‘We’re screwed,’ the Russian admitted.
‘I think we should take them on,’ Phelps declared, much recovered.
Sarah looked at him, amazed.
‘Don’t you have one of those for us?’ Phelps asked, pointing to the gun.
‘You know how to use this?’
‘No, but I’ll learn.’
Ivanovsky thought for a minute and decided to take the gun off Vladimir’s body, which was curled against the door, next to the floor.
You’re not going to need it, my friend.
He gave it to Phelps carefully.
‘The safety’s on,’ he advised. ‘To take it off-’
Phelps took the gun knowledgeably, took the safety off, and shot Ivanovsky right in the middle of his head. He fell lifeless over Vladimir.
‘I know how to remove an obstacle,’ he advised coldly.
Sarah gave a panicked cry, incredulous over what she’d seen.
Rafael aimed at Phelps, but Phelps grabbed Sarah and put the gun to her head.
‘I’m not feeling well,’ he imitated himself, then immediately let out a sarcastic laugh that ended in a serious stare at Rafael. ‘Throw your gun out of the van.’
‘How can you do this?’ Sarah said, feeling the hot barrel burning her scalp.
‘Sarah knows very well what we’re capable of doing to protect the good name of our Church.’ He turned to Rafael. ‘Throw the gun out. I’m not going to repeat myself.’
Rafael broke the glass of the back window with one kick and threw the Glock to the asphalt, far off to the side of the van.
‘You’re a first-rate adversary, my friend,’ Phelps praised him. ‘You keep everything to yourself. But I’ve succeeded in getting you to give me everything I need.’
‘Do you think so?’ Rafael asked daringly. ‘You’re not as good an actor as you think.’
‘Don’t underestimate me, my friend,’ the Englishman replied, if he was in fact an Englishman. ‘The heart attack was well rehearsed. I know how much you worried about me, and I appreciate it. I’d trust you in a similar occasion.’
‘I’m not talking about the heart attack. I applaud that performance in particular.’
‘What are you talking about then?’ His curiosity was stimulated. A sarcastic smile stretched his thin lips.
‘Your thigh that hurt you from time to time.’
Sarah understood now the source of the pain.
‘What about it?’ Phelps’s smile disappeared.
‘Nothing would have happened if it had always been the same thigh. That’s where you failed. Sometimes the right, sometimes the left. That means only one thing.’
‘A cilice, worn for penance.’ Sarah spoke. ‘That’s what he had around his thigh. That’s what occasionally caused him awful pain. The sharp barbs nailed into the flesh.’
Phelps didn’t like being mocked.
‘In any case you’ve given me almost everything I need. I’ll get my hands on the file you took from Sarah’s house. With it, I’ll make JC appear.’
‘If only it were that simple.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Phelps’s good mood vanished in front of their eyes.
‘You consider yourself a great manipulator, a first-rate actor, but you’ve been controlled the whole time.’
Phelps applied more pressure with the gun against Sarah’s head and pressed the trigger a little.
Sarah shut her eyes, terrified.
‘Your bluff isn’t convincing,’ Phelps finally said.
Three black vans with tinted windows stopped next to the overturned van. Several hooded men, armed with semiautomatics, surrounded the vehicle.
‘Everything’s okay,’ Phelps shouted.
Two men pulled Rafael outside, handcuffed him, and made him get into one of the vans. They did the same with Sarah.
A little later Phelps made his grand entrance.
There was another man inside the van. He wore dark glasses that matched his suit.
‘Stuart.’
‘Phelps.’ He inclined his head with the necessary deference.
‘What took you so long?’
‘We had to wait where we wouldn’t be noticed. You didn’t exactly avoid the tourist sites.’
‘My beloved colonel, it looked like you were going to give me a real heart attack.’
The two men laughed with pleasure.
‘Let’s get going,’ Stuart Garrison ordered. ‘We have a long trip ahead.’
The vans pulled away, leaving the other van behind, the one with two corpses inside.
63
It was a night like others before and others that will come.
The innkeeper finished up the accounts from another day’s work. It was normal not to have many guests this time of the year. It wasn’t cold or hot enough. Business flourished in the middle of winter with the snow and the fascination it exerts over old and young alike, and in summer when green conquered the white, aided by the rise in temperature, encouraging sightseeing and religious tourism.
Today he had seven guests, among them two priests, a couple with a small boy, and two Benedictine sisters. All with full service for three days, with the grace of God. He expected some reservations for the weekend and so spent his days unworried.
Someone rang the bell at this hour of the night, some traveler in search of a room for the night. It happened. Despite closing the door of the inn as soon as the church chimed ten at night, he stayed on watch for the last- minute client or guest who had decided to enjoy the social life in the town.
He unlocked the door and opened it. Outside there were two men, an old man with a beard, sweating, another younger one who seemed more composed. He noticed some bruises on the old man’s face that didn’t inspire confidence. The young man carried a black briefcase like businessmen use to keep their documents.
‘Hello.’
‘Good evening,’ the young man greeted him. ‘We’d like a room for the night.’
It took him five seconds to forget the condition of the darker man, Arab perhaps, and remember that the inn was almost empty.
‘Of course. Please come in.’
He locked the door again and took them up to the second floor. The young man registered as Timothy Elton and paid in zlotys, leaving a generous tip.
Money is the universal language, whatever the currency. It’s never too much, it slips through the fingers like water, and one can never hold on to it. It can be tamed, hypothetically, channeled here and there, but it has a propensity toward sudden flight. And it makes innkeepers everywhere forget the faces behind the hand that gives them the bills, although they may be beaten, sorrowful, sweating, dirty, tired, or proud.
‘We don’t wish to be disturbed,’ the young man emphasized, the only thing said during the process of registering.
‘I understand,’ the innkeeper said, handing over the key to room 206, fastened to a shell.
The guests climbed the stairs. There was no elevator. A fundamental rule of inn-keeping was that the customer is always right. If his desire was not to be disturbed, he wouldn’t be, except in the case of an emergency, which had never happened, thank God. There was a barrier of privacy that could never be crossed from the moment
