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thing to say. The Germans may bark orders in the Campidoglio; they’re not in Milan.”
    The three partisans exchanged glances. Savarone knew there was further news he had not received. The man from Rome finally spoke.
    “As I said, our information is not complete. But we know certain things. The degree of Berlin’s interest, for example. The German high command wants Italy to openly declare itself. Mussolini wavers; for many reasons, not the least of which is the opposition of such powerful men as yourself—” The man stopped; he was unsure. Not, apparently, of his information, but how to say it.
    “What are you driving at?”
    “They say that Berlin’s interest in the Fontini-Cristis is Gestapo inspired. It’s the Nazis who demand the example; who intend to crush Mussolini’s opposition.”
    “I gathered that. So?”
    “They have little confidence in Rome, none in the provinces. The raiding party will be led by Germans.”
    “A German raiding party out of
Milan?”
    The man nodded.
    Savarone put down the pencil and stared at the man from Rome. But his thoughts were not on the man; they were on a Greek freight from Salonika he had met high in the mountains of Champoluc. On the cargo that train carried. A vault from the Patriarchate of Constantine, now buried in the frozen earth of the upper regions.
    It seemed incredible, but the incredible was commonplace in these times of madness. Had Berlin found out about the train from Salonika? Did the Germans know about the vault?
Mother of Christ
, it had to be kept from them! And all—
all
—
like
them!
    “You’re sure of your information?”
    “We are.”
    Rome could be managed, thought Savarone. Italy needed the Fontini-Cristi Industries. But if the German intrusion was linked to the vault from Constantine, Berlin would not consider Rome’s needs in the slightest. The possession of the vault was
everything
.
    And, therefore, the protection of it essential beyond all life. Above all things its secret could not fall into the wrong hands. Not now. Perhaps not ever, but certainly not now.
    The key was Vittorio. It was always Vittorio, the most capable of them all. For whatever else he was, Vittorio was a Fontini-Cristi. He would honor the family’s commitment; he was a match for Berlin. The time had come to tell him about the train from Salonika. Detail the family’s arrangements with the monastic Order of Xenope. The timing was right, the strategy complete.
    A date marked in stone, etched for a millennium, was only a hint, a clue in case of a sudden failing of the heart, death from abrupt natural or unnatural causes. It was not enough.
    Vittorio had to be told, charged with a responsibility beyond anything in his imagination. The documents from Constantine made everything else pale into insignificance.
    Savarone looked up at the three men. “The meeting will be canceled tonight. The raiding party will find only a large family gathering. A holiday dinner party. All my children and their children. However, for it to be complete, my oldest son must be at Campo di Fiori. I’ve tried calling him all afternoon. Now you must find him. Use your telephones.Call everyone in Milan if you have to, but
find him!
If it gets late, tell him to use the stable road. It wouldn’t do for him to enter with the raiding party.”

2
DECEMBER 29, 1939
LAKE COMO, ITALY
    The white, twelve-cylinder Hispano-Suiza, its off-white leather top rolled halfway back, uncovering the front, red leather seat, took the long curve at high speed. Below on the left were the winter-blue waters of Lake Como, to the right the mountains of Lombardy.
    “Vittorio!”
shrieked the girl beside the driver, holding her wind-shocked blonde hair with one hand, her collar of Russian pony with the other. “I’ll be undone, my lamb!”
    The driver smiled, his squinting gray eyes steady on the onrushing road in the sunlight, his hands expertly, almost delicately, feeling the play in the ivory steering wheel. “The