Noises from the staff wing. People were awake. They’d be trying to switch on lights, and the cook would be telling them to stay put.
Now, the dangerous part — the hall, the checking of rooms. He waited, listening.
The sudden racket of the heavier weapon, then the stutter of another P90. A firefight downstairs. Stromlo had engaged.
It stopped.
So who was dead?
He waited a minute until convinced the second floor was clear, then ran to the head of the back stairs.
A body floating in the pool.
He gave the agreed two-note whistle.
A three-note reply.
Stromlo’s all-clear.
Cain came down, stepping over the body on the stairs and found the priest by the gym entrance — wearing a captured NVG.
Cain said, ‘Two my end. Three down.’
‘Three this end. Took out two.’
‘That’s five. Where’s your second?’
Stromlo jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
The fifth man must have checked the gym on his way in. He was on his knees, dangling from the cord of a pull-down lats machine. The heavy weights on the end of the slide had cut the cord into his neck. His protruding eyes and tongue showed it hadn’t been quick. A small dumbbell was near him on the floor. Stromlo had stunned him with it, then entangled him in the machine and watched the unconscious man strangle.
The priest held up the man’s transceiver. ‘Still must be one man with the transport. Mine, va bene?’
‘Be my guest.’
Outside, the first thin light suffused the sky. The vehicle was far down the road — a windowless van with a driver behind the wheel, a driver preoccupied with his earphones and red-light VDU because he wasn’t getting feedback. They discarded their scopes and managed to close without alerting him. Cain covered the rear doors and left the sacrifice to the priest.
When he heard the P90 stutter, Cain strafed the back of the van. Then the Great One fell back and covered him as he went in.
There was no one in the back. Just comms equipment, gun racks, a bench over ammo boxes. Ahead, framed by the blood-soaked windshield was the slumped form of the driver. Arterial blood pumped into the top of his scalp, which was upended like a bowl.
Cain got out of the van. ‘Three-all.’
The priest removed his blood-spattered balaclava. The dark oval around his eyes, now exposed against the pallid face, made him resemble a starved panda. ‘I’ve waited years for this.’
‘But they didn’t kill you. Tough.’
‘All the same. A gratifying night.’
They shifted the bits of the driver into the back, wiped the worst of him off the seats.
Cain wiped a clear circle in the windscreen and drove the van toward the house. Stromlo, sitting beside him, hummed to himself, vastly pleased.
‘Ever seen Titus Andronicus?’ Cain glanced at him sardonically.
‘I haven’t had that pleasure.’
‘You’d enjoy it, I’m sure.’
The sauna door was still shut.
Cain called, ‘You can come out now.’ He opened the door.
Jane stood rigid just inside, the machete held high above her shoulder, while the other two cowered in the corner of the topmost bench.
‘All secured, dear ladies,’ Stromlo crooned. He walked to the sprung back door. ‘I’ll tell cook we’re mopping up.’
The family crept out to see the hunched shape in the reddening pool, the garrotted man’s purple-blue face, the bloodied figure sprawled on the stairs.
The sisters shrieked. Nina screamed, crouched, covered her eyes.
The surface of the pool heaved. The body floating in it was inert but not the water. What looked like a long ripple began at the far end then advanced, growing in height, making the dangling carcass bob. It gathered in strength until it slapped against the tiles beside them. Water rose up, slopping over the rim. Cain watched incredulous. There had been nothing to cause it at all.
He said to Eve, ‘Get her into the lounge room. Stay there till we’ve cleaned up.’
‘She’d be better in her room.’
‘I wouldn’t go upstairs.’
She looked aghast.
It took an hour to get the bodies in the van — and EXIT alerted for the pick-up.
The blood-covered Cain clumped back into the dining room to find the family huddled over the fire beside empty mugs of tea.
He said wearily, ‘All back to normal.’
A wrenching sob from Eve.
Jane glared up at him. ‘Normal?’
‘Well, until they regroup and try again.’
‘Just… get us out of here.’
28
MORTAR
It was a week since the switch. As usual the transition was uncanny. The people at the dinner table seemed the same, even to Cain.
There were subtle differences certainly. The new Eve couldn’t quite match the original’s satin voice. The new Nina acted sulkily pubescent but at heart was rather prim. The new Jane was identical but lacked her counterpart’s practicality.
They didn’t talk shop, kept the conversation general, discussed the mess in Yugoslavia, the skinheads in Germany.
After the meal came the evening routine. Stromlo handled the sked while Cain checked the grid alarms. Their function was now different — not to protect the duplicate family but to make it seem nothing had changed.
Cain strolled to the priest’s room. He was used to the old fraud now, even fond of him. ‘Still no word?’
The Great One shook his head and packed the headset back into the radio. ‘I hope they haven’t forgotten us because, without advance warning, we’re dead.’
‘Right. Next time they’ll probably have a thermal imager. We have to be gone before they come.’
They knew their base was compromised. As they discussed the sabotage of EXIT again, Stromlo felt under his bed for a wrapped bottle. ‘Would you care for a little…?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t mind if I go ahead?’ He didn’t bother with a glass.
‘So, you’re positive the Vatican’s not behind it?’
‘Yes. The Curia needs the status quo.’
‘Is the CIA after Stern?’
‘They don’t know we have the pope or Stern.’
‘So tell me about Stern.’
The priest swigged again. ‘There was a certain organisation doing typhus inoculations in Manila. They added hormones to the injections. Also a trial done in Angola. Stern was involved. But his new project… You’re trying to pump me, Ray. I’ve said enough.’ He frowned and changed the subject. ‘The duplicate Nina’s… effective, don’t you think?’
Cain smiled. ‘Great arse. Fancy her?’
A pained look. ‘Celibacy is the Church’s gift.’
‘And misogyny the nature of the priesthood?’
‘No. Because the Church is the bride.’
‘Ah!’ He enjoyed these jousts. ‘So Latin American priests commit adultery?’
‘Your facile mind will hang you yet.’ Stromlo’s heavy sigh. ‘John Paul himself said that we have made of sex the only sin — when it could be the least of sins.’
‘Wonderful. He said that?’
Stromlo nodded sagely. ‘”Where does the bedroom end and the stars begin?” I quote the great Drummond de Andrade. What a pope I destroyed! God forgive me!’ He rocked with remorse. ‘What a pope! God! Oh God!’
‘I’m sure you’ll be forgiven. After all, they say God’s a Brazilian.’
‘Deus caritas est. So what else could he be?’ The priest-assassin shut his eyes. ‘Still, my best hope is annihilation — that afterwards there’s nothing.’
‘Life isn’t simple. Why should death be?’
Stromlo’s tortured look. ‘Why are you cruel to me? I crave not to believe. And you still do?’