The American’s mouth came close to Peroni’s ear. “Ain’t they pretty?”
The grey, stony face didn’t flicker, but something was going on, Peroni realized. The man was thinking. He had the time, too. There was nothing Gianni Peroni could do that would shape the flow of events now.
“So you’re just a minion?” the American asked. “A local cop? Those guys from the embassy told you nothing?”
“Yeah, a minion. I only know what they think I need to know.”
Peroni gazed into the icy eyes, wondering what, if anything, could move this man. “That there’s a lunatic out there, carving some pattern out of people’s backs, for no reason at all. And he sure loves US military webbing, too.”
That struck a nerve somewhere. The guy was laughing. Not the cold, dry laughter Peroni had heard in the dark. This was more human somehow, more scary because it came from a place deep inside the man, and because it was the kind of laughter that could just go anywhere, from joy to despair in a heartbeat.
“No reason?” the American asked, and pushed the gun back into Gianni Peroni’s face. “You believe that?”
Peroni looked down at the dead grey metal barrel and tried to tick off the few remaining options in his hurting head.
“Not really,” he murmured.
HE’D FOUND SOME PASTA and a jar of tomato sauce. They sat on the sofa together in front of the empty plates, aware of the clock ticking towards midnight, bone-weary. Nic Costa wasn’t even sure he wanted any more questions answered. He wasn’t sure what he wanted at all.
Emily leaned back into the soft cushions, closed her eyes and asked, “Do you have a bible?”
He blinked, wide awake all of a sudden. “Excuse me?”
“A bible. This is a good Italian household, isn’t it?”
So many things to explain. So many preconceptions. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have a bible. I wouldn’t dare bring one through the door. I’d have my old man’s ghost haunting me forever. I told you. He was a Communist. Do you really need one?”
She thought about it, retrieved the notebook, turned it on and started looking for something.
“I can’t do this from memory. The Deacons aren’t exactly regular churchgoers either. But when I was in training I spent three months researching a bunch of religious fanatics on the Net. Nice people. All white. All armed to the teeth. All as crazy as they come. There is a reason here. Bear with me.”
He leaned over, close to her shoulder, and watched the skilful way she worked the Web. After a brief search Emily brought up a page from some bizarre religious site, one covered in woodcut engravings of mythical beasts next to a comic-book colour illustration of a naked woman writhing on a red, many-headed dragon.
“This is just one of their places. You can read about every last damn conspiracy under the sun here. How the Jews run everything. Except for the stuff that’s run by the Catholics. While both are really under the thumb of the Illuminati. And you know what they keep going back to for inspiration?”
“Ordinarily I’d suggest ”drugs and drink,“ but I rather imagine…”
“If only they would, Nic. Parts of Montana would be so much improved. They go to Revelation. The last book of the New Testament. Heard of it?”
Costa opened his hands in a gesture of despair.
“You remember,” she continued, “that Kaspar mentions ”the Scarlet Beast“ in that original memo from 1990. Leapman, or whoever, is taunting him with the same phrase now. So it’s important. The only reference I can find anywhere is in here. I remember it because these fundamentalist guys just can’t get it out of their heads. It’s meant to explain everything. Listen…”
She began reading from the screen. “ ”So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.“ ”
Costa’s head reeled. “Emily-”
“Stay with me, Nic. It gets weirder. A couple of sentences later: ”And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.“ Seven mountains, Nic.”
His mind was a blank. This was so far from his normal realm of experience.
“Here’s a clue,” she said. “Think of it as seven hills instead. And another clue. The image of the woman was often used as a cipher meaning ”church.“ ”
There was only way to interpret that, surely. “You mean the Scarlet Beast is Rome?”
She nodded. “Exactly. These guys are just doing what lunatics have done forever. Rewriting history the way it suits them. Revelation was written at a time when Christianity was being torn apart by oppression from Domitian or whoever. They really did face their own particular apocalypse, but it wasn’t a supernatural one. It was real and it came from Rome. Because the Christians were under such threat, they had to refer to it in code. Later, people just started to like the code because it’s a code. When the Church split off into factions the same message that was supposed to encourage solidarity among Christians was used to make the case against Catholicism. That the pope’s just the new Roman emperor, the Antichrist.”
More blind alleys, more complexity. “So Kaspar’s a religious fanatic?”
“I doubt it.” There was no stopping her until this particular thread was through. “This is someone playing a game. You need code names for projects like this. So they compete to come up with the craziest ones. It started all those years ago when the Babylon Sisters got together. Maybe Kaspar thought of all this terminology. Maybe he comes from someplace out in the boondocks where this kind of stuff isn’t uncommon. It was appropriate on another front too. Rome was where they all met to begin the mission. Here’s another chunk of Revelation. Same chapter. ”And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.“ You see?”
“Sort of,” he lied.
“It’s a joke within a joke. They have to use fake names and IDs. It’s that kind of job. Why not have some fun along the way? These guys were just hamming it up among each other. Scarlet Beast. Babylon Sisters. Throw in some backwoods fundamentalism, mix it in with a bunch of old jazz-rockers called Steely Dan…”
“Who?” He was wondering how much longer his head could contain all this.
“A band. A very good one, actually. I remember my dad playing their records when his buddies came around and the beer started to flow. Just bear with me, Nic. These people were having fun, playing spooks, everything NTK, just like he says.”
“NTK?”
“ ”Need to know.“ They’re the rules you play by when stuff is so secret you don’t tell anyone anything-your real name even-unless you absolutely have to. It’s all a game and my dad used to love games. He was always coming up with some crazy ideas.”
She’d been racing ahead until that memory, which made a little of the brightness go out of her eyes.
“At least, he was back then. They were just playing with words. He did it all the time. These guys are still doing it. Remember what your boss asked Leapman? How did we know he’d come to Rome? Remember his answer?”
Costa did. The FBI man flatly refused to deal with the question.
“I remember.” He considered what he’d seen on the screen. “He couldn’t say it, could he?”
“Kaspar came to Rome because he got invited.”
Costa read the new screen out loud. “ ”Let’s get together again back in the old places, folks. Reunion time for the class of “91. Just one spare place at the table. You coming or not?” Which translates to “Come to Rome, we’re waiting for you.” “
Emily punched his arm lightly. “See! You can get there.”
“Thanks.”
There was more to the argument, though, and he was surprised she hadn’t seen it.
“This all begs a big question.”
She gazed at him, amused, bright and attractive again. “I thought it begged several, actually. A couple of dozen, in fact, right off the top of my head.”