Up close, she looked impossibly young in the uncertain light. Her brown eyes were as large and innocent as a doe’s. Her long, wavy hair cascaded down to the middle of her back like a golden waterfall. Nighthawk knew her real name, her background, and her ace abilities. But he called her the name she preferred, the name she’d taken from the bit of antique jewelry she wore on a black silk ribbon choker around her slender, elegant neck.
“Miss Cameo?” he asked.
“Cameo will do,” she replied.
Nighthawk nodded. “Mr. Contarini sent me to escort you to his tower suite,” he said. Contarini hadn’t resorted to a fictitious name for this business, but he wanted Cameo kept in the dark about his relationship with the Church. Nighthawk paused, glancing around their corner of the lobby. “I thought that you were going to bring a bodyguard with you?” he asked.
“That’s right,” the young ace said. “I did.”
“Where is he?”
Cameo held out her handbag. Nighthawk took it from her and looked inside. Among the usual trove of feminine paraphernalia was a battered old fedora.
“A hat?” Nighthawk said.
Cameo nodded. “How perceptive of you.”
He handed the purse back to her. He knew all about Cameo and her hat. He had researched her thoroughly before entering in negotiations with her on the behalf of the Cardinal. However, he didn’t think it prudent to let her know that he knew.
“Don’t sass your elders, missy,” he said briefly. “If you’ll come this way.”
Cameo accepted his rebuke in silence. They went to the elevator bank and took one nearly to the top of the Waldorf’s Tower block, the suite on the forty-first floor where Contarini always stayed when he was in New York City. Nighthawk led her to the apartment, opened the door with his key, and took her through the anteroom, a couple of sitting rooms and living rooms, to arrive at last in a spacious library.
Glassed-in ceiling-to-floor bookcases covered two adjacent walls. Most of the glossy black bookshelves now housed vintage bric-a-brac of various sorts, though some books and folios were still on the shelves. A comfortable-looking sofa and matching love seat ranged against the two other walls. The rest of the furniture consisted of a black wood desk which matched the bookshelves, and scattered leather chairs and floor lamps. The ancient reliquary that Grubbs had given his life to obtain was on a low coffee table in front of the sofa. The Cardinal waited on the sofa with an aura of impatience clinging to him like a wet swimsuit. He was incognito, wearing a six thousand dollar Armani suite with suave elegance. Usher stood silently at one end of the sofa. Magda, looking as disapproving as always, at the other.
Contarini didn’t bother to rise as Nighthawk and Cameo entered the room.
“I am Romulus Contarini,” he announced in his deep actor’s voice. His English was colored by a slight Italian accent that only made it sound more lyrical than English usually does. His handsome lips were pursed as he gazed at Cameo, as if he didn’t approve of her obvious youth, or perhaps of her, herself, in general. Nighthawk knew that the Cardinal didn’t like wild carders, though he was not averse to using them to further his schemes.
Cameo nodded. “Mr. Contarini. Nice to finally see you face to face after so many chats on the telephone.”
She glanced at Usher and Magda, but Contarini didn’t bother to introduce them.
“Nice to see you,” he said, coming down slightly on the last word. “I’m glad that you weren’t foolish enough to take the down payment we had deposited in your account, and...” He paused, as if groping for a word.
Cameo’s eyebrows rose. “And abscond with it?”
Contarini inclined his silver-haired head.
“Are we not both business people, Mr. Contarini?” Cameo asked. “We both have reputations to maintain. I trusted you enough to come to this—” Cameo paused for a moment as she glanced around the sumptuously furnished room “—elegant but rather private meeting place to channel an unknown object for a fee of two hundred thousand dollars. If I trusted you enough to accept your offer, surely you trusted me enough to fulfill my part of the bargain.”
Contarini grunted inelegantly as Nighthawk suppressed a smile. He thought he was going to like Cameo just fine. After she finished her business with Contarini, he had something else for her to do, something that was as important to him as this rigmarole was to the Cardinal.
The Cardinal turned to Usher, and nodded at the reliquary. “Open it.”
The big man bent over the old box. They had looked inside it just once before while they were on the road to Rome, just to make sure that they hadn’t been tricked into stealing a decoy. They hadn’t.
The Cardinal leaned over and removed a rectangular length of stained linen, folded upon itself several times. His fingers caressed it as he lifted it from the box; his lips murmured ancient Latin prayers. He held it to his chest for a moment, his eyes lifted to Heaven.
Nighthawk glanced at the others. Cameo was watching the Cardinal, uncertain, frowning. Usher stood as relaxed as always, instantly ready to run, to leap across the room, to dive to the floor, to do whatever the next second might call for. Magda’s eyes were riveted on the Mandylion, as if wishing she were the one caressing it. A sheen of sweat covered her forehead. Her lips were clenched in passionate desire that was almost lustful.
Contarini took a deep breath, as if he were wallowing in the scent of the cloth which had once covered the dead, bleeding body of Jesus Christ, and then suddenly held it out to Cameo.
“Take this. Sit there.”
Cameo looked from the Shroud to Contarini’s face, to Nighthawk.
“Is that the Shroud of Turin?” she asked, wide-eyed.
Nighthawk only nodded.
Cameo wet her lips. “Where...how...” Her voice ran down.
“Don’t ask, missy,” Nighthawk said softly. “Just take it. Or walk away.”
Contarini thrust it again toward her. “Take it,” he said commandingly, “and call Our Lord and Savior.”
Cameo hesitated for a moment. Any sane person would, Nighthawk thought, and then she took the Shroud from Contarini and sank into the luxurious old armchair he’d indicated. She took a deep breath and held it. For a moment her eyes were unfocused, and then her expression changed utterly and it was clear to Nighthawk that someone else was looking out of her eyes at them. Nighthawk felt his heart skip a beat, then hurry as if to catch up. He swayed on his feet, caught in the grip of powerful emotion, torn by fear and hope intermingled, as he had been on that day in 1946 when he lay dying in a hospital bed as the Takisian virus came raining down out of the sky and touched him with the glory of God on high, turning him into something more than human but perhaps somewhat less than angelic.
“I say,” Cameo said in an uncertain voice. “Wha—what’s happening?”
Contarini fell down on his knees, muttering wildly in Italian, his head bowed as if he were afraid to look upon his Lord revealed. Magda stared as if she’d been gaffed, her cheeks puffed out in astonished ecstasy. Only Usher, Nighthawk saw, observed unperturbed, still ready for anything.
“My Lord!” the Cardinal finally said, holding out his hands beseechingly.
The person looking out through Cameo’s eyes focused on him
“My Lord?” she repeated. “What’s this all about?” She looked around. “Why am I here in my apartment again? I died, didn’t I?”
Nighthawk had the sudden realization that something had gone terribly wrong.
Contarini frowned. “Died—yes, and risen as before. But—your apartment! I don’t understand. What do you mean? Who are you?”
“Who am I?” Cameo repeated, more in indignation than as an actual question. “Who are you, sir, and what are you doing in my apartment? I—what’s that voice in my head saying? I... I’m a woman!” she exclaimed, holding her hands out, examining them in what Nighthawk thought was half shock, half delight. Her hands went down to her thighs, gripping them, hard. “I’ve got both of my legs!”