The Holy Bullet

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  “He was always the eternal enemy.”

  “Or the eternal ally?” A quick question to throw Raul in doubt.

  “No way is he an ally of theirs,” Raul returned.

  “My dear captain, there are innumerable ways of cooperation. If I attack you, I am not necessarily your enemy. I can be an ally whose role is to seem like an enemy. But I am talking too much, excuse me. That example does not illustrate what I am saying. Look at Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. They are allies and enemies of the United States, depending on the best interests of whoever’s in power.”

  “And what is your relation with those countries? Ally or enemy?” Raul touched a sore spot for JC.

  His first response was a dry laugh followed by a suppressed cough that left him choking. At his age it was difficult to get enough oxygen.

  “No one has the luxury of having me as an enemy, Captain. If you knew me, you’d know that.”

  “That’s not what it seems. If so, you wouldn’t be here.” The soldier was in fine form.

  “They don’t know me, either. Soon they’ll take note of that,” the other answered in the sure, serious tone of leaders.

  “And the CIA, where does it fit into all this? It has a lot of power over them.”

  “We can’t count on the CIA for this battle. They’ll be on the other side of the barricades. They’re going to understand that, but not lift a hand to prejudice either side. It’s a strange way to function, but the only way to survive.”

  A vibrating sound, followed immediately by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, filled the room. The cripple’s cell phone, which he answered without opening his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Twenty seconds later he hung up without saying another word of good-bye, not a “so long,” least of all “thanks.”

  “They’ve blown up her house. They still haven’t made anything public,” was all he said.

  A terrible feeling, worse than a hot knife, slashed through Raul.

  “And Sarah?”

  “There’s no word about her.”

  “Good God.” Raul put his face in his hands despairingly. A feeling of impotence filled his soul, while he tried to imagine his daughter, thrown to her fate, uncertain, including death in the most awful way. Professionals didn’t have compassion. If her death was confirmed, he hoped it had been fast.

  “Don’t worry,” he heard JC say. “If something happened to her, we’d know already.”

  “How can we be certain?”

  “Because that would be a message they’d want us to get immediately. It would already be on television. You can be at peace. All is well,” the old man explained calmly. Such coldness sent chills down Raul’s spine.

  “How can they hide an exploding house from the media?” He didn’t understand. JC’s words, such as they were, calmed him. Sarah was okay, he forced himself to think positive, and felt a little better.

  “Circling off the area or saying it was a gas explosion. Right away they lose interest,” he explained. “What matters is blood and terrorism.”

  “All this has to do with the murder of Luciani?” the Portuguese wanted to know.

  “Ironically, no.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Silence fell over the room quickly. Raul waited for a conclusion that didn’t come. The old man was irritated.

  “Well then, what does it have to do with?”

  “Hot tea.”

  “What?”

  “Hot tea is what sounds good to me now. Do you have any?”

  Raul couldn’t believe that in this disorienting moment the old man could be thinking of tea, but he should have been used to it. Most of the time Raul saw him as a normal human being, a fragile elder like so many around there. Nothing could have been more of a false impression.

  “Do you have any?” JC asked again.

  “Herbal,” the military man replied.

  “That’ll have to do. But I suggest you renew your stock of Earl Grey or Twinings for tomorrow.”

  Raul got up and looked at him from above before going into the kitchen to make tea.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me?”

  “This has nothing to do with Pope Luciani,” JC said without looking at him. “It has to do with the Pole.”

  “Wojtyla?” Raul looked at him incredulously.

  The old man nodded.

  “Do you consider all the popes enemies?”

  “Wojtyla was not my enemy. Never. He was an old man without balls, but not an enemy.”

  This reply left Raul in shock. The mystery intensified. So this had nothing to do with what he thought. It was completely beyond what was happening around him. One thing was sure. There were not many people who could make someone as influential as JC retreat to a place like Alentejo to find refuge. What was happening had to be very serious to make this brilliant strategist leave the comfort of his villa in Italy. Another thing that shook him was the older man’s attempt to protect his daughter, although he had done nothing specific except warn her. He had a faint hope in his heart that he had done it in time and that she was able to get out of the city.

  “While you put the water on to boil, call your contact.”

  “Sir,” the cripple cried out, awakening with his pride wounded. “Not that.”

  “Sit down,” the old man ordered in a firm voice. There was no doubt about who was in charge here. “We need someone closer to what took place. Because of our strategic retreat we don’t have anyone in place to be our eyes and ears. This is the best solution.” His austere look showed that everything had already been decided and explained.

  The cripple—an epithet used with no intention of insult, only an allusion to something about someone who doesn’t like to reveal his name—didn’t hide the anger in his face, but ended up sitting down without saying more.

  “Who’s after us, then?” Raul asked. He had not yet gone to put the water on for the tea.

  The old man threw the blanket that had covered Raul over his legs. Warmth was a necessity he should never scorn at his age. Raul waited for a reply, which was glacial, unfeeling.

  “Opus Dei.”

  23

  There are a lot of things happening under our noses, and I’m not happy we don’t have even minimal control of the situation,” Geoffrey Barnes shouted as he came into the Center of Operations of the CIA in London.

  He walked through the enormous room, filled with monitors, computers, and a large screen that filled an entire wall where a map of the world appeared with various symbols that would have meant little to the common person, although they had much to do with the lives of these common people, shouting and gesturing, red with anger. Here in this station only a few lives were important; the rest were disposable, always or whenever necessary.

  The printers vomited pages and pages of information and added to the agitation that reigned in the Center of Operations. No one paid attention to the director’s angry words. There was no time or patience. He himself would stop if he thought anyone should listen, but he didn’t. Geoffrey Barnes entered his office, separated from the Center of Operations by a thin structure of aluminum and glass. The director had a privileged view over the room. Nothing escaped his attention, as he wished, but if he wanted to enjoy a few minutes of privacy, all he had to do was lower the inner blinds and no one could see in. Staughton and Thompson followed him into the office and closed the door after them, shutting out the noise from the outer room completely.

  The chief sat down and put his feet on the desk. Staughton and Thompson only watched him as he swept aside some papers to arrange his legs better and enjoy some ephemeral rest. He didn’t dare mistreat the three telephones lined up on the mahogany desk on the right. Not these. One green, another red, the other beige. The green was direct contact with Langley, the headquarters of the CIA in the United States; the beige, his colleagues at the agency. Barnes avoided answering that phone, whether or not he knew who was on the other end of the line. The people who used that phon
e were very powerful, some even more powerful than the man who used the third, red phone, the president. When it rang, it meant someone from the Oval Office, or the president himself. It had rung only once since Barnes had assumed his responsibilities more than seven years earlier, the morning of July 7, 2005, when terrorists detonated explosives in the London transportation system. He remembered flushing when the phone began to ring. It had never crossed his mind that the phone even worked, he was so used to seeing it silent. On answering he realized it was some assistant to the president wanting to know more details firsthand to inform the chief of state. Barnes was not caught off guard and gave him the official version, to which anyone had access. Sometimes the truth was not for the ears of the president.

  This is not to say Geoffrey Barnes wasn’t patriotic. Anyone who didn’t want to see his life laid wide open should never say so where he could hear them. Geoffrey Barnes was one of the few men privileged to sift through intelligence information and sort it into categories, the essential, the important, and the normal. The important was given out to others. The country had so many crooked dealings that certain things couldn’t reach the knowledge of the president. Everyone understands, surely.

  “We’re fucked.” He was recovering, still furious. “Set up a meeting for six-thirty.”

  “So early?” Staughton questioned timidly.

  “I’m awake, aren’t I?” Barnes yelled. “So no one else better lie around in bed.” He saw that Staughton wasn’t going to object.

  “Okay,” Staughton replied, opening the door to carry out the order. For a few moments noise filled the office, shattering the quiet in there.

  “Thompson,” Barnes called.

  “What, boss?”

  “I want a report in a half hour on my desk with all the facts and events we know up to now.”

  “It’s done,” the other obeyed, immediately looking for the door out.

  “You should warn all your contacts,” Barnes ordered.

  “All?” the other asked with his hand on the doorknob. All he could think about was the cigarette he wanted to smoke as soon as possible.

  “All.” Barnes got up with difficulty and leaned on the table. “How much time do you need?”

  “I just have to make a few calls,” Thompson replied thoughtfully. “Fifteen minutes. I want to know what rumors are going around now.”

  “Do that.”

  Thompson opened the door. Now he could already anticipate the bitter tobacco calming his nerves, refining his olfactory pleasure, his fighting instincts. Things would be hard from now on.

  “And don’t forget to bring me the report in half an hour,” Barnes warned, turning his back and looking over the city. He hated not having control over situations. Worse, he hated not understanding shit about what was happening. Three murders in a public bathroom in Holland, one of them an old CIA agent. The memory of him with a dark, purple cavity right in the center of his head marking the end of his life. Whoever killed him was a son of a bitch, since everything indicated only one killer, and statistics don’t attribute crimes of this sort to women.

  The city was an immense lamp of yellow lights, punctuated below by the red taillights of cars. London was also a city that never sleeps, never. At this hour he’d rather be taking breakfast at Vingt Quatre on Fulham Road in Chelsea. Being known there saved him from having to stand in the long line of people waiting for a table night and day. The thought of some scalloped eggs with fried sausage made his mouth begin to water. To hell with those who came between his proud gut and the possibility of filling it with nutritious substances. He’d have to leave it for another night. It was lucky Vingt Quatre hadn’t moved.

  He forgot the city and picked up the phone. Someone was waiting on the other end of the line, his secretary, Theresa, who asked him what he wanted.

  “Hello, Theresa. Bring me a double burger with cheese, pizza, and a Carlsberg, as quick as possible.” Barnes’s mouth watered at the thought of all that in front of him. At the same time he listened to his secretary’s solicitous questions. Barnes always showed respect and never raised his voice with her. “I prefer Burger King, but if you can’t find one open, it can be anyplace else, don’t worry about it.” And he hung up.

  He turned his thoughts back to the situation at hand. Once again Jack Payne or Rafael, or whatever he called himself, had crossed his path. The difference was that this time Rafael wasn’t going to get the best of him. There wouldn’t be deals to save him. Why had he carried off the two corpses in Amsterdam? For what? The bodies were useless, or were they? He needed a clue as soon as possible. That was it. He picked up the telephone, but this time pressed three numbers. Two seconds later someone picked up and spoke his last name, the organizational rule for avoiding “hello” and “who’s calling?”

  “Staughton,” said the recipient of the call.

  “I want you to put a team on Jack’s trail. I want him in front of me before the morning is over.”

  “After Jack Payne, really?” There was no room for misunderstandings in this profession. One was playing with human lives, and errors were costly.

  “Of course Jack Payne. Who else?” Jack had a gift for leaving him irritated, and, consequently, hungry.

  “Okay. I’ll take care of that,” Staughton replied, disconnecting without waiting for Barnes to give him more instructions. Giving orders was fine, if you didn’t have to carry them out yourself.

  Barnes hung up also, a little stupefied. He looked at the room beyond the divider window. A continuous stream of men and women moved back and forth, people swinging their arms with their hands full of papers, others shouting into the phone, some listening attentively but not to music. The more distracted or less familiar with this scene might imagine they were dealing with the stock market on Wall Street or in London, working overtime. The apparent disorganization was deceptive. Everyone knew what they were doing inside that room. On the large screen that filled the wall, the map of the world had changed and now showed only the Old World. New circles of various colors blinked psychedelically over certain places. Each color identified a certain activity, whether a listening post, a long-term or short-term operation, or mere positioning of agents in a territory or wherever. They were indicators that meant something only to those who worked here, although many secret services or other less scrupulous individuals would love to get their hands on that information.

  Although it seemed like no one gave the screen a second look, the instructions contained there were vital to the agency. The actions of the people running around inside there were identified and classified. With a simple click they could access anyone’s personal data, previous criminal records, bank accounts, weddings, children, if there were any, and every imaginable and possible fact. If it was necessary, they could block the same accounts or modify them, alter former records, innumerable possibilities that were done every day on people, though not on Barnes, of course. Up to now he’d been considered an active, competent agent in his yearly evaluation.

  If he made the effort, from where he was in the office Barnes could see a red circle blinking over Amsterdam. Information was still scarce, but soon it would be coming in.

  “My fucking food still hasn’t come,” he complained.

  At that moment a shrill sound resonated without stopping. He shivered. He looked at the green telephone on top of the desk. A green light winked on and off. The alert was impossible to avoid. Langley wanted information on a secure line. This wasn’t standard. The beige phone also went off, making an amalgam of ringing sounds. An orange blinking light announced the sound. Barnes silenced the telephones to clear the atmosphere and his own head, leaving the pulsing lights as a signal the calls continued. What was the protocol to follow when two telephones on secure lines sounded at the same time? It didn’t exist. He chose his patrons at Langley. Ultimately they were the ones who paid him.

  “Barnes.”

  The sound of the other phone could be heard in the office. Barnes sank into his chair w
ithout taking his eyes off the telephone. The endless sound might fool him, but the blinking red light of the emergency signal left no room for doubt. The president’s telephone was showing signs of life, too.

  24

  The gas explosion at an address not necessary to mention had left the place unrecognizable. Its owner could testify to that; she knew well how it was before and now entered the destruction. She’d like to forget the last few hours. Her eyes were swollen from tears, recent or about to start again, since a tear was running down her cheek. She couldn’t say whether for this unhappy sight or for the sorrow she felt over losing two friends. Natalie and Greg were dead. That was inconceivable, no matter how much she tried to convince herself. She knew death would happen to all of us at a certain hour on a certain day, maybe without warning. What most affected her was the way they left this world. Surely they didn’t even realize they were dying. In one second they were alive, making love, according to what the agent John Fox had described; in the next, dead, cadavers, lifeless, inanimate. It was cruel. And as if this weren’t enough, she now had to face this shredded house, without personality, in ruins. Surely both sorrows merged in the tear. This hadn’t been an easy day for Sarah Monteiro.

  “Are you sure Simon Lloyd’s in the hospital?” she asked uncomfortably, remembering with a shiver what she’d come to see.

  “We’re sure. Relax,” John Fox assured her. “This is someone else.”

  “I hope I don’t know him,” she confessed selfishly, more for her own sake than the agents’.

  They put on gowns and wrapped their shoes in protective covers that tied at the ankle to avoid contaminating the crime scene, although Sarah Monteiro’s DNA would surely be found all over the place.

  “Don’t touch anything,” ever-friendly Simon Templar warned her. “I want it on record that I’m against your presence in this place.”

  “It’s on record,” John Fox affirmed, making clear who gave the orders, if this was still not understood. “Let’s continue.”

  The place was lit with spotlights. Metropolitan Police technicians were scattered through the rooms of a once tastefully furnished house. Some walls still stood untouched by the blast of fire, stroked by the hot lights of the projectors reflecting off their clean surface.