Echoes Through the Vatican: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 2) by K. Francis Ryan

all of this held in place. To work, it depends on following a rather exact plan under strong leadership. Each player must trust his fellows. How would that be maintained for such a long period of time without breaking down? Even La Cosa Nostra has been unable to make it work.”
    Julian watched his companion, sipped his wine and knew who had the answer. It was bubbling to the surface in five, four, three, two…
    “Cabal,” Gio exploded with an exalted look of triumph with an infectious grin. He rushed ahead. “Yes, a secret economic, political, criminal, hell, even religious organization. The first example of truly organized crime. Still, something had to hold it all together, beyond family or leadership or even threats of death. The professor is right.” Gio looked around and lowered his voice, “La Cosa Nostra leaks like the Italian treasury.”
    Julian smiled and looked into his wine glass. Gio had taken a slight detour and Julian was fine with that. “Well, that is a discussion for another time,” Julian said, but he knew the answer. He had heard the echoes, he had seen into the mist of antiquity. He knew, although he did not fully understand. The past without intervention would be the future.
    The professor, with excruciating slowness, lowered his head and looked over his glasses at Gio. “A student who can think.” The professor turned his over-the-glasses gaze to Julian. “What will be next? Students who actually learn things? The world will spin off its axis and we will all tumble into space.”
    Their meals had gone cold, but none of the three diners noticed as they finished their food in silence. Julian paid the check. Gio excused himself.
    “I’m in this study group not far from here. I’ll just leave you and go on my…” Gio began before the professor interrupted.
    “Silvestri, do not bore us with your sad excuses to mask the squalid half hearted sexual escapades of yours. Be in my office day after tomorrow ten o’clock. I need not say be on time. I may let you back into the antiquities department. And I may, yet, not kill you.”
    ***
    The professor and Julian got into a cab for the ride back to the university.
    “You have a question, Mr. Blessing? I have been doing what I do for long enough to know a question on the cusp,” the professor said and smiled at his turn of phrase, a phrase he had used often with good effect.
    “We know where we began. We know where we have been. What remains, professor?” Julian asked.
    The professor’s smile was smug but without conceit. Deep lines gathered at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “Professor Bragonier said I would not be disappointed with you.”
    “Then both of you professors are too kind,” Julian said.
    “The question you ask is the only one worth asking and, to a degree, you know the answer,” the professor said. “What we do in the present, having made discoveries from the past, allows us to rectify the future.”

Chapter Seven
    Julian stood on the Piazza della Pilotta in the heart of Rome at the edge of Quirinale hill. The building he faced couldn’t be more different from Sapienza University .
    This was an imposing gumbo of neoclassical architecture. The simplicity of lines combined with the sheer majesty of the building’s scale. The entire edifice was crowned with soaring columns that threatened the sky and spoke of a time long past.
    Julian climbed the steps of the Pontifical Gregorian University. His appointment was for five o’clock and he was early.
    A researcher on the first floor looked shaken when Julian mentioned the name of the man he was to meet. The way was pointed out and Julian took his time climbing the main staircase and walking down the long, broad hallway. He savored the smell of old books and dust as he followed the office numbers and the names in brass plaques beside each door. His appointment would be with a man in a corner office at the end of the hall.
    Julian could feel the intensity well before he