The Holy Bullet

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  “Snipers,” Rafael explained.

  “That’s right,” the barber agreed.

  “Russian mafia?” Phelps asked, still suffering.

  “No,” Ivanovsky contradicted him. “Americans. They can only be Americans. I can smell them,” he lamented.

  “Barnes,” Sarah whispered.

  “We have to do something,” Rafael declared. The shots came from two places in front and behind the van.

  He tried to get to the back where the window was intact. He watched for a long time.

  “Give them a little taste, Ivanovsky.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re there and I’m here. If you want, we can switch.”

  The two men looked at each other. Ivanovsky was in the front of the van, standing up, holding on to a seat, Rafael in back next to the rear window, Phelps and Sarah between them, also standing. The seats served as corners.

  “Do you want to switch?” Rafael suggested again.

  “No, I’ll take care of it,” the Russian growled, muttering some insult in Russian.

  He held on to the seat and got up toward the door. From the back Rafael watched the buildings in his field of vision. He watched from one side of the glass with his body shielded by the thin metal of the back door.

  Ivanovsky put his head out. A shot struck the van next to his head. He returned two shots over the building. Two shots back, closer, made holes in the metal. Another shot came from who knows where. Better not push his luck. He drew back inside the van.

  “I’ve found him,” Rafael said.

  “Can you take him out?”

  “It’s done,” he informed him.

  A hole in the back window showed the deed. It had been the last shot the Russian heard before backing down.

  “Why don’t they shoot to kill?” the Russian asked.

  “They must need one of us and can’t risk it.”

  “What are we going to do?” Phelps asked.

  “We stick our head out to see where the rest of them are, or wait for them to come looking for us,” Rafael explained. “Either way …”

  “We’re screwed,” the Russian admitted.

  “I think we should take them on,” Phelps declared, much recovered.

  Sarah looked at him, amazed.

  “Don’t you have one of those for us?” Phelps asked, pointing to the gun.

  “You know how to use this?”

  “No, but I’ll learn.”

  Ivanovsky thought for a minute and decided to take the gun off Vladimir’s body, which was curled against the door, next to the floor.

  You’re not going to need it, my friend.

  He gave it to Phelps carefully.

  “The safety’s on,” he advised. “To take it off—”

  Phelps took the gun knowledgeably, took the safety off, and shot Ivanovsky right in the middle of his head. He fell lifeless over Vladimir.

  “I know how to remove an obstacle,” he advised coldly.

  Sarah gave a panicked cry, incredulous over what she’d seen.

  Rafael aimed at Phelps, but Phelps grabbed Sarah and put the gun to her head.

  “I’m not feeling well,” he imitated himself, then immediately let out a sarcastic laugh that ended in a serious stare at Rafael. “Throw your gun out of the van.”

  “How can you do this?” Sarah said, feeling the hot barrel burning her scalp.

  “Sarah knows very well what we’re capable of doing to protect the good name of our Church.” He turned to Rafael. “Throw the gun out. I’m not going to repeat myself.”

  Rafael broke the glass of the back window with one kick and threw the Glock to the asphalt, far off to the side of the van.

  “You’re a first-rate adversary, my friend,” Phelps praised him. “You keep everything to yourself. But I’ve succeeded in getting you to give me everything I need.”

  “Do you think so?” Rafael asked daringly. “You’re not as good an actor as you think.”

  “Don’t underestimate me, my friend,” the Englishman replied, if he was in fact an Englishman. “The heart attack was well rehearsed. I know how much you worried about me, and I appreciate it. I’d trust you in a similar occasion.”

  “I’m not talking about the heart attack. I applaud that performance in particular.”

  “What are you talking about then?” His curiosity was stimulated. A sarcastic smile stretched his thin lips.

  “Your thigh that hurt you from time to time.”

  Sarah understood now the source of the pain.

  “What about it?” Phelps’s smile disappeared.

  “Nothing would have happened if it had always been the same thigh. That’s where you failed. Sometimes the right, sometimes the left. That means only one thing.”

  “A cilice, worn for penance.” Sarah spoke. “That’s what he had around his thigh. That’s what occasionally caused him awful pain. The sharp barbs nailed into the flesh.”

  Phelps didn’t like being mocked.

  “In any case you’ve given me almost everything I need. I’ll get my hands on the file you took from Sarah’s house. With it, I’ll make JC appear.”

  “If only it were that simple.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Phelps’s good mood vanished in front of their eyes.

  “You consider yourself a great manipulator, a first-rate actor, but you’ve been controlled the whole time.”

  Phelps applied more pressure with the gun against Sarah’s head and pressed the trigger a little.

  Sarah shut her eyes, terrified.

  “Your bluff isn’t convincing,” Phelps finally said.

  Three black vans with tinted windows stopped next to the overturned van. Several hooded men, armed with semiautomatics, surrounded the vehicle.

  “Everything’s okay,” Phelps shouted.

  Two men pulled Rafael outside, handcuffed him, and made him get into one of the vans. They did the same with Sarah.

  A little later Phelps made his grand entrance.

  There was another man inside the van. He wore dark glasses that matched his suit.

  “Stuart.”

  “Phelps.” He inclined his head with the necessary deference.

  “What took you so long?”

  “We had to wait where we wouldn’t be noticed. You didn’t exactly avoid the tourist sites.”

  “My beloved colonel, it looked like you were going to give me a real heart attack.”

  The two men laughed with pleasure.

  “Let’s get going,” Stuart Garrison ordered. “We have a long trip ahead.”

  The vans pulled away, leaving the other van behind, the one with two corpses inside.

  63

  It was a night like others before and others that will come.

  The innkeeper finished up the accounts from another day’s work. It was normal not to have many guests this time of the year. It wasn’t cold or hot enough. Business flourished in the middle of winter with the snow and the fascination it exerts over old and young alike, and in summer when green conquered the white, aided by the rise in temperature, encouraging sightseeing and religious tourism.

  Today he had seven guests, among them two priests, a couple with a small boy, and two Benedictine sisters. All with full service for three days, with the grace of God. He expected some reservations for the weekend and so spent his days unworried.

  Someone rang the bell at this hour of the night, some traveler in search of a room for the night. It happened. Despite closing the door of the inn as soon as the church chimed ten at night, he stayed on watch for the last-minute client or guest who had decided to enjoy the social life in the town.

  He unlocked the door and opened it. Outside there were two men, an old man with a beard, sweating, another younger one who seemed more composed. He noticed some bruises on the old man’s face that didn’t inspire confidence. The young man carried a black briefcase like businessmen use to keep their documents.

  “Hello.”

  “Goo
d evening,” the young man greeted him. “We’d like a room for the night.”

  It took him five seconds to forget the condition of the darker man, Arab perhaps, and remember that the inn was almost empty.

  “Of course. Please come in.”

  He locked the door again and took them up to the second floor. The young man registered as Timothy Elton and paid in zlotys, leaving a generous tip.

  Money is the universal language, whatever the currency. It’s never too much, it slips through the fingers like water, and one can never hold on to it. It can be tamed, hypothetically, channeled here and there, but it has a propensity toward sudden flight. And it makes innkeepers everywhere forget the faces behind the hand that gives them the bills, although they may be beaten, sorrowful, sweating, dirty, tired, or proud.

  “We don’t wish to be disturbed,” the young man emphasized, the only thing said during the process of registering.

  “I understand,” the innkeeper said, handing over the key to room 206, fastened to a shell.

  The guests climbed the stairs. There was no elevator. A fundamental rule of innkeeping was that the customer is always right. If his desire was not to be disturbed, he wouldn’t be, except in the case of an emergency, which had never happened, thank God. There was a barrier of privacy that could never be crossed from the moment the guest shut himself inside the room. It was true that when one went to clean after checkout, or the daily tourist activity, one could learn something about the person in question, habits of hygiene, sex, or gastronomy… . In the thirty years of experience he had in the business, he’d acquired some psychic ability, nothing supernatural, based only on steady observation. He thought, for example, that cleaning room number 206 in the morning wouldn’t take more than five minutes. There would be no trash in the wastebaskets, nor would the bathroom look used. The sheets on the bed would be untouched, as would the furniture. It’d look as if no one had occupied the room that night.

  He’d had other guests like this in the past, whose traces were deliberately covered over or never left. In those situations one didn’t ask intrusive questions of any kind; one took the money, signed the register, and forgot that a man named Timothy Elton accompanied by an old man had once stayed in the inn.

  Behind the closed door with the number 206 fixed in the wood was a scene of one-sided nervousness. The younger man paced from one side to the other with his cell phone in hand with no call sent or even about to be made. Abu Rashid sat in a chair, distanced, free, watching the other’s nervousness.

  “I’m like the only responsible one,” Tim said. “I can’t get hold of my boss.”

  Sweat covered his face, an occupational hazard for men who work under specific instructions.

  Abu Rashid closed his eyes and sighed. He withdrew from Tim’s negative energy. He remained in that state many minutes, hours, concentrating on himself, peace, and good thoughts. He forgot there was someone else in the room, stopped hearing the frenetic pacing and complaints. He understood Tim’s doubts, the dilemma, the disgust, solitude, sudden confusion. It was like having the umbilical cord cut while still inside the maternal womb.

  When morning broke and entered the sinister hour of sepulchral silence, broken by cries and unknown sounds, Tim’s steps were no longer heard in the room waiting for the call that hadn’t come.

  Abu Rashid felt a cold, cylindrical object pressed against his head. He knew what it was and didn’t bother to open his eyes to see the menace.

  “Who told you about the tomb?”

  “You know as well as I do, Tim.”

  “Don’t call me Tim,” he shouted.

  “What do you want me to call you? Timothy?”

  Tim drew the gun away from Abu Rashid’s head and scratched his head with the hand holding it. He took a deep breath and thought. He made sure the cell phone was closed. Everything was correct. Only the instructions were lacking.

  “Who else knows about the tomb?”

  “You, me, and whoever is giving you orders. Not even those directly involved know.”

  “But someone else has to know.” Tim’s voice stammered, confused. He was very tired, and Abu Rashid was not an easy prisoner. “The Americans? The Russians? With their secret satellites?”

  “You know satellites, as advanced as they may be, cannot keep track of millions of people. They only keep watch on a small part of the globe. They only see one thing at a time. And while they’re focused on one objective, they see nothing else. The idea that they can monitor everything and everybody every hour and minute is absurd. An attempt to frighten us. Only God can be in all places at all times, and so He helps us in all we want to do.”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” Tim cried, sitting on the edge of the bed. “This conversation about technology only proves that you know how things work.” He pointed the gun at him.

  “Why don’t you try to kill me if that’s your final judgment?”

  Tim lowered both his eyes and the gun. He looked again at the cell phone on the bedspread.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll call you,” Abu Rashid assured him.

  There was visible disturbance in Tim’s face, a boy taken from his mother and father to be given orders and shown the path. Only orphan boys gathered into the bosom of the Catholic community could be initiated into the secret order of the Sanctifiers. Of those, very few were chosen to fill the sparse ranks of the elite group. Innumerable tests and discipline were necessary—thousands of hours of prayer to the Lord, theological, anthropological, sociological study, punishment of the flesh, several hours a day, religiously. A few blows of a whip striking the flesh and immediately the sharp pain vanquished evil thoughts, feelings, and other degeneracy.

  Tim got up and took some white plastic cords out of the pocket of his jacket. He went over to the dreamy Abu Rashid and tied him to the chair to prevent him from getting away. That done, he opened the bathroom door and took off his jacket.

  Abu Rashid opened his eyes.

  “God is and always will be synonymous with love. Man is the one who has created sorrow and the dogma that suffering is the remedy for everything.”

  Tim ignored him and shut himself in the bathroom. The water ran in the tub and sink, strong streams to cover up the held-back moans. Return me to the right road, Lord, he murmured, bent over in the liberating pain. Return me to Your Way.

  He turned off the faucets. Silence returned. Tim opened the door that separated the bathroom from the bedroom with his shirt on and buttoned. More self-possession was impossible, given the circumstances. He found Abu Rashid in the same position he’d left him. Eyes open, looking at him without blame … without the cords that had tied him. He looked closer. It couldn’t be. He confirmed it. He squatted down to pick one up; it was cut. He took the gun he had left in his jacket on top of the bed. An irresponsible act, he recognized.

  “Who cut the cords?”

  “Our Lady,” Abu Rashid answered.

  The punch struck him full in his face.

  “Who cut the cords?” Timothy repeated.

  He opened the door of the room, gun in hand, and looked around. Everything was quiet. He did the same at the window. It was too dark to see anything.

  “Our Lady,” Abu Rashid said again.

  Tim returned to the center of the room and sighed. I’m going crazy. He took in what had occurred and analyzed the cord again.

  “Why didn’t you run away or take the gun?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t need to,” Abu Rashid declared, looking at him profoundly.

  “You still don’t understand, Tim. I’m not your prisoner. I’m here of my free will. Sleep now. Tomorrow will be an important day.”

  64

  A thin line separates patriotic duty from the temporary illusion of a comfortable life free of financial problems, as if money were the magic solution for earthly happiness. Even on a border as rigidly controlled as the Russian, greasing palms with dollars is sufficient stimulus. It’s never been a question of honor or dignity, but of price.r />
  As soon as they left Moscow, they went in civilian helicopters somewhere close to the border with Ukraine. From there they caught a plane that in a matter of seconds crossed the border, leaving the Russian authorities to deal with the dead agents. It would open a diplomatic conflict between America and Russia, but without proof the Westerners could deny any responsibility.

  There were two stops on the long flight, but Rafael and Sarah couldn’t calculate how long. They only knew they’d been traveling for hours. During the first stage they were blindfolded and forced to change planes. There the blindfolds were taken off, but even so there was nothing to orient them. They flew together in a compartment that was essentially a cell without windows. There was hardly space for the two seats where they sat tied with straps and chains above and below. You couldn’t be claustrophobic and survive in such a narrow space. Even someone who’d never suffered previous symptoms would end up suffering, as happened to Sarah, who felt her nose and throat begin to close up. Being handcuffed didn’t help. It didn’t matter that they’d removed the blindfold. It wasn’t really necessary since the walls around them were barely visible. Her respiratory panic increased when Rafael fell asleep. She felt alone, incapable of sleeping, consumed by her thoughts and speculations. In this case she had no control of the situation. Without any aces there was no way to negotiate. The only thing she could do was trust Rafael, who seemed to be sleeping the sleep of the innocents, completely carefree, as if he didn’t expect an unforeseen torture session. Barnes was not going to forgive them, much less whoever was working for him.

  How can he sleep? She couldn’t get James Phelps out of her mind during the long flight. How was such deception possible? To gain their confidence, listen, suffer physically with them, only to gain some strange influence, whatever it was. A courteous man with an adorable frailty, who could be her father, until he looked at her with those cold eyes, repugnant, a taker of lives. There was a Portuguese proverb about he who sees faces, doesn’t see hearts. There was no better way to illustrate the manipulative power of that Englishman. To think she’d been genuinely worried about his health. She couldn’t help a certain negativity come over her, a loss of hope for humanity.