Two bursts of laughter filled the small room, completely out of place given their situation. Fear can even make a person laugh.
The sound of the lock turning put a stop to the laughing. Seconds later the light from the hallway filled the dispensary and blinded Simon and Sarah, who blocked the light with their hands.
‘It’s nice to see you feeling so good,’ James mocked them from the door, where they made out his silhouette. ‘Get up. It’s time.’
Simon swallowed saliva. His heart still went cold when he saw this cool killer who looked at him with curt indifference.
Without waiting for them to obey, James yanked Simon up brutally by his shirtfront. James had executed his job in an exemplary way. Now he wanted to make his scorn for Simon plain.
If Simon wanted to fool himself into imagining a sweeter scenario, a joke in tremendously bad taste, maybe, but still forgivable, two hard punches James had the pleasure of giving him in the face drove that fantasy out of his mind. Simon swallowed his impotent rage in silence. When all was said and done, James had the gun pointed at the head of his ex-lover.
‘Leave him alone,’ Sarah cried, calling attention to herself.
The result was immediately visible. James turned on her with contempt. He looked her up and down in such a hateful way that Sarah lowered her head, nauseous. James took a short step toward her and put the barrel of the pistol under her chin, forcing her to lift her head. A bad man knew how to recognize the hate that emanated from her eyes.
‘Your time has come,’ he said scornfully. He followed up with a punch to Sarah’s face that split her lip.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Simon immediately cried. ‘Without the gun you wouldn’t be so brave, you bastard.’ Indignation overwhelmed him.
‘Simon, shut up,’ Sarah ordered. One should never irritate men like these, especially James, who seemed very temperamental. ‘Please, Simon.’
James returned slowly to Simon. He put the gun in his back pocket, covering it with the lower part of his jacket so Sarah wouldn’t get crazy ideas. He opened his arms, showing off.
‘No gun,’ he said sarcastically. ‘And now what are you going to do?’
Simon stayed leaning against the wall, in the same position James had left him. James paused for a few more seconds, awaiting Simon with his enormous open arms.
He ended with a guttural chuckle, triumphant. He had dared, and he had won, as he knew he would one way or another.
‘You’re a little faggot, Simon,’ he offered with a self-satisfied laugh over his little joke.
Simon just lowered his eyes. Not looking at James laughing in his face meant he could be laughing at anything. At least he could give himself that freedom. All he wanted to do was cry.
James interrupted his own laugh, almost mechanically, as if it were something he fabricated, manipulated, an actor improvising.
‘Enough joking around. Come on. In front of me,’ James ordered in a voice of military command.
Simon and Sarah could do nothing more than obey. Even so, they were pushed down the hallway, not necessarily to make them walk faster, but simply to show who was giving orders… and who had to follow them.
They advanced along the dim corridor, their faint hope disappearing with each step. The jabs in the ribs, to one and then the other, with the cold barrel of the gun served as a catalyst for their negative, fearful emotions.
‘Left,’ James ordered. He touched Sarah’s shoulder with the gun.
They saw a closed white door. In the middle a sign read that only authorized persons were permitted to enter.
‘This doesn’t seem like a hospital,’ Simon said in a whisper. ‘I don’t see anyone. Where are the doctors and the rest of the personnel?’
‘This must be how it is at night,’ Sarah supposed in a murmur.
‘And security?’ Simon continued. ‘There’s no security here?’
‘It’s better not to have anyone, believe me,’ Sarah warned.
‘Quiet,’ James shouted. ‘Inside and keep your mouths shut.’
Sarah pushed open the door to what had to be an unused room for interns. The space was big, a double bed stuck in a corner, enormous windows all along a wall, in another corner an open white cabinet. Long ago they’d gotten used to the antiseptic smell penetrating their noses. Right in the center, seated in a plastic chair, Simon Templar, gun in hand, looked at them gravely. The moment had come. Herbert must have arrived.
‘Here are our little doves,’ James sneered. ‘I’m anxious to have a little fun with them,’ he said with his mouth right next to Sarah’s ear. She closed her eyes. He stuck out his tongue and wiggled it a few inches from her skin. She didn’t show it, but Sarah felt a convulsive nausea overwhelm her. If James didn’t pull back, her stomach would turn over, and she’d end up vomiting on him.
‘And now?’ James asked, turning toward Templar, who looked like someone who had just heard bad news.
Templar ignored the question and continued to look at Sarah, or at least it seemed so.
‘What now, man?’ James asked again. He didn’t like Templar’s glassy stare.
The behavior of his colleague in service, butcher or mercenary, in the pay of whoever opened his wallet most generously, seemed abnormal also. James approached Templar, seated on the plastic chair, put his hand on his shoulder, and gave him a push.
‘Well, then?’ he said. ‘Are you sleeping with your eyes open?’
The gun in Templar’s hand went off. Luckily it hit the ceiling where it was pointed. The vigorous push made him fall to the floor on his stomach without moving. James leaned over him in shock. Two holes in Templar’s jacket explained the rest. James looked at the chair where the two holes were repeated with a smear of Templar’s blood, dark red, the sign of death.
James panicked.
‘Don’t move,’ he cried. ‘Don’t anyone move.’
Confused, he aimed the gun randomly, turning toward every side, alert, looking for the source of danger, the origin of the bullets. He couldn’t find the shells, which meant someone had retrieved them or the shots hadn’t been fired inside.
‘Don’t move,’ he shouted again. ‘The first person who even breathes gets a shot in the head.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Simon agreed, uncomfortable with the panic reflected in his ex-lover’s eyes. ‘Be careful with that thing.’
Sarah looked around the room, trying to understand what was happening. When one lost control, one lost all dignity, she thought, watching James’s contortions.
James approached the huge window slowly and looked out, holding himself back to look at the glass.
‘Oh shit,’ he exclaimed.
Seconds later he was thrown back and fell on the floor. Simon let out a scream, more a howl, and saw, as did Sarah, a thread of blood flowing from James’s head. His eyes were full of panic as he died.
‘Fuck,’ Simon exploded. ‘Did you see that?’
Sarah didn’t reply. A strained, out-of-place smile came over her face as she looked out the window.
‘What’s going on?’ Simon asked, looking out the window for the reason for this smile.
In the glass, three small holes.
35
The Pole and the Turk
December 27, 1983
The Holy Father never exhibited again the bright glow of former times. The Lord gives the burden, but also the strength to bear it. He thought of Franz Koenig, the enterprising Austrian, responsible, admittedly, for his election in October of 1978, as he climbed the stairs of the penitentiary in the direction of the cell. With him were the faithful Stanislaw, Dziwisz, his secretary, as always, and the director, some priests, and a few guards. A rigorous security perimeter was set up. There was no room for distractions after what happened two years ago in the foreign territory of Italy. The Lord gives the burden… The phrase returned to his mind. He’d thought about it a long time and come to a conclusion. What was important was not to carry, but to endure. He’d been the Shepherd of Shepherds in the Catholic world for five years and could confirm, better than anyone alive, that the papacy ages one and kills slowly. It was a constant weight, incomparable to anything else, and one had to endure it, not carry it, until one…