Vatican Assassin (24 page)

BC hears the door open in the next room. Fiza calls out.

“BC?”

“I’ll be right out,” he says, getting up and smoothing his clothes.
How long did I sleep that time? Only a couple hours. Past three, though. I’ll hear it from
Swan.

He walks out into the living room and Fiza is sitting on the table.
Kept her figure. Damn, she still looks good. Looks like trouble, as always. Forgot how
short she was. Wearing her hair short and dark these days. Last time it was long and strawberry
blonde, for a little while, anyway. I liked that, took me hook line and sinker, whatever that means.

“Hello, Fiza.”

“Holy Shit! Look at you, a fucking priest! No fucking way!”

“It’s been a long time.”

“You’ve really got them fooled, huh? You big liar! A
priest
. Nice costume! Good scam! You know, where I’ve been, they’d shoot you on sight dressed like that.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, where have you been?”

Fiza smirks, “yeah, I remember, ‘you bite.’ I like that,” she laughs. “A priest! Huh. No priests on Mars.”

“Mars! You’ve been on Mars,” BC says with disbelief.

“On Mars. With the Moslems. Not my scene at all! It sucked, completely.”

“You. You were on Mars? You expect me to believe this?”

“You don’t forgive or forget, do you BC? Yes, I was on Mars. That’s why my hair is dark. I had to dye it to hide there, blend in. What?”

“You always lied so easily, Fiza. I forgive you, but I won’t forget all the fucked up shit you did to me back then. I promised myself a long time ago I would never believe you again. The only thing about you I can trust is that I can trust you to lie.”

“Ouch. Forgive me for I have sinned, Oh ye of little faith,” Fiza says, “Get it? Faith?” She laughs at her own joke.

“Shut up,” BC says. He rubs his eyes and forehead with his right hand.

“You know, all of a sudden you don’t look so good, BC. You all right?”

“I was until you showed up. Why are you here, anyway, Fiza? What do you want this time?”

“Do I have to want something? Maybe I’m just visiting an old friend.”

“You always want something.”

“Oh, can priests fuck these days?” Fiza asks with a wicked grin.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

She keeps grinning at him. “Oh no? Too bad. You see, it’s late, and I do need a place to crash, just for tonight...”

The mind is strong, but the body is weak... I should be going to see Swan...
Fiza gets up off the table and walks over to BC. She tugs at his collar.

“Does this come off? Oh lookie here, it does indeed.” She pulls the collar off and unsnaps the button behind it, then wraps her arms up around his neck, looking up in his eyes as she draws in close.

“How’s about we get reacquainted, huh?”

She starts kissing him. BC can’t stop kissing her back. All her betrayals melt away for now, all the bad memories, the time she left him for dead, the guys she slept around on him with, the fall she let him take when their grift went south... a lot to melt away, but the mind can easily go blank when a beautiful woman is wrapped around you.

The body is weak... well, that’s hard enough
.
Oh yeah, she does like it when I bite like
this...

BC wakes up early the next morning, feels Fiza still sleeping beside him. He mentally berates himself for forgetting all his Fiza rules. Rule number one had to be ‘do not sleep with Fiza’.
WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!! You let her in again, all these years later!

Don’t you learn fucking anything? What the fuck were you thinking! She’s fucking poison!

Fiza stirs, turns over, and kisses his cheek. “Morning, handsome. You still got it, you know that honey? That priest collar didn’t fool Fiza, hon. Bless me Father for I have sinned!”

“Shut up.”

Remember how much she always fucked up everything in the past? Let’s not repeat the
same mistakes again and again, okay? Good, I’m talking to myself. She really does bring out the
best in me.

“So, this whole priest thing,” she says. “What is it, some con gone out of control?”

“You could say that,” BC says.

“I did.” She smiles a fake smile and bats her eyes at him.

He ignores her and goes on, “I figured religion would be a good cover for my import export scam I was running on Linderstern Finch. You remember that station, don’t you? That’s where you left me the last time you fucked me over, remember? Remember leaving me for dead? The good old days!?”

BC says, his voice slick with sarcasm, “God, what was that, ten years ago? Forgive me if I’m not nostalgic.”

“Harsh. You got any drugs here?” Fiza starts rummaging around.

I’d grab her to stop her, but I know what will happen then.
Not again.
She turns anything
physical into, well, sex. She’s very good at that sort of manipulation. And very good at that.

“No. Trust me, after what I’ve been through the last couple months I don’t need anything else in my system.”

She looks at him, a little puzzled, but plows ahead. “Yeah, BC, you know I remember Linderstern Finch. But I don’t want to dredge that all up and rehash it over and over again, okay?” She’s getting louder. “We both made mistakes. Were we young and stupid, and let’s leave it at that, okay?”

Her face is red. She suddenly seems aware she is almost shouting. She regains her composure, and asks BC in her softer voice, “What did you do after Linderstern Finch?”

“It’s a long story...” BC shakes his head.

She can change emotions on a dime. That’s fucked up.

“How about you tell it over breakfast?” she says.

“It’s so sad, the way you have to work everybody, get something out of them.”

Fiza jumps up off the bed with the sheets wrapped around her and yells down at BC. “Jesus fucking Christ! Will you give me a fucking break! Get over yourself! I just asked for some breakfast, not the fucking Moon! I fucked your brains out last night, didn’t I? I’m not the only one who wants something!”

“All right, calm down, Fiza, calm down. Jesus, look, I don’t know what to think.”

Fiza calms a little, “I think you should make us some breakfast while I freshen up.” She ducks into the bathroom and closes the door. BC gets up and walks into the living room to muster up some breakfast.

Hmm. Headache’s gone, anyway. One of them. The other
’s
in the shower...
His message light is still blinking. Six messages from Swan.

Delete.

BC throws together some muffins for breakfast. After the refresher, Fiza walks into the living room wearing only a sheet wrapped around her.

“Breakfast?” she asks, looking down at the muffins on the table.

“Best I could do on short notice. Coffee?”

“Please. There’s no coffee on Mars, did you know that?”

“So, you’re sticking with that story, huh?”

“I’ll tell you all about it sometime. But, come on, you told me you were gonna tell me how you became a fucking priest!”

“They made all the different denominations minister’s priests in the Great reunification, five years ago.”

“Yeah, but how did you get to that point? Come on, juicy details!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full! Nice. Don’t play with your food like that. Yeah, I get it, muffin and muffin, funny.”

“Why don’t you eat them both?”

The body is weak...
the mind is pretty weak, too, when you get right down to it. Speaking
of getting right down to it...

BC is in the refresher a half hour later, beating himself up again.
I cannot keep doing this!
Gotta be pheromones or something. Undeniable attraction.
Carnal desire, whatever you want to call it. Lets her wrap me right around her little fucking
finger. And I’m not 19 anymore. I should be over this sort of shit by now.

“Can I come in?” Fiza yells from outside.

BC opens the door, steps into the bedroom. “I’m just coming out.”

“Do you mind if I use it again?” she asks.

“Nah, go ahead.”

“Don’t think you got out of telling me your story,” Fiza says, before she closes the refresher door behind her.

BC gets dressed while she freshens up. He calls the Cardinal.

“Good morning, Campion.”

“Good morning, Cardinal.”

“You missed your time with the Reverend Swan yesterday, Father Campion. She’s quite upset with you.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I had every intention of being there, but I’m afraid I’m still getting these terrible headaches. I took sick again just after lunch yesterday, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to work today, either. I’m sorry, Cardinal.”

“Well, if you’re sick, you’re sick. I’ll tell Reverend Swan. But you best get well soon, Father. The Pope himself sent her up here just for you, my boy. Just for you.”

“I know. Bye.”

“Good-bye.”

“Who was that?” Fiza asks as she walks, nude, out of the refresher and across the room.

“The Cardinal. I was calling in sick.”

“For me? How sweet!”

“Not just for you. For me, too. They want me to work with this woman priest. She’s supposed to train me to be a better priest, since I became a priest by such dubious means.” BC says the last three words with mock gravity.

“Did someone say doobies?” Fiza says and laughs.

“Dubious. And no, no doobies. I told you, no drugs. I’m trying to get normal again.”

“You’re not normal now?”

Can’t tell her what really went on...

“I’ve been sick, and on some medication. I’m better now, but there are still some residual effects, some headaches I get from time to time. I’m trying to let the remnants of those drugs pass out of my system before pouring any new ones in.”

“I see. Sick, huh?” Her brow furrows and her mood suddenly darkens. “Nothing fucking contagious, better not be or I’ll fucking...”

“Relax, nothing like that, you’re fine, don’t worry.”

“So let’s get back in bed.”

“Fine, but I don’t think I can...”

“Shhh,” she says, putting her finger to his lips. She taps his nose. “Tell me how you got into this mess. How did my favorite young con man get conned into a priest’s collar?”

They get back in under the covers and spoon up close to each other.
I don’t know why I’m letting myself fall into this again. Into her. So she wants to know?

“Fine. Well, then, despite the fact you brought the UTZ goons down on us on Linderstern Finch...”

“Sorry, okay? Get over it! Go on...”

“... I found a way to escape their notice, stay alive and on the station, and keep the smuggling operation going. I answered a classified ad from the Holy Redemption Church of Jesus. I remember the ad’s headline caught me, ‘Get Nontaxable Status!’ Anyway, they sent me ordination papers and tax forms and for just fifty dollars I officially became Brother Bernard Campion of the Holy Redemption Church of Jesus!

“I recruited a bunch of my friends as my church members, my congregation. I even got some members of my family to join. Since my congregation was growing, The Holy Redemption Church of Jesus raised me to Reverend status.”

“Hallelujah!” Fiza says, and nudges her head into his shoulder.

“I used our nontax status to cover my import/export deals. You’re gonna like this part. With the Reverend status I could easily arrange for travel visas for myself, so I began to act as a courier for several 'nontraditional' business interests operating on Lunar and Earth.”

“Organized crime?”

“More disorganized than anything. But they paid well. And the money I made running for them paid my way after I got kicked off of Linderstern Finch.” BC shakes his head just thinking about it. “That happened a year after my ‘ordination’. I lost my station job because they didn’t like the stuff I had going on on the side. But it was the stuff on the side that was making me the real money.”

“Ain’t that always the fucking way,” Fiza says with a little laugh. “Where did you go after you got kicked off the station? Were you homeless?”

“Not at all. I had places set up on Luna, in orbit, and on Earth. The job on the station had almost become unnecessary. But it helped explain my travel activity. After I lost the station job I couldn’t make the same runs anymore. But I could still travel between my residences as the Reverend Campion of The Holy Redemption Church of Jesus.”

“Do I hear an amen?”

“Amen. Eventually, even the Holy Redemption Church of Jesus got swept up in the Great Reunification of 2104. We were absorbed into the New catholic Church, and I was granted priestly status. They welcomed me into the greater church and even assigned me to a rectory on Earth, in Boston.”

“They had no idea what you were all about?”

“No idea at all. At least not at first. Things were pretty chaotic in the church back in those first couple years right after the reunification.”

“Yeah, I remember that. Didn’t a lot of popes die, like, right in a fucking row?”

BC laughs. “Yeah, until Pope Peter got in. Peter the Second. Took a lot of balls to take that name.”

“That was a pretty big deal too. First black pope, right?”

“Yeah. And the first pope to come from a church other than the old Catholic Church. It was bound to happen. The new church was too huge. It was a mess. They had people like me in it! Peter, old Leo, well, he’s a lot like me, like I was. It was easy for him to rise to the top. When chaos reigns, those who will do anything in order to gain power gain that power pretty easily. There are no checks, no balances to stop them. Leo Benford is ruthless. He rose really quickly. And I did okay, too.”

“This is the pope you’re talking about?”

“Yup. He came up from the streets of LA. Brought in his own ‘security force’ after he was raised to the papacy. They were all gangsters.”

“The what-acy?”

“Papacy. It’s what being the pope is called.”

“Oh.”

“His security force got a new name right after they joined him at the Vatican. He renamed them the Office of Papal Operations.”

“The OPO? Oh my God, you’re OPO!” She starts jumping up and down on the bed, as if BC