Read Online Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars by Paul Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

leading to a rectangular freight elevator.
    The old man pointed down at the elevator marked on the diagram. “This is the only way those crates and boxes could be taken to the basement.”
    â€œWhere did you find all this stuff?” asked Holliday.
    â€œThere was a major renovation done on the building in the late thirties. Years later, the chief contractor of the job asked if I wanted to buy them, so I did.” The old man lit his pipe again and spoke. “I’ve always had an interest in documents of one kind or another about the Vatican. There seems to be a great number of people in the public who have the same inclination. The Catholic Church and the Vatican have had more exotic theories, countertheories, conspiracies and outright criminal behavior attached to them than any other organization in the world. I have documents here going back to the Borgias. Some of it is of quite a secret nature, but I have had a very hard time finding out whatever happened to Huff’s contribution to the papal treasury.”
    â€œHow easy would it be to get into the building?” Holliday asked.
    â€œIf you simply wished to enter the building, it would probably be quite easy to go in throughthe front door. Getting in through the side entrance and onto that freight elevator would be a different kettle of fish altogether.”
    â€œBut it is possible?” Holliday said.
    â€œAs long as you were willing to take an enormous risk,” said Peck.
    Peck looked at the other two men in the room. “You’re not planning on robbing the Vatican, are you?”
    â€œWe thought we’d give it a try.” Lazarus smiled.

8
    The Vatican Administration Building looked like a cross between an old Hilton Hotel, Versailles and a wedding cake. The two priests, each carrying a plain attaché case, climbed a set of wide steps to a broad patio. They crossed the patio until they reached a narrower set of stairs between a pair of columns leading to the ornately decorated front door.
    They pulled open one of the large doors and stepped inside the building. It was laid out in a long, wide cross, one passage leading in all four directions of the compass. The place was swarming with people, most of them dressed like the two priests, others in ordinary business suits, and some nuns scuttling about. The two priests with briefcases turned left and moved down the hallway. Reaching the end, they came to a door that read
“VIETATO L’INGRESSO”
—No Admittance.
    Ignoring the instruction, the two priests pushed through and found themselves at the far end of the building’s south wing. There was a large door, a narrow set of stairs and a freight elevator. They pressed the down button for the elevator, which soon arrived, its large door sliding open. The two men stepped inside, at which point one of them turned and pressed the stop button to keep the elevator from going anywhere.
    â€œWe’ve got about thirty seconds,” said Holliday, stripping off his vestments and leaning down to open the briefcase. He pulled out a brown workman’s boiler suit with a papal patch on the chest. He climbed into it, pushed the vestments into the now empty briefcase and closed it up again. When he stood and turned, he discovered that Lazarus had done the same thing.
    â€œThe shoes are wrong, but we can live with that,” said Lazarus.
    â€œWe’ll have to ditch the briefcases as soon as we can. I don’t want to go through all of this in reverse on our way out,” Holliday said.
    Holliday hit the stop button again and then the down button. The freight elevator lumbered downward and came to a jarring halt. The doors grumbled back and the two men stepped out. They faced a broad corridor between heavy pipes,boilers, generators and all the other machinery necessary for running a large building.
    Interestingly, there were two narrow-gauge rails set into the concrete of the floor, like the railroads