warm and cold, nature in her eternal search for the perfect balance. A perfect night he’d never imagined could exist.
For the first time in his life he woke up sleepy, dazzled by the sunlight coming in the open window of the room in the inn, and forgot the prayers to the Creator of all things, an unpardonable fault in the eyes of the clerical tutors who molded his character in his early years. The first thought of the day should be of the Creator, God, as should be the last, and all other thoughts during the day. Nothing else existed but God, and he should think of Him all the time. So it was said and is said in the monastery where he was brought up and lived since infancy to the sound of carnivorous whips tearing his skin and that of others.
He faced the strong morning sun and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘You slept well,’ he heard a voice say. Abu Rashid, seated in the chair where Tim had seen him for the last time before falling asleep.
‘Yes.’
‘It wasn’t a question,’ Abu Rashid sweetly contradicted him. ‘I know you slept well.’
Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The weight he felt on himself the day before had disappeared. He felt light, rejuvenated, fresh.
‘This is the true peace,’ Abu Rashid affirmed. ‘It has nothing to do with orders, sacrifice, suffering. What you feel now is communion with God. A perfect harmony with nature, with the universe.’
‘Was it the Virgin who told you that?’
‘Any wise person comes to that conclusion.’
Tim looked around, inspecting the room, used to the intense light now. The white, strong sun embracing the world with energy. For a moment, not seeing the black briefcase, he felt a weight in his stomach.
‘It’s under the bed,’ Abu Rashid told him. ‘I don’t want you to miss anything.’
Tim squatted down and grabbed the briefcase. The key code and lock didn’t look tampered with.
‘Didn’t you want to see what was inside?’ he asked curiously.
‘I know what’s in there,’ the Muslim confirmed. ‘I don’t have to see it.’
‘Or maybe your visionary powers couldn’t decipher the code?’ he said in a challenging way.
‘I like to see you calmer, Tim. You seem different.’ Abu Rashid deliberately ignored the provocation.
‘I feel strange,’ Tim confessed. ‘As if I were the father of a large family I needed to support with a lot of sacrifice, I alone, and suddenly they don’t need me, and I can live my own life. A life I didn’t know I had.’
Tim looked, amazed, at the old Muslim. He’d never opened up to anyone, much less a stranger. He’d learned to hold all his frustrations and confusions within himself, since that was one of the teachings of the monastery. He’d summarized his whole existence in one statement to a man he’d wanted to kill the day before.
‘What’s in the case?’ Tim finally asked.
‘The fact I don’t know shows my honesty. After all, the code is your birth date. I could’ve looked in it anytime I wanted.’
They both smiled calmly. Abu Rashid was not a fake, and, taking that into consideration, Tim should have shot him. He hadn’t received instructions at the appointed time. When that happened the Sanctifier was supposed to make the most appropriate decision to safeguard the Church. But that didn’t bother Tim today. Life was giving him another chance, and he was going to take advantage of it. The dark time that he’d spent in the arms of the elite who swept their problems under the carpet was over.
‘I’m going to take you back to your house,’ he decided.
‘That’s not necessary. I know the way.’
‘It’s fair that I take you. I was the one who snatched you from your normal life.’
‘No, Tim. I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again. You never took me away from anything. I’m here of my own free will. This isn’t over yet.’
Tim got up, startled. ‘Yes, it’s over. I don’t want to keep doing this.’
‘That’s a wise decision, but first you have to answer the phone.’
‘What-’
The cell phone on the table started to ring at that precise moment. With an instinctive move, decisively, Tim grabbed it, brought it to his ear, and listened.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked suspiciously.
The caller identified himself, explained the situation, and gave the message. That must have been what happened, but only Tim could confirm it.
‘Listen, Sebastian, I’m going to take the man home,’ Tim told him. ‘He has a special gift, but I’m not going to sentence him.’ He looked at Abu Rashid, who smiled at him. It was possible for a man to change overnight.
The person speaking on the other end said a few more words that Tim listened to attentively.
‘Affirmative. I’ll wait for him to tell him my decision,’ he stated categorically. ‘He knows where I am,’ he added. He frowned. ‘Has something happened to him?’
Sebastian presented his version of the facts, retouched, politically correct, or, on the contrary, he mentioned only Rafael’s momentary inability to talk with Tim by phone.
‘When will he be able to? Any idea?’
Another evasive, conciliatory reply from Sebastian Ford. I can’t tell you, but I hope soon. Something like that.
‘Do me the favor of telling him I’m going to take the man to Jerusalem and return to the agreed-upon place. I’ll stay there eight days. If he doesn’t show up, give him my greetings and best wishes.’ There was a new happiness in Tim’s voice, a valid reason to live. Life was beautiful, finally.
The caller hung up, and Tim did the same.
‘It’s clear,’ he declared. ‘I’m going to take a shower and we’ll go. You must miss your house,’ Tim said.
‘My house is always in my heart. I can’t miss something that’s always with me. My house is the universe,’ the Muslim said with shining eyes. ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’
Even the shower felt different. It washed away the poverty of his spirit and opened his soul to new dimensions. A succession of images flowed through his mind, reviving feelings he thought didn’t exist or had been extinguished. Loneliness was not a way of life but an aberration that darkened his being and ennobled inner demons. The water washed, carried away, poured, expelled, cleaned, and refreshed. That was its nature, the amplitude of its being. He thought of love, the family he didn’t have but could begin to have. A multitude of opportunities passed through his mind.
Tim didn’t know how long he’d let the water run, since he’d lost track of the seconds, the gallons of water, the bath accessories. Renewed, he smiled when he realized he’d showered with the door open, something he’d have condemned before.
‘Ready to return-’ Tim interrupted himself.
There was no one in the room. The door was closed with the lock set, the window closed from inside. Abu Rashid had disappeared into thin air. Tim couldn’t help feeling a mixture of sadness and happiness. A smile passed over his lips, a tear came to his eye.
On top of the bed a gilded object, small, cylindrical, shining… A bullet.
71
‘Jesus Christ, what’s happened here?’ Staughton asked, surprised to see the corpse of his director stretched out on the floor with a vacant stare, dead. A tear ran down his face, a suppressed sorrow, genuine, unforeseen. ‘How could this happen?’
The rest of Barnes’s team and those of Littel and Phelps returned to the interrogation room astonished. Phelps was absent. He’d gone to find the prisoners. They all looked at Barnes’s lifeless body.
‘We’ve received a call from the Oval Office,’ Littel explained.
‘From the Oval Office?’ Sebastian Ford asked.
‘Exactly,’ Littel affirmed. He approached Sarah and used his own silk handkerchief as a gag. ‘The president in person ordered us to finish everything and leave no survivors.’ He looked at Sarah warningly.
Thompson and Staughton were in shock. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Barnes was immortal,
