David Hewson (39 page)

"Yeah,"
Peroni replied sourly, without even thinking. "Nobody's really
responsible for anything these days, are they?"

He
wondered if he was going to throw up. Or faint. Or both, possibly in the wrong
order. "I guess," he added, "it wasn't really you who
carved that woman up in here the other night. Just someone else wearing the
same skin."

The
gun came down again. "You know you could just be right."

The
American drew out a small torch and shone the beam briefly in Peroni's
face. Then he pulled out the wallet, opened it up and took out a couple of old,
battered photographs, held them beneath the beam. Two clusters of people, out
in the desert somewhere. All were wearing military fatigues and sunglasses,
looking as pleased as punch, posing against a couple of those huge jeep things
the Americans loved.

He
was in the first photo. Younger, happy, in control. The boss maybe, posing with
his team, eight or so men and women, all smiling at the camera, all lords of
their little universe.

"I
got all of them inside me," the American murmured. "Every one of
them. I watched them die and I couldn't do a damn thing because we were
just walking straight into some stupid little turkey shoot, not knowing what
was waiting there for us."

"I
guess that picture must be important to you, huh," Peroni said.

"You
could say that."

He
pushed the other photo to the front. A different set of people but the same
kind of crowd. One them familiar, Peroni realized. Emily Deacon's dad,
looking a whole lot younger and happier than he had in that formal shot from a
few months ago that they'd seen in the embassy. And a couple of women
too. One who just might have been the corpse they'd found in this very
building two nights before.

The
American's mouth came close to Peroni's ear. "Ain't
they pretty?"

The
grey, stony face didn't flicker, but something was going on, Peroni
realized. The man was thinking. He had the time, too. There was nothing Gianni
Peroni could do that would shape the flow of events now.

"So
you're just a minion?" the American asked. "A local cop?
Those guys from the embassy told you nothing?"

"Yeah,
a minion. I only know what they think I need to know."

Peroni
gazed into the icy eyes, wondering what, if anything, could move this man. "That
there's a lunatic out there, carving some pattern out of people's
backs, for no reason at all. And he sure loves US military webbing, too."

That
struck a nerve somewhere. The guy was laughing. Not the cold, dry laughter
Peroni had heard in the dark. This was more human somehow, more scary because
it came from a place deep inside the man, and because it was the kind of
laughter that could just go anywhere, from joy to despair in a heartbeat.

"No
reason?" the American asked, and pushed the gun back into Gianni
Peroni's face. "You believe that?"

Peroni
looked down at the dead grey metal barrel and tried to tick off the few
remaining options in his hurting head.

"Not
really," he murmured.

HE'D
FOUND SOME PASTA and a jar of tomato sauce. They sat on the sofa together in
front of the empty plates, aware of the clock ticking towards midnight,
bone-weary. Nic Costa wasn't even sure he wanted any more questions
answered. He wasn't sure what he wanted at all.

Emily
leaned back into the soft cushions, closed her eyes and asked, "Do you
have a bible?"

He
blinked, wide awake all of a sudden. "Excuse me?"

"A
bible. This is a good Italian household, isn't it?"

So
many things to explain. So many preconceptions. "Yes, but that
doesn't mean I have a bible. I wouldn't dare bring one through the
door. I'd have my old man's ghost haunting me forever. I told you.
He was a Communist. Do you really need one?"

She
thought about it, retrieved the notebook, turned it on and started looking for
something.

"I
can't do this from memory. The Deacons aren't exactly regular
churchgoers either. But when I was in training I spent three months researching
a bunch of religious fanatics on the Net. Nice people. All white. All armed to
the teeth. All as crazy as they come. There is a reason here. Bear with
me."

He
leaned over, close to her shoulder, and watched the skilful way she worked the
Web. After a brief search Emily brought up a page from some bizarre religious
site, one covered in woodcut engravings of mythical beasts next to a comic-book
colour illustration of a naked woman writhing on a red, many-headed dragon.

"This
is just one of their places. You can read about every last damn conspiracy
under the sun here. How the Jews run everything. Except for the stuff
that's run by the Catholics. While both are really under the thumb of the
Illuminati. And you know what they keep going back to for inspiration?"

"Ordinarily
I'd suggest "drugs and drink," but I rather
imagine..."

"If
only they would, Nic. Parts of Montana would be
so
much improved. They
go to Revelation. The last book of the New Testament. Heard of it?"

Costa
opened his hands in a gesture of despair.

"You
remember," she continued, "that Kaspar mentions "the Scarlet
Beast" in that original memo from 1990. Leapman, or whoever, is taunting
him with the same phrase now. So it's important. The only reference I can
find anywhere is in here. I remember it because these fundamentalist guys just
can't get it out of their heads. It's meant to explain everything.
Listen..."

She
began reading from the screen. " "So he carried me away in the
spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured
beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." "

Costa's
head reeled. "Emily--"

"Stay
with me, Nic. It gets weirder. A couple of sentences later: "And here is
the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the
woman sitteth." Seven mountains, Nic."

His
mind was a blank. This was so far from his normal realm of experience.

"Here's
a clue," she said. "Think of it as seven hills instead. And another
clue. The image of the woman was often used as a cipher meaning
"church." "

There
was only way to interpret that, surely. "You mean the Scarlet Beast is
Rome?"

She
nodded. "Exactly. These guys are just doing what lunatics have done
forever. Rewriting history the way it suits them. Revelation was written at a
time when Christianity was being torn apart by oppression from Domitian or
whoever. They really did face their own particular apocalypse, but it
wasn't a supernatural one. It was real and it came from Rome. Because the
Christians were under such threat, they had to refer to it in code. Later,
people just started to like the code
because
it's a code. When
the Church split off into factions the same message that was supposed to
encourage solidarity among Christians was used to make the case
against
Catholicism. That the pope's just the new Roman emperor, the
Antichrist."

More
blind alleys, more complexity. "So Kaspar's a religious
fanatic?"

"I
doubt it." There was no stopping her until this particular thread was
through. "This is someone playing a game. You need code names for
projects like this. So they compete to come up with the craziest ones. It
started all those years ago when the Babylon Sisters got together. Maybe Kaspar
thought of all this terminology. Maybe he comes from someplace out in the
boondocks where this kind of stuff isn't uncommon. It was appropriate on
another front too. Rome was where they all met to begin the mission. Here's
another chunk of Revelation. Same chapter. "And upon her forehead was a
name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and
abominations of the earth." You see?"

"Sort
of," he lied.

"It's
a joke within a joke. They have to use fake names and IDs. It's that kind
of job. Why not have some fun along the way? These guys were just hamming it up
among each other. Scarlet Beast. Babylon Sisters. Throw in some backwoods
fundamentalism, mix it in with a bunch of old jazz-rockers called Steely
Dan..."

"Who?"
He was wondering how much longer his head could contain all this.

"A
band. A very good one, actually. I remember my dad playing their records when
his buddies came around and the beer started to flow. Just bear with me, Nic.
These people were having fun, playing spooks, everything NTK, just like he
says."

"NTK?"

"
"Need to know." They're the rules you play by when stuff is
so secret you don't tell anyone anything--your real name
even--unless you absolutely have to. It's all a game and my dad used
to love games. He was always coming up with some crazy ideas."

She'd
been racing ahead until that memory, which made a little of the brightness go
out of her eyes.

"At
least, he was back then. They were just playing with words. He did it all the
time. These guys are still doing it. Remember what your boss asked Leapman? How
did we know he'd come to Rome? Remember his answer?"

Costa
did. The FBI man flatly refused to deal with the question.

"I
remember." He considered what he'd seen on the screen. "He
couldn't say it, could he?"

"Kaspar
came to Rome because he got invited."

Costa
read the new screen out loud. " "Let's get together again
back in the old places, folks. Reunion time for the class of "91. Just
one spare place at the table. You coming or not?" Which translates to
"Come to Rome, we're waiting for you." "

Emily
punched his arm lightly. "See! You can get there."

"Thanks."

There
was more to the argument, though, and he was surprised she hadn't seen
it.

"This
all begs a big question."

She
gazed at him, amused, bright and attractive again. "I thought it begged
several, actually. A couple of dozen, in fact, right off the top of my
head."

Suddenly
there was surprise on her face, as if she'd seen something unexpected.

"Nic.
For a moment there you stopped staring at me as if I'm the cleverest kid
in the class. I don't like that. I
am
the cleverest kid in the
class. Aren't I?"

"Of
course you are, Little Em."

"Don't
call me that," she said coldly, drawing back from him. "Don't
ever call me that."

"I'm
sorry. It was stupid of me."

"Yes..."
She was almost pouting now. She was young and old in the same body. Costa
wanted to laugh. More than that, though, he wanted to kiss her.

Instead,
he reached over and messed with the computer.

"What
are you doing?" she asked nervously.

"Looking
for something. Here: "Honor his memory." And here. In the original
memo: "The Scarlet Beast was a generous Beast." "

She
blinked. "So?"

"You're
right about the place, Emily. I don't doubt it. But listen to the words. It's
more than that."

He
read the two sentences aloud again. She listened carefully. Costa watched her
lively intelligent eyes, saw them glitter when she understood.

"Christ,"
she murmured. "How could I have been that stupid?"

"It's
a riddle. It's meant to be obscure. Besides, there's no saying my
interpretation's the right one."

She
waved away his doubts. "Of course it is. I was just reading into it what
I wanted to see. This is a place
and
a person, isn't it? The
Scarlet Beast's the paymaster. He's the man even Kaspar was
ultimately beholden to."

"I
think so."

"Is
he the bad guy, then?" she asked. "Does Kaspar blame him for this? He
thinks he was betrayed somehow?"

Costa
threw up his hands in desperation. "It's just guesswork."

"Then
who the hell was he? If it wasn't Kaspar?"

Costa
searched for the memo on the computer, found the sentence, highlighted it with
the cursor.

"It's
just a guess. That's all."

They
looked at the sentence from the document:
Let it be known that I, William
F. Kaspar, the Lizard King, the Holy Owl, Grand Master of the Universe,
etcetera, etcetera, shall be attending the court of the Scarlet Beast presently
.

She
screwed up her face in bewilderment. "Someone in Rome? Does that make
sense?"

"What
was that you said about "need to know"?"

"OK.
OK. Point taken. Distance
does
makes sense. So maybe even Bill Kaspar
doesn't know who's really in charge. Maybe he's guessing
right now..."

Emily
was thinking hard. She looked at him with scared eyes. They both knew where
this was going.

"Or
maybe he does," Costa finished quietly. He scrolled through some of the
sentences in the original memo, pointing them out.