Free The Alchemist's Secret by Scott Mariani Page A

bottom, small at the top. At the bottom, it was made up of lots of ignorant, insignificant men like Michel Zardi-little men whose loyalty could be bought cheaply. The top of the pyramid was occupied by just one man and a select group of his close associates. They were the only ones who knew the true nature, purpose and identity of the organization that so carefully kept its activities hidden from prying eyes.
    The two men at the top of this pyramid were now sitting together in a room talking. It was no ordinary room, situated in the domed tower at the centre of an elegant Renaissance villa outside Rome.
    The big authoritative man standing by the window was called Massimiliano Usberti. Fabrizio Severini was his private secretary and the only man Usberti trusted completely and spoke openly with.
    ‘In five years we will have evolved into a far more powerful force than we are now, my friend,’ Usberti was saying.
    Severini sipped wine from a crystal glass. ‘We are already powerful,’ he said with a note of caution in his voice. ‘How do you hope to conceal our activities from those around us, if we should grow even more in size and strength?’
    ‘By the time my plans are in place,’ Usberti said, ‘we will no longer need to worry about concealment. This position we find ourselves in, the need to preserve secrecy, is only a temporary phase in our development.’
    Fabrizio Severini was the closest man alive to Massimiliano Usberti. Now both in their late fifties, they had known one another for many years. When they had first met as young men, Massimiliano had been just another priest, though an exceptionally driven one and with the backing of the great wealth of his noble family to achieve his ambitions. But even Severini didn’t fully know what Usberti’s ultimate objective was, the end goal of these plans he so often alluded to. He didn’t push too hard or inquire too openly. Their relationship as friends had evolved over the years as Usberti had grown in power, self-confidence and-he didn’t like to use the word, but it was the only one to use-fanaticism. Severini knew that his friend, or indeed his master as he’d slowly become, was a highly ruthless man who would stop at nothing. He feared him, and he knew that Usberti secretly enjoyed the fact that he did.
    Usberti came away from the window and rejoined his secretary under the grand dome. On the ornate seventeenth-century gilt wood table sat a laptop computer displaying a slideshow. The photos were of a woman and a man talking. One of them was a familiar face. Dr Roberta Ryder. The soon-to-be
late
Dr Roberta Ryder.
    The man in the photos was someone Usberti had hoped never to see. He already knew all about the Englishman from one of his informers, who’d told him that a professional investigator was going to be sniffing around. The informer had warned him that Benedict Hope had a specialist background and that he was a man of certain talents. This seemed to be confirmed when the hired assassin sent after him had failed to return or report back. Nobody had heard from him, and then one of his sources in Paris had called to say it had been on the news that a man had flung himself off the parapet of Notre Dame Cathedral. Their man.
    Usberti hadn’t expected Hope to get this far. But it didn’t worry him. He wouldn’t get much further.
    ‘Archbishop…’ Severini began, wringing his hands nervously.
    ‘Yes, my friend?’
    ‘Will God forgive us for what we do?’
    Usberti looked sharply up at him. ‘Of course He will. We do it to protect His house.’
    When Severini was gone, the archbishop went over to the antique gold-bound Bible on his desk.

    And I saw Heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
    And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in Heaven followed him.
    And he hath a sharp