Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

They followed a thick swarm of tourists to the entrance. A sign indicated that admission to the church was free, but a ticket was required for the rest of the buildings.

Inside the church, in what was identified as the lower choir, the groined ceiling loomed low and produced an imposing gloom. To his left stood the cenotaph of Vasco da Gama. Simple and solemn, it abounded with nautical symbols. Another tomb, of the poet Luis de Camões, rested to his right along with a baptismal font. Bare walls in both niches added to both the austerity and the grandeur. People crowded the alcoves. Cameras flashed. Tour guides droned on about the significance of the dead.

Malone strolled into the nave and the initial dimness of the lower choir gave way to a bright wonder. Six slender columns, each a profusion of ornamentation twined with carved flowers, stretched skyward. The late-afternoon sun poured through a series of stained-glass windows. Rays and shadows chased one another across the limestone walls, gray with age. The vaulted roof resembled a sheaf of ribs, the columns like canopy supports, the mesh holding in place like a ship’s rigging. Malone felt the presence of Saracens who once ruled Lisbon, and noticed Byzantine fancies. A thousand details multiplied around him without repetition.

Remarkable.

Even more remarkable, he thought, given that ancient masons possessed the nerve to build something so massive upon Lisbon’s quivering ground.

Wooden pews that once accommodated monks now held only the inquisitive. A low murmur of voices echoed across the nave, periodically overshadowed by a calm voice through a public address system that requested silence in a variety of languages. Malone located the source of the admonition. A priest before a microphone, at the people’s altar, in the center of the cross-shaped interior. Nobody seemed to pay the warning any heed-especially not the tour guides, who continued on with their paid discourses.

“This place is magnificent,” Pam said.

He agreed. “The sign out front said it closes at five. We need tickets to the rest.”

“I’ll go get them,” McCollum said. “But doesn’t the clue lead us only here, to the church?”

“I have no idea. To be sure, let’s have a look at whatever else there is.”

McCollum made his way back through the clot of people to the portico.

“What do you think?” Pam asked, still holding the sheet of paper.

“About him or the quest?”

“Both are a problem.”

He smiled. She was right. But as for the quest, “Some of it now makes sense. Begin the journey in the shadows and complete it in the light. The entrance does that nicely. Like a basement back there, then it opens into a bright attic.”

The priest again quietly admonished the crowd to stay silent and everyone again ignored him.

“He has a tough job,” Pam said.

“Like the kid taking names when the teacher leaves the room.”

“Okay, Mr. Genius,” she said. “What about where a retreating star finds a rose, pierces a wooden cross, and converts silver to gold. Find the place that forms an address with no place, where is found another place. ”

He was already thinking about that and his attention was drawn forward, to the chancel, where a rectangular floor plan led to a concave wall backdropping the high altar, all topped with a combination of hemispherical dome, barrel vault, and stone-coffered ceiling. Ionic and Corinthian pillars rose symmetrically on three sides of the chancel, framing vaulted stone chambers that displayed elaborate royal tombs. Five paintings wrapped the concave wall, everything drawing the eye to the majestic baroque sacrarium that stood in the center, elevated, above the high altar.

He wove his way around loitering tourists to the far side of the people’s altar. Velvet ropes blocked any entrance to the chancel. A placard informed him that the sacrarium, made entirely of silver, had been crafted by goldsmith João de Sousa between 1674 and 1678. Even from fifty feet away the ornate repository, full of detail, appeared magnificent.

He turned and stared back through the nave, past the pillars and pews, to the lower choir, where they’d entered.

Then he saw it. In the upper choir, past a thick stone balustrade, fifty feet above the church floor. High in the farthest exterior wall, a huge eye glared down at him. The circular window stretched ten feet or more in diameter. Mullions and traceries radiated from its center. Roof ribs wound a twisting path back toward it and seemed to dissolve into its shadowless radiance, bright as a stage lamp and suffusing the church’s interior.

A common adornment to many medieval churches. Named after its fanciful shape.

Rose window.

Facing due west. Late in the day. Blazing like the sun.

But there was more.

At the center of the upper choir’s balustrade stood a large cross. He stepped forward and noticed that the cross fit perfectly into the round of the window, the brilliant rays flooding past it into the nave.

Where a retreating star finds a rose, pierces a wooden cross, and converts silver to gold.

Seems they’d found the place.

VIENNA

4:30 PM

THORVALDSEN ADMIRED ALFRED HERMANN’S SPECTACLE OF flowers, water, and marble, the enormous garden an obvious labor of several generations. Shady walks wound out from the château to grassy glades, the brick paths lined with statues, bas-reliefs, and fountains. Every so often French influences yielded to a clear taste for Italy.

“Who are the people who own this place?” Gary asked.

“The Hermanns are a family of long standing in Austria, just as my family is in Denmark. Quite wealthy and powerful.”

“Is he your friend?”

An interesting question, considering his suspicions. “Up until a few days ago, I believed that to be the case. But now I’m not so sure.”

He was pleased with the boy’s inquisitiveness. He knew about Gary’s parentage. When he’d returned from taking Gary back home after their summer visit, Malone had told him what Pam had revealed. Thorvaldsen had feigned ignorance when he’d first seen her a few nights ago, though he’d instantly known her identity. Her presence in his house, with Malone, signaled trouble, which was why he’d stationed Jesper outside the study door. Pam Malone was high-strung. Luckily she’d calmed down. She should have been back in Georgia by now. Instead, the caller from Tel Aviv had said, Seems Malone and his ex-wife are presently on their way to Lisbon.

What was happening? Why go there? And where was the Talons of the Eagle?

“We’ve come here,” he said to Gary, “to help your father.”

“Dad never said anything about us leaving. He told me to stay put and be careful.”

“But he also said for you to do as I say.”

“So when he yells at me, I expect you to take the blame.”

He grinned. “With pleasure.”

“You ever seen a person shot?”

He knew Tuesday’s memory had to be troubling, no matter how brave the lad wanted to be. “Several times.”

“Dad shot the man dead. But you know what? I didn’t care.”

He shook his head at the bravado. “Careful, Gary. Don’t ever become accustomed to killing. No matter how much someone may deserve it.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s only, he was a bad man. He threatened to kill Mom.”

They passed a marble column surmounted by a statue of Diana. A breeze caressed the trees and trembled shadows cast out on the undulating turf. “Your father did what he had to do. He didn’t like it. He just did it.”

“And I would have, too.”

Genetics be damned. Gary was Malone’s son. And though the boy was but fifteen, his indignation could certainly be aroused-just like his father’s-especially if a loved one was threatened. Gary knew his parents had traveled to London, but he didn’t know his mother was still involved. He deserved the truth.