trying to get the car in front of him to pull aside.
“That makes us quite the pair. You trust no one, and I put all my trust in God.”
To which Tex said, “This Kumbaya shit is all well and good, but I could sure use a shot of Johnnie Walker and a shower, and if Adami catches up to us, I’m not getting either.”
Griffin checked his mirror. The black Mercedes was closing in on them. He whipped the wheel, made a hard right turn down a narrow street. “Find out where that chopper is, Tex.”
Tex made the call. “They’re tracking our cell now.”
Griffin turned left down an alley, then down another street that opened into a plaza. He blasted the horn. Pedestrians fled. The Mercedes was on their tail. Silvio leaned out the window, pointed a gun at them. And then the welcoming thrum of helicopter rotor blades filled the air. Griffin looked up, saw the military helicopter hovering above an Egyptian obelisk in the plaza’s center.
The chopper maneuvered down, and two uniformed carabinieri leaned out, submachine guns in hand. He saw Giustino behind the crew, talking to someone on his headset. “The cavalry’s here,” Griffin said.
“Adami’s backing off,” Tex replied.
“They’re leaving!” Dumas cried, and he made the sign of the cross.
Not until they’d landed safely at the carabinieri helipad, and Giustino guided everyone into an office, did Griffin agree to let Sydney pull out the map. She spread it out on the table and he studied the portion of the labyrinth she’d cut out, as well as the words listed down the side. “Not bad, Fitzpatrick,” he said. “But it would’ve been nice to have gotten us the whole thing.”
“I was working on a time crunch.”
Francesca ran her fingers against the cut edge, looking sick to her stomach. “Ruined. Almost half of the labyrinth is missing. To be so close…”
“These words,” Sydney asked her. “Any idea what they mean?”
It was Dumas who answered. “Possibly Old French, archaic. They’d need to be researched. That of course can be done once it is rightfully returned to the Vatican.”
“Like hell it will be,” Griffin replied. “And even if it does belong to the Vatican, you think the pope will do a better job protecting the world from the threat of a plague released by a madman?”
“With God’s help.”
“What were you saying earlier about putting all your trust in God? Maybe a little trust in ATLAS’s capabilities?”
Dumas gave a heavy sigh. “Agreed. There has been too much death where this thing has been concerned.”
“Maybe you should put it away,” Griffin told Sydney, taking out his phone to call headquarters. “Less temptation for everyone.”
Sydney removed her sketchbook from the bag Alfredo had returned. She opened it to slip the map in, and Father Dumas saw one of the sketches of the loculi in the columbarium. “May I?”
“Sure,” she said, handing him the sketchbook. “I wish I’d had more time there. It was an amazing place.”
Giustino was talking to a fellow carabinieri near the door, arranging vehicle transportation for Griffin and the others back to Rome. He looked up, stopped when he realized Griffin was trying to make a call, and signaled for the other officer to step out with him. Even so, Griffin moved to the far side of the room for some privacy. The thought of telling McNiel about Ambassador Harden weighed on him, but he had no choice.
McNiel answered.
Griffin heard several people talking in the background. “You’re up late.”
“Damage control,” McNiel replied. “The thing we tried to avoid by keeping Alessandra’s murder from the press? It’s happening now. Ambassador Harden unwittingly started a firestorm at his daughter’s funeral, stating he wouldn’t rest until he learned who had killed her. We barely got him away from the press, before they started asking if he knew if his daughter was having an affair with Congressman Burnett. It’d be nice to bury this thing without exposing ATLAS.”
“About that,” Griffin said, watching as Sydney pointed out the details on one of the sketches, talking avidly about the columbarium to Dumas and Tex. “It might be too late. Who’s there with you?”
“I’m sitting here with the directorate and half the ATLAS oversight committee. What do you have to report?”
“Good news and bad. I’ll give you the good first, which you can relay,” he said, emphasizing the word as a warning. “We found Tex. He’s safe.”
“Thank God.” He heard McNiel repeat the information. Heard the congratulations being passed around the room. After a moment, McNiel said, “And this