“Where I’m taking you, Doctor, is still better than that rat-infested apartment I took you out of.”
“There were no rats in that apartment,” he insisted harshly. Then in a more subdued tone, “They were just big-ass mice.”
The vehicle turned onto a dust-laden driveway between buildings that were cramped with just enough space for single-lane driving, until they came to a lot in front of a two-story rise with barred windows.
“This is it, Doctor.”
Sakharov remained silent, but just for a brief moment. “Are you kidding me?” he finally said. “A bunch of fleas wouldn’t live here. I think I’m entitled to a little luxury for what I’m about to do for you, don’t you think? I want to stay in one of those fancy hotels we passed a while back with caviar and an all-you-can-drink bar. That’s what I want.”
“What you want is of no concern to me, Doctor. This is just a place to lay your hat for a moment while I’m in Islamabad finishing up business. And then off to greater comforts come the day after tomorrow.”
Sakharov could do nothing but relinquish his bull-headed stance.
“Why does everything in this country smell like ass?” said the old man.
Al-Ghazi clenched his jaw, fighting for calm. The old man continued to test his patience.
The moment the old man opened the door he clearly noted that the room was small with horrible ventilation, the air so hot and stale that it hung like a pall. On the floor was a thin mattress with a blanket that had seen better days, its edges tattered like the ends of a flag that had waved itself ragged with the course of an unyielding wind. And the walls were cracked enough to reveal the mud bricks underneath. Even the roof bowed downward in threatening manner.
“You do take me to the nicest places,” Sakharov commented, shaking his head disapprovingly.
Al-Ghazi dropped Sakharov’s bag to the floor with a loud bang. Apparently he’d had enough of the old man’s ravings of discontent.
“Regardless, Doctor,” his tone held an edge of its own to it, “here you will stay and here you will rest. Come tomorrow and everyday thereafter, there will be no time for leisure. This is it.”
The old man chortled. “I had better accommodations in Vladimir Central.”
Al-Ghazi closed his eyes and clenched his jaw once again; the muscles in the back working like cords. And then calm overtook him, his facial semblance taking on the features of gentle repose.
“I see it’ll take patience to deal with you,” he told him.
“Whatever.” The old man shuffled his way across the floor and to the window, looking through the bars at a dirt lot. Children played with sticks and a ball, kicking up dust in their wake. And the old man now had regrets. What have I done?
“Doctor Sakharov?”
The voice sounded thin and tinny, as if spoken from a great distance.
“Doctor?”
“What.”
“Perhaps you could go over your notes to better acquaint yourself with the technology you have been away from for so long.”
“The science is up here,” he said, tapping the tip of his forefinger against his temple. “It never went away. It never goes away.”
“Then you can replicate your findings of what you did in Russia in the Alborz?”
Sakharov turned on al-Ghazi. “I can do this with my eyes shut,” he answered. “From the first day I started my sentence in Vladimir to the day you showed up at my apartment, I have thought nothing other than nanotechnology or how I could make it better.” He took an awkward gait closer to the Arab. “All those years you reached me in Vladimir Central with letters and messages kept my hopes alive that someday I would be granted the opportunity to ply my trade once again. And for that I thank you. But don’t you ever question or interpret the validity of my skills as a nanotechnologist again. Duplicate it I will, as promised for my early release.”
Al-Ghazi nodded, somewhat taken aback by the old man’s power to intimidate. “You do realize that we will be time restricted.”
“If you say you have the equipment as you claim, then time won’t be an issue. I simply need to achieve the methods to program the fullerene molecules to nullify their lifespan by half upon every replication, until they fade out of existence completely.”
Al-Ghazi didn’t have a clue as to what Sakharov was talking about.
“Yeah, well — I can tell by the stupid look on your face that you don’t know what I’m talking about,” said the old man.
If Sakharov had a skill, thought al-Ghazi, it was getting under a man’s skin.
“Rest,” he finally told him. “Food will come momentarily.”
“Food? We ain’t talking baboon eyes or anything like that, are we? No monkey nuts or something that’ll make my stomach crawl.”
Al-Ghazi, for the moment, really had to wonder if it was worth keeping this man alive. As much as he wanted to say “no” and pass a sharp blade across Sakharov’s throat, he had no alternative but keep the old man upright. If nothing else, he considered, keeping him alive was imperative.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sole distinction of being the smallest country in the world belongs to Vatican City, which is roughly the size of a golf course. It also serves as a sovereign state catering to billions across the globe as the religious hub for Catholicism with its focal point the Basilica, which bears the designed floor plan of a Latin cross. Beneath it lays necropolis, the ancient city of the dead that was pioneered during Rome’s Imperial times, and ultimately discovered by serendipity in 2003 when the earth was lifted to create a parking lot. Thereafter excavation began, the groundwork opening a few years later to restricted parties who were allowed to venture into the tombs by invitation only.
Those without restriction, however, were few.
Deep within the necropolis was the base command of the Servizio Informazioni del Vaticano, the SIV, or the Vatican Intelligence Service. Since the Church had diplomatic ties with more than ninety percent of the countries worldwide, it was recognized as one of the most esteemed agencies in the world, rivaling Mossad and the CIA.
In a chamber beneath necropolis and south of the Egyptian Tomb, and restricted to all parties with the exception of the SIV and certain religious VIP’s, lay a high-tech room behind walls of reinforced glass. Against the entire opposite wall hung large, high-definition monitors situated before computer consoles on tiered floors. And the lighting was constantly subdued, enabling the LED vision of the screens to be more crystalline in effect.
Those who manned the screens and tendered the consoles were not civilians at all, but Jesuit priests who were given the sole tasks to monitor hotspots across the world, especially the insurgencies that were brewing in North Africa and the Middle East.
On the screen was an aerial image of Jerusalem, most notably the Temple Mount. People milled about, their daily routine nominal beneath the desert sun as the satellite zoomed in with such clarity and proximity that their identities could be discerned with facial recognition software.
“It’s as if nothing ever happened,” said Gino Auciello. The Jesuit was tall, thin and wiry with shock-white hair that was conservatively cut. His face was smooth and unlined, his complexion the color of tanned leather. And though he was pious to the core, he was also a scholar from Harvard University who graduated from the School of Theology, with minors in the sciences of politics and world studies. And it was this combination that suited him well for the role as the assistant director of the SIV.
Beside him stood Father John Essex, a priest who got his foothold of learning in London, and progressed into the SIV for his economical patience regarding his penchant to gather and analyze pertinent data in regards to Vatican interests. He was short, stocky and well conditioned, the Jesuit often serving as a boxing coach for wayward children at the Boys’ Center in Rome. With obsidian hair, ruler straight teeth, a Roman nose and cerulean blue eyes, John always drew the appreciable eye of the female constituency within the administration. “Nothing seems to ever happen,” he finally answered, “because to them, nothing did. It's unlikely the government is going to inform them that the most jeweled treasure of our time was stolen from them beneath their very noses.”