‘I’ve got to go back,’ he told Payne. ‘I don’t care if I’m risking my life; I have to go.’
Payne agreed with him, even though he knew that Ulster was walking into a death sentence. Soldiers were bound to be waiting there, men who were salivating at the thought of grabbing him and torturing him for information about Boyd, the Catacombs, and everything else. Normally, Payne would’ve offered to go back with him as his personal guard, but not today. Not with all that was going on. Payne’s services were needed in Vienna or wherever they were headed next.
But that didn’t mean he was going to abandon him.
‘Can you wait twelve hours?’ Payne asked.
Ulster blinked a few times then looked at him, confused. ‘Why?’
‘Twelve hours. Can you wait that long before going back?’
‘Jonathon,’ he said, ‘both of us know you can’t accompany — ’
‘You’re right, I can’t go with you. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help. You give me twelve hours, and I promise I can have team of armed guards waiting to protect you. Furthermore, I’ll get you the best engineers that money can buy to save your property. Trust me, they’ll do a better job than any of the local salvage companies.’
Ulster was about to turn Payne down; he could see it in his eyes. He was about to thank Payne for his offer, then politely decline because of the cost, his pride, or a hundred other reasons that he could’ve chosen. Payne knew all this because he would’ve done the exact same thing. That’s why Payne decided to beat him to the punch, reminding him of their earlier agreement.
Payne said, ‘When we met I promised if you gave me full access to the Archives and the use of your services that I would make it worth your time. Well, it’s time for me to pay up.’ He told Ulster to look at his watch. ‘Tell Franz to drive slowly on the way home, because twelve hours from now I’ll have men waiting for you at the Swiss border. You’ll know they’re with me because they’ll know our special password.’
‘Password?’ Ulster asked with tears in his eyes. ‘What password?’
Payne grabbed his hand and shook it. ‘The password is friend.’
Payne made a few calls to his colleagues back home, and they assured him that they knew what to do. From that moment on he knew Petr Ulster and his Archives would both survive.
The vibration on Payne’s cell phone forced his focus back to Vienna. Frankie was calling for the café’s fax number, so Payne answered by saying, ‘Did anyone follow you?’
‘No,’ he assured Payne. ‘I be very careful.’
‘Write this down.’ He gave him the number, then told him to burn it and the confirmation sheet when he was done. He also told him to delete the fax’s memory. ‘Where can I reach you?’
‘My office. I be at my office.’
Payne groaned. That’s the last place he wanted him to be. Why did Frankie think he had him using a public line? ‘Go somewhere else but not your house. That’s too easy to trace.’
‘I can get hotel.’
‘Perfect,’ Payne told him. ‘Pay in cash and use a fake name, something you won’t forget, like… James Bond.’
‘Si!’ he shrieked. Obviously he liked the choice.
Frankie named the closest hotel he could think of, and Payne memorized its name. ‘Go there when you’re done. Your room and room service are on me, OK?’
‘Si,’ he repeated.
‘And don’t use your credit card for anything.’
‘No card. I promise.’
‘Thanks, Frankie. I’ll talk to you soon.’
Thirty-four seconds. Not too bad. Especially if his fax helped Payne figure something out. But he had his doubts. What in the world could Frankie know that Payne didn’t?
A few minutes later he got his answer. That little bastard was a lifesaver.
Boyd and Maria brought Prince Eugene’s journal into the café and took a seat in front of one of the computers. Maria manned the keyboard while Boyd, still wearing that ridiculous suntan lotion on his nose, told her what to type. Curious, Payne wanted to know what they were searching for but couldn’t leave the machines until Frankie’s fax arrived.
Jones joined Payne a moment later, right after finishing a twenty-minute call to Randy Raskin. He said, ‘Man, I love calling the Pentagon collect. Paid for by our tax dollars.’
‘A collect call from Austria? That’s like a thousand bucks.’
‘But worth it.’ He flipped through his notes. ‘So far there’s been four crucifixions, one each in Denmark, Libya, America, and China. All the killings were too similar to be copycat crimes.’
‘In other words, one crew.’
He shook his head. ‘Four different crews.’
‘Four? The murders were on separate days, right?’
‘True, but the abductions overlapped. Throw in the travel and the time zones and everything else, and the cops think there were multiple crews. If not four, at least two.’
Payne considered this for a moment, trying to figure out what anyone could gain by crucifying random people. ‘Any connections between the victims?’
‘Nothing obvious. Different homelands, different occupations, different everything — except for the fact that they were males in their early thirties. Just like Christ when he died.’
‘Jesus,’ Payne gasped.
‘Yep, that’s the guy. Anyway, I told Randy that the crucifixions might have something to do with our case, so I had him check all the phone records for Agent Manzak, i.e., Roberto Pelati. Remarkably, he made calls to Denmark, China, Thailand, America, and Nepal within the last six weeks. Either he’s planning one big-ass vacation, or he’s our man.’
‘Our man for what?’
Jones shrugged. ‘That seems to be the million dollar question.’
A million dollar question. What a joke. That term no longer had the same significance as it used to. Nowadays it seemed everybody had a million dollars. Game show contestants, dot-com geeks, reality show winners, third-string linebackers. Payne really doubted if Roberto Pelati would’ve gone through any of this for a mere million dollars. A billion, maybe. But certainly not a million. That was play money to the modern-day criminal.
Then again, who in the world had a billion dollars to spare? Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and the rest of the Forbes list. Probably a sheik or two. Maybe some royalty. Other than that, it would take a large country to toss around that much coin without having it missed by their citizens.
Unless… wait a second… unless…
Holy shit! Unless it was a country without citizens.
A country that had billions of dollars hidden away that no one knew about.
A country that stood to lose everything if this scandal was ever made public.
Good lord, that was it. This was about money. The Vatican’s money.
Everything that was happening — the Catacombs, the crucifixions, the search for Dr Boyd — was about cash. Pelati’s group wanted it and would do anything to get it.
That had to be it. It had to be.
The beeping of the fax ripped Payne from his thoughts. He had no idea what Frankie was sending, but he prayed it backed his revelation. Otherwise he’d find himself confused again before he even had a chance to tell anyone his theory. Anyway, he grabbed the first page and skimmed it for information. Somehow Frankie had figured out who had died during the chopper crash from Donald Barnes’s photographs, where each soldier had been positioned, and had tracked down their personal histories. Everything in his report was typed except for a handwritten note at the bottom of the page that said pictures and graphs were still to come.