Blood Pact (McGarvey) Read Online Free PDF Page A

that first, along with the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security—everyone in town, plus Interpol. Not a thing, Mac. This guy under that name does not exist.”
    “Let’s try Jacob Ambli, or Father Jacob Ambli.”
    Again Rencke shook his head. “Nada.”
    “Try him in the time frame of eighteen thirty to eighteen forty something. Mexico City.”
    Rencke suddenly laughed. “As in Jornada del Muerto ?”
    “Ambli was supposedly a spy sent by the Vatican to hook up with the second Spanish military expedition to search for the treasure.”
    “We came across some of that in the archives in Seville, but only two soldiers made it back to Mexico City, and I don’t remember the name Ambli. And both of those guys had been found robbed, and killed. No maps or journals.”
    “According to Petain, Ambli was the expedition’s surveyor and mapmaker. It was the Voltaire Society who killed the soldiers and took their diaries—which were false. Ambli, who’d kept the real diary, made his way to Boston where he was met by another man from the Vatican. But both of them were killed by the Society and the real diary was stolen. Jacob’s diary.”
    “I’ll check, but a lot of this stuff—if it exists—will probably be pigeonholed in some dusty library somewhere. Probably in Seville, or more likely in the Vatican Secret Archives. A lot of luck getting to either of them for any information. I’ll try, but why, Mac? It’s just a fairy tale.”
    “A fairy tale that got Petain murdered,” McGarvey said. “He came to me because a friend at the DGSE recommended me, and because he knew that I’d been involved with the search a few months ago.”
    “What’d he want, specifically?”
    “Jacob Ambli’s diary, which the Society had hidden in a bank vault in Bern. Someone stole it. He wants me to get it back.”
    “The diary with the location of the treasure caches?”
    “Seven of them, of which, according to Petain, only four are left.”
    “What happened to the other three?”
    “I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say. I told him I wasn’t interested.”
    “And he told you that the diary was of extreme importance and that your life was in danger,” Rencke said.
    “Something like that,” McGarvey said. “He left my office, got into his car, and before it got ten feet it disintegrated.”
    Rencke was suddenly serious. “Like Katy and Liz.”
    “Yeah. And two kids who happened to be nearby were killed. I don’t give a damn about finding some diary or going on another treasure hunt. I want the bastards who assassinated Petain without caring about any collateral damage.”
    “I understand,” Rencke said. “Anything else?”
    “Might be a long shot, but a black Mercedes S550 was stopped at the parking lot exit, and it took off just a second or two before Petain’s car blew up. Florida plate, but all I got was E or F and seventy-six or maybe seventy-eight for the first three. But it got out of there in a big hurry.”
    “Any idea who was inside? One or two people? Men, women?”
    “Windows were too deeply tinted to see anything.”
    “Bumper stickers, dents, dings?”
    “None that I saw.”
    “I’ll check into it. But get some rest, kemo sabe .”
    McGarvey nodded. “How’s Audie?”
    “Missing her grandfather.”
    “The semester is just about over with. Soon I can get free I’ll come up for a visit.”
    “Promise? She’s been asking about you.”
    “Honest injun’,” McGarvey said. It was one of Rencke’s bon mots.
    “I’ll tell her,” Rencke said
    McGarvey was seeing Petain’s car going up in flames; he could feel the heat on his face and arms, see the piece of metal falling on the kids. He broke the connection and sat back with his Cognac, his vivid memories of Katy and Liz dying in the explosion at Arlington playing in his head, over and over.

 
    FOUR
     
    The Casey Key rental was a luxurious two story, with a formal dining room, library, snooker table, huge gourmet kitchen, sitting room, solarium, living