Chris Kuzneski - Sign of the Cross

‘Our victim was a priest who worked at the Vatican.’

7

The last time Payne had seen Jones was when they were being arrested. From there both of them were taken to the penitentiary in separate squad cars, stripped of their clothes and possessions, and locked in cells on opposite sides of the building. Mostly for the protection of the staff.

That was Friday, nearly seventy-two hours before.

Payne was on his cot, pondering his next move, when a team of guards interrupted him. They burst into his cell and chained his hands and legs together with a device that looked like it was from Cool Hand Luke . The men were of average size and training. That meant Payne could’ve gotten free if necessary. But he let things slide, allowing them to drag him to an isolation room where he assumed he was going to be interrogated. Or tortured. Or both.

In the center of the room was a metal table bolted to the floor. A large iron loop was fused to each side, used to restrict the movement of the prisoner. The guards locked Payne in place, taking extra precautions, making sure he was secure. They had to be careful with a prisoner like Payne. He was that dangerous. Once they were satisfied, they left the room without speaking. No words. No instructions. Nothing. The only sound Payne could hear was the rattle of his chains and his own shallow breathing. The distinct smell of old vomit hovered in the air.

They left him like that for several hours, allowing him to sweat. Allowing him to think of all the horrible things they could do to him. Hoping it would make him break. Little did they know they were wasting their time. They could do whatever they wanted to Payne, and he wouldn’t feel it. He was trained not to feel it. To join the MANIACs, soldiers were required to pass a rigorous torture test that had two basic parts: getting torture and giving torture. Payne excelled at both.

So instead of dwelling on what might happen, Payne focused on other things. Mostly events of the past few years. All the things that had led him to his current predicament.

Sadly, family duties had forced him to leave the military long before he was ready. His grandfather, the man who had raised him, passed away and left him the family business. A multimillion-dollar corporation named Payne Industries. In truth Payne wanted no part of that world. It was one of the reasons he had gone into the military, to avoid such obligations. He wanted to forge his own identity and make a name on his own. He wanted to be his own man. But all that changed when his grandfather died. Suddenly he felt obligated to come home and take charge. Like it was his destiny. His burden.

Payne Industries was an American success story. It was his duty to protect the legacy.

When Payne’s grandfather was young, he scraped together his life savings and started a small manufacturing company near the Ohio River. The steel industry was booming back then, and Pittsburgh was its capital. The air was black and the rivers were brown, but he got tons of business. One minute he was a mill Hunky from Beaver County, the next he was a tycoon. The most successful Polish American in the history of the U.S.

Now everything — the company, the land, the wealth — belonged to the grandson.

Someone without experience.

Payne knew he was out of his element. So he passed his duties to his board of directors and focused all of his time and energy on charity work. His first charity? It wasn’t actually a charity. It was more of an investment. He gave David Jones, who had retired from the military at the same time, enough start-up capital to open his own business. It had always been Jones’s dream to run a detective agency, and Payne had the means to help. So he figured, why not? After his grandfather died, Payne knew the only family he had left was Jones.

Of course, since Payne was white and Jones was black, they looked nothing alike.

Anyway, the first year Payne was happy. He raised money for the Mario Lemieux Cancer Fund and other Pittsburgh charities while Jones scoured the city for clients. Occasionally Payne gave Jones a hand on the juicy cases, but for the most part they did their own thing.

By year two, Payne started getting antsy. He loved helping good causes, but he needed more out of life than hosting golf tournaments and mingling at black-tie affairs. He missed the excitement of the MANIACs. The adrenaline rush he got when he risked his life. The thrill of getting his hands dirty. He couldn’t get those things in the business world, not when the worst injury he could receive was a paper cut. So Payne compensated by helping Jones all the time. The two of them partnered again. Making a difference in the world. Albeit on a much smaller scale than before. They used to rescue hostages. They used to overthrow governments. Now they were tracking cheating husbands and looking for lost pets. It was a huge letdown for both men.

So they did what they could in their spare time, searching for artificial excitement wherever they could find it. Anything to get the buzz they used to feel. To help them keep their edge. To help them feel alive. Swimming with the sharks in Australia. Race car driving in Brazil. Skydiving in South Africa. Deep-sea explorations in Florida.

And lastly, running with the bulls in Spain. That’s what had brought them to Pamplona.

Unfortunately, it’s the event that led to their current predicament. Abandoned in jail. Alone.

They had come to Spain for adrenaline. They had found incarceration instead.

8

Maria had no proof, but she knew that Boyd was keeping something from her. Typical man, she thought. They never trusted women with the important stuff.

‘Come on,’ she begged, ‘what does the sign say?’

Boyd laughed as he walked away from the stone plaque. ‘You mean you don’t know? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I could’ve sworn that Latin was one of your academic requirements.’

‘Yeah, but that didn’t look like regular Latin to me.’

‘Perhaps because it wasn’t. That sign was written in one of the earlier forms of the language, one that hasn’t been used as a primary language in nearly two millennia.’

‘See! That’s why I… Wait! Does that mean that this floor was built by ancient Rome?’

Boyd nodded. ‘It appears that way. I doubt they would have used antiquated language on one of their markers, not in a tomb of this magnitude.’ He pointed to a large archway that loomed down the narrow corridor. ‘We’ll know for sure in a moment.’

Made out of off-white masonry, the main components of the arch were exquisitely carved, each illustrating a different moment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. The two lowest blocks, the springers , showed Jesus being nailed to the cross and being lifted above the ground by a team of Roman soldiers. The next series of stones, the voussoirs , depicted Christ as he hung from the cross, his life and stamina slowly slipping away. The crowns, the two stones that sat off-center from the top of the arch, revealed the events right before Jesus’s death. First, when he was given a sip of wine vinegar from the end of a hyssop stalk — while flowers bloomed underneath him, possibly as a sign of rebirth — and the instant his head drooped to his chest in death.

Strangely, the keystone, the most important block of the archway, differed from the others. Instead of depicting Christ’s resurrection or his ascension to the right hand of God, the middle stone of the arch was sculpted into the lifelike bust of a man. A laughing man. The intricate details of his face revealed his amusement in a number of obvious ways: the sweeping curve of his lips, the lighthearted twinkle in his eyes, and the arrogant protrusion of his jaw. For some reason, he was laughing at a most inappropriate time.