She heard a noise behind her, quickly hung up the phone and moved away from it. She turned to see Cardinal Roscoe coming inside, followed by Christie Seifert and Henry. They hadn’t seen her. Cardinal Roscoe went into the library. Tina heard him answer the phone. "Hello? Hello, is anybody there? This is Cardinal Roscoe, hello?" A few seconds later he came back out. "Nobody was there." He looked at Alonso. "Do they give you a name?"
"No, but it was a man with a British accent," Juan reported.
"Peter Cornwall," Christie Seifert said confidently. "We knew he’d try to contact you."
"Yes," Cardinal Roscoe said. He didn’t exactly look happy about it.
"Who?" Henry asked. Christie and Cardinal Roscoe looked at him like he was an idiot. "Who is Cornwall?"
"Peter Cornwall is the British Ambassador to the U.N," Christie told him.
"And why would he be calling you?" Henry asked the Cardinal.
Cardinal Roscoe and Christie looked at each other. Cardinal Roscoe was about to speak, but Christie jumped in. "The British government is helping the Vatican save Samantha," she said.
"I see."
Tina tried very hard not to attract any attention to herself. She was afraid someone would be able to look at her and tell that she’d picked up the phone. They be able to tell that this Cornwall had told her what he’d meant to tell Cardinal Roscoe. It had sounded like something no one else was meant to hear. Oracle’s fate was bound up with the fate of the child. Sam’s fate. What did that mean? It didn’t sound good, whatever it meant.
Tina looked over at Angus Becker. He was awake now. And looking right at her. She could see it in his eyes. Angus winked at her. He knew. Tina felt a sudden chill and shivered involuntarily. He looked away from her, then, and suddenly stood up. The others turned to regard Angus.
"Have a nice nap?" Henry asked. Angus allowed that wry grin of his.
"Oi, Henry," he said. "I’m not bloody Superman, am I? Right?"
It was also obvious that Henry hated Angus, and that Angus knew it. Angus used it to taunt Henry.
Sam was awake now, too. Looking sleepy, but watching them calmly. Tina went over to her.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Sam nodded. "Do you want something to eat, Sam?" Sam shook her head no. She did not look at Tina, but kept watching Henry.
"We all have our limits, don’t we Henry," Angus said. "You have yours, and I have mine. Don’t forget that, Henry. I have mine."
"Gentlemen, please," Juan Alonso addressed them smoothly. "Let’s focus on why we’re all here in the first place. The girl needs us. The danger to her is not yet past, is it?"
"Oh, not at all," Angus said, sounding almost pleased. "There’s more to come, don’t worry." He checked his watch. "We still have a few hours before the next attempt. Plenty of time to iron out our differences."
"A few hours before the next attempt?" Christie asked. "How do you know for sure? What if Oracle’s other half has decided not to work on your schedule?" She looked nervous and excited all at once. At that moment Tina decided she didn’t like the petite newswoman. The fact that she was also blonde and blue-eyed didn’t help.
"Anything is possible, eh?" Angus replied.
"It will happen here?" Juan asked. Angus nodded. Alonso closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. When he opened them again there was resolve in them. "I would like you all to leave."
"What?" Cardinal Roscoe asked in surprise.
"This is not what I agreed to," Alonso said, slurring his words slightly. He sounded almost drunk, but not quite. "I agreed that you could stay here with the girl until the van came to take you to the airport. Now a man has been killed in my doorway. There are blood stains in the carpet, for the love of God. No. This is not what I agreed to be a part of."
"Well, too bloody bad for you," Angus sneered. "You’re part of it now, ain’t you? It’s too late."
Juan looked angry, although less passively so than before. "I want out."
"Senior Alonso, please," Cardinal Roscoe said. "You must take time to think about this. Yes?"
"I have been thinking about it now for hours."
"Take my advice and think it about for a few more, then," Angus chimed in menacingly. Juan turned to face Angus squarely.
"You," Juan said. "I do not like you. You will leave. Pronto."
"Mr. Alonso, please." Now it was Christie Seifert. "What if this really is the safest possible place for the girl? If you kick us out of here, and something happens to her, you’ll be responsible."
"This is insane!" Juan suddenly roared.
"You made a promise to His Holiness the Pope himself," Cardinal Roscoe told him. "You said I could stay here with her as long as it takes."
"Yes, you and the girl. I said nothing about a reporter from CNN and certainly nothing about assassins! If you wish, you and the girl may remain here, but the rest of them, they must leave."
"What about me?" Tina asked. They all turned to regard her. She suddenly felt nervous. "Can I stay? Sam knows me."
"Yes, of course, you may stay with her," Juan said. "Everyone else must go. Please, go now. I would like my home back."
Angus shook his head as he walked towards the library. "I don’t think you quite understand the situation you’re in." He stopped and looked at a painting on the wall, an abstract that reminded Tina of fireworks exploding against a city skyline, in a metal frame. Angus grasped the frame on either side and lifted it off the wall.
"What do you think you’re doing?" Juan asked as Angus moved the painting aside to reveal a safe imbedded in the wall. Angus set the painting on the floor, letting it lean against the wall. Ignoring Alonso, Angus then placed his fingers on the dial.
"Of course, I bloody well knew this moment was coming," Angus said as he turned the dial to the left almost a full turn. "I knew you’d kick us all out long before you ever knew it." He then turned the dial more than one full rotation to the right. "Do you realize that I know things about you that you don’t even know yourself?" Now he turned the dial back to the left, this time less than halfway. The safe clicked. Juan had stood there watching, his expression one of horrified disbelief as Angus grabbed the handle and pulled the safe door open. "And now, alas, it has come to this, just as I knew it would."
"Angus…" Henry said, stepping away from Cardinal Roscoe and Christie Seifert. His silenced gun was in his right hand, but pointed downward at the floor. Angus reached into the safe. Suddenly, and quickly, he spun to face Juan. Angus was now holding a gun in his right hand, pointing it at Alonso’s chest. It was smaller than the gun in Henry’s hand, and a revolver instead of an automatic.
Angus seemed to hesitate for the briefest moment, and then Tina saw as if in slow motion as Angus’ index finger pressed down on the trigger. The revolver went off, sounding like the crack of a whip. Juan staggered backwards as if trying to avoid the bullet, but of course it was too late. Henry raised his gun towards Angus, but Becker got off another shot and Juan fell against an end table, knocking a lamp to the floor, and then he sagged against the table in an unnatural position.
Sam whined, her hands over her ears as she stared at Juan, who was himself staring at the Cardinal. Henry and Angus were now facing off again. Angus had that grin back on his face.
"God damn you," Henry said.
"You damn me, you damn yourself, Henry." His eyes narrowed and Tina could tell that Angus was definitely going to shoot again. He was going to shoot Henry. It was so obvious. And Henry wasn’t going to do anything. That was obvious, too. Tina wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. Then, at the last possible instant before squeezing the trigger, Angus lowered his gun. "I knew you wouldn’t do it," he said.
Cardinal Roscoe went over to Juan, knelt by his side. Christie stood by, watching, probably taking mental notes. Cardinal Roscoe spoke to Juan in a soft, almost whispering voice. Last rites. Henry kept his eyes focused on Angus, though. It didn’t seem to take very long before Juan Alonso finally closed his eyes and relaxed into death. The Cardinal stood, bowe
d his head for a moment, then looked at Angus. "You’re a madman."
"Don’t tell me you didn’t know this was going to happen," Angus responded. "Are you saying that your bloody super computer didn’t predict this? That’s funny. It played out almost exactly as Oracle predicted. Almost exactly." He winked at Henry. "Nothin’ to be ashamed of, mate."
"What are you talking about?"
"You, not bein’ able to pull the trigger." He nodded. "That’s right. I know. It’s psychological, see. That’s what Oracle told me. Somethin’ to do with that little chickadee over there remindin’ you of your daugher. Nothin’ to be ashamed of, like I said."
"You don’t think there’s a chance… Oracle might be wrong?"
Angus shrugged. "Dunno. Either way, we can stand here arguing about it or we can get ready."
"Get ready for what?"
"Replacement assassin number two, Henry. He should be here within the hour. So what do you say we put our differences aside until we’ve taken care of him. Or her. I think this one’s a woman, actually."
Chapter 25
Annika’s cell phone rang, an undulating series of beeps vaguely reminiscent of Mozart’s ‘A Little Night Music.’ She dug through her purse to find the phone, then put it to her ear.
"This is Annika," she said smoothly, almost erotically. She listened for a moment, then her expression turned into a smile. Yatin was captivated. She had a radiant smile. "It’s so good to hear from you," she said. She continued to listen, nodding as she did. "Okay, I can do that." She looked right at Yatin as she said this. "Okay, then, I’ll see you soon. Bye bye."
He thought it was cute the way she said ‘bye bye’ instead of ‘goodbye.’
"That was strange," she told Yatin. She was about to continue when his handheld beeped, indicating that his e-mail had all been downloaded.
There were only sixteen e-mail messages waiting in the In-Box. Oracle automatically filtered out all the e-mail messages that Yatin did not really need to read. It didn’t just block spam from getting through, but even normal messages that it knew Yatin Kumar would have read and then forgotten, messages that he would have merely glanced at, messages that just were not important. These included messages forwarded to him by friends that were commentaries on politics, reviews of movies or books, jokes, and tales of their kids’ exploits on the soccer field. Oracle had analyzed his e-mail habits for a month before implementing the procedure which now saved him at least an hour each morning. Conversely, Oracle also bolded the e-mails that it knew Yatin would want to see most urgently. The remainder appeared in normal script. Oracle could do the same for anyone who wanted it. The time spent on useless e-mail just in the United States amounted to billions of dollars in wasted man-hours and bandwidth alone. Oracle could analyze the e-mail habits of anyone and everyone and then filter out the e-mails that person would have deleted without reading, or perhaps only briefly scanned. The savings to the corporate world were enough to win most companies over to Oracle, which they had feared would come down harshly on the environmental and labor practices of big business. They were right, of course, but they got the message that in doing so Oracle would also help come up with solutions that could keep businesses profitable and help them continue to grow.
It was one aspect of Oracle of which Yatin Kumar was most proud; its ability to, in a sense, be all things to all people.
He opened the first e-mail, which had been sent to him by one of his former professors at the University of Hyderabad, whom Yatin had not heard from in months. It was a joke. A bad Indian joke about two men from Pakistan and a mule. As soon as Yatin realized it was a joke, he stopped reading and deleted the message. He went to the next message. It was an advertisement for the latest and greatest palmtop computer. He deleted that one and opened the next message. It was a review of a movie by a mail clerk who worked at the U.N, whom Yatin had met at a Bollywood Film Festival in the Village over a year before. He deleted it.
He dutifully, patiently, opened each and every e-mail in his In-Box, and deleted all of them without really reading a single one. It was all junk mail, all a waste of time. There was not one, single e-mail with anything even remotely interesting, never mind actually important, to Yatin.
"What’s wrong?" Annika Dahl asked him. He’d almost forgotten she was there.
"What?"
"You look troubled. Is something wrong?"
He scratched his head, looking back down at the screen. "I’m not sure…"
Oracle had done exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do with his e-mail messages. It could be just a glitch. The problem with that was, Oracle should have been able to catch that glitch itself. Not catching the glitch hinted at a greater, more serious problem, perhaps with Oracle’s self-diagnostic abilities.
"What is it?" Annika asked. She sat on the corner of the bed, leaned forward and looked at him as if studying him.
"It’s just a problem with e-mail," he said, sounding as though he were trying to dismiss it. Meanwhile, his thoughts were tumbling. It could be just the Atlanta node. Each node operated independently, to a certain extent, of the others for basic, routine functions. The nodes worked in concert on problems that required Oracle’s massive, parallel processing capabilities, problems mired in complexity that no human could ever hope to unravel. But Oracle was only as strong as its weakest link. Yatin decided that, as long as he was in Atlanta, he might as well pay a visit to Oracle’s local node in person.
"I think you need time to relax," Annika said. She patted the bed. "Come here. I’ll give you an authentic Swedish massage." She winked at him, and Yatin Kumar’s heartbeat quickened.
Cardinal Roscoe sat in Juan Alonso’s library with his head turned to the side, his temple against the leather back of the armchair in which he sat. The smooth leather felt cool against his skin. All he could think of was the stricken expression on Alonso’s face as Cardinal Roscoe read him the last rites. It was as if the terrible reality of what had happened was sinking in, and Juan was slowly realizing that he was going to die. Cardinal Roscoe had seen it in the man’s eyes, the fear, the pleading. The idea of fearing death disturbed the Cardinal. If knowing that in death one was going to Heaven, should that not erase one’s fear? But he realized that in knowing one was going to be presented before the Lord, one should experience a certain amount of fear. After all, to love God was to fear God. Did Juan Alonso really believe in Heaven and Hell, in the Church, in God, at the moment of his death? At that moment, Cardinal Roscoe hoped Juan had truly believed.
At the moment of his own death, which Cardinal Roscoe believed to be imminent if he continued in this cloak and dagger escapade, would he believe in all those things that he had spent his whole life convincing himself of, and at times doubting?
That, he thought, was the question. To believe, or not to believe.
"What are you thinking about?" Christie asked him. He hadn’t heard her come into the library.
"Hm?" He’d left her in the den writing notes to herself about what had happened, getting it all down while it was still fresh in her mind.
"You looked like you were deep in thought," she said.
"Oh, no… I was just…" He let the sentence trail off. He didn’t want his innermost thoughts to be part of her big expose about Oracle and the U.N. That’s all it was to her, the big story, and he was her Deep Throat. She was hot on the trail of a Pulitzer. Well, why not? From what Cardinal Roscoe knew about Christie Seifert’s efforts to uncover the truth about the death of Sanchez, she deserved it. But the Vatican knew how to use someone like Christie as well as she knew how to use someone like Cardinal Roscoe. Almost as well as Oracle knew how to use someone like Henry. Or all of them. But especially Henry.
"Care to share?" Siefert asked, now sitting in a chair that was twin to the one in which he sat.
He looked at her, then just shook his head. No, he did not care to share. Not with her. That God knew his innermost thoughts was enough. What did God think of Oracle, Cardinal Roscoe wonde
red. What did God think of him? Cardinal Roscoe truly believed recent events were a test, and not just for himself. They were all being tested, of course. Who was passing, and who was failing?
The assassin, Henry, intrigued Cardinal Roscoe. He did not doubt Henry’s determination to save the girl from what, ostensibly, was her Fate. Cardinal Roscoe admired the man. He knew Henry would risk everything to save the girl. As would the woman, Tina. But they were deep in the forest and could only see the trees. The Vatican saw the forest. There was much, much more at stake than the life of one little girl, as precious as that was. It was more than one life, and more than a vast conspiracy, as Christie Seifert suspected. Augustine had figured it all out, and its conclusions had been confirmed by Winston. It was thus that Nevin Roscoe, born to a poor day-laborer in the slums of Naples, now found himself at the center of events that might well decide the fate of human civilization, it was thus that Nevin Roscoe now found himself weighted down with the burden of Alonso’s death, it was thus that Nevin Cardinal Roscoe now found himself unsure of his place in Creation, questioning his faith.
Perhaps that was the whole point. He grinned wryly at the thought. Was he so vain now? Did he really think that the lives of those who’d died had been sacrificed in order to test his faith? He shook his head, bemused by his own ego. He was starting to think in circles.
"Something’s on your mind," Christie stubbornly pressed.
"Have you ever come across the phrase ‘the judgment of conscience,’ in all of your investigative forays into the Church?" She shook her head. He continued, reciting from memory, "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling upon him to do what is good and avoid evil…"
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