Elisabetta’s head snapped back. The pain lasted only a second before her consciousness slipped away.
Zazo slammed the phone down.
‘No?’ his father asked.
‘They wouldn’t do it,’ Zazo said. ‘They routed me to the Deputy Head of the Slovenian State Police. He said that Krek was an important man and he wouldn’t send people out to his house on a whim. There was nothing I could say.’
‘What can we do, then?’
‘I’m going myself.’
‘To Slovenia? It’ll take you all day.’
‘Then I’d better get moving. I’m going back to my flat to get my car. Stay by the phone and call me if you hear anything.’
Micaela heard the cellar door creak open. Mulej was coming in. His jacket was off, his tie loosened. ‘I thought you’d be lonely,’ he said drunkenly.
She got off her cot. She’d already had a good look around for something that could serve as a weapon but there was nothing. No table lamps, no bed or table legs to pull off, no loose pieces of wood, not even a towel rack in the bathroom to wrench from the wall.
She was defenseless.
Mulej pointed at her with a fat finger. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered, shutting the door behind him.
‘What do you want?’ Micaela asked.
‘What do you think I want?’
He came closer.
‘There’s no way,’ she said defiantly.
Mulej didn’t seem concerned by her attitude. ‘Then I’ll shoot you. Krek doesn’t care. You’re no use to him. If you want to stay alive, you’ll cooperate. If not, then it’s not a problem for me.’ He patted his waistband. ‘What have I done with my gun?’ he slurred.
At that, she made a dash for the crates and began to scale them as Elisabetta had done.
Mulej watched in amusement. ‘What are you doing up there?’
‘Isn’t it obvious, you fat pig?’ she called down.
‘That’s hurtful,’ he said. ‘Come on down. Be more obliging.’
‘Screw you.’
‘If you don’t come down I’ll just have to get my gun and shoot you down.’
Micaela kept climbing. A wobbly crate shifted under her weight. She scrambled off it onto the highest one, the crate that Elisabetta had opened. She sat on it and glowered down at Mulej.
‘Okay,’ he said, unsteady on his feet. ‘I’ll be back and then I’ll shoot you.’
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t go!’
‘Why?’
‘Convince me to come down. Be nicer to me.’
He looked confused. ‘Nicer?’
‘Sure. Like a proper gentleman, not a fucking rapist!’
Micaela dug her heels against the wobbly crate and pushed off with all her strength. It creaked and slid and reached a tipping point.
Mulej watched in a drunken, soft-focused way, half grinning, hands on hips, suggesting either that he didn’t understand what was happening or that he thought he might be able to jump out of the way in the nick of time.
Gravity took hold of the crate. Perhaps its descent happened more quickly than he had anticipated.
His mouth opened to say something just before the crate struck him, pulverizing his face and crushing his big frame under a pile of splintered wood, red dirt and Lemures skeletons.
Micaela climbed down and tried to find an arm or a leg that belonged to Mulej under the debris. She dug around and found a wrist.
‘Good,’ she said out loud when she couldn’t detect a pulse.
Elisabetta regained consciousness quickly but it took several moments to get her bearings.
She was lying on her side in the center of the great room. The fire was crackling and popping fiercely. The big television was still showing the crowds at St Peter’s. Her jaw hurt terribly.
Where was Krek?
There was a weight on top of her.
Then she felt herself being turned onto her back.
A hand slipped up under her robes and she smelled the whiskey on her assailant’s breath.
‘I’ve always been curious,’ Krek said, breathing hard, his cheek touching hers. ‘I’ve always wanted to know what nuns wear under these habits.’
Elisabetta didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of weeping or pleading. Instead she squirmed and thrashed like a bucking horse and tried to throw him off.
‘Good, good!’ he shouted. ‘I like this. Fight harder!’
He had her robes up around her waist and as they bunched she felt something sharp against her stomach.
She remembered.
Elisabetta kept fighting Krek off with her left hand while she thrust her right one into the pocket of her tunic. She felt for the object and when she had it in her grasp she eased it open.
Her father’s pipe tool. This simple, comforting little implement.
Krek let up for just a couple of seconds to arch his back and undo his belt and that was all the time Elisabetta needed.
She slid the pipe tool from her pocket and punched it into Krek’s chest with all the strength she had in her arm.
He said nothing. She didn’t know she’d accomplished anything at all until she let her hand go and saw the tool sticking through his sweater, the aerator spike fully buried. There was no blood.
Krek looked down, rolled off Elisabetta and rose to his feet. He looked amused. ‘What is this? What did you do?’
He pulled out the pipe tool and laughed. ‘No, thank you! I smoke cigars!’
To Elisabetta’s horror, he seemed perfectly fine. As she lay on the rug he casually lowered his trousers, enough to reveal his lower back. ‘Have you ever seen one of these?’
He made a half-turn to show her his spine. His tail was thick, twitching like an angry snake. His tattoos were black and crisp, menacing but, to Elisabetta, no longer mysterious.
She started to crawl away.
But as Krek turned back to her something was happening inside his chest.
Blood was leaking from a small wound in his heart into the pericardial sac and when the sac was full it squeezed his heart like an orange in a juicer.
He inhaled sharply and began to wheeze.
Krek clutched at his chest and lifted up his sweater as if that might help give him more air.
He began to teeter, then slowly pitched forward like a felled tree.
He tried to speak but nothing came out.
And just before he crashed down pure rage possessed his face.
Elisabetta had never before seen a look of such hatred.
THIRTY-ONE
IT HAD BEEN a false alarm.
The man apprehended by the Vatican Gendarmes at the metal detector was an off-duty Rome policeman with an unloaded service weapon in his backpack. He’d come to St Peter’s Square to join in the Conclave vigil and had forgotten he’d brought his gun. He was chagrined and apologetic. His identity checked out. The man with him was his cousin.
Hackel waited outside the incident van where the men were being held. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and finally said to Oberst Sonnenberg, ‘I should be getting back to my post at the Chapel.’
‘Yes, go ahead, Oberstleutnant,’ Sonnenberg said. ‘I’ll check in with you soon. I don’t think we’ll be lucky enough to have white smoke tonight, but you never know.’
Hackel saluted and peeled away. When he was out of Sonnenberg’s sight he reversed direction and made for his flat.
*
Micaela briefly considered digging at the rubble to see if the fat corpse had a mobile phone but the task seemed too formidable. She put her ear to the door and listened. The falling crate had made a terribly loud sound. If someone were nearby they would surely have noticed it.
Hearing nothing at the door she opened it a crack, then wide enough to poke her head through. The cellar hall was mostly dark; there was a naked bulb ten meters away. There was no one about. She began to walk toward the light.