Page 15 of The Medici Return

He started in the navy, graduating from Annapolis, then choosing fighter pilot training. But friends of his father—a submarine commander who died when he was ten—had other ideas and enrolled him in law school. After obtaining a juris doctorate he was assigned to JAG and billeted to Pensacola, Florida. From there a career Justice Department employee, Stephanie Nelle, plucked him away for a new agency she was creating.

The Magellan Billet.

So he switched career paths.

Again.

Twelve years he worked for Stephanie as one of her intelligence officers, handling whatever she tossed his way. He decided to retire out early after being shot in Mexico City. Not the first time, but he definitely wanted it to be last. So he resigned his commission, quit his job, divorced, sold his house in Georgia, and moved to Copenhagen, opening an old-book shop. Books had been a lifelong passion. Now they would be his livelihood. Naïvely, he thought his time in the crosshairs over. But Stephanie had other ideas. And from time to time, he helped her, and others, out. Favors here and there. Some for money, since he did have to pay the bills. Most out of loyalty.

Which kept him in the game.

He surveyed where he stood.

On the back side of the residence. Away from trouble for the moment. But it would only take the police in the house a few moments to regroup. His car was parked down the street, closer to the stone watchtower that had once been part of the old castle. He headed off through a thin stretch of woods behind the house and backtracked to his rental car.

To be honest he hadn’t expected to find anything in that priesthole. A cardinal with four hundred thousand euros? True, some of them could be gregarious, outspoken, controversial. But to outright take a huge cash payoff? That was really bold and foolish. Nothing like that ever stayed secret. Which made him wonder. What was going on here? The source of the information itself was suspect. A criminal defendant with everything to gain by lying. Yet it had turned out not to be false. He’d had many encounters with the Catholic Church over the years. Some good, others bad. Duplicity? Oh, yeah. Plenty of it. Especially with all that happened in Malta. But something did not ring right here. What had James Garner once said. From one of his favorite old television shows.The Rockford Files. That plant is so obvious it needs watering.

Yep.

He made it through the foliage and found the small paved parking lot near the old castle site. His rental waited among a handful of other cars. He climbed inside, cranked the engine, and backed out. He shifted into drive and was about to speed off when another police car appeared from around the corner and blocked the way. He floored the accelerator and sped straight at them, clipping the driver’s-side front end, spinning the car off the pavement.

He’d violated the terms of his assignment and allowed his presence to become known. Not good. His grandfather had been perhaps the smartest, most insightful person he’d ever known. For a young boy who’d lost his father, that man had filled every void. Dead for over twenty years, he still missed him. He’d been a man of stories, which were nothing but metaphors for life lessons never to forget.

“Cotton, did I ever tell you about a barber who whispers to his customer, ‘Let me show you something. This is the most foolish kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.’ The barber laid a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then called a young boy over and asked, ‘Which do you want, son?’ The boy immediately took the quarters and left. ‘What did I tell you?’ the barber said. ‘That kid never learns.’ Later, when that customer left the barbershop, he saw the same boy coming out of the icecream store. ‘Hey, son, may I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?’ The boy licked his favorite ice cream and said, ‘Because the day I take the dollar, the game is over.’”

Proverbs 14:15 was right.

Fools believe every word they hear, but wise people think carefully about everything.

And he was no fool.

So he took the quarters and kept going, speeding ahead.

Out of Dillenburg.

CHAPTER 8

ERIC ARRIVED BACK AT HISROME RESIDENCE, A SPACIOUS APARTMENTon the Via Sistina, in an elegant neighborhood located near the Spanish Steps. The rent was outrageous, but the party paid the bill as a perk for his job as secretary. He’d followed a familiar maze of twisting streets and urban chaos back from the Vatican, leaving one nation and entering another. Above him, the Italian sky loomed sodden and sullen. Featureless. A battleship gray without a hint that a sun existed.

Like his mood.

He’d kept his composure, which had not been easy considering Cardinal Richter’s negativity. It galled him how righteous the church tried to be, considering that, for centuries, though it projected itself as above politics, above kings, queens, and emperors, above reproach, nothing could be further from the truth. The church had always been heavily involved in secular matters. Especially Italian politics. It was a practice that dated back to the earliest times and Emperor Constantine who, in the 4th century, called the bishops of all the various Christian factions to Nicaea and ordered them to hammer out one doctrine, one religion, one faith. Once done, he proclaimed that form of Christianity the empire’s choice, and from that the Roman Catholic Church was born. Which grewand prospered, provided it kept Constantine, and the emperors who came after him, happy. Which it did. Masterfully.

So to say the church was unconcerned with politics? That was a lie.

But he had his own problems with lies.

He’d run a bluff, one he’d hoped would have borne fruit.

But it had not.

It was memorialized in two writings. Identical. Both signed by the pope. One was kept with the church, the other with the Medici.

He’d told Richter that he had the Medici copy. But he did not. And if forced, he could not press the collection of the debt or apply any pressure without that writing.

A disconcerting thought.

He entered the kitchen and decided he was more thirsty than hungry, so he found a drink in the refrigerator. His favorite. An obscure cola that some called Beverly. Why that name? He had no idea. Once made by the Coca-Cola Company as an apéritif, it was now only bottled for a few select American markets. He’d become friendly with the Italian producer who kept him supplied. Most hated its sharp citrus bitterness, which came from grapefruit rind, but he’d acquired a taste for it as a child.

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