Angela looked over at him with disdain and raised her weapon. She squeezed the trigger and fired one bullet into the man’s forehead. The muffled pop echoed off of the stone walls and arches. Smoke lingered in the still air of the church. The body collapsed to the stone floor between some pews. “Anyone else have a problem?” She asked, angrily. No one said anything.
“Good, if the priests give you a hard time, tell them you are with the police and are looking for a fugitive that killed one of our agents. Understood?” Everyone in the room nodded and began dispersing to their assigned areas.
A pool of blood had started forming around the head of the man Angela had just killed. James’ eyes were wide. She was getting out of control.
James watched as several of the men ran down the aisles and disappeared down a side hall. After a few minutes, one of them returned. “There’s no one in here except the head priest,” a man in a black, skin-tight outfit stepped up and informed Agent Collack.
The team had been searching the church for fifteen minutes, giving it a thorough investigation. But it had yielded nothing.
“They couldn’t have just up and vanished,” Angela was infuriated.
Clearly, the man reporting the bad news was becoming less and less comfortable. One angry boss was bad enough.
“We’ll keep searching, sir,” he said and began to slink away.
“No,” Angela halted the agent and extended her hand. “Bring the priest to me.”
Chapter 53
Sean stared at the unspectacular structure, half amazed, half disappointed. “It’s not what you expected, eh?” Mauricio chuckled and slapped his friend on the back.
The entrance was beneath a dramatic, triangle of large beams, founded in stone at the base. Stretching out to each side, most of the building looked flat and boxlike. It was painted a dull yellow. The main sanctuary rose up behind the entrance from a point that extended out in both directions like the shape of an eye. A statue of The Virgin Mary stood guard over top of the center doorway, set into a corner shaped pillar.
Mauricio noticed their confusion and decided to explain the scene before them. “The original church was destroyed by an act of arson in 1962. Up until that point, the church housed a spectacular museum of artifacts from many corners of the world. Padre Crespi had been collecting them for many years. Sadly, most of the relics were destroyed. “Some believe that a group of radical locals thought the museum was an abomination and therefore wanted to destroy it.”
“Why would a bunch of old trinkets be an abomination?” Will asked.
Mauricio turned to him and continued, “Many of the artifacts in the collection are believed to show that the ancient civilizations of this planet had far greater technologies than we first believed. After learning about Crespi’s museum, Erich Von Daniken wrote a book about the collection in which he postulates that the gods of ancient times were actually aliens and that those aliens gave us technologies to help us in the beginning of time. It was because of a fear of theories like Von Daniken’s that caused some people to feel like the museum should be destroyed, lest it be considered blasphemous.” He paused for a moment. “There were other theories as well. Some of them followed along the same lines, though the source of the crime was a little more sinister.”
“What do you mean, more sinister?” Sean wondered aloud.
“It could never be proven but one rumor is that the Vatican itself ordered the church be destroyed. Again, they were concerned with the idea that God was some kind of alien and that he gave ancient people technologies that were completely unexplainable by modern science or religion. They felt it would fly in the face of doctrine and would lead many people to question their legitimacy.”
Tommy raised an eyebrow. “What do you think it was?”
“Me?” Delgado laughed as he started walking towards the entrance of the large facility. “I don’t really look too much into such things.” He stopped and turned around to face the group, his men stayed behind with the cars. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a combination of both.”
Adriana had run for nearly a mile through the city streets of Cuenca and the man following her was still keeping up. She knew he was trying to stay hidden in the shadows but a few times he had bumped into something near a building that made enough of a noise for her to know someone was behind her.
Apparently, he was in pretty good shape. She assumed that the team watching Mauricio’s caravan would send someone after her, so she wasn’t exactly surprised that someone was following her. Still, she had to lose him.
Up ahead, the street opened into a small intersection with a fountain at the center of a roundabout. Almost there, she thought. As soon as she reached the corner at the edge of the plaza, she darted right, sprinting hard down the narrow street lined with dark shops and small businesses. Without even thinking, she turned right again into a shadowy alleyway. Up ahead was her destination. She prayed the door was open like it was supposed to be. She reached the threshold and in one motion twisted the doorknob and pushed. The door opened easily as Adriana pushed into it. With one motion she tucked in behind it and eased it shut as quickly and quietly as possible. She locked it as it went flush against the frame. She squatted down on one knee, waiting for her pursuer to attempt to enter at any given moment. A few harrowing minutes went by like hours. Finally, satisfied that whoever was following her had lost her trail, she stood slowly and took a deep breath.
The room she was in was lit only by the moonlight shining in through draped windows. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books. A leather sofa sat behind where she stood. Towards the front of the shop, a large window was covered with dark, drawn curtains, protecting the place from the view of the street. An unlit floor lamp stood nearby. The smell of old paper and dust filled the cool air. Just like she remembered.
A gruff, Spanish accent broke the silence of her hiding place. “Were you followed?”
She was hardly startled, only barely turning her head around to see where it had come from. “Yes, but I lost him.”
“Are you sure,” An orange glow illuminated a black-bearded face with dark, stern eyes then died away as the pipe was lowered.
“If I hadn’t, he would be breaking down the door right now.”
The man seemed satisfied with the answer. “It is good to see you again,” he said, a puff of gray smoke encircled the shadowed figure as he exhaled.
She turned around to fully face him.
“It has been too long,” he continued.
“I know,” she paused thoughtfully. “I wasn’t sure it was safe to come.”
The man stepped across the room, walking with a slight limp. He wore a large fedora accompanied by a brown leather jacket and a pair of green trousers. The heavy boots on his feet were anything but quiet on the ancient planks of the wooden floor. Each step caused it to creak slightly under his weight. “It is always safe for you to come, Ija.”
Adriana smiled as a tear formed in a corner of one eye and she stepped towards the older man. The two embraced in a firm hug, squeezing tight. “Gracias, Pappa.”
Chapter 54
The interior of the Church of Maria Auxiliadora was just as unremarkable as the exterior. Compared to the dramatic architecture and design of San Blas, the church Carlos Crespi called home was humble by comparison. That was, a fact Sean and Tommy both believed to be by design the more they looked around.
The little group walked around in the main sanctuary for a few minutes but found nothing of interest. The bland interior décor left nothing to the imagination and certainly represented no clues as to the whereabouts of Crespi’s map.
It was getting late in the evening and Sean was starting to wonder if Adriana knew how to find her way to where they were. He’d thought about it before. Did she know about Mauricio’s little plan? If so, she would know where to meet them. But his friend had said nothing about her. However, being familiar with Cuenca, she must have known they were not at the right place before. For now, he’d have to believe that she knew what was going on.
The group scoured the building for anything that might give them a hint as to where Crespi may have left a map or anything that could point in the right direction. After almost a half-hour of searching, though, they’d come up empty.
Sean had discovered classrooms and several prayer alcoves. Mauricio had also shown them the dormitory where Crespi had lived. However, there had been nothing of note in the barren chamber. The sanctuary, too, had proven fruitless.
They arrived back in the foyer of the church as the cathedral bells rang out the hour.
“Is there somewhere we may have missed?” Tommy asked Mauricio. “I looked all over this place and didn’t see anything remotely interesting. “
“I can only provide the location, my friend. I’m afraid that when it comes to finding lost things, I am fairly useless.” He smiled as he made the confession.
Sean wandered over to a window he’d passed a few minutes before. Light from the evening moon poured in through the clear glass panes. Beyond, a vast courtyard opened up in the shape of a rectangle, surrounded by the walls of the church compound. He gazed out at small benches, prayer coves, stone paths, and small trees. “What’s that out there?” he asked as he pointed at the window.
“That’s the courtyard,” Mauricio answered. “We can go have a look if you want. Out there is the last place where Crespi’s collection was seen, in a storage room on the other side of the space.”
Sean raised an eyebrow at his friends. “We may as well go have a look then.”