This was the worst moment, the moment he had to make his mind up to kill. Any hesitation could prove fatal. He thought of Ruth, of her blood freezing on grey stones by a dark lake. His hands gripped the wire and he started to rise.
The man turned, his eyes opening wide in horror. Before he had time to recover or call out, Patrick was on him, slipping the wire over his head and jerking it tight against his throat. The wire cut into his hands, softened only by the thin cloth of the handkerchief. There was a clattering sound as the rifle dropped to the ground. The man reared up and backwards, hands thrust to his throat, fumbling helplessly. Patrick felt the wire dig into the flesh and pulled harder, ignoring the pain in his hands, the pity he felt for his victim. There was a low gagging sound,
the guard grew frantic, twisting, throwing what was left of his strength into a final effort. But Patrick held firm, sliding the wire back and forwards, slicing it deeper into the soft throat, as though slicing cheese.
He felt the man go limp and caught him as he fell, lowering the body to the ground. His hands stung, but that was all he felt. No remorse, no anger, no disgust. Those would all come later, if at all.
For over a minute he crouched in the shadow of the wall, gun at the ready, watching the door. No one came. He heard voices again: the rough voice, then Makonnen’s, pleading, and finally a third, precise and cold and measured. He wanted to take at least one of them alive.
He opened the door slowly, desperately trying to remember whether or not it creaked. It did not. A moment later, he was in the passage. The kitchen door was on his left. He took a deep breath and reached for the handle, praying his luck would hold.
TWENTY-THREE
Surprise was on his side. The door opened to his right, giving him a clear line of fire along the main kitchen area. There were two men with Makonnen, dressed alike in dark green anoraks. One was standing, the other seated at the table, facing the priest. Patrick swung round the door, moving directly into a firing posture, legs apart, arms at head height.
‘Freeze!’
Everything shifted into slow motion. The standing man threw himself sideways, pulling Makonnen with him to the ground. As the chair went from under him, the priest slipped, toppling away from his assailant. There was a shot. It went wild, missing Patrick by several feet. He fired back through the table, two shots in quick succession. The man on the floor grunted and fell silent.
At the table, the second man remained unmoving. Patrick trained the gun on him.
‘Put your hands flat on top of the table! Don’t move a muscle!’
He took a step into the room.
‘Father Makonnen,’ he called out, ‘are you all right?’
There was a brief silence, then the priest replied.
‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
What about him?’ He meant the man on the floor.
Another silence. When he finally spoke, Makonnen’s voice was accusing.
‘I think he’s dead.’
‘In that case, help me tie up his friend. I want to take him with us. He has some talking to do.’
For the first time, the man at the table spoke. His had been the cold voice Patrick had heard through the window. Even now, he was emotionless, bleak. He was tall and gaunt, aged about sixty, with pearl-white hair worn a little long. It had been a long time since he and Patrick had last met.
‘You’re wasting your time, Patrick. There’s nowhere to run to. Not now. Why not give up? While you’re still alive. We don’t want to hurt you, Patrick. We just want you to keep some things to yourself for a little while. It’s not your fault, you weren’t to know.’
Patrick did not reply. Keeping the gun trained on the man, he helped Makonnen to his feet. The priest was bleeding from one temple, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Patrick was nervous. Had there been only four men, or were there others, already alerted by the shooting?
‘Are you alone?’ he asked the white-haired man.
The stranger smiled but said nothing. In the grate, the fire had burned low. A faint smell of cordite hung on the air. Darkness crowded thickly against the windowpane.
Patrick stepped up to the man and levelled the pistol at his temple.
‘I asked if you were alone. Believe me, I will shoot you if I have to.’
He cocked the pistol. The man smiled at him: cool, deliberate, unconcerned.
Makonnen stepped forward.
‘Mr Canavan, you ...’
‘Please, Father, let me handle this.’
The priest held back, uncertain how best to act. Canavan had seemed a moral man, or, if not that exactly, one determined to prevent unnecessary killing. And yet he had to his knowledge killed three men already and was threatening to shoot a fourth.
The man in the chair held Patrick’s gaze unwaveringly. It was not a simple lack of concern that showed in his eyes, but something more: certainty, conviction, acquiescence? Yes, thought Patrick, perhaps that was it: a willing acceptance rooted in an absolute certainty of his own Tightness. But what did Miles Van Doren have to feel righteous about?
Why did you have her killed?’ Patrick demanded. He had to struggle to keep his voice steady. ‘She was your daughter. Your own daughter.’
Van Doren looked at him caustically, much as a cat looks at a noisy child, with studied disinterest. His eyebrows were thicker and darker than his hair, and they canopied his eyes, darkening and enriching them. His skin was meagre, stretched over the bones of his face like waxed paper. Tiny veins ran threadlike in a clumsy mesh beneath the surface of the skin, purple against its grey terrain, like rivers clustered incongruously on a map of a pale and lifeless desert.
‘Don’t get excited, Patrick. You’re mixed up in something you don’t understand. This isn’t Agency business. Shall we say that Ruth was ... a sort of payment? A debt, a sacrifice - hard for you to understand. I had no choice. Truly. She knew things she had no right to know. She’d got in too deep. Just like you, Patrick. You should have dropped it after the business with Chekulayev. There’s too much at stake for us to play games.’
Patrick was growing nervous. He sensed that Van Doren was playing for time. There was a humming sound in the distance. Patrick recognized it as the helicopter approaching.
‘On your feet,’ he snapped. ‘We can talk about this later, once I’ve got you out of here.’
‘I’ve told you already, Patrick, you’re wasting your time. Put the gun away. You’ve nothing to worry about if you act sensibly. I have influence, I can see to it that
you come out of this unharmed. Otherwise ...’ Van Doren shrugged his shoulders.
Patrick started to reply, but his voice was drowned by a sudden roaring. The air filled with it, and a second later an eruption of light tore the darkness apart, as though a giant hand had ripped a thick, black curtain from top to bottom.
Patrick recoiled from the window, half-blinded by the blaze of light. Van Doren took his chance. He pushed back his chair, grabbing for Patrick’s arm. The gun went off, missing Van Doren’s head by inches. The shot was blotted out by the roaring from outside as the helicopter steadied itself for a landing on the lawn.
Patrick was pulled off balance, towards his assailant. Van Doren spun him round, yanking his right arm painfully behind his back, forcing the gun to drop from numbed fingers. Outside, darkness rushed back as the helicopter set down, throwing dead leaves and twigs high into the shuddering air.
Holding Patrick’s arm high against his back, the shoulder close to breaking point, Van Doren used his free hand to draw a gun. He rammed it against the nape of Patrick’s neck, without words, not quite gentle, not quite hard. And as he did so, he bent forward and kissed the top of Patrick’s head: a soft kiss, such as a lover might lay on his sleeping partner.
Outside, the pilot switched off the engine. A profound silence washed through the night. Patrick could hear his heart beating, strokes away from sudden death. He could sense Van Doren’s tension, knew that his finger was tightening on the trigger, that it was over, that the kiss had been
an act of betrayal, or perhaps contrition.
‘Please drop the gun.’ It was Makonnen who spoke, nervous, yet firm.
‘Don’t make me shoot you. I don’t want to, but I will if I have to. Believe me.’
Van Doren did not relax his grip, either on Patrick’s arm or the pistol. He glanced round almost casually.
Makonnen had taken the gun from the man Patrick had shot. His hand was not entirely steady, but he was too close to his target to miss.
‘What happened, Father?’ Van Doren asked. ‘Have your scruples suddenly deserted you?’
The priest shook his head. He was not a man given to sudden revelations or moral shifts.
‘You misunderstand,’ he said. ‘I would not have had Mr Canavan shoot you in cold blood. But this is not cold blood. To save his life, I am willing to take yours. Do you understand now?’
Patrick sensed Van Doren’s hesitation. Makonnen took another step forward. Feet ran across the gravel outside. Someone shouted. Van Doren half turned, shouting in reply. ‘I’m in here! I’ve got Canavan, but the priest is armed. Be careful.’
There was a crash as someone kicked the door open. Two men in green anoraks burst into the room carrying automatic rifles. Makonnen did not flinch or even turn his head. He held the gun in both hands now: his grip was growing steadier by the second.
The newcomers hesitated. They levelled their rifles at the priest, but knew the risk of opening fire.
‘Put the gun down, Father,’ said Van Doren. He continued to hold Patrick in a painful arm-lock.
‘I will fire,’ said Makonnen. ‘Tell your friends to lower their rifles.’
‘Be reasonable, Father. If you kill me, my men here will gun down both of you half a second later. What will that accomplish? You will simply die with my blood on your hands.’
Makonnen wavered. Van Doren gazed straight at him, as though daring him to shoot. He dropped the pistol to the floor.
One of the newcomers stepped up to Makonnen and grabbed him roughly by the arm.
‘Take him out to the helicopter,’ ordered Van Doren. ‘I’ll take Canavan. We’ll take them both to Migliau. He has some questions he wants answered.’ He turned to the second of the gunmen. ‘You’ll have to stay here with Mark until I can send someone back for you: there won’t be enough room in the ‘copter for six. Go and tell John to start the engine. We’ll be straight out.’
The man turned and went outside. A moment later, they heard the whine of the helicopter engine being restarted. Patrick was jerked round and pushed towards the door. Makonnen followed with the other gunman.
As they walked towards the helicopter, Van Doren slipped the gun back into his pocket. Patrick stumbled on the gravel, but the older man kept his grip. They bent down, ducking under the rotors. At the door, Van Doren let go of Patrick’s arm to enable him to climb into the machine.
Patrick had been waiting. The instant his arm was free, he spun, grabbing Van Doren around the waist. Before the other could do a thing, Patrick lifted with all his strength. There was a sickening crunch as the rotor blades whisked Van Doren’s head to cream, followed the next second by a high-pitched whine as the rotor mechanism became unbalanced. Blood sprayed everywhere. Van Doren’s body jerked twice and went limp. Patrick dropped it and ran out from beneath the crippled rotors, straight for Makonnen and the man holding him.
The gunman had frozen in horror. Before he could recover, Patrick had knocked both him and the priest to the ground. There was a shot as the other rifleman opened fire over their heads. Patrick whirled, snatching the automatic from the ground, and raised it, pulling on the trigger. The gunman staggered and fell back.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here!’ He bent down and pulled Makonnen to his feet. The man he had knocked down made a grab for his leg, but Patrick side-stepped and kicked him hard in the teeth.
Ruth’s Mercedes was standing where she had parked it, just in front of the cottage. The key would be in the ignition, where she always left it. Patrick ran towards it, half pulling, half pushing Makonnen with him. He bundled the priest into the passenger seat. There was a burst of automatic fire from behind them. Patrick turned and fired back wildly, then ran on round the car, into the driver’s seat.
‘Take this!’ he yelled, thrusting the rifle into Makonnen’s hands. ‘Use it if you have to, to keep them back.’
The priest sat trembling, his lips moving in repeated prayer. He was sick and numb. Patrick tossed the rifle into his lap and turned the key. The engine started first time. Another burst of fire just missed them as Patrick let in the clutch and roared off in first. He only remembered to put the lights on after they had turned onto the road and driven half-way to Laragh.
The Dead
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead.
Revelation 1:5
TWENTY-FOUR
Venice
No sound. A great and bitter silence over everything. Blackness punctuated by small yellow lights like corpse-candles on a stretch of lonely marsh. He was in the darkness moving, and the silence all about him, insistent and faintly menacing. As he moved, his eyes began to clear, and he was able to make out something of his surroundings.
He was being rowed in a small boat of some sort. It lay low in the water, gliding soundlessly across a patterned solitude of light and dark. He felt it rock softly from side to side as it moved through the water in a straight line, creasing the surface gently with its prow. With a start he recognized the prow’s distinctive shape: the bladed ferro of a Venetian gondola.
He cast a quick glance backwards. At the stern, a tall gondolier, dressed all in black, angled himself across his long oar, twisting it in that curious Venetian fashion through its wooden rowlock. Somehow he knew the rowlock was called aforcola, but he could not remember having learned the word. A light hung from the pointed stern, leaving a trail of broken gold on the water behind. But the gondolier’s face remained hidden in shadow, beneath a soft, wide-brimmed hat. He turned his head, facing in the direction of travel once more.
His seat was a high-backed chair, delicately moulded and decorated with gilded dolphins and brass sea-horses. His hand brushed against the cushion on which he sat: it was thick velvet, soft to the touch. He leaned back, expecting to hear the plash of water or the turning of the oar against the forcola, but there was nothing. He must be in Venice, but where exactly? And who was rowing him? And why? He tried to form the questions, but his mouth would not open.
At that moment, the moon slipped out accommodatingly from behind heavy clouds, throwing a bland, whitish light across the trembling water. He was on the Grand Canal, gliding down the very centre of the great channel, flanked by tall houses and gilded palazzi. Everywhere he saw pointed windows, many of them covered with awnings and aglow with candlelight. There were torches on poles where the fondamente and rive straggled down to the edge of the Canal. Outside the palaces, massive lamps hung at the landing stages, casting strange flickering light on the mooring poles and the little craft tied up at them.
There was something terribly wrong. He could not at first tell what it was, only that something was false, that there had been a change of sorts. But whether the physical world had undergone a transformation, or there had merely been a shift in his own consciousness, he could not say.
Other craft bobbed or darted past them - slim sandoli rowed with cross oars, and long, black-painted gondolas, many complete with felze, the curved black cabins that kept the passengers’ identity secure from prying eyes. Light traghetti ferried people from bank to bank, weaving their way skilfully through the other traffic.
He recognized the fagades of palazzi on either side. Francesca had taught him well, pointing them out to him on their many trips up and down the Canal. In art and architecture, as in love, she had been his guide. He noticed that they were travelling from north to south, away from the terrqferma towards San Marco and the Lagoon. On his right, he could make out the Fondaco dei Turchi, a crumbling rui
n that had once housed the headquarters of Venice’s Turkish merchants. Almost facing it, on his left, stood the Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi, where Wagner had died, mad and alone.
The names of the palaces and the families who had inhabited them passed through his head like grey ghosts: Bastaggia, Errizo, Priuli, Barbarigo, Pesaro, Fontana, Morisini - a litany of the dead, their great houses rising like tombstones out of the moon-touched water. He knew something was amiss. But what?
They reached the Ca’ d’Oro, with its gilded reliefs and bright capitals twinkling in the light of a hundred torches, each of its tall windows bright with a thousand candles. Between the gold, panels of red and blue, cinnabar and aquamarine, shimmered in the moonlight.
The boat passed on, down to the Ca’ da Mosto, marking the beginning of the bend where the Canal turns down to the Ponte di Rialto. Slowly, they rounded the broad corner. The bridge came into sight like a great ship, lights burning in the windows of the shops that formed its central section. Suddenly, in the distance, west of the bridge, the sky was filled with flashing lights. Fireworks exploded soundlessly above the Campo San Polo. Rockets turned the night red and gold. Fireballs burst, scattering showers of rainbow-coloured sparks across the sky. Fire cascaded like rain, illuminating rooftops and pinnacles and the tops of high towers.
In the light of the fireworks, he caught clear sight of the facade approaching on his left. He recognized the building as the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a sixteenth-century complex that had contained the lodgings, offices, and warehouses of the old German merchant colony. The side and front of the building glistened with colour. Two great frescoes covered them, the work of master artists. He remembered their names. Giorgione and Titian, both commissioned after fire destroyed the original edifice in 1505.
And there, he knew, quite as though a part of his brain that had been sleeping until then had come fully awake and whispered the awful truth into his ears, there lay the real horror, the true madness. There should not have been frescoes. Giorgione’s was long fallen into ruin, a mere fragment left in the Accademia gallery, his only documented work. Titian’s was no more than a haze of faded colours on the Fondaco wall, a reminder of past glories, nothing more. The Fondaco itself was a post office now, drab, artless, without vibration.
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