Page 4 of The Medici Return

The old man cast him a wiry glare. “The talk is, once we are gone, the next pope will be your brother. If such be the case, Medici, you will have direct access to the church and its treasury for any repayment.”

“Those are mere possibilities, not collateral. Also, any arrangement we might make must also include that your army, and the Spanish, immediately withdraw from Florence.”

Julius shrugged. “They are only still there since we agreed to speak with you. We wanted to see if you were as reasonable as people say.”

“And if I had not been?”

“Then our army would have breached the walls and taken Florence by force.”

Not an idle threat coming from this man.

“All right, Medici. You produce the ten million gold florins and we will withdraw our army and grant to you the best collateral on this earth.”

He was intrigued.

“We will give you what few in history have ever possessed.”

He waited.

“Pignus Christi.”

The Pledge of Christ.

PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 1

DILLENBURG, GERMANY

MONDAY, JUNE30

12:40P.M.

COTTONMALONE HAD COMMITTED BURGLARY BEFORE.

Many times, in fact.

Just not in such an august place.

He stood inside a four-hundred-year-old residence, built of olden brick and stone, first erected during the seventeenth century at a time when the German states, Sweden, and Poland were beset by religious conflict. Catholics fought Protestants in the long and destructive Thirty Years’ War. The building around him was a picturesque relic of that violent history that had somehow escaped razing by the Protestants. It likewise survived later conflicts, including both world wars. It remained the rural home of a cardinal, owned by the Archdiocese of Cologne, whose duly authorized representatives in Rome had granted Cotton permission to surreptitiously enter the premises.

So technically this wasn’t a burglary.

Still, it definitely felt like one.

Germany possessed nine cardinals. Three were beyond the age of eighty, meaning they were ineligible to attend the next conclave and vote for a new pope. Six remained active, the youngest, Jason Cardinal Richter, serving as the current archbishop of Cologne. The house served as Richter’s private retreat, a place outside the city that he enjoyed from time to time.

Dillenburg sat about seventy miles east of Cologne, in a narrow valley cut by the River Dill. The town was one of those out-of-the-way places that had once been much more important. Its healing spring and brine works, renovated a few years ago, were back open for visitors, which helped with tourism. Once, a wooden castle had dominated the hill above the town, but all that remained were ruins, along with an impressive stone lookout tower that had become a local landmark. The cardinal’s residence sat in sight of the watchtower atop the thousand-foot hill, with a spectacular view of the valley below.

Cotton was surreptitiously working with the Swiss Guard, on special assignment through the Magellan Billet. His former boss, Stephanie Nelle, had called a few days ago asking for help. An extraordinary situation was developing at the Vatican. Six defendants were on trial for fraud, embezzlement, corruption, money laundering, and abuse of office. The charges centered on the church’s multimillion-euro purchases of investment properties located throughout Ireland and England. The deal, investigators argued, was nothing more than a way for the defendants to launder money and refinance their own debts through embezzled funds.

Two of the defendants were monsignors, employed within the Secretariat of State. Two more were former heads of the Vatican’s internal financial overseer, charged with making sure frauds never happened. The final pair were an Italian financier and an investment manager. The whole thing seemed a wide-ranging conspiracy better suited for spy novels. Certainly not something that might happen within the Holy See.

Thankfully, as with most complex criminal enterprises, mistakes had been made that led to its discovery. A special Vatican court had been empaneled to try the defendants, the judges selected by the pope from among an array of former Italian prosecutors. The trial itself had started months ago, the evidence trickling out at a snail’s pace through a parade of witnesses. It was being held inside a spacious hall within the Vatican Museums to accommodate themany media representatives and spectators. Two weeks ago things had taken an unusual turn when one of the defendants, a monsignor from the secretary of state’s office, offered prosecutors a deal. In return for immunity he would provide them with incriminating information on one, so-far unnamed, individual.

A prince of the church.

Jason Cardinal Richter.

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