The Devil Will Come (32 page)

When she was done, Micaela asked, ‘You expect me to believe this? And you’re telling me that our mother was involved with these people. That they might have poisoned her?’

‘I’m afraid everything Sister Elisabetta says is the absolute truth,’ Tremblay murmured. ‘They are difficult foes. It would be better if they didn’t exist but they do.’

‘And Malachy?’ Micaela asked, shaking her head. ‘Who’s he?’

Tremblay said, ‘I can answer that.’

To Elisabetta’s surprise, the priest was fluent in his knowledge of the prophecy and presented a brisk summary. When he finished, he curled his long index finger through the handle of the cup and raised it to drain the last of his tea, then added, ‘I can tell you, Elisabetta, we had no idea that the Lemures were involved with the Malachy business. No one in the Vatican took it seriously. That was a mistake and now we’ve arrived at the moment of Malachy’s last pope. And maybe our world’s last
hope
.’

Micaela displayed her characteristic blend of scepticism and exasperation. ‘Am I the only one who feels like they’re in a carnival hall of mirrors? It’s too much! None of this makes any sense to me.’

‘You saw Aldo Vani in the flesh,’ Elisabetta said. ‘You saw the photos of Bruno Ottinger. These men were Lemures. The Prophecy of Malachy was important enough for them to tattoo it onto their spines! I’m scared, Micaela. Your carnival analogy – this isn’t a hall of mirrors, it’s the terror ride. I think these men mean to do the Church great harm.’

Tremblay reached for the leather portfolio he’d deposited at his feet. He unzipped it and took out a sheaf of copier pages. ‘Your sister is right, Micaela. Sister Elisabetta, when you left this morning I went back to my office and began working to find out who this “R.A.” was who signed the Dee letter out of the Secret Archives in 1985. It involved a lot of work, looking through old Vatican personnel files. I think I have the likely man: a certain Riccardo Agnelli. He
was
the private secretary to a bishop, a man who is now a cardinal.’

‘Who? Which cardinal?’ Elisabetta asked.

‘In a minute. But this is something much more important. By the time I had my answer, I saw my email inbox was full of messages. I subscribe to a service that scans newspapers and magazines for certain key words and symbols, like the Monad.’

‘What’s the Monad?’ Micaela asked.

Elisabetta leaned forward and shushed her. ‘Wait!’

Tremblay was laying pages down, one at a time. ‘Here’s a classified ad in today’s
New York Times
.’ Elisabetta saw a small image of the Monad with no accompanying text. ‘Here’s an ad in
Pravda
. Here’s
Le Monde
. The
International Herald Tribune. Corriere della Sera. Der Spiegel. Jornal do Brasil. The Times
of London.
Sydney Morning Herald
. There are more. They’re all the same. Just the Monad. I called a reporter I know at
Le Monde
. I asked him if he could find out who placed the ad. He got back to me. They received a letter with no return address with cash for the ad and instructions to run the image today.’

‘It’s a message,’ Elisabetta whispered, barely audibly.

‘Yes.’ Tremblay nodded.

‘A message? A message about what? What are you two talking about?’ Micaela exclaimed.

Elisabetta rose suddenly and felt faint. She steadied herself with a hand on her chair. ‘I know what’s going to happen!’

‘So do I,’ Tremblay said, his slender fingers shaking.

‘All this urgency to keep the skeletons of Callixtus hidden,’ Elisabetta said. ‘All the attempts to silence me. It’s because of the Conclave. These Lemures. They’re communicating among themselves to be ready. They’re going to fulfill the Malachy prophecy. They’re going to strike tomorrow during the Conclave!’

‘Have you gone
mad
?’ Micaela said.

Elisabetta ignored her. ‘I’m going to call Zazo.’

‘Zazo’s on suspension. What can he do?’ Micaela snapped.

‘He’ll think of something.’

There was a light rapping from the hall.

‘Good,’ Micaela said. ‘Someone sane’s here. That’s Arturo.’

Micaela got up and opened the door.

There was a man filling the doorway, a man with a reddish beard holding a pistol. Two more were close behind, all of them neat, ordinary, unsmiling.

MICAELA YELPED BUT
the men pushed their way inside, closed the door and forced her to the ground. Elisabetta sprang up in panic and ran to the hall to witness a bearded man standing over her sister pointing a gun, trying to quiet her with a finger held in front of his lips. Two other clean-shaven men were aiming guns directly at her. Elisabetta froze. The man with a beard spoke in a language she didn’t recognize, then immediately switched to English when she didn’t respond.

‘Tell her to be quiet or I will kill her.’

His tone was coldly matter-of-fact, his eyes dull.

He’s one of them
, Elisabetta thought.

‘Please, Micaela, try to stay calm,’ she said. ‘We’ll be all right. Please, let my sister up.’

‘You will be quiet?’ the man asked her.

Micaela nodded and Elisabetta helped her to her feet.

There was a small sound from the kitchen.

One of the men ran there and in seconds was
marching
out Father Tremblay at gunpoint. The priest was breathing heavily.

‘What do you want?’ Elisabetta asked.

‘Go back, all of you,’ the bearded man said, pointing his gun toward the sitting room. ‘Is anyone else here?’

‘No.’

The bearded man seemed to be instructing one of the others to search the flat while he forced the sisters and Tremblay onto the sitting-room sofa. The man who stayed at his side was toting a large empty duffel bag.

Micaela’s lips were trembling. Angry tears streaked her cheeks and made her mascara run.

‘Are they?’ she whispered to Elisabetta.

‘I’m sure of it.’

Elisabetta’s eyes were dry. She fingered her crucifix and watched their every move, desperately trying to figure out a way to get Micaela out of this and fearful that her father or Arturo would stumble into their midst.

The other man came back from his search and gave an all-clear sign.

The bearded man took out a mobile phone, punched in a number and began speaking rapidly in a guttural dialect. When he was finished he barked some orders.

The man with the duffel bag put it down on the carpet, unzipped it and took out two more collapsed bags from inside.

‘All of you are coming with us,’ the bearded man said.

‘Where?’ Elisabetta demanded.

‘If you don’t resist, you won’t be hurt. That is the important fact.’

The other man unzipped a smaller bag and removed a metal bottle and some wads of gauze.

Micaela sniffed and stiffened. ‘Jesus, it’s ether! There’s no fucking way I’m going to let them etherize me.’

‘My God,’ Tremblay croaked. ‘Please, just take me. Let the women go.’

The bearded man addressed Elisabetta in a casual tone. ‘They want you, but they say, “Okay, take them too.” If they resist they won’t care so much if we leave them here with bullets in them.’

‘Listen to me, Micaela,’ Elisabetta said gravely. ‘Let them do it. Don’t put up a fight. God will protect you.’ Then she added ‘I will protect you.’

It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, watching her sister’s wild eyes as a brute pressed a reeking cloth over her mouth and nose, watching Micaela writhe and kick. But something was keeping Elisabetta’s mind lucid and working and while the men were focused on their awful work she snatched something off the end table and hid it in a pocket within her habit.

Micaela went limp and the gauze was removed from her face.

Father Tremblay began to pray in rapid-fire French. He sounded very young and looked very scared as the square of gauze was pressed onto his face.

When his body went slack Elisabetta smelled fresh
ether
and she too began to pray. As the fabric got closer to her nose the caustic stench made her gag.

She tried not to struggle but her body wouldn’t let herself go down without a fight. But the struggle was brief and soon it was over.

Zazo was trying to fulfill his promise to get good and drunk. But he was behind schedule, only a couple of beers into the scheme. He should have been on duty. It was the night before the Conclave and he knew that his men were busting their balls and that Lorenzo was running around like a madman to keep the wheels on his over-burdened cart.

Getting plastered somehow didn’t seem right.

The TV was on – some inane quiz show which he wasn’t watching. It was just noise.

His mobile rang.

‘Where are you?’ It was his father. He sounded stressed.

‘I’m home. What’s the matter?’

‘Did Elisabetta or Micaela call you?’

‘No, why?’

‘Arturo came over before I got home. The apartment door was unlocked. They weren’t there.’

Zazo was already standing, putting on his jacket. ‘I’ll be right there.’

There wasn’t enough air. Elisabetta’s mouth was uncovered but she was in some dark constricted space that didn’t allow her to shift her position. Her knees
were
drawn up uncomfortably to her chest. Then she realized that her wrists were bound in front of her. She lifted her hands to explore what was constraining her and felt the roughness of nylon mesh. Reaching up she felt her veil in place. It wasn’t helping her breathing.

There were vibrations coursing through her back and the sounds of tires on a rain-soaked highway.

She whispered ‘Micaela!’ and when there was no response she raised her voice and tried again.

Over the road noise she heard a soft and groggy ‘Elisabetta!’

‘Micaela, are you okay?’

Micaela’s voice grew a little stronger. ‘What happened to us? Where are we?’

Elisabetta’s fear was tempered by her sister’s presence. ‘I think I’m in a carry-bag.’

‘Me too. I can’t move.’

‘I think we’re in a car or a truck.’ Then she remembered something. ‘Father Tremblay?’ she called. ‘Father, are you there?’

There was no response.

‘I don’t know if they took him,’ Micaela said. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Who are they?’

Elisabetta knew the answer but hesitated to say it for fear of completely unnerving her sister – and herself. But she couldn’t hold it in. ‘The Lemures.’

Zazo almost lost it when Inspector Leone said, ‘Look, calm down, Celestino. You’ve been drinking. I can smell it on your breath.’

‘I had a couple of beers. What does that have to do with the disappearance of my sisters?’

Leone wouldn’t let go. ‘The Conclave starts tomorrow and you’re having beers? Don’t you guys have work to do?’

Zazo took a deep, self-controlling breath. ‘I’m on leave.’

Leone smirked. ‘Really. Why am I not shocked?’

If Zazo threw a punch he knew he’d be in handcuffs and the Polizia’s attention would be on him, not on his sisters. His father seemed to sense the hazard and put his hand on Zazo’s shoulder.

Zazo said slowly and carefully, ‘Let’s talk about my sisters, not me – okay, Inspector?’

‘Sure. Let’s talk about them. You haul me and my men out here and what do we find?’ Leone waved his arm around the sitting room. ‘Nothing! There’s no sign of forced entry, no sign of burglary, no sign of a struggle or violence. Me, I see a couple of ladies who went out for the night and forgot to lock the door behind them. And it’s still early, only 10:15. The night’s still young!’

‘You’re talking about a nun, for Christ’s sake!’ Zazo screamed. ‘She doesn’t go out on the town!’

‘I hear she’s on leave too.’

Carlo took over for his sputtering son. ‘Inspector, please. Since the attack on her she’s been very cautious.
Except
for Mass she’s hardly gone out. She and Micaela would never have left here without telling us or leaving a message. And why isn’t Micaela answering her phone?’

Leone raised his eyebrows as a signal to the two officers who were with him. ‘Look, there’s nothing we can do right now. In the morning, if they haven’t crept back into their beds, give me a call and we’ll treat them as missing persons.’

Soon, father and son were alone.

Zazo rubbed wearily at his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘I’ll call Arturo again to make sure they didn’t go to Micaela’s hospital or her apartment.’

Carlo looked around the room distractedly, then banged out the pellet from his pipe bowl on an ashtray. As he was filling a fresh bowl he asked, ‘Then what?’

‘Then you’re going to call every hospital casualty ward in Rome while I knock on every door in the apartment building to see if any of the neighbors heard or saw anything.’

‘And then what?’

Zazo had sounded like he expected they’d come up empty. ‘Then we wait. And pray.’

Blessedly, Elisabetta fell asleep for a time. She awoke abruptly to an awareness of a lack of motion. The air inside the bag was so depleted that she thought she would lose consciousness again. There were voices in that foreign language and the sound of a door unlatching. Then she was in motion again, but this time sliding and jerking and bouncing up and down.

‘Micaela?’

There was no response.

‘Micaela!’

Elisabetta bounced around for a minute, maybe two, suffering breathlessness and agitation, calling her sister’s name in vain. Then the bouncing stopped and she was on a hard surface again. There was a long, slow sound of unzipping, one of the most welcome sounds she’d ever heard. She gulped at the cool air and reflexively closed her eyes against the harsh light.

When her pupils had adjusted to the brightness, the first thing she saw was that wretched red beard. There was the click of a knife snapping open. She closed her eyes again when she saw the blade and started to pray, waiting for the agonizing sensation she’d felt once before – steel penetrating her body.

There was a slicing sound, quick and clean, and her hands went free.

The red-bearded man had cut the duct tape which bound her.

Elisabetta opened her eyes and awkwardly pushed herself to her feet. She was standing unsteadily in a collapsed black holdall in the middle of a large windowless cellar. The room was loaded with pine crates, each the size of a bathtub. But she was more interested in the two unzipped duffel bags which lay beside her.