Patrick shifted as he woke up on the sofa, strangling down a groan of pain at the movement of his injured shoulder, he glanced at the clock over the fireplace as he struggled to sit up without further moving the damaged arm, and quickly calculated that a) he was in pain because he had managed to miss two doses of his pain medication, and b) it was far too late to think about bothering to go to bed, it was coming up on 5am, and he would need to get up in an hour anyway. Sighing, he scrubbed his good hand over his eyes, and then back through his hair, trying to convince himself that he wanted to get moving, his eyes resting blankly on the book that he had been reading the night before for a long moment before he frowned slightly, he could have sworn he was holding that book when he dropped off the night before, and if he had dropped it in his sleep it would be on the floor, not the table, but if someone had come in, they would have woken him up so that he could go to bed.
Shaking it off as no odder than anything else that had happened lately, he made himself get moving, heading to grab his painkillers before even thinking about doing anything else.
He checked his diary as he waited for his breakfast to be brought up, pleased to see that he had nothing particularly demanding scheduled for the day, and no outside meetings at all, so he might actually get a chance to get down to the archives himself, and see what Langdon and Bianchi had found, if anything.
/x/
Cardinal Strauss nodded a distracted greeting to his secretary as the young priest handed him his schedule for the day.
"Cardinal, there was also a message from Professor Langdon this morning, wondering if you would have time to see him today."
"Can he be fitted in?"
"You would have time for a brief meeting just before lunch, or a slightly longer one at 3pm."
"Find out which would be most appropriate and slot him in," he sighed.
"Yes Eminence," the young man nodded, making a note.
Strauss nodded and went into his office, preparing to get the day under way.
/x/
Robert and Father Bianchi were on their way down to the archives when the messenger from the Camerlengo's office caught up with him, and Robert could see Bianchi watching curiously as he made his appointment.
"Do you know if they ever drain the fountains in the square?" Langdon asked Bianchi once the messenger was gone, still wondering how likely it was that he would get his request approved.
"Yes, they are drained regularly for cleaning. They must be about due again, in the next month or so, at least. Why?"
"Because I need to look at them, properly, compare them to each other, and the designs in the archives. Maderno's fountain or the obelisk are the keys to what we're looking for, I'm almost sure of that, from that passage you found yesterday, forbidding that they be moved. We should focus on them today, if we can, instead of the square as a whole."
"I don't know if there is much from Maderno in the archive," Bianchi said, thoughtfully.
"Well, hopefully there will be something on his fountain at the very least."
"Do you want me to take you to Maderno now then?"
"Actually, do you think you could take Maderno, and I'll stick with Bernini, and we could compare notes before we break for lunch?"
Bianchi gave him a dark look, clearly not enthused at the idea of leaving Langdon unattended in the archives, even if he was only in another vault.
"Look, I know you don't trust me, but despite the evidence of last year, I have a lot of respect for the documents stored here, and I wouldn't deliberately damage one without extreme provocation, and as I don't think anyone is going to be trying to kill me this time, I can treat them with the respect they deserve. I wouldn't push on this, I would prefer to have your trust, but I don't think we have a lot of time to find what we need, and we can't afford to waste what time we have."
"Fine, if you give your word that you will not damage the documents, I will do as you suggest," Bianchi sighed, not sure why he was giving in on this issue, beyond the sense of urgency evident in the fact the American's access had been granted by the Holy Father personally, and that he had managed to get an appointment with the Camerlengo without being made to wait days.
"You have my word," Langdon said seriously.
Giving Langdon another long look, Bianchi let him into the archive they had been in the day before, and then took himself off to see what they had on Maderno.
Robert moved over to the shelves, taking down the file he had been looking at the day before and carrying it carefully to the table, before going back to look at the other labels, to see if there was anything else that would obviously tie in.
/x/
Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose as his last appointment of the morning left, and was contemplating an early lunch when the internal line on his desk started to ring.
"Yes?" he said wearily after picking up the receiver.
"Holiness, Commandant Richter is here, he wonders if you could spare him a moment?" his secretary asked.
"Fine, send him in," he sighed.
Patrick noticed that Richter looked rather uncomfortable as he came into the room and made his reverence.
"Sit down Commandant, tell me what's wrong," he said.
Richter sank into the indicated chair, looking down at the rug for a long moment, before looking up, still looking uncomfortable.
"First, Holy Father, we have completed the evacuation plan for the square, in the event anything should happen."
"Good." Patrick nodded, wondering if that was what was causing the man's discomfort, the fear that he was somehow encouraging delusional behaviour in an unbalanced Pontiff, or if there was something else going on.
"There is something I need to speak of with you, a confession, if you will," he said, finally meeting Patrick's eyes without looking like he wanted to flee the room.
"I'm listening," Patrick said, resting his unrestrained arm along the edge of his desk.
"Last night, after speaking with the Camerlengo, I will admit that I was rather…dubious…about the nature of what I had been told, and how it reflected on, um," he hesitated, and Patrick stepped into the breach.
"You were dubious how it reflected on my sanity, yes, I would be shocked if you had not suffered some doubts in that direction. Something has changed your mind?" he queried.
"Yes. After leaving the Camerlengo's office, I started working on the evacuation plan, as directed, and I realized when I was getting ready to leave, quite late on, that I had forgotten to check the feeds from the cameras I had installed in your apartments. I thought about leaving it for today, but decided that it would be better to check them while the squad room was deserted, I had no intention at all of breaching your privacy, I honestly didn't expect you to be there, late as it was."
"That's all right; I would have made the same decision."
"Thank you. You were on the sofa in the sitting room; it looked as if you had fallen asleep reading. I was about to turn off the camera and erase the footage of my unintentional invasion of your privacy when I saw…"
"Saw what, Commandant?" he pressed when the man fell silent.
"You were completely alone in that room, I would swear to that, but someone, something took the book out of your arms and moved it to the table, moved you into a more comfortable position…" he sighed again and held up a disk.
"I already deleted the original recording, ahead of the promised schedule for clearing them, but I didn't know if you would want to see or not."
"We'll go to my informal office, there is a laptop in there you can play it on," he said, rising to his feet.
A short time later, he sat in silence, unable to tear his eyes away from the now static image on the screen, he knew, he knew without a doubt the identity of the presence Richter had caught on camera.
"Papá," the involuntary whisper startled Richter.
"Holiness?" he queried uncertainly.
"Nothing, thank you for bringing this to me Commandant, it is reassuring to know that not all of the presences around when I sleep have malevolent intent," was all he said.
He had no intention of explaining to Richter that his father was the only person who would never wake him or leave him if he fell asleep over a book like that, unless he had no 0ption, preferring instead to rescue the book and make sure he was comfortable.
"Was there anything else you needed to talk to me about today?" he asked, finally pulling his eyes away from the screen.
"No, that was all, Holy Father."
Patrick nodded and dismissed him, reaching out to shut the top of the computer when he was gone, he would process how he felt about his father still watching over him later, but for right now, he needed to get some lunch before his afternoon meetings.
/x/
Camerlengo Strauss looked up as a somewhat harried looking Langdon was shown into his office by his secretary, nodding a greeting.
"Professor, how goes your research?" he asked, indicating he should take the chair across the desk from him.
"Not brilliantly, Father Bianchi and I are working on both Maderno and Bernini now, but aside from the section in Bernini's diary that said the Pope of the time had forbidden touching the fountain or the obelisk when he commissioned the square, we haven't come up with anything odd yet. That's kind of why I asked to see you though, his insistence that they not be touched suggests deeper investigation of the fountains and the obelisk should be undertaken. I understand that the fountains out there are periodically drained for cleaning, I was hoping that there was some way to get that done now, so that I could examine them properly and fully."
"How important do you really think it is?"
"Frankly, I think it's the best chance we have, we could be months going through papers down there, and I don't think we have months. I would like it better if we could find out what made the Pope give the order that the two not be disturbed, but it is still the best, really the only, lead we have."
Strauss sighed and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth for a moment, looking at him.
"I know that the fountains are scheduled for cleaning before the anniversary, I will see if I can have it moved up," he finally agreed.
"Thank you."
Langdon left, and Strauss set about trying to get the cleaning of the fountains brought forward.
/x/
Robert had been back down in the archives for over an hour when he heard the vault door trigger, and a black cassock moved into his peripheral vision. He looked up, expecting to see Father Bianchi, and met the amused grey eyes of the Pontiff.
"Uh…" he stuttered, standing up quickly.
"Don't mind me, I just came down to see how it was going," Patrick smiled, sliding into one of the chairs around the table and gesturing for Robert to retake his seat. He did so, wondering as he did why on Earth the pontiff was wandering around with no obvious guards and wearing an ordinary cassock.
"Not brilliantly, I spoke to the Camerlengo a little while ago about pursuing a lead we picked up. Without knowing for sure what we're looking for here, we're basically searching in the dark."
Patrick sighed and nodded, unsurprised, he suspected that this was heading rapidly towards the prophesied moment, and there was little or nothing they could do wait.
"Would you be able to find out from your colleagues when exactly they expect this star they discovered to be visible to the naked eye?" he asked quietly.
"I could ask them, but they would likely want to know why I'm asking."
"I am sure you could think of some explanation to satisfy them. We need some idea how long we might have to prepare."
"You don't think we're going to be able to stop this, do you?"
"No, I don't intend to stop trying, but no," Patrick murmured softly, his fingers twitching at the strap of his sling for a moment, and Robert noticed absently that it, like the cassock, was now black, so as not to stand out.
The vault door opened again, Bianchi stepping in with a journal cradled carefully in his hands, and Langdon got a sudden insight into the answer to his earlier, unasked question when the archivist's eyes slid over the other priest with no sign of recognition. Robert started to open his mouth to say something, but closed it again at a tiny headshake from the redhead across from him.
"I don't know if this qualifies as an oddity, if it's what you're looking for, but there are some interesting entries in Maderno's journal," Bianchi said, taking the other seat at the table and gently opening the journal to a page marked with acid free paper, one of several, Robert noted.
"Firstly, the fountain out there is not the one he originally designed for the square, he had a completed design ready for submission, the entry rambles a little, but it indicates he threw that design aside and started again on the strength of a dream he had. It seems to have unsettled him somewhat, his journal entries up to that point were concise and direct, and after, they all tended to be rambling, lacking in information, though it seemed to get worse as the project continued, by the time the fountain was ready for installation, few of his entries made much sense at all."
"What are the other pages you have marked?" Robert asked.
Turning to the next marked entry, Bianchi tapped the page very lightly.
"Here he speaks of the fountain being installed, reaching completion, but he says that he hopes they will let him sleep now, that they will be satisfied and leave his nights in peace."
That got a soft snort from Patrick; he could empathize with the long dead man's wish. Bianchi didn't even glance up from the journal at the sound, mistaking it for disbelief, instead turning to the last marked place.
"Four months pass after the installation with no mention of anything but refused commissions, in writing that is not his, and then, he just picks up and goes on as he was before beginning work on the fountain, no more mentions of dreams, of the fountain, or of anything connected with it. It would almost seem that he erased all memory of it."
"Perhaps he did, but it definitely suggests I am on the right track in asking the Camerlengo to get me access to examine the fountains properly," Robert mused, earning a raised eyebrow from Patrick, who hadn't heard about that.
"Keep me informed, I should go before they realize I'm not where they think I am," Patrick said, rising gracefully and slipping out of the vault.
Bianchi looked up at the departing figure, his face paling as he registered the voice of the priest he hadn't recognized.
"That was…"
"Yes, don't let it freak you out; he didn't want to be recognized. Come on; let's see if we can find anything else."
Patrick knew he had shocked the young archivist, but there wasn't much he could do about that now, he re-opened the hidden doorway he had entered the archives through, vanishing into the maze of passages once more.
tbc