Acts of the Assassins (7 page)

Baruch is Gallio’s age, a little older, but he moves better. He shoots his cuffs and dances over, soft leather shoes avoiding small rocks and the obvious piles of horse dung.

‘Cassius Gallio! You should have phoned from the airport! We’d have sent a car.’

They’re about the same height. Baruch offers his hand at a slight downward angle. To take it, Gallio would have to expose his palm like a white belly, like a dog rolling over. He offers his hand at the same angle, palm facing down. Their fingers barely touch.

‘Yet somehow you knew I was here.’

‘Boys,’ Valeria says. She swishes the riding crop at a couple of flies.

‘Congratulations on killing an unarmed disciple,’ Gallio says. ‘Keeping yourself busy, I see.’

‘Not guilty. I’m helping to clean up the mess, and making sure the press stay away. Let the press in on something like this and it’s pictures, words and before you know it they’ve written the opera and everyone’s crying. Completely misrepresent the facts.’

‘Try me with the facts.’

Baruch smiles. ‘My men were overenthusiastic, which isn’t the end of the world. And no need to look so miserable—ten more where this one came from. The disciples of Jesus come to Jerusalem at their own risk. The founder of their cult is a convicted terrorist, so what kind of welcome do they expect?’

Baruch bends under the police tape and Gallio follows him into the stable. Police work develops muscular thighs.

‘Say hello to James,’ Baruch says, poking the head upright with the toe of his shoe. This time it doesn’t fall over. ‘The other one was Peter.’

Gallio can’t see why Baruch would lie about this, though clearly Valeria doesn’t trust him. She’d wanted to check with an expert from her own side, so she called in Cassius Gallio even after the prisoner was dead. Gallio had been in Jerusalem with Jesus, and there aren’t many of the original players left.

‘Where’s Peter now? Is he in the city?’

‘Probably,’ Baruch says. ‘We lost him, but it’s only a matter of time.’

A chain of errors, but each link toward the death of James has its own logic. Baruch’s excitable jailers had the bright idea of taunting the captured disciples with a salami. An Italian salami, imported from Milan, and clearly labelled as a percent pork product. James ate several slices with apparent pleasure, because he was hungry. His captors decided to take offence and felt compelled, on behalf of their god, to be appalled at James for eating an unclean food.

James refused to repent. The argument escalated, to the point where James eating the salami was a contemptuous attack on Jewish law in general and the beliefs of their parents in particular. Their mothers. James was laughing at how their beloved mothers had brought them up. He was spitting in the faces of innocent women. He was striking them to the ground.

Before the salami, neither of the disciples had been questioned in a methodical way. No demands were made: Tell us the truth about Jesus and we’ll let you live. Tell us where the body is buried and we’ll feed you. These were the same questions Cassius Gallio had once asked of Judas, but the Israelis had squandered an opportunity to acquire significant new information. A primary Jesus witness was dead and another had been allowed to escape.

‘You’ve forgotten how the world turns,’ Baruch says. ‘Especially here in Jerusalem. Plan ahead if you like, but accidents will happen.’

Gallio remembers Baruch at Alma’s school, offering to hand
his daughter into the Range Rover. He’s had a big day for remembering how the world turns.

‘The guards dragged James onto the exercise ground,’ Baruch says. ‘They haven’t seen a beheading for months, and none of them wanted to miss the action. While they enjoyed the spectacle Peter walked away.’

‘He walked away.’

Cassius Gallio requests an interview with the two militiamen responsible for the salami and hastening the execution. One of them is short, the other tall and they haven’t washed in a week. But what’s done is done, and for Gallio these men represent an opportunity. He treats them like intelligent human beings.

‘How did the two disciples behave, while you had them locked up? I want to hear what you made of them. As people, what were they like?’

The guards look at each other. ‘Not very funny.’

The shorter one nods, crushes his hands into his armpits. ‘Neither of them had much of a sense of humour. No real banter.’

‘Two older brothers in a room,’ the tall one says, pleased with his observation. He excavates an ear with his little finger, assesses the gunge that comes out. ‘Serious types.’

‘Did you hear specific conversations?’

‘Death.’ The guards nod at each other, agreed. ‘The Galileans talked about death, their favourite subject. Both of them said they were happy to die, but neither wanted to go first.’

‘Naturally.’ Baruch straightens the crease in his trouser, insists on being present at the interview, but he’s leaning against a wall and he’s bored. ‘Who in their right mind would want to die first?’

‘They both did. It was weird. Both the disciples volunteered. They argued about it.’

‘You said the opposite, that neither of them wanted to go first.’

‘That’s how it started. They both wanted to go first, which meant going first was unkind to the other, because that’s what the other one wanted.’

‘So it was kinder to go second,’ the taller one says, scratching his head. He leaves the residue from his ear in his hair. ‘They both wanted to die after the other. Out of kindness.’

They look puzzled. ‘If that makes sense.’

‘Which ends up being completely normal,’ Cassius Gallio says. ‘I’d want to go second too, if it were me.’

Their brains continue to grind as Baruch hovers behind them. ‘Who actually did the deed, took his head off?’

The men don’t want to say, in case there’s a punishment. But they do want to say, in case there’s a reward. Gallio pities them their inner struggle so he speaks up—with Baruch in the room he can save them from a fatal mistake. ‘If you remember anything else, you let us know.’

‘Via the usual channels,’ Baruch adds.

Cassius Gallio yawns. ‘Jet lag. I’m sure you have an Attempt To Locate out for Peter. I’m going back to the hotel. This isn’t my case.’

‘I know,’ Baruch says. ‘I let you talk to the guards as a favour, for old times’ sake. Reckon they’re telling the truth?’

‘No idea. I don’t have the clearance to risk an opinion.’ A thin-shouldered man in a blue tracksuit follows Cassius Gallio through Jerusalem, settles himself in the hotel lobby while Gallio
checks in and drops his bag with the concierge. Gallio takes the lift to his floor, walks past his room, finds the stairwell and leaves through the basement parking garage.

Behind, in front, left, right. Gallio looks up, sometimes down, making sure he’s alone. Baruch knew Gallio had arrived at the airport, and Valeria would have known that too. Yet still they went through the routines for a secret meetup. She must be worried that someone, other than Baruch and his people, is watching. Whoever it is, they must be good.

Gallio takes random lefts and rights through the evening city, and he’s amazed at the number of tourists. Jerusalem wasn’t like this in the old days, and without making a decision he ends up not at his apartment, where Judith and Alma still live, but at another street he recognizes. It has a new name, the Via Dolorosa. Cassius Gallio follows in Jesus’s footsteps, like so many others, and tries to get a feel for what once happened here. Much has changed, yet somehow the place is the same. An atmosphere, an indent. No event is ever entirely lost.

At Golgotha, where the execution itself took place, little of the original site remains. Since Gallio was last here the developers have moved in—construction work and safety barriers erasing what he remembers as a crime scene. The tourist board are building some kind of memorial, and a falafel stall sells canned drinks to a queue of visitors when they’re not being pestered by beggars.

For Gallio’s purposes, and Valeria has reminded Cassius Gallio of his purpose in life, any usable evidence from the scene has long been removed or corrupted. He briefly wonders who made it their business to tidy the truth away, though he can understand how that happened. Easier to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary took place here, at least before the tourists started
insisting that it did. And now they keep on coming, even without any evidence. The new Golgotha is teeming with souvenir hunters, women, believers, unbelievers. There’s a handcart selling crucifixes, authentic rubble, icons.

Cassius Gallio thinks he sees Peter.

A beard, beige clothing, long brown hair. If the man is Peter, he immediately has luck on his side. A group of teenage boys blocks Cassius Gallio. They jostle him, wanting to know if he’s Inglese or Arab. He doesn’t know which answer is safest, so he guesses Arab, and they throw a Coke bottle at his head.

By the time Gallio scatters them, Peter the disciple has gone.

Valeria drinks mint tea from a glass cup that she replaces with care on a glass saucer. At this time of the evening Cassius Gallio fancies a vodka and tonic, a blister pack of ephedrine sulphate, showgirls. Not to touch, because he’d expect to be punished, but nothing wrong with looking. He orders the same tea as Valeria, giving her nothing of himself, not even his menu preferences. I’ll have what she’s having. Easy on the mint.

They drink tea on the terrace of the American Colony Hotel, where Allenby and Blair take rooms whenever they’re mediating the region. Both are on holiday. The two men are famous for being on holiday, leaving the region forever unmediated. A diplomat’s son swims laps in the pool. He has a hard and fast body, worth watching.

‘No trace of Peter,’ Valeria says. ‘Nothing apart from your possible sighting at Golgotha. They’re smart.’

‘Always were. I told you that years ago. Nobody listened.’

‘We’re listening now.’ Valeria is making an effort: five-star hotel, terrace, drinks on the section tab. ‘The case has been
passed to Complex Casework mainly because the cult survives and is growing. No one understands why. We’ve gone over the events that led to your tribunal, and considering the various loose ends we’ve decided to reopen the investigation. I’ve recommended your involvement.’

‘You have other Speculators. Most of them undemoted and undisgraced.’

‘No one with experience is volunteering to investigate provincial cults.’

‘Ah, I see. What do you want from me, apart from assuming I’m available and desperate to get back in?’

Valeria watches the long-armed backstroke of the boy in the pool, examines her nails, acts like someone who could change her mind. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think you were capable. I fished out the psychiatric assessment from the tribunal.’

‘Get to the point.’

‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re unstable. Didn’t think it at the time and don’t now. We all missed something, way back then. Let’s not make the same mistakes again.’

‘Please tell me what you want. In plain language.’

‘We can offer you a viaticum. Double pay for every day on the road. In euros.’

‘I want my rank back, the right to call myself a Speculator.’

‘It’s not the title that counts, but the state of mind. This is a tiny job in an obscure region.’

‘So why should I take it?’

‘The money and a fresh start. I’m guessing that’s enough. That and your pride, which had you running for the plane in Munich.’

She knows him too well. Gallio feels the long waste of sleepless nights under army blankets, sifting through memories for
the piece he missed, the clue as to how they tricked him. Cassius Gallio is convinced he’d have found the answer, if only Judas hadn’t been killed. The disciples had cut off his enquiry just as he was getting close.

‘You were a witness,’ Valeria says. ‘You saw the death of Jesus, and how the disciples acted after the event. We’ve respected official policy, tolerated this cult, waited for their beliefs to fade. Except in this instance their beliefs aren’t fading. Something strange is going on, and I’ve decided that bringing you back is worth the risk to my reputation. You were there. That counts for something, and I’m giving you a chance to clear your name.’

‘I have nothing to prove.’

‘I think you do, Cassius. You were publicly humiliated. Hard for anyone, let alone a Speculator. You did your work but reason did not triumph, which is what in training they taught us would happen. But reason will triumph, in the long run. That’s why we rule the world and in Israel they have goats.’

‘Do I get a team? I’ll need researchers, analysts, forensics. Maybe some feet on the ground.’

‘You’ll work with Baruch. Politics. They’re backward but we need to keep them sweet, for the sake of stability. Also the Israelis are as keen to wrap this up as we are.’

Cassius Gallio bites the skin at the side of his thumbnail, watches the swimmer splash back and forth. Backstroke, the full twenty-five meters, tumble turn, crawl. Gallio peels off a thumbnail with his teeth, spits it from his lower lip. It sticks. He blows it off.

‘Baruch is a contract killer. A nobody.’

‘We all used to be something. You’ll need to control him, but if there’s trouble you’re deniable. It’s important you understand that, Cassius. As far as our reasonable and non-believing superiors are concerned, this operation does not exist.’

‘So where am I expected to start?’

Valeria looks away. This mission is rotten with absurdities that stick in her throat, but they have to start somewhere.

‘I’ve seen the pictorial evidence of the crucifixion, every angle, the different styles,’ she says. ‘I know how dead Jesus looks in the images, but I want you to search for him as if he’s alive. You’re to find out if Jesus survived, if somewhere out there he’s among us.’

“SHOT WITH ARROWS”

Baruch doesn’t like the car. Cassius Gallio insists on following Valeria’s briefing, to the letter, which means they stay inconspicuous. At the Hertz concession he turns down models that proclaim either the wonder or the futility of existence. He needs the camouflage of the middle ground, where people learn to cope, less splendid than a 3-liter BMW 6 Series but not as miserable as an entry-level Chevy Aveo.