“But next it says here ‘the deadly wound was healed.’ ”
Jonas chuckled. “Absolutely right, absolutely right.” He leaned over Sable’s shoulder and ran his finger over the page. “See here? The deadly wound is healed, and the people all worship the dragon that gave power to the beast.”
Sable read further. “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.”
“Right, right, exactly, right!” said the pastor. “There’ll be a new Pope, and he’ll reign for seven years. The forty-two months are a multiple of seven, see? But those’ll be the seven years of the Tribulation.”
Sable shook his head slowly, wonderingly. “So everything will be over in a few days. Just as you said.”
“Everything will be over for us,” Jonas grinned. “And for every other born-again Christian on the planet. The Rapture! Think of it, Lam. The head of the Catholic Church, wounded to death, right on time!”
Sable sighed and leaned back in his massive, creamy leather chair, looking all around. “I’ve built up this company into a juggernaut. All these years, all this work.”
The pastor gave him a warning look. “Now remember, Lam. Revelation 18:11. ‘Only the merchants of the earth will weep when Babylon falls.’ And besides, your fortune won’t go for nothing. That’s all arranged. Think of all the good it’ll do for the ones left behind.”
“That’s not the worry, Pastor Jonas. I’m afraid of something. Not for myself, not for us—but for them, the ones left behind.”
“And well you should be worried. The seven years of Tribulation—I wouldn’t want to live through it.”
Sable shook his head. “But I’m afraid I may be responsible for the suffering. Look here.” He picked up a black enamel box from his desk and opened it. A flat, blade-like black GeM shone inside the box.
“What is it?”
“The new Mark 1317. I baptized it myself. Oh, this isn’t a fully working model; don’t have that yet. But soon…”
“And the problem is?”
“The beast. During the Tribulation, he’s going to cause everyone to receive a mark ‘that no man may buy or sell save he that has the mark.’ Revelation 13:17.”
“I still don’t follow you.”
“It’s true already. Nobody buys or sells without one of my GeMs. And now…”
“You think the GeM is the mark of the beast?” The pastor was startled for a second, but then grinned again. He picked up the glossy device and seemed to measure his words. “If this is the mark of the beast, that sort of makes you a part of the picture, Lam.” He spun it between his fingers like a toy. “You shouldn’t feel responsible in the least. Like the rest of us, you’re just clay in the Potter’s hand.”
Sable motioned to the pastor to sit. “Let me show you.” His finger touched a spot on the lightboard blazing on his desk and one of the oversize wall panels glowed into life.
At first, the pastor could see only a grainy desert scene with indistinct hills in the distance. A few military shouts were heard, and what looked like a silver weather balloon, not quite inflated, rose thinly into the air.
A soft cracking noise—then a sphere like a gigantic moon burst over the sky. The wall speakers thundered.
The pastor made a low hissing noise with his lips, then muttered: “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever.”
Shalom Alechem Road, Haifa, 2345h
From the slopes of Mount Carmel, the city of Haifa lay in a net of golden light, the afterglow of the holiday. One onlooker stood alone under a streetlamp, gazing out over the city, taking in the view—one of those omnipresent Arab youths, hooded, smoking, saying nothing, forever waiting on street corners for a bus.
Above him, below the lip of the mountain outlined in the haze, the campus of Kiryat Technion was mostly dark except for the occasional random window that glowed with either persistent research or carelessness.
He watched as the gate opened and a fast, low-slung little hybrid car cruised noiselessly out and sped away. Almost immediately, another vehicle lumbered up, totally unlike the first one. It was a large, heavy white van, obviously official but unmarked except for a swirl of clear blue lights on the roof. At the gate, a surprising number of people exited the van and lined up under the security lamps to be inspected. They wore white overalls with tight white caps on their heads. They reminded him of the students in the madrassa, his Koranic school. When they had re-entered the van, he touched the tiny panel of a special GeM in his pocket and almost immediately he could hear metallic voices echoing from the interior of the vehicle. He listened passively to their chatter as they arrived at their destination, ascended in a lift, and confronted the task they were trained for and complained unceasingly about. To the usual grievances they added freezing cold.
His lips and eyes hardening, he listened to the slow, lasered metrics of identification: angles, trajectories, dimensions, and blood-flow patterns. The technicians could have been describing some phenomenon of the weather. On the screen he picked up a stream of images, scenes of death digitized a hundred different ways and transmitted over a beam that was somewhat less secure than its owners imagined.
Then he opened a second channel. His own voice sounded strained as he spoke. “I transfer the feed to you now.”
There was, as usual, the barest response. And just before he clicked off, “Esif. Sorry.”
Now a human wireless conduit, he relaxed and lit another cigarette. Its heat comforted him, making the night subtly cooler. He felt a deep weariness. He had traveled a long way that day, from frost to this dead unstirring warmth, but still he stood at attention at his post facing the objects of his surveillance. He would not rest until the digital feed stopped.
The buildings of the Kiryat Technion were geometric outlines against a light golden haze so thick that slow eddies and currents could be seen in the faint glow. The energy fence atop the walls of the Institute radiated purple. Above was the ridge of Mount Carmel, now illuminated by the towering pulpit-like buildings that housed the research centers. Ages ago, the Prophet Elijah had called down fire from heaven on the summit of that rock. Both Jew and Muslim believed Elijah would return to announce the coming of the Chosen One. He wondered if Elijah would again call down the fire.
He looked out over the sea as Elijah had done so long before at a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. There were no clouds tonight of any size—only a sweltering fog that hung over the city like an oppressive omen. There was the golden dome of the Baha’is, which brought to his mind the similar shrine at Jerusalem, that center of the earth that was never far from his thoughts, and he imagined the apocalyptic fire about to issue from it. It would not be long now, God willing.
He looked beyond the harbor toward the point across the bay. He knew, although he could not see it, that the Crusader fortress of Acre stood at the point, the arrogant ruin left by the pillagers of the Holy Mount. Still today, the shrine of Jerusalem hung in an odd perpetual balance, controlled by none, coveted by all, until the Holy One should come to claim it.
While the Jews celebrated, he had his own private holiday. Today was 840 years to the day since Saladin had liberated the shrine from the Crusaders, an observance few except himself had kept. Today was the climax of some struggle among the stars, the inevitable product of twelve and seventy, both holy numbers. He felt that a grievous liberation had taken place this day. He could feel it even through the pain the day had brought him.
The digital feed stopped. He turned and looked back up into the Kiryat Technion, this time through a small pair of night binoculars. He could see in a greenish electronic haze the team of technicians loading a large bundle into their van. Then, as if in solitary funeral, they slowly descended the roadway.
They did not know the burden they carried, he reflected. The day had been sorrowfu
l—only a few knew how deeply sorrowful. But the Holy One knew of it, and in this there was comfort. In his heart he heard the words of the Prophet: After sorrow He shall send safety upon you, He shall bring calm over you.
The driver of the van swung out the gate and into the Shalom Alechem Road. In the path of the circling blue beams, he caught a glimpse of another man, a slim Arab like himself, all in black, smoking by the bus stop—but with a difference. This man’s shoes glinted in the blue glow, and on his finger flashed a golden ring.
Chapter 2
Sunday, October 3, 2027
Grand Hotel, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, 0720h
Maryse Mandelyn awoke from a curious dream in which the sky exploded into a violent white cloud that swallowed up the tiny domes and towers of cities on the horizon, then began to pulsate with a sound like a tolling bell. The cloud reddened and spread. As she came up from sleep, the cloud dissipated into a faint cold light illuminating the gilt moldings of her hotel bedroom.
It was Sunday, and the monotone bells of Rome were sounding the death of a Pope. But that was outside. Her room was filled with a luxurious human warmth away from everyone and everything. Maryse had nearly forgotten the comforts of privacy. For five years she had lived in a convent, neither as one of the sisters nor as a visitor; what had begun as a temporary retreat had turned into a dependency and then into something very near permanence. Her life had become a shared one—shared tables, shared bathroom, shared sleeping quarters.
But not totally shared. She still hoped for something beyond that dependency, at the same time fearing the beyond. It was the strangeness of connection with new people that she feared now that the people she thought of as her own were mostly gone. Sharing quarters in a Carmelite retreat allowed her to live superficially with other people and to study profoundly the monuments she loved. The people changed every day, at most every month or so—the art never changed.
The trance of distant bells went on unbroken as she lay hidden in the warmth of the bed, and gradually fear and hope alike drained off once more into sleep.
The alarm of her GeM, harsher than the bells, woke her again. She spoke to the little card. “Yes?”
Kane’s voice filled the room. “I need you. Thirty minutes, in the lobby.”
“Okay,” she answered. She could not be hard with him, but really didn’t want to confront the world yet. She bathed and dressed quietly, trying not to disturb the peace of the morning—to make it last as long as it could.
Lateran Palace, Rome, 0845h
“We’ve set up our investigation here in the palace,” Kane said as they arrived in an Interpol car. The entire square had been taped off, and soldiers stood guard to keep onlookers out of the way. The brown stone Lateran palace jutted out from the cathedral, small and white by comparison, the two spires and the great obelisk forming a trinity of towers.
Inside the palace, they were guided through a labyrinth of hallways to a large room where a group of men in clerical dress sat around an ornate table. They looked like a parody of a Baroque painting—an El Greco, she thought. One of the men, the only one not a cleric, she recognized as the small, balding Justice Ministry official from the night before. His hands were folded over a large case on the table. The door was shut and locked heavily behind them.
Kane greeted the men respectfully and introduced her in excellent Italian. “Maryse, these gentlemen are from the staff of the Vatican curator. Gentlemen, Maryse Mandelyn, my resource officer for art theft cases. And Signor Neri you remember.” She nodded at the little man from the Ministry, wondering why he was not wearing his sunglasses in the daylight hours.
“Perhaps you could advise us of Miss Mandelyn’s qualifications for this task,” asked an elderly priest. Although the others seemed impressed that the chief of Interpol had involved himself personally, this man barely acknowledged that Kane was in the room. He was clearly the senior person present, his meager face slick and papery like a reptile’s. This was the assistant curator of the Vatican Museums—she knew him from his photos. She took a quick dislike to him, the sort of antipathy that sometimes springs up between people who share the same passions.
Kane was pure business. “Signorina Mandelyn is the most knowledgeable person about religious art at Interpol. She has successfully—and quickly—concluded investigations into some of our most difficult cases, including the Pietà of Bruges and the icon thefts in Sanok.”
“And the case of the Ardagh Chalice?” the curator asked, pointedly.
Maryse gave the man a stabbing look. Kane replied calmly, but she knew he was furious. “That theft has baffled everyone involved, including the very best police minds in the world. And some of us, most especially Signora Mandelyn, have suffered considerable personal loss because of it. That, gentlemen, is among her qualifications for this task.”
The curator bowed his head and smiled coldly at her. “It is just that we are most anxious to recover the Acheropita. We would not want…” and he splayed his long fingers without finishing his sentence.
“We will do what we can,” Kane concluded brusquely. “Shall we begin the briefing?”
“Some have questioned the propriety of this inquiry so soon after the Holy Father’s death,” the old priest said carelessly. “Still, popes come and go; the patrimony of the Church remains. Let’s proceed.” At this, the other staffers shifted nervously in their chairs.
Neri stood and touched a button on his case. On a large metallic wall screen a series of pictures flashed sharply into focus. “I show you the first photographs taken of the crime scene yesterday.” In the corner of the screen, time and data information appeared—sabato 2.10.2027 1017:18h. The first still picture was in deep focus but dark; Maryse made out a crumpled figure and what looked like reflecting black puddles on the floor. The second picture was much more brilliant, shockingly so. A man dressed all in black lay twisted against a background of swirling scarlet, blue, and white marble—the Cosmatesque floor of the holy chapel. Around his head a red sash was loosely tied, and in one of his outflung hands he held a pistol.
The group watched in silence as more pictures flashed by, the same scene at different angles. Then the projector zoomed to a close-up of the Monsignor. Maryse looked at the calm, almost boyish face nestled in the crimson sash, and felt an impulse of sadness—she did not know why because her usual reaction to crime was only curiosity. There was something in this face that she knew, something impossibly familiar. She sensed that warmth and intelligence had been extinguished here; surely the face corresponded with no conceivable picture of a madman on a rampage. Zacharias II had been Pope, Vicar of Christ on Earth, and this man was his killer. There was something in Shakespeare—Caesar and Brutus?
The curator frowned at this close-up of the Monsignor’s face. “Why would he steal? What had he to gain? When would he have had the opportunity?” The same questions were on all minds in the room, including the looming unspoken question: why would he kill, and in such a blasphemous way, the Holy Father?
Another series of photographs came up—these had been taken more than half an hour later: 1057:42h. They showed the blank rectangular space where the Acheropita had hung inside the grillwork above the altar. The lime-white marble was so clear in contrast to the wall that it looked scrubbed clean. She felt an urge to inspect it again. Although nothing she had seen had suggested to her the least idea of what could be done, her curiosity was up.
As if reading her thoughts, the old curator asked her, “E bene, Miss Mandelyn. Have these photographs suggested anything to you about the theft?”
“Not so far,” she was honest. “But I’m eager to hear from the technical people.”
“Very well,” Neri said, accommodatingly, and the medical examiner was invited into the room. This was Dr. Sylvia Malemanni, tall and elegant, wide-shouldered in her soft green coat, swathed in rich brown hair. Her face was unusually long, almost equine, with a chin that
seemed to telescope as she spoke. “Good morning,” she said to the two visitors in deeply accented English before sitting down at the table without bothering to remove her coat. She seemed thoroughly briefed on what the panel wanted to know and proceeded with her report in rapid Italian. Maryse could barely follow.
“As I understand it, your primary interest is in the theft of the object,” the doctor said. Maryse flinched at the use of the word “object”—l’oggetto—as if the Acheropita were some laboratory abstraction. “We have examined the Monsignor’s body and clothing for indications of marble dust or iron or any of the aromatic sprays that are sometimes used to loosen old metalwork.”
On the overhead screen, the Monsignor lay gracefully, like a figure out of El Greco, against the radiating tiles. His arms were flung wide, and his red sash flowed loosely from his head as if caught by the wind.
Maryse raised her hand tentatively, and Malemanni looked right through her. “Yes?”
“Why is his sash around his head instead of tied around his waist?”
Bevo responded raspily from the corner of the room. He sounded impatient. “We of course asked ourselves that question immediately. There are two possibilities: that the Pope grasped at the sash and tried to use it to defend himself, or that Chandos intended to hang himself with it. When he found no means for doing so, he gave up and used the gun on himself instead.”
Maryse considered this, but the question still nagged at her. The doctor went on as if there had been no interruption, displaying another image—this one dark and strangely exquisite. It was a picture of a man’s open hand, loose, lifeless, the index finger extended, barely hooked into the trigger of a black-and-silver pistol.
“We were particularly interested in the right hand, which you see here. We have found nothing but floor dust and gunshot residue. This is not necessarily indicative; he could have worn protective clothing or gloves, or perhaps removed the painting during the night after the security sweep, wearing different clothes. But it makes no sense that he would have done so.” Several almost microscopic slides of both hands faded in and out of view, the gun metal glowing purple in the right hand; a sparsely engraved gold ring on the left, along with a wristwatch with a band as big as an alligator’s back; the telltale grains of gunpowder sparkling just under the skin; the occasional blood spot.
The Day of Atonement Page 6