The Holy Bullet (43 page)

“I was thinking of a Mercedes.”

“Good idea. Buy a Mercedes,” Paul agreed.

Paul finished his cigarette and continued looking at the ceiling, his hand behind his head. He didn’t say anything for several minutes, just stared at the ceiling worn from the passage of years.

“I want you to find another one for me,” he finally said.

The other looked at him disapprovingly.

“Another? It’s dangerous, and it’s a lot of work.”

“Not if they’re from far away. I don’t want more from Rome or the Vatican. That was a mistake. I prefer one from Naples. They should be daring. Or even farther south. No more Romans,” he demanded.

“Really, I don’t ask them for their identifications ahead of time.”

“And don’t use the Avon trick again.”

“What do you think I am?” the other protested, looking insulted. “I don’t use the same trick twice.”

“A pope’s bodyguard should have no imagination,” Paul kidded him.

“Take back what you said.” The other got up. “Take back what you said.”

“And if I don’t?” Paul dared him.

The pope’s bodyguard laughed.

I
stanbul. Formerly Constantinople. The imperial city, cradle of civilization, frontier between Europe and Asia, point of separation or arrival for each of the continents, clash of ancestral cultures, land of European emperors and Arab sultans, Byzantines and Ottomans, the most prosperous city of Christianity for more than a thousand years.

They drove around the center for hours, this time more tightly crowded in the back where JC, Elizabeth, and Raul sat. In front was a Turkish driver with expert knowledge of the city, obviously, and the cripple, saturnine, cold, an observer alert to everything, inside and outside the car, in spite of the thousands found in this city, inhabitants, tourists, businesspeople.

They’d started with Beyoglu, where they saw the Galata Tower, built in the sixth century. A couple of hours later they’d entered the route that ends at what is now an imperfect circle that covers the Bazar quarter, with the Süleymaniye Mosque marking the most distant point, the edifice built by Sinan over the Golden Horn in honor of Suleiman the Magnificent, where both are buried, though at opposite ends. The interior of the circle covers the Seraglio, as well, which includes the Topkapi Palace, the official residence of the sultans for four hundred years, and the Sultanahmet, that shelters within itself two other pearls, facing each other, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.

JC played the part of tourist guide, explaining the multicultural and historical points of each monument and place in that immense city.

“What’s the purpose of this excursion?” Raul wanted to know, exhausted by such a tour shrouded by secrecy.

“I told you already. We’re here to see a friend.”

“And where is he?”

“He should be on his way to our meeting.”

“What time is that set for?” the cripple asked.

“At eighteen hundred hours.”

“See? Only a half hour from now.”

“Where are we meeting him?” Raul asked again.

“You’ll soon see,” the old man replied evasively.

“Why Istanbul?” It was Elizabeth’s turn to ask for answers.

“Why does someone move from England to a mountain in the Alentejo? How can you answer something like that? These are the imponderables of life. The tastes, desires. Some are able to fulfill them, others not.”

“Do you always have an answer for everything?” Raul asked. He considered the ability both impressive and irritating.

“My dear captain, the day I don’t, you can lower the flag to half-mast because I’ll be dead.”

“This friend we’re going to visit. Is he like you?” Elizabeth asked.

She’d only looked at him twice, but she didn’t have to do so again to know he didn’t like her or her husband. The cripple in the front seat tolerated them only out of respect for the old man who gives him orders, thank God. As much as she tried, she couldn’t imagine this old man, so frail and in precarious health, hurting a fly or leading such a vast organization with the purpose of . . . whatever their purpose was.

JC laughed at her question.

“No, men like me are dying out. I must be the last of a very under-appreciated species. We’re going to see a cardinal in the Church. A man much older than I.”

We’re going to see a cadaver?
Elizabeth thought without saying it. It would be bad manners to insult the host.

“For some time I’ve wanted to ask you a question,” Raul dared to say, looking him in the eye as if to ask permission.

He who is silent agrees, and JC was proof of this.

“Why did you accept the agreement last year?”

“In New York?”

Raul nodded yes.

“It served my interests,” the old man answered.

Raul pulled up his undershirt and revealed a scar at the bottom of his stomach on the right side made by a deep incision. He arched his ribs a little so that another identical scar could be seen below his ribs. A sharp, cutting object had penetrated from one side to the other, leaving a scar that would last to the end of his days.

“Do you see what they did to me that day in the warehouse in New York? I don’t see how that served your interests.” He was angry, but JC didn’t blink. Other people’s pain didn’t affect him.

“My dear captain. You can’t criticize me for trying to get something back that was taken from me.”

“I’m not criticizing. I simply don’t believe it served your interests.”

“What was the agreement?” Elizabeth asked.

She didn’t know what they were talking about. Raul and Sarah had told her as little as possible about what happened the previous year to avoid a fight. Divorce was a real possibility, though. Sarah explained to her mother that her father wasn’t at fault. He was swept up in a whirlwind of uncontrollable events, just like her. It was true.

“Would you prefer to tell her?” Raul challenged JC.

“I don’t see any problem with that,” the old man said, turning his gaze from the street to Elizabeth. “Your daughter had something in her possession that belonged to me.”

“That’s debatable,” Raul grumbled.

“You asked me to tell her. You’ve got to let me tell my version,” JC said without changing his calm tone.

“I’m only saying the ownership of those papers is relative. We know very well who they belong to.”

“We do. They belonged to Albino Luciani until the date of his death, and afterwards to me.”

Raul saw clearly he wouldn’t change the old man’s way of thinking no matter what arguments he used. He gave up and asked the old man to continue.

“Your daughter sent those documents to a journalist friend, and the agreement was a pact of mutual nonaggression, scrupulously complied with to the end.”

“Why did you trust it?” Raul insisted.

“Because it didn’t seem to me you’d sacrifice your lives for values or moral principles. You know as well as I it would’ve been a death sentence for everyone. Besides, I trust a maxim that I’ve always followed.” He tapped the cripple on the shoulder, who looked ahead alertly. “Which is?”

“There are more tides than sailors.” His dedicated assistant completed the statement.

JC looked at Raul and Elizabeth triumphantly. The brio of his personal pride began to sparkle.

“What do you mean by that?” Raul asked.

“Think back. The person who had custody of the documents was a lady, as I said, one of your compatriots,” he added, indicating Elizabeth. “Called . . .” He tried to remember. He touched the cripple on the shoulder again. “What was her name?”

“Natalie. Natalie Golden.”

“Natalie. Correct. Natalie . . . Golden.”

“And what follows from there?” Raul was very curious, which, added to irritation, turned into impatience.

“From that follows the obvious question: what is a journalist’s greatest ambition?”

Raul and Elizabeth exchanged looks. They knew perfectly well the aspirations of their only daughter, professionally. Make a difference. Tell a great story, the exclusive that will give them great prestige, although Sarah was already heading down that road as the editor of international politics.

“You gave her an exclusive?” Elizabeth risked asking.

JC confirmed with a gesture.

“In exchange for the documents?” Raul couldn’t control his nerves.

“It was a fair price,” JC said. “Everything was done through intermedi aries, obviously.”

“How could she?” Raul asked, more to himself than the other passengers.

“The flesh is weak, my friend. In any case, the girl didn’t use the story.”

“Why?” Elizabeth asked, frightened.

“She was eliminated by the same people who tried to kill your daughter,” he answered, with no attempt to beat around the bush.

“My God.” Elizabeth, incredulous, put her face in her hands.

“How could that happen?” Raul stammered. He hadn’t expected this, either.

“We’re fighting a deadly force. Don’t doubt it.”

Raul released his breath, freeing a small part of the bitterness he felt at that moment.

Elizabeth crossed herself and closed her damp eyes. Neither of them knew Natalie personally. She was someone Sarah mentioned only professionally or personally in the emotional stories she told them from time to time on vacation, during a phone conversation, or in an e-mail. They were used to thinking of her as one of their daughter’s best friends. Now all that had ended. Until this instant Elizabeth’s fear had no face or personality. It seemed like something turbid, unhealthy, capable of everything and nothing, open to negotiating, to yielding, to hope. That had just been lost. They were in the middle of real danger, and any feeling of control was a complete illusion. Now the attention with which JC’s assistant—since a lady doesn’t call him “cripple”—watched everything and everyone made sense. The danger was out there at every corner, window, automobile, terrace. Everybody was suspicious, even innocent children. God have mercy on her daughter.

“Who guarantees that you aren’t the one hunting my daughter?” Raul asked suspiciously.

“Think, my dear captain. Think,” JC suggested, not at all offended.

Raul lowered his eyes. He’d let confusion overcome him. He had to be rational, logical, at times like this. “You have everything in your power again,” Raul said.

JC confirmed with a gesture.

“You’ve got the bull by the horns,” he said. “What’s going to happen to us when this is all over?”

It was a pertinent question.

Elizabeth supported her husband’s inquiry and shot a terrified look at the old man. He seemed to enjoy their worry. To be feared was an opportunity.

“Captain, listen to what I’m telling you. And the lady also. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it already. If it were my intention to eliminate your daughter, she’d already be eliminated. I know what you’re thinking. She fooled me once. Another reason to fear me. You can be certain that she won’t do it twice. Not with me.”

“It’s time,” the cripple observed, ignoring the conversation in the backseat.

The old man looked out the car window. They were passing the monumental Hagia Sophia, its six minarets outlined against the sky, constructed as a Byzantine temple, and in these times one of the most famous mosques in the world.

“Get to the place,” he ordered.

The cripple whispered a kind of unintelligible litany to the driver, and he accelerated. It wasn’t easy taking on Turkish traffic, especially in a city like Istanbul, when one has a schedule to keep. But these were shrewd men who were taking what seemed a tourist itinerary, but which actually corresponded to a radial perimeter that had nothing to do with security, but was meant to ensure it wouldn’t take them more than ten minutes to get to the agreed upon location from any point. Everything was well planned.

The driver stopped the car on Sultanahmet Meydani. The cripple got out, opened the door first for JC, and waited for the other passengers to get out through the same door. Under normal conditions, Raul and Elizabeth would have admired the immense plaza situated between two great jewels of the Islamic world, Hagia Sophia, the great church transformed into a mosque in the fifteenth century, and the Blue Mosque, but not today.

“Wait,” JC ordered as he gestured toward the cripple. The car continued to drive on with only the Turkish driver.

“What’s going on?” Raul asked.

JC didn’t answer, completely oblivious to the historical, cultural dimension that surrounded him, the cries of sellers of carpets and
simit
. His expression was serious.

Seconds later the cripple signaled for a
taksi
, among the many passing along the central street, and one stopped quickly. They got into a bright yellow vehicle.

The cripple gave the taxi driver instructions, and they took off.

For several minutes, no one disturbed the silence inside the taxi.

Raul was the first to do so.

“Why so much secrecy? Why did we change cars?” he whispered.

“Have you never heard that the careful man dies an old man, Captain?”

“The danger’s that great?”

“They killed Natalie, Raul,” Elizabeth mentioned. For her that was enough.

“It’s not a question of danger, Captain, but of principles,” JC clarified. “A man in my line of work can never drop his guard. Do it once, it may be all right, maybe nothing happens. Risk another time, one becomes negligent, and it’s over. That won’t happen to me. I accepted that many years ago. It’s the secret of my success. Never, never leave a clue or loose ends.”

Elizabeth trembled.

“You mean you have plans for us in the end?” Raul asked.

“Of course.”

“We’re loose ends, aren’t we?”

“No, my dear captain. You’re not loose ends. Nor am I going to explain the definition of loose ends. What I said about your daughter, I’ll say to you, and you.” He looked at Raul and Elizabeth. “If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, or bringing you to see a friend.” His expression was peremptory.