Pope's Assassin (19 page)

    "What is this? Ancient Hebrew?" Myriam wanted to know. Her voice seemed worried.

    "Aramaic," Ben Isaac answered. He had remained behind, observ ing his wife.

    "Of course Aramaic." Myriam looked at the parchment in a differ ent light. "I still don't understand anything all this time."

    "Aramaic is similar to ancient Hebrew," Ben Isaac explained.

    "Is this the gospel?" Myriam asked in a halting voice.

    Ben did not respond. Silence meant yes.

    "Walk over here next to me," Myriam said, more like an order than a request.

    Ben approached her step by step, slowly, timidly, as if walking on shaky ground, until he was next to Myriam, who continued looking carefully at the gospel. For a few seconds no one said anything.

    "Read it to me," Myriam fi nally ordered.

    "Myriam," Ben sighed, as if it were a painful experience.

    Myriam gave him a hard, pained look. "Read it."

    Ben hesitated. It troubled him to reveal something only he and a few others knew about. Myriam needed to know what the text said. If that piece of lamb or calfskin was worth more than a human life, than that of their son, their Ben, who had left her heart weeping in such a deep sorrow.

    "Uhh . . ." Ben began.

    Whether it was divine intervention or the coincidence of fate, a providential ringing of a cell phone interrupted Ben's reading. It was his own.

    "Excuse me, dear," Ben said, moving away a little.

    Sarah hugged Myriam. "Be calm. Everything is going to work out."

    Ben Isaac took out his phone. Some instruction from the kid nappers. Poor little Ben. He remembered the image of his son tied to a chair, tortured, bloody. He shivered. He looked at the screen and opened the message. He couldn't wait to read it. His heart began to beat faster suddenly. Ho
w can this be possible? Who are these people?

    He read the message again in the hope that he had read it wrong, but no. The text was the same.

    
If you want to see your son alive again, get rid of the journalist.

C
ircumstances.

         All of life is an accumulation of unknown and imponderable factors, uncontrollable and totally unforeseen, that can be summarized in that simple and powerful word: circumstances.

    Rarely do we think about them or even give them any value, but the fact of turning to the left instead of the right, planning a trip to a cer tain place and not another, deciding to take one course instead of another, all this, and much more, will completely change the circum stances of everything and everybody.

    Rafael was not so given to thinking about circumstances. He evalu ated them, whenever necessary, but lost no time thinking about the reason to be in a certain place at a certain time under certain condi tions. Whenever he entered a place, he immediately studied all the pos sible exits. An occupational hazard that could not be called a defect, derived from years of dedication and involvement in dangerous mis sions in the name of God.

    So it wasn't natural for Rafael to still be troubled about Gunter, who might still be alive if Rafael hadn't come to ask him for help in clarifying certain evidence of the crime that had sent Yaman Zafer to his Creator. Unlucky circumstances.

    If he hadn't gone to the Church of Saint-Paul–Saint-Louis, Gunter would still be alive, along with Maurice. If he hadn't heard those words that Saint Ignatius had pronounced more than 450 years ago. A
d maio
rem Dei gloriam. I
f, if, if . . . Or if he were not in the habit of specu lating about what could have been. Rafael was a man of action and reaction, not refl ection. He had to turn the page on Gunter once and for all. Maybe that would only happen when he resolved the situation. He had to clear up that confusion.

    "Gavache has a big problem on his hands," Jacopo said, interrupt ing the priest's thoughts.

    The train was travelling at more than two hundred miles an hour toward the station of St. Pancras International, right in the heart of London. They were now passing through Her Majesty's land, a few minutes from their destination.

    "Gavache? What about us?" Rafael answered.

    Jacopo let himself mull over the priest's reply for a few moments while he looked down at the screen of his laptop.

    "How tragic," Jacopo lamented. "Why would the acolyte have done that?"

    "I don't know," Rafael answered. "No one kills or is killed for noth ing. Something very serious was going to happen."

    "The boy seemed desperate," Jacopo commented, remembering the scene, which was still vivid in his memory."Are we going to help Gavache?"

    "Only insofar as he lets us help solve the murders," Rafael deliber ated. "It's all very confused."

    "Yeah, it is. And this change of location to London is extremely strange." He typed an address into his computer. "William could have been more explicit."

    "Sometimes it's better not to know much," Rafael replied. "And that's
Cardinal Wi
lliam to you."

    Jacopo didn't acknowledge the remark. He was absorbed in a search for information about the mysterious Ben Isaac.

    The car was full of passengers. Executives fi nalizing presentations for some important meeting, Muslims talking on their cell phones as if they owned the world, tourists, married couples, criminals who resem bled executives, lonely travelers, beautiful women, handsome men, some reading erudite books of French philosophy with dazzling or monotonous titles, others reading the best seller of the moment about sacred lies, assassins of popes, and Vatican secrets, crimes to solve, and bits of ancient legend.

    "We have a problem with the Jesuits," Rafael fi nally said.

    "You're just figuring that out now?" Jacopo's sarcasm was obvious.

    "I'm not talking about unfounded suspicions," Rafael argued. "We saw last night there's some secret they're guarding with their lives."

    Jacopo comprehended what Rafael meant. "Do you think it's a secret known by every member?"

    "I don't know," Rafael replied, but Maurice had been the one to pull the trigger, which meant that the lower orders knew something. "I don't know," he repeated.

    "Tarcisio is going to meet with the black pope today. Maybe he should bring this up," Jacopo suggested.

    "There's only one pope," Rafael objected, showing some irritation. "There is no black pope. He never existed."

    Jacopo had referred to the popular designation for the superior general of the Society of Jesus. The head of the Jesuits, in other words. "Black" referred to the color the members of the society wore and also to a certain dark power of the order. It was said that the black pope has more power than the pope himself, and whoever occupied the Apos tolic Palace of the Vatican had to swear allegiance to the Curia Gener alizia on Via Penitenzieri, a few feet away from the palace, if the pope wanted to have a peaceful reign. But these were legends and myths that lacked legitimacy.

    "Call him the superior general if you want, but what's certain at the moment is he seems to know more than the pope."

    Rafael didn't want to admit that Jacopo was right. Something dark was happening in the society. Gunter, Maurice, Zafer, Sigfried, and Aragone were the proof of that. Ben Isaac was the answer to the whole puzzle, at least Rafael hoped so.

    He thought about William's final words when he had called Rafael with new instructions. Yo
ur friend Sarah is now with them.
He hadn't expected that development. The journalist always seemed to be in his face. Without wanting to, certainly, but always on his trail. Maybe this meant something.

    He had taken the opportunity to inform the cardinal of the trag edy that had occurred in the Church of Saint-Paul–Saint-Louis. The prelate said nothing. He absorbed the information and didn't want to know any more details. Fo
llow the instructions I gave you. Without mis
takes. And don't let anyone kill anyone else or commit suicide this time
were his final words, without even a good-bye.

    Later, already on the road, David had called. He was in Rome and wanted to meet him for dinner. Accustomed to analyzing situations in fractions of a second, he'd agree to meet him that evening. He had to do everything to make this happen. At least he had to land in Rome at the end of the day. He didn't understand David's call. He was a friend from another life, a life that was over. He thought about not accepting the invi tation, but the American could be useful in the game that was unfolding.

    His thoughts were interrupted by a female voice coming over the public-address system.

    
"Passengers, in a few moments we'll arrive at St. Pancras International
Station. Please check to make sure you have your personal belongings
with you. We hope you have enjoyed the trip, and it will be a pleasure to
welcome you aboard Eurostar next time."

    "Finally," Jacopo complained. He shut his laptop and put it in the case.

    Rafael's cell phone rang just as the train slowed to come to the plat form. He answered and listened for a few seconds. He ended the call without saying a word.

    "Everything okay?" Jacopo asked, visibly tired.

    Rafael nodded his head yes. Before the train came to a stop, a line was already forming by the door. Passengers crowded to leave—their business more important than anyone else's. Rafael remained seated, along with Jacopo, more out of deference to the priest than his own wishes.

    As everyone started to leave for the platform, Rafael looked at Jacopo with a serious expression.

    "As soon as we step outside the train, we're going to do things my way."

    Jacopo swallowed dryly and agreed.

T
otal concentration. Don't take your eyes off of them," David Barry said, looking at a large monitor that showed several images of the interior of St. Pancras International Station and some even inside the train.

    There was no better city than London for this kind of surveillance. The thousands of cameras spread over the city offered a vast view of everything and everyone in practically all public places, and with the proliferation of video cameras and cell phones, there was no place that couldn't be watched. And, of course, there was the cherry on top: the high-definition spy satellites that surveyed the earth, four hundred miles in space, and could capture the glow of a cigarette with greater detail than a conventional camera a few feet away.

    Barry resembled the commander of the
Enterprise
in full battle with the Klingons. He was in the center of the room, alert to every movement, ready to give orders as thing developed.

    "I want to see and hear, folks."

    "The train stopped. It's showtime," Staughton alerted them, mov ing the joystick that controlled the high-definition cameras of the satellite.

"Anything from Sugar Grove?" Barry asked.

    "We've intercepted two communications from the French police," Aris reported. "We've got the names of the victims now. There are four. Three in Paris and one in Marseille." He handed some papers to Barry, who looked at the names.

    "Okay, I want to know who these people are. All their strengths and weaknesses, who they associated with, the life they led, secrets, lies, heroic actions, even the size of their shoes."

    "I'm on it," Samantha replied, taking the papers from Barry's hand.

    "Sooner than later," Barry said, half-joking and half-serious.

    The images showed people leaving the Eurostar from several angles, in a hurry, absorbed in their own lives, oblivious to the invasion of pri vacy in the name of the law.

    "They're on the platform," Staughton informed them.

    "Okay. Pay attention. We can't lose them. Who has the camera in the station?"

    "Davis," replied a technician with the same name.

    "Keep a sharp eye out, Davis."

    "They're not going anywhere without taking me along," he said confi dently.

    In the image Rafael appeared, followed by another man, walking toward the exit.

    "Who's that with him?" Barry asked. "I want to know who he is, folks. His name, Social Security number, and who he voted for," he ordered in a fi rm voice.

    "The agents in the main terminal are in position," Aris reported.

    Barry looked at him seriously. "What agents?"

    "We have a team on the ground."

    Barry pointed at the monitor. "We have cameras. They're our agents in the field. Get rid of the people on the ground before Rafael notices them," he demanded irritably.

    "But . . ." Aris was going to object.

    "But nothing. It's an order. You don't know Rafael. He'll notice them in a second," he turned from Aris and spoke slowly. "Take the team away immediately."

    "Stand by, Travis," Aris spoke into a headphone, visibly unhappy.

    Travis said something over the static.

    "Abort the operation. Repeat. Abort the operation."

    "Roger. Operation aborted," Travis said.

    Several cameras continued to follow a serious-looking Rafael. A handful of technicians controlled various areas to let nothing escape. The two men were in a customs line to show their identifi cation in order to step on British soil.

    "Who has the cameras for the exterior of the station?" Barry asked, always a step ahead of what was happening.

    "Davis," the same technician replied again.

    "Where can they go out?"

    "The station has five exits. One by metro, two for St. Pancras Road, and two for Midland Road. In the street they can take a bus, taxi, or rental car. Or walk," Staughton informed them.