Kastor had always admired the Church of St. John the Baptist. Solid, austere, its thick walls conveying an unmistakable message of power and strength. Two large towers with octagonal spires flanked either side of its main entrance, each housing bells. Nearly every church on the island mimicked its shape and style, which was not unintentional.
The knights had been smart with its location, choosing a high spot in the center of their new city and erecting a landmark that could be seen from nearly anywhere on, or off, the island. Its austere façade faced west, the altar east, as was traditional in the 16th century. Its sober and robust exterior shielded an amazing expression of baroque art inside, all dedicated to the knights’ patron saint, John the Baptist. Everything about it was tied to the Order, but Napoleon had left a mark, too. As soon as the French stole the island, the bishop of Malta made a request. He wanted the church for his diocese and saw the invasion as an opportunity to wrest it away from the knights. So Napoleon handed it over and decreed that it would be forever called the Co-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, available to all.
And the name had stuck.
He remained unsure what to make of the new additions to the team. But what choice did he have? Spagna and Chatterjee were both dead. Thankfully, the flash drive remained safe in his pocket. He’d not said a word about it and did not intend to. That prize was his alone. And what had happened to Chatterjee’s body? Did the man who’d killed him return and ferry it away?
If so, why?
They rounded the cathedral’s exterior and found a small square that spread out from a side entrance. The cobbles remained damp from the rain. A few people lingered in the square despite the late hour. On the ride from the airport Pollux had worked the phone, speaking with the cathedral’s operating foundation, letting them know he was on the way. Though the Hospitallers no longer actually owned the church, they retained great influence over its use. It actually wasn’t much of a church anymore. More a tourist attraction. Forty years ago things had been different. Fewer visitors to the island then. The world had yet to discover Malta. He recalled visiting with his parents several times, then many more once at the orphanage. Everything here was familiar territory. So why did he feel so out of place?
The wooden doors creaked opened and a middle-aged man in jeans introduced himself as the curator. He was pale-skinned, with an owlish face adorned by thick-rimmed glasses. His hair was tousled, his eyes tired, probably the effects of being woken from a sound sleep.
Pollux stepped up and assumed the lead. “I appreciate you being here at this late hour. It’s important we be inside the church for a little while. Undisturbed.”
The curator nodded.
It was odd to see his brother in a position of authority. Always it had been Pollux following his lead. But he told himself that Pollux was temporary head of the knights thanks to him. Whatever power his brother possessed came from him. He found it unsettling to take a backseat, though it seemed the wisest course. Nothing would be gained by a confrontation. Besides, he was curious about what they might find. Still, the clock was ticking down, the conclave set to begin in less than ten hours. Every cardinal who planned to be inside the Sistine Chapel voting had to be at the Domus Sanctae Marthae by 10:00 A.M. After that, there was no admittance.
He followed the entourage inside to a wide rectangular nave, flanked by two narrow aisles, topped by a ribbed barrel vault. The aisles were further divided into a series of impressive side chapels. The air was noticeably cooler. Lavish stone carvings, gilding, and marble ornamentation sheathed every square centimeter of wall, floor, and ceiling. Nothing had been omitted. Elaborate baroque motifs burst forth in profiles of foliage, flowers, angels, and triumphal symbols of all shapes and kinds. He knew that none of them had been added. Instead, everything had been carved straight from the limestone. Subtle amber lighting bounced off the marble walls, staining the dazzling blaze of color and decoration in a warm glow. Nearly five hundred years of constant pampering had resulted in a masterpiece. Some called it the most beautiful church in the world, and they might be right.
“I’ll leave you alone,” the curator said.
Pollux raised a halting hand.
“Please don’t. We need your help.”
Cotton had visited St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, and Westminster in London. None were even in this place’s league. So much assaulted the eyes from every direction it was nearly overpowering—a combination of pomp, art, religion, and symbolism in a clash of period styles that somehow mixed seamlessly.
He asked about its origins.
“For the first hundred years, the interior was modest,” the curator said. “Then, in the 1660s, the grand masters ordered a massive redecoration, one to rival the churches of Rome. Mattia Preti was placed in charge and spent half his life creating nearly all of what you now see.”
That was the name Gallo had mentioned on the plane ride.
“This is perhaps the greatest expression of baroque in the world,” the curator added. “Thankfully, it survived the bombing in World War II.”
“We have something to show you,” Pollux Gallo told the curator, and he handed over the typed sheet.
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
“A puzzle for sure,” the curator said. “One part is clear, though. The first four words.”
And the man pointed upward.
Cotton stared up at Preti’s masterpiece. Six defined ceiling bays, each divided into three sections, made for eighteen episodes. The painted figures looked more like three-dimensional statues than flat images, all forming a single, smooth narrative from the life of St. John the Baptist, transforming what was surely once a plain barrel vault into something extraordinary.
“It’s all oil painted on stone.”
As the curator continued to discuss the ceiling and the lines from the puzzle, Cotton turned his attention to the floor.
Another one-of-a-kind.
There were hundreds of tombs, each unique, composed of finely colored inlaid marble words and images, lined in perfect columns front-to-back, left-to-right, wall-to-wall. Every inch of the floor was covered, forming a stunning visual display. A few rows of wooden chairs stood toward the far end, near the altar, surely for people who came for prayer.
The rest was all exposed.
He noticed the lively iconography, the colorful mosaic arrangements depicting triumph, fame, and death. Skeletons and skulls seemed popular. He knew why. One represented the end of a physical being, the other the beginning of eternal life. There were also plenty of angels, either blowing trumpets or holding laurel wreaths, along with coats of arms, weapons, and battle scenes, surely a testament to the deceased’s chivalry. A turbulent tone and character dominated, which he assumed was reflective of the times in which the men had lived. Most of the epitaphs seemed grandiose and wordy, mainly in Latin or the deceased’s native tongue. He spotted French, Spanish, Italian, and German. Commonality abounded in style, but so did individuality. No two were exactly alike, yet they all seemed similar.
“There is also a connection,” the curator said, “with the next words of your message. Death is the end of a dark prison. Let me show you.”
The older man stepped across the floor, searching for one of the tombs.
“Here.”
They all moved toward the center of the nave, where the curator stood before a particularly ornate memorial, centered with a shrouded skeleton before a wall of iron bars. Two columned pilasters supported an arch above the bars, the whole image flat, but animated in a three-dimensional trompe l’oeil effect. Cotton read the epitaph and learned it was the grave of a knight named Felice de Lando, who died March 3, 1726. Above the skeletal figure Italian words appeared in the arch.
LA MORTE E FIN D UNA PRIGIONE OSCURA.
Death is the end of a dark prison.
Coincidence?
Hardly.
Kastor had always loved the cathedral floor. Nothing like it existed anywhere else in the world. And the tombs were not cenotaphs. Instead they were actual graves with bones beneath them—the more important the knight, the closer to the altar. All burials stopped, though, in 1798 when the French invaded. Important knights after that were buried beyond the city in far less elegant locations. Not until the British took the island in 1815 had they resumed, but then they ended forever in 1869. He knew all about them thanks to the nuns. The kids from the orphanage had routinely worked in the cathedral, himself and Pollux no exception. He’d explored every part of the building, finding the floor particularly intriguing. A mosaic of memory, ripe with words of consolation, instruction, and praise. Some exaggerations for sure, but memories needed “things” to prolong themselves, otherwise they never lasted.
The Roman Catholic Church was a perfect example.
As was his life.
His own parents died with nothing more than a simple funeral attended by a few friends. There was not even a stone marker over their graves. Nothing tangible remained of their existence, save for twin boys.
One of whom might soon be pope.
So far, two lines of the message had been deciphered.
One thing seemed clear.
They were in the right place.
Cotton tried to think like that cathedral prior who, knowing the harbor was filled with French warships and an army was about to invade, still managed to get his job done.
Talk about pressure.
He said, “I’m assuming that since the Secreti existed in 1798, and all of the knights were housed here on Malta, any hiding places the Secreti may have used before the French came were on the island?”
Pollux nodded. “That is a reasonable assumption. The knights tried to confine things to this island. Their domain.”
“So Malta falls,” he said. “Knights start to flee, even the grand master leaves. To be safe, before the French take the island, the cathedral prior gathers up the Nostra Trinità from wherever it had been hidden and stashes it in a new place, one only he knows about. Then he creates a way to find it with clues the grand master can decipher, and instructs that the message be delivered to him. It never makes it that far, though, and ends up somewhere that Mussolini was able to locate it. Maybe the prior’s grave? Who knows?”
He could see Pollux did not disagree with his logic.
He pointed down. “It has to be these mosaics. He specifically used an epitaph from this memorial, preceded by the words where oil meets stone.” He motioned to the ceiling. “Where oil meets stone, death is the end of a dark prison. That’s right here. There was no time for being ingenious. The prior was the caretaker of this building, so he adapted what he knew best.”
“Pride crowned, another shielded. Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file,” Laura Price said. “Those words relate to this floor?”
He nodded, looking around at the many different images depicted on the memorials. “Yep. They’re here. Somewhere.”
“Any clues as to what pride crowned means?” Cardinal Gallo asked.
His mind was working on just that.
“Before we get too deep into this, I’m concerned about outside,” Laura said. “We have no idea what’s happening out there.”
She was right.
Cotton faced Luke. “How about you two take a look. Make sure we don’t have any unwanted visitors. We are a bit exposed here.”
Luke nodded. “We’ll take care of it.”
He watched as they hustled back toward the entrance. He felt better knowing his flank was being guarded by Luke. He recalled Gallo’s warning from the plane that the Secreti would know of the cathedral’s possible importance and of the lieutenant ad interim’s presence on the island. Solving this puzzle could take a little time, and whoever was out there might be waiting for that to happen before making their move.
Or the threat could already be here.
Inside the cathedral.
Watching right now.
The knight was back on Malta.
It had been a while since his last visit.
Thanks to James Grant, he’d kept pace with the Americans. First at the obelisk, now here inside the co-cathedral. Right place, right time, and he was able to listen to everything Cotton Malone said.
He agreed.
The answer was in the floor.
And fitting, as each tomb told a story of men who gave their fortunes, lives, and reputations to God and Church. Men who fought at the Siege of Ascalon, the Battle of Arsuf, the Invasion of Gozo, the storming of Tripoli, and the Great Siege of Malta itself. Their graves stood side by side, linked together in a continuous smooth surface, a proper metaphor for the knights themselves. Too bad the remains of that brave prior who’d defied Napoleon never made it here. He would have earned a place of prominence near the altar. Instead his remains had been consigned to a run-down churchyard, his grave violated by a vile dictator. Sacrilege. Nothing less.
That wrong would have to be righted.
Mussolini had been shot like an animal, then his corpse hung upside down on a meat hook and pelted with vegetables, spat on, peed on, shot, and kicked. All fitting. Finally, he was buried in a Milan cemetery. Years later, to placate the conservative far right, his body was moved to the family crypt in Predappio, placed in a stone sarcophagus decorated with fascist symbols, and adorned by a marble bust. Flowers and wreaths remained a constant adornment. A hundred thousand people came each year on pilgrimage. April 28, the day he died, was still celebrated with neo-fascist rallies and a march through the town to the cemetery.
He’d even gone once himself.
To spit on the grave.
That abomination would end.
He’d personally see to that.
Nobody remembered the three knights Mussolini tortured and killed to get what he wanted. Nobody knew a thing about the cathedral prior who kept his oath and died at the hands of Napoleon.
Men with honor trying to protect—
What may now finally be revealed.