King's Crusade (Seventeen) (17 page)

Although he had lived with his suspicions about Reznak’s origins ever since he came across the photograph of the archeological dig in Constantine, the truth had turned out to be more shocking than he had ever anticipated. The revelation that two races of powerful supernatural beings had walked the Earth with humans since before the dawn of civilization had turned his entire world and belief system upside down in a single night.

Jackson knew it would be some time before he fully came to terms with the disquieting disclosures Alexa had made; he had been careful to hide the full extent of his reaction from her. It was not every day that he came across the most incredible discovery in human history. Her warning echoed in his mind once more. He was now a marked man, so to speak.

He looked up from the computer display and found her observing him with an unfathomable expression.

It amazed him that she looked so human. Even more troubling was his growing attraction for her.

The fear that had gripped him when she went chasing after the men from the beer hall in Beyoglu had shocked and almost paralyzed him in its intensity. The bitter taste of it still lingered in his mouth. That was when he started to realize the escalating strength of his feelings.

Sharing a bed the night before had only intensified his physical desire for her. Stopping himself from reaching out and touching her had been sheer, unadulterated torture.

A self-deprecating smile crossed Jackson’s lips at that thought. If she suspected even half the wanton things going through his mind, she would no doubt put him out of his misery with one of her guns. But probably not before she broke a few bones.

A voice behind him interrupted the dangerous turn his thoughts had taken. ‘Those the pictures from the boss’s trip to Egypt?’ asked Carrington.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Jackson. He was similarly surprised by how normal Reznak’s men appeared to be. Carrington came across as friendly and quick-witted. Fawkes was harder to read; although the pilot was polite and accommodating, his eyes were as old and as inscrutable as the Sphinx.

Carrington swung himself in the seat across the aisle. ‘Do the scriptures mention anything about who might be behind this supposed secret sect?’ he said.

Jackson saw Alexa tense behind the immortal. ‘I don’t have access to the full transcriptions, but from what I can gather from these images, they don’t appear to mention any such group,’ he replied casually.

Her brow furrowed. ‘You’ve translated the cuneiform scripts?’

‘Yes, some of them,’ he admitted with an awkward shrug. ‘What I’ve deciphered doesn’t make any sense to me, though.’

She studied him for a moment. He could tell from her expression that his words did not please her in the least. ‘It would be in your best interests not to examine them too closely,’ she said finally, a trace of reservation modulating her voice.

Jackson felt a sudden thrill dart through him. Was she worried about him?

‘If you find out any more of our secrets, I might be forced to kill you,’ she continued, quashing any such hope.

Carrington froze. ‘What secrets?’ he said, his gaze swinging slowly between the two of them.

Alexa turned to the immortal. ‘He knows.’

Carrington’s eyebrows rose. ‘You mean—’

‘Yes,’ she interrupted in the same cool tone.

The immortal looked dumbstruck. ‘How?’ he blurted out. He glanced at Jackson distractedly before scowling at Alexa. ‘Is the boss aware of this?’

‘I told him. And yes, Reznak knows.’ The look on her face discouraged further questions.

Carrington looked at him uneasily before disappearing in the direction of the cockpit.

Jackson saw the immortal exchange heated words with the pilot. ‘He doesn’t look too happy.’

Alexa’s gaze shifted to the window. ‘The choice to tell you about the existence of immortals was mine to make,’ she said calmly. ‘I will handle the consequences.’

He wondered whether that statement included taking care of him if he ever broke his promise to her. He could think of worse ways to die.

A cold wind was blowing from the northeast when they touched down at Fiumicino Airport an hour later. The gray clouds marching across the sullen sky held the promise of an afternoon downpour.

The Gulfstream jet turned off the landing strip and taxied up to a private hangar at the far end of the grounds. Jackson exited the plane behind Alexa and paused at the top of the steps.

A stationary, black sedan stood some hundred feet from the nose of the aircraft. The driver’s door opened and a man in a dark suit stepped out.

Alexa headed toward him. Jackson followed slowly in her wake.

The stranger watched them cross the tarmac. He handed the sedan keys to Alexa wordlessly when she reached him.

‘Thanks,’ she said curtly. The man’s blank expression did not change. He turned on his heels and walked to an SUV with tinted windows that had pulled up outside the hangar.

Jackson eyed the other vehicle curiously while they climbed in the sedan. ‘Is that one of Reznak’s men?’

She turned the key in the ignition. ‘No.’ She glanced at him impassively. ‘He’s a Hunter.’

He frowned at her words. The night before, Alexa had touched briefly upon the hierarchy of the councils that governed the two immortal societies. The way she described it, the Hunters were the police force and bodyguards of the nobles who ruled the immortal races. In Jackson’s eyes, they sounded very much like the councils’ private armies.

‘He looked nervous,’ he commented. Alexa remained silent and guided the sedan off the tarmac.

Carrington and Fawkes watched them leave from the steps of the jet. They were staying put on Reznak’s instructions, in case the information supplied by his contact directed Alexa and Jackson to another port of call. Carrington had thawed slightly in the last half hour of the flight and even grumbled a stilted farewell when they left the aircraft. Fawkes remained resolutely poker-faced.

The pilot had provided them with a phone number for Reznak’s associate in Rome. It directed them to an answering service where they were instructed to leave a message and their contact details. Jackson could only presume they would be notified of the specifics of their meeting when they reached Rome.

They took the motorway and headed east toward the capital. Hills and villages dotted the flat and mostly rural landscape around them. Winter had turned the normally green landscape stark and gray. Less than ten miles after they left the airport, they turned north onto the ring road that encircled Rome.

They had just entered the outskirts of the city when the satellite phone rang.

Alexa brought the handset to her ear. She listened for several seconds before ending the call abruptly. ‘The coordinates for the point of contact are 41.902° North, 12.457° East,’ she said in a clipped tone.

Jackson’s eyebrows rose as she handed him the GPS. ‘This is all rather cryptic, isn’t it?’ he said while he entered the data in the machine. ‘I mean, who
is
this guy?’

Traffic thickened when they crossed into the Aurelio quarter of the town. The cream and terracotta apartment blocks crowding the skyline gave way to imposing mansions built in the Romanesque and Renaissance styles. The dark clouds scattered and sunlight streamed down from the lightening sky.

Jackson looked around. He had been to Rome several times in the last twenty years and knew the city fairly well. The neighborhood was starting to look eerily familiar. Minutes later, they crested a hill west of the river Tiber.

‘Isn’t that the Vatican City wall?’ he said slowly, staring straight ahead.

Alexa looked unfazed as she gazed at the towering, fortified rampart rising beyond the junction they were headed for.

Jackson looked down at the device in his hands with a sinking feeling. Reznak’s contact was leading them straight into the sovereign territory of the Holy See.

They drove past the entrance to the Vatican Museum on Viale Vaticano, turned south by the Piazza del Risorgimento, and went under the Porto Angelica. Seconds later, Alexa parked the sedan along a side street on the left.

They got out of the vehicle and walked the rest of the way. The GPS beeped after eight hundred feet. They had reached their destination.

They stopped and looked up at the Obelisk in the center of St. Peter’s Square.

‘Well, this sure beats a crummy bar in the backstreets of Istanbul,’ said Jackson dully.

Although the monument was supported by four bronze lions and flanked on either side by an impressive granite fountain, it was overshadowed by the magnificent Renaissance church behind it. At the head of the large elliptical piazza enclosed by a pair of massive, semicircular Tuscan colonnades, the travertine stone that made up the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica glowed warmly under the midday sun; above it, Christ and the Apostles looked down benevolently upon the crowded square.

Alexa’s eyes flickered over the sea of people while she dialed a number on the satellite phone. ‘We’re here,’ she said curtly into the mouthpiece and disconnected.

It was several minutes before they saw a short, elderly figure in a black cassock approaching swiftly from the north of the piazza. Although the man was not wearing the purple sash of his office, the pectoral cross he wore and the ring on his finger indicated that he was an archbishop.

The stranger’s gait visibly slowed when he saw them waiting in the shadow of the obelisk. A hesitant expression dawned on his lined face. He stopped several feet from where they stood. ‘
Signorina
King?’

‘
Si
,’ said Alexa with a brief nod.

‘I am Monsignor Francesco Lorenzio,’ said the archbishop in a rich, cultured accent. His wary gaze shifted to Jackson. ‘And this would be?’

‘Professor Zachary Jackson,’ said Jackson pleasantly. He extended a hand.

Recognition dawned in the archbishop’s blue eyes. His face brightened. He crossed the gap that separated them and shook Jackson’s hand warmly. ‘You are
the
Professor Jackson, of Harvard University?’

Jackson glanced at Alexa. ‘Yes, I am,’ he replied, bemused.

‘I read your recent paper on the initial findings coming out of the Paracopan project in Honduras,’ said the archbishop amiably. ‘It was truly fascinating.’

Jackson’s eyebrows rose at the older man’s words. ‘I didn’t think a member of the Secretariat of State would be interested in one of our archaeological digs.’

It was Lorenzio’s turn to look surprised. ‘How did you know I was part of the Secretariat?’

Jackson shrugged. ‘It’s the only department of the governing body of the Roman Catholic Church that has offices in Vatican City.’

Lorenzio nodded approvingly. ‘You’re as sharp as your papers suggest. And you are indeed correct.’ A smile spread across his face. ‘Archaeology happens to be one of my pet interests, among other things.’ The smile gradually faded and he glanced around nervously. ‘I’m glad Dimitri has you working on this task. I can’t think of a better mind to tackle this complex matter. Come, follow me,’ he said in a low voice. He turned and retraced his steps across the square.

Jackson glanced at Alexa and saw his own unease reflected in her face. They headed after the archbishop.

Lorenzio led them to a pair of large bronze doors at the top of a flight of stairs. He nodded distractedly at the two Swiss Guards guarding the imposing entrance to Vatican Palace and murmured, ‘They are with me.’ He indicated Alexa and Jackson with a tilt of his head.

The sentinels watched them blankly as they swept past. Jackson saw Alexa’s gaze skim across the handguns resting in their sword belts.

They followed the archbishop into the bowels of the palace until they reached a brightly lit office in a private corridor on the second floor. An open window at the end of the room overlooked a courtyard. The sun-drenched facade of St. Peter’s Basilica was visible beyond it.

‘Please excuse the secrecy,’ said Lorenzio apologetically as he ushered them to a pair of chairs. He locked the door and took the seat behind the desk. ‘I’m afraid the subject matter we need to discuss is too delicate for me to risk our words falling on the wrong ears.’

‘Dimitri said you had information on a secret sect whose members bear a
Rose Croix
tattoo?’ said Alexa.

The archbishop leaned forward on his elbows. ‘Before I say anything, tell me what you know so far,’ he said carefully.

Jackson spent several minutes narrating Ismael Sadik’s experiences and impressions of the secret society that had infiltrated the corridors of power in Turkey and its neighboring states in the last fifty years. When he finished talking, Lorenzio sat back and drummed his fingers on the desk, a thoughtful frown on his brow.

‘Your friend is an emeritus professor of philosophy and religious studies in Istanbul?’ the archbishop asked finally.

‘Yes,’ said Jackson with a nod.

‘I believe I met him at a seminar once.’ Lorenzio’s expression remained brooding as he slumped in his armchair. ‘He has done well to have discerned so much during his time within the academic sphere in Turkey,’ he said slowly. ‘But I’m afraid his theory is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.’