Chapter 32
Dario had been losing a card game against Athena for forty minutes, refusing to acknowledge he was losing, and Athena had been taking his money with the quiet satisfaction because she knew how to read his tells and was choosing not to share with him what they were.
Kon was watching on and chuckling every now and again.
Giana had drifted in from the sitting room and taken the reading chair with a glass of wine, and even she had stopped pretending to read her book somewhere around the third hand.
Frederica was at the other end of the library table, with a map, a notebook, a pen, and a tablet, which she was using to look up information about Agrippa. She had been at it for an hour.
Her phone lit up on the table with a tune that took Dario a few seconds to identify as Dio's Rainbow in the Dark.
"Baba? What is it?" she answered. "Hang on, I'm putting you on speaker."
"I've been going through my records again since you called your mother," Tore replied, voice sounding tired through the speakers. "Most of the jobs for Agrippa follow the pattern you and Dario identified."
"But?" Frederica prompted him.
"But there was one shipment I remembered that didn't fit. It was seven items, twelve years ago. Not unusual in themselves—a grimoire, two ritual instruments, some metalwork. The kind of thing he asked for regularly," Tore explained.
"Okay, so what's got you so worked up now about that?" Frederica asked, not following him.
"The delivery was different. Every other job, Agrippa gave me a collection point like a third party, an intermediary, a shipping forwarding address in Zurich or Vienna.
That kind of thing. Anonymous. Untraceable.
The way serious buyers get when they become paranoid.
This job stuck out because I was given a direct address.
It was an estate property, registered to a private foundation, and just outside of Cologne.
I delivered the items and didn't think about it again, but when I went back through the older correspondence tonight, looking for anything I'd missed, there it was again.
There was a letter, right at the beginning of our connection, asking whether I could source items for delivery to that same property. "
"He only gave you a direct address twice? Like ever?" Dario asked.
"In all the years I worked for him, yes.
I noted it at the time I had to physically go there, because it was unusual, and I was worried about the setup.
He was a careful man and wasn't the kind to give you addresses unless they had to.
Smart thieves don't ask for them." Tore's voice had something in it that Dario recognized from his own brothers when they were furious, and they contained it by force of will.
"You don't push clients who pay on time and don't ask for anything that could get you killed.
That was always the rule. It kept me in business. "
He stopped and let out a frustrated breath. "I'm only pushing now because this man put his hands on my daughter. I want him dead, and I want you to have everything you need to make it happen."
Serapis had appeared from the adjoining study at some point during Tore's account. Dario hadn't heard him come in, but he now stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.
"Cologne," Serapis said when Tore finished.
"Just outside of it," Tore confirmed.
"Send me the address." Serapis moved to the desk and opened his laptop. "I'll cross-reference it against the Praetorium site maps."
"Praetorium?" Rodrigo said, trying to keep up. "What do you mean?"
"Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486." Serapis typed without looking up.
"The city was already ancient by then and had Roman in its bones.
Beneath the modern streets of the cathedral district, there is an excavated section of the Roman Praetorium—the governor's palace, one of the principal administrative centers of Roman Germania.
The foundations predate Christianity by centuries. "
He turned the laptop toward them. An archaeological site map filled the screen with Roman walls traced in red, overlaid on a modern street grid, like the past bleeding through the present.
"The stones held Roman authority for five hundred years.
Layers of history built on top of layers.
Medieval structures raised on Roman foundations.
For a man who intended to replicate the death and resurrection of Christ using the astronomical conditions of the crucifixion itself, it is a deliberate and symbolic location to use. "
"Because the Romans ordered the crucifixion," Dario said slowly.
"Exactly. Roman authority condemned him.
Roman soldiers carried it out. Roman administrative power is what made it possible," Serapis replied, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.
"Agrippa has always appreciated a closed circle.
He was born in that city and would have gone back there to see what was left when he woke.
It's big enough now to hide him, and I never found traces of him when I searched it.
Of course, he would complete his apotheosis there.
" He stroked his beard and got a distant look in his eyes.
"He must have been preparing beneath Cologne for years.
Roman stones, layered with medieval wards, hidden under a modern city.
Returning to his origin. Closing the circle. "
Rodrigo stared at the map on the screen. Dario knew he was already scanning the terrain, thinking about how to enter and leave it. He was calculating exits, choke points, risks.
"Leo can get us more details on the site," Dario said, watching his brother.
"The excavation should be public record.
If there are access points that aren't on the official archaeological surveys, Iz can find them.
There's no way Agrippa could be using the public ruins as a playground.
It will be something connected to his property where he won't be disturbed. "
Rodrigo nodded once. "You're right. People would notice him and his followers coming and going. Get Leo onto it."
"Baba." Frederica picked up her phone from the table. "You did well. This is exactly what we needed. We have been chasing our tails since Vienna."
"I should have figured it out sooner," Tore replied. "I've been uneasy since you told me what he did to you at the auction."
"I was fine."
"I know, but I've run jobs for strange clients for forty years.
I've never asked why they wanted certain objects, but this one...
" He swore softly in Greek before clearing his throat.
"I've been sitting here going through all of his correspondence, and I can see how he needed my access.
My contacts. My ability to move things across borders quietly, without questions, without a trail. "
"Nobody is blaming you for what he plans to do with it," Frederica said. Her voice was measured, but Dario heard the worry underneath it.
"I'm blaming myself."
"Baba—"
"I'll get over it," Tore said briskly. "After it's over. Right now, I want to be useful and make sure he never touches you again."
"Tore," Dario said steadily.
"Yes, Dario?"
"I know what you are thinking, but you need to stay in Rhodes. Stay with Despina. Don't cross any borders. Don't acquire any additional weapons beyond what you already own, and don't do anything that ends with Interpol receiving a phone call."
"Hmmm," Tore said, like he considered all three of those parameters to be suggestions rather than instructions.
"I mean it," Dario replied. "If someone I loved was in this man's orbit, I would want to take the world apart piece by piece with my own hands.
I understand the impulse, but we need you in Rhodes because that is the safest place for you and Despina.
We will need the address you have, and we may need additional information we don't know yet.
You can't help us if you are in a holding cell. "
"That's fair," Tore said, which was not the same as agreeing.
"I promise you, nothing is going to happen to Frederica while I'm with her."
Dario didn't look at her when he said it. He kept his eyes on the phone on the table. "However much she objects to it, and you know she will, I'll be where she is, and I'll make sure Agrippa pays for touching her."
"I like you," Tore said finally, sounding quietly relieved. "Try not to break him, gioia mia."
"I'm not promising that," Frederica said. "What if he pisses me off and really deserves it?"
"That's my girl." The sound of Despina's voice came briefly through the line, asking something Dario couldn't quite make out, and Tore answered her in rapid Italian. "I have to go. She's been hovering. Call me when you have more information."
The call cut off, and the library settled back into quiet. Rodrigo was still studying the screens with single-minded focus.
Frederica picked up her phone and put it in her jeans pocket without looking at Dario.
"I don't need your protection," she stated flatly.
"I know." He picked up his cards and looked at his hand. Terrible again. "You're still going to get it because, as scary as you are, Spartana mia, your parents are far more frightening."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Across the table, Athena watched the exchange and grinned like a cat because she loved the drama.
"You should just focus on messaging Leo," Frederica grumbled.
"Rodrigo already did it. Get the address off Tore and send it to Iz."
"I just did."
"Good," Dario said.
"Good," Frederica replied and glared back at her notebook.
Dario looked at his cards and considered whether any combination of them could salvage the situation. He concluded that it could not and folded.
Athena collected the pot without comment and began shuffling for the next hand, a knowing smirk firmly in place.
She nodded towards Frederica and waggled her eyebrows. Dario rolled his eyes at her and made a bring it on gesture. Athena only laughed and dealt again.