Morgan frowned. “The Italian Embassy?”
“That’s what I said, mate. But don’t expect him to be in a jolly mood. Like I told you, he don’t like to be bothered on Sunday afternoons.”
Outside, Morgan found a dilapidated taxi whose driver, incredibly, knew exactly where the Italian Embassy was located. But what in hell, Morgan wondered, would Donahue be doing there? He was an Irish Free State national traveling on Swiss and Swedish passports, none of which had anything to do with Italy. Just what, Morgan puzzled, could the old Black Irishman be up to?
When he got to the embassy grounds, Morgan found it to be casually guarded by several carabiniere wearing sidearms but without heavier weapons. He was courteously directed toward a small group of people congregating in a flowery ornamental garden near a small chapel. One of the people was Donahue, clean-shaven, wearing a starched white shirt, appearing unarmed, talking to two nuns. When he saw Morgan, he smiled, excused himself, and came over to him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked irritably. Morgan, seeing a priest join the two nuns and go into the chapel, quickly said, “Going to Mass. You?”
“Well, I’m going to Mass too,” the Irishman growled. “But I didn’t expect to see you here.” He squinted suspiciously. “How’d you find the place anyway? It’s the only Catholic church in the whole of Afghanistan.”
“Taxi driver told me.”
“I’ve a feeling you’re lying.”
Morgan shrugged. “Why would I lie?”
“Well, tell me, then, Morgan Tenny, if you go to Mass, who will you pray to?”
“The usual people. Jesus. Blessed Mother Mary—”
“No, no,” Donahue challenged. “I mean, who specifically?”
Morgan caught on quickly and outsmarted him. “St. Philomena,” he said confidently.
“Ah,” said Donahue, surprised, a little chagrined. “The Patroness of Desperate Causes. A good choice.”
Morgan tilted his head. “And you, Donny? Who do you pray to?”
“Me?” The big Irishman shrugged. “I go straight to the top. Jesus himself. I used to pray to St. Michael the Archangel, you know, to protect me in battle. But he let me get shot by an Orangeman in Derry some years ago, so I dropped him. Now it’s between me and Jesus on the Cross. My best hope at this point is to get into purgatory.” He patted Morgan on the shoulder. “Yours too, I’d wager.”
“I’m not even counting on purgatory,” Morgan said. “I expect to go directly to hell.” He put his own hand on Donahue’s shoulder. “And you will, too, Donny. Neither of us will ever see heaven.”
From inside the chapel, chimes sounded. The two men fell in behind others and entered, dipped a fingertip in holy water, walked down the narrow center aisle, genuflected, made the sign of the cross, and entered a pew made of hardwood where they knelt and closed their eyes in prayer.
There was nothing much different about them from the rest of the mixture of U.N. employees, Europeans, and Americans in the congregation, except for the few whispered words they exchanged upon entering.
“Are we set?” Morgan had asked.
“We’re set,” Donahue said.
“Okay,” Morgan told him. “We go day after tomorrow.”
“Tuesday?”
“Tuesday. At noon.”
Their killing schedule was on, now firmed up in the little Catholic chapel.
Morgan spent all day Monday and Monday night with Lee.
During the day they walked around, exploring the parts of the once-great city that were being rebuilt after being pillaged, looted, and desecrated first by Russian soldiers, then by Taliban officials, finally by rogue mercenaries from around the world.
“Not all of it is the wreckage you see around you,” Lee told him. They were having a Western lunch at the new Marco Polo restaurant. All the patrons were Westerners, with not an Afghani to be seen. “I will show you something very beautiful that is still intact after four centuries.”
After lunch she took him there, to Babur’s Gardens, a terraced hillside resplendent with flowers, leading up to a pristine white mosque and a small marble gravestone, and two others on the terraced garden just above it.
“This is the burial place of Babur, who founded the Mogul Empire — not,” she emphasized with a pointed finger, “the dreaded Mongol Empire, which was something altogether different. Of course, it is true that Babur was a great warrior and led his people in overcoming Turks and Indians and many others, but he was also a very gentle man, a poet, a writer of history. Nearly everything good in our culture began under his rule. This,” she drew in the gardens, the mosque, the gravestones with a sweep of her arm, “he designed himself more than four thousand years ago as the final resting place for himself, his wife, and their daughter.”
“It’s very beautiful,” Morgan said, impressed.
But the memory of the place became tainted in his mind later that day when they walked past the ruins of the Kabul Museum and Lee said sadly, “It was once one of Asia’s greatest museums. Now see what unscrupulous men, vulgar men, have reduced it to.”
Men like me, Morgan thought, oddly uncomfortable.
In the evening they had dinner at the elegant Khyber Restaurant, eating a mixture of Western and Afghan foods. They were both aware now that the hours before Tuesday were passing quickly.
“At times like this,” Lee asked, “do you worry much?”
“No,” Morgan said. “Worry is like thinking about a debt you may not have to pay.” It was a lie. He always worried. Before a battle, he felt as if live things were crawling around in his intestines, eating away at them.
Later he told her, “Tomorrow pack only a small bag. Stay home all day. I’ll come for you in the afternoon.” And he asked, “You’re still sure about going?”
“Yes, still sure.”
“You may never see your family again.”
“I never see them now.”
Walking to her apartment after dinner, he admitted, “I lied to you earlier. I do worry.” For some reason he felt sad. “Can we bathe together again tonight?”
Lee touched his face with both palms. “Of course, my love.”
Going into her building, neither of them suspected that they were being watched.
At ten the next morning, Morgan strode into the Dingo Club, two pistols and ammo in a belt around his waist, an Uzi 9mm machine gun and web belt of extra magazines slung over one shoulder, carrying the Mossberg shotgun in one hand.
The club, not yet open, was empty except for Donahue at his usual table. Halfway back to it, Morgan stopped cold. Donahue had a glass and bottle in front of him, telling Morgan that something was very wrong. No professional soldier drank before a fight; you didn’t want alcohol in your system if you might be wounded. Walking on up to the table, Morgan stood there, waiting for Donahue to speak.
“The operation’s off, lad,” the Irishman finally said.
“What’s happened, Donny?”
Donahue looked up at him forlornly, his expression desolate, eyes mournful.
“Your brother Virgil was put on trial at seven o’clock this morning. He was found guilty at eight. And he was hanged at nine.”
Morgan was thunderstruck. “Virgil—? He’s been — hanged?”
“I just got the news a bit ago. I’m sorrier than I can say, lad.”
Shock overwhelming him, Morgan sat down heavily on one of the chairs, laying the Mossberg on the table, dropping the Uzi and web belt to the floor next to him. His lips parted wordlessly, incredulously.
“One of the guards I bribed got word to me,” Donahue said. “I’m truly, truly sorry, Morgan. I really wanted to have a go at this one. With you. Your brother. I was gonna make it my last big raid. I really wanted it—” Tears came to the big Irishman’s eyes. He poured a drink, but did not raise the glass. Instead he angrily propelled both glass and bottle off the table with the sweep of an arm. “Oh, damn them! God damn them to hell!”