“You believe him.”
“Yes.”
“Do we know who they are?”
“No.”
“Excellent.” The word was laced with sarcasm. Another pause. “I want this cleared up by tomorrow. If he doesn’t have the ‘Hodoporia’ by then, find him, take the book from him, and find it yourself. No more distractions. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Eminence.”
“Good.” Von Neurath stood. “Then unless you have something else …” Kleist shook his head. “They’ll be coming around to call us for dinner soon. They’re very keen that we all eat together in silence. Given the food, I can understand why.”
Kleist wasn’t sure if he was meant to smile or not. Instead, he simply nodded and stood.
“Oh, which reminds me,” added von Neurath. “Send Mr. Harris my congratulations on his recent approval rating. Make it an egg. A hard-boiled egg. He’ll understand.” He nodded Kleist toward the tiny door.
Two minutes later, Kleist was crawling his way back through the heating duct, a constant trickle of sweat dropping from face to aluminum.
Hard-boiled egg. He wondered if he’d somehow missed something. Or maybe it was simply the cardinal’s way of putting him in his place; it wouldn’t have been the first time. Whatever he had meant, though, Kleist was sure of one thing.
The priest would be dead within the day.
At least now there was no confusion on that front.
“Nige … you’re sure we can’t get you some dessert?”
Nigel Harris smiled to the man across the table from him. “I’m fine. Thank you.” Three others sat across from him, as well. A lunch meeting engineered by Steve Grimaldi’s office, very “developmental,” high on the “no turnaround time,” given Harris’s current “breakthrough” status. The colonel was beginning to understand the advertising industry’s lingo, although he couldn’t be sure if it was the industry or Grimaldi himself, the latter more than happy to toss whatever happened to be running through his mind into the conversation. That notwithstanding, the rest of his staff seemed to understand his every word—everyone “on the same page”—especially when they took their little breaks to “detox” the details.
The lunch meeting had started at eleven. It was now nearly one.
While the plates were being cleared, Harris glanced out the window. He’d never gotten his LA geography down, not sure if he was actually in what they considered downtown. From the thirty-eighth floor, it certainly looked like a downtown, though with conspicuously few people on the streets. Maybe the trendy restaurants weren’t in this neck of the woods, he mused. Or maybe in-house catering had just become too good across the board. From what he’d just had to suffer through—something “blackened” beyond hope—he was guessing the former.
“I think you’re going to like what we’ve put together, Nige. It’s very early—”
“Developmental.” Harris nodded.
“Exactly. So we’re not sure just exactly how we need to play with it. But we want to get them out there quick.” Grimaldi nodded to one of his associates; she pressed a button at the center of the table and a large TV screen lowered from the ceiling at the far end of the room. A second button, and the shades began to close. Harris turned to Grimaldi and raised his eyebrows as if duly impressed. The adman seemed to preen. The lights dimmed. “Your group’s getting a lot of press right now, Nige, and we thought it might be nice to pick up on that newsy quality. An election kind of thing. Get people in your camp. This is one possibility. And don’t be afraid to tell me exactly how it makes you feel.”
Grimaldi pressed yet one more button, and the screen came to life, black at first, a counter running in white numbers along the bottom edge, the words “Nigel Harris Promo 1” next to it. When the counter reached ten seconds, the center of the screen filled with one of the quotes from a recent article on the alliance. The now-familiar voice from every movie preview produced in the last five years began to read the text in slow, sonorous tones.
“Its vision is for our future…. Its message is clear…. It’s time we put our faith back into something we believe in….”
A classroom of children filled the screen, eleven- and twelve-year-olds, a perfect hodgepodge of ethnic and racial backgrounds, all smiling faces, the word Tolerance written in large letters on the board, the children clearly in the midst of a discussion. The screen darkened, another quote. The voice returned.
“Our children need to understand what ties them together, not what separates them. And faith is that answer.”
Next, an equally Stepfordesque scene appeared, people on a generic Main Street, again ample ethnic diversity, ideal families strolling along, stopping to chat with one another, three separate churches in the background—one seemingly a synagogue, the lines, though, too blurred to make it out with any detail. In some sort of high-tech special effect, the three buildings began to grow into one another, the happy little community watching the transformation. No quote this time. Just the voice.
“It’s time to build an alliance of faith, where religious differences fade in favor of a wider spiritual commitment.”
Images of Harris, several other notable members of the alliance, and an American flag peppered the screen, the final image that of a field somewhere in the Midwest.
“The Faith Alliance. It’s our bridge to the next millennium.”
The screen went black, the lights came up. Harris turned to Grimaldi, who was standing by the far window. Grimaldi was staring directly at him, a birthday-morning grin lining his face.
“I see,” said Harris, trying to find the words. “I’m not exactly sure that’s what we talked about. It was all rather … over-the-top.”
The smile dipped momentarily. “Sure it was. But there’s good over-the- top, and there’s bad over-the-top. Which one do you mean, Nige?”
“The one that says that that advertisement won’t be seen by anyone outside this office.” Harris sensed a slight elevation in the tension of the room. “Exactly how I feel, Mr. Grimaldi? What I just saw was insipid, mawkish, and says nothing about the alliance.”
“Don’t underestimate insipid and mawkish,” said Grimaldi, the first hint of something savvier beneath the veneer of the hip salesman. “They sell well.”
“I’m sure they do, but I don’t believe we’re selling anything. We want to inspire. There’s a considerable difference there. Might I ask what happened to the segments I filmed? I thought they made my position quite clear.”
“Fair enough.” Grimaldi nodded to one of his associates. “Let’s call that a first stab.” Again the lights dimmed. The second promo.
The image on the screen this time was far less polished, the angle of the camera slightly skewed. A young man, maybe in his mid-thirties, sat on a park bench, elbows on knees, chin propped on his hands. The camera shifted around him several times, close-up, then back, more odd angles, before it stopped on a medium shot. The man seemed to be looking at something in the distance, but the camera stayed on him. The voice-over began, this one without the husky pomp.
“Time was when I wasn’t sure what to expect for his future.”
A quick cut to a group of boys playing in the park, again choppy angles, long and short shots interspersed in rapid sequence.
“I thought about the usual stuff, high school, college. Get himself a job. And that one day he’d be out here, watching his boy, wondering the same things. The same endless cycle. And I had to ask myself, Is that all I can give him?”
The man stood and began to walk toward the boys. He stopped by a tree and watched as his son tore around with the ball, the other boys giving chase. The man smiled.
“Not by a long shot.”
The man moved out from under the tree, his son catching sight of him, tossing the ball back into the melee before racing up to his father’s side. As the man knelt down to straighten his son’s jacket, the voice-over continued.
“If you’ve got some of those same questions, think about th
e Faith Alliance. I did. It’s where we can make their future together.”
The shot traced up to the sky, then back down, now the vista a wide beach, a far shot of Harris walking, pants rolled up to the ankles, his own two boys scampering in the tide just ahead of him. The camera moved in.
“I’m Nigel Harris, director of the Faith Alliance. If you’re in need of something to put genuine meaning into your life, and the life of your family, consider joining us.”
The camera followed Harris’s glance to his boys.
“It’s their future. Don’t deny them a personal relationship with faith.”
The camera pulled back as Harris darted over to his sons and began to splash water at them; they, in turn, splashed back.
Fade to black and the words “The Faith Alliance. Our bridge to the next millennium.”
Fade-out.
The lights came up.
Grimaldi remained by the window. “I told you insipid and mawkish sell,” he said as he moved back to his chair. “It’s just how you package them.”
Harris turned to him as he sat. It was only then that he realized how clever Grimaldi had been. The whole morning had been a prelude to this moment, the mindless jargon bandied about at lunch, the first promo. All designed to let this moment have its full effect. Harris now understood why Grimaldi had the reputation he did.
“Yes, I can see that,” he answered.
“So this one’s more to your liking, Colonel Harris?”
“Call me Nige.” He smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Good. Then you’re going to love this next one.”
Everything had quieted down by dinner. They had taken the body to a small house at the end of the village, the home of the local hohxa. There, it would be bathed and cleaned, prepared for burial according to strict Muslim custom, Pearse’s last rites washed away with the rest of the worldly taint on the boy’s soul. They had managed to keep Ivo preoccupied during the somber processional to the hohxa’s house, the other children of the village not so fortunate, essential participants in the ancient ritual. Pearse hadn’t asked; Mendravic wouldn’t have been able to explain.
The leader of the failed raid continued to ignore Pearse throughout the meal, no doubt silently blaming him for the morning’s debacle. Catholic priest. Catholic church. To him, they were one and the same. Skewed logic aside, he did manage to show a considerable warmth to Ivo and Petra, doing his best to keep the dinner conversation lively, the day’s tragedy left for another time. Pearse kept quiet, happy to watch the interaction.
What quickly became clear was just how smart a little boy Ivo really was. Polite to the end, he showed no hesitation in making his points, less patience for anyone who treated him like a child. And always with something of Petra’s swagger in the way he handled his confrontations. In fact, more often than not, it was Petra herself who was on the receiving end.
“That’s not true, Mommy,” he said. “Why should we care about the Serbs when they don’t care about us?” There was always a hint of the parrot in what he said, little phrases that he’d heard from Salko or his mother—mangled just a bit—but always injected at just the right moment. It wasn’t necessarily what he said, but how he said it that allowed his cleverness to shine through. Even when Petra was on the defensive, Pearse sensed her absolute pleasure in Ivo’s little jabs.
“Well, maybe that’s why we should worry about them even more,” she answered.
Somewhere along the way, he’d busied himself with a wedge of bread, rolling pieces of it into tiny balls. Preoccupied or not, Ivo managed to keep up. “No, because Salko said that’s what they want. And we’d be giving them what they want, and we can’t do that.”
“Like what?” she pressed, the rest of the table watching as the little boy kept his eyes fixed on his handiwork, every once in a while a bread ball popping into his mouth.
“Like letting them know we’re afraid. And we aren’t.” Another piece into his mouth.
“Never let them know,” chimed in the raid leader with a smile. “Even if you are, just a little.”
Ivo looked at the man, hesitated, then nodded, a very earnest nod for a little boy. And just as quickly, he was back to the bread.
“Is he always like this?” the man asked, his smile wider still.
“No,” answered Petra. “Sometimes he can get pretty serious.”
The entire table erupted in laughter, Ivo continuing with his very intricate bread work. When he realized that everyone was looking at him, he suddenly became embarrassed. Sensing the moment, Petra drew him in close, kissing the top of his head as he buried himself deep in her side.
“It’s just that they all think you’re as wonderful as I do, Ivi. Must be terribly hard having everyone think you’re so wonderful.”
That only made it worse. Except that perhaps Ivo was enjoying the attention more than he was letting on. And Pearse seemed to enjoy that just as much. The little showman, he thought. Why not? He was, after all, Petra’s boy.
Pearse wasn’t that surprised, then, when, an hour later, Ivo appeared at the door to his room, no less bold than at the table.
“Hello.”
Pearse looked up. He’d been alone on his bed with Ribadeneyra since dinner, the five-line entries no closer to unscrambling than when he’d started. He had managed to tease out some connection among the rest of the entries—even without the final piece to the puzzle—a pattern beginning to emerge, when the little voice broke through.
“Hello,” he answered, laying the pages on his pillow. Ivo remained by the door, his courage taking him only so far. “You can come in, if you want. I won’t bite.”
With a little nod, he pushed open the door, sized up the room, and slowly wandered in, not quite tall enough to see over the top of the chest of drawers. When he was satisfied, he turned to Pearse, one hand lazily running along the edge of the bed.
“Do you come from America?”
Pearse smiled. He’d expected a thousand other questions, not the one, though, most obvious to a seven-year-old boy. “Yup.”
“I knew it,” he said, as if having uncovered some great mystery. “I asked Mommy. She said I should ask you.”
Again, Petra was letting him in. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done to merit it. “How’d you know?”
“The way you talk.” He started to roam again, his fingers lighting on the backpack. “What’s in here?”
“Nothing much.”
“Can I open it?”
“Sure.”
He watched as Ivo struggled with the zipper, a giddy anticipation of the unknown within. Or at least of something American. His disappointment on unearthing nothing more than a change of clothes and a few odds and ends was equally intense.
“Sorry,” said Pearse. “No chocolate.”
Ivo snapped his head up, the look now one of astonishment.
“Isn’t that what you were looking for?” asked Pearse.
A coy smile crept across the boy’s face. “How’d you know that?”
“Oh, I have my ways.” Pearse smiled.
For a moment, it looked as if Ivo might not let it go at that. Then, just as quickly, he was on to his next topic. “Did you come from America last night?”
“Actually, I haven’t been to America for a couple of years.” Another flash of disappointment. “Have you ever been to America?”
The look now turned to one of utter disbelief, less to do with the possibility than with the fact that Pearse had even thought to ask. “No! I know only one person who’s been to America. Except for you.”
“Really?” Pearse knew where he was going, but couldn’t hold himself back. “Who?”
“My father.”
It was said with such confidence, such an affinity, as if he had just spoken with him before coming into the room. The connection so clear. Again, he had to thank Petra for that.
“And where does he live?” asked Pearse. A look of confusion etched across the young face. “America. Like you.”
/>
Pearse nodded. Obviously, his geography had its limits. Not wanting to lose him entirely, Pearse reached under the papers and pulled out his baseball. “Here.” He tossed it to him.
Ivo caught it, no hesitation.
“Nice catch,” said Pearse.
“I’m pretty good.” He examined the ball very closely. “What kind of ball is this?”
“It’s a baseball,” said Pearse.
Ivo’s eyes lit up. “A baseball! From America?”
From Rome, but close enough. “I know you were hoping for chocolate, but—”
“No, no. This is great. Can I play with it?”
“You can keep it, if you want.”
If possible, Ivo’s eyes grew wider still. “You mean … it’s mine?”
“Well, I might ask you to play catch with me sometime.”
“You can play anytime you want.”
“Thanks. Maybe sometime you could go to America with me and see a game.”
It was almost too much for him. “America?” A hint of hesitation crept in. “And Mommy, too?”
“Of course. And don’t forget Salko.”
Before Pearse had finished, Ivo was running back to the door, shouting to his mother. Within a minute, he was back, pulling Petra by the arm. Once again, her expression was far from what Pearse expected: not strictly a glower, but as close as she dared with Ivo looking directly at her.
“And Salko, too,” he bubbled.
“Yes, I heard you, sweetie,” answered Petra as she stared at Pearse.
“That’s very nice of him.”
Pearse smiled. “I just said—”
“Yes, I’m sure you did.”
Pearse wasn’t sure, but he suspected this was part of a family dynamic he’d never had occasion to experience until now. Something reserved for mommies and daddies. Even on the short end of things, it was awfully nice, more so to see Petra struggling with it as well.
Not sure what protocol demanded, he fell back on the slow nod.
“You have to go to sleep,” she said to forestall any further discussion. At once, Ivo launched into the ancient bargaining ritual, all of it to no avail. As he mopingly made his way to the door, he turned to Pearse and, instead of a simple “Good night,” shot a finger at him and winked. It was enough to provoke a moment’s giggle before a quick dash out the door.
The Book of Q Page 33