Elisabetta stood over Krek’s prone, lifeless body. The tail which only moments ago had seemed so terrifyingly menacing now struck her as nothing but an anomalous piece of meat.
She felt her heart thumping wildly and tried to think. She had to sound the alarm. Krek’s telephone beckoned. She reached for it, then froze. What if the line was monitored? Would placing a call alert Krek’s people that she was running free and put Micaela’s life in danger? She had to save her sister first.
The great room had four doors and all of them, she found, were locked from the inside. Krek seemed to have liked his privacy.
Two of the doors along one wall led to different sides of the entrance hall. This was the way she had entered. Elisabetta visualized the route from the basement: up a set of stairs, into a hall off a small study, through a paneled library to the entrance hall and then into the great room. She was about to go into the hall when she heard heavy footsteps approaching. She retreated, closed the door and examined the other two.
The third door led directly to a stairway that went upstairs. The fourth one led to a dim, undecorated hallway – a servant’s passageway, perhaps. The coast seemed clear and she took the passageway.
Micaela shucked off her shoes to enable her to tread more silently and kicked them against the wall. The basement hall stretched a considerable distance without any sign of stairs and she wondered if she should have gone in the other direction. She tried several door latches along the way. Some were locked, others led to dark storage rooms.
Finally a poorly lit flight of stone stairs beckoned. Micaela climbed them gingerly, praying that she didn’t meet anyone along the way.
Elisabetta crept into a dining room with a banqueting table long enough to seat thirty comfortably. Through its leaded windows she could see a young man with a slung rifle patrolling the grounds. She ducked and frog-walked below the window line. At the opposite end of the dining room she stopped to put her ear to a set of double doors. Through the wood she heard the noise of a clattering of pots.
*
Micaela’s stairs took her to a rabbit warren of pantry rooms stocked with canned and dried goods. She found herself looking hungrily at labels and briefly searching in vain for a can opener to get at a tin of peaches.
She heard a gasp behind her and turned to see a huge woman wearing a chef’s apron looking as shocked as she herself must have looked. The woman let out a short shriek and began to flee but Micaela pursued her with the peach tin, laying her low with a single heavy blow to the back of her head. The woman went smashing into a shelf, taking a month’s worth of provisions to the floor with her.
Elisabetta heard a sharp cry and loud noises coming from the kitchen area. She crouched behind a large oriental vase in case someone came flying into the dining room but after several minutes all remained quiet. Cautiously, she entered the kitchen. Seeing nothing, she went through to the pantry where she found a hefty female chef lying unconscious, her chest heaving with grunts and snores. To one side was a flight of stairs to the basement. Elisabetta uttered a quick prayer and made a dash for them, wondering what had befallen the woman.
Micaela left the kitchen and found herself in the entrance hall, a vast expanse of marble and oversized ornamental furnishings. She stole across the hall, trying first one door, which was locked, then another. The second door was unlocked. She eased it open a centimeter at a time, trying to avoid any creaking.
Through the gap she took in a great room with an enormous fireplace before she spotted a half-naked body on the floor.
Micaela slinked inside and quietly locked the door behind her. The body lay still, with a cashmere sweater bunched up around its chest and slacks rolled down around its ankles. She approached it slowly and swore at what she saw.
A long, lifeless tail.
Elisabetta scurried down the basement hall, her habit sweeping the concrete floor. Suddenly something made her stop short. Micaela’s shoes! She cringed in fear but carried on to the room with the crates where she leapt inside, calling for her sister.
The room was in a shambles with planks from a burst crate, tufo earth and ancient bones scattered everywhere.
The sight under the mess of a hand that still had flesh on it almost made her scream but she gasped with relief when she saw a chunky man’s ring on one finger.
Micaela, she thought, where are you and what have you done?
Micaela armed herself with a fireplace poker and made doubly sure that all the doors were locked.
She stared at the phone, wishing that she knew the Slovene number for emergency services. Just then the phone rang and she backed away from it as if it were a coiled viper.
One of the doorknobs squeaked.
She inhaled deeply, unlocked the door, gripped the poker like an ax and raised it high above her head.
The knob turned and the door opened.
At that instant Micaela began her downward swing but at the last second was just able to check it when she glimpsed a nun’s black sleeve.
Zazo started to jog. The traffic was bad at this time of day and he thought he’d do better on foot than taking the bus. He started to form a plan. He’d get his car, head north and drive like hell to Slovenia. With luck he’d get to Bled before midnight. He’d demand to speak with Krek. They’d probably call the authorities and have him arrested but what else could he do? He was a policeman and this was his only lead.
His mobile phone chirped.
He plucked it from his pocket as he ran but came to a dead halt at the sight of the number.
929295.
Krek’s number!
‘Yes?’ he answered cautiously, panting from his running.
The whispering voice he heard was distraught and frantic. ‘Zazo! It’s me!’
His mind disconnected from his body at the sound of Elisabetta’s voice. It seemed to take him an eternity to answer.
‘My God! You’re in Slovenia! You’re with Krek!’
‘How did you know?’
‘Forget about that. Are you okay?’
‘Yes! No! He’s dead. I killed him, Zazo!’
‘Jesus! Is Micaela okay?’
‘Yes, we’re together. I’m sorry I’ve got to whisper but we’re hiding. Krek’s men are everywhere but they don’t know he’s dead.’
‘Okay, listen. If you’re safe where you are, stay put. I’ll call the Slovenian State Police.’
‘No, Zazo. I’ll call them. You’ve got to go to the Vatican.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s a bomb in the Sistine Chapel, I’m sure of it. You’ve got to go there! You’ve got to stop the Conclave!’
Zazo was on Via Garibaldi. Cars and motorbikes were whizzing past. He stared at his phone for a moment to gather his wits and then speed-dialed Lorenzo. He got his voicemail.
He tried Inspector Loreti.
Voicemail there, too.
He was three or four kilometers away from the Vatican – too far to run.
On impulse Zazo stepped into the street, stretched his arms wide and blocked an approaching red Honda 1000. The rider almost lost control and stopped a half-meter before hitting him. The young man ripped off his helmet and began swearing.
Zazo pulled his badge from his back pocket. ‘Police! This is an emergency! I’m taking your bike!’
‘The hell you are!’ the man shouted.
Zazo instinctively reached for his gun but it was back at his flat. Instead he pointed a finger and menaced the Honda’s rider: ‘Do you want to go to jail for obstructing a police operation?’ When the fellow didn’t respond, Zazo pushed him hard with both hands. The bike tipped over and the young man fell to the ground. Zazo righted the Honda, mounted it and put it in gear. All the rider could do was scream at him and toss his helmet uselessly at his back.