by Bill Napier
'I need to know your name,' she says, trying English.
'Harrius Blakeus.'
'Where you from, Mr Blakeus?'
'On holiday, staying at the Terranova. I won first prize, a weekend with Miss Jamaica.'
'You behave yourself now. What happened to you?'
'I was in the Blue Mountains, hiking.'
'On your own?'
'No, with Miss Jamaica. I was robbed.'
The nurse sticks a thermometer in my mouth. 'Suppose God treat we like how we treat one anedda? Foolish, foolish, on your own up there. You're lucky to be alive, Mr Blakeus.'
A doctor approaches; at least I suppose he is a doctor from the white coat and the stethoscope and the air of authority. He is about fifty, with a black, wrinkled face and white hair. He dispenses with the stethoscope and feels my pulse, 'You lost three pints of blood. Lucky it was just a flesh wound. Lots of bruising around your ankles but nothing broken. Rest for two or three days and you'll be dancing the hornpipe.'
My sheet is damp, I can feel sweat on my brow, but still I'm shivering. The doctor volunteers, 'And you got a touch of a fever.'
'Where am I?'
'Kingston ER. We have more experience with bullet wounds than UWI.'
The boy with the chest wound is starting to shout something in a thick Jamaican patois. The doctor floats out of my vision and I drift back to sleep.
Two men, dressed as ambulance orderlies, also floating. The ceiling, all damp patches with big lights, rotating like the night sky.
'Can he be moved?'
'Yes, but keep the drip on him.'
My voice booms around the big room and along the hospital corridors: 'They're not ambulance people! They're abducting me! They're taking me away to kill me!' I think my lips move.
The nurse leans over me as they lift me gently onto a trolley. 'What's that you say, Mr Blakeus?'
'They're going to kill me,' I managed to whisper. 'I know where to find the Cross of Jesus.'
'That's okay. You stay cool now.'
I grab her sleeve. 'Don't let them take me.'
The nurse disengages my arm and pats it reassuringly. She speaks quietly to the doctor. He glances in my direction. In a moment he approaches with a syringe six feet long. 'This will calm you down a bit.'
I try to pull the drip out of my wrist, crawl off the stretcher and flee for my life down the corridor. I almost reach the drip but the nurse has a grip like a gorilla. 'You lost a lot of blood, Mr Blakeus. And too much hot sun isn't good for Europeans.'
There is an outburst of shouting from the corridor: another young man, moaning and holding his head, surrounded by friends. I think I see exposed brain.
'This ain't no place for Whitey, Mr Blakeus,' the nurse says gently. 'Yuh gawn to a nice private nursing home.'
'I like it here,' I manage to whisper.
'We need the space here.'
Then the ceiling starts to drift past and the young man with the chest wound, now covered with a massive bandage, is complaining loudly about his torn shirt, and the trolley is squeaking along a corridor and curious faces are looking at me and I'm shivering with cold, and floating, light as a helium balloon, and then there is hot sunshine on my face and I'm being wheeled over rough ground into a space shuttle and flying high over the Blue Mountains and Jamaica is shrinking to a small green dot on the turquoise Caribbean and there is a smell of perfume from Miss Jamaica, only Miss Jamaica is a Trench Town Yardie and he looks like one of the killers in the woods.
A quiet room. Light sheets; warm, dry air. A breeze blowing through an open, shuttered window. Curious rhythmic tapping from outside, like tennis balls being hit. A million insects clicking and buzzing. One of them, an iridescent dragonfly, hovers uncertainly at the window, looking for food. It darts away. Female laughter, and a man's voice. Room light, airy, pleasantly furnished with wicker
chairs. I drift back to sleep.
* * *
Darkness when I wake again. A gentle swishing from outside, which I recognise as waves. I try to move but my arms weigh a ton each. Do I mean a metric ton or am I talking British Imperial units? Soon will have to relieve myself. I close my eyes and sleep for a month.
On the second day I was well enough to sit up and start thinking about escape. Which was optimistic, as they'd had to support me to the toilet and back the day before. The two ambulancemen, that is. With revolvers in the waistbands of their shorts.
CHAPTER 31
My head was a cannonball. Someone had replaced my blood with mercury and my arteries with lead piping.
It must have taken half a minute to pull the sheet off and ease my legs over the edge of the bed. My head whirled as I sat up. Swollen fingers protruded from a thick bandage wrapped around my arm.
I gave the dizziness time to settle before I tried to stand upright. I felt a sense of achievement as I wobbled over to the open window and supported myself on the sill. The smell of coffee drifted in, mingled with damp tropical earth.
There was a path, winding down to a small rock-enclosed cove, turquoise and calm. There was a short jetty, a rowing boat and a powerful motor cruiser about a hundred yards offshore, bristling with aerials. I could just make out its name: New Millennium. Beyond the cove, the white-capped Caribbean stretched to the horizon.
Down to my right was a blue, kidney-shaped swimming pool. A man was lying face down in it, on an airbed. He had a broad, hairy back which glistened with sweat. His arms were dangling in the water and he was completely motionless. He might have been dead.
At the edge of the pool was a white table shaded by a pink summer umbrella with a Martini logo. A woman, apparently naked, sat at the table, drinking orange-coloured juice through a straw. Her breasts were deeply brown, with the nipples a dark shade of pink. She glanced up, smiled and waved. 'Breakfast?' she called up. She nodded to someone out of my line of vision, underneath the red sunshade below my window.
In a moment there was the squeaking of shoes on stairs. A completely bald man with an open-necked shirt - one of the ambulancemen - took me by my good arm and led me down wooden stairs. Still that black revolver in his waistband. He looked like a young Kojak. Every window and door in the house was open, and a warm, gentle breeze was blowing through the rooms. By the time I'd been propped up at the table the pool man was out of the water and towelling himself, and Cassandra's breasts were covered by a red string bikini top.
'You should eat,' the man said in a deep voice. His face was wrinkled and his English heavily accented. Kojak disappeared through French windows into the shady interior of the villa.
'Coffee?' Cassandra asked, pouring me some. I had to use both hands to lift the cup. I drank the brown, sweet liquid greedily.
The man lifted a packet of Marlboro from the table. I shook my head. He and the girl lit cigarettes. Kojak came back with an English breakfast, everything deep-fried. He leaned over me, serving up the plates. I was within two feet of the revolver tucked into his shorts but the fact wasn't worrying him; I had problems enough lifting the fork. They watched me in silence as I ate. I felt better after the food. Kojak took the plates and cups away and disappeared back into the villa. It was a big, white, boxy house, like something made of Lego, all verandas and gingerbread frills.
I sat back. 'What now?'
The man leaned back in his chair, blew smoke, looked at me thoughtfully. 'My name is Apostolis Hondros. I'm a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church. I tell you this because if you survive this encounter you will identify me from some Interpol photograph. If you do not, well... either way, nothing is lost by giving you the information. You see, I am open with you. I need your help, Mr Blake.'
'And I suppose you have ways of making me give it.'
'Correct. I intend to find that icon, Mr Blake.'
'It may not even exist.'
'We are confident that it does.'
'What about the others?'
'Your colleagues? Debbie and Zola are both here, resting.'
My stomach flipp
ed. 'Dalton's one of your people, right? Leroy Abo.'
The Greek laughed harshly. 'I see that we fooled you completely. He was in fact a member of the British MI6. They were using you to get at us.'
'And where is he?'
The man waved his cigarette casually. 'He is dead. As the ladies will be shortly.'
'Oh God.' I sank my head on the table.
Cassandra pulled me up by my hair. 'You too,' she added conversationally, looking at me through cigarette smoke. Her eyes were glittering with pure sadism. 'If only you'd given me the journal in Lincoln.'
'If you help us,' Hondros said, 'we might reconsider your future.'
I pushed her hand away with an effort. I leaned back in the garden chair and looked at them. Their eyes showed as much pity as those of the vultures. Even talking was an effort. 'Once you get your greedy hands on the relic, Debbie, Zola and I are finished.'
The Greek nodded. 'Could be. But my magnanimity is your only hope. What else is there?'
I nodded at the heavy silver cross on his hairy chest, held around his neck by a thick chain. 'Is that a cross or a swastika?'
Hondros smiled. 'You're being naughty, Mr Blake. You hope to provoke me.'
'No chance, with someone as self-satisfied as you. I'm just curious to know what brand of lunacy drives you. I think I'm entitled to that.'
'Lunacy?' Hondros adopted a puzzled expression. 'Is obedience to God the act of a lunatic? Or perhaps you don't believe in God. Perhaps you think the world sprang into existence by itself.'
I sighed. 'This is bad news. You're a religious nut.'
'Some of us prefer to spend our limited time on this earth planning for eternity.'
I looked out at the motor launch. I said, 'You may be just passing through, but you sure like the waiting room to be comfortable.'
Hondros gave a contemptuous half-smile. He stubbed out his cigarette in a little marble ashtray and took another one from the packet in front of him. 'You are a traveller, are you not?'
'It's my job. I look for antique maps in the back streets of the world.'
'Do you know Venice?'
'Not very well.'
'St Mark's Square?'
'Uhuh.'
He flicked at a little green lighter, held the flame to the cigarette and puffed. Grey smoke spiralled upwards and he inhaled with satisfaction. 'Do you know St Mark's Cathedral?'
A memory came back. 'Vaguely.'
'And the four gilded horses from the Hippodrome which grace the facade of that building?'
'I remember them. So what?'
Another puff. I noticed for the first time that his fingers were brown with nicotine. 'Now there we have art, in the Byzantine style. True beauty. Go to Venice, Rome or Barcelona, Mr Blake. Look closely at the wonderful statues which decorate these cities. Look at the paintings of the saints, the egg-shaped heads and the pinched faces, a style adhered to by the Byzantine artists for a thousand years. Oh yes, the Byzantine style, because these things were stolen from that great civilisation in 1204.'
'1204?'
'Yes, by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade. On their way to fighting the Moslems of the Holy Land, they raped Constantinople, the centre of Byzantine civilisation. The Byzantines were fellow Christians, but they were guilty of an unforgivable crime.'
He paused. I obliged: 'Which was?'
'Their crime, Mr Blake, was that they were a civilised people, a bright flame burning in a world of barbarity. They loved art and literature and things of beauty. They bathed rather than smelled. And after the Latins had stuffed their ships with gold and silver and precious fabrics from Constantinople, and melted down its bronze statues to make cannon, and stolen the Crown of Thorns, they burned that wonderful city to the ground.'
I had the feeling this was a well-rehearsed spiel. He was searching my face to see how I reacted. I said, 'That was eight hundred years ago, for Christ's sake.'
He shrugged. 'Walk amongst the ruined columns of the Constantine of Lips monastery, my friend, and the ghosts of the murdered monks will walk with you. You will feel their living presence. You wilt know that the conquest happened yesterday. In any case, the desecration continues to this day.'
'I'm too tired for this.'
'It continues, Mr Blake, because after the Crusaders came the Turks, who entered our city on May twenty-ninth 1453, and who occupy it to this day. Go to modern Constantinople and what will you find? Mosques built on the ruins of churches. The Church of the Holy Apostles, the most famous church in Constantinople after the Hagia Sophia, was plundered by the Latins and then, after the Turkish conquest, smashed by the dervishes of Mehmet the Second. Smashed for fourteen hours, Mr Blake. A holy place, smashed for fourteen hours with iron bars. Go to the site of that church today and you will find a mosque, built on the sacred ground of the Holy Apostles. The Jesus Christ Pantocrator monastery, having been looted by the Venetians, is also now a mosque, the Imperial coffin in it used as a footbath by the Turks who enter. The list of desecration is endless and the Greek government does nothing.'
'Are you real?'
'I have saved the greatest injustice to the last. I refer to the Vatican's fraudulent claim to have a line of succession from St Peter. Do you know your religious history, Mr Blake?'
I said, 'Here we go. Some distorted rubbish.'
Hondros continued, 'You probably do not know that the Vatican's supposed apostolic succession from Christ is based on nothing more valid than torture and murder. The elimination by violence of the true Roman Orthodox bishops - Celts, Saxons and West Romans - was a process begun in the seventh century and which has continued ever since. This happened throughout Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and England as well as Gaul. Only in the east, in Greece, did the true succession from Christ survive. Today's papacy is the Antichrist, imposed by murder. Not distorted rubbish, Blake, historical fact. Cassandra, more coffee for our guest.'
Cassandra obliged, and I sipped at the liquid. It was lukewarm. I said, 'Who cares? It's all in the past.'
'An antiquarian cartographer with no sense of history? How very Western! But we must give the Antichrist credit. He acts consistently. The Franco-Latins have pursued their policy over the centuries down to the present day. In 1923, when Italy seized the Dodecanese islands from Turkey, it replaced the Orthodox bishops with Vatican ones, forcing the faithful to either accept clergy ordained by these impostors or do without sacraments.'
'Okay Hondros, I'm persuaded. You've established your credentials as a lunatic. So where does the icon come into it?'
The Greek's eyes were gleaming. He stubbed out the cigarette and leaned forward. 'You know the history of the True Cross. You know that it was found by the Emperor Constantinople, stolen by the Persians, handed back three hundred years later, stolen again by the Mohammedans, then by the Latins, and finally reaching this island after eighteen centuries of travel. But you will retrieve that cross for us - at least the one surviving part of it. Either that, or the three of you will die.'
'And having found it for you?'
'It will be returned immediately to Constantinople. Certain events will then take place.'
It took a second, but then a horrible anticipation began to sink in. Hondros grinned. Cassandra lit her second cigarette with tense, nervous movements of her hands.
I said, 'Since I'm a dead man anyway, why not tell me?'
'Are you a dead man?' He leaned back, peered into my eyes thoughtfully. 'Yes, perhaps I should not insult your intelligence by holding out false hopes. But you will help me find the icon in order to prolong your life, hoping that "something will turn up". Am I right?'
'Absolutely.'
'Very well. The return of the True Cross is a symbol. In three days a brave young woman will drive a truck loaded with explosives into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The Suleymaniye, perhaps the finest mosque in the city, will suffer the same fate. A ferry, crossing the Bosphorus to Uskadur, and packed with tourists come to admire the fishing villages and the old Rumeli Hisari fortre
ss, will at the same time explode and sink. And a trail of evidence, carefully laid by us over many months, will lead back to the Opus Dei.'
'The who?'
'Your ignorance continues to surprise me, Mr Blake. Opus Dei are a branch of the Catholic Church distinguished by their outrageous wealth and a long-standing suspicion of their true motives. They have often been suspected of fascist connections. A lie, of course, and they deny it, but what does a protestation of innocence matter against a willingness to believe the worst? Think of the outrage throughout the Muslim world.
'A few days later a light aircraft with Bosnian registration will take off from an airfield in Bosnia. It will be loaded with explosives. It will cross the Aegean, flying under radar until the last moment, when it will crash into the dome of St Peter's. Other churches in Venice, Barcelona and Rome will be destroyed. An act of revenge, the media will cry, Muslim retaliating against Catholic. Hatreds which have simmered just below the surface for a thousand years will erupt. In the present climate, with tinder awaiting a match throughout the region, who knows where it will end? But we of the Orthodox faith will see our ancient enemies tearing each other to pieces. We will enjoy it all on CNN as we drink coffee in bars and cafes from Athens to Olympia. You have a saying, Mr Blake, revenge is sweet. It will be sweet. And the True Cross, placed in our hands by God, will symbolise the justice of our cause.'
'Sort of a divine seal of approval.'
He gave me a cold stare. 'If you like.'
'Very good, Hondros, a first-class performance. For a moment I almost believed you.' I turned to Cassandra, who was looking at me with a puzzled frown. 'Actually, he's just after the Cross for its cash value. He'll sell it to the Getty Museum or the Vatican for a fortune. But by the time the fact dawns on you, he'll be blowing your brains out.'
Hondros smiled and shook his head. He started on another Marlboro. 'What a pathetic effort.' And Cassandra threw back her head and laughed.
Part Three
Star Sign
CHAPTER 32