Shout in the Dark (35 page)

Bruno was unprepared for the sudden movement
in the darkness, the cloud of dirt flung into his face. Half
blinded he twisted backwards. With lightning speed Enzo ran past
him towards the high walls, clawing his way up the first stage. A
party of women nearby began to scream.

His hands damp with sweat, Bruno held the
knife tightly as he squinted in the daylight. "You're dead, Enzo.
Dead!"

Enzo was on the move again. Bruno realized
his life of ease had taken the edge off his once healthy body. He
no longer kept up his physical exercise. Enzo was getting away. He
knew the muscles were there in his legs. With sheer effort he
forced himself to relive his younger days, ignoring the crowds who
were turning in his direction. His body could provide all the power
he once had. He had only one more mission to accomplish in life --
the death of his evil brother.

He watched Enzo stumble, feet kicking
wildly for a firm grip on the steep climb of the walls. The
vaulting was jagged and riddled with holes where ancient bricks had
been removed. Enzo began using these as hand and foot holds,
climbing rapidly from one level to the next. But Bruno could see
his half-brother had made a fatal error. Soon Enzo would reach the
top, and have nowhere left to go.

W
ith his heart pounding in his chest, but oblivious to the
pain, Bruno dragged himself up the gigantic brick construction
using his hands to pull his body forward, gaining on Enzo all the
time.

Enzo reached the top, resting in an open
archway that overlooked the wide Via dei Fori Imperiali. He turned
over, obviously not realizing how close Bruno was, leaving his
whole belly exposed. "No, Bruno! We loved each other
once!"

"
Love? You're an evil bastard, Enzo.
I always hated
you!
" He raised the
knife.

Then he drove the blade home, releasing his
hold on the handle.

Enzo gave a long scream of agony, and
Bruno watched his half-brother attempt to pull the blade from his
stomach. He and Mamma were finally rid of the name of
Kessel.

He looked down at the sea of upturned
faces and began to laugh at the irony of it. The carnival scene was
being played out in reverse. The spectators were in the arena,
watching two combatants fight to the death on the
terraces.

Then came the pain.

He felt his chest erupt in a searing fire.
He tried to breathe. The world about him was ending. The pressure
was unbearable. A crushing pain spread from his chest into his
arms. He had driven his heart beyond its limits.

And Enzo was still alive.

MARCO PAID THE taxi driver, his eyes on the
outside walls of the massive Roman amphitheatre. Somewhere around
here Laura was in trouble, but he had no idea where. People in the
street were looking up and he stopped to see where they were
pointing. High in the wall, perhaps a hundred feet up, silhouetted
against the sky in an open archway he could see the figure of a
kneeling man. The crowd shouted in alarm each time the man tried to
stand, but he kept falling back onto his knees. It might be an
attempted suicide.

Marco hurried round to the entrance. There
were signs of panic among the visitors and staff. It was time to
pull rank.

"
I'm a priest," he said loudly. "I have to offer help, maybe
even a prayer."

The man in the pay booth looked him up and
down, obviously seeing no clerical collar. "Better wait for
the
carabinieri
,
signore," he advised. "They're on their way. You have to
stay..."

Marco shook his head and ran up the steps
before the man could protest further. As he emerged at the top he
realized there were two figures: one in the archway, the other
sprawled full length on a brick buttress on the high part of the
amphitheatre. Two security men were busy holding the people back
from the walls, but they didn't try to stop him as he hauled
himself up from the walkway and started to climb the mass of broken
brickwork. He reached the first man and stopped in horror. It was
Bruno Bastiani. "Bruno! Has there been an accident?"

Bruno's face was deep blue, almost purple,
his eyes staring wildly. "Marco? Marco Sartini?"

"
Hold on. There's help on its way."

"
The man up there, Marco, is he still alive?" Bruno's voice
was indistinct, and Marco had to bend forward to hear the
words.

The other man kneeling in the archway was
clutching his stomach. The edge of the wide stones was stained
bright red with blood.

"
He looks bad, Bruno, but he's still alive. He's bleeding
from his stomach."

Bruno gave a low moan. "Kill him for me,
Marco. His father raped my Mamma."

"
You can't kill a man for that!"

"
You don't know anything about him, Marco. Everything about
him is evil. He killed Laura's father in Saint Peter's. We want him
dead!"

"
We? You mean Riccardo? Not Laura. No, not Laura! Have you
seen Laura? She phoned me from here."

"
Don't you understand? Don't you understand anything?" Bruno
sounded confused. "That man is my..."

The exertion of the speech proved too great.
A large blood clot, forced forward by the rapid heartbeats, caught
on an artery wall, blocking the flow to his overstressed heart. His
mouth opened but there was silence. Within seconds he was dead.

Marco felt numb. Bruno had said he was
Jewish, but as a Christian himself, he felt under an obligation to
say a prayer, to commend the man to God's mercy. He did it quickly.
It was not for him to judge Bruno's life.

Standing up he looked down at the crowd.
There were cameras pointing at him. Some holiday makers would
return with an album of macabre prints, and others with gruesome
videos as a holiday memento. He could hear vehicles with sirens
stopping in the street below as he clambered past Bruno, up to the
fair haired man whose life was oozing away in a red stream. It was
the older man he had seen outside TV Roma talking to the
skinhead.

"
My name is Marco Sartini. I'm a priest," he called. "Do you
want me to pray with you?"

The man stayed silent.

A sudden thought occurred to Marco. "Did
you know Bruno Bastiani?"

MANFRED
KESSEL CLUTCHED his stomach in an attempt to stop
the flow of blood. "That man was a Jew,
Priester
. I am a German!" His knew voice came out faintly,
but he tried to put on a show of confidence. He had no need of a
priest's help. There was power in the Shrine -- a mystical power.
Soon it would be his to control.

The agony of the knife wound made him cry
out.

He stared at the blood that covered his
clothing and watched it spread across the ground. The hurt was too
much. Were his plans coming to nothing? The loss of blood made his
head feel strange. Then the deep pain in his stomach stopped and
remarkable apparitions began to form before his eyes. Were these
what Rüdi had witnessed in the hours before his death?

"
There
will
be a Shrine
of Unity." He spoke the words aloud but not to the young priest.
"Yes, it will be done."

The priest was looking at him. "Shrine?
You mean the Nazi shrine?"

The rapidly diminishing blood in his body
was making coherent speech almost impossible. "You look for the
final return of your Leader,
Priester
, and I look for mine."

The priest leaned over and wiped his brow
with a white handkerchief. "Help is on its way," he said
reassuringly. "But if you're expecting Adolf Hitler, he's not
coming back."

Kessel raised himself on one elbow and
tried to explain. "Rüdi's finger pointed -- but not at me. Someone
is coming in my place ... to continue the eternal work. Someone
young and fearless. Someone like Karl Bretz. But supposing the
Führer
could
come
back."

His voice was gaining strength. The
figures in the vision were still here. The return was imminent.
"Just think what our two leaders could do together. Look! Over
there,
Priester!
I can
see them working hand in hand, arm in arm, to set up the most
powerful kingdom ever."

The pain was coming back, worse than
before. The visions passed, as reality firmly took their
place.

He started to panic. He felt like a
vulnerable child again.

"
I'm dying, Sartini. You've got to help me. My name is Enzo
Bastiani. Please,
Priester
, please
pray for me."

MARCO COULD SEE two
carabinieri
climbing his way. Were they the men in the
vision?

"
Why should I help you, Enzo? The Son of God and Hitler?
Bruno was right, even your thoughts are evil. Don't try to move;
the
carabinieri
are
nearly here."

He felt disgust for the man. Nothing would
persuade him to offer spiritual comfort now.

As the two men in uniform reached Bruno's
body he felt shame overwhelm him. He put a hand gently on the man's
shoulder.

"
We'll pray together for forgiveness, Enzo. Don't die in
hatred. There's forgiveness from God for everyone who
asks."

He watched as the man tried to speak, the
deep wound in his stomach making him shiver uncontrollably. For a
brief moment their eyes met. Marco was shattered by the look of
fear in those eyes.

The voice was faint now. "I'm not a
religious man,
Priester
. My
mother told us nothing about God. I want to confess. I killed Canon
Levi. I told people it was Rüdi Bretz who did it, but it wasn't. It
was me. I wanted the bronze head. I wanted to prove that Christ was
not a Jew, to prove that the pure could come to him. Now I'm dying
and I don't know what to do. You have to pray for me. I want
peace."

Marco felt far from being at peace himself.
Like the thief dying beside Jesus on the cross at Calvary, this man
who had caused so much evil was asking for instant forgiveness. It
was the greatest test ever of his faith, but he would do it. As
Marco leaned forward, his heart pounding, the injured man screamed
out in terror.

High above, with a flutter of troubled
wings, a single pigeon flew up from the ancient walls.

His eyes wide, Enzo slipped sideways.
Marco grabbed at the man's hand but the blood made it too slippery
to hold. Enzo rolled down the slope to where Bruno lay, leaving a
red trail glistening on the ancient bricks that had once witnessed
so much blood.

Chapter
30

"
LAURA?"

"
Si?
Oh,
Riccardo, Riccardo!" Laura had not immediately taken in the
familiar voice. Her mind felt in a daze as she picked up the
telephone. "Tell me what's happened to Bruno?"

"
I guessed you'd be home. It's bad news, Laura. Have you
been drinking?"

"
Si
, but
only a little. It has made me sleepy. Tell me the bad
news."

"
Bruno's dead. I'm at the paper now. It's one hell of a
story that's buzzing about. Something… Laura?"

"
Come round, Riccardo. It makes me frightened to hear you
say these things. How did Bruno die? Was it the
zoticone?
"

"
We don't know. It happened at the Colosseum after you and I
left. Listen, I'll see you soon, but I can't just walk out on the
job. Bruno was our star photographer. Our paper's going to run the
story of his death front page tomorrow morning. We've bought some
good pictures from an American tourist who was at the Colosseum
this morning. He had a telephoto lens and for once he knew how to
use it."

"
It was Bruno who killed Enzo, wasn't it?"

"
Probably, but it's good that Enzo is dead. It's what we
both wanted. We're not calling him Enzo in the paper, we're using
his German name. He had papers in his pocket with the name Manfred
Kessel. We mustn't give the Italian name away. The editor doesn't
know yet he was Bruno's half-brother."

"
Does anyone suspect us?"

"
Don't sound so tense, Laura. The
carabinieri
don't know anything. Just be careful what you say.
If anyone asks what we've been doing, tell them you're helping me
investigate the neo-Nazis. That's not a crime. Even if someone saw
us at the Colosseum this morning, we can say we were there for our
work. Manfred Kessel is dead, so we got what we both wanted. It
will be all right, Laura -- just trust me."

"
Please come, Riccardo. The more you talk, the more scared I
feel. I wanted Kessel dead, but I can't believe it about Bruno. Are
you sure?"

"
I have to go, Laura. Yes, I'm sure. Bruno and his brother
are both dead. It's up to the two of us now."

"
What do you mean? Don't put the phone down. Tell me what
you mean."