'The Alignment had targeted the U.S. ever since its founding and was on the verge of taking over the American republic from within until you stopped it,' she began. 'But when you left me alone there under L'Enfant Plaza with the globe, the secret seal of the United States, and those creepy Houdon busts of America's 'other' founding fathers, I didn't know if you were going to succeed in stopping the Alignment and come back for me.'
'So you stole the globe.'
'If the Alignment had succeeded in taking over the federal government, they would have had both globes, Conrad. I couldn't take the risk, especially after I recognized the face of one of those busts. The family resemblance, together with my knowledge of his history, led me to realize that Cardinal Tucci of Dominus Dei was a member of the Alignment. I had no idea that the Dei itself was an organ of the Alignment until after Tucci's suicide and his passing of the mantle, or rather medallion, to me.'
It took an incredible amount of willpower, but Conrad maintained an even tone of voice. 'You didn't have to stay.'
'I was just supposed to run off with you, make love, have babies, and let the world go to hell?'
'Yeah, if the alternative is hooking up with the devil.'
'Sometimes you have to join them to lick them, Conrad. The Dei is just one thread of the Alignment, the ecclesiastical thread, represented by one coin-mine. Destroying my cell would do little to hurt the larger organization. You know the Alignment traces itself much further back than the Church, to before the Egyptians and even Atlantis. They use empires and religions and new world orders like locusts consuming one host after the other. Now these coins are in the hands of the world's most powerful political, financial, and cultural leaders.'
Conrad sighed. There was no way she was going to bed with him tonight. 'So you want to put names to faces.'
'No, I want to put faces to the names I've got.'
She explained that the Alignment had organized itself along the ranks of angels. There was the grandmaster at the top, surrounded by a council of thirty 'knights.' In addition to possessing one of the original Judas coins, each knight had a divine name that described his or her nature and role within the organization.
'Sorath is the name of the grandmaster,' she told him. 'Sorath is a fallen angel whose number, Rome believes, is 666. I have no idea who he is, but I assume he will be in Rhodes, where the Council of Thirty will be gathered for the first time in three hundred years.'
'Why now?' Conrad asked, although he knew that the recovery of the legendary technology of Atlantis in the Flammenschwert was certainly one factor. But he suspected it wasn't the deciding factor.
Serena shrugged. 'I guess I'll find out when I get there.'
There was something she wasn't telling him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. 'What about you, Serena? What's your name?'
'Naamah,' she said, looking down. 'The fallen angel of prostitution who is more pleasing to men than to God.'
Conrad decided he didn't want to go there in this discussion. She was already scaring the hell out of him. 'And Midas?'
'Well, he's clearly inherited Baron von Berg's rank,' she said. 'His name is Xaphan-the fallen angel who keeps the fires of hell burning at full blast.'
'You got that right,' he said, and decided to tell her all about Baron von Berg's lost submarine and the Flammenschwert.
She looked stunned, as if everything made sense to her now. 'I know the legend of Greek fire and its use during the Crusades, but I never imagined that the Nazis had found a way to tap Atlantean technology.'
'Apparently, they did. I've seen the technology up close and personal.'
He could see she was lost in thought when something like a flash of lightning flickered across her soft brown eyes. 'And what about Baron von Berg's safe deposit box in Bern?' she asked. 'What did you find inside?'
'This,' he said, and slapped down the Shekel of Tyre on the table. 'See, I've got one, too.'
31
Serena stared at the coin on the table and fully grasped Midas's predicament and her own. Midas had been claiming some sort of provisional status within the Thirty based on his control over Baron von Berg's box, with the assumption that somehow, someday, he would possess its contents. Now Conrad had the coin and, technically, membership in the Alignment.
Until somebody like Midas or herself killed him for it.
'How did you get this?' she asked. 'And why couldn't Midas?'
Conrad explained the code in the metal plate from Baron von Berg's skull, the self-destruct box in Bern, and how he'd circumvented all the security and escaped. He smiled and said, 'So I guess we're going to Rhodes.'
Serena was shaking inside. 'I don't think so, Conrad.'
'Names and faces, Serena. Names and faces. And, I'll bet you, the designated target for the Flammenschwert.'
She couldn't let it happen, she realized. But she didn't want to fight him now. 'We'll need a plan,' she said. 'A good one.'
'How about this one?' he said, and produced a long tube he had been keeping under the table. It was a roll file, and inside were architectural drawings of a massive fortress. He spread them across the table. 'Look familiar?'
'The Palace of the Grandmaster,' she said. 'Where did you get these?'
'Beneath the floorboards in the Magnolia Suite of the main villa.'
'Seriously, Conrad.'
'Seriously,' he told her. 'This was the last residence of Mussolini before he was executed. Rhodes belonged to the Italians back then, and Il Duce had grand plans for his Palace of the Grandmaster.'
'It wasn't his,' Serena said. 'It was built by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in the seventh century.'
'True, but that palace was pretty much demolished by the explosion of Turkish gunpowder centuries later. Mussolini restored and modified it between 1937 and 1940. These are the plans of the architect Vittorio Mesturino.'
Serena didn't like the direction of this conversation and had to change it, put Conrad back on his heels. 'How could you possibly know there were blueprints beneath the floorboards in the Magnolia Suite?'
'I didn't,' he said. 'But the hotel staff told me that was the suite Mussolini slept in, and I knew from his other residences where he liked to hide documents.'
'Everybody missed it during the hotel's renovation?'
'The beauty of preservation,' he explained. 'The charm of this place is that most everything is as it was. Now look at the blueprint. There's a secret council chamber under the palace that's not shown in any contemporary floor plans. It's directly beneath the large courtyard in the center of the palace. That's where the Knights of the Alignment are going to meet.'
Serena stared at the blueprint and then looked up at Conrad, who was studying the schematics and clearly making plans in his head. Yet again his genius genuinely frightened her. She was a careful strategist, but Conrad was opportunistic to a fault, able to find an opening when all doors seemed closed and bullets were raining down. That wasn't going to save him on Rhodes, though. Nothing would, if he actually stepped foot on the island.
'I think we should look it over after dessert,' she said. 'I'm going to shower and change first. It's been a very long day, and the week ahead is looking longer still.'
She excused herself and walked into the boathouse. It was lavishly appointed, and she half believed she was capable of going to bed with Conrad that night. It could be their last chance ever. She picked up her backpack from the bed and went into the marble bathroom with flower petals everywhere. She splashed water on her face, feeling the queasiness of betrayal.
She pulled out her Vertu phone from her backpack and placed a call. The voice on the other end said, 'Well?'
