Payne had to laugh at that one. He was kidding, right?
Nope, Frankie wasn’t joking. He included head-shots (pre-and postmortem) of all four victims, then used a line graph to illustrate where the three soldiers had received their training and how many months they had been stationed together before their fatal mission. In a side note, he mentioned that the pilot was an Orvieto cop who didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the crew because he wasn’t a member of the Swiss Guard like the others had been.
The Swiss Guard. That was the smoking gun, the one piece of evidence that couldn’t be denied. If the Guard were involved, then the Vatican had to be, since the Guard’s only job was to protect the pope. Unless, of course, Benito was behind the attack. Maybe he hired ex-members of the Guard to do all of his dirty work?
Payne said to Jones, ‘You know that missing piece of the puzzle? I think we just found it.’
He filled him in on everything: the money, the murders, and his theory on Benito. He knew most of it was conjecture, but that was the beauty of their role in this: They didn’t give a damn about the law. They weren’t cops, nor were they looking for a conviction. They were simply trying to get to the truth, no matter what it was.
Praying that they got the chance to punish the people who brought them into this.
Miraculously, their prayers would be answered less than an hour later.
68
Chang heard the phone and checked his caller ID. He muted the TV coverage of Beijing, then answered. From somewhere over the Atlantic, Nick Dial said, ‘Tell me about the fax.’
Chang flipped open his notes. ‘I went to the station where the fax came from and talked to their station chief. And, um, I think we were given some bad information.’
Dial leaned his forehead against the plane’s wall. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The fax couldn’t have originated from that number because that particular machine can’t make outgoing calls. It’s wired so it can only receive faxes, not send them. Something about too many cops sending personal faxes.’
Dial smirked, impressed. He realized technology was good enough nowadays for someone to alter the number on a caller ID. Maybe this was another red herring to throw off his search while the killer planned something else. ‘Tell me about China.’
Chang filled him in on the latest, including an unconfirmed report that the victim was Paul Adams, a man known around the world as Saint Sydney, due to his missionary work.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Dial mumbled. ‘They got the Spirit.’
In his mind this was the news he was hoping for. It proved his theory about the sign of the cross was accurate. Plus it also meant if the killers continued with their current pattern, they were going to be arriving in Italy about the same time he did.
Ulster and Franz were on their way back to Küsendorf, leaving Payne’s crew with two options: catch a cab or steal a car. They eventually settled on number two, hoping to avoid Jamie Foxx’s situation in the movie Collateral, where a taxi driver got mixed up in a very bad scene.
They roamed the streets until they came across a vehicle that met their needs. It was a double-parked Mercedes G500, an SUV that looked like the offspring of a sedan and a Hummer. The keys were in it, so they didn’t even have to hotwire the ignition to steal it. Nevertheless, Jones fiddled with the electrical system to prevent their vehicle from being tracked by the European equivalent of OnStar. Once inside, they drove down the alley past Vermählungsbrunnen, a giant fountain depicting the union of Mary and Joseph. The irony of its image made everyone slightly uncomfortable. Here they were trying to dispel the myth of the crucifixion and were forced to do so under the gaze of Christ’s earthly parents.
Across from the fountain was Hoher Markt, home of a public gallows until archaeologists realized they were built on top of the original Roman settlement of Vindobona, including the barracks where Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius might’ve died in 180 ad. Apparently there’s a longstanding rift between historians on whether or not he had actually visited. Some claim he came to this area to expand the northeastern boundary of Rome’s territory, while others say he died in Sirmium, found in modern-day Serbia, over 500 miles away. Needless to say, this discrepancy fueled a lot of speculation. And controversy. Boyd theorized the difference between these stories could’ve been due to the mission he was on at the time of his death. What if Aurelius, who had a reputation for persecuting Christians more than any other emperor, was in Vindobona to find out the truth about the laughing man? It would explain why two different accounts were entered into the Roman history books. The real one and the cover story about expanding the Empire.
But the thing Payne didn’t understand was why Marcus Aurelius didn’t know about the laughing man to begin with. If the Empire was going to benefit from Tiberius’s scheme, wouldn’t his secret have to be passed down from emperor to emperor? That was the only way Rome could’ve profited from Christianity, since Tiberius died within five years of Christ’s death.
Boyd corrected Payne’s assumption, noting that Tiberius went mad during the last few years of his reign. His successor, Caligula, destroyed most of Tiberius’s records, knowing full well if they got into the wrong hands that they would bring shame to Rome. Therefore, in Boyd’s mind, there was a very good chance that no emperor after Tiberius would’ve known about his plot or if Christ’s crucifixion had actually been faked.
As they left Vienna on a major highway, their focus shifted to a map of the surrounding area. Boyd said, ‘According to Eugene’s journal, the Saint of Vindobona lived north of the city near a marble quarry of some repute, a mine that gave birth to the laughing man statues and much of the raw material for the early Roman settlement.’
Boyd handed Payne the book. Inside was an artist’s rendering of what this area might have looked like in the first century. But it wasn’t much help now. ‘So how do we find it?’
‘Hermann told us to drive north until we see a white mountain near the edge of the highway. It’s a private stretch of land that has been owned by the same family for generations. According to legend, it used to be a functioning mine until they had a massive cave-in several centuries ago. To this day the whole mountain is fenced off for safety reasons.’
Great, Payne thought to himself. People were trying to kill them and they were about to play Indiana Jones on an unstable mountain. ‘What’s our plan when we get there?’
Smiling, Boyd patted Payne and Jones on the shoulder. ‘I was hoping the two of you could come up with something to get us inside. You know, something illegal.’
The sky was bruised, streaks of black and purple cutting across a sea of gray warning them that a major storm was on the way. Payne stuck his hand out the window and felt the humidity, gauging how long they had before the heavens opened. Maybe thirty minutes, if they were lucky.
Their search for the white mountain had been easier than expected. They had driven less than three miles north when they saw its peak thrusting out of the terrain like an iceberg in the middle of a green forest. Jones found a service road off the main highway that led them to the front gate. The property itself was protected by a fifteen-foot-high steel fence capped with barbed wire and a series of signs that read, Danger: Falling Rocks, in multiple languages.
Jones worked on the front lock while Payne strolled along the perimeter, hoping to find a flaw, just in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Unfortunately, the place was solid. For a property that was supposedly abandoned, someone had put a lot of money into keeping people out. Even the lock was tricky, taking Jones double the time that he would normally need.