The Intelligencer

by Leslie Silbert

  At Essex House, Thomas Phelippes stood staring down at the river, drumming his fingertips against the glass.

  Shortly after reading Richard Baines’s report, the chief commissioner had done exactly as Phelippes had intended—he’d called for Marlowe’s immediate apprehension and had dispatched a constable within minutes. Baines was in the Star Chamber, awaiting Marlowe’s arrival.

  Phelippes knew it was not yet time, but he could not resist checking every boat coming from the direction of Westminster. Soon Baines would hasten up the water steps and relay every detail.

  21

  THETUNISIANCOAST—11:47P.M., THE PRESENT DAY

  It was a perfect night for an operation. With the thick cloud cover, there was no moon, and starlight was minimal. The wind was picking up, and the distant rumble of thunder had driven most people indoors.

  Revere was operating a sixteen-foot speedboat. From the marina, he’d cruised northwest, away from the Gulf of Tunis. As a result, a headland—the cliffs of Sidi Bou Said, jutting into the sea—stood between him and the men guarding the coastal villa. This was a good thing. Earlier that evening, he’d noticed that one of the guards was wearing a pair of binoculars he recognized, Rigel’s 2150 model, which not only amplified existing light but also contained an infrared illuminator. So in spite of the near total darkness, that guard would be able to spot any hot object in his field of vision.

  Half a kilometer out, he cut the motor. In silence, Connor Black and Jason Avera emerged from beneath a tarp. Reaching into their oversized cooler, they pulled on wet suits, masks, and fins, then secured oxygen tanks to their backs and waterproof pouches to their waists. Sitting opposite each other—on the port and starboard gunwales—they nodded once, then simultaneously leaned back and slipped into the water.

  Revere watched the two sets of bubbles moving swiftly toward the gulf. When they were sufficiently far away, he pushed the boat’s starter button. The engine sputtered then rumbled to life, and he headed back to the marina.

  Lashing the boat, he spoke softly: “They’re in.”

  On the opposite side of the villa, the Woodsman was leaning against a tree finishing an energy bar when he heard Revere’s words. Standing up, he pulled a whitedishdash —a robelike cotton garment—from his worn leather knapsack and changed into it. Then came a salt-and-pepper beard, a checkeredkeffiyeh for his head, and a pair of faded leather sandals. Of Turkish descent, he had a dark complexion and, dressed in this manner, could easily pass for a local. With his equipment tucked into his knapsack, he began walking parallel to the road.

  Fifty yards down from the villa, he stopped. Checking his watch, he guessed it would be about five minutes.

  WASHINGTON,D.C.—4:09P.M.

  In a conference room in the Senate Hart Building, Donovan Morgan was attempting to listen as a senior analyst from the Defense Intelligence Agency delivered a brief that forecasted the erosion of the U.S. military’s technological advantages. Certain enemies, the analyst was saying, would soon gain the ability to jam the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals that guided American troops and bombs. The DIA man was an engaging speaker, but for Morgan, his words kept merging into an indistinguishable hum.

  Morgan’s pager was in his breast pocket, resting against his chest. Any minute now, Slade would be contacting him to relay the outcome of their rescue mission. Pain from the knots in his stomach was not registering in his brain, but the pager’s faint weight—its stillness—most certainly was.

  THEGULF OFTUNIS—12:10 A.M.

  It was so dark they could have been locked in a closet. Seven feet below the surface, Jason Avera was swimming directly behind Connor Black, but if his dive mask hadn’t contained an IR illuminator, he wouldn’t have been able to see him.

  Connor paused. Every few minutes, they were stopping to check thecompasses and GPS devices strapped to their wrists. With a quick calcu-lation, Jason realized the villa’s beachfront was now no more than twenty meters ahead.

  They continued swimming. In less than a minute, they were within touching distance of the smooth, sandy bottom. Ten feet farther on, Connor stopped. Jason drew up alongside him and waited.

  In a crouch, with his feet on the sea floor, Connor reached up, slowly rising until his fingers broke the surface. When they did, he was standing straight up. Not close enough. They swam a bit farther, and Connor tried again. Perfect. The water was roughly waist high.

  He pressed a button on his watch, twice, then stared at the digits. In sixty seconds, they would move.

  Hearing two beeps come through his earpiece, the Woodsman stepped onto the road. Revere was sitting behind the wheel of a parked van. He handed Revere his knapsack, and Revere gave him the van’s keys.

  Adopting the hunched, shuffling gait of an older man, the Woodsman headed toward the villa, tossing the keys from hand to hand.

  “Excuse me,” he began in Arabic, knocking on the door.

  “What is it?” came the muffled reply.

  “My car. Died just down the road. Would you be so kind as to lend me a phone?”

  The door opened. “I suppose that would be—”

  “Sleep well, my friend.” Having grabbed a silenced tranquilizer gun from beneath one of his loose white sleeves, the Woodsman fired.

  The guard never finished his sentence.

  Though Connor and Jason were confident that their approach had gone undetected, there was another danger. If the guard with the night-vision binoculars happened to be monitoring the shore at the precise moment they broke the surface, it would take him roughly 1.5 seconds to react and reach for his M4. Grabbing hold of the rifle and aiming it could take as little as two additional seconds. That meant that Connor and Jason would have about three to obscure his aim. With luck, however, the guards would be too distracted by the commotion at the front door to notice a thing.

  Feet planted in the sand, fingers gripping the zippers to the waterproof pouches at their waists, they began to rise. When the tops of their heads broke the surface, they shot up and hurled two grenadelike objects at the beach. Called “fade-to-blacks,” the devices were the exact opposite of their more commonly known counterparts, “flash-bang” or “stun” grenades. Flash-bangs temporarily blinded anyone looking in their direction and blew out the eardrums of everyone in the vicinity. Fade-to-blacks, however—as invisible and silent as their name suggested—disoriented in a different manner.

  On the beach, the inaudible explosions had two effects. Black smoke immediately filled the air, and a hot carbon mist was released. The resulting cloud—about thirty feet high—rendered Connor and Jason completely invisible to everyone in the villa. Though the guards had sophisticated night vision equipment, it was currently useless. The smoke made ambient light amplification impossible, and the mist—composed of fine particles warmer than body temperature—neutralized IR illumination.

  Wet suits protecting their skin, Connor and Jason raced up the beach. Standing about fifteen feet from the villa, with silenced tranquilizer guns pointed at the balcony, they waited for the mist to cool. When it did, they fired.

  VATICANCITY—10:16P.M.

  “Whenever Hitler came to Rome to meet with Mussolini, the pope would order this room closed for repairs,” the curator was saying. Looking up to the ceiling, he continued, “First Pius XI, then Pius XII. Since childhood, Hitler had dreamed of seeing it but never got the chance.”

  The tour group had just entered the Sistine Chapel when Luca de Tolomei joined them. He mouthed an apology to the curator, then began speaking with a stout cardinal.

  Kate watched him for a moment, then returned her eyes to the ceiling. Though she’d visited this room once before, it had been during regular hours, when tourists were crammed in elbow-to-elbow and a voice was issuing instructions every few seconds over a loudspeaker—not exactly the best circumstances to take in one of the most awe-inspiring sights in the world.

  Neck craned back, she was walking slowly, perusing each panel when she sensed de Tolomei’s appro
ach. Pretending to scratch her shoulder, she activated her audio recording device.

  “Good evening, Kate.”

  “Better be careful,” she said, gesturing toThe Last Judgment on the altar wall. “Saint Peter is not happy with you, skipping out on him tonight like you did.”

  De Tolomei laughed. “Actually, I stopped believing a long time ago.”

  “Why?” Kate knew the question was intrusive, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “My daughter was raped and murdered. She was seven.”

  “Oh my God,” Kate said softly, stunned by the frank admission.

  “It was many years ago.”

  “Still, I…how rude of me. Can you…?”

  “Of course,” de Tolomei cut in. Quickly he changed the subject. “Speaking of fathers and daughters, I once knewyour father long ago. In another lifetime, you might say.”

  A maelstrom erupted in Kate’s mind. Face calm, voice even, she asked, “How did you meet?”

  “I used to live in Washington,” he replied. “Certain circles, you know…”

  And then it hit her. If what de Tolomei was saying were true, her father could probably recognize his voice. They might uncover de Tolomei’s identity that very day.

  “By the way, you may tell him that his secret is safe with me.”

  Hearing those words, Kate resisted her impulse to look up at Michelangelo’s ceiling. She already knew they were standing directly below the panel depicting original sin, and she knew it was no accident. De Tolomei was tempting her, but with what?

  THETUNISIANCOAST—12:21A.M.

  When the Woodsman entered the room where Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale were sleeping, he stopped short. A pale and very blond Nordic couple lay on the bed.

  Looking up—toward the sliding glass doors across the room—he met Connor Black’s eyes. Their conversation from that afternoon replayed in his mind. Within seconds, comprehension dawned.Must’ve been a divider in the van—A.C. up front, warm air in the back. Blonds in, Nightingales out.

  “Fuck.”

  Less than a hundred miles northeast of the cursing Woodsman, de Tolomei’s yacht, theSabina, had just rounded the western coast of Sicily. In the master suite, Surina Khan was holding her patient’s hand, murmuring sweetly in his ear.

  22

  Since thou hast all the cards within thy hands,

  To shuffle or cut, take this as surest thing,

  That, right or wrong, thou deal thyself a king.

  —GUISE,in Marlowe’sThe Massacre at Paris

  CHISLEHURST,KENT—AFTERNOON,MAY1593

  Heavy gray clouds raced overhead, merging and darkening. Just a few determined rays beamed through, sparkling here and there on the wild flowers lining the road. Thunder cracked. Seconds later, the first raindrops fell.

  Screeching cats!

  Wrists shackled, Marlowe was astride his horse, following the dour constable back to London. Why the devil had he let that Tarot woman deal his cards? A wretched mistake it was. To be interrupted when the words were flowing like a torrent? Churning more fiercely than the Hellespont he depicted? He should never have visited her at all.

  Robert Poley galloped down the familiar tree-lined avenue. Rain streamed from the brim of his velvet hat and drenched his doublet.

  “Kit!” he called, tethering his horse to a fence.

  Crossing Scadbury’s drawbridge, he tried again. Louder. “Kit!”

  When he entered the front hall, footfalls sounded on the stairs. Tall black boots appeared. Then russet hose, hugging a trim pair of legs. But to Poley’s dismay, it wasn’t Marlowe’s face that came next.

  “Where is he?” he asked Tom Walsingham.

  They’d known each other for years. It was Tom who’d helped Poley initiate his employment with Sir Francis, the late secretary of state, and for that, Poley would always be grateful.

  “He was taken by a city constable—Maunder, he was called—twenty minutes ago. Do you know—”

  Poley interrupted with a nod. “He’s under investigation for sowing discord. For spreading ideas of atheism.”

  Unfazed, Tom shrugged. “Well, then, as in every other instance, his employer—Essex, Cecil, whoever it may be—will step in and the men of the Star Chamber will be made to see through the lies. They will be made to see that Kit serves his queen and that any behavior to the contrary is but a pose.”

  “This time it goes beyond hearsay,” Poley said. “It began the night of the fifth. A poem was tacked to the wall of a Dutch church—full of threats, promising murder, and signed ‘Tamburlaine.’ Made other allusions to Kit’s plays. No one thought much of it until a document—heretical, they say—was found in Kit’s old lodgings. Kyd said it must have belonged to Kit, along with some other nonsense. Then, two informants submitted reports attesting to Kit’s blasphemy, swearing that he persuades men to atheism.”

  Tom paled. “Who would—”

  “Phelippes,” Poley spat with disdain. “He’s a member of the commission investigating the anti-immigrant placards. He hired the hack who wrote the poem, then kept leading the investigation to Marlowe, and when the head commissioner didn’t bite, he drummed up those informant reports. Literally stood over shoulders, telling his dogs what to write.”

  “But Kit works for him. Serves him well. I don’t see why—”

  “Phelippes views what Kit may or may not know about Cecil as worth far more than his abilities as a spy…or his life.”

  “You’ll stop him?”

  “Yes,” Poley said, black eyes flashing. “Cecil has ordered it, and even if he hadn’t, I—”

  Shaking his head, Poley cut himself off. Time was short. “Kit was with you the evening of the fifth, yes?”

  Tom nodded.

  “Write a letter swearing to that.”

  “Of course.”

  “And have you a sample of his penmanship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Placing a hand on Tom’s shoulder, Poley said, “We’ll get him out of this.”

  Reassured, a smile flicked across Tom’s face. Turning, he headed up to his study. Grabbing a sheet of paper, he took a seat at his desk.

  Poley pulled up a chair. “What about me? I’ve a letter to write, too.” Retrieving a ring from his pocket, he presented its carved face.

  Tom’s eyebrows shot up. “Cecil trusts you with his seal?”

  “Of course not. I had a copy made.”

  Finishing his salutation, Poley added, “When we’re done here, if you lend me a fresh horse, I just might beat them back to the city.”

  WESTMINSTER—DUSK

  The storm had passed, and the sky was a fetching maiden’s blush pink when Marlowe was brought into the Court of Star Chamber. The panel seated at the far end of the room—made up of Privy Councillors and judges from both the civil and criminal courts—was taking testimony. The witness was claiming to have seen a certain woman nip three purses and pick five pockets in less than one hour, near the southern entrance to London Bridge.

  Craning his neck, Marlowe spotted the offender, a well-dressed young woman whose ankles were chained together. Maybe it washer hand I felt the other day, he thought to himself.

  Two more witnesses stepped forward—victims, or so they said—to identify her. The panel conferred. “A week in the pillory,” the speaker declared, and the girl was led away.

  Marlowe turned to the back of the room. The Star Chamber was a public place and tended to attract an audience, particularly when the theaters were closed. Good, he thought. The seats were filled. If he were arrested, word would travel quickly, and with any luck, Phelippes would intercede before nightfall.

  Scanning the crowd, Marlowe recognized a couple of regulars—an old woman with grime on her face and oatcakes in her hands and a sour-faced Puritan preacher who was always dressed in the same fraying black cloak. Then Marlowe spotted Richard Topcliffe. The royal rack-master was engaged in private conversation with a man whose face was hidden behind the brim of a dove-gray felt hat. As if sen
sing Marlowe’s gaze, Topcliffe raised his eyes.He looks on me as if I’m his dinner. Surely he doesn’t think—

  Feeling Maunder nudge his elbow, Marlowe allowed himself to be led toward the panel.

  “Christopher Marlowe. You’ve been informed that you face the charges of atheism and sedition?”

  “Upon what evidence, my lord?”

  “We have received three testimonials regarding your legion of vile, blasphemous statements. Upon oaths, these men relayed that you heap scorn on God’s word, that you persuade men to atheism. Everywhere you go.”

  “Lies, my lord.”

  “You heard me saythree, did you not? Three reports, all of which corroborate each other.”

  “In that case, my lord, I regret to inform you that there are at least three men in England whose sworn word is for sale.”

  The onlookers erupted. A chorus of guffaws rang out.

  “Silence!” the speaker bellowed.

  Marlowe glanced up at the gold stars painted on the domed ceiling.What are you doing to me?

  Putting on his spectacles, the speaker looked down at a sheaf of papers before him. “It says here that you believe religion was invented to keep the common man in awe? That if you were to write a new one, it would be more excellent and admirable because the New Testament is filthily written? That if there be any God or good religion, it must be Catholicism, because they have better ceremonies? But you would prefer it if the sacrament were administered in a tobacco pipe?”

  By the end, the speaker’s voice had risen to an angry shout. Every muscle in Marlowe’s face was tense. He was both fighting the urge to laugh and struggling—manfully—to appear aghast.

  Turning to another page, the speaker grimaced in horror. “You’ve stated that the angel Gabriel was but a bawd for our Lord because he brought the salutation to Mary?”

  Behind him, Marlowe heard titters. “My lord, I solemnly swear I have said no such things.”