The Flaming Sword

by Breck England

  Alone now in the waiting room, dizzy with fatigue, agitated, Ari didn’t know what to do. His eyes felt like sandstone, so he shut them, tired at last of trying so hard to see through clouds and night.

  Palazzo di Sant’Uffizio, Vatican City, 0530h

  Cardinal Tyrell finished his private Mass with an ardent prayer for the Conclave that would begin in a few hours.

  Burying Zacharias II the day before had been most satisfying—and symbolic, Tyrell thought. The years of captivity in Babylon were enough; now it was time to bring the Church back from exile, from depravity and distortion, from the sewer of sex and the abandonment of the vows that made the Church holy. Today they would begin the return journey—if he had any influence at all.

  He took off his liturgical vestments, washed his face and hands vigorously in cold water from the tap, and was about to call for his morning coffee when the telephone rang.

  It was the Commendatore of the Vatican Police. Evidently, the suspected assassin who had fired at the funeral crowd was still at large after all—he was to stay in his rooms until the guards came for him. Fine, fine, yes. Tyrell was secretly glad at the news; it meant that the Conclave would be carefully locked up and watched. He did not want Cardinals wandering off just now.

  Tyrell was not afraid of any assassin. He knew he was the unofficial leader of the Catholics who wanted to cleanse the stables of the Vatican; doubtless, a good many of the deviates in the Church and their dupes would like to see him out of the way. As a youth in Belfast he had heard gunshots at night, he had seen death. And again in Beirut in the 1980s. Death was no terror; but that sin should reign in the Church, in the priesthood itself—that he could not bear. So, he had to live awhile.

  He sat down to coffee and hard rolls with jam. Across the piazza, at the St. Martha house, a hundred Cardinals were taking their own breakfasts; he was glad he was not among them. He wanted to make a solemn entrance, to hold himself apart from the others when the time came.

  Gulping coffee, he switched on the screen in his breakfast room to see the now-familiar glossy woman with the dome of St. Peter’s behind her.

  “This unusual step of convening to elect a new Pope so soon after the funeral of Zacharias II is causing great controversy.”

  The background changed to a street in Rome and marchers with rainbow banners calling for immediate sainthood for the late Pope: ZACCHAREO SANTO SUBITO!

  “According to some of the cardinals, this step is a cost-saving measure—as they are all here in the Vatican, why not proceed immediately to Conclave instead of waiting the customary two or three weeks?

  “But others are whispering that the real reason for haste is to suppress the very significant and time-consuming lobbying effort that might be required to elect John Paul Stone, the American who wants to carry out the liberalizing policies of Zacharias II—and perhaps go even further down that road with the next generation of Catholics.” In the background, Stone was eagerly greeting a group of youthful priests in rainbow-colored vestments.

  “By contrast, the conservatives feel they have a better chance of electing their acknowledged leader, Leo Cardinal Tyrell, if they move quickly. A wave of reaction to Zacharias’s policies has swept over the College, policies such as lifting the ban on divorce and abortion, ordination of women and gays, and marriage for priests and gays. The bishops of Vatican III, a narrow majority of whom voted for these policies, have gone home, leaving the decision as to who will guide the future of the Church in the hands of the Cardinal electors. The Vatican establishment has agreed the Conclave for today—and that means they are probably behind Tyrell.

  “What difference will it make?

  “If Tyrell is elected, he will campaign strongly to reverse the reforms of Zacharias II, and a reversal would touch off Church-wide protests, possibly even schism. There could be two Catholic churches a year from now. That’s why this papal election is perhaps the most significant in the history of the Church—it may take many weeks, or it could be over in a few hours.”

  Tyrell switched off, grumbling with admiration at the woman. He supposed there was no way to keep these things from the press—and she articulated the crisis well, but so openly that it seemed almost dishonorable to do what he was doing.

  Still, he was not convinced there would be an upheaval in the Church if the pernicious policies of Zacharias were reversed. Faithful people can’t be reasoned speciously out of their faith, he thought, and most Catholics had faith in the Pope. If there were two churches a year from now, one of them would be a tiny group of deviates shrieking like the devil on the side, really no church at all, while the great vessel of the Roman Church sailed on like Noah’s ark.

  But only if he himself were at the helm. That was the work of today. He had allies, some younger men, such as the keen little Ivoirien Lasalle, who had no patience with evil. Tyrell’s strong Irish voice reminded everyone of the anchor the Celts had always provided the Church against barbarians; men like Lasalle fell quite naturally behind him.

  Once elected, he would move aggressively. In the ninth century, the corpse of the wicked Pope Formosus was dug up after his death, seated on the Papal throne, tried, and convicted for his crimes in life. Tyrell knew he would have to do the equivalent: to maintain the faith of the Church in papal infallibility, he would have to impeach Zacharias as Formosus had been. He would have to create the impression that Zacharias had been taken out of the way by the action of God to preserve the integrity of the Church.

  It wouldn’t be impossible. After all, as far as the world could see, the executioner of Zacharias had been an exemplary priest, serving the Pope out of duty, but ultimately choosing to serve God out of faith. Caesar, a menace to the Roman republic, had his Brutus—so Zacharias, who threatened to pervert the Roman church, had his Peter Chandos.

  Tyrell looked up at a framed photo hanging on the wall, of himself and Peter Chandos, and his thoughts traveled back through decades. Peter as a thin brown child, with the clean smell of dirt on his body. Peter’s mother, her eyes of acute blue filled with the sharpness and inevitability of loss. The clash within his own heart. Those first months in Rome with that beautiful boy and his inexplicable bursts of rage. The years of fulfilling an obligation that had unexpectedly turned into joy and heartbreak.

  Then, like a desperate angel, Peter had put an end to the corruption at the heart of the Church.

  Shin Bet Headquarters, St. Helena Street, Jerusalem, 0700h

  Toad awoke in a cot that had been put up for him in the Black Hole. He had slept restlessly, getting up to gaze at the Eros-Z screen and then falling asleep again. In a dream, Catriel Levine sat on the edge of his cot; he dreamed of her long neck and head hovering over him, her long arms stretched and pointing to the viewscreen as it turned into a flat map of blood vessels, veins and arteries projected on a universe of black.

  He awoke and the veins became roads and sea lanes in a night view of the Italian peninsula.

  “Anything?” he asked the technician, the third replacement of the night.

  “Nothing,” was the reply.

  Ari’s unknown subject had left no trace since disappearing inside the Holy of Holies in Rome. At this point it was unlikely he would be found, but Toad was not impatient and the satellite didn’t need sleep. He slumped back into the cot, running scenarios through his mind as if testing combinations to a lock.

  The Unknown was either the same shooter who had killed Catriel, or another one with the same skills. Commando training produces people like that, but few with the level of skill to get such a result at 170 meters. The best in the world, even. And such a person must have left traces somewhere. British, Israeli, or American commando schooling, most likely.

  “Search this combination: Who are the best long-range marksmen in the world? Where are the best commando training units in the world?” he asked his GeM, and the little brain went to work.

 
He carefully scrolled through the results: lists of Olympic shooting medalists, competition results, military schools and training camps. But no obvious intersections.

  He asked again. “Who is the best long-range marksman in Italy?” More lists—some of the same Olympians, members of competitive shooting clubs, biathlon winners. Strange to combine skiing and shooting in one sporting event, he thought; but then he had never understood the attraction of any sport, despite being hauled off to football matches by Miner. He drilled down on some of the likelier names; nothing surfaced.

  After this, he sent the GeM off on another search. “Who was Catriel Levine?”

  It was a question he had asked the GeM many times. Her images appeared—a professional photo of a professional woman with a quarter-smile on her face, the same photo again and again; pictures of the Cohen Brothers offices in New York, London, Tel Aviv; the graduating class of some American law school. Official accounts of legal proceedings with “C. Levine” listed among a score of lawyers’ names. Nothing about the Mishmar, nothing about the Temple. The GeM knew little about Catriel Levine, Toad realized. It knows little about anyone.

  He balanced the sleek silver handheld between his fingers. A portal to all human knowledge; that was the promise.

  He tested it again. Touching the panel, he asked, “Why would anyone kill Catriel Levine?”

  Of course, he knew it would tell him nothing; he could ask the GeM who, what, where, and how—but never why.

  He sighed and closed his eyes, but just then Miner came in and sat down heavily next to his cot. “Any trace yet?”

  “No.”

  “Got the ballistics report from the Italians.” Miner’s voice was scratchy with fatigue. “Ari’s Tavor didn’t touch Eagle; the shooter used fairly ordinary nine-millimeter bullets, but they were fired from a gas-powered rifle.”

  “Silent. Lethal.”

  “Given the accuracy, he must have used a flash-sensing scope.”

  “Latest military spec.” Toad yawned

  “You know this changes everything. There’s another shooter out there besides Eagle.”

  “I know.” Toad was thinking aloud. “Actually, five people are involved. Eagle, the shooter, Ari, the woman from Interpol, and her friend, the old Foreign Legionnaire. Now you have all kinds of permutations.”

  “Could be one Palestinian hunting another. They have their factions. Hamas and Fatah?”

  Miner fell quiet when Toad didn’t respond. Toad was not asleep, though; he was far too methodical a thinker to go off brainstorming at random. The best theories account for all the elements, he knew, so he tried to think through each element independently.

  Miner was right. Eagle could have been the target from the first. There was Kristall’s theory about Muslim plots to destroy the Dome of the Rock and incite the Islamic world to attack Israel. Maybe the shooter was after Eagle in the piazza today and at last caught up with him at the Holy Stairs. But which would be the plotter? Which one needed to be stopped—Eagle or the shooter?

  Then there were the Interpol agent, Mandelyn, and her elderly friend. He knew nothing about the agent, but the shooter had hit the Legionnaire; what would link the old man to Eagle? Their worlds were so different—why would they both be targets?

  He heard a bell from Miner’s GeM. “Here’s something interesting,” Miner said. “About time of death.”

  “Whose?”

  “Chandos and the Pope.”

  “Everyone knows their time of death. It was all on TV.”

  “They supposedly died within minutes of each other, didn’t they? Then why, my friend, was there a two-degree difference in body temperature?”

  Toad sat up. “Which one was lower?”

  “Chandos. It might mean nothing. After all, it was a cold day and Chandos died inside the chapel, while the Pope made it out into the sunlight.”

  “It might mean everything. One degree translates into one hour; Chandos could have died as much as two hours before the Pope did.”

  “But the whole world watched the Pope go into the chapel with Chandos.”

  “Or with someone who looked very much like Chandos.”

  All at once the quiescent map on the wall buzzed like an angry insect, and a red speck vibrated into view next to the word FIUMICINO. It hovered near the green line that marked the Mediterranean shore.

  “The airport,” the technician shouted; the screen collapsed on itself and the red speck grew into a blister underneath the words AEROPORTO LEONARDO DA VINCI.

  Toad and Miner were on their feet. “Can you fix on that?” Miner asked.

  The techs were already bent over their screens. “He’s moving—from a car in the road toward Terminal B—lost him.” The red marker disappeared inside a building.

  “Fix on the car,” Toad muttered.

  One of the techs grabbed a car moving from the curb. Another was on the phone to the Rome Airport police. Toad admired their speed of reaction; the marker had been onscreen for less than five seconds, but everything that could be done was done.

  “Terminal B is the international terminal,” one of the techs muttered. “Too bad. It has two piers—there’s no way to tell which one he’ll use.”

  If he uses any of them, Toad thought. For anyone as skilled at evasion as this unknown, allowing himself to be seen going into the departure level at the airport was certain to send the police off looking in all directions. He had only to find a blind way out of the terminal—through a parking garage, for instance—and then drive away again.

  “It’s a taxi. We’ve stopped it.”

  “Impound it,” Toad commanded in a quiet voice.

  Over the loudspeakers he could hear the frustrated shouting of Italian voices, and suddenly a video uplink appeared on the screen—a pursuer’s eye view from a collar camera of aluminum-and-glass corridors and crowds of passengers.

  Toad looked on, irritated. “We don’t even know who we’re looking for.” He leaned over a tech’s shoulder. “Tell them to watch for uniforms, particularly police uniforms.” But he had little hope.

  They were looking for an image without a face—a uniform, a helmet. Was it a mercenary’s face? A religious fanatic’s? Was it a male or a female face? Toad recalled the video of the shooter vaulting off the colonnade of St. Peter’s, nimble but not adolescent, quick and watchful at once. It was something, but not enough to form a theory, as he had no access to any other image. Except, perhaps…

  The best theories account for everything, he said to himself again as he watched the backs of a half dozen black-clad airport police jogging ahead of him on the TV screen. In his mind he played back the video of the Papal assassination: the Pope and the Monsignor climbing toward the sanctuary, the black tide of police surging up the stairs, Zacharias tumbling headfirst covered in blood, the corpse in the chapel. Was it possible the shooter was also in the picture? How else to account for two degrees of difference?

  And then, all at once, he knew who he was looking for.

  Palazzo Malta, Via dei Condotti, Rome, 0745h

  Ari awoke alone in the dark with no idea where he was. For a moment, he was genuinely afraid—there was no light except for formless reflections on glass or stone, he couldn’t tell which. The dense air smelled of nothing. The solitude of the place unnerved him; utterly disoriented, he had no sense of where he had been or where to go.

  But then he had been alone for a long time—it felt like forever. All he could see ahead was more empty isolation. The tethers that held him to the world seemed brittle: his father and mother, his few friends. Elena was gone forever. Strange, he thought, what blazes of realization cross the mind when all that can be seen is darkness.

  Then the GeMphone droned in his ear and he remembered where he was. The little screen threw a blue light over the waiting room of the Palace of the Order of Malta, where he had passed out from exh
austion hours before in an enormous leather chair.

  “Yeah,” he croaked. It was Toad.

  Minutes later he stumbled through the towering doors of the lobby practically into the arms of a tall, elegant individual who was carrying a tea tray. “I had hoped you’d be awake by now, sir,” the man said in English without a trace of an Italian accent. “I brought you tea.” Surprised, Ari took the cup and sipped at the hot liquid, staring suspiciously at the reflection of his own face in the silver pot. He was a bristly mess.

  “I need to see Mr. Mortimer. And what happened to, um, agent Mandelyn?”

  “The lady was taken to her hotel. As to Mr. Mortimer, he has not rung yet this morning; he asked us to mind you while you were here.”

  “Thanks, but…”

  “Would you care for some breakfast?”

  Ari realized he had eaten nothing in nearly two days except for peanuts on an airline flight and two cups of tea. The attendant piloted him into a marbled room where brioche and butter, tomatoes, pale cheese, and foaming cappuccino were laid on a table dressed in linen. Not bothering to sit, Ari grasped at the food. “Call me a taxi, please?” he asked between bites.

  But when he turned around, the attendant had disappeared and Jean-Baptiste Mortimer stood in the doorway in white shirt, blazer, gray flannel trousers, and a red silk bowtie.

  “Good morning, Monsieur Davan,” he announced, and walked eagerly to the table. “Why don’t you sit down?” The old man sat, flourished his napkin, and gestured Ari into a majestic Italianate chair. Ari noticed there were three places set at the table.

  “Are we expecting someone else?”

  “We are. She’ll be here momentarily.”

  Conscious of his rumpled anorak and scruffy hair and beard, he hesitated, then sat. This man had answers he wanted to hear.

  “Did you know there was a problem with the time of death?”

  “Didn’t know it. Surmised it,” the old man said as he put a generous lump of butter on brioche. “What exactly was the discrepancy?”