The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (55 page)

But he didn’t want their first time to be like this. Sweaty and rushed.

“Are you sure you are ready?” he asked into her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes unfocused and misty. “Yes.”

Shifting his weight, his dog tags fell between them, swaying, as they were only moments from consummating what had begun in the Ecuadorian rain forest when she cried out. “Oh, my God!”

Confused, Brandt hesitated. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“No, I know where he is…” Rebecca’s gaze suddenly cleared, her voice serious. “I know where Christ is buried.”

* * *

Tok’s eyes narrowed as he watched the couple through the night scope. Her erect nipples dark against her fair breasts. He had known Dr. Monroe worked best under extreme adrenaline drive, but obviously there was more than one way to induce that state. She pushed the sergeant away, scrambling to grab her new laptop.

“She knows,” he said to Petir, who worked on his own computer, uploading the photos they had taken of the false burial site.

His mentor stopped typing. “Where?”

Tok was trying to discern such knowledge, but Brandt had walked over, and his broad back blocked his view. The sergeant’s obvious excitement waning rapidly.

He had feared he would be subjected to their mating ritual all evening, but the doctor’s revelation had saved him in more ways than just this. Tok had known Rebecca would divine their savior’s resting place.

After the attack on their base, Tok knew that he had been left with the weaker of the pair. Lochum had arrogance and the bluster to match it, but his mind was slow to grasp subtlety. The professor had over two hours in that chamber, yet had advanced their knowledge no further. Even when they had imparted to Lochum the linchpin of the puzzle, their most tightly held secret, had told him the all, the professor made no progress.

They had not expected the soldiers to have made such good time from Istanbul, else they would have retreated sooner. Once Rebecca and Brandt had stumbled upon Lochum, Tok had no other choice but to end the professor’s journey. A single word more, and he would have let loose a secret held by blood and sinew.

A stirring near his shoulder signaled Petir’s approach. His mentor put a set of binoculars to his eyes. “We will need to follow them, then.”

Tok lowered his scope. The interrupted lovers were already getting dressed.

At least their dire risk of staying in Rome had yielded dividends. As a matter of course, Tok would not be surprised if an assault team didn’t burst through their door at any moment. Petir and he were as great of fugitives from the Knot as Monroe and Brandt. Perhaps even more so. Between himself and his mentor they held the width and breadth of the organization.

“Master, you are bleeding again,” Petir noted, guiding Tok down into a chair. “Let me change your bandages.”

The pain in his wrists and ankles had become his welcome consort. Feeling the same ache as his savior had focused his mind in a way that Tok had never experienced. He knew Petir feared that his student’s decisions were influenced by the hydrocodone, but Tok knew differently. They could not assume the man that had suffered for them all was lost to history.

Tok’s soul spoke of a different ending to this tale.

His mentor went to inject him with more painkillers, but Tok grabbed Petir’s wrist. “No more.”

“You need not think it a show of weakness, Master.”

Releasing the old man’s hand, Tok smiled. “I do not, Petir. But the closer I grow to him, the closer I feel to him.”

Petir went back to packing their meager supplies. No matter what transpired in the next few hours, they would never return to this room.

They would find His bones and return them to the Knot or sacrifice themselves trying.

CHAPTER 34

══════════════════

Rome, Italy

Rebecca blew to cool her cappuccino as Brandt sat down with a huge mug of black coffee. Davidson and Lopez each had a caramel chocolate whipped cream drink, getting the benefit of both a caffeine and a sugar buzz.

Once settled, all eyes turned to her.

Back at the hotel room, Rebecca had quickly convinced the sergeant that she wasn’t trying to use some kind of “not tonight honey, I have to find Christ’s body” excuse to interrupt their first encounter, but she didn’t have enough time to elaborate.

So here they sat at the
I Dolce di Checco
, the Italian equivalent of Starbucks, waiting for her to explain.

Indicating her cup, Rebecca started, “You see, it relates to this drink.”

“You deflated Brandt over a cup of Joe?” Lopez snorted, finding far more amusement in the idea then he had any right to. “Not that I didn’t want to keep kicking Davidson’s ass at Grand Theft Auto all night.”

“Hey!” the private exclaimed. “Just because I’m a gentleman and won’t kill prostitutes for bonus points—”

“Makes you a loser!”

Clearly the caffeine was already having its effect.

Rebecca jumped into the argument before they could really get going. “Actually each of you lent a clue, it just took seeing these…” She leaned over to the sergeant, so close that their lips nearly touched, but instead slowly pulled his dog tags out from under his shirt. “That the tumblers clicked into place…”

Untangling the St. Francis of Assisi medal from the rest, she displayed it to the men.

The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.”

Rebecca smiled. His Catholicism came in handy sometimes.

“Besides lending the color of their famous robes to the drink before us, they’ve also been a very controversial order that requires their members to take vows of poverty and chastity, teach to the poor and dejected, and never touch money. Sound like anyone we know?”

“Christ?” Davidson offered.

Brandt nodded. “Hey, but I think Rebecca’s also thinking of Padro Pio. The recently sainted Capuchin monk who displayed stigmata, correct?”

“To some degree, but I was thinking more local than even that.” She turned to Lopez. “This is where you contributed,” Rebecca said as she laid out the brochure, ‘Rome – the Beautiful, the Wonderful, and the Truly Weird.’”

“That’s my favorite!” Lopez added, not surprising anyone.

Rebecca unfolded the pamphlet and pointed to the entry describing the Crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione.

“The church of the Virgin Mary,” Brandt translated. “You think Jesus is there?”

“Wait a minute. Aren’t there like a thousand and one Virgin Mary churches? I’ve seen more Santa Marias here than I have in my entire life,” Davidson pointed out quite accurately.

Rebecca nodded. “Yes, but how many others have a crypt filled with over four thousand monks’ bones?” Once the men were duly impressed, she continued, “When asked why they wished their remains mummified and interred in the chapel, they said that they wished to be close to their Lord. What if they weren’t talking figuratively, but literally?”

Brandt took a hit off his coffee before he asked, “How do you think they’re related to the Knot?”

Rebecca brought out a scrap of paper with the list of thirty. “These are the original conspirators. They united in purpose to hide Christ, but each member had their own private agenda and followers that down through history had protected that one set of bones.”

“Kind of like terrorist cells? They have a common dominator, but don’t cross associate?” Davidson asked.

“Right again. On all the other bones there has been a mention of a man only described as “the one without contempt.” The man who stole the bones out from under Mary and the Knot’s noses, and I believe went so far as to bald-face lie to them where he hid Jesus’ remains.”

“So Pinocchio had his own sect?” Lopez asked after licking whipped cream from his finger.

Rebecca nodded vigorously. “Yes, and I believe they were entrusted with the true resting place of Christ.”

The sergeant seemed unconvinced as he leaned back in his chair. “And you these monks are members of this cult?”

“No, but I believe St. Francis of Assisi was.”

* * *

Brandt bolted upright in his seat. Rebecca had withheld this little detail back at the hotel room, probably because she knew he never would’ve taken a step out the door after an accusation like that. St. Francis was one of the most revered saints. Entire Orders of the Catholic Church were founded by a man esteemed by peasants and popes alike.

“I’d suggest you start explaining.”

Rebecca must have sensed the change in his mood as she hurried on. “Remember, I’m not talking about him being a member of the Knot. He would be a descendant of someone protecting the carrier of the bones. Protecting Christ.”

His mood was not improved by her intellectual caveat. “You still need to make your point.”

“How much do you know about St. Francis?” she asked, cocking her head, almost challenging him. “Do you know his mother’s maiden name?”

“Lady Pica Bourlemont.”

In reply, Rebecca pointed to her list of the Knot and their sects. Under the list of the man without contempt was a member named Perl the Menter. “Do you know what that translates to in fifteenth-century Russian?”

“Bourlemont,” Davidson whispered.

“And if you know about his life, Francis was a spoiled brat, running with the hip crowd until something happened to bring him to his knees.”

Brandt shook his head. He knew the saint’s life inside and out. “His calling came after two consecutive illnesses.”

“Or his mother imparting her secret to him.”

Red in the cheek and not the way he was earlier in the evening, Brandt pushed the roster back at her. “It’s still a stretch.”

* * *

“Is it? Is it really?” she asked. “Over the centuries, the Franciscans drifted away from their founder’s values until the Capuchins rededicated themselves to Assisi’s vision, building this church, then their crypt.”

“Why would anyone call attention to themselves like that?”

But Rebecca looked to Davidson. “This is where you helped.”

“I did?” the private asked, seeming proudly confused.

“When you dressed us up as a Goth band. You taught me how you can hide something in plain sight.”

The table descended into silence as Brandt appraised Rebecca. She sat unflinching as his gaze searched her features. She was sure. More sure than she had been about the Vatican.

She listed off her points on her fingers. “The man without contempt found contempt and lied to the Knot, but he wasn’t stupid and for the same reasons Mary wanted to use Rome, he did as well. A member of his sect, Perl the Menter was an ancestor of St. Francis who embraced a much more orthodox view of Christianity. Later devote members of his order had themselves mummified and displayed so they might be closer to their Lord.”

Rebecca held Brandt’s eyes. “I’m right. I know I am.”

There was a moment when she thought the sergeant didn’t believe her, then he took the last swig of his black coffee and rose. “All right, then. Where’s this crypt?”

Smiling, Rebecca pointed through the café’s window to across the street. “Underneath that church.”

* * *

After cursing, Brandt whispered an apology to God as he picked the lock on the crypt’s gate. At least he had found something worse than wearing a priest’s collar. Breaking into a church’s crypt with the intent of digging through monks’ bones had to be a whole category of sin unto itself.

“You sure you don’t want to take Lopez up on his offer?” Rebecca asked from behind him.

“I’ve got it,” he whispered harshly. The corporal was an alley away in an Alfa Romeo, gassed and ready to go. Davidson had taken off, perching himself somewhere nearby with a direct view of the front door and the corporal’s get away car. The men had their back.

“I think Lopez would have been faster,” Rebecca added.

With a click of the old iron lock releasing, Brandt didn’t bother refuting her words. Checking his weapons one last time, he made sure he was ready if the Knot showed up. Tok would not escape his sights again.

But before they went in, he turned to her. “The same goes here as for the Vatican. These monks are innocent.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Brandt. We had no idea how many of them know what they hold. The Knot’s pretty militarized. Nothing says the individual sects aren’t as well.”

He escorted her inside the stairwell. “Tell you what? A crazed monk comes at me with a machete, and I’ll think about shooting him.”

“What about if it’s just a small knife or switchblade?”

Brandt chuckled, then realized she was serious. “I’ll wing him.”

Distracted, Rebecca looked down the dark passageway. Brandt had seen that look in her eye before. The first time back in the jungles of South America. The next time when she left him in Paris. The third in the Hagia Sophia when she realized the tomb was beneath the Blue Mosque. And now.

Brandt turned sideways to avoid his shoulders scraping against the white stucco walls of the staircase. The streetlight was waning, but he dared not turn on his flashlight yet. They needed to be indoors before he risked giving away their position.

At the landing, they found a door, aged with cracked paint and a simple wooden crucifix. A small plaque announced the visiting hours, long since past. He got out his pick, but Rebecca twisted the knob.

It opened.

“They’ve taken a vow of poverty. They’re not expecting burglars.”

Still the ease of entry gave him pause. Now even he was beginning to believe this was the resting place of Christ. For no other reason than the pit in his stomach began churning again.

CHAPTER 35

══════════════════

Carpuchin Church

Rebecca shut her eyes as Brandt turned on his flashlight. Letting her eyes get accustomed to the increased illumination, she opened her lids. The simple, short entryway emptied into a long hallway. An arch above the hall was adorned with a beautiful scroll pattern that took on a life of its own. It was both delicate in its detail and bold in its scale.

At least it seemed beautiful until she realized the upward stroke was a rib. A human rib, and the dainty rosettes surrounding it were cervical vertebra. Even after everything she had seen, the sight soured her stomach. Who did this? Who took bodies apart, bone by bone, and rearranged them into decorations?