The Holy Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘You know the prior?’

  ‘I know everyone. If you want to continue in your position, I suggest you go to bed.’

  ‘Very well, sir. Do you know the way?’

  Marius nodded his head. Just what he needed. A friar acting important with him. He waited until the other returned to his room and entered the immense nave with a gold ceiling, silent, dark, holy.

  He retraced the way that someone else had taken twenty-six years earlier, with the opposite purpose. He went down the center aisle, unhurriedly, a slight fear rising within as the baldachin could be seen closer and closer. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t sweating. The light was dim but showed the moisture covering the rest of his face. It was dampening his suit, drops falling on the holy floor. Even great men react to great moments.

  The crypt was under the altar. Two small gates on either side served as an entrance and exit. They opened onto two narrow steps that descended to the crypt where the wooden boards of the manger were found, the alleged material that formed part of the infant Jesus’ crib.

  When he found himself before the relic, he knelt down and bowed his head submissively. He joined his hands and whispered a litany, bursting from a heart full of doubts. He wouldn’t turn his back on the challenge that awaited him. Meanwhile nothing could separate him from his encounter alone with God, from Whom he asked discernment and strength to carry out his purpose.

  He roused his courage and got up from the prie-dieu. He took off the gold chain around his neck and opened the glass cover that protected the relic containing the holy boards from the altar consecrated to the Virgin. He searched in the place he’d been told to look, and … nothing.

  No envelope, object, nothing. He tried again over and over until there was no doubt. Beyond the boards, guarded inside the gold reliquary supplied with a plastic screen to permit viewing by the countless faithful who visited the crypt daily, there was nothing more. What he was looking for had been removed already.

  His sweat and nerves overwhelmed him. He’d looked forward to this moment so much, had wanted to feel a whirlwind of contradictory emotions … and now … nothing. Only the boards remained inside their protective reliquary, but, with all due respect, they weren’t as important as the secret that should have been hidden there.

  His doubts overcame him. Had it ever been here? He looked at the chain and the gold key hanging from it. It was the only one, he was sure of that. He remembered how the other obtained the original when it had been decided this would be the hiding place under the protection of the Holy Child. He’d had to make a Franciscan drink until he passed out. The key disappeared that night, and this was the same key in his hand now. He remained on his knees in front of the sacred memorial. His legs weakened and gave out under the weight of his disillusion.

  Think. Think, he thought.

  He could reach only a not very optimistic conclusion.

  Treason.

  He closed the glass that protected the reliquary from the implacable atmosphere and climbed the stairs two steps at a time. He jumped the small gate and ran down the nave toward the exit.

  Simultaneously he dialed a number on his cell phone. Two rings later, someone answered.

  ‘We’ve been betrayed. Kill them all.’

  59

  John Paul II.

  ‘Everything comes down to him.’

  ‘He’s the beginning and the end.’

  ‘John Paul the Second is dead.’

  ‘A man like that never dies.’

  Where have I heard that before? Sarah asked herself, while she listened to the debate between Rafael and the barber.

  They were seated at a narrow table, Sarah facing James Phelps and the barber facing the priest.

  The conversation was between the latter two men alone. No one else was permitted to interrupt.

  ‘How did you get mixed up in this?’ Rafael wanted to know.

  ‘It’s Mitrokhin’s fault,’ Ivanovsky explained. ‘Have you heard of him?’

  ‘Of course. He worked in the KGB archives for forty years and put together his own archive transcribing the most important documents. Later he went into exile somewhere in the UK.’

  ‘Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘You’re the ones who have to check for double agents. Naturally he quickly became the best friend of the British.’

  ‘He was anti-Russian, an idiot, a traitor.’

  ‘He passed your greatest secrets to the enemy,’ Rafael said provocatively.

  Ivanovsky shrugged his shoulders, dismissing his importance.

  ‘Very few secrets. The British were the ones who took him in. The Americans didn’t believe him. After a certain point, we suspected him of duplicity and decided to give him misinformation.’

  Rafael wrinkled his nose.

  ‘I don’t know if I believe that.’

  ‘Believe it.’

  ‘The powerful Soviet Union has an agent suspected of high treason and decides to give him false information instead of arresting and executing him?’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened. The majority of what is known as the Mitrokhin Archive is pure fiction.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Rafael accused him. ‘He deceived them, and they made up this excuse.’

  ‘Don’t forget we are talking about transcriptions, not original documents. We don’t have to make up anything. Or even comment on the subject.’

  ‘But the British classified it as the most complete intelligence source in memory.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t they? Imagine that an agent of the CIA or MI6 transcribed documents, whether true or false, for thirty or forty years and passed them to us. Do you think we wouldn’t classify them as true?’

  The two men looked at each other. Their scrutiny had ended, the analysis of each other’s words and character over. From here on nothing needed to be explained.

  ‘Everything begins with Mitrokhin,’ Rafael said as if thinking out loud, ‘who accuses you, among other things, of having planned and carried out the attack in 1981 in Saint Peter’s.’

  ‘With the help of the Bulgarians, Poles, and the now defunct East Germans,’ Ivanovsky added.

  ‘That’s where Mitrokhin caused problems,’ Rafael declared.

  Ivanovsky frowned.

  ‘I see you’re well informed.’

  ‘I try to keep current. If Mitrokhin thought the USSR had something to do with the attempt, it was because he was led along.’ A meaningful wink.

  ‘That’s right. They tricked us.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We knew an attempt on the pope was imminent. We filled Saint Peter’s Square, and the blame fell on us.’

  ‘Who did you suspect?’

  ‘For two years we suspected the Americans.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Polish pope at that time was enough to make anyone wet his pants with fear. It was Americans or the Iron Curtain. The Americans have done it before. They killed their own president in 1963.’

  Sarah listened openmouthed.

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ Rafael observed sarcastically. ‘How many did your Stalin kill?’

  ‘Better not to go there.’

  ‘I agree.’

  We all live in glass houses.

  ‘When did you stop suspecting them?’ Rafael returned to the subject.

  ‘When the girls disappeared in 1983.’

  ‘Emanuela and Mirella? Is that who we’re talking about?’ Rafael asked. There couldn’t be mistakes.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  The wrinkled one, who a little while ago carried an AK-47, came into the room with a tray filled with four cups and a teapot, a sign the meeting was friendly … or not.

  ‘Who are those girls?’

  The two men looked at Sarah with condescension. She couldn’t stand not asking. She’d heard of the girls. Phelps had called them girls but didn’t know who they were …

  The wrinkled one put the tray on the table and left. Ivanovsky passed the cups around an
d served the steaming orange tea to everyone.

  ‘Mirella and Emanuela were two teenagers who disappeared in Rome in 1983. They were kidnapped by the same man at Marcinkus’s orders.’

  ‘Why?’ Sarah couldn’t believe it.

  Phelps picked up his cup to drink the tea, but Rafael, without taking his eyes off Ivanovsky, placed his hand over Phelps’s cup.

  ‘The Vatican received three calls from a man who identified himself as “The American” and demanded the immediate release of the Turk in exchange for Emanuela’s liberty.’

  ‘And the Vatican didn’t give in?’ Sarah joined the conversation definitively.

  ‘The Vatican couldn’t do anything. The Turk was in Italian custody,’ the barber explained while sipping a little of his tea. ‘But that’s when we realized the attack could have been an inside job. That and other things we discovered later.’

  Rafael lifted his hand from Phelps’s cup, permitting him to drink.

  ‘And he killed them?’ she asked.

  The Russian looked uncomfortably at Rafael, a request for help the other understood.

  ‘They were already dead before the call,’ Rafael finally said.

  ‘How is that possible? Weren’t they the price of exchange for the freedom of the Turk?’

  A new, heavy silence.

  ‘Let’s say they served other purposes and let’s not talk about it again,’ Rafael concluded peremptorily. He changed the subject. ‘Let’s talk about now. What was your man doing in London?’

  ‘Which man?’ the other asked evasively.

  ‘Grigori Nikolaievitch Nestov.’

  Ivanovsky squirmed in his chair, disguising his unease.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered.

  ‘We’re past that phase, Ivanovsky,’ Rafael scolded him without altering his tone.

  He took his first sip of tea, showing confidence. Every gesture counted. He let the silence spread through the room as the hot liquid went down his throat.

  ‘Grigori Nikolaievitch Nestov,’ Rafael repeated.

  ‘He was a good man. And a good friend,’ Ivanovsky confessed at last, his eyes looking into space and his memory providing vivid images of the dead man. ‘Tell me, have you heard of Abu Rashid?’

  ‘The name’s not unfamiliar.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Phelps asked, wrapped up in everything being said.

  ‘Abu Rashid is a Muslim who lives in Jerusalem and sees the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘What?’ Phelps was scandalized.

  ‘It’s true,’ Ivanovsky confirmed.

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve never heard of such a thing,’ Phelps insisted.

  ‘It’s more common than you might think. Perhaps your friend from the Vatican can confirm it.’ The barber pointed an accusing finger at Rafael.

  Rafael nodded.

  Phelps and Sarah were shocked.

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘There are countless stories of similar things. But as fast as they appear, they disappear.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Phelps asked.

  ‘Every time a case is identified, the subject disappears. We can go back more than three hundred years and the result is always the same,’ the barber said. ‘The same thing happened with this one.’

  ‘And what does Nestov have to do with Abu Rashid?’ Rafael wanted to know.

  ‘Nestov went to see Abu Rashid,’ the Russian barber explained, ‘in Jerusalem. We needed to confirm the veracity of the visions.’

  ‘And were they real?’ Sarah and Phelps asked, avid with curiosity.

  ‘We think so.’

  ‘You think so? You’re not certain?’ Sarah’s professional side awakened. Wrap up the interview.

  ‘We never saw each other after he went to Israel. We spoke on the phone. We know he met Abu Rashid and was disturbed by him.’

  ‘In what way?’ Another question from Sarah.

  Ivanovsky ignored her and continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

  ‘He spoke about the visions. About London. A woman in London.’

  Sarah swallowed saliva. She had to put her hands on the table to stop a slight trembling.

  ‘What woman was that?’ Rafael inquired. He didn’t want to lose momentum.

  ‘The name he gave was Sarah Monteiro,’ he revealed under pressure. It was an uncomfortable subject for the barber.

  ‘And what did that woman have?’ Rafael pursued.

  ‘He said she was keeping a secret that would answer our questions.’

  Ivanovsky lowered his eyes, thinking about that moment.

  They talked as if Sarah weren’t there.

  ‘And what are your questions?’

  Ivanovsky turned around in his seat. ‘The main question is how did we get to this situation? Who were our enemies, and what part did they play in the whole disaster?’

  ‘The answer is yourselves,’ Rafael answered provocatively. ‘You can’t blame your enemies for your own faults.’

  ‘We had our faults, sure. Serious ones. More than anyone could imagine, but our enemies played the main role in the fall of our regime. And your pope was in it up to his eyeballs.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The pope at that time. He didn’t care whether communism lasted, as long as national socialism was avenged.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Rafael protested. ‘Benedict the Sixteenth loved Hitler’s policies like a rat loves laboratory experiments.’

  ‘I have my doubts.’

  ‘I have my doubts about this democracy you’re living in today,’ Rafael answered.

  ‘Don’t we all. But, do you know what I say?’ The question was rhetorical. He didn’t wait for a reply. He answered his own question right away. ‘We’ve adopted the following phase of democracy. That of hidden totalitarianism. An illusory democracy that doesn’t even exist. It just seems to.’

  ‘I don’t question that. That’s obviously the road you’re taking. Don’t forget I know no other regime than a totalitarian one.’

  ‘Ah, yes. How could I forget. The clergy is stuck in the Middle Ages. It suits you.’

  ‘Putin is no daisy, either.’

  ‘I have no comment. He’s my president.’

  ‘Did Abu Rashid say anything else?’

  It was better to avoid provocations. Let’s not get off track.

  ‘He said the temptation was great, but Nestov shouldn’t go to London under any pretext. He would not return—’

  ‘—alive.’ Sarah completed his sentence, astonished.

  Ivanovsky shut his eyes.

  ‘Rafael knows we’re pragmatic men.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Rationalizations. If we have a clue, we don’t think twice. Besides, it wasn’t really a threat, more a suggestion.’

  ‘What is certain is that Rashid was right. We don’t know if it was coincidence or certainty.’

  Silence settled over the room as an homage to Nestov’s soul and respect for the Muslim’s prophetic gift.

  ‘I don’t believe the prophet was referring to the secret that marked the end of the communist regime,’ Rafael declared after a little.

  ‘No?’ The Russian was amazed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are we talking about then?’

  ‘Of the total rehabilitation of the old Soviet Union in relation to planning and executing the attempted assassination in 1981,’ the Italian recited.

  ‘We know what we did and didn’t do.’

  ‘But the world doesn’t. Seventy percent of Catholics believe that you, the Bulgarians, Poles, and East Germans were responsible for the failed attempt. And the Italian Mitrokhin commission didn’t help.’

  ‘That commission was a farce. Mitrokhin was a fraud,’ the barber grumbled.

  ‘But it has a voice. The doubt will always persist.’

  ‘And the secret ends the doubts?’

  ‘It ends them. But even with all the proof in the world, doubts will always exist.’

  ‘That’s lik
e everything.’

  ‘In any case, don’t forget you gave orders to the Poles to do away with him.’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘Naturally. Twenty-five frustrated attempts are reason enough for not knowing. Tell me something. Have you heard of a man named Nestor?’

  Ivanovsky thought for a few moments.

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever known anyone by that name.’

  ‘He was a KGB agent,’ Rafael observed, half closing his eyes, waiting for a reply.

  Ivanovsky shook his head no.

  ‘I’ve never heard of him. I’ll have to look in the personnel files.’

  Rafael took another sip of cold tea. ‘To summarize, Mitrokhin deceived them with a trick by giving a date you didn’t know how to get out of. You know someone tried to kill the pope, which would have been a big favor for you if the attempt had come off, but they failed, and, worse than that, you got the blame. You don’t have any idea who planned the attack of ’eighty-one, do you?’ Rafael spoke too rapidly.

  ‘We have some suspects.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Personnel in the pay of the CIA, Italians, Muslims.’

  ‘Cold, cold, cold, my friend. They were all terrified, but they didn’t have time.’

  ‘But our major suspect is someone inside the Vatican,’ Ivanovsky suggested.

  ‘As simple as that.’ Rafael struck the table with the palm of his hand, sanctioning the Russian’s answer.

  ‘You should be the first to deny it,’ Ivanovsky argued.

  ‘Then I deny it,’ Rafael said. ‘How do you come into the story now?’

  ‘How do you come in?’

  ‘By chance.’

  ‘Same with us.’

  ‘Who were you watching?’ Rafael tried a different approach.

  ‘We watch everyone.’

  Bad. The conversation was better, Sarah thought. It’s one thing to confide actions and information from the past, another to describe the situation of the present.

  ‘I’ll ask you something else. Why did you kill the English couple and CIA man in Amsterdam?’

  To Sarah those words were like a punch in the stomach. Were they the ones who killed her friends in cold blood? She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘We haven’t killed anyone in Amsterdam recently,’ the Russian said. ‘Why?

  ‘They had a CD with interesting information, obtained and held by the KGB until ’ninety-one and afterwards by your excellencies who inherited the file.’