Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

She crept from the bedroom and entered the den. A stairway just beyond led up, the front door to her right. She heard murmured voices, laughter, and the sound of the floorboards being challenged.

“What the hell’s going on?” Stephanie wondered out loud.

“Didn’t your investigation find this?”

She shook her head. “Not a word. Must be recent.”

Cassiopeia disappeared back down the hall. She lingered a moment and spotted the same revolver Heather Dixon had drawn on her yesterday, lying in one of the chairs.

She grabbed the gun and left the den.

MALONE STARED AT THE ROSE WINDOW AND CHECKED HIS watch: 4:40 PM. This late in the year, the sun would start to set sometime in the next ninety minutes.

“This building is oriented on an east-west axis,” he said to Pam. “That window is there to catch the evening sun. We need to go up there.”

He spotted a doorway where an arrow indicated the upper choir. He walked over and found, nestled against the church’s north wall, a wide stone stairway with a barrel-vaulted ceiling that made it look more like a tunnel.

He followed a crowd up.

At the top they entered the choir.

Two rows of high-backed wooden benches faced each other, ornamented with festoons and arabesques. Above them hung baroque paintings of various apostles. The aisle between the benches led to the church’s west wall and the rose window thirty feet above.

He stared up.

Dust motes floated in the sheets of bright sunlight. He turned and studied the cross rising at the far end of the upper choir. He and Pam approached the balustrade and he admired the dramatic realism of the carved image of Christ. A placard at its base informed in two languages

CRISTO NA CRUZ

CHRIST ON THE CROSS

C. 1550

ESCULTURA EM MADEIRA POLICROMA

POLYCHROMED WOODEN SCULPTURE

“Where a retreating star finds a rose, pierces a wooden cross,” Pam said. “This is it.”

He agreed. But he was thinking about the next words.

And converts silver to gold.

He glanced back at the blazing rose window and followed the dusty rays as they passed the cross and entered the nave. Below, the light cleaved a trench on the checkerboard floor down a center aisle that bisected the pews. People milled about and didn’t seem to notice. The light continued east to the people’s altar and threw a faint glowing line onto its red carpet.

McCollum appeared from the lower choir and walked down the center aisle toward the front of the church.

“He’s going to be wondering where we are,” Pam said.

“He’s not going anywhere. He seems to need us.”

McCollum stopped between the last of the six columns and looked around, then turned and spotted them. Malone held up his palm and motioned for him to wait there, then displayed his index finger, signaling they’d be down in a minute.

He’d told McCollum the truth. He was pretty good with puzzles. This one had, at first, proved confusing, but now, staring down into a mass of carvings, ribs, and arches, a harmony of lines and interweaving stones that time, nature, and neglect had barely altered, he knew the solution.

His gaze followed the rays of the setting sun as they crossed into the chancel, bisected the high altar, and found the silver sacrarium.

Which glinted gold.

He hadn’t noticed the phenomenon when they’d been down close. Or perhaps the retreating sun had not as yet properly angled itself. But the transformation was now clear.

Silver to gold.

He saw that Pam noticed, too.

“That’s amazing,” she said. “How the light does that.”

The rose window was clearly positioned so the setting sun would, at least for a few minutes, find the sacrarium. Apparently the silver receptacle had been placed with great deliberation, one of the six paintings surrounding it removed, the symmetry that medieval builders cherished disturbed.

He thought of the final part of the quest.

Find the place that forms an address with no place, where is found another place.

And he headed for the stairs.

At ground level he approached the velvet ropes that still blocked access into the chancel. He noticed the interplay of black, white, and red marble, which lent an atmosphere of nobility-only fitting, because the chancel served as a royal family mausoleum.

The sacrarium stood thirty feet away.

Close inspection of it was not a part of the visitors’ experience. The priest at the people’s altar announced over the public address system that the church and monastery would close in five minutes. Many of the tours were already departing, and more people started for the exit.

He’d noticed earlier that there was some sort of image etched on the sacrarium’s door, behind which would have once been stored the blessed sacrament. Perhaps it still held the Host. Though a World Heritage Site, more tourist attraction than church, the nave was surely used for special observances. Similar to St. Paul’s and Westminster. Which would explain why people were kept at a distance from what was clearly the building’s centerpiece.

McCollum came close. “I have tickets.”

He pointed to the sacrarium. “I need a closer look at that, without all these witnesses.”

“Could be tough. I assume everyone is going to be hustled out of here in the next few minutes.”

“You don’t strike me as a man who bows to authority.”

“Neither do you.”

He thought about Avignon and what he and Stephanie had done there on a rainy June night.

“Then let’s find a place to hide till everyone leaves.”

STEPHANIE TIPTOED BACK INTO THE ALCOVE. SHE NEEDED TO find Daley’s hiding place before things climaxed upstairs. She hoped neither Dixon nor Daley was in a rush, though Daley had sounded hurried.

Cassiopeia was already quietly searching.

“The report said he never left this desk with the flash drives. He used them on his laptop, but didn’t leave with them. He’d always tell her to head on to the bedroom and he’d be right along.” Her words were more breath than voice.

“We’re really pushing it staying here.”

She stopped and listened. “Sounds like they’re still busy.”

Cassiopeia eased opened the desk drawers, testing for hiding places. But Stephanie doubted that she’d find anything. Too obvious. Her gaze again scanned the bookshelves and her eyes stopped at one of the political treatises, a thin, taupe-colored volume with blue lettering.

Hardball by Chris Matthews.

She recalled the story Daley had shared with Green when he’d boasted about his newfound authority with the Magellan Billet.

What was it he’d said?

Power is what you hold.

She reached for the book, opened it, and discovered that the last third of the pages had been glued together; a cavity about a quarter inch deep had been hollowed out. Nestled inside were five flash drives, each labeled with a Roman numeral.

“How did you know?” Cassiopeia whispered.

“I’m actually frightened that I did. I’m beginning to think like the idiot.”

Cassiopeia started for the rear of the house, toward the back door, but Stephanie grabbed her arm and motioned for the front. Confusion stared back at her-an expression that questioned, Why ask for trouble?

They stepped into the den, then the foyer.

An alarm keypad adjacent to the front door indicated that the system was still idle. She held Dixon’s gun.

“Larry,” she called out.

Silence.

“Larry. Could I have a moment?”

Footsteps thumped across the upper floor and Daley appeared in the bedroom doorway, pants on, bare-chested.

“Love the hair, Stephanie. New look? And the clothes. Catchy.”