The Bergamese Sect (5 page)

‘
Okay,’ she said, ‘we’re just trying to protect you. There are people who want you dead. Those two guys today? They were going to kill you. Not right there in the street, but if you’d gone with them, you’d be dead by now.’

Matt was frowning, still trying to piece together the fragments of his shattered memory. ‘They were policemen,’ he said, his speech slowly returning to normal.

‘
They weren’t policemen, Matt, believe me.’

‘
But why would anyone want me dead?’

‘
Good question,’ she replied, ‘and a simple one to answer. You’ve been sent an email that a lot of people want to get hold of. Or, more precisely, want to prevent
us
getting hold of. They will kill you for the information in that email.’

The ropes were digging into Matt’s arms and stomach. He shifted to relieve the pain.

‘
I’ll untie the ropes now, Matt, but I want you to promise you’ll stay calm and not try to escape. We’ve abducted you for a reason – to keep you alive. You’ve no idea where you are and it would be foolish to run. And dangerous. If you’re not shot by our enemies,
your
enemies, we’ll shoot you ourselves to stop you. Okay?’

Matt just nodded. Immediately, she stood, took a large blade from her back pocket and in seconds had sliced through the thick ropes. She threw them into a corner and helped him sit up. His head nearly exploded with pain and he felt faint, slightly nauseous.

‘
The drug will take some time to wear off,’ the girl said sympathetically. ‘Come and sit in the other room. Some coffee and sugar will help.’

She led him, staggering, through a door into a kitchen. There was another wooden table, lit by candles and covered in plates and cups. Two men were sitting at opposite ends. Matt recognised them; the bearded youth who’d bundled him into the car, and the driver. The girl helped him to a chair and poured him a cup of coffee from a large metal jug.

He was in a derelict farmhouse. The kitchen was large and untidy. A dresser stood against one of the walls and a brass tap was leaking into a chipped and stained ceramic sink. A small wood-stove nestled in a huge chimney recess and the remains of a hastily eaten meal lay on the plates before them. The girl asked if he wanted some food and placed some bread on a plate. The two men were smoking and slurping their coffee. Matt took a swig of his. It was hot and very sweet. The pain in his head was easing. Putting the cup down, he rubbed his swollen eyes, pinched the brow of his nose.

‘
Matt,’ the girl said, ‘this is Henric.’ She pointed to the bearded youth. ‘And this is Gerry.’ The other man nodded. ‘And I’m Clara.’

Matt broke off some of the bread. He felt starved but his stomach was churning noisily. ‘Who the hell are you? And what do you want from me?’

‘
Like I said,’ Clara replied, ‘you’ve been sent an email. We need to know what’s in it. We kidnapped you to protect you and the email from people who would rather destroy both.’

‘
You killed those guys just for an email? It must be a fucking important one!’

The men looked at the girl. She obviously held some seniority in the group.

‘
It’s a long story. Someone who used to work for the US government sent you the email. We don’t know exactly what’s in the message. But it’s to do with a government conspiracy. We’re trying to reveal the truth. We’re hoping the information we need is on your laptop.’

Clara poured herself some coffee.

The silence of the two men was making Matt uneasy. He glared at them. ‘Haven’t you looked?’ he asked.

‘
No, we’ll need time to recover the information. It’s unlikely to be a simple text message. It’ll need decoding. Our priority is to get the message and you out of the country.’

Matt stopped rubbing his face and looked up at the girl. ‘Hold on a minute,’ he said, ‘I’m not coming with you. Take the fucking laptop and leave me alone.’ He looked around the room, seeing if there was an easy route of escape. The urge to stand, give these people the finger, and simply stroll out suddenly took him. But it passed almost immediately.

Clara picked up a packet of cigarettes and shook one out. She lit it, took a deep puff, and blew the smoke over her shoulder. ‘It’s not that simple,’ she said, rolling the end of her cigarette round the rim of an ashtray. ‘You’re probably the only one who will understand the message. Besides, just because you hand the information over to us doesn’t mean you’re safe from our enemies. They’ll kill you just for having received the message. They won’t risk letting you go.’

Matt’s stomach still ached. He forced some bread down with a swig of coffee. He had no idea what these people wanted from him. But he was in no doubt about what they were willing to do to get it. His head swam with the drugs and the stress. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve no reason to believe any of this.’

At last one of the men spoke. It was Henric. ‘Matt,’ he said, ‘this might be a bit difficult to swallow, granted. But we don’t go round shooting people in the street for the hell of it, you know. This is important.’

‘
That’s right,’ Clara continued. ‘A lot of people are relying on us, and you. You’ll just have to trust us.’

She took another puff on the cigarette and offered the packet to Matt. He shook his head. The candles flickered and cast large, dancing shadows of his captors on the walls of the kitchen. They looked menacing. The moon was shining through the broken windows and bathed the corners of the room in a silky glow.

‘
Are you sure this message is on my machine?’ Matt asked.

‘
If it’s not, we’ve already lost the battle,’ said Henric.

‘
Right now we just have to get you away from here,’ said Clara.

Matt tried to remember the emails he’d received. He got a hundred messages every day. Clients confirming or chasing orders, new office regulations, suggestions from friends for sick or sad web-sites to visit and, of course, junk emails. Like most, he was spammed from every corner of the globe. Nothing of importance stuck in his mind. Nothing that would justify murder.

‘
Why was this message sent to me?’ he asked Clara. ‘I don’t want to expose government conspiracies. I know nothing about it.’

‘
You were chosen completely at random,’ the girl said. ‘That’s the whole point. It maximises the chances of this information being useful to people like us. The people, or person, who sent this message have most of the Western governments looking out for them. By choosing you, they were trying to prevent themselves, and us, being caught out. Even then, we nearly lost you to those bastards.’

Matt was still confused. Clara noticed and said, ‘I don’t know exactly why it was
you
who was chosen. But now you’re part of this thing, whether you like it or not.’

‘
Those men you killed today. They were government agents?’ Matt asked.

‘
That’s right. I know it must be a shock – seeing those men killed. But believe me; they’d have no problem killing us. I’ve seen many friends killed by them in our battle for the truth. You saw for yourself today. Our friend was killed in order to get you to safety.’

‘
The Rasta?’

Clara nodded.

‘
What could be so important?’ Matt asked.

Gerry, the driver, rose from his chair and picked up the coffeepot. He strode over to the sink and swilled the grinds out. ‘More coffee?’ he said as he filled it with water. He put the pot on the stove and came back to his chair.

Clara was fingering the packet of cigarettes. ‘That’s an even longer story,’ she said at last.

‘
I’ve got all night,’ Matt answered.

‘
We don’t have all night, I’m afraid.’ She took a glance at her watch. ‘We have to leave soon. We’ve been here too long already. I’ll explain everything to you when we’re safely out of England.’

Matt looked at his own watch. It was eleven fifteen, Friday evening. Only six hours ago, he’d been sitting in his office, gearing up for the weekend. He should be drunk by now, not staring across a table at a group of murderers. But drunk was just how he felt. A slow dribble of adrenaline was leaking into the pit of his stomach. His head was still swimming, unable to deal with the crazy situation. He looked at the three people in the room.
Lunatics
, he thought.

‘
Even if what you’ve told me is true,’ he said, ‘you’re asking me to trust you without explaining your motives. You say you’re trying to expose a government conspiracy. Let’s say you are. Governments have to have secrets. You could be trying to reveal something that shouldn’t be revealed. You could have your own agenda. Why should I co-operate?’

Clara smiled an attractive smile and glanced at the two men. ‘Okay, good point,’ she said. ‘Firstly, when you learn what this is all about, you’ll see why it’s so important. Secondly, and more importantly, you’ve no other choice. If you leave here on your own, you’ll be dead within twelve hours. I guarantee it. And finally, whether you co-operate or not, you’re coming with us. This thing is big, Matt, and we’ll stop at nothing to achieve our aims. We would rather kill you ourselves than let our enemies get the information you have.’

It was hardly a subtle threat and Matt saw the seriousness in Clara’s eyes as she spoke the words. The reassurance in them seemed to vanish for a moment, but then returned with a smile.

‘
I have a life,’ Matt said to himself.

Clara shrugged her shoulders, not in dismissal but in pity. ‘Yes, I know. You’ll have to leave it behind for a while. Family, friends, work, everything.’

‘
Can I make a phone call?’

‘
No. If you contact anyone you know you’ll be putting them in danger too. When this is all over, I promise you, you’ll be able to go back to that life.’

Drawing a deep breath, Matt reached for the packet of cigarettes. He’d given up two years ago but he’d never felt the need for a smoke like he did right now. Clara and the two men watched him as he lit up and took a relaxing draw.

‘
Okay,’ he said, ‘as you say, it doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice. But as soon as we’re out of here I want to know what the fuck this is all about.’

Clara smiled. ‘You and me too,’ she said.

Chapter 4

David Castro swallowed a mouthful of whisky, placed the glass on the small bedside table and filled it from the half-empty bottle. He took another swig and spun onto the bed, face upwards.

The motel room was dimly lit, the orange glow from the parking lot casting a trellis of shadows across the bare ceiling. A faintly musty smell filled the room, a smell condensed from the countless one-night stands and drunken travellers that formed the room’s sad history. Castro hated motels – the worn fibrous carpets, the useless plastic-encased toiletries and the disturbing odour. But he was becoming accustomed to their necessity.

He reached over to the table, opened its single drawer and pulled out a book. It was a large, old book with a heavy card cover. He held it above his head with outstretched arms and let it fall open. Inside, the pages were thick, yellowing and dusty.

Castro smiled. In his hands was a shred of evidence. His searching hadn’t found it; it had come to him unbidden. And it had come as soon as he’d accepted his condition. Perhaps that was the way he’d find the answer – the truth would come looking for him. The strange thought washed over him as he fondled the book.

He’d never been able to resist the lure of a second-hand bookstore. As he’d entered, a little man had sat hunched over a kettle near the door. Peering over his spectacles, he’d nodded gently as Castro had squeezed past.

The stairs had creaked painfully as he’d crept along the musty corridors. Stacks of books grew from every square inch of floor space. Rotten, warped shelves of thick volumes held up every wall and the choking dust seemed to hang in the air like a flour factory.

As usual, he’d headed straight for the art section. He had a passion for renaissance painting, picked up when visiting the Yale Art Gallery as a freshman. He’d rummaged through several piles of books, but most were too specific to interest him. Then he’d come across the book lying on an unopened cardboard box.

It was full of fading prints of oil paintings and short descriptive passages, like an expensive auction house catalogue. As he’d flicked through it, figures of saints and biblical scenes had whisked before him, showering him with grime and dust. But something had caught his eye. One of the pages had stood out, just briefly, and he’d turned back to find it.

Dark, soulful eyes had stared at him from the page. It was a portrait, finely painted but with that vague sense of immaturity found in early paintings of the human form. The man was of a great age, greying and bent, wrinkled and tired. Intelligence shone in his features, though his expression was almost one of pleading. It seemed the man had far greater troubles than the artist was striving to depict – that any second he would rise and leave the humble attempts to capture him. He seemed an unwilling partner to the painting’s creation.

Dressed extravagantly, the man was a cleric of some kind; he was tonsured and a red cassock and dark robe hung around him. His hands were clasped, prayer-like, on his stomach and a rosary dangled between them. The caption read ‘portrait of Alfonso de Morillo by Giovanni Bellini (1426 – 1516), Moscadelli Collection, Bergamo’.

Then Castro had seen what had caught his eye. There, plainly depicted in neat brush strokes, hanging from the cleric’s pale, wrinkled neck, was a long chain. And on his chest was a pendant of brilliant silver, a symbol unmistakable in its clarity. It had leapt out at Castro, sending his heart racing.

The drone of the traffic cut through Castro’s daydream as he lay in his motel room, staring at the portrait. Confusion, a hint of doubt, were eating through his thoughts. For a brief moment, he wished he hadn’t come across the book. It made things complicated. But the monk’s eyes stared at him knowingly, as if daring him to ask the question that hung on his tongue. What does the symbol mean? The old monk didn’t answer.