MENDIB HEARD A NOISE AND HE JUMPED, startled. He had regained consciousness not long ago, brought to by the shooting pain in his side. At least the bleeding had stopped. His dirty shirt was stiff with a dry, dark stain. He didn't know whether he could stand up, but he had to try.
He thought about the strange death of his father's uncle. Could Addaio have sent someone to kill his great-uncle because he knew he was going to help him? But the old man had done this to him. He couldn't be wrong about that.
He trusted no one, much less anyone connected with Addaio. The pastor was a saintly man but unbending, capable of doing anything to save the community. Mendib knew that he himself, without intending to, could reveal its existence to the authorities and lead them to his brothers. He wanted to avoid that; he had been trying to avoid it since he was released. But Addaio no doubt knew things that he himself did not, and so he could not discard the possibility that he had been targeted for death by the pastor. He had known that all along.
The door to the janitor's closet opened. A middle-aged woman carrying a bag of trash stepped inside before she saw him and gave a little scream. Mendib, making a superhuman effort, shoved himself upright and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Either the woman had to calm down or he would have to beat her unconscious. He had never struck a woman-God forbid!-but now it was a question of saving his own life.
For the first time since his tongue had been cut out, he was filled with anguish at his inability to speak. He pushed the woman against the wall, as she struggled and tried to pull his hand away. He gave her a quick blow on the back of the neck and she crumpled, dazed.
Lying on the floor, she was breathing with difficulty. Mendib fumbled inside her purse and found a pen and a date book, tore out a page, and wrote hurriedly. When she began to recover, he covered her mouth with his hand again and showed her the piece of paper.
Come with me-do what I tell you and nothing will happen to you, but if you scream or try to escape, you will regret it. Do you have a car?
The woman read the odd message and nodded, her eyes wide with fear. Pocketing the paper and pen, Mendib slowly took his hand off her mouth, but he kept a good grip on her arm as they moved outside.
"Marco, can you hear me?"
"I'm here, Sofia."
"Where are you?"
"Near the cathedral."
"All right. I've got news from the coroner. The old man who was killed had no tongue or fingerprints. He figures the tongue was cut out not long ago and the fingerprints burned off around the same time. He was carrying no identification of any kind. Oh-he doesn't have any teeth either; his mouth is like an empty cave, nothing."
"Shit!"
"The coroner hasn't finished the autopsy, but he stepped out to call and let us know we've got another mute."
A voice interrupted the conversation. It was Pietro.
"Marco, listen up! Our guy is at the corner of the piazza. There's a woman with him-he's got his arm around her. Should we grab him?"
"Just keep on them, unless it looks like he's threatening her. Don't lose him; I'm on my way. Keep on the tails too-if we've seen him, then so have they. And no more fuckups-if any of them loses us again, I'll have your balls."
The woman took Mendib to her car, a small SUV He shoved her across the seat and got behind the wheel. His side was on fire and he could hardly breathe, but he managed to start the car and pull out into the chaotic late-afternoon traffic.
He drove aimlessly through the city, thinking furiously. He had to get rid of the woman, but he knew that as soon as he did, she would notify the carabinieri. Even so, he had to take the risk-he could not take her to the cemetery. And if he left the car near the cemetery, the carabinieri would be able to track him down. But he was in no condition to walk far-the blood he had lost and the throbbing wound in his side precluded that. He would pray that the cemetery guard was at his post; the good man was a brother, a member of the community, and he would help him-unless, like the others, he had been ordered by Addaio to kill him.
He decided to risk it: He would chance the cemetery. He had nowhere else to go.
When they were close, but not so close that the woman would realize where he was planning to go, he stopped the car and stared at her, as she looked at him in terror. He took out the pen and paper again and wrote: I am going to let you go. If you tell the police, you will regret it. Even if they protect you now, there will come a day when they do not, and then I will come. Go, and tell no one what has happened. Remember-if you do, I will come back for you.
He thrust the note at her, and the terror in her expression redoubled as she read it.
"I swear I won't tell… please-let me go…" she pleaded.
Mendib tore the paper into pieces and threw them out the window. Then he got out of the car and straightened up, though not without difficulty. He was afraid of losing consciousness again before he reached the cemetery. As he approached the wall and began to walk along it, he heard the sound of the car pulling away.
He walked for several minutes, sitting down when the pain became unbearable, praying to God that he might live and be saved. He wanted to live-he no longer was willing to give his life for the community, or for anyone. He had given his tongue and two long years of his life locked up in prison.
Marco glimpsed the figure of the mute staggering along. He and his detail stayed well back, as they had while they tailed the SUV It was clear the man was wounded and could hardly walk. They caught sight of the two Turkish tails again, keeping a good distance away. Marco had kept men on them when the main group split off to follow the mute and his hostage.
"Stay sharp-we have to take them all," he cautioned everyone. "If the tails decide to separate or break off, you know what you have to do-divide up, some of you with them, the others on our man."
None of them was aware of the others silently monitoring them all, blending seamlessly into the surroundings.
A reddish glow appeared on the horizon as the sun began to set. Mendib tried to walk faster; he wanted to get into the cemetery before the guard closed the gate. Otherwise, he'd have to jump the wall, and he was in no condition to do that. He was bleeding again, and he held a scarf he had taken from the woman against the wound. At least it was clean.
The guard's figure was silhouetted against the cypresses at the cemetery entrance. He looked expectant, as though he was waiting for someone or something.
Mendib could sense the man's fear, and indeed, when the guard saw the mute struggling toward him, he rushed to close the gate. Mendib, marshaling his last strength, reached the entrance and managed to slip inside, shoving the guard aside. He lurched toward tomb 117.
Marco's voice came over the network to all personnel.
"He pushed his way into the cemetery, past the guard. I want you men inside. Where are the Turks?"
A second voice came over the line: "They're about to come into your view. They're headed for the cemetery too."
To the surprise of Marco and his watching men, the tails opened the gate with a key, carefully closing it behind them.
When they reached the gate, several of the cara-binieri clambered over the wall to keep the Turks within striking distance, while another worked on the lock. It took him several minutes to open it, as Marco paced impatiently.
"Giuseppe, find the guard," Marco ordered once inside. "We haven't seen him leave, so he must be inside somewhere."
"Right, boss. Then what?"
"Report back to me with what he says, and then we'll decide. Take some backup."
"Right."
"You, Pietro, come with me. Where the fuck are they?" Marco asked the carabinieri through the walkie-talkie.
"I think they're heading toward a mausoleum-a big one, with a marble angel above it," a voice said.
"Good. Where is it? We're on our way."
No one was in Turgut's apartment-Padre Yves and his friends seemed to have vanished. Ana stood quiedy, listening for any sounds, but absolute silence reigned.
She scanned the modest rooms, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing stood out. Tentatively pushing at the door to a bedroom, she peered inside and found it empty too. Back to the living room, the kitchen, even the bathroom. Nothing. But Ana knew they had to be here, because the front door was bolted from the inside and that was the only other way out of the house.
She went over the house again. In the kitchen was a door that opened into a pantry. She tapped on the wall, but it seemed solid. Then, down on her knees, she examined the wooden floor, looking for a trapdoor or an opening… anything. There had to be some sort of secret passage that led out of the house.
Finally, she found a place where the floor sounded hollow. And there it was-the faint outlines of a trapdoor. Using a knife, she managed to lift it up enough to get a good grip and then forced it all the way open. A stairway led down into darkness. Not a sound came up out of the dungeon, or whatever it was. They had to have gone this way.
It took her awhile, but finally she found a penlight in a kitchen drawer-it didn't give much light, but it was all she had. She also put a big box of kitchen matches in her purse, just in case. She looked around to see if there was anything else she might need down there, and then, with a little prayer to St. Gemma, patron saint of the impossible-with whose help, she was certain, she had been able to graduate from the university-she started down the narrow stairway that would take her God only knew where.
Mendib groped his way along the tunnel. He remembered every inch of that wet, sticky wall. The old guard had tried to stop him from getting to the tomb, but had finally taken off running when Mendib picked up a thick stick, ready to hit him with it if he had to. When at last he managed to reach the mausoleum, the key was there, hidden under the planter, just as it had been all those years ago. He unlocked the mausoleum entrance, went in, and found the spring behind the sarcophagus that opened the door to the stairway. The narrow steps descended into the tunnel that led ultimately to the cathedral.
It was getting increasingly hard to breathe. The lack of oxygen and the darkness of the tunnel made him woozy, but he knew that his only chance to survive was to reach the house of Turgut. Fighting the pain and summoning the last measure of his dwindling strength, he pushed on.
The light from his old-fashioned cigarette lighter wasn't enough to illuminate the tunnel, but it was the only light he had. His greatest fear was winding up in the darkness and losing his sense of direction.
Bakkalbasi's men had entered the cemetery a few minutes after Mendib. They ran to the mausoleum, opened it with a key Turgut had provided, and in a few seconds they were underground, on the trail of their dying brother.
"They went in there." A carabiniere pointed.
Marco looked up at the life-size angel-it was wielding a sword and seemed to be warning them off.
The cop with the pick went to work again. This lock was harder, and while he played with the mechanism, Marco and his men smoked and made their contingency plans, unaware that they, too, were under observation.
Turgut and Ismet paced nervously back and forth in the underground room off the tunnel. Three of the men from Urfa were waiting with them. They had managed to evade the carabinieri and had been in the secret room for several hours, waiting. The rest of Bakkalbasi's men should be coming in at any minute. The pastor had warned them that Mendib might, against all odds, make his way there, too, and that they should calm him down and wait for the other brothers to come back. After that, they knew what they had to do.
None of them ventured far into the shadows that enveloped the tunnel. If they had, they might have seen the three men crouched in a nearby alcove, who had been listening to them for some time. Their collars hidden, their faces grim, Yves, David, and Joseph had abandoned any trappings of the priesthood.
They heard halting footsteps, and Turgut felt a shiver run down his spine. His nephew gave him a pat on the back to try to raise his spirits.
"Calm down. We have our orders, we know what to do."
"Something terrible is going to happen," the porter muttered.
"Uncle, stop worrying! It will be okay."
"No. Something is going to happen. I know it."
"Quiet, uncle, please!"
Ismet's grip tightened on the old man's shoulder as Mendib staggered into the room. His burning eyes held Turgut's for just a moment, and then he collapsed senseless to the floor. Ismet knelt beside him to take his pulse.
"He's bleeding. He's got a wound near the lung-I don't think it's punctured or he'd be dead by now. Bring me water and something to clean the wound with."
Old Turgut, his eyes as wide as saucers, scurried over with a bottle of water and a towel. Ismet ripped the filthy shirt off Mendib's body and washed the wound carefully.
"Wasn't there a first-aid kit down here?"
Turgut nodded, unable to speak. He went for the first-aid kit and handed it to his nephew.
Ismet cleaned the wound again with hydrogen peroxide, then swabbed it with gauze soaked in disinfectant. It was all he could do for Mendib, whom he had looked up to as a child in Urfa. None of the others made a move to stop him, although they all knew he was only temporarily fending off fate.
"No need for that." One of Bakkalbasi's men stepped out of the shadows of the tunnel-one of the policemen from Urfa, who had waited behind to trail the mute from the piazza. Another man followed him. For several minutes they filled the others in on the pursuit. Their conversation masked subtle new sounds from the dark passageway.
Suddenly Marco, accompanied by Pietro and a clutch of carabinieri, burst into the room, pistols drawn.
"Don't move! Don't move! You're all under arrest!" Marco shouted.