Past Lives (28 page)

'Recognise it?'

'I was only here once, on holiday,' protested Simone.

'Sorry,' said Macandrew. ‘Keep trying.’

'Of course.' Simone sounded irritated but was secretly pleased at Macandrew's restored positive attitude.

Macandrew could hear traffic noises outside as they started to slow. 'Sounds like quite a big town,' he said.

'I don't think it's the capital,' said Simone. 'So if it’s not Valetta . . . it might be . . . Yes, it's Mosta. I've just seen the cathedral.'

'Good on you,' said Macandrew.

'We anchored off the north coast,' said Simone, 'so we must have travelled southeast to reach Mosta . . . That would suggest that we are probably not going to Valletta at all.'

'And we are not stopping here by the sound of it,' said Macandrew as they started to pick up speed again.

'No,' agreed Simone, taking up position at the back door again. 'We're leaving Mosta behind.'

Neither spoke for the next few minutes. Simone relaxed her vigil, saying that there was nothing to see. It was dark and they were on country roads.

'The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Ignatius must have had a good reason for coming here,' said Macandrew.

'Why d’you say that?'

'It's a long way across the Mediterranean from Israel to Malta. There were lots of other islands a whole lot nearer if he was just looking for somewhere to hide out for a while.'

'I see what you mean,' agreed Simone. ‘Why pick a small island in the middle of the Med when it would have been much easier to disappear in Cypress or Crete or even in the mountains of Sicily?'

The van shuddered as the engine started to labour. The gearbox protested loudly at being asked to engage a lower gear and then a lower one still.' 'A steep hill,' said Macandrew.

'That's interesting,' said Simone. 'The island is pretty flat except for a high plateau where the old medieval capital stands.'

Simone started to keep watch again as they continued to labour uphill. 'That must be it,' she said. 'There's nothing else this high on the island. We’re going to the old capital. We're going to Mdina!'

'Now we just have to work out, why?' said Macandrew.

'Very few people actually live in Mdina,’ said Simone thoughtfully. ‘It's maintained as a sort of tourist attraction, but I do remember one particular building that
was
inhabited . . . It was a convent, a large enclosed convent, a nunnery.'

'Brilliant,’ said Macandrew. ‘That must be it! If Ignatius has managed to con them into helping him like he did the convent in Israel, it would be the ideal cover for him and Stroud.’

‘
But wouldn’t they have been warned?’

‘
Not necessarily,’ said Macandrew. ‘It’s not in the nature of the Catholic Church to circulate bad news or encourage adverse publicity,’ said Macandrew. He recalled the Abbot of Cauldstane complaining of how hard he’d found it to get information out of Rome about Ignatius.

The van stopped climbing and was now moving quite slowly. Simone peered out. 'We’re here. We’re crossing the stone bridge over the old moat outside the city. I remember it. I think the convent is quite near here.'

The streets outside were eerily quiet as the van drew to a halt and the doors opened. Macandrew and Simone were ushered inside a large stone building with poor lighting to be led down seemingly endless steps. Macandrew noticed the smell of incense in the air and, when he was put into a small stone cell with a crucifix on the wall, a religious painting above the bed and a bible beside the lamp, he knew for sure that they were in the convent. He called out Simone’s name but there was no reply. It wasn't surprising; the walls looked as if they had been carved out of solid rock.

Macandrew lay down on the small, hard bed and stared at the featureless wall in front of him. Things were not looking good if this was where they were to be held. Escape from here would be well nigh impossible. Even if they hadn't been brought down to the cellars, the glimpse he'd managed of the outside of the building suggested a thick-walled Arab fortress; very few windows and all of them high up. He emptied his pockets of the supplies that Simone had thought of raiding from the Astrud G's medical box and gave thanks for her foresight. Not for the first time, he reminded himself that if it hadn't been for Simone, he'd be dead. Such a thought made him feel guilty about his own lack of usefulness so far. Simone had been a tower of strength while he had been little more than a passenger. He owed it to her to get her out of this.

He was awakened by the door being unlocked and the fat man bringing in a tray. He didn't say anything; he just put down the tray and left. Macandrew got up and found a large mug of black coffee and a lump of bread. The smell of the coffee was good; at that moment it seemed to symbolise the normal everyday things that had been missing from his life and which he desperately missed, not for their own sake but for what they represented. He had been living in a nightmare world for so long that stress had been building up inside him like a cancer. A mug of steaming coffee afforded him a much-needed remission.

Fifteen minutes later the fat man returned and indicated that he should follow him. He did so at his own pace until they stopped outside a door some thirty yards along the corridor where Simone, escorted by Parvelli, was already waiting. Macandrew asked with his eyes if she was all right and she nodded.

They entered what appeared to be the convent sick bay and were then shown into a small office where they came face to face with a tall, slim man wearing the black cassock of a Roman Catholic priest. He fitted the French Police description of Ignatius. He eyed them with a cold dispassion that Macandrew found chilling.

‘
I’m Dom Ignatius,' said the man evenly. ‘This is where you will fulfil your part of the bargain.'

Macandrew exchanged glances with Simone and saw that she was afraid.

'I have obtained the chemicals listed in the protocol for the synthesis of the protease and the laboratory has been equipped with the necessary apparatus. Let me know if you need anything else but don't waste my time. I'm not a stupid man. I'll know if you are stalling. I suggest you start work immediately. There are two rooms. You will work in one and sleep in the other until your work is done.'

Macandrew felt anger at the man before him, calmly issuing instructions like a schoolmaster. The religious garb only made it worse. This man was responsible for torture and murder. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.

The fat man tightened his grip on him.

Ignatius regarded Macandrew with a baleful stare before saying, 'Knowledge, Doctor, that most precious of commodities. I suspect you know by now what the chemical can do. A five-minute conversation with an eye witness to human history is worth more than all the arguing and conjecturing of an institute full of posturing academics for over a decade.’

'And the Israeli you kidnapped is your eye witness? What do you hope to discover in your five minutes with him?’

'That needn’t concern you.’

'The protease will kill him.’

Ignatius fixed Macandrew with a stare and Macandrew stared him out as he felt the tension rise in the room. 'This isn’t really about knowledge, is it? There’s something else.’

Ignatius replied with icy calm. 'They thought they would end my career. They took me away from my life's work and destroyed my reputation. They put me to work as a clerk like some peasant priest when I had the finest brain of the lot of them. They claimed to be teaching me . . . humility,' Ignatius lingered over the word, wrapping it in sarcasm, 'while they themselves played out the traditional Vatican games of back-stabbing, manipulation and double-dealing. Well, I will show them a thing or two before I’m through. Now, I suggest you get to work.’

'Don't you care anything about the people you damage?' asked Simone. ‘They’ll never recover.'

'Progress has always been painful,' said Ignatius.

Macandrew shot Simone a warning look about pursuing the argument. She changed tack. 'How do you expect to explain away our presence here in the convent?' she asked.

Ignatius said, 'You are Christian volunteers being trained in basic medical techniques before being sent out to our missions abroad. There is no call for you to fraternise with the sisters of the convent; they are an enclosed and contemplative order. Apart from that, one of you is a man. This clinic and your living quarters have been isolated from the rest of the building.'

Macandrew and Simone were ushered into an adjoining room with white and blue ceramic tiles on the walls. There was a single window with vertical iron bars on it; it looked out on a narrow lane some twenty metres below and across to the wall of a neighbouring building less than three metres away. Lighting came from a fluorescent fitting bolted to the ceiling. There was a long laboratory bench with various pieces of equipment on it and two Bunsen burners, their umbilical tubes attached to the same 'Y' fitting gas tap.

There were two boxes containing bottles of chemicals listed in Burnett's notes and there were several wall-mounted cupboards containing glassware and general lab apparatus. A small adjoining room held two camp beds and a toilet and shower cubicle; it had no window.

'What do you think?' asked Macandrew, when the door was locked behind them.

'He's raving mad,' whispered Simone.

'Right, and he's only going to keep us alive as long as he thinks we’re going to make him more protease.'

Simone looked about her and shrugged. 'I’m betting neither Ignatius nor Stroud know very much at all about biochemistry. We can fake problems until we think of a way out of here.’

'What do you want me to do?'

'Think of a way out of here.'

Stroud prepared to inject Benny Zur. This time he would use a more sophisticated metering device than the simple hypodermic he’d employed first time. This would give him more control over dosage. When he appeared to delay for too long, Ignatius asked why.

'I’m having second thoughts,’ said Stroud. ‘I’m not sure he’s strong enough.’

Ignatius looked at the heavily sedated figure of Benny Zur. His skin looked pale – almost translucent - and his breathing was shallow. It had been some time since he'd last seen daylight and he'd lost weight through being kept under heavy sedation.

'Haven't the sisters been looking after him?' asked Ignatius.

'It’s not that,' said Stroud. 'His cardio-vascular system hasn’t been exercised in a long time; muscles waste very quickly when they’re not used. I'm not sure he’s going to stand up to the stress of regression.'

'We’ll just have to take the chance,' insisted Ignatius. 'We've wasted too much time already. It could take us years to find someone else like him. We might never do it. He has to tell us all he knows.'

'If he dies we’ll end up with nothing,’ said Stroud. ‘It would be safer to wait. We could ease off the sedation so that he remains conscious for longer periods: we could exercise him, improve his physical condition.'

Ignatius waved away Stroud’s suggestions. 'No more waiting, we do it now,' he insisted. 'Get on with it.'

Stroud shrugged and connected the tube leading from the reservoir to the shunt needle he had taped into place in Zur’s arm. He opened up the small, plastic micro-valve in the line and the contents started to drip-feed slowly into the man’s arm. He kept his eye on the gauge as the level dropped then closed the valve and said, ‘You can begin.’

Benny Zur's head started to move on the pillow as if stirring from a deep sleep.

Ignatius had a notebook open in front of him. It was the record of Benny's earlier regression. 'What is your name?' he asked.

Benny did not reply. Ignatius kept repeating the question until he did. Benny became distraught. Sweat started to flow freely down his face and a rasping sound came from his throat. Stroud looked worried but Ignatius watched dispassionately. 'Who are you?' he asked. ‘Tell me your name.’

'James . . . James of Caesarea.'

Ignatius leaned forward. 'How old are you?'

'Forty-four.'

Ignatius exchanged an excited look with Stroud. 'Do you remember being in jail in Caesarea?’

'Years ago.'

'You met Paul of Tarsus there. Tell me about it. I want to know everything you can remember.'

'Paul was a good man. He persuaded me that I should become a Christian.'

'That must have been a dangerous thing to do in a Roman prison?’

'There was a risk but I saw how things were going and decided to take the chance. It came off. When they let Paul go, they let me go with him.'

Ignatius looked puzzled. 'But you were a convicted thief, why should the Romans let you go?’

‘
When they arrested Paul, the authorities didn't realise that he was a Roman citizen: they beat him up pretty badly. Of course, when they discovered their mistake, they knew they were in deep trouble. It was the right of every Roman citizen to put their case before the emperor in Rome if they felt an injustice had been done to them and that’s exactly what Paul insisted on doing.’

'But you weren’t a Roman citizen, why should this affect you?'