The Illumination (18 page)

The Temple Mount.
He, Ken Mundy, bastard son of a rapist, had come far indeed. Soon he would witness history from a front-row seat alongside heads of state and world leaders.

Even better: Once the Light was in his hands and the Temple was rebuilt, he himself would usher in the final chapter of the history of the world.

 

 

 

The next thing Natalie knew, a church bell was pealing and pale daylight was slanting behind the drapes. She pushed herself up and peered at the bedside clock: 5:00
A.M
.

Her skin felt clammy and gritty, and her mouth tasted like cotton. She remembered that she hadn't even brushed her teeth last night. Now she couldn't stand the film on them. Stumbling out of bed, she pulled her newly acquired toothbrush from her shoulder bag and crept toward the bathroom. Her foil packets of toothpaste were long gone, but D'Amato must have some Crest in his toiletry bag.

She glanced over at him, still asleep, hunched on his side beneath the twisted covers, dark stubble across his jawline.

For an old hotel, it had a decent shower. The warm water pulsed over her in calming waves. But Natalie didn't feel calm. She was impatient to get moving.

She stepped out, towel-dried her hair, and dressed quickly in the clothes she'd been wearing for two days. Then she reached for D'Amato's toiletry bag, which was hanging on the back of the door. She peered past the straight-edged razor and spotted the tube of Crest alongside a travel-sized can of shaving cream. She also spotted something else. Something that made her heart stand still.

A packet of passports. Rubber-banded together, tucked to
the side, jacketed in navy blue, maroon, and dark green. She pulled them out, slipped off the rubber band, and flipped them open, one after the other. D'Amato's face stared up from each one, but each one showed a different name.

Giorgio Antonelli.

Clifford Black.

Dmitri Cassavetes.

She blinked through the steam of the bathroom, trying to make sense of the documents in her hand.

Why is D'Amato traveling with false IDs? What the hell is he up to?

She pushed her damp hair from her eyes and tried to think. Confused, she restacked the passports in the same order and slid the rubber band back into place. All she knew right now was that she wasn't ready to let on that she'd discovered these.

She squeezed a tiny blob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, then stuffed everything back in his bag exactly as she'd found it and hung it back on the door.

Uneasily, she scrubbed her teeth, then swallowed the toothpaste so he wouldn't hear her spit it out if he was awake, wouldn't wonder if she'd borrowed it from his bag.

Get hold of yourself. Act normally. All you have to do right now is get back into bed and pretend to sleep. You don't want to call his bluff now—when you don't know what he's up to. Just play along for the next few hours.

She heard a rustling sound, and her hand froze on the doorknob.

He's awake.

She took a couple of breaths and opened the door. She eased out, expecting to find him waiting for the bathroom, but D'Amato was still across the room in his bed, exactly as she'd left him. Natalie exhaled a small breath and slipped back to her bed, then reached an arm down silently to the floor, checking inside her shoulder bag. The pendant was still there in its pouch.

She slid beneath the covers, and it seemed an eternity until she heard the bedsprings shift beneath D'Amato's weight. She feigned sleep and waited to see what he'd do.

She heard him pad across the polished wood floor and pause
beside her bed and somehow controlled the urge to open her eyes, the same way she controlled her breathing to convince him she was still lost in sleep.

When the bathroom door clicked shut behind him, she opened her eyes. It took him only fifteen minutes to shave, shower, and dress. Again she feigned sleep, not ready to talk to him, not ready to pretend she didn't know he was keeping something from her.

She rehearsed what she'd say, how she'd behave once he woke her. But he didn't wake her. The next thing she heard was the door to their room clicking closed behind him.

He was gone.

Natalie waited thirty seconds, then threw off her covers, sprang out of bed, and looked around. D'Amato's backpack was gone. So was his toiletry bag.

She grabbed her shoulder bag and raced for the stairs.

 

Barnabas lumbered toward the Basilica of Saint Peter, scanning a guidebook to Rome. Until the Sentinel gave him more information, he'd scope out the crowds of tourists converging on the Vatican and pray he got lucky. It seemed to him there would be no better place for Landau to hide the Light than in the impenetrable Vatican City.

Until he heard otherwise, he would follow the Sentinel's instructions and keep trolling the most traveled streets and ruins, until the Lord granted him the knowledge of where she and her companion were. Or until the Sentinel finally figured it out. In either case, he was ready.

Sooner or later he would spot her—and the washed-up journalist helping her.

His second meeting with Landau would be far more productive than his first.

 

 

 

D'Amato briefly used his cell phone in the hotel lobby. The call lasted far less than the three-minute window needed for anyone to trace it. He stepped outside and hailed a cab, then gave the driver an address near the Piazza Navona.

With any luck he'd be back before Natalie even noticed he was gone.

Peter Driscoll sat reading a newspaper just inside the door of the small café where they'd arranged to meet. His long legs were tucked beneath the table so as not to trip any of the customers flowing to and from the register. He appeared to be following the text intently, but D'Amato knew better.

Driscoll had packed on a few pounds since the last time they'd met, D'Amato noticed. But with his height, he could handle it. His longish sandy hair was now flecked with gray, and he sported a short goatee, but D'Amato had no difficulty recognizing him. His face was still ordinary enough that he could have been anybody—and any age from thirty-five to fifty, any national origin from Australian to American to Swedish. He wasn't memorable, which made him well suited for what he did.

Driscoll had bought them both a brioche and a cappuccino, but waited until he spotted D'Amato before he rose to join the throng at the counter and claim them from the harried clerk.

They took seats outside at a small, cloth-covered table offering a view of the most famous fountain in the piazza, Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi—the Four Rivers. Pigeons waddled everywhere, pecking and flapping through the large square, but few people were out this early to feed them. The crowds would swarm the square later—now there were only the usual pensioners sunning themselves on stone benches, and passersby rushing, intent on reaching their favorite café for a hasty breakfast before work.

Through the window of the
farmacia
across the street, Natalie watched the two men talking across the table. Catching a cab had been easier than she'd expected as she'd watched D'Amato's taxi speed away from the hotel. But following him had been an unsettling experience, especially since she knew how observant he was. She'd been worried he'd spot her taxi and had let her driver continue on for another block, once D'Amato alighted, so she could double back on foot.

Now she studied him. He'd altered his appearance: a baseball cap, visor pulled low; aviator glasses that seemed to change the shape of his face.

She wished she could hear what they were saying over their coffees and pastries, but she didn't dare try to move any closer. She knew he'd be watching his surroundings. What she didn't know was who was with him and what was on their agenda.

“Scusi.”
An elderly woman in a fashionable black dress reached past her to pluck a tube of insect-bite ointment from a glass shelf.

Natalie glanced her way for a moment, and when she looked back toward the café, D'Amato and his companion were walking away together.

Swearing under her breath, she edged out of the
farmacia
and craned her neck as they turned a corner. She hurried forward, keeping close to the fronts of the buildings.

She trailed them for three blocks, hanging back, busying herself with shop windows and an aimless demeanor. After an additional block they entered what looked to her like an old brick apartment building.
Now what do I do?

Five minutes later he exited the building alone and headed
back the way they'd just come. Anger and curiosity propelled her after him. She crossed the street a dozen yards back, then quickened her pace as he disappeared around a corner.

 

Impatience was gnawing through Hasan Sabouri like a drill bit through a vault. His phone was already pressed against his ear as his plane taxied toward the gate at Fiumicino.

“Tell me how things stand.”

“Our friends are in Trastevere. Guests of the Hotel Marcello di Montagna. They went straight to the British School in Rome from the airport last night.”

“And?” Hasan's eyes narrowed in concentration, as all around him people began unbuckling their seatbelts and the plane came to a stop.

“They stayed inside for more than two hours, enough time for me to secure the tracker under their rental car.”

Hasan unbuckled his own seatbelt, ignoring the passengers getting to their feet around him.

“And today?”

“The car is still parked near the hotel. I'm only a block away.”

“How do you know they have not left on foot?”

Silence.

Hasan felt anger coil through him, and he suppressed his urge to shout into the phone. How was it he'd had to end up relying on this fool? But for the next hour or two, Siddiq Aziz was all he had. Almost everyone else was already in Jerusalem. Fortunately, backup from Naples was en route.

His lips twisted with contempt as he pictured Aziz with his international finance degree, his diamond cuff lnks and buffed nails. Aziz had spent too much time in the West—he had never been a foot soldier. He was a decent marksman, but he didn't like to get his hands dirty. He preferred sitting in his marble office and moving money around. And yet, this was the man now keeping tabs on the Eye of Dawn. Aziz, who thought he was so cunning, but who knew nothing of the streets or alleyways, and even less of dipping one's hands in the warmth of an enemy's blood.

“Listen to me carefully,” Hasan bit out. “Get yourself to the front of that hotel and wait for me. Who is picking me up?”

“Jalil. He's already at the airport.”

“If you see them leave the hotel, call me immediately. Follow them and do not lose them. Do you understand?”

“Of course.” Aziz sounded resentful, but there was a hint of cockiness in his voice. “I'll take care of it.”

“Above all,” Hasan added, his voice thick with warning, “be discreet. Remember what is at stake. I will be there shortly.”

 

Aziz slipped on his sunglasses as he watched the hotel doorway. Perhaps it had been a mistake to watch the car and not the entrance to the hotel.

Siddiq Aziz didn't like admitting making a mistake, not even to himself.

He only hoped his assessment had been right—that the Americans were still inside and that the Eye of Dawn was there with them.

Uneasy, he stepped off the curb and headed toward the lobby, an idea playing in his head. He would approach the clerk and bribe him into sharing the Americans' room number. By the time Hasan arrived, he would already have reclaimed the Eye of Dawn.

His SIG Sauer P226 was chambered and ready—and he had the element of surprise on his side. It would be even better if they were still sleeping. . . .

Wouldn't that take the sneer from Hasan's voice?

He thinks his contribution is greater than anyone else's. Without my expertise at moving large sums of money undetected, we could never have funded this project so quickly. I have more brains and ideas in my head than Hasan Sabouri and his brother Farshid both. I should be the one who claims the Eye of Dawn for the khalifate—and hand it to Hasan when he arrives. Let's see how he speaks to me then.

For a moment the daydream propelled him toward the desk, imagining the respect and admiration in Hasan's all-seeing blue eyes. And then he stopped short and remembered the nature of the man who had just arrived in Rome.

Hasan Sabouri was not only proud, but quick tempered. Aziz had seen him strike a man who was slow to reply to his question. Above all, Sabouri possessed the evil eye and did not hesitate to cast his wicked glance. He had killed many with his eye alone, even his own mother.

If something goes wrong with this plan, or if Hasan is offended by it, Hasan will not hesitate to kill me, too.

Aziz glanced around the minuscule lobby, at the high-beamed ceiling and single faded mural, and reconsidered. He strolled to one of the side tables and helped himself to an orange.

Then Aziz returned the female desk clerk's friendly
buon giorno
and ambled back outside and across the cobbled street to wait.

 

 

 

Natalie quickened her gait. D'Amato had slipped into a narrow, dim alleyway. The sun slanted and slivered between the buildings. A Vespa zipped past her, ruffling her hair. Up ahead, D'Amato turned right into an adjacent alley.

She skimmed around the same corner a moment later and shrieked as she crashed into his chest.

“What do you think you're doing?” he demanded.

“You're asking
me
questions? I'm the one trying to find out what
you're
up to!”

“I should've left you a note.” His tone was calmer, but his eyes were unreadable. “I went out for some breakfast.”