The Three Most Wanted (31 page)

Box safely closed, the old man hurried on his way, urging us to follow quickly.

“We’re coming, we’re coming.” Once he’d gone Bane added, “Thought I saw something in the rules about no pets?”

“Long-term residents are allowed them, I think.”

“Oh.” Father Mark came out of the chapel and Bane turned to him. “When’s this train supposed to be leaving?”

“When we’ve persuaded the EuroGov to let it. Come on, let’s go and see how they’re getting on in St. Peter’s. What did you want that box for?”

“Old guy’s birds,” said Bane.

“An old priest with some pet doves,” I expanded.

“Oh, Father Mario. Good, he loves those birds. Come on.”

We followed him a relatively short distance this time, and soon came out in that beautiful vastness again. Father Mark paused to stare towards the high altar then went on without genuflecting—the red light was gone. Already, every supporting pillar was garlanded with little cubes and sticks and wires.

“Don’t touch
anything
,” said Father Mark.

“I’m sorry, I left my brain in the British department.” But Bane drew me closer, as though wishing he could help Father Mark and have me a long way from the explosives all at the same time.

“What’s to be done, Eduardo?” asked Father Mark, as we found him bent over another electronic detonation device.

“The
Pietà,”
said Eduardo shortly. “None of this lot can bear to do it.”

Father Mark grimaced.

“Someone’s got to,” snapped Eduardo, with unusual animation.

“Oh, it’s your favorite, isn’t it?” muttered Father Mark.

“
I’ll
do it,” said Bane, “just tell me what to do …”

“Good idea. This the stuff, Eduardo?” Father Mark pointed to a little heap. Eduardo nodded, still concentrating on his electronic box.

“We could just leave it,” said Father Mark.

“No,” said Eduardo sharply. “I’ve been in their system, they’ve been
counting
on owning this place
some day
for years. They’re going to milk it for every penny they can get. They’ve planned everything out, what’s going to be exempt from the Religious Symbols Act on grounds of artistic merit—that’s most of it, you’ll be relieved to hear—all the info boards written, ready to display beside the ‘superstitious’ art to minimize the
harm to the general population
, ticket prices, the works. They can rake in two billion Eurons a year just from displaying the
Pietà
: we cannot risk them choosing to make do with that.”

Bane whistled. “If they can make two billion from one statue, there’s no
way
they’re going to risk losing the rest.”

“I do hope not.” Eduardo smiled grimly. “We’re betting all our lives on their greed.”

Bane frowned, gathered up the remaining armload of stuff and followed Father Mark, only looking back once or twice—or three times—to check I was following. We went through into a glassed-off side chapel, and there stood the most exquisite statue, pure and beautiful white in the sunlight streaming through the window. No wonder no one wanted this job.

Even Bane scowled for a moment, before stepping forward determinedly. “So?”

“Just lay them all around the figures, especially the faces and any detailed bits.”

Bane snorted. “The collapsing building would most likely do for it even without worrying exactly where I put this little lot, surely?”

“Psychological effect, Bane,” said Father Mark in a rather patient voice. “Their experts will
tell
them the damage will be irreparable, but you should place the charges so they’ll be able to
see
that with their own eyes.”

“Okay, okay.”

Deliberately not looking at the ancient statue as a whole any more, Bane began arranging the deadly web around it. It didn’t take him long. Father Mark connected up some sort of small wireless device and we trooped back to Eduardo.

“Done,” Father Mark told him.

“Good. Send your priceless helpers to the station, and start familiarizing yourself with this little lot.” A wave of his hand encompassed the whole building. “I want you to go over all this.” He tapped the electronic thing and the mess of wires and little wireless receivers that lay around it. “Check it from start to finish. Sister Krayj and Brother Wiesbeck will do the same. We don’t want a single one of their experts giving them even one grain of hope this hodgepodge might not detonate correctly.”

Hodgepodge was certainly the word. Different blocks or sticks or detonation systems wreathed every pillar and painting and statue, all—presumably—connected somehow to this thing Eduardo was working on. Father Mark frowned as though he’d developed a headache just glancing at it all.

“Claudia, are you off to the station now?”

A tall woman had just come up and given Eduardo a wordless nod. “Am I?” she asked Eduardo.

“Yes. Take Margaret and Bane with you, would you? They don’t know the way. Keep undercover as much as possible to avoid anyone getting photos of her—no point waving a red rag at a bull.”

Hopefully they’d have a hard time picking me out from a distance, but my stomach contracted uncomfortably. I’d almost forgotten, distracted by the charge-laying—this was all my fault. Oh Lord, please don’t let us have to push that button! Never mind
that
, please don’t let all these people die because of me… I fought back a horrible urge to start howling with guilt and grief and fear as we followed Claudia quickly across the basilica.

The little state was eerily silent—deserted—as we hurried along. The station stood pretty close to the basilica and the actual station building housed the department store we’d heard about, from the sign. An antiquated electric/cleanFuel hybrid locomotive stood waiting, its six rickety coaches taking up almost all the short rusty track. The great arch-shaped portal in the wall was shut tight. Here were the missing people, some milling disconsolately, others working hard loading the back few carriages with supplies, equipment and the sort of irreplaceable items the EuroGov would simply destroy—saints’ relics, for example.

A young man with a goat on a tether argued fiercely with Sister Eunice as we approached, waving his free hand towards a stack of crates full of fat hens. Oh dear. Hopefully she’d allow Father Mario’s doves on board...

“Keep under there...” Claudia edged me under the station roof. “I’ll go and see where Sister Eunice wants you.”

She headed away, glancing warily at the wall. Beyond it were the rooftops of Rome; no telling who was up there looking our way. Bane steered me into the middle of the throng, keeping his face turned away. I did the same.

As we waited some people smiled at me and said kind things about how it wasn’t my fault, others hardly seemed to register our presence. Good thing—be a bit of a giveaway if everyone turned and looked at us. A few people were crying and I tried not to listen—made me want to do the same. My stomach was fluttering as though full of flies. Happily, Claudia was soon back.

“Sister Eunice says they’re not loading people until our ultimatum’s been given to the EuroGov. Just in case they get clever ideas about a pre-emptive attack on the train. I imagine we
could
make them bring us another one, but it’s a lot of trouble and it won’t be much comfort to anyone who was on board. Anyway, she wants you two inside the store until it’s time to board. You’ll be in good company.”

She led us to the old station doors and a Swiss Guard let us in. Ah—that’s what she meant about good company...

“Nobody kneels to me on a day-to-day basis,” said the Holy Father hastily, as I began to dip at the sight of him. “They’d all have bad knees! Come and sit down.”

He’d taken up residence in the “furniture department” (or corner) with some of his most elderly cardinals, bishops and advisors.

“Coffee?” he asked me. “Everything is better with coffee. Especially Italian coffee.”

“Um…” I felt sick. I felt… dazed.

Bane shot a long look at me, then walked me firmly to a sofa and sat me beside an old laywoman, slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, then went to fetch coffee from the flask. He perched on the sofa arm to put it into my shaking hands and rub my back with his free hand.

“I’m an awful fiancé,” he muttered, kissing the top of my head. “You’re all shocky and I don’t even notice.”

“I’m fine,” I muttered back. But the sight of the train and the people and the empty corridors hadn’t done me any good. Made it real, perhaps. I could do the decent thing and give myself up for Conscious Dismantlement—and no one would have to leave—or I could go on that train, back into EuroBloc territory—and risk Conscious Dismantlement. I swallowed hard and Bane’s hand tightened around mine, steadying the cup.

“I’m fine.” My voice shook. I swallowed again. “Where’s Jon?”

“With the other patients, I imagine. That
was
a stupid thing I said. They’re not going to leave him behind.”

I sipped my coffee and looked around to distract myself. Everyone sat calmly, drinking coffee and talking softly, or holding real rosaries in their hands as they prayed. All older people, too old to be lifting boxes or doing anything active. Cardinal Hans wasn’t among them, though.

“Wonder where Kyle is.”

“Making himself useful, unless he’s changed a lot. Don’t worry about him.”

“I wasn’t.” The coffee was warming me from the inside and my hands were steadying. Father Mario sat on a garden chair opposite, the cardboard box cooing gently in his lap. He beamed at me in a mixture of relief and gratitude—I smiled back.

“Anyone got any idea of the schedule for this?” asked an old sister in a blue habit.

The Holy Father shrugged. “I imagine sooner or later Eduardo will want me to speak to the EuroGov. Then it’s just a question of how long they squirm before agreeing to let us go. Lord willing just a matter of
how
long.”

Not
if
.

“You, er, know the plan?” asked Bane cautiously, as though afraid he might have his visa revoked on the spot if the Holy Father knew what he’d just been doing.

Pope Cornelius nodded. “Yes, Eduardo filled me in when he evicted me and Our Lord from St. Peter’s with such inflexible politeness.” He nodded to the other end of the store—a little strongbox sat there with a red lamp burning beside it.

I managed to get up, genuflect and sit again without spilling the last of my coffee.
Didn’t see you, Lord
.

“Did you deconsecrate, your Holiness?” I asked.

“Yes, I made him wait that long.”

“What about the Sistine Chapel?”

“Should have been done before your little demolition squad got there. All the chapels have been done.”

Ah, yes. Bane and Father Mark had taken quite a while with their list. Probably longer than I realized. I hadn’t been feeling a hundred percent since the bombshell.

We waited. And waited. And waited. Sister Eunice came in and reported the train loaded with everything except human—and Divine—cargo and ready to leave within fifteen minutes—and we waited some more. What could be taking so long? If Eduardo had the thing mostly connected up by the time we’d arrived, how could it take Father Mark, Sister Krayj and Brother Wiesbeck—all, presumably, also experts—so much longer to simply
check
it?

Bane, sitting on the floor beside the sofa, took my wrist to check my watch. Scowled. I looked as well. Quarter past five. Forty-five minutes before the EuroGov came over the walls. The Holy Father pulled out his phone and called Eduardo again.

“Almost ready,” he told us, pocketing it once more.

“That’s what he said half an hour ago,” pointed out the blue-habited sister.

Pope Cornelius shrugged. The doves cooed a little less gently, so Father Mario slipped a handful of birdseed from his pocket into the box.

Ten minutes later Eduardo strode in, taking in all the store’s inhabitants in one glance, genuflecting and turning to the Holy Father.

“It’s time to board, your Holiness. We’re cleared to leave.”

Pope Cornelius’s eyes widened slightly. “You’ve contacted them already?”

“Better to keep you out of the limelight, your Holiness. Not quite such a red rag to a bull as Margaret, here, but trust me, they’d
love
to get their hands on you. And they don’t know what you look like—after all the trouble we’ve gone to keeping you out of sight of the walls over the years, we might as well keep it that way.”

“Oh.” The Pope conceded the truth of this with another shrug. “The negotiations went all right?”

“No problems to speak of. They’re absolutely livid and absolutely
not
prepared to lose the Vatican’s treasures. We’ve safe passage through to Ostia and onto a ship flying a non-EuroBloc flag—all arranged—and out of EuroBloc waters. So let’s go.”

“Okay, then. Have you seen Hans anywhere?”

“Yes, just now.” Eduardo held out a long coat. “Please put this on, your Holiness. We don’t want the thought of pictures on the front of tomorrow’s papers of you or Margaret boarding a train to freedom to make them do something stupid.”