The Templar Salvation (2010) Read Online Free Page B
whatever you have to do, but find it. Or you, your wife, your daughter, your parents back in Tehran, your sister and her family …”
And he left it at that, comfortably certain that the professor had gotten the message.
Chapter 2
VATICAN CITY
TWO MONTHS LATER
A s he strode across the San Damaso courtyard, Sean Reilly cast a weary glance at the clusters of wide-eyed tourists exploring the Holy See and wondered if he’d ever get to visit the place with their casual abandon.
This was anything but casual.
He wasn’t there to admire the magnificent architecture or the exquisite works of art, nor was he there on any spiritual pilgrimage.
He was there to try to save Tess Chaykin’s life.
And if he was in any way wide-eyed, it was an attempt to keep his jet lag and his lack of sleep at bay and stay clearheaded enough to try to make sense of a frantic crisis that had been thrust upon him less than twenty-four hours earlier. A crisis he didn’t fully understand—but needed to.
Reilly didn’t trust the man walking alongside him—Behrouz Sharafi—but he didn’t have much choice. Right now, all he could do was run through yet another mental grind of the information he had, from Tess’s desperate phone call to the Iranian professor’s harrowing firsthand account during the cab ride in from Fiumicino Airport. He had to make sure he wasn’t missing anything—not that he had that much to go on. Some jerkweed was forcing Sharafi to find something for him. He’d chopped off some woman’s head to show him how serious he was. And that same psycho was now holding Tess hostage to get Reilly to play ball. Reilly hated being in that position—reactive, not proactive—though as the FBI special agent in charge heading up the New York City field office’s Domestic Terrorism Unit, he had ample training and experience in reacting to crises.
Problem was, they usually didn’t involve someone he loved.
Outside the porticoed building, a young priest in a black cassock was waiting for them, sweating under the heat of the mid-summer sun. He led them inside, and as they walked down the cool, stone-flagged corridors and climbed up the grand marble staircases, Reilly found it hard to chase away the uncomfortable memories of his previous visit to this hallowed ground, three years earlier, and the disturbing sound bites of a conversation that had never left his consciousness. Those memories came flooding back even more viscerally as the priest pushed through the oversized, intricately carved oak door and brought the two visitors into the presence of his boss, Cardinal Mauro Brugnone, the Vatican’s secretary of state. A broad-shouldered man whose imposing physique was more suited to a Calabrian farmer than to a man of the cloth, the pope’s second-in-command was Reilly’s Vatican connection and, it seemed, the reason behind Tess’s abduction.
The cardinal—despite being in his late sixties, he was still as husky and vigorous as Reilly remembered him from his previous visit there—came forward to greet him with outstretched arms.
“I’ve been looking forward to hearing from you again, Agent Reilly,” he said with a bittersweet expression clouding his face. “Though I was hoping it would be under happier circumstances.”
Reilly set his hastily packed overnight bag down and shook the cardinal’s hand. “Same here, Your Eminence. And thank you for seeing us at such short notice.”
Reilly introduced the Iranian professor, and the cardinal did the same for the two other men in the room: Monsignor Francesco Bescondi, the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives—a slight man with thinning fair hair and a tightly cropped goatee—and Gianni Delpiero, the inspector general of the Corpo della Gendarmeria, the Vatican’s police force—a taller, more substantial man with a solid brush of black hair and hard, angular features. Reilly tried not to show any discomfort at the fact that the Vatican’s head cop had been asked to
And he left it at that, comfortably certain that the professor had gotten the message.
Chapter 2
VATICAN CITY
TWO MONTHS LATER
A s he strode across the San Damaso courtyard, Sean Reilly cast a weary glance at the clusters of wide-eyed tourists exploring the Holy See and wondered if he’d ever get to visit the place with their casual abandon.
This was anything but casual.
He wasn’t there to admire the magnificent architecture or the exquisite works of art, nor was he there on any spiritual pilgrimage.
He was there to try to save Tess Chaykin’s life.
And if he was in any way wide-eyed, it was an attempt to keep his jet lag and his lack of sleep at bay and stay clearheaded enough to try to make sense of a frantic crisis that had been thrust upon him less than twenty-four hours earlier. A crisis he didn’t fully understand—but needed to.
Reilly didn’t trust the man walking alongside him—Behrouz Sharafi—but he didn’t have much choice. Right now, all he could do was run through yet another mental grind of the information he had, from Tess’s desperate phone call to the Iranian professor’s harrowing firsthand account during the cab ride in from Fiumicino Airport. He had to make sure he wasn’t missing anything—not that he had that much to go on. Some jerkweed was forcing Sharafi to find something for him. He’d chopped off some woman’s head to show him how serious he was. And that same psycho was now holding Tess hostage to get Reilly to play ball. Reilly hated being in that position—reactive, not proactive—though as the FBI special agent in charge heading up the New York City field office’s Domestic Terrorism Unit, he had ample training and experience in reacting to crises.
Problem was, they usually didn’t involve someone he loved.
Outside the porticoed building, a young priest in a black cassock was waiting for them, sweating under the heat of the mid-summer sun. He led them inside, and as they walked down the cool, stone-flagged corridors and climbed up the grand marble staircases, Reilly found it hard to chase away the uncomfortable memories of his previous visit to this hallowed ground, three years earlier, and the disturbing sound bites of a conversation that had never left his consciousness. Those memories came flooding back even more viscerally as the priest pushed through the oversized, intricately carved oak door and brought the two visitors into the presence of his boss, Cardinal Mauro Brugnone, the Vatican’s secretary of state. A broad-shouldered man whose imposing physique was more suited to a Calabrian farmer than to a man of the cloth, the pope’s second-in-command was Reilly’s Vatican connection and, it seemed, the reason behind Tess’s abduction.
The cardinal—despite being in his late sixties, he was still as husky and vigorous as Reilly remembered him from his previous visit there—came forward to greet him with outstretched arms.
“I’ve been looking forward to hearing from you again, Agent Reilly,” he said with a bittersweet expression clouding his face. “Though I was hoping it would be under happier circumstances.”
Reilly set his hastily packed overnight bag down and shook the cardinal’s hand. “Same here, Your Eminence. And thank you for seeing us at such short notice.”
Reilly introduced the Iranian professor, and the cardinal did the same for the two other men in the room: Monsignor Francesco Bescondi, the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives—a slight man with thinning fair hair and a tightly cropped goatee—and Gianni Delpiero, the inspector general of the Corpo della Gendarmeria, the Vatican’s police force—a taller, more substantial man with a solid brush of black hair and hard, angular features. Reilly tried not to show any discomfort at the fact that the Vatican’s head cop had been asked to
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