Now only roaches and pain remained.
Zia would hang him within the month.
3
PALACE OF THE PATRIARCH
The Patriarch of Venice had a kindly, bespectacled face, a brisk, waddling walk and though of average height, seemed shorter. He hurried down the calle toward the Piazza San Marco, enjoying the exercise and the freedom of being alone. He’d forsaken his cardinal’s red for the cassock of a bagarozzi because he hated ostentation, deplored the pomp and wealth of the Church. A shopkeeper called out to him, ‘Buon giorno, Eminenza,’ and received a ready smile and wave.
A prominent businessman stopped him, longing for inner contact. Then, constrained by diffidence, talked of the mundane — about local building restrictions that made it impossible to get things fixed or changed.
Luciani nodded and smiled, the lenses of his glasses glinting. ‘Would you prefer a hundred and seven churches, half of them closed… San Marco sinking into the sea… a congregation of tourists and old people…?’
‘What can one do? We live in a museum.’
‘One does what one can. But one tries to be all one can.’
‘Difficult,’ the man sighed.
‘For me, too.’ The gentle smile. ‘But I’ll keep trying if you will.’
Near the loggia, an old hunched woman, head raised to compensate, recognised the incognito cardinal and shuffled forward to pluck his sleeve. He spoke to her quietly, fumbled inside his coat, pressed bank notes into her hands, blessed her then walked on. She stared after him, astonished, blinded by tears.
He almost skipped across the great square, feeling lighter than a bird, wishing he could sell the palace that entombed him and give the money to some South American church.
At 1.30 pm, after his last appointment, he walked down the echoing passage to his suite. Though sixty-five he still rose at 4.30 am and napped briefly in the afternoon. He removed his shoes with relief, settled back on the bed, thinking about the case of possession reported by nuns in Treviso — a child who seemed the centre of strange phenomena. Ornaments flew off shelves, furniture shook. The tales of repressed and superstitious sisters or something more?
A knock.
‘Come in.’
His private secretary entered. He’d replaced the previous one for harping on Church politics — a subject he detested. The man bowed his apologies. ‘We’ve heard the Holy Father’s worse. He’s semi-conscious. It may only be hours.’
Luciani nodded. It had come. And he would be obliged to join the conclave that elected a new pope. At least there was one thing to be glad about. They’d never choose him.
Twenty days later, after one day’s voting, the conclave elected the Patriarch of Venice.
‘We felt as if our hands were being guided as we wrote his name on the paper,’ Cardinal Hume later remarked.
The bewildered pope said, ‘May God forgive you,’ and often said during his papacy, ‘Why on earth did they ever choose me?’
And once he said, ‘I would have done better to say no.’
4
REQUISITION FOR TWO DEATHS
She had the mind of a company receiver, the heart of a leopard seal and the body of a movie star, which she was. She spoke in Urdu, because it was safer. ‘So where and how do they kill us?’
The afternoon sun bathed the bed. Cain stroked the coffee-toned skin of her bare breast. ‘Tomorrow, we take the TGV back to Paris and book into a small hotel in Rue Vernet, close to the Arc de Triomphe. It has a glass-walled lift. Next day, we take the lift down to the lobby and they hit us with AKRs — make it look authentic by shattering the glass.’ Her hand moved down his body. The sex was still a comfort but after five years in Pakistan, they were exhausted by the project and each other. Despite edict eight — OCCUPATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE NO LESS FULFILLING.
She said, ‘How will it work?’
‘One covers the door. One stays as back-up in the car. Ali makes it look good but fires between us. As we fall, Murchison fires from the stairwell and wounds the man by the door. Ali gets away with the wounded man who’s legit. He’ll confirm the hit.’
‘Elaborate.’
‘Be an item on TV that night: Lollywood movie queen and director boyfriend killed by hard-liners in retaliation for steering Zia toward elections.’
‘Will it stick?’
‘Shaded truth’s convincing. Then — debrief and we’re clear — praise Allah, the beneficent, the compassionate.’
‘And Rahib Badar again becomes Ray Cain, the westerner with shady skin.’ She touched his jaw. ‘You can grow your Antarctic beard again.’
‘And you can take up with a stud in Baloachi robes, observe mayoon, suffer two days of ceremonies, gold brocade, full bit, have five children and…’
‘Patriarchal bastard.’ She poked his ribs. ‘I think you’re a closet fundamentalist.’
They had been loyal to each other as in edict ten: CONSISTENCY IS THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT. An unorganised relationship could be fatal to others in the team. He slid back between her legs, resumed the drowsy thrusts she liked. She murmured, ‘After a time, you could miss your dear Rehana.’
The sun had gone from the room. She looked beautiful asleep, like a child. He dressed, gently closed the door, descended the narrow stairs, needing to see the cathedral, the miracle, again. They’d toured the crypt that morning but missed the roof tour. Despite edict twelve, PERSPECTIVE IS STRENGTH, the astonishing building had bored her.
Long shadows stretched across the square. He strolled to the main doors, a fortyish man with a slightly uneven step — compensation for the lack of three toes on his left foot. His darker skin emphasised his matinee-idol looks, the intelligent eyes, the tinge of grey at his brow. He ignored the tourists. Beside Chartres they didn’t exist. He sensed he was being trailed by Murchison or Zuiden from Department S. The S operatives, nicknamed ‘surgeons’, handled assassinations while D, the ‘dentists’, his own outfit, replaced people. Usually they worked independently. But sometimes S assisted D. He needed the surgeons now for security, extraction and cleaning. Still, he disliked having Zuiden help him wind up the assignment. Although the swine was a top man now — Grade Three — lost toes weren’t easy to forgive.
The cathedral’s exterior was a cosmos — alchemy, astrology, its endless elaborations a contrast to the soaring bare interior. Beyond the building he visualised the cathedrals of Antarctica. Ramparts of ice with deep fissures of turquoise and green — some beached with sea-scoured bases, some thundering as they calved.
There, implacable nature. Here, the immortal work of mortals. Vaults, flyers, arcane geometry seeking the essence of God in stone. Unable to reconcile the two, he moved to the carvings near the left-hand door.
Before him, a teaching designed to last for a thousand years. The precise positioning of the sword haft, the folds of material across the belly. Hara no aru hito. An invocation moulded in rock.
Someone behind him. ‘Rahib Badar?’
He half turned.
Slowly.
Not Murchison or Zuiden.
Where the hell were they?
He surveyed the stranger — a dark man in western clothes, neck bulging from a collarless shirt. Stubble. Liquid eyes. He knew these third-world inter-services types. Young fanatics, swamped by testosterone, who confused murder with a crusade.
So now he was flying solo and about to be hit by a pro. He’d been trained to face such things. But why here? Couldn’t life, this once, leave him alone?