The man with the mustache and round, dark shades hadn’t left his table for over two hours. Content to while away the mid-morning hours with a newspaper and several espressos.
Which made Gapinski annoyed.
His annoyance was amplified by his grumbling stomach, which hadn’t seen a fresh fill of food since he and his partner started tracking the man earlier that morning.
“Was that your stomach?” Naomi Torres asked him.
“Sorry,” he huffed. “But some of us can’t live on buttered ciabatta bread and espresso alone.”
“I told you, you should’ve taken those apples before we left the hotel.”
“And I told you, I hate apples. Growing up, Ma took that old apple-a-day wives' tale literally. By the time I was ten I had eaten a whole orchard and vowed never to let another Newton or McIntosh see the inside of my stomach.”
“Look where that’s gotten you,” she mumbled.
“I heard that,” he replied, feigning offense. “And for the record, I'm big-boned, alright?”
“Whatever you say. It’s your move by the way.”
Gapinski eyed the chess board they had commandeered in the plaza across from the café where the man had perched himself for the morning, figuring they would blend in better if they were engaged in some kind of activity. He took out a pawn that had advanced a little too close for comfort with a rook from the other side of the board.
“And for the second record, I’m your superior on this mission. So, you know, show me a little of the R-E-S-P-E-C-T, would ya?”
She smiled wryly and nodded, returning her gaze to the mustachioed man across the street. Then took out his rook with her knight. “Check,” she said.
“Thanks for that.”
“No problem, chief.”
Radcliffe had recruited Torres from, of all places, a treasure hunting outfit operating out of Miami, Florida. She had been a lead researcher at San Jose New World Salvage and Exploration, where she had earned a reputation for historical and archaeological acumen, as well as the hard-nosed negotiating chops to deal with corrupt governments and even more corrupt treasure-seeking pirates operating out of the Caribbean. Part historical and cultural preservation effort and part money-making venture, her uncle Juan Manuel Torres, from her father's side of the family, had made most of his money by exploiting oil drilling rights in Venezuela and Mexico. Tired of the corruption and boredom of that line of work, he took his earnings and put it to work trying to preserve his people's cultural heritage, while making a few pesos on the side. He hired his niece, Naomi Torres, after she finished dual master's degrees in Mesoamerican and pre-Columbian studies at UCLA to lead the research team.
Her first assignment had been to help a team of scientists and archaeologists seeking a lost, Spanish treasure fleet returning from the New World to Spain in 1715. After setting sail for the Old World on July 31, eleven of the twelve ships were lost in a hurricane near present-day Vero Beach, Florida. Also known as the 1715 Plate Fleet because it was carrying vast quantities of silver, the fleet had grabbed the imaginations of treasure hunters for a century. When her uncle was approached by a wealthy businessman acting on behalf of the Cuban government to find the crown jewel of the fleet, the Urca de Lima, he assigned his niece to handle the logistics and the recovery. Through her meticulous research of past fleet records, eyewitness accounts, weather patterns, and with the assistance of newer LiDAR technology, she found the sunken ship in a deep-sea valley, catapulting her uncle's salvage company to the top-tier of Miami outfits.
The find also put her on the radar of all the major exploration, salvage, and historical and archaeological societies. Including the Order of Thaddeus. Being acquainted with her grandfather from his time serving as a Jesuit archbishop in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Rowan Radcliffe had known about her deep faith and commitment to the Church. And having read about her archaeological exploits in the news and known about her experience with the Israeli Defense Force as the daughter of her ethnically Jewish mother, Radcliffe had contacted his old friend, who put him in touch with his granddaughter.
Initially, she was resistant, having devoted years of academic work and vocational energy to preserving the culture of her father’s people. But after sitting down with him and Celeste, she had been intrigued by the idea of offering her talents for historical inquiry and anthropological preservation in service of the Church.
Within weeks she had left Miami and flown to Washington, DC, where she spent half a year training as an operative with SEPIO. She was a quick study of both the historical and theological aspects of the Order’s work, as well as the tactical and physical demands of being on the front lines, though her experience with the IDF certainly helped. After the Shroud incident, the Order had stepped up its initiatives through SEPIO to protect and preserve the artifacts, manuscripts, and relics that contained the memory of the faith. This assignment with Gapinski was the fruits of that effort, her first.
Given the recent events with the Shroud of Turin and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and then the Gospel of Judas and apostle relics, it was clear Nous had launched a new phase of its attempts to undermine the Christian faith. Now, it seemed like all-out war, with their intent to destroy rather than merely debilitate. SEPIO had ramped up its intel operations in response, embedding agents in purported Nousati cells and tracking the whereabouts and conversations of known associates of the anti-Church organization.
One of those was finishing up his fourth espresso, after having set down his newspaper. Little was known about him, other than his name and origins. Marwan Farhad, from the central Iranian city of Yazd. He was thought to have a background in Zoroastrianism, the oldest spirituality known to that region stretching back to the Persian empire. But that hadn't been entirely confirmed.
All Gapinski and Torres knew was that the man was a cell leader within the upper echelons of Nous, and that he had booked a ticket from Berlin to Rome. When he did, Zoe had been notified by a C-level analyst in Munich monitoring Europe. That triggered an automatic re-route to Radcliffe’s desk, where he ordered the two to immediately board a plane for Rome. With zero intel to go off of, other than the high-level nature of the man and the prospects for even higher-level activity, they were left having to track him using the mainstay of old-school intelligence gathering: patience and persistence, observation and tracking, and a lot of luck.
“What’s with this guy?” Gapinski complained as he moved his queen to cover his king. “Not even a bathroom break?”
Torres looked over at the man again, who received a fresh cup of espresso.
“And that’s gotta be his seventh or eighth cup of joe.”
She moved the knight again, repositioning it to take the queen three moves out. “Fourth.”
“Excuse me?” he said, moving his bishop to take out her knight.
“Fourth cup of joe. Or, rather, espresso.”
“Whatever. The guy could do us the courtesy of taking a leak so I can take one myself.”
“If you’ve got to hit the head, then by all means. I can cover him. I’m ready.” She moved her queen diagonal of his king left vulnerable when he moved the bishop. “Check, by the way.”
“Wait. He’s moving.” Gapinski stood and darted over to a large sycamore tree to block the Persian’s line of sight
Mr. Mustache stood and stretched, then walked over to a bench near the road lined with bushes that covered its back. He sat, then leaned over. It looked like he was fishing for something underneath his seat. Then he sat up and stretched his legs outward, head down staring at his lap.
Gapinski was squinting and shielding his eyes from the late-morning sun. Torres joined him at the tree. He said to her, “Did he just take something from underneath the bench?”
“Looked that way.”
“Crapola! What just happened? Was there some sort of drop that we missed?”
“Not that I saw. We had our eyes on him the whole time. Other than when you were complaining about food, of course. And getting whooped at chess.”
Gapinski frowned. “From one smart-ass to another, now’s not the time.”
Torres nodded, then looked at the ground.
“Wait, he’s reading something. No. Yeah, I think he’s reading something. He’s reading something, isn’t he?”
Torres looked back up and strained forward. “I think you’re right. It looks like he’s cradling something with his left arm, but he’s being all casual about it.”
“And what’s that in his other hand? Did he just discard some type of box?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe some kind of package?”
“Sonofa...My first lead in, like, forever, and I blow it.” Gapinski leaned against the tree with his left arm and shook his head.
“Looks like he’s returning to his table,” she said, “and maybe settling back in.”
“I’m going to have to call this in. Maybe Zoe had a satellite or one of those new drone doodads on the guy.”
“Why don’t we get back to our game before he catches us peeping his way?”
“Always something,” he grumbled as he set off back toward their table.
The two settled back into their benches. Gapinski phoned Radcliffe to report what they had witnessed, then asked for Zoe to check on any aerial intel gathering she may have had going to support them. She said there was nothing. Radcliffe told him not to worry, but to check in with him the minute anything else changed. It seemed clear there was a reason Farhad was in Rome, and if he had picked up something at a drop site, that meant there were more than just him waiting to act.
“Your move, big fella.”
Gapinski raised an eyebrow, then took out her knight with his queen. She responded by taking out his queen with a bishop hidden at the back. He cursed under his breath, then moved his knight.
“Ahh, the Fibonacci move. Interesting.”
He twisted his face. “Fibo-what? You made that up.”
Torres smiled. "Sorry, my friend—"
“He’s on the move.”
Gapinski was already back at their observation tree by the time Torres knew what was happening. She moved her queen forward, taking out his knight before she left.
She caught up to him before they crossed the street in pursuit, then said, “Checkmate.”
He frowned as he looked both ways. “Alright, smarty-pants. Let’s see if you can translate those mad chess skills into the real world.”
He looked at her before they crossed. “Because it’s about to get real.”