by Tom Fox
But then . . . then there was the discovery that was the greatest gift of all. A body, found in the Tiber. One that looked identical to the stranger who’d appeared in St. Peter’s. D’Antonio had emailed her a photo the moment it had been discovered. Then he had ensured that the police investigation into the apparent homicide remained entirely under his control. That in turn had ensured that details of the corpse’s discovery had not been released.
Who was this man? Caterina had no more idea how to answer that question than she did of the identity of the man in the Vatican. It seemed clear the two must be related. In fact, it appeared that the man in St. Peter’s was likely the twin of the deceased, and that meant that he was a manipulator all his own. A like-minded soul, a vicious soul, though with motives she couldn’t yet fathom.
But it didn’t matter. She would be able to link them together by visual appearance. Discrediting the visitor was going to be far easier than she’d anticipated. Flash this image on a television screen and the whole facade would come tumbling down. If she didn’t believe they were solely the inventions of idiots and the gullible, she would say it was a gift from the gods—because whoever the man in the Vatican was, whoever the man in the river was, she now had everything she needed. On a platter.
Yet Caterina swallowed, a strange tightness in her chest. Nerves tingled her skin. Few could hate the Church more than she. Still, she’d been at Catholic boarding school long enough as a girl to remember that the last man who’d been given everything he asked for on a platter had found that it tore his world apart.
44
Central Rome: 12:07 p.m.
Alexander’s phone conversation with his uncle was brief: a warning followed by an insistence upon meeting and practical arrangements as to a place and time. Nothing extraneous or emotional. He disconnected the call only moments after it had begun.
Gabriella had overheard and was already nodding her confirmation of the plan when he looked over at her. He reached his hand forward to the ignition, the key pinched between his fingers as he made to start the Opel. Suddenly she lunged at him, grabbing his forearm and yanking it back violently.
“Alex, stop!” she cried. He turned to her, completely uncomprehending.
“Gabriella, what’re you doing?”
“What are those?” she asked, pointing frantically to the car’s ignition cylinder. Her eyes were as wide as Alexander had ever seen them.
He glanced to the slot meant for the key. It appeared normal to him: a slotted metal rotatable disc framed in the plastic steering column, a few scratches around its edges.
“It’s the starter,” he answered, baffled at the obvious question. “Gabby, what’s going on?”
She was shaking her head fiercely. “Around it, the scratch marks.” Her breath was short.
Alexander looked again, but there was nothing even remotely surprising about what he saw. “Every car has those,” he said. “Mine’s got them in droves. You don’t always aim the key just right. Vinyl gets scratched.”
“No, not in this car.” Gabriella’s head was still shaking. “My aunt’s obsessive about keeping the interior unmarked. Look around you, Alex, there’s not a spot or scratch anywhere in here.”
Alexander took closer note of his surroundings, for the first time becoming aware of just how pristine the interior of the unassuming car really was. But he still couldn’t comprehend the panic in Gabriella’s voice.
“Gabriella, what are you trying to suggest?”
“Those marks, they weren’t there when we drove here,” she answered, turning toward him. “I’d have noticed.” Her eyes shot back and forth, racing through her memories and observations. “And my door was unlocked. And yours . . . the groaning from the hinges.”
She bored her eyes directly into his.
“Alex, someone has been in this car.”
Umberto watched his two victims from a position fewer than eighty meters down the street on the opposite side. He and Maso sat side by side in their small hatchback, waiting for the inevitable.
In a way, it was disappointing that these targets hadn’t been a more difficult challenge. They’d been clever enough to rid themselves of the mobile phones he and his brother had used to track them to Trecchio’s apartment last night. But that had apparently been the extent of their post-assault precautions. That was unsatisfying. One a reporter, the other a cop. Did neither of them think that their pursuers would check for family in the region? That the existence of Fierro’s aunt wouldn’t remain a mystery to them? Or the make and number plate of the woman’s car? Or the office where Trecchio worked, and the likelihood of his returning?
Pity. The chase was so much more rewarding when the prey had a bit more skill. But no matter. At least the job was done. The ball of fire about to consume their two victims would leave barely an identifiable feature on either.
At Gabriella’s urging, Alexander slowly slid himself sideways in the driver’s seat and crouched down so he could look beneath the steering column.
It took only an instant for him to realize that her fears were well founded. Tapped into the ignition system was a small silver box, clearly a recent addition to the surroundings and just as clearly a detonator. Packed behind it was a wad of what appeared to be gray putty, but which Alexander immediately knew was some type of explosive.
“It’s a bomb,” he affirmed. He suddenly felt afraid to move. He’d only ever seen bombs in films.
“Alexander, sit up,” Gabriella instructed, her words suddenly drawn out and commanding. She tugged at his shoulder. “Slowly.”
He obeyed, carefully avoiding contact with the explosives he now knew rested just above his right knee.
“If this was added here while we were inside,” Gabriella said as he rose, “it was done fast, only a few minutes ago. Chances are whoever did it is still nearby, waiting to confirm that this device . . . does what they want it to.”
Alexander started to crane his neck sharply to the right, ready to scan the street and surroundings.
“No!” Gabriella clutched at his knee, driving her fingertips in hard. “Don’t. Keep looking forward, or at me. Look natural. Smile.”
He turned slowly toward her. She had a forced smile on her face, but her eyes were steady. “If they’re out there, watching, then we need to let them think we’re still just talking. We can’t let them know we’re aware of the bomb.”
“Do you think it’s the same men from last night?”
“Right now, our only question is how we’re getting out of here. If they’re outside somewhere, we can’t just go walking down the street.” Her eyes were darting right and left, her mind seeking a solution.
“Downstairs,” Alexander suddenly blurted. Gabriella peered at him quizzically. “The basement of the newspaper’s building,” he continued, “it feeds directly into the metro station. If we can make it back inside and downstairs, we could take any of three lines that call there.”
Gabriella glanced out of the window at the building they’d just left. It was at best forty meters away. Even if they were chased, even if they were shot at, they would have a chance. Not a great one, particularly if guns were involved, but a chance.
“That’ll have to do,” she said. She gripped Alexander’s knee again, this time in encouragement.
“Are you ready?”
He forced a hesitant smile. “Since I don’t think we have any other options, I guess I am.”
Gabriella smiled back. “On three.”
Umberto twitched a finger anxiously. It should have been over by now. What were these two doing?
But the explosion he’d intended didn’t come. And in an instant, Umberto realized that it wouldn’t.
Suddenly, in perfect synchronicity, the driver- and passenger-side doors of the orange Opel flew open and his prey launched themselves out, aiming for the building from which they’d come.
“Fuck!” Umberto shouted.
An instant later, he and Maso were out of their car, racing across th
e street on foot.
Gunshots didn’t start to pepper the pavement, which was a good sign. Gabriella had half expected them both to be shot the instant they opened their doors. But as she and Alexander sprinted toward the La Repubblica building’s glass entry, no firearm reports sounded through the air.
But she knew they were far from safe. At the edge of her peripheral vision two men appeared at a distance. Unlike the rest of the crowd, these men were running—just as fast and ferociously as she and Alexander, and aiming directly for them.
And she recognized the taller of the two men’s faces.
“Inside!” she shouted to Alexander. They burst through the double doors and he started to slow, but she pushed him along. “It’s them. Get us down to the station, now!”
Umberto slammed the full weight of his torso into the glass doors as he reached the entrance to the building. A woman on the opposite side caught the edge of the door and went flying to the floor, but Umberto barely noticed her existence.
He scanned the foyer. Trecchio and Fierro weren’t there.
He ran to the security desk. The rent-a-cop guard was already rising, preparing to scold him for his violent entrance. Umberto silenced the encounter by unholstering his Glock and aiming it at the man’s face. He might not be willing to open fire on two victims in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight, but he sure as hell had no problems with using his weapon to get his way in here.
“The two people who just ran in here before us, a man and a woman. You saw them?”
The guard looked terrified, sputtering, glued to the spot.
“Answer!” Umberto shouted, pushing the muzzle of his weapon into the man’s forehead.
“Y-yes!” the guard finally cried. “They went that way.” He pointed toward the stairwell. “It leads downstairs.”
“Downstairs?”
“To the metro station. Two flights!”
Whether the guard said anything more Umberto didn’t know. He was already running for the stairs, Maso a step behind.
At the bottom of the stairs, a crowd mingled on a small platform that shone with industrial-grade tile and white fluorescent lighting. It smelled of the unique mixture of oil and recycled air that marked out underground stations everywhere.
There was also the sound—the sound that clenched Umberto’s stomach as he rounded a corner and found himself facing the platform for the only line active at the moment.
The sound of metal wheels scraping along tracks. The sound of a train in motion.
“Damn it!” he roared. He signaled Maso. “Get to them!”
They raced across the platform, slamming waiting passengers out of their way, trying to get to the cars. But the train was already moving, its doors sealed, its interior crammed to capacity. Its speed increasing. It was beyond stopping.
As it pulled away from the platform and into the darkness of the tunnel beyond, Umberto cursed loudly.
In the final window, he saw his targets huddled together, moving deeper into the center of the crowded carriage. Alive.
45
Near Piombino, northwest of Rome: 12:14 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner Enzo D’Antonio had pointed his car toward the Piombino precinct station the moment news of Gianni Zola’s daughter’s resurrection had hit the media outlets. For the first time since he’d bought it, the Alfa Romeo 4C into which he’d poured the better part of his life savings the year before hadn’t seemed anywhere near fast enough. He braked hard for the speed cameras when he knew they were coming—he could hardly classify this as an official excursion with a connected exemption from violations—but the moment he was past them he pressed the metal pedal hard to the floor and kept it there.
He had to get to the girl. He had to get to the father. He had to find out what had happened before it destroyed everything they’d been working to construct.
The news that the daughter had “come back to life” had made it into the public eye immediately, and from there the story had simply caught fire. It was the most sensational event in a week already marked by the extraordinary. The fact that the Holy Father had gone on live television and all but predicted the girl’s return was more than the public could bear, especially when a celebrity was involved.
And it had all been going so well!
The media had begun to do the work that D’Antonio’s true employer had known they would. He’d been in the pocket of Caterina Amato for years, feeding her information since she’d first approached him with requests for “a little bit of sharing” in return for more money than a police commissioner would make in a decade. It was an arrangement with which he had no problem. Hers was a pocket lined with cash, which suited D’Antonio just fine. He certainly wouldn’t be calling an Alfa Romeo like this his own if it weren’t for her. Besides, the woman was brilliant, almost prescient in her wisdom. She knew what would attract hype, and that what was hyped would be doubted and researched. And she knew it was precisely there that she and her people could take control.
Even the heavens seemed to be on her side. D’Antonio had grabbed control of the investigation into the body in the Tiber the moment his beat officers had reported it. He’d recognized immediately that it was another powerful tool Amato could wield. How such good fortune could fall upon one who was almost the definition of sinister and conniving, he didn’t know. But the body was there, the face the spitting image, the whole situation superlative.
But then this. Resurrection. What the fuck are we going to do with that? D’Antonio asked himself nervously. You can fake a healing. You can’t bloody fake raising a girl from the dead.
And if they couldn’t manage to make it look fake, then things were poised to go terribly wrong.
Café Barberini, central Rome: 12:31 p.m.
After their escape from the second attack on their lives in as many days, Alexander and Gabriella both felt as if they could barely breathe. They’d seen their two pursuers arrive on the platform beneath La Repubblica as their train had pulled away, and they’d changed lines twice afterward in an attempt to muddy their trail. To their relief, there had been no further signs of their being followed. Neither of them, however, felt safe any longer. The men who had tried to kill them last night were not going to give up.
Which made their scheduled meeting with Alexander’s uncle all the more important. He’d called to warn them of danger, told them they needed to meet so he could explain. It was an explanation that now seemed essential.
Given the speed with which their escape had pushed them through the metro system, they arrived at Café Barberini early and quickly approached a small booth that was familiar to Alexander from many a frequent meeting here in years past. The café, which Cardinal Rinaldo had selected when he’d phoned his nephew insisting that they meet, was a bustling city affair, popular with locals, students and more and more tourists with each year. It was fashioned in the old Italian style: long, narrow interior with a tiny glass shopfront, booths lining one side with two-seater tables along the other and row upon row of seating outside, spilling into the street beneath a broad yellow awning.
After they’d both scoped out the entirety of the small interior, Alexander saw Gabriella into a booth then walked to the rear of the shop and ordered three double espressos. The thick aroma of the coffee filled the cramped space, deliciously bitter in the midst of the sweet scent of pastries being baked in the back.
“You come here often?” Gabriella asked as he slid back into the booth. The absurdly mundane question felt like a necessary tool in restoring some sense of calm after what they had just experienced. Alexander took the place next to hers, leaving the opposite side free for his uncle.
He slid close to her.
“I used to. My uncle and I met up here at least twice a week in the month before my ordination. To discuss my reservations.”
“You were nervous?” she asked, sipping from the small white cup, which immediately browned at the lip with the thick liquid. For the moment it seemed she didn’t w
ant to talk about the attack they’d just escaped. It was a sentiment Alexander shared. His memories might be unpleasant, but at least they didn’t involve bombs or would-be assassins.
“I was terrified.”
“Lifelong celibacy’s not an easy pill to swallow,” Gabriella said, traces of a smile at her eyes.
“Surprisingly, it wasn’t that. It was the . . .” Alexander’s voice faltered, his fingers tapping a tiny silver spoon against the edge of his cup. It was as if he still wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence after all these years. Even with her. “I guess it was the notion of that level of commitment to something so great. To lay there, prostrate, flat on your face on the floor of St. Peter’s. To pledge that your whole life will be given to God and the Church.” He shook his head. “That was terrifying.”
“But you overcame your fear.”
“Mostly due to my uncle. It was his example more than anything. The man’s been working in the Church longer than I’ve been alive, and every day of it with dignity. I’ve always admired that. I sat right here, in this very seat, shaking with fear. Opposite me, he looked so calm and peaceful. So certain that this life was holy.”
A few wordless moments lingered. The background noises of the café bustled around them.
“Your uncle sounds like a good man,” Gabriella finally said, “and with everything going on around us, a man of peace is just what we need.” She took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. She finally began to look something close to calm.
When, a second later, a man in street clothes slid deftly into the opposite bench of the booth, he looked nothing like the man of peace Gabriella had hoped for.
Piombino Hospital: 12:45 p.m.
Enzo D’Antonio sat at last in Abigaille Zola’s small room at the Ospedale Piombino. The girl had undergone a battery of medical tests since her remarkable return to the living. Thus far they had all come back strong and clear. She was in perfect health, despite having been declared dead by two of the finest doctors in Italy less than half a day ago. Despite nurses and funeral home directors moving her limp dead body from hospital bed to gurney to coffin. She was alive and well, as the same doctors now described her, with only one area of abnormality. It was precisely that area D’Antonio was here to explore.
