‘Arrest the suspect,’ Barnes ordered.
Littel was present without interfering.
‘Subject detained without resistance,’ the agent announced a few seconds later. ‘He says he has a message for the commander.’
‘Repeat, Alpha Leader,’ Barnes said.
‘The subject has a message for the commander.’
Barnes left the window and walked out of the room.
‘Wait, Alpha Leader. I’m coming down.’
‘Received,’ the agent informed him.
Two minutes later Barnes was in the living room of Sarah Monteiro’s old house with the entire group who had filled the room in the hotel in front.
‘Who are you?’ he asked brusquely.
‘My name’s Simon Lloyd. I’m a journalist for The Times, and my newspaper knows I’m here.’
Barnes looked him over, and vice versa, evaluating the young man in front of him. He seemed nervous and rightly so. All attention focused on him, influential, powerful people, who with a gesture could end his life without thinking twice and later make up any reason to excuse it. Reality was a great fiction.
Simon tried not to show panic. This was the job given to him to carry out so Sarah and Rafael could complete their plan. Rafael reassured him everything would go well, but now, under so many hostile stares, he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was just an excuse to convince him. Sarah had warned him how manipulative these people could be. Let them be. The job would be finished.
‘What’s the message?’ the fat American asked unpleasantly.
Simon handed over a disc the size of a button to him.
‘What’s this?’ Barnes asked, looking at the object.
‘I don’t know, but Jack Payne told me to tell you he’d meet you there.’ Job over.
Barnes’s eyes filled with hate as he looked at the small disc.
48
The vehicle moved over the rough ground at a moderate speed to avoid disturbing the occupants. There were still a few miles to go on this side road until they reached the national expressway, then turned right and continued straight. Fifty-three miles on the expressway would bring them to Lisbon; in two and a half hours they’d be at the airbase of Figo Maduro, where a private Learjet was waiting for them.
Inside the car we find JC in the backseat with Elizabeth beside him, Captain Raul Brandao Monteiro in the front passenger seat, and the cripple driving, as befits an assistant.
‘I don’t understand why we have to go with you,’ Elizabeth protested.
‘My dear, you can’t stay because you cannot be protected. If you were caught, you could be used as a bargaining chip to blackmail your daughter. That would give them an advantage over us. Unacceptable. Unacceptable. The enemy must negotiate with the weapons they have, not with weapons we give them.’
‘But you spent the night in my house. There was no problem,’ Elizabeth argued insistently.
‘Have you heard of fugitives from the law who never sleep in the same place twice?’ He waited for her to confirm. ‘That’s our case at the moment. Being in one place and predictable is the enemy of strategy. We have to stay moving.’
‘Where are we going?’ the captain wanted to know, turning toward the back.
‘You’ll soon see.’
The car traveled a few miles without a word being said. They were still in familiar territory for Raul and Elizabeth. Each one thought about his life and the common purpose the present moment required of them. Except for the cripple, who still hadn’t gotten over his anger at having Rafael on the same side and was still slowly fuming over it.
Raul prayed his daughter and Rafael would arrive on time safe and sound. That was the most important thing.
‘So what does all this have to do with John Paul the Second? He is dead, poor man. He suffered miserably,’ Raul said, bringing up the subject of the night before.
‘Haven’t you heard it said that we suffer in proportion to the evil we do? Karma is something like that. Not that I believe in that, obviously.’
‘The man was a saint.’ Elizabeth was offended.
‘A man can be a saint and a sinner. Sin doesn’t invalidate his holiness. There are thousands of examples in the Church.’
‘But what’s the connection with him?’ Raul insisted.
JC adjusted himself in the seat. The rough ground had been left behind, and now there was a good road to Lisbon, straight all the way that could be seen.
‘Let’s say we had an agreement.’
‘You and he?’
‘He and I.’
‘What sort of agreement?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘That’s a long story.’
‘We don’t have to be anywhere,’ Raul argued. ‘We’re in your hands. Time is something we have plenty of.’
JC half looked at the green landscape, yellowed by the late afternoon light that spread over the road. The immensity of Alentejo, filled with black poplars, vineyards, and endless fields of rye. The beauty of nature, untouched in some parts.
‘Wojtyla got caught in a great net when he was elected pope. The Church was coming out of a traumatic event from which it took many years to recuperate.’ He looked Raul in the eye without contrition. They both knew what the trauma referred to; nevertheless, JC was an excellent judge of people and confident, just by a glance, that Elizabeth didn’t know the twists and turns of the situation. ‘Of course he didn’t know what had to come. He even paid homage to his predecessor, taking his name. John Paul the Second,’ he proclaimed triumphantly. ‘He could little imagine that his beloved Church would decide to run no more risks with JP the First. You know that certain… let me find the right word… certain obsessions overcome the chosen one after the canonic election. They come from a vague holiness.
‘Well, Wojtyla was in an exceptional situation. Pope Luciani didn’t even warm the seat.’ A new exchange of looks with Raul. ‘For that reason remembering and paying homage to him benefited his image.’
‘Are you accusing him of taking advantage of John Paul the First?’ Elizabeth was frightened.
‘I’m only mentioning the credit and the debt. Whether good or bad, it was well done and useful for him. The Pole was a dynamic man, taking charge, prepared to work, to fight.’ A sarcastic smile came over his face as he remembered. ‘He didn’t know what was coming. He made the same mistake as his predecessor.’
‘What?’ Raul was totally caught up in the story.
‘He got mixed up with Marcinkus.’
‘Marcinkus?’ Elizabeth interrupted. ‘Who’s Marcinkus?’
‘He was the director of the IWR, the Vatican bank, at that time and remained so for many years during Wojtyla’s papacy. An American bishop John Paul promoted to archbishop, but never to cardinal, not that that would have been accepted. He only looked out for his own interests and never for others, but who am I to accuse?’ He paused for a few seconds to let what he’d said sink in. ‘He certainly wanted the promotion. Imagine, Cardinal Marcinkus. Your God would have a lot of trouble just removing the pride from his face.’
‘And what else?’ Elizabeth urged him to continue.
‘And then we come to 1989. The Pole had postponed the so-desired promotion time and time again. He couldn’t keep doing it. For complicated reasons, which I’ll summarize if you’re interested, Marcinkus had a good hold on him… or at least I believe he did.’
‘The pope?’ Elizabeth was scandalized. It was a scenario hard to conceive. She didn’t know about the political games behind the scenes in the Church. Fighting for power, control, just like your own country and all other politicians. To think that the Vatican, a symbol of faith, was immune to these vices… was deceiving oneself.
‘Yes,’ the narrator confirmed.
‘This man who, if he put one foot out of the Vatican, even a toe, would be immediately arrested by the Italian authorities, who considered him a criminal… was he going to be a cardinal?’ It was Raul’s moment to try to comprehend the scale of imperfection of political systems.