The Holy Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  I wish it were just sentimentality, Sarah thought. With the bottle in hand she went to the door and opened it a little. She looked around the hallway with all senses alert. No one. No John Fox. Panic gave her goose bumps. She closed the door slowly and confronted Simon, who looked at her inquisitively.

  ‘Your girlfriend gave you this bottle?’ she asked again. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Simon answered, beginning to react, still puzzled.

  ‘Either she did or she didn’t.’ It was not worth getting annoyed with him. She had to remain cool in order to think logically. Quick thinking meant staying alive.

  ‘It was … not my girlfriend.’

  ‘You said it was from your girlfriend,’ Sarah interrupted. ‘So who was it?’ The hell with this guy not getting to the point. It must be the medication.

  ‘I know what I said … He’s my boyfriend,’ he explained reticently.

  Fear thickened in Sarah. That explained a lot.

  ‘You have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he gave you this bottle?’

  ‘I’ve already told you yes.’ Simon observed Sarah for signs of disapproval, but didn’t detect any. Only confusion … in both of them.

  ‘Simon, do you trust me?’

  ‘Of course,’ he answered without a trace of doubt.

  ‘Good.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘Get up and let’s go.’

  ‘What?’ What a ludicrous suggestion. ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Sarah, what’s going on?’

  Sarah went over and put her hand on his shoulder to encourage him.

  ‘Simon, trust me. Our lives are in danger. If we don’t get out of here right now, we’re going to die. I don’t know how else to say it.’

  Simon was unable to say a word. Doubts swept through him, making him collapse back on the bed. Sarah would have to explain better than she had.

  ‘Simon, do what I tell you. Get up.’

  Simon didn’t move.

  Sarah sighed and shut her eyes before making a decision.

  ‘It wasn’t a gas leak.’ Thy will be done. ‘It was a bomb set to go off when the key was turned.’

  ‘What?’ he blurted out, astonished. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘Who doesn’t matter at the moment, Simon. If we wait here to find out, it’s all over for us.’

  It took Simon two seconds to decide. The new facts were relevant. He got up, put on the hospital slippers, and dragged himself to the door. Sarah would have to support him. He leaned against her side. It’d be easier for Simon, slower for the two of them. There was no time to waste.

  ‘Wait here,’ Sarah told him, helping him to a chair at the side of the door next to him. Simon preferred leaning on the arms to sitting down. Sarah opened the door slightly and looked from one side to the other. The way was clear.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Sarah returned to serve as a crutch for her injured colleague, and they started down a dark, deserted hallway. All the groans, cries, and whispers of the patients and machines were a catalyst for fear. One step at a time, a sweaty, dragging pace, looking around in search of danger. The end of the hallway seemed to stretch out forever, eliminating hope of getting outside. Even their shadows made them afraid someone would jump out of the darkness, without warning, and put an end to everything.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Simon whispered, afraid.

  ‘I am. Do you think I’d take you out of your room and jeopardize your recovery if this were a game?’

  Of course not. Sarah would never do that. Damned hallway that seemed never to end. A metallic noise clanged behind them. Some object dropped or thrown. Sarah and Simon paused. They looked back. They didn’t see anyone. Maybe they should try another way, but Sarah knew only this one she’d come down with John Fox. They started down the hall toward where the noise had just come from. Better to be in known territory. Their hearts beat harder. Simon, leaning on Sarah, his body trembling, asked to rest. The sound of her heart beating in her ears interfered with her thinking. Ironically, the end of the hall was closer with every step, since their fear of what was around the corner, next to the elevators, was palpable.

  Finally, they took a left at the corner and saw the elevators. The source of the noise was a metal tray, fallen from a cart left against the wall. Surgical instruments were scattered on the floor, scissors, scalpels, forceps of various shapes and sizes, and other objects not easily identifiable at first glance. They moved cautiously toward the elevators, avoiding the repulsive metal. Sarah could see dark stains on some of the cutting instruments, but the dim light didn’t reveal colors. Her imagination suggested red blood, which made sense with the scalpels. Still, it didn’t seem plausible that a doctor or nurse would leave all these instruments without sterilizing them. She put those thoughts out of her mind and hit the elevator button. It was interesting how something as natural as the presence of blood in a hospital could seem out of place. This was a theory Sarah could analyze later. Right now they had to get out of there.

  A loud sound signaled the elevator was arriving on the floor and the doors would open. There were three possibilities, left, right, and straight ahead. It turned out to be the center elevator. The doors opened, revealing agent John Fox inside, looking at Sarah.

  Simon dug his fingers into her arm so hard that, if it were not for the adrenaline pumping through her body, she probably would have cried out.

  ‘This is Agent John Fox, who came with me,’ Sarah, relieved, let him know.

  Simon loosened his fingers, sharing Sarah’s relief.

  The agent was silent and kept staring at Sarah.

  ‘I’ve something to tell you,’ Sarah began, raising the bottle of port she carried in her only free hand. ‘They …’

  John Fox took an uncertain step forward and supported himself against the open doors like Samson between the columns of the temple.

  ‘… are here,’ Sarah finished without thinking what she was saying.

  They both stared at John Fox, who was concentrating on the two of them in a strange way.

  ‘Get out of here,’ he managed to whisper before blood gushed out of his mouth. He took two steps forward like a zombie, terrifying Sarah and Simon, who moved back to give him room without taking their eyes off him. John Fox swayed for a few moments until his body fell heavily on the cart, knocking it over and spilling the rest of the instruments on it. From his back there protruded no less than six scalpels.

  Sarah gave a silent scream and pulled away from Simon’s hand.

  Steps. They heard steps in the hall they had come down. Without stopping to think about it, they stepped into the open elevator. The steps got closer each moment. Firm and cadenced, neither hurried nor slow, provoking horror in Sarah Monteiro. They kept pressing the button marked zero, but it could as well have been any other, as long as the doors closed and the footsteps no longer were heard.

  ‘Close, close, close,’ Sarah pleaded in a vain attempt to hurry the process with words.

  A shape rounded the corner of the hall and ran toward the closing doors.

  ‘Simon. Simon,’ they heard shouted.

  Impelled by a voice he recognized, he looked for the button to open the doors and pressed it.

  ‘Simon, no!’ Sarah shouted. ‘Don’t.’

  Simon paid no attention to his boss and kept pressing the button. The doors promptly opened to light up the shape and reveal a spruce gentleman, older than Simon, closer to Sarah’s age.

  ‘What’s going on, my love?’ the unknown man asked.

  ‘Oh, God, it’s been horrible. Someone’s killed this man.’ A tear ran down Simon’s face from the fear and disgust of having seen what he’d never forget. ‘They’re after us, Hugh.’

  ‘What? Who?’ The man seemed lost, looking at the body and Simon, not looking at Sarah at all. ‘Who’s done this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Simon was weeping.

  ‘Oh, my love, don’t
cry.’ Hugh comforted him, placing himself inside the doors in a way that prevented the sensors from shutting automatically. He embraced Simon. ‘Okay, it’s all over.’ He kissed him tenderly on the head. Simon broke down in a torrent of held-back emotion. ‘It’s okay. Okay. It’s over.’

  The two men turned in their fierce embrace so that Simon was outside the elevator and the other inside with his back to Sarah, who watched indecisively. She didn’t know what to do, or, she did, but feared the consequences. The embrace cooled, although the men continued holding each other. Simon’s eyes were closed and moist, enjoying every second.

  ‘What are you doing here at this hour?’ he asked. ‘How did you get in?’

  The man hesitated a moment, but the embrace hid this doubt from Simon. Only Sarah saw it, even though he had his back turned to her. It helped her make her decision. And this was the right time to act. She hoped it worked.

  ‘Uum … I have an acquaintance here. I couldn’t bear thinking about you.’

  The force of the bottle of old port, vintage ’76, striking Hugh’s head, shattered it at once. Only the broken neck remained in Sarah’s hand.

  ‘That’s for stealing what doesn’t belong to you, Hugh.’ The emphasis on the name showed her suspicion of its veracity.

  What a waste of good wine streaming down the head of Simon’s boyfriend.

  Before Simon could perceive what was happening, Sarah grabbed him by the arm and pushed him inside the elevator, while she took advantage of Hugh’s momentary stunned condition to shove him outside. She was surprised to see him leave the elevator so easily and fall to the floor. Magnificent. In a single action, since the sensors were unhindered, the doors closed to carry the occupants to the ground floor. Mission accomplished. Sarah’s excitement was such that she didn’t notice the small hole appear in the mirror behind her, caused by the badly aimed gun of this supposed Hugh.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Simon cried. ‘Are you crazy?’ He pressed the button for the floor they’d just left. ‘Fuck. How could you do something like that? You can’t suspect everyone in this way.’ He was completely beside himself.

  ‘Shut up, Simon,’ Sarah ordered firmly. ‘This bottle.’ She shook the neck that remained in her hand, as a defensive weapon, lacking something better. ‘When this was a bottle, it was in my house. Do you remember where I told you to look for the file?’

  Simon managed to think with difficulty. He remembered her instructions. To get a file that was behind a bottle of vintage port.

  ‘And?’ he questioned. ‘Is it the only one? Aren’t there more in the store?’

  ‘The box was intact in what remained of my house. The bottle was not inside it. Can I make things any clearer?’

  Tears returned to Simon’s eyes.

  ‘It can’t be. It can’t be. He must have an explanation.’ He saw his life falling apart in front of him. ‘It must be a coincidence.’ He grasped at this hope. There were other bottles of vintage ’76 port. It was a present from Hugh, nothing else, without all these complications. He remembered Hugh’s shape at precisely the moment he lost consciousness in Redcliff Gardens. It could be a confused vision, a hallucination, a trick of the mind that made him see his lover just then.

  ‘I’m sorry, Simon. He’s probably not even named Hugh. I’m very sorry.’

  The elevator reached the floor, and the doors opened. Waiting for them was Simon Templar.

  ‘I’m glad I found you,’ Sarah said, panting. ‘They’ve killed your partner and they’re after us.’

  Sarah helped Simon leave the elevator, and they walked toward the exit, sixty feet away. Except for Templar, no one was in sight.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Templar asked in a roguish way.

  Sarah kept dragging Simon Lloyd toward the doors to the outside. They heard an electronic sound similar to a walkie-talkie. Sarah quickened their pace, pulling a groggy Simon.

  ‘James, you are truly stupid,’ they heard Simon Templar say over the radio.

  A hiss passed the ears of Simon and Sarah and shattered the marble floor, raising dust and stone. A shot with a silencer. Sarah looked back and saw Templar, gun in hand, aiming at them. Simon seemed not to care, but Sarah felt panic and frustration. A gun pointed at her again a year afterward.

  ‘The next one’s in the head,’ Templar warned, putting the radio to his mouth again. ‘James, come down. I’ve got them.’

  33

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Are you telling me that we’re running around pursuing a dead man?’ Father Phelps expressed disbelief. ‘I went to His Holiness’s funeral two years ago.’

  ‘Me too, along with more than four million other mourners.’

  ‘Less than a month ago I visited the Crypt of the Popes and prayed in front of his tomb. Peace for his holy soul.’ He ignored Rafael’s observation.

  ‘Some people don’t die.’

  ‘Sure, historically, intellectually, culturally. Caesar, Emperor of Rome, will never die, Henry the Eighth, Christopher Columbus …’

  ‘John Paul the Second,’ Rafael completed the list. He concentrated on the few miles remaining on the M20 to the outskirts of London.

  ‘John Paul the Second,’ Phelps admitted. ‘Then we’re on the trail of his legacy.’

  Rafael turned toward Phelps and looked at him gravely before immediately returning his eyes to the motorway and the red lights from the vehicles in front of them heading for the frenzy of the capital, neither confirming nor denying Phelps’s conjecture. All in due course.

  Although Phelps was driven by morbid curiosity about Rafael’s orders from Benedict XVI, sleep began to overcome him. He’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and the movement of the van and engine noise began to sound like a cat purring. He closed his eyelids against his will.

  When he noticed Rafael change direction, he opened his eyes.

  ‘Are we there yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Rafael answered. He was looking at the side mirror. ‘Someone’s following us.’

  ‘Seriously?’ A lump formed in Phelps’s throat, dispersing sleep completely. ‘We’re being followed by someone?’

  Rafael accelerated the van in the direction of a secondary road. Phelps bent his head to look in the side mirror at the white lights shining at the van. His heart pumped blood faster through his body. His breathing tightened.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked fearfully, without taking his eyes from the mirror.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rafael said. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A little farther and we’ll know.’

  Phelps undid the top button of his shirt, suspicious, distressed.

  ‘I’m not feeling well,’ he announced. ‘Rapid heartbeat.’

  ‘It’s nerves,’ Rafael said. His attention was on the road and the car following them, without any sign of worry.

  ‘You … you’re not scared?’ Phelps asked with his mouth crying out for something wet to placate his thirst.

  ‘Afraid of what?’

  Rafael insisted on not looking at him and assumed an insensitive tone highly discomforting to Phelps.

  ‘Of them.’ He pointed behind them.

  ‘No,’ Rafael replied dryly.

  Phelps looked at the side mirror again, estimating the distance that seemed to have shortened more each time he looked, according to his eyes, not very trustworthy at this hour.

  He wanted to ask more questions, but Rafael’s expression wasn’t encouraging. Best to wait to see if this passed; let’s hope it did with God’s help.

  These doubts disappeared when Phelps saw the lights of the pursuing car almost bumping the van, leaving him worried and full of panic. The speed of the two vehicles wasn’t fast, less than fifty miles an hour, and every time he looked at Rafael, he didn’t seem willing to go faster.

  ‘Don’t you think w
e should speed up?’ he asked at last in a voice heavy with fear.

  ‘There’s no danger.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Whoever’s watching isn’t going to let us see him.’

  ‘Are you saying they aren’t following us?’

  The vehicle behind signaled the van with its lights. Phelps understood less and less what was happening. And still less when Rafael came to a complete stop.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Stopping.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

  ‘No.’ Rafael unfastened his seat belt and opened the door. ‘Stay here.’

  Phelps wanted to protest, but Rafael closed the door, leaving him stamping his foot. He used the side mirrors to try to see what was happening. The lights of the other car were turned off, and he saw two men getting out and approaching Rafael, who waited for them calmly, leaning on the back of the Mercedes. They shook hands, which was a relief. Bad guys didn’t greet their future victims. If it wasn’t a trick. Rafael talked to the two men for a few moments. A little later one of them gave him an object Phelps couldn’t identify. Rafael turned to come back, and the Englishman managed to hear the men saying good-bye with an ‘À bientôt.’ Strange.

  Rafael climbed into his seat, started the engine, and took to the road again without offering one word of explanation.

  The silence was deafening, which infuriated Phelps. Who did Rafael think he was? Someone incapable of showing the least sign of confidence in him. He was a worthy inheritor of the tricks and intrigues of the Vatican. He would make an excellent member of the Curia and had everything necessary to become one. He always kept the best to himself and deliberately weighed his words. He created an advantage over others that confounded allies and enemies, like a puzzle in which he alone knew the position of each piece in the total shape.

  ‘So it turns out no one was following us,’ Phelps said, keeping his eyes on the road. An insult to his dignity as a man and a prelate that he didn’t care to call attention to.