The Second Messiah

Sweat rising on his face, Ryan scoured the huge office but he knew instinctively where Cassini had gone. He crossed to the bookcase, pressed the red leather-bound book, and the shelf swung open. He stepped cautiously into the darkened chamber and pulled the light string, the Glock readied.

The secret chamber looked empty, the winding stone staircase leading up and down. “What’s the chance that Cassini’s disappeared into one of his rat holes?” he said back to Butoni, who joined him, along with two more guards. Butoni nodded. “Kelly isn’t dead long and the secretary didn’t see Cassini leave his office.”

With such a maze of Vatican tunnels and passageways, Ryan was temporarily perplexed, his mind working feverishly. “Remind me again where this passageway leads, Angelo?”

Butoni found a switch on the chamber wall, flicked it on, and an array of small red-tinted guide lights came on, illuminating the spiraling passageway walls. “I believe to one of our old armories, several floors below. It also leads to the archives, and out to several courtyards. In fact, pretty much anywhere you want it to, even the Sistine. This is one of the main channels, Monsignor.”

“The Sistine?”

“Yes.”

Ryan felt sweat drench his face. “The Holy Father went there to pray. Which armory, Angelo?”

“The small one on the second floor. It contains a cache of weapons in case of emergency. Pistols, rifles, even Heckler & Koch machine pistols. Why?”

Without a word, Ryan pushed past Butoni, almost knocking him over, and dashed down the passageway’s stone steps as fast as he could run.

122

Umberto Cassini raced down the hidden stairway, clutching the hem of his cardinal’s crimson gown. The patter of his feet on the stone steps moved at a frantic rhythm. His body pumped adrenaline, his gown drenched with the stench of perspiration, his pounding chest on fire. He came to a landing and a solid door with a handle.

Cassini clutched the handle, pushed in the door, and found himself in the old armory. It was a room familiar to him, used by the Vatican’s security officers to store caches of weapons in case of emergency. Three long, sturdy, black metal boxes, with heavy locks, were pushed against one wall.

Cassini knelt in front of the first box and slipped the letter opener’s blade between the underside of the lid and the bottom frame. He grunted as he pried. The blade stressed, but the metal box didn’t budge. Cassini rattled the padlock in frustration. The lock was solid.

He wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve and tried the other two boxes, but clearly the blade wasn’t strong enough to pry them open. Cassini had managed to raise the last box lid open about an inch when he heard footsteps and voices from beyond the open passageway door.

Ryan.

Cassini darted back into the passageway and raced farther down the winding steps.

123

BRACCIANO

NEAR ROME

“It’s completely empty. They could be long gone.”

“Gone where?”

“How should I know, Lela? They’ve been here but now the place is deserted. There’s not a soul.”

Lela stood on the lawn in front of Hassan Malik’s luxury mansion. It looked majestic, with colonnades and gushing ponds, Roman and Greek statues. A turquoise swimming pool at the back was all lit up, just like the villa.

Except that the mansion was hollow, echoing.

A furious Ari and his men searched the property from top to bottom after Cohen scaled the walls, then managed to admit them through the front gate after picking the lock. Prepared for trouble, Cohen and Mario were armed with Uzi machine pistols, but they met none, every room deserted.

Ari vented his frustration as he stood beside the pool. “Wherever Hassan and his men have disappeared to is anyone’s guess. Maybe he expected trouble and just decided to wind things down and get out of here.”

Lela said, “Is this the only Italian property belonging to Hassan that Mossad knows of?”

Ari kicked out at a pool chair and sent it skittering across the tiles and splashing into the water. “This is it. And we’ve no other leads.”

He stormed over to the patio doors on the back of the mansion. They were thrown open, lights blazing inside. Cohen and Mario with their Uzi machine pistols and powerful flashlights wandered the gardens searching for any evidence.

Ari had found the room at the back, with the chair and discarded lengths of rope, the oxyacetylene blow torch attached to a bottle, a few bloodstains on the floor. But no sign of Jack Cane.

“They probably brought him here and tortured him,” Lela said worriedly.

Ari lingered by the patio doors, clutching his pistol and slapping it against his leg in nervous agitation. “They obviously think he knows something.”

Lela fell silent.

Ari turned to her. “You look guilty.”

“Jack has the scroll.”

“What?”

“He’s hidden it in a safe place.”

Ari fumed. “How long have you known this?”

“Since after I escaped from the underground.”

Ari’s fury was instant. “And you never told me? Whose side are you on, Lela?”

“I’m telling you now.”