Stealing God

by James Green

  ‘If it’s true at all it’s only true about you. I’m not a freak and I’m not part of a peep show. Even if I’m leaving I’m still …’

  Whatever Danny thought he still was, Jimmy didn’t get to find out because a siren came down the Corso and then the big, black police Lancia pulled up outside the door to the bar. It stood there with its engine running and the blue light on the roof flashing.

  ‘This your man?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll let him come and get me. I want you to be sure he’s real.’

  The back door of the car opened and a smart young man got out and came into the bar. He saw Jimmy and came to the table.

  ‘What are you doing? Why didn’t you come out?’

  ‘Inspector Ricci, I want you to meet my friend Danny. He’s a student priest like me.’

  Ricci looked at Danny, then he put out a hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Danny.’

  Danny shook his hand.

  ‘We’ve met before, Inspector, in another bar, but Jimmy didn’t mention you were a policeman.’

  ‘Have we? Sorry, I don’t remember.’ Ricci turned back to Jimmy. ‘OK, can we go now?’

  Ricci didn’t wait. He turned and walked away. Jimmy got up.

  ‘See, real, like I told you.’

  ‘Yeah, Jimmy, just like you told me. Go careful now and remember what I said.’

  ‘That it’s a film and it’s all happening in my head?’

  ‘That it will chew you up.’

  ‘I’ll remember, and I’ll keep in touch. Pay the bill, will you, I think my man’s in a hurry.’

  And Jimmy left the bar.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The police siren seemed to make no difference; no one got out of the way, the traffic was just too congested and too obstinate. The driver had to push his way through like everyone else. Ricci had been sitting in silence, sulking that he had been made to get out of the car and go into the bar, or maybe he was thinking. Jimmy broke the silence.

  ‘How come we get a car and driver?’

  ‘Luigi’s a friend, off duty. He’s doing us a favour. Don’t you want to know where we’re going?’

  ‘If you want to tell me.’

  ‘Quadraro, out of the city, down the Via Tuscolana.’

  ‘And what will we see when we get there?’

  ‘Two days ago the police were called to a break-in in an apartment out there. It turned out the place was empty. The young woman who lived there, Anna Bruck, was away. She couldn’t be traced. No problem, just wait until she gets back. Meanwhile the scene of crime is turned over, prints get taken.’

  ‘All the usual.’

  ‘All the usual, pure routine, no hurry, and not particularly thorough. It was just an opportunist break-in. The prints got sent off and suddenly all sorts of alarm bells started to ring.’

  ‘A petty break-in rings alarm bells? Was the thief someone special?’

  ‘Not the thief, the girl who lives there. It turns out she’s Anna Schwarz, the only member of the Geisller Group still at large.’

  ‘Geisller Group?’

  ‘A German terrorist group named after their leader, Conrad Geisller.’

  ‘What sort of terrorists?’

  ‘Extreme, sort of right wing.’

  ‘Neo-Nazis?’

  ‘No, not in the traditional sense. They admired strength. Their particular creed was that any cause that can fight its way to the top is a justified cause and any cause that wouldn’t use force to achieve its aims is a weak cause and should go under. To them the law of the jungle was the natural law, the only real law.’

  ‘Might is right?’

  ‘Exactly, their favourite slogan translated more or less as, it’s not wrong to be strong, their manifesto was headed: Conviction, Action, Victory.’

  ‘They had a manifesto?’

  ‘Oh yes, four pages of pro-violent nonsense dressed up in socio-political jargon. Real adolescent stuff. They were a bunch of campus hard cases. No one took any notice of them until they murdered the professor of history at the university where they were studying.’

  ‘They did what?’

  ‘Murdered him. Claimed he was perverting evolution by manipulating history to subvert natural selection.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘That he was homosexual and thereby frustrating the natural law, that he was part of an atheistic liberal world conspiracy to suppress the divine right of the strong to assert their will and control their destiny.’

  ‘Well you can’t say fairer than that, can you?’

  ‘I memorised it from a website. I thought it would give you a laugh.’

  ‘Oh hilarious.’

  ‘They were political weirdos. They supported Israel and the US because of their use of force and Hamas and Hezbollah for the same reason. They were on the side of the tough guys regardless of what they stood for. It was all a bit incoherent. They were just stupid kids playing at being revolutionaries.’

  ‘So naturally they topped their history teacher. Well you would, wouldn’t you? And after that show of strength what happened?’

  ‘They went on the run. They lay low for a while until they bungled a bank raid. Nobody was hurt and they didn’t get anything. Then there was a raid on a supermarket, they got away with quite a bundle of cash but a security guard got shot and died later in hospital. After that things hotted up. The media became interested and that’s when they stopped being a bunch of violent young thugs and became the Geisller Group. The police turned up the gas but they all managed to get away somehow.’

  ‘How many were there in the group?’

  ‘Four at university, five when they first went on the run. That was when Anna joined them. Her big sister Eva was supposed to be the brains of the outfit.’

  ‘I thought you said Geisller was the leader.’

  ‘At university he was, but that didn’t make him clever enough to get anywhere. He was muscle, not brains, and he was good-looking. At their age strong and good-looking is enough to be the leader.’

  ‘So Eva did the thinking?’

  ‘So it seems. What little sense there was in their ideology she put there; Geisller was just a ranter and a bully.’

  ‘And Eva’s sister joined them when they went on the run after the murder?’

  ‘No, after they’d bungled the bank job.’

  ‘Was she at university?’

  ‘No, she lived at home with her parents.’

  ‘Why did she join them?’

  Ricci shrugged.

  ‘Who knows? Maybe she had the hots for Geisller or one of the others. Maybe it was the media attention. Anyway, we know about them because after 9/11 US Intelligence began to turn them up. The best guess anyone came up with was that they went on the run from Germany and headed to where the real terrorists operated, Afghanistan or the Middle East. Somehow they seemed to have hooked up to someone who was Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda related. Whoever they were they wanted European faces who could be used for fetching and carrying, setting things up. US Intelligence was sure the Geisller Group were among those faces.’

  ‘So what does that mean? They’d converted to Islam or what?’

  ‘I doubt it. They were just doing their thing. Al Qaeda was a cause, it believed enough to do something, it had taken on the world’s only remaining superpower. You don’t get any tougher than that.’

  ‘What happened to them? You said Anna was the only one still at large?’

  ‘They surfaced again, this time in Spain, and pulled another bank job. They got away with a tidy sum but one of them was shot by a security guard and the others left him behind. When they questioned him he spilled the works so they were on the run again but this time the police had one of them on their side. French Intelligence got two of them just outside of Carcassonne in a holiday let. There was a shootout, one got killed and one got taken.’

  ‘Were either of the sisters involved?’

  ‘No, it was the two men. Would you believe it, Geisller was the one who survived.
’

  ‘What about Anna and Eva?’

  ‘Nowhere, and Geisller had no idea where they were.’

  ‘Who had the money?’

  ‘Geisller had some but the girls had most of it.’

  ‘I see. Do you think it was the sisters who gave them to French Intelligence?’

  ‘No idea, does it matter?’

  ‘Probably not.’ The car was free of central Rome traffic and they were moving fast now along the Via Tuscolana. ‘You said Anna was the last one left of the group, what happened to Big Sister?’

  ‘Gunned down outside a railway station in Austria somewhere. No one knows why it was done or who was responsible. It could even have been the sister, a falling out maybe. They were just amateurs who got to play in the big time for a while. If the real terrorists hadn’t needed some innocent-looking white kids to help set up their operations they’d have tried another bank job or something like that and it would probably have ended there.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘It’s enough, it’s a damned lot considering the time I’ve had to follow up on it.’

  ‘Yes, you did well. Where’d you get it all? You’re on sick leave.’

  ‘A copy of the file was delivered by hand.’

  ‘Police?’

  ‘I doubt it. My guess is the minister’s aide had it passed it on. Look, Anna Bruck, now known to be Anna Schwarz, is a known terrorist. There’s been no word on her since the Carcassonne thing and suddenly under her assumed name she pops up here in Rome. The file gets handed to us. It has to be connected to what we’re doing somehow.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know but if it gets dropped in our lap we have to follow it up, don’t we?’

  ‘She suddenly pops up. That’s interesting, isn’t it?’

  ‘How do you mean, interesting.’

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘Why not now? If what we’ve been given so far about the cardinals is right then whatever it is could be terrorist-related. Why not? And this has to be a better lead than what we’ve got now. At least this is the real thing, not some crazy speculation. If I’m going to follow a trail I’d rather it was this than anything to do with fixing a conclave.’

  Ricci was back in a good mood. This was big, important, and, unlike Cheng’s death, solid: something they could get their teeth into. He looked at Jimmy who was looking out of the window. He should be pleased as well but he didn’t seem pleased.

  ‘Well? What do you think?’

  Jimmy was watching the buildings and trees go past.

  ‘I think it’s like a film.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like I’m being shown something, something not real, that only I can see.’

  ‘Talk sense, will you?’

  Jimmy turned back from the window.

  ‘It was a break-in? Door forced?’

  Ricci nodded.

  ‘Yeah, but a neat job. Somebody who knew what they were doing. A neighbour in the next apartment heard some noises, knew the girl wasn’t there, so she called the police.’

  ‘But the intruder was gone before they got there?’ Ricci nodded. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’

  ‘Why, the response time wouldn’t be so very quick. It wasn’t anything special.’

  ‘No, not that whoever broke in was gone.’

  ‘Then what?

  ‘That somebody who knows what they’re doing and gets in quietly, makes so much noise that they get heard by next door, then slips quietly away so no one sees anything. I just think it’s odd.’

  ‘That he got away? What did you want the neighbour to do, stand outside the apartment door and arrest him when he came out? She was frightened. She kept her door shut and waited for the police. It was the right thing to do.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I know so.’

  With the siren going and the roads less congested they were making good time.

  ‘Why do we have to have that thing going, we’re not in a hurry.’

  ‘We look like we’re on police business. If anyone sees us at the apartments we’re just cops having another look.’

  ‘We’re going to a crime scene that’s two days old. Why would we need a siren?’

  Ricci leaned forward and spoke to the driver. The siren fell silent. The driver lowered the window and pulled the light off the roof and stuck it under his seat. Jimmy watched him. He’d better be good at his job, buggering about like that at the speed they were going. The Lancia went on, slower now, just part of the traffic.

  ‘Was Anna ever convicted of anything?’

  ‘Never charged because she was never caught. They got prints, DNA, and a photo from her home. Other than that they never got a smell of her.’

  ‘So Anna, late of the Geisller Group, turns up here in Rome. When did she come and what was she doing?’

  ‘She came three weeks ago. Posed as a post-graduate student from Tübingen University in Holland doing research into Renaissance Vatican diplomacy. She wanted to have access to certain documents in the Vatican Library. Her papers checked out which is fine until the police check again after they know who the prints belong to and find that there is an Anna Bruck and she is a post-graduate student but she’s studying electronic engineering and has never left Tübingen.’

  ‘Do we have a picture of Schwarz?’

  ‘Not recent. The only one on file is about ten years old. It was supplied by her parents when it became known that she’d gone on the run with her sister.’

  ‘Did she ever go to the Vatican Library?’

  ‘Not that anyone can remember. Her contacts with their administration were by phone and e-mail. They thought they were dealing with someone in Holland but she could have been anywhere.’

  ‘You’ve done well, you’ve covered all the ground.’

  Ricci decided to be modest.

  ‘It was all in the file.’

  ‘Yes, it was a very thorough file, wasn’t it? Did you know the bloke who brought it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he didn’t say who it was from.’

  ‘No, just said he’d been told to deliver it by hand.’

  ‘What sort of file was it?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Was it a police file?’

  ‘Some of it was, copies of pages from a police file. Some pages weren’t.’

  ‘The envelope?’

  ‘Plain.’

  Ricci looked at Jimmy who had gone back to studying the passing scenery. Why wasn’t he pleased? He was in a funny mood today. Then he thought, what the hell, if he wants to look out of the window let him look.

  The dual carriageway entered a busy suburb with apartment blocks all round, shops at street level and a Metro station, Porta Furba.

  Ricci leaned forward and spoke to the driver who nodded. The car drove on then pulled over.

  ‘This it?’

  ‘No. I want to get some aspirins. I’ve got a headache. I seem to have one all the time lately.’

  ‘It must be me.’

  ‘Yeah, it could easily be you.’

  Jimmy sat back as Ricci left and went into a pharmacy. In a few moments he returned with a small packet and a bottle of water in his hand. Once in the car he opened the packet and the bottle, took a sip, and swallowed some tablets.

  ‘How many did you take?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘That’s a lot at one go.’

  ‘It’s that sort of headache.’

  The car pulled away into the traffic.

  Jimmy looked at the busy pavements on either side of the road. It looked a nice place to live, if you liked a view of nothing but other apartments and being treated like a sardine twice a day on the Metro.

  The Lancia turned left off the main road, made a couple of turns, and pulled up outside a block of apartments that looked like all the others with washing strung across balconies and slatted shutters on the windows. Here the sun was something you kept on the porch, like muddy shoes in Engla
nd, even this pleasantly warm spring sunshine.

  They got out of the car, the driver leaned back, lit a cigarette, and opened his window. He wasn’t interested in what they were doing. He was off duty.

  ‘It’s on the first floor.’

  They went in and began to climb the concrete stairs.

  ‘Her apartment gets turned over while she’s away and the police find out who she is through a routine fingerprint check. How is it connected to what we’re doing, that’s the question? What do you think?’

  Jimmy shrugged.

  ‘It’s like you said, considering what else we’ve got we live in hope. How did you get to know?’

  ‘Got a phone call yesterday evening.’

  ‘Did the voice say who it was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t recognise it?’

  ‘No. I was just told what had been found and that the minister had ordered a complete information shutdown. He doesn’t want the media to get any sort of line on it. But a file on the case would be sent to me directly by hand. Because the minister was mentioned I assumed the call was from the Cherub’s office, that he thought we’d want to know.’

  ‘Yes, I can see how you’d think that. A brownie point for the Cherub then.’

  But Jimmy still didn’t seem pleased as they turned off the staircase and went on to the apartment that had been rented in the name of Anna Bruck.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was a small, one-bedroom apartment. A washed plate, some cutlery, and a mug were stacked neatly on the draining board by the sink. There was food in the kitchen cupboards and in the fridge, there were clothes in the wardrobe. The bedclothes were rumpled, pulled up but not straightened out. There was a four-day-old copy of La Republica on the settee in the living room. It was all neat in a sloppy sort of way. Jimmy sat on the bed. Ricci stood in the doorway looking round.

  ‘We’re not going to find much, are we?’

  Jimmy nodded.

  ‘It’s all been cleaned up.’

  Ricci looked around the bedroom.

  ‘The next apartment’s the other side of that wall. I don’t see how he made enough noise to get the next door neighbour to call the police unless he threw something against it.’