The First Apostle

Anyone looking closely may have noticed that the briefcase appeared to be lighter once Perini sat down again at the table. This was because it was now almost empty, containing only forty-odd rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition. The two Glock pistols and loaded spare magazines were tucked in the shoulder holsters the two men were now wearing under their light jackets.

“This could be a complete waste of time, you know,” Verrochio said, his eyes invisible behind his designer shades. “They might never turn up.”

“On the other hand, they might arrive in the next ten minutes, so look sharp,” Perini replied.

But after an hour, the strain of watching, with nothing to show for it, was beginning to tell on both of them.

“I’ll read for an hour while you watch, then we’ll change over, OK?” Perini said.

“And let’s grab another drink next time that waiter comes by.”

“Sounds good to me,” Verrochio replied, and shifted his chair slightly to ensure he had an unobstructed view of the museum entrance.

II

Getting to the museum wasn’t easy. It was the first time Bronson had been to the city, and, once they’d left the main roads, they got lost in the maze of one-way streets.

“This is it,” Angela said finally, looking up from her map to check the street signs as Bronson swung the Nissan around a corner. “This is the Carrer de Valencia.”

“At last,” Bronson muttered. “Now, if we can just find somewhere to park the bloody car . . .”

They found a space in one of the multistory parking garages near the museum and walked across the road toward the small gray-white building. It didn’t look much like a museum to Bronson, who had a mental picture of stone steps and marble columns. Instead, the building was only about the width of a house, and in fact didn’t look unlike a large townhouse. Above the central double doors were three floors of windows, fronted by balconies with metal railings.

“Not very big, is it?” Bronson remarked.

“It’s not meant to be. It’s a small, specialist unit, not a huge place like the Victoria and Albert, or the Imperial War Museum.”

Inside, they paid the six-euro admission charge. Angela walked over to the reception desk and smiled at the middle-aged woman sitting behind it.

“Do you speak English?” she asked.

“Of course,” the receptionist replied. “How can I help you?”

“We’d like to see Professor Puente. My name is Angela Lewis and I’m a former colleague of his. Is he in the building?”

“I think so. Just a moment.” She dialed a number and held a short conversation in high-speed Spanish. “He remembers you,” she said with a smile, as she replaced the receiver. “He’s working upstairs in the Dioses de Egipto room, on the first floor, if you’d like to go straight up.”

“Thanks,” Angela said, and led the way toward the staircase.

Almost as soon as they reached the first floor, a short, dark-haired swarthy man trotted toward them, his arms held wide in a gesture of welcome.

“Angela!” he called, and wrapped himself around her. “You’ve come back to me, my little English flower!”

“Hello, Josep,” Angela said, smiling while disentangling herself from his grasp.

Puente stepped back and held out a hand toward Bronson, his movements quick and bird-like. “Forgive me,” he said, with a barely distinguishable accent, “but I still miss Angela. I’m Josep Puente.”

“Chris Bronson.”

“Ah.” Puente stepped back, his eyes flicking from one to the other. “But I understood that you two were . . .”

“You’re right,” Angela said, sighing and looking at Bronson. “We were married, then we got divorced and I’ve frankly no idea what we are now. But we need your help.”

“And might that be because of what you’re carrying in that black bag, Chris?”

Puente asked.

“How do you know that?” Bronson demanded, astonishment in his face.

“It’s not difficult to work out. Most people don’t carry overnight bags when they tour a museum. I’ve noticed you’ve not let go of the bag, and you’ve been very careful not to knock it against anything. So, there’s probably something inside that’s fragile, and possibly valuable, that you need an opinion about. What have you brought for me to look at?”

Angela’s face clouded briefly. “I’m not sure. We need to explain the sequence of events to you before we show you what’s in the bag. Could we go to your office or somewhere private?”

“My office hasn’t got any bigger since the last time you were here, my dear. I’ve a better idea. Come down to the basement. There’s plenty of room in the library.”

Angela remembered that the basement of the Museu Egipti housed a private library created by the museum’s founder, Jordi Clos. She told Chris about it as they walked through the modern, open-plan public rooms where white, square-section pillars and stainless-steel handrails contrasted with the classic, timeless beauty of the three- thousand-year-old exhibits.

Puente led the way down the stairs, past the “Privat” signs and into the library.

“Now,” he said, when they were seated, “tell me all about it.”

“Chris has been involved in this from the start, so it’s probably better if he explains what’s happened.”

Bronson nodded, and started at the beginning, telling the Spaniard how Jackie Hampton had died in mysterious circumstances at the house outside Ponticelli, his trip to Italy with Mark and what had happened while they were there, and subsequent events in Britain.

“The crux of this whole saga,” he said, “appears to be the two inscribed stones. Until the Hamptons’ builders uncovered the Latin inscription—”

“ ‘Hic Vanidici Latitant,’ ” Angela interjected.

“ ‘Here lie the liars,’ ” Puente translated immediately.

“Exactly,” Bronson continued. “Until the builders knocked the plaster off the wall above their fireplace, nobody was interested in the house or what it contained. But as soon as Jackie started searching the Internet for a translation of that phrase, well . . .

you know the rest.” He still didn’t like to think about how she and Mark had died.

He explained how Angela had worked out the meaning of the second, Occitan, inscription, how they’d recovered the skyphos and the scroll from below the floorboards.

“And you’ve brought that for me to look at?” Puente asked eagerly.

Bronson shook his head and described how the scroll had been taken from them by the two Italians, and that the leader of the pair had claimed it dated from the first century A.D. and contained a secret that the Church wanted to keep hidden.

“So if you haven’t got the scroll, what have you got?” Puente asked.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Bronson said. He told Puente how Angela had examined the skyphos and realized it was a reproduction, and guessed that the pattern on the side of the vessel was more than just an abstract decoration. Then he described their discovery of the ancient tomb up in the hills near Piglio, and what was inside it.

“Two bodies?” Puente interrupted.

“Yes,” Bronson replied. “We have the photographs that I took inside the tomb, which I can show you. I believe that one of the bodies was beheaded and the other crucified. Above the entrance to the cave the letters ‘HVL’ had been carved, which we assume meant ‘Hic Vanidici Latitant.’ ”

Puente was lost in thought. “Why are you so sure that’s how they died?” he asked, finally.

“On the larger of the two skeletons, one of the neck vertebrae was cut in half. As a police officer, I know that the vertebrae are very strong, and I can’t think of any circumstances in which one of these bones could split like that after death.

Beheading is the only scenario that makes sense.”