The Omega Factor(41)
He waited.
“I will be anxious to hear why this blackmailer is focused on you.”
And the call ended.
Dammit. His nerves were rattled. Anxiety surged through him. He was vulnerable. Exposed. Which had surely been the point of sending him the video in the first place. But what did this have to do with him?
Impossible to say.
Yet he also doubted Fuentes would believe him. He needed to calm down. There were engagements he had to attend later. Appointments that could not be delayed.
But before that happened he needed more information.
He left the rectory.
Chapter 26
Rome
Hector Cardinal Fuentes entered Le Sacre Grottes Vaticane, the Sacred Grottoes of the Vatican, a vast underground graveyard beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Once damp and dark, visited only by torch or candlelight, from 1935 to 1950 everything had been excavated, transformed, and equipped with electric lights.
It came in two parts.
The necropolis, seven meters down, was a city of the dead, mausoleums lined up alongside an ancient street, mostly pagan graves built of bricks. Four meters higher, three meters below the floor of the basilica, lay the grottoes themselves. Ninety-one popes and a litany of other priests, bishops, and secular monarchs back to the tenth century were buried there. The holiest tomb was that of St. Peter himself, the first bishop of Rome, who occupied a place of great prominence. But whether the bones resting there be Peter’s or not was all a matter of faith.
As was most everything else to do with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology was created and specifically charged with oversight of the grottoes, which ranked among the most visited sites within Vatican City. Millions of tourists came every year, generating many more millions of euros from entrance fees needed to maintain the site. It seemed a never-ending cycle of decay, restoration, more decay, and more restoration. Usually, people filled the various chapels, corridors, and chambers in a silent procession.
But not today.
The grottoes had been closed all week for some needed electrical repairs. They would reopen on Sunday, four days hence. Today, all was deserted and quiet. The perfect place for a private chat.
He made his way down the low, semicircular corridor that wound beneath the basilica and past St. Peter’s tomb. An intentional shadowy, twilight illumination preserved the mystical subterranean atmosphere. Waiting for him was an old friend. Leonardo Dati. A slim, black-haired Portuguese cleric and current Master of the Order of Preachers. The Dominicans. Black friars, named for their black cloaks worn over white robes. They were founded in 1216 by a Spanish priest to preach the Gospel and oppose heresy. Currently, there were 5,747 Dominican friars, including 4,300 priests. The master was chosen from among them and served a set nine-year term. Dati turned as he approached and they walked deeper into the grotto, stopping below the third arch, toward the nave, at the tomb of John Paul I. He told Dati about the phone call from the metropolitan archbishop of Toulouse.
Every detail. Nothing omitted.
“It seems things are moving,” Dati said in Italian, “but in varying directions. This is unexpected.”
That it was.
He and Dati had been monitoring the developments out of Ghent. His office had been advised a month ago about the rediscovery of the original Just Judges, made by a nun from the Congregation of Saint-Luke, a group known for their dedication to art restoration. The painting had come back from the dead, unseen since 1934. It had been fortuitous that the find had been made by someone within the church and, so far, Sister Kelsey Deal had performed her job admirably and kept her discovery secret. Fuentes had been waiting to view the fully restored original panel and see for himself what, if anything, was there to find. Then the attack happened. By a woman lying dead in the Ghent morgue.
“Do you think the reference to the Vultures, made to this archbishop, relates to what is happening in Ghent?” Dati asked. “Or merely random. Coincidental.”
“I have never been a fan of coincidence. The subject of les Vautours is not one you hear every day. Yet, here we have a mention, then an attack on the panel. I think they are related.”
“Cathars knew of les Vautours,” Dati said. “If the Cathars still exist, as the message noted, then that reference could have been passed down among them.”
“My thought too. But it troubles me that this has even arisen.”
“Thankfully, we have a team of friars in Ghent, awaiting orders.”
They’d been dispatched right after word of the panel’s destruction had come from the cathedral’s curator.
“The high-resolution images of the panel should be forwarded to me shortly,” he told Dati.
Thanks to the curator, with whom he’d established a working relationship. Which solved one problem. But the metropolitan archbishop of Toulouse had raised a new one.
“The dead woman is a Vautour,” he said. “There’s no question in my mind. She is the best tangible lead we’ve ever come across.”
“Interesting that they remained women from the beginning,” Dati said.
He nodded. “It appears so.”
The friars in Ghent had viewed the dead woman’s body and sent an image of a vulture that had been tattooed on her left shoulder. Through officials at Saint Bavo’s he’d also learned that a United Nations investigator was on the scene and had penetrated the local convent for the Maidens of Saint-Michael, retrieving a laptop that had been stolen from Sister Deal during the attack. That drew a straight line from the burned Just Judges panel to the maidens.