Page 40 of Skotos
“With your leave, we need to make a call. We should then start with the flight records,” I said. “Movements in and out. Anyone who doesn’t belong—or who might’ve been a target.”
“Let my people handle the records. You speak with your bird man and focus on other tasks. I suspect research is not your favorite activity, in any case.”
“That’s an understatement,” Will muttered a bit too loudly.
“Then you had best get started. I will make some calls myself and let the staff know to leave the upstairs undisturbed for the day.” The Baroness smirked and sipped her coffee. “Gentlemen, I do believe our quiet morning just came to a tragic end.”
20
Will
The stairs groaned under our weight as we climbed the Baroness’s tower. There were no sparkling comments about her boys keeping up or rustling of her finely woven silk. This time, it was just the two of us ascending to the tower’s peak.
As we passed ancient arrow slits now paned over, diffused sunlight drifted in through tall stained glass, casting colors across the stone steps that might have been beautiful on any other day. I barely noticed them.
Thomas moved just ahead of me, one hand on the worn railing, his posture tight with purpose. The moment we reached the top, I closed the hidden door behind us, sealing the room off from the world below.
Radio equipment hummed softly, a subtle undercurrent of static and anticipation. The Baroness’s private phone sat nestled beneath the main desk, shielded by layers of reinforced panels and asecured switchboard that put many intelligence agency setups to shame.
“I’ll get us patched in,” Thomas said, crouching beside the desk and flicking a series of toggles.
I stared out the window while he worked. The Alps were so quiet.
Too quiet.
It felt like the kind of stillness that couldn’t last.
A sharp tone rang out.
Thomas gave me a nod and slid into a chair as I took a position beside him and leaned over the desk, our shoulders touching.
“Nest, this is Condor,” Thomas said clearly.
The line crackled. A moment later, a familiar, gruff voice answered. “Manakin. Go ahead, Condor.”
Thomas relayed everything—our redirection to the Baroness’s estate, Vogel’s surprise visit, the bullet casing found at Lugano with the etched spear, and the possibility of a failed op or premature staging near a Swiss airfield. I watched his mouth move, lips firm but calm. His was the controlled rhythm of a man used to relaying life-or-death data. When he finished, the silence on the line was thick enough to choke on.
Manakin finally asked, “Are we compromised?”
“Unknown, but the casing felt like a mistake, not a message,” I said. “There’s been no public attack orclaim of responsibility. Whoever left it wasn’t trying to be found.”
“Agreed,” Manakin muttered, then paused again. The faint rustling of paper filtered through the phone line. “Now, I have some updates for you two. You might want to sit down for this.”
Thomas and I exchanged a wary glance. If Manakin was bracing us for whatever Washington had found . . .
I slumped into a nearby chair.
Manakin spoke again. “We’ve just received word from Rome that Italian investigators uncovered fragments of a casing similar in caliber to the one from Lugano, only this one was embedded in a structural beam near De Gasperi’s garage. There are faint traces of a symbol—likely a match to your spear. It was too damaged to confirm.”
Thomas sat back. “So a backup shot in case the explosives didn’t kill him?”
“That’s the theory.” Manakin paused. “But that’s not the most disturbing part.”
“Brilliant,” I drawled. “Go on.”
“The Vatican issued a quiet statement of condolence,” Manakin said. “There was nothing unusual until we intercepted a message between an unnamed cardinal and another unidentified person—acodedmessage our people decrypted last night. The phrase ‘sacred spear struck’ was buried in the message in an almost subliminal way.”
I straightened. “Are you suggesting the Vatican’s involvement in these killings?”
