“What is it?” Monk asked.
He closed his fingers over it and stood, pocketing it. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
He headed across the nave toward the sacristy, but he glanced back to the crypt. Seichan had known.
12:48 P.M.
RACHEL KEPT guard as Vigor helped the priest stand.
“They…they killed everyone,” the young man said. He needed Vigor’s arm to keep his feet. The man’s eyes avoided the bloody figure on the table. He covered his face with one hand and groaned. “Father Belcarro…”
“What happened?” Vigor asked.
“They came an hour ago. They had papal seals and papers, identification. But Father Belcarro had a faxed picture.” The priest’s eyes widened. “Of you. From the Vatican. Father Belcarro knew the lie immediately. But by that time, the monsters were already here. The phone lines were severed. We were locked inside, cut off. They wanted the combination to Father Belcarro’s safe.”
The man turned from the bloody form, guiltily. “They tortured him. He would not speak. But they did worse things then…so much worse. They made me watch.”
The young priest grabbed her uncle’s elbow. “I couldn’t let it continue. I…I told them.”
“And they took the bones from the safe?”
The priest nodded.
“Then all is lost,” Vigor said.
“Still, they wanted to be sure,” the priest continued, seemingly deaf, babbling on. He glanced to the tortured figure, knowing he had been destined to share the same fate. “Then you arrived. They stripped me, gagged me.”
Rachel pictured the fake priest who had worn the man’s cassock. The subterfuge must have been devised to lure Rachel and Kat off the street and into the church.
The priest stumbled to the body of Father Belcarro. He folded back the older man’s robe, covering the mutilated face as if hiding his own shame. Then the priest reached into a pocket of the bloody robe. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It seemed the elderly father had not shed all his vices…nor had the young priest.
Fingers shaking, the man peeled back the top and shook out the contents. Six cigarettes—and a broken stub of chalk. The man dropped the cigarettes and held out the ochre bit.
Vigor took it.
Not chalk. Bone.
“Father Belcarro feared sending away all the holy relics,” the young priest explained. “In case something happened. So he kept a bit aside. For the church.”
Rachel wondered how much of this subterfuge was motivated by a selfless desire to preserve the relics and how much was due to pride, and the memory of the last time the bones had been stolen from Milan. Carted off to Cologne. Much of the basilica’s fame was centered on those few bones. But either way, Father Belcarro had died a martyr. Tortured while hiding the holy relic on his own body.
A loud blast made them all jump.
The priest fell back to the floor.
But Rachel recognized the gauge of the weapon.
“Monk’s shotgun…” she said, eyes widening with hope.
2:04 P.M.
GRAY REACHED through the smoking hole in the sacristy door.
Monk shouldered the shotgun. “I’m really going to owe the Catholic Church a month’s salary for carpentry repair.”
Gray shoved aside the pole blocking the way and opened the door. After the shotgun blast, there was no further need for subterfuge. “Rachel! Vigor!” he called as he entered the rectory hall.
A scuffle sounded from down the hall. A door opened. Rachel stepped out, pistol in hand. “Over here!” she urged.
Uncle Vigor led a half-naked man out into the hallway. The man looked pale and haunted, but he seemed to gain strength from their presence.
Or maybe it was the sound of the approaching sirens.
“Father Justin Mennelli,” Vigor said in introduction.
They quickly compared notes.
“So we have one of the bones,” Gray said, surprised.
“I suggest we get the relic back to Rome as soon as possible,” Vigor said. “They don’t know we have it, and I want to be behind the Leonine Walls of the Vatican before they do.”
Rachel nodded. “Father Mennelli will let the authorities know what happened here. He’ll leave out the details of our presence—and of course, about the relic we have.”
“There’s an ETR train leaving for Rome in ten minutes.” Vigor checked his watch. “We can be in Rome by six o’clock.”
Gray nodded. The more under-the-radar they operated, the better. “Let’s go.”
They headed out. Father Mennelli led them to a side exit not far from where they had parked. Rachel climbed into the driver’s seat as usual. They sped off as sirens converged.
As Gray settled back, he fingered the Chinese coin in his pocket. He sensed he had missed something.
Something important.
But what?
3:39 P.M.
AN HOUR later, Rachel crossed from the bathroom to the first-class compartment in the ETR 500 train. Kat accompanied her. It was decided no one would leave the group by themselves. Rachel had wet her face, combed her hair, and brushed her teeth while Kat waited outside the door.
After the horrors in Milan, she had needed a personal moment in the cubicle. For a full minute, she had simply stared at herself in the mirror, teetering between fury and a need to cry. Neither won out, so she had washed her face.
It was all she could do.
But it did make her feel better, a private absolution.
As she strode down the hall, she barely felt the tremble of the tracks under her heels. The Elettro Treno Rapido was Italy’s newest and fastest train, connecting a corridor from Milan to Naples. It traveled at a blistering three hundred kilometers per hour.
“So, what’s the story on your commander?” Rachel asked Kat, taking advantage of the time alone with the woman. Also, it felt good to talk about a subject outside of murder and bones.
“What do you mean?” Kat did not even look over.
“Is he involved with anyone back home? A girlfriend maybe?”
This question earned a glance. “I don’t see how his personal life—”
“What about you and Monk?” Rachel said, cutting her off, realizing how her original question sounded. “With all your professions, do you have time for personal lives? What about the risks?”
Rachel was curious how these people balanced their regular lives with all the cloak-and-dagger. She had a hard enough time finding a man who could handle her position as a lieutenant in the Carabinieri Force.
Kat sighed. “It’s best not to get too involved,” she said. Her fingers had wandered to a tiny enameled frog pinned to her collar. Her voice grew stiffer, but it sounded more like bolstering than true strength. “You form friendships where you can, but you shouldn’t let it go any further. It’s easier that way.”