any man would have done.”
Reilly felt a twinge of guilt. What Brugnone was saying was partly true, but the cardinal didn’t know the whole truth. Upon their return from Greece three years ago, Reilly and Tess had agreed to tell a slightly redacted version of what had really happened. They’d lied. Big-time. They’d told the brass at the FBI and the Vatican’s representative in New York that the storm had led to the deaths of everyone involved, everyone except for the two of them, that is, and said the wreck of the Falcon Temple had never been found. They’d promised not to talk about what they’d been through after the raid at the Metropolitan Museum, when four horsemen dressed as Templar knights had stormed the Vatican’s big gala and trashed the joint before making off with an old Templar decoder. And that was that. As far as the Vatican was concerned, Reilly had fought valiantly right to the end to defend its cause—which also wasn’t strictly true. And the fact that Reilly and the cardinal were now standing by the Altar of the Lie—a monumental Adami mosaic depicting what Reilly recognized was the punishment of a couple who had lied to St. Peter about how much money they’d been paid for a piece of land and were struck dead for their deception—wasn’t helping.
“We needed your help back then, and despite everything, you agreed to help us,” the cardinal told him. “What I need to know is, how do you feel now? Has anything changed? Are you still willing to fight for us?”
Reilly sensed an opening. It didn’t change his answer. “My job is to make sure guys like him don’t get a chance to hurt others ever again. Innocent people, like the people who died outside these walls today. I don’t really care what’s in those trunks, Your Eminence. I just want to lock this guy up or put him six feet underground if that’s his preference.”
Brugnone held his gaze for a moment, then his internal deliberations seemed to reach a verdict as he nodded to himself, slowly. “Well then, Agent Reilly … I think we need to let you get on with it, don’t we?”
After everything that had happened, and with his emotions still frayed, Reilly wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What are you saying? I thought I was under arrest.”
Brugnone brushed his comment away. “What happened this morning started here, inside Vatican City. How we deal with it is our business … and as you know, we also have some influence in what happens beyond these walls.”
“Does your influence extend as far as Federal Plaza? Cause I think they want my badge back.”
Brugnone gave him a knowing, confident smile. “In this matter, I don’t think there are many areas that are outside our sphere of influence.” His tone turned firm. “I want you to be part of this investigation, Agent Reilly. I want you to find this man and put an end to his savagery. But I also need to know that you’ll be looking out for our interests, that if you were to find whatever it is he’s after, you’ll bring it to me first, regardless of all other considerations … or influences.” His last word had an edge to it.
Reilly felt its jab. “What do you mean?”
“Some of your associates—or friends—may have other ideas, in terms of what to do with a find of historic proportions.” Again, one word—
Reilly thought he understood. “You’re worried about Tess?”
Brugnone shrugged. “Anyone would be a concern in a situation like this. That’s why I need to know that you’ll have the Church’s interests at heart, above all others. Do I have your word on this, Agent Reilly?”
Reilly pondered the cardinal’s words. On the one hand, he felt like he was being blackmailed. On the other, it wasn’t like he was being asked to do something he wouldn’t have done anyway. And besides, right now, his priority was taking down the man who’d caused the carnage. Whatever was in those trunks was of secondary importance. A distant second.
“You have my word.”
Brugnone acknowledged him with a slight nod of his head. “Then you need to get to work. I’ll talk to Delpiero and to the officials at the Polizia. And to your superiors. You can take it from there.”
“Thank you.” Reilly extended his hand graciously, unsure if a handshake was the appropriate move here.
Brugnone cupped it firmly in both of his. “Find him. And stop him.”
“It won’t be easy. He got what he came for … and with that Registry, he’s got a head start on us. If it’s got any information in it about what happened to this Conrad, then that’s where we’ll find our bomber. But he’s got it and we don’t.”
Brugnone cracked a ghost of a smile. “I wouldn’t go that far.” He let the words hang teasingly, then said, “You see, it’s been clear to us for quite a while that the archive was becoming far too large to administer using traditional methods. We have over eighty-five linear kilometers of shelves, all of them just heaving with material. So, about eight years ago, we initiated a electronic archiving project. We’re almost halfway through scanning the entire collection.”
Reilly’s face brightened slightly. He already knew what Brugnone would answer, but he said, “I’m hoping you’re not doing it alphabetically.”
“We’re doing it according to perceived relevance,” the cardinal replied with a knowing smile. “And the Templars—especially after what happened three years ago—well, they’re hardly irrelevant, now, are they?”
Chapter 15
The rest of the afternoon was a chaotic and noisy blur. Reilly and Tess spent it in the offices of the Gendarmeria, where a temporary command post had been set up in a large conference room. The frenzy of activity around them didn’t abate for a second as Tess gave a full, detailed statement of everything that had happened to her, and Reilly made sure the local cops weren’t missing a trick in trying to find her kidnapper.
Much to Reilly’s relief, they seemed to be on the ball. A high-priority BOLO—short for “be on the lookout”— was issued to the country’s various law enforcement authorities, and alerts were flashed to all of the country’s main ports of entry. Interpol was making sure the request was properly relayed across neighboring countries. The information on it was, however, limited. The bomber, who was assumed to be an Iranian using a forged passport of some other country, had managed to avoid looking directly at any CCTV cameras within the Vatican. The only images they’d been able to pull up of him so far were partly shielded and grainy. Forensic teams had been dispatched to try to recover any fingerprints of his from the archive, the BMW, and the battered Popemobile, in the hope that those would help lead to his identification, while their colleagues at the antiterrorist brigade’s labs were examining the defused bomb for anything that would help track its provenance.
They also added Simmons to the alert, given the possibility that, like Tess and Sharafi, he’d also been somehow brought to Rome. An urgent request for his passport info was flashed to the embassy; in the meantime, Tess helped the detectives dig up some photos of him off the Internet.
Reilly liaised with the Bureau’s legal attache in Istanbul, briefing him about the need to locate Sharafi’s wife and daughter and inform them of what had happened. He also asked the legat to get the local cops to track down Sharafi’s snitch of a research assistant, although he wasn’t holding his breath on that one.
While all this was going on, over at the archives, Bescondi instructed as many scholars as he could muster to go through the scans of the Registry in search of any reference to a Templar knight by the name of Conrad.
Reilly did his best to ignore the obvious irritation of Delpiero and the Polizia detectives concerning his continued presence. Brugnone’s intercession on his behalf hadn’t exactly gone down well. The local cops didn’t make any effort to disguise the fact that they thought he ought to be languishing behind bars instead of working alongside them. Reilly faced a couple of tense flare-ups with them, but he restrained himself and avoided making a difficult situation even harder. He also tried to be in their faces as little as possible by spending most of the afternoon burning up the phone lines, getting blasted by his boss for his going solo, before filling in various section chiefs at Federal Plaza, Langley, and Fort Meade in advance of a coordinated conference call once everyone was up to speed.
By sundown, there was little more they could do. Alerts were in place, investigators were scrutinizing immigration records and CCTV footage, lab technicians were plugging away at their high-tech stations, and scholars were poring over medieval writings. The waiting game was on.
TILDEN DROOOED REILLY AND TESS at the Sofitel, a discreet mid-sized hotel the embassy frequently used
