by Jeremy Duns
As I turned onto the street, Sarah cried out and I glanced across at her.
‘Drive on the right!’ she screamed.
Shit. I looked back at the road and pulled us onto the other side just as a heavy goods lorry came rumbling towards us.
Close call.
Sarah started looking frantically through the dossiers, throwing each one onto the car’s floor as soon as she had discarded it. I hoped to God we hadn’t left the crucial one behind.
My plan was to head straight for the centre of town, as fast as possible: the more people there were around, the harder it would be for them to shoot at us. I squeezed the throttle and the needle shot up, and kept climbing. We passed the Fontana delle Api, and then I turned sharply down Via Druso. The car took the corner beautifully, and part of my brain was involuntarily awed by the machine under my command. The other part was desperately trying to see the street ahead, control this beast and get away from our pursuers. One of the Lancias was already in my rear-view mirror, taking the turn. A bullet ricocheted off the bodywork, and I swerved into the centre of the road for a moment. I swerved back, and reached over to open the glove compartment. Perhaps Severn had left a gun in there, or a map – but there was nothing. I looked up just as a Fiat with an enormous exhaust swerved in front of me, and I jabbed at the horn manically until it got out of the way.
I took another hard turn, into Via dei Cerchi. The traffic was starting to thicken now – evidently not everyone had taken the long weekend off. The streets were packed with pedestrians milling about aimlessly: tourists and nuns and children slobbering ice cream. I realized it had been a tactical error to head this way, because even if it made our pursuers a little gun-shy, which I was now rather less sure of, it was slowing us down terribly.
We had to get out of the centre – but where to? By now Severn would have made sure that all the country’s ports, airports and customs posts had been given detailed descriptions of the two of us, and even if we travelled separately I didn’t fancy our chances. Ergo, we had to find a way of avoiding Italian customs. If we reached, say, Switzerland, we would then be able to fly to London with little trouble: even Severn’s powers didn’t stretch that far. Travel between Italy and Switzerland didn’t require visas, so if we ditched the car, split up and took the train we might be able to get through the checkpoints.
Switzerland it was, then straight to Haggard in London. But we needed proof first.
‘Any luck yet?’ I called out to Sarah.
‘Not yet!’
I saw a space in the traffic and turned down Via della Greca, taking us around the bank of the Tiber. The main train station was only a mile or so away, but I had to find a way through this bloody maze of a city to get back to it. A thought hit me: the conspirators might not have dared to commit the operational details of this to paper. The strategic document could be all we had, and we would have to figure it out from there. ‘Check the document we read in the embassy again,’ I told Sarah. ‘See if it mentions any other targets, or dates.’
She leaned down and started rummaging in the files at her feet. We came into a boulevard shaded with trees: Lungotevere dei Pierleoni, but that would take us into town, not away from it, so I took the next turn and pushed the pedal down again.
Sarah had now found the original document and was reading through it hurriedly. ‘How about this?’ she said. ‘“In some Western European countries, especially in the south, religious events should be considered for attacks, as they provide a large crowd, easily understood and revered symbolism, shock value and, in many cases, low security. As Communism is an atheist ideology, Moscow’s involvement would immediately be suspected . . .”’
A religious event – yes, that might make sense. Could that be it, rather than a ballet or a football match? I thought back to my meeting with Barchetti. ‘They know,’ he had whispered. And then, when I had asked him if his cover had blown, he had shaken his head: ‘About the attack in the dome.’ I had presumed he meant that Arte come Terrore knew they were the prime suspects for Farraday’s murder. But perhaps I’d been wrong. The sniper had stored his climbing ropes on the gallery at the base of St Paul’s dome, and used that as an escape route, but the attack itself had taken place down in the cathedral, not inside the cupola. A slip? Barchetti’s English hadn’t been perfect, but I didn’t think so. I bit my lip and cursed myself. I’d missed his real message – he hadn’t been talking about what had happened in London at all. He had wanted to tell Severn that Arte come Terrore already knew of the next attack, which was going to take place in another church entirely.
Sarah had gone quiet, still engrossed in the document.
‘What is it?’
‘Charles has written in the margins on this page,’ she said. ‘He’s circled the part where it talks about religious events and written…’ She squinted. ‘“4 May.”’
I looked across at her. ‘That’s today.’
Forget Switzerland. Forget Haggard. I swerved to the right, taking the turning back into the centre of town.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouted Sarah.
‘It’s going to happen here,’ I said. ‘In Rome. The Pope’s noon address in St Peter’s Square. They’ve placed a bomb in the dome. They’re going to kill the Pope.’
She went quiet, and the papers slipped from her grasp and onto the floor.
XXI
I pushed my foot down on the accelerator and adjusted my hands on the wheel: they were slipping from the sweat pouring off them, as I realized what we were up against. No wonder Severn and Zimotti had been so anxious to find out what Barchetti had told me. This was on a far greater scale than the attacks in Milan, or the attempt to kill me in the middle of St Paul’s.
The assassination of the Pope would, of course, shock Italy, and shock the world. No doubt they had already prepared a way to pin the blame on Arte come Terrore, or some other Communist-linked group, as outlined in the dossier. Moscow could deny it as much as they wanted but nobody would ever believe that Italian intelligence had been behind such a thing. I could scarcely believe it myself. The foot-soldiers would not be aware of it, of course. Did anyone in the Vatican know about it? They had certainly made some shaky alliances in the past – but to assassinate the Pope in this day and age? Even if they were brutal enough to sanction such a thing, Zimotti would never have trusted them with the information: one slip of someone’s conscience and the whole operation would fall apart.
So there was a chance, if I reached the Vatican in time and warned them. I looked at the clock by the speedometer: it read ten o’clock. We had two hours. That would normally be plenty of time to get to the Vatican, but of course we were being pursued, and heading straight through the centre of the city.
I cursed the car. It was a racing model, or close enough, but that wasn’t much help in this situation: we were being chased on very short stretches in a built-up area by cars that were not that much slower anyway. Even if I could have increased my speed, it wouldn’t have been a good idea, because I didn’t want the carabinieri on our tail as well. But the Lancias, perhaps because they were being driven by the two Italians, were snaking expertly through the traffic. The one in front, driven by Zimotti, was now less than a hundred yards behind us, and the traffic was, if anything, slowing.
We crossed the Tiber, the Castel Sant’Angelo to our right, and came into Via della Conciliazone. And there was the dome, reaching up into a cloudless blue sky. It was tantalizingly close, but traffic in the street was at a complete standstill and in my rear-view mirror I could see the Lancia gaining ground. I decided drastic action was needed, and veered right into the nearest side street, Via della Traspontina.
A three-wheeled scooter loaded with flowers in the back cart squealed around the corner, and I swerved to avoid it, then took the next left down Borgo Sant’Angelo. I just needed to find a left turning somewhere down here to get ahead of the traffic in Via della Conciliazone and come into the square. The entrance to Via della’Erba was blocked b
y an idiotically parked van, and the tip of the dome had now vanished behind one of the buildings ahead, making it harder for me to judge the distance. But the next turning or the one after that should do…
I glanced in the mirror again and saw that one of the Lancias was now just three cars behind us. I took a sharp right. It was taking us away from St Peter’s, but I had to lose them and if I could take a few quick turns I might be able to. The street was narrow, leaving barely enough room for us to squeeze by, so I put my foot down and tooted the horn like a born Roman. Pedestrians jumped out of the way, a few of them shouting or waving their fists at us.
I turned left onto Borgo Pio. It was slightly wider, but had an outdoor caffè in it. I swerved to avoid it, but just as I did the sun broke over a building, blinding me for a moment, and Sarah gasped as one of our rear wheels crunched against a metal chair.
To the left was Vicolo del Farinone. A sign read ‘SENSO UNICO’, but it was the wrong way. No matter. I turned in. Vespas and motorcycles lined the left-hand side, while in the centre of the street a party of pigeons was flapping about a crust of bread. They scattered at the sound of the engine, and I hugged the car to the right wall. There was an archway at the end of the street, but as we approached it I saw the nose of a car just coming into view. It was one of the Lancias. How the hell had they got there? I glanced in the mirror: the other was now right behind us. And there were no turnings in the street.
I put my foot down, hoping that I might scare the Lancia ahead into reversing. But it kept nosing further into the archway. The walls on either side of us seemed to be closing in, and even the sky above was obscured by laundry hanging from windows: underwear and shirts. The sun was blazing – they wouldn’t take long to dry. I saw that the street widened a little before the archway, and as I looked over to the right I saw why – there was some sort of gate there. Something sparked in my mind and I reached for the button for the car doors. The hinges clunked and began moving out and then upward, just avoiding the walls of the passing houses, until they were almost touching each other above the front windscreen.
Wind was rushing into the car, and I started slowing down. We were a couple of seconds from the end of the street now, but we had to get there before the Lancia could block us off completely. I slowed the car some more, and we hit a cobble or something and landed a little off course: a corner of my door sheared against a drainpipe and got caught for a moment, metal screeching against metal. I righted us, then unbuckled myself from my seat. Now we were coming up to the end of the street, and the gate. A sign above it read ‘Proprieta Privata’, but I could see that it was slightly ajar.
We were now travelling at just a few miles an hour, and the Lancia behind us thumped into the rear of the car. Someone – Zimotti? – took a shot, but it hit the metalwork. Even at this speed, we were a moving target. There was an awful whistling noise emanating from the engine, and one of our back tyres had gone, a victim to speeding over the cobbles.
I turned to Sarah and gestured at the documents in her hand. She nodded dully and thrust them into the pouch of her overalls.
‘Now!’ I shouted, and she bundled herself out of the door, pushing the gate open as she did. The Lancia ahead of us was now in the archway, but it was stuck – they had no room to open their doors. I let go of the wheel and dived after Sarah through the open gate. There was a crunch as the Lancia bulldozed into the front of the Alfa Romeo, but I was already racing up stairs and down a small alleyway, passing the backs of houses. A few feet ahead there was another gate, and it was closed. Was it locked?
No. Sarah reached it and opened it, and a few moments later I joined her. As I stepped into the street I was nearly run over by a horse-drawn carriage coming the other way. The horse whinnied and lifted its legs and the tourists in the carriage shouted abuse at me. I took a moment to catch my breath, then looked up at the street sign on the archway. Via del Mascherino. I had momentarily lost my sense of direction, so I took a few more steps into the street and glanced to my left – the Lancia was reversing out of the archway a few feet away. But to my right was a curving colonnade, and just visible above it was the ball and cross of St Peter’s.
I took Sarah by the hand and we started running towards it.
*
I’d forgotten how vast the square was, and how crowded it could become. The first part of it was reasonably easy to cross, but by the time we reached the Obelisk we had been absorbed into a heaving mass of people, chattering, jostling and fanning themselves in the heat of the morning. Believers of every age, nationality and colour were here, wearing paper hats and sporting binoculars so they’d be able to get a better look at the action. I pushed past a group of African nuns and squinted up at one of the clocks on the Basilica: it was coming up to half past ten. There was just over an hour and a half left before the Pope was due to address the crowd.
The great church stood in front of us, the dome now just visible, framed by a cloudless blue sky. It looked even more impressive than St Paul’s – but was it any more invulnerable? Sarah and I elbowed our way through the crowd, muttering ‘Scusi – emergenza!’ People let us pass, reluctant to show anger in such a place and perhaps sensing our urgency.
Sarah pointed towards a flight of stairs on the right-hand side of the colonnade, and we headed that way. Several Swiss Guards were posted as sentries around the entrance, their absurd costumes offset by the short rapiers holstered in them and the long halberds they held in their hands. I pulled away a low wooden barrier and we ran up the stairs. The nearest of the Guards turned to us, alarmed.
‘We need to speak to someone on the Pope’s staff immediately,’ I said, still panting. ‘It’s an emergency.’
He gave us a frozen look, and I became conscious that we were bruised, battered and wearing Ralph Balfour-Laing’s paint-flecked clothes.
‘Do you have any identification, please?’ said the Guard, a pug-faced man sweating beneath his ridiculous plumed helmet.
‘We’re from the British embassy,’ said Sarah. ‘Ambassador Mazzerelli will be able to vouch for us.’
He wasn’t impressed. ‘Ambassador Mazzerelli is not here, signora. Do you have any identification from your embassy?’
Sarah touched my arm, and I turned to see Severn and Zimotti making their way through the crowd, followed by Barnes and the beak-faced soldier. They were now just a few dozen feet away, and heading straight for us, holding up wallets as they made their way past: they had identification, of course.
I faced the Guard again. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘We are representatives of the British government and we need to speak to someone on the Pope’s staff at once. You must stop the address at noon.’
‘Signore, I do not care who you are. We cannot allow anyone through simply because they claim to have an urgent matter. Please wait here.’
He made to leave and I leaned forward and grabbed his tunic by the sleeve. He swivelled round sharply, and I turned to Sarah.
‘How are those documents keeping?’ I said. She looked at me blankly, and for a terrifying moment I thought we might have lost them on the way, but then she reached into her overalls and removed the sheaf of papers. At my prompting she turned to the page she had been reading from in the car and thrust it into the hands of the Guard.
‘Just look at this,’ she said. ‘It’s a proposal by foreign governments to commit terrorist attacks in Italy and blame them on Communists. Here’ – she pointed to the relevant paragraph – ‘it mentions that ideal targets are religious events. May the fourth is circled in the margin—’
‘And that’s today,’ I broke in. ‘There may be a bomb in the church.’
The Guard’s momentary anger seemed to have calmed: perhaps he was used to such claims and was now certain he was dealing with a couple of cranks. I glanced back into the crowd. Severn and the others had already reached the first flight of steps.
‘This is not possible,’ the Guard was saying, and he handed the documents back to Sarah. ‘We have very good se
curity measures here, and I myself was involved in the search of the Basilica this morning. But if you would care to wait here— ’
‘You don’t understand! The life of the Pope and everyone in this crowd may be at risk.’
He wasn’t budging, so I took Sarah by the arm and made to leave, then at the last moment turned with her.
‘Come on!’ We ran through the gap between the Guards, through the massive arched doorway behind them. They let out a shout and began running after us.
*
We were in some sort of a hallway, with a thick red carpet and glittering chandeliers. A tall man in flowing robes with a red sash was already bustling towards us, the slapping of his slippers echoing against the marble floor.
‘What is this, please?’ he said. He had a narrow, ascetic face: a thin mouth, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. The Guards were now stationed behind us, their halberds drawn.
‘These people just broke in—’ our Guard started to explain, but I cut him off.
‘We are from British intelligence. We have information suggesting that there may be a bomb in the Basilica.’ I nodded at Sarah again, and she withdrew the papers and handed them over, pointing to the paragraph in question. The man took a pair of spectacles from his robe and began reading, but after a few seconds he handed the wad back officiously.
‘I have no way of knowing if these are genuine or not. Do you have any identification?’
‘That is what we asked, Cardinal—’ the Guard broke in, but the cardinal silenced him with a glare.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but there really isn’t time for that. You need to tell His Holiness to cancel his address.’
The cardinal started. ‘Impossible! Look at the crowd outside, signore. Many people have come a very long way to see His Holiness, and they will be very upset if he does not appear.’
‘They’ll be even more upset if he’s killed. Send these Guards out to explain that he’s not feeling well. The people will be disappointed, of course, but they will understand. What do you have to lose? If you find we have tricked you in some way, you can make a formal complaint to the British government and I assure you we will make a full public apology. But please – this is a very serious threat.’