The Final Pontiff

by Neil Howarth

  He wished he could call Uncle Omar but he did not have his number. Armena had given the old man a phone, but Omar never called anyone, certainly not him. The old bastard never approved of him anyway. The only person who called him was Armena or the old guy at the bottom of the hill, who he would play cards with and get drunk, while they talked about the good old days. Whatever they were.

  In the end he had driven out there, tearing up the winding track to Uncle Omar’s place like a mad man. It was his last frantic option. The place appeared deserted, and there was no sign of Omar’s truck. He had rushed inside but there was no one there. He was about to leave when something caught his eye. He moved over to the chair by the fireplace. He picked it up and held it to his face. He closed his eyes and he could smell her fragrance. It was a red, woolen scarf. Armena had been wearing it when she left the house that morning. She had been here, but where was she now? Where had they gone?

  On the way back, he had stopped at the house at the bottom of the hill. He knocked frantically on the door, but no one answered. Where in the name of Jahannam was everybody?

  In the end, he had returned home, hoping that she had returned while he was away. But the house was empty. So he had sat there to wait, with a bottle of Rakija for company. Armena disapproved of him drinking, but he had sunk it, shot by shot, in increasing desperation.

  He stumbled back downstairs. His mouth and throat were parched, and his head throbbed painfully. He eyed the empty fruit brandy bottle lying on the floor by the chair. He staggered into the kitchen, over to the sink, and stuck his mouth under the tap, letting the water spill out and run over his face. He stood up and stretched, wiping his face with a towel. Then he heard something. Something outside. A sharp knock came on the door. A hand gripped at his gut. Praise to Allah, please let it not be the police. If she was lying in the hospital, he would never forgive himself. Please let her be all right. He promised he would change, he would stop drinking, be a better husband, be a better Muslim.

  The knock came again.

  Marko opened the door. It was not the police.

  A tall, well built man, dressed in black with clipped blonde hair stood there. Two other men dressed in similar garb stood behind him. The blonde man’s leather jacket was zipped open at the neck, revealing what looked like a Catholic priest’s collar. But something about the man told Marko this was no ordinary priest.

  “Marko.” The man spoke in English and gave him a cold smile. “We need to talk.”

  48

  Dinaric Alps, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  The drones were still up there. She had been able to identify at least three. Frankie had spent another night on the mountain in another cave, and had risen early. She had run out of chocolate bars, and hunger gnawed at her stomach. She had set off in the dark, working her way down towards the valley. It was still cold as the sun eased its way over the mountain. She had moved non-stop for the last two hours and finally stopped for a rest.

  The hillside was bathed in the early morning sunshine, and the valley below was draped in a thick mist, giving it a fairytale quality. She fully expected a magical castle to appear in the distance. It all seemed so peaceful, a million miles away from the nightmare that this had become. But they were out there. She knew that. And soon they would be back.

  The sun gradually burned away the mist, and the valley was visible again. She reached a clearing in the trees. A broad swathe of grassy meadow ran away before her. She could have made fast progress crossing it directly, but she knew she could not risk being caught out in the open. So she had to work her way around the outside, keeping within the protective shelter of the trees. It took her most of the morning to reach the far side.

  At least it did not make it easy for the mountain bikes that were out there. She had heard them a couple of hours ago, the raucous scream of their engines seeming to move closer, then moving away again. She estimated there were at least four of them. She had to keep moving and just stay ahead of the noise of the bike engines.

  She reached a point where the ground dipped steeply, and the valley spread out before her. A vast green blanket swept out below her, and where the trees ran out, she could see a river, lazily winding its way into the distance. It looked so peaceful in the morning sunshine. The railway line was down there somewhere, but she could not see it. She sat on a fallen tree trunk and removed the water bottle from her backpack. She took a long swig, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stowed the bottle away. She gazed down into the valley, to the river. It seemed tantalizingly close, yet she knew it was still a good few hours walk away. She got to her feet and slung the bag onto her back, then continued down.

  Something was nagging at the back of her mind. The bikes had kept their distance as the afternoon wore on, sweeping back and forth behind her but not seeming to move any closer. The trees suddenly ran out, and the nag turned into a direct threat. The land in front of her terminated in a cliff that dropped sheer for about thirty feet, then fell away in a steep escarpment to where the trees began again and swept on down to the river. She could see the railway line now, running along the river bank. She felt she could almost reach out and touch it.

  The cliff was rough and rutted. She could perhaps climb down it, then scramble down the escarpment without breaking a leg. If she was lucky. But she would be easy pickings for the drones. And they knew that. Behind her, the bikes were no longer keeping their distance. They were moving in.

  To her left, the land rose steeply in a sharp bank as the hillside climbed up towards the mountains. But to her right, the elevation was much more gradual, and as the trees thinned out, she could see a ridge in the distance. Beyond, it would drop away with the slope of the hillside, down towards the valley.

  She had followed the path of least resistance, and they had stayed far enough away to make her feel safe. Now they had herded her into this narrow funnel. The noise of the bike engines seemed louder now.

  They were moving in for the kill.

  She looked out across the sweep of the valley and made up her mind. She could hear the motorcycles engines definitely closer now, revving down the track towards her. She took out the phone that Walter had given her a lifetime ago. As she expected, there was no coverage. She remembered an instruction he had given her. She tapped on an icon. A message came up on the screen. It said all the data in the SIM card and on the phone would be deleted. She tapped ‘ok’ and waited while the phone committed cyber-suicide, then hurled it with all the frustration pent up inside her, out into space. If they caught her, they would not be able to use it to get to Joseph.

  She turned her back on the mountains and scrambled up the bank, struggling towards the ridge in the distance. She kept up a steady pace without stopping. She made it to the top and stopped to catch her breath, clinging to a tree, panting. As she expected, beyond the ridge the ground gradually dropped away towards the valley. She could see the railway line clearly now, running beside the river, then sweeping away, cutting through the trees towards the mountains. If she could make it that far, maybe she had a chance.

  She looked up at the sky, clear, blue and free. The buzz of a drone dashed away any thoughts of freedom. She strained her eyes searching for it. Then she saw it, little more than a dot moving across the sky. The sound of a bike engine made her turn and look back the way she had come. The elevation gave her a view of the funnel through the trees she had come down. She saw the flash of a bike, then another. They headed down and stopped at the cliff edge. There were still two more bikes back up the slope. They were closing in.

  One of the bikes moved back up the track in the direction it had come. The other headed up in her direction. She had the MK strapped to her back. She considered using it, but it would make too much noise, which would only bring the other bikes, and then the drones.

  It was not an option.

  She headed off, following a narrow path through the trees. The sound of the motorcycle engine was suddenly louder. She crouched behind a tree tr
unk, and her hand fell on a fallen branch, thicker than the width of her arm and about four feet long. The sound of the bike was loud now. It suddenly appeared around a bend in the path. She stepped out, swinging the branch with all the strength she had, holding it in both hands and driving every ounce of frustration into the blow. The rider saw it at the last moment and ducked his head. She connected with the top of his helmet. The force ripped the branch from her hands and the biker went backward off the bike and rolled into the undergrowth. Frankie scrambled after him, moving quickly. But the man came up with a gun in his hand. Frankie stopped in her tracks.

  “Back,” the man said.

  Frankie did as she was told, taking three steps back.

  “That’s far enough.” The man undid his helmet and pulled it off, shaking his head as he did so. The helmet had a huge welt across the top of it where Frankie had made contact. The man dropped it on the floor beside him.

  “Now, it is time to stop running.”

  He held the gun, a Glock, out in front of him, pointed directly at her chest.

  A cruel smile crept across his face. He took a step towards her, and the world exploded.

  Frankie was hurled backward by an unseen force that lifted her clear from the ground. She landed on her back with a smack that drove the breath from her body. Her ears were clanging like fire alarm bells. She lay there a moment trying to breathe, then sat up slowly. There was no sign of the man, just a large hole in the ground. She was still trying to comprehend what had just happened when her eye caught something in the undergrowth little more than an arm’s length away. She reached out and pulled it clear. It was a wooden post about three feet long, with a rectangular flat piece nailed to the top. It had a black skull painted on it with words in three different languages. They all said the same thing — BEWARE, MINES.

  Frankie froze. She checked all around where she sat, looking for any telltale signs. She saw none. She eyed the track, just a tantalizing few feet away. She studied the ground in between. There was nothing visible, but then this was a minefield, it was not meant to be obvious. The clanging in her ears receded and she caught the sound of an engine. No doubt the other bike coming to find out what the blast was all about. She got to her feet and took a step forward, holding her breath. The roar of the bike engine was even closer. She cursed and ran for the pathway.

  She made it without disintegrating. The rider’s bike was still lying on its side, and in the middle of the track was the rider’s helmet. She reached down and picked it up. It appeared to have escaped relatively cleanly from the blast, apart from the black scar she had put across the top of it. She put it on. It was a little loose, but it would do the job. She picked up the bike and swung a leg over it. It had a kickstart. She kicked down hard on the pedal, and the engine roared into life. She looked along the narrow path and hoped that the minefield was just in the land to the side. There was only one way to find out. She dropped the clutch and accelerated away, the dirt flying up in her wake.

  A voice suddenly spoke to her in a language she did not understand. She realized it was the built-in headset in her helmet. It seemed a miracle it was still working. Frankie ignored it and accelerated the bike, moving as fast as she dared, down the narrow track.

  She was riding an off-road bike, but the terrain forced her onto a course that was less direct than the one she would have followed on foot. The path she was on opened out onto a wider track, and she had no option but to follow it. It was heading in the general direction she wanted to go so she took her chance.

  Another bike flashed into her peripheral vision, coming at her out of the trees. She put her head down and wound open the accelerator. The track in front of her dipped in a series of undulations, each one getting steeper than the next. It was becoming more difficult to follow it and maintain her speed. She glanced behind her. The bike behind was getting closer. She gunned her bike over a rise and the wheels momentarily left the ground. As the tires hit the dirt she hit the brakes hard, struggling to control the skid, but as the speed bled away, she dropped it to the floor, sliding clear. She rolled over and dragged the MK from her back. She got up on one knee holding the assault rifle out in front of her as the other bike came racing over the hill, its engine screaming. She fired quickly, putting a rapid blast of shots into the rider’s chest. He flew backward off the bike and hit the deck, while the motorcycle crashed into the trees, its engine still roaring.

  Frankie walked over to the rider. She could tell by the large hole in his chest that he was dead. She lifted his hands one by one — no Legion ring. These were locals, and from what she had seen, they had not been working with the drones or the ones operating them. If they had, they would have tracked her down much quicker when they were herding her into the valley. Whatever was going on, it was more complicated than just a bunch of petits tyrans chasing her through the forest.

  She climbed back on her bike and gunned it down the track, descending quickly. She dropped down onto a narrow bridge that spanned the river she had seen from higher up. She hit the brake and stopped in the middle. She sat there her heart still pounding, watching the water tumbling into the distance, heading deeper into the valley. Perhaps this was the river that had carried Joseph away. He was down there somewhere. She had transport now, maybe she could find him. On the other hand, she would probably only draw attention to him.

  They had agreed on a plan. Her job was to get on the other side of this mountain and make contact with Walter. She had to leave Joseph to find the girl. She looked behind her then up to the sky. For the moment she was alone. She let out the clutch and opened up the throttle, the bike leaped forward, and she headed on down the track.

  United Nations Detention Unit, Haaglanden Prison.

  The Colonel put down the phone. Zlatan was his man on the inside. He could not trust his brother to tell him what was really going on. What Zlatan had to tell him was all bad news. In addition, the call from Cardinal Carlucci, he was sure that was who it was, had complicated things yet again, and brought even more bad news. He had a sharp burning in his gut. Why were there always problems? All he needed was a week — less. Four more days and the whole world could go to hell — and probably would. He made a decision in his mind and picked up the phone. He found a number in the memory and hit call. The phone on the other end rang for quite some time before a voice answered.

  “So, brother,” the Colonel spoke. “Why do you not visit me?”

  He heard the laugh on the other end.

  “Drago, someone has to take care of our interests.”

  “Exactly,” the Colonel said his voice heavy with sarcasm. “That is what bothers me.”

  His brother started to protest, but the Colonel cut him off. “I give you one simple task. A man, a girl, and an old man, and what do you do?”

  His brother argued and protested, but it didn’t change the facts.

  “Now listen to me. Things are changing. You are going to get some help. They will try to take control. Don’t let them. In the end, I hold all the cards. Remember I want the girl, Tarik Samirovic’s sister. Find her.”

  “Drago, don’t worry. I will.”

  The Colonel shook his head, but he had no other choice. He was stuck here. “Brother,” he said. “Do not fail me.”

  49

  Foothills, Dinaric Alps, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  The truck rattled along in the bright sunshine. Fagan sat with Armena beside him, her Uncle Omar drove. They had made it away from the farmhouse without running into the men who, Omar’s friend had told him, were coming up the main track. Omar had driven through the night. Armena had slept, leaning her head on Fagan’s shoulder. But Fagan had stayed awake, keeping Omar company. He had talked, telling him about his life, as if he was trying to make some sense of it. The old man didn’t understand any of it, but then neither did Fagan.

  His wound throbbed in a dull ache from the constant jarring of the truck. He looked across at Armena. She was awake and staring straight ahead, but there wer
e no more tears. There seemed to be a resolve about her, a strength that he had not seen the day before, but he knew must have always been in there for her to have survived all this time.

  “Can we talk?”

  Armena looked at him and gave an unenthusiastic shrug.

  Fagan persisted. “Back at your Uncle’s cottage, I started to ask you about a man at Father Pat’s mission. When we were in Sarajevo, my friend and I met a priest, who was a friend of Father Patrick during the war. His name was Father Milosh. Do you remember him?

  Armena nodded but didn’t speak.

  “He told me an interesting thing. He said they had saved someone, but it was a secret. Have you any idea, who that might be?”

  Armena shook her head. “Father Pat and his mission saved many people.”

  “But this was different. Father Milosh said he promised he would never tell. Do you know what that could mean? Do you know who he could have been referring to?”

  For a moment he wasn’t sure if she had heard him. She had gone back to staring out at the countryside flicking past the window. When she finally spoke her voice was low. Fagan wondered if she didn’t want her Uncle to hear, although he didn’t understand a word of English.

  “There were many people at the mission, too many.”

  “But was there someone who Father Patrick took a particular interest in?”

  Armena looked at him. He could see the pain in her eyes.

  “I have spent the last twenty-five years trying to forget what happened that night. I told Tarik he should do the same thing. Please, I need some peace.”