David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  Two. But nobody answered. Three. She shuddered with relief when she heard a familiar, reassuring voice say, "Hello."

  "Misha, it's Erika! I don't have time to explain!" She struggled to catch her breath. "It's bad! Wake Christopher! Don't even bother dressing him! Get out of there!" No response. "Misha!"

  "Where shall I meet you?"

  "Where my father was supposed to go but didn't!" she said. "You understand? Every morning and evening."

  "Yes," Misha said. "I'll wake the boy at once. He'll be safe."

  "I pray to God."

  "Just make sure you remain safe."

  "Get moving!" She hung up the phone and turned to see startled patrons of the restaurant staring at her in the lobby. She rushed past them, leaving the restaurant. But what about Saul? she worried as she ran along the street. Would he remain alive to reach the rendezvous they'd agreed upon?

  Gallagher's voice had the force of a shout. "Were they ours?" The pockmarked man winced, adjusting the sling on his dislocated arm. "Not unless you assigned another team to cover this. They sure as hell weren't on my team."

  "Jesus." Gallagher sat rigidly at the head of the conference table. Two other men waited in nervous silence. Gallagher drummed his fingers.

  "Three of them?"

  "In addition to our own man, yes," the pockmarked man said. "We played it exactly as you wanted. I punched him. He defended himself. Our marksman opened fire, pretending to want to kill him."

  "I want to know about the others,"

  Gallagher said. "The first was hidden behind a carousel. The other two seemed to come out of nowhere. They tried to catch Romulus in a pincer movement."

  "And they weren't pretending? You're certain they meant to kill him?"

  "Romulus surely believed it--he returned their fire. Before the police could arrive, the intruders fled. Of course, so did we." Gallagher's lips tightened. "If only Romulus had managed to kill one. Then at least we'd have a body. We'd be able to find out who else was in the game. Damn it, your team should have kept closer watch on the park!"

  "We couldn't. You said you wanted witnesses from other networks. The point of the demonstration was to convince every organization that

  Romulus was still an outcast. We had to back off, to let our audience take position."

  "Great. The operation worked so well it failed."

  "Maybe it didn't fail," the pockmarked man said. Gallagher raised his eyebrows in question. "If anything, since Romulus almost was executed, the other networks will be even more convinced he's not involved with us," the pockmarked man said. "Nothing's changed. He can still pursue his vendetta. He still has to give us the favor he promised."

  "Does he? Will he? What if Romulus believes the intruders belonged to us? Suppose he decides the mission went out of control and your men did try to kill him? He won't repay any favor. What he might do is turn against us. What a mess! To keep him on our side, to use him later, we might be forced to help him."

  "On the other hand," the pockmarked man said, "we don't even know if he survived."

  Chilled and exhausted, Saul waded from the murky Danube. It had taken him fifteen minutes to swim out of

  range down current and then across the river. The lights along this opposite shore glinted coldly. He plodded from mud to a concrete ramp, passed a boathouse, and finally reached a narrow street beyond a warehouse. No one had pursued him across the river. For a moment, he felt safe. But questions tortured his mind. Who'd tried to kill him?

  Had his former network decided to punish him after all? He shook his head, not believing it. The pockmarked man wouldn't have put himself in the line of fire. Then had the mock-assassination become too realistic?

  Or had his as yet-unknown enemies been waiting for an opportunity to make another attempt against him? If he'd been killed back there in the park, his former employers would have seemed responsible. They'd never convince other networks of their innocence. And the actual assailants would go undetected. Shivering, Saul mustered strength from an even more distressing concern. Erika and Christopher.

  His wife, having seen the attack against him, realizing she was powerless to help, would have gone to protect their son. He counted on her doing so, that reassuring thought his only consolation. Erika's mandatory first step would have been to contact Misha Pletz and warn him to rush Christopher to safety. He trudged ahead with greater determination. For a moment, a single goal obsessed him--the fall-back site he and Erika had agreed upon. He had to get there.

  Christopher's eyes still ached from his abrupt awakening. His blue pajamas were covered by a sweater that the stoop- shouldered man named

  Misha Pletz had made him put on.

  His nostrils felt pinched by thick clouds of tobacco smoke, but his mouth watered from the sweet cocoa smell in this room of many tables and red-cheeked, laughing men. He recalled the urgency with which Misha had carried him down the stairs. The rush of the taxi ride. The scurry into this "coffee house," as Misha called it. His mother suddenly appearing, her eyes red with tears as she hugged him. All bewildering.

  He sat on a bench against a wall, his mother on one side, Misha on the other. Their conversation confused him. "If he isn't here in fifteen minutes," his mother said, "we can't risk staying any longer." A hefty man wearing a white apron leaned his head down toward his mother. "Come into the kitchen. We've just received a rare form of coffee." More confusion. His mother carrying him through a swinging door, Misha leading them. Glinting metal counters. Steaming pots. His father, clothes wet, stepping out of a room. Misha laughing. His mother sobbing, embracing his father. "Thank God."

  Quickly. We have to go," Misha said. "Where?" Saul asked. "Back to

  Israel."

  "No," Erika said. "Not us."

  "I don't understand."

  "Just you and Christopher. Take him with you. Protect him."

  "But what about you! Misha asked. "Christopher won't be safe till Saul and I are. If something happens to us, put Christopher in a kibbutz.

  Give him a new identity."

  "I don't believe the Agency tried to kill me," Saul said. "It was someone else. The people we're after."

  "Even so, can you trust your former network?"

  "I have to. But I had to make a deal with them. In exchange for their letting me come back from exile, I promised I wouldn't take help. We have to do this on our own."

  "But..."

  "No. We have the information you gave us. We've got to accept the risk. But if we fail, take over for us. Don't let the bastards win."

  "You're sure there's no other way?"

  "For us to survive?" Saul shook his head. "To get back to Christopher?

  No."

  10

  His father kissed him. Why was his father crying? "Goodbye, son. Misha, take care of him."

  "Always remember, Christopher..." Why was his mother crying too? More kisses. Her tears wet on his cheek. "We love you." Shouts from beyond the swinging doors. "You can't go back there!"

  "They've found you! Hurry!" Misha said. A rush toward another door, this time into darkness, an alley, never-ending, into the night. But when he looked in terror behind him, he saw that he and Misha had gone one way, his parents another. Eyes brimming with tears, he couldn't see them any longer. eternal city

  Dressed as a priest and a nun among many actual priests and nuns. Drew and Arlene walked along Rome's crowded Via della Conciliazione. Though the street wasn't narrow, it seemed constricted when compared with the vista ahead of them. The eastern edge of Vatican City... St. Peter's

  Piazza... Like the head of a funnel, the street opened out to the right and left, melding with the four curved rows of Doric columns that flanked the piazza's right and left side. "I've heard this called St.

  Peter's Square," Arlene said. "But it isn't square. It's oval." They reached the piazza's center. An Egyptian obelisk stood between two widely spaced fountains. Though impressive in themselves, the obelisk, fountains, and surrounding columns seemed dwarfed by
the majesty of St.

  Peter's Basilica, which rose beyond the piazza, its massive dome haloed with radiance from the mid-afternoon sun. Renaissance buildings stretched to the right and left of the basilica and the huge tiers of steps leading up to it. "I didn't realize how big this place is,"

  Arlene said. "It all depends on your perspective," Drew said. "The piazza, the basilica, and everything else in Vatican City would fill less than a seventh of New York's Central Park." She turned to him in disbelief. "It's true," he said. "The whole thing's only a fifth of a square mile."

  "Now I know why they call this the world's smallest city state."

  "And it hasn't even been a city-state very long," Drew said.

  "It wasn't until 1929--believe it or not, thanks to Mussolini, who wanted the Church to give him political support--that Vatican City was established and granted independence as a state."

  "I thought you told me you hadn't been here before."

  "I haven't."

  "Then how come you know so much about it?"

  "While you were asleep on the plane from Cairo, I read a guidebook."

  "Devious," she said as he grinned. "Since you're such an expert, how do we get to the rendezvous?"

  "Just follow me. Sister." He guided her to the left, along a walkway next to the steps leading toward the basilica. Showing Vatican passports, they walked by Swiss guards, the Pope's traditional bodyguards, whose long-handled battle-axes and striped uniforms with billowy sleeves looked more theatrical than threatening, and proceeded beneath the Arch of the Bells, finally within the capital of the

  Catholic Church. Though the Vatican's permanent population was only slightly more than one thousand, the crowd of clergy and tourists was considerable. Guides supervised the laity. They crossed a small rectangular open area, the Piazza of the First Roman Martyrs. On its right, the basilica loomed. But on the left, at the end of a narrow street, cypresses canopied a tiny cemetery. "Important sponsors of the

  Church used to have the honor of being buried here," Drew said. 'To add to the honor, the Vatican brought in dirt from the hill in Jerusalem where Christ was crucified."

  They passed beneath two further arches, reached the Vatican courthouse, rounded the back of St. Peter's Basilica, and followed a maze of wooded lanes till they came to their destination, the Vatican gardens.

  Fountains and hedges, ponds and flowers surrounded them, creating a sense of peace. One of the fountains was shaped like a Spanish galleon.

  Cannons on each side spouted water, as did the horn in the mouth of a child on the bow. "I thought you'd appreciate these gardens," a voice said behind them. "They make Rome--and indeed the world--seem far away." Though sudden, the voice wasn't startling. Drew had been expecting contact soon. He turned toward Father Sebastian.

  "Is this where he died?"

  "Father Victor?" The priest wore a white collar, black bib, and suit.

  His eyes were bleak. "At two o'clock in the morning. Over there, by that lily pond. Beside that marble angel.

  Shot twice in the head." Drew frowned. "What was he doing here so late?"

  "Meeting someone. Father Victor was thorough. He kept an appointment book, which he submitted to us before his daily activities.

  The record indicates he didn't know whom he'd be meeting here at such an hour. But his notation makes clear, the meeting concerned Cardinal

  Pavelic's disappearance."

  Drew peered past the trees of the gardens toward the towering basilica and the other buildings within the Vatican. "Do we assume that whoever met him lived in one of the Vatican's apartments? That would explain why the gardens were chosen as the meeting place." Drew shook his head.

  "On the other hand, maybe that's what we're supposed to think. Maybe someone from outside chose the gardens just to make it seem as if he lived in the Vatican."

  "Or maybe the person who was scheduled to meet Father Victor didn't show up, or someone else came along after the meeting," Arlene said. "An unidentified contact, a meeting place that might be intended to mislead us. We don't know anything."

  "Except for the nature of Father Victor's wounds," Father Sebastian said. Drew's interest quickened. "What about them?"

  "Both were full in the face. The powder burns indicate extremely close range. You understand?"

  "Yes. Anything's possible in the night. But from what you've said about Father Victor, he was a professional. Even granting that a professional is capable of being fooled, the powder burns suggest the killer was probably someone he knew, someone he trusted enough to come up close to him." Father Sebastian's dark eyes blazed. "Conceivably a member of my order." Drew glanced toward the ring on Father Sebastian's left hand, middle finger. Gold setting. Magnificent ruby. Its insignia an interesting cross and sword. Again he felt chilled by the symbol of religion and violence, by his enforced involvement with the

  Fraternity of the Stone. "Perhaps the same member of my order who twice tried to stop you from cooperating with us," Father Sebastian continued.

  'To keep you from finding out why Cardinal Pavelic disappeared. Be careful. Brother Mac Lane Coming to this rendezvous, I made triply sure

  I wasn't followed. But after this, it isn't wise for us to meet again.

  Use the safe-deposit box in Zurich to pass on messages."

  "We don't have the key for it, or the number of the bank account, or--"

  "The records Father Victor kept that led him to be summoned to these

  Vatican gardens at two a. m. You'll also want the weapons I promised."

  "Those in particular."

  "After I leave, stroll over to the marble angel beside that lily pond.

  The site of Father Victor's death. Behind the angel, a metal plate covers a niche in the marble. Raise the metal plate. Beside the tap that controls the flow of water for the fountain, you'll find a package.

  It contains everything you need."

  The package--ten inches long and wide, four inches thick, wrapped in coarse brown paper, addressed to an illegible name and stamped as if it had gone through the Vatican's postal system--was heavy out of proportion to its shape. Drew held it with deceptive casualness while he and Arlene left the Vatican, crossing St. Peter's Square. So far, their cover as a priest and a nun had allowed them to seem invisible, but now he anticipated what they'd have to do next, and the disadvantage of their disguise quickly became apparent. Arlene said what he was thinking. "If we keep hanging around together dressed like this, we will attract attention. We'll cause a damned scandal."

  "Sister, such language. I'm shocked." She made a face at him. "Where are we going to study the documents? Not in public. And a nun and a priest can't rent a room together. I can't even visit you if we rent rooms separately. What about tonight? It isn't safe to sleep apart."

  "Safe? Your sense of romance touches me deeply." She grinned. "Not to disillusion you, but..."

  "Yes?"

  "Your body isn't high on my list of priorities right now."

  "Commendable, Sister. Subdue carnal thoughts." Drew glanced at the shops along the Yin della Concihazione. "But a change of wardrobe might not be a bad idea."

  "Where do we put on the clothes? We'll raise a lot of eyebrows if we do it in the stores."

  "We'll find a place. How hard can it be?"

  How hard? Drew mentally repeated after fifteen minutes of washing his hands in the train station's men's room, waiting for it to be empty. How hard? It seemed an unwritten law that every patron of this rest room had to pass the time of day with the padre with whom they shared such intimate facilities. "Yes, my son. Very good, my son," Drew answered, continuing to wash his hands. At last the men's room was empty. Ducking into a stall, he quickly changed from his priest's black suit and white collar into gray slacks, a blue shirt, and a navy blazer. He stuffed the priest's suit into the paper bag from which he'd taken his purchases, then carried both the bag and the small heavy package of weapons and documents from the stall just as a security guard walked into the rest room.
Drew restrained himself from saying

  "Good day, my son," and went out into the train station. The noise of the crowd was awesome, reverberating within the cathedral-like structure. From habit, he scanned the surge of bodies, looking for anyone who didn't fit the pattern of hurried travelers. Satisfied, he made his way to a pillar, behind which Arlene--wearing beige slacks, a matching jacket, and an emerald blouse that emphasized the green of her eyes-- was waiting.