We all fall down, p.27
We All Fall Down, page 27
“Your timing is good,” he says.
“How so?” Alana asks. “Have you found Stefano?”
“No. But we did locate Brother Silvio.”
Alana’s pulse picks up. “Where is he?”
Sergio motions down the hallway. “Here.”
“Where was he?” Byron asks.
“At San Fruttuoso di Camogli,” Sergio says. “A famous monastery up the coast from Portofino. There are no roads in—the only access is by foot or by sea. One of the other brothers saw the alert online, which we added Brother Silvio to, and he tipped us off. We picked him up a few hours ago.”
“What is Silvio saying?” Alana asks.
“Not much, so far. He speaks highly of you, though. Why don’t we question him together?”
Sergio leads them inside an interview room with a table and a few chairs. A plainclothes guard stands at the door and closes it behind them. Silvio sits across a table in his usual black robe. As they enter, the monk smiles in recognition, but his face is haggard and he seems years older. “Ah, Dr. Vaughn, have you had time to finish the diary yet?”
“Not yet, Brother Silvio.”
“But you will?” he asks hopefully, as if it were the reason for their meeting now.
“I will.” She sits down between Byron and Sergio across from the monk. “Right now we have to find Brother Stefano. Urgently.”
There’s a knock at the door. The guard answers it and, after a brief verbal exchange, accepts a few sheets of paper. He closes the door and then passes the pages over to Sergio.
“That poor boy.” Silvio shakes his head. “Stefano, he suffers so with his illness.”
“You mean the voices?” Byron asks.
“Prego.” Silvio blows out his lips. “Most times, Stefano, he knows they are not real, but sometimes . . .”
“Especially around the time the monastery was demolished, right?” Byron presses. “His symptoms had gotten worse around then?”
“I would not say so,” Silvio says. “To me, Stefano was improving. He did not mention voices. He was too fascinated with the history of our old monastery.”
Alana reaches across the table and takes Silvio’s bony hand in hers. It’s dry and callused in her palm. “Brother Silvio, did you help Stefano free the rats from the crypt?”
Silvio stares at her for a moment and then breaks into a small laugh. “I never believed the rats were still there. I still find it impossible to believe. If Stefano had asked, I would have told him so.” He pats the back of her hand. “Stefano, he did not ask. He never spoke to me of rats at all.”
“Then why did you run away yesterday?” Byron asks.
“Run?” Silvio laughs again. “I am far too ancient to run. No, Don Arturo, he arranged it. He requested I spend time at San Fruttuoso di Camogli. To see their library. And to see what they could absorb of the San Giovanni collection.”
“When did Don Arturo arrange this?” Byron asks.
“He called me yesterday. He told me they were ready for me right away. He booked my train and arranged the boat.”
Sergio looks up from the pages, his expression neutral but his eyes afire. “Excuse us for a moment, brother,” he says as he rises to his feet.
Alana and Byron follow him out of the room and down the corridor to his office. He closes the door behind them and then passes the sheets over to Alana. The words are all in Italian, but the pages clearly are a printout of an email exchange. There are only eight or nine entries, most of them two sentences or shorter. “Is this from Stefano?” she asks.
“Yes,” Sergio says.
“How did you get it?” Byron asks.
“We tracked down the IP addresses for the homes of both Brother Silvio and Don Arturo. The team just intercepted these.”
Her breath catches in her throat. “Which one of them has been communicating with Stefano?”
Sergio flashes her a grim smile.
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
Stefano lies on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. The room smells of sweat and disease. Nino isn’t speaking anymore, not even in the delirious rambling he lapsed into over the last few hours. Stefano isn’t certain if his roommate is even still breathing, but he’s not willing to get close enough to find out.
O Lord, I have never needed Your guidance as I do now. But even God has gone silent.
Stefano feels the doubt worming its way back into his head. He thinks about when the scheme was first hatched. He was skeptical then, too, but Don Arturo had been so convincing. Stefano thinks of their many conversations, which began as philosophical musings but somehow evolved into planning sessions without him ever noticing.
“There must be a reason for this blessing, Stefano,” Don Arturo had told him one evening, a few weeks before they were evicted from their home.
“Which blessing, Don Arturo?”
“Your ability to commune directly with the Lord.”
“Dr. Lonzo tells me that none of it is real, only a symptom of my disease.”
“Doctors!” Don Arturo scoffed. “Such arrogance. They are as flawed as every other man. They simply do not recognize it. And those poisons he feeds you . . .”
“Dr. Lonzo says the medicines stabilize my mood.”
“Nonsense, Stefano!” Don Arturo shook his head gravely. “They dull your mind and cloud your soul. They separate you from God.” His brow creased as if he were in pain. “Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“You have stopped taking the medicine, as we agreed?”
Stefano nodded.
“Good boy.” Don Arturo gripped his arm.
Stefano hesitated. “But, Don Arturo . . . what if Dr. Lonzo is right?”
“He is not!” The abbot squeezed his arm until it ached. “God speaks to you! I have never been more certain of anything in my life!”
“But what He is asking—”
“Is to make His Kingdom whole again.”
“By bringing back the Black Death?”
“Even the most merciful reach a breaking point. Remember the Old Testament? Noah and the flood?”
“Yes.”
“There are times when God must cleanse the world of evil, regardless of the cost.”
“Yes, but—”
“Think of it, Stefano! They will soon tear down San Giovanni. Our home. A house of God!” The abbot’s voice quavered with passion. “It is no coincidence. This is precisely why Don Marco and the medieval monks buried those creatures there all those years before. So that if the faithful were to ever come under attack, we would have a way to strike back. To unleash all God’s fury.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so.” Don Arturo smiled encouragingly. “Besides, if not us, then those bulldozers, diggers, and other infernal machines would free the creatures anyway. We are simply expediting the inevitable.”
Even months later, the memory of Don Arturo’s conviction is reassuring to Stefano. But the guilt is near-crippling. So is the fear.
Stefano gave Nino the antibiotics as promised. But he was so afraid his roommate might still try to go see the ship’s doctor that he also crushed ten pills of the sedative trazadone, which Dr. Lonzo had prescribed him, and slipped the powder into Nino’s orange juice. Stefano can’t tell whether Nino has succumbed to an overdose or the plague.
Stefano checks his watch again. By his calculation, the freighter will reach Port Said in less than eighteen hours. The moorage will only complicate matters. It is one thing to smuggle a live rat out with the restocking crew, but the same strategy will not work for a dead sailor. Stefano wonders if he could toss his roommate’s body overboard before they dock. Nino is slight, but even if he could possibly lug him all the way above deck, how would he throw him into the Mediterranean without being spotted?
He thinks again of Don Arturo. Stefano’s mother was only sixteen years old when he was born, and he never met his own father; the wise abbot is the closest anyone has ever come to filling the role. Surely Don Arturo will know what to do about Nino. They were not supposed to have further contact during the mission, but Stefano sees this crisis as reason enough to break the silence and consult his mentor.
He leaves his room and locks the door behind him. He slinks down the narrow corridor of the belowdecks hallway, takes the stairs down to the computer room on the lower deck, and is relieved to find it empty.
He sits down at the far terminal of the two computers but has to wait a minute or so for the slow satellite Internet connection to engage before he can log on to his account. As he waits, a minimized photo on the side of the browser’s home page catches his eye. He clicks on the icon and watches, with horror, as his own image fills almost half of the screen. Beside his own passport photo is a picture of Brother Silvio. The text underneath screams: “Source of plague?”
Chapter
Sixty
Sergio has no flashing light or siren, but he drives as if he does, leaning heavily on the horn as he weaves along the crowded curving streets. The black sedan jerks so hard at times that Alana has to grip the armrest in the backseat to steady herself.
“What exactly did the emails between them say?” Byron asks from the passenger seat.
The car slows to a halt behind a line of traffic, and Sergio uses the opportunity to grab the pages off the console between them. “Stefano sent the first email four weeks ago. It says: ‘All is well, but the males fight over the food. Can this really be what God intends?’ And Don Arturo replies: ‘He speaks to you alone. His blessing is righteous, my brother. Do not ever doubt His word.’ ” Sergio flips a page. “And then three weeks ago Stefano wrote: ‘I freed Asiago at the construction site, just as you advised. Should I still release Robiola in a park now?’ And Arturo responded: ‘Yes, the Parco Serra Gropallo will be perfect. He will easily find a home there. Just as the Lord intends it.’ ”
Alana can barely bite back her anger. “The son of a bitch was feeding into Stefano’s psychosis! Goading him on.”
The cars ahead of them begin to move and Sergio drops the pages back onto the console. “The last few emails were sent seven days ago,” he says. “Arturo told Stefano that God wanted him to spread the plague in Asia. He even suggested that Stefano hire on as a crew member on a freighter.”
“Asia!” Alana slaps the armrest with an open palm. “What if he’s already left?”
Sergio shrugs. “No freighter can reach the Far East in under a week. We will search the manifests and crew lists of every ship that has recently departed Naples, or will soon. We will find him.”
“What if he’s not traveling under his own name?” Byron asks.
Sergio motions to the pages. “Arturo specifically asks Stefano if his passport is in order. And he confirmed it.”
Alana exhales heavily. “If Stefano releases those rats in Asia . . .”
“Can you imagine trying to contain this plague in cities like Jakarta or Shanghai?” Byron says.
“Jesus! It’s like the plague ships of the Middle Ages all over again. Only this time in reverse. They’ll be carrying the Black Death back to Asia.”
Sergio veers off into the driveway of the Seminario Arcivescovile and abandons the car in front of the main doors. The three of them race through the common area and up the stairs to Don Arturo’s apartment.
Sergio slips the gun from his holster as he pounds on the door with his other fist. No one answers. Just as he lowers his shoulder to ram the door, it opens a crack. Alana recognizes the widow’s peak through the gap. “Vattene, per favore!” Brother Samuel says.
Without replying, Sergio thrusts his shoulder against the door. It flies open. Samuel stumbles back. He regains his balance and tries to block their entry with his body, his arms spread wide. “Leave Father Abbot be!” he cries.
Sergio levels the gun at his chest.
“Basta!” Arturo cries, as he steps out from behind Samuel. “It is enough.”
Samuel hesitates and then steps aside, his chin hung in defeat.
The abbot doesn’t appear the least surprised. “You know, then?”
Sergio addresses Arturo in Italian. The abbot only juts his lower lip and nods, showing not an iota of contrition.
Head held high, Arturo accompanies them back down to the car. He sits next to Alana in the backseat, his mood seemingly tranquil.
She knows Sergio intends to formally question the abbot in the controlled setting of an interview room, but she’s too enraged to hold her tongue. “Why?” she growls.
“Why what, Dr. Vaughn?” Don Arturo smiles as if they were still making small talk over coffee.
“Why the hell would you encourage someone as ill and deluded as Brother Stefano?”
Arturo frowns. “How do you know Stefano is ill?”
“He was diagnosed by a qualified psychiatrist,” she says in disbelief.
“Yes, with delusions and hallucinations. How does Dr. Lonzo know those are manifestations of his imagination? What if the voices are real?”
“You honestly believe Stefano speaks directly to God?”
“He would not be the first,” Arturo says. “The English thought Joan of Arc was crazy, too.”
“What is wrong with you?” she snaps. “The man is a schizophrenic. And you were enabling his lethal delusions.”
Arturo folds his arms over his chest. “I believe Stefano is an agent of God.”
“So God intends for the Black Death to reign again?” Alana resists the urge to grab the abbot by the neck. “To wipe out half the world like the last time?”
Arturo smiles and then slowly shakes his head. “God must be so fed up with the world as it is. All the greed. All the sin. And so little faith or repentance. This world is not worth saving.”
“You’re as delusional as Stefano!”
But Arturo doesn’t seem to hear her. “To rend asunder such a holy place? A monastery of almost eight hundred years? And for what? To build more extravagant condominiums for the rich and godless to dwell in, instead of us true believers?”
Alana’s jaw drops. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Arturo locks his eyes on hers. When he speaks again, his tone is harsh and the façade of the grandfatherly cleric melts away. “What would you know of any of this? You brash American. You understand nothing of faith, devotion, or sacrifice!”
“This has nothing to with God!” Alana leans in closer. “You’ve done this out of some warped sense of vengeance. To settle a personal score. Nothing more!”
“I was sent by the archbishop of Genoa and the Benedictine primate in Rome to make San Giovanni whole again. I did everything they asked of me. I breathed new life into the monastery. And how did the Church reward that? They sold it to the devil!” His voice rises as his nostrils flare. “And then they stripped me of my abbotship and, with it, my dignity. They cast me aside.”
“Oh, my God.” Alana clenches her fist. She has never wanted to hit someone more in her life. “You’d destroy the world because they took your job?”
“It’s too late to stop Stefano, Dr. Vaughn. What’s done is done.” Arturo relaxes back in his seat. A self-satisfied smile crosses his lips. “And the legacy of San Giovanni will not be soon forgotten.”
Chapter
Sixty-One
The night passed in a sandstorm of activity. Alana spent much of it at AISI headquarters, helping to scour the ship manifests with the other agents. She only returned to her hotel after four a.m. to have a quick shower.
She doesn’t realize she has dozed off in the chair until she’s startled awake by the ringing phone in her hand. She jumps to her feet when she sees Sergio’s name on the screen. “You found him!”
“Yes,” Sergio says.
“Where?”
“On a cargo ship off the north coast of Egypt.”
He hasn’t reached Asia yet, thank God! “Heading for the Suez Canal?” she asks.
“I will fill you in when I see you. How soon can you be ready?”
“Five minutes. Less, if need be.”
“I will pick you up.”
“What about Byron?
“Military personnel only.” Sergio disconnects without another word.
Alana throws on clothes and hurries down to the lobby. A black SUV screeches up to the entrance just as she reaches the sliding doors. She climbs into the backseat next to Sergio. She recognizes the two dark-suited AISI agents in the front seats from the previous raid on the bomb makers’ lair.
“What do you know, Sergio?” she demands as the car pulls away from the curb.
“Stefano was hired on to the Cielo di Asia—a transpacific freighter out of Naples—on the same day it sailed. We came close to missing him. The shipping company, Napoli Marittima, had misspelled Russo with one s instead of two.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
He nods. “I saw the copy of his passport.”
“Where is the ship now?”
“Moored outside of Port Said.”
“Already? How long have they been there?”
“Since early this morning.”
She grabs his arm. “Has anyone left the ship?”
“No. We’re in contact with the captain. He understands no one is to get on or off until we arrive.”
“Does he know about Stefano?” she asks, releasing her grip.
Sergio shakes his head. “We didn’t want to alarm him or put the rest of the crew at risk. We don’t even know if Stefano is armed.”
“So how do we get there?”
“Our navy has an amphibious landing ship, the San Giorgio, in the region. It should reach Port Said in less than three hours.”
Alana was army, not navy. She can’t remember exactly which class of vessel qualifies as an amphibious landing ship, but she recalls it’s large enough for both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft to land on. She assumes the plan must be to launch a raid on the freighter by air. “Are we heading to the San Giorgio now?”
