The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (38 page)

     He rubbed eyes still stinging from the lack of sleep he chronically suffered in flight despite the comfort of the Gulfstream's private bedroom. So far, things had gone better than he had any right to expect. Gurt had understood the urgency of his visit to Rome and then back to Oberkoenigsburg. He needed to be in the Alpine resort when the higher lift was reopened. Some school program of Manfred's prevented her from accompanying him here, but there was a chance she would join him in Austria if suitable care could be arranged for their son. She had understood the wisdom of including the Browning HP 9mm among his baggage, luggage that would not be subject to the scrutiny of the metal detectors of commercial aviation terminals. He also packed a few tools that might be difficult to explain to transportation authorities. Unsure of just what security precautions the Vatican might employ to a guest of one of its residents, he had left the weapon in his single bag, which he had requested be kept at the desk of the small hotel he frequented.

     Reaching St. Peter's Square, the elliptical space surrounded by Bernini's colonnade, he threaded his way between the sightseers, tourists, and pilgrims. He barely dodged an umbrella with a ribbon on top, wielded by a small Japanese woman leading a cell phone-camera-clicking cadre of her countrymen. Sidestepping a phalanx of chattering nuns, he passed the
obelisk erected in 1586, supposedly on the spot where St. Peter had been crucified upside down.

     At the western edge of the basilica, he approached a small booth occupied by a Swiss Guard in full regalia, an orange and purple uniform rumored to have been designed by Michelangelo. He held a halberd from which the sun glinted evilly. Lang wondered if the young man knew how to use such an ancient weapon. He gave the guard his name along with his passport.

     After consulting a list, the young man made a short telephone call before returning the passport. "Wait here, please, Mr. Reilly. Father Steinmann is expecting you for your noon appointment. Someone will be here to take you to him shortly." His English was flawless. "Oh, and you will please leave the package. It will be here when you return."

     A priest, if anything younger than the guard, appeared. "Mr. Reilly? Father Steinmann is expecting you to join him for lunch."

     Precisely why Lang had insisted on noon. He had hoped for a private conference with the Jesuit.

     Wordlessly, the priest led Lang across the front of the basilica and into a series of four-story, red-tiled roofed buildings, stopping only to exchange words in German with two other Swiss Guards. From his brief stay at the Vatican as guest of Francis two years earlier, Lang had a general idea where he was.

     A trip in an elevator and Lang stepped out into a marbled hall.

     "Number six," his guide said before disappearing back into the elevator.

     An oak door under an elaborately carved lintel opened almost before the echo of Lang's knock had died away. He was looking at a man of medium height whose blondish hair was beating a retreat from his forehead. Lang had seen corpses with better skin color.

     "Father Steinmann?"

     The man stepped aside, his cassock whispering against cuffs of dark trousers. His smile did not look at home on his face. "Mr. Reilly? Come in, come in."

     The hand offered Lang was dry and soft, the hand of someone who had done little manual labor.

     As Lang entered, he was looking at a view over neighboring rooftops of some part of the papal garden, surprisingly verdant for the season. He
thought he could see the
Casina
of Pope Pius IV, a delightful summer house constructed in the sixteenth century. The view was the only thing of note. What little furniture Lang saw was austere and looked uncomfortable. It could have come from any Salvation Army store. A crucifix and a cheap color print of the present pope were the walls' only adornments. The room was the modern equivalent of a medieval hermit's cave; its occupant almost screaming his asceticism.

     The meal laid out on the table was clearly intended to impress with its simplicity: a bottle of inexpensive pinot bianco sweated through its clear glass. A platter of tomato, basil leaves, and mozzarella formed the red, white, and green of the Italian flag, flanked by small containers of vinegar and olive oil. A hunk of what Lang guessed was Rome's classic pecorino cheese shared a platter with slices of bread and a knife.

     The priest gestured toward the table. "Please, have a seat. I thought it best if we dined alone while we discussed this, this most unfortunate matter."

     Father Steinmann was apparently not one for small talk. Lang sat, confirming the chair dispensed every bit as much discomfort as he had anticipated.

     Lang held out his glass as the priest filled it. "I'm interested in your offer of cooperation. Just what did you have in mind?"

     The priest filled his own. "Nothing specific except we have eyes and ears in most parts of the world. That could be very helpful."

     Lang sipped the wine, far too dry for his taste. "Only if we knew in what part to look."

     Steinmann passed the tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella, holding the platter as Lang served himself. "You have been looking in Austria. I assume that is because that is where the Jew supposedly was when he died."

     It took Lang a second to realize Steinmann was referring to Mustawitz. "Seemed a good place to start. Did your people also tell you someone tried to kill me there?"

     He couldn't be sure if the priest's distaste was real or feigned. "I heard something like that. Do you suppose you were getting too close to the little boy?"

     Lang cut a slice of cheese. It was in fact pecorino. He was wondering how the Italians always managed to come up with garden-fresh vegetables like these marvelously acidic tomatoes even in the winter.

     "Mr. Reilly?"

     Lang's attention snapped back to the conversation. "I'd say that was a safe guess. The only problem is how close was too close?"

     And so it went, the priest asking questions and Lang not revealing much of what little he did know. Information, like any other asset, could be easily squandered, spent for nothing in return. In fact, Steinmann's questions suggested he was far more interested in Wynn-Three's location than his well being.

     Twenty minutes later, Lang stood. "Thanks for lunch. It's been a pleasure, Father. I hope you'll circulate the boy's description. There's always a chance a village priest somewhere may see him."

     Again the dry handshake. "And you will let me know if you locate the child?"

     "Of course."

     Fat chance.

Terme Trastevere

Rome

5:20
P.M.
Local Time

D
RESSED IN THE PRIEST'S ATTIRE HE HAD
purchased that morning, Lang stepped out of the men's room of the nearly deserted rail station. He was thankful it was chilly enough to justify the jacket that covered the Browning stuck in the rope that served as a belt.

     Walking along the short platform with the stride of a man with time on his hands, he looked across the tracks where rolling stock rusted among waist-high weeds. Beyond was the Trastevere, that neighborhood that had been home to the men who had built St. Peter's and many others of Rome's sixteenth- and seventeenth-century churches, fountains, and monuments. Proudly independent, today's residents considered themselves the most authentic of Romans, although they were fighting a losing battle against the encroachment of fashionable restaurants, boutiques, and clubs that were displacing the earthy proletarian character of the area.

     Fortunately for Lang, the patrons of those establishments did not come by train. He had the platform to himself.

     Anyone watching might have been curious at the interest the priest showed in the siding beside which crates of freight were waiting to be loaded and whose destination was marked
San Pietro.
The priest circled one of the larger crates, crouching in the darkness of its shadow in the dim platform lights.

     Lang squatted, hoping the schedule hadn't changed since his brief
stay at the Vatican a couple of years back. Most supplies, food and otherwise, came by a train from here to the Vatican rail station, a terminal used these days exclusively for freight. The arrangement negated the necessity of heavy, noisy vehicles adding to the already crowded Holy See. Even so, because of the daily horde of visitors and those with business at St. Peter's, rail delivery was limited to the evening hours.

     Lang waited no more than ten minutes before a train of three or four freight cars glided onto the siding. A dozen or so men with hand trucks jumped down from open doors and began loading. This was going to be the tricky part. Keeping a large crate between himself and the two men struggling to push its truck up a ramp, Lang lunged into the box car, hiding in the darkest place he could find. As soon as the pair succeeded in wrestling their burden from the hand truck and left for another load, he wedged himself into a line of smaller boxes at one end of the car. The hiding place wasn't perfect, but he hoped his black cassock and the darkness in the car would help.

     In what seemed only minutes, the box car's doors rattled shut and the train lurched in reverse.

     By now, Lang's eyes had adjusted to the dark as much as they were going to. He imagined he could make out the forms of two men in the car. There was no doubt they were there: he could see the red tips of their cigarettes and smell the sourness of burning tobacco. Even more strongly, though, was another odor. Whether in the Swiss Guards' mess or the papal dining room, someone was going to have food laden with Italy's national herb, garlic.

     One of the men was telling a story. From Lang's meager command of Italian, it sounded like a joke about the pope and a prostitute. It must have been funny; the punch line brought howls of laughter. It was followed by what sounded like another joke that was interrupted by the squeal of rusty brakes. The train jolted to a stop.

     The doors slid open, light pouring into the car. Lang had hoped to make his departure with as much stealth as his entrance. It was not to be. One of the men was gaping at him open mouthed.

     Lang stood, touching his biretta, the clerical three-cornered hat.
"Buona sera, signore. Grazie!"
Then, in halting Italian, "On a priest's pay, taxis are a luxury. The ride was quite pleasant. For your kindness, I will not report your disrespectful joke to the Holy Father."

     Lang hopped down from the car. He knew the station was at Vatican City's western wall. Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder, he walked off as calmly as if a priest hitching a ride on the evening's freight train were the most normal thing in the world. He could feel the stares his back was getting until he disappeared into the darkness of the papal garden.

     Using the illuminated dome of St. Peter's as a beacon, Lang made his way toward the southern half of the Vatican, where most of the small city's buildings were located. At one point he passed a priest apparently out for an evening stroll. The two nodded and mumbled greetings.

     The day's lunch had given him the location of Steinmann's apartment and an opportunity to check out exits. One, to the south, he discarded as not being the route the priest would take. The other connected to a series of hallways and small piazzas. Lang followed these until he came to a small open grassy space where a single lamp spotlighted a statue of a woman standing above a gurgling fountain flanked by stone benches.

     When he had briefly been a guest of the Vatican two years before, he had been given a multilanguage map, a souvenir he had guessed might be of future use. He consulted it now, leaning over the fountain to read the print. He was in the Campo Santo Teutonico, one of the myriad little courtyards that made the view from almost any Vatican window a pleasant one. More important, this one was outside the only entrance to the Secret Archives, an area the map outlined in red as a place visitors were definitely not welcomed.

     Lang sat on a bench, hoping his wait would not be a long one. The evening was turning cooler by the minute. He zipped his jacket and turned so that his face was away from the light. He was just another priest seeking solitude for meditation.

     He had almost decided this was the one night Steinmann was not going to make his nocturnal visit when a door across the Campo opened. The figure that emerged was the right size, but its face was shrouded in a hooded cassock. Without hesitation, he crossed the space, heading directly to the door to the archives. He passed within feet of Lang, picking up enough light to illuminate half of his face.

     It was Steinmann.

     Lang waited until the door closed behind the Jesuit.

     Jumping to his feet, he made sure he was unobserved as he dashed
after Steinmann, hand in his jacket pocket. A quick glance at the door's lock was all he needed. In a split second, he inserted an automated, battery-powered pick. The device, supposedly only possessed by law enforcement officials, resembled a short-bladed screwdriver. Once in the lock, a tiny computer detected which tumblers of the lock needed to be moved and did so in less than a second. There was a brief chirp of metal on metal, and the lock yielded.

     Lang could see Steinmann hurrying down a long corridor.

     He was only a foot or so behind the priest when Steinmann stopped at a clear plastic door. On the other side, an elderly priest sat at a table with an open register in front of him. He was intent on another book, one which, judging by the scantily clad woman on its cover, was hardly of a religious nature. Steinmann leaned forward. The retina recognition Francis had mentioned.

     As the door slid back with a sigh, Lang moved. Grabbing Steinmann around the waist, he shoved him forward, at the same time turning and looking into the shadows that clung to the ceiling like cobwebs. He found the glassy eye of the security camera.

     Steinmann was struggling against Lang's grip.