The Voynich Cypher (20 page)

Natalie nodded and, screwdriver in hand, hopped back up onto Steven’s shoulders, wedging her feet under his armpits as he gripped her legs. Within a minute, she’d painstakingly slipped the metal blade under the document and extracted it from its hiding place.

“I’m clear,” she said, then as Steven kneeled, both watched in horror as the ancient parchment tumbled from its precarious position and fell to the floor, where it shattered into six fragments. The ancient vellum had indeed degraded to the point where it was as brittle as an eggshell.

Natalie gasped as Steven gently set her down, then held her back from the small pile of rubble.

“Don’t breathe. Give me the putty knife,” he instructed.

Natalie did as asked, and he cautiously flipped over the shards of the old document, piecing them roughly together. He unfolded the area that was doubled across the broken lower sheet, and it split at the fold. Steven gently eased that piece against the rest, creating a badly broken single page with faint coded writing on it. To Steven’s eye, it was the same code as the one that had led them there. With a trembling hand, he took several more photos, checking to ensure they were of adequate resolution to be analyzed later.

The clattering of the chain on the doors in the stairwell foyer above them jarred their moment of triumph.

Steven dropped the phone back into his pocket and whispered to Natalie, “Grab the stone and set it back in place. Hurry.”

He handed the coarsely crafted rectangle to her and knelt down again, swinging her up onto his shoulders and moving back towards the wall. He heard the scraping of the block as Natalie re-wedged it into place. More debris hit him in the face. Finished, she patted his head and he crouched so she could jump down. Just as her feet hit the floor, they heard the door swing open upstairs and a soft voice call out. Steven peered at his watch – their thirty minutes was up. He looked down at the parchment and saw with horror that his boot had crushed it into an unrecognizable pile of dust, intermingled with the tiny mortar specks from above. Moving quickly, he brushed the debris away from the wall, off into a dark corner at the far end of the chamber. Natalie quickly followed suit as they heard the heavy footsteps moving down the stairs and into the far gallery.

She looked up at Steven’s face and began lightly patting it in an effort to remove most of the telltale powdery residue. The footsteps neared the opening to the chamber, and she hastily moved a few paces away from the area, pulling Steven along by the hand. As the steps neared the main room, she pulled the zipper of her jumpsuit to her navel, threw her arms around Steven and kissed him full on the lips, her tongue finding his with a small moan.

The guard shuffled into the hall and cleared his throat. Steven and Natalie looked up at him, visibly startled. Steven wasn’t faking the surprise, and his tousled hair and expression clearly radiated shocked guilt. Natalie pulled away and hastily pulled up her zipper, allowing the man to catch a good glimpse of one perfectly-molded breast in the process. She cleared her throat and flashed a beaming smile at the entranced guard, then also smiled at Steven, who was struggling to regain his composure.

“
Eh
, so your half hour is over. Let’s have a look at the paintings to make sure you didn’t damage anything.” The guard leered at them both. “I hope it was worth it for you,
si
?”

Steven smirked in what he hoped was a lascivious manner. “Oh, it was, my friend. It was.
Si
.”

The guard performed a cursory inspection of the frescoes; satisfied that nothing had been touched, he motioned to them to accompany him up the stairs, muttering to himself and shaking his head along the way. Americans were an odd bunch. Who else would pay several thousand dollars to screw in a church basement? Then again, whatever floated your boat, he reasoned. If he had the money and a willing partner like this minx of a woman, he’d pretty much do it wherever she wanted, as well. When love was in the air, you didn’t question it…

Natalie took Steven’s hand as they mounted the stairs to the upper level. After thanking the guard and slipping him an extra hundred dollar bill for his discretion, they stepped out onto the empty street. Steven listened as the heavy iron security door closed behind them, sheltering the church’s treasures from blasphemers once again. Natalie was suddenly all business and detached her hand from Steven’s before moving down the block.

When they reached the corner of the building, they peeked around and confirmed that Frederick and the car were still there, waiting patiently for their return. The street was empty, with only a few streetlights glowing in the darkness. Steven followed Natalie to within a few yards of the passenger door, when he abruptly stopped and grabbed her arm. A man’s leg protruded from the bushes to their right, part of the church’s hedges.

What the hell was going on
? Steven spun Natalie towards him and held his fingers to his lips before moving to the vegetation. A quick inspection revealed Frederick’s body lying twisted in the dirt, the telltale marks of stab wounds on his torso, his white shirt and black jacket gleaming with blood.

Steven reached into the bushes to confirm there was no pulse, then jerked Frederick’s weapon free of the shoulder holster – a Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol. Steven guessed by the still-wet blood he’d been killed no more than ten minutes earlier. Beyond him, in the space near the rear of the building, another man lay in a pool of his own fluids, also clearly dead.

Natalie was reaching for the car door when Steven hissed at her, “No. We’ve been blown. Leave the car. We’ve got to get out of here; it could be rigged.”

He grabbed her hand and they set off at a run, away from the church and the death that had suddenly surrounded them. The empty street gave no hint of pursuit, but still they ran like the devil himself was behind them.

Diego Luca answered the strident ring of the cell phone without needing to ask who was calling. Only one person had the number of this new telephone, and that person was Colonel Gabriel Synthe. He stabbed the phone into active mode, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he noted the time displayed on his bedside clock. One forty-five in the morning.

“Yes?”

“There’s been a development. I thought you’d want to know,” Synthe reported.

“A development?”

“We installed a tracking device last night on the target’s car once we pinpointed them from the girl’s wire records – at a villa near Florence – and went on full alert when she left and drove to Rome today. We don’t know why she did, but we were following the car, which was our only lead. It arrived at the Basilica of Saint Clemente a little less than an hour ago. That seemed irregular, so I had two of my contractors dispatched to establish in-person surveillance.”

Luca took this in. “Yes, yes. And…?”

“The woman and her new companion entered the basilica at one, and the driver remained outside.”

“They went into the basilica? That’s impossible. It’s closed at night.”

Luca knew this particular church well. It was only a few miles from Vatican City, where he had resided much of his life and where he even now had been roused from his sleep.

“Closed or not, they disappeared into the church. Fifteen minutes later, all hell broke loose.”

“Damn it, man. Spit it out. What happened?” Luca demanded.

“Two men approached the target’s vehicle and killed the driver. When they saw the murder, my men took action,” Synthe finished.

“Took action?”

“They shot one of the assailants dead, and they believe they wounded a second, but he got away on a motorcycle. They pursued him for several kilometers, but he managed to give them the slip in the smaller streets.”

“Are you telling me that the Basilica of Saint Clemente has become a bloodbath?”

“The street outside certainly is,” Synthe confirmed.

Luca absorbed this. “What was the girl doing in the church?”

“That’s something I could use your assistance with. I assume you have considerable sway in Rome. It would help a great deal if you could see whether there was security footage from inside. Right now, we’re dead in the water. We’ve lost track of the girl, and we don’t yet know who else is involved, but whoever it is has no compunction about killing.”

“I’ll deal with the security cameras. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something. Are you still in Israel?”

“No. I’m en route to Rome now. I should be in town within two hours,” Synthe replied.

“Do you have any leads for re-establishing surveillance on the girl?” Luca demanded.

“I have men watching the spots the car visited several times before they hit the church. Two different hotels. Those are our best hope. But I don’t have to tell you that a hit team showing up at a Roman church in the dead of night moves this situation into a new and critical phase. And obviously, they’ll now be on full alert, as will the girl. This is quickly spinning out of control.”

“Let me remind you, Colonel, that the overwhelming priority is to recover the Scroll. There is no higher calling. Having said that, I cannot condone killing for any reason,” Luca stressed.

“Even if the men involved are butchering those who can lead us to the Scroll?” Synthe fired back.

Luca exhaled a long, pained sigh. “It would seem that providence is testing us. I’m not saying that your contractors acted inappropriately under the circumstances. But I want to stress that I do not want any more killing. There is always another way.”

“Perhaps. But if an armed assassin points a gun at our only lead, there may be more bloodshed. I respect your moral stance, but in field work, sometimes ethics aren’t consistent with reality.”

Synthe couldn’t believe this idiot was taking some religious-based turn-the-other-cheek stance in light of the stakes, with very real killers using lethal force within spitting distance of a sacred place. What was he expecting Synthe to do, shame the killers into behaving? Embarrass them into stopping the slaughter? Synthe barely controlled his anger at the arrogantly superior tone Luca was using. He didn’t have time for this shit.

Synthe decided to enlighten him. “Look. I’m running this operation because I have decades of experience. Sometimes field work calls for difficult decisions to be made in short time periods. To find the Scroll, we need the girl alive. If someone appears ready to kill her, it’s either stop the killers with whatever force is necessary, or watch our only chance of recovering it vaporize. At which point we have no idea whose hands it falls into, or for what purposes it will be used.”

“I…I understand. I just don’t like it.”

“It would really help if I understood what the Scroll contained,” Synthe said.

“That isn’t mine to impart. Even I don’t know. But it is the most important secret the church has,” Luca assured him.

“Fine. Then you can expect it to get messier. Because I can guarantee you that the men who killed the driver aren’t playing by any morally-constrained rules.” Synthe exhaled in frustration. “I’m wasting time. If we run into another situation where deadly force is necessary, should I use it, or shall I instruct my men to watch helplessly as the killers butcher the girl?” Synthe demanded.

Luca paused for a long time. “In the end, if you must use force to defend yourself or the girl from armed assailants who have demonstrated that they intend to kill, then you must do what you must. However, I’d prefer to avoid it if at all possible,” Luca said.

Synthe smiled. They were all the same. The politicians and the desk jockeys always wanted to avoid blood on their hands, but couldn’t achieve their ends without it. This pious ass was no different. He could hide behind the cross and his cassock, but in the end he would do what he had to in order to get his way. It was the history of the world. The pacifists always needed someone like Synthe around when it got ugly and would quickly distance themselves when the emergency was over.

“I understand. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work. We’re knee deep in this, and it’s not going to fix itself,” Synthe snapped. “Call me as soon as you have information on any surveillance footage from the church. It might help if we knew what they did inside.”

Luca hung up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he considered this latest development. The game had obviously changed to one of overt violence, and he was torn. Colonel Synthe was the ideal man for the job if bloodshed was involved, he had no doubt, but how far could Luca allow things to progress before he called off Synthe’s dogs? They were now in water far deeper than ever before, and his heart knew that they had crossed an important line, even if the killing had been in defense. There had to be another way.

The biggest problem they faced was that they couldn’t be sure that the girl even had the Scroll or knew anything about it. Her movements had been suspicious, but for every possibly nefarious explanation there was also an innocent one – although he couldn’t think of a lot of reasons for her to be in the basilica at night – but still, the reasons were speculation at this point. As it was, they had lots of guesswork but precious little solid fact. The only thing Luca could be certain of was that someone was trying to kill her, and that he was now in the thick of it. A place he didn’t want to be.

Luca began making the calls that would result in his getting the security footage, assuming there was any, by morning. Any chance of sleeping had gone since the ringing of the phone.