Luis Rocha - The Last Pope

Sarah tried to compose herself. She had spent the entire night on the verge of disaster, and now would be the worst moment to lose it.

“Here our friend Margulies was involved in a chore that you asked him to take care of. We know that he doesn’t have the papers. But these books on cryptography provide us with some clues. Do you know what books on cryptography are used for?” The question was addressed to Sarah.

“To study crypts?”

Geoffrey Barnes got up, and with two swift paces he stood right in front of the young woman and backhanded her. The pain was instant, and seconds later her tongue tasted blood. A red trickle flowed from a corner of her mouth.

Bastard, she thought. Immediately her eyes welled, but she avoided shedding a single tear, not wanting to show any sign of weakness.

“To a crypt is where you’ll be going, and very soon,” Barnes said, looking at her with the same coldness as before. Then he returned to his seat and again made himself comfortable. “Now that we’ve clarified this point, let me explain to you what I think has happened. You received something besides the papers. A coded message that in my opinion your limited brain capacity wasn’t capable of deciphering. Because of that, you resorted to Professor Margulies. Am I right?”

“Yes, you’re right, he ought to have the message,” Rafael said, trying to shift the focus of attention to himself.

“Correct,” Barnes agreed. “But, unfortunately, your loyal friend swallowed it before we had a chance to read it. And, as you can see by his condition, we tried to get him to tell us what he had discovered. But it seems we haven’t made any progress.”

“Great, Margulies.” Rafael’s voice was sarcastic. “You did it. You swallowed the coded message. How remarkable.”

“And, because of that, he’s no longer of any use to us,” Barnes announced, signaling to the agent behind Rafael. The man went up to Margulies, dragged him to the center of the room, and ordered him to kneel. The professor’s hands were tied behind his back.

Sarah didn’t even want to imagine what was about to happen, and turned her head in order not to look. She had never seen anyone die, even of natural causes. Sensing Margulies’s presence a couple of steps away, kneeling before an inevitable fate, she was unable to hold back her tears.

“So, now Sarah doesn’t want to watch the spectacle we’ve prepared for her,” Barnes boomed, displeased. “We can’t have that.”

Again the man who had searched Sarah approached her. A strong hand gripped the back of her neck, forcing her to witness the scene.

“No,” she protested.

“Yes,” the man holding her head answered in her ear. “Enjoy the unique experience of watching a body abandon life. It’s a most beautiful spectacle.” A snide chortle reached her ears.

The professor, on his knees, mumbled a litany to himself. It was his farewell, the offering of his spirit to the Creator, so that He would receive him under the best conditions. The way in which one faced one’s last breath gave humans greater or lesser dignity. And Margulies did it with integrity.

Rafael looked at the professor very soberly, showing no feelings. He seemed to be an impassive bystander, lacking sentiments, as the drama unfolded before him.

Margulies’s head bent forward in submission, for the executioner to pull the trigger. The silencer was pressed against the nape of his neck. Margulies looked at Rafael for the last time.

“Count the letters,” the cryptographer whispered.

Sarah did not hear what the professor said to Rafael. She was about to immerse herself in darkness. They could make her face Margulies, but not force her to keep her eyes open. Shut your eyes fast, shut them. Defend yourself against this violence, don’t let them torture you.

A dull thud marked the end. The body dropped to the floor, inert, in the middle of a pool of blood that Sarah imagined but didn’t see. The tears flowed uncontrollably down her face. Margulies had fallen forward, his head turned toward Rafael, a red hole at the base of his skull.

Bastards! Sarah thought, aware for the first time that, no matter what she did, she wouldn’t get out of there alive.

“Now we return to the whereabouts of the papers,” Barnes said. “I’m sure that you’re readier to reveal it than a moment ago.”

The agent who had killed Professor Joseph Margulies still stood, gun in hand, ready to kill his next victim, the man he knew as Jack and who had turned out to be a double agent, the highest treason, always punished by death. Once Jack was dead, the woman would say where the papers were, and then-

And then nothing. A tremendous kick broke the agent’s knee and made him fall, screaming. Before he knew what was happening, he lay dead with a bullet from his own gun, which Rafael had snatched from him in the blink of an eye.

Rafael then shot at the head of the man to Barnes’s right. The agent to his left and Barnes himself took cover behind the first thing they could find. Meanwhile, the agent holding Sarah tried to use her body as a shield, but she elbowed him powerfully in the chest, making him double over.

“Get out! Fast!” Rafael shouted at Sarah. “Run! They can’t shoot at you!”

Sarah ran toward the door. Barnes and the other man aimed at Rafael, but he protected himself with the body of one of the fallen agents. He fired for cover and rushed out of the office.

“The woman has to be captured alive!” Barnes yelled. “Son of a bitch.”

Rafael flew down the corridor with no idea where he was headed, opening doors at random. His priority was to find Sarah. They found each other quickly, at a nook in the hallway.

“I told you to run. If they’d caught you, you’d be completely fucked.”

They ran blindly. The light was minimal, but their eyes eventually adjusted. The interior of the British Museum was an immense labyrinth.

At the end of the hallway was a door providing access to one of the stairways. They descended to the floor below.

When they got to the lower landing, Rafael opened a door and cautiously peeked through.

“Let’s go. Stick close to me.”

Barely visible signs pointed to the emergency exit.

They came to an enormous hall, the King’s Library, and stopped in front of a huge door, leading to the museum’s covered grand atrium. The large annex was a recent addition, with a rotunda in the center that housed the Reading Room, various shops on the ground floor, and a restaurant on the floor above. On the other side, facing the exit, were numerous tables and chairs anchored to the floor that belonged to the snack bars that offered fast food to the thousands of daily visitors.

Sarah and Rafael hugged the wall of the grand atrium, quickly moving toward the exit. The stretch that remained before them was like an open, barren field. The moonlight, now visible through the glass dome, gave the area a grayish white tinge.

A flash cut through the shadows and Rafael was hurled against the wall by an unknown force: he’d been hit. Sarah instinctively knelt and tried to lift him. He groaned, but the wound didn’t appear to be too serious.

Two shadows darted out from the bar area, moving toward them.

“Take the pistol.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Shoot two or three times, at random,” Rafael insisted.

Sarah looked back. The shadows were gaining ground. Finally she took the gun Rafael was handing her, and fired three times without turning her head to aim. They were both barricaded behind the museum reception desk. Rafael took off his overcoat and ripped his clothes in the area where the bullet had grazed him, almost by his shoulder.

“I was lucky.”

“Really? I thought you were going to die in my arms.”