
of the secret passageway onto cold marble tiles. A false wall panel swung shut behind him and clicked back into place.

Dripping sweat, he found himself standing in a massive corridor with soaring white plaster walls and stained-glass windows. A few feet away a wood bench was positioned beneath a magnificent window.

Cassini grasped hold of the bench and dragged it, scraping across the marble floor, to position in front of the false wall panel and block it from opening.

It would stop Ryan exiting the passageway.

Slow him down, at least for a time.

Cassini stood there resting, catching his breath again, his chest still aching with pain. When he regained his stamina he moved along the soaring hallway and halted in front of a pastel blue door. He was outside one of the Sistine Chapel entrances.

He pressed down on the door handle and pushed it open on its hinges without a sound. Silence was the watchword in the vicinity of any of the Vatican’s chapels. Every hinge was well oiled or greased.

Cassini took a couple of calming breaths before he stepped into the fourteenth-century chapel. The air was infused with the fragrance of incense. He loved the peace and drama of this chapel, with its motifs of power and pain, heaven and hell, torment and redemption.

He feasted his eyes on Michelangelo’s powerful wall and ceiling images depicting the terror of the Apocalypse, the Creation, and the
Flood
. Standing there in the calm of the ancient chapel he suddenly felt a strange peace, and the pains in his chest ebbed away.

The peace before the tempest
.

John Becket lay prostrate on his stomach on the floor, praying.

Cassini couldn’t hear his prayers, only a hushed whisper. He knew there was no going back now. This was for the sake of the entire church. Someday, the value of his selfless deed would be recognized. Perhaps he would even be elevated to sainthood.

St. Umberto. The church’s savior
.

As he stared at John Becket’s spread-eagled figure on the cold marble tile, Cassini felt his anger rise again as he concentrated on his reason for coming here.

To scourge the church of the traitor who threatened to destroy two thousand years of history
.

Cassini took a step forward and heard a soft click of shoe leather.

He halted.

John Becket didn’t move.

Cassini hesitated and looked down. His black slip-ons had leather soles. He nudged them off with his toes, heel by heel, until he was in his stocking feet. He began to step silently across the silky marble.

Eight yards.

Seven.

Six.

Cassini quickened his pace, his eyes fixed on Becket’s back.

Five yards.

Four.

Three.

Two.

He stood over John Becket.

The pope must have sensed his presence because his back arched and he began to raise himself from the floor. Becket halted in a kneeling position, blessed himself, and turned. His brow creased when he saw Cassini standing over him. The Sicilian offered him a twisted grin.

“Umberto, what—” The words died in the pope’s mouth as he put up his hands to defend himself.

Cassini pulled the metal blade from under his gown and spat out his reply. “Traitor! Devil! You will destroy no more!”

And in an instant Cassini’s blade flashed and he plunged the steel into Becket, again and again.

RYAN’S CHEST HEAVED
as he sucked in mouthfuls of air. He raced down the corridor, Angelo Butoni behind him.

They came to a landing. Ryan saw a paneled door, slapped at the handle, and gave the door a powerful kick. It burst open and he stormed into a room, his Glock gripped in both hands, Butoni and the other security officers behind him.

Ryan’s face was drenched in sweat as he swung his pistol barrel in an arc, scanning the armory, seeking a target.

Three sturdy, black metal boxes with heavy locks were pushed against one wall.

Ryan checked the locks and saw scrape marks on the surrounding paint. He rattled every lock. They were secure. “It looks as if someone’s tried to pry open the boxes to get at the weapons.”

“Cassini.”

“Who else?”

The other guards thoroughly searched the room and checked the doors before Butoni said, “Every door’s locked. I don’t think Cassini hung around.”

But Ryan was already darting back into the secret passageway. “He must be headed for the Sistine.”

And Ryan plunged frantically down the winding steps, Butoni and the guards hard on his heels.

Moments later Ryan came to another landing and a wall panel. He turned the handle on the panel and pushed. The panel didn’t budge. He slammed his shoulder against it and saw a crack appear, light spilling in from a hallway beyond. Butoni and the others joined him.

Ryan said, “There’s something shoved against the panel. Give me a hand here, Angelo.”

Butoni pushed his shoulder against the panel and both men heaved. The panel opened another inch. Ryan peered through the crack. “Curse it anyway. It looks like a bench is wedged against the door. Get back.”

Ryan gestured for everyone to step back and he took a short run at the door and kicked it with the flat of his shoe. He felt the wood tremor and the object behind the panel appeared to budge. Encouraged, he shouldered the panel again and again. “Come on, give me a hand, all together now, heave.”

A sweating Ryan, Butoni, and the others pushed and shoved, until at last the panel scraped open at least a foot and a half. Ryan squeezed through the gap, followed by the others.

They found themselves in a corridor. Soaring white plaster walls and stained-glass windows. Across the hall was a pastel blue door, an entrance into the Sistine Chapel.

A muffled cry of agony rang out. It seemed to echo from the chapel.

“Oh no!” Ryan uttered, and sprinted across the marble floor toward the blue door.