by Ian Young
Hanzel pulls a pile of photos from his file and spreads them out on the table, one overlapping the other to fit in the small space. ‘This man,’ he says, pointing at the first photo, ‘is a Muslim.’
Hanzel pauses and looks at Unsworth, but the priest shows no reaction. ‘This man is also a Muslim, but this man is a Jew … and so is this man.’
Zdeněk reads the names written on a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of each photograph. ‘We have records of them arriving and leaving the Czech Republic, but like you, Mr Unsworth, they use different identities each time they arrive. Can you explain that?’
‘No.’ Unsworth is impassive.
‘Have you read the Qur’an?’
‘Yes, have you?’
‘Sadly, Mr Unsworth, I have no knowledge of religion … other than the knowledge that Christians, Muslims and Jews would not sit at the same table without a good reason.’
Hanzel gazes at the priest, watching for any reaction that might indicate whether he is poking the needle in the right place. But none comes. Priests are like secret agents, considers Hanzel; centuries of torture have instilled a resilience to questioning that might take some time to demolish. Like spies, Hanzel wonders what secrets these priests might hide. God’s secrets? Secrets that can’t be known by the wider population in the same way as knowledge of aliens can’t be made known. How would people react? Hanzel suspects there would be worldwide mayhem – the end of the world as he knows it.
‘What’s the difference between Jews and Christians?’ asks Hanzel.
Unsworth spreads his arms. ‘The clue’s in the name.’
Hanzel stares at Unsworth, waiting to draw him further.
‘Work it out,’ says Unsworth. ‘Christ-ians.’
‘Christ? You believe in Jesus Christ?’
‘I believe he was the son of God, yes.’
‘And Jews don’t?’
‘They crucified him, so I guess not.’ Unsworth’s face reddened as though he was about to pop.
‘Wasn’t that the Romans?’ Hanzel racks his memory for something from his schooldays.
‘You would do well to study the Bible. There are great lessons to be learned about humanity.’
‘One day, perhaps,’ says Hanzel. ‘It is, of course, an offence to enter the Czech Republic under a false identity. But that would be an immigration matter, which is a different department.’
Unsworth laughs briefly and spreads his hands. ‘Alright, what do you want to know? I meet with some other religious denominations from time to time, we chat about God. That’s it.’
As odd as that is, Hanzel recognises, on paper at least, there is nothing wrong with it. There are, after all, a number of secret religious orders that meet to discuss matters of mutual interest.
‘You only recently started meeting your friends, didn’t you? How did you get involved?’
‘By invitation. My ecumenical work made me … made me an outstanding candidate.’
‘So, a vacancy arose around, what, early February?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Is killing other priests one of the things you chat about?’
Unsworth pulls a face, one of confusion, revulsion – ignorance. He knows nothing about it, Hanzel guesses. But then he’s a priest himself … and not a—
Hanzel stares at Unsworth for a second. He has to think about that, but not right now.
‘How about scientists? Do you chat about killing them?’
This time there is definite reaction from Unsworth. His cheeks redden slightly and his gaze goes left, away from the table. The inquisitor has just turned the screw one notch nearer the priest’s pain threshold.
‘Could a scientist discover something that would threaten your God? Aliens?’ Hanzel can’t stop a snigger this time. ‘Sorry. But seriously …?’
‘You have no idea what you’re getting involved with.’ Unsworth leans forward. ‘Seriously? I think you should let me have that phone call before you dig yourself into trouble.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Father. It’s my job to dig myself into trouble. And my job to dig myself out of it.’
Chapter 24
It’s hot. Fuck, it’s hot. A hundred and ten in the shade, the captain said before landing. Better keep out of the shade then, muses Alabama Fox, ruing her Celtic complexion. She checks her iPhone, reading the arrival information for Prague Airport and noting the location of the cab rank.
During the eight-hour flight from Boston, Alabama rehearsed some Czech phrases – she can greet the driver, tell him where she wants to go and even ask if he’s had a busy day. She rehearses them again as she makes her way over to the next cab in line.
‘Good morning,’ says the driver with barely any accent. He’s a young guy, late twenties, she guesses, not entirely unattractive, but not exactly … Who? She can’t think of any famous Czech people. Martina Navrátilová? OK, but not what she had in mind.
‘Downtown?’ asks the driver.
‘The Hilton,’ says Alabama, letting the driver take her suitcase and place it in the trunk.
‘Which one?’
‘Oh, um …’
‘Old Town?’ he says, opening the rear door for her.
‘Yes, yes, that’s it, Old Town.’ Alabama shivers as she feels the chilled air of the car’s interior. ‘There’s more than one?’
‘Sure, but you’re in the best one.’ The driver clicks his seat belt in place and speeds away from the terminal. ‘The other is … it’s good for business,’ he says with a smile.
Alabama switches her gaze from the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror to the side window. The last thing she wants is his attention, or to give him the impression of availability: a young woman (not entirely unattractive herself) alone in a foreign city, seeking company …
A plane flashes behind a cloud on its approach to the airport, a bright purple plane with ‘Wizz’ on the tail. She shudders at the thought of purple on the inside too. The driver continues talking, something about how long it might take at this time of day, but Alabama is thinking. She’s moved on from the thought of purple seats inside the Wizz plane, and on to thoughts of suicidal scientists.
‘This is Evropská,’ says the driver. ‘The road to Prague.’
‘Oh, right.’ Alabama leans into the centre of the car and peers through the windscreen, more out of politeness than interest.
She spots a McDonald’s by the roadside. She never eats at any of the fast food restaurants back in the States, but it’s nice – no, comforting – to see a piece of home so far away. And it’s busy. Alabama wonders if they serve dumplings with their Quarter Pounders. There’s a large open space to the left with what looks like a row of miniature mountains, or giant boulders stacked up beyond the rolling fields. It looks a great place to walk a dog … or hide a body.
Soon the landscape changes and the road is now lined with blocks of apartments, some perpendicular to the highway, some stretching alongside. Could Andreia Menendes be in one of those apartment buildings? Would she spot her strolling down the street?
The driver slows at a junction and Alabama jumps in her seat as a tram rattles by, inches from her side window. She hasn’t noticed the electric lines above the road, or the tracks running along the centre of the carriageway. Some fucking detective she’d make. But then again, she doesn’t pretend to be a detective, she’s a scientist employed by the government, a government that doesn’t know she’s scuttling around Prague looking for other scientists. What a shitstorm that would bring down, if they find out.
No, she won’t think about that. She resumes her gaze through the side window, letting her eyes slip out of focus as the rows of apartment blocks whizz past her vision. The law enforcement agencies in America have shown little interest in the disappearance of a leading Har
vard scientist and a research fellow from UCLA. As for the former US Army Ranger found bludgeoned to death in the researcher’s home, well, that investigation is as dead as he is. And then there’s the UCLA Professor – Howard Dyer, she remembers. Hit and run. The only thing witnesses remember is the hysterical girl. As a scientist, Alabama spends her life searching for connections between unseen forces: magnetic, electrical, gravitational … aliens, disappearances, murder. And now suicides.
‘Do you want a quick tour of the city?’
Alabama’s eyes snap into focus and she shakes her head to clear away conspiracy theories. ‘Thanks, but I need to freshen up.’
She flashes the driver a brief smile and leans sideways to peer past the headrest blocking her view ahead. ‘It’s beautiful, though,’ she says. ‘Hopefully I’ll have chance to look around.’
‘That’s why your here, isn’t it?’
Shit. ‘Sure, sure … where do you recommend?’
‘Everywhere,’ says the driver, as though it were impossible to narrow down. ‘But keep away from the Old Town at night. Full of drunken tourists.’
‘So, not everywhere,’ says Alabama with a wry smile.
‘It’s good to go in the daytime, so yes, everywhere.’
There’s a logic to the driver’s reasoning and, as Alabama always says, you can’t argue with logic.
The apartment blocks make way for glass-fronted office buildings. Over to the right she spots a Ferrari dealership and, to her left, a weird box-like building sitting on a narrow plinth. As she gets a better look she notices the sign on the front: The Cube. Yep, that’s about right.
‘This is Prague Six,’ says the driver. ‘It’s where most of the embassies are located. Except yours. You want to see it?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your embassy. We could take a detour.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. I’m not expecting to get into any trouble.’ Ha, what a laugh. It’s exactly what she expected.
‘Too late now, anyway,’ he says, pointing along a road to the right.
The long, straight highway comes to an end at an enormous roundabout. The driver hustles his way around and across to the other side. A number of red and white trams loiter in a terminal to her left. Alabama’s mighty glad not to be driving herself; she’d still be on the roundabout, unable to get off.
Shortly after, they enter a tunnel, eventually emerging on to a bridge over a river, the Vltava she remembers. Tourist boats stretch along the bank, one or two are boarding passengers, others are deserted, as though it’s their day off. One boat, The Jazz Boat, seems like a good place to spend some time, she thinks. Over to the right, on a hill, is a castle. She’s never seen a real live castle. Her one trip overseas, to Oxford University some years ago, is the closest she’s been to an ancient building. Holy fuck! Oxford was churning out students from inside those stone walls before Columbus was born. Hell, before his great-granddaddy was born.
Across the bridge a wide brick building dominates the embankment, and tall windows dominate the building. A glass dome sits at the centre of the roof like an observatory. It looks like a museum or central library, but according to the driver, it’s a government ministry. It’s probably older than most buildings in Boston. Just beyond the building, blue lights are flashing; one or more police vehicles seem to be getting involved with something down by the riverside. Drunken passengers on a tourist boat, perhaps. The river view is cut off by the government building and the streets narrow.
The driver winds his way through the mix of old and new buildings to the Hilton Hotel. There are no skyscrapers, no glimmering glass buildings, no bastions of capitalism. The buildings here are an architect’s wet dream, designed and built before Babbage had crunched his first numbers. These architects hadn’t used computer modelling to create stunning structures, this was all about pencils and scraps of paper. But here they still stand.
Alabama pays the driver and thanks him for a pleasant journey. He hands her a card with his contact details on and mentions something about calling if she wants a guided tour during her visit. Whatever, buddy.
Once in her room she’ll hook her laptop up to the hotel Wi-Fi and start making plans to find Andreia Menendes and, with some personal anxiety, John Kendrick. If there’s an alien artefact somewhere near here – hell, if there’s an alien artefact somewhere on Earth – Dr Alabama Fox, astrophysicist, has to find it. She has to find it before her own government does or God knows what’ll happen to it. Alabama sniggers: God knows. Exactly.
The television is already on as she enters the room, displaying a message welcoming her to the Hilton. That’s nice, she thinks with some sarcasm. She finds the remote and presses a few buttons until the television comes on properly. Aha! CNN, another piece of home. She gapes at the screen, her mouth dropping so wide she could suck in more air than the jet engines that brought her here. She gasps and covers her mouth with a hand as the news anchor speaks.
… FBI agents were assisting the Czech police in identifying the body pulled from the Vltava today, but it is believed to be the Harvard scientist Dr John Kendrick who went missing …
Chapter 25
I stare at the screen like some alien entity had taken over the broadcast channels, announcing our impending annihilation. Except there are no aliens, and the only annihilation was my slowly crumbling world.
Now we have cable, Mason always has the BBC on. He’s such a Brit. He says the World Service is the most impartial news service in the world. Yeah, right. Like there’s any news service that isn’t in the back pocket of some business or government. Mason insisted the BBC is totally impartial. But then admitted that, in his opinion, they have a left-wing bias. QED, I said. Mason nodded and flashed a wry smile. Had he conceded? Had I won?
Whatever the merits of the BBC it can hardly have an agenda when it came to reporting the death of an American academic in Prague. And the reporter on the spot, our Eastern Europe Correspondent, sounds very impassive, as though the news can speak for itself without his personal views. I like it. It means I could focus on the news. Steiner never told us the name of his contact at Harvard, but come on, it’s hardly a leap of intelligence: Harvard professor found dead three months after he went missing from outside his home. And found half a mile from my new home. I don’t do coincidence. I did cause and effect.
‘Mason!’ I shout.
The toilet flushes and I screw up my nose. Mason says it’s the goulash.
‘Mason, look at this.’
He watches the TV, impassive, like he’s watching the lotto results, knowing he isn’t going to win, knowing he hasn’t even bought a ticket.
‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he says.
No, why don’t you educate me, soldier boy? I know what’s coming: the trail is lost, let’s quit and go home. Only I’m sure Mason would want me to go home with him.
‘I’m not quitting,’ I said, pre-empting him. ‘I don’t care—’
‘It means …’ Mason clasps my arms ‘… that our chances of finding your alien artefact have just increased hugely.’
I frown, not immediately connecting Mason’s dots. ‘How?’
‘This chap … Kendrick? … he clearly didn’t stumble into the river after a night on the razz.’
‘The what?’ Sometimes I wonder if Mason actually speaks English.
‘He didn’t fall in after getting drunk. If he was murdered the police will be all over it like the fish probably have been since he ended up in the river.’
‘The FBI will be all over it,’ I say. ‘They’re helping with the investigation.’
‘Well there you are. All we have to do is tell this policeman friend of yours how Kendrick is connected to the Pillars of Abraham and Bob’s your …’
‘He’s no friend of mine,’ I say, matching Mason�
�s frown, wondering who Bob is.
Mason sighs, like I was some dumb kid who’s got it all wrong again. ‘It’s just a figure of speech. Did he give you his number?’
‘I have his card,’ I say, looking around the room as though Hanzel’s card would be clearly visible somewhere. It was probably in the bin. I check, but Mason empties the bin, like, every hour. And then I remember it was in my jeans pocket. I dig them out of the washing basket, fortunately I had a separate pile to Mason’s, otherwise my jeans would be washed and ironed by now.
‘Give him a call.’
‘Shouldn’t we think about it first? It’s all a bit … impulsive.’
‘Some of the best ideas are,’ he says. ‘The problems come when we analyse matters too much.’
‘Not for me,’ I say.
‘Yeah, I know, you’re a scientist. You said.’
Fucking hell! I want to kick him in the balls. I even look at them (to tee-up my shot, that’s all, why else would I look at Mason’s crotch?).
‘You call him.’ I hand Mason the card, looking away from him and his crotch.
He dialled the number and waited. ‘Mr Hanzel? Good morning, this is Scott Mason.’
I roll my eyes at Mason’s formality, the politeness, the eloquence.
‘Yes, that’s right, Dr Menendes …’
I snap my head back at him. What’s Hanzel asking about me?
‘Have you seen the news? … Yes, that’s right, the American professor … I do. Perhaps we could have a chat …?’
You can have a chat, I think.
‘In fifteen minutes? That would be fine.’
What the fuck? My hand ruffles my hair and I stretch to see in the mirror.
‘Yes, thank you so much.’
