The Holy Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘But the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991.’

  ‘Yes, but that was because someone helped the Pole then. You know in this profession you can’t trust anyone for long.’

  ‘Who helped?’ Raul and Elizabeth asked, almost at the same time.

  ‘I did.’

  49

  London is the most closely monitored city in the world. There are cameras in the streets, alleys, buildings, and public transport, constantly recording, since no effort is ever enough, and it’s the nature of people, not just sworn enemies, to always test the defenses.

  There is a small park, Saint Paul’s Churchyard, next to Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, accessible through Paternoster Row, which is usually closed after eight at night. Today should have been no exception, but the black gate yielded to Rafael’s push, and didn’t even squeak when he opened it completely, testimony to its frequent use and the attentive maintenance of the prelates of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, one of the treasures of this beautiful city.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Sarah protested. ‘We should go straight to the airport. It’s still far off.’

  ‘We have time. It’s only ten minutes.’

  ‘Ten minutes for what?’ James Phelps asked.

  Rafael ignored the question and rang a bell set in the side of a solid wooden door. He waited.

  To get here they’d taken three different kinds of transportation. They got on the number 24 bus, from the stop in front of the house on Belgrave Road. They got off on Lupus Street and went by tube from Pimlico to Euston. Later they took a taxi to the Tower of London. They walked the rest of the way along Cannon Street in a roundabout way only Rafael understood. Along the way Sarah had taken charge of asking JC for a plane, which he quickly attended to. Was there nothing he couldn’t make happen? She’d spoken a little to her father and mother, putting them at ease, although the somewhat unusual request for an airplane had left Elizabeth worried.

  ‘Nobody heard,’ Sarah impatiently said. ‘Ring it again.’

  ‘They heard, don’t worry. We have to wait.’

  Sarah sat down on one of the wooden benches throughout the small but well-cared-for park. She realized her nerves were getting the better of her, as well as doubts, undermining, conspiratorial, and alarming. Unfortunately she’d experienced enough so far to know she shouldn’t take time to think at these times, lest she …

  ‘Will Simon be all right?’ The question was more for herself than for the two men. It was a spontaneous worry.

  ‘Better than us, you can be sure,’ Rafael guaranteed.

  ‘What if they torture him … or worse?’ Sarah insisted. ‘I shouldn’t have visited him in the hospital,’ she lamented.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. If you hadn’t gone, he’d have been worse off by far. Or maybe he’d be better, but his family—’

  ‘I understand,’ Sarah interrupted, raising one of her hands to shut him up.

  ‘How do you know they haven’t hurt him?’ Phelps asked, helping Sarah and, at the same time, satisfying his curiosity.

  ‘The same way I knew we’d been found on Belgrave Road.’

  ‘Do you have somebody spying on Barnes?’ Sarah got up. ‘I don’t believe it. It can’t be.’ She showed her incredulity and the curiosity typical of a journalist. ‘Who is it?’

  Phelps’s anxious glance moved between Rafael and Sarah.

  ‘Do you admit it, Rafael?’

  The door opened at last after a key was heard turning in the lock.

  ‘There are various ways of knowing your enemies’ steps,’ Rafael said. The open door revealed a bald, fat man, dressed in pajamas with tiny blue polka dots.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Excuse the late hour, Brother,’ Rafael said respectfully.

  Late hour? Sarah asked herself. It’s eight-thirty.

  ‘We came to speak with Brother John,’ Rafael continued.

  ‘John who?’ He was still rude. He must have been sleeping.

  ‘John Cody.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Excuse my distraction. I’m Brother Rafael … from Rome.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so,’ the brother gatekeeper grumbled. ‘Come in, come in.’

  Once inside the building, Sarah felt transported into another age, around the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, well after the great fire of 1666, which left the cathedral in ruins, like the rest of the city. That tragedy showed itself in this monumental building, in this medieval-looking hallway Sarah walked down with respect and admiration, contrary to the others, who only saw a hallway, like a lot of other hallways, dark, somewhat sinister, closed to the public in general, since the people who live here need their privacy.

  ‘I’m going to take you to the sacristy, where you can wait for John Cody,’ the porter informed them, who in spite of his frown seemed friendlier.

  ‘I appreciate it,’ Rafael said with the same respectful tone of someone who didn’t want to hurt feelings or create unnecessary confusion.

  The brother opened a heavy door into the immense transept, a place for visiting and prayer.

  ‘Magnificent,’ Phelps whispered. ‘It never ceases to appear magnificent to me, and I’ve come here many times.’ He was speaking to Sarah in a low murmur in order not to disturb a holy place.

  They stopped in the chancel, the center of the majestic cathedral. At the back to the west the immense nave spanned the history of centuries, witness of royal weddings and state funerals. Resting place of many of the great personalities of the kingdom, among them the Duke of Wellington; Arthur Wellesley, the great architect of Napoleon’s downfall; Lord Nelson, the lamented admiral, victor of Trafalgar; Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia; Florence Nightingale, to name just a few, and, ah, of course, Christopher Wren, on whose tomb could be read: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. Above, the magisterial dome with its lantern of 850 tons below the gigantic cupola, where one could admire Thornhill’s frescoes and whose exterior was featured on the obligatory postcards of the city and in television correspondents’ reports. It was unmistakable. Its height of 110 feet was surpassed only by Michelangelo’s cupola in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

  ‘Stay here,’ Rafael ordered Sarah and Phelps.

  ‘Why?’ Sarah asked indignantly.

  ‘Because I say so,’ Rafael replied with a certain arrogance. ‘Look around. There’s a lot to see,’ he added, his back turned to them following the steps of the brother porter.

  Sarah and Phelps obeyed the order, although clearly they weren’t happy being forced to the side of whatever was going on. Sarah couldn’t rest until Rafael answered everything.

  ‘And now?’ Phelps asked, visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘We have the cathedral all to ourselves. Why don’t you give me a guided tour?’

  ‘With pleasure, but let me find a restroom first.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll wait for you.’

  Phelps left the chancel, the vast open space below the cupola, but at the third step his right thigh cramped up, and he bent down with sharp cries. Sarah ran to help him.

  ‘What’s the matter, James?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll go away in a second.’

  ‘Come and sit down,’ she suggested, taking him by the arm and helping him to the nearest pew on the north side of the transept.

  He followed her advice and let himself be helped.

  ‘This happens to me sometimes.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Not really.’ He smiled like a mischievous child.

  ‘You should have it checked as soon as possible. You can’t play around with your health,’ a concerned, maternal Sarah advised him.

  They sat in the large, varnished wooden pew. Phelps stretched out his painful leg, still holding his thigh.

  ‘It’s already going away,’ he repeated, more to reassure her than anything else. He’d learned to live with this pain
before.

  They waited several minutes in silence, Sarah at Phelps’s side, attentive, forgetting their future tasks and the secrets of Rafael, someplace in the sacristy with Brother John Cody, discussing private matters, which concerned her, Phelps, and Simon. May God protect them … if He can.

  ‘I’m better now,’ Phelps declared, getting up with difficulty. Sarah helped him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. This goes away as fast as it comes.’ He put some weight on his leg to see how it went.

  ‘See? It’s gone.’

  ‘Good, but promise me you’re going to have this looked at when you have the opportunity.’

  ‘Will do. Thanks for your concern.’ A smile sealed the promise. ‘I’m going to look for a bathroom.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  Let us take advantage of this voluntary separation between them to follow Rafael, who has now left the sacristy alone. Brother Cody hadn’t appeared, but the brother porter’s unpleasant frown had changed as soon as he found himself alone with Rafael. He remembered, suddenly, that they should look for Brother Cody in the Whispering Gallery, at the base of the cupola, not a very appropriate place for secret encounters. In any case this was the place chosen, and Rafael climbed the spiral staircase leading to the gallery. There were hundreds of steps, but he was in shape, prepared for anything and, preferably, two or three steps ahead of his enemies.

  Once he reached the dais and balustrade that make up the famous Whispering Gallery and run around the entire base of the cupola, Rafael looked around. It wasn’t difficult to find Cody, a few feet away leaning on the rail, watching the chancel below in the center, not worried he could be seen. Rafael crossed the distance separating them until he was a foot or so away.

  ‘This isn’t really the best place,’ he protested. The gallery owes its name to the unusual acoustics that let a whisper be heard all over the cupola.

  ‘Don’t worry. There is nobody up here at this hour. I’ve made sure of that.’

  The two men embraced.

  ‘Rafael,’ the other greeted him with pats on the shoulder.

  ‘John Cody,’ Rafael responded.

  ‘What a name you’ve found for me,’ Cody complained with a smile, loosening the hug. ‘I’ve been investigating. John Cody was the archbishop of Chicago in the seventies.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A real bastard.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A thief, corrupt.’

  ‘I know,’ Rafael repeated. ‘What do you have for me?’

  ‘Very little. Everything is more or less under surveillance.’

  ‘More or less?’

  John Cody shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘We always have to take the unknowns into account. Things appear without warning, and we never know what they might be.’

  ‘Excuses.’

  ‘The only thing I have is a name. They are especially interested in one man.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A certain Abu Rashid.’

  ‘Why is he special?’

  ‘It seems he knows more than he should.’

  ‘And who’s given you this information?’

  ‘No idea. They don’t let many people have knowledge of this affair.’

  Rafael rubbed his eyes meditatively.

  ‘Where does he usually stay?’

  ‘The last and only known residence is in the Muslim quarter in Jerusalem. But no one’s seen him there for a few days.’

  ‘Which means they have him under wraps.’

  ‘I can’t say that. If that’s the case, it’s not us,’ John Cody excused himself. ‘Do you think it’s worth going to Jerusalem?’

  Rafael shook his head no.

  ‘It’d be a waste of time.’

  ‘What do we do then?’

  ‘We go on. I already know where I’m going,’ Rafael declared decisively.

  ‘And Abu Rashid?’

  ‘Find out as much as possible about him. Who’s giving him information. And what it is. Now.’

  With a handshake and a slap on the shoulder the two said farewell. Rafael turned his back. He’d leave first. John Cody would wait five minutes and go down later.

  ‘Do what you have to do,’ Rafael ordered him before leaving through the opening onto the spiral staircase.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  The lack of response confirmed it.

  Five minutes.

  They could seem an eternity, especially with the immensity of the cupola above one’s head in its intricate magnificence. Time for night to fall completely, letting the shadow fill the space, countered by strategically placed lamps that give everything a dreamlike air.

  Five minutes.

  Let us not remain with John Cody the entire time, as good a person as he seems. Let us move on for a look at what will finally take place.

  Five minutes passed, and thirty seconds, for professional accuracy, essential for every agent who calls himself competent. Cody lifted his radio and pressed a button.

  ‘Attention all units. The group has been located. I repeat, the group has been located. Number two, New Change. Saint Paul’s Cathedral. I repeat, Saint Paul’s Cathedral.’

  50

  Today was one of those days it seemed better to call the office and give whatever excuse, illness or death in the family – no one very close, so as not to tempt fate – and leave the problems for others to solve. But this wasn’t an ordinary job, and Geoffrey Barnes wasn’t the type to run from challenges. On the contrary, his whole lunatic career, the flow of intelligence information, the next strategic game, made his adrenaline flow in sync with his changes of mood. He wouldn’t trade his job for anything … even on bad days.

  The frenetic activity in the Center of Operations was the same. The apparent chaos of dozens of people on all sides with papers in hand, answering telephones, looking at monitors, pressing keyboards, was just an illusion. Everything was governed by invisible but understood rules, so that nothing slipped by security. Anyone in the midst of this tempestuous sea would notice something out of place, an abnormal movement, a wave out of rhythm with the others, and raise the alarm.

  ‘Somebody close that door,’ Barnes ordered no one in particular from his chair in the office.

  Priscilla was the one who closed it, shutting off the room from the noise outside. It wasn’t normal for so many people to be so busy, but we’re talking about an unusual day. Seated in a chair in front of Barnes we find Littel. Priscilla was standing at his side, like a bodyguard. Herbert, behind Barnes, looked out the window at the London evening coming on.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Barnes asked.

  ‘Analyzing the disc,’ Priscilla told him. It was her duty to respond to this type of question.

  ‘Is your pal with them?’ Barnes was referring to Wally Johnson and the question was for Littel, who remained seated and confirmed with a nod of his head. ‘I wish they’d finish with that,’ Barnes sighed. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Do you want me to draw you a picture?’ Herbert suddenly said without turning his back to the window.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Barnes replied sarcastically.

  Herbert faced those present for the first time, enraged. He wasn’t used to losing control of a situation.

  ‘It’s obvious you have a mole on your team.’

  Littel got up angrily.

  ‘Watch your mouth, my friend.’

  ‘For stating the obvious?’ He launched a verbal attack. ‘Gentlemen, do I have to reiterate the fact that he was expecting us? He welcomed us as if he were laughing at us.’

  No one denied the observation. They kept silent, accepting the reprimand from Herbert, the agent of Opus Dei in that room and, perhaps, the head of the whole organization one day.

  ‘I don’t like that he’s a step ahead of us and sending us messages. We’ve got to review things and find the mole.’

  Littel assumed his position as the senior officer in the room. ‘This … what�
��s your name?’ he asked the man from Opus Dei.

  ‘Herbert Ross.’

  ‘Herbert is right. This is not good work.’ He glanced at Barnes. ‘We have to catch this mole as quickly as possible.’

  ‘And how do you propose we do that? A mole is not caught in an hour or two,’ Barnes said. ‘Unless you know some new way, the most I can do is start an investigation.’

  ‘This isn’t a question of investigating,’ Herbert protested, going to the door and opening it to let in the noisy adrenaline from the Center of Operations.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Barnes asked.

  ‘To make my report. The Master’s not going to like the news.’ He closed the door loudly.

  ‘I am sick of Masters,’ Barnes snorted.

  ‘I don’t know if it was a good idea to let the reporter go,’ Littel confessed, thoughtfully changing the subject.

  ‘He’s of no interest, believe me. He knows nothing Rafael doesn’t want him to know.’

  Rafael. This name still sounded false and every time he said it, it was hard to get out of his mouth. He and Jack Payne, one and the same.

  ‘Even so …’ Littel didn’t seem convinced.

  ‘Besides that, Roger’s on our side. He’ll do what’s necessary. And keep tabs on the journalist,’ Barnes claimed.

  ‘Who’s Roger?’

  ‘Roger Atwood,’ Barnes repeated, amazed at the ignorance. ‘The chief editor of the newspaper.’

  This was a valid argument to Littel and convinced him that Barnes had been right to let Simon Lloyd go free. He was of the old guard, this Barnes.

  ‘And the mole? What do we do?’ Littel asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find him,’ Barnes confidently asserted. ‘It’s always been that way, and always will be.’

  ‘Priscilla, go get us some coffee, please,’ Littel said.

  Priscilla’s supreme dedication and competence were well known, so she left, leaving the two top men of the agency alone.