Dead Bishops Don't Lie, page 9
Fiore was the youngish upstart. Possessed of a quick intelligence coupled with thinly disguised ambition, he carried a significant chip on his shoulder. He had hardly known his father, an alcoholic who died when Paolo was thirteen. He was rudderless until his uncle, the parish priest, had taken an interest in his education. Young Paolo had seen in the Church first a refuge, then an opportunity to develop his ambitions and to escape, at all costs, the anonymity, boredom and absurdity of his small village.
His slight limp, the result of an unattended and badly mended broken ankle at age nine, had curtailed his sporting activities and made him further resent his father for abandoning him. Fiore’s limp had degenerated and affected his back, earning him the cruelty of his playmates, who nicknamed him “Quasi,” short for “Quasimodo.” It had left him with a deep psychological scar, disproportionate to the physical impediment.
He had shifted his efforts into the scholastic arena, graduating summa cum laude from his classical college and majoring in theology and history. His stay at the Jesuit seminary in Rome had been punctuated by the occasional prank. Once wrongly accused of stealing croissants from the kitchen pantry, he had injected castor oil in the remaining batch and caught the villain the next evening, moaning in pain in the lavatory.
His rapid rise within the Church hierarchy had rendered many an older colleague envious, waiting for an eventual faux pas to bring Fiore down from his ever-towering perch. He had found in Cardinal Volpe a willing mentor.
Chapter 21
The news of Vasiliev’s capture had spread quickly within the network of agents, contractors, executors and apparatchiks of the Moscow mafia. Kurganski had learned of it the very same day. Kurganski knew the rules of the game but couldn’t believe he was already in it. For Victor not to return his three phone calls meant only one thing: hunter had become prey, the assassin the victim, the wolf the lamb being readied for the slaughter. He was playing a deadly game of tag, and now he was “It.”
He had to move fast. Victor had probably already sent his contractor to do the job. He knew that, as of today, he had no friends and many possible Judases. He could trust no one. Returning to his flat that night, he checked once more the talcum powder on the door handle. Still intact. He could enter. He packed quickly, his mind already racing ahead along the preplanned route of his lonely, desperate escape. He would become invisible, without habits, without fixed domicile until the heat wore off.
He had money. Sixty-three thousand US dollars could sustain one for a very long time in Russia, if one lived long enough to enjoy it.
He secured the AK-47 on its bipod, rigged the trigger to a wire connected to the door, pointed it at the entrance, and locked the door. Opening the kitchen window and throwing his brown suitcase to the ground , he climbed out onto the fire escape.
Reaching the narrow lane below, he lit a cigarette, picked up his suitcase and walked briskly to the nearest metro station.
Chapter 22
Dulac read Karen’s message that night, weary and uncomfortable in the depressing, dark yellow room of his Moscow hotel. He whistled, after pumping the last bluish puffs from his Gitane. The article mentioned “exemplarity.” So did the Pistis Sophia letter. Coincidence? Unfortunate choice of words? Or pattern? Not much to go on, he thought, but it’s a start.
He clicked on Lescop’s report on the birth certificates of thirteen bishops whose names included the evangelists John and Matthew. Seven had participated in various committees with Salvador and Conti. Legnano had headed the liturgical review committee, and the dead bishops had also been members of the Vatican financial investment committee, headed by Fiore. Odd. Why didn’t he mention it at the meeting?
Dulac was being pelted by e-mails from the French Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior. What progress had been made in the investigation? Suspects? He had leaked out the identity of the Russians to the press, hoping to quench the public and political thirst for blood. Not enough. Now, inferences and innuendos were beginning to surface. Was he the right man for the job? Public opinion wanted quick, complete retribution.
Chapter 23
Late dusk painted the low, meringue-like clouds a bluish orange, as the light evening rain moistened the cobblestone streets. The collar of his black coat turned up, the man advanced, following Olga Ledova at a discreet distance as she stepped out from the subway station and started her long walk towards Lubyanka Square and the prison.
He knew she had chosen the ten p.m. to three a.m. shift to allow her to do other cleaning jobs during the day. Her four girls ate her out of every ruble, every month. As she approached the east entrance, the man quickened his pace and suddenly was upon her. He grabbed her hair from behind, and with one swift, well-aimed stab, plunged the stiletto into the carotid. The second jab went through her heart. She fell without a sound, her lifeless form sprawling over her large handbag. He moved swiftly, dragging the body away from the entrance light to the wall alongside. He turned her on her back, pulled her right thumb tightly, and severed it at the palm joint. As the blood drained, he pulled a small thermal gel pack from his left pocket. He inserted the thumb. The digital thermometer read 36.8 degrees centigrade. He dropped the stiletto beside the body, rummaged through her handbag, found the key to the side entrance, and entered.
* * ** * *
Oleyev had heard about Vasiliev’s capture through his sources inside the FSB. He knew Vasiliev was being tortured and would eventually crack. He couldn’t let that happen. He didn’t know where, in the huge prison, Vasiliev was being held, but Oleyev’s helicopter had been equipped with the latest Thermionics heat-image sensing equipment from the military, used for tracking Taliban rebels in their mountain hideouts. The infrared laser could pick up and position a rat two feet underground. As he flew over Lubyanka, his electronics engineer had no difficulty picking out and locating Vasiliev’s heat image. He was the only overnight visitor in the sprawling prison complex. Oleyev transmitted Vasiliev’s GPS longitude-latitude coordinates to the hit man.
The hit man had to move fast, as the gel pack would keep the thumb warm enough to work the two imprint-activated gates, for thirteen minutes. He took the thumb out of the pack and pressed it against the thermal imprinter of the first gate. The gate opened. He pressed the stopwatch function of the GPS. To his left, he saw the metal detector and took a deep breath as he strode quickly past. Silence. The boron shield on his GPS had deflected the intrusive x-rays. He pressed the soft gray thumb again, and the second gate opened. He set Vasiliev’s GPS coordinates, and the small electronic map indicated the path to his cell.
The hit man was now running along the endless corridor, looking for the staircase to the third floor. At last, the staircase appeared. Four minutes gone, it’s going to be close. He ran up the staircase two steps at a time, arriving at the third floor landing. He stopped to gasp for breath and take a GPS reading. He was nearly there. He sprinted down the corridor. Far away, he could see the side rays of dim light along the metal-grey barred cells. He slowed, looked at his watch. Seven minutes, nineteen seconds gone.
Before drawing alongside the cell, the hit man pulled out a ten-inch grey tube from his right pocket and removed the protective caps.
* * *
Vasiliev heard rustling and looked up from his book to see a tall, bald man in a long, black coat, with hands outstretched, aiming a small object at his face. He heard a “phtuu,” felt a sharp pain in his neck, and the bald man was gone.
* * *
The hit man was running hard, jumping three steps at a time down the staircase, back along the corridor, throwing away his dart gun and overcoat to ease his stride. Sweating, slowing, he took the thumb from the gel pack and pressed it on the second gate actuator. The gate opened, and he saw the thermometer of the pack: 36.2 centigrade. Running again down the hall, he almost dropped the pack, looked at his watch. Eleven minutes. As he slowed to pass the metal detector, the alarm sounded suddenly. Damn. He fought off a surge of panic. He looked at his GPS. The boron shield had fallen off.
He ran to the last imprinter, pressed the thumb. Nothing. The gate didn’t move!
He was trapped. Bells were ringing, the night guards would soon be on top of him, and here he was, like a rat in a cage, weaponless, ready for the picking. Mothering fuck! He tried the thumb again. Nothing. The metal detector—it’s locked the gates.
Then he looked at the thermometer: 35.5 centigrade. The thumb isn’t warm enough! It can’t activate the gates. Between the intermittent ringing of the bells, he heard the sound of metal-clad army boots echoing on the granite corridors. How do I get the goddamn thumb warm? Then, as he asked, a faraway thought slipped into his consciousness. How did children keep their thumbs warm? There was only one way to find out if the gate still worked. With a shudder of revulsion, he put the thumb in his mouth, under his tongue, and waited.
The clanging of the boots was getting louder. The hit man waited a few more agonizing seconds, pulled out the thumb, and passed it on the gate’s imprinter. The gate opened.
As he ran down the last corridor, one of the night guards crashed into him from a side aisle and both men fell. A swift twist of the guard’s neck, and the man went limp. The hit man continued his race, and the side door appeared. He crashed into the bar latch, and the door opened onto the drenched street.
He was free.
* * *
Vasiliev felt his body slowly, tightly, shrinking around him. He had difficulty breathing as the toxin quickly spread throughout his autonomous nervous system, destroying it methodically, inescapably. He started to fall. He grabbed the edge of the sink and the tube of toothpaste. On his hands and knees he could breathe easier. Then the toxin seized his brain in a horrid, vise-like grip. He screamed in pain. As he felt life leave him, he thought of his childhood, his mother always smiling, his unlivable wife, his little daughter, and finally, the happiness that could have been. In a last effort, he unscrewed the tube’s cap and wrote painfully on the cement: Nicola.
* * *
The next morning, the phone’s persistent ring dragged Petrov from his usual, comatose sleep. That piece of shit recorder. It didn’t catch again.
“It’s Dimitri,” said the meek voice.
“What the hell is it?”
“I have bad news. Vasiliev is dead. So are one night guard and the cleaning lady.”
“What?”
“He used—“
Petrov slammed down the receiver. Twenty minutes later, Petrov, livid, summoned the night adjutant and the guards to his office. “Explain.” Petrov slammed his right fist on the table, “Now.”
“He used the cleaning lady’s thumb,” said the adjutant.
Petrov took the bottle of vodka from the bottom of his desk, opened it, and poured himself a drink. Banging down the empty glass, he stood up and said, “Show me.”
They walked briskly to the prison cell. Petrov, looking at Vasiliev still clutching the tube, ordered his adjutant. “Get Dulac on the line.”
* * *
“Dulac.”
“Petrov here. They killed Vasiliev.”
Dulac sat down on the bed, speechless. After a moment he said, “We were so close.”
“That’s what the mafia thought. He wrote his daughter’s name, Nicola.”
After a perfunctory breakfast, Dulac hailed a taxi. “Lubyanka prison,” he growled.
In Petrov’s office, the guilt and disgrace weighed in pregnant silence. How could this happen in the toughest, highest security prison in Russia? thought Dulac. He restrained himself from commenting to the obviously embarrassed Petrov.
“We try to locate Nicola,” said Petrov.
Just then, a policeman rushed in and interrupted. “We found her. She lives at 35 Podvony. She is there now.”
“At least someone is competent around here,” said Petrov, as he eyed the adjutant and got up from his desk.
Dulac and Petrov piled into the chauffeured Zil and roared off, lights flashing, into Moscow’s morning traffic.
* * *
Vasiliev had been troubled by a premonitory dream. He saw himself high above the earth, circling effortlessly over his broken body over which prayed his dutiful daughter, dressed in the expensive dark blue dress she had always wanted but which he could never afford to buy her. She had blown him a kiss before closing the lid of his modest, walnut brown coffin. He thought the room resembled the inside of a vault. He had a friend at FSB, an ex-soldier also from Irkutsk. He had carried Vasiliev’s letter to Nicola.
Dear Nicola,
I am prisoner of FSB and have no time left. I have many regrets, not seeing you grow up and making you proud of me. Life has not dealt me the good cards. I have no time, and so much to say. Maybe in the next world. Take the key. It opens a safety deposit box at the Vinogourov Bank, account 3805. The $50, 000 US dollars are yours. Here is my authorization for the bank. The letter names the person who hired me, who will kill me. I know too much. FSB want him. Don’t give them the name. Only if they give you pension of 20 000 US dollars. When you get the money, leave Moscow or they’ll steal it back.
Goodbye. I love you,
Sergei
Nicola felt no sorrow, no anger, but perhaps a touch of pity. She had long ago learned that any feelings of anger or resentment towards her father only limited her, sapped her energies, and dispersed her focus. She couldn’t afford the waste. She needed every ounce to work herself through medical school.
* * *
“Good morning. You are Nicola Vasilieva?”
“Da?” replied the young, frail-looking woman standing in the doorway, peering at them with curious but sad eyes.
“Petrov, FSB and this is Inspector Dulac, Interpol.”
“I have been expecting you.”
Petrov and Dulac looked at each other quizzically.
“How is that?” said Dulac.
“You being here means my father is dead.”
Dulac looked towards Petrov, then back at the woman, “May we come in?”
“Suit yourself.” She ushered them into the small living room adjacent the doorway.
“Yes, your father is dead,” said Dulac. “My sympathies.” He gave her a short bow. “If it’s any consolation, his last thoughts were of you. Before dying, he wrote your name in his cell. We’re here because we think you can help us identify his killers.”
“As far as I’m concerned, my father has been dead for years. I buried him a long time ago.”
“I see,” said Dulac. “But his killers have committed other murders. And if they’re not stopped, they will kill again.”
“Sorry, I can’t help,” she said, crossing her arms in distrust. She shrugged in feigned ignorance, a bit too obviously for Dulac.
“I remind you of your duty, as a Russian citizen, to cooperate and not withhold any information,” said Petrov.
“Ha,” she answered defiantly.
“If you know anything about these men, your life is in danger,” said Dulac. “They play for keeps.”
“Gentlemen, unless there’s anything else?” She walked towards the door and opened it.
As they left, Dulac turned to Petrov, “Tough lady.”
“I’ll have her followed.”
Chapter 24
Upon his return to Paris that night, Dulac had found a phone message from the Minister of the Interior’s secretary, ordering him to meet the Minister the following morning. Dulac had barely slept. A summoning by the Minister of the Interior was unheard of, as it bypassed the General Secretary, his immediate boss. He didn’t foresee it being the most enjoyable of experiences. A reprimand at best.
“Good morning, Dulac,” said the short, lean man with a rubbery face, its jowls slackened by too many obsequious, politically perfect smiles.
“Good morning, Monsieur le Ministre.”
“I will be blunt. The Élysée is not at all pleased with the Archbishops’ file.”
The Minister cast a copy of Le Monde across his desk. “Here, read at page five.”
“Salvador, Conti murders: chief of Interpol still grasping at straws.”
Dulac countered. “That’s incorrect. We were—”
“I don’t give a damn if it’s correct or incorrect,” interrupted the Minister, “it’s the perception that counts. Need I remind you that we’re in an election year, with the polls only four months away? Public opinion is fueled by the press. Go convince some reporters of your progress, if you have any. I’m giving you fair warning Dulac. Unless you get results, tangible results, within the next two weeks, there will be changes. Do I make myself clear?”
“Very.”
“Bonne Chance.”
Dulac sat for a moment and hesitated. Both men knew that the Minister’s comment was in direct breach of Interpol’s Charter, which insured freedom from political interference. So much for that theory, thought Dulac. To bring it up now would hasten the end of his involvement in the case. It was his word against the word of a Minister. The Minister rose from his desk, and Dulac knew they wouldn’t meet again unless he came up with some dramatic piece of new evidence.
