[h3]Vatican City[/h3] The sound of heavy footfalls woke Harry up from a restless sleep. He blinked and threw off the sheets as he heard murmurs somewhere in the dark. The sheets of his bed were soaked with sweat. It was always like that when he dreamed of his past. Obscure shapes would float by in the void, people just out of focus and always just out of reach, and they would speak a language he himself never spoke. [i]"息子を起こして"[/i] [i]"行く時間です"[/i] “Father Mitchell,” a voice called in Italian through the darkness. Harry heard shouts from outside his window and sat up. “I’m here,” Harry replied back in perfect Italian. Although the language of his homeland was lost to him, he could speak Italian, English, German, and of course Latin perfectly. “What’s all the commotion?” “There’s been some kind of accident,” the voice said. As the fog of sleep lifted from his mind he now realized it was Father Ricci, a fellow canon lawyer like Harry, speaking to him. Of course it was Ricci, Harry thought, he slept in the room next door. “I think it’s Cardinal Moch,” Ricci said quickly. “It looks like... he fell from the Governor’s Palace.” At that Harry was up on his feet and out the door of his room clad only in his pajamas. Ricci took a step back from the door frame as Harry came through the darkness. Even in the dim lighting Harry could make out that the taller, older priest was clad only in a long plaid sleep shirt that came down to his knees. The two men padded across the hard, stone floors towards the window at the end of the hall. Murmurs from down the passage followed the two men as they passed by open bedroom doors. As senior priests at the Vatican, Harry and Ricci served in the capacity as chaperons and advisors for the young men here at the Ethiopian College. Harry heard the young seminary students conversing in their native language among themselves, but he ignored it. “I heard a scream,” said Ricci. “I was in bed reading and when I came to the window here.” They stopped and looked down at the scene below. A series of well groomed gardens lay between the Ethiopian College and the Governor’s Palace. Running around the back of the palace was a paved road mainly used for foot and bicycle traffic, though the occasional automobile made its way down the path. Harry saw a gathering of men around a prone figure on its back. It was dark and at a distance, but he was able to easily make out the bright red shoes on the prone figure. The same shoes Harry had seen on Cardinal Moch’s feet almost every day for the last five years. His one vice, the old Pole always said sheepishly, was his love of fancy footwear. “I see a few Swiss Guard and gendarmes,” Harry said softly to Ricci. “They seem to have it under control.” “The old fool,” Ricci said with a laughter that carried very little warmth. ”It’s almost three in the morning. Do you think he was up on some balcony drinking? I’ve heard rumors about him, you know and--” “Umberto,” Harry said sharply in English. He glanced behind his shoulder where the young Ethiopian seminary students watched on. “Not in front of the boys.” Ricci stuck his bottom lip out slightly in a pouty gesture that Harry found to be very unbecoming. It made him appear like an immature schoolboy who’d just been scolded, instead of the fifty year old priest he really was. “But you’re right about one thing,” Harry said, softening his voice. He looked over his shoulder at the students. “It’s almost three in the morning. We should all head back to bed. It seems we’ll get our answers to what happened in the morning. Back to bed.” He shooed the young men off. They slowly complied. Harry knew they would probably spend the rest of the night talking it out among themselves about the all the excitement. He expected that out of the young men. He glanced back at Ricci and saw he was unmoved from his spot. He continued to stare in rapt attention as Harry shuffled back to bed. Let him stare, thought Harry. They may have the full story of what happened by morning, but it would be undoubtedly peppered by rumor and innuendo from the likes of Ricci and his clique of gossips. Harry climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over him. Despite the excitement he found himself rapidly falling back to sleep. The last thought he had before sleep overtook him was: [i]Why was Cardinal Moch fully dressed at 3 AM?[/i] [hr] [h3]Tangiers[/h3] “Well, well, well. Look at this sorry excuse of a priest.” The heavyset bartender was not wrong in his assessment of Dr. Father Daniel Maguire. He wore a pair of dirty khaki riding pants with the cuffs tucked into his scuffed boots. His black dress shirt had long ago lost its sheen and was now dull. He’d once had a clerical collar for the shirt, but he’d lost track of it a long time ago. Over the shirt was a long leather jacket with a turned down collar, an aviator jacket that had once been popular during the Great War. “A sorry excuse for a priest in this sorry excuse for a bar,” Maguire said in a Irish brogue. He ran his hands through his curly red hair before winking at the big man behind the bar. “Faisel in the back room?” The bartender begrudgingly nodded. Maguire walked through the empty bar. La Esquinita, literally Spanish for “The Corner” wasn’t the most popular place in Tangiers. It catered to a lower class of clientele. Even though it was eleven in the morning you could usually find a few alcoholics propping themselves up against the bar. At night it was the kind of place you went for a drink and minded your business. Or else. Maguire went through the door and found his contact in the bar’s office. Muhammed Faisel Al-Rabi didn’t even look up from the ledger on his desk. He continued to stare at the numbers on the page from behind his rimless glasses. “You owe me money, priest.” “That I do,” Maguire said with a smirk. He reached into his jacket and produced a wad of Spanish banknotes. The site of money persuaded Faisel to sit upright. He was a very neatly dressed and groomed man. His hair was combed and gelled in the right places so that it never moved and his pencil thin mustache had not one hair out of place. To meet him in the street you would assume he was a banker and not Tangiers number one smuggler and black marketeer. “We are no longer owned by the Spanish,” he said curtly. “It spends just as good as any kind of money,” said Maguire. He placed the notes on the desk. After a brief hesitation, Faisel took the money and counted it. “This is more than you owe.” “It wasn’t a mistake,” said Maguire. “Good because I was not giving it back.” “Think of it as a down payment for future services to be rendered,” Magiure said with a crooked grin. “I hear some rumors on the streets and in the circles we travel in.” “Yes,” Faisel said with just the hint of a smile. “We have heard rumors that you actually bathe, but as of yet we have not had any confirmation of that fact.” Maguire waved off the joke in annoyance. “I mean actual information that my bosses in Rome would love to have.” Maguire put his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “I hear that somewhere in this country someone’s found actual proof that Count Julian was real, that they found a grave with artifacts.” There was a twinkle in Maguire’s eye as he spoke. “One of the greatest traitors in Christendom--” “--And one of the greatest heroes for the [i]Maghreb[/i] people--” “And we may have actual proof that he existed!” If Faisel was moved by this information, then he had one hell of a poker face. He squared his glasses and raised an eyebrow at Maguire’s excited expression. “Do you have actual concrete information this time, Maguire?” “That I do, lad,” said the priest. “I just need some manpower and resources, something an enterprising fella like you I'm sure has ins spades.” “If there are artifacts,” Faisel said slowly. He put his hands together and held them close to his mouth. “They will be very valuable.” “You know who I work for,” said Maguire. “You check our ledger and you’ll see we got that infinity symbol when it comes to money.” “This,” Faisel tapped his left breast pocket, the place he’d put the money Maguire had forked over. “Is a start, but I’ll need more, and I’ll need more details than you having a vague idea where this burial site is.” “I can get you the money,” Maguire said as he stepped back from the desk. He pulled up a chair and sat across from Faisel. “As for details, let’s talk shall we?”