‘I am,’ Lourds said, ‘unless John of Patmos intended to have a final joke at the expense of this world.’ He put the ring carefully in a protective pouch inside his backpack. Then he took the rod from the Medusa head. Another series of grinding noises took place in the Medusa head as it once more turned upside down and locked into place beneath the stone column above it.
‘Do you think Constantine knew about the Medusa’s head?’ Olympia asked.
‘I do,’ Lourds answered. ‘His hand has been in everything we’ve touched so far.’
‘He kept his secrets very well.’
Lourds silently agreed. Then he shouldered his backpack and headed out.
‘Getting across the borders while we’re being hunted isn’t going to be easy,’ Joachim said.
‘Really?’ Lourds acted surprised. ‘Then isn’t it lucky that we have a professional smuggler with a network of travel coordinators for contraband along with us?’
Cleena didn’t turn round and didn’t say anything, but Lourds could tell she was smiling.
Olympia scowled. ‘Don’t act like you planned this, Thomas,’ she said quietly. ‘I know very well why you allowed that young woman to come with us.’
‘Well, she is quite handy with weapons.’
Olympia said something completely unladylike.
25
Arch of the Four Winds
Villa Doria Pamphili
Rome, Italy
3 April 2010
‘Thomas! Over here!’
Feeling beat up from the last few days of travel and all the stress he’d been under since they’d left Istanbul, Lourds didn’t see his old friend and mentor for a moment. He stopped and stood still, looking for any unfriendly movement around him.
‘You’re clear, Professor.’ Cleena’s voice echoed in Lourds’ ear canal.
Although he’d worn the earwig for the last week or so, he still wasn’t used to the device or the need for it.
Father Gabriel Madeiro sat on a bench in the shade of a copse of trees. He was a short man, but filled with boundless energy. He was almost as wide as he was tall and his hair and beard had gone snow white so that they stood out against his dark skin. He closed the fat book he was reading and used a thick forefinger to mark his place. Lourds knew without seeing the cover that it would be a thriller. Father Gabriel had introduced Lourds to James Bond and Jason Bourne at the same time he was instructing him in the intricacies of Latin. It had been Father Gabriel’s love of language, of old, dead books as well as potboilers, that had ignited the same passion within Lourds.
When he got close enough, Father Gabriel grabbed Lourds in a powerful bear hug for a moment and lifted him clear off his feet. In his sixties, Father Gabriel remained a powerful man.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ Father Gabriel said when he released Lourds. ‘I miss having you underfoot.’
‘Hopefully these days I wouldn’t be underfoot so much,’ Lourds said.
‘I don’t think you would.’ Father Gabriel waved Lourds to the bench. ‘You’re having quite the career these days. Atlantis?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Now that must have been exciting.’
‘It was.’
‘I read your book. Very enjoyable.’
‘I’m glad you thought so. I would have much rather told you the story in person.’
‘I would have much rather heard it in person.’ Father Gabriel lifted his shoulders and let them drop. ‘Unfortunately, I was doing some work in Rio de Janeiro.’
‘And avoiding the winter, as I recall.’ Lourds smiled, and for a moment the visit almost seemed casual. Except that he had the four rings he’d collected from Cordoba, outside Moscow, Jerusalem and Istanbul.
‘I missed winter, but not too terribly much.’ Father Gabriel’s dark eyes regarded Lourds speculatively. ‘I wouldn’t have guessed you would turn out to be a criminal, though. I thought I’d mentored you better than that.’
‘A criminal?’ That surprised Lourds.
Father Gabriel nodded. ‘The word I have is that you absconded from Istanbul with some very important religious artefacts.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Not for a minute.’
Lourds grinned. ‘Well, actually, that part is true.’
‘Really?’ Father Gabriel gave him a look of mock shock.
‘I seem to recall a certain Roman Catholic priest-’
‘Who shall remain nameless.’
‘Who might prefer to remain nameless,’ Lourds went on, ‘who wasn’t above a bit of skulduggery now and again.’
‘Perhaps a toe over the line here and there.’ Father Gabriel grinned in delight.
‘You shouldn’t have taken me along. You corrupted me.’
‘I didn’t corrupt you. You were sixteen-’
‘I was twelve,’ Lourds objected.
‘And your babysitter’
‘Au pair.’
‘Had already corrupted you.’ Father Gabriel tugged at his beard. ‘Or perhaps you corrupted her. I forget how that went exactly.’
‘It was mutual corruption,’ Lourds said. ‘She was experienced, but I was better read.’
‘Another fault of mine, I suppose.’
‘You’re the one that left those trashy spy novels lying around.’
Father Gabriel grinned. ‘So I did.’
Lourds was silent for a moment. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I know,’ the old man said solemnly. ‘I’ve missed you too. The years grow shorter…’
‘And they move ever faster,’ Lourds finished. ‘I think I’m finally beginning to understand what you were talking about.’
‘Good. My efforts weren’t wasted after all. I’m relieved.’ Father Gabriel focused on Lourds. ‘How much trouble are you in?’
‘A stone’s throw away from the yawning mouth of hell.’
Father Gabriel rubbed his hands together. ‘It’s been a long time since I could make any such claim. Tell me about it.’
Seated there in the shade, with the whisper of the wind round them, knowing that Cleena MacKenna guarded him with her pistol only a short distance away and that her friend had a spy satellite watching over them, Lourds did. He told Father Gabriel about the rapid trip to Russia where the statue of the Virgin Mary wept, and how they’d found the second golden ring within one of the foundations of the church that Patriarch Nikon had purposefully placed there when he built the church. He told his friend of the journey to Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where they’d discovered the third ring inside one of the walls near the ladder that no one had moved on the second storey for over a hundred years. That ladder had marked the spot where the True Cross’s shadow had fallen at the time of the Crucifixion. And finally, Lourds told Father Gabriel of the pool at the Grand Mosque of Cordoba and how the waters had turned red as blood only a few days before their arrival.
When he finished, Lourds sat back and waited to see what Father Gabriel’s reaction would be.
‘You think the Vice-President of the United States is Lucifer?’
Lourds hated the way that sounded when said naked like that. ‘It’s not just me,’ he answered defensively. ‘Several other people think that too.’
‘Tell me, Professor, what do you think your colleagues at Harvard would think if you told them this?’
‘Honestly, I shudder to think. My parking privileges would probably be revoked.’
‘You realize they’d rather think you were a thief than a wild-eyed madman. Being a thief has a certain sexy cache.’
‘Do I look like a wild-eyed madman to you?’
‘No, you don’t. You look incredibly tired is how you look.’
‘I feel incredibly tired. These past few days, the last three weeks, have been a blur.’
‘And yet you found Lucifer.’
‘Truth be told,’ Lourds said, ‘I wasn’t looking, and apparently it isn’t that hard.’
‘Because he was looking for you.’
A cold wind blew down the back of Lourds’ shirt. ‘Not,’ he said, ‘a good thought.’
Father Gabriel pulled at his beard. ‘The Vice-President of the United States.’