Sign of the Cross(11)

‘So, what have you got for me, Slim? You’ve wasted enough of my time already.’

The chief hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, searching for something to say. ‘We got word on the victim. His name was Erik Jansen, a thirty-two-year-old from Finland.’

‘Finland? That’s a thousand miles away. Why in the world was he in Denmark?’

The chief shrugged. ‘Our customs office has no record of him being here. Not ever.’

‘Annette,’ Dial said, ‘call headquarters and find out where he’s been during the last year.’

She nodded and hit the button on her speed dial.

‘Chief, while she’s on the phone, let me ask you a question. Where’s the body?’

‘We moved it to the morgue.’

‘Before or after you photographed the scene?’

‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘my men tried to revive the victim. And the quickest way to do that was to pull the cross out of the ground.’

Dial grimaced. ‘Please tell me you took some pictures before you pried him off the beams?’

The chief nodded and ran off to get the photos; at least that’s what he said he was doing. The truth was, he was looking for an excuse to get away from Dial and had no plans of coming back until he regained his composure. But that was fine with Dial because it left him in charge of the entire scene and prevented the chief from hearing a key piece of information that Agent Nielson had just acquired from Interpol.

‘Rome,’ she said. ‘Jansen has been living in Rome for the past eight years, not Finland.’

‘Rome? What in the world was he doing there?’

‘Our victim was a priest who worked at the Vatican.’





7


The last time Payne had seen Jones was when they were being arrested. From there both of them were taken to the penitentiary in separate squad cars, stripped of their clothes and possessions, and locked in cells on opposite sides of the building. Mostly for the protection of the staff.

That was Friday, nearly seventy-two hours before.

Payne was on his cot, pondering his next move, when a team of guards interrupted him. They burst into his cell and chained his hands and legs together with a device that looked like it was from Cool Hand Luke. The men were of average size and training. That meant Payne could’ve gotten free if necessary. But he let things slide, allowing them to drag him to an isolation room where he assumed he was going to be interrogated. Or tortured. Or both.

In the center of the room was a metal table bolted to the floor. A large iron loop was fused to each side, used to restrict the movement of the prisoner. The guards locked Payne in place, taking extra precautions, making sure he was secure. They had to be careful with a prisoner like Payne. He was that dangerous. Once they were satisfied, they left the room without speaking. No words. No instructions. Nothing. The only sound Payne could hear was the rattle of his chains and his own shallow breathing. The distinct smell of old vomit hovered in the air.

They left him like that for several hours, allowing him to sweat. Allowing him to think of all the horrible things they could do to him. Hoping it would make him break. Little did they know they were wasting their time. They could do whatever they wanted to Payne, and he wouldn’t feel it. He was trained not to feel it. To join the MANIACs, soldiers were required to pass a rigorous torture test that had two basic parts: getting torture and giving torture. Payne excelled at both.

So instead of dwelling on what might happen, Payne focused on other things. Mostly events of the past few years. All the things that had led him to his current predicament.

Sadly, family duties had forced him to leave the military long before he was ready. His grandfather, the man who had raised him, passed away and left him the family business. A multimillion-dollar corporation named Payne Industries. In truth Payne wanted no part of that world. It was one of the reasons he had gone into the military, to avoid such obligations. He wanted to forge his own identity and make a name on his own. He wanted to be his own man. But all that changed when his grandfather died. Suddenly he felt obligated to come home and take charge. Like it was his destiny. His burden.

Payne Industries was an American success story. It was his duty to protect the legacy.

When Payne’s grandfather was young, he scraped together his life savings and started a small manufacturing company near the Ohio River. The steel industry was booming back then, and Pittsburgh was its capital. The air was black and the rivers were brown, but he got tons of business. One minute he was a mill Hunky from Beaver County, the next he was a tycoon. The most successful Polish American in the history of the U.S.

Now everything – the company, the land, the wealth – belonged to the grandson.