And that was a god he could kill for.
Menahem stopped his pacing. The red sun was a fiery glow behind the mountains in the middle distance. This land was his land. He felt a fierce attachment to it. When he died he wanted his blood drained and poured into the dirt so that he could become one with it. Was the woman right? Would he join them in Gehenna tomorrow? Was that his fate? Curiously the thought didn’t frighten him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t resigned himself to dying, more that he was at peace with it. He would leave the world a better place for his people than it was when he had entered it. That was all any man could ask of his life.
Menahem disappeared into one of the dark tower doors that led out of the sun. His footsteps echoed as he rushed down the spiral stair. The air was different, older. It was so much colder than outside, his scalp prickled and his skin crawled. It was only a few years since they had taken Masada by force. The blood of the Romans still stained the sandstone where it had been spilled. It leant the stairs a second set of shadows. How many ghosts still walked the walls? How many death rattles did the old stones remember?
At the bottom of the stairway the passage opened up into an antechamber. Like much of the fortress, the room was devoid of any decoration. There was an archway, lit by flickering torchlight. A draft blew through from outside. Beyond the arch three doors led off into other rooms. Another stair led down deeper to what had been the Romans’ dungeon, and a passage led toward the courtyard. Menahem followed the passage. The torches in two of the sconces had burned out, leaving dark shadows in their place. The passageway curved slightly, following the contours of the mesa. Around the corner, the passage branched into a second one, which in turn led out to the courtyard.
The heat hit him immediately. The temple stood in the shade of Herod’s three-tiered, round palace. When they had taken the fortress they had stripped it of much of its luxury. The bath house had fallen into disuse. The huge palace itself served as barracks for the assassins. Menahem hurried across the courtyard. Like Herod’s great temple in Jerusalem, this one had a variety of entrances. Even here the servants could not worship their Lord side by side with their masters. There was a door for the women, a door for the first-born sons, a door for the priests with their offerings and a door for the commoners. The Sicarii had stripped the temple of all religious trappings and turned it into a sheep croft for no other reason than it amused them.
He pushed open the temple door and went inside.
The air was hot. Uncomfortably so. And it stank of animals. Eleazar had brushed the straw away from around the altar. Behind it sandstone bricks had been built up around a wooden fire to trap the heat. The wood had already burned down to charcoal. His brother was hunched over the fire, feeding it.
Eleazar was the Sicarii smith-the dagger men’s dagger maker. He moved with quiet economy, every movement precisely measured. He didn’t look up as his brother entered. Menahem saw he had made a crude sand cast to pour the molten silver into. It would give the dagger its basic shape. The smith’s hammer lay on the altar. On the floor beside the altar was a bucket of luke-warm water.
Eleazar took the silver coins from Menahem and emptied them into the crucible and fed them to the fire. It didn’t take long for the metal to begin to fuse together. Eleazar removed it from the fire, allowing it to cool slightly, turning his wrist so that he could better see the lump of metal the coins had become before replacing it. This time he left it there until molten, then took the crucible from the flame and emptied the swirling silver liquid into the form. The metal began to solidify immediately, swelling to fill the bar-shaped cavity hollowed out in the sand. As it cooled it lost its luster.
Menahem lost all concept of time as he watched his brother take the silver bar with tongs and beat the metal flat, turning it over and over, each hammer blow shaping it a little more. Sweat dripped from every inch of his brother’s skin. The veins stood out angrily against his muscles. He didn’t stop for a moment, not even to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes. He returned the silver to the fire, heating the metal until it began to soften and lose its shape, then moving quickly laid it flat on the altar. He took up the hammer and beat it towards its final form. Again and again he turned the silver, beating first on one side and then on the other, flattening it and putting an edge on the blade until even to Menahem’s unskilled eye it began to resemble the dagger it would become.
“As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so shall you be melted in the middle thereof; and you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out my fury on you,” Menahem breathed, the words of Ezekiel’s ministry becoming a prayer on his lips as Eleazar folded the silver, heated it until it was malleable, then beat each fold flat. Each new layer of folds offered the blade more strength.
The sky through the temple window was dark. It could have been any time in the long night.
Eleazar worked on while Menahem watched, fascinated by his brother’s skill. Finally, he was done. He wrapped the hilt with leather, and the dagger was finished.
Menahem took it from his hand.
The blade was curved slightly to resemble a serpent’s tail. The rippled effect on the flat of the blade caught in the moon. It appeared almost as though it had been etched into the metal. There was a beautiful subtlety to it. More, he thought, examining it, there was a truth to it. The blade was strengthened by what appeared to be imperfections in its surface but were in fact the whisper-thin layers between the metal.
The dagger was much like the man wielding it.
Menahem was tempered by the heartbeats of happiness, those fleeting moments of joy and the agonies of disappointment hammered flat around his soul like protective armor.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, holding the dagger reverently.
“How could it be anything else?” bragged Eleazar. “It’s forged from the coins that paid for an entire religion.
25
Killing in the Name of Now
As he reached the square Konstantin realized the extent of the crowd. It wasn’t just people lining either side of the street anymore. More than two thousand people had crushed into the small square to witness the benediction. They were talking, excited. It took him a moment to realize what they were saying. The murmur ran through the crowd: “Papa is coming.” He looked at his watch, then up at the huge clock above the door of St. Florin’s church. It was a pointless gesture now. The clock on the church’s facade and his watch said the same thing. Time had run out.
He looked around at the faces of the people. He knew what he was looking for. It was a curious truth that you could see people steeling themselves to kill. It wasn’t just the perspiration; it was in the eyes. They tended to stare straight ahead, focusing on something directly in front of them, unable to look away from it. They didn’t glance around the crowd, which was a natural thing. People’s minds were curious; they were drawn to look at all of the different faces, but not someone about to commit murder. A killer’s focus was absolute. It was understandable with a suicide bomber, not wanting to see the faces of the lives they were about to end, but with a killing like this, in front of the eyes of the world, it wasn’t guilt and shame that kept him from looking, it was determination. A man driven to this kind of murder was almost assuredly driven by fanaticism. Be it the West Bank, Madrid, or the Twin Towers, religion was at the root. Religious extremists, knowing that they were about to die, would be offering a prayer to their chosen deity, squaring it away with them one last time before meeting face to face. So he was looking for someone staring straight ahead, lips moving as they mumbled their final prayer.
He looked up at the guards assembled on the stage. Every one of them stared eyes front. They didn’t look left or right. They didn’t glance down at their shoes.
He was too far away to see if any of them was perspiring unduly, but given the weight of their brightly colored uniforms and the weight of the halberds they held, and the fact that if the BKA had done their job and spread the warning to them that there was an
assassin in the crowd, it was a safe bet they were all sweating more than usual.
It was a curious thing, how so many people put so much of their faith in an old man who couldn’t speak their language and had no real way to relate to their lives. Every kind of person was out there in the crowd waiting for the cavalcade to go by.
Konstantin pushed his way into the crowd. There had to be agents in there. If Sir Charles had called in his favors, the entire congregation had to be crawling with BKA men. He saw bikers in their leathers, mothers in summer dresses stooped over their strollers, and boys in German soccer jerseys, and those few desperate enough to come looking for a miracle, hoping Papa’s touch might help their children stand up out of their wheelchairs and walk. He didn’t see anyone who was obviously police. He didn’t see anyone overly anxious. He didn’t see anyone moving sluggishly, either drunk or stoned. That was another thing, a man about to commit suicide, no matter how faithful he was to the cause, didn’t want to be having second thoughts. So more often than not they would be under the influence of some narcotic stimulant in those final minutes. He looked back at the guards on and around the stage. For the life of him he couldn’t see the difference between them. There was no one man who seemed more stressed or less alert than the others.
Konstantin pushed his way through the people, trying to work his way closer to the stage. He wanted to be right at the front when the gun fired its round into the tree. He looked up at the other trees in and around the square. Each one had been strung with the same bird feeders. They were full of birds. He didn’t know if that meant there were more guns primed to fire into these other trees, or if they were relying upon the domino effect to carry the startled panic from one tree to the next.
Down the line he heard voices singing hymns. There was something about songs of praise that lifted the voices of even the worst singers and made them beautiful when they came together.
The murmurs of those closest to him intensified as a car came slowly down the middle of the road and turned into the square. It was a black BMW with its windows blacked out. It was the trailblazer. Konstantin watched it approach, trying to think of ways he could get close to the agents in the car to identify himself. It didn’t slow and it didn’t stop. He watched it pass him and then follow the curve of the railings to park behind the side of the church, out of sight.
Two more cars followed it a few minutes later.
A fourth car came. The sun glinted off the tinted windshields. Four agents walked beside this one, keeping pace with the black BMW. They scanned the crowd, never once allowing their gaze to settle. They were alert. They knew there was a threat. The old man had done his part. The warning had reached the BKA. That was all he could do from Nonesuch; the rest was up to Konstantin. The movement of the agents was synchronized. When one looked left, the other looked right so that together their field of vision was complete. There were no blind spots. They moved with an easy strength, but he could see the tension in their bodies. They were primed, ready for the slightest noise, the first sudden movement; anything that was out of place. They were trained to read the crowd and recognize the signs. More than just body language, this was about the split second between life and death.
A hundred yards after the car came the first of the foot patrol, Swiss Guard walking in their ceremonial uniforms like a marching band. They didn’t look half as professional, aware or as imposing as the BKA men to Konstantin’s trained eye. He knew that the Guard were professional soldiers, but there was something cartoonish about their appearance that made it easy to underestimate them-which made it the perfect cover for his assassin.
And then the crowd in front of him burst into cheers and applause as the Popemobile came around the corner. Konstantin’s heart sank. He was still less than halfway to the stage. He felt the weight of people press up behind him and tried to go with it, hoping it would carry him through a few ranks closer to the front, like riding a crowd at a rock concert. He dropped his shoulder slightly, turning side on to the stage. He didn’t want to start pushing people and making a scene, but he would if he had to.
The converted Mercedes Benz turned into the square.
Konstantin could see the white-haired old man in his seat waving slightly to the people as the car drove by. He looked serene, beatific. Even behind the glass there was a calm about him that touched the crowd. All of the crowd save Konstantin. His nearness only heightened his sense of desperation. He needed to get to the front. He needed to be there.
The car swept around the skirt of the crowd, already halfway to the stage.
Konstantin abandoned any pretense of calm and forced his way between the people in front of him. He knew what it would look like to the BKA agents. They’d see a desperate man forcing his way to the stage. They’d see his determined stare, his perspiration and his erratic breathing, and they would think he was their man. He lips weren’t moving, but he had no way of knowing just how good the agents actually were, and whether they would see the difference between a man trying to do everything in his power to stop an assassination and an assassin fixated on the kill.
There were fifteen or sixteen rows of people between him and the stage.
“Excuse me, sorry, excuse me, danke,” he said, pushing his way between a young family come to see the service, when he realized his lips were moving. They were moving all the time, his apologies like a mantra that from a distance would almost certainly look like a fanatic’s prayer.
He shoved the back of the man in front of him, forcing his way between him and the woman at his side. The man stumbled forward, reaching out for support and shoving the man in front of him as he tried to catch his balance. The effect of the shove rippled throughout crowd. Konstantin tried to duck away from the man as he turned to face him. He barked something at him in German. Konstantin ignored him. He only had eyes for the stage. He knew people were looking at him. He didn’t care. He had maybe two minutes before the Pope walked onto the stage, six more until the gunshot was timed to go off and all hell broke loose.
He risked a backward glance, up in the direction of the window of number 13 with the sniper rifle, then stared straight ahead.
There were three television cameras, one set up on a crane, the other two on the left side of the square, looking out at the crowd. One of them seemed to be pointed directly at him. He realized that back in the mobile broadcast control trailer some very anxious people were staring at their screens, seeing him, and fearing the worst.
The Popemobile pulled up alongside the red carpet that led up to the stage steps. Two BKA men, bulky beneath their well-cut suits, moved quickly toward the back of the car and opened the door, stepping back so the Holy Father and the two Swiss Guards sitting inside with him could emerge. The guards were the first out. The second man turned and held out a hand for the Pope to take to steady himself as he walked down the short flight of steps, then stepped back as he turned and held his hand up to the crowd in blessing and welcome.
Konstantin’s view was partially obscured. He could only see the Pope from the collar of his Fanon, the two super-posed cloaks sewn together around his throat, and up. The precious miter, his conical headdress meant Konstantin could follow him as he walked through the crowd and climbed onto the stage. A papal throne had been set up in the center of the stage, and the Swiss Guard assembled at either side of it.
On the top step, the Pope turned to the people, again holding out his hand as they cheered and applauded. It struck the Russian as dreadfully wrong that a holy man should be accorded the same sort of frenzied welcome as a pop star.
He was six rows from the front.
He needed to be closer, but the people were packed in so tightly now he found himself having to move sideways along the line as he looked for a gap to squeeze himself through.
Up on the facade of St. Florin’s church the huge iron minute hand of the clock juddered forward another minute, coming to hang over the Pope’s head like some huge sword of Damocles. Konstantin was breathing hard,
forcing himself to keep it regular: in and out, hold, in and out. In and out, hold, in and out.
He knew exactly what he looked like.
He didn’t care.
In six minutes the Pope would be dead if he didn’t stop it.
The Vicar of Christ walked to the center of the stage, coming up to the microphones. He leaned forward and, holding both hands up palms toward the congregation, said, “Thank you.” He spoke in English, not German, not Latin, and not his native Italian. Up close Peter II, the man they called Peter the Roman, was older than he appeared in any of the photographs Konstantin had seen of the man. Indeed, he had aged since his election to office on the death of Benedict XVI a little over a year before.
Five minutes.
Peter II crossed himself then leaned on the lectern, supporting himself by grasping both sides of the stand. “Dear brothers and sisters,” the Holy Father said, his voice carried by the microphones to the far reaches of the crowd. He offered them all a smile. Konstantin’s eyes roved wildly from the Pope to the faces of the guards around him, looking for the traitor. “This evening we share between us is truly extraordinary, not for the sky beneath which we stand, nor for the friends at our sides, for both of which give thanks, but for the blazing light of the Risen Christ, which defeats the darkest power of evil and death and rekindles hope and joy in the hearts of believers. Look to the sky, see the failing sun and the rising moon, their light never fails us, for theirs is the light of the Risen Christ.
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