from the woman’s house.’
‘Don Clemente had several meetings with Rafael in the last year. Two in Santiago, one in Rome, and another in London.’
‘They knew each other?’ Barnes wanted to know.
‘More than that… they were relatives,’ Phelps informed him.
‘Don Clemente was Rafael’s uncle,’ Marius Ferris added.
‘You killed his uncle?’ Littel asked.
‘And we’re going to kill the nephew,’ Phelps affirmed with the sarcastic smile of a mischievous child.
‘Does he know?’ Barnes asked.
‘It’s not very likely.’
‘We shouldn’t waste time. We have to eliminate him as soon as possible,’ a worried Barnes stated.
Sebastian Ford came into the room again, suffocating. Sweat ran down his face. His armpits soaked his shirt. He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie a little — a politician giving the impression of working.
‘What kept you so long? Where’ve you been?’ Littel asked.
‘Uh… I was trying to get the spot out, but it won’t go away,’ the other replied.
‘I’ll buy you another one, then,’ Littel replied.
‘And burn that one,’ Barnes ordered. ‘I don’t want any evidence.’ He turned toward Phelps, the helmsman. ‘What made you follow the uncle and nephew?’
‘Once more owing to the confidence of the cardinal I serve…’ He interrupted himself with the expression of someone who’d just realized the truth suddenly.
‘You served,’ Barnes completed the thought with a scornful expression. ‘Who told you what you wanted to hear…’
Phelps’s expression changed completely. His cheeks turned red, and the color spread over the rest of his face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Marius Ferris asked.
The door opened again to let in Staughton, Thompson, and Herbert, who seemed to be tolerating one another. In Herbert’s claws Sarah was white as chalk, in a state of suppressed panic. They followed the looks fixed on the blushing Phelps and realized instantly something was not right. The anger flowing from the priest could be felt for miles. Barnes repressed a certain personal satisfaction. He hated people who thought they were so superior they were beyond ordinary people.
‘It looks like you’re the one who ended up being manipulated,’ Barnes concluded.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Phelps shouted.
‘What’s going on?’ Herbert wanted to know. When he’d left, everything was fine.
‘Don’t raise your voice with me,’ Barnes ordered firmly. ‘I’m likely to forget we’re associates and finish this up completely.’ He waited for his words to sink into Phelps’s mind. ‘We found out here that the cardinal he serves or served has betrayed us. What he told him in secret has turned out to be false. He happened to see the uncle talking to his nephew, perhaps giving him something, to convince him he had everything under control. Everything was under control, but by them, not you… or us.’
‘They’re in a cell. The woman’s here under our control,’ Phelps argued, thwarted.
‘But they still have everything we wanted. And where are the ringleaders? JC, the cardinal, and their team? Running everything from their box seats, drinking champagne, and eating caviar.’
They all listened to Barnes in silence. Phelps, with his eyes closed, looked like he wanted to deny the arguments, but his rationality prevented him.
Barnes was right. He’d been deceived, but there was a remedy. He approached Sarah and grabbed her by the hair without pity. Sarah twisted and screamed.
‘No. No.’
They sat her violently in an empty chair.
‘Where’s Abu Rashid?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah answered, frightened.
A strong slap jolted her face to the side.
‘Where’s the file on the Turk?’
‘I don’t know.’
The tears from the first slap flew out with the second, still harder, from the other side.
‘Where’s JC?’ The questions followed faster.
Sarah didn’t reply, but the slaps didn’t stop, shaking her whole head inside.
‘We’re going to drag everything you know out of you,’ Phelps cried, leaning over her and brutally pulling her hair.
‘I want the whole truth. If not, your parents are going to suffer.’
Broken down in silent tears, Sarah looked at him. She didn’t give voice to the sorrow filling her, driving her to shout, to moan, to give up. Mentioning her parents was cruel, hard. Could it be they’d caught them? Would that mean they’d also caught JC? Or was it all a lie to make her tell everything… but what? She knew nothing.
Another angry slap. James Phelps was beside himself. His flinty eyes sparked out uncontrollable fury. A thread of blood trailed from her mouth.
Phelps’s arm reached back again to gain force for another brutal slap, but was prevented by a strong hand, heavy as a blackjack, that grabbed and stopped it.
‘Calm down, Phelps,’ Barnes recommended. ‘We want her alive. Stop now.’
‘She’s going to tell everything,’ Phelps said with a maniacal look.
‘Everything she knows… which might be nothing,’ Barnes said.
The American circled Sarah, intimidating her. He knew she feared him because in the past she’d seen what he was capable of doing.
‘Sarah Monteiro, born April eighth, 1976, journalist, Portuguese, resident of London, daughter of a Portuguese father and English mother.’ Barnes’s tone was calm but electrifying, psychic. There was a door he had to open, her ultimate defense, that which guarded everything. ‘She had an abortion in 2007 as a consequence of which she almost died.’
Barnes was silent for a few moments and then put his lips close to her ear.
‘Look carefully at the people in this room.’ He stepped back, grasped her hard by the head and chin, and shouted, ‘Don’t leave anyone out.’
Sarah had no choice. Stuart Garrison in his wheelchair, a deathly stare, cold, as if he were in a theater watching a boring film. Priscilla Thomason, a notepad in her hand, closed, watching her with consternation and pain, because of Littel and his will or lack of will. Littel remained seated, with his legs crossed, reading some reports that had little to do with this case. His lack of interest in Sarah was obvious. He was there to serve the wishes of the president of the United States of America… or not. Wally Johnson, in his army uniform with the braids of a lieutenant colonel fixed to the shoulders, reminded her of a sentinel guarding the fort, firm, alert, prepared to destroy any threat. Sebastian Ford, whom Sarah recognized as the man who’d entered the cell to see Rafael. Rafael’s man on Barnes’s team. Barnes had no idea. Ford watched her with compassion, a politician with feelings. Here votes didn’t count, there was no campaign, nothing to win. Herbert, the faithful aide, seemingly everything men of power needed to do their dirty work, and also the clean work. Staughton, the man of data more than field operations. Thompson distanced from her. Habit creates defenses, the mind adapts and rejects the idea that what the person is doing is wrong. He always acted in the best interest of the American nation. Last of all, the old man with white hair who seemed out of place. He was Marius Ferris, the frail parish priest who knew New York. He couldn’t be part of that dark gang of wrongdoers. Or could he? A joking smile on his part answered Sarah’s doubts.
Barnes’s hands squeezed her face, causing an anguished feeling.
‘We are the only people in the world who know you’re still alive.’
A shiver ran down Sarah’s spine.
Barnes took his gun from the holster and pressed the cold barrel against her forehead.
‘Do yourself a favor and spit out all you know.’
Sarah took a breath anxiously. Her tears flowed copiously; a thread of blood ran from her lips and mouth. They could beat her to death. She had nothing to say.
