Scott Mariani - The Babylon Idol

Though the horrors of my insanity are now largely behind me, the burden of guilt I suffer can never be lifted from my shoulders. Every day I have prayed for God’s forgiveness for my part in the unspeakable crimes Massimiliano Usberti perpetrated in the name of the Catholic faith. I was once a man of God, blessed each day by His love and guidance; but that source of Divine wisdom was lost to me as the Lord turned His back and spoke to me no more, however much I begged Him to reveal Himself to me as He once did. His long silence has in many ways been the hardest punishment for me to bear.

Finally, after all these years of torment, God in His mercy has spoken to me once again. But now that He has taken me back into the favour of His Divine goodness, it pains me deeply to say that He has only confirmed to me what I have always dreaded to be the case.

And this brings me, my dear Signor Hope, to my reason for penning this letter to you – a reason so terrible that the very thought makes me shake with fear as I write. For I am now more utterly certain than ever, in my heart of hearts, that we have not seen the end of this evil maniac Massimiliano Usberti. A man like him does not simply fade into the background. If he has managed to remain in the shadows for so long, it is only because he is hatching some dreadful new plan that eclipses even his monstrous exploits of the past. Moreover, I am convinced that he will return to seek vengeance against those he perceives as having wronged him – those who prevented him from carrying out his pernicious goals and may attempt to do so again when he inevitably rises once more from the darkness.

Signor Hope, I beg you to be vigilant and pray that you will take heed, for I am one of the few people alive who understands the power and depth of the merciless hate that motivates Usberti. I am weak and vulnerable, trapped as I am behind these bars. If his villainous influence can reach me inside prison by the hand of some assassin, so be it; I deserve little better. But you are strong, and free. You must do all you can to guard yourself from him. Not only yourself, but every one of those virtuous, wholly innocent individuals who played a part in his downfall. With all my heart and for their sakes as well as your own, I beseech you not to take this warning lightly.

May God in His infinite glory watch over you and protect you.

Your humble servant,

Fabrizio Severini

Prisoner 56139

The letter left Ben stunned. He clutched the thin sheets tightly in his hands and read them again, twice, word by word, in case he’d somehow misunderstood or mistranslated.

He hadn’t. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Fabrizio Severini, repentant sinner, acting on a mystical revelation from God, was warning him that his old enemy Massimiliano Usberti was coming back for revenge.

And with those three pages of elegant handwriting, it was as though the planet had suddenly flipped its magnetic polarity, turning everything upside down.

For the thousandth time since that morning, Ben revisualised the awful memory of the shooting. The details were exactly the same, yet everything was completely different. In his mind’s eye he pictured the two of them standing by the fallen tree: Ben cutting, Jeff close by waiting to grab the next section of log and toss it on the pile. Then, like an extreme slow-motion replay: the bullet closing in from nowhere. The blood spray. Jeff falling. The entire nightmare sequence happening a fraction of a second after the gust of wind that had buffeted them with a fresh snow flurry. A gust of wind that could very easily have diverted the trajectory of the bullet just those few critical inches and caused it to hit …

The wrong target .

It seemed so obvious to him now that Ben was furious with himself for not having thought of it before. As a trained sniper himself, it had been drilled into him long ago that even a 10mph gust of sidewind, coming in right-to-left from three o’clock or left-to-right from nine o’clock, could blow a medium to long-range rifle shot far enough off course in either direction to spell the difference between a hit and a miss. Even the most experienced rifleman could be caught out by a sudden change in windspeed and direction. At a range of three hundred yards, the deviation could be a full seven inches left or right depending on which way the gust blew. At five hundred yards the shot could veer off by up to twenty inches or more; and at a thousand yards it could be off by over fifty inches, missing the bullseye by a whole four feet. And that was the data for a ten-mile-an-hour gust. A stronger wind could affect the shot even worse.

The realisation made Ben’s mind reel. Because if Severini’s warning could be believed in any way, it meant that the bullet hadn’t been meant for Jeff at all.

It had been meant for him.

He was clutching the letter so tightly in his hands that the paper ripped. He let the torn pieces fall to the desk as his mind raced and filled with questions. Had the sniper known he’d hit the wrong man? Was it possible that the gust of wind, whipping in a fresh snow flurry between him and his distant target, could have obscured the view through his scope just long enough to mislead him? He pressed the trigger; he saw a man go down; he packed up his kit and hurried from the scene, running back to his hidden vehicle, getting on the phone to report back to base that his mission was accomplished.

Whereupon, the assassin might have gone after the next target on his list.

Ben looked down at the torn letter. You must do all you can to guard yourself from him. Not only yourself, but every one of those virtuous, wholly innocent individuals who played a part in his downfall.

The next question that flashed into Ben’s mind was: what other names were on the hit list?

He could think of four apart from his own. Four people whom Usberti would have blamed and never forgiven for their involvement in the affair. The first and most obvious was INTERPOL Commissioner Luc Simon, Ben’s main ally in bringing down Gladius Domini.

The next was Roberta Ryder, who had become entangled in the intrigue through no fault of her own and become Usberti’s target for assassination and kidnap, narrowly escaping with her life.

Then there was Father Pascal Cambriel, the elderly French priest who had sheltered Ben and Roberta at his humble village home after Ben had been shot, and ended up playing a key role.

And lastly there was Anna Manzini, the scholar and expert on the history of the Cathars, who had helped Ben unravel the bizarre background behind Usberti’s obsession with alchemy and after whom Usberti had sent his murderer Franco Bozza, to butcher her in her villa near Montségur in southern France. Like Roberta, Anna Manzini had had a close call and only just survived.

Usberti’s henchman Franco Bozza was out of the picture now. Ben had seen him get shot in the throat and die right in front of him. But the world was full of eager professional killers hungry for work, at the right price. And Massimiliano Usberti was a rich man, from an aristocratic family with enough property and investments to shield him from even the most catastrophic financial loss. If Severini was right, the fallen archbishop had his own twisted reasons for wanting to get even with all four people on the list, and the means to carry it out.

If Severini was right. If, if, if.

Everything depended on whether Ben could trust this crazy letter from a recovering mental patient living under massive psychological stress, who based his claim on a direct communication from heaven above. Either the guy was a nut, and Ben could throw the letter away, or he was for real, and Ben needed to act on it. There was very little middle ground between those two options, and no room for mistakes. He had to know more before he could let himself jump to conclusions. He swivelled his chair around to face the computer terminal on the desk. The sleeping screen flashed into life and he started urgently hitting keys.