The Celtic Conspiracy (10 page)

For the past fifteen years, she had been traveling all over the world, spending only a few days every few months in her little house in Boston, not far from where her parents lived. Otherwise she was in one hotel after another, in New York or London, Brussels or Geneva, The Hague or somewhere else in the world. After fifteen years, she was tired.

She was, of course, proud of the fact that she had had considerable influence on the definition and limits of national self-determination, not least after the disaster in the former Yugoslavia. Ronald’s vision, though, was for a redefinition of who would be recognized as a subject of international law. Individual people or the whole of humankind? If the latter, the inevitable result would be to lend credence to the claim of cultural heritage. If this view were accepted, the Vatican could give a papal kiss good-bye to its immunity in the arena of cultural assets. That was what Ronald thought, in any case, and he was desperately searching for a legal foothold to accomplish this. That’s why he needed her legal expertise. She just wasn’t sure she could continue to offer it.

Just then, her cell signaled an incoming text message:

We’d love to see you before your flight.

Love, Ronald.

Jennifer had to laugh out loud, despite herself. She sat down on her bed, fell back, and let herself relax. One day
wouldn’t make a difference. And anyhow, she would definitely have more fun with Ronald and his “posse” than sitting alone in a hotel room in Brussels.

* * *

Shane was still thinking about the scroll in the case when Ronald offered him a glass of Jameson.

“Oh, thanks. Tell me, what’s that parchment in the vitrine over there?”

“That? That’s the holy grail of the MacClary family. And it’s held up about as well as the holy grail too.” Ronald grinned. “My father found this parchment in a cave, sometime near the end of the Second World War, and I’ve been searching my whole life for some clue he might have left behind that would help me figure out where the trove was.”

“Why didn’t he tell you?”

“He tried to, on his deathbed, when I was six years old.”

Ronald sat down, thoughtfully swirling the whiskey in his glass as he looked around at the group.

Shane stood up and went over to look at the parchment, which had some barely legible Latin writing on it. “I was never good in Latin,” he said, attempting to read. “Constantine’s false testimony?”

“Not quite. Constantine’s
deadly
testimony.”

“Oh, I’m beginning to understand why you’re all so fixated on this period. What else does the parchment have to offer?”

The assembled group suddenly seemed ludicrous to him. An internationally recognized judge, a bookish linguist, and a healer with Druidic roots. All united in the desire to free Christians from a god whose origin was a lie and in the desire to do justice to the millions of people who understood, felt, and believed in the power of an original connection to the divine.

“This parchment?” Ronald said. “Unfortunately it has nothing else to offer anymore. The rest of the ink was destroyed by erosion. However, just the title gives you an idea of what must still be in the cave, wherever it is.”

Shane turned back toward MacClary. “Um, Ronald, your father was an archaeologist, wasn’t he?”

“Of course. And not just any archaeologist. He was extremely well known. Why do you ask?”

“Well, if he didn’t leave any clues as to the original site of the trove, as you say, couldn’t that also mean that the clue is just hidden or not visible?”

“I’ve of course thought of that, Adam. I’ve searched through every book in this library. Nothing. No secret note, no code, nothing.”

“What’s the scroll sitting on?”

“That’s just normal handmade paper.”

“And how long has it been there?”

“Since the scroll was packed up in the helium vacuum. I never dared release the vacuum. The scroll must have been on top of the paper before that as well.”

“And you investigated the paper as well?”

Ronald gave him a penetrating look and stood up slowly. “Well, Adam, you do know how to get my blood pumped up. If I open the vitrine now, the scroll is as good as lost.” The man’s expression made it clear to everyone what he was going to do. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life staring at a few faded letters?” he said, as though no one else was in the room. “Or do you bet everything on the slightest chance of winning the grand prize?”

Ronald breathed deeply, and then a smile lit up his face, making it seem much younger. “OK, then. Ryan, go into my darkroom. I need ammonia and water, cotton, and lemons. I’ll get a hairdryer. It looks like we’ll have to pay Ms. Copendale a late visit in the kitchen.”

* * *

“Dear Ruth, excuse me for bothering you,” Ronald said softly to the elderly woman putting the last plates in the cupboards of the enormous kitchen, “but we want to do a little research. You can retire for the night.”

Ms. Copendale gave the men a sympathetic smile and then clapped her hands in horror when she saw that Ryan was carrying the vitrine.

“Oh my God, Ronnie! I mean, Ronald, you’re not going to...”

“Trust me, Ruth, I know what I’m doing. Or, let’s say our young friend here knows what
he
is doing. At least, I hope so, anyhow.”

MacClary’s attempt to calm the old woman down fizzled a bit.

“Oh, absolutely, he knows,” said Ryan, smiling benignly and placing the vitrine on the kitchen table. Before anyone started to have doubts about what they were about to do, Ronald let the protective helium gas escape from the container.

“Four people, more than two hundred years old combined, and still acting like children,” commented Ms. Copendale dryly, shaking her head as she left the kitchen to go to bed.

Ryan took charge. “Adam, put half of the fluid in a pot and then warm it up over the lowest possible flame. But be careful. It’s ammonia. We only need the steam, no explosion.”

Carefully he pulled the handmade paper out from under the scroll, which lay, as Ronald had feared, crumbled in pieces. Only the name Constantine held on, like a thousand-year-old ghost left behind.

“Knowing my father, he probably wouldn’t have used a normal invisible ink, if he used any at all. But there weren’t a lot of options in his day. That’s why I’m betting on copper sulfate. If I’m right, we’re in luck. If I’m wrong, then we have a long night in front of us.”

With gloves and tweezers, Ryan carried the paper to the stove and held it over the pot, from which the biting steam of the ammonia was slowly rising. After Ryan had held the page over the steam for a few seconds, Ronald’s jaw dropped.

As if from nothing, the first numbers started to emerge in a brownish color. First a 46, then 43, then 29, and an N, until everything, at last, was visible.

46 43 29 N, 14 25 47 E – 150 m NW from Virunum down on the slope

With love, Sean

Ronald MacClary stood in the kitchen of his ancestors, his shirtsleeves pushed up, with a smile on his face that hinted at the young boy he had once been. “So, Adam, normally I don’t take stock in Ryan’s claims about the spiritual visionary power of the Druids, but in this case I can only bow down in awe. You’ve all just taken the greatest burden from the shoulders of an old man whose life was otherwise full.”

Deborah had already opened up her laptop and entered in the coordinates. “There it is, the Magdalensberg in Austria. Parts of the Eighth British Army Division were posted there for the occupation of Austria after the unit had already been dissolved.”

MacClary got up and looked at Ryan in relief. He knew that the moment had come, unexpectedly, a moment he had given up hoping for, a moment he had waited for almost his whole life. Yet his exultation was tempered by the knowledge that he couldn’t take part in this expedition. His age, for one thing, would make it difficult, and his position, for another, made it impossible. He had
known for years that Ryan would have to represent him. Ryan was the only one who commanded the necessary mental abilities, and he trusted him implicitly.

“Now, gentlemen, I think it’s time to solve old puzzles and discover the unexpected,” Ronald said with a catch in his throat. “In the moment of triumph, for which I have you to thank, Adam, it would be wrong not to mention the sadness I feel. You’ll have to go without me. But as you know, Ryan, I’ve been prepared for this for some time.”

With much ceremony and somewhat calculated pathos, MacClary took an envelope out of a small drawer under the vitrine and handed it to Ryan.

“I’ve spent quite a lot of time with you two over the last several years, preparing you for this unlikely event. You’ve learned so much, and I know I can trust you without hesitation with my father’s legacy. In this envelope you’ll find everything you need to rescue some of the artifacts, and I stress, only those that are of interest to us.”

The solemn moment seemed to go right over Deborah’s head. Like an excited kid, she was rocking back and forth on her chair and typing away on her laptop. “Along with a little memento for each of us, right? Just for private use...”

“Deborah! I’ve given Ryan explicit instructions to cut off a finger for every attempt!” Ronald half-joked. “You’ll take only those pieces that are important to us and make sure that they disappear. Everything else—and I mean everything—we’ll hand over to other professionals afterwards.”

* * *

George Cassidy shifted nervously back and forth on his small seat in the van. He could hardly believe what he had just recorded. He’d been trying to reach Salvoni for several minutes now, but with no success.

“Damn it, we should’ve put more in the kitchen,” he said to Jean Tamber, who was frantically busy at the computer. This wasn’t the first questionable project they’d worked on together over the years. “How long is it going to take to improve the sound quality?”

“At least a couple of hours. I have to let the individual voice recognition programs run on it.”

“Keep working. We need this as fast as possible.”

The Magdalensberg in Austria. Quick research had shown Cassidy that, since 1948, a settlement from the late Celtic and early Roman period had been under excavation on the south-facing slope. It was here that the Celtic kingdom of Noricum had been conquered and one of the most important Roman trading centers for iron had been created. The Celts had retaken Roman territory repeatedly, and the Druids had returned to places they had lost at risk to their own lives simply because they believed in the power of these places, which the Romans had desecrated and built over. The mountain itself was primarily composed of volcanic rock. The basalt had numerous dislocations that could be remarkably dry for such a damp climate, making it possible to store artifacts. In all, this
was a manageable site for an operation. Cassidy would be able to handle this with only a few men.

Finally, Salvoni called.

“Padre, it looks like we have a bit of work ahead of us. Padre Morati has apparently been right all these years.”

“What do you mean?”

“They found some coordinates near the parchment scroll. Apparently they correspond to where the trove was found.”

“Do you have the coordinates?”

“Wait, that isn’t all. They’re planning an expedition. The judge has a few friends who are preparing everything as we speak. Someone in Austria is going to help them with the equipment. They just have to catch the next plane. That means we don’t have much time. And to answer your question, no, we don’t have all the coordinates, but we know that it’s somewhere near the Magdalensberg in Kärnten, not far from the Italian border...Padre, are you still there?”

* * *

Salvoni was standing at the window, not even noticing the sunlight on the eternal city. His hand, still holding the telephone, had dropped to his side. His mind was racing. Cassidy needed an answer quickly, but the situation was more complicated than the agent could possibly suspect. If Salvoni followed official channels and charged the judge with excavating an archaeological site on his own,
the case would then be made public and Salvoni would be cut off from any information about the site. In addition, it would very quickly come out that his people had been spying on an American judge in his own house, and that would set the Americans against the Vatican. Not good. Official channels were, as usual, a very bad idea.

There was only one real possibility. He had to be at the site with his people before the judge’s group got there. To do that, he not only needed the exact coordinates but also the help of the Austrians. Who could he tap in their secret service?

He put the phone back up to his ear. “OK, Cassidy. You stay with MacClary’s friends and follow them to Austria. We have everything we need from MacClary. Your job is done there. You can break it off.”

“Understood, Padre, but how should we handle things in Austria? I mean—”

“I’ll get back in touch with you when I’ve arranged everything. In the meantime, I expect you to exercise the utmost caution. I cannot tolerate any incidents now, especially when we don’t know if the trove will be of any value to us, or if it even poses a threat.”

“Of course, Padre, you can depend on me.”