He felt a painless pressure on the back of his hand that made him open it, involuntarily, and release the cell phone into another hand, Rafael’s. He hadn’t heard him come up.
‘How dare you?’ cried Phelps, reddening. He couldn’t tolerate this man anymore. He hadn’t the least respect for people or for age, which surely deserves dignity.
Rafael threw the phone out in an arc that was lost in the darkness of the night. It fell into the waters of the Channel, causing an inaudible splash confused with the noise of water thrown up by the prow of the ferry.
‘Are you crazy? How dare you?’ Phelps was possessed, looking at the water where the voice of the monsignor had just drowned.
Rafael looked at him with that indifference characteristic of his style. He said nothing, unaffected by his companion’s anger.
‘I… I… I…’ Phelps insisted in his shocked litany.
He regained his customary calmness. His reproaches dried up quickly before his tongue was tired. The flush of fury would certainly have been worth seeing, if the light had been favorable, since even a gentleman like Phelps had the right to be carried away by passion by an insult like this. Or no? It was a cell phone, his own, and he was in the middle of a conversation. There could be no greater insult.
Rafael put a hand on Phelps’s shoulder and looked him in the eye seriously. ‘Turn the other cheek,’ he said. ‘Turn the other cheek.’ He returned to the bridge to resume his conversation with the captain.
Exactly fourteen minutes later, Rafael was sitting behind the wheel of the Mercedes van again, and Phelps, silent, in the passenger seat, prepared to continue on to the unknown destination, unknown at least to all the Phelpses of the world.
Phelps consulted his watch, which Rafael hadn’t yet thrown overboard, or in this case out the window. It was still on Roman time, an hour ahead of old Albion, an easy calculation. It was 3:03 in the morning. The night was half over, as was his anger. If things continued like this, he was going to lose respect for his calling, dishonor Almighty God the Father, and slap this Rafael in the face… or maybe it would be better not to start down that road. Surreptitiously he prayed his bad thoughts away. It was incredible what this man managed to arouse in him. The road in front was deserted, marked by the light poles on the sides. Only the noise of the van’s engine disturbed the harmony of the night.
‘When are you going to stop treating me like a puppet?’ he asked finally in a calm tone to try to get some information in another way, although it was clear nothing mattered to this man driving the Mercedes.
‘I’m not treating you like a puppet,’ Rafael answered without taking his eyes off the road.
‘No?’ For a moment he lost his self-control, and this negative reply left his lips louder than he intended. He continued to appeal to calm to reunite his efforts and take back control of his body and spirit. ‘I don’t know where we’re going or who the corpses are we’re transporting or what’s going to happen to them. It’s a sacrilege, you ought to know, to profane corpses in this way. They deserve eternal rest.’ He enumerated with his fingers, remembering not to raise his voice. How could Rafael maintain that cool posture? That was another thought that went through his mind and upset his serenity. It was irritating. ‘You had the gall to throw my phone in the Channel.’ Here his voice began to change. Simply remembering brought back his anger. ‘I can’t tolerate this situation any longer.’ He vented his feelings. ‘I feel lost, I don’t know what I’m doing here… I want to help, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know how.’ He sighed. ‘If you want to know the truth, I feel like a prisoner. I’m in your custody, and I don’t know why, or what punishment awaits me.’
A sudden slamming on of brakes scared away Phelps’s thoughts and left him shaking with anxiety. The van stayed perfectly stopped in place.
‘What’s going on?’ Phelps asked, his instincts awake, looking around on all sides.
Rafael was imperturbable and calm.
‘Is something happening?’ Phelps wanted to know, unable to make out anything out of the normal.
‘I’m waiting,’ Rafael declared.
‘Waiting for what?’
‘For you to get out of the van.’
Phelps stared at Rafael in astonishment.
‘You want me to get out of the van?’
‘No. It’s you who feels like a prisoner. I’m showing you that you can go whenever you consider it convenient.’
The two men looked at each other in silence for a few moments. Rafael was not a man to leave things unresolved. When there were doubts, he preferred to clarify some and leave others to develop further. The message he wanted Phelps to get was that this mission would go on with or without him.
‘Keep going,’ Phelps decided.
‘Is that your wish?’ Rafael pressured him, since that would ensure that the problem remained resolved.
‘Go on,’ Phelps repeated.
The Mercedes accelerated in the direction of London. The tension in the cab of the van had disappeared.
‘You’ll know at the proper time why you’re with me. Only then will I tell you what you have to do. As far as the rest, it’s better you don’t know, for your own safety.’
‘Why so much secrecy?’
‘It’s not my part to explain all the ins and outs of the operation.’
‘But what’s all this for? Are we following something or someone?’
Rafael left Phelps’s question hanging, a suspenseful pause to arouse his curiosity, common to all master manipulators.
A phone call broke the silence. It could only be Rafael’s cell phone, since Phelps’s lay on the bottom of the Channel. Rafael looked at his watch, and, for the first time, Phelps saw him show doubt. Whoever it was had some effect on him.
‘Yes.’ He finally paid attention.
Sixty-one seconds passed in which he didn’t pronounce one word, but his indifferent attitude abandoned him. His frown revealed his tension. He’s human after all, Phelps thought.
‘You don’t have more information?’ Rafael asked over the phone. He listened to the reply. ‘I know who can help us. I’ll take care of it… if we’re still on time.’ He disconnected the phone. Phone conversations between people like this are always as brief as possible.
Something had disturbed Rafael; his indifference seemed to have vanished. His mind was an engine working at high speed. Even Phelps could understand that.
‘You didn’t finish telling me,’ Phelps interrupted when he thought enough time had passed. ‘Are we following someone?’
‘John Paul the Second,’ Rafael answered dryly.
‘What?’
29
This bedroom community on the outskirts of Washington, DC, can influence everything that happens in the world. It’s like a vital organ of society that, if functioning badly, can cause great problems. We are speaking of Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. Here is where intelligence information is gathered from all over the world and presented to the political powers of Washington, when justified.
Invented or trustworthy, fictional or real, the truth is that the confidential reports that go out from here have the power to start wars where they don’t yet exist, suppress any political movement, here or on foreign soil, or modify the routine of thousands of people at a specific point on the globe, only because, according to preliminary studies, it could benefit the American economy.
Nevertheless, after sixty years, the company was beginning a new era. Other institutions, in particular the NSA, the National Security Agency, for many years called the No Such Agency, uses technology that always reaches farther and faster than the human resources the CIA relies on, contributing to its decline and even discredit. Besides, machines are always more trustworthy. The age of spies has changed suddenly and without warning.