Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat…
The door swung open ahead of us and we tumbled through. Thud. It closed behind us, and for a moment there was a thwang-crack of bullets hitting ancient bronze.
“Vandals,” said the voice. “Right. Through you go…”
We were in a dim internal porch. We picked ourselves up and stepped over a wooden lintel into… An impression of vastness, then my eyes focused on the muzzles of a large number of pistols pointed straight at me. At all three of us. NonLees… the most terrifying weapons of all… but… my stomach twisted. Had the Vatican fallen, all unknown to us?
“Please don’t be frightened.” A small smiling man in a dark gown... a cassock?... stepped through behind us. “We’ve just got to get you ID’d and all that.”
I let out a shuddering breath. Of course. They weren’t going to let people just wander in. I managed to look past the muzzles to the men behind them. Half wore smart orange, red and blue uniform—Swiss Guards?—the other half something equally smart in a much plainer navy. Vatican police? Both figures from many a childhood tale, they hardly seemed real.
My eyes moved beyond, to the building. The largest building I’d been in in my entire life. Beautiful towering walls… and at the far end, underneath a towering metal canopy, a glimmer of red light…
Running footsteps echoed around… a man was racing down the side aisle, tall, slim, black cassock flapping…
“Ah, Father Mark! Is it them?” asked the cheery doorkeeper.
Father Mark just flung his arms around me, hugged me tightly, hugged Bane, hugged Jon…
“Ah, I’ll take that as a yes. Go on, stand down, you fellows.”
The pistols disappeared into holsters—I hardly noticed. Father Mark let go of Jon, and I hugged him again, demanding, “You made it? You all made it?”
“Us? Oh yes… but you three, oh, I really was afraid we’d seen the last of you! Yet they hadn’t caught you yet…” He hugged us all a second time. “My goodness, that is not the advised method of entry into this State, you know!”
My eyes had already strayed back to that red dot, wondering. Was it? Could it be…? Father Mark smiled, turned, and genuflected to what must be the distant tabernacle at the other end of the mighty building, presence declared by that little winking light.
“Yes, Margo, He’s here. ‘He who guards this city neither slumbers nor sleeps.’ Pope Cornelius the first had a beautiful Holy Spirit hanging pyx made so that He could hover over the main altar, to welcome all who enter.”
I dropped to one knee, then both knees, my throat closing. Like entering another world… a wonderful, wonderful world of freedom.
“You mean He…?” Jon interpreting silence as easily as words. Or perhaps just sensing the Divine presence.
“Yes.” My voice shook.
Jon sank down on his knees. Bane frowned faintly and did his usual I’m-respecting-Margo’s-feelings-but-don’t-think-it-means-I-believe-any-of-it head bob.
After a moment I pried myself from the little red light and what it meant and got back to my feet. Jon struggled up as well, only to gasp and clutch his side as he straightened.
“Oh no, thought I’d pulled a muscle...” Something in his voice caught my attention. He drew his hand drew away...
Red with blood.
***+***
22
INDEFINITE LEAVE TO REMAIN
Jon’s legs buckled...
“Catch him!” I cracked foreheads with the doorkeeper as I lunged. Bane collided with Father Mark, but they managed to stop Jon’s head hitting the marble floor.
One of the Swiss Guards already had a wristCell to his mouth, talking rapidly in Latin. I heard doctor and stretcher and managed not to scream for just those things. Father Mark ripped Jon’s clothes aside to bare the wound, using Bane’s proffered t-shirt to stem the bleeding.
“Keep calm,” he said, as I flung myself down next to him, “I don’t think it’s serious.”
“Anything’s serious in his condition!”
“Granted he doesn’t look a picture of health. But Lord willing, we’ll patch him up.”
Some very competent guards were already edging me out. So competent that even Father Mark withdrew and left them to it. Soon more Swiss Guards came jogging up with a stretcher, followed by a layman bent under the weight of a large paramedic’s kit—we clearly weren’t going to get anywhere near Jon for the foreseeable future.
Screeeeeeech...
The deafening sound penetrated the basilica’s thick walls.
“The bus driver’s recovered,” muttered Bane in English, shrugging into the light jacket one of the guards had produced from somewhere.
“I reckon he’s going to be very grateful for the bruise...” I said absently, most of my attention still on Jon.
“Definitely a case of shutting the gate after the fugitives have gone through it, though!”
Four of the Swiss Guards marched smartly up to the internal porch and disappeared inside. Daylight streamed in as the little sally port opened and out they went…
No shots. Gradually I relaxed.
“What are they doing?” Bane marshaled his Latin as his own tension gave way to puzzlement.
A series of clangs from outside...
“Shutting the portico gates,” said the little robed doorkeeper. “We only close them when the EuroGov’s gates are closed, for reasons you will appreciate.”
Portico gates… yes, there’d been huge iron barred gates, standing open between each pillar. If they’d been closed… I shuddered.
“Keeping them open is just a bit of a security risk.” Father Mark had been listening. “But just very occasionally it pays off…” He gestured to us. “So one can’t call it a pointless security risk.”
“Don’t they shoot the Swiss Guards?”
“Not usually,” said the doorkeeper dryly.
“The square is the territory of a Free State,” pointed out Father Mark, “and they do try to look legal, after all. They’re quite happy to make an exception for people pulling a stunt like yours, though.”
“We’re taking him to surgery.” The doctor was zipping up his bag as the stretcher was trotted away at the same speed at which it’d been brought. “But he’ll be fine and there’s really no point in you hovering.” He galloped off after his patient, still clutching the bag.
“There, what did I tell you?” Father Mark looked me and Bane up and down. “My goodness, look at the state of you. Canteen, first stop?”
“We ate with the Resistance...” My stomach caught up with my tongue as Bane shot me an incredulous look. “What am I saying? I could eat a three-course meal!”
“Follow me, then.”
A pained noise came from a man in grey civilian attire of uniform-level smartness, who’d either been there the whole time or arrived unnoticed. Father Mark hesitated.
“Ah, there is that. If I take you to the canteen first of all, Eduardo may have a nervous breakdown and it’s probably better if the Head of Vatican Security isn’t reduced to tears. Do you mind if he gets you registered and everything first?”
I eyed the man’s impassive face—had he ever been reduced to tears in his life?
Bane snorted. “Go ahead. Until recently we’ve been waiting all day for food, another hour won’t make any difference!”
“Oh, not an hour,” said Eduardo. “Half an hour, at most. This way…”
My legs ached and shook as we trudged after his brisk steps, and I was glad of the arm Bane slipped around me. Eduardo led part way down the side aisle, genuflected and went through a doorway. Father Mark and I genuflected as well; Bane did his head bob, saw me trying to muster the energy to rise, and hauled me back to my feet, angel.
A slight bleep accompanied our passage through the doorway. We all stopped as Eduardo pulled out a handheld networkAccessor and consulted it. His eyes went to the spot where Bane’s knife was hidden, but he pocketed the Accessor again and carried on without comment. A hidden weapon scannerA
rch? Knives must be allowed, then. Or he appreciated that Bane might not want to give it up just yet.
“So who is this guy again?” Bane asked Father Mark in a low voice, sounding relieved as we headed along a stone passageway.
“Head of the VSS.”
“The Vatican has a Secret Service?” said Bane, while I was still making guesses at the acronym.
“Oh yes. But before your imagination runs away with you, it’s almost entirely counter-espionage. Though at the moment, Eduardo deals with anything at all relating to the State’s security. He’s not at all a scary fellow, unless you find being pathologically fearless scary, which admittedly some people do.”
Several echoing passageways and a very fine flight of stairs later, Eduardo ushered us into a small office. Taking his place behind the desk, he gestured for us to sit in the collection of comfortable old chairs ranked in front of it.
“You’ll stand sponsor?” he asked Father Mark, laying out three passport-like wallets on the desk in front of him and drawing out his computer keyboard.
“Of course.”
“Then this should be quick enough.” He turned his attention back to me and Bane. “I need to check your identities and take your details, then I can issue you with visas. If you’ve got your ID cards, we can begin.”
“Uh,” I raised a finger. “I haven’t got mine.”
“Where is it?”
“Either burned up or in the EuroGov’s possession. Or just possibly a SpecialCorps soldier’s souvenir, though I doubt they’d dare. Jon’s is with it.”
Eduardo sighed, but didn’t look desperately concerned. Not that he looked like he was ever desperately anything. He flicked an eye at my scar. “Well, I don’t think there’s any doubt about your identity.” He held out a hand for Bane’s card. “Thank you.”
He looked at the photo, at Bane, back at the photo again. “Well, it won’t be possible to prove this is you until you’ve had a shave and several weeks’ meals, but it could be and Father Mark says it is.” He twiddled the card at Bane. “I keep this, you understand? Goes in the card vault. You want to leave, you get it back. Okay?”
Clearly people weren’t encouraged to flit to and fro from Free State to EuroBloc—probably a recipe for espionage. Most people who came here weren’t going to miss their IDs, anyway.
Bane nodded, and placed the Italian guy’s card on the desk as well. “Just in case you want this too, some Italian sold us this not half an hour ago. We probably owe him our lives.”
Eduardo ran it through the scanner on the desk. “Miguel Appiani; twenty; residence—Rome; languages—Italian and Esperanto; clean record. Can’t tell you any more than that.”
“You’ve got access to the EuroGov system?”
“They’re not very good at keeping me out.” Eduardo calmly scanned Bane’s real card. “Blake Marsden, known as Bane… okay, I have to investigate any matters on your record, you understand. Item one, first degree homicide, says you knifed a government employee, is this correct?”
Bane glanced sidelong at Father Mark who just smiled encouragingly. “Yes,” said Bane.
“Could you tell me the circumstances in which this occurred?”
“Okay. Man was a dismantler. Man was dismantling Margo. Man raised scalpel to kill Margo. I killed man. D’you need more details?”
“Witnesses?”
“Father Mark and Margo.” Bane nodded to us.
“Was that description accurate in all important or relevant particulars?”
“Yes,” I said. True from Bane’s point of view anyway—I wasn’t sure if Doctor Richard had his sights on me or on Bane, but it didn’t really change anything.
“Yes, from what I witnessed,” said Father Mark scrupulously.
Eduardo typed rapidly for a few moments. “Okay, next item...s. Five charges of Assault on a EuroGov Employee, three causing Actual Grievous Bodily Harm.”
“None of them were grievous,” I objected. “We know two of them were just concussions. And what was the third one?”
“Well, concussion is more serious than people think, but as it happens, I saw the two victims on TV the other night and they looked very well to me. The third charge concerns a knife wound. So, tell me?”
“Two SpecialCorps soldiers were driving Jon and Margo to a Facility to dismantle them,” said Bane. “I persuaded the driver out of the van with a knife to his throat—I’ve done more damage to myself shaving, so ‘grievous’ is just nonsense. I shook the soldiers in the back of the van around quite a bit and left them parked on the edge of a cliff but perfectly safe.
“The other two were normal soldiers who were torturing Jon so I made them lie on their faces and bashed them on the nut with a rifle butt. That or blow their heads off, so it seemed a good idea at the time.” Bane shot another look at Father Mark, as though afraid some comment about his temper might be forthcoming—Father Mark just gave a faint, sad smile. “Margo and Jon are witnesses.”
Eduardo raised his eyebrows at me.
“All correct. Bane was feverish at the time,” I added. “And we had to shut them up somehow.”
“Please don’t imply things,” said Eduardo. “If you want to make a point, make it: it saves misunderstandings.”
“Oh. Sorry. I just think he actually showed quite good self-control. In the circumstances.”
“Duly noted. This is not a trial, however.” Eduardo looked at Bane again. “Next charge, Sedition: Category One—you sprung a Facility full of reAssignees, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Lovely, not illegal here, very much the opposite. Next, Destruction of Public Property. What was the property?”
Bane scratched his beard. “Um, y’know, I’m not too sure. ‘Cause the Resistance blew up a helicopter but I tried to stop them. Idiots.” Heat leaked into his voice, even after so long. “Margo and the girls were just underneath, you see,” he explained, at Eduardo’s look of inquiry. “They might be trying to pin that on me but it wasn’t. Lots of bullet holes in their Facility, but that wasn’t my finger on the trigger either.
“Oh, Father Mark and I did nick a whole load of bottles of antiseptic fluid, a roll of clingfilm stuff and um… a plastic sheet and a couple of bags. And poured the original contents of the bottles down the sink. That’s all I can think of.”
Eduardo looked at Father Mark who smiled unapologetically and nodded. Eduardo typed quickly again.
“Right, that’s you… Next, Margaret Verrall,” he typed a manual search, “they don’t like you much, do they? There’s a list of charges as long as my arm…”
“Really?” I said. “It was only four the last time I saw it.”
“Well, they’ve come up with a few more, but… not illegal, not illegal, not illegal, Blake’s covered that one… Not illegal… Okay, you’re clear. Jonathan Revan, isn’t it? Ah yes. He’s quite a good boy, it seems. Personal Practice, Unauthorized Departure and Escaping from EuroBloc Custody. Not illegal here. Clear.”
He filled something in on each of the wallet things, then stamped them, signed them and handed two over.
“These are your visas, keep them safe.”
Taking out three blank pass cards, he slid them one at a time into a card programmer-printer, typing a few commands on the computer each time. I opened my visa wallet. Vatican Free State, I read, Indefinite Leave to Remain. I smiled and muttered the English to Bane, who was spelling out the Latin words. Underneath Issued by it was signed Eduardo… I couldn’t read his surname. HEAD OF THE VATICAN SECRET SERVICE, it said afterwards, then on behalf of and another signature:
Cornelius PP.III
A moment of surrealism. Was it actually possible I was sitting in a Free State holding an indefinite visa signed by the Pope himself? I pointed out the last signature to Bane, and he grinned.
“Here…” Eduardo passed a card to me and another to Bane, placing the last one with the third visa. “These don’t strictly speaking need to be visible, but you’d be advised to display them until th
e guards recognize you by sight. After that, keep them on you—you’ll need them in the canteen, supermarket, department store—anywhere like that—and please don’t lose them.”
I peered at mine. He’d used the photo from my EuroBloc record, and the individual card number in the corner, along with the card programmer—making it non-transferable—showed the Vatican weren’t making EGD Security’s mistake.
Using the card’s little clip to fasten it to my collar, I stowed the visa in the pocket of my—Carla’s!—jeans. Must visit that department store and get a few clothes. Though we’d only three hundred Eurons between the three of us. Which was, strictly speaking, Bane’s money… Thinking about his missing phone reminded me…
“Is it time for your pill?”
Bane put his hand to his pocket, stopped and pulled a face. “Have to buy a watch now, won’t I? Is it time, Margo?”
“It’s quarter to nine.”
“Yes, then. Is there some water anywhere?”
“I just need your religious details and you can go,” said Eduardo. “I’ve got everything else here already. Margaret and Jonathan, Believers, adult, yes?”
“Yep.” Adult meant Confirmed in this context.
“Blake?”
“Bane…” growled Bane.
“Bane, then?”
“NonBeliever, me.”
“Any religious opinion whatsoever?”
“Huh?”
“He means, how would you answer the question, ‘do you believe in God’?” supplied Father Mark.
“I’d say I don’t know.”
“Agnostic, good-good.” Eduardo typed briefly. “This is just for the records. Anyone else wants to know, they can ask you. Right. I’ve finished with you. There’ll be a summary of the State’s laws in your accommodation, if there isn’t, ask for one—all extremely basic stuff, goes along the lines of do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery... Waste of paper printing it out. Anyway, go and get fed. If there’s any problem with your friend, someone will find you.”
“Thanks, Eduardo.” Father Mark stood up, but I stayed in my seat.
“Do you... know anything about Dominique and Juwan? Are they okay?”
The Three Most Wanted Page 25