The First Apostle

“You don’t have a videophone, sir, so I can’t show you my warrant card. But I can read you the number, and you can check it with either the Ilford police station or New Scotland Yard. The number is seven four six, two eight four.”

Mandino had not the slightest idea what number or numbers might be found on a Metropolitan Police warrant card, but he was prepared to bet that Hampton wouldn’t either. It all depended on whether the Englishman would bother to check.

“What questions?”

“Just some simple procedural matters, sir. It will only take a few minutes.”

“Very well.”

There was a buzz and the electric lock on the front door of the building clicked open.

With a final glance up and down the street, Mandino and Rogan stepped inside, walked straight to the elevator and pressed the button for Mark’s floor.

When the doors opened, they checked the apartment numbers, then strode down the corridor. At the correct door they stopped and Mandino knocked, then stepped to one side.

The moment the door came off the latch, Rogan kicked against it, hard. The door flew backward, knocking Mark off his feet and sending him sprawling onto the floor of the narrow hallway. Rogan stepped forward quickly, knelt down and hit him on the side of his head with a bludgeon. The blow was just hard enough to knock Mark unconscious, and was sufficient to disable him for the few minutes they needed.

“There,” Mandino said, walking into the living room and pointing at a carver dining chair. “Tie him in that.”

Rogan pulled the chair into the center of the room. Together, the two men dragged Mark over to the carver and sat him in it. He slumped forward, but Mandino pulled his shoulders back and held him in place while Rogan did his work. He took a length of clothesline from the bag Mandino had been carrying, looped it twice around Mark’s chest and tied it behind the back of the chair, holding him upright.

Then he took some cable ties, wrapped one around each wrist and used a pair of pliers to pull them tight. He repeated the process around Mark’s forearms and elbows, and then secured his ankles in the same fashion to the chair legs. In less than three minutes, he was completely immobilized.

“Check the place,” Mandino ordered. “See if he brought a copy of the inscription back with him.”

While Rogan began looking around the apartment, Mandino walked through into the kitchen and made himself a mug of instant coffee. It was nothing like the Italian latte he was used to, but it was better than nothing, and the last drink he’d had was a can of orange juice on the flight from Rome.

“Nothing,” Rogan reported, as Mandino walked back into the room.

“Right. Wake him up.”

Rogan stepped across to Mark, lifted his head and then roughly forced his eyes open. Their captive stirred, then regained consciousness.

When Mark came to, he found himself staring at a well-dressed and heavily built man sitting in an easy chair opposite him, sipping a hot drink from one of his own mugs.

“Who the hell are you?” Mark demanded, his voice harsh and slurred. “And what are you doing in my apartment?”

Mandino smiled slightly. “I’ll ask the questions, thank you. We know about the two inscribed stones you found in your house in Italy, and we know you or your friend Christopher Bronson decided to obliterate the carving in the dining room. Now you’re going to tell me what you found.”

“Are you the bastards who killed Jackie?”

The smile vanished from Mandino’s face. “I said I’ll ask the questions. My associate will now emphasize the point.”

Rogan stepped forward, the pliers in his hand, reached down and placed the jaws around the end of the little finger on Mark’s left hand and slowly levered backward.

With a snap that was audible to both Italians, one of the bones broke, the sound followed immediately by a howl of pain from Hampton.

“I hope the soundproofing here is good,” Mandino remarked. “I wouldn’t want to disturb your neighbors. Now,” he continued, raising his voice above Mark’s groans,

“just answer my questions, quickly and truthfully, and then we can get you proper medical attention. If you don’t tell us what we want to know, you’ve seven more fingers that my associate can work on.”

Rogan waved the pliers in front of Mark’s face.

Through a red haze and tears of pain, Mark stared in disbelief at the Italian.

“OK,” Mandino said briskly, “let’s begin. What did you find on the second inscribed stone? And don’t even think about lying to me. My colleague here was watching through the window of the house when Bronson uncovered it.”

“A poem,” Mark gasped. “It looked like a poem. Two verses.”

“In Latin?”

“No. We thought it was a language called Occitan.”

“Did you translate it?”

Mark shook his head. “No. Chris tried, but he could only find a few of the words on the Internet, so we’ve no idea what the verses were about.”

“What did you manage to translate?”

“Only a couple of words about trees—oak and elm, I think—and there was a Latin word as well. Something about a cup or chalice. That’s all we could do.”

“Are you quite sure?” Mandino asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, I—” Mark screamed as Rogan tapped the pliers sharply on his fractured finger, already badly swollen and bleeding.

Mandino waited for a few seconds before continuing. “I’m inclined to believe you,”

he said, in a conversational tone. “So where is the inscription? I presume you copied it or something before your friend destroyed it.”

“Yes, yes,” Mark sobbed. “Chris photographed it.”

“And what’s he doing with it?”

“His ex-wife put him in contact with a man named Jeremy Goldman at the British Museum. He’ll be taking the pictures to show him, to try to get it translated.”

“When?” Mandino asked softly.

“I don’t know. We only got back from Italy today. He’s been driving for two solid days, so he’ll probably go there tomorrow. But I don’t know,” he added hastily, as Rogan lifted the pliers threateningly.

Mandino raised a calming hand. “And do you have a copy of those photographs?”

“No. There didn’t seem any point. Chris is the one who’s interested in this—I’m not.

All I wanted was my wife back.”

“Are there any other copies, apart from those Bronson has?”

“No—I’ve just told you that.”

It was time to finish it. Mandino nodded to Rogan, who walked behind their captive, picked up a roll of adhesive tape and tore off a strip about six inches long, which he stuck roughly over Mark’s mouth as a rudimentary gag. Then he cut about a two-foot length of clothesline and knotted the ends together to form a loop.

Mark’s terrified stare never left the Italian as he made his preparations.

Rogan dropped the loop of cord over Mark’s head and walked into the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with that most mundane of kitchen utensils, a rolling pin. He stood directly behind Mark, awaiting instructions.

“Neither you nor your policeman friend have any idea what you’ve stumbled into,”

Mandino said. “My instructions are explicit. Anyone with any knowledge of these two inscriptions—even the limited knowledge you appear to have—is considered too dangerous to remain alive.”

He nodded to Rogan, who slipped the rolling pin into the loop of cord and began twisting it to form a simple but effective garrotte. Mark immediately began to struggle in a desperate effort to free himself.

When the cord tightened around the Englishman’s neck, Rogan paused for a moment, awaiting final confirmation.

Mandino nodded again, and watched Mark as the noose began to bite, seeing the flush rise in the man’s face