The Sixth Station (42 page)

“He further claimed that he witnessed a mass execution of ben Yusef’s inner circle, eleven men who
had
tried to escape. He had been the twelfth member.

“‘They were, each and every one, carried out by the soldiers of ben Yusef, in the extreme southern portion of Israel, a desert area,’ he declared. However, he provided no photographic proof that ben Yusef or the ‘Little Big Man,’ as some have started calling him, committed a massacre in the desert or that one had even taken place.

“Judge Bagayoko immediately requested an investigative team of United Nations specialists be dispatched to search the area. This is Dona Grimm reporting from outside the United Nations building in Manhattan.”

Dona said “Little Big Man!” They’ve got a bead on you. Get the hell out.

I walked around the winding streets of the Vatican area until I found a car-rental place, and using the bogus credit card, I managed to secure the last rental car they had—another tiny Smart car.

I was grateful for whatever I could get,
but
would it be powerful enough to get me over the mountains and into Manoppello if I had to move faster than the—who?—the CIA, Interpol, this Black Robe God Squad, and everybody else on my ass? Not that I would ever have the DNA so-called proof I needed, now that the white Gap scarf had been incinerated along with Pantera.

The tears of blood just now? Maybe the tissue has something of value on it.

I opened it up and, when unfolded, it formed as perfect a heart as the one on my cappuccino.

I tucked it into my bra to keep it close to my heart, got into the car, old-fashioned paper map in hand, refusing to even turn
on
the GPS tracking system. The traffic of Rome was as bad as I’d ever seen it, and negotiating my way out could have earned me a spot on a NASCAR team.

Once I got on the mountain highway heading toward the Abruzzo region, I was able to turn on the radio to the BBC news station. It would be a straight run pretty much from here, and that meant I wouldn’t have to check the map every second.

If Dona’s testimony report had been a tossed grenade, the next report was a nuclear attack. I had to hold tight to the wheel and shift into a lower gear to keep from careening right off the slim mountain road.

“Interpol is reporting,” said a male voice, “that internationally wanted terrorist Michael Forsythe was killed in a motor vehicle accident in a tunnel at La Turbie, France, this morning.

“The victim, originally identified as Edward Gibbon of Carcassonne, France—one of the many aliases the terror suspect had used in his thirty years on the lam—was involved in a high-speed car chase at the time of the crash.”

Pantera’s not dead.

Then he continued: “International law-enforcement sources have confirmed to the BBC that it was Forsythe who had escaped yesterday after the shootout that left three Interpol agents dead at the castle keep atop Montségur in France.”

He is dead.

“Michael Forsythe was wanted for multiple counts of murder, forgery, impersonating an officer of the French armed services, aiding and abetting a terrorist group, gun running, kidnapping, and bank fraud. He is credited with funneling nearly one billion pounds sterling into the terrorist group Fratele Meu Iubit, which has ties to Al Okhowa Al Hamima.”

Trust no one.

“It is also reported that yesterday’s shootout may have involved Alessandra Russo, a former
New York Standard
reporter who was traveling with Forsythe after escaping a warrant for the murder of a Catholic priest, Father Eugene Sadowski, in New York City. Russo’s identification was obtained from fingerprints on a gun recovered at the scene.”

Toss the gun. Damn, what a sucker! The son of a bitch set me up! But why? Never trust a man who gives you a gun. Why didn’t my mother ever teach me that lesson?

“Witnesses say Russo, a petite brunette in her late thirties or early forties, now has short, very bright red hair. It is believed that she is traveling in France or Italy and is considered armed and very dangerous. Her photo is available at BBC.com. This is Andrew Jennings reporting.”

I caught my breath and pulled off the next exit. It was a typical small Italian town, and I was lucky to find a
farmacia
just opening up after the noonday siesta. I slipped on the terrible pink sweatshirt I’d bought back on the New York Thruway and put the hood up.

I searched through the store’s very limited selection of hair coloring and found one that looked to be an ash-blond shade. Good enough.

I found an outdoor kiosk and bought a black baseball cap with
ROMA
scrawled on the front in gray. I then drove through the back streets until I found a motel-type inn a few towns away, and checked in with the cap on my head.

I took the tiny two-person rickety lift to the fourth floor, opened the door of the room, locked it behind me with the giant skeleton key, and walked into the mini room. I opened the shutters a bit and looked down. No cars.

Calm down. You were practically alone on the highway. Any other cars passed you at 140 km because you couldn’t go faster than 85 km. No one exited off the highway behind you, and no one parked near you at the
farmacia.
OK, you’re safe for the minute. Concentrate on the task at hand.

I began to attempt to strip the red color out of my hair. When I rinsed the peroxide out, however, what remained was a mess of dull yellow strings. Worse—it was even more of a bull’s-eye than the red hair had been. I applied the second part, the ash-blond color mixture, and prayed I’d look something like Madonna circa 1987. I waited a half hour, stood under the shower, stepped out, and dried my hair with a towel. I was now prematurely gray. Perfect.

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for international terrorist and legendary actress Jamie Lee Curtis!

I plopped down on the bed and put my head in my hands.

I looked out the window again by opening the shutter slats. My car was still sitting alone in the little parking lot. I closed the window and the shutters tightly, throwing the room into darkness, and turned on the small table lamp.

You’re no good if you’re a wreck. You’re safe for the minute, safe for the minute, safe for the minute.…

The old-fashioned room phone blasted me out of my momentary sense of safety.

37

Who the hell found you? Don’t pick it up. No, pick it up. The jig is up. No. Do
not
pick it up!

After four attempts, the ringing stopped. My heart was racing. I opened the slats of the shutters and tried to look down again. I could only see that there was no way out other than to jump straight down into the parking lot.

Take a shot and call the front desk. If you’re trapped, it can’t get worse.
The desk clerk picked right up.

“Pronto.”

“Buon pomeriggio, signore. Ci sono dei messaggi per me? Numero venti?”
I hoped I was making sense, but the man at the desk seemed to understand.

“Sì, signora.”

“Chi?”

“La suora. Mow-reena.”

“Mi scusi?”

“How you say? Yes,
la sister
…” He pulled the phone away and to his chest to ask a question of someone there.

“
Sì, signora. Suora.
She is the non.”

“A nun?”

“
Sì! Sì.
A non.”

Is it the nun from the Manoppello? A trick? What?

“Did she leave a phone number?” My Italian was completely gone from me now.

Again, the desk clerk put the phone down, and I heard him talking to someone before he handed it over to his “translator.”

Hopefully his colleague speaks English.

“Hello, Alessandra.”

I froze and said nothing.

“It’s Maureen. I’m downstairs. May I come up?”

“Downstairs? But how did you—”

“Room twenty—correct? Fourth floor?”

Black Robe? Headquarters? Rogue agent? Friend? Foe?

My options were up. I said nothing.

“Good then. I’ll be right there.”

Five minutes and one slow lift ride later, I heard a light rapping on the door. I looked through the peephole. It was Maureen, all right, but she was dressed as a nun—one of those modern-day nuns complete with the plain dress and giant crucifix dangling over the bodice. Over her dress she wore an equally drab coat, sensible shoes, and a short gray veil, which covered her hair. She was even carrying one of those nondescript black old-lady purses. In her other hand, she was holding a plastic bag from a grocery store.

I would never have recognized her out of her habitat and into this habit. (If that house in Rhinecliff
was
her real habitat, I mean.) Gone was the upright, strong posture and sure presence. In its place stood a little old lady nun.
Sorella Mow-reena.

I opened the door and she walked in and shook my hand. The power shake more than told me she was still the same lady.

“How did you find me?”

“How did I
not
find you, is the real question,” she answered without answering. “I can’t believe you turned that phone on in the Vatican! The camera automatically turns on the GPS if you don’t change the camera setting. You would never make it as a spy, my dear.”

“I will take that as a compliment. Okay then.
Why
did you find me?”

“Because
they
will very soon, and then you’ll be dead. For a reporter you leave a very sloppy trail. And spending the night with a—what shall I call him—a source? What an amateurish breach.”

I felt myself getting red in the face—partially from embarrassment, as though an actual nun were scolding me, and partially from anger. Who the
hell
was this washed-up old spy to go all moral on me anyway?

“First of all, how the hell do you know
what
I did or didn’t do? And secondly, you were a goddamned spy,
Sister
Maureen. For all I know
you
slept with everyone from Idi Amin to Papa Doc. Or would have if it would’ve helped you infiltrate,” I seethed.

Am I pissed at her for nailing me, or am I ashamed that Pantera screwed me—literally? Calm down. She’s old enough to be your mother. Nasty bitch that she is.

She approached me and stood less than a foot away, a deliberate violation of personal space, and said, “Understand one thing: I never,
never
slept with Duvalier. He was before my time.” Then she burst out laughing.

I was totally disarmed.
She made a joke? Can’t be. Trust no one. Of course she’s disarming—and charming. She had been a damned master spy.

“My dear, the real difference here is that whatever I did or didn’t do, I had the United States of America watching my back. You have, well, only me to watch your back. Other than that, you are completely alone.”

“You had the United States watching your back—until they didn’t watch it anymore and accused you of being a double agent.”

“But they trained me so well, I could even outsmart
them
. While you? You can’t even outsmart one pedophile.”

“He wasn’t a pedophile.”

“And you know that—how?”

“He told me. “

Did he actually say that? No. Worse, did I actually say that? Yes.

“And, and…”

While her expression never changed, it somehow still spelled:
You’ve been had nine ways ’til next Christmas.

As quickly as she’d become a wit, she changed back to the dour woman who was all business. “Nonetheless, you trusted a man who committed sins against God and crimes against man. I
know
he must have gotten what he needed, or he wouldn’t have left.”

I
had
behaved like a fat girl without a date for the prom, sleeping with a man I thought—what?—had fallen in love with me?

Jerk. Pathetic jerk.

I averted my eyes and admitted, “Yes. He took my white scarf.”

She tilted her head, puzzled. “Your scarf? The one you were wearing at my home?”

“Yes.”

She waited for an explanation. “When ben Yusef kissed me?” She nodded. “His kiss was … it left my mouth, you know, wet. So I wiped it with the scarf.”

“Dear Jesus in heaven! DNA. Pantera wanted to compare it to the source blood.”

“But now he’s dead.”

“But now he’s dead,” she repeated.

“You don’t think he faked it this time, do you? His death?”

“Is that hope or dread I read in your face?”

“Both. Pantera’s got the scarf, so that’s hope—
if
he’s alive. But if he’s not, both the scarf and the man are incinerated and wiped out forever.” I somehow couldn’t bring myself to say “dead” and his name in the same sentence.
Fool.

She switched the subject. “We have to leave here. Now. The world is about to be rocked off its foundations”—she checked her watch—“in about ten minutes. But regardless of that, this place isn’t safe for you—
now.
”

“Why, what’s happening?” I demanded.

“Ben Yusef. He’s going to make an announcement. From prison.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave me that look again.

“Okay … and?”

“I think it will not just alter the course of his tribunal but the course of the world—one whose end, it seems, has already begun.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tsunamis, earthquakes, routine class-five hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions, for starters, have already become commonplace—no? Anyone who thinks the end hasn’t begun is a fool. What he says today may hasten it—that’s all. Unless you can
prove
before they kill him that he is indeed the cloned Son of the Son of God! Perhaps you can rally those who believe in Jesus to rise up.”

“Do you believe he is the Son of the Son?”

“I saw the children from the UN,” she answered. “I saw them.”