Stephanie knew the answer. “Public. Lots of people.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“It’s the only way we’re going to do it.”
The speaker was quiet for a moment before Daley said, “Tell me where and when.”
FIFTY-ONE
LISBON
7:40 PM
MALONE AWOKE, SITTING PROPPED AGAINST A ROUGH STONE wall.
“It’s after seven thirty,” Pam whispered in his ear.
“How long was I out?”
“An hour.”
He could not see her face. Total darkness engulfed them. He recalled their situation. “Everything okay up there?” he said quietly to McCollum.
“Nice and quiet.”
They’d left the church just before five and hustled to the upper choir, where another doorway led out into the cloister. Visitors had been slow in leaving, taking advantage of the late-afternoon sun for a few last photos of the opulent Moorish-style decorations. The upper gallery had offered no safe refuges, but running along the church’s north wall at ground level they’d found eleven wooden doors. A placard explained that the compact spaces had once served as confessionals.
Though the doors to ten confessionals had been locked, McCollum had managed to open one thanks to a hole drilled beneath the locking bolt. Apparently the lock was faulty, and the hole was how the staff gained entrance. McCollum had used an impressive knife from his pocket to slide the bolt, relocking it after they’d entered. Malone had not known the man was armed. No way he’d carried the knife on the airplane, but McCollum had checked a small bag at the London airport, now stored in a locker at the Lisbon airport. Malone, too, had stored the satchel from Haddad’s apartment in a Lisbon locker. McCollum’s not mentioning the knife only raised Malone’s level of suspicion.
Inside the confessional, a screened iron grate opened into another dark cubbyhole. A door in the second chamber led into the church, allowing the penitent to enter. The screen separated the two so that penance could be administered.
Malone had grown up Catholic and recalled a similar arrangement, though simpler in construction, at his church. He’d never understood why he couldn’t see the priest who was absolving him of sin. When he’d asked, the nuns who’d taught him had simply said separation was required. He came to learn that the Catholic Church was big on what to do, but didn’t particularly like to explain why. Which partly explained why he no longer practiced the religion.
He glanced at the luminous dial of Pam’s TAG watch. Nearly eight PM. Early, but the site had now been closed three hours.
“Any movement outside?” he asked McCollum softly.
“Not a sound.”
“Let’s do it,” he whispered through the dark. “No use sitting here any longer.”
He heard McCollum’s knife again snap into place, then the scraping of metal on metal.
The confessional’s door creaked open.
He came to his feet but had to crouch against the low ceiling.
McCollum swung the door inward. They stepped out into the lower gallery, the cool night air welcome after three hours in what amounted to a closet. Across the open cloister, in the upper and lower galleries, incandescent fixtures burned softly, the elaborate tracery between the arches more shadow than detail. Malone stepped into the nearest arch and stared up at the night sky. The gloom of the shadowy cloister seemed accented by a starless night.
He headed straight for the stairway that led to the upper choir. He hoped the door that opened into the church-the one he’d earlier used to find the choir from the nave-remained unlocked.
He was glad to discover that it stood open.
The nave was cemetery-quiet.
Light from the exterior floods that bathed the outer façade backlit the stained-glass windows. A handful of weak bulbs broke the thick darkness only in the lower choir.
“This place is different at night,” Pam said.
He agreed, and his guard was up.
He headed straight for the chancel and hopped over the velvet ropes. At the high altar, he climbed five risers and stood before the sacrarium.
He turned and focused back toward the upper choir at the far end.
The pale gray iris of the rose window stared back at him, no longer alive with the sun.
McCollum seemed to have anticipated what he’d need and appeared beside him holding a candle and matches. “Offering rack, back near the baptismal font. I saw it earlier.”
He grabbed the candle and McCollum lit the wick. He brought the dim glow close to the sacrarium and studied the image molded into the door.
Mary sat with the infant in her lap, Joseph behind her, all three crowned by halos. Three bearded men, one kneeling before the child, paid homage. Three other men-one strangely wearing what appeared to be a military helmet-gazed on. Above the scene, with clouds parted, a five-pointed star shone down.
“It’s the Nativity,” Pam said from behind him.
He agreed. “Sure looks like it. The three Magi following the star, coming to praise the newborn king.”
He recalled the quest and what they should be looking for here, where silver turned to gold. Find the place that forms an address with no place, where is found another place.
A challenging riddle.
“We need to get out of here, but we also need a picture of this. Since none of us has a camera, any ideas?”
“After I bought the tickets,” McCollum said, “I walked upstairs. There’s a gift shop. Full of books and postcards. Bound to be a picture there.”
“Good thought,” he said. “Lead the way.”
SABRE CLIMBED THE STAIRS TO THE UPPER GALLERY, PLEASED that he’d made the right choice. When Alfred Hermann had tasked him with finding the library, his ultimate plan had quickly formed in his mind, and the Israeli surveillance team’s elimination in Germany had cemented his course.
Hermann would never have sanctioned deliberately provoking the Jews, and it would have been impossible to explain why those murders had been necessary, which was simply to throw the other side off balance for the few days he’d need to accomplish his goal.
If it were even possible.
But it just might be.
He would never have deciphered the hero’s quest alone, and involving anyone other than Malone would have done nothing except escalate his chances of exposure. Making Malone his supposed ally was the only viable course.
Risky, but the move had proven productive. Half the quest seemed solved.
He crested the stairs and entered the upper gallery, turning left and walking straight for a set of glass doors, out of place in this medieval setting. His cell phone, stuffed inside his trouser pocket, had already silently recorded four calls from Alfred Hermann. He’d debated whether to make contact and soothe the old man’s anxiety, but decided that would be foolish. Too many questions-and he could provide few answers. He’d long studied the Order, especially Alfred Hermann, and believed he understood their strengths and weaknesses.
Above all, the members were dealers.
And before the Israelis or the Saudis or the Americans could be squeezed, the Order of the Golden Fleece was going to have to deal with him.
And he would not come cheap.
MALONE FOLLOWED PAM AND MCCOLLUM INTO THE RIB-VAULTED upper gallery, admiring the workmanship. From the bits and pieces he’d heard from the tour guides earlier, the Jeronymite Order, which took possession of the monastery in 1500, was a closed group devoted to prayer, contemplation, and reformist thinking. They’d possessed no direct evangelical or pastoral mission. Instead they’d focused on living an exemplary Christian life through divine worship-much like their patron saint, Jerome himself, whom he’d read about in the book from Bainbridge Hall.
They stopped before glass doors custom-fit into one of the elaborate arches. Beyond was the gift shop.
“Couldn’t be alarmed,” McCollum said. “What’s to steal? Souvenirs?”
The doors were thick sheets of glass adorned with black metal hinges and chrome handles.