Dulac felt his face reddening and steeled himself not to meet Guadagni’s stare.
‘What do we do now, Mr Dulac?’ asked Sforza, his voice breaking.
‘I wish I knew, your Eminence. I wish I knew,’ Dulac said, feeling the weight of a horrible guilt pressing upon his chest.
As the Cardinals sat in oppressive silence, suddenly, loud voices and a commotion could be heard coming from outside the room.
Sforza got up, walked to the door, and opened it slightly. A handful of reporters were in a heated discussion with the Swiss Guards.
‘What is it?’ asked Sforza.
‘They say the Pope has been assassinated. It was on Al Jazeera TV ten minutes ago.’
Amid the ensuing chaos, Dulac had made his way out of the Vatican and regained the relative quietness of his hotel room. Sitting at the desk eating a sandwich, Dulac was on the phone with Henri Bléguet, Head of Interpol’s data center in Lyon, while the Cray computers analyzed, crunched, filtered, and digested the raw data regarding the Al Jazeera transmission, and preliminary results trickled in. The news was not good. The transmission’s security codes and firewalls were resisting Interpol’s computers’ attempts at descrambling, and the bouncing off restricted satellites before reaching Al Jazeera’s newsroom was making the transmission impossible to trace.
Dulac rose and turned on the TV. The blonde anchorwoman, a look of professional concern on her face, announced that a special news broadcast from the Vatican’s Old Study Room was about to begin. The scene switched to the Vatican, the camera zoomed in onto Sforza, then Legnano, sitting behind a white cloth-covered table. Slightly beneath and in front, reporters and journalists waited for the press conference to begin, to the incessant flashing of camera lights.
Legnano reached for the microphone and started to read his notes, his hand shaking slightly, his voice broken. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have all witnessed today an abominable, barbaric act. We believed we could initiate a meeting with the kidnappers, in order to negotiate the release of His Holiness Pope Clement XXI and of Dr Bruscetti. We had no reason to think they would carry out this wanton, savage killing. We do not understand what they have gained by this … this …’ Legnano stopped, upset. He wiped a tear with his hand, then reached for a glass of water. ‘Words cannot describe the pain and sorrow that I feel, that I’m sure you all feel. The loss we must bear is all the greater in that his death was gratuitous.’ Legnano paused and took another sip of water. ‘In a moment such as this, it is inevitable and natural that we feel anger and frustration and want to exact revenge on the perpetrators. But this is not what our Holy Father would have wished. That is why we ask that you find it in your hearts to forgive those who have done this, as Jesus, our Savior did some two thousand years ago. In the words of Christ: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ We in the Curia share your grief, pain and sorrow on this somber day for all of humanity. Please join us in prayer, prayer that His Holiness finds everlasting peace in the arms of our Lord. Amen.’
Legnano and Sforza started to leave when some of the reporters cut them off at the exit of the Old Study Room, pushing aside the Swiss Guards and poking microphones in the prelates’ faces.
‘Why didn’t you pay the whole ransom? Did you not think the Pope’s life was worth it? Don’t you feel partially responsible for His death?’
‘What kind of principle are you applying when you pay a down payment only?’
‘No comment. No comment,’ was the recurring answer from the unprepared cardinals.
Dulac turned off the TV, went to the bed and lay down. A while later, unable to sleep and fed up of staring blankly at the ceiling of his room, Dulac went downstairs and sat at the hotel’s bar. ‘Double scotch.’
‘Yes sir,’ said the thin, bald bartender. ‘Say, aren’t you the Interpol inspect—’
‘And no goddamn ice,’ growled Dulac.
‘Yes, sir,’ the bartender said, recoiling.
Dulac took a deep drag from his Gitane. His cell rang, and he pivoted away from the bar before answering.
‘Hi. It’s me.’
‘Hello Karen.’
‘I still can’t believe it. Why? What do they have to gain?’ she said.
‘I really don’t feel…. I’m not up to talking about it just now.’ Dulac caught a glimpse of the bartender, trying to listen in. He stood up and walked away from the bar.
‘You’re not taking this personally, are you?’ said Karen.
‘I proposed the partial payment. I was sure they would negotiate.’
‘Surely the Curia checked with ransom experts before making their decision?’
‘Still, I suggested it.’
‘Thierry, it was their decision.’
‘I thought we were dealing with rational, intelligent human beings, not twisted psychopaths. I trusted my instinct. I was wrong, dead wrong.’
‘By the way, did you look at that video closely?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think I saw a flash, a ring or something on the finger of the man with the electronic voice, when he adjusted the microphone.’
‘A ring? Yes, I suppose….’ In a nanosecond, thousands of neurons made two million connections in the world’s fastest and most efficient computer, the human brain, and reached into the faraway depths of Dulac’s data bank, his memory. The idea formed and struck him like a lightning bolt. ‘Jesus. I’ll call you back.’
He hung up, downed the scotch and punched Interpol’s single digit, quick-dial Lyon number. ‘Get me Gina at forensics.’
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me, Dulac. Do you have a copy of the Al Jazeera video on your computer?’
‘Just a minute. Yes, I have it.’
‘The left hand of the tall man, when he adjusts the microphone. Get a close-up of it.’
‘Got it.’
‘Can you see a ring?’
‘Yes, sort of. It looks like a small seal.’
‘Any inscription on it?’
‘It’s too fuzzy. I have to do a micro-reconstruct by computer. It’ll take a couple of minutes.’
‘I’ll wait.’ Dulac put the phone to his shoulder and lit another Gitane.
‘There, I’ve got it now,’ said Gina.
‘What do you see?’
‘A small animal. Some kind of strange animal, I think. Yes. Head of a lion, body of a goat, and—’
‘The tail of a snake? A Chimera?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Goddamn de Ségur. It’s de Ségur. He’s behind this. He and his ultra-right-wing Cathars. Why didn’t I think of it before? Do a kinetics-anthropomorphic comparison with the man in the black fatigues. I’m sure that’s him.’
‘We’ve already started a voice deconstruct and rebuild from the video. With this input, it shouldn’t take long,’ said Gina.
‘Call me.’
Dulac took the elevator back up to his room, his third scotch slowing his usually determined gait. Walking down the corridor, the memories of his arch-nemesis, the man Dulac had uncloaked and laid bare as a murderer, the man responsible for Gladio’s resurgence and deadly agenda throughout Europe in the eighties, Dulac’s struggle and ultimate failure to bring de Ségur, the French billionaire, to justice, all the memories of Dulac’s ill-fated case resurfaced and flooded his brain. De Ségur, the ex-CEO Of Miranda Group, the murderer of Archbishops Salvador and Conti. Dulac felt the anger mount and tried to remain calm.
After a tepid shower to cool his temper, he phoned his assistant Daniel Lescop in Paris. ‘It looks like de Ségur,’ said Dulac. ‘I’m having a voice video and anthro-analysis done.’
‘De Ségur? Why on earth him?’
‘Try revenge. Besides, murder has never stopped him before.’
‘I suppose. Who is doing the anthro?’
‘Gina.’
‘She’s the best. So you believe de Ségur and his Cathars kidnapped the Pope and murdered him when their ransom demands weren’
t met?’ asked Lescop. ‘Doesn’t sound rational.’
‘Since when are these fanatics rational?’
By evening, the horrific, sequential pictures of the scimitar on its downward trajectory toward the Pope’s head were on all of the TV news channels of the world and the special edition front pages of the world’s major newspapers. ‘Kidnappers kill Pope Clement XXI. Ransom not paid in full. World shocked by live coverage of assassination,’ the blood-red Corriere Della Sera’s headlines blurted.
As usual, the Evening Standard hit the streets of London first: ‘Pope Clement XXI executed live on Al Jazeera.’
CNN reporter Dave Anderson was broadcasting live from St Peter’s Square.
‘Hello Larry, I’m here in front of the Basilica. People are streaming in by the hundreds, most of them still in shock. It reminds me of when Pope John Paul II died.’
‘Any more news from the Vatican yet?’
‘Larry, the Vatican press secretary has told me that they won’t be making any further announcements today.’
‘What about the police? Do they have any idea who did this?’
‘We haven’t been able to contact them yet. At headquarters in Rome here, they say they’re too busy coordinating with other police forces to talk to us.’
‘How are the people in the square reacting?’
‘Larry, people are still in shock. A lot of them can’t believe this has happened. I spoke to a woman who witnessed the attempt on Pope John Paul II’s life, and she says she never thought she would see this again. She’s confused and angry.’
‘Understandably. Aren’t we all? Keep in touch Dave. Now, a word from our correspondent Nancy Price in Washington for a reaction from the White House. Nancy….’
The Vatican’s Secretariat was once again flooded with calls. World leaders reacted swiftly, phoning, faxing, e-mailing their anger and shock, and expressing condolences to the members of the Curia.
‘The Vatican has received more than 1000 calls within the last five minutes’, said Sforza to Brentano. ‘Even the new circuits are overloaded. The lines are completely jammed.’
Back in his hotel room, Dulac put down the glass he was about to bring to his lips, and answered his cellphone. He recognized the number: it was Interpol’s forensics section.
‘Mr Dulac?’ said the woman’s voice.
‘Yes, Gina.’
‘The audio lab people have made a spectrogram deconstruction and analysis of the voice heard on Al Jazeera. They compared it with the—’
‘So whose voice is it, Gina?’
‘It’s not that simple. Due to the heavy masking of the voice, they had difficulty in establishing definite patterns and comparing them with known exemplars of de Ségur.’
‘Exemplars?’
‘Samples, if you prefer. Parts of speeches recorded when he was CEO of Miranda Group a few years ago. The diphthongs and inflections—’
‘Gina!’
‘Let me finish. The diphthongs and inflections show up on the spectrogram along with the occlusives, such as Vs and Ps, along with their wavelength, wave amplitude and intensity. All those compare favorably with the ones on the exemplars.’
‘The point being, Gina?’
‘We have an 80% match with de Ségur’s voice. But—’
‘Good enough for me.’
Chapter 17
Sicily, 6.40 p.m.
Hugues de Ségur, alias Pierre de Combel, had planned to evacuate shortly after the live TV transmission. He knew that the worlds’ intelligence agencies and security forces’ super computers were already busy trying to break the firewalls, decipher the codes and hunt down the latitude-longitude coordinates of the transmission.
Amidst the flurry of preparations for departure, de Ségur was talking to the bull-necked Godefroi when suddenly Vespoli, phone in hand and looking embarrassed, entered the dining room: ‘Sir, it’s the helicopter pilot.’
‘What is it?’ said de Ségur.
‘We have a problem. The pilot had a mechanical at Saanen. He had to lease another helicopter and it has a different interior configuration.’
‘So?’
‘The stretcher doesn’t fit.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I—’
De Ségur grabbed Vespoli by the lapels of his jacket and shook him
violently. ‘It was your job to check and counter-check all of the transportation requirements, you numbskull.’
‘I know, sir, but—’
De Ségur released Vespoli’s jacket and calmed down. ‘Now what do we do with him?’
He turned away, thought for a moment, then faced Vespoli again. ‘Take him on the Bellerophon.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Twenty minutes later, de Ségur boarded the helicopter, destination Benghazi. Before leaving, he’d confirmed his instructions to Vespoli that he and the others would leave on the Bellerophon, a charter yacht standing by in the Bay of Augusta. They were to meet him the next morning in de Ségur’s desert compound near Suluq, 10 km south of Benghazi.
Vespoli, still unnerved by the confrontation with de Ségur, walked downstairs and entered Bruscetti’s room. ‘Quick, get your things. We’re leaving.’ he ordered.
‘But I have just finished—’
‘Now.’ Vespoli handed him a one-piece dark brown fatigue. ‘Here, wear this.’
Bruscetti walked to the bathroom. Moments later, he reappeared, his round belly molded tightly by the ill-fitting one-piece suit.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he said. ‘Where is His Holiness?’
Vespoli didn’t answer. He took Bruscetti firmly by the arm, and led him up the stairs and outside to the white van, its motor running. They climbed into the van and seated themselves among the other passengers. The other van was already in motion when Vespoli signaled the driver to follow it.
Thirty minutes later, Bruscetti looked out of the van’s window and saw the outline of a yacht, anchored in the bay, surrounded by a sea of setting sunlight. The van stopped alongside the pier and disgorged its clandestine cargo, while three men, their Uzis at the ready, looked nervously about. Vespoli led Bruscetti and the other passengers down the pier towards a small launch. Reaching it, Vespoli started to usher them aboard when Bruscetti, about to board, stopped and said: ‘I demand to know. Where are you taking me?’
‘Get in,’ ordered Vespoli, shoving Bruscetti down the launch’s narrow steps.
Falling into the launch’s wooden cockpit, Bruscetti lunged for the handrail, catching it at the last moment. He sat down on the uncomfortable bench, nervously looking at the two armed men sitting across from him. The launch’s motor rumbled to life and the crew cast off the lines from the pier. Five minutes later, the launch was pulling alongside the stern platform of the yacht. Bruscetti could see, inscribed on its stern, Bellerophon, and beneath it the name of its home port, Toulon. He and the others took the boarding ladder up to the yacht’s main deck. Halfway up the stairs, Bruscetti heard the launch leave, turning to see it head back towards shore.
As he stood on the deck and waited, Bruscetti‘s attention was drawn to the man standing alone on the bridge above, giving instructions on the intercom. Must be the captain, he thought. Moments later came the distinct clanking sound of the anchor chain passing through the hawse pipe. Bruscetti looked at his watch: 7.45 p.m. He felt the yacht begin to move, slowly at first, then more rapidly. He looked astern and saw the coastline slowly disappear into the distance. Surrounded by a halo of cloud, the premature moon looked foreboding.
Bruscetti felt someone grab his arm from behind.
‘Come,’ said Vespoli, as he proceeded to lead him down the companionway. Upon reaching the level below, Vespoli turned left down the sparsely lit corridor and stopped before an open doorway.
Vespoli gestured to the empty room. ‘Your cabin. Get some rest. You’ll need it.’
Bruscetti entered and turned towards Vespoli. ‘Where are we headed? Where is His Holiness?’
Vespoli
didn’t answer and closed the door in Bruscetti’s face. The doctor heard the lock click.
An hour later, Vespoli made his way up the companionway and the narrow stairs to the bridge. ‘When do we reach Benghazi?’ he asked the captain.
‘In about fourteen hours. That’s if the weather holds,’ said the short, swarthy Egyptian with the large, cocker spaniel eyes.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s a Force 10 Beaufort sirocco working its way up the east coast of Tunisia. It could veer west and hit us.’
‘That’s all we need,’ said Vespoli. As navigator of a Hercules C130, he’d been tossed around like a rag doll inside its cockpit, as the plane plowed through a Force 10 Beaufort storm. He’d felt first-hand the unimaginable power of gusts of over 130 km an hour. ‘Can the Bellerophon take it?’ he said.
The captain nodded, as he continued staring ahead into the unknown.
Rome, 5.35 a.m., Saturday 27 May, the day following the TV broadcast
The hotel phone rang loudly, jolting Dulac out of a heavy sleep. He groped for the receiver, and the phone fell off the night table. ‘Christ!’
‘No, Guadagni.’
Dulac replaced the phone on the table. ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
‘Romer’s dead. They found him this morning in his room.’
‘Jesus.’
‘No signs of violence. We’ve ordered an autopsy.’
‘Who had access to his room?’
‘About 50 Swiss Guards. He slept near the barracks.’
‘Great. Just pissing great.’
‘Ah, and another thing. I’ve got that preliminary report on him. The one you ordered a week ago.’
‘On the pre-hiring investigation?’
‘Yes. You won’t believe this, but apparently he was a Cathar.’
The Chimera Sanction Page 12