Shout in the Dark (4 page)

"
People who put their heads up usually get them shot off. Do
I know this man?"

"
His name is Sartini. I met him this morning for the first
time. He is a priest just out of seminary. It is essential that we
identify the parties in this conspiracy before we can act. I
believe Sartini would make ideal bait to draw them into the
open."

"
Sartini?" The Holy Father frowned. "I cannot say I know the
name. I trust you intend to make him fully aware of his function
... as bait?"

"
No."

"
No?"

Reinhardt caught hold of the Holy Father's
arm, disregarding all convention and etiquette, his voice tense.
"Sometimes the innocent will draw the enemy, so that he can be
caught unawares. There is a country saying I remember from my
boyhood: if you want to catch a wolf, you may have to lose a
rabbit."

The Holy Father's eyes flashed briefly
with a natural energy. Placing a hand on each side of his head he
pointed upwards, laughing. "Marco Sartini is a rabbit?"

"
With long ears? Far from it, Holiness. Like all good
sayings one must not look too closely at the words. Rest assured,
Sartini is a survivor. I have seen his records. However, in the end
we may have to accept..."

The laughter stopped abruptly. "You will
put his life at risk, Josef?"

"
As you said just now, Holiness, every step we make in life
involves a degree of danger."

"
Then we must pray to the Lord for his safety."

Reinhardt nodded. "I have done so
constantly, since I met him this morning. I believe there is a plan
for revenge that will ensnare the innocent as well as the guilty. A
darkened web of evil with a powerful man at its center. I beg you,
Holiness, pray for the innocent."

The Pope closed his eyes. "How old is
Sartini?"

"
Twenty-nine, and I believe he still has both his feet
firmly on the ground."

"
Both feet?" The Holy Father's smile was back in place.
"Then he must indeed be a young priest in a million!"

A sharp knock at the door interrupted the
conversation. "You really must excuse me, Josef, but duty calls.
They are waiting for me in the Basilica."

Reinhardt stood in front of the closed
door to delay the Pontiff's departure. "There are still many who
would change the course of history. Sartini has the
potential..."

The Pope placed a hand firmly on
Reinhardt's shoulder. "Josef, I know I can trust you to deal with
this matter."

Reinhardt was scarcely listening as he moved
to one side to let the Holy Father pass. Marco Sartini had a
critical role to play.

The circle of red ink. The sentence of
death. The war was not over yet.

Rome

MANFRED KESSEL looked around the cheap Rome
hotel room with its shoddy and basic furniture. A shortage of funds
made this place the only sensible option on his rare visits to
Italy.

He sniffed in disgust at the sight of young
Karl Bretz sitting on the end of the bed, listening to loud music
on lightweight headphones. The youth was carefully cleaning the
outside of a black Makarov handgun he had brought from Düsseldorf.
The brash, disrespectful neo-Nazi must be twenty-two now.

The boy was always playing with a stupid
knife. It had started out as Rüdi's paperknife. The word "big"
described the son of his dead friend Rüdi Bretz perfectly. Young
Karl was tall and overweight, and his appearance and manner seemed
designed to intimidate. The shaved head was probably a deliberate
attempt to shock. Even though he was nothing more than an overgrown
kid, young Karl did have one point in his favor: he was popular
with his group of friends in Düsseldorf. Karl and the youngsters in
the ADR gang could prove useful here in Rome -- if violence was
ever needed.

Kessel tried to detest young Karl, but
felt captivated by things he wanted in his own life: a lack of
fear, and a lack of concern for the future. Rüdi would probably
have been proud of him. Rüdi had always been proud of his son,
unheeding of the boy's many failings. It still hurt to recall
Rüdi's death from a brain tumor.

Kessel sighed. To be here in Rome was
bringing back too many memories of his childhood. Born to an
Italian woman in a backstreet a few months after the liberation of
Italy by the British and American forces in June 1944, he was given
the name Enzo Bastiani. It had not taken him long to sense
something different about his physical appearance. As he floundered
into his teens he became aware of a spiritual inner difference, and
the face in the mirror told him he undoubtedly belonged to a race
far to the north.

At first his mother Renata merely passed
off his queries about his birth, but after an increasing
bombardment of questioning she had reluctantly explained about his
father. Two men seemed to be contenders for the privilege
-- an SS officer and a British
soldier -- although his mother believed the German SS officer to be
the responsible party. She had told him about it as though it were
a matter of shame, as though she had something to hide.

Kessel recalled how as a boy he had
constantly brooded about his unknown father, all the while drawing
away from his family. He remembered his mother and his brother
Bruno telling him they could stand his sullen behavior no longer,
so he left home. The only clue he had to his father's existence was
a creased photograph that had belonged to his mother. It showed a
group of soldiers holding an effigy of a man's head, painted white.
His mother had apparently snatched some of his father's papers when
she learned of his sudden death in the Via Tasso.

The head was small and distant in the
photograph, and the white paint made it impossible to see much in
the way of detail. His father had written on the back that it was
the head of Jesus Christ, that it had once been seen by Eusebius,
and was probably made of bronze. He'd written that it was his
property, but it had subsequently been stolen from him by a Jew who
then took it to the Vatican. He had never recovered it.

Manfred Kessel remembered how by 1965,
when he was twenty-one, he'd managed to convince himself he was the
son of a German officer of noble birth. A Jewish mother and brother
in Rome were too much for him to stomach, and he was interested in
learning first hand about racial purity. So he went north to try
out German living, still using the name Enzo Bastiani.

"
My father was stationed here in the war. He'd have been
proud of me," said Kessel suddenly.

Karl mouthed the word "What?" and pulled
off his headphones. Kessel repeated the statement.

"
If you say so, Herr Kessel." Karl picked up a black
balaclava from the end of the bed and tried it on.

Kessel opened his wallet and removed a
small photograph, the colors muted and slightly browned over the
years. "Karl, this is your father," he said. "I took it eighteen
years ago outside Saint Peter's. Your father Rüdi and I were in
Rome to recover the relic. I still miss him."

"
Yes, Herr Kessel." Karl didn't even bother to look at the
photograph. He pulled on the balaclava and blew across the end of
the barrel of the handgun. Then he looked at his watch.

"
Take that thing off your head, Karl!" snapped
Kessel.

Karl fired two imaginary shots at the
cracked and stained washbasin, but he left the balaclava on.

"
Karl, before the war, the Church in Germany taught that
Christ was Nordic." Kessel ignored the disobedience. "Unfortunately
we don't hear the teaching now. A pure religion for a pure world.
We could have such a religion again."

Karl ignored this valuable insight into
the past and the future. He studied his watch once more. "What time
does the TV Roma program start, Herr Kessel?"

Kessel looked at his own watch. "Nine
o'clock." He reached across the table. "I have a friend at TV Roma.
A film editor. He's arranged this pass to get you into the building
and up to the studio on the fourth floor." He handed a bright red
staff pass to Karl. "Clip it to your shirt before you go in. I want
you there exactly one hour before the program starts, before they
let the studio audience in. This notice has to be read out live
tonight." He showed Karl a sheet of paper.

"
You've already told me all this," Karl
complained.

"
So remember everything I've said," retorted Kessel. "Don't
go making a pig's ear of things once you get inside. Canon Levi was
going to sell that relic to me a long time ago, but your father
foolishly killed him too soon. This is your opportunity to redeem
your father's name, Karl."

As he spoke about the past, a tremble of
excitement ran through his body. The note was sheer genius, printed
by computer on an inkjet printer using a German typeface. The youth
must slip past security and into the television studio, remove the
relic, and leave the note. With nothing else to show on the live
broadcast, the presenter would be sure to read it out to the
bewildered viewers. The wording said that the ADR had reclaimed the
property of the German people. It mentioned the proposed Shrine of
Unity in Germany where the pure could come to worship.

"
Just think of it, Karl," Kessel said breathlessly. "The two
great Saviors of the world -- Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ. If
that bronze head is the likeness of Jesus Christ, then we can put
an end to false teaching of his Jewish ancestry. A pure God for a
pure people. Again, the Fatherland has an opportunity to cleanse
Europe. Your father's visions in the hospital are turning into
reality at last."

Karl pushed the handgun into his pocket.
"I don't care about religion, but everyone knows Jesus Christ was
Jewish. You're crazy, Herr Kessel. My father hated you by the time
he died."

Kessel jumped up angrily.
"Watch what you say, Karl
Bretz. I knew your father for a long time."

Karl yawned, but it was a forced yawn.
"It's six-thirty and we ought to be going." He peeled off his
balaclava, stretched it, then pushed it into his pocket.

"
If you don't pull yourself together, I'll put you on the
next train back to Germany," Kessel snapped angrily.

Karl laughed. "Don't push your luck, old
man. You need me to snatch the relic."

Manfred Kessel felt his stomach go tight
at the prospect of Karl screwing things up. "There can be no
possibility of failure tonight, Karl."

*

MARCO SARTINI had decided to dress
informally for his part in the studio audience at
TV Roma, but made his clerical
collar and gray shirt a little more prominent. His was one of the
special tickets that had been allocated to the clergy who were to
fill the front rows -- probably to impress the viewers with the
serious intent of the program. He was now hoping that he'd done the
right thing in leaving his clerical black suit in the
apartment.

The studios of TV Roma occupied a large
glass-fronted building in the center of Rome. As he waited to cross
the street, his attention was drawn to two men standing in the
shelter of the trees in a small park opposite. There was something
furtive about the way they were standing, and he stopped to watch
them.

A heavily built skinhead looked as though he
was holding a handgun, but before Marco could see it clearly the
youth pushed the object into his pocket and pulled something black
from his belt. The older man, with blond or gray hair, handed the
skinhead a piece of paper which the youth folded carelessly and
stuffed into his pocket.

Marco was intrigued. He'd arrived too
early to go inside, so he crossed the street intending to get
closer, while remaining unseen.

"
I DON'T THINK you're taking this seriously enough," said
Kessel abruptly. "The studio is on the fourth floor. Just act
confidently and show the staff pass." He sighed. "Our futures are
on the line here, Karl. If we get this right we're going to be
famous."

"
You fuss too much, Herr Kessel. You brought me down here
from Düsseldorf because I'm good at this sort of thing. If I have
to kill..."

"
There's to be no killing tonight, Karl."

Karl began to twist his balaclava in his
hands. Suddenly he poked his fingers out through the eye holes and
waved it in Kessel's face. Kessel pushed it away
angrily.

Karl grinned. "I'm going in, Herr Kessel."
He waved the balaclava again. "I don't understand why I have to
wear this thing. How can I be famous if nobody knows who I
am?"

Kessel tipped back his head and roared with
laughter.

Karl ended the laughter by catching hold
of Kessel
's arm. "See
that priest over there? He's watching us."

"
Stay back, Karl," warned Kessel. "We don't want to attract
attention. At least, not yet."