Diego Marani - God's Dog

In Civitavecchia Harbour three men were waiting nervously in the embarkation parking lot. Two of them were seated in a car, with the windows down. The third, a thin man with very fair hair, was pacing up and down in front of the bonnet, smoking a cigarette. Then he propped his elbows up on one of the open windows.

‘You and Boris stay in the car. I’ll do the talking.’ The others nodded. It was almost evening, and lights were going on along the quays. The ferry from Genoa was drawing alongside: all lit up, it set the water foaming, its funnels sending out clouds of black smoke. The cars began rattling down the gangway, and soon a long queue had formed at the exit from the parking lot. The fair-haired man threw down his butt end and got into the driving seat. A group of harbour-workers in blue overalls set off towards the bar, taking off their caps and wiping the sweat from their foreheads. One of them, who had stayed behind, went up to the car and said in a low voice: ‘That’s the one, that yellow TIR that’s coming down right now.’

The fair-haired man switched on the engine and looked towards the yellow truck that was bumping down the gangway. He turned the car round on the quay, tyres screeching, and joined the queue of cars leaving the harbour. The truck slithered after him. They made their way slowly forward, one behind the other, as far as the service area outside Santa Severa, where the truck driver parked in the small empty square and went to check the tarpaulins. He was middle-aged, fresh-complexioned, solidly-built and slow-moving; his head was shaven, but his chin bore the faint suggestion of a beard. He had a ring in his left ear, a snake tattooed on his upper arm, and he was wearing shorts and flashy trainers. The fair-haired man stopped the car some distance away from him, just beyond the turn-off to the petrol station. He gave the others a tense nod, pulled something out from under the seat and walked off towards the truck, then addressed the man behind the trailer.

‘Good evening, I’m Sergio’s contact.’

The driver pretended not to hear; he just stood there, tightening a strap. The fair-haired man went a bit closer.

‘Semtex. Altogether, a kilo in all. Plus the detonators. We’ve agreed on a price,’ he said, lowering his voice. The driver nodded. The fair-haired man took a folded newspaper out from under his shirt.

‘To be handed over in two installments. Next one, same place, same time.’

The driver nodded, stuffed the newspaper into his trouser pocket, winked, went off towards the driver’s cab and started the engine; the truck moved slowly off, suddenly lit up from nose to tail with coloured lights. The sky over the dark sea, still red from the sunset, was casting a golden glow over the houses in the little bay. The fair-haired man was just about to go back to the car when he heard shouting. Two four-by-fours with darkened windows were now blocking the car’s exit, one in front and one behind. Armed men were surrounding it, ordering the other two to get out and put up their hands. The fair-haired man squatted down among the bushes in the flower-bed and proceeded on all fours towards the wall of the motorway restaurant. The truck slithered slowly down the road leading to the petrol station on the other side of the little square, and there the fair-haired man climbed into it through the open window. At that moment two police cars drove into the service area, sirens blaring. Scarlet in the face, the driver first tried to push the man out again, then pulled him up on to the seat and gestured to him to hide on the bunk bed, swearing in his own language as he did so. He drove the truck towards the motorway, gradually picking up speed, peering nervously into the rear-view mirror and gesticulating furiously at the cars which were overtaking him, hooting wildly.

Salazar held his breath, hoping that that would enable him to hear better. The time switch was ticking away in the entrance-hall, and that ticking sound was a time bomb. He looked for the button with the orange pilot light so that he could press it when the moment came. The further along the corridor he went, the colder the air became. There was no longer the usual smell of vinegar, no candle lit before the statue of the Virgin. The glass doors were open. He slipped through the first one, gun levelled. The first room was empty, as was the next, and the last one was occupied only by bags of linen, heaped up on the floor. Salazar went up the stairs three steps at a time, flattening himself against the wall. When he reached the first floor, he raised his pistol and slipped behind the pillar supporting the stairs. Then the light went out; a hinge creaked and Salazar fired, three shots into the warm belly of the darkness. He stood stock-still. But he sensed movement: someone, apart from himself, was breathing. The switch for the automatic light was too far away, on the other side of the stairs; to reach it, he would have had to cross the area lit up by the skylight. He inched forwards along the wall; he heard a scuffling sound, a thud and then the din of a volley of bullets, shattering the plaster on the wall behind him. He fired another random shot, then threw himself to the ground. When silence fell again, he heard the sizzling of an electric cable, giving out sparks, and the sound of plaster flaking down on to the benches. He got up and dusted himself down; now the switch was right in front of him, just by the half-open door of his room, but it had been pulled out of the wall. He was about to jump to the other side of the stairs when he stumbled and fell against the soft mass of a lifeless body, pushing the door of his room fully open as he did so. At that same moment, a sign flashed on outside the skylight, casting a mauve gleam over the face of a bald man who was lying on his back on the floor in a pool of blood, his sub-machinegun protruding from beneath his blood-spattered ribs, his arms and legs spread-eagled and his fingers weirdly splayed. He was young and solidly built, and his still open mouth suggested surprise. Salazar went through his pockets, which yielded some scraps of paper, a wad of banknotes, a key and a railway ticket for Milan, with a reserved seat for Saturday 11 March. Salazar got to his feet: he had to get out of there, and fast. He had a quick look into his room: the cupboard was open, and empty, the camp-bed stripped; all his possessions had disappeared.

Salazar went off through the flickering lamplight, peering over his shoulder as he did so, trying to collect his thoughts. He had now lost contact with his superiors; in order to get back in touch, he would have to put himself in the hands of the Swiss Guards, and that was a tricky business. They were always extremely thorough: they would detain him, then interrogate him and check his fingerprints. It would be a few days before he could continue his enquiries. The Piazza Karol Wojtyla Barracks were the nearest, but perhaps it would be better to go straight to the Porta Angelica. He stopped at a fountain in a small square to wash off the blood from his clothes and hands. Perhaps he should not have left the convent in such a hurry; perhaps he should have looked around more thoroughly. Where had the nuns gone? Had they been locked away somewhere? Kidnapped, even? At all events, the whole thing had been badly managed; there was no need for such high-octane action, such hullabaloo. He could have been caught and done away with much more discreetly. Thinking back to the empty rooms, it struck him that the place must have been suddenly evacuated. Then he saw why: it wasn’t a convent at all! He remembered that he had never seen more than three nuns at any one time, had never heard any noise, smelled any cooking. The place was too empty to have been really lived in. So, it had been nothing more than a stage-set. Why had it taken so long for the penny to drop? But then nothing made sense any more. Who was the man in the confessional? Who had set that trap for him? Salazar moved off from the fountain, horror-struck. So the Vicar was a spy? He ran off, taking the darkest alley he could find.