‘Yeah, I know,’ Eddie said gloomily. ‘She could be half a mile away. Simeon was going to use a drone.’
‘That might not work here. The cops have sharpshooters on the rooftops, and Massimo — he’s in charge of security,’ she explained, glancing at the rangy Italian as he spoke with one of his officers — ‘told me they’ve been prepared for potential drone attacks for a few years now. So she’s probably hiding in the crowd. But,’ she added with a sigh, ‘it’s a big-ass crowd.’
Massimo Rosetti gestured for her to join him, his expression suddenly excited — and tense. ‘Hold on,’ she told Eddie, going to the Italian. ‘What is it?’
‘A guard saw her,’ he replied, pointing towards one of the checkpoints at the perimeter of the seating.
‘What, she’s in here?’ Nina exclaimed.
‘Yes, but that means she cannot get out.’
‘She doesn’t want to get out. I told you, this’ll be a suicide attack — she thinks she’s one of the Witnesses from Revelation, who both have to die before the prophecy can come true. And the other one just did!’
Rosetti gave orders over a walkie-talkie. ‘I have told my men to look for her in the seats,’ he said, starting for the checkpoint. Nina followed, limping from her leg wound. ‘Quietly, so they do not alarm her — or anyone else. If a panic starts, many could be killed.’
‘Many could be killed anyway,’ she pointed out before returning her attention to the phone. ‘Okay, Eddie, I’ll call you back. Love you.’
‘I love you too,’ he replied. ‘And the baby!’
She smiled, then pocketed the phone. ‘Do we know what she’s wearing?’
The Italian shook his head. ‘That will not help us.’
‘But if he recognised her—’
‘That is why we are going to talk to him.’
They made their way down an aisle between the banks of seats. Nina became acutely aware that Anna knew her by sight. But if she had been spotted, there was no sign, the crowd watching the Pope with rapt attention.
They reached the checkpoint, a booth with an airport-style scanner to check the personal items of those entering. Two uniformed guards manned it. Rosetti spoke to one, frowning before turning to Nina. ‘He remembers the statue on the X-ray, but not the woman carrying it,’ he said, annoyed.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
The young guard shrugged helplessly. ‘She was a nun.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘A nun!’
Nina looked back, seeing more habits than she could count. ‘Well that’s really useful!’
‘We must find her,’ said Rosetti. ‘Dr Wilde, you will recognise her if you see her?’
‘Yeah, and she’ll recognise me! If she realises we’re looking for her, she might release the gas.’
‘But you say she will release it anyway, so we must try.’ Transmitting more instructions, he led her back up the aisle.
Nina looked along each row as she passed, but the sheer number of people was visually overwhelming even when she tried to focus solely on the nuns. ‘Great, it’s like finding one particular penguin in an entire colony.’
Rosetti stopped to speak to a small group of his subordinates, who rapidly dispersed, giving orders through their own radios. ‘Every man I have here is now looking for her,’ he told Nina. ‘But if you could also help…’
‘I’ll do what I can.’ She scanned the crowd, wondering where to start.
From the front, she decided. Cross’s cult considered the Catholic Church a heretical organisation, which would make its leader practically the Antichrist in their eyes. While it made no difference in terms of the prophecy from Revelation whether he died or not, the Pope would almost certainly be Anna’s primary target: his murder would be a massive blow to the faith. Nina had seen how quickly the gas spread, but if Anna were too distant, the pontiff’s staff could still get him to safety.
So where was she? The first five rows, ten? The stage was at the top of the broad steps outside the basilica, at least seventy feet from the front row of seats. Movement above caught her eye: fluttering flags atop the building…
The wind. It was blowing roughly south-east, away from the Pope’s position. If Anna was too far back, the breeze would slow the gas cloud, or even stop it from reaching him.
She tried to picture the square from above. When Miriam had broken the angel at the Mission, the initial release of gas had been extremely forceful, mushrooming outwards for about a hundred feet before the wind finally caught it. The breeze was more gentle here, so assume a radius of a hundred and fifty feet to be sure of reaching the stage…
The first twelve rows, she estimated, and in the sections of seating to either side of the broad central aisle. If her assumptions were correct. She could be wrong — about how the gas would expand, about Anna’s plan.
But it was all she had. ‘I’m going to check these two blocks of seats,’ she told Rosetti, pointing them out.
‘You think she is there?’
‘Maybe. But it’s just a guess.’
‘I will come with you,’ he said, following her.
‘You do that,’ she said distractedly, her gaze already sweeping the ranks of visitors. The seating was divided into eight rectangular blocks across the width of the square, around twenty chairs to each of their twelve rows. That meant almost five hundred people in the two-block section to which she had narrowed her search. Even limiting it to nuns alone left over a hundred suspects. And would she pick out Anna? With her hair covered, a pair of glasses could be enough of a disguise…
She and Rosetti reached the front of the crowd and moved across it. Nina surveyed the guests, slowing to check each face beneath a headscarf or habit. Annoyed glares came back at her; some not welcoming the attention, others simply irritated that she was obstructing their view.
She crossed the first block to the central aisle. ‘Have you seen her?’ Rosetti asked quietly.
‘No, but I couldn’t get a good look at all of them.’ Some nuns had been obscured behind taller audience members, or had their faces turned away.
They crossed the aisle, Nina glancing sideways to see the Pope still delivering his sermon. A message crackled through the policeman’s radio. ‘More men are coming from the rest of the square to help us,’ he said.
‘Tell them to hurry up.’ Nina’s nervousness was rising; the attack could happen at any time. She looked over the next sea of faces. It seemed that half of them were nuns. Young, old, fat, thin, white, black, and all points in between, but the one she wanted to find was nowhere to be seen…
Her eyes met a nun’s, just for a moment — and the woman hurriedly turned away.
Nina flinched with a shock of adrenalin… and fear. ‘Have you seen her?’ Rosetti asked urgently.
‘I don’t know.’ She looked back at the nun, but saw only the top of her head: she had leaned forward as if picking something up from the ground. ‘It could be her, about eight rows back.’
The Italian stared into the crowd. ‘Which one? I can see ten nuns around there.’
‘The one who’s trying to keep her face hidden!’ Nina increased her pace, eyes locked on the hunched figure as she reached the aisle and turned down it. The woman in question was just under halfway along the row — and as Nina drew level, she saw that the nun was pulling something from a small bag.
The angel.
‘Shit, it’s her!’ she cried. A few visitors reacted with offended shock at the obscenity, but she didn’t have time to worry about wounded feelings. ‘She’s got the statue! There, there!’
Rosetti pushed down the row, drawing his sidearm as he shouted a warning in Italian—
The statue was not the only thing Anna had taken from the bag.
Her arm whipped up — and Rosetti staggered, a slim black throwing knife jutting from his throat. He fell heavily on to an elderly man beside Anna. The other people nearby were momentarily stunned, then the screams started.