He noticed more carvings. Names. Dates. Coats of arms.
“All they could do,” she said, “was carve away and hope someone above showed mercy. This place is really old. Probably late 16th or early 17th century.”
He couldn’t care less about the history lesson. “Why am I here?”
“You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”
“I was doing my job.”
Since this pain in the ass knew who he worked for there was no need to be coy. And besides, his main source of exercise was pushing his luck.
“Do you have any idea what you’re into?” she asked.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
Her right arm whirled through the blackness, her fist heading up for his jaw. But his guard was up and he was ready. His left hand stopped the potential blow with a quick grab of her wrist.
“Not bad,” she said.
“I try.”
“After you shot my engine up, to get here I had to steal a boat from a guy who came by.”
He grinned. What was it about the badass girls that attracted him?
“Do you have any idea what’s happening tomorrow?” she asked.
Because he talked with a Tennessee mountain accent, had never attended college, and showed little to no interest in current affairs, people always thought him uninformed. Truth be told he read several newspapers each day, online of course, and devoured the daily security updates all Magellan Billet agents received. Once assigned to Malta, he’d read everything he could on Kastor Cardinal Gallo and what was about to happen at the Vatican.
“A conclave,” he told her.
“And this is going to be one for the record books. Mind letting go of my arm?”
He did.
“I bet that jaw of yours has had quite a few fists pounded into it.”
She was working him and he knew it. But what the hell? He liked it. “It takes a beating but keeps on ticking.”
“I bet it does. Like I said, this conclave will be a mess. There’s no front-runner. No solid contender. No favorite. One hundred and fifteen cardinals will be inside the Sistine voting. Who will they select as pope?” She shrugged. “I have no idea. Neither do they, by the way. That’s what happens when a pope dies suddenly. But I do know who some people don’t want. Kastor Cardinal Gallo.”
Interesting. “What people?”
“That’s only for me to know.”
“Have you been following me since yesterday?”
She nodded. “I assume that when Stephanie Nelle was telling you to get rid of me, she also told you who I work for.”
“Why does an island this small need an intelligence agency?”
“We sit on the southernmost border of the EU. We’re the front line between Europe and Africa. Get something onto this rock and you can easily get into the EU. That’s why we need an intelligence agency.”
“Why didn’t you just identify yourself to Stephanie to start with?”
“We were hoping to keep this contained.”
“Who is we?”
“My boss. He gave me an order. I do what he tells me.”
“How did you know I was headed into trouble?”
“Same answer. My boss told me. The man on the Madliena Tower, with Gallo, sometimes works with Vatican intelligence. We’ve seen him before. He piqued our interest and led me to you.”
He’d caught the magic words. Vatican intelligence. “The Entity is working with Cardinal Gallo?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Not a complete answer, and he could see that she was acquiring a case of lockjaw, a familiar malady with field operatives since the idea was to always get far more than you ever gave. “Any reason why you didn’t help me out before that idiot cut the towline?”
“And miss all the fun of watching you at work? That was worth the price of admission. But I did tell your boss you were in trouble.”
He shrugged. “What else could a guy ask for?”
“And so we’re clear, if you hadn’t shot up my engine, I would have saved you the trouble of being down here. As it was, all I had to work with was my phone.”
“Which I so conveniently returned.”
“Yes, you did. We need to leave.”
“We?”
“I prefer to work alone, but I’ve been told you’re now on the team whether I like it or not.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Deal with Cardinal Gallo.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
3:00 P.M.
Kastor walked past the rectory outside the cathedral. As the legend went, the Apostle Paul had been a guest of the local governor, a man named Publius. After curing the governor’s father of fever and flux, Paul converted Publius to Christianity. He then designated the governor’s house as Malta’s first church and the Roman its bishop. Ever since, a church had occupied the same spot within Mdina’s fortified walls, eventually becoming a cathedral in the 12th century and still serving as the seat for the Archdiocese of Malta.
Mdina sat nearly in the center of the island, surrounded by thick bastions, one of the world’s few remaining walled cities. It served as the island’s capital until the 16th century, when the knights arrived and built Valletta. Chatterjee had returned him to the Madliena Tower, where he’d found his rental car then driven alone to Mdina. The fact that Danjel Spagna was here, watching his every move, bothered him. As did the fact that the Americans were also watching.
Chatterjee had assured him they were dealing with the parasailer. He’d noticed there’d been no mention of the woman in the boat, but he assumed that problem was being handled, too. If it was anyone else besides the Entity he’d be concerned, but Spagna was renowned for his ability to get things done. The man had served five popes, surviving each successive purge when the old was swept away and the new welcomed. While that was thought somewhat therapeutic for the curia, it could be a bad idea for the intelligence business. Continuity was the name of that game. The Entity worked thanks to Spagna’s institutional memory and his steady hand. The fact that the spymaster wanted to make him pope was both gratifying and frightening.
He needed all the help he could get.