by Ian Young
After a moment I got control. ‘What I don’t understand is how they knew about the ball in the first place.’
‘Um. Yes. My guess is Captain Ortiz, but who knows?’ Mason keeps looking around like a Vrazi might just turn up, as though we have some kind of tracking device planted on us. I’m sure he did it just for show, like I’d be comforted by his vigilance – like I’d be impressed. I stare at a TV screen across the departure lounge, mostly to avoid any further conversation. This is freaking me out.
Captain Ortiz? Why would he do that to me? Was it because I laughed at him for comparing Mason to the Angel Gabriel? Well, as Gabriel says, who knows?
Joris filled up on coffee then headed back the way we came. The only way he would know what this is all about will be when he sees me on TV soon, either shocking the world with my discovery, or involuntarily adding to the murder statistics of this great country. That very subject seems to be the next item up on the news. Images of blue lights fill the TV screen; several police cars are parked outside what looks like an apartment block. It must be another mass shooting if that many cars have turned up. The police chief is being interviewed, but I can’t hear from where I’m sitting. Then I stand up like my seat has been electrified. I don’t need to hear the TV to recognise the photo they put up while the cop is talking. Mason was right.
I tug on his jacket and point at the screen as he turns to me. Any moment, that ‘I was right’ look will be flashed at me and he’ll tell me the ball is lost forever.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry, Andi, I think—’
‘Oh, shut up,’ I say, hurrying towards the TV set on the wall. As I get closer, I hear the police chief talking about a missing Harvard professor who lives in the apartment block where the body was found. I know immediately.
‘Mason, Mason, come here,’ I yell, ignoring the faces that turn to stare at me. As he approaches, I grab his arm and usher him to an empty part of the lounge. ‘I think they’ve got the Harvard professor Steiner flew out to see.’
‘I think he’ll be dead too, Andi,’ says Mason, shaking his head like he’s breaking bad news to a child.
‘No, I think you’re wrong.’
Mason doesn’t react to this challenge to his prescience, he just looks at me, patiently waiting for me to explain.
‘He’s missing. They killed Steiner outside this guy’s apartment and now the professor’s missing. Don’t you see? The professor hasn’t killed Steiner, has he? I bet the Vrazi’s taken him because the Pillars need him to decode the DNA.’
Mason looks pensive, as though he might actually be considering my theory. I press my advantage.
‘We can still save Steiner’s friend. Maybe he has family, children, a wife. We owe it to them. All of this is our fault. We have to try, Scott.’
Mason’s eyebrows raise on hearing his first name come out of my mouth. ‘Of course, you’re right, Andi,’ he says, nodding slowly. ‘But we have no way of tracing him, no way of finding out where in the world they’ve taken him.’
‘You know something about the Pillars of Abraham, you said so. Think.’
‘Well, the word on the Circuit is that they’re based in the Czech Republic, but I don’t know how reliable that is.’
‘It’s a start,’ I say. ‘Let’s go there.’
Mason laughs. ‘We can’t just get on a flight—’
‘Why not? We have passports and a credit card. We can go where we like.’ It seems our roles have reversed again. This time it isn’t Mason pretending to be a scientist, but me thinking like a security contractor.
Mason lets out that little hum again. ‘Well, I suppose I have nothing to do right now, and if you’re determined to go after this artefact then well …’
That seems too easy.
* * *
Boston
Alabama Fox stares at her TV as though it’s her picture up there. But it isn’t. It’s the journalist she was with just an hour ago. Dead. How can he be dead? Fucking CIA! Fucking obvious. The spooks will be all over this alien artefact like bacteria on a pile of dog crap.
The police spokesperson starts talking about the Harvard professor that’s gone missing. But they’ve got the next bit wrong. He isn’t the killer; he’s been kidnapped. Alabama is sure of that.
In later news, the anchor talks about a missing woman from California who’s wanted for the murder of a burglar.
The suspect, a scientist from UCLA …
‘Shut the fuck up!’ blurts Alabama at the TV.
… and a man, thought to be English were last seen …
‘What’s her name? What’s her name? Damn, I missed it.’ Alabama leaps nearer to the TV, straining to hear.
… and police think they might have fled Los Angeles under false identities.
‘It’s her,’ screeches Alabama. ‘It’s the scientists who found the artefact. She’s coming here. She’s coming to Boston to get it back. Shit.’
Alabama sits on her sofa and tucks her legs up beneath her. How can she find her? Might she spot them – a science geek and an Englishman scuttling through the airport trying to look inconspicuous? Probably not. Perhaps she can access passenger lists, but what names would they be using? Who’s the dead guy in her apartment? No burglar, for sure. And another thing for sure: she didn’t kill him.
‘Holy fuck!’ Alabama unfolds her legs and sits up straight as though some alarm had sounded in her building, but the alarm is in her head. Someone’s tried to kill this girl, she realises. And whoever it was did kill Frank Steiner. Definitely CIA. What the fuck is this thing? She has to go after it, if the spooks are that desperate to get their hands on it, it must be alien. Alabama jumps up and dashes to her window overlooking the front entrance. There’s no one there, no unusual cars. She watches the traffic driving by for a few minutes, waiting for one to pull in. She has to call this in, speak to her boss, but just as she releases the blind and turns away to get her cell phone, she catches the flashing amber of a car’s indicator. Alabama cracks the blind open again and watches. The car pulls in and she squints through the dark, trying to see if it’s one she recognises, one of the other residents. It isn’t, but she does recognise it. With a sigh of relief, she remembers Kendrick’s old station wagon. He’s got away from the killer, she realises. With luck, he won’t have led the killer to her.
Chapter 16
Prague
It had taken the Vrazi just twenty-four hours to track down the target. Unsworth wonders why the Pillars of Abraham hadn’t been tasked with finding Osama Bin Laden – not that it matters now. The ruthless focus on task has shaken Unsworth, and he considers for how long he can live with himself. What did they say? If someone has to die to protect billions, then that’s clearly God’s will. But it wasn’t Dr Menendes who died. His instructions were clear and he still needs to action them fully.
His booking reference arrived by text message a few moments after reporting the partial success of his first task as a member of the Kolegium. The efficiency of this organisation makes him tremble, either through pride or fear, he doesn’t know. He is to fly to Prague for a second time, flushed with success, eager to see exactly what has been uncovered that so concerns the Pillars of Abraham.
The flight has been booked from Bristol Airport with easyJet; it’s a ploy to avoid predictable patterns of behaviour that could be traced by Czech authorities. Each time he would use a different airport, a different passport and a different identity.
When the flight docks at the gate at Vaclav Havel International Airport, Unsworth, seated in row 1, is first off the plane as soon as the doors open. The flight attendant is still giving her speech about taking care on the air bridge when the priest rounds the corner and enters the terminal. He seems to take the immigration officer by surprise; the bored-looking man is tapping on the screen of his phone when Unsworth prese
nts himself.
‘Dobrý den,’ Unsworth says, hoping the Czech salutation might rouse the officer. It doesn’t. Unsworth waits until the man finishes whichever level of Angry Birds he’s on, then hands over his passport. After a cursory glance, the officer places the passport on the counter and continues with Angry Birds.
The flight from Bristol landed in the early evening; the meeting is at midday tomorrow, so Unsworth has arranged a hotel in the centre for the night. The instruction was that he should not leave his room until it’s time to make his way to the meeting house. Unsworth fears the Triumvirát will know everything he does, so he consigns himself to his room like a prisoner. But sometime, when this is over, he would like to take a look around this spectacular city, tour the churches and perhaps take in a service somewhere. There are dozens of them, mostly still used for Catholic services despite the lack of support for religion in the country. Perhaps they provide for the needs of tourists, muses Unsworth cynically. He smiles: one day soon that will include him.
The next morning Unsworth takes a breakfast of cold meats and cheese, and a roll of bread the waitress calls rohlík, then steps out on to the cobbled street. Cobbles are everywhere, as though Tarmac was just too plain. It’s just three days since his last visit, but already much of the snow has cleared. He can tread with less caution now and he arrives at the building in a few minutes of alighting the trolleybus. Inside there is the row of lockers and the long bench that he used while changing into the anonymous smock of his association. This time he is among the first to arrive, but still feels the focus of the others’ glares when he takes his seat – the focus of suspicion for the new member, the unproven. That’s about to change.
There is silence in the room, each Kolegium member maintaining a focus on the table in front of him. The Triumvirát is absent, perhaps waiting to make a grand entrance when all others are present. Unsworth allows his eyes to roll around, glancing surreptitiously at the other members and at the room in general. He is the only member on his crescent table; a Muslim and a Jew will arrive soon, completing the trio. It still astonishes him that three such disparate religions can be represented in equal measure by one organisation. Until he joined the Kolegium, Unsworth had worked exclusively with Catholic representatives at the Vatican, reporting back to the Kolegium all he witnessed. Now he has to break bread with followers of conflicting religions.
Faces turn towards the door, watching the latest arrival. Unsworth is relieved to see that this man receives the same moody glare that he was given. The new arrival sits beside Unsworth and assumes the blank stare across the cellar, hands placed palms up on the wooden table.
Slowly the chairs fill up and eventually the Triumvirát appears.
‘Members of the Kolegium,’ begins the figure at the centre. ‘We have in our possession an artefact that exists in contradiction to man’s understanding of God.’
Unsworth frowns at the lack of procedure, the refusal to begin with a prayer or some kind of worship. The Triumvirát’s words are lost as Unsworth considers this unholy protocol, but he quickly understands the reasons. There are no signs of religion anywhere in the cellar, or on any clothing or person. This place is stripped of religion; it is a place where religious differences don’t exist, a place where three of the world’s most divisive beliefs can come together in peace.
‘This artefact will be examined here in Prague by an American scientist, and its secrets revealed only to the Kolegium. All civilian knowledge of its existence will be removed.’
Power through knowledge, considers Unsworth. What good is it to a Catholic priest to know the secret of God? He doesn’t need evidence that God exists, or that God doesn’t, for that matter. He will still be a Catholic priest; he will still pray for the sick and help the poor. An absence of a god doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t walk the earth. His teachings would still be valid. Besides, faith is what holds the Church together. Without the strength he derives from his faith, Unsworth doubts he could have done half the work in South America over twenty years or more.
But this peculiar building in Prague, where impossible religious harmony exists, epitomises the peace he craves for the whole world – the peace surely God wants. The peace, alas, God’s very existence prevents.
Chapter 17
Prague, same day
Twelve. Twelve men went in, including the priest he followed earlier in the week. His face showed up on the cameras at Prague Airport, and was identified by face recognition software. But his name wasn’t Unsworth. Immigration recorded his entry into the Czech Republic as Joseph Phelan. Zdeněk Hanzel was alerted immediately and dropped off within minutes at the end of Československé armády.
There are too many for Hanzel to deal with safely. He has no idea what capability this group has, but he has to consider that they would defend themselves vigorously, particularly since they take such extreme measures to maintain secrecy. He knows from his training that cults can be a defensive lot.
Hanzel stamps his feet. The snow may be vanishing from Prague’s streets but the freeze lives on. He turns around to look at the brass plaque on the door behind: Pojišťovna, an insurance company. Perhaps he could talk his way into their offices for a while. He presses the buzzer.
There is no reason for subterfuge, Hanzel could tell the insurance company exactly who he is and why he wants to come in from the cold. It might not be the eighties any more, but the security services still have powers. Inside the offices, Hanzel flushes with the sudden heat. Like most Czech buildings, the heating system hasn’t been designed with environmental issues in mind.
He takes up a spot by a window. One of the clerks brings a chair, relieved, perhaps, that it isn’t his building under surveillance. When the twelve men step back through the old door, Zdeněk Hanzel will be ready with his camera.
It’s little more than an hour later when the door opens and the familiar priest comes out, squinting in the bright light. Click-click. Hanzel takes two shots then lowers the camera and watches him walk away. And then another priest comes out, walking in the opposite direction. Click-click. The men come at regular intervals, first the Christians, then a few minutes later the Jews, finally the Muslims, each taking a different route from the previous. Hanzel laughs at the absurdity. They would look less conspicuous if they all came out together, laughing and joking, trailing down the road together – at least until the end of the street.
Once he’s counted and photographed all twelve men, Hanzel calls his office to collect him. Now he will start work on identifying and tracing each last one of them. And once he’s written his report, he’s going to forget about them for good.
Chapter 18
Prague, three months later
I close the door to the apartment and fall on to the sofa. When will this end? I’m exhausted; another night like that and I’ll quit.
I know I’ll still be lying on the sofa when Mason stirs at 6 a.m. – five hours from now. He’ll carry me to my bed, laying me down like a child who fell asleep in the car on the way home from a day out. He’s far too polite to undress me before he puts me to bed, and for that I’m grateful.
We aren’t sleeping together – Christ, of course we aren’t. He’s like that ape at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the one that discovers how to use tools. But he’s still an ape. Mason’s a thug for hire, that’s what he is. I cannot forget that.
I’ve grown to like him, actually; he can be sensitive and kind (when he’s not beating someone to death). And OK, there are flashes of intelligence that seem to come from nowhere. Mason knows quite a bit about lots of subjects. He surprises me sometimes, commenting thoughtfully on events in history, debating articulately on philosophical strands rising from events of the past. It’s like there’s a human trapped inside the ape suit. And though I occasionally feel out-argued, I put it down only to his better use of his own language, though Mason disagrees – o
f course he does.
Prague is just stunning. Living in the States, but coming from a country rich in culture, means I’ve missed wandering among buildings that tell a story. Sure, you can walk around Hollywood and imagine the lives that were led there, the lives that shaped a global industry (that shaped a nation, let’s be honest), but it’s hardly the same.
In Prague there are castles that tell of kings and queens, streets that smell of revolutions, squares where students fought for freedom, buildings that chart the history of social regimes. It’s a spectacular reminder of the cultural diversity that only evolution can produce.
Evolution, that chaotic melee of genetic differences, fighting to survive. Creatures – life – struggling to adapt to threats from an environment indifferent to their endeavour. When man (and it will be a man) wipes out life on Earth, our planet will wait patiently for the next little grub to have a go. It might take a few million years, but one day, surely, another collection of simple gases will coalesce into a complex molecule and pave the way for a self-replicating organism. If its lucky, it’ll survive, and in a few billion years there may even be intelligent life here again. Would they believe in some all-powerful god? Probably!
I need to find another job. I’m a pharmacologist with a PhD from one of the top universities in the world. And now I work in an Irish pub. I feel like one of those actors in LA that used to serve me coffee every day, the ones waiting for their big break in the movies. Howie used to joke, ‘What do you say to a Hollywood actress who was between movies? Can I have fries with that?’ He thought it was hilarious. I wonder what he would think if he knew people say that kind of thing to me now.
But it’s fun, I have to admit. It’s just the hours I spend on my feet, and the drunken Brits that came in almost every night dressed in T-shirts with lewd words on them. I can’t understand half the words.
