Nemesis (33 page)

The man sipped at his beer. “I should have asked for a German lager. You are wired up like a cat about to spring, Mister Fish. Do try to relax. You must know that if I had wished it, you would by now be dead.”

“Who are you?”

“I think of myself as a surgeon.”

“I assume you set up the surgery in the Tuscolo woods,” Webb said.

“Overzealous amateurs. One must work with the material to hand.”

A girl in a short, lime-green skirt sat down at a nearby table, facing Webb. She had an uneducated, Sicilian peasant look about her. She scanned the menu without once looking in his direction.

Webb said: “Society has rules.”

Little wrinkles above the lips disapproved. “Mister Fish, you increasingly disappoint me. The rules are for herd control! To obey them, it is enough to have a spinal cord. The free man makes his own rules.” An outburst of car horn blaring came from the piazza down the hill.

The waiter left a little printed bill. Webb waited until he had gone. “Why am I still alive?”

The man sighed. “You remain alive, for the moment, because of my greed. It seems that you are proving troublesome to some people. You seek a manuscript. I have found out where this manuscript is; in fact, I have held it in my hands. My instructions were to liquidate you before you got your hands on it. A simple enough task, for which I was offered a sum of money. I can now access the book whenever I please and well, here you are. As for the sum of money, it was strikingly large. So large that it made me wonder.”

Webb stared at the man in open disgust. “A man died so that you could have spending money? I regret even having to breathe the same air as you.”

“If that is a problem for you, it can easily be remedied.”

“What do you know about this manuscript? How did you know where I was?”

A hand waved casually in the air. “The details escape me.”

“Where does the Father Librarian come into it?”

“A naive fool, sold a plausible story.”

“And your overzealous amateurs?”

“They too were easily manipulated, like all young idealists. Told they were striking a blow for the people, they were eager to believe it.”

Webb sat back. He eyed the man speculatively. “What am I worth?”

The man fingered the ebony stick absent-mindedly. “One million American dollars. And in cash, the only medium of exchange I recognize. Already I have received half.”

Webb sipped at his orange juice. He was beginning to feel nauseous, and found himself taking deep breaths. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Indeed. And the question I have to ask is, where does the value lie? In your death, or in the book? If in the book, then perhaps I now have in my possession something whose true value is, shall we say for the sake of a figure, ten million dollars.”

“I begin to understand.”

“Are you in a position to offer me ten million dollars for it?”

“No,” Webb lied.

The man’s face adopted a disapproving expression. “That is unfortunate, Mister Fish.”

“And I intend to steal the book back from you.”

The man laughed incredulously. “I admire your honesty, if not your sense of self-preservation. How do you propose to do that?”

Webb finished off his drink.

The man continued: “I have seen this book. The how and why need not concern you. I have pored over its pages, every line, every letter. But it has defeated me. In its pages I see no hidden treasure, no secret diamond mines, no plans of invasion. But, Mister Fish, you know something about this manuscript. Something which may allow you to unlock its secret. You may therefore succeed where I have failed.”

“That is possible, given your level of intelligence.”

“It is also possible that you will insult me once too often.”

Webb said, “I think not. Because you’re going to let me walk away from here.”

The man nodded. “It is in my interests to do so. If the value lies in your carcass, I will never see you again. But if it lies in the book, you will risk your life to return for it. I am gambling half a million dollars by letting you walk free against ten million dollars if you come back for it. A reasonable risk to take, is it not?”

“Let me anticipate your proposition. I’ll unlock the secret of the book. In return you will promise to leave me alone and sell or blackmail your paymasters with whatever I come up with.”

“You have a formidable intelligence, young man. That is dangerous. I will have to take great care.”

“No, I’m thick. That’s why I’m in this position. Why don’t you just throw me in a cellar and force me to decipher it?”

“Because you would invent some story even if you found nothing. Only if you return for the book will I know for certain that it truly contains something of greater value even than your life.” The man finished his beer, patting his mouth with a handkerchief. “I doubt if you intend to keep your part of the bargain. When you return, if you do, you will attempt to steal the book.”

“I doubt if you intend to keep your half. Once I’ve given you the information I’m out of bargaining power.”

“Life is a risk, my friend. Consider the one I am taking with my paymasters.”

“May they meet you, one dark night.”

“I will leave you here. You will remain seated for ten minutes, after which you may do as you please. If you attempt to leave before ten minutes have passed, your day will turn into everlasting night.”

“The manuscript?” Webb asked.

“You and it will connect. If you attempt to escape with it you will be killed without warning, and I will settle for the other half million dollars in exchange for your carcass. But
enough talk of death, my unworldly friend. Tonight is
Natale
, a celebration of birth. Why not proceed to the Piazza Navona, where the crowds are already gathering, filled with the joy of Nativity? Find a seat at the Bar Colombo if you can, and enjoy yourself. Be alone and carry nothing electronic.”

“Do something for me,” Webb asked. “It will complete the bargain.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“Kill the bastards who murdered my companion.”

The man laughed, exposing a row of gold fillings. “You see! Under the veneer we are not so different! I advise you to change your clothes before the police start making connections. And then come to the Colombo within the hour, young man, and find me the hidden message, and live to enjoy your grandchildren.” The man picked up his walking stick and handed a ten thousand-lira note to the waiter, before sauntering down the hill. Near the Barberini, Webb lost him in the crowds.

Webb turned his chair slightly to get a better view of the tables. About nine feet away a silver-haired man, perhaps a banker, was reading
Il Giornale
. A young man from the north, in Levi’s and a black sweatshirt with Princeton University written across it, was staring openly at the Sicilian girl. She was throwing occasional sly glances at him. Two workmen with vast bellies were sharing a joke. A middle-aged nun was sipping a cappuccino. Their eyes met and she smiled coldly at him.

Surely not the nun?

No, the young man.

An elderly priest came through from the back of the café and the young man rose. They went off, arms linked Italian-style. Webb played with the toothpicks for ten minutes, then got up and headed down the hill, trembling, nauseous, and light-headed with relief. At the piazza, the articulated truck was jammed halfway round the corner, unable to move
forwards or back. The street echoed with the blare of car horns and the traffic cop had disappeared.

Before he turned the corner, Webb glanced back up the hill. The banker was folding away his newspaper.

Webb knew the geography of Rome. He had spent six productive months with colleagues from the university, two years—or was it two million years?—ago. Some instinct told him to head for the Trastevere, the territory of
noialtri
, the people apart, who did not always speak freely to the law. He turned right along the Viale del Tritone, and headed across the city by foot. Once over the Garibaldi Bridge, he quickly lost himself in a maze of narrow streets, avoiding children on mopeds and three-wheeled
motofurgoni
loaded with big flagons of wine.

In a small square a
frutteria
lady was setting out her wares for the evening, heaving a massive box of tomatoes on to a table. A white-haired flower lady, an espresso perched on a cobble at her feet, stared with hypnotic fascination at Webb’s beachwear. Through an archway into a busy little square, cluttered with tables where men with wrinkled faces sat nibbling, drinking, watching the world go by. Wonderful smells drifted out of a hosteria.

A woman was sweeping out the doorway of a clothes shop. She
buongiorno
’d and followed Webb in. He tried the word for “underpants” in three languages and ended up, red-faced, surrounded by a gaggle of women trying to help. Half an hour later he emerged in a neat dark suit, in the style of an Italian businessman. He crossed the square to a tiny little cobbler’s shop. The man looked at Webb’s mass-produced sandals with polite amusement. Webb waited another half hour while the sun set and the cobbler tapped away at a last, a row of little nails projecting from his mouth. When the black leather shoes eventually appeared, they were of fine quality, and a quarter of the price Webb would have paid in
Oxford. He had a coffee in a bar, letting the trembling in his body subside, and watched two youths playing a noisy game of pinball. Fifteen minutes later, he exchanged lire for a pile of
gettone
and fed them into the café’s telephone.

While he waited to connect, he looked at his watch. Walkinshaw had been dead for less than two hours.

And Webb had only ten left.

The President faced Noordhof across the Oval Office desk, gazing at the soldier without a blink. “Let’s hear it again, Colonel,” he said over steepled hands.

“Sir, there is the possibility of a leak.”

“I must be going deaf. For an unbelievable moment I thought you said there was the possibility of a leak.”

“Leclerc is on a marble slab pending disposal,” said Noordhof in an unsteady voice. “He had an accident with a cable car.”

The President raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “He’s your rocket man?”

“Yes, sir. He and Webb, the other European, were supposed to identify Nemesis.”

“So what does this Webb have to say?”

“We can’t find him,” said Noordhof.

The President’s tone was flat. “My hearing’s gone again. Would you repeat, slowly and clearly, what you just said?”

“He’s missing. We’ve lost him.”

Grant pursed his lips and gave the soldier a long, steady stare. He finally said, “Okay, Colonel. Now tell me how you pulled off this amazing feat.”

“Sir, I don’t know how. He’s just disappeared.”

The President let a full minute pass while Noordhof prayed for a great earthquake to swallow him up.

“We lost a strategic H-bomb in Alaska once, a B-43 as I recall,” Grant reminisced. “And it wasn’t inventory shrinkage
either. Turned out some Alaskan Command Air Defense guys thought they’d found a way round the Permissive Action Links. They tried to blackmail Uncle Sam with it. Not that the Great Unwashed ever got to hear about that little escapade.”

“What happened, sir?”

“We couldn’t go through the courts with a thing like that, of course. There was an unfortunate air crash. But you, Colonel, you do things on the grand scale; you’re on course to lose the planet. We face annihilation if we don’t find this frigging asteroid and nuclear holocaust if we’re seen looking. And so far you’ve managed to spring a leak and lose half your team in four days. Magnificent.”

A red blush spread over Noordhof’s face. The President turned to the CIA Director. “You got light to throw on this farce, Rich?”

The CIA Director stuffed tobacco into his pipe from an old black pouch on his lap. “Nope.”

“But someone knows about your team,” said the President.

“That’s impossible. These are just accidents,” said Heilbron unconvincingly.

“This is beginning to sound like the last message from the
Titanic
,” the President said.

“You can’t scare me, Mister President, I’m too old. We’re doing our human best.”

“If that’s your best, I’d hate to see you people on a bad day.”

They drove out of Casa Pacifica in a cramped little Fiat with tinted windows, and joined Interstate Five heading south. The Stars and Stripes fluttered over Pendleton Marine Corps base to the left; to the right, half-naked bodies lay sprawled out on Red Beach or splashed in the Pacific shimmering beyond. Late-afternoon traffic was pouring up from San Diego. The Secret Service man drove carefully, watching the ebb and flow of traffic around him, searching with practised eyes
for the anomaly in the pattern, the car which lingered too long, the strangeness in the proportion. But there was only the Buick in the rear mirror, a steady forty yards behind.

“Okay, Colonel, fill me in. What’s the word on your team?” asked Bellarmine, removing his dark glasses.

“We have more on the Leclerc–Webb thing,” said Noordhof. “I’ve had Nicholson from our Rome Embassy nosing around. This is weird, sir, but it seems the story starts in a monastery, in some mountain area south of Rome. It’s run by monks.”

“A monastery run by monks?” Bellarmine asked sarcastically.

“Yes, sir. It seems they have this famous library of old books, called the Helinandus Collection or something. All very securely held, fire-proofed, steel doors, smart electronics and so on. Local rumour has it that they are holding loot which was taken from the Germans at the end of the War, including a lot of books. One of them might be a manuscript written by an Italian called Vincenzo. But it’s just local folklore.”

“Do I know this guy Vincenzo?”

“I doubt it, sir, he’s been dead three hundred and fifty years.”

The Secretary of Defense sounded perplexed. “How does this connect with anything whatsoever?”

“This Webb guy gets it into his head that there’s something in this missing ancient tome that will let him identify Nemesis. Naturally everybody assumes he’s just flipped.”