located. She had taken the news of his death curiously well. Perhaps an abrupt exit had seemed better to her than the lingering death he had been facing for so long. Any tears she might shed could wait for later.
She had a key that let them into the building and another to the apartment itself.
Someone had got there before them. The place had been ripped apart. In Quadri’s study, papers lay strewn over everything. Filing cabinets lay open, their contents gutted. Empty box files had been heaped up in one corner. The Brotherhood was making certain no loose ends remained untied.
Francesca dashed out of the study to the kitchen. Patrick followed her. Broken plates and empty jars littered the floor. She picked her way through them to the sink and put her hand inside the cupboard underneath. Taped to the roof of the cupboard, as in her own apartment, were two Berettas. Without a word, she handed one to Patrick.
‘What now? he asked.
She looked at him, then down at herself.
‘We can’t stay in these clothes,’ she said. ‘We have to get into the Vatican, and I hardly think the Swiss Guards will let in anybody looking like us.’
There were some of her own clothes still hanging at the back of Roberto’s wardrobe. While she changed into them, Patrick took a shirt and suit to the bathroom. By the time they had finished, they still looked distinctly odd, but they might just make it past a suspicious sentry.
‘What about transport?’
‘The van is still parked in the Via Grotta Pinta. It’s just a short walk from here.’
‘And when we get there?’
‘We find Fischer. Or Fazzini. And we put a gun at their heads. What have you got to suggest?’
He shrugged.
‘Nothing, I guess. If we had time ...’
‘Yes?’
‘I’d look for Migliau. You say he’s the head of the Brotherhood. That means he must be behind this whole operation today. And that means he must be in Rome. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be in Venice.’
‘He has a lot of subordinates.’
‘In that case, why disappear at all?’
She frowned.
‘Yes. You’ve got a point. But, as you say, we don’t have time.’
In his mind’s eye he saw the television screen and the faces of dead children.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We don’t have time. But if you knew he was in Rome, where would you look?’
She shrugged.
‘Anywhere. No special place. The Seven live in Jerusalem now. The Dead are in Egypt.’
‘Dermot said they had brought in one hundred of the Dead. Where would they stay?’
‘In different houses, hotels even.’
‘But they’d have to come together at some point for briefings. There’d have to be a central point.’
She thought.
‘It’s just possible that...’
‘Yes?’
‘Centuries ago, very early in their history, the Brotherhood had members in Rome. Not many, a few hundred at the most. But they had separate catacombs from the other Christians, where they buried their own dead. During the Decian persecutions, they met down there.’
“What were they called? Did they have a name?’
‘I don’t think so. No, I’m wrong, they did have a name. I remember now. I was taken there once as a child. I must have been ten or eleven. They frightened me and I wouldn’t stay inside. My father called them the Catacombe di Pasqua. The Easter Catacombs.’
Patrick stared at her.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded.
‘Then that’s it,’ he said. There was a note of triumph in his voice. For the first time he thought he was one step ahead of his enemy. ‘That’s where Migliau is. Not the Easter Catacombs, Francesca. The Passover Catacombs.’
FIFTY-FIVE
They fought through a growing crush of early morning traffic, forcing the van between cars and buses, breaking every rule of driving, even the Italian variety. Francesca drove south, past the Colosseum and down onto the Viale delle Terme di Caracalla. The catacombs, like so many others, were situated on the Via Appia Antica, the old Appian Way that had once taken Roman armies as far as Brindisi.
After the Porta San Sebastiano, where the Appian Way began, most of the traffic was heading into the city, and they were able to make some headway. The narrow road led them through open country, flanked on either side by the ruined tombs of the Roman upper classes.
Patrick felt a wave of desolation pass through him. The old tombs, for all their pomposity, were as broken and pitiful as the bones that lay in them. He thought of Brother Antonio dreading the resurrection lest a legless man dispossess him of part of himself. A joke, perhaps, yet one rooted in our longing for completeness. But crack open the tombs and what do you find? Pulvis cinis et nihil. He looked at Francesca. She had been buried and had returned - in body, he thought, not in spirit. Her old self had been left mouldering in the tomb.
They turned off just after the Catacombs of Praetextatus, onto the Via Appia Pignatelli.
‘The old Jewish catacombs are just over there on the right,’ she said, pointing. ‘The Brotherhood built theirs near them. If anyone stumbled across them, they were meant to think they were just more Jewish tombs and leave them alone.’
They stopped about half a mile along, near a small farmhouse.
‘The catacombs are beneath that farm,’ she said. ‘The people who own it are members of the Brotherhood. We may have to force our way in.’
They knocked at the door of the main building, a ramshackle affair that might have looked deserted but for the plume of smoke curling from the chimney. A tall man of about thirty-five dressed in a check shirt and muddy cords appeared in the doorway. He scowled at them and made ready to slam the door in their faces.
‘Che cacchio desidera? What the shit do you want?’
‘My name’s Maria Contarini. I have an urgent message for Cardinal Migliau from the Seven.’
He frowned and looked from her to Patrick.
‘Cardinal Migliau? The Seven? What are you talking about?’
For a moment, Patrick’s heart sank. They had guessed wrong. Then another man stepped out of the shadows behind the first. He was younger and dressed in tight-fitting black clothes.
‘What do they want, Carlo?’
‘Says her name’s Contarini. Says she’s got a message from the Seven. For Cardinal Migliau.’
The younger man stepped into the light. He was suntanned and muscular looking.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. He seemed edgy.
‘I told your friend. Maria Contarini. With a message for the Cardinal. A personal message. You’re to take me to see him.’
‘Contarini? From Venice?’
‘Yes. Listen, I don’t have much time ...’
We’ve been looking for someone of your name. Francesca? Is that it? Francesca Contarini. You look..,’
He froze as she took the Beretta from inside her coat and aimed it at his forehead. Patrick took her lead, drawing his own gun before Carlo could make a move.
‘Easy now,’ Francesca said. ‘Come out here and put your hands on the wall, high as you can reach. You too, come on.’
They got the two men outside and spread them against the wall. Patrick frisked the younger man and found a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster. Carlo was unarmed.
‘How many inside?’ Francesca asked.
