“What’s happening? What have we done to deserve this?” Simon lamented in the darkness of the room that blended into the mental darkness overwhelming him since he’d turned the key in the unlucky door of the house at Redcliff Gardens and summoned the unknown.

“You haven’t done anything, Simon,” Sarah said with shame. “This… only has to do with me and me alone,” she confessed. “Last year a price was put on my head,” she began to explain.

It was impossible to see anything, but Simon straightened his back against the cold wall, sharpened his ears, and waited.

“My godfather, whom I hardly remembered, sent me a list of names belonging to a secret Italian society. It contained the names of some very important people in politics, the judiciary, religion, and all at the international level. Even my father’s name was on it. I found out later that that list was in John Paul the First’s hands the night he died… and I knew that he was murdered.”

“What?” Simon could barely believe what he heard.

“Just what I said. The sect, called P2, and the CIA started to persecute me.”

“Good God,” Simon exclaimed. “Are they the ones trying to do us in?”

“No. This is something else entirely. I still haven’t figured it out.”

Simon stopped talking in order to let Sarah spill her guts.

“Things poured out in such a torrent that I couldn’t process all the information given to me. Even today I don’t understand how far-reaching it all is.”

“Sarah, we’re prisoners in a basement or whatever this is. There are two armed men outside prepared to give us a passport to eternity.”

Despite all that was happening, Simon seemed more in control of himself. The power of resignation has this consequence. We accept what has happened and look for better times to come. Of course the fear was always present. A quick death was preferable to torture, though obviously the best result would be if they opened the door and let them go with apologies for what they’d done, regretting a terrible mistake in identification, accompanied by a farewell dinner in some luxury restaurant. Ah, the power of the imagination, unconquerable, even in the face of imminent death.

“Let’s try to make a deal with everyone,” Sarah continued.

“What kind of a deal?”

“We won’t turn them in, and they won’t hurt us.”

“Maybe they’ve repented,” Simon suggested.

“They’d have a lot to lose. Besides it’s the Holy See that protects this agreement,” Sarah said thoughtfully. She wanted to put the loose pieces together to see if they made some sense. “That is something else.”

“One thing not missing is crazy men with power,” Simon revealed his feelings. “Do you think they’re going to leave us here the rest of the night?”

“Long enough to soften us up.” It was Sarah’s turn to sigh. “They’re specialists in that.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m softer than a marshmallow.”

Two bursts of laughter filled the small room, completely out of place given their situation. Fear can even make a person laugh.

The sound of the lock turning put a stop to the laughing. Seconds later the light from the hallway filled the dispensary and blinded Simon and Sarah, who blocked the light with their hands.

“It’s nice to see you feeling so good,” James mocked them from the door, where they made out his silhouette. “Get up. It’s time.”

Simon swallowed saliva. His heart still went cold when he saw this cool killer who looked at him with curt indifference.

Without waiting for them to obey, James yanked Simon up brutally by his shirtfront. James had executed his job in an exemplary way. Now he wanted to make his scorn for Simon plain.

If Simon wanted to fool himself into imagining a sweeter scenario, a joke in tremendously bad taste, maybe, but still forgivable, two hard punches James had the pleasure of giving him in the face drove that fantasy out of his mind. Simon swallowed his impotent rage in silence. When all was said and done, James had the gun pointed at the head of his ex-lover.

“Leave him alone,” Sarah cried, calling attention to herself.

The result was immediately visible. James turned on her with contempt. He looked her up and down in such a hateful way that Sarah lowered her head, nauseous. James took a short step toward her and put the barrel of the pistol under her chin, forcing her to lift her head. A bad man knew how to recognize the hate that emanated from her eyes.

“Your time has come,” he said scornfully. He followed up with a punch to Sarah’s face that split her lip.

“You son of a bitch,” Simon immediately cried. “Without the gun you wouldn’t be so brave, you bastard.” Indignation overwhelmed him.

“Simon, shut up,” Sarah ordered. One should never irritate men like these, especially James, who seemed very temperamental. “Please, Simon.”

James returned slowly to Simon. He put the gun in his back pocket, covering it with the lower part of his jacket so Sarah wouldn’t get crazy ideas. He opened his arms, showing off.

“No gun,” he said sarcastically. “And now what are you going to do?”

Simon stayed leaning against the wall, in the same position James had left him. James paused for a few more seconds, awaiting Simon with his enormous open arms.

He ended with a guttural chuckle, triumphant. He had dared, and he had won, as he knew he would one way or another.

“You’re a little faggot, Simon,” he offered with a self-satisfied laugh over his little joke.

Simon just lowered his eyes. Not looking at James laughing in his face meant he could be laughing at anything. At least he could give himself that freedom. All he wanted to do was cry.

James interrupted his own laugh, almost mechanically, as if it were something he fabricated, manipulated, an actor improvising.

“Enough joking around. Come on. In front of me,” James ordered in a voice of military command.

Simon and Sarah could do nothing more than obey. Even so, they were pushed down the hallway, not necessarily to make them walk faster, but simply to show who was giving orders… and who had to follow them.

They advanced along the dim corridor, their faint hope disappearing with each step. The jabs in the ribs, to one and then the other, with the cold barrel of the gun served as a catalyst for their negative, fearful emotions.

“Left,” James ordered. He touched Sarah’s shoulder with the gun.

They saw a closed white door. In the middle a sign read that only authorized persons were permitted to enter.

“This doesn’t seem like a hospital,” Simon said in a whisper. “I don’t see anyone. Where are the doctors and the rest of the personnel?”

“This must be how it is at night,” Sarah supposed in a murmur.

“And security?” Simon continued. “There’s no security here?”

“It’s better not to have anyone, believe me,” Sarah warned.

“Quiet,” James shouted. “Inside and keep your mouths shut.”

Sarah pushed open the door to what had to be an unused room for interns. The space was big, a double bed stuck in a corner, enormous windows all along a wall, in another corner an open white cabinet. Long ago they’d gotten used to the antiseptic smell penetrating their noses. Right in the center, seated in a plastic chair, Simon Templar, gun in hand, looked at them gravely. The moment had come. Herbert must have arrived.

“Here are our little doves,” James sneered. “I’m anxious to have a little fun with them,” he said with his mouth right next to Sarah’s ear. She closed her eyes. He stuck out his tongue and wiggled it a few inches from her skin. She didn’t show it, but Sarah felt a convulsive nausea overwhelm her. If James didn’t pull back, her stomach would turn over, and she’d end up vomiting on him.

“And now?” James asked, turning toward Templar, who looked like someone who had just heard bad news.

Templar ignored the question and continued to look at Sarah, or at least it seemed so.