Page 40 of Skotos (Of Shadows & Secrets #6)

Thomas

W e didn’t speak at first. The phone still buzzed in its cradle, a faint, hollow hum as though the Vatican itself was holding its breath.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the crucifix on the wall.

Will stood near the table, his arms crossed, looking as if he wanted to drive a fist through the stone.

“I hate this,” he muttered.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

His voice sharpened. “We’re supposed to let a man walk into an open square and not tell his bodyguards someone might put a bullet in his chest? How the hell is that okay?”

“It’s not,” I said. “But it might be necessary.”

He rounded on me. “Since when do you just roll over for orders?”

“Hey! Easy,” I said, holding up both hands in the universal “don’t shoot” signal. “I’m not caving to orders; I’m following the mission. Manakin’s right. If we alert the Vatican too soon, whoever’s behind this vanishes, and we lose their trail. You know that.”

Will looked away, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack.

“We tell Rinaldi something,” he said finally, voice low. “Not everything—but something.”

I nodded. “We need him to trust us. He’s our only direct line to the Vatican’s upper floors. But . . . we leave out the note, the cardinal’s cassock, and the names.”

Will paced to the wall and back, then stopped and looked at me. “You’re sure about this?”

“No,” I half laughed, shaking my head. “But I know if we blow this op, there’s no second chance. It might not be the Pope next, but some leader will die, probably a string of them.”

He nodded slowly. Reluctantly.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go lie to a priest.”

“To a whole church is more like it,” I said, smirking in the way that usually had Will’s mouth twitching. He only glared and raised his middle finger.

We exited the secure chamber and passed through the narrow middle hallway.

The outer chamber hadn’t changed, not that I expected it to.

The clerk was still seated, stern and motionless, and the two Swiss Guards hadn’t moved a single one of their overly built muscles.

Rinaldi was pacing, his hands clasped behind his back, head bent in thought or prayer or whatever a high-ranking priest did when he felt the weight of the world pressing down.

Rinaldi looked up when we entered, and the crease between his brows deepened. “You’ve spoken to your superiors?”

I glanced at the guards and the clerk, then back at Rinaldi, raising one meaning-filled brow.

He startled, as though my not-so-veiled meaning had just smacked him between the eyes. “Should we return to the secure room?”

I thought a moment. Given the limited information we were about to give the man, I decided to lower the drama level of our delivery.

“No, unfortunately, what we have to share doesn’t rise to that level of secrecy.”

Rinaldi’s face fell, and his shoulders slumped. Clearly, he’d been banking on us offering some miracle that might settle every nerve in the Vatican.

“Fine,” Rinaldi said. “In that case, let us take a walk. This room is beginning to close in around me.”

We followed the Monsignor back into the main hallway.

He was right. The much wider space of the marbled halls offered some measure of comfort after being cramped inside a glorified phone booth.

Rinaldi led us outside to the piazza, where a cool breeze made the fountains dance and splash.

Had we not been discussing the safety of men’s lives, it would’ve been a picturesque day for a stroll .

“Now,” Rinaldi whispered. “Tell me what you can, please.”

Will stepped forward. “Our people are concerned, but they want us to dig deeper before we share anything official.”

Rinaldi’s lips parted, a flicker of disbelief flashing in his eyes. “Are you telling me that nothing will be communicated to my superiors?”

“No, we’re not saying that,” I said calmly.

“But for now, we need time, just a few days. Washington doesn’t like guesses, and that’s all we have at this point.

We believe there’s a larger picture, and we’re very close to seeing it.

The last thing either of us wants is for the killers to catch wind of our efforts and vanish. ”

The Monsignor stopped walking and looked from me to Will and back again. “You think the Vatican has a leak.”

“Someone does,” Will said. “Until we’re sure, we can’t really say more than that.”

Rinaldi didn’t nod. He didn’t speak. He just stared for a long moment.

Then he stepped aside, motioning toward the doors. “Then I will pray that your superiors are correct—and that His Holiness remains unharmed.”

Not waiting for a response, he turned and left us to the piazza’s splendor.

“That went well,” I said after a moment .

Will ambled over to a fountain and stared into its rippling waters. Coins of every size, shape, and nationality lay on the tiled surface below, an interesting reflection of the church surrounding them.

“Are we doing the right thing?” he asked. I wasn’t really sure if he was asking me or his own conscience.

“We’re doing what we have to. Spies don’t always get the luxury of right and wrong.”

“That’s for damn sure,” he muttered, reaching into his pocket and tossing a coin into the water.

“What did you wish for?” I asked.

He stared at the ripples a moment longer, then looked up. “A miracle.”

I let that thought settle before patting his shoulder. “We should go. We have killers to catch.”

Will turned and fell in beside me as we headed to where a row of taxis waited for the throngs of tourists milling about.

It was a pleasant day. Civilians outnumbered clergy.

Still, those in robes or cassocks—or whatever those nun hats were called—were everywhere.

We’d almost made it to the taxi line when a young priest of unremarkable height, indeterminable age, and forgettable features stumbled into Will.

“ Scusi! ” the priest muttered and hurried off before either of us could reply.

Will frowned but said nothing .

I climbed into the back seat of the first taxi in line. Oddly, Will didn’t immediately follow, so I leaned across the seat and stuck my head out the open door.

“Planning to stay and see the sights?” I asked.

Will was staring at something in his hand. Before I could ask what he held, his head whipped around, then his whole body, as he scanned the piazza, searching desperately.

“Will, what is it?”

He ignored me, continuing to search, until finally giving up and climbing into the taxi.

“Someone put this in my pocket,” he said, holding out yet another folded note.

“Passing notes in class again?” I quipped.

Will scowled. “You read it. I can’t take any more right now.”

As the taxi’s engine roared to life, I unfolded the note to find a garbled message with many of its words smeared and illegible:

“He is not alone . . . The blade bears two edges. The Swiss . . . Cardinal has eyes . . . relic is . . . two days.”

“Well, that’s fucking ominous,” Will said.

“And not terribly helpful,” I added.

“Why does it just end? It’s like they were about to get to the punch line and—”

“Someone cut them off,” I finished for him.

He let his head fall back onto the padded rest and stared at the cab’s ceiling.

We needed to sort through whatever this was but couldn’t speak freely with our unknown driver in the car.

Will chose his next words carefully. “We already knew the last bit. The Swiss is a logical fear. We don’t know who the ‘he’ is in the first line or why a blade might have two edges. ”

I scanned the note again, searching for tiny marks or hidden messages. There were none.

“A blade with two edges could mean betrayal.”

Will huffed. “We’ve got plenty of that, with a side of murder.”

“Still, whoever gave you this—”

A loud screech cut me off, followed by the sound of the world splintering.

A black sedan had roared through a red light and rammed directly into the passenger side of our taxi.

The cab spun as our driver screamed and yanked the wheel.

The tires shrieked against cobblestones until we slammed into a lamppost with a crunch of metal and shattering glass.

The impact knocked the pole into a nearby bakery.

The sedan sped off, disappearing into the midday traffic.

Will groaned.

Our driver slumped forward, unconscious, blood trickling down his face.

“Will! ”

“I’m okay,” he hissed, wincing. “You?”

“Good enough.”

I pushed open my door and scrambled out. Across the street, a man was about to mount his motorbike.

“Sorry, amico !” I shouted, grabbing the handlebars.

“Hey!” the man cried, but Will was already swinging onto the seat behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist like we did this all the time.

“ Attività di polizia ,” Will added with a flash of his wallet—the one that most definitely did not contain a badge of any sort. I couldn’t shake my surprise that he’d remembered a few useful words of Italian.

I kicked the engine to life and shot into traffic, swerving around stunned pedestrians and honking cars. The black sedan’s taillights flickered far ahead as it turned onto a side street.