Why did they want Mary?
My daughter. The virgin. They know. It’s her that they want.
A boot struck the back of Ellis’ head. Someone was using her brain as a soccer ball. Roman candles showered her eyelids as the pain flowed through her skull and neck. A sick wetness oozed from her scalp.
She did not fully lose consciousness. The fading electrical shock seemed to have numbed her senses somewhat, but the texture of the rope fiber was unpleasant against the delicate skin of her wrists. A knot rose on the back of her head.
Blinding light suddenly filled the room. She squeezed her eyes shut and still saw nothing but white. A passage to the other side.
But something was burning. Her ears were filled with a screeching that all but drowned out Borst’s soft moans. Ellis flipped onto her side and saw her tormentor. The Beard. Hair and hood alight in flame, pawing at his flaming face.
Rome
With night fallen, Carver’s return walk along the Tiber River was a luxurious indulgence. The Tiber snaked directly through the heart of the city, running under one historic bridge after another. He followed it, peering down narrow streets, admiring the medieval architecture
Ellis still had not returned his call. Don’t think about it, he told himself. She’s fine. She can take care of herself.
As the city geared up for another frenetic evening, the quiet reflection of the moon against the gently flowing river was the perfect antidote to the chaos of the mission. Soon, Castel Sant'Angelo came into view. It had been there all along — perhaps two football fields from the palazzo where they stayed — and yet he found himself truly seeing it for the first time.
What a glorious visual disaster Castel Sant'Angelo was, especially in a city that valued symmetry and architectural integrity. He considered the dome of the Pantheon, masterfully engineered into a near-perfect sphere. And the elliptical balance that Bernini had achieved in designing St. Peter’s Square, complete with the Egyptian obelisk providing a hub for the four rows of Doric columns on its outer perimeter.
And yet here was Sant'Angelo, a monstrosity of ancient architecture, reimagined in multiple phases over nearly two thousand years, having slowly evolved from Hadrian’s tomb into a fortress that was the site of both battles and executions. Even now it remained linked from the Papal Apartments by an elevated passage where popes had sought refuge over the millennia. Sant'Angelo seemed to embody, more than any other structure, everything that Rome was to Carver.
He turned onto Via della Conciliazione, slowing his pace and checking both sides of the streets. The meeting with Callahan had raised his anxiety levels. During Operation Crossbow, the priest had been the perfect contact, having provided both the malware and the means to infiltrate Adrian Zhu’s network. But as much as Callahan’s information had proven that he was a valuable contact, Carver worried that the priest might alert Vatican Intelligence to his presence in the city.
Nothing seemed to be stirring, not even at the street’s lone cafe. The palazzo was up on the left. St Peter’s Cathedral glowed imposingly at the far end of the street, beyond St. Peter’s Square.
The American scanned the lobby before heading inside. Nothing was stirring. He stepped inside slowly as a group of drunken tourists emerged from Le Colonne. He followed them into the elevator and headed up to his floor.
The smell of eggs and coffee greeted Carver as he entered the suite. Clothed in a hotel bathrobe, Nico sat on a barstool with a plate full of food and his computer before him.
Carver lifted the top off of a second breakfast plate. He frowned at the sight of the sausage, eggs and coffee.
“Brinner is served,” Nico said.
“What happened to ‘When in Rome’? This is like an All-American So-and-So Slam at Denny’s.”
“Mmmm. Denny’s. Never thought I’d say this, but I’m homesick for American food.”
Carver played an imaginary tiny violin. “Any progress?”
“As a matter of fact,” Nico said, “I’m going to show you something. And afterwards, I’d like you to say, ‘Thank you, Nico. Great work.’”
“Never expect a ‘thank you.’ Life is less disappointing that way.”
Nico turned his laptop so that Carver could see it. The screen was a table of airlines and hotel names cross-indexed with locations and dates. “Ever hear of the Advocate Committee for Small Island Developing States? Or maybe the Investment Council for Landlocked Developing Countries?”
Carver shook his head. “Nope.”
“Neither has anyone else. An exact match for those names won’t even come up in a plain old web search. But both Senator Preston and Sir Gish traveled to properties where hotel meeting rooms were reserved in those names numerous times over the last five years.” He pointed to his grid. “Over those five years, the two men took a combined 68 trips outside their home countries per year on a combination of official and unofficial business. I was able to find evidence that they were in the same place, at the same time, at least 19 of those times.”
Carver sat down. “So what?”
“So…I’m not even sure that these committees really exist. I think they made them up just in case somebody started asking questions.”
“How’d you find this stuff? Did you break into their frequent flier accounts?”
“If only it was that easy. These guys were fairly well-heeled. They took a lot of private charters. So I had to mash up credit card purchase history with frequent flier accounts, hotel points accounts, hotel POS systems and, of course, their personal communications. Preston was clearly less careful with privacy than his British counterpart. He even sent emails to his wife a couple of times disclosing the actual location and the committee name.”
Carver grinned. “Not bad. I knew that trip to South Africa would pay off.”
Nico folded his arms across his chest. “That statement is entirely self-congratulatory.”
“It’s as close to a ‘thank you’ as you’re going to get right now. We have more work to do. I need to know who else attended those meetings. I need to know what they were working on.”
His phone rang. Speers’ face lit up on the Caller ID.
Carver answered. And he could tell by the darkness in Speers’ tone that he should sit down for whatever news was coming next.
Harborview Trauma Center
Seattle
Speers stood outside Ellis’ hospital room, watching through the glass as a physician bent over her bed, holding a tiny flashlight between his thumb and forefinger. He tilted it up, left, and then right, watching as Ellis’ pupils followed the light. He straightened up, smiled and listened as she spoke. He was Asian, about five foot nine, with a clean-shaven, kind face.
Ellis did not look nearly as shiny and new. Her entire body was bruised. Her arms and legs were nicked up, as if she had walked through a sandstorm. The back of her head was swollen and bandaged, having received a number of stitches. Her bottom lip was busted, and the expression on her face could only be described as bewilderment.
It was nearly noon. Speers had just arrived. When the call had come that Ellis was in a Seattle trauma center, he had been sure it was a mistake. He would have gladly wagered a month’s salary that Ellis and her sister were over at the Mayflower under the protection of Jack McClellan’s security detail.
Speers could not remember the last time he had traveled alone. He had not just one federal agency at his disposal, but all of those in the American intelligence community. He typically traveled with staffers that coordinated his meetings, accommodations and transportation. Nearly any of the DNI’s employees would take his call at any time, and do virtually anything he asked of them. But when it came to this case — which now counted victims on both American coasts as well as Europe — he could count the number of confidents with full operational clearance on one hand. His own deputy director, Claire Shipmont, had zero visibility into the operation. President Eva Hudson was keenly aware, but was being purposely kept ignorant of the details for her own protection. Arunus Roth, who at this moment was probably drinking his 12th Red Bull of the day in the McLean office. Blake Carver, who was still half a world away. And the Brits, who had still shared very little intelligence despite Carver and Ellis’ in-person visit to London.