Carl Sargent - Black Madonna

“All right,” Michael said, taken aback now. “What’s he Saying?”

“Remember John?” the elf wondered aloud. “I’m not sure. But I know he didn’t make this gesture by accident.”

“A raised finger, eh?” Streak said. “I know what I mean by that.”

“It’s the index finger not the middle one,” Serrin said impatiently.

“Ahvaz,” Michael read. “It has a small airstrip built by an exploratory team from an oil company late last century. It’s apparently reasonably stable at the present time, which means that the same bandits have held it for a year or more and no one has actually been shot out of the sky during that time, and I think we have to go there.”

The samurai looked at each other and smiled, the lizard-like leer of all hired hands that says, “The price has just gone up!”

Geraint read the looks and the minds.

“Yes, you’re on overtime and bonuses” he told them. “We’re going to need you.”

“We sure are,” Streak said cheerfully. “Yessir, mad guys with big guns.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“I meant them,” Streak said. “Out there in the desert. By the way, you guys got jabs for all the diseases you can catch?”

“Drek,” Michael groaned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“We professionals get regular shots all the time,” Streak said happily. You never know where you might have to go next.”

“We haven’t got time,” Geraint fretted. We’ll just have to buy several gallons of insect repellent. And water purifying tables. And-”

“Don’t worry, Your Lordship. I was only pulling your pud, a wind-up, We’ve got all we need. Don’t we boys?”

“Sure do,” the ork grunted.

“Well, then, that’s it. It’s now three-twelve AM, and I for one need some sleep,” Michael said wearily. “Tomorrow we go to Ahvaz and we get our man.” He flipped his deck off.

But, for once, Michael hadn’t been secure enough. It would have appalled him at the time as it did later when he realized it, to know that he’d been decked himself. The saturnine man responsible gave the information to his master without emotion.

“Then it is so,” the man said as if expecting what he learned. “He has gone back to the heart of heresy. Like a dog returning to its own vomit. It is always so.”

He considered his options. Of his best men, half were still recovering from the events in Venice. He doubted now whether hermetics or assassins would do the job for him. They had pursued their quarry long enough, and it had eluded them every time. He could no longer trust to the work of his juniors.

He reached for the private line and told the Vatican secretary that, despite the lateness of the hour, he would have to speak with His Holiness in person on a matter of most Unique urgency.

Across the Mediterranean, in a fertile land spreading over the wide, lazy valley of the Karun River, a young man was shown through the underground part of the building. having already seen for himself the dome and the observatory above, extraordinary constructions for so poor a people in such a ravaged place. He smiled, and hugged the dark-eyed man who had showed him around so nervously, obviously desperate for his approval.

“It is so fine,” Salai said. “It is exactly as it was designed. You have done so very well. This is a wonder to me.

The Arab smiled with relief, his beautiful, even white teeth gleaming in the soft light.

“And the Prophet will be here soon?”

“Within the hour, Tariq. He has only stopped to attend to one or two pressing matters along the way.”

“This is such a great day for us,” the man said with real fervor. “We had never thought to see such a day.”

“And he will bring such great riches, and the greatest artists and scholars in his wake,” Salai said cheerfully.

“We have been downtrodden long enough,” the man said with some feeling.

“Indeed you have, and no longer. The Great Work will be done here and you will be exalted among men,” the youth said soothingly. “You have already been rewarded for your faithfulness-”

He was cut short as Tariq sought to prevent any suggestion of ingratitude or impatience.

“We could not have built this without the money you gave us,” he said at once, and we have a fine hospital and school for the children. We know the Prophet’s generosity to his people. it is simply that to have him among us-” His face was literally one of rapture.

“And here is the center,” Salai said as he turned the final corner. “Ah, Tariq, this is a fine rendition.”

The mosaic must have taken the men of the place many years of painstaking work. Untold thousands of tiny fragments of gleaming, polished stone and crystal shone in the gentle light from the alcoves. The strange, haunting androgyny of Leonardo’s John the Baptist was perfectly reproduced in the round shrine a the heart of the labyrinth.

“Wonderful. And then there is the deeper mystery, Tariq, but we shall not speak of this now.”

“We await,” the man said simply.

“So we breeze into a bandit heartland with a photo-ID and say, Excuse me, gun-wielding bandit-type fellow, but have you seen these men?’ when we know one of ‘em doesn’t look like this anyway,” Geraint pondered over a junk-food brekfast. The airport didn’t seem to offer anything better, but at nearly noon-by the time they’d managed to wake, bathe, dress, and pack everything again-they didn’t fancy the lunchtime menu and the junk was all they could face.

We’ve got Blondie and he’s impossible to miss with that pony tail,” Michael replied.

“He could tuck it inside his jacket.”

“Ever seen him do that?”

“He still might.’’

“Yeah, right, and that’s why when his master fragged the photo ID, he left him so clear-as-day to make it hard for us,” Michael replied with some venom. “Sorry. I’m still tired. I really do think he actually wants us to find him.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“Is it really? Look, the guy has to have some ego. He’s a genius-look at what he’s done. He must have some desire for recognition. He must want someone to say ‘look how clever I am’. He’s just picked us, that’s all.”

“Fair enough, I suppose, but why us? I mean, there have to be a dozen teams out after him.”

“There are. Matter of fact I caught a glimpse of Denison from MCT Frankfurt in Venice, unless I’m much mistaken. But I think we’re closer to him than anyone else. After all, Renraku was the only corp that got the Shroud icon,” Michael finished, pensively. Still not sure why he did that.”

“Well, we have nowhere else to go” Geraint said. “And if the Matrix crashes I lose a bundle, so let’s get the fragger.”

“We’re actually going to have a day to spare,” Michael said. “if this was the movies, we’d only get to him five seconds before he pressed the button. and you’d see the time display counting down the time before-bang!”

“Hmmm,” Serrin said for no reason in particular. He’d been lost in his own thoughts for most of the morning, gazing at pictures of paintings and reading notes. It was obvious he wanted to be left alone until he’d worked out whatever he was wrestling with. Kristen was more than familiar with these moods by now, and had learned just to be around when the elf came back to the real world.

“I got permission to cross the relevant air space, so far as that goes” Streak told them. “Mind you, it’s bound to be pretty dicey passing over Iraq, so frag that. We’ll take the southern route over Saudi. I don’t fancy the Turkish route, not with heading down the Caspian past Azerbaijan. They let off SAMs for recreation down there. Saudi’s okay.”