The Devil's Triangle (A Brit in the FBI 4)

“That’s Special Agent Lady to you.” Mike smacked his arm.

He grinned at her, windblown hair, tangled around her head, her eyes tearing from the wind, so high on adrenaline he bet she could fly. Kitsune’s eyes were dilated with stress and excitement, her skin flushed from the wind, and she looked like she could take wing with Mike. His own fear, mostly for Mike, he knew, was slowly falling away. They would all want to fall over when the adrenaline high crashed. But not now.

Mike said, “We better check in with Adam. He’s probably wondering why we’re driving all over the back roads of Italy at the speed of light.”

Nicholas held up a hand, passed back bottles of water that had survived. “Drink.” He did as well, drew in a deep breath. “Don’t call Adam just yet.”

“Why not?”

“How did they know we were coming here, Mike? How did the Carabinieri know where we’d be in time to get two teams in place?

Kitsune said, “They’re bugging us somehow. They’re listening. The Italians would have the power to monitor you. It’s not polite, but it’s done.”

Mike smacked her palm against her head. “Call me an idiot for not realizing—it’s that witch at the front desk of the hotel. Nicholas, that’s why she upgraded you to the big suite, not because she wanted to sleep with you. No, they wanted to listen to what we had to say, and they prepped that suite for us. Well, maybe she wanted to sleep with you too, the slut.”

Nicholas said, “But the Carabinieri already knew we were coming, we’d asked for them to meet us and back us up. Which they didn’t do.”

Mike said, “It wasn’t that. They wanted to know what we knew about Kitsune, where we’d be, what we’d planned to do. They jammed the signal earlier. Someone high up to manage all this, someone like Major Russo. No doubt now, he’s on the Kohaths’ payroll.”

She fiddled with her cell. “I’ve encrypted my phone, I’m sending a message to Adam that we’re compromised. I wish we had Lia with us, she could jam their signal in a heartbeat.”

“Tell Adam we’ll need tighter oversight when we get to Castel Rigone. I want him watching and listening to every move we make from now on.”

“Okay,” Mike said, “for all the good it will do us.”

Kitsune said, “Listen, I think I might have a plan. Castel Rigone is very old. I remember there are tunnels all over the place—Etruscan excavations. There are very likely tunnels under the palazzo. We need to see if Adam can hack the plans and send them as quickly as possible.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Kohath Palazzo

Castel Rigone, Italy

Cassandra stood on one of the balconies of the palazzo that stood high atop a hill overlooking the small town of Castel Rigone, looking out over the beautiful Umbrian countryside, then down at Lake Trasimeno, shimmering beneath the noonday sun. She and Ajax had grown up here, knew every corner of each of the seventy rooms in the ancient fortress that had strided this magnificent hill since the fourteenth century. The palazzo even housed the town bells in one of the towers. As children, she and Ajax had nearly made themselves deaf ringing them.

And how she loved the tales of the Knights Templar, basked in the fact that they’d once called this home, this town, their sanctuary during their persecution.

When asked her favorite flower, she’d always said without hesitation it was the Templar rose, and here in Castel Rigone, it was everywhere—carved into door lintels, around fireplaces, on stone fences, throughout the town, and at the palazzo.

As a child she’d pictured the Knights Templar gathered around one of the great fireplaces, knowing the end was coming, and yet they’d remained loyal and strong in their faith, until their deaths.

Their grandfather had deeded the palazzo to her mother and father on their wedding day, but they hadn’t loved the house as she and Ajax did, only what lay beneath the mountain. Restoration had been up to the twins.

Ajax joined her, breathed in the sweet Umbrian air. “I’ve always wondered if the Knights Templar ever took lovers. I like to think many of them did, some warmth, some comfort.”

“Like you and Lilith?”

He shook his head at her. “Let’s focus on

where the Ark could be.” He pulled out his mother’s map. “I wish she could have been more specific. Only identifying the mountain, it’s not much use to us.”

“We have to believe that somehow she got it back here. We have to believe it’s buried here, otherwise why go on?”

He asked the question that had been making him crazy. “If Mother got the Ark out of the Gobi, then where do you think she is? Why would she leave the Ark behind?”

“I think she’s afraid to contact us, for fear of discovery. I think she left the Ark for us to find. We’ll hire more workers, Ajax, have them focus on finding the Ark, not more Templar treasure.”

“So many digs over the past thirty years, even under the town itself. And we don’t know how many more secret tunnels the Templars excavated. I think about our private museum, it’s full to overflowing with their treasures.” He sighed. “But where is our crown jewel? Where is the Ark?”