He was curious, “Your last name. Gallo. Any relation to Cardinal Gallo?”
“He is my brother.”
Now that was convenient. From the media accounts he’d read the cardinal had wreaked havoc within the Hospitallers, essentially masterminding the grand master’s ouster. Then his brother emerged as the temporary man in charge? What were the odds on that one? He also recalled what James Grant had wanted him to explore.
“I’m told that the knights have a fascination with Mussolini?”
Gallo gave a slight shake of his head. “Not a fascination. More a historical interest. But that is a private matter, one we don’t discuss outside our ranks.”
Exactly what James Grant had warned they would say.
His host shifted slightly in the leather seat. Enough that Cotton caught a glimpse of what he thought might be a shoulder holster beneath the suit jacket.
Intriguing.
Why did a professed man of God carry a weapon? True, Hospitallers were once warrior-monks, defending the honor of Christ and the church.
But not anymore.
They were now climbing a ridge on a second switchback road. The Ligurian Sea stretched toward the western horizon, looking pale and weary in the faint red glow of the setting sun. The lights of Portofino could be seen in the distance. Ahead, he spotted an irregular group of buildings, perched on a precipitous neck of stone, facing the water. They had a fortresslike character from the crenellated walls to the distinctive towers, and seemed more hacked by the wind and rain from the rock than human-made.
“We’re headed for that monastery?” he asked Gallo.
“It was once a holy place. But we acquired the site about sixty years ago.”
The car kept climbing.
“When we were forced from Malta by Napoleon,” Gallo said, “we took some of our archives with us. They were stored in various places around Europe, sometimes not all that carefully. Finally we obtained this site, refurbished the old buildings, and consolidated everything. There is a small repository still on Malta, but the majority of our records and artifacts are kept here.”
The car turned onto a short drive, then passed through an open gate into an enclosed courtyard. Floodlights lit the cobbles to reveal another huge white Maltese cross etched into their surface.
The Mercedes stopped.
“You should feel privileged,” Gallo said.
“How so?”
“Few outside the knights are ever allowed here.”
But he was not comforted by the honor.
* * *
The knight lowered the binoculars.
His view of the old monastery, now an archival repository for the Knights of Malta, was unobstructed from his dark perch. He’d watched from the trees as the car entered the lit courtyard and Cotton Malone emerged.
He’d traveled south from Como at a leisurely pace with the elephant-skin satchel and its contents safe within his car. Before leaving Menaggio, he’d read all eleven letters between Churchill and Mussolini, learning enough of the details that he could now speak intelligently about them.
And he had.
Talking to the British by phone, informing them as to what he possessed, what he wanted, and learning what they desired in return.
Which had surprised him.
But it had been doable.
He glanced at his watch.
Time to go.
He had a meeting.
CHAPTER TWENTY
5:40 P.M.
Luke stepped out of the building onto one of Valletta’s quieter side streets. Actually, more an alley between two walls of stone. He saw traffic moving along perpendicular at either end. He’d followed Laura Price up from the tunnels into a basement full of wooden crates. Mostly wine. From the looks of things, it was some sort of storage room. She seemed to know her way around the nooks and crannies.
The evening was still warm from the sweltering day. They headed to one end of the alley. When he caught sight of the harbor he realized he was not far from his car. He’d always been blessed with a keen sense of direction. Numbers and names were tough to recall. Faces not much better. But where he’d been? That stuck with him.
“I need my phone,” he told her. “It’s in my car.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“No. It can’t.”
He led the way.
“Cardinal Gallo is currently in Mdina,” she told him. “That’s about twelve kilometers from here. The man who was on the Madliena Tower, Arani Chatterjee, is there in Mdina with him.”
Good. He owed that SOB.
“Chatterjee likes to call himself an archaeologist, and he has credentials, but he’s really just a grave robber, a dealer in stolen antiquities.”
They kept walking.
People filled the sidewalks, most dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and sandals. A brisk breeze swept in from the sea like an invisible river.