Pope's Assassin (8 page)

    "I hope it goes for the best. As Our Lord desires," he wished.

    "Our Lord doesn't have anything to do with this," Schmidt concluded.

    "Do you also think Ben Isaac has nothing to do with this?" Tarcisio returned to the previous subject.

    "I suggest you try to find him, if it's not too late."

    "How?"

    "Think a little, Tarcisio. They killed Zafer and Aragones. We can very well fear for the fate of Sigfried and the Isaac family."

    "But who's behind all this?" Tarcisio asked."What's their intention?"

    "I don't know, but whoever it is doesn't stop at half measures." He stopped talking and thought about it. "Hm. Interesting."

    "What?"

    "The participants in the Status Quo are all being eliminated," he said with a thoughtful expression.

    "And?"

    "Two are left."

H
istory tends to write itself with deep chisel marks that disappear only with the passage of time, dissolving in oblivious rain. Insignificant people will never be remembered on bronze plaques that record their birth, the place they lived, or their achievements. They remain only in the memory of those who lost them, until they, too, disappear under a forgotten gravestone.

    No one would remember Yaman Zafer's deeds, not because there weren't any, but because he spent his life trying to conceal them. The last hours of his life proved that his best efforts were not enough.

    Rafael leaned over the greasy, disgusting stained fl oor, examining it in silence, as if hoping that the place would speak for itself. He was sad. He had known Zafer and his sons for more than twenty years. Not that he saw them often. Sometimes years passed, but they felt together at every moment. This had been eliminated.

    "I still don't see what you think you'll find here," Jacopo grumbled, standing up, looking at the priest.

    "I still don't see what you're doing here," the other replied.

    "You know perfectly well why I'm here."

    They had arrived in Paris around midnight. The flight had been

smooth, covering the miles in the darkness. Jacopo had used the time to talk about his theory about the lack of proof for the stories in the Bible. Rafael listened to him without paying attention.

    "Until the end of the nineteenth century the truth of the Bible was never put into question. The Evangelists were inspired by God. The truth is that, as much as it could, the church didn't allow its faithful to read the sacred book in their language. It was a crime, punished by death." His theatrical gestures didn't impress Rafael. "It was Pope Paul the Fifth, in the seventeenth century, who said, 'Don't you know that much reading of the Bible harms the church?'" he quoted sarcastically. "Now, think about it. What church, especially one called a religion of the book, bases its dogmas on the book but prohibits its believers from reading the sacred book that gives credibility to everything it proclaims?" He paused dramatically. "The nineteenth century initiated a feverish archaeological search for proof of the 'facts'"—he sketched quotation marks in the air when he said this word—"narrated in the Bible. They excavated everywhere there was a site. Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, a host of sites in the Near and Middle East. They wanted to fi nd Solo mon's temple, the remains of Noah's ark, anything to confirm the facts of the Bible. Paul Emile Botta, the French consul in Mosul, began the race, Austen Henry Layard, an English diplomat, was next, then another Englishman, also named Henry, embarked on the search."

    Rafael looked at him for the first time. He could do without the history lesson. He'd known this argument for years.

    "Do they pay you to teach this?" he asked scornfully.

    "After decades of excavations, smiles, delusions, anxieties, what did they find?" He left the question hanging in the air, ignoring Rafael's remark. Jacopo made a circle with his thumb and fi nger. "Zero," he proclaimed triumphantly. "Nothing."

    "Nothing?" Rafael asked.

    "Absolutely nothing," Jacopo reiterated. "Nothing to confi rm a single fact mentioned in the Old or New Testament. But they came to another conclusion: names of people and places appear in the Bible that the Greeks and Romans had never heard of. They're mentioned only in the Bible, and nowhere else."

    "On January 4, 2003, a block of limestone was discovered with inscriptions in ancient Phoenician of a detailed plan for the recovery of the first Jewish temple, Solomon's," Rafael said."It was found on the Temple Mount, in the old city of Jerusalem."

    "The Haram al Sharif, as the Muslims call it," Jacopo added, visibly pleased with himself.

    "The fragment dated from the time of the biblical king Jehoash, who reigned more than twenty-five hundred years ago. If you're so well versed in the Bible, then you must remember chapter twelve, verses four, fi ve, and six, specifi cally, from the Second Book of Kings, where it's related that Jehoash, king of Judah, ordered all the money from the Temple collected to use in its restoration."

    "Allegedly," Jacopo offered with a smile. "They never let me see that discovery. Nor was there further information about it."

    "In 1961," Rafael continued, "an excavation of an ancient amphi theatre, ordered built by Herod the Great in Caesarea in the year 30 B.C., revealed a limestone block, accepted as authentic. A partial inscription was found on it."

    Jacopo and Rafael quoted at the same time:

DIS AUGUSTIS TIBERIEUM

PONTIUS PILATUS

PRAEFECTUS IUDAEAE

FECIT DEDICVIT.

    "It's a work in progress. Don't forget we're talking about millen nia of history on top of history. But you never know when something new might appear, and you better than anyone know that it's a slow process."

    Jacopo lifted his arms and opened his hands. "Let the sophists return. They're forgiven."

    A light rain fell on them as they left the terminal, wetting their faces and clinging to their clothes.

    "Shitty weather," Jacopo complained.

    The police had sent a car to take them to the place where Zafer had been found by an addict who was using the private spot to get high. Instead he found an old man stretched out on the fl oor on his stom ach, lifeless.

    The warehouse was in the north of the city, far from the tourist traffic and glow that made Paris the City of Lights. A collection of pro jectors, powered by a generator that made a monumental noise, lit up the interior and exterior of the building. The cadaver had been picked up during the afternoon. A technician collected all the evidence that could reveal anything about the crime. The rest was pretty clear. Zafer had come of his own free will, received a beating, and an injection of prussic acid ended his suffering.

    Some plainclothes police wandered through the area busy with tasks that would make no sense to outsiders. Others were just talking together, anticipating the end of a long day of work.

    "Rafael Santini?" called out a man in a tan suit with a cigarette in his mouth.

    Rafael was brought back from the world of possibilities and specu lations he'd been absorbed in and got up.

    "That's me. Are you Inspector Gavache?"

    "Yeah." He extended his hand.

    "Jacopo Sebastiani," the other interjected.

    "What are you doing here?" Gavache asked, greeting him hostilely.

"We're friends of the victim," Rafael put in before Jacopo answered.

    Gavache looked at them with displeasure. He didn't try to hide the fact he was there to keep an eye on them.

    "Tell me," he said to Rafael, who was obviously the leader, "who's Yaman Zafer?" He took a drag on his cigarette.

    "He's not of interest to the Vatican. We're here personally, as friends of the dead man."

    Gavache looked at them again. First one, and then the other, doing justice to his role as an inspector."Well," he finally said. Cigarette smoke formed a cloud around the three of them. "Friendship is a wonderful thing. Did you know him a long time?"

    "Twenty years. He was a respected archaeologist at the University of London. Maybe you know some of his publications," Rafael told him. He had to give him something. Gavache was no fool.

    "I don't like reading," the French inspector replied. "Life's already a big enough book to waste time with that. Did he
archaeologize
some thing for the Vatican?"

    "He did some work under the sponsorship of the Holy Father," Rafael confirmed. "Some excavations in Rome and Orvieto." He couldn't tell him everything. "Can we help with anything?" Rafael offered. He felt he was losing him.

    "No. If you don't mind my saying so, friends are a distraction in cases like this," he said disdainfully. "Jean-Paul," he called out to some one, who came up from behind. Gaunt and tall with veins sticking out on his neck. If you didn't know him, you would think he was starving.

    "Here, Inspector."

    "Escort these gentlemen to the city. We don't need them here.
Merci
beaucoup."
He turned his back, lifting his cigarette to his mouth again.

    "Follow me, s
'il vous plaît,"
Jean-Paul said.

    At that moment Rafael looked at Gavache, who was brandishing some photographs a technician had given him.

    "Was this your plan?" Jacopo protested, sticking his hands in his pocket to fight the cold. "A waste of time."

    "The devil is in the details," Rafael replied, continuing to watch Gavache.

    They went outside to Jean-Paul's vehicle.

    "Do you have the results of the autopsy yet, Inspector?" Rafael asked. He needed information.

    "Yes and no. Yes, we have them, and, no, I'm not an inspector. Your friend was badly beaten and injected with cyanide. A quick death."

    As they descended some iron stairs, their heavy shoes made them ring with every step.

    "Any suspects?"

    "No, no one. Everything's clean. Not even a hair fi ber. Everything else is shit, I'd say. Whoever did this chose the place well."

    "You're not going to find anything," Rafael said.

    "Father Rafael," he heard a voice call out. There was a woman at the door of the warehouse.

    Rafael looked.

    "Inspector Gavache would like a word with you, if you don't mind."

    Rafael went up three steps and entered what was formerly an offi ce.

    Gavache was busy discussing something with two of his men. His nasal voice rose above those of the others. He caught sight of the Italian priest.

    "Ah, Father. Do you mind if I call you that?" He handed him some photographs. "Do you know him?"

    Rafael looked at the three photographs. Each was of the corpse of a male, on the floor, who was not a friend of his. He was darker, dirty also. A wooden chair fallen to the side. He couldn't see the face.

    "This is not Zafer," he said with certainty.

    "So far we're in agreement."

    Gavache gave him another photograph. The corpse was on a

gurney in the body bag of a mortuary. Rafael looked at the face and recognized it.

    "There was no identification with him. What name are we going to give him?" Gavache inquired expectantly.

    Rafael didn't know how the inspector had related the two cases, but he wasn't going to hold back. He needed him to get access to the case or cases.

    "Sigfried Hammal. Professor of theology. When did this happen?"

    "Today."

    "Here in Paris?"

    Gavache shook his head. "In Marseille."

    He looked at his subordinates. He didn't need to say a word for them to step out and leave them alone. Gavache gave Rafael a prosecu torial stare.

    "What's going on here?" he asked suddenly. "An archaeologist, a theologian. Two people tied to the church, dead in the same manner, in the same country."

    "I have no idea," Rafael responded without lowering his gaze. To do so would suggest withholding something.

    "Some scam. Was he also a friend of the German?"

    "I saw him only once."

    "For what reason?"

    "I don't remember. It was a long time ago."

    "How long?"

    "Maybe twenty years."

    "And the archaeologist was English?"

    "Turkish, but he he'd lived in London almost since birth."

    "Don't you think it's curious you knew both of them?"

    "What do you mean by that?"

    "Two deaths, one after the other, of two people you knew."

    "Are you telling me I'm a suspect?"

    "Of course. We all are. Only they"—he pointed to the photos— "are not suspects."

    Death frees everyone of guilt and suffering. The true salvation.

    "Do you believe in life after death?" the Frenchman asked.

    "Excuse me?" What kind of question was that?

    "Just curious," Gavache added.

    Rafael was speechless. He'd have to respond carefully to avoid being misunderstood.

    "I believe there is a world after death where we'll be in communion with God and . . ."

    "In heaven?"

    "Yes."

    "Or hell?"

    "For whoever hasn't saved his soul," Rafael explained. Where were these questions leading?

    "Do you think the Turk and the Englishman went to heaven or hell?"

    Gavache had a gift for leaving him speechless.