Richard Beard - Acts of the Assassins

‘Second tier,’ she says, and follows Cassius Gallio up crumbled steps to an archway where he blinks into the brightness of the damaged grandstand. Valeria is waiting midway along a stone terrace, in the shade of a dyed sail usually deployed during performances. Her face is in orange shadow.

Claudia stays at the end of the row, formally out of earshot, sunglasses fixed in place.

Gallio takes the seat next to Valeria and for a while they win at keeping silent, a trusted Speculator tactic. Whoever speaks first will say too much, and is therefore usually the loser. They watch the banked seats in other sections of the stadium, where security teams launch search dogs along the rows. Low-income employees sweep the sand of the arena. If some are undercover agents, and Gallio assumes they are, he can’t tell which ones are working for Jesus.

‘Remember when we came here on leave?’ Valeria speaks: she loses. ‘Years ago, soon after we met in Jerusalem. We planned to take on the world, you and me.’

Cassius Gallio does remember, though he won’t squander his advantage by saying so. Strange that back then she was younger than him, and that had seemed to matter, but now her age is irrelevant. They had sat in exactly these seats and he had failed to say he loved her while crocodiles chased a Parthian and at some point they watched a crucified lion.

‘The two of us together, Cassius, once you’d left your wife. Now you’ve finally become a deserter, but in a more official sense. Sorry, but that’s the choice you made when you boarded a plane for Patras.’

‘I came back. Here I am in Rome, reporting for duty.’

‘You couldn’t keep out of Claudia’s pants, could you?’

Of course she knows; information is her specialism, because knowledge is power.

‘I have high hopes for Claudia,’ Valeria says, ‘despite her lapse in Caistor, and with luck she’ll survive you unscathed. As I did. You, however, deserted your post and lost your tracer. Unfortunate. We recovered your phone from beneath an altar in the Agios Andreas in Patras, along with your documents. Now we pick you up in Rome, running round and threatening to kill the disciple John. What happened to you, Cassius?’

‘I can explain.’

At the end of the row Claudia is sunning herself, holding up her face to the light.

‘You disobeyed my orders. I wanted you to locate Matthew in north Africa, but you developed a strange fascination with Caistor. Then you disappeared without permission. I brought you back too soon from Germany, I think, because the tribunal was right about you. You’re unhinged. You forget which way is up.’

Cassius Gallio is aware of his weathered and beaten clothes, his beard and hair grown long. ‘I’m undercover. I’m an active Speculator.’

‘I hardly recognised you, and you don’t have the right to use that title.’

‘I’ve been on the road, looking for Jesus. That’s what you asked me to do, and if finding him was simple you’d have done so before now. You needed me. You still need me. I know more about these people than anyone else you’ve got.’

After the crucified lion they’d seen a gladiator’s nose sliced off by a short-sword. How the Circus laughed that day. Gallio remembers the sound of forty thousand people in hysterics, and a gladiator scrabbling for his nose. The joke was probably funnier because earlier they’d put out his eyes. Tomorrow is Peter’s turn, and Valeria should know she’s making a mistake.

‘I think Jesus is coming back. The Circus gives him an opportunity to make a spectacular reappearance.’

‘And this intelligence comes from where? You spoke to Jude and Bartholomew and Andrew. None of them offered a specific place or date. Even Simon failed to confess to Baruch, and by all accounts Baruch did not ask politely.’

‘So why the security?’

‘Not for the second coming, I can assure you, but what the second coming might stand for. An attack of some kind, most likely a bomb. We know from Jude that whichever disciple Jesus loved is at the centre of their big event. When Jesus comes back, whatever that means, it’s going to happen in the beloved disciple’s lifetime. Peter confirmed this information under questioning. It was something Jesus told them, and Peter was his favourite. Now Peter is about to die, so if the attack is going to happen it has to be soon.’

‘And John?’

‘Can’t find him anywhere. Let’s face it, he may already be dead. Rome can be a tough city if you don’t have money. Peter is the last one.’

‘What happened to religious tolerance? Just out of interest. That used to be a priority of ours.’

‘We should have crucified the twelve of them, right at the start. Tolerance makes us look weak, but tomorrow Peter comes to the Circus and everyone will see how intolerant we can be, when we make the effort. No secret assassins, no local mobs. Civilisation will take responsibility for killing Peter the disciple of Jesus, as a lesson to anyone who chooses to favour superstition over reason.’

‘You’ve misread the enemy. The disciples aren’t a danger in the way you think. They have a strategy and you’re being played for a longer-term result. The disciples of Jesus want to die.’

‘Nobody wants to die. You’ve been on the road too long.’

‘It was the same with Jesus, and Lazarus before him. This goes back to Jerusalem. Death works in their favour. Andrew admitted it.’

‘He’s a liar. Their belief system is based on lies, a fact you choose to ignore. No one walks on water, or dies and comes back to life. Of course they’re scared of death, otherwise they wouldn’t be human.’

‘It’s not too late to stay Peter’s execution. Out in the territories they’re using the crucifix as a symbol of their support for Jesus, if you can believe that. Listen to me, Valeria. You brought me back as an expert.’

‘No one else wanted the job. No glamour, no glory.’

‘I’m advising you to keep Peter alive. Change the plan and question him further.’

‘Too late. Much too late. Peter deserves his fate, because coming to Rome was a suicidal act.’

‘My point. That’s my point exactly.’

Cassius Gallio wants eye contact but Valeria looks away, deciding whether he’s right. She’s a born Speculator, as he is; she can’t help but speculate. Gallio pushes home his advantage. ‘Was Peter an easy arrest? I bet he was.’

The low-income workers sweep at the sand, and they sweep. They level out the arena, then level it again. Valeria lets a silence develop. Cassius Gallio loses.

‘Terror isn’t their strategy. Dying is their strategy.’

‘You’re not making sense. You’re a deserter, which means you gave up on the reasonable approach. The disciples don’t want to die.’

‘Yes, listen. Killing them is counter-productive at every level.’

‘That doesn’t sound very likely. Not at every level. Not in our business.’

‘Which is why we fell into their trap. We assume that dying can’t be positive, but for them it is, and death is the only plan they have. They were never going to stage an attack.’

‘And the fire?’

‘Bad luck. Coincidence, I don’t know. The fire means you have to kill Peter, or now that you want to kill Peter you have your justification. Everything ties in with their plan, or they cleverly make connections after the event. They’re brilliant opportunists.’

‘You’ve seen the list of victims at Ground Zero, the photos taped to the fence. If Jesus or his god is responsible, someone has to pay.’

‘We don’t know they’re responsible, not for the fire.’

‘The odds look good, though. According to you Jesus had himself killed, and then killed the disciples to grow his religion. Why would he bother showing mercy to people he doesn’t even know?’