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.“What’s wrong?” Holliday said.“It’s him,” whispered Rafi, real horror in his face.“The bald one.I’d recognize him anywhere.The guy who stole the Crusader scroll from us.The one who had me beaten half to death a year ago in Jerusalem.It’s him.He’s here.”Rafi handed over the binoculars.Holliday looked, seeing the man for the first time.Rafi’s beating had come at the hands of the same people who’d tried to kill Holliday and Peggy in a back alley in Old Jerusalem on the same night a year ago.Call them what you wanted, Black Templars, La Sapinière, Sodalitium Pianum, Organum Sanctum, the Instrument of God, it was all the same, and then and there he knew where the big white helicopter had come from and where it was going: its destination was Rome.The Vatican.23The three men arrived in Rome after an hour-long train ride up the coast from Anzio.They reached the Roma Termini station in the late afternoon, almost exactly twenty-four hours after first seeing Peggy on the prison island of Santo Stefano.Stepping off the train, Holliday spotted a man in a Marine Corps service uniform greeting a friend on the platform and immediately braced him.The Marine turned out to be a West Point graduate, although one well before Holliday’s time there.The Marine also turned out to be part of the security detail at the U.S.embassy, and he gave Holliday directions to the old palazzo on the Via Veneto as well as a few contact names to smooth the way.At the embassy Holliday went through security while Rafi and Tidyman waited at a table under the awning at the Café de Paris across the street.Almost an hour later, Holliday reappeared and joined his companions at the café.Acting on the advice he’d been given at the embassy, they took another taxi through the hectic downtown area and headed northwest.Skirting the high walls of the Holy See, they were eventually dropped off in front of the Alimandi Hotel at Viale Vaticano, 99.The five-story building, once a police station and then a police association retirement home, had been refurbished into a four-star hotel complete with a roof garden restaurant that looked directly across at the ornate main entrance through the high walls to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.“So how exactly is this going to work?” Rafi asked as they settled into their suite of rooms.Holliday stepped out onto the balcony and looked out onto the Vatican rooftops.Part of the church since the time of Constantine more than fifteen hundred years ago, it was exactly what it appeared to be, a fortress state guarded by high stone walls and two thousand years of tradition—as well as being the single largest corporate entity in the world.And he was about to take it on.I must be out of my mind, he thought.Holliday let out a long breath and felt an itch at the back of his throat—a sense memory of a time when he’d smoked two packages of unfiltered Camel cigarettes a day.Standing there in the warm afternoon light he knew he could start again in an instant, even though it had been almost twenty years.He glanced down at the cobblestone plaza in front of the high arched entrance through the wall.Souvenir carts and ice cream vendors were parked in front of the entrance like remora cleaning the teeth of a cruising shark.He sighed again and turned back into the room.“So how is this going to work?” Rafi asked again.“Maybe it’s not,” answered Holliday.“You really think Peggy is in there?” Rafi said.“Probably not, but the way to get her back is.”“And how are we to work this act of magic?” Tidyman asked, dropping down into a silk-covered armchair.Holliday turned back to the view out the doors leading to the balcony.“First we have to find the right bird, then tempt it out of its cage so it can sing.”“So how do we find the bird?” Tidyman asked.“Call it,” said Holliday.In the end it turned out to be remarkably easy.An initial telephone call to the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology on the Via Napoleone III and mentioning his own name, the name of Sodalitium Pianum and Walter Rauff all in the same sentence elicited a polite callback, which in turn led to a second call from the Second Section of the Vatican Secretary of State’s office thanking Holliday for his interest and suggesting that in furtherance of his interests a visit to the Gregorian Egyptian Museum on the following day at noon might be in order.It wasn’t stated in the conversation but the implication was clear: he should come alone if he had any expectations of “furthering his interests.”“Are you actually going alone?” Rafi asked.“Of course not,” answered Holliday.“I want you to tail me and Emil to tail you.They’ll almost certainly have me under surveillance, but let’s see just how deep it goes.”Rafi went down to the souvenir stands on the other side of the Viale Vaticano and purchased floor plan guides of the Vatican Museums for all of them.The Gregorian Egyptian Museum was located one floor above the main entrance and was reached by climbing the famous spiral staircase used in the final murder montage in The Godfather: Part III.The three men would enter the museum at five-minute intervals and stay well apart at all times.It wasn’t foolproof but it was the best they could do.At eleven thirty the following morning Holliday left the hotel, crossed the street and went through the high arched entrance in the high stone wall.He purchased the required tickets for the museum, then climbed one flight up the broad winding stairway.Reaching the main floor, he turned to his left and went down a short hallway, following the signs to the rooms containing the Egyptian Museum.He found a bench across from a display case of funerary urns and sat down to wait.A few minutes later a man in a dark suit sat down beside him.He was dark-haired and dark-eyed with cheek and chin grayed with five o’clock shadow.His English was flat and without accent.His shoes were black, highly polished, and looked very expensive.Why was it that he’d never seen a priest in cheap shoes?“You’re Colonel Holliday?”He hadn’t used his rank when he’d called on the telephone.“You know I am
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