Sign of the Cross paj-2 Read online

  Without saying another word, he handed her a series of documents from his fanny pack, then took a seat in the shadows of the rear wall, waiting for the reaction that he knew would come. ‘Santa Maria!’ she shrieked. ‘This is Roman!’

  ‘Hence my question about the Empire. I thought I made that rather clear?’

  Pelati shook her head, then returned her attention to the documents. At first glance they seemed to illustrate an elaborate system of tunnels that were hidden underneath the streets of Orvieto, yet it wasn’t the maps or the illustrations that perplexed her but rather the language itself. The document was handwritten in a form of Latin that she was unable to translate.

  ‘Is this authentic?’ she demanded.

  ‘That depends on your perspective. You’re holding a photocopy of a scroll that I found in England. The photocopy is obviously fake. The original is quite real.’

  ‘In England? You found the scroll in England?’

  ‘Why is that so surprising? Julius Caesar spent some time there. So did Emperor Claudius.’

  ‘But what does that have to do with the Catacombs? I mean, the popes came to Orvieto a thousand years after the fall of Rome. How could this be related?’

  Pelati knew that Pope Gregory XI died of natural causes in 1378, leaving a vacancy that was filled by Pope Urban VI. Many cardinals claimed that he was improperly selected, and they demanded a second election. When the next outcome differed, the Catholic Church severed, splitting into two factions, with each supporting a different pope. Italy, Germany, and most of northern Europe recognized Urban VI, while France and Spain supported Clement VII.

  This rivalry, known as the Great Schism of the West, divided Catholicism for almost forty years and in the process put the papal courts in danger — not only from outsiders but from each other. For that reason, the Italian popes spent much of their time in Orvieto, which was virtually impervious to attack because of its location on the plateau. And it was there, in the depths of the tufa stone, that the legendary Catacombs were supposedly built.

  Boyd smiled at the confused look on his pupil’s face. Refusing to make it easy on her, he said, ‘Tell me, my dear, have you ever been to the Roman ruins in Bath?’

  She growled in frustration. ‘No, sir. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Ah,’ he sighed, remembering the quaint town on the River Avon. ‘There you are in the middle of the English countryside, yet you’re surrounded by relics from ancient Rome. It seems so surreal. Do you know what the most amazing thing is? The baths still work. The warm springs still bubble up from the ground, and the architecture still stands proud. Ancient pillars rising to the heavens from the magical waters below. It is somewhat amazing, if you think about it.’

  Confused by his tale, Pelati grimaced. ‘Not to be rude, but what are you implying?’

  ‘Think about it, my dear. The popes of the 1300s used the Catacombs for protection. However, that doesn’t mean that they built them. The ancient Romans were well ahead of their time. Correct? I figure if they were able to build bathhouses that still work two thousand years later, then they certainly could’ve built some tunnels that were still standing seven hundred years ago.’

  ‘Wait! So that’s why there were no records of their construction. They were already in place when the pope came to town?’

  He nodded, pointing to the documents in her hand. ‘When I found the original scroll, I assumed it was a hoax. I mean, how could it possibly be real? Then I had it tested, and the results were conclusive. The scroll predated the Schism by more than a thousand years, proving once and for all that the Catacombs actually existed. Furthermore, they weren’t built for the popes of the Middle Ages. They were built by the ancient Romans.’

  ‘A date,’ she demanded. ‘Do you have an exact date for the scroll?’

  ‘As you know, carbon dating isn’t that specific. The best I could come up with was an era.’ Boyd took a sip of water, trying to prolong the suspense. ‘According to my tests, the Catacombs of Orvieto were built during the life of Christ.’

  4

  Nearly 300,000 tourists flock to Kronborg Castle every year, but none of them had ever seen this before. And those that saw it wished they hadn’t.

  By the time Erik Jansen was discovered, his torso was grayish white, and his legs were light purple, caused by postmortem lividity. Birds dined on his flesh like a country buffet.

  A group of students spotted Jansen across the courtyard and assumed that he was a historical exhibit. So they walked closer, marveling at all the wonderful little details that made him seem lifelike: the color of his flesh, the horror on his face, the texture of his sandy-brown hair as it blew in the wind.

  They crowded around him, begging to have their picture taken with the display. That is until one of them felt a drop. A single drop. That was all it took. One drop of blood and chaos erupted. Kids were wailing. Parents were screaming. Teachers scurried for help.

  The local police were called to the scene but were in over their heads. They were used to car accidents and petty crimes, not murders. Certainly nothing of this magnitude. Yet that was to be expected in a quiet place like Helsingør. It sat on the northwestern coast of Sjaelland Island across the øresund from Hälsingborg, Sweden, away from the city life of Copenhagen. The last time anyone was brutally killed here was back in 1944, and that had been done by the Nazis.

  Still, they shouldn’t have made the mistakes that they made. Some of them were inexcusable.

  The first squad arrived by boat, landing on the same shore as the killers. Since the castle’s beach was private, the cops should’ve cordoned off the area, protecting all the information that was scattered in front of them. Clues about the murder. The number of assailants. Their approximate sizes. Their time of departure. All of it was there in the sand, just waiting to be found. But not for very long, because the commanding officer failed to think ahead, opting to sprint across the beach like a soldier at Normandy, soon followed by the rest of his men.

  In a flash, the evidence was buried.

  Of course, their next error was far worse. The type of screwup that occurs when people are crying, sirens are blaring, and there’s no time to think. When the cops reached the body, they heard the story about the dripping blood and assumed that Jansen was still alive. His temperature should’ve told them otherwise. Same with the color of his skin. But as it was, they ripped the cross out of the ground, hoping to bring him back to life with CPR, yet all they managed to do was destroy evidence. Crucial evidence. The kind of evidence that could’ve stopped the killers before they could strike again.

  Ironically, their effort to save a life guaranteed that others would be killed.

  Nick Dial was an American, and that made him very unpopular in certain parts of the globe. So did his career. He ran the newly formed Homicide Division at Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization), the largest international crime-fighting organization in the world, which meant he dealt with death all over the globe.

  Simply put, he coordinated the flow of information between police departments anytime a murder investigation crossed national boundaries. All told he was in charge of 179 different countries — filled with billions of people and dozens of languages — yet had a budget that was dwarfed by an American school district.

  One of the biggest misconceptions about Interpol is their role in stopping crime. They rarely send agents to investigate a case. Instead they have local offices called National Central Bureaus in all the member countries, and the NCBs monitor their territory and report pertinent information to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France. From there the facts are entered into a central database that can be accessed via the Interpol’s computer network. Fingerprints, DNA, terrorist updates, the works. All of it available twenty-four hours a day.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t always enough. Sometimes the head of a division (Drugs, Counterfeiting, Terrorism, etc.) was forced to hop on a plane and take control of a case. Possibly to cut through red tape. Or to handle
a border dispute. Or to deal with the media. All the things that Nick Dial hated to do. He figured in his line of work the only thing that really mattered was justice. Correcting a wrong in the fairest way possible. That was his motto, the creed that he lived by. He figured if he did that, then all the other bullshit would take care of itself.

  Dial arrived in Helsingør in the late afternoon. He didn’t know much about the case — other than someone had been crucified and the president of Interpol wanted him there — but that was the way he preferred it. He liked forming conclusions based on personal observations, instead of relying on secondhand information.

  Most investigators would’ve rushed to examine the body, but that wasn’t the way Dial worked. He preferred to understand his surroundings before he dealt with the crime, especially when he was in an unfamiliar country. If the murder had been committed in France, he would’ve gone right to the corpse because he had lived there for the past ten years and knew how French people thought.

  But here, he was a little unsure of the landscape. He needed to understand Denmark — and Danes in general — before he could understand the crime. So instead of studying the victim, Dial headed down a long corridor and searched for someone to talk to. Not to interrogate, but someone to chat with. Someone to give him the lay of the land. It took three attempts until he found someone who spoke English.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said as he flashed his Interpol badge. ‘May I ask you a few questions?’

  The man nodded, half intimidated by Dial’s credentials and half by his stare. Dial was in his early forties and had a face that looked like it was chiseled out of granite. Clean lines, thick cheekbones, green eyes. Short black hair with just a hint of gray. Not overly handsome, yet manly as hell. Black stubble covered his features even though it wasn’t enough to conceal his chin. His massive, movie-star chin. It sat at the bottom of his face like a tribute to Kirk Douglas.

  ‘So, what’s a guy have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?’

  The man smiled and led Dial into a tiny office. Work schedules and pictures of Kronborg decorated the walls. A metal desk sat in the corner. Dial took a seat just inside the door and was handed a mug of coffee. ‘So, I take it you work here?’

  ‘For over forty years. I’m the senior tour guide.’

  Dial grinned. He had hit the jackpot. ‘You know, I’ve traveled all over the world to every continent on the globe, but I’ve never seen a country like this. Denmark is simply gorgeous.’

  The man beamed with pride. ‘It’s the best-kept secret in Europe.’

  ‘Well, if I promise to keep my mouth shut, will you tell me about it?’

  Their conversation went on for ten minutes, filled with the facts and figures about the area. Dial spoke every once in a while, gently steering the conversation in the direction he wanted, but for the most part kept quiet. ‘Out of curiosity,’ he asked, ‘what type of tourists do you get?’

  ‘Mostly people between the ages of forty and sixty, equal mix of men and women. Though we tend to get a lot of students during the school year.’

  ‘What about nationalities? Are most of your tourists from Denmark?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just the opposite. Most of them are from the surrounding countries. Sweden, Germany, Austria, Norway. We get a lot of Brits because of Shakespeare.’

  ‘Shakespeare? What does he have to do with anything?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  Dial shook his head, even though he was very aware of the Shakespearean connection. Of course he wasn’t about to tell the tour guide that. Better to play dumb and get the story from him.

  ‘Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place in the castle at Elsinore.’

  ‘Elsinore? Is that somewhere around here?’

  ‘You’re in Elsinore! Elsinore is Helsingør. Hamlet took place here! Sometimes we even give performances in the courtyard. You should stop by and see one.’

  Dial grimaced. ‘Nah. I’m not much of a theater fan. More of a sports guy myself… But for the sake of my investigation, let me ask you something. Does anyone die in Hamlet?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes! The whole play is about murder and revenge.’

  ‘That’s kind of interesting, considering recent events. I wonder if there’s a connection?’

  The man looked around, paranoid, then lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Of course there’s a connection. There has to be. Why would someone dump a body here if there wasn’t?’

  Dial stood from his chair, finally ready to examine the crime scene. ‘That’s what I need to figure out.’

  5

  Maria figured it was an illusion caused by poor lighting. All of that changed when she put her hand on the stone. Its texture was too perfect to be natural. ‘Professore? Do you have a minute?’

  Boyd crossed the grotto, stepping over the tangle of power cords and dusty tools that were scattered about the floor. Maria was staring at the wall, so he turned in that direction. In an instant he knew what it was, and the realization made his knees buckle.

  Over a span of three feet, the cave went from rough to smooth to rough again, like someone had taken a giant piece of sandpaper and rubbed it against the wall. He reached out, half afraid, worried that the floodlights were playing tricks on his weary eyes. The sleek surface proved that they weren’t. ‘Quick! Hand me my gun.’

  The gun was Boyd’s nickname for his handheld blower, a small archaeological device that he used during excavations. Approximately the size of a cell phone, the gun contained a small cartridge of oxygen that blew dirt out of the tiny crevices and did less damage than a sharp tool. Boyd cleaned the surface of the wall using a paintbrush in one hand and his gun in the other. Rubble fell to his feet like heavy rain, causing tiny wisps of dust to float into the air. A few minutes later the outline of a three-foot square began to take shape in the middle of the cave.

  ‘Yes, I do believe you have found something.’

  Maria squealed with delight. ‘I knew it! I knew that rock looked different!’

  After clearing three sides of the seam — upper, left, and right — Boyd was able to measure the stone slab: thirty-seven and a half inches square by five and a half inches deep. Maria dragged one of the lights closer and tried to peer through the corners, but the cave wall had a back lip that prevented it.

  ‘Professore, what do you think it is? It’s too small to be a door, isn’t it?’

  Boyd finished writing in his binder. ‘Drainage, perhaps? Maybe an aqueduct? Once we see what’s on the other side, I’m sure we’ll have a better idea.’

  Boyd handed her a crowbar. ‘And since you found the stone, I think you should have the privilege of removing it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered as she slipped the bar in the seam. ‘This means a lot to me, sir. I actually feel like we’re a team.’

  ‘Now don’t be surprised if you need my help. Stones like this can be rather stubborn. I recall one time in Scotland when — ’

  A loud thud echoed through the chamber as the massive rock crashed to the floor. The two archaeologists glanced at each other in disbelief, then lowered their gaze to the giant slab that sat at their feet. ‘Good Lord!’ Boyd said. ‘Have you been taking steroids?’

  Confused, he dropped to his knees and examined the stone that had practically jumped from the wall. He tried to push the block on its side but was unable to budge it. ‘Then how in God’s good name did you manage that? This thing weighs a ton. And that’s not a hyperbole, my dear. This thing literally weighs a ton!’

  ‘I don’t know. I barely put any pressure on it. I just put the crowbar in and… pop!’

  Boyd realized engineers in ancient Rome were advanced for their time. However, he couldn’t figure out why they would build a wall where one of the stones could be knocked out of place with such minimal effort. Perhaps, he thought, it was an escape tunnel.

  ‘Excuse me, Professore?’

  He blinked, then turned his attention to his assistant. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I
was lost in thought. Did you need something?’

  Maria nodded. ‘I wanted to know if we could go inside now.’

  Boyd’s face turned a bright shade of red. ‘Good Lord! How silly of me. Here I am, pondering the significance of this bloody stone when we’re on the verge of…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Yes, by all means, let’s venture inside.’

  The passageway was narrow, giving them just enough room to enter. Boyd went first, then waited for Maria to pass him his equipment. When her arm finally appeared, he snatched the flashlight and struggled to find the power button. The powerful beam overwhelmed the blackness, shattering the sanctity of the holy grounds for the first time in years, exposing the high-arched ceiling and the colorful murals that adorned the smooth walls.

  ‘My Lord,’ he gasped in amazement. ‘My sweet Lord!’

  Seconds later, Maria squeezed through the hole while carrying a video camera. She had no idea what Boyd was gaping at but was determined to capture it on tape. At least that was the plan. But, the moment she stepped inside the chamber she was so overwhelmed by the artwork that she dropped the camera to her side. ‘Santa Maria!’

  Stunned, she spun in a small circle, trying to soak in everything at once. The vaulted roof was typical of the ancient Roman era, allowing the majority of the ceiling’s weight to be supported by the chamber’s four walls. Despite this classical approach, the chamber still utilized a series of four Tuscan columns, one placed in each corner for architectural decoration.

  In between each pillar, starting just below the arched ceiling, was a series of four religious frescoes, each depicting a different scene from the Bible. The showcased piece of the group appeared to be the life of an unknown saint, for it was twice as large as the others and was centered on the right wall directly behind a stone altar.

  ‘What is this place?’ she whispered.

  Boyd continued to gaze around the room, amazed that he’d found the mythical vaults. ‘The basic design looks similar to many buildings built during the peak of the Roman Empire, but the paintings on the walls are much more recent — perhaps fifteenth or sixteenth century.’