Blood Relics (A James Acton Thriller, #12) (30 page)

But
it could lead back to Renner.

He
smiled. That’s what it was. Renner was worried that the money paid to his men
would be traced back to a single source which also sent him money. Court orders
could unseal those accounts, no matter what assurances the Swiss might have
provided when opening them, and it would all tie back to Renner.

Herr
Renner and the CIA will be quite surprised to find out who’s financing the
entire operation.

Dietrich
speed dialed a number on his phone, it immediately answered.

“Yes,
sir?”

“I have
a job for you.”

Basilica of Sant’Agostino, Rome, Italy

Terrence Mitchell stretched and yawned. He was tired, but every time
he closed his eyes the image of the red dot on his wife’s stomach appeared,
forcing him to keep going. He felt terribly guilty not telling Professor Acton
the complete truth, but he had no choice. He couldn’t risk the life of his wife
and unborn child, and besides, what difference did it really make? His
instructions were to tell their abductors if the professor discovered anything,
or strayed from his own instructions.

And
Professor Acton would never do that.

He was
on a mission to save his wife, and the only way he could do that was to find
the body of Saint Longinus, which he was then going to hand over to Professor
Palmer’s captors.

It
makes no difference.

He kept
telling himself that, but the fact he had to repeat it over and over meant he
wasn’t convinced. On several occasions he had wanted to whisper the full truth
to Acton but he couldn’t be certain they weren’t being listened to.

Somehow
they knew what Jenny and I were talking about.

They
must have been reading their lips from a distance, or had some sort of
parabolic microphone. They obviously had a line of sight on them because they
were able to aim a laser scope at her.

Twice.

Which
meant that here, in this dingy old storage room, they should be perfectly able
to converse with nobody eavesdropping.

But for
some reason he just felt they couldn’t.

These
people are good. Maybe they’ve planted a bug of some type.

He
instinctively began to pat himself down but stopped.

Focus!

The best
way out of this situation was to actually succeed, and amazingly enough, he
actually thought they might. The Nazi records had indeed been in the crates,
tucked neatly into a pouch on the inside of each, itemized lists of all the
documents and artifacts confiscated decades before. There were almost two dozen
crates and they had only gone through a few of them so far, none of the
documents helpful as of yet, but as Acton had said, it was going to save them
probably days if not weeks of searching, especially considering the state of so
many of the documents, scrolls of paper now so brittle they couldn’t risk
opening them.

A
concern the Nazi’s didn’t appear to take as seriously.

Their
haste is our gain.

He
looked over at Jenny, her head lying on the table top she had been working at,
a gentle snore emanating from her exhausted form. Professor Acton had left
several hours ago to get some sleep in the sparse guest quarters Father Albano
had provided for them. Terrence had been too wired at the time to join him, it
clear the poor professor hadn’t slept properly in days.

He
rubbed his eyes and flipped to the next page of the manifest, his list of
Google translated document types opened on his laptop. Tracing his finger down
the list, he didn’t find the words he was now reading. Flipping over to Google Translate,
he entered the words and felt a surge of excitement at the result.

Interment
Certificate
.

It was
the closest they had come. He scanned across the page to the date.

May
3, 1482 AD.

He
smiled.

It’s
the right timeframe!

Even if
it had nothing to do with the body they were looking for, it was an indication
that records of the proper type had indeed survived from that period.

Which
meant their search may not be futile after all.

“Have
you found something?”

He
turned to see Jenny looking at him, her eyes half closed, head still on the
table.

“An
interment certificate from the fifteenth century.”

She sat
up, clearly picking up on his excitement. “Is it for him?”

He
shrugged. “I don’t know, I just started looking at it.” He began to type the
text from the Notes field of the manifest, the translation updating with each
press of the spacebar. He frowned. “Just some priest who died a few weeks
before.” He quickly scanned down the page and saw several more Interment
Certificates. “There’s more here, though.”

Jenny
joined him and together they began the painstaking process of translating each
one, and it wasn’t until several dozen failed efforts that he paused, looking
at the translation.

“Woah.”

“What?”
asked Jenny, leaning over to look at the screen.

“This is
dated fifteenth century, but it indicates the body is for a ‘first century
monk’.”

“That
wouldn’t be the first we’ve found.”

“No, but
listen to what it says. ‘Note in margin indicates mistaken identity’. It says
his actual name was Quintus.”

“So not
Longinus.”

“No, but
remember, somebody went through all this paperwork in the early twentieth
century and found no mention of Longinus.”

Jenny
frowned. “I know. That’s why I think this is a waste of time.”

“Don’t
you see? They were looking specifically for a reference to Longinus. But what
if he was moved here, and the record was changed for some reason?”

Jenny’s
tired eyes narrowed slightly. “You mean he actually
is
here, but the
record was changed for some reason, by mistake perhaps?”

“Exactly.
We’re seeing lots of records of interment here, and I’m sure we’ll find many
more in these boxes. And I’m equally sure we’ll find no references to
Longinus.”

“Thank
you!” she said, throwing her hands out at him. “I’m glad I’m not alone in
thinking this. I didn’t want to say anything to Professor Acton, but I think
this is a complete waste of time.”

Terrence
frowned. “I think you’re missing my point.”

Jenny
sighed. “I’m too tired not to.”

“What I
mean is this: if we assume that the records are complete, and we assume that
Longinus was indeed brought here as history suggests, then his record must have
been altered in some way.”

“Interesting
theory.” Terrence spun toward the voice to find Professor Acton standing in the
doorway. “What prompted it?”

Terrence
nodded toward the translation on the screen. “There’s reference to a monk named
Quintus being interred here in the fifteenth century, but it says there was a
note in the margin of the document suggesting a mistaken identity.”

“And Quintus
was the actual identity?”

“Yes.”

Acton
pursed his lips. “If we assume our priest from ninety years ago was diligent,
then we should find no reference to Longinus in these records.” Terrence opened
his mouth to mention he had said exactly that when Jenny punched him in the leg
under the table, cutting off his boast. “So we should be looking for
anomalies.”

“Like
this.”

“Exactly.”
Acton looked at his watch prompting Terrence to glance at the time on his
computer.

3:42am.

I
need sleep.

“Here’s
what we’re going to do. You two keep going through the manifests, looking for
anomalies. As you identify them, I’m going to try and find the actual document
and examine it. Hopefully we’ll get lucky.” Acton looked at Terrence and
smiled. “But first I want you two to go get some sleep. We can’t risk you
making a mistake.”

Terrence
nodded. “Thanks, Professor. We’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Take as
long as you need.” Acton paused. “I wonder.” He stepped out into the hallway,
Terrence and Jenny following. There were two guards provided by the Vatican
standing nearby. “Do either of you speak German?”

Both men
nodded. “Yes, Professor, I do. It’s pretty common in Switzerland.”

“I do as
well. Actually, it’s my mother tongue.”

Acton
smiled at Terrence and Jenny. “How many more of you speak German?”

The
first guard shrugged. “A lot?”

“Do you
think they’d be willing to help?”

“Doing
what?”

“Translating
old German manifests.”

The man
smiled. “Absolutely.”

Acton
sighed, looking at Terrence, a look of restored hope on his face.

“You two
go get some rest. Hopefully we’ll have reinforcements soon.”

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Chris Leroux flinched in his chair at the knock at his office door.
He glanced at the time. After midnight. Again. He loved his job, especially
when he was making progress, especially when lives were at stake and he had a
chance to actually save them, but even he needed rest.

Which
was why Morrison had given him a team that could work nightshifts if needed.

But with
an off-the-books project like this he never used official resources beyond
himself, though this time Morrison had greenlighted him to do so, so tonight
he’d have to plead complete and utter absorption in his work.

“Enter!”

The door
opened and a grinning Sherrie entered. “Hey, baby!”

Leroux
leapt from his chair, rounding his desk and grabbing the love of his life in
his arms, picking her up off the floor in a bear hug. He put her back down then
kissed her, long and slow, the way he had learned she liked it, Sherrie pretty
much the only girl he had ever kissed more than once.

She
moaned.

Apparently
I’m getting better at this.

She
broke away, placing a hand on his chest and looking up at him. “I had a feeling
you’d be here.”

“You’re
home early.” He sat on the edge of his desk, motioning toward one of the office
chairs. She waved it off.

“I’m only
here for a minute, I’m exhausted. The op wrapped up a little early so I caught
the red-eye here so I could see you.” She nodded toward his computer. “How much
longer are you going to be here? I see a team sitting outside twiddling their
thumbs.” She lowered her voice. “But don’t tell them I said that.”

He
smiled, knowing full-well that his team was busy though to the untrained eye,
it might appear they weren’t. An analyst’s job quite often involved a lot of
waiting as databases were scoured by sophisticated algorithms or data requests
were actioned by other teams. Too often they were left in a holding pattern
while waiting for others.

But
if they’re waiting for stuff…

“Twiddling
their thumbs, eh?”

“But you
didn’t hear that from me.”

“I think
I’ll hand off some of this work, I’m exhausted too.”

He
returned to his seat, quickly whipping off several emails.

“What
are you working on?”

“Professor
Palmer’s still missing. We managed to hack the security company’s network—the
one that provided the resources for the thefts—and now I’m trying to track the
money. I found one of the guys involved has been using a Swiss account for his
regular salary deposits, so I’ll have my guys trace all the activity on that
account and see if it leads anywhere.”

“Are the
Swiss cooperating?”

Leroux
grinned. “What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

“Don’t
you just love working for the CIA?”

Leroux
logged out of his computer and rose.

“Best
job anywhere.”