“Happy to oblige,” Fordham said. “Can you tell me how long it’s been vacant?”
“Maybe a week?” she replied, seeming somewhat baffled by her own answer.
“You’re not sure?” Speers said.
She set the mallet down beside her and wiped her forehead. “I must admit,” she sighed. “This place has been a mystery for 43 years. I grew up in this neighborhood. I was a teenager when the new owners moved in one night and started putting up these big walls. Even though there always seemed to be big parties here, nobody really knew who lived here. You can imagine my shock when their attorney called me to sell the place.”
Speers nodded. “Leaving in such a hurry, they must have left some things behind.”
She shook her head. “The place is in cherry condition. Absolutely cherry. They didn’t leave so much as a box in a bedroom or a crumb in the kitchen. With a place this gigantic? That’s something you don’t see every day.”
Speers’ spirits sank. The odds of finding anything useful on the premises had just decreased dramatically.
“We’d like to look around,” Fordham suggested.
She folded her arms across her chest. “About all I can tell you without an application are the specs. Twenty-three bedrooms, 20 bathrooms and 16 fireplaces.” She paused, noticing Fordham surveying the cameras over the gate. “Now then. May I ask what business you and your friend are in?”
Fordham raised his left hand above his head and snapped his fingers. The woman’s jaw sagged as she watched 32 FBI field agents step out of their cars.
City Morgue
Rome
Detective Antonio Tesla was a distinguished-looking fellow, perhaps in his mid-50s, clean-shaven, with the short, curly hair that was seen on the busts of ancient Roman noblemen. He wore brown suit pants and a white button-down shirt under an unstructured jacket.
Carver let Callahan handle the introductions between him, Tesla and Nico. Tesla shook hands without a word, turned, and led them past the administrative offices and down some stairs, where the air was markedly colder. It seemed that morgues all over the world looked the same. Unflattering lighting. A series of gurneys with unclothed bodies in various levels of assembly. Rows and rows of drawers.
Tesla began talking in Italian at a steady clip as they entered a second, and much larger, room. Father Callahan began translating as he received the information. “He says the two victims were found four nights ago in the parking garage of the Hotel Angelico.”
“How did they die, exactly?”
Callahan started to answer, but it was all he could do to keep up with the detective’s quick tongue. “There was a shootout. The victims were found in and around the Mini Cooper, which was apparently rammed several times by a Range Rover with stolen plates. It was left on the premises.”
“Did you say, in and around the Mini Cooper? I thought there were only two of them.”
The priest clarified the point with Tesla. His revulsion was evident before he began translating. “It appeared that the men might have been attempting to escape the vehicle. Their extremities were smashed in the process, rendering certain, em, pieces of them outside the wreckage.”
“A regular demolition derby,” Carver remarked.
Tesla resumed talking.
“Yesterday,” Callahan translated from Italian, “He discovered that the car had been registered to a young couple in Florence who had driven it for four years before donating it to a local Monastery. It’s currently unclear how it ended up in the hands of the victims.”
A morgue employee in a hooded white uniform took note of Detective Tesla’s entrance and, apparently expecting his arrival, motioned in the general direction of a wall of drawers. He walked to one such drawer and opened it about three feet, revealing a black body bag.
“He says it’s going to be unpleasant,” the priest explained.
Nico looked away as Tesla unzipped the bag, revealing the decapitated cadaver. What remained above the neck was a twisted, ravaged lower jawbone covered in jerky-like flesh.
Tesla spoke rapidly. He went on nonstop for a minute, gesticulating with his hands. At last Callahan said, “He thinks the people in the Range Rover might have just walked away. There’s no accounting for their departure in the hotel security cameras. But he said it looked like they tried to blow up their own ride before they went.”
“Tried?” Carver said. “Was it armored?”
The priest nodded. “He says the Range Rover had a serious anti-terror package. The driver’s side glass alone took 20 rounds without giving. They managed to set the gas tank on fire, and the outside was scorched, but the interior withstood the blast.”
“There can’t be many vehicles that tricked out in the world.”
“Tesla’s squad already looked up the plates. Stolen from a Fiat.”
The plates might have been untraceable, Carver thought, but surely there were only a handful of security companies in the world that could have outfitted the Range Rover to take more than 70 rounds of gunfire and also be resistant to self-sabotage.
They probably just changed vehicles, Carver thought. He was going to need to review the garage security footage for himself.
“Ask the detective if we can see their phones,” Carver said and then waited for the translation.
“He said you’re welcome to see them, but that the SIM cards had been removed by the time police arrived at the scene.”
SIM cards stolen from dead men? This was both strange and disappointing. Even if these men had used disposable handsets, the call logs could have exposed anyone they had communicated with recently. Carver could only conclude that whoever had kill these men wanted the data for the same purpose. Killing them wasn’t enough. They wanted their friends, too.
Meanwhile, Tesla was still talking. “They appeared to be firing MP5 submachine guns,” Callahan translated. “And they had plenty of time to shoot, apparently. They found 72 shell casings on the cement around them.”
By the time Callahan was finished translating for Carver, Tesla had already opened up a second drawer. He unzipped the body bag and turned the cadaver on its side. This one had a face, but was missing a foot. Carver crouched to see the man’s face. He looked no older than 25, with olive-tinted skin.
Tesla waved his hand, motioning Carver to the other side. As Carver came around, he pointed to a tattoo on the man’s back, just below the collar. It was a circular sun, with the block letters IHS in the center. A cross was above the abbreviation, with three nails below. Carver knew it well. It was the symbol of the Society of Jesus.
“Jesuits,” Tesla said in English, tapping the inked skin.
“Whoa!” Nico exclaimed. “These were some badass priests!”
“Not all Jesuits are priests,” Father Callahan cut in. “Some are lay brothers. And I’d venture to say that the presence of a tattoo is hardly proof that they were in the Society at all. Vandalization of the flesh is hardly standard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord. That’s from Leviticus. It wouldn’t be approved by Father General, I can tell you that much.”
Carver understood the reference. Father General was the leader of the Jesuits worldwide. It was a powerful position within the Roman Catholic Church, officially known by insiders as Superior General, and to some outsiders by the mildly derogatory term, Black pope. Like the pontiff, superiors general were generally elected for life, their reign typically ending only as they drew their last waking breath. Ignatius of Loyola had been the first leader of the Jesuits, in 1541.
“What were they wearing?” Carver said.
The answer came back quickly. “Track suits.”
Carver looked up at Tesla. “There was some mention of an octagon found on one of the bodies?”