“Because it is sense. Common sense.
“So it’s ceremonial?”
“You’d think, but no. I think it is more accurate to say it is commemorative.”
“That’s an odd choice of words, don’t you think? Are you saying the dagger used to murder the Pope was a commemorative dagger? So what, it was made for a King’s Jubilee? Something like that?”
He did like this woman. She was sharp. “Something exactly like that. A king two thousand years ago.” If he said two thousand years often enough she’d make the intuitive leap. He knew she would. “That’s one thing that makes this dagger special-it’s silver, it’s two thousand years old. What kings do you remember from two thousand years ago?”
She spread her arms wide.
“Think,” Konstantin said. “King of the Jews, two thousand years ago?”
“Jesus? You’re telling me this dagger was made to commemorate the life of Jesus?” She didn’t laugh, but he could see she wanted to.
“How does silver fit into the story?” he guided her. “Think.”
“Silver?”
“Come on. You know this. Every one learns the story when they’re kids. Thirty pieces of silver.”
She shook her head. “No bloody way. Not possible. I don’t believe you.”
“You asked me. I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You didn’t say I wouldn’t believe, because it was ludicrous though, did you? So, tell me, how did you get your hands on a dagger forged from Judas’ silver? Hell, I can’t even believe I am asking a question like that. Jesus, Judas, we just wandered off into criminally insane territory. Is that what this is? Are you fashioning your defense? Going to plead the Devil made you do it? That you heard the voice of Judas telling you to strike back? To punish the unfaithful for treating him so badly?”
“No,” Konstantin said.
“Then what? Talk me through it, Konstantin. Help me understand, because right now I’ve got a murder weapon, a murderer, and a truckload of evidence, but something doesn’t fit when I think about it. It’s a niggle. The old cop instinct, if you like. I want to say I don’t think you did it, but I’ve watched the footage a thousand times; you’re as guilty as sin. So I don’t know why I keep coming back to the fact that I want to believe you.”
So Konstantin told her everything-Masada, Mabus, the two Akim Caspis, the prophecies and the threats, and his involvement in it. He told her about the gun in the apartment and the timer and the birdseed in the trees meant to cause a distraction. He told her about trying to fight his way through the crowd to save the Holy Father and being too late. He told her about the Swiss Guard and begged her to put his face out across the wire, to warn people. Because he was still out there, and the body in the Moselle proved someone else had witnessed the murder and he’d silenced them before they could talk. He told her about Humanity Capital trading on tragedy, about Miles Devere, about the hostages in England. He told her everything.
It felt good to confess it, to put the burden onto someone else, because it wasn’t over yet. He knew that as surely as he knew the sun was going to rise on the ninth day and the College of the Cardinals would enter conclave to elect the next Pope. It wasn’t over.
“What are you going to do with the dagger?” he asked her.
She looked at him. He couldn’t read her face. He didn’t know whether she believed a word he had said. What she couldn’t argue with was how it all hung together. He couldn’t have made up a story like that while they had him trapped in the interrogation room. “It’s a murder weapon. It’s evidence.”
“When it’s over?”
“Why?”
“Like you said, it’s evidence, but not just of murder. In a weird kind of way it’s proof, isn’t it? Proof that Jesus and Judas existed, proof in the stuff they want us to believe. It’s the kind of treasure the Vatican will want, no matter how tainted it might be.”
He lost track of the time between visits. He was beyond tired. But they wouldn’t let him sleep. Not properly. Only snatches here and there. That told him they had cameras on him and someone watching him at all times. Whenever he started to doze they returned, like clockwork.
They kept coming back, working away at him. Softly from the woman, great hammer blows from the guy. He kept trying to tell them they were wasting their time, that the real assassin was out there, still safe in his position inside the inner ring of the papal guard, but they refused to believe him.
He still didn’t know their names. They were just the woman and the man. It kept it impersonal, stopped him from thinking of them as friends. If he had been running the interrogation, the first thing he would have done was make it personal. Sometimes he did not understand the logic of these people. If they wanted him to trust them, surely they should be using every trick at their disposal to convince him there were bonds between them. They couldn’t bring in the torturer, so what else could they do?
This time when they came for him it was different.
They weren’t alone.
There were six other men with them. Konstantin watched them file into the cell. It was like the tiled wall had been replaced with muscle. The muscle didn’t talk. They didn’t acknowledge his nod. I was as if he didn’t exist to them. That suited Konstantin.
“Get up,” the man said.
He didn’t move.
“I said get up.”
Konstantin placed his hands flat on the table and pushed the chair back, dragging the metal legs across the floor so they grated. He stood up slowly.
“What’s going on?” he asked the woman.
She didn’t answer him. She looked at the man.
“You’re being moved.”
He looked at the woman. “How many days has it been?”
This time she answered him. “Eight.”
He had been out of touch with reality for eight days. Eight days. Anything could have happened in that time. Akim Caspi could be dead. Mabus could be dead. A third of the world’s population could be dead. He wouldn’t have known. All he did know was that tomorrow the novemdiales would be over.
If the Sicarii were going to strike tomorrow, it would be the perfect moment. For nine days the world would have mourned Peter II, and the victims of Rome and Berlin along with him, and each new dawn would be a day further away from the tragedies. Nine days was enough for the numbness to have receded. Nine days was enough for the world to think that final attack wasn’t coming. Nine days was enough to make a fool out of everyone.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Russia, Italy, London? Does it matter? One cell looks pretty much the same as another wherever it is,” the man said.
“I’d like to know.”
“Berlin,” the m “The fun stuff’s over. You’re going to be held accountable for what you’ve done, and then we’re going to bury you way down deep. And when the world has forgotten about you we’ll whisper in the right ear and someone will find you in the showers or shiv you in the yard. It won’t matter to us. But I am sure we’ll find someone who really wants to hurt you; maybe an ex-countryman of yours? Or maybe someone who isn’t enlightened enough to turn the other cheek. It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me. Justice will have had its way, and the world will have its blood, so everyone is happy.”
“Except for me,” Konstantin said, as they came around the table and grabbed his arms. Two men forced them behind his back and cuffed him. They cuffed his ankles and ran a chain from one cuff to the other, meaning he could barely shuffle more than a foot at a time.
“And who the hell cares if you’re happy?” the man asked.
The muscle bundled him into the back of an SUV and drove.
They left the man and the woman outside the BKA offices in Wiesbaden. They didn’t talk until they were more than thirty minutes outside of the city, then the driver switched on his blinkers and followed the traffic off the
