The Holy Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘I’m going,’ she called from the kitchen. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Don’t forget. Home by twelve at the latest,’ her mother reminded her, although the door had already closed, leaving Mirella free to go.

  A mother’s anxious heart told her to go to the window and watch from behind the curtain the car her daughter got into at that moment, smiling, full of light, shining intensely. She felt a heavy heart, a disturbing anxiety, gloomy thoughts, nothing she should give importance to. She couldn’t see the driver’s face because of the dark, moonless night that had settled over the street. She thumped her chest to rid herself of the tightness. A few seconds later she felt relieved, her soul relaxing, the bad feeling had dissipated, everything was fine.

  She left the window to go serve dinner, and left her daughter and the friend to follow the road in the privacy of the BMW.

  44

  It was time for the Farewell Procession in the Cove of Iria, when the Virgin Mary was carried in procession among the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims back to the Chapel of the Apparitions, where she would remain until the next year. A light mist marked the blessing of the act in this place central to the Catholic world, on a par with Saint Peter’s in the Vatican. Hundreds of thousands of white handkerchiefs waved in the air, marking the Immaculate farewell. People wept in prayer, with petitions for help, genuine or bizarre, because no one was there for no reason, out of a pure manifestation of faith and feeling for the Mother of Christ. There was always a request, a grace, Save my daughter. Help me in this business deal. Give me money and fortune …

  To the right of the colonnade was the chapel of the Perennial Exposition of the Holy Sacrament, where the Congregation of the Religious Observers of Our Lady of the Sorrows of Fátima has prayed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus seven days of the week, twenty-four hours a day, since 1960. It’s a worthy act for forgiveness of worldly sins, according to the call of the Virgin in 1917 to the children, without requiring anything in return except peace on earth, no small thing, comparable to a miracle from Heaven. These were the teachings of Father Formigão’s disciples, whom the Virgin asked to forgive sins after the prayer. All this Marius Ferris experienced, kneeling in the last row of the chapel with the sister there in front of him finishing her turn at prayer.

  After making the sign of the cross, Marius Ferris got up and left the chapel. From there, under the colonnade, he could see the sea of people crowding the vast enclosure, the processions in the back, on the way to their usual site, the exact place where the oak was found that sheltered the visions of Mary.

  ‘Do you believe that one of the bullets that threatened the life of the Polish pope in 1981 is in the crown of the Virgin of Fátima, Brother?’ The voice came from behind Marius Ferris.

  ‘That’s public knowledge,’ Ferris replied. ‘We know that Wojtyla was very devoted to Mary.’ He quickly bowed before the man confined to a wheelchair. ‘Your blessing, Your Eminence.’ He kissed one of his hands.

  ‘God bless you, my son,’ the other recited, concluding the ceremony of greeting.

  The man was much older than Marius Ferris, near ninety you might guess. He was wearing a black suit and a large yellow gold cross hanging from a thick chain around his neck. A young cleric dressed in a black cassock, perhaps his aide, pushed the chair according to the old man’s wishes.

  Marius Ferris rose after a few moments of prayer and looked at the old man in front of him.

  ‘I envy your physical fitness,’ the old man praised him.

  ‘Don’t be envious. I’ll never reach your age.’ A smile appeared on his face.

  ‘Only He knows that,’ the other observed. ‘Do me the favor of pushing my chair, Brother.’ It was a demand, not a request. With a gesture, he dismissed the young man. The conversation would be private now.

  Ferris took the chair and pushed it smoothly along the colonnade toward the basilica. The voice of a prelate could be heard resonating from the loudspeakers inside. A polyglot expression of gratitude to all the pilgrims, directly from the altar placed in front of the basilica, at the top of the stairs, which was used in the international celebration of the Mass.

  ‘Is it the Roman envoy?’ Ferris asked.

  ‘Yes, Sodano.’

  ‘The one the pope forgot?’ A certain joking in the voice, a certain disdain.

  ‘He always finds a way to promote his position. Besides, the German has chosen a very bad secretary of state.’

  ‘Did he choose, or was that the only option they gave him?’ Ferris countered.

  ‘Could be. In any case the present pope knows what was agreed to in his election. If he should go back on the deal—’

  ‘What’s the deal?’ Ferris interrupted.

  ‘Whatever it may be, Brother. Draw in the Church, reassert the old dogmas, combat any menace of liberal reform, stop creating this constant circus in the media. Christ is not an amusement park.’ A certain flush showed how deeply he believed this.

  ‘A Church turned inward.’

  ‘How?’ the man went on, having just started his sermon. ‘If they followed the teachings of our Church, the only, the true one, we wouldn’t have half the problems society debates today. Abortion? Contraception?’ His irritation grew with each topic. ‘Ecumenism? Why? Interreligious dialogue? There is us and there is them. There’s no conversation. Yes, in some way, they attack us; we throw ourselves on them. It’s always been like that. Why are we bothering now with stupid diplomacy?’

  ‘It’s going to change,’ Ferris predicted.

  ‘I hope so. Otherwise we’ll have to do something about the German.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll come to that.’

  ‘Is everything going as you planned?’ An almost imperceptible change of subject.

  ‘Until now, yes,’ Ferris lied. A small lie. He didn’t want to worry him with insignificant things that would be resolved shortly, perhaps already had been.

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ the other rejoiced. ‘Are you going to blame the Russians and Bulgarians?’

  ‘They were actually guilty for a long time,’ Ferris asserted.

  ‘Do you know where I was on May thirteenth, 1981?’ the prelate asked.

  ‘In Rome?’ Ferris guessed.

  ‘Of course in Rome. In the Bethlehem Crypt.’

  ‘In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore?’

  ‘Indeed,’ he confirmed. ‘Expiating my sins next to the cradle of the Infant Jesus,’ he confessed.

  ‘Is Pius still praying there?’ Ferris smiled, referring to a statue of the pope praying before the holy manger.

  ‘Yes, he is. But he was a real pope. He didn’t fool around with insufficient methods. He acted, made decisions, and kept everything in its place.’

  ‘Those were other times,’ Ferris observed.

  ‘The times are what we make of them. For fifty years we have had movie stars on Saint Peter’s throne.’

  Marius Ferris stopped pushing the wheelchair. He looked at the procession of the Virgin, who was now in the place where she reposed daily, adored by millions of people every year, in person or at a distance. The ceremony had ended, and it would be hours before the asphalt enclosure emptied and returned to normal. Soon they’d see worshipers again, lighting candles, praying the rosary humbly, following the path on wounded knees, doing the promised rounds around the chapel to thank the Virgin for grace bestowed or asked for, since they had to pay in advance.

  ‘At the moment the Pole was shot in Saint Peter’s, I was praying for him. The Lord wanted him to live some twenty years more, and I always obey His will, even if I don’t agree, because He is infallible.’

  ‘In any case he turned out to behave himself well,’ Ferris said.

  ‘We managed to control him, thank God. At least until the end of the eighties. After that he followed his whims.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t bad. Ultimately he couldn’t go back on his word.’

  ‘It’s true. But I can’t forget who gave him that independence in the n
ineties.’ His voice was irritated again.

  ‘Nor I. We’re taking care of that.’

  ‘That’s good,’ the cleric advised. It sounded almost like a threat. ‘I want him dead.’

  The man took off the chain with the gold cross, reached for Marius Ferris’s hand, and gave it to him.

  ‘In the Bethlehem Crypt, next to the manger, you will find what you need. It’s been there for twenty-six years waiting for you,’ he told him.

  Marius put the gift in his pocket with as much care as if it were a treasure from Heaven, which, in a sense, it was. They resumed their way as if two friends on a walk.

  ‘At the precise time the Pole was being shot, I was praying for him in Santa Maria Maggiore,’ the old man repeated. ‘And now the bullet is right there, a few yards away, in the crown of the Virgin. It’s like a curse that follows me,’ he confessed.

  ‘This place is like a discount store for relics,’ Marius Ferris declared. ‘We have the three shepherds buried in the basilica, a few feet away from here a piece of the Berlin Wall.’

  ‘A testimony to our work,’ the cleric observed.

  ‘Of course. Every holy place is a guarantee of the Church’s capacity to realize its mission,’ Ferris asserted with a smile.

  ‘And what about Mitrokhin?’ the old man asked seriously.

  ‘What he left is controlled by the British. It’s in their interest, too.’

  They stayed silent as they watched the faithful disbanding. At the back a little to the left there was the new Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, with the capacity to hold almost nine thousand people. The power of the Church expressing itself in concrete.

  The young attendant approached and took over the wheelchair. No one had called him, but he’d seen that whatever had to be said was said.

  ‘Bring our ship into good port,’ the old man said, calmer now, with a lethargic, pensive expression, tired from so much talking.

  ‘I can see it now,’ a confident Marius Ferris agreed. ‘We just need to tie up at the pier.’

  ‘You know where to find me at the end.’

  They separated with a farewell gesture. This time Marius Ferris didn’t bend to ask a blessing. Everything in moderation, excess was the enemy of faith.

  In spite of signs everywhere prohibiting the use of cell phones, he didn’t hesitate to place a call. Those were rules for the faithful, not for the clerics – benefits of the cloth and the profession.

  ‘Hello.’

  He received the report without interruptions. Marius Ferris knew how to listen. His face relaxed.

  ‘Perfect. Attack the place. Keep me informed.’

  He disconnected the call and took the chain with the enormous cross out of his pocket. He looked at it with intense respect, the personification of the body of Jesus engraved in gold, the threads of energy and history that penetrated deeply in his soul and made it resound with feeling. He got on his knees, turned toward the Virgin, Mother of Christ, in the distant chapel, and lowered his head, while a tear ran down his cheek.

  ‘They’ve been found. Soon they’ll be in our hands. I’ll avenge you,’ he promised. ‘I’ll avenge you and your son.’

  Behind him in the chapel of the Perennial Exposition of the Holy Sacrament, the old sister continued praying through eternity.

  45

  ‘How many times do I have to repeat myself?’ Sarah was irritated by Rafael’s umpteenth question. ‘Are you trying to catch me in some contradiction? I’m being held here in custody, is that it?’

  ‘In some way you are. I don’t think you can freely walk down the street right now,’ Rafael advised in a neutral tone. ‘The only reason I’m pressuring you is to get every fact that can help us.’

  ‘Am I behaving well?’ she asked sardonically.

  ‘Perfectly.’ He went on to show her. ‘Your colleague Simon was the victim of an explosion detonated on entering your house. You had the good luck, in quotes’ – he emphasized the expression – ‘to be warned minutes before by Simon Templar.’

  ‘Correct,’ Sarah agreed in the same tone of voice.

  ‘That means they’ve always known your whereabouts and decided not to act until the hospital.’

  ‘But I was the one who decided to go to the hospital. No one made me. I went on my own will.’

  ‘It’s irrelevant. You did them a favor. That way they could take both you and Simon.’

  Sarah looked at Simon. She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he was right.

  ‘But Templar was against my going to the hospital.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Rafael answered. ‘He could have simply made you think that. I’m sure you never suspected him.’

  Sarah thought about that. He was right. Besides, he did know what he was talking about. It was his profession.

  ‘That raises a question,’ Rafael continued. ‘Who placed the bomb? Templar’s behavior tells us he knew nothing of the device, in spite of being a chameleon.’

  Like you, Sarah thought, but didn’t say. She ended up feeling ashamed for the thought. He didn’t deserve that lack of respect. His way of seeming one thing and being something else had saved her life several times, as she never tired of remembering.

  ‘Let’s not forget the Russian agent who was found, and that Herbert person they were waiting for in the hospital, but never appeared,’ Sarah pointed out, a little more cooperatively.

  ‘We’ll worry about the Russian agent later. In regard to Herbert, there is nothing to think at the moment. He’s only a name …’

  ‘Like Jack Payne?’ Sarah quipped. In the end her cooperation was fleeting.

  ‘Like Jack Payne,’ Rafael agreed.

  ‘Who’s Jack Payne?’ Phelps and Simon asked simultaneously. ‘I realize nobody seems to have a problem not using his real name,’ Simon said.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Sarah said. ‘Some other time.’

  ‘Time is the one thing we have.’ Phelps’s interest was apparent. ‘I’m very interested in hearing the story of Jack Payne.’

  ‘Jack Payne is dead,’ Rafael observed. ‘He belongs to another story. There’s nothing to say.’

  Sarah helped change the subject.

  ‘You mentioned a they just now. That have been following me. Who are they? Barnes?’

  ‘No,’ Rafael quickly corrected her. ‘Barnes is a puppet in the hands of other interests. He just wants them to leave him in peace.’

  A hesitant clearing of the throat indicated Phelps’s turn to join the conversation.

  ‘I don’t mean to be at all critical, but I’ve thought of a certain reason for the story only Sarah and Rafael know about.’ In spite of the diplomatic manner, his judgmental attitude was evident. He turned to Rafael. ‘I believe it’s time to make everything clear. I don’t want to get into your joint history, far be it from me to intrude on your privacy, you have a right to it, but, when I asked Rafael a question last night, I was terrified by the answer, although it was evasive.’

  ‘What was the question?’ Simon was curious.

  ‘Who are we after?’ Phelps concluded.

  ‘And what was the reply?’ Sarah asked with her eyes fixed on him.

  ‘John … Paul … the Second …’ Phelps responded slowly, so that each component of the name weighed on them.

  The silence was oppressive, and attention turned immediately to Rafael, who showed no sign of reproof toward Phelps or any sign of discomfort.

  ‘Oh my God. The dossier on the Turk,’ Sarah let slip, remembering the file that JC had left with her in the Grand Hotel Palatino in Rome, the one that was behind the bottle of vintage port.

  ‘The one I was going to look for?’ Simon asked with wide-open eyes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Rafael tried to appease them. ‘It hasn’t been there for a long time.’

  Sarah was angry. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘That it hasn’t been there for a long time,’ Rafael repeated without a bit of emotion.

 
‘It wasn’t where?’ Sarah was afraid she’d lose her mind if he said what she thought he would say.

  ‘In your house that exploded in Redcliff Gardens, behind the bottle of port, vintage 1976,’ he said. ‘I was there to get it also, but I suspected you’d miss it.’

  Sarah got up from the table, red-faced, upset with the outrageous back and forth about her life, and, what was worse, without her realizing it.

  ‘How could you?’ she almost shouted at him.

  ‘Someone had to read it,’ Rafael argued. It was a fair argument from his point of view.

  ‘You had no right,’ Sarah continued, hurt, although she might have felt flattered knowing that he was always present and attentive to her survival. She sat back down.

  ‘We’re digressing again,’ Phelps complained.

  ‘Actually, we’re not,’ Rafael answered. ‘The Turk’s dossier is an important element of this case.’

  ‘In what way?’ Phelps insisted.

  ‘It’s a complete report on how everything happened, what led to planning the death of the Pole, who the conspirators were, what happened in the years that followed, and the consequences. An authentic, detailed account.’

  ‘And where is it?’ Phelps asked like a police inspector. ‘I’d like to read it.’

  ‘It should be in my house,’ Sarah protested, although more calmly now.

  Rafael smiled. The second time Sarah had seen him smile.

  ‘You didn’t pay attention to it, Sarah. You fled from it like the devil from the cross.’

  Phelps crossed himself on hearing mention of the devil, provoking a laugh from Simon, who tried to hide it.

  ‘And where is it?’ Phelps asked again.

  ‘In a safe place. It’s better you don’t know its location for security reasons.’

  ‘For our security? What’s the problem?’ Phelps asked again. Ah, brave man.

  Rafael confronted the three questioning looks without blinking.

  ‘What do you think all this is about?’

  ‘Why don’t you clarify it for us?’ Sarah’s tone was serious.