Brotherhood of the Tomb (43 page)

None of those immediately near the Pope had seen what had happened to the captain. They recognized Fischer, knew he was the head of Vatican security, and moved to let him pass. The Pope was only yards away.

Patrick pushed into the crowd. The bodies were so tightly packed, he did not dare open fire. He jabbed and butted his way through. He could not understand why Fischer and the other prelates he had seen had risked everything by coming into the open now. But he did know that, if Fischer got to the Pope, it would lead to open panic. They might never get the children out.

Suddenly, there was a gap and he could see Fischer. The Pope was turning at the American’s voice. Patrick tried to break through the last ring, but a pair of young priests held him back. Fischer was in the open now, only feet from his target. Patrick saw him smile, saw the Pope return his greeting, saw Fischer’s hand move inside his vestments.

‘Stop him! He’s got a gun!’ shouted Patrick.

The Pope glanced round, then back at Fischer,

just as he pulled the gun free and pointed it in his direction.

At that moment, Patrick understood. Fischer and the others did not care. They intended to kill everyone. There were to be no survivors but themselves. He punched hard against the man trying to hold him, then twisted and broke free.

Fischer fired three times in quick succession. His first bullet caught an elderly bishop who had thrown himself in front of the Pope. The second hit a cardinal on the Pope’s left. And the third hit its target.

A fourth shot followed, louder. Fischer staggered, his neck spurting blood. Hardly anyone noticed him. All eyes were on the Pope, on the red blood spraying across his white vestments.

Someone hit Patrick from behind, knocking the gun from his hand, sending him flying to the floor.

FIFTY-EIGHT

Sounds of renewed shooting came from outside. They were growing closer. Francesca had managed to force her way through to where Patrick lay. By now it had become apparent that he had been trying to rescue, not kill, the Pope. She helped him to his feet. Nearby, Fischer lay dead, his eyes fixed blindly on the figure of Justice on the ceiling high above him. Patrick stooped and picked up the pistol he had dropped. It would still have a couple of rounds. ‘The Pope,’ he said. ‘Fischer hit him.’ There was still a group milling about the spot where Patrick had last seen the Pontiff. A bishop came across to them.

‘He’s alive, but badly hurt. We have to get him to a hospital.’

‘Hurry,’ said Patrick. ‘We’ll do what we can to hold off the attack. We can give you a few minutes, no more.’

At the main door, heavy shooting had already started. Patrick turned to Francesca. ‘Help me,’ he said.

They ran to where Migliau stood surrounded by his followers. Patrick dashed into the middle of the circle and grabbed the old man. A cardinal tried to pull him off, but Patrick knocked him down. Francesca covered Patrick while he dragged Migliau out of the ring amidst a hail of protests. At the far end of the room, the doors were riddled with bursts of heavy gunfire. Two Swiss Guards and a handful of priests were trying to hold the barricade.

Patrick dragged Migliau into the centre of the room, now deserted by fleeing diplomats and Vatican

officials. The door buckled, then blew inwards. The men holding it were thrown back.

Through the opening, black-garbed figures burst into the room. They were bearded and round their foreheads wore bands inscribed with Arabic slogans. Al-nasr aw al-mawt, Victory or Death, read one. As they entered the room, the men spread out, firing indiscriminately.

Patrick bent and fired at the first attacker, taking him in the chest. He died with a look of horrified surprise on his face. Francesca shot the man behind him. The others turned, preparing to open fire.

Patrick stood with a gun at Migliau’s head.

‘Don’t come any closer!’ he shouted.

The attackers hesitated. They recognized the cardinal. Without him, neither victory nor death would hold any meaning for them. Madness has claims that sanity can never match.

For the first time, Migliau smiled.

‘What are you frightened of?’ he asked, his soft voice almost inaudible in the uproar. ‘Why do you hesitate? My death is nothing. Let today be a day of sacrifice. This is the Day of Passover. Pharaoh is dead. Babylon is fallen. My son is dead. There will be a world of blood to pay. God demands a sacrifice from you. Make me your sacrifice. This is my cross, here in this room.’

He raised his hand and blessed them. Patrick began to drag him back, slowly, the gun pressed against his temple, back towards the rear of the room. More attackers joined the first group, all dressed the same, all wearing headbands proclaiming love of martyrdom. As they crossed the threshold, they too paused, uncertain what to do next. This had not been planned for.

Francesca appeared beside Patrick. She had gone

for Fazzini, and now she held him as a second hostage.

‘You don’t have to be afraid,’ wheezed Migliau, smiling at the gunmen in front of him. ‘Think how his disciples put him in the tomb. Think how they listened to his cries, for two days and two nights until he fell silent. They were not afraid to make that sacrifice. You should not be afraid. You are doing God’s will.’

The leader of the attack force seemed to make up his mind. He had been trained to obedience. He raised his rifle and fired a single shot, crisp, perfect, like a sacrificial knife cutting through flesh. A fountain of blood rose from Migliau’s head, bright as gold. The sacrifice was done. The veil of the Temple had been torn from top to bottom. The saints would rise up out of their graves.

The next second, the man who had shot Migliau was thrown backwards by a hail of bullets. Patrick looked round. By one of the side doors, a marksman wearing Carabinieri combat uniform stood taking aim. Sergeant Genscher had not wasted time. A second man stood by the next doorway. Near him a third.

Patrick glanced at the other side of the room. Each of the doors had filled with dark figures. There was no shadow, no ripple of agate wings; but the angel of death was moving in the room.

For a moment as thin as air, the attackers hesitated, seeing themselves inexplicably surrounded. The next instant, round after round of rifle fire rang out in the silence, precise, implacable, sustained. Those at the front fell first. Their companions in the rear crouched down, firing wildly. Again and again the marksmen fired. From below, the sound of fresh shooting echoed among marble pillars. On cold floors, on white and

pink and red marble, on the faces of saints and angels, blood trickled in warm streams, like the blood of doves on a vast altar of coloured stone. The sacrifice was complete.

FIFTY-NINE

He watched as Brother Antonio scraped the last cement from his trowel. The tablet was in place as it had been before. Francesca’s name, her date of birth, her date of death. The old man rose painfully to his feet.

‘It’s done,’ he said.

Patrick nodded. It was done. Her ghost had been laid to rest at last. A ray of sunlight rested on her name. There were no flowers, no photograph.

He stepped out of the tomb into the March sunshine. It would be Easter before long. There would be white flowers in the churches. Priests would preach of death and resurrection. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life,’ they would proclaim. In Rome, the Pope from his sickbed would issue an appeal for peace. And the nations would turn deaf ears as always.

He walked away from the tomb, through a long avenue of cypresses, past the long dead and the newly dead, in a straight line, down towards the sea. Across a swell of sun-salted water, Venice shone in the distance, lovely, pinnacled, redeemed out of sea and mud.

She was waiting for him, watching a small boat drift with the tide. She was not as he remembered her. There was grey in her hair and her eyes had seen things he could not imagine. He took her hand, and they stood for a long time without speaking, watching the waves. He had buried the past. Let them think she was dead.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘You’re free.’

She nodded. The shore seemed to stretch away forever.

‘There will still be ghosts,’ she said.

He looked into her eyes, then brought her face close to his own and kissed her gently. She was not a ghost, he thought. He would not let her return to shadows.

She smiled and returned his kiss. But as she did so, she caught sight, far behind him, of the tomb where she had been reburied.

She remembered dim lights in a modern theatre, actors in ancient Irish dress, magical words she could scarcely understand. And Deirdre speaking to her lover before their death:

I know nothing but this body, nothing But that old vehement, bewildering kiss.

She had known then that they would become lovers. But not how it would end. Now that night was nothing but a memory, Deirdre’s words nothing but a half-remembered sound. She glanced at the tomb, at the weeds choking its stone.

He was wrong. It was not over. When the time came, she would explain. They would have a little time together: a year, two years perhaps. She took his hand and turned to look at the sea again. For all its loveliness, Venice was sinking beneath relentless waves. She held his hand more tightly. A year, two years. What did it matter? Nobody has forever, after all.