The Holy Bullet

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  “What’s going on?” she asked, a little upset. “What’s going on?” she asked again when he didn’t answer.

  “The two of you aren’t fooling anyone,” Simon finally answered.

  “Who?” She wasn’t good at acting as if she didn’t understand.

  “You and John?” Another chuckle.

  “Come on!” Sarah rolled her eyes.

  “Good morning,” a friendly voice greeted them. Phelps’s peaceful theological studies didn’t agree with this rebellious life his clerical destiny had led him into.

  “Good morning,” Sarah and Simon answered in unison, as required by good manners.

  “Did you sleep well?” Simon asked.

  “Sort of. Although actually that sofa needs some fixing up. Those springs …” Phelps complained, rubbing his sore back. “But anyone with a roof over his head to shelter him shouldn’t complain. Right?”

  “Sounds like a priest talking,” Simon joked while chewing away on the food.

  “Don’t go,” Sarah said. “There’s food for one more. Sit down,” she invited him in a friendly way.

  “Ah, thank you,” he acknowledged, sitting down at their side. “The truth is I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten for hours.” He didn’t tell them it had been more than a day since he’d put anything in his mouth.

  “There are scones, bread, butter, cheese …” While she was talking, Sarah passed them to Phelps, who still didn’t find what he was looking for. “Do you want some milk, coffee, tea?”

  “Tea, please.”

  “Good choice. It’s still hot.” She poured a little into a cup. “I’m Sarah,” she introduced herself.

  “James Phelps.” He got up and offered his hand formally. “Nice to meet you.”

  Sarah got up, too, and held out her hand. She wouldn’t leave him there with his hand in the air.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Yesterday was hard,” Phelps said in an awkward attempt at generating polite conversation.

  “If you two hadn’t appeared just in time, my mother would’ve been very unhappy,” Simon said convincingly as he joined the conversation.

  “How do you know Rafael?” the older man asked politely, sipping a little tea and taking a small bite of a scone.

  “I don’t know anyone by that name,” Simon replied immediately without thinking.

  “It’s a long story, James. Excuse me, can I call you James?”

  “Of course, Sarah,” he agreed.

  “Who is Rafael?” Simon persisted without understanding.

  “I would be delighted to know, if you want to tell me,” Phelps continued, leaving it in Sarah’s hands and ignoring Simon’s question completely.

  “Later,” Rafael interrupted from the doorway. “I see you’ve all met. Now it’s necessary to dot all the i’s and tell you your jobs.”

  “What jobs?” Phelps and Sarah asked at the same time.

  “Do you think the danger has passed? This is only the beginning.”

  42

  Sarah and Rafael were late. They were due in Barnes’s office, ready for a not very cordial interrogation. That time had come and gone, and they didn’t show, except for himself, in the office. His solitude had been broken by brief visits from Staughton and Thompson reporting on the progress, which was nothing, and as the hours passed, that was worrisome. Priscilla had passed by to check on his physical state, and he’d asked her to bring him an order of roast pork with potatoes and oregano, the cravings of a body hungry for victory.

  At that moment Herbert entered.

  “Don’t tell me they’ve found a hole to hide in?”

  “Don’t fuck around with me,” Barnes shouted with irritation. “If you were better, you wouldn’t need to walk in our shadow to do your shitty job.”

  “Don’t doubt that if I were the one giving orders, I’d do it alone, with no help. You have hundreds of agents, and not one has managed to find them. As far as we know, they might have left the country.”

  “They haven’t left,” Barnes insisted firmly.

  “How can you guarantee that?” Herbert pressed, seeing Barnes worried.

  “My word is enough. They haven’t left the country. And I’ll tell you more. They’re still in the city.”

  Even the younger man’s smile was without any feelings. More a grimace, livid, lifeless.

  “You’re basing that on instinct, Mr. Barnes. You Americans are very fond of luck and destiny.”

  “This has nothing to do with luck. I know the suspects well,” Barnes said. Besides, I know that he’s going to find a way to let us know when he leaves the country. He didn’t speak this thought. You’ve got to have an ace up your sleeve that others don’t know about, even if they’re associates.

  Herbert raised his hands in the air as if to say that Barnes’s arguments were worthless, but if he wanted to believe them, fine.

  “I’ve got to inform my superior about the situation in half an hour. What am I going to say? That we haven’t expanded the radius of the search because you have a hunch?”

  “Fuck what you’re going to tell him. My men are doing their job. I don’t have the least doubt that any moment now they are going to come through that door with something solid. If you want to tell him, I don’t think we are going to have any news until nightfall. So prepare him and yourself. It’s going to be a long wait.”

  “Who’s the man who showed up at the hospital? This Rafael who seems to have upset you?”

  Barnes paused thoughtfully before responding.

  “A traitor. He infiltrated P2 in order to destroy it from the inside and almost succeeded.”

  “He managed to deceive JC and the CIA?” A sarcastic smile.

  “You’re in no position to laugh,” Barnes warned, chastened. “For all I know he gave your men a good looking over three times. They probably don’t even know what happened.” He laughed in an offensive way that seemed not to affect the other. He congratulated himself thinking that deep down Herbert must have been angered. Nobody could be so cool all the time.

  The office door opened to let in Staughton and the pandemonium of noise from the Center for Operations. Closing the door behind him cut off the exterior noise, leaving a silent movie unfolding on the other side of the window, an agitation without meaning.

  “News?” Barnes asked, leaning back in the chair to give his younger colleague an impression of calm and control.

  “We’re analyzing the images on CCTV, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. We can’t find any Mercedes with continental markings or the license plate in question. We see no bank transfers in the accounts of Sarah Monteiro or Simon Lloyd… .”

  Barnes laughed dryly.

  “What do you want? Everything tied up all nice and neat for you? It won’t be there.”

  “Where will it be then?” Herbert asked maliciously.

  “Rest assured you’re dealing with someone who knows how we work. I get irritated, unhinged, fucked up, but we have to be rational.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That he’s going to appear when and where it seems best to him.”

  “That’s not an option. There has to be a way to find them.” For the first time a note of irritation could be detected in Herbert’s voice. Barnes was pleased and didn’t take long to show it.

  “We’re doing everything possible already,” Staughton told him. “We have the CCTV on constant alert, not just in London, but over the entire country. All the police and border patrol have their photographs and know what to do if they’re spotted. The MI6 is working with us.”

  “It’s okay they’re helping,” Barnes interrupted. “I don’t much like their thinking about their own interests.”

  “There’s nothing else to do,” Staughton declared.

  “What if we offer a reward?” Herbert suggested.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” Barnes protested. “Publicize the thing? Have the journalists and public opinion all over us? What do we gain from that?
”

  “Catch them sooner. People will do anything for money.”

  “It might not be a bad idea,” Staughton put in.

  Herbert crossed his arms and looked skeptical.

  “We’ve identified the man who took Sarah and Simon to the van.”

  That got the attention of Barnes and Herbert.

  “He’s named James Phelps, an English priest assigned to the Vatican.”

  “The what?” Barnes grumbled. “Son of a bitch.”

  The three were silent for a few seconds. In this profession everything was a question of strategic analysis. Deciding what route to take to get to a determined objective, speculating about what the others would do. The more facts they had to fill in the blanks, the more accurate their speculation. When there was little information, everything was guesswork and hunches. Trusting luck was not good, but sometimes one had no choice.

  “What if we leave the priest out and send out an advisory on just the others?” Herbert tried again.

  “It won’t work,” Barnes said. “The woman has an influential position at the Times. It’s only going to hurt us.”

  More silence.

  “What time is Littel getting here?” Barnes asked.

  “Two hours from now.”

  Barnes sighed.

  “Very well. Two hours. Until then we won’t do anything. When he arrives, we’ll make a decision,” he blustered again. “Get me something in the next two hours, Jerome. We’re not looking good with our friends in Opus Dei.” He pointed in Herbert’s direction, who noticed his sardonic tone.

  The door opened to let in Thompson.

  “We have news.”

  “Spit it out.” Barnes jumped up.

  “Between five and six a metropolitan policeman returning to his house after his shift saw a Mercedes of the same description as our alert enter the garage of a house on Clapham.”

  “What are we waiting for, gentlemen?” Barnes asked as he grabbed his gun.

  43

  MIRELLA

  May 7, 1983

  At the age of sixteen the libido renewed itself every second that passed. The awakening of sensual, lustful feelings, satisfied with the simple stare of a longing male, avid for a contact that is never permitted. The first steps in the art of seduction began, the looks, the signs one body sends to another, under control at this stage or not, affected by an urgent immaturity satisfied by a simple smile, an anxious voice greeting one from a distance, a compliment shouted from a Lambretta that made one blush secretly, the more direct the better, a furtive touch, without delicacy, on a buttock covered with a tight skirt. Triumph was an invitation to go out, or a kiss on the mouth, with or without the tongue, according to what she wanted—it’s always she who asks—or, the gold medal, an invitation to dinner with an older man. Not with just any twenty-year-old student, studying architecture or law, which would also be a victory, but with a man turning thirty-seven or forty, with a car, house, settled life, perhaps divorced, in fact separated, one or two children he doesn’t bother to mention, desiring the new feeling of a younger woman, a woman capable of turning the clock back to former years of passion.

  Mirella looked at herself in the mirror for the umpteenth time. One couldn’t run risks in an encounter of this kind. Any error was harmful, able to shake the confidence of an adolescent who considered herself an adult. Of course she wasn’t actually thinking of these technicalities. She acted, with an instinct for self-preservation humans can’t escape no matter how intelligent they consider themselves.

  Obviously, when she was sixteen, her parents were not going to permit a candlelit romantic dinner, as she imagined, with a man old enough to be her father, enchanted with her femininity, ready to smother her with expensive presents and endless gallantries. So she’d accepted his suggestion to tell her parents she was staying with an old friend from school. That way no suspicions were aroused. Not to do that invited a serious paternal interrogation that would conclude with a prohibition without appeal, tears on Mirella’s part, locking herself in her bedroom for hours lamenting her bad luck and cursing her bad parents, and a long face for days until she found a new source of diversion to make her forget the previous one. But none of that was necessary.

  “Where are you going to eat?” asked her mother, who had just come in the bedroom where Mirella, elegant and beautiful, was admiring herself in the mirror.

  “At Campo dei Fiori. I still don’t know where,” Mirella replied without taking her eyes off what looked like the inopportune beginning of a pimple on her chin. “What a bother. It’s starting to look red.”

  It was one of the dramas of adolescence. Certain bodily assaults one couldn’t foresee or avoid.

  “Pay no attention to it. He’ll have a lot also.”

  “It looks really bad,” Mirella protested.

  Her mother took her chin and turned her face toward her, like an object she owned, which was somewhat true, according to her point of view. She examined the irritated skin of her daughter’s face with a maternal expression. A small red spot could be made out on the right side of her chin, nothing serious.

  “This is nothing. It’s going to take some time before it breaks out,” her mother declared. “You’ve got to learn to live with those.”

  “What did you do to get rid of pimples?” Mirella asked, interested in the magical formula that, at times, mothers seem to possess.

  “Don’t worry about it,” her mother answered. “Someday you’ll do the same,” she finished with a smile.

  The wise words of a mother or father, not always so wise, fall on deaf ears in anything related to the dramas of surviving puberty. Someday would Mirella stop worrying about the infamous pimples that broke out on her face just before her period? Never. Naturally, she wasn’t, at the moment, in possession of all the information about what her future life would be, no one is, it’s the rules of the game. If she were, she’d know that she’d never have to worry again about cutaneous eruptions, menstruation, classes, excuses, sensual seductions, joking, libidinous thoughts, worrying about conquests, feeling admired, the erections that her simple presence provoked, the calculated, suggestive smile, dinner with older men, her parents … or her life.

  It was almost time, and Mirella went to the window to see if his car was already waiting there. She flashed a fascinating smile when she saw him there. He’d arrived five minutes early. A good sign. Romans were not punctual in any way. It was their style to arrive late for everything. Fifteen minutes to a half hour didn’t seem bad to anyone.

  “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 chidren, 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.