The Bible of Clay (64 page)

She'd never wavered in her determination to kill Alfred's granddaughter. When she was just a teenager, living in Barcelona, her grandmother had told her the story of the assassination of Elisabeth of Austria. A man had come up to the empress and plunged a stiletto into her; the empress had died shortly afterward, with only a few drops of blood staining her dress.

When she began dreaming of killing Clara, she'd visualized the moment when she'd plunge the stiletto into her heart. It hadn't been easy to find the weapon she finally used—nobody sold stilettos anymore. She'd looked in all the secondhand stores, even a few souvenir shops, to see if she could find a reproduction. She'd eventually wound up looking through the scrap metal left by the workers of her construction company. Finally she found an awl—almost an ice pick, she thought, but longer and triangular—which she cleaned and sharpened and polished as though it were a work of art.

Back in her hotel room, she opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of champagne, and drank a toast to her triumph. For the first time in her entire long life, she felt fully, completely, truly happy.

Lion Doyle was furious. Clara Tannenberg was dead, but he hadn't killed her, and that meant he wouldn't get paid the rest of his fee. From what he could see, the killer had been a professional—who else would have had the courage and sangfroid to kill Clara in front of hundreds of people? The killer had stabbed her with something long and thin and sharp that had gone straight into Clara's heart and hardly left a trace. But who had it been?

He'd planned to kill her that night. She was staying at Marta Gomez's house, and he knew no one would think anything of it if he turned up there. They'd invite him in, and he'd eliminate the only remaining Tannenberg. He'd figured he would also have to kill Marta, but that was just collateral damage. The problem now, though, was that he couldn't tell Tom Martin he'd finished the job. And it bugged him to see Gian Maria crying like some damned schoolkid as he left the museum with Miranda to go to the hospital where Clara's body had been taken—the authorities had immediately called for an autopsy.

Lion walked into a phone booth and reluctantly called Tom Martin.

"Clara Tannenberg's been killed," he told him. "And .. . ?"

"I don't know who did it," Lion reported shamefacedly. "What! . . . Okay, get back here.
We
have to talk." "I'll be there tomorrow."

George Wagner had just finished a meeting when his secretary put through an urgent call from Paul Dukais.

"It's done," Paul said jubilantly. "Mission accomplished."

"Everything?"

"Everything! We've got the merchandise. And, by the way, somebody killed your friend's granddaughter."

George gave only the slightest pause. "The package, Paul—when will it be arriving?"

"It's on its way; it'll be there tomorrow."

Wagner had nothing to say about Clara. And there was no objection to Clara's murder from Enrique Gomez or Frankie dos Santos either. She hadn't mattered to them. Her murder, in fact, had nothing to do with them. Their only concern was placing the artifacts on the market as soon as possible. George had suggested that just this once, they all get together to drink to the success of their greatest operation—not just the looting of the Iraqi museums but also the theft of the Bible of Clay. He was itching to get his hands on it, to touch it, even if it would soon be on its way to its buyer.

In the waiting room at the hospital, Yves was pacing back and forth, unable to talk. Miranda, Fabian, and Marta were in the same shape, and all Gian Maria could do was cry.

Two police inspectors were waiting, like the others, for the results of the autopsy. Inspector Garcia, a man in his late forties, had asked the archaeologists to go with him to the police station to try to establish what had happened.

At last, the coroner came out. "Are any of you relatives of Clara Tannenberg?" he asked.

Picot and Fabian looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Marta, as usual, took charge.

"We're friends—she has no one else in Madrid. We've tried to contact her husband, but so far we've been unsuccessful."

"Very well. Sefiora Tannenberg was killed with a sharp object—a stiletto, an ice pick, very long and extremely thin; we aren't sure exactly what it was, but it pierced her heart. I'm sorry."

The coroner gave the police a few more details, then handed his report to Inspector Garcia.

"I'll be here awhile longer, Inspector, if you should need anything."

The inspector nodded. The case, he thought, was more complicated than it might seem, and he needed to get results fast. The press was calling the ministry for information. And the whole thing couldn't have been more sensational: an Iraqi archaeologist murdered in Madrid's National Archaeological Museum at the opening of an exhibit attended by politicians, government officials, and academics, at which a treasure was to be revealed. And the treasure, in turn, had been stolen from under the noses of the museum guards and security agents practically within sight of two hundred invited guests, including the vice president of the Spanish government himself.

He could just imagine the headlines the next day, and not only in Spain—the international press would pick this up from the wire services. He'd already gotten two calls from his superiors, wanting to know what he'd been able to find—especially the motive for the crime, which everyone figured was related to the mysterious treasure. The vice president had been clear—he wanted results now.

And that was precisely what the inspector hoped to get when he interviewed the dead archaeologist's friends.

It was hot at the police station, so he opened the window to let in a little cool air, at the same time motioning Picot and the others to sit down. The young priest was a wreck, clinging to Marta.

It was going to be a long night, since he was going to have to interview each of them, one by one, to try to answer two questions: Who had wanted Clara Tannenberg dead, and why?

The inspector's assistant turned on the TV set in the office, just in time for the nine o'clock news. They all fell silent, watching the images from that afternoon they'd never forget.

The news anchor was saying that in addition to the murder of the Iraqi archaeologist and a security guard whose body had been found later, a brazen robbery had taken place in the Archaeological Museum—someone had just walked out of the heavily fortified building with eight cuneiform clay tablets, priceless Mesopotamian treasures that some archaeologists had called the "Bible of Clay." That was the much-publicized "secret treasure" to be unveiled.

Yves Picot slammed his fist down on the desk; Fabian cursed incredulously. They'd killed Clara in order to steal the Bible of Clay, Picot said, and the rest agreed with him completely—undoubtedly that explained the murder.

Gian Maria's cry of anguish shocked them all. The priest was watching the screen, and a look of horror had come to his face as the museum's surveillance tape was aired and he saw Clara walking across the gallery with the chancellor, the two of them surrounded by attendees. Suddenly Clara seemed to stumble and then kept walking, until two or three seconds later she fell senseless to the floor.

But Gian Maria saw something else, something the others were incapable of seeing. In the midst of the crowd, for just one split second, he had glimpsed the profile of a woman he knew very, very well.

It was Mercedes Barreda, the little girl from Mauthausen, the little girl who, with his father and his other lifelong friends, had suffered the mind-numbing cruelty of Hitler's concentration camps and watched her mother die.

Instantly, Gian Maria realized that Mercedes was Clara's killer, and he felt a terrible sharp pain in his chest—his very soul was on fire. He couldn't tell anyone, could never denounce her, because that would be tantamount to denouncing his father. Yet not reporting her would make him an accomplice to Clara's murder and a sinner in the eyes of the Lord.

Inspector Garcia was asking him questions: What had he seen on the screen? What did he see there? But Gian Maria, his voice strained and thready, said it was nothing, just the shock of once again watching Clara die.

Yves Picot, Marta Gomez, and Fabian Tudela believed him, but Gian Maria's behavior had planted the seed of doubt in Inspector Garcia
's
mind—and in Miranda's too. She told herself that she had to get her hands on that news report so she could go over it with a fine-tooth comb, until she found some clue that would explain the priest's behavior.

Yves explained to Inspector Garcia in great detail what the tablets looked like and alerted him to not just the archaeological value of the Bible of Clay but also its religious value. The inspector was fascinated by the story Professor Picot told him of their last few months in Iraq. Out of Gian Maria he got little more than stammered monosyllables.

Time after time, the inspector asked Picot and the others to tell him everything about the last hours before the murder—who was invited to the opening, whom they'd seen, who knew about the existence of the tablets, whom they suspected. He wanted a list of everyone who'd had any contact whatever with the tablets. The five of them left the police station exhausted, convinced that the clues to the murder-theft led somewhere so dark they couldn't see it.

What's to become
of
me after this?
Gian Maria asked himself in desolation when, late that night, he returned to the hotel with Miranda and Picot.

Carlo Cipriani got into the taxi. He was tired, bone-weary, actually, despite the fact that the flight from Barcelona had taken only two hours.

It had been hard for him to say good-bye to Mercedes, Hans, and Bruno. They had tried so hard to convince him that the bonds that joined them were stronger than life or death. They were right—except for his children, he loved no one as much as he loved his three friends. He would sacrifice anything for them, but he thought the time had come to finally find some peace in his life, and he could do that only by distancing himself from them.

He had no reproach for Mercedes, nor had Bruno and Hans. She hadn't told them what she'd done—there was no reason to; they'd known the minute they saw her. She looked wonderful, transformed, radiant, and she told them that for the first time in her life she'd been sleeping like a baby. Hans couldn't bear to tell her how he felt about what she'd done, and Bruno simply wept.

Now, back in Rome, Carlo told himself that he had to make a new start on what remained of his life. He told the taxi to take him to St. Peter's Square, in the Vatican.

When he entered the basilica, the shadowy quietness of the space brought him calm.

Inspector Garcia was entering St. Peter's Square at the same time, on his way to the basilica to find Gian Maria. He'd convinced his superiors to let him follow a hunch and go to Rome, to talk to the young priest one more time.

Once inside the cathedral, the inspector hesitated, scanning the immense space. He paid no attention to the old man making his way to one of the confessionals.

As Carlo Cipriani closed the curtain behind him and knelt, he could see how the young priest had aged—his once-serene face was clouded with bitterness, and his eyes had changed.

"Mi benedica, Padre, perche ho peccato."

"What is your sin, my son?"

"I am responsible for the murder of two people. May God forgive me, and may my son forgive me also!" "Do you repent of these sins?" "Yes, Father."

"Then may God forgive you, and may God forgive me for not forgiving you."

Inspector Garcia saw the old man emerge from the confessional, his eyes filled with tears. It looked like he was having trouble breathing, and he seemed about to faint.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine—thank you," said Cipriani, walking away and not looking back.

Gian Maria came out of the confessional. He looked unsurprised to see the inspector and moved forward to shake his hand.

"I'm sorry to have come all this way to bother you, Father, but I'd like to talk to you again.
You
don't have to if you don't want to . . . ," the inspector said to him.

Gian Maria looked at Inspector Garcia without answering. Then, as he began to walk alongside him, he saw his father fall to his knees before Michelangelo's "Pieta" and hide his face in his hands. He felt a wave of pity for the old man, and for himself.

The skies were gray in Rome that day, and rain was falling over all the living and the dead.

about the author

JULIA
NAVARRO
is a Madrid-based journalist and political analyst for Agencia OTR/Europa Press, and a correspondent for other prominent Spanish radio and television networks and print media; she also writes a weekly column for
Tiempo
magazine and is the author of several non-fiction books on contemporary political affairs. Bantam Dell published the English translation of her
first
novel, the international bestseller
The Brotherhood
of
the Holy Shroud,
in 2006. Her latest historical thriller,
The Blood
of
the Innocents,
is currently topping bestseller lists in Europe.

ANDREW HURLEY is best known for his translation of Jorge Luis Borges's
Collected Fictions
and Reinaldo Arenas's "Pentagony" novels, among many other translated works of literature, criticism, history, and memoir. He lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico.