The Holy Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘For some time I’ve wanted to ask you a question,’ Raul dared to say, looking him in the eye as if to ask permission.

  He who is silent agrees, and JC was proof of this.

  ‘Why did you accept the agreement last year?’

  ‘In New York?’

  Raul nodded yes.

  ‘It served my interests,’ the old man answered.

  Raul pulled up his undershirt and revealed a scar at the bottom of his stomach on the right side made by a deep incision. He arched his ribs a little so that another identical scar could be seen below his ribs. A sharp, cutting object had penetrated from one side to the other, leaving a scar that would last to the end of his days.

  ‘Do you see what they did to me that day in the warehouse in New York? I don’t see how that served your interests.’ He was angry, but JC didn’t blink. Other people’s pain didn’t affect him.

  ‘My dear captain. You can’t criticize me for trying to get something back that was taken from me.’

  ‘I’m not criticizing. I simply don’t believe it served your interests.’

  ‘What was the agreement?’ Elizabeth asked.

  She didn’t know what they were talking about. Raul and Sarah had told her as little as possible about what happened the previous year to avoid a fight. Divorce was a real possibility, though. Sarah explained to her mother that her father wasn’t at fault. He was swept up in a whirlwind of uncontrollable events, just like her. It was true.

  ‘Would you prefer to tell her?’ Raul challenged JC.

  ‘I don’t see any problem with that,’ the old man said, turning his gaze from the street to Elizabeth. ‘Your daughter had something in her possession that belonged to me.’

  ‘That’s debatable,’ Raul grumbled.

  ‘You asked me to tell her. You’ve got to let me tell my version,’ JC said without changing his calm tone.

  ‘I’m only saying the ownership of those papers is relative. We know very well who they belong to.’

  ‘We do. They belonged to Albino Luciani until the date of his death, and afterwards to me.’

  Raul saw clearly he wouldn’t change the old man’s way of thinking no matter what arguments he used. He gave up and asked the old man to continue.

  ‘Your daughter sent those documents to a journalist friend, and the agreement was a pact of mutual nonaggression, scrupulously complied with to the end.’

  ‘Why did you trust it?’ Raul insisted.

  ‘Because it didn’t seem to me you’d sacrifice your lives for values or moral principles. You know as well as I it would’ve been a death sentence for everyone. Besides, I trust a maxim that I’ve always followed.’ He tapped the cripple on the shoulder, who looked ahead alertly. ‘Which is?’

  ‘There are more tides than sailors.’ His dedicated assistant completed the statement.

  JC looked at Raul and Elizabeth triumphantly. The brio of his personal pride began to sparkle.

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

  ‘Think back. The person who had custody of the documents was a lady, as I said, one of your compatriots,’ he added, indicating Elizabeth. ‘Called …’ He tried to remember. He touched the cripple on the shoulder again. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Natalie. Natalie Golden.’

  ‘Natalie. Correct. Natalie … Golden.’

  ‘And what follows from there?’ Raul was very curious, which, added to irritation, turned into impatience.

  ‘From that follows the obvious question: what is a journalist’s greatest ambition?’

  Raul and Elizabeth exchanged looks. They knew perfectly well the aspirations of their only daughter, professionally. Make a difference. Tell a great story, the exclusive that will give them great prestige, although Sarah was already heading down that road as the editor of international politics.

  ‘You gave her an exclusive?’ Elizabeth risked asking.

  JC confirmed with a gesture.

  ‘In exchange for the documents?’ Raul couldn’t control his nerves.

  ‘It was a fair price,’ JC said. ‘Everything was done through intermediaries, obviously.’

  ‘How could she?’ Raul asked, more to himself than the other passengers.

  ‘The flesh is weak, my friend. In any case, the girl didn’t use the story.’

  ‘Why?’ Elizabeth asked, frightened.

  ‘She was eliminated by the same people who tried to kill your daughter,’ he answered, with no attempt to beat around the bush.

  ‘My God.’ Elizabeth, incredulous, put her face in her hands.

  ‘How could that happen?’ Raul stammered. He hadn’t expected this, either.

  ‘We’re fighting a deadly force. Don’t doubt it.’

  Raul released his breath, freeing a small part of the bitterness he felt at that moment.

  Elizabeth crossed herself and closed her damp eyes. Neither of them knew Natalie personally. She was someone Sarah mentioned only professionally or personally in the emotional stories she told them from time to time on vacation, during a phone conversation, or in an e-mail. They were used to thinking of her as one of their daughter’s best friends. Now all that had ended. Until this instant Elizabeth’s fear had no face or personality. It seemed like something turbid, unhealthy, capable of everything and nothing, open to negotiating, to yielding, to hope. That had just been lost. They were in the middle of real danger, and any feeling of control was a complete illusion. Now the attention with which JC’s assistant – since a lady doesn’t call him ‘cripple’ – watched everything and everyone made sense. The danger was out there at every corner, window, automobile, terrace. Everybody was suspicious, even innocent children. God have mercy on her daughter.

  ‘Who guarantees that you aren’t the one hunting my daughter?’ Raul asked suspiciously.

  ‘Think, my dear captain. Think,’ JC suggested, not at all offended.

  Raul lowered his eyes. He’d let confusion overcome him. He had to be rational, logical, at times like this. ‘You have everything in your power again,’ Raul said.

  JC confirmed with a gesture.

  ‘You’ve got the bull by the horns,’ he said. ‘What’s going to happen to us when this is all over?’

  It was a pertinent question.

  Elizabeth supported her husband’s inquiry and shot a terrified look at the old man. He seemed to enjoy their worry. To be feared was an opportunity.

  ‘Captain, listen to what I’m telling you. And the lady also. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it already. If it were my intention to eliminate your daughter, she’d already be eliminated. I know what you’re thinking. She fooled me once. Another reason to fear me. You can be certain that she won’t do it twice. Not with me.’

  ‘It’s time,’ the cripple observed, ignoring the conversation in the backseat.

  The old man looked out the car window. They were passing the monumental Hagia Sophia, its six minarets outlined against the sky, constructed as a Byzantine temple, and in these times one of the most famous mosques in the world.

  ‘Get to the place,’ he ordered.

  The cripple whispered a kind of unintelligible litany to the driver, and he accelerated. It wasn’t easy taking on Turkish traffic, especially in a city like Istanbul, when one has a schedule to keep. But these were shrewd men who were taking what seemed a tourist itinerary, but which actually corresponded to a radial perimeter that had nothing to do with security, but was meant to ensure it wouldn’t take them more than ten minutes to get to the agreed upon location from any point. Everything was well planned.

  The driver stopped the car on Sultanahmet Meydani. The cripple got out, opened the door first for JC, and waited for the other passengers to get out through the same door. Under normal conditions, Raul and Elizabeth would have admired the immense plaza situated between two great jewels of the Islamic world, Hagia Sophia, the great church transformed into a mosque in the fifteenth century, and the Blue Mosque, but not today.

  ‘Wait,’ JC ordered as
he gestured toward the cripple. The car continued to drive on with only the Turkish driver.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Raul asked.

  JC didn’t answer, completely oblivious to the historical, cultural dimension that surrounded him, the cries of sellers of carpets and simit. His expression was serious.

  Seconds later the cripple signaled for a taksi, among the many passing along the central street, and one stopped quickly. They got into a bright yellow vehicle.

  The cripple gave the taxi driver instructions, and they took off.

  For several minutes, no one disturbed the silence inside the taxi.

  Raul was the first to do so.

  ‘Why so much secrecy? Why did we change cars?’ he whispered.

  ‘Have you never heard that the careful man dies an old man, Captain?’

  ‘The danger’s that great?’

  ‘They killed Natalie, Raul,’ Elizabeth mentioned. For her that was enough.

  ‘It’s not a question of danger, Captain, but of principles,’ JC clarified. ‘A man in my line of work can never drop his guard. Do it once, it may be all right, maybe nothing happens. Risk another time, one becomes negligent, and it’s over. That won’t happen to me. I accepted that many years ago. It’s the secret of my success. Never, never leave a clue or loose ends.’

  Elizabeth trembled.

  ‘You mean you have plans for us in the end?’ Raul asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’re loose ends, aren’t we?’

  ‘No, my dear captain. You’re not loose ends. Nor am I going to explain the definition of loose ends. What I said about your daughter, I’ll say to you, and you.’ He looked at Raul and Elizabeth. ‘If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, nor would I be bringing you to see a friend.’ His expression was peremptory.

  ‘Who is this friend?’ Raul asked again.

  ‘You’ll soon find out,’ JC replied. ‘Enjoy the sights.’

  They didn’t exchange another word until the end of the ride. Six minutes later, the cripple paid the fare with new Turkish lira and opened the door for the master and the couple.

  The final destination wasn’t far, nor could it be, since JC no longer had the stamina of former times and couldn’t walk far. He limited himself to a few steps, at his own pace, always on flat terrain. Uphill was deadly.

  They entered a secular building, rose-colored, with a group of black placards inscribed with gold letters at the entrance.

  ‘What’s this place?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘A hamam,’ JC answered, continuing ahead.

  The cripple came last with his hand inside his jacket on his gun, alert as a falcon.

  ‘What’s a hamam?’ Elizabeth asked.

  JC pointed at the plaques.

  ‘It’s in your language right here.’

  And in fact it was, a plaque, recently written with tourists in mind: ‘Real Turkish Bath. 300 years old.’

  ‘We are in the baths of Cağaloğlu, ordered built by Mehmet the First in the eighteenth century,’ JC explained.

  They stopped at the entrance.

  ‘In these baths the sections for men and women are separated. The entrance for women is on another street,’ JC said. ‘My assistant will stay here with you, and the captain and I will go in. Is that all right with you?’

  The married couple agreed in part because there was nothing they could do. Of course Elizabeth wanted to go in, but she had to respect the cultural tradition different from her own. She couldn’t help thinking that JC did this so that she would find out what was going on secondhand through her husband. In any case, someone would have to tell her everything.

  The cripple approached JC and whispered something in his ear.

  ‘I imagined so,’ the old man said in response. ‘Are you ready, Captain?’

  Raul said nothing, but yes was understood.

  The two men walked to the entrance, where JC let Raul go forward. The Portuguese sighed and continued walking into the unknown.

  In the camekan they found the dressing rooms, small cubicles where several men changed their clothes, conversed, read newspapers, sipped tea. They were all Westerners, no Turks.

  Raul stopped, expecting directions.

  ‘Keep going,’ JC ordered.

  They passed the next antechamber, the soğukluk, without stopping and stayed in the hararet. The steam was dense, and the heat immediately made them sweat.

  ‘This isn’t good for you,’ Raul warned, with sweat running down his face. ‘Nor for me,’ he muttered.

  ‘I imagine so,’ JC commented. ‘If it’s not good for me, imagine for him.’

  Who? Raul thought.

  Though the hararet was usually the most crowded part of the bath, there were few men that day. They made one out, stretched out on a table, being massaged expertly, but he didn’t seem the least interested in secret conversation.

  ‘That’s enough for me,’ JC grumbled with his clothes soaked and breath panting. It was too much. ‘Sebastiani,’ he shouted.

  He needed to wait only five seconds before the latter entered, an old man with a huge head of white hair dressed in a black suit, sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by a young cleric, his aide.

  ‘JC.’

  ‘Sebastiani,’ he greeted him, suffocating, sweating, and tired. ‘What are we doing here?’

  As incredible as it seemed, Sebastiani didn’t seem affected by the temperature or the steam; his assistant, a young man about twenty years old, was dripping water from his face, stumbling as he walked, his vision clouded, and feeling as if he might faint at any moment.

  ‘Ah, I’m getting used to it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To hell,’ the other answered without thinking about it. ‘Isn’t that where we’re all going? That’s what I think.’ He smiled sarcastically.

  ‘I can’t stand being here longer,’ JC said, holding on to Raul. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  The group passed into the soğukluk. JC and Raul needed a few minutes to recuperate. Sebastiani waited serenely without wiping the light sweat away that had broken out on his face. He won’t have a problem surviving hell. The assistant thanked God that they had left the steam room, where they’d entered completely clothed, and sat down on the first bench he found, completely exhausted.

  ‘Without question one should never go beyond the camekan in a Turkish bath. There’s something to eat and drink there, and the steam doesn’t kill you,’ JC declared.

  ‘In hell you’re not going to have to eat and drink,’ Sebastiani explained.

  ‘Do you know someone who’s been there and returned to tell about it?’ JC asked.

  ‘Don’t question my beliefs,’ Sebastiani returned. ‘I don’t impose my faith on anyone, but I don’t allow it to be insulted, either.’

  JC respected his friend’s warning. You have to divide in order to conquer sometimes.

  ‘This is Captain Raul Brandão Monteiro. Portuguese military.’ JC made the introductions. ‘This is Sebastiano Corrado, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.’

  Raul inclined his head courteously. He had never met a cardinal.

  ‘Cardinal without right of election. I’m ninety-four years old, you know. I’m a second-class cardinal. And you, Raul, a soldier without an army?’

  ‘In fact, yes. I’m in the reserve.’ He smiled.

  ‘You see? Our situations are similar,’ he observed.

  ‘In the conclave of 1978, I was still a bishop. In the one of 2005, I was too old.’

  ‘It’s because you didn’t need to vote,’ JC declared.

  ‘That’s what I tell myself. There is room for only one pope at a time. But I congratulate myself that the Pole lasted so many years, although it was bad for me.’

  ‘How are things in Fátima?’ JC wanted to know.

  ‘As always. It’s strange to see people much younger than me, and all with atrophied minds.’

  ‘Look to your faith,’ JC admonished. ‘Don’t offend that of
others.’ He couldn’t resist a gibe.

  ‘Don’t confuse faith with psychopathology,’ he answered with a guttural laugh no one else took up.

  ‘What do you have for me?’ JC pressured him.

  The man opened his hand, palm upward. It was a silent message to his assistant, who placed a yellow envelope in it. Sebastiani gave it to JC.

  ‘Is this it?’

  ‘It is. Be careful.’ It was the first time his unpleasant face showed any suspicion. ‘The other one must be totally confused right now. He’s discovered there’s nothing there.’

  ‘Stupendous.’

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  JC took the envelope and looked seriously at everyone around.

  ‘I’ve thrown out a lot of misinformation to make things very hard for everyone else,’ he said joyously. ‘Now the time has come for the famous JC to appear.’

  62

  James Phelps hung on to the weak thread of life with all his strength, or, at least, that’s how it seemed. He was shaken by intermittent jolts from the rusty van that rushed him to the veterans’ hospital a few blocks from the barbershop.

  They’d left through one of the closed doors in the passageway that opened onto another narrow hallway, with a door to an underground parking garage at the end. The escape route in case an operation went wrong.

  Rafael and Ivanovsky did the carrying with Sarah comforting Phelps. They put him in the middle seat of a 1980s Daihatsu with room for nine. Vladimir drove the ‘smoke bomb,’ as they lovingly called it for the excessive fumes that escaped through the exhaust pipe.

  ‘Hang on,’ Rafael encouraged Phelps with his hands on his head.

  Ivanovsky took the passenger seat to show Vladimir the way. A Russian mania for knowing more than others or thinking they did. Sarah was in the middle seat next to the sliding door. Phelps’s feet were on her lap.

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ she told him.

  ‘Don’t you believe in auto repair shops?’ Rafael shouted so they could hear him over the turbulent engine. ‘The noise and fumes this car is emitting must be detectable from space,’ he added.