Page 42 of The Medici Return

They’d opened Anna’s tomb, the bones reverently arranged anatomically by the latest investigators from a few years ago. Everything else that had been there in the 1857 exhumation was gone, decayed over time or ruined by the 1966 great flood. His expert had extracted several samples. He was bolstered by the fact that viable DNA had been found in her bones during the last exhumation.

Find it once. Find it again.

He knew he now faced several vexing issues.

First, he had to establish a verifiable DNA link to the Medici, through Gregorio Cappello and Anna Maria. If what his grandmother had told him was true, Gregorio Cappello and Anna Maria were mother and son. Which meant the historical accounts of Anna Maria being childless were wrong. But a DNA accuracy of 99.9 percent would rewrite that history. Since he’d already verified his DNA link to Gregorio, along with what his grandmother had always said, that would make him a royal Medici.

Check that off the list.

Second, he had to establish a DNA link from the paternal side.

Then the third part. The hardest of them all. Proving that Anna Maria and her baby’s father were legally married. Only then would he be a legitimate royal Medici heir.

Could he do it? In three days?

He was about to find out.

CHAPTER 28

JASON WAS WIRED.

Fatigue was nowhere to be found.

It was well after midnight and Cardinal Stamm had retired to his bedroom. Cotton Malone was still there, and he was glad. He did not want to face this alone, and Stamm had vouched for the American.

“He was one of the best intelligence officers the U.S. ever sent out,” Stamm said. “He knows what he is doing.”

Quite a compliment from the Vatican’s former spymaster, who had been one of the best himself.

“Chas speaks highly of you,” he said to Malone.

“He seems to like you too.”

“He and I have always enjoyed each other’s company. Neither one of us ever tried to fool the other.”

Malone chuckled. “That does make for a good friendship. Me and my former boss were similar.”

“Sure you would not like a drink?”

“I’ll stick with water. I never acquired the taste for alcohol as a young man.”

He raised his glass, which contained a generous splash of Irish whiskey. “I cannot say the same. And, I might add, Chas has some top-shelf selections.” He enjoyed a sip. “This is serious. Right?”

“Four hundred thousand euros in cash, hidden inside a building you control? Then to get one of the co-defendants to implicate you and plant the seed?”

“That co-defendant is a monsignor from the Secretariat of State. Easy to see how he suddenly had a pang of conscience and confessed.”

“All of which takes planning and nerve,” Malone said. “Those same people may also want you dead. Killers were on their way to Munich.”

It was important that Malone saw him as pragmatic and reasonable. A victim. Not a criminal.

“I am curious,” Malone said. “Why target you? There’s more here than you being a friend to the pope.”

“I suspect Cardinal Ascolani is consolidating his power and eliminating any and all threats.”

“Does he think you papabile?”

The unofficial term described a Catholic man thought a likely, or possible, candidate to be elected pope. Most times the cardinals choose from among themselves a clearly papabile candidate. Occasionally, though, they veer away and take a chance, electing a man outside the norm. John XXIII, John Paul I, John Paul II, and Francis were notable recent examples. Yet the old saying was true.He who enters the conclave as pope leaves it as a cardinal.A warning that no one should be too sure of themselves.