Harbor Island Marina
Seattle, Washington
It was after midnight by the time the taxi dropped Ellis at the 80-slip moor between the main city and West Seattle. The water in Puget Sound tonight was as still as it had been on the Virginia lakes Ellis had waterskied on as a teenager. The smell was something else, though. An unpleasant mix of salt and decomposing shellfish from an adjacent mud beach.
A ruddy-faced man who called himself Captain Zack stood before her in yellow rubber waders, a peacoat and a white cap. He slipped Ellis’ $300 into his pocket and began leading her toward his vessel. “We’ll be in a convertible,” he whispered as they walked. “It’s only about 14 nautical miles, but it’ll be cold.”
“How long will it take?” Ellis’ voice seemed to boom throughout the stillness.
“Shhh,” Captain Zack scolded. “Keep it down. Some of these boats are sleepers.”
He pointed to a 19-foot Harbercraft boat with the name Scorpion Water Taxis along the running boards. “That one will run you about $300.”
Ellis threw her hands up in exasperation. “Seriously? For that thing?”
“It’s after midnight, lady. For an extra $200, I’ve got a boat with an aluminum top.”
Ellis shook her head. She had already spent well beyond her means, and the odds that she would get to expense the plane ticket here were dim. “Nothing wrong with a little night air.”
“Suit yourself.”
Captain Zack took them out with an electric motor and then cranked up the diesel engine when they were a reasonable distance from the marina.
As they pulled out into Puget Sound, Ellis saw a vast industrial port where thousands of shipping containers were stacked like multicolored Legos. A row of enormous cranes reminded Ellis of Imperial Walkers from the Star Wars movies. The Seattle skyline was hazy as viewed through the fog, but nevertheless far more impressive than she had imagined.
“Must be gorgeous in the daytime.”
Captain Zack shrugged. “Guess so. Hard to appreciate it when business is slow. Course, this is just my first year running water taxis. I was a commercial angler before that, up in Alaska.”
“How slow is slow?”
“Over the summer, maybe three calls a day. After Labor Day I’m lucky if I get one.”
“Ever thought about changing the business name?”
Captain Zack took his eyes off their course for the first time and looked at Ellis. “Why would I do that? What’s wrong with the name?”
Ellis already regretted saying anything. “The irony doesn’t work for me. Just my opinion.”
“What irony? Me and my wife and our daughter all have November birthdays. We’re all Scorpios. And there you have it. Scorpion Water Taxis.”
It was hard to believe nobody had brought this up before now. “Nobody’s ever mentioned the fable of the frog and the scorpion?”
The captain shook his head again. “Can’t say that they have. What is it?”
Ellis sighed. “The story goes like this. A frog made his money taking animals across the river. He had never turned down a customer. Then one day, here came a scorpion. The frog was afraid, and said he couldn’t take him. The scorpion said, ‘Mr. Frog, I would never sting you. If I did, then we would both drown.’ That seemed rational, so he let the scorpion climb onto his back, and they went out into the river. When they had almost reached the other side, the scorpion stung him. As they started to sink toward what was certain death for both of them, the frog wanted to know why. The scorpion just told him, ‘Sorry, buddy, but you just can’t fight nature.’”
She watched Captain Zack’s face as he absorbed the moral of the story. He was quiet for nearly a minute. “So you’re saying that everyone who’s ever heard that fable thinks about drowning when they hear the name of my water taxi business.”
“Not everyone. But hey, every customer counts, right?”
“The way I see it, the dangerous one in that story is the insect, not the frog. And as the water taxi driver, I’m the frog.”
“True. Well, I’m a Scorpio. And I promise not to sting you.”
He was silent for a few minutes. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Here’s one. How about Titanic Taxis?”
Ellis laughed. At least he was thinking big.
The Apostolic Palace
Vatican City
Father Callahan donned a new white collar for his audience with Heinz Lang. In his years of services to the CIA and the Vatican, the priest had used his cover to gather sensitive information from a litany of powerful people throughout Europe. He had trafficked stolen data and weapons for some of the world’s most lethal operatives. He had eliminated a fanatic who planned to detonate a dirty bomb in St. Peter’s Square. Yet today, in preparation for a meeting with the 85-year-old head of Vatican Intelligence, his forehead was slick with sweat.
He climbed the stairs toward the third floor of the Apostolic Palace, rubbing a dollop of hand sanitizer between his palms and over his lips. After his tense evening with Agent Carver at Le Colonne, he had been up much of the night praying for guidance. Of his vow of poverty, he was sure to be in good standing with God. The entirety of his salary from the CIA and various other clients was piling up in a Swiss bank account, and would be tapped only in retirement, with more than half the funds slated for charity. Regarding his vow of chastity, he also presented a nearly flawless record, with his only slip a heated embrace and brief kiss with a widow he consoled early in his career as a priest. It was his vow of obedience that he had failed in. There was nothing he could do. Obedience to the CIA and obedience to God seemed, at the moment, like conflicting actions.
Although the Jesuits maintained a fortified headquarters nearby known as the Jesuit Curia — which was, coincidentally, less than a city block from Carver’s hotel room at the Palazzo della Rovere — Lang preferred to office in the Apostolic Palace. Citing security concerns, as well as a desire to be as close as possible to serve His Holiness, he had requested an office on the third floor and moved in less than a month after his election.
In a maze of offices, reception rooms and tiny chapels, Callahan spotted Lang’s office by the hallmark Greek IHT letters that were displayed in bronze above the door. The society explained this acronym — which the priest had also seen etched in ink on the bodies of the gunmen in the Rome morgue — as an abbreviation of the Greek spelling of Jesus, iota-eta-sigma. Rumors of alternate meanings had dogged the Jesuits for centuries. Some said that Constantine — the ancient master of the Roman Empire who had first declared Rome to be a Christian city — had created the acronym himself from the phrase In hoc signo vinces, meaning, “In this sign you shall conquer.”
Lang was behind his desk when the priest entered. Wood paneling behind it depicted painted images of the first three superiors general from the 1500s, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Borgia and Everard Mercurian. Lang’s hair looked whiter than when Callahan had last met him, but his frame looked just as fit underneath his black ankle-length cassock. A simple wooden cross dangled from a necklace made of simple leather.
“Your Excellency,” Callahan said with his hands folded before him.
The corners of Lang’s lips curled up. He stood and walked around his desk, held out his right hand and watched as Callahan knelt and kissed the brass ring that bore the Jesuit symbol. It was said that superiors general in recent times had dispensed with this custom among their own kind, deeming it too demeaning for those within Vatican Intelligence.
But Lang was a classicist. During his reign as Jesuit Chief, he had openly yearned for the formal era of his youth, when the church’s exclusive use of Latin in Mass, elaborate liturgical rituals and formal attire added an aura of mystery to the Holy See.