They correct him: sorry, but Matthew is dead. Assassins tracked him to a two-room house in the Entoto suburb of Addis Ababa. They broke down the door. In his study they found a simple chair and table and a roll of blank papyrus imported from Egypt.
‘He died horribly.’
The assassins chopped off Matthew’s hands, and in the yard of the house they wrapped him in his papyrus then soaked the paper in dolphin oil. They poured brimstone over his head, and asphalt, and pitch, then piled up tow and scrubwood beneath him. They invited local dignitaries to come along and watch what happened next. Bring your friends, bring golden images of your gods. See if Matthew the disciple of Jesus will burn.
When everyone was assembled and sitting comfortably, the gods and the men, someone struck a match.
The Christians at the abbey outside Rome take grim pleasure in the details of Matthew’s death, which evidently hasn’t worked as a deterrent. In one sense Matthew is as thoroughly dead as the nine disciples before him, but he is also a light in the darkness. Faith is rewarded by persecution and death, but a brighter day is coming.
‘What is the brighter day?’ Gallio asks. ‘When can it be expected to arrive?’
He realizes his mistake: he ought to know, or as an honest follower believe without facts and details. Jesus is coming back, an article of faith for true believers.
‘Who are you, exactly?’ they ask. ‘What do you want? Can we help you?’
This is their response to every quandary, and to every challenge Gallio has tried to devise: they think they can help him.
‘I need to see Paul,’ Gallio says. ‘Wherever he is now I have important news for him. I was with Andrew when he died.’
Early the next day Cassius Gallio is climbing over rubble in Rome’s shattered back alleys, avoiding the main street patrols that encircle the Fourth Regidor. The Christians at the abbey told him about a safe route through to Paul’s house, and along this or that interrupted vista Gallio sees new buildings squeezed next to old, satellite dishes fading up to ancient domes, a lone seagull gliding.
He falls in behind an early-morning organic rubbish collection. The binmen of Rome tip baskets of food waste into a filthy wagon as it trundles through side streets, and Gallio meets no patrols at this time of day in these places. He rubs his beard, wonders how good is too good to be true. He’d spent the night in the abbey gardens, after the Christians had given him food and a key to the washroom at the café. In the mirror above the sink he’d checked his face for errant nerves, then disapproved of the way he looked. He went back out to find more believers. They loaned him nail scissors and he trimmed his beard.
Paul is under nominal house arrest on the second floor of a two-storey building, in a flat above a kitchen supplies outlet. This is it, the main drag of the Fourth Regidor, and the shops on either side are blackened and boarded up, the cauterized walls patched with fly-posters for the Circus, Sold Out stamped diagonally across the venue and date. For some reason, the fire has left Paul’s building untouched.
At the top of the outdoor stairs a plainclothes officer, a dark-skinned Roman in skinny jeans, sits in a rattan chair with his feet against the railings. He’s playing Tomb Raider on an iPad. Gallio doesn’t know if the police are guarding Paul or protecting him, but either way he can’t back out. The man lifts his eyes, takes in Gallio’s appearance. He nods him through.
In the kitchen a woman is peeling apples into a red plastic tub. She tells Gallio to keep going, as if he looks convincingly in need of spiritual help. In the living room at the end of the hall Paul is writing at a polished wooden desk. His bodyguard faces the door with arms crossed, not a threat but a barrier. Paul glances up, then squares a bundle of papers by blocking them against the leather-inlaid desktop. He looks again at Gallio over the frames of his glasses.
‘Antioch,’ Gallio reminds him. ‘And the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. I’ve changed.’
Paul nods, takes off his glasses and puts them to one side. ‘Don’t like people to see me wearing them. Not the Paul my audience expects.’
The bodyguard is never far away as Paul gestures to a leather three-seater sofa he surely can’t afford. Gallio sits soft, and Paul takes the matching armchair, which is slightly higher. On the glass coffee table between them, a plate of wrapped sweets and a bowl of banknotes. Paul offers Gallio a sweet. Gallio checks the position of the bodyguard.
‘Don’t mind him. He won’t do anything unless you do.’ Gallio takes a sweet, unwraps, sucks. Ah, sugar. ‘You live well.’
‘I haven’t been convicted of a crime, and I’m a citizen. I have the right to appeal against false accusation without harassment. Are you here to harass me?’
‘If you hadn’t appealed you’d be free. After James was beaten to death you wanted us to arrest you for your own safety, but it seems like you weren’t in danger after all.’
Paul sighs, expressing the heavy burden of his knowledge of the world. Against his will he must inform Cassius Gallio, alas, that the world is largely unjust. ‘Now I’m here they can’t decide what I did wrong. I’m under arrest for breaching the Jerusalem peace, apparently, which sounds more convincing than conspiracy to make a dangerous phone call. What is it you want?’
Cassius Gallio remembers Paul as the centre of attention on the conference stage at Antioch. He did so enjoy his following, and Gallio can imagine Paul relishing the entertainment of his trial. They can’t convict a citizen without a triaI, and at his hearing he’ll persuade the judge and jury that belief in Jesus is a rational position to take, that black is white and death is the beginning not the end. He may be expecting applause.
‘You’ve done a fantastic job, Paul. First and foremost I came here to congratulate you. The Jesus believers appreciate your leadership, in which there’s so much to admire.’
Gallio makes a point of admiring the leather furniture in which they sit, the reflective finish of the coffee table, the rock-solid bodyguard. The disciples strive to live like Jesus and are difficult to imitate, problematic as role models. Far easier, now and always, to live like Paul. Not like Peter, in prison offering solace to the damned. Not like John, wherever he is, hunted and poor.
‘You’ve made a name for yourself at the centre of civilization,’ Gallio says, ‘where none of your enemies dare touch you. Academics quote your letters and defer to your theology, even when they don’t agree.’
‘Please,’ Paul says. ‘I can’t take all the credit.’
Paul has a sophistication the disciples lack, which means Gallio isn’t certain what he’s thinking. Paul spreads his hands to mean he accepts Gallio’s flattery, or he doesn’t. ‘A greater power is at work. Now if you tell me what you want, I may be able to help.’
‘I need to set up a meet with John.’
‘You and everyone else. I don’t think you realize what you’re asking.’
‘He’s in Rome, isn’t he?’
Paul steeples his fingers, but the gesture is too studied, buying time. He uses the tips of his fingers as a sight, along which he aims a steady gaze into Gallio’s eyes. ‘You have to understand, John isn’t …’ Paul dissolves his steeple and taps his head. ‘He has suffered. Your people don’t know where John is and neither do I, because since the fire Rome has struggled to cope with the homeless, the raving, the unwashed. In this city one delirious voice praising angels sounds much like any other. The situation is very sad.’
‘Paul, you can trust me. I know your secret, and the secret of the disciples of Jesus.’
‘That’s a lot of secrets.’ Paul looks Gallio over, his ragged clothes and his rough-cut beard. ‘A lot of knowledge for a vagrant, or is it a deserter?’
Cassius Gallio senses that the time is now, and this is the only chance he’ll get. John is the last disciple he can save from death, even if he wants to die.
‘I came here straight from Addis Ababa,’ Gallio says, because he hasn’t forgotten how to lie. ‘My next mission is here in Rome, but with Peter facing public execution t
he CCU has to be careful about making contact with a high-profile Christian like you. That’s why they sent me to talk to you. No one in Rome remembers who I am.’
Paul’s gaze doesn’t waver. He brings back the steeple, and covers his nose.
‘Valeria sent me to ask about John,’ Gallio says, ‘because we’re reasonable men, Paul, you and I.’
Cassius Gallio has speculated every day in the boats from Patras to Rome, and again last night as he slept beneath the stars at the Abbey of the Three Fountains. If there is an explanation for his second failure as a Speculator, he has decided, this is where the unraveling starts: Paul is Valeria’s puppy, he is her little dog. Always has been.
Yes. All the way back in time to Damascus. Cassius Gallio has rearranged the pieces and now the picture is clearer. After his tribunal and his exile, Valeria had been promoted to the vacant senior Speculator post in Jerusalem. As an ambitious CCU operative she’d have liked the look of Paul, a home-grown killer, and Valeria could plausibly have planned to recruit Paul, luring him away from the Jews. Damascus was the opportunity, away from Jerusalem. Gather the information, assemble the pieces. Yes.
At the public library in Venice Gallio had looked up the area weather reports, and at the relevant time in that particular year a storm had pummeled the mountain ranges north of Israel. Paul with his entourage must have suffered, possibly hit by lightning. An opening. He arrived in Damascus dazed, blinded, and his recuperation provided perfect cover for negotiations behind closed doors, in which Valeria suggested an arrangement from which both stood to benefit. They put their heads together and devised the story of the miracle revelation, a brilliant invention that led to Paul’s acceptance by Jesus sympathizers everywhere.
Baruch had been right—Paul had a secret life. If Gallio had listened to Baruch more closely, and they’d uncovered Paul’s duplicity earlier, they could have undermined the Jesus belief. Now Gallio feels humbled but determined: Baruch was right about Paul, but he didn’t go far enough. Since Andrew, Gallio had seen the truth, and though he’s daunted by his fight against the what-will-be-will-be, he can out-speculate them all. Only Cassius Gallio understands that John must be denied his glorious martyrdom.
‘Paul, you told Valeria where the CCU could find the disciples,’ Gallio says. ‘Our map on the computer with the lights. You fed us information, and without you we wouldn’t have known where to start.’
‘Ingenious.’ Paul picks up a sweet, puts it down again. He looks at his watch, shakes it, holds the face against his ear. He un-straps his watch and places it on the table. ‘Interesting theory, except I haven’t helped the CCU find John. According to you I’ve turned in the others. I know everything about the disciples, then when it comes to John I suddenly know nothing.’
Paul has his own motivation for killing the disciples, over and beyond the leather furniture and free escorted travel to Rome. The disciples of Jesus inconvenience him. They’re his competition, so the quieter the disciples the stronger the voice of Paul, and one day Jesus will be whoever and whatever Paul decides he is in his letters and lectures. Valeria has helped Paul’s reputation to build, encouraging the public disagreements between him and Peter, trying to divide the enemy. She supplied Paul with centurions to feign conversion, and safe passage on his epic pedestrian treks. She once provided armed protection when he was threatened by Jewish militants. Paul is civilization’s man.
‘Yet Valeria can be outwitted, can’t she?’ Gallio says. ‘Whatever you do, with Valeria’s support, belief in Jesus continues to grow. The Christian faith feels as inevitable as that premeditated escape from the tomb, as Jesus at work. You’re a triple agent, Paul. Valeria thinks you’re working for her, to divide and rule the disciples. In fact you’re working for Jesus.’
Paul holds out his hands, his innocent preacher’s hands.
‘Did you come all the way here to tell me that?’
‘You push information in both directions. You told Valeria we could find Jude in Beirut, but you told Andrew where I was in Greece. It was a CCU tracer in the phone, but the information still got through to Andrew.’
Paul stands and goes to the window. He clasps his hands behind his back, appraises the road in which he lives. ‘You took a risk coming here.’
He pulls the curtains closed.
‘Open them. Closing the curtains is a giveaway. They’ll know.’
Paul brushes back the curtains, strokes the edges as if to make sure they hang straight. From the outside he’ll look distracted, one of history’s deep thinkers taking a break from the meaning of life. ‘You don’t have any evidence. This is pure speculation, and there are hundreds of ways people know things, especially these days. Jude had his name in the papers.’
‘You’re not the only person who can change allegiance, Paul. I can’t make you trust me, but you too once converted. You stoned a Jesus believer to death in the street, now you write several letters a day exalting his name. I understand what you’re doing, and I want to help. Peter is the beloved disciple, isn’t he? Jesus is coming back before Peter dies.’
Paul grimaces. ‘And how would you be able to help?’
‘Tell me where to find John. I promise I’ll kill him, because it’s what you all want. I’ll make it grim. Then the stage is set for Peter and Jesus.’
Paul gives Cassius Gallio an address that leads to a bakery off the Via Veneto called La Dolce Vita. The woman behind the counter wipes her hands on her apron between every task, possibly between every thought. The shop is empty.
Gallio has the password, also provided by Paul: Jesus is love. At first he can’t say it, but he makes the effort. ‘Jesus is love,’ he coughs to clear his throat. ‘Sorry. Jesus is love.’
The words turn out to be sayable, but they make his tongue soft and bring tears to his eyes. The woman wipes her hands, thinks hard, approves of what she sees and hears. She pulls up the hinged counter. ‘Bottom of the stairs, turn right. We have a cold store. Knock three times.’
The light switch is a concave button that sinks into the wall and starts a timer as it pulls back out. The timer ticks like a watch on fast-forward. Gallio is halfway down the wooden staircase when the light clicks off. In the dark he retraces his steps. The second time he memorizes another light switch at the foot of the stairs, pushes in the timer and makes it down before the end of the buzz.
He pushes in the second light switch, another timer buzzing in his ear, then turns right toward the cold store. He listens at the door, the timer runs out, the light goes off. He stands in the dark in the silence until he hears movement inside. He knocks three times, as instructed. No response. He raises his hand to knock again. The handle turns, the door opens inward, a bakery store bright with strip lights.
Claudia says: ‘Too late, Cassius. He’s gone.’
She’s pretty, he remembers, and clever and has lovely teeth, and in Caistor he almost believed he loved her. None of that matters now. He’s a deserter who ditched his papers and his CCU-issue phone. The penalty is the same as for sleeping on duty in the field.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
‘Hush,’ she says, finger to her lips. ‘There’s not much you can say. Valeria doesn’t forget.’
‘You knew I was coming.’
Gallio’s chest feels suddenly empty, and he breathes in sharply to fill the empty space. It doesn’t help, because he sees how this has happened. He was wrong about Paul. Paul is simply a double agent, working for Valeria. The further step where in fact he’s working for Jesus was a false speculation. Gallio has overcomplicated, again.
‘Paul phoned us to say you were on your way. You’re losing your touch, Cassius.’
The storeroom smells of bread and charcoal, of yeast and faintly of open drains. Spilled flour dusts the flagstones, imprinted with random footprints, but the baker upstairs is nervous. Perhaps she knows what has taken place in this room in the past. She thumps her feet against the floor to warn Claudia she has a customer.
‘S
till running Valeria’s errands, I see.’ Gallio runs a hand over the steel prep table, looks at his palm for traces of pastry, or dried flakes of blood. ‘I bet you always did, even in Caistor.’
Claudia lets the accusation hang. A denial would be welcome, Gallio thinks, the compliment of a lie to at least pretend she slept with him because she liked him.
‘No hard feelings,’ she says.
‘No feelings at all. We used each other. Suffering from shock, both of us. Probably did us good, aided our recovery.’
‘If you say so. Why did you tell Paul you wanted to kill John?’
‘You’re a Speculator, work it out.’
Gallio is surprised by her question, by the time she’s taking. Despite everything she hesitates, as if held up by the memory of their nights in Caistor. She’s the CCU agent sent by Valeria, but now she’s here she remembers the skin-to-skin.
‘We’re not killers, are we, Cassius?’ she says. ‘We represent order and the future. We’re moving the world along, making it a more reasonable place to live. Aren’t we?’
She is trying to think well of them both, but mostly of herself and her decisions in Caistor and the job she came back to do.
‘I don’t think we used each other,’ Gallio says, taking this chance to let her know. ‘Or not only. That wouldn’t be an accurate description of what happened, in my opinion. And I was there.’
Claudia claps her hands, a cloud of flour dust rising to the strip lights. ‘I don’t know, and I think I probably don’t care. I was sent to fetch you, that’s all. No time to waste. So come along quietly, because you’re back where you started. CCU is the only family you have.’
Ground Zero is an alcove at street level of the ruined Circus Maximus. This is where the great fire of Rome is thought to have started.
‘They made it look like a cooking accident,’ Claudia says. ‘Picked the perfect spot.’
Printouts of the missing and dead flap on temporary fencing like the struggle of a living organism. Cotton flags overlap with cardboard placards: We Love You, Why? but Cassius Gallio is distracted by a photocopy of a teenage girl, Alma’s age, cheek against cheek with a lolling dog. He steadies himself on a bamboo scaffold, and looks up its fretted length into the blueness of the holiday sky. Birds swoop into nests high in the ravaged monument, for them a year like any other, and not the worst season to be alive.
Acts of the Assassins Page 24