Simon Toyne - The Key

‘All have died — save two.’

Another murmur rippled through the crowd.

‘Then we should await their return,’ Brother Axel called out. The noise became a rumble of approval amid a general nodding of heads.

‘I fear that is unlikely,’ Athanasius replied, addressing the congregation rather than his challenger. ‘The last remaining Sancti suffered the same affliction as the others and their condition is grave. We cannot rely on them returning or having the strength to lead if they do. We must look to new leadership. The elections are set.’

A new disturbance broke out and everyone turned towards it. A figure had entered the door at the back of the cave and was now moving steadily towards the altar, his approach accompanied by the hum of voices and a strange, dry hissing sound. It was Brother Gardener, his name earned from many years of service in the pastures and orchards that flourished at the heart of the mountain.

The dry whispering grew louder with each step and so did the murmur of voices until Brother Gardener reached the altar and grimly stepped aside to reveal the source of the noise. It was the branch of a tree, broken off at the thickest part, its leaves and blossom brown and withered.

‘I found it in the orchard under one of the oldest trees,’ Brother Gardener said, his voice low and troubled. ‘It’s rotted right through.’

He looked up at Athanasius. ‘And there’re others, lots of others; mostly the older ones but some of the younger ones too. I’ve never seen anything like it. Something’s happening. Something terrible. I think the garden is dying.’

Vatican City, Rome

Clementi emerged from the lift into the softly lit vault and headed to the same boardroom where the Group had last met. Everyone had been best of friends then. All the trickier elements of the plan had been carried out and the recovery team had been deployed in the field ready to find and deliver the great treasure Clementi had promised — but that was before the explosion in Ruin.

Clementi turned to Schneider. ‘Make sure no one else comes down here until our meeting is concluded,’ he said, then heaved against the heavy door and passed into the boardroom.

They were all present, as Schneider had warned him, the Holy Trinity of conspirators — one American, one British and one Chinese.

In a world obsessed with money and power their faces were instantly recognizable. At one time or another each had graced the cover of Fortune magazine as revered owners of some of the biggest companies in the world, modern-day empires whose assets and influence crossed international borders and set the political agenda in their own and other countries. In previous ages they would have been emperors or kings and worshipped as gods, such was the extent of their power. They had also collectively lent the Church six billion dollars, through private accounts managed personally by Clementi, to underwrite their joint venture and prevent the Church from collapsing beneath its colossal debt. But they had not been persuaded to do this out of a sense of duty or a love of God, it was purely for the potentially huge financial gains Clementi’s proposition had promised, and, as in all such ventures, there came a time when dividends were expected — and that time was now.

‘Gentlemen,’ Clementi said, settling into a seat across the table from them, ‘what an unexpected honour.’

No one replied. Clementi felt the skin tighten on his scalp, like a nervous candidate at a job interview. Reminding himself that he had invited them into his scheme, not the other way round, he tried to calm himself by reaching for a cigarette and lighting up. Xiang, the Chinese industrialist, was already smoking, the smoke from his cigarette making all three of them appear like they were smouldering. Despite their differences in age and nationality, each man carried the same dense gravity of absolute power and authority. At eighty-three, Xiang was the oldest; his suit, hair and skin as grey as the ash that dripped from his cigarette. Lord Maybury, the English media baron, was ten years younger, with unnaturally dark hair hinting at a degree of vanity and fear of getting old, and the sort of slightly shabby suit only centuries of good breeding could get away with. Pentangeli was the youngest at sixty-two. He was a third generation Italian-American who, despite the bespoke Armani suit and grooming, still carried a certain menace about him, something he had inherited from the grandfather who had arrived penniless from Calabria and fought his way to a fortune in the land of the free. Pentangeli was the only one of the Group who was a practising Catholic and, as usual, it was he who acted as their initial spokesperson.

‘Do we have a problem, Father?’ he asked, sliding a newspaper across the table. It was USA Today. On its cover were the familiar images of the Citadel and the three civilians, along with the question being whispered around the world:

DO THEY KNOW THE SECRETS OF THE CITADEL?

‘No,’ Clementi said, ‘there is no problem. It is unfortunate that this has happened now, but-’

‘Unfortunate!’ Maybury jumped in, his smooth privately schooled accent making every word sound condescending. ‘Since time immemorial the Citadel has guarded its secrets. Only now, when one of its biggest directly affects our joint investment, does it start to look leaky. I would call that rather more than unfortunate.’

‘No secrets have been revealed,’ Clementi said, keeping his voice low and calm. ‘This is merely the result of a few misguided terrorists making a token attack on the Church. I can assure you, from the moment they were brought from the mountain, the survivors have been isolated and monitored. Ruin is a city that owes its very existence to the Church. We have far-reaching influence there. They are being held in an old secure psychiatric wing in the main city hospital. A priest and a police guard have been watching them round the clock to prevent the press or anyone else getting close. All police interviews, all consultations with lawyers, all medical discussions with the patients have been recorded and passed to me. I can assure you that not one of them has shown any indication that they learned anything compromising to us during their time inside the Citadel.’

‘Not yet,’ Pentangeli said, flipping open his briefcase to retrieve a document with CIA stamped across the cover. ‘You’re not the only one with friends in high places.’ He slid it across the table for Clementi to read.

It was the transcript of a confidential interview between a patient known as Liv Adamsen and a Dr Yusef Kaya, chief clinical psychiatrist at Davlat Hastenesi Hospital, Ruin. The final paragraph had been outlined in yellow highlighter… The patient displays classic symptoms of post-traumatic amnesia, possibly caused by a severe physical or psychological trauma. However, the patient is strong physically and her mind is otherwise lucid and unimpaired, so with time and therapy she should be able to fully recover her lost memories and return to continuous recall.

‘She’s a ticking time bomb,’ Xiang said, in precise, smoke-tinged English. ‘For myself I do not care whether this Sacrament is revealed to the world or not. Frankly, I think it is a myth — I am an atheist, as you know. What does concern me is that, if the Citadel cannot keep this, its biggest secret, might it prove unequal to the task of keeping ours?’

‘And she’s not the only concern,’ Pentangeli added, pulling another document stamped CONFIDENTIAL from his case.

‘Subject one: Kathryn Mann, forty-eight years old, half-Brazilian, half-Turkish, head of a global humanitarian aid charity with offices all over the world, including Ruin. Widow of Dr John Mann, US-born archaeologist and scholar, killed twelve years ago on a dig in Iraq along with the rest of his team after they reportedly discovered something in the desert around the location of Al-Hillah.’ He looked up at Clementi. ‘And you’re not worried about that?’