The fourth prophecy, p.17
The Fourth Prophecy, page 17
“By getting on a plane back to the States.”
Carrie shook her head fiercely enough to set her hair in motion. “And here you are. You’re not stopping. You’re putting Jess’s life in danger instead.”
“I’d never do that. The guy who called me this morning told me he’d call tomorrow and let me speak to her. Once I know she’s okay, I’ll do what they ask.”
“I’m sorry, that doesn’t wash,” Carrie said. “If you were on a plane right now, maybe Jess would be released right now.”
Cal wished he could tell them the whole story and explain himself. But he couldn’t, so all he said was, “They’re not expecting me to leave until I’ve heard from her. That was the deal.”
They were still unsatisfied and showed it. Margo announced that they were taking a walk on the beach, but before leaving, Carrie said, “She was in love with you. Did you know that? You broke her heart, and now you’ve put her life in danger.”
He let out a stuttering breath and looked at the waves.
Margo added her dagger thrust. “We kept telling Jess you were no good for her. You’re poison, Cal. You’re nothing but poison.”
* * *
Cal was on his third vodka while Emilio sipped a soda. Although he wasn’t officially on duty, he was there on official business, and he was a stickler for the rules of the game. Before dinner, he interviewed Carrie and Margo, but he had learned nothing new. He told Cal, “They’re quite unhappy with you.”
“I’m aware.”
“Their anger will fade. They’ll come to understand that this was no fault of yours.”
Cal bowed his head to answer. “If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped. I can’t absolve myself so easily.”
“I think you’re being hard on yourself. My sister agrees. I spoke with her tonight.”
They were in the lounge under a picture window that during the day framed an azure sea, and at night a canvas of pure black.
“I envy you, Emilio.”
“Why?”
“You have a marvelous family. I appreciated the invitation to your father’s.”
“We fight a lot, but we love a lot. You don’t have this with your family?”
“I don’t have a family. My parents are gone. I was an only child.”
“That’s too bad. I’m sorry for you. Life is bigger with a family. That’s my opinion.”
“Can I ask you something?” Cal said. “Was your father disappointed that Elisabetta became a nun?”
“Oh my God, yes, but it was hard for him to express himself openly. You see, we had almost lost her to violence, and her recovery took a very long time. When her health was restored, he was so grateful he almost thanked God. Almost. He’s not a religious man. He believes that everything can be explained by science and the laws of mathematics. God is for superstitious people, he says, people who take the easy road rather than trying to understand the complexities of existence.
“But maybe my mother rubbed off on him a little during her time on this earth. She was deeply religious, so God couldn’t be banished from our house without banishing my mother. The first Sunday after Eli was discharged from the rehabilitation hospital, he agreed to come to Mass with the rest of us. Afterward, at lunch, she made her big announcement. I remember his face. He wanted to say something mean, which is his usual way, but how could he? He had his daughter back from the jaws of death.”
From across the room, Cal noticed Carrie and Margo returning from dinner on the veranda. They didn’t seem to see him, and he was glad.
“Is she happy?” he asked.
“Eli? Happy? I would say she’s satisfied. She was never a happy person in the way that our sister, Micaela, is happy. Being a nun suits her personality. She doesn’t have to worry about taking care of children, taking care of a husband, and balancing these chores with a job. She has her faith, and she has her work. She likes the simplicity.”
“Nothing about her job is simple,” Cal says. “As the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Vatican, she’s a lightning rod for conservatives, especially since she had a prominent role in the art divestiture.”
“Maybe, but Eli is tough. She can take it.”
“Her toughness is an asset. The Holy Father needs tough people around him, now more than ever,” Cal said. “She told me you admire Commander Studer.”
“Why mention him?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“About your suspicion of Studer being the leak? I told her it was absurd. Studer is a dedicated professional.”
“What about his politics?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. He’s a military man. He took an oath to the Holy Father and the Church. That’s good enough for me.”
Cal waved his empty glass at the waiter. “If it’s good enough for you, then it’ll have to be good enough for me.”
* * *
Jessica became aware of a fan with a loose blade clicking rhythmically overhead and the noisy rumble of a window-mounted air conditioner. Her eyelids hadn’t been open for hours, and with effort, she overcame the secretions that had glued them shut and tried to take her bearings. She was in a dark room, but a little light was leaking from under a door, and she could hear the sounds of a television. Her hands were bound behind her back, and with effort, she rocked herself across the bed and got her feet onto the floor. Her mouth was bone-dry, and her bladder ached.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” Her voice lacked steam.
The door opened, and Donato, the one Jessica knew as Cesare, called to his brother, “She’s awake.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“In a nice, cool room. How was your sleep?”
“How long have I been here?”
“Not so long.”
“I’m thirsty. I need the bathroom.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“My hands.”
Donato cut the ties with a flick knife. “There. It’s en suite. Only the best for our guest.”
When she wobbled out of the bathroom, Augustu was in the room, holding a bottle of apple juice. Jessica drained it in a series of gulps, leaving her panting.
“I need to put new cuffs on.”
“Please don’t.”
“It’s not a negotiation. Cooperate or we’ll hold you down.”
She opened one of her hands to show them the patches she had peeled off her abdomen. “You gave me these. You could have killed me.”
“As you see, you’re alive,” Donato said. “Lie down on your side.”
She felt the ratchets binding her wrists.
“We’re not going to feed you.”
“Why?”
“We don’t want you to vomit in your sleep.”
“I’m not going back to sleep.”
Augustu held up another foil pouch of fentanyl.
“Please, no more,” she begged. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Again, it’s not a negotiation.”
She tried to shout, but her voice was too weak. “Why are you doing this? Is there a ransom?”
“We looked you up. You’re a wealthy woman. We really should be asking for money, but it would complicate things. This isn’t about a ransom.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“I think it’s got something to do with a friend of yours, a guy named Donovan.”
* * *
The next morning, Cal woke up obsessed with his phone. He turned the ringer to maximum and took it into the bathroom with him. When he showered, he kept the door open, and when he had breakfast with Emilio, he set it next to his plate.
“Staring at it won’t make it ring,” Emilio said.
“When do you talk to Arena again?”
“Midmorning. That was what we agreed. Of course, if he has new developments, he’ll call immediately.”
As the morning dragged on and the twenty-four-hour mark passed since his last contact with the kidnapper, Cal grew increasingly despondent. He sat in the lounge, facing the irresistibly blue sea, a sea that he fantasized would crash through the window in a tsunami wave and sweep him and his agonizing guilt away. His phone, which was lying next to his endless cup of Americano coffee, was nothing more than a black mirror that reflected his haggard face. At noon, Margo approached his table while Carrie held back at the lounge entrance.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“We’re supposed to fly back in three days.”
“You’ll be taking her with you.”
“Can you promise me that?”
His response was a sad headshake.
Emilio spent the morning working remotely with his security team on final procedures for the Mass, but he came to the lounge periodically to check on Cal. Just before 1 p.m., he asked if he wanted to get a table for lunch.
“I’m not hungry,” Cal said. “I—”
The phone rang, and Cal snatched it off the table. It was an Italian number. He went through the oft-practiced maneuver to activate the recording app and put it to his ear.
“This is Donovan.”
“You ready to speak to her?”
“Yes.”
Emilio leaned forward, trying to hear what would leak from around Cal’s ear.
Nino said, “Hold on,” and conferenced in Donato’s phone.
After several seconds, Cal heard him say, “You there?”
A deep male voice answered, “Yeah.” Cal heard some background noise, of cars passing and people chattering.
“Donovan, you there?”
“I’m here.”
The deep voice was on a speaker, saying, “Talk to him.”
Jessica sounded far away and out of focus. “Hello?”
“Jess, it’s Cal,” he said urgently.
Emilio leaned in closer.
“Cal?”
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
Her confusion was palpable. “I don’t understand. Cal?”
“Yes, it’s Cal. We’re going to get you home, Jess.”
“I want to go home. I don’t know where I am. I think—”
“That’s enough,” the deep voice said, and Cal could no longer hear her.
Nino spoke up. “Okay. You’ve got your proof of life. Now you’ve got a choice to make. You go back home, or we cut her throat. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I know you’re in Sicily.”
“How do you know that?”
Nino ignored the question. “You won’t be able to get a flight from Rome to Boston until tomorrow morning. That’s your deadline. You take off, she lives. You don’t, she dies. You understand?”
“I understand.”
The line went dead, and Cal looked at the phone in his sweaty hand.
“Let me check the recording,” Emilio said.
Cal handed him the phone, and his gaze returned to the sea. “She sounded out of it, maybe drugged.”
Emilio listened on playback and said, “Come on, we’re going to Catania. I’m emailing Commander Arena the file. He needs to hear this immediately.”
* * *
Commander Arena had a war room set up at the Carabinieri command center, located in an industrial zone in Catania, behind walls topped with razor wire.
When Cal and Emilio arrived, the phone conversation was playing on a speaker.
“How the hell do they know you’re in Sicily?” Arena asked.
“We have no idea,” Emilio said. “It’s quite disturbing.”
Cal kept his mouth shut. This wasn’t the time or place to raise suspicion about the commander of the Swiss Guards.
“Did you hear the sound when the first guy says, ‘We cut her throat’?” Emilio asked.
“I heard it,” Arena said. “It sounded like a ship’s horn. Play it again.”
One of Arena’s men found the spot.
“Definitely a ship’s horn,” Arena said. “And the earlier background noises,” Arena said. “It’s like they were on the street.”
“More likely an open window,” Emilio said.
“Play it again,” Arena said. “Can you make it louder?”
The officer maxed the volume setting and repeated it.
“There. Stop there,” Arena said, just after they heard the man with the deep voice answer “Yeah” to the question “Are you there?”
“What is that?” he asked. “It’s not Italian. Go back a little.”
The clip was rewound and played again. Cal listened to the second-long segment intently. “I think it’s Arabic,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Emilio asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think it is.”
“You know Arabic?”
“Some.”
“Why?”
“I’m an archaeologist. I dig in the Middle East.”
“Try to make out the words.”
Cal strained and listened. “I really don’t know. I think one of the words could be ‘hayaa’—‘come on.’”
Arena told one of his officers to see if there were any Arabic speakers in the command center. The man rushed off, and a few minutes later, he returned with a swarthy young man in tow, a junior carabiniere who had emigrated from Egypt as a child.
“Listen to this,” Arena told him. “Is this Arabic?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Can you make out what the fellow is saying?”
“I believe it is ‘Hayaa, sawf nata’akhara.’”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, ‘Come on, we’re going to be late.’”
“That’s it? Anything else?”
“That’s all I could make out.”
“Well, that’s not very helpful, someone saying to someone else, ‘We’re going to be late,’” Arena said, dismissively. “You can return to your duties.”
The young man saluted and started to leave when he turned to say, “Excuse me, am I permitted to ask the time of the recording?”
Cal said, “A minute or so after one p.m.”
The carabiniere took out his phone, opened an app, and smiled. “I thought maybe, and it seems so.”
Arena seemed irritated. “What are you talking about?”
He showed them the screen. “These are the salah times for Sicily, the five daily prayer times. For today, the Dhuhr, the midday prayer, started at one-oh-six p.m. I think these people are rushing to get to a mosque in time for Dhuhr.”
Arena told him, “You’re seconded to the ROS until told otherwise. Bring me a list of all the mosques in Sicily.”
“All of them, sir? There are quite a few.”
Cal found the spot on the recording and played it again. The ship’s horn sounded a long, sonorous beat. “Not all the mosques,” Cal said. “Only the ones near a port.”
* * *
An hour later, Commander Arena reconvened his team for a status report and called in Cal and Emilio, who were waiting in a cubicle.
The young Egyptian officer’s name was Jabari Ahmed, and he brought in a couple of large map rolls, which he unfurled on the table.
“Two mosques on the island are close enough to ports to capture a ship’s horn as loud as the one we heard,” he said, pointing at spots on the maps. “They are the Masjid Ar-Rahmah in Catania, here, and the Moschea di Palermo, here. Masjid Ar-Rahmah is seven hundred fifty meters to the Catania Cruise Port, and the Moschea di Palermo is less than two kilometers to the Palermo Cruise Terminal.”
“Are we sure the horn was from a cruise ship?”
Another officer said he had played the clip to multiple people at the command center, and the consensus was that a cruise liner was more likely than a cargo vessel.
“Hardly proof,” Arena sniffed.
Ahmed grinned and read from his notebook. “I have relevant information. At approximately one p.m. a Royal Caribbean ship, Vision of the Seas, departed the Palermo Cruise Terminal for Barcelona, Spain. And at the same time, a Celebrity cruise ship, Infinity, arriving from Athens, docked in Catania.”
Arena said, “Good work. What was your name again?”
“Jabari Ahmed,” the officer said proudly.
“Ideas?” Arena asked the room.
Emilio volunteered his opinion. “It would be good to obtain feeds from CCTV cameras on the streets near the mosques in Palermo and Catania. I would say from midday yesterday until midday today—but probably after dark—looking for a woman who was with one or more men entering a building.”
“She sounded drugged,” Cal said. “We don’t know if she was able to walk on her own or had to be carried or dragged.”
Arena said, “There’s one piece of good news, I’d say. The ROS has been vigilant about monitoring extremist activities centered at mosques on the island, and I can guarantee you that we have good CCTV coverage in those areas.”
“Palermo or Catania?” Emilio said. “Which is more likely?”
“The car was stolen in Palermo,” Arena said, “and that tells me that they are from Palermo. The criminals will have their support structure there. This is where they would return. It’s only a three-hour drive from Taormina on interior roads, less than four hours on the coastal highway. They could have switched cars and traveled with impunity.”
Emilio said, “On the other hand, Catania is just down the road from Taormina, so their exposure would be minimized.”
“I’ll assign two teams,” Arena said. “One to collect and review CCTV footage from Palermo, one from Catania. We’ll meet back here at six.”
* * *
When they got back to the hotel, Cal reached out to Margo and found her in her room.
“Is there news?” she said.
“They called. I spoke with her.”
“Is she all right?”
“She sounded tired. She said she hadn’t been hurt. It was only a few seconds.”
“What now?”
“They want me to go back to Boston. I booked a flight for tomorrow morning.”
“Thank God you’re doing what they want. We’ll be here for her when they let her go. They will let her go, won’t they?”
“Yes, they’ll let her go.”
Later, driving back to the Carabinieri compound, Cal asked Emilio, “Did you let Studer know I’m leaving for home tomorrow?”
“I told him.”
“If I’m right about him, the kidnappers know too.”
