"Okay, then..."

But the sergeant didn't immediately speak. She had a.s.sumed he was going to give her instructions on what to do if their doc.u.ments didn't scan. Or remind her to stay two small steps ahead and to the left of him whenever they entered a room, but he just stood there, grinding his jaw.

Now there was only one party of clergy ahead of them. "Brandt?"

He whispered harshly. "I'm not killing anyone."

"Even without a gun, I'm not worried about your ability to-"

"No, I mean I won't kill. Not on holy ground. Not here."

Rebecca's mind reeled. She had come to realize the sergeant was truly of faith, but wasn't killing people trying to kill them his gig?

Before she could argue, Brandt continued, "The guards. The staff. They're innocent. I won't shed their blood, not on holy ground."

"Okay, I get it, but what if we're arrested or worse attacked?"

The sergeant's firm tone left no room for doubt. "If it comes to down to that, I will protect you with my life, but we're going to have to rely on cunning to get through this."

As the guard waved them forward and asked for their doc.u.ments, Rebecca wished Brandt had told her this a little earlier so she could have properly panicked.

"Is the pope in attendance?" the sergeant asked the brightly garbed officer as he scanned their pa.s.ses.

"You are in luck. He is. His Holiness is taking private audiences on the second floor, but he might grace us with his presence following his afternoon respite."

Brandt showed no emotion, but Rebecca's heart fell past her stomach and settled below her pelvis. The pope wasn't supposed to be here.

"I thought he was visiting Parliament this afternoon?" Brandt asked, his tone light, but she knew he must be near panic.

The guard didn't notice her nervousness. "He was, but after the boating accident the president felt His Holiness should stay in attendance."

The look flashed for only a split second, but Rebecca knew Lopez was in a whole bushel of trouble.

As they walked through the bronze doors to the Palace, Brandt felt the anger toward his corporal fade, then extinguish. Just standing within a building that had sheltered dozens of popes, Brandt found himself hard-pressed to have any negative emotion. If anything, the place made him even more certain of his vow.

The Palace's interior might not be as ornate as the Chapel or the Basilica, but the modest walls held a simple piety. Even though the foyer was s.p.a.cious, there weren't any vast murals or even statues. Only a few tasteful paintings of the saints graced the walls with a collection of crosses scattered throughout.

Certainly the pope's presence was an obstacle, but it didn't necessarily scrub the mission. Like the guard said, His Holiness was receiving guests, which meant the pope's rooms were vacant. But they had to hurry. Brandt knew that when in attendance, the pope always retreated to his rooms after lunch.

Quickly, the sergeant surveyed the hallways that branched off the main foyer, but he found only rows upon rows of office doors. From Lopez's brochure, Brandt knew that the palace had over a thousand rooms with several enclosed courtyards and too many staircases to count. It was a literal labyrinth of bureaucracy.

But offices weren't what they were after. Brandt's eyes followed the long, wide hallway until it ended in a sweeping black marble spiral staircase. The staircase that led to the second floor where the pope's private rooms lay.

Two Swiss Guard regulated traffic at the ground level, but only one was dressed in the typical striped uniform. The other wore a red jacket with gold trim and matching red socks.

An officer. Both guards bore chest armor in addition to their helmets. Brandt also noted a heroism medal pinned to the sleeve of the junior officer. So he was no ordinary private, either. Just as Brandt had feared, once he heard the pope was in attendance, the Guard had sent their best and their brightest to secure the staircase.

While most of the second-floor landing was obscured by the enormous staircase, Brandt could make out at least two other guards. One in red. One in stripes. A senior and a junior officer. The sergeant could guess there would be at least two more in front of the pope's private residence. Six guards. All carrying swords. All experts in hand-to-hand combat. And he couldn't hurt any of them.

Pretending to appreciate the artwork, the sergeant followed Rebecca as she studied the paintings. However, he eavesdropped on the exchange between the guards and those who approached them. There was a mixture of German, the official language of the Swiss Guard, and Italian, Spanish, and even Mandarin. They were instructed that no one could climb the stairs for photographs until after the pope had retired to his quarters sometime in the next ninety minutes.

An hour and a half.

Maybe they didn't need to rush. Maybe they could wait until the pope retired to his quarters, then wander up with the other tourists, hole up somewhere on the second floor, emerging once the pope headed downstairs for the afternoon.

It sounded like a great plan, except for the glaring detail of the guards at the top of the stairs, but given ninety minutes, Brandt was certain that he could come up with a non-lethal way around them.

He turned to update Rebecca on their timetable, but then he saw that look she always got just before she turned his world upside down.

"What is it?"

"I'm surprised you didn't notice."

His eyes narrowed. "Notice?"

"The crosses. Look at the crosses."

Rebecca was pleased that for once she had been the one to stop and appreciate the beauty. Brandt's eyes surveyed the walls, scanning the hundreds of crosses. He glanced back to her, still confused.

"The silver ones in particular," she prompted.

As he went back to his search, Rebecca admired the crosses again. There were so many. Some sparkled gold or silver, while others were made of rough wood or smooth stone. There was even an onyx one above a portrait of the black Madonna. The vast majority also had the figure of Christ upon the cross. It wasn't until she started studying the ones that lacked his body that Rebecca realized they were all silver.

The sergeant swung around to her. "They are inscribed in Latin."

She nodded. Not just inscribed in Latin, but each silver cross bore a single word, the same word on all.

"Illiac," Brandt read.

"In English, 'here.' "

The sergeant added. "Or 'the place.'"

Rebecca smiled. He spoke Latin. Why she was surprised, she didn't know.

"May I help you?" a voice asked in Italian from behind them.

Acting way too guilty, she turned around to find a red-coated guard. c.r.a.p. Her mind was too far back into the dim past that she couldn't remember their cover story.

Brandt, however, just chuckled and answered in Italian with a tw.a.n.gy Midwestern accent. "Sorry, we just got so wrapped up in the artwork. We're looking for the Relics Library."

Despite the sergeant's casual manner, the guard still seemed on alert. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Within moments of entering the Palace, he had picked them out as possible threats. Maybe these guardsmen were that well trained after all.

The guard answered in English with a thick German accent. "Might I inquire why you wish to visit the Library?"

"Of course! We're from Michigan, Detroit actually, and we work with inner-city kids. Well, to make a long story shorter, we've been blessed with our own parish. Which is just amazing given the city's reluctance to donate the abandoned building, but our congregation went on a ma.s.sive letter-writing campaign, appealing to the city council and our local bishop to help us out..."

Rebecca stood amazed as the sergeant rambled on. Usually Brandt was all about brevity, but here the sergeant was going on and on about some fict.i.tious church. And it was working. Whereas a minute ago the guard's eyes were sharp with concern, they had glazed over as Brandt explained at length their 'Chast.i.ty First!' program.

"Yes. Yes," the guard interrupted. "But why do you need the Library?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just been the longest seven months getting the permits and county a.s.sessor on board-" Brandt appeared to refocus as the guard gave the international hand signal for hurry it up. "And we just broke ground when we were informed that St. Justine's relic had been lost in the mail. Can you believe that, in this day and age? As you can imagine, we were horrified. We can't have the church blessed until the Holy Relic is within the walls. And trying to reapply for another has just been so hard, what with the time difference and the language barrier. The Lonpreggs offered their frequent flyer miles, and-"

"Take that hallway, then turn left at the juncture, then a right. The library will be the fifth door on the left," the guard said, walking off before Brandt could entangle him in further conversation.

"Thank you!" the sergeant answered heartily, but the man was already heading out the bronze door. More quietly, he said to Rebecca, "We'll head that way, then double back."

Rebecca shook her head. "We won't need to."

"What do you mean?"

There were some days she loved computational archaeology more than others. Today she was near rapturous. "Keep walking, but look at the pattern of the crosses."

Two short steps behind her and to her right, Brandt followed, his eyes flickering across the walls. "They're growing in number toward the northwest hallway."

"Yep, and I know exactly where they're leading."

CHAPTER 32.

Vatican City As they headed deeper into the administrative offices, the crowds thinned. Brandt waited until they had made their first left, well out of sight of the astute guard, before he pulled Rebecca to a halt.

"Hand me the map," she said before he could ask her to explain.

Brandt opened Lopez's "The Vatican from an Architectural Viewpoint" map. "What are we looking for?"

"What's directly under the pope's quarters?"

The sergeant searched the map. "Nothing. Remember? It's where you thought a staircase was hidden."

"But what if that's not what's hidden? What if the s.p.a.ce is a chamber hidden by a false wall sealed off by one of these offices?"

Brandt liked this idea way better than breaking into the pope's bedroom. "Show me."

Rebecca pointed to the area in question. There were four offices that ab.u.t.ted the s.p.a.ce. The northern one issued pa.s.sports. The southern was in charge of health care for day laborers. The western office distributed the pope's schedule to the international media. But it was the eastern one that Brandt was sure Rebecca meant. The Latin t.i.tle needed no translating.

Census. It seemed una.s.suming enough. The office was tasked with keeping track of the number of Catholics in the world, but the sergeant knew that Rebecca was more interested in the older meaning of the world.

"Joseph and Mary were on their way to register with the Roman census when Jesus was born," he stated.

"The Romans required that everyone register in the town of their ancestors. Since Joseph arose from Bethlehem..."

Brandt studied the map. What were the chances it was a coincidence that this office, that shared the same duty as the ancient census, ab.u.t.ted a strangely empty s.p.a.ce directly above the location of the Roman mint?

"It can't hurt to check it out," he agreed.

So instead of taking the next right, they traveled a hundred feet and took the fourth left. Seventeen doors down, they stopped.

"You going to talk our way in again?" she asked with a smile.

"You know it."

As Brandt pretended not to speak Italian to the harried-looking clerk, Rebecca studied the back wall. The wall that led to the hidden s.p.a.ce was painted with a simple but moving mural.

It might not be a Michelangelo, but it re-created the nativity manager perfectly with the Bethlehem star shining above it. Someone before them must have made the connection between the two censuses.

"Please, we need to register our parish," the sergeant insisted with just the right amount of exasperation in his voice.

"Parish! Si! Si!" The man, who was obviously not accustomed to many foreign visitors, went on to ask them where the parish was and how many worshippers, but they both acted completely clueless.

"English? Does anyone speak English?" Brandt asked like a typical American tourist.

"Si!" the reed-thin clerk said. "Maria! Prep contabilizzazione!"

As the man hurried out of the office to go fetch Maria from accounting, Rebecca looked at Brandt with new appreciation. Maybe having to rely on non-lethal means was showing a softer side of the sergeant.

"Any idea how we are going to get through that wall before Alberto comes back?" the sergeant asked.

"Nope," Rebecca said, then remembered Budapest and the easily swung gate and water closet. "Check the edges, especially the bottom."

But as they felt for any signs of a latch, it became clear the mural was painted on a wall that was firmly attached to the room's structure. The hidden room was looking more and more like Istanbul with no easy access.

"We can always come back with some C-4," Brandt suggested, but Rebecca shook her head sharply. Explosives were such an inelegant solution to the problem, and one that nearly ended in fatal results the last time they had relied upon them.

If this wall truly led to Christ's remains she seriously doubted that the artist meant for it to be torn to shreds. The mural had to have some clue. But the more she looked, the more Rebecca found only a beautiful rendition of the nativity. Tucked away in the left corner was the silhouette of the wise men cresting a hill upon their camels. To the right were the shepherds with their herd, but no sign of how to find the man grown from the babe.

Brandt backed away, sizing up the wall. "I'm telling you a thin cord of C-4 with focal points, here and here."

She ignored him as she searched the other walls. So far, the direct path to the goal was certainly not a straight line. But the other walls were covered with bookshelves and filing cabinets. No help there.

The only adornment to the room was a single silver cross. She didn't pay it much heed until she realized that it had a delicate figure of Christ but no writing. Perhaps a clue was detailed on the back.

Laughter carried down the hallway. The clerk had found Maria.

Brandt hurried, knocking on the wall, trying to find the support beams. "I say we knock out two of these here and smear the paste to create a cavity in the drywall."