Black Madonna

by Carl Sargent

  It was a serious face: a furrowed brow beneath a rather incongruous beret, an aquiline nose, and a chin neither weak nor exceptionally strong. The gray eyes were gentle and academic in appearance He had that ageless look some middle-aged men acquire when their heads turn to silver or the gray of his long, flowing, slightly wavy hair. Around his lips a slight smile seemed to be playing. For all the world that smile reminded them at once of the Mona Lisa, the smile that had intrigued and bemused scholars of the ages.

  Which was not surprising, since the face was unmistakably that of Leonardo da Vinci, younger than his surviving self-portrait showed him in his old age, but him nonetheless. Michael leaned back and laughed, to all appearances on the verge of clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

  Very clever, very good. So he decked the ID archive and changed the image. Neat, neat. I like it, my dear fellow. And now let us see where you’ve gone, on your Hejira.

  “To Ahvaz.” he said, mystified, after a few moments. “Our man took a flight to Ahvaz, on a chartered plane. At just after midnight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Of course tonight.” Michael said testily.

  “So where the frag is Ahvaz?” Streak asked through a mouthful of Growliebar.

  “In southwestern Iran on the border with Iraq.” Michael said, having already referenced the archival data.

  “That’s real bandit country, chummer.” Juan informed him from across the room. “A hundred petty warlords and half of ‘em still shoot last-century guns off horseback. Really damn primitive.”

  Serrin was staring closely at the printout that had now appeared of the image on the screen, but no one was taking much notice of him, apart from Kristen, who stood doing her best to peer over his shoulder. He was looking for something, or, rather, he knew something was in the image and he couldn’t see what it was, where it was, what it meant.

  She showed him.

  “Ah.” he said, with a low sigh of enlightenment. “Yes, of Course.”

  “What is it?” Michael asked, breaking off from trying to find out more about Ahvaz and what kind of airport it had, if indeed it had one at all.

  “His finger. The index finger on his right hand. Look.”

  “It’s pointing upward. So what?”

  Serrin struggled through his bag, cautioning an impatient Michael to wait, and extracted the book of paintings he was looking for.

  “Look, John the Baptist, look. The picture is just his face and this image. Of the raised finger.”

  “So? One picture and–“

  “It’s in his painting of St. John-Bacchus as well. Look.” he pointed out, as he flipped the page over to the following plate.

  “All right.” Michael said, taken aback now. “What’s he Saying?”

  “Remember John?” the elf wondered aloud. “I’m not sure. But I know he didn’t make this gesture by accident.”

  “A raised finger, eh?” Streak said. “I know what I mean by that.”

  “It’s the index finger not the middle one.” Serrin said impatiently.

  “Ahvaz.” Michael read. “It has a small airstrip built by an exploratory team from an oil company late last century. It’s apparently reasonably stable at the present time, which means that the same bandits have held it for a year or more and no one has actually been shot out of the sky during that time, and I think we have to go there.”

  The samurai looked at each other and smiled, the lizard-like leer of all hired hands that says, “The price has just gone up!”

  Geraint read the looks and the minds.

  “Yes, you’re on overtime and bonuses” he told them. “We’re going to need you.”

  “We sure are.” Streak said cheerfully. “Yessir, mad guys with big guns.”

  “I didn’t mean–”

  “I meant them.” Streak said. “Out there in the desert. By the way, you guys got jabs for all the diseases you can catch?”

  “Drek.” Michael groaned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We professionals get regular shots all the time.” Streak said happily. You never know where you might have to go next.”

  “We haven’t got time.” Geraint fretted. We’ll just have to buy several gallons of insect repellent. And water purifying tables. And–”

  “Don’t worry, Your Lordship. I was only pulling your pud, a wind-up, We’ve got all we need. Don’t we boys?”

  “Sure do.” the ork grunted.

  “Well, then, that’s it. It’s now three-twelve AM, and I for one need some sleep.” Michael said wearily. “Tomorrow we go to Ahvaz and we get our man.” He flipped his deck off.

  * * *

  But, for once, Michael hadn’t been secure enough. It would have appalled him at the time as it did later when he realized it, to know that he’d been decked himself. The saturnine man responsible gave the information to his master without emotion.

  “Then it is so.” the man said as if expecting what he learned. “He has gone back to the heart of heresy. Like a dog returning to its own vomit. It is always so.”

  He considered his options. Of his best men, half were still recovering from the events in Venice. He doubted now whether hermetics or assassins would do the job for him. They had pursued their quarry long enough, and it had eluded them every time. He could no longer trust to the work of his juniors.

  He reached for the private line and told the Vatican secretary that, despite the lateness of the hour, he would have to speak with His Holiness in person on a matter of most Unique urgency.

  * * *

  Across the Mediterranean, in a fertile land spreading over the wide, lazy valley of the Karun River, a young man was shown through the underground part of the building. having already seen for himself the dome and the observatory above, extraordinary constructions for so poor a people in such a ravaged place. He smiled, and hugged the dark-eyed man who had showed him around so nervously, obviously desperate for his approval.

  “It is so fine.” Salai said. “It is exactly as it was designed. You have done so very well. This is a wonder to me.

  The Arab smiled with relief, his beautiful, even white teeth gleaming in the soft light.

  “And the Prophet will be here soon?”

  “Within the hour, Tariq. He has only stopped to attend to one or two pressing matters along the way.”

  “This is such a great day for us.” the man said with real fervor. “We had never thought to see such a day.”

  “And he will bring such great riches, and the greatest artists and scholars in his wake.” Salai said cheerfully.

  “We have been downtrodden long enough.” the man said with some feeling.

  “Indeed you have, and no longer. The Great Work will be done here and you will be exalted among men.” the youth said soothingly. “You have already been rewarded for your faithfulness–”

  He was cut short as Tariq sought to prevent any suggestion of ingratitude or impatience.

  “We could not have built this without the money you gave us.” he said at once, and we have a fine hospital and school for the children. We know the Prophet’s generosity to his people. it is simply that to have him among us–” His face was literally one of rapture.

  “And here is the center.” Salai said as he turned the final corner. “Ah, Tariq, this is a fine rendition.”

  The mosaic must have taken the men of the place many years of painstaking work. Untold thousands of tiny fragments of gleaming, polished stone and crystal shone in the gentle light from the alcoves. The strange, haunting androgyny of Leonardo’s John the Baptist was perfectly reproduced in the round shrine a the heart of the labyrinth.

  “Wonderful. And then there is the deeper mystery, Tariq, but we shall not speak of this now.”

  “We await.” the man said simply.

  27

  “So we breeze into a bandit heartland with a photo-ID and say, Excuse me, gun-wielding bandit-type fellow, but have you seen these men?’ when we know one of ‘em doesn’t look like this an
yway.” Geraint pondered over a junk-food brekfast. The airport didn’t seem to offer anything better, but at nearly noon–by the time they’d managed to wake, bathe, dress, and pack everything again–they didn’t fancy the lunchtime menu and the junk was all they could face.

  We’ve got Blondie and he’s impossible to miss with that pony tail.” Michael replied.

  “He could tuck it inside his jacket.”

  “Ever seen him do that?”

  “He still might.’’

  “Yeah, right, and that’s why when his master fragged the photo ID, he left him so clear-as-day to make it hard for us.” Michael replied with some venom. “Sorry. I’m still tired. I really do think he actually wants us to find him.”

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “Is it really? Look, the guy has to have some ego. He’s a genius–look at what he’s done. He must have some desire for recognition. He must want someone to say ‘look how clever I am’. He’s just picked us, that’s all.”

  “Fair enough, I suppose, but why us? I mean, there have to be a dozen teams out after him.”

  “There are. Matter of fact I caught a glimpse of Denison from MCT Frankfurt in Venice, unless I’m much mistaken. But I think we’re closer to him than anyone else. After all, Renraku was the only corp that got the Shroud icon.” Michael finished, pensively. Still not sure why he did that.”

  “Well, we have nowhere else to go” Geraint said. “And if the Matrix crashes I lose a bundle, so let’s get the fragger.”

  “We’re actually going to have a day to spare.” Michael said. “if this was the movies, we’d only get to him five seconds before he pressed the button. and you’d see the time display counting down the time before–bang!”

  “Hmmm.” Serrin said for no reason in particular. He’d been lost in his own thoughts for most of the morning, gazing at pictures of paintings and reading notes. It was obvious he wanted to be left alone until he’d worked out whatever he was wrestling with. Kristen was more than familiar with these moods by now, and had learned just to be around when the elf came back to the real world.

  “I got permission to cross the relevant air space, so far as that goes” Streak told them. “Mind you, it’s bound to be pretty dicey passing over Iraq, so frag that. We’ll take the southern route over Saudi. I don’t fancy the Turkish route, not with heading down the Caspian past Azerbaijan. They let off SAMs for recreation down there. Saudi’s okay.”

  “Have we got everything we need?” Geraint asked him for the tenth time that morning.

  “Your Lordship, you’re already dosed with quinine and KZT and half a dozen other drugs, which is why you’re so happy stuffing your face with the kind of drek you wouldn’t dream of eating back home. Kind of frags your body that way” Streak grinned. “You’ll sleep ten, twelve hours a night for a week or two as well. Trust me. Oh, and it’ll turn your piss green, but that’s always a good party trick if you can do it. If I was a bug, I’d avoid you like the plague.”

  He leant back and laughed loudly. “Whoops, mixed metaphor. You know what I mean.”

  “Fine.” Geraint said, having indeed swallowed a disturbingly large number of oddly shaped tablets at Streak’s behest before breakfast and then wondered whether he should show such naive trust. The hypo, at least, he knew had come from a hermetically sealed pack; it was the same pack he’d used a few times previously, prior to business jaunts to the Far East.

  “Then let’s go. No point in wasting any more time.”

  They paid their bill, headed through the small concourse to the VIP and private-passenger lounge, and made their way slowly to their small plane. The last week of their lives had seemed to hold so many plane journeys. taxi rides, and car trips that they were beginning to get homesick in their various ways–not that any of them was actually aware of it. What they all felt more than anything was relief that, at last, they were going to meet the man who’d caused them, one way or another, so much trouble.

  * * *

  They’d already been followed by more than one group of people, and been attacked by at least two of them. They’d also eluded at least two other groups of runners set on their tails by other corps who knew that Michael and his friends had some kind of head start. They’d missed only one tail, which was not entirely surprising for he did, after all, get immediate updates on all information Michael sent back to Renraku. Since Michael had already extracted a six figure sum in expenses and fees from Renraku, he thought he had to give them some justification for that, and some account of his work. So it hadn’t been too difficult to trace him.

  The spy made his report and asked for instructions. He was told to wait for reinforcements and told which plane to wait for.

  “Frag, that’s military issue. I don’t know if we can land in that thing.” he balked.

  The voice on the other end of the line was calm but steely. “Not to worry. We have records of the construction and very recent satellite confirmation of structural integrity.” his boss said in the strangled vocabulary of the corporate executive. “Three craft will be despatched.”

  “Three?” The spy was incredulous. That meant the best part of two hundred paratroops and auxiliary military being flown into the place. Since they were supposed to be hunting a lone individual, this seemed to be overkill, to put it mildly.

  “The locals may be hostile.”

  “Oh, come on, they’re just primitives with bloody hunting rifles!”

  “Don’t be so patronizing. You know, your last profile suggested you might have latent racist tendencies.”

  “Don’t sell me that crap.” the man said with some feeling. “Twenty of these guys could take out a bunch of hijackers on a Boeing and you’re sending in two hundred? What the frag is going down here? What are you sending me into?”

  His suspicion was not unjustified. His superior paused for a moment before reassuring the man and smoothing his ruffled feathers.

  “Don’t worry Johanssen. Were just taking all due precautions. You do know, after all, something of what is at stake here”

  “But what about Sutherland?”

  “Don’t harm him unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. The same for the Welshman. He’s a Brit noble and any trouble there could be extremely bad publicity.”

  “The others?”

  “If they get in your way, remove them.”

  A pause. “I need formal warranty of all negotiating latitude that I have.” Johanssen said at last. “What we can offer the man, if force fails.”

  “Force is not going to fail.”

  “Of course not. Fifty tons of black ice failed but two hundred goons will work. You know, it just might now.”

  “We’ll deal with that if the need arises. You have this direct encrypted link to me and I’m available twenty-four hours a day.”

  Johanssen tapped off the telecom. He’d thought that tracking Sutherland, having managed to find him in Venice after losing him twice before, was all that he’d be asked to do until the call had come through from Chiba this morning. Now he was going to be accompanying two hundred or so Renraku troops on what looked like an orthodox single-target strike, and he just knew it was going to be a total disaster.

  * * *

  “It’s going to be near eighty even at this time of year, and thank your lucky stars the town’s on a river so it isn’t even bloody hotter.” Streak shot back at them over his shoulder from the pilot seat.

  Though they’d taken the medicines they needed, had the sunblock they needed, and the weaponry they hoped they wouldn’t need, they didn’t really have hot-weather clothing. The elf had, however, given them copious amounts of talcum powder with which to dose themselves to prevent what he unpleasantly termed ‘bollock rot’ from excessive sweating. Exposing flesh to the sun to keep cool would mean more insect bites, despite the best efforts of all the repellent one could smear on, and some risk of sunburn for the fairer among them.

  “Just what are we going to say when we get there?” Geraint mused, staring dow
n at the featureless sands of the Saudi Arabian desert.

  “That’s a good question.” Michael said. “My guess is that our man is going to have some kind of agenda of his own. He’s going to want something.”

  “I thought we knew what he wanted.” Geraint put in. “A very, very large sum of money.”

  “That’s what he asked for, yet it doesn’t make sense that it’s all he wants. Why are we playing this game?”

  “Hmm.” was all the Welshman could manage.

  “So when we get out of the plane and find our Leo lookalike, we’ve got to figure out a way to make sure he’s not holding all the cards.”

  “What do we have?”

  “Little more than our native wit and intelligence I’m afraid.”

  “We’re buggered then.” said Streak cheerfully. “ETA twenty minutes. Not a rocket in sight. Thank heavens for that. No worries.”

  “We don’t have parachutes.” Michael observed.

  “Yeah, but we’ve got sonic antimissile rockets. Never fly without them.”

  “Do they work?”

  “Yup. Or, I should say they worked on this baby the couple of times they were needed.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to get shot at coming in?” Michael asked earnestly.

  Streak laughed heartily. “Nah, I don’t think so. Latest update from Jane’s says there’s nothing too close to where we’re going. It’s lively down in Basra, but we’re well away from that drekhole.”

  Events proved him right. As they began the descent to a runway that was little more than a parched strip of reddened soil, everyone in the group felt the tension knotting inside them. It wasn’t fear for their safety, but the excited hope that they might at last be at the end of the trail.

  The wheels of the small plane bounced a few times along the bumpy runway. Streak deliberately perpetrating some mischief among his passengers with cries of “Whoa!” and “Oh no!”, as if something serious might actually be happening. Finally, somewhat shaken and apprehensive, his passengers tottered out of the aircraft. To their surprise, a Rolls Royce, gleaming silver and gray in the brilliant sun, was standing by the huts that passed for airport buildings. With his arms crossed, dressed for all the world like an English chauffeur, the man they knew as Salai was lounging against the front door of the car. He waved to them cheerfully, as if welcoming old clients.