The Machiavelli Covenant (57 page)

"The other way's no better, Hap," the president said. "Those roads leading to the French border are all known and, as you said, will be blocked. If we get stopped out there we have no place to go at all and no matter what I say I'll soon be in the custody of my 'friends' and Warsaw will go on as planned. We go overland by foot in wild country and in the dark, we have at least some kind of chance.

"Moreover, Aragon is more than a refuge. As you well know I was to address the New World congregation at tomorrow's sunrise service, I still plan to. No one is going to take me away in front of all those people, especially a group like that. Once I tell them the truth, the situation at Warsaw will take care of itself."

"Mr. President, the security for that convention is huge. I know, I helped set it up. Even if we get that far, we wouldn't get past it. We try and everyone who wants you out of the way will know exactly where you are. They'll order security to get you out right then. You don't know this but the chief of staff has a CIA jet waiting at a private airstrip outside Barcelona. They get you on that plane, you're finished."

For a long moment the president said nothing and it was clear he was turning everything over in his mind; finally he looked to Hap. "We're going to try for Aragon. I know you don't like it but it's my decision. As for the security, you know the layout there—the land, the buildings, the church where I was to speak. You scouted it all in advance."

"Yes, sir."

"Then somehow we'll find a way in. I will be the surprise speaker as planned. And it will be a surprise, for everyone."

There was a noise from above and José eased around
the corner. He looked to Miguel. "There are patrols," he said in Spanish, "but they have passed. I don't know if there are more. For the moment it is safe."

Miguel translated and the president looked to each man in turn—Marten, Hap, Miguel, and José.

"Let's go," he said.

•
12:02 A.M.

Demi paced what was little more than a cell trying not to think of the horror Luciana had promised for "tomorrow," which, with the turn of the clock, was already here.

In front of her a small stainless-steel bunk was covered with a thin mattress and single blanket. As if she could sleep, or even try to. Next to it was a washbasin and next to that a toilet. And then there was the chapel. Set into the wall in the center of the room and lighted with what seemed a hundred votive candles. Little more than three feet wide and two deep, a small marble altar was at the back and on it sat something that at first appeared to be a piece of bronze sculpture. But when she looked at it closely she saw it was not a sculpture as much as a welding together of two letters.

μ

Then she realized they were what Giacomo Gela had spoken of—a Hebrew
A
followed by the Greek
M
. It wasn't a sculpture, it was an idol, the sign of
Aradia
Minor,
the secretive order inside the already secretive
boschetto
of the Aldebaran. It meant everything he had warned her of was true and told her they had known who she was all along and had simply stepped back and watched her, wanting to see how much she knew and who else might be involved. It was why Beck had invited her to Barcelona after the incident between Foxx and Nicholas Marten on Malta, a deliberate plan to see who, if anyone, would follow. And Marten had. The trip to the cathedral with Beck and Luciana had not been for Luciana to arrange a meeting with Foxx at Montserrat but for the same reason, to see who would follow. Again Marten had. It was why, too, Beck had agreed to bring her to the church to witness the coven's rituals in return for delivering Marten to Foxx. In delivering Marten she had also delivered herself and in the process seen in the fiery death of the ox her own horrific fate. Afterward they'd simply brought her here and locked the door.

Just what the ancient cult of
Aradia Minor
was she had no idea, but she was certain Gela had been purposely mutilated and left to live as an example of what awaited anyone who might try to find out. Clearly they had watched Gela for years for that very reason, to see who was interested enough to find him, and then to learn who that person was and why they had come, and who else they might have told. It made her wonder how many others there had been over the centuries who had pursued the same course as she and fallen prey to the same unspeakable horror.

The same terrible burning horror that would soon be hers. The same horror that had been her mother's and that of twenty-six other women in her family. The same as it had been for the mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, and cousins of other Italian families selected over the
centuries. The same as it would be today, and not just for her but for Cristina.

Abruptly Demi stopped her pacing and crossed back to the altar. Before, in the church and under Luciana's gaze, the monks had stripped her of her cameras, then blindfolded her and led her down an extraordinarily long flight of steps. Soon afterward they'd put her onto some kind of open-air transport that moved quickly forward on a ride she was certain had been underground. After that they'd brought her to the cell where she was now, locking her in and leaving without a word.

But that had been all. They had not bothered to search her, either in the church or here when they brought her in and removed the blindfold. It meant she still had the hidden smart phone/camera she had used to transmit photos to her Web site in Paris. It was something that gave her hope because she still had communication out—although two unsuccessful tries here told her she was too far underground for the signal to escape whatever was above her. Still, she had both phone and camera. The phone she would do everything in her power to use later, when hopefully they brought her to an area where she would have connectivity and could somehow steal a moment alone to call the Pan-European emergency number 112 and ask for the police. The camera she would use now to help her keep what little sanity she had left, to prevent her from dwelling on the horrifying certainty of what was to come in the next few hours.

Demi knelt before the altar and began to photograph the idol, the symbol of
Aradia Minor
. She took pictures aggressively and passionately and from every angle. As she worked she began to realize that what she was doing
was more than a deliberate distraction; it was a last desperate hope that in one way or another she might find a bridge to the Other Side and somehow touch her mother. To make contact with the spirit of who she had been, and to Demi, still was, even in death. In doing so, she would not only fulfill her promise to her but also to find everlasting love and salvation.

•
12:07 A.M.

Hector and Amado stood in the bright light of the command post. They were dirty and scraped and afraid, but so far they hadn't broken. Not to the Secret Service and Spanish CNP officers that had caught them in the tunnel. Not to the CIA investigators who had talked to them next. Or the half dozen Secret Service and CNP troops that had brought them back up through the chimneys and walked them through the rain to the command post. Both had stood by their story: they had simply come up that morning to explore the tunnels and become lost.

"What time?" Captain Diaz asked in Spanish.

"Nine thirty, about," was their agreed-upon answer, the one they had decided on in the seconds before the troops were first upon them.

"Where do you live?" Captain Diaz continued.

Bill Strait and National Security Adviser James Marshall stood behind her; each man fully intent on the proceedings.

"El Borràs, by the river," Amado answered.

"Just you two. Alone. No one else with you."

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean just us."

Captain Diaz studied the boys for a moment and walked over to a CNP officer. "Let's talk to them separately," she said, then walked back to the boys.

"Which one is Hector?"

Hector raised his hand.

"Good. You stay with me. Amado is going to talk to some people on the far side of the tent."

Hector watched as Amado went off with two CNP officers.

"Now, Hector," Captain Diaz said, "you live in El Borràs."

"Yes."

"Tell me how you got here. From the river to this mountaintop."

•
12:12 A.M.

Hector watched as Captain Diaz left him and crossed the tent to talk with one of the CNP officers who had gone off with Amado. Nervously he glanced at Bill Strait and the exceedingly tall and distinguished man with him. Both were clearly American. For the first time he was aware of the people and equipment around him. He had seen radios and computer setups in movies but they had been nothing like this. Nor had he ever heard anything like the constant crackle of communication between the operators here and the people they were talking with outside. And nothing ever like the absolute seriousness of the atmosphere.

He took a breath as he saw Captain Diaz come back, stopping midway to say something to Bill Strait and the man with him, and then all three came toward him.

"There seems to be a conflict here, Hector," Captain Diaz said calmly. "You told me you hiked up from the river. Amado seems to remember you riding up on motorcycles."

"Hector," Bill Strait was looking at him directly, "we know you and Amado weren't the only people down there." He paused for Captain Diaz to translate.

"Yes, we were," Hector protested. "Who else would be with us?"

"The president of the United States."

"No," Hector said defiantly. He needed no translation. "No."

"Hector, listen to me carefully. When we find the president we will know you were lying and you will go to prison for a very, very long time."

Captain Diaz's translation was delivered as if what Bill Strait had said was already a given, a twenty- or thirty-year prison sentence handed down by a judge.

"No," he said, "we were alone. Amado and me. Nobody else. Ask your men. They looked, they found nothing."

Suddenly Hector felt a presence and looked up. Amado came toward him accompanied by two CNP officers. His complexion was white, his eyes filled with tears. There was no need for words. What had happened was all too clear.

He had told them.

•
12:18 A.M.

The ascent from the lower chimney to the main tunnel had been done with relative ease. The next, the hundred-yard marching along it, had been made quickly and without incident even in the dark. Then José had found the opening to the upper chimney, the one Hap, Miguel, he, Amado, and Hector had come down in what felt like days, even weeks earlier.

They were in it and climbing when Hap suddenly grunted and stopped. Miguel put a narrow flashlight beam on him and they could see the color had drained from him and that he was sweating heavily. Quickly Miguel gave him water from his camel pack and insisted he take another pain pill and he had.

Now the five sat in stillness, giving him a chance to rest and wait for the medication to take effect. In another circumstance they might have left him and gone on alone with his blessing but they couldn't. He had walked the entire Aragon resort only weeks earlier in preparation for the president's visit and knew the details of its layout as only a man with his training and experience could. If they were going to make it at all, they needed Hap. Whether a short rest would be enough, there was no way to know.

•
12:23 A.M.

"The football, Mr. President," Marten said in the darkness and for no other reason than he'd been thinking
about it, "that black satchel the public sees a military aide carrying around everywhere the president goes. I assume it really does have the codes for launching nuclear missiles."

"Yes."

"Excuse my asking but where is it now?"

"I would assume 'my friends' have it. I couldn't very well have taken it with me when I left."

"Your 'friends' have it?"

"It doesn't make any difference."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"There's more than one," Hap suddenly joined the conversation.

"What?"

"The president has one when he travels. There's another tucked away at the White House and a third is available to the vice president in the event the president is unable to function. Such as now."