Zobrist’s vast fortune. It would not be the first time the Consortium had been hired by paranoid scientists and engineers who preferred working in extreme isolation to prevent their valuable ideas from being stolen.
With that in mind, the provost accepted the client and was not surprised when he learned that the people at the World Health Organization had begun searching for him. Nor did he give it a second thought when the director of the WHO herself—Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey—seemed to make it her personal mission to locate their client.
The Consortium has always faced powerful adversaries.
As agreed, the Consortium carried out their agreement with Zobrist, no questions asked, thwarting Sinskey’s efforts to find him for the entire length of the scientist’s contract.
Almost the entire length.
Less than a week before the contract was to expire, Sinskey had somehow located Zobrist in Florence and moved in, harassing and chasing him until he committed suicide. For the first time in his career, the provost had failed to provide the protection he had agreed to, and it haunted him … along with the bizarre circumstances of Zobrist’s death.
He committed suicide … rather than being captured?
What the hell was Zobrist protecting?
In the aftermath of his death, Sinskey had confiscated an item from Zobrist’s safe-deposit box, and now the Consortium was locked in a head-to-head battle with Sinskey in Florence—a high-stakes treasure hunt to find …
To find what?
The provost felt himself glance instinctively toward the bookshelf and the heavy tome given to him two weeks ago by the wild-eyed Zobrist.
The Divine Comedy.
The provost retrieved the book and carried it back to his desk, where he dropped it with a heavy thud. With unsteady fingers, he opened the cover to the first page and again read the inscription.
My dear friend, thank you for helping me find the path.
The world thanks you, too.
First off, the provost thought, you and I were never friends.
He read the inscription three more times. Then he turned his eyes to the bright red circle his client had scrawled on his calendar, highlighting tomorrow’s date.
The world thanks you?
He turned and gazed out at the horizon a long moment.
In the silence, he thought about the video and heard the voice of facilitator Knowlton from his earlier phone call. I thought you might want to preview it before upload … the content is quite disturbing.
The call still puzzled the provost. Knowlton was one of his best facilitators, and making such a request was entirely out of character. He knew better than to suggest an override of the compartmentalization protocol.
After replacing The Divine Comedy on the shelf, the provost walked to the Scotch bottle and poured himself half a glass.
He had a very difficult decision to make.
CHAPTER 52
Known as the Church of Dante, the sanctuary of Chiesa di Santa Margherita dei Cerchi is more of a chapel than a church. The tiny, one-room house of worship is a popular destination for devotees of Dante who revere it as the sacred ground on which transpired two pivotal moments in the great poet’s life.
According to lore, it was here at this church, at the age of nine, that Dante first laid eyes on Beatrice Portinari—the woman with whom he fell in love at first sight, and for whom his heart ached his entire life. To Dante’s great anguish, Beatrice married another man, and then died at the youthful age of twenty-four.
It was also in this church, some years later, that Dante married Gemma Donati—a woman who, even by the account of the great writer and poet Boccaccio, was a poor choice of wife for Dante. Despite having children, the couple showed little signs of affection for each other, and after Dante’s exile, neither spouse seemed eager to see the other ever again.
The love of Dante’s life had always been and would always remain the departed Beatrice Portinari, whom Dante had scarcely known, and yet whose memory was so overpowering for him that her ghost became the muse that inspired his greatest works.
Dante’s celebrated volume of poetry La Vita Nuova overflows with flattering verses about “the blessed Beatrice.” More worshipful still, The Divine Comedy casts Beatrice as none other than the savior who guides Dante through paradise. In both works, Dante longs for his unattainable lady.
Nowadays, the Church of Dante has become a shrine for the brokenhearted who suffer from unrequited love. The tomb of young Beatrice herself is inside the church, and her simple sepulchre has become a pilgrimage destination for both Dante fans and heartsick lovers alike.