The Pope's Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  "You're a son of a bitch," the man insulted him, turning back toward Via dei Cestari. "You're not the man for her, you bastard," he murmured before disappearing.

  What did he say? Did he say what I thought he said? Without think ing, Francesco followed the drunk, who continued down the street, limping with his left leg. He didn't notice Francesco, who gained ground on him with each step. Had the idiot been talking about Sarah, or just muttering nonsense? He wasn't exactly credible, having downed countless drinks. At a certain moment he lost his balance and almost fell. He laughed hard at himself.

  That guy couldn't know anything about Sarah. At least that's what Francesco thought. He followed along out of nervousness and anxiety. It would be better to turn back. This was the place specified in the mes sage he'd received. He gave a half turn and sighed. Ah, where are you, Sarah? he asked himself, but unfortunately there was no reply.

  "Do you have a light?" Behind him, Francesco heard the voice of the drunk, who should have left him behind by now.

  Francesco walked faster and didn't reply.

  "Do you have a match, you fool?"

  Francesco ignored him. It was the alcohol talking. He didn't have to listen to someone in that state. It was a mistake to have followed him.

  "You're not the man for her," he said again.

  Francesco stopped and looked at the man. "What did you say?"

  Francesco lost control and grabbed the drunk, but when he recov ered, it was he who was pressed against the wall by the other, who drove a powerful hand into his throat. He tried to free himself, but couldn't.

  "Now you're not so brave, are you?" The words were no longer slurred, but fi rm and dry, his movements precise. He was more sober than Francesco.

  "What . . . what do you want with me?" Francesco asked fearfully, his voice constricted by the hand on his throat.

  "Me, nothing," answered the man close to his face, with a Tuscan accent.

  Francesco could smell his breath.

  "But Sarah does," he added.

  "What?" Francesco was confused. What was he saying? "Sarah?"

  The man loosened his grip. "Is Sarah important to you?"

  "What?"

  "Can't you say anything else?" the man joked. "Is Sarah important to you?"

  "Yes," Francesco replied with diffi culty.

  "Would you die for her?"

  "Yes."

  The man released him completely. He took off a dirty jacket and dropped it on the ground, revealing an impeccably tailored Armani suit. He straightened his jacket, shook off the dust, and assumed a cool but annoyed expression.

  "Good. Let's see if she'll do the same for you."

  PART T WO

  Perinde Ac Cadaver

  (Just like a corpse. Loyola demanded

  a vow of complete obedience to

  the pope, perinde ac cadaver.)

  "Let this warning be added to that of our brother

  Leo X so that they know these new developments

  nearly set us back. I plead with my successors not

  to liberalize the regulations. If possible make them

  more restrictive. The traitors have to be silenced."

  —Pius IX, August 13, 1863

  27

  David Barry liked to get up early. Even before the first hint of sunrise he could be seen on his morning jog in Hyde Park. A full hour around the serpentine path at a fast pace, rain, shine, or drizzle. A thick fog limited his field of vision but not his desire to keep his usual pace. He trusted his refl exes to get him around any obstacle—a slower run ner or a morning walker. Even on nice days it was unusual to see a lot of people. The park started to fill up when David finished his daily run.

  His morning routine continued with a hot shower and shave. He put on blue tweed slacks, a blue shirt, and a blazer without a tie. He had a light breakfast, just coffee and toast. He didn't have children to take to school or a wife to kiss before leaving, since they were 3,663 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic in Washington, D.C., and still sound asleep.

  His office was ten minutes away by car, depending on the traffi c. Learning to drive on the wrong side of the street was not as tricky as he had first thought. After three days it was as if he'd done it his whole life. He'd even started to think the English were right in the fi rst place. He entered his building at ten minutes before eight. The doorman said good morning, and he returned the greeting, waited for the elevator, got in, and pressed a random button, then swiped his ID card through a digital reader that accessed a floor that did not appear on any button. Seconds later the doors opened on a fl oor filled with activity.

  The CIA headquarters for Europe.

  "Good morning, David," a man in corduroys and a T-shirt greeted him.

  "Morning, Staughton. Quiet night?"

  "Weird," Staughton commented, before disappearing into a room full of monitors.

  Aren't they all? David thought as he went to his offi ce.

  The frenzied activity at that time of morning was incredible. Peo ple were shouting into telephones, at each other, into microphones and monitors. People walked with others, or alone, from every side of the office to another, holding a stack of papers, files, trays with Starbucks cups, empty trays, sandwiches, and cameras. Fuck, fuck off, fucking work, go fuck yourself, fucking Iraqis, fucking Afghans, fucking Rus sians, fucking Israelis, fucking Muslims, fucking Osama, fuck them all. We'll make America safe.

  Every day was the same. It wasn't a job for just anyone, only for the best of the best, men like David Barry, who at forty years old had the qualifications to replace Geoffrey Barnes, the former station chief who had died in service, may God rest his soul.

  The director barely had time to enter his office and hang up his coat.

  "David," a harried woman called.

  "Good morning to you, too, Samantha," he greeted her pleasantly.

  "Good morning, David. Sorry." Samantha's hair was mussed up, but David chose to ignore it. "We have a problem."

  "We always do," he said dismissively, then immediately showed her a smile. "Talk to me."

  "Last night two priests died in a church in Paris," she told him.

  David sat down and gestured for Samantha to join him.

  "Two priests in Paris," he said, as if making a mental note.

  "But there's more."

  There always is.

  "According to our sources, this happened while they were being questioned by inspectors from the Sûreté Nationale."

  David frowned. "The French police? What were they questioning them for?"

  "Two other murders that had occurred earlier."

  "That's complicated," David yawned. "Let's take one thing at a time. Who killed the priests?"

  "We don't know yet."

  "We don't know a lot, do we?" he said, a little disgustedly. "We can't waste resources on unimportant things, Sam." He sighed and smiled to lighten his condescending tone. He liked his people happy. "Anything else?"

  Samantha was reluctant to say the rest, and David was an expert at reading people's expressions.

  "Out with it."

  "Jack . . . Jack Payne was with them," she fi nally said.

  David's eyes got wider. "Rafael?"

  Samantha nodded and lowered her eyes.

  "Was he one of the victims?"

  "We still don't . . ."

  "Know," he finished her sentence, irritated. He got up. "Call Aris, please."

  Samantha got up and left the office to do it.

  Jack Payne, aka Rafael Santini, was a legend in the recent history of the CIA. A real son of a bitch who had been exposed as a double agent in the service of the Vatican. A priest of sorts. David Barry had been close to him, a friend, and felt betrayed when he discovered the truth in 2006. He felt hurt, and he wasn't alone. He still hadn't gotten over it.

  Two minutes later a huge, heavyset man in a well-fitting suit came in. "David," he greeted him.

  The two shook hands in support and loyalty.

&nbs
p; "Tell me everything you know," the director asked. "Something new with Rafael?" The name still stuck in his throat.

  "My team is on the ground, but those French bastards aren't going to be open with us." He took out a cigarette and lit it. "But we know that the Sûreté was there at the time and the questioning involved two other murders in Paris and Marseille."

  "What's in the news?"

  "This is interesting, too. Nothing, because they know nothing."

  "The French are fuckers," David considered scornfully. "No press, then?"

  "Not yet," Aris said, taking another draw on his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray on David's desk.

  "Do we know who the other victims were?"

  "I should have that information within the hour," Aris replied.

  "Do we know whether Rafael was among the victims in the church?" He felt no sympathy for a Judas.

  Aris shook his head no. "But there's a simple way to fi nd out."

  Barry waited for his suggestion.

  "Call him up," Aris said with disdain.

  "Who?"

  "You."

  Barry sat back down in his chair. What a hell of an idea. It was the logical thing to do. Aris was intelligent and pragmatic. He was good at analyzing situations, seeing the options, and coming up with solutions.

  "This could scare off the game," Barry objected.

  "On the other hand we'll find out if he was one of the victims and if he's trying to hide something. Either way we win."

  Barry thought a few moments. What would Rafael be doing in Paris with the Police Nationale? Was he being questioned by them? Had he died? When he came to himself again, he took out his personal cell phone and checked his contacts under the letter R. No number for Rafael. Strange. He knew he had his number and hadn't deleted it. A CIA agent never deleted anything, since he never knew when he'd need it someday. Finally he remembered. He pressed J, and after several Jacks, Jack Payne appeared. He was listed under the name by which Barry had first known him. The bastard.

  After a few seconds of hesitation, he pressed the green key and brought the phone to his ear. It started to ring. One ring, two, three. Pick up, pick up, he said to himself. Four rings, five, six, and . . . some one answered.

  "Rafael?" he asked with a firm voice. He congratulated himself for having waited. It was he. "Hello. It's David."

  Rafael said something David listened to carefully. "Yeah, we haven't talked in a long time." More words neither Aris nor Samantha heard, since David hadn't activated the speaker. "I'm in Rome," he lied, "and I thought of you. Are you free for coffee?"

  A few seconds later Barry disconnected the call with a Perfect—I'll see you there. He looked at Aris and Samantha.

  "He's alive," Barry stated the obvious. "And he's lying, too."

  "What did he tell you?" Aris wanted to know. Curiosity was an occupational hazard.

  "He was about to hear confessions at six, but we could have dinner at eight," he said as he left the offi ce.

  The others followed him.

  "Sam, I want you to check flights leaving Paris for Rome around five and see if Rafael is on any of them."

  "He's on one," Samantha guessed and left them.

  "Are we certain Rafael was in Paris this morning?" Barry asked.

  "Absolutely. He's on the manifest for Alitalia. The French con firmed this. He used his own passport."

  They went into a room crowded with monitors and agents carrying out surveillance on them. The various images were from satellite or closed-circuit video, covering different points all over the world. Barry saw Staughton, who was manipulating a joystick while also looking at a screen.

  "Staughton," Barry called.

  "Hi, David. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

  "Are you busy with something important?"

  The monitor showed a woman talking on a cell phone on a busy street. She was carrying two shopping bags from Burberry. She was being filmed from above from a satellite four hundred miles high. Staughton zoomed out, and the monitor displayed the island of Britain.

  "Nothing that can't wait," he answered.

  "I need to find the location of this number." Barry showed him the screen of his cell phone.

  Staughton pressed a key that focused on the number. He rapidly dialed some keys and entered the number. He continued to send orders with impressive speed.

  "Are you kidding me?" Staughton asked as he read the information that appeared on another monitor, along with a photo of Rafael, aka Jack Payne.

  "Do you know him?" Aris asked.

  "Everyone knows Rafael. He gave me a lot of trouble." He also didn't want to say a few ugly bruises. "When Barnes died he was there, too. He's a tough son of a bitch."

  Barry knew the case. Rafael had nothing to do with the death of Geoffrey Barnes, Barry's predecessor.

  "I need you to tell me where he is now."

  Moments later a red blinking signal appeared over a map on one of the screens.

  "He's moving," Staughton informed him, continuing to strike the computer keys.

  "Where?"

  "In France. North of Paris, and taking off at high speed."

  The screen showed the red signal shifting toward the north on the map. Every time it blinked it shifted farther north.

  "Where is he? In a car?" Aris asked.

  "No. He's moving too fast."

  "In a plane?" Barry suggested.

  "We can't pick up cell phone signals in a plane. Wait a minute," Staughton said, concentrating on his operations. A few moments later he left the keyboard and pressed the joystick: the image that hovered over the British Isles defined itself more and shifted to the south to focus on a long, narrow object moving very fast.

  "What's that?" asked Aris, who couldn't see well.

  "The Eurostar," Staughton and Barry answered in unison.

  28

  The cherubim gave the room a kind of solemnity. There was one for every aesthetic taste, all probably commissioned to one artist, but produced by different pupils. There were the dandies, full of fl ow ery details, with a shiny luster; the mischievous, who didn't even try to hide their bad dispositions or, on closer analysis, their irritation; the indifferent, uncertain where they were looking, as if they could have been anywhere; others, with an austere expression, who confronted whoever looked at them; and then there was the one Hans Schmidt found most amusing, considering where it was placed. A small cherub, hovering over the prefect's chair, was winking his eye, laying a fi nger over his lips to demand silence or, as Schmidt preferred to think, to warn him not to say anything incriminating. He made a mental note to find out who the artist of that piece was.

  Hans Schmidt was calm, despite a sleepless night, thanks to the events that had tormented Tarcisio, which is to say that had tormented the Church, but would not be alluded to in this hearing. The business here was something else, delicate also, but more personal, between the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church and Father Hans Schmidt— nothing so alarming that it could place the Roman Catholic world in crisis and bring down the Vatican like a house of cards. No. Here, the only person who could be ruined, if they desired, would be the Aus trian iceman, though he appeared imperturbable.

  Schmidt rose when the prefect of the congregation, in the person of Cardinal William, entered the hearing room accompanied by his court of jurors, though that term was never used. Secretary Ladaria followed him with five more counselors, the preferred title as Schmidt well knew. They all carried files and piles of papers. The Austrian knew very well that those learned, circumspect men had read his writ ings line by line and analyzed his books word by word so that noth ing would escape. The congregation dedicated itself completely to its investigations.

  As soon as the prefect sat down, the others followed his example, including Schmidt, who cast a complicit glance at the angel hovering over William's chair.

  "Let us begin this hearing called by the prefect of the congregation in the name of the Holy Father Benedict XVI for the Reverend
Father Hans Matthaus Schmidt regarding two of his publications, Jesus Is Life and The Man Who Never Existed," Secretary Ladaria, also a cardinal, proclaimed in a solemn but weak voice.

  "It is important to know that this is not a trial. No accusation has been made at this time," Cardinal William clarifi ed. "The congregation has doubts about some of your writings and only wants to dispel these doubts. Understood?"