Costa 08 - City of Fear (37 page)

But this wasn’t a normal day. The church bells tolled over a city that was apprehensive and, in its heart, quietly mutinous. No lovers walked hand in hand through the quiet green park that hid the subterranean remains of Nero’s Golden House. No students chattered happily on the steps of Ignatius Loyola’s Collegio Romano in the
centro storico
. Among young and old, rich and poor, there was a sense of resentment, a growing loathing, of the criminals who had created this timidity, the politicians whose arrogance had invited their presence, and the masked, black-clad figures who had usurped their familiar police officers in blue—men and women who, though flawed, fallible, and somewhat weather-beaten much of the time, were somehow all the more reassuring for that.

Rome held its breath in anticipation of what might happen in its midst. For the oldest of them, those who remembered the forties, the
atmosphere was bleakly reminiscent of the war, the German occupation, the mood of foreboding that preceded a cathartic outburst of violence by one party against another, turning everyday streets into bloody battlegrounds.

A normal day …

In a quiet field by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, daughter-in-law of Crassus, who was in turn both nemesis to Spartacus and patron to a lowly politician named Julius Caesar, a family from Ciampino, ignoring the smell of burned avgas still drifting from the nearby airport, sit down for a picnic, only to find that their dog, a Dalmatian cross, makes a discovery that means their bread and cheese and sausage go uneaten, and their bottle of cheap, weak Frascati wine untouched during the long hours it takes for the police to make their way to the Via Appia Antica.

A normal day …

Deep in the underside of the Quirinale Palace, in a stable built for the soldiers of a pope, a young Spanish woman, widowed and made childless by tragedy and misfortune, feels she can hear the minutes tick audibly by as she awaits the appointed moment, unable to take her eyes off the crucifix on the wall, or to extinguish from her mind the memories of a Basque plainchant in the Franciscan sanctuary of Aranzazu near her distant home, and its words, translated to her as a schoolchild by the parish priest who organized the visit.

A normal day …

In the Forum, hidden in the shadows of the towering ruins of the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, Andrea Petrakis meets a ghost from the past, and finds there are no words to say after such a passage of time and circumstance. When his visitor departs, he has something to covet. He opens the large, expensive suitcase the visitor has brought and studies the items there, the key that unlocks the final door.

It is the uniform of a serving cuirassier, a member of the Corazzieri. The
tenuta di gran gala
, reserved for the most serious of occasions: white trousers and gauntlets, knee-high leather boots, and a black jacket with epaulettes. The helmet is gleaming gold with a
criniera
mane of dark horsehair and a high, vivid red fabric flash on the left side. The breastplate is silver, etched with gold emblems, held at the shoulder and waist by leather straps.

Inside too lies a fine sword, the height of a man almost, encased in a silver scabbard.

Eyes gleaming, Andrea Petrakis unsheathes the weapon and runs the inside of his index finger along the blade. A thin line of blood appears instantly on his skin. His fingers slip inside the boots to feel the padding, which will take his height close enough to the regulation 190 centimeters required of each
corazziere
. He licks the blood from his hand and thinks of the afternoon ahead.

Then he places everything back into the suitcase, picks it up, and, when the time is right, steps out into the deserted Via dei Fori Imperiali, close to the guard posts at the foot of Trajan’s Markets.

The route back to the Quirinale is still open to pedestrians, some of the way at least. He takes out his phone and, with steady fingers, sends a text.

A single word.

NOW
.

If Demone Azzurro

NOW
.

Anna Ybarra had sat in the stable for what seemed like hours, staring at the phone’s little screen, waiting for the message. When it arrived, she found herself transfixed by the single word there, one that took her thoughts away from the judgmental, twisted figure on the crucifix looking down at her from the wall, pleading, accusing through the dusty air.

It was important to concentrate on two things only: the face of her husband, Josepe, and their little boy, Zeru. The three of them sitting on the thick grass in the hills on a hot summer’s day, when the acres of farmland below were rich with crops and animals. Walking to the shop in the village through freezing winter gales and the downpours of spring, the boy’s small gloved hand tight in hers.

Zeru growing from baby to toddler to little boy, with a bond, always—a special one—to her alone. It was as if some part of the umbilical cord remained, invisible yet real, a tie that only death could sever. Anna was a sensible, levelheaded woman. That day would come. But not, she always believed, for a long time. And not in the way it did—in the night, unexpected, full of noise and screaming and hatred.

She had never, not even in a nightmare, believed she might one day witness his tiny wooden coffin enter the hard ground alongside that of his father. Two still corpses hidden beneath soft white pine, the people she loved most snatched from life by a cruel, faceless fate, ignored by the embarrassed state that bore responsibility for their deaths.

Zeru
meant sky. Anna and Josepe had picked the name together the very afternoon the doctor’s scan told them their child would be a boy. Zeru. A Basque name. One full of light and hope. A name that would last a lifetime.

Holding his tiny, fragile body in the hospital bed in San Sebastián, she had imagined him old, wrinkled, weather-beaten, still living on their family farm, long after she and Josepe had departed the world. Later, she would sometimes dream that she had seen him with children and grandchildren of his own, gathered around him, listening to his stories, of life, the Basque land of Hernani, and the much-loved family that went before.

At some point he would gesture to the sky—sometimes bright and sunny, noisy with birds, sometimes the night, illuminated by a scattering of stars.

“That is my name,”
the dream Zeru Ybarra said, in a voice that was strong and kind.
“That is me.”

The Euskaldunak, those who spoke the old, true language, would diminish in the decades to come. So Josepe said. Or perhaps that was his brother, the ETA man, talking, through him.

She wasn’t so sure. They had given their son a true name, a good name, one that had stood their little community and the broader family that the Spanish called the Vascos in good stead over the centuries.

A name helped give meaning to a life. Sometimes—not always—it offered the consolation that some things persist, the way the plainchant of a distant monastery might linger in the memory, long after it should have been forgotten.

In the darkness of a stable in the palace of a pope, she murmured,
“Zeru …”
and wondered, as the two syllables died in the air, whether there was a god anywhere to hear. Once, she’d believed that. But she’d believed many things. Most of them had turned out to be nothing more than cruel lies. Fantasies for the gullible.

Anna Ybarra did not look at the crucifix on the wall again. She picked up the saxophone case and opened it, checking and rechecking the weapon inside, just as the dark, silent, frightening men of the Taliban had taught her. Then she glanced at the instrument itself, gleaming
gold, a complex machine, intricate with levers and strange, contorted workings, all to produce nothing more than a single musical note, one that a human being might utter through breath alone.

NOW
.

She took out the map Andrea Petrakis had given her. Even though she was inside the Quirinale complex, it was a long walk from the stable in the Via delle Scuderie back to the palace. Petrakis had stressed how important it was to take the right route, one that would avoid the guard posts as much as possible and take her into the staff quarters of the palace, then to the broad corridor alongside the Salone dei Corazzieri. The guests—presidents and prime ministers, spouses and civil servants—would be in that grand hall, he said, listening to music, sipping champagne. This was her moment, there for the taking.

Without looking back, she walked outside. There was a cobbled courtyard that cried out for horses and men in bright, anachronistic uniforms. It was empty. She scurried beneath the promenade at the edge of the square, staying in the dark, walking quickly, swinging the instrument case with her right arm, aware that her dress—dark velvet, more expensive than any she had ever worn—was so long she nearly tripped on it as she strode toward the palace.

Two more courtyards. Then the smell of cooking and the clatter of a kitchen. She checked her map. High on her right was the clock tower, its curious campanile reminiscent of Spain. Flags fluttered there. So many colors. So many different nations.

“Zeru, Josepe …” she whispered.

Another walkway beneath a vaulted ceiling, with arches to the side. On the far side of the patio, there was a small flight of stone steps up into the Quirinale proper. The corridor by the Salone dei Corazzieri lay only a few steps beyond.

The lilting tones of stringed instruments came to her over the din of kitchen sounds, arguments, plates and pans banging against one another, the half-remembered music of family. She could delay no more. With quick steps she walked out into the daylight.

“Signora,
signora!”

It was a man’s voice. Strong and firm. Anna stopped.

A figure emerged from the shadows. He was tall and muscular, an image from a child’s picture book: gleaming silver and gold breastplate, a polished helmet with a mare’s-tail plume, high leather boots.

“Stop!” the officer bellowed as she walked on.

There was no alternative. She came to a halt in the middle of the patio, beneath the bright sun, conscious she was beginning to sweat a little.

He marched over to stand in the bell tower’s shadow, peering down into her face. It was impossible to see what he looked like.

“Papers,” he ordered.

“I’m a musician, sir,” she said, fumbling for the envelope Petrakis had given her.

“You’re late. The band’s started already.”

“It was difficult getting here. No buses. No transport.”

“It’s the same for everyone.” He examined the sheet of paper. It bore, she saw, the official seal of the president’s office. “I must see your ID.”

Her mind went blank. The only proof of identity she possessed was the press card of the American TV reporter.

“ID,” he insisted.

“I left it at home,” she said finally. “I thought … a letter from the president’s office was enough. I’m a musician. I’m late as it is. If I let them down again …”

She hated lying—and liars more than anything. Yet, when it was necessary, deceit seemed to come so easily.

“Please. They’ll fire me, and I need the money. Playing an instrument”—she held up the case—“is no way for a single mother to earn a living. Please …”

He sighed. “You’re not Italian.”

“Spanish. My husband’s Italian. Wherever he is.”

He waved the letter Petrakis had given her. “Don’t walk around Rome without an ID. It’s the law.”

“Thank you, thank you.”