Justine, Sci, and Mo-bot followed and joined Valentina as she was opening a Peli flight case that contained a trove of electronic equipment. Justine recognized some of the gear as counter-surveillance devices.
“Give me everything the cops took from you,” Mo-bot said.
Justine and Sci complied, handing over a wallet, purse, phones, passports, and belts. Mo-bot ran a scanner over everything and found two tracking devices: one embedded in Sci’s phone and the other sewn into Justine’s purse.
After scanning each item with a wand that detected electronic signals, Mo-bot passed the item to Valentina, who examined it further. She connected Sci’s and Justine’s phones to a tiny computer and analyzed the installed apps.
“Software tracker, using the phone’s GPS to send its location to a remote server,” Valentina revealed. “It’s on both devices. And there’s a keylogger sending the same server everything typed on these devices. All your messages can be read remotely.”
“They hacked us,” Sci remarked.
“I do wish you’d stop using that word,” Mo-bot replied. “But yes, they hacked us. That’s probably why they held us for so long—so they could install all this junk. What about my phone?” she asked, handing over her device.
Valentina connected it to the computer and examined the file directory. She nodded.
“Same.”
“Can you clean them?” Mo-bot asked.
“Sure,” Valentina replied. “No problem.”
“No listening devices?”
Valentina shook her head. “Location and text only.”
“Good,” Mo-bot said. “Then we can speak freely.” She turned to Justine. “You wanted to ask about Jack.”
“Yes. Have you heard from him?”
“Of course,” Valentina said. “I found another safe place for him and his friend. I’ll take you as soon as we’re finished here.”
CHAPTER80
FADUMA AND I rode buses to return to the warehouse by the river. I wanted to be able to see if anyone was following us. Hopping on and off the crowded vehicles provided us with plenty of cover, hiding among the tourists in central Rome and then commuters as we moved toward the suburbs.
“Are you going to meet Altmer tonight?” Faduma asked as we stepped off the number 5 bus at a remote stop a short distance from the warehouse.
I could smell salt in the air blowing in on a west wind.
“What choice do I have?” I asked. “We went to the Vatican this morning in search of answers. We didn’t find any, so I have to try again. I don’t understand why he was concerned for our safety.”
“Maybe it was a ruse to give himself enough time to set a trap,” Faduma remarked as we walked along the lane leading to theriverside warehouses. “To destroy evidence or warn collaborators.”
“Well, we know he’s involved somehow, and the Dark Fates obviously play a role, and that there is a powerful conspiracy at work—let’s try and put the pieces together from what we have,” I suggested. “We should review everything again. Go back to the beginning.”
Faduma nodded and we hurried into the warehouse. We went up to the apartment and I made us some strong coffee using the supplies she had purchased earlier that morning.
Armed with the black jet fuel we sat at Mo-bot’s computer and reviewed the copious amounts of evidence we’d amassed: the surveillance footage of the Inferno Bar and the background files on Altmer and Milan Verde. We worked for over an hour without success until Faduma accessed her files onLa Repubblica’s cloud server. She reviewed the dossier she’d amassed on the mysterious deaths Filippo Lombardi had begun investigating. She had started a file on Father Brambilla and was swiping through some archive photos the newspaper had of him at Vatican functions.
“Wait,” I said. “Go back.”
I’d seen a face I recognized at a fundraiser being held at the Vatican for the Orphans of Rome, a city charity. Faduma scrolled back and there in the image, standing next to Christian Altmer and Father Brambilla, was Father Vito, but he wasn’t wearing the priest’s cassock I was familiar with. He wore the deep purple of a cardinal.
“That’s Father Vito,” I said. “The priest who helped me.”
Faduma shook her head. “That’s Cardinal Vito Peralta, one of the most powerful princes of the Church.”
I thought back to our first meeting at the Garden of Secret Confession. What had he been doing there? Could he have been involved in what had happened? Had I been taken in by his simple piety?
