Black Madonna

8

Breakfast stretched into an extended brunch as people woke, bathed, gathered their wits, and exchanged tales over a series of mugs of coffee throughout the morning. Geraint’s kitchen became a virtual coffee fountain. His original claims for the excellence of his favored brand hadn’t been exaggerated, which encouraged everyone to drink too much. A caffeine buzz settled on them well before noon.

“And so I found out the package came from Clermont-Ferrand, France,” Michael finished. “It must have been delivered to the main office. The address is a false one. There isn’t such a number on the street. And the name of the guy who sent it isn’t in any provincial register.”

“Rather remiss of them,” Geraint said.

“Not really. I mean, what the hell, as long as someone isn’t trying to send a bomb it’s hardly feasible to run a retina-scan on every customer,” Michael protested. “Anyway, Jean-Marie Muenieres doesn’t exist. Not in the area, anyway. So all we have is the topic.” He looked at the elf.

“Its a genuine historical article as far as I can tell,” Serrin said. “But in terms of content it’s mostly a collection of fairy stories.”

“What did I tell you?” Geraint grinned, another mug of fragrant Jamaican in his hand.

“Though it does have some rituals for summoning undines in an appendix,” the mage continued. “Oddly enough, they’re not all that different from some shamanic rituals. Or so I’d say.”

“Are undines spirits or elementals?” Michael asked.

“I think the question is, are spirits or elementals what were know as undines?” Serrin said.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kristen. She was bored, fidgety with a coffee buzz and fully recovered from the tiring travel the day before. Too much talk and inaction was making her restless. Michael noticed, but ignored it. He had one surprise up his sleeve, but he was biding his time. Serrin set it up beautifully.

“I’m still not certain why you asked me here,” he said doubtfully.

“To cover anything magical,” Michael said. “There’s an occult angle to this.”

“You mean, you think there is.”

“No, I mean there definitely is.” Michael paused. In the end it was Geraint who fell for the lure and asked the question that pressed the button.

“The assassin,” Michael said.

“You got an ID on him?”

“Not as such. Not an individual ID, that is. Of all things, he had face blacking,” Michael said. “Such an old trick, but it stiffs any hope of a photofit even with the best enhancing programs I’ve got, because it really messes up all the face contouring. But there was something else. He was slashed, as our friends put it.”

“So?”

“The knife cut his jacket and shirt. Judging by the lack of a real trail of blood-or so we were told-it must have been a superficial wound. No real harm done. But it did cut through his clothing and exposed some of his torso.”

“So?” Geraint repeated.

“So,” Michael said, retreating to the lounge and retrieving a glossy photo, here’s what the download of the head-camera film showed. Of course, I’ve enhanced it some, but the program says it’s a ninety-nine point nine percent match with the library image, which are certainly odds I wouldn’t bet against.”

The photo was grainy and plainly an extrapolated enlargement of a small body area. The sternum was protruding in part; the man must have been somewhat shallow-chested. Lithe and swift rather than muscular. But the marking, revealed except for the extreme right side where the material of his shirt still covered it, was quite distinctive. Two hands clasped together at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees from the vertical, the right hand in foreground covering the left; seemingly cut off at the wrist, disembodied, eerie.

“What on earth is that?” Geraint said, peering intently, but Senin’s sudden paleness revealed that he, at least, already knew.

“Those, my friend,” Michael said with relish, “are the hands of Ignatius Loyola, as rendered in the famous portrait of him. Poor dead Monsignor Seratini’s nocturnal visitor was a member of the New Order of Jesuits, that enthusiastic body of fellows sometimes known vulgarly as the New Inquisition.”

“Jesus Christ,” Geraint said.

“Well, absolutely,” Michael laughed.

“Was Seratini some kind of heretic?” Geraint said. “Oh, I wish I knew more about these people. Even the FO doesn’t say anything more about these Jesuits than it positively has to.”

“There’s nothing in Seratini’s history that I’ve been able to find to possibly explain why the NOJ would be after him. Oh, and don’t just say ‘Jesuits.’ There are Jesuits and Jesuits, as I’m sure you know. The NOJ is, shall we say, the hardline faction.”

“So how come they had him killed?”

“That has to be the reason,” Michael said, pointing to the treatise sitting under Serrin’s hands. “Or at least a pointer to the reason”

The elf pulled his hands off the book with a jerk, as if in some gesture of guilt or attempted expiation. “We need to know why it was sent, who sent it, who it was intended for, and what it means. I think this is out of my league. Serrin?”

“Yes, I can ask around,” Serrin said thoughtfully. “I’ve got some contacts who should know about this general area. I did some field work with an Amazonian guy once, he’d know. Can I use your phone?”

“All day,” Geraint told him.

“We get Joan of Arc, and our term with an interest in tracking you gets the Inquisition.” Michael smiled grimly at Geraint, “Reckon there’s some kind of occult angle?”

“Point made.” Geraint said. “I think I need to rattle some cages at the FO about the New Order bods. The Templars?” The last term was used questioningly.

“Somehow I don’t think so,” Michaei said. “Seeing that the Inquisition had the real Templars burned alive for a variety of sins, real or imagined, and wiped them out almost to the last man. Burned nearly fifty of them in one day alone in Paris, I seem to recall. I know the term is sometimes used mockingly, but it couldn’t be wider of the mark. A bit like calling the Pope a Satanist.”

“You haven’t been keeping up with affairs in Ulster lately, have you? There are plenty of people there who’d tell you he most certainly is,” Geraint shot back with a rueful smile. “Anyway, give me the afternoon to see what I can pick up. I also have certain feathers to unruffle about last night. You can make your own fun while I’m away?”

Michael looked over at the glum Azanian girl and nodded after a moment. As Geraint went through the ritual of putting on his overcoat and adjusting the hat he’d taken to wearing, and then calling his limo, Michael turned to Kristen.

“Serrin’s going to be busy,” he said. “I can’t do much until he gets some leads for me. But I guess you’ve seen the sights of London, haven’t you?”

“Some,” she said, but it was an invitation of sorts, and being confined within the four walls of the apartment, luxuriously appointed as it was, was beginning to lose its fascination.

“Then let’s go out and see some more,” he said.

“You mean they didn’t bring you here?” he said as they munched the free samples in the food hall. taking in the sights and sounds around them. That was remiss. I’m disappointed in Geraint, really I am.”

They stood in the middle of Selfridges, consuming a new almost-caviar, which, in truth, had little to recommend it other than the fact that it was free as part of some promotion or other and was accompanied by tiny, thimble-sized crystal glasses of a very good frozen lemon vodka. The high-class emporium did its utmost in a world of synth-this and fake-that to sell only food that hadn’t been forced into existence with steroids or boosters, on one hand, nor laced with pesticides or pollutants, on the other, and it almost invariably succeeded. The cost to the credstick was correspondingly high.

Then he realized he’d put his foot in it. It was Serrin, her husband, who should have been showing her around town. Furthermore not mentioning Serrin was an implicit criticism that he wouldn’t be thoughtful enough to do so. Irritated at his clumsiness Michael tried to extricate himself from the faux pas.

“After all, he knows this city a lot better then old Serrin,” he continued. “He’s lived here eight years or so. Knows it inside out.”

“It’s all right, I know what you meant,” Kristen said coolly. “Serrin’s not a very worldly person, not really, for all he thinks he knows about things. But I saw a lot of the museums and galleries and I’d never been to places like that, and I did get to go to the best bagel shop in the universe.”

Her face cracked in a grin, and Michael reflected that when she smiled she did look very pretty, not because her smile might have graced the cover of some fashion tridzine, but because every gram of her spirit was in it.

“Better than the mock caviar,” he said ruefully.

“The vodka’s great though,” she said, the smile taking on a wicked aspect. “Can we get another?”

Michael looked at the bags he was carrying. He’d spent enough to make a return to the freebie counter entirely reasonable.

“If I bring you back drunk in the middle of the day Serrin will never let me hear the end of it,” he chuckled. “Can’t have you consorting with an ex, you know. Even one who only existed as a technical formality”

“Actually,” she said archly, “I think that’s a very English thing.”

He laughed out loud. The Cape Town Street kid was doing a creditable impression of being very worldly indeed, even if her husband wasn’t, despite his many years of traveling the globe.

Just before the second vodka, as they stood inhaling the splendid, biting aroma that rose even from the near-

frozen liquid. Kristen finally decided to confide her concern.

“I can see why Serrin’s here, but I don’t feel very useful,” she said. “I don’t even really understand exactly what’s happening, you know?”

“Neither do we.”

“Yes, but I don’t even know why I don’t know why.”

Michael looked at her standing there for all the world like a very serious child who has gazed up at the stars and thought to herself, “What is it with all this infinity and eternity stuff?” He wasn’t in love with her and never had been, but he could easily understand how any other man might be.

“In a nutshell,” he began, taking a deep breath, “some joker-some extraordinarily talented joker-says he’s going to frag up every computer system on the planet and gives every indication that he’s more than capable of fulfilling such a threat. He leaves an icon, a calling card, which is the most famous fraud in Christianity. He names himself after the greatest genius in the world’s history. I’m asked to find out all I can and maybe find him. I no sooner start making attempts to do so than an awful lot of people start getting very interested in that. One of them sends our party guest last night. One of them tracks Geraint and ends up dead at the hands of jesuits. At first I didn’t know what the image meant, the face of a black woman, but now it looks as if some very weird occult or religious stuff is involved. And that’s what Serrin’s helping me with. And, oh, we have seven days before our joker pulls his party piece-the systems crash and the world grinds to a halt. Okay?”

He had hardly paused for breath and did so now, gulping down big lungfuls prior to swallowing the vodka. It hurt the throat and brought tears to his eyes and he shook himself in a shivery spasm right afterward, but ten seconds later his throat was warm, his stomach glowed, and he felt wonderful. Kristen had done the same, but somehow managed the operation without the cough and sharp intake of breath.

“All right.” she said with that same serious-child look. “I don’t know much about Jesuits. Where I came from there were Sunnis and Shi’as, and a few Rastas, and the Dutch Reformed Church, of course, and some Hindus, and a few others as well. But I never heard of any black woman in Christianity.”

Just for an instant a chill ran down Michael’s spine, and if he’d been the kind to pay more attention to intuitions-endowed with Geraint’s Celtic genes, perhaps-he’d have stayed with the sensation. But he put it down to the vodka, which had made him just a little light-headed, and he missed it. People do sometimes. They miss things because what they know prevents them from seeing what else is there. Brains are designed to keep information out, and they’re good at that.

Besides that, his stomach was running interference on his brain in any event. Being the last to get up meant scrounging up breakfast from what little was left by the time he got to the kitchen, so he hadn’t really eaten, save the tiny scraps of caviar with some sour cream and crackers. He rummnaged in one of the bags.

“Let’s wander outside and eat these saffron biscuits,” he said conspiratorially, and the serious child he’d been looking at turned into the larder-raiding variety. They made a swift exit back out into the bustling street to open the packet.

It was half-past four and Geraint had already retrieved his overcoat from the antique hatstand and was ready to leave with his familiar red box, when a bulky figure entered his office. Since he came in without knocking, it could only be one person.

“Llanfrechfa, glad I caught you,” the portly man grunted. He parked his spreading rear in Geraint’s own chair in an appropriating gesture. Geraint knew at once that this was going to be bad news. His boss, the Earl of Manchester, usually summoned him to his own offices. If he came to Geraint’s, then there was trouble to be shared or delegated, It might be gout, it might be one of his wives demanding more maintenance for the noble offspring, it might be anything-but it would be trouble. Geraint sat down opposite him, dutifully.

“Wanted a word,” the man continued. Geraint’s heart sank. That was a code, long-established through use. It meant it was serious trouble and he was the cause.

“If it’s about last night-” he began.

“Bugger last night!” the Earl said. “Not important. The Commissioner of Police hasn’t had to smooth anything over for some time, not since that idiot Earl and the scoutmaster, so it won’t cause many ripples. Not, however, that I suggest you involve yourself in such nocturnal alarums and excursions on a regular basis,” he finished in finger-wagging mode.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Geraint said fervently, making sure he got the “sir” into the conversation right at the start.

“But it is about last night, in a manner of speaking.” The Earl stopped there, and began the ritual of lighting one of his implausibly large cigars. Even in Havana, nimble-fingered artisans must have been appalled at the prospect of rolling one of these monstrosities Bizet’s famous heroine would have had thighs like a Sumo wrestler’s had she been obliged to roll such cigars all her life. Geraint could do nothing but wait.

Cunning old swine, he thought. It’s absolutely deliberate, leaving me to stew in my own anxiety until he chooses just the right moment to dump ten tons of stinking drek on me. Full-blown ministers need that kind of talent, I’ve learned.

“There are certain foreign interests to whom HMG does not wish to cause unnecessary offense at this particular moment in time.” the Earl said slowly. Again he paused, using his free hand to check the time on the pocket-watch he fished out of his waistcoat pocket. Geraint waited further for the punchline.

“Those interests are unhappy regarding the nature of certain enquiries you and a certain associate appear to be pursuing,” the Earl went on. “It gives them offense, I regret to say. And His Majesty’s Government does not wish that to happen. And of course I am a servant of HMG, even as you are.”

And of course we both know the other hold you have on me, Geraint added to himself. But he chanced something anyway.

“May I respectfully enquire as to whether you are familiar with the nature of the problem that has led to our undertaking certain enquiries?” he said, using the intractably long-winded language that was the lingua franca of professional British politicians.

“I may or may not be,” the Earl said, “but I do know where the interests of King and country lie. So I trust I can rely on your discretion in this matter. Perhaps we shall take dinner at my club, then?”

The invitation couldn’t be refused. It was like a gentleman’s handshake, a seal on the matter. To do so would implicitly reject the Earl’s demand. Accepting it, of course, would mean that Geraint could not go back to Michael and the others and engage in any more mischief. Despite his irritation, Geraint admired the aging Earl. He knows the rules of the game and how to impose himself, he thought. And best of all, he reassured himself, he has no idea why we’re doing what we’re doing. Which gives me one loophole. If we’re successful, I can argue that the end justified the means and he won’t be angry afterward. But if we’re not…

“Delighted to,” Geraint said cheerfully. “Does Alphonse still do that wonderful sea bass?”

The Earl’s face lit up with that expression of delight that can only be seen on a politician who thinks he’s just gained the submission of an underling. When he rose to his feet, he didn’t even fart, which he almost invariably did. Juniors at the Foreign Office had been known to refer to their minister as The Lemur, interpreting this behavior as some bizarre form of territorial scent-marking. Clearly the Earl was in excellent spirits, feeling entirely secure.

You don’t know how wrong you are, Geraint thought as he picked up the phone to warn Michael of his impending absence while the Earl summoned his limo. Now I know that whoever’s against us can get to you, which means we really are on to something big.

And if I can crack this one, maybe I’ll get the monkey off my back that you put there.

It had been a standard black taxi like any other London taxi cab. The trip from Oxford Street to Mayfair was through crowded streets, a short enough haul, a small fare, and it could have been any taxi. Michael had barely glanced at the driver. Dusting the last of the cracker crumbs from his mouth, he’d climbed into the first one in the queue waiting for fares in front of Selfridges. After giving the address, he sat back with a yawn, a bit sleepy after too few hours of rest the night before and the lingering effects of the drink. He hadn’t taken much, but it had been ferociously strong.

But surely not so strong, he’d thought while loosening his tie. He’d felt hot and sweaty, and light-headed, and then he registered that Kristen was tugging at his sleeve and looking at him with an expression of concern, an expression that turned to panic as the taxi began to run the red lights. After that it was a long enough stretch of almost-open road ahead to be able to pick up a little speed and minimize the chance of any passerby registering that two people were trying to clutch at the windows and not managing it, two people finally slumping back into their seats as the last of the gas billowed soundlessly into the sealed back compartment.

Black taxi cabs are not so unlike the cars that follow the hearse in a funeral cortege, after all.