The Machiavelli Covenant

  Until now. Waiting here, alone, in this room, in this corner of the monastery, he suddenly broke free of her memory. She saw his face in front of her. Again heard his sharp warning. Do not take anything you have learned here further than the walls of this room.

  A sound near the back of the room made the vision fade and Demi looked up. The door had just been opened and Reverend Beck and Luciana were coming toward her. A third person she couldn't see clearly was with them. Then as they neared, she did.

  "Welcome, Demi, I'm pleased you could join us," he said warmly. His face, his shock of white hair, his hands with their extraordinarily long fingers, unmistakable.

  Merriman Foxx.

  88

  • 12:44 P.M.

  The green-and-yellow cable car reached the upper terminal and stopped. A moment later an attendant opened the doors and the passengers began to file out. Marten glanced at the president, then followed an Italian couple out of the car and up the walkway toward the monastery.

  Forty seconds later he reached the top of the walkway and stopped. The monastery complex was directly across from him. The buildings he could see all seemed to be constructed of the same beige-colored sand or limestone. The edifice closest to him and on the far side of a paved roadway was seven stories high. One nearby was eight. Another near it was ten and had a huge kind of bell-tower on top. And these were only a part of the whole. The main attraction, the basilica, was across a wide plaza and up a broad stone staircase, both of which were filled with tourists.

  • 12:50 P.M.

  Marten walked leisurely across the plaza, making it relatively easy for Beck to find him. As he went, a man passed him from behind and kept on walking. President Harris.

  • 12:52 P.M.

  Marten kept walking. Ahead of him he saw the president veer left, pass a tour group, then disappear beyond them, following Miguel's directions, going toward the Hotel Abat Cisneros and the restaurant that was part of it.

  Marten slowed his pace and looked around, playing the first-time visitor trying to get his bearings and decide where to go next. He wondered whether Demi had lied to them. That neither she nor Beck nor Luciana nor Merriman Foxx, for that matter, was anywhere near here. That she had sent them miles out of the way while she and the others met Foxx somewhere else entirely, maybe even in Barcelona itself.

  "Mr. Marten," the deep, velvety voice of Reverend Rufus Beck suddenly called out. Marten looked up to see the congressional chaplain alone, walking toward him across the plaza from the direction of the basilica.

  "Mr. Marten," Beck said again as he reached him. "How nice to see you. Ms. Picard told me you might be coming."

  "She did?" Marten tried to sound surprised.

  "Yes," Beck smiled warmly. "I was just coming from services; perhaps you would care to join us for a cup of coffee."

  "By 'us' you mean you and Ms. Picard."

  "There will be two others, Mr. Marten. A good friend of mine from Italy, a woman named Luciana, and a friend of yours, Dr. Foxx."

  "Foxx?"

  Again Beck smiled. "He asked me to find you. He wanted to resolve any 'misgivings' you might have had following your conversation in Malta. The restaurant in the hotel here has a small, private room where you and he can speak openly."

  "Restaurant?"

  "Yes, unless you'd prefer to meet somewhere else."

  Marten grinned at the irony. Here they were trying to get Foxx to the restaurant, and now he was inviting him to the same place. The private room might be a problem, but with Beck and Demi and Luciana right there it would be all the easier to tell Foxx he preferred to talk to him alone and suggest they take a walk outside.

  "The restaurant's fine, reverend," he said graciously. "I'd be more than happy to hear what Dr. Foxx has to say about my 'misgivings.' "

  89

  • 1:00 P.M

  "Welcome to Montserrat, Mr. Marten," Merriman Foxx stood as they came in. Demi and the witch, Luciana, sat opposite Foxx at a round linen-covered table, coffee steaming from cups before them, a small plate of shortbread cookies or polvorones in the center of the table. There was a chair for Beck, and a waiter brought another for Marten. The room was as Beck had said, both small and private.

  "You know Ms. Picard," Foxx nodded congenially across at Demi. "And this is Signora Luciana Lorenzini, a dear friend of some years' standing."

  Marten nodded at Demi, then looked to Luciana, "It's a pleasure, signora."

  The restaurant was indeed part of the Hotel Abat Cisneros and was, as Miguel had described it, just down from the basilica and built against the towering mountainside. The singularity of the private setting meant that the president would not know where Marten was until he and Foxx left and Marten tried to steer him toward the door that led to the pathway outside. If the president got nervous and came looking for him, he might walk right into the room itself, something, which besides exposing him physically, would put them at a severe disadvantage in trying to get Foxx alone.

  Marten glanced at the doctor, trying to read him as he sat down. The physician-scientist-murderer was dressed in a close-fitting tweed jacket with dark slacks and matching mock turtleneck sweater. The Albert Einstein mass of unkempt white hair was like a trademark. Marten had only to look at his hands to again hear Caroline's voice, suffering and filled with fear—The way he touched my face and my legs with his long, hideous fingers; and that horrid thumb with its tiny balled cross.

  Marten realized now there was something else to Foxx's appearance. His physical stature. He was bigger and stronger than he'd first seemed when they'd met at the Café Tripoli in Malta and he was dressed in the bulky fisherman's sweater. From the way he'd stood and greeted him when he and Beck had come in, Marten could see an agility too, an athletic ability, the thing he'd sensed earlier when he'd thought about Foxx's selection of Malta as a place to live because of the mountains of steps that had to be climbed simply to get around. As if staying in top physical condition was something instinctive to him, a habit from his military days in the South African Defense Force. It meant, as the president had warned, that he would be difficult to subdue. Marten would have one chance at him, and it would have to be fast and decisive and a total surprise. What happened afterward wouldn't be much easier, and the president would have to be right there to help.

  "How was your trip, Mr. Marten?" Foxx asked congenially as the waiter set a cup and saucer in front of Beck and filled the cup with coffee and then did the same for Marten.

  "From Barcelona or from Malta?"

  "Either," Foxx smiled.

  "Both were fine, thank you," Marten glanced at Demi, who avoided his look by picking up the plate of polvorones and offering them to Luciana. Marten watched her for a brief moment longer, trying to get some sense of whose side she was really on, then turned back to Foxx.

  "Reverend Beck invited me to join you because of what happened in Malta. He was concerned that I might have had some misgivings about our conversation there and suggested you might like to clear them up."

  " 'Clear them up,' that is a good way to put it, Mr. Marten," Foxx smiled lightly. "I would be happy to do so and will; my only difficulty is that there is someone who should be here but who is not."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You came to Montserrat with someone else did you not? John Henry Harris, the president of the United States." Foxx smiled again. He was relaxed and matter-of-fact, a simple comment about a guest who was not there.

  "The president of the United States?" Marten grinned broadly. "That's hardly the company I keep."

  "Until lately, Mr. Marten."

  "You know more than I do."

  Marten picked up his coffee and sipped at it. As he did, he shot a glance at Demi. It was grave and accusatory, as if she was the one who had told them about the president. This time she did not look away; instead, she gave a faint shake of her head. It meant how they knew was not her doing. She'd told them nothing.

  "Might I suggest you locate your companion and ask h
im to join us, Mr. Marten?" Foxx lifted his coffee cup and held it in both hands, his long fingers wrapped around it, "I think you will both be quite interested in what I have to show you. Perhaps even a great deal more than interested."

  For a moment Marten didn't respond. Clearly they knew the president was there, or at least were assuming he was. Denying it would only prolong the situation, dangerously if Foxx had alerted the president's "friends" and the Secret Service or the CIA were on the way. So the question was what to do about it. The original plan had been for the president to remain in the background until Marten could get Foxx alone outside, but with the doctor's sudden and surprise demand for his presence, all that had changed. Even the idea of Marten getting Foxx alone was all but gone. That left them with no plan at all and the president wholly at Foxx's mercy, which was something Marten couldn't let happen.

  "I'm not so sure I know where he is. Or even if he's still here. It might take some time to find him if I can find him at all."

  "At the risk of sounding presumptuous, Mr. Marten, I think it's safe to assume that the reason the president came to Montserrat was to see me." Once again Foxx smiled pleasantly. "So I rather doubt he would leave before we met. Nor do I think he would be pleased if you denied him the opportunity."

  Marten studied Foxx for a heartbeat, then took a sip of coffee, set the cup down, and stood.

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "Thank you, Mr. Marten. Neither you nor the president will be disappointed, I promise."

  90

  • 1:15 P.M.

  Marten left the restaurant and crossed the plaza, going back the way he had come in. Other than Beck and the women, Foxx seemed to be have been alone, and maybe he was. After all, this was Montserrat, not Malta, where he had a home and was seemingly headquartered. On the other hand, all Marten had to do was remember Salt and Pepper to appreciate the long reach that the South African had.

  Demi remained the puzzle she'd been all along. The shake of her head across the table in her silent refusal to accept blame for Foxx's knowledge of the president's being there hadn't helped. Clearly it had been intended to make him believe her, but there were still too many things unanswered, among them how Beck had found him so quickly. Clearly the reverend hadn't been as indifferent to his arrival in Barcelona as Demi had said. Moreover, they had known he was coming to Montserrat and when, and that was something only Demi could have told them. To that extent she had set him up.

  Foxx's sudden and deliberate inclusion of the president, however, changed everything and dramatically elevated the stakes of the game. It made Marten even more curious about what Demi was doing. Unless she was working with Beck and therefore in Foxx's camp, which still seemed probable, what else could be so compelling that she was willing to give up the president of the United States to get it, especially now, under the circumstances, most of which she knew well?

  On the other hand, if she was doing something else and her head shake meant she was telling the truth, it would mean Foxx's knowledge of the president's whereabouts had come from somewhere else—Miguel or the president's "friends." Thinking that way he had to assume it was the latter because Miguel had proven himself a man far too honest, humble, and forthright for such things, and because by now the president's "friends" would be fully aware he had been in Marten's hotel room in Barcelona the night before and would assume that since neither had been caught he was still with him. Therefore if Marten was going to Montserrat, the president would be too. It was something they should have considered beforehand and been prepared for, but they hadn't and so they had literally walked right into the "Foxx's lair."

  Still, they had one thing going for them, if it could be called that—the president had yet to reveal himself. It meant they still had the chance to get out and away before the Secret Service or CIA showed up and the trap was snapped shut once and for all.

  • 1:18 P.M.

  Marten left the plaza and turned right, walking past the multistoried building he'd seen as he'd come up from the cable car terminal. At the far end he turned right again, passed under a high archway, and then worked his way back toward the restaurant in a group of tourists, all the while looking to see if he was being followed; as far as he could tell, he was not.

  At this point he'd made a complete circle and again approached the Hotel Abat Cisneros and the restaurant, where Cousin Jack should now be ensconced, waiting somewhere near the hallway leading to the men's restroom and the door to the pathway outside. Here Marten had to make absolutely certain he wasn't being tailed. Purposely, he walked past the restaurant's main doorway and entered the Hotel Abat Cisneros itself. Inside, he crossed the lobby, took note of the interior entrance to the restaurant, then walked into a small bar across from it. He waited for the bartender, then ordered a bottle of beer, took it to a table where he could watch the door, and sat down. His plan was to wait three minutes, and if no one suspicious came in, get up and leave, entering the restaurant directly from the hotel itself.

  • 1:23 P.M.

  Marten took a sip of beer and casually looked around. The only people there were those he had seen as he entered, the bartender and six customers; two each at separate tables and two at the bar itself, where a television was tuned to CNN International and an athletic-looking male reporter was speaking from behind the anchor desk.

  "In a video just released by the Department of Homeland Security," he said, "we are about to have a look at President Harris at the undisclosed location he was taken to by the Secret Service after the terrorist threat in Madrid. With him are National Security Adviser James Marshall, Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon and Secretary of State David Chaplin."

  Abruptly the picture cut to the video. It had a running time and date stamp that began at 2:23 P.M.(yesterday), Friday, April 7 and showed President Harris in a rustic room during a working session with his advisers.

  "The president wants it known," the reporter said in a voice-over, "that he is safe and well and fully intends to meet with European leaders as scheduled at the NATO meeting Monday in Warsaw."

  Abruptly the clip ended and the reporter tied it up with a simple "We'll have more on this later." There was a fade-out and a commercial popped on.

  "My God," Marten breathed, "they've got everything covered."

  Another sip of beer and he looked away from the television and toward the door. So far no one else had come in since he'd entered. Forty seconds passed, then fifty. If someone was following him, they would have been there by now. Marten put down his glass and started to get up. As he did another television story caught his attention. This time the location was Chantilly, France. Two jockeys had been shot and killed early that morning while working out racehorses at a practice track that ran through a nearby forest. The killer had evidently been lying in wait in the woods and had fired from the cover of the trees, then afterward simply walked away, leaving the murder weapon, a United States military-issue M14 rifle, behind, as if to both taunt and intrigue investigators. What added considerably to the mystery was that both jockeys had been killed with the same bullet, the shot passing through the head of the first man and then penetrating the skull of the second. It was a shot investigators deemed either accidental—there had been only one intended victim—or eerily intentional, as if the killer was deliberately demonstrating his skill. In either case the French police had never seen anything like it. Nor, in all his long-ago days as a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective, had Marten.

  • 1:28 P.M.

  Cousin Jack saw Marten come in but didn't acknowledge him. Seemingly unmindful of the noisy group of children and parents crowding a large table nearby, he was sitting as planned, alone at a small table near the back of the restaurant's main dining area and at the end of a short hallway leading to the restroom area and the door to outside beyond it. Still wearing his glasses and Demi's big floppy hat, an unopened bottle of sparkling Vichy Catalan mineral water at his sleeve, he was apparently engrossed in a glossy Montserrat guidebo
ok.

  Marten stopped for a moment as he entered, then glancing around, casually crossed to where the president was and took a seat at the table next to him. "Foxx knows you're here," he said quietly. "He's in a private room down the hall. He wants you to join us. How he found out I'm not sure, but I don't think Demi told him and I seriously doubt Miguel did either. That leaves—"

  "Only one reasonable answer, and we both know what it is," the president raised his head and looked at Marten, his expression stone-cold. "If there was ever any doubt my 'friends' were in league with Dr. Foxx, that uncertainty has been erased."

  "If you want more," Marten said, "CNN just played a video clip that supposedly came from the Department of Homeland Security. It showed you in a rustic cabin someplace, clean shaven and with your hairpiece on. With you were the secretary of state, the national security adviser, and the secretary of defense. The report said the video was made yesterday afternoon and that you would still be in Warsaw Monday as planned. As an extra punch the video had a date/time stamp on it confirming it."

  President Harris's eyes narrowed in anger. Deliberately he turned back as if to study his guidebook. "The men's restroom is just down the hallway behind us," he said without looking up. "The door to the outside is immediately past it. Once through it there is a service pathway that comes up from the plaza. Twenty feet in the other direction another path leads off along the cliff face, then turns and disappears from sight under an umbrella of trees. Thirty, forty yards after that are the ruins of an ancient chapel, all as Miguel said. Inside the chapel is what is left of two small chambers. Either will suffice for our chat with Dr. Foxx."