Cotton reached down and lifted the single sheet that had fallen free. He was careful with his grip at the edges, mindful of how to handle something so rare, which was, after all, his main business.
He unrolled and studied the page.
Six lines. Typewritten.
He translated the German in his head and read it out for Stephanie, in English.
Deliver the contents personally into the hands of von Hompesch. This must be done at once and with all possible discretion. Where oil meets stone, death is the end of a dark prison. Pride crowned, another shielded. Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file. H Z P D R S Q X
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“Let’s leave here, before we’re found out,” Gallo said. “I can explain some of it along the way.”
Good advice.
They both hopped down and replaced the tools in the duffel bag. Gallo re-rolled the parchment and the single page, slipping them back into the metal tube. Cotton carried the tube as they retraced their steps down the avenue toward the stadium.
“The knight who wrote those words served Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch, on Malta, as the prior of la nostra ronti maggiore della sacra religione,” Gallo said.
“Our major church of the sacred religion,” Cotton translated for Stephanie.
“The conventional church of the knights,” Gallo said. “The co-cathedral in Valletta. We’ve long thought the secret lay there, simply because of the connection of its prior to von Hompesch.”
“There has to be more than that,” Stephanie asked.
They kept walking.
“There is.”
He listened as Gallo told them about a man tortured by Napoleon during his invasion of Malta. A man whose hands had been nailed to a table and still refused to tell the French invaders a thing.
“Legend says that the dead man left a way to find the Nostra Trinità. He was the prior of the cathedral and part of the Secreti. After Napoleon slaughtered him, he was buried along the east shore of Malta in a church cemetery. He lay there in quiet repose until his grave was violated in the 1930s.”
“By Mussolini?” Cotton asked.
Gallo nodded. “And he clearly found something that commanded two popes’ attention. Enough that he was able to compel them to stay out of his politics. We’ve always thought something significant came from that grave.”
“Was it the message we just read?” Stephanie asked.
“It has to be. And there’s one other thing.” Gallo stopped, laying the heavy duffel bag down. “Mussolini killed three of our brothers to obtain what we just read. Those men, like that long-ago prior of the cathedral, died fulfilling their oaths. What we always believed, and now know to be true, is that Mussolini ultimately found nothing. He lied to the Vatican. A good one, for sure, but a lie nonetheless.”
“How can you be so sure?” Stephanie asked.
“That’s easy,” Cotton said. “If he’d found the ultimate prize, it would have been inside that obelisk, instead of just clues as to where it might be.”
Gallo nodded. “He also apparently altered the original message, since there were no typewriters on Malta in 1798. The original would have been handwritten. Let’s hope he transcribed it correctly. It’s now incumbent on us to find what he could not locate and return it to our custody.”
He could hear the pain in Gallo’s voice. Surely membership in any long-standing secret brotherhood involved a healthy dose of male bonding. But a society with overt religious overtones and ancient historical purposes added entirely different dimensions. Eighty-plus years had passed since those three brothers had died, yet the wound seemed fresh as yesterday to Pollux Gallo.
“We need to go to Malta,” Gallo said.
“Why do you say that?” Cotton asked.
“It was in the words we just read. Where oil meets stone. What we seek is there.”
The knight had watched what was happening at the obelisk with both fascination and worry. The Codex Fori Mussolini seemed to be exactly where the newspaper accounts from the 1930s had suggested.
An excellent turn of events.
It would be an easy matter to assume control of the situation and deal with the Americans here and now, as he’d done at the villa by Lake Como. He had the resources available. Just a simple gesture would call them to action. But that did not seem like the smart play.
Not yet, anyway.
Nothing had ever been gained through impetuousness. Rash thinking always resulted in unsatisfying results. He’d come this far thanks to smart choices and smart moves, timed perfectly. No sense stopping now. His grand plan contained many moving parts. So much had to go right, and at precisely the right time. The original path he’d mapped toward success now seemed obsolete. Too many new and unpredictable players had entered the field. Which seemed troublesome, but it also oozed with opportunity.
He’d been able to listen to the conversation at the obelisk. The information on the sheet that had fallen free of the codex had to be what Mussolini stole, then hid away. The British were convinced of that fact, that’s what James Grant had said, and now it seemed they may have been correct.
Better to let this play out.
And take advantage of his good fortune.