There was nothing she could do. They were blocking any chance she had of searching around the base of the pillars.
Whatever conversation the two men were having was too hushed for Ava to hear, but as the visitor in the corduroy jacket flicked to a different page and pointed to another section of text, it was clear he was asking the priest for an explanation about something.
She watched for a few moments, hoping they would finish or move on, but it soon became clear the two men were settling in for a long discussion.
She was going to have to do something.
Glancing directly across the nave to the north side of the building, she could see another priest standing in one of the side chapels opposite her.
With the germ of an idea forming, she made straight for him, briskly crossing the forty paces of the nave and heading into the candle-cluttered chapel prominently dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The waxy-skinned priest there was now placing a scarf-like stole around his neck, leaving it to hang down in front of him. It was an intense violet, slightly dulled with age, and heavily embroidered in gold threads with crosses and
Chi Rho
motifs.
As she approached, he moved towards the doors of an ornate mahogany confessional box set against the chapel’s dark west wall. The cubicle was covered with intricate carvings, and topped with a large wooden dome that reminded her of illuminated medieval manuscript images of Jerusalem’s churches.
There was a small carved doorway in its front for the priest to enter. But unlike in many films, where the earnest heroine sat in the darkened box, separated from the priest by a thin wooden lattice, pouring out her guilt into the shadows, here there was no second door.
Instead, the box was flanked either side by lumpy faded floral floor cushions—so parishioners could kneel on the ground and speak to the priest through the dark wooden grilles cut into the box’s sides.
Confession here was clearly very public.
Ava shuddered. Despite the beauty of the woodwork, it looked like an instrument of humiliation.
Arriving in front of the priest, she was still thinking quickly.
“Excuse me, Father,” she started, guessing that was how to address a priest here. “Are you hearing confessions now?” She had no idea whether priests heard confession in the middle of the afternoon. But it was worth a try.
He nodded. “For the next thirty minutes.” He indicated for her to kneel on one of the floor cushions.
She pointed to the priest with the scruffy blond hair over by the
piet
à
statue. “Can I have him?”
“Father Xavier?” he asked, glancing across at his colleague.
He was the only other priest in the building, so she nodded.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” He sounded put out. “I’m on duty.” He pointed to the name stenciled in gold letters above the cubicle’s doorway: F. BLOUNT. “I assure you, I know how to hear a confession.” He indicated again for her to kneel. “I’ve done it once or twice before, you know.”
She carried on, aware she needed to be quick. “Father Xavier knows my situation. I spoke to him last time … .” Her voice trailed off. She had no idea if she was allowed to pick a priest for confession.
“It doesn’t work that way.” He was sounding irritated. “Any priest can hear confession. It’s all the same to God.”
“I’d feel more comfortable speaking with him,” she continued. “It’ll save going over things again.”
He was clearly not used to being questioned. “If you want to say confession, I’m the duty priest.”
She could see she would have to force the issue. “Then I’m sorry for having troubled you,” she did her best to sound sincere. “I’ll just see Father David at Saint Rose’s this evening. He knows me.”
The priest looked exasperated. “Do you have the faintest idea how many confessions we hear in a week?” He glared at her. “I’m sure your situation is very interesting, but with no offence intended, I doubt very much Father Xavier remembers you.” His expression left her in no doubt just how much this conversation was annoying him. “Please.” He indicated the cushion again.
As she began to walk away, she could sense his indignation following her.
She had not gone more than a few paces when she heard the sigh of exasperation.
“Very well,” he called after her. “There’s no need to go anywhere else.” He sounded as if all was far from well. He plainly did not like changes to routine. But she assumed it did not look good turning people away. “Please wait here.”
She watched as he headed across the near-empty nave towards the twin pillars by the
piet
à
. She could see him interrupt Father Xavier, and explain the situation to him, pointing across to her.
Aware time was short, she darted quickly under the arch leading east into the next side chapel, and walked swiftly down through the remaining chapels to the far end of the church.
Moving as fast as she could without attracting attention, she crossed the hard marble floor in front of the high altar to get back to the south side.
Glancing to her left as she passed the elaborate sanctuary, she noticed two oversize gold seven-branched Menorah candleholders flanking the high altar—each glittering from the guttering candle burning on its central spike.
Seeing them there, she felt a hot flush of anger at the reminder of her failure.
As she arrived back at the south aisle of the church again, she ducked into the row of side chapels and archways that would lead her back up to the
piet
à
from the other side.
Hurrying along the interconnecting corridor, she noted that this section of the church was distinctly more feminine.
She first entered a luxurious chapel to the Blessed Virgin, complete with a regal statue of Mary atop a towering altar, her body swathed in a cape of real woven gold. Striding through without stopping, she passed into a chapel dominated by a painting of Saint Mary Magdalene.
Having the two chapels side by side struck her as presenting a neatly simplistic view of women—the faithful mother and the sensual courtesan. But she knew that the archetypes they represented—maternal and erotic love, life, and death—ran deep in the human psyche, and featured prominently in many religions. As a curious teenager, she had been amazed to learn that in ancient Greece and Rome, sacred prostitution was an ordinary part of religious life.
Sex and religion were no strangers. Even the Bible mentioned male and female prostitutes serving in King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
She hurried on.
Arriving back in front of the twin pillars, she could see that the young man in the fawn jacket had moved off, and the two priests were now over by the confessional box. Father Xavier was kissing the heavy violet scarf that had been around the other priest’s neck, and putting it on.
Aware this was now her chance, she dropped to her knees on the hard floor, and thrust her hand deep into the gap between the square stone bases of the two shiny pillars,
It felt gritty, as if it had not been cleaned in a long time.
Reaching the end, she had to stretch right around the pillar in order to brush her fingers along a similar void running behind the columns. She tried her left arm first, sweeping her fingers along the dusty space behind the right-hand pillar.
She was crouching low, relying on the array of heavy pews filling the nave to keep her hidden from the two priests on the other side of the church. But she knew they would quickly spot her if they looked closely.
She continued to grope for whatever it was Prince had left.
An envelope?
A package?
But she could not feel anything.
It was empty. There was nothing there.
She felt along the dusty gap again.
Still nothing.
Turning, she pulled her left arm out and tried with her right, this time behind the left pillar.
She could see the two priests looking about with an air of bewilderment—wondering where she had gone.
It would not be long before they noticed her.
She focused all her efforts in concentrating on what she could feel in the darkness behind the pillar. Extending her index finger, she ran it carefully along the tight space between the pillar’s base and the wall.
Again, there was nothing except more grit and grime.
She began to wonder if she had made an error, but quickly dismissed the idea. She could not have made a mistake a second time. The dead letter box interpretation of Prince’s message made complete sense.
It must be here.
She pushed out of her mind the idea the Mossad agent may already have cleared the box, or that a cleaner had moved whatever had been there. Or even the possibility that some espionage obsessive had found it while visiting the church on a Cold War pilgrimage.
She felt around again, willing something to be there. She desperately needed whatever Prince had left.
She had no other leads.
She glanced over at the confessional again. The priests had seen her, and were now heading back across the church towards the
pietà
. Father Xavier looked pleasantly bemused beneath his mop of blond hair. The other was scowling deeply.
Desperately, she leant in further, jamming her shoulder harder into the narrow gap between the pillars. Prince had been tall, with long limbs, so her reach would have been long,
She stretched her arm as far as she could, stabbing in the dark with her fingertips.
Finally, she felt her middle finger brush against something smooth. It was not cold like the stone of the pillar base, and felt more regular.
The priests were now in the middle of the nave, only ten yards away.
She tried to pull the object towards her, but it was just too far out of reach.
Wincing with pain, she rammed her shoulder harder into the space between the pillars, and straightened her arm to extend her reach another few fractions of an inch.
She raked at the object with her nail, feeling beads of perspiration beginning to break out with the strain.
Hooking it with her middle finger, she tried to slide it toward her. But she could not get a grip on it.
Glancing up anxiously, she could see the priests getting closer. It would only be moments before they were upon her.
Just as it seemed as if the object would never move, she suddenly felt it slide a fraction closer to her.
Concentrating for all she was worth, she got a nail under it, and managed to sandwich it between her index and middle fingers.
Pinching it tightly, and blocking out the pain in her shoulder, she quickly pulled her arm back and looked with elation at what was in her hand.
She recognized the small rectangle of millimetre-thick black plastic immediately. It had no maker’s name on it, but the nine tiny silver teeth on its underside were unmistakable, as was its one diagonally clipped edge.
An SD memory card.
The storage device was so small and thin she could easily have missed it.
Shoving it deep into her coat pocket, she stood up and ran quickly to the exit, just as the priests arrived back at the
pietà
.
As she pushed through the double doors and out into the noisy world of London cars and taxis, she threw a glance back into the calm candle-lit church one last time to see the bewildered priests staring after her with incomprehension.
——————— ◆ ———————
10b St James
’
s Gardens
Piccadilly
London SW1
England
The United Kingdom
Arriving home clutching the slim plastic SD card as if it was one of the Crown Jewels, Ava found Ferguson at the dining table, hunched over his laptop.
She waved the data card at him in triumph. “Special delivery for Mossad.”
He smiled with amazement as he stood up, “How on earth did you find that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,” she beamed back, heading into the study.
He followed her through into the book-lined room, where she inserted the small plastic card into a slot on her computer, before flopping down into the chair.
“Now, what was so important it had to be passed on to Tel Aviv?” she muttered, as the screen came to life revealing the contents of the flimsy plastic card to be a single unnamed folder.
Ferguson moved in behind her, peering at the small icon that had appeared on the large flat-panel monitor.
Remembering the Trojan that Prince had planted on her phone, she scanned the card thoroughly for concealed code.
It was clean.
As she clicked on the folder, it opened to reveal six bulky files of images.
The first file began with an image of the buff outer cover of a manila folder. It was unlabelled, save for a large alphanumeric catalogue number stencilled above the distinctive flaming torch and deep blue atom-ringed globe crest of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. It was the same crest Ava had seen in Qatar on the files Hunter, Prince, and Ferguson had been reading when they first summoned her.
Scrolling through the images, it was instantly apparent they were all concerned with one particular subject.
“Is this the DIA file on Malchus? The one Prince showed you?” she asked Ferguson, without taking her eyes off the screen.
He nodded. “But she only gave me extracts. There’s way more material here.”
Ava continued scrolling through the images. There was no way of knowing if the SD card held the full U.S. records, but as she opened all six files, she calculated it was at least six hundred pages long—a thick dossier by any standards.
The reports were filed chronologically, starting with the details Ferguson had recounted to her. Just as he had said, the ageing close-typed pages charted Malchus’s rise through the ranks of the black market crime gangs in Dresden, before he came to the attention of the ever-vigilant Stasi, who then launched him on his new career.
She tore her eyes away.
As much as she wanted to find out everything there was to know about Malchus, to gain any insights into what made him tick and what he could be planning, she could read the history later.
For now, she needed information on his current activities.
“Prince was a dark horse.” Ferguson was still gazing over her shoulder at the screen. “If she was Mossad, it seriously widens the field of who might have wanted her dead.”
“Including the Americans, if they knew,” Ava offered the unpalatable thought. “Another high-profile trial of a U.S. intelligence officer passing secrets to the Israelis might have been an embarrassment too far for the suits in Washington and Virginia.”
“Probably better than life as a traitor in a U.S. federal facility,” Ferguson added grimly.
Flicking directly to the end of the file, Ava was pleased to see that it included more recent entries.
She hit a button on the keyboard, and the high-speed printer beside the desk began to hum, churning the file out into its tray.
As she scanned through the more recent documents, she was relieved to see there was nothing identifying her or referencing the encounter in the Basilica di San Clemente. It was possible Prince had removed certain documents from it, but with any luck it simply meant that Prince’s people were still some way behind piecing together what was actually happening.
As the images flashed across the screen, she recognized the CX report on the Stonehenge rally that Prince had slipped her after their frosty meeting at Legoland.
Arriving at the most recent material, it became clear Malchus had no intention of letting his life be minutely catalogued by surveillance teams. He had been playing the game a lot longer than they had, and it showed. The U.S. agents had been able to piece together little more than a hazy portrait of an elusive man who was meticulous in avoiding routines or patterns.
As she flipped through the pages, she was astonished to see the Americans were even unaware Malchus had been visiting Stockbridge House. There was no mention of the country mansion at all.
Most disappointingly, there seemed to be no clues to where Malchus was currently based. All the U.S. watchers had uncovered were a series of discreet hotels and guesthouses he used in the outer reaches of London.
Quite evidently, none of them looked like somewhere he would hide objects the size and value of the Ark and the Menorah.
Ava could feel the disappointment beginning to mount.
As she neared the end of the file, her eye was suddenly caught by one of the few grainy photographs they had managed to snap.
She paused, surprised, unsure what to make of the long-distance rain-lashed shot of Malchus meeting Lord Drewitt at Beaconsfield Services—a drab roadside rest area on the uninspiring stretch of motorway between London and Oxford.
She paused, startled to see the two men sitting together.
She had assumed Malchus was only using Drewitt for the safety of his country house—a parasitic relationship ensuring him a secluded base in the country away from prying eyes.
But the photograph showed the two men poring over a clutch of papers spread out on the half-empty motorway restaurant’s plastic table.
They were plainly working on something.
Together.
She wracked her brains for what Malchus could need from the Master of All Hallows College, Oxford. The prickly old don was an economist, not an expert in biblical artefacts. He was definitely not a political sympathizer. And she doubted very much he shared any of Malchus’s darker occult interests.
She saw again in her mind’s eye the image of Drewitt’s mutilated body, and felt a renewed wave of guilt and anger towards Malchus.
Reaching the last page, she leant back in her chair, lost in thought, contemplating the two main questions posed by the SD card.
Why had Prince wanted to pass the information to Mossad?
And what had Malchus and Drewitt been working on together?
She had no answer to either question. She would read the full file later, and maybe the answers would become apparent. But it would have to wait. For now, Prince had unknowingly given her the lead she needed.
Standing up, she looked over to the printer, where the last section of the file was dropping into the tray.
“Some light reading for the journey,” she announced, scooping up the pages. “Pack a bag. We’re paying a house visit.”
Ferguson raised an eyebrow.
“Judging by this,” Ava flicked through the still-warm printed pages, stopping when she got to the photo at the service station, “Malchus was working on something with Drewitt. We need to find out what it was.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were in Ferguson’s car heading west out of London, back down the road to Wiltshire—to Stockbridge House.