Vatican Ambassador (19 page)

Holy Shit.

Wentworth goes on. “The Pope is dying. According to my reports, half of the Vatican has succumbed to this mystery illness. DeMag and most of his closest circle is dead from this thing now, too. People around the world are getting sick. Who knows how far it’ll spread? Who knows who else is infected? You could be, you know, Campion. You could be a carrier. Or you could be immune. Either way. I feel like we’ve been attacked.”

“Wentworth... we don’t know if any of the UIN delegation got sick. Do you have any
reports
on that? I don’t think they’d come right out and tell us if they were.”

“They would if they perceived it as a threat, as a strike against them. If they thought it was an attack, they’d come right after us,” Wentworth tells him.

“The same way you’re saying we should go after them?” BC says.

“Exactly,” Wentworth nods.

“So we may not have heard from them if they
are
sick because they’re holding conversations among themselves just like this one you and I are having right now,” BC observes.

“True,” Wentworth admits.

“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” BC prods.

“What kind of question is that?” Wentworth protests.

“What else is there?” BC keeps pushing.

“Nothing else. Yet. I’ll keep my people working on this. I just wanted to let you know what was in this preliminary report. Think about possible counterstrikes.”

“Great,” BC says. “But don’t do anything yet, alright? We need to find out exactly what this thing is first. We need to know what caused it, and if it is an attack, who infected us.”

“Who else could it be?” Wentworth argues. “We’ll give it a little more time. UTZ researchers are doing their damnedest. It’s our only priority right now.”

“Guess it kinda has to be.”

“Keep me informed of any developments on your end, Campion. Anything, and I mean,
anything
you hear, let me know.”

“Right. Bye Wentworth,” BC clicks off the com.

Arrogant fuck. I still hate him. I’ll use him though, if I can. Work with him to cure this thing,
strike back at Mars if we have to. The man’s got power. If he can be focused properly...
Sunday morning brings with it a new month. BC is forced to come up with a sermon for Sunday Mass in just a few minutes, as Father Daycomb has suddenly taken ill. The Mass and the day go by quickly for BC. He’s preoccupied with the thoughts running through his head, the Who? Why? And How? of the sickness.

BC paces around his office at day’s end. He looks at the two paintings of Jesus on the wall, salvaged from the wreckage of the old Cardinal’s office after the UIN attacks. BC found the Black Jesus and the Eastern Orthodox Icon in the ruins. There are some singe marks on the frame and the lower edge of the painting of the Black Jesus.

Rising out of the fire. Funny, you almost look like an icon, a black icon. Side by side with the
old Greek icon guy there, you bear a resemblance. The dark side of the family. Yet probably a
more accurate portrait than the pale, thin guy there.

Funny, my mind wanders. Am I deliberately trying to think of other things? What is it? There’s
something here, something to this sickness.

Part of me does want to strike out at the UIN... but part of me still doubts it’s them.
I know I don’t want it to be them. But if it is, I want to strike them back and hard.
Love your enemies? That’s really your tough one, isn’t it? The Light was big on that, also
admitted he was no good at it. It’s tough to maintain any sense of perspective, I suppose, when
you’re becoming a messiah figure in your own right.

What do you think?

Great, I’m talking to paintings.
Or thinking at them.

I wonder if it really was You, back there on Fortune Station.

Huh. Fortune Station. I haven’t thought of them for a while. I wonder... whatever happened to
the cult? Back on Earth, probably getting sick… I certainly did them no favors. Screwed that up
and screwed them over hard. Though what did I owe them, anyway? After all they did to me.
Well, after what I was going to do to him.
..

It wasn’t intentional. It just happened. I should have seen it coming. Maybe I did on some level
and just ignored it. Why should I care? Kim was a real bastard in his own right. I did like his
daughter, though. Man
.

The chime of the com breaks BC’s reverie.

Wentworth? Already?

“Yes?”

“Incoming message. Audio Only.”

“Go ahead. Campion here.”

“Father Campion?” A woman’s voice. Pleasant. Unaccented.

“Yes?”

“Hello, Father. You don’t know me, but I have some information I believe will be of importance to you.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a scientist. I work here on the Moon. My name is Doctor Capituna. And I believe I know who infected the people who have died and are dying, here and on Earth, right now.”

Holy Shit. No, lady, I don’t need to know that!

Is she for real? Or a kook who got through?

“Go on,” BC encourages her to talk.

“I can’t say anymore over the com. Can we meet?” she asks.

“Sure. Why don’t you come to my office?” BC asks.

“Um...” she pauses. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

That’s suspicious...

“Your security measures. I can’t get past them to see you. Not right now.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Let’s see...

“Then where?” BC asks.

“You couldn’t come to my lab for the same reasons. Security measures. So let’s meet at a restaurant or someplace like that.”

“Sure. How about...”

Where was that place? McGrady’s?

“McGrady’s?” BC suggests.

“Sure. When?” She asks.

BC checks the time. 7:12.

“How about 8 o’clock?”

“Fine. Where is it?”

“Atrium. Second Level. How will I know it’s you?”

“You won’t. But I know you. Who you are, I mean.”

Creepy. I don’t like this at all. But if she is for real...

“Uh... okay. But you have me at a disadvantage, then.”

“Oh.” she doesn’t say anything for a second. Then there’s almost a hint of attitude in her voice. “You think you can handle that?”

What’s this, sass? I think I know that voice from somewhere... but who? Who is she? What the
fuck.

“Sure. See you in about 45 minutes,” BC says.

The com is dead.

Gone. Huh.

Should I tell Wentworth? Nah. Nothing to tell yet, don’t need to waste his time. Maybe I’ll know
something soon, though. Or I’m chasing a wild goose. Be nice to have some back up. Oh, the price
of running alone. I’ll just go early and sit with my back to the wall, facing the door... might as
well leave now.

BC heads out the door for McGrady’s. He finds the place almost empty, finds himself a table near the back with a chair against the wall, facing the door. He catches the notice of the bartender across the room. He nods and smiles at BC. BC nods back.

Guess he knows me, or at least figures a priest is no threat. I haven’t been here very much
lately.

BC gets up and orders a pint of Guinness.

Best not to appear out of place. Gotta drink a pint to blend in. Such a sacrifice.
A woman, average height, walks in while BC awaits his pint. She wears a long, tan, old-fashioned coat. Large, dark sunglasses cover her eyes and most of her face. The rest of her head is just about covered by a scarf, but strands of blonde hair fall out around her face.
That head covering almost looks Muslim, but not quite. Is it her? The woman who called me?

She looks darker in complexion than a natural blonde... tan or bleach?

The woman looks around the bar. BC tries not to watch as she looks. He can see the bar in the mirror behind the bar in front of him.

There’s an older man sitting at the inside end of the bar alone
,
hand rolling cigarettes. A young couple is in a booth across the room, two booths down from where BC first sat down, all into each other and ignoring their Caesar salads.

Another man sits at a table alone, reading the paper.

Funny. We call it a paper, but it’s a tablet, really. Old habits die hard, I guess. Wonder when
the last paper was actually made of paper... what’s this?

The blonde approaches the bar. She tilts her glasses down. Her brown eyes peer out over the top of them at BC.

That’s gotta be her, Capituna… Huh... something familiar about her. There was something about
her voice, too, too familiar, felt like I should know her. She looks like she could be cute under
there. Maybe it’s just that feeling you get when you meet a beautiful woman. You you knew her
before, so you you might have known her.

It is her. She comes over with her hand extended toward BC.

“Father Campion?” She asks.

BC nods, shakes her hand. “Doctor Capituna, I presume?”

She nods. “Can we sit down?”

“Sure. Do you want anything?” BC asks her.

“Soda water? With Lemon?”

She sits down across the table from him, leaves on her scarf and her glasses. The bartender brings BC’s finished Guinness over.

“Thank you, sir,” BC says to him. “Could you bring a club soda with lemon for the lady, please?”

“You want a tab, Padre?” he asks BC.

“Sure. Thank you...” BC lets it trail, fishing for a name.

“It’s Diamande, Padre. I go to your church. Well, sometimes.”

“Well, Diamande, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Sure, Father. I’ll be over with the lady’s soda in no time!” Diamande says. There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence, mercifully broken by Diamande appearing with Doctor Capituna’s club soda.

“Thank you,” she says, turning to Diamande.

I swear, where I know this woman from somewhere...
...so familiar, somehow.
She sips the soda through the straw as she turns back to face BC. She puts down the glass.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve lied to you,” she says.

Oh great. She
is
a nutcase!

“Great,” BC says. “You don’t have any information for me, do you?”

She looks surprised. “No! That’s not it at all! I do. That’s not it! I mean that I lied when I told you we hadn’t met before. We have.”

I knew it!

“Have we?” BC asks, quasi-innocently.

“Yeah,” she says, half gulping. “And not under the best of circumstances. I owe you a huge explanation and an apology, if you’ll hear me out.”

BC gets exasperated. “Look, are you gonna quit this mysterious...”

He stops, suddenly speechless. “Doctor Capituna” has removed her scarf and glasses. And even as a blonde, BC recognizes her.

Nita Bendix! Nita fucking Bendix!

“I should kill you right now,” BC says in a harsh whisper. “Tell me why I shouldn’t. And be quick about it. Very quick. Because you’re already dead. You know that, don’t you?” BC sneers at her.

“Hold on, ‘Padre’. Thou shalt not kill or something?” She smirks, thinks better of it, and gets serious again. “And what about the witnesses?”

“Don’t care. If I hadn’t mellowed, you’d already be dead,
Bendix
!” BC nearly snarls. “You best talk fast!”

“Or what?” She leans over the table. ‘The Vatican Ambassador to the Moon is going to kill me in public?

And with what? You packin’ heat?”

“You might be surprised,” he says coldly. She leans back.

“I don’t think so,” she tells him. “If we met in your office, I
might
be dead already,” she admits.

“Yup, that sounds right,” BC sarcastically admits.

How can I kill her? What’s available? Knives with the silverware? Huh. Plastic. That’ll do.

“I’m not your enemy, Father Campion,” she says. “You need to know that. You wouldn’t want to kill a friend now, would you?”

“You? A friend? You tried to kill me!” BC protests.

“Ha!” She laughs out loud. “If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. What was it, two years ago? I actually saved your life,” she says with a huff. “I did want it to
look
like I’d tried to kill you, so I guess I understand your confusion. I had to make it look good. Otherwise I would’ve blown my UIN cover.”

“What?” BC asks. But his mind is racing through ways he can kill her in front of these witnesses. But then it registers. “UIN cover?”

“Yeah,” she says, “The UIN thought I was theirs, working as a mole in the LSC.”

“Double Agent?” BC humors her.

“Not exactly. I guess I was a
triple
agent,” she says. “If you want to get technical. But not really. Because I think my side and your side are actually the same side.”

“Right.” BC realizes his Guinness is gone. He contemplates his empty pint glass, and then he looks back up at Nita Bendix. Doctor Capituna.

Whatever.

“Triple?” BC says.

“I work for... a separate concern. Not the UIN. Not by a long shot! We’re independent. I was working under cover on both sides.”

“Great! An equal opportunity spy! How incredibly
fair
of you!” BC cracks. “You’re not UIN or UTZ… What? Do you work for Lunar Prime?” BC asks.

Edwards never mentioned having any kind of intelligence force. But maybe he wouldn’t have,
to me...

“No,” she says. “We work for ourselves. A separate concern, like I said. It was our people who saved you after I left you for ‘dead’. I had to make it look good for the UIN, but I knew my guys would be there to get you.”

“The LSC brought me back,” BC protests.

“The LSC picked you up
after
we saved you. We called them,” she insists. ““Didn’t you see our ship after the UIN ship took off? One of our ships was there.”

“What? The flasher? You’re trying to tell me the ‘flashers’ are your ships?” BC asks her in disbelief.

“You’re with the flashers?”

“The flashers? Yeah, I guess you could say I’m with them.”