The Book of Q (42 page)

“That makes two of us.”

“Whoever it is, they’re very thorough. They knew where to find me.”

“Sorry about that.”

She shot him a quick glance. A mock upbraiding. “They would have come whether you and Salko had shown up or not. Probably better that you did.”

“You’re being mighty nice this morning.”

“Don’t get too used to it.”

Without thinking, he dipped the buttered piece into his coffee, the black liquid turning a pale brown. “That was clever.”

“If you’d wanted milk, all you had to do was ask,” she said.

“Yes, thank you very much.” He stood and walked to the sink, then dumped out the cup. “It was pretty horrible anyway.” Regardless, he poured himself a fresh cup.

“I guess … this must be a bit of a shock,” she said.

“The bad coffee?” She let the comment pass. “I can’t say it’s what I expected when I left Rome, no.”

“Right.” She hesitated. “What did you mean yesterday? About it not making sense to you.”

He was about to take a sip, but stopped. “I thought … you didn’t want to talk about that.”

“I guess I do.”

He leaned back against the counter.

“Or …” She suddenly stood and moved to the counter, eyes fixed on the kettle. “Maybe not. Maybe now’s not the best time.” She picked up the kettle and, facing away from him, began to pour.

He tried to find something to say, but all he could come up with was, “Okay.”

She placed the kettle down and stood there, staring, her hands on the counter.

“I don’t even know why I asked,” she said.

He turned to her, her face in profile. Once more, he reached out and took her hand. This time, she didn’t pull away.

“Maybe … we should let this wait until after Visegrad,” he said.

Her eyes still on the counter, she nodded slowly. “Maybe we should.”

No movement. Then, slowly, she looked up at him, her hand still in his. She said nothing. A moment later, she let go and headed to the table, cup in hand.

“So,” she asked as she sat, “what exactly are you looking for in Visegrad?”

It took him a moment to refocus. “Remember that parchment we found in the old church?”

“Of course I remember it.”

“I think it’s related to that.”

Her eyes went wide. “That’s … bizarre.”

For the first time since he’d made the connection, Pearse realized he hadn’t taken the time to admit how odd it really was. For the next twenty-five minutes, he did his best to explain what he himself was having trouble understanding.

“And you think they’ll kill this friend of yours?” she asked.

Pearse shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He was about to explain further, when the sound of cars and vans broke through from outside. Both of them moved to the window, Pearse’s initial assumption the boys from Kukes. When he recognized
one of the men from last night’s conversation, however, he relaxed. That is, until he saw the makeshift stretcher, a body in tow, being pulled from the back of one of the vans. The place was at once alive with running figures, a woman walking by the side of the stretcher, her hands clutching something below the laid-out man’s shirt.

Petra was already out the door by the time Pearse could take it all in. He moved outside as well, two men pushing past him, no concern for their erstwhile guest.

“Some sort of raid that went wrong,” Petra said, drawing up to him. “Two of them are injured. I told them you’re a priest.”

“But they’re not Catholics.”

“They don’t seem to care. They’re taking them in there.”

Petra led him toward one of the houses, what passed for the village clinic. Not terribly sanitary, but certainly the cleanest room within a ten-mile radius. Inside, they’d already started on the man Pearse had seen through the window, the woman a doctor still at his side. The other lay on a second table, doing his best to hold back the screams, sudden bursts of air through his nose, a man who looked well into his forties but who was probably no more than twenty-five. Every few seconds, his back arched, the grimace on his face silencing whatever means of release he had found, the need for two others to hold him down. His leg was streaked red, a bandage drenched in blood around what remained of his right foot.

The other was at most nineteen, no screams, no movement, no need to hold him down. His eyes remained wide, a stare Pearse recalled all too well from another lifetime. This boy would be dead within minutes. Even so, the doctor was doing what she could. A small area of his shirt showed some blood, hardly enough, though, to prompt the distant stare. Only when he moved closer did Pearse realize that the front of the torso wasn’t the issue. From beneath the gurney, a small pool of blood had begun to gather on the table. The boy lay flat because to move would mean to leave a part of himself on the canvas. The doctor called Pearse over. They needed help with the shirt. Pearse did as he was told. Kukes revisited.

In a sudden movement, the boy grabbed his arm and began to speak in a rapid-fire whisper. Pearse turned to the doctor, expecting her to bark at him to get out of the way—but she was too busy to notice. Without thinking, Pearse leaned over, trying to make out even one or two of the
words as they raced by. The boy spoke with such intensity that Pearse found himself nodding, as if he actually understood what the boy meant him to hear. The whisper gave way to a strange sort of laugh, the grasp on his arm loosening, until the boy drifted back to silence.

Pearse stared at the face.

The clarity of that moment. The purity of its language, even unheard.

Even as the gaze froze.

Pearse turned to the doctor. She, too, had watched the final moments; she reached over and shut the boy’s eyes. Not a word to Pearse as she moved to the second table. With everyone preoccupied, Pearse silently gave the boy the last rites, whichever God he prayed to.

Forty-five minutes later, he stood outside with Petra, the shock slowly wearing off.

As if heaven-sent, Ivo and Mendravic chose to appear at that moment, making their way up the road, the tinier of the two skipping, his hands filled with rocks and sticks, and who knows what—treasures only a seven-year-old could find. “Here’s to exploring,” Pearse said as he and Petra moved out to them. Ivo began to run toward his mother as soon as he saw her.

“We came back about twenty minutes ago,” said Mendravic as he drew up to Pearse.

“Did he see any of the—”

“No,” Mendravic answered, continuing to walk, leaving Ivo with his mother. “I thought it a good idea to find another adventure.”

Pearse nodded, continuing to walk. “One of them mentioned something about a raid gone wrong.”

“They picked the wrong day to go,” Mendravic replied.

Before he could explain, one of the KLA men had drawn up to them, now walking alongside. Youngish, mid-thirties, he’d been one of the more vocal around the table last night. Pearse couldn’t quite recall his name.

“It was as if they were waiting for us, Salko,” he began, ignoring Pearse altogether. “You wouldn’t have believed it. Armored vehicles, roadblocks, the whole works. We had no choice but to run. I still have no idea how they knew we were coming.”

“They didn’t,” answered Mendravic.

“I’m telling you—”

“You were an added bonus,” he explained. “They weren’t there for you.” Before the man could ask, Mendravic said, “They were there
because of what happened two hours before you left.” Mendravic stopped. “Someone blew up a Catholic church around five this morning. I saw it on the news at that inn outside of Janca. The boy and I stopped for lunch. It was all over the television.”

“Serbs?” asked the man.

“They have no idea,” Mendravic answered. “No one killed. Just the building.”

“So why the roadblocks?” asked the man, a growing frustration in his voice. “You’d think they’d be happy that the Catholics got it. Happier if it had been a mosque.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Mendravic answered. “That’s why they were there. You were lucky to get away.”

“Because of some hysteria about a church, I lost a man?” Pearse could see the rage in his eyes, the utter disbelief. “They’ll blame it on us, won’t they? Catholic church. Muslim KLA. Probably did it themselves just for the excuse.” The man began to shake his head, all the while staring at Mendravic, Pearse evidently still invisible. When the words wouldn’t come, he finally looked at the priest, no hint of kindness in his eyes. For a moment, it seemed as if he might say something. Instead, he turned and headed back to the clinic.

“What weren’t you telling him?” asked Pearse when the man had moved out of earshot.

“It’s the stupidity that’ll make him want to kill them even more now,” Mendravic said, his eyes fixed on the retreating figure. When he realized Pearse had said something, he turned to him. “What?”

“There was something else you didn’t tell him, wasn’t there?”

Mendravic waited before answering. “When did you get to be so smart?”

“What didn’t you tell him?”

His eyes narrowed for just a moment. “It wasn’t only one church. There were three others. Two in Germany, another in Spain. Also this morning.”

“And they think they’re connected?”

“They? Yes, the TV people think that they’re connected.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was there any news on the election?”

“Election?”

“The Pope.”

“Oh. Black smoke. They’ll do it all again tomorrow. What does that have to do with—”

“That’s probably your answer.” Stopping Mendravic short, Pearse added, “What better time to strike? The church preoccupied. No single authority. Catch them with their pants down.”

“For what reason?”

“It might be more obvious than you think.”

Again, Mendravic paused. “You think it has to do with your little book.”

“So do you. That’s why you didn’t say anything to your KLA friend.”

Another pause. “All right,” he admitted. “Then what, exactly, is in that book that would explain all of this?”

It was now Pearse’s turn to wait. “I wish I knew, Salko. I wish I knew.”

Kleist glanced over his shoulder one last time. Highly unlikely that anyone had followed him down here, but best to be sure. An endless assortment of pipes—all wrapped in plaster—ran along the low ceiling, the hum of a generator and furnace somewhere off in the distance. Otherwise, the basement of the Domus Sanctae Marthae lay in silence.

Above him, a hundred cardinals waited in their rooms, relaxing or praying, or doing whatever it is that cardinals do between conclave votes and dinner. Tonight, he had no intention of disturbing them.

Except for one.

Checking the building schematic for perhaps the fifth time in the last minute, he came to a small door located low on one of the walls, the hatch no more than two feet square. Fixed into its lower left-hand corner waited a simple lock, brand-new from the shine. Kleist pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, slipped one into the slot, and pulled back the door. Dropping to his knees, he angled his flashlight up and peered through.

No more than four feet across, the opening extended up beyond the reach of the light, equally distant to both his left and right. It was as if a four-foot wedge had been yanked from the center of the building, leaving this hollow tucked deep within. The light caught on a group of pipes perhaps twelve feet above him, open space above that, then another set of pipes twelve feet above that, so on and so on, the crude demarcation of the floors of the building. Kleist slid himself through and stood, pulling the door shut. He then flattened himself against the
cement-block wall and again checked the schematic. The flashlight found what he was looking for off to his left—the iron rungs of a ladder built directly into the wall. Not an easy climb, but certainly manageable.

When he reached the “fourth floor,” he stepped out from the ladder and onto the piping, using his hands along the walls to keep his balance. Flashlight in his mouth, he counted off four heating ducts before bringing out a razor knife from his pocket. At the fifth, he sliced an opening into the aluminum, then tossed both knife and flashlight into the vent and hoisted himself up.

Fifteen minutes later, he sliced a second hole for his exit. This one dropped him down into another narrow passage, Sheetrock having replaced cement. He aimed the light to his left and slowly traced it along the wall. About a third of the way back to him, the light flashed momentarily. It had caught on something. Quickly, he made his way to the spot. A hinge. Two feet below it, a second. He placed his flattened palm on the wall and pushed.

It gave way with surprising ease. Again on his knees, Kleist ducked his head under, then pulled the rest of himself through. He was met by a cushioning of wall-to-wall carpeting beneath him. To his left, a bed. He stood and shut the door.

“You’re late.”

Kleist turned to see Cardinal von Neurath seated in a chair across the room. It had been von Neurath who had discovered the approach to the room in the plans. Nothing easier than to install a door and arrange the room assignments.

“Yes, Eminence.”

“Keep your voice down. These walls are paper-thin.”