The Machiavelli Covenant (20 page)

"The problem is Mr. Banfield and his wife. They have decided the rhododendron woods should be on the south hill not the north and that the north hill should be planted instead with eighty to a hundred ginkgo trees."

"Ginkgo trees?"

"Yes."

Marten turned from the window. "They'll grow too high and too thick and will block their view of the river."

"Exactly what we told them. But that's nothing compared to what they want to do with the forsythia, azalea, and hydrangea placements."

"They approved all those ten days ago."

"Well they disapproved all those this morning. They've agreed to pay for the changes. They just won't have the schedule interrupted. If I were you I would hustle my bum back here on the next plane out."

"I can't do that, Ian. Not right now."

"Are you employed by us or not?"

"Please try to understand what I'm doing here is difficult and very personal. If—" A sudden loud knock on Marten's door stopped him in mid sentence. A second knock followed immediately.

"Ian, hang on a moment, please."

Marten went into the short hallway that separated the room from the front door. He was almost to the door when the thought suddenly hit—what if he hadn't lost Salt and Pepper after all? What if he was right outside in the corridor and Merriman Foxx had decided he wasn't going to play who-what-and-why but was simply going to have him eliminated right then?

The knock came again.

"Christ," Marten breathed. Immediately he brought the phone to his ear. "Ian," he said in a voice just above a whisper, "I need to take care of something. E-mail the changes and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

He clicked off and the knock came once more, louder and harder. Whoever it was wasn't giving up. He looked around for a weapon of some kind. All he saw was a room telephone on the wall next to him. Immediately he picked it up and rang room service.

A voice answered in Spanish.

"Do you speak English?" he said into the phone.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Hold on please."

Phone in hand, a lifeline to the room service operator
if he needed it, Marten took a breath, then turned the lock and opened the door.

Demi Picard stood in the hallway, hands on her hips, glaring at him. "What Newspaper Writers and Photographers conference?" she spat angrily in her French accent. "How did you find me? What the damn hell are you doing here?"

If she'd been any hotter she'd have burst into flame.

•
3:00 P.M.

It took a very long walk before Marten could get Demi to calm down enough to even talk to him. It took even longer to convince her to join him for lunch. And after that, nearly half a bottle of a good local
cava
—champagne—to become at least halfway civil.

Now they sat at a table in the back room of Els Quatre Gats—The Four Cats—a café on a narrow street in the city's Barri Gòtic section, eating
suquet de peix,
a hot fish and potato mixture, and drinking still more
cava
. Slowly she was coming around.

Demi still wore the navy blazer over the striped man-tailored shirt and tan slacks she had worn that morning in Valletta. Professional photojournalist or not she was clearly used to traveling quickly and light. Which was probably the reason for her short hair too, not a lot to do with it except wash and fluff. She was smart and determined and, as he knew, fiery. But as true as those things
were, she also seemed strangely unconnected, as if everything she was about, even her profession, had to do with something else. What that was he couldn't begin to guess, but it gave her a strange air of vulnerability that made her hard to figure out. Her big, deep brown eyes didn't help either because they drew your attention and threw you off, especially when she was looking directly at you, the way she was at Marten now.

"You want me to trust you," she said, "yes?"

"It would help."

"But you don't think you can trust me."

Marten smiled, "I asked you in Malta if you knew where Dr. Foxx or Reverend Beck or the girl Cristina had gone and you said no. Yet you knew all along Beck was coming to Barcelona and to what hotel and—"

Demi cut him off. "The concierge called me shortly before you arrived at my hotel room. He said the reverend had asked him to apologize for his leaving so abruptly. He told me where he had gone and said an airline ticket had been left for me if I wished to follow. That was what was in the envelope I picked up from the concierge as I left."

"The details of how you got here or why don't interest me. What does is the fact that you flat out lied. Tell me where 'trust' fits in there."

"Let's just say your showing up in Malta and the way you handled things with Dr. Foxx put me in a very awkward position."

"That's why you told me I could ruin everything."

"What do you want with me?"

The way Demi avoided the question and the way she looked at him when she did told Marten that for now, at least, that was as far in that direction as she was going to go.

"Look," he said directly, "I'm here for the same reason I was in Washington and in Malta, to find out the truth about what happened to Caroline Parsons. Whatever you want to talk about or don't is your business but from where I sit it's clear you came to Barcelona because of Reverend Beck, and that's why I'm here. Beck and Foxx were together in Malta for a reason. They both left suddenly and separately. That tells me they just might get back together as quickly, especially since Beck is still hanging around this part of the world. Beck is a curiosity but it's Foxx who's my real interest and I'm betting the good reverend will lead me to him, and sooner rather than later."

"And you think Dr. Foxx has an answer for you about Mrs. Parsons."

"Yes," Marten's eyes were suddenly intense. "He started to talk to me about it last night, then he realized he was going too far and got upset. I want him to finish what he had to say."

Just then their waiter, a pleasant, delicate-faced man with dark hair, stopped at their table. "May I get you something else?" he asked in English.

"Not now, thanks," Marten said.

"Of course," the man nodded and left.

Demi took a sip of the
cava
and looked at Marten over the top of the glass, "You seem to have cared about Mrs. Parsons a great deal."

"I loved her," he said without embarrassment or apology.

"She was married."

Marten didn't reply.

Demi half smiled. "Then you are here because of love."

Marten leaned forward. "Talk to me about 'the witches.'"

"I—" Demi hesitated and looked down at her wine glass, as if she was uncertain what to say, if anything. Finally she looked up, "Do you know what a
strega
is, Mr. Marten?"

"No."

"It's the Italian word for female witch. I have a younger sister who came to Malta two years ago and disappeared. I found out later that she was a practicing
strega
involved with a very secretive coven of Italian witches. Whether that had anything to do with her disappearance or not I don't know. What I do know is that Malta is old and filled with ancient places and secretive things. My sister was there for three days and that was the last anyone saw of her. The authorities searched but found nothing. They said she was a young woman and might have done anything.

"For me, that was no answer, so I kept looking on my own. That was how I heard about Dr. Foxx. He has many connections on Malta and knows people and things that others would not, not even the police. But they are things he would never reveal to a stranger. I didn't know what to do, and besides, I had to get back to work. My job put me on a photo assignment in Washington covering the social lives of U.S. congresspeople. It was there I learned about Reverend Beck and discovered he knew Foxx well. This was a huge opportunity to find out what happened to my sister, so through a French publisher I arranged to do a photo-essay book on clerics who minister to politicians. I made Beck a primary subject so that I could become his friend and gain his confidence. Because of that I was able to go to Malta and meet Dr. Foxx personally. But I didn't get to speak with him the way I needed to because—" for an instant her eyes flashed with anger, then she seemed to get over it,
"—you suddenly arrived and it all fell apart. I followed Reverend Beck to Barcelona because, as you guessed, he is to meet with Dr. Foxx again soon. Maybe even tomorrow."

"You know that for certain?"

"No, not for certain. But Cristina, the woman who was with us at dinner in Malta, told me that the reverend and Dr. Foxx had talked about it just before Foxx left the restaurant. 'Until Saturday,' Foxx said. Since that took place Thursday night, I would assume he meant this coming Saturday, which is tomorrow. That's why I came here, to continue work on the book with Reverend Beck and because of it, hopefully to get to see Dr. Foxx when he meets with him." Suddenly her eyes came up to his and the anger returned, "Maybe I can do that if you stay away."

Marten ignored her outburst. "There's one thing you're leaving out: why you asked me if Caroline Parsons said anything about 'the witches' before she died. What makes you think she would know anything about them?"

"Because—" She looked up. Again their waiter was at the table and topping off their glasses with
cava
as he had twice before. Now the bottle was empty.

"May I bring you another? Or perhaps something else from the bar?" he asked.

"No, thanks," Marten said for the second time. The man looked at Demi and smiled, then turned and walked off. Marten waited until he was out of earshot, then looked back to Demi, "Because—what?"

"Of her doctor."

"Stephenson?"

"Yes," Demi reached into her purse and took out a pen. "Let me show you." She pulled a paper napkin toward her, then carefully drew a simple diagram on it and pushed it across the table to Marten.

He exhaled loudly when he saw what it was. The same balled cross he had seen tattooed on Merriman Foxx's thumb, the same balled cross Caroline had described in her fearful description of the white-haired man.

"It is the sign of Aldebaran, the pale red star that forms the left eye in the constellation Taurus. In the early history of astrology it was considered to emanate a powerful and fortunate influence. It is also called 'Eye of God.'"

"What does it have to do with Dr. Stephenson?"

"She had it tattooed on her left thumb. It was small, you could barely see it."

Marten was incredulous. "Foxx has the same thing."

"I know. So does the woman, Cristina."

"What does the tattoo have to do with 'the witches'?"

"It's the sign of the coven to which my sister belonged."

"Foxx and Stephenson are witches?"

"I'm not sure. But my sister had the same tattoo. Why else would people so dissimilar have the sign of Aldebaran tattooed on their thumb, specifically the left thumb?"

"What led you to think Caroline was involved with them? I held her hands for a long time, I never saw that mark or any other."

"She was dying. Dr. Foxx had been nearby and Stephenson had been her doctor for some time. I don't know their rituals but I hoped she might have had some knowledge of it. If she was frightened she might have wanted to share it with someone she completely trusted, and quite frankly that seemed to be you. I had to find out."

"She never said a thing."

"Then I was wrong. Either that or it was a secret she took into eternity."

"Does Reverend Beck have the mark?"

"Have you ever looked at his hands?"

"He has a pigmentary skin disorder, vitiligo. The skin on his hands is blotched," Marten said, then he understood. "You mean that even if he had the mark it would be very difficult to see."

"Yes."

"So you don't know if he's a member of the coven."

"I think he's involved, but whether he's a member or not I don't know."

"Tell me about the coven itself. Is it some kind of cult? Satan worshipers? Religious extremists? Or with Foxx's background some sort of military group?"

"Does the name Nicolo Machiavelli mean anything to you?"

"You mean Machiavelli, the man."

"Yes."

"As I recall he was a sixteenth-century Florentine writer famous for a book called
The Prince
about the ways to gain and keep raw political power, where authority is everything and expediency is placed above any kind of morality. A sort of how-to book for becoming a dictator."

"Yes," Demi nodded appreciatively.

"What does Machiavelli have to do with the coven?"

"There is a story that on his deathbed he wrote an addendum to
The Prince,
a kind of secondary blueprint for gaining power. It was based on what he called a 'necessary prerequisite,' the creation of a secret society to be governed by the rule of complicity; a brotherhood of blood where members would participate in an act of
ritual murder
. It was to be an elaborate, carefully orchestrated human sacrifice held once a year at a remote and secured spot, a church preferably, or a temple, that would give the ceremony religious impact. The rules required
every member to sign a heavily guarded, dated journal that included his name, place and date of birth; name and manner of death of the victim; and a print of his thumb dipped in his own blood and pressed in the journal alongside his signature. This was done to confirm his presence there, his allegiance to the society and his willing involvement in the killing. The journal was the key to the society's power because public exposure of it would mean ruin, even death, for them all. Once the murder was done, and the participants' presence recorded, the society could set forth its agenda for the year with the knowledge that what they did was wholly protected from treachery within, thereby freeing it to execute whatever plan was agreed upon.