“Is that really all you want? Are you completely sure about that? Think long and hard before you answer.”
The line was silent for a few seconds.
“You…you’re telling me you’ve done it?” Luca whispered.
“What do you really know about the item? I mean, really? Do you know what it hides? What it contains?”
Luca composed himself. “I know that what we are discussing is too delicate for the telephone.”
“Very well. I’ll call you back in a few hours. Take time to speak to whoever you need to, and get clear on what your true, ultimate objective is. Then perhaps we can meet under circumstances that are safe for us both and have a more substantial discussion that will get us both what we really want.” Steven let that hang, and then gently replaced the handset in the cradle.
Luca sounded genuine, but Steven was afraid that he might be too low in the hierarchy to seal a deal that would keep both he and Natalie safe in perpetuity. But in the end, Luca was right about one thing. Life was short, and if you didn’t have a reasonable assurance that someone wasn’t going to kill you at any moment, then you had nothing. He’d been sucked into this, but if he could put an end to it all on terms he, and Natalie, could live with, then he would do so.
Steven returned to Natalie, who was busy enjoying a Kir Royale — the hotel’s specialty. He sat down next to her on the elegant booth seat and, after tasting the liquid concoction, he ordered one for himself before relating how the call had gone.
“What? Give it back? That’s the best you can do?” Natalie fumed. She was clearly emotional over the idea.
“Natalie. Think this through. As long as we have the Scroll, our lives won’t be worth spit. Frank and the Order will pursue us to the end of the earth. So the only option is to give it back to the Order and arrange a transaction where they can protect us. It doesn’t play out any other way. We can’t give it to Frank, because the Order will still be after us, and if you’ve described him correctly, he’ll just kill us anyway. So we can’t keep it, can’t give it to Frank…that only leaves one option, as far as I can see.”
She thought it over, then stood abruptly and said, “I have to use the bathroom.”
She stalked off, still pissed, regardless of the logic.
The bartender brought his drink, and he took an appreciative sip. Natalie returned within a few minutes, seeming more relaxed.
Steven broached the subject again. “The Scroll doesn’t have any value to either of us. If it ever did, now that I’ve decrypted it, the value is gone. It’s not the Scroll that had the value, anyway. It’s the secret the Scroll contains. My solution to our quagmire is straightforward. You want to finish your father’s work and see it through. Fine. I want to help you, and I have the knowledge and capability to do so. But none of this matters if we wind up dead. I’m planning on dying of old age a long time from now, not at the hands of some psychopath’s assassins. If you look at this dispassionately, we need to figure out a way to return the Scroll to get everyone off our backs, and we need to finish the job your father started — which we can either try to do on our own, or we can do in some sort of partnership with the Order — a partnership we’ll control. Those are the only two options. I don’t care which we choose, but I’m not seeing a third.”
Natalie regarded him. “Are you always so damned logical?”
“It’s what I do, Natalie.”
“Not all you do, thank God.” She smiled. “Let’s say I go along with this. What’s the plan?”
Steven told her. Natalie listened without saying a word, and when he was finished, she picked up her drink and swallowed it in one gulp. Smacking her lips, she took his hand and stood.
“Let’s grab lunch. Sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Just like that, it was decided.
CHAPTER 31
In a dark room in the heart of the Vatican, Luca sat quietly with his superior, His Beatitude Metropolitan Justinian, the leader of the Templars, and the Sentinel, the head of the Order of the Holy Relic. Heavy purple drapes framed the stained-glass windows, adding to the richness of the gold-leaf covered walls. This was an unprecedented meeting, one which Luca had never in his imagination expected to be participating in. Justinian held up a plump hand to underscore his point.
“Diego Luca, no man other than the Sentinel and whoever occupies my office has ever known the full story of the Scroll, or its significance. It is therefore with trepidation that I take you into a confidence that extends to only His Holiness, and the two of us. It goes without saying that you may never share your knowledge with anyone, no matter what the circumstances. You must take it with you into eternity.”
Luca nodded, afraid that his voice would betray his emotions.
The Sentinel leaned forward, holding Luca with an iron stare.
“The Scroll contains a secret that the papacy had always believed could bring down or forever change the Church. The author of the document believed it could destroy us if it was known, and that its possessor could literally control the Church with the threat of its exposure,” the Sentinel explained.
“What is the secret?” Luca asked, painfully aware of time slipping away.
“That’s the problem. Nobody is sure,” Justinian admitted.
“What?” Luca didn’t understand.
“It is why we have kept the Scroll throughout history and guarded it so jealously. The friar who wrote it originally did so in a cypher of his own devising that was so foolproof nobody has ever been able to unravel it. We know from his statements that he had come into possession of information about something he referred to as the Divine Light, but whatever that was went to the grave with him. Some who have held my office believed that it was the Holy Grail. Others speculated it was something even more precious, beyond imagination, perhaps a gospel written by Jesus himself. All of this was speculation. The friar is dead, and he died without disclosing it to anyone as far as we know.”
“Then the secret…is what the Divine Light actually is?” Luca didn’t understand.
“Yes. And no. Not what. Where.”
Luca looked from one man to the other. “Where?”
The Sentinel nodded. “The secret of the Scroll is where the Divine Light is hidden. The location. And the friar believed that whatever this enigma was would prove so sensitive for the Church that it could never be revealed — but being of a scientific disposition, he also didn’t want it to be lost forever, as had been the case with so many other pieces of knowledge through time. He created what is known as the Voynich Manuscript to hide the knowledge. It was only from one of his followers that the Church learned that the secret was written in quire 18 — the Holy Scroll.” The Sentinel cleared his throat. “Once that was understood, the Pope, Nicholas V, in 1453 created The Order to safeguard the Scroll until such time as it could be translated and the secret identified. Remember that the history of the Church has been filled with rivalry and power struggles, so Nicholas decided that a separate, secret guardian needed to keep watch, unknown to anyone but a trusted few.”
Justinian continued where the Sentinel left off.
“The Scroll is the only record of the location of this Divine Light, which inspired both fear and curiosity at the time — but times have changed since the 1200s, and what might have destroyed a religion then could turn out to be a pillar of faith now. We, as an organization, are chartered with ensuring the Scroll never sees the light of public exposure, but we are fascinated with what the Divine Light might be. If it is the Grail, it could breathe new life into the faithful during a time of waning passion. If it were a new gospel it would revitalize religion, rather than create upheaval as it might have done eight centuries ago. What might have been blasphemous in the friar’s age, we now seek to understand through modern eyes.”