The Medici Return (Cotton Malone #19)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

7:40 P.M.

C OTTON DROVE ACROSS THE R HINE R IVER AND ENTERED THE HEART of old Cologne. He’d visited the German city before, a place of churches and ancient museums and universities—once a Roman fortification, later the seat of archbishops and cardinals. Both had left indelible marks on the landscape.

Outside the car window he spied the towering twin spires of the cathedral, massive even from half a mile away. He used the structure as a beacon and began a trek through a series of one-way streets. The oxidized copper roof cast the titanic structure in a pale-green halo, adding an appropriate touch of omnipresence, the building squatting like a massive four-legged creature, the bell towers ears, transepts paws, the creature silently studying its territory, assuring in all directions it remained inviolate.

He’d taken his time driving the seventy miles west from Dillenburg, but stayed contemplative, considering the consequences of all that had happened. No one had followed him. His instructions had been to meet a contact in Cologne at 8:00 P.M . after the sneak and peek for a face-to-face debrief. He assumed a recorded statement would be taken to serve as evidence to the tribunal. Then his task would be complete. Perhaps he could catch a late train north to Copenhagen and be home by midnight.

He navigated his way through the maze of streets and found a public parking lot. Then he crossed the open square that fanned out around the Dom, staring up at the towering facade. He’d visited the National Cathedral in Washington and churches all around the world, but they were nothing like this. Its main facade was all handcrafted, loaded with finial turrets, crockets, spires, intricate stone filigree, and stepped windows. It had stayed in a constant state of building and repair for the past fifteen hundred years. He knew the popular local saying. When the cathedral is completed, the world will end.

He followed a group of tourists chatting incessantly in French through the central portal in the west facade, the tympanum filled with scenes from the Old Testament. The jamb statutes portrayed biblical figures, the theme one of salvation. He hoped it was a good omen as he passed underneath. A soft melody from a pipe organ drifted across the interior. His eyes were immediately drawn up to the vaulted nave. The Gothic choir loomed at the far end, the ornate high altar beyond. Towering stained-glass windows lined the outer walls, their colorful images darkened by the ever-dimming sun outside.

He walked through the vestibule, down the center aisle between parallel rows of oak pews. A few worshipers knelt in contemplative prayer. Not many people around. Maybe fifty or so. At a side altar hundreds of tiny candles flickered, and he watched while a couple of veiled dowagers lit two more and crossed themselves. Atop the music was the echo of heels off stone. Occasionally, a photo flash pierced the semi-darkness.

The rows of pews ended before the altar.

He turned right and entered the south transept, following the ambulatory east to the far end. The golden reliquary sarcophagus stood to his left sparkling under floodlights behind a plexiglass shield. Supposedly, the remains of the Three Magi had been brought to Cologne in the twelfth century and had rested there ever since. He stood at the extreme east end of the massive church, away from the majority of visitors, at the crest of the ambulatory’s semicircle, easy to see from either side if anybody approached.

He checked his watch. Nearly 8:00 P.M.

Right on time.

So where was his contact?

Stephanie had texted a picture of who to expect, so he was on the lookout for the right face. An elderly couple rounded the curve, strolling arm and arm admiring the chapels, chatting in German. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Something was off. Not right. Like what he’d felt in Dillenburg. He had no dog in this fight. None at all. He was asked to take a look, snap some pictures, then make a report. That’s all.

But he was still on edge.

A woman appeared from one of the side chapels.

She hesitated at the iron gate, looking both ways before emerging. Tall. Lean-limbed. Pageboy hairstyle. Snug denim jeans and a casual check shirt. His alarm bell triggered louder and he moved toward the iron gate. The woman kept going. Away. Toward the front of the massive church. Never looking back. He glanced inside the dim chapel at the wall paintings and its darkened stained-glass windows. In one corner a body lay supine. A face he recognized. From Stephanie’s email. The man he’d come to meet. He hustled over and saw a knife wound to the chest. He knelt down and checked for a pulse.

None.

Then everything just escalated.

A form sprang from his left, wielding a knife.

Long, wide, serrated.

The man pivoted off the balls of his feet, the knife sweeping in a circular motion of intense readiness. Cotton reacted and rolled to his right, away from the attacker, and came to his feet, swinging around to slam his right foot into the hand with the knife.

But it did not release.

Thankfully, this was not his first rodeo. So he swung with his right fist and pounded the man’s temple, which had the desired effect, stunning the senses and causing the guy to stagger back. He wrapped his right arm around the neck in a vise grip, then transmitted the full weight of his body through a knee into the abdomen. Ribs cracked. A grunt signaled pain. The hand with the knife moved up and out.

Not good.

The arc could be trouble.

Make the call. Do it.

Releasing his grip on the throat he clamped onto the guy’s arm and brought the hand down and in, puncturing his attacker’s chest with the blade.

Breath swooshed from lungs.

Muscles relaxed.

A small rivulet of blood seeped from the corner of the mouth, and all resistance ceased as the body went limp.

Dammit. He needed this guy alive.

“Oh, my God,” a woman said loudly in English.

He glanced up. The same woman from earlier stood out in the ambulatory.

“You killed him,” she yelled, her voice echoing across the nave. “He killed him.”

Then she ran.

He headed after her.

People were reacting to her words, emerging from the pews and into the side aisle. The clap of their feet echoed off the towering ceiling. Across the nave he spotted the woman. She saw him and reached beneath her jacket.

A gun appeared.

She leveled it his way.

He dove to the ground between the pews, flattening himself and crawling beneath them.

A loud pop filled the nave.

Above him a round whined by, smacking off stone. Voices rose, people panicked, all now heading for the exit in a rush.

He rose up.

The woman to his right had disappeared.

He darted her way, crossed in front of the main altar, and headed for a side door. He glanced back to see two policemen in uniforms run past the altar toward the chapel with the bodies.

He came to the exit doors.

Which opened.

He fled the church, out into the warm evening. He turned left and made his way back toward the front of the cathedral, keeping close to the building and using the crowd for protection. The woman from the chapel was hustling away, down a set of stairs to street level, where she crossed traffic and headed for the sidewalk on the other side.

Time to go. Now.