The man opened his hand, palm upward. It was a silent message to his assistant, who placed a yellow envelope in it. Sebastiani gave it to JC.

“Is this it?”

“It is. Be careful.” It was the first time his unpleasant face showed any suspicion. “The other one must be totally confused right now. He’s discovered there’s nothing there.”

“Stupendous.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

JC took the envelope and looked seriously at everyone around.

“I’ve thrown out a lot of misinformation to make things very hard for everyone else,” he said joyously. “Now the time has come for the famous JC to appear.”

62

James Phelps hung on to the weak thread of life with all his strength, or, at least, that’s how it seemed. He was shaken by intermittent jolts from the rusty van that rushed him to the veterans’ hospital a few blocks from the barbershop.

They’d left through one of the closed doors in the passageway that opened onto another narrow hallway with a door to an underground parking garage at the end. The escape route in case an operation went wrong.

Rafael and Ivanovsky did the carrying with Sarah comforting Phelps. They put him in the middle seat of a 1980s Daihatsu with room for nine. Vladimir drove the “smoke bomb,” as they lovingly called it for the excessive fumes that escaped through the exhaust pipe.

“Hang on,” Rafael encouraged Phelps with his hands on his head.

Ivanovsky took the passenger seat to show Vladimir the way. A Russian mania for knowing more than others or thinking they did. Sarah was in the middle seat next to the sliding door. Phelps’s feet were on her lap.

“Everything will be all right,” she told him.

“Don’t you believe in auto repair shops?” Rafael shouted so they could hear him over the turbulent engine. “The noise and fumes this car is emitting must be detectable from space,” he added.

“This van’s been retired a long time. It’s the first time it’s been used in fifteen years, or more,” Ivanovsky also shouted. “You said you know who’s behind all this?”

Sarah listened silently. Rafael knew who was behind the plot? Who?

Rafael gestured an affirmation. “I think so.”

“Who?” Sarah and the Russian asked in unison.

“I can think of only one man capable of manipulating everything and everyone with such skill. JC. Do you know him?”

Of course, Sarah reflected. Why didn’t I think of that?

“I’ve heard of him, but his existence has never been proved.”

“He exists,” Rafael confirmed, exchanging a long look with Sarah.

“Go down Ulitsa Varvarka,” the barber ordered Vladimir.

They passed a packed Red Square, the Kremlin on the opposite side. Next to the walls was the mausoleum where the embalmed body of Lenin serves as a national and international tourist attraction, along with great men of the nation, a little to the back, Yuri Gagarin, Maxim Gorky, Brezh nev. The cathedral of Saint Basil with its onion dome cupolas, built by Ivan the Terrible, is in front of the Museum of History, separated by five hundred yards of Red Square.

It wasn’t the first time Rafael had visited the city, but Sarah would’ve preferred another situation to enjoy the cultural, historical, and social attractions Moscow has to offer.

“Turn onto Ulitsa Varvarka.”

“It’s longer that way,” Vladimir observed in Russian.

“Do what I tell you.” Ivanovsky turned around to the back again. “What’s the plan of this JC?”

“He has his own agenda,” Rafael answered. “But this web is typical of him. He gives information to you, us, Opus Dei, a few clues to the Americans and English, and we all start moving, thinking we’re the only ones.”

“Where does this Spanish priest fit in?”

“I still don’t know that. It doesn’t mean everything’s interconnected,” Rafael said in a meditative way. Phelps let out a distant moan.

Sarah stroked his leg up to his thigh, with no untoward intentions, despite her uncomfortable attraction to men of the Church, albeit younger ones.

“You’re going to be all right,” she murmured.

“We have to find out what his plan is,” Ivanovsky declared.

“Of course,” Rafael agreed. I know very well how to do that, he thought. You can’t share everything.

“Accelerate this piece of shit.” Ivanovsky angrily turned to Vladimir. “The guy can’t die on us. He has to tell us what he knows.”

“It won’t go any faster,” Vladimir said as he floored the accelerator, unable to get past seventy.

Another moan from Phelps, this time more intense, almost louder than the engine noise of the Daihatsu.

“Stay calm. We’re almost there,” Rafael told him.

Sarah stroked his leg and thigh again, the right one, to be more precise, until something caught her attention, a rise, a projection about a centimeter in diameter running completely around his leg. Like a belt fastened to his thigh… very tightly.

What’s this? she asked herself. At that precise moment Phelps opened his eyes and looked at her in a way he never had before. The thin, timorous old man completely lost consciousness.

A bang on the windshield snapped her out of the lethargy she’d sunk into. Phelps’s eyes were closed. Perhaps it was her imagination, except the belt pressing into his thigh was real.

There was no time to think. A new bang made the Daihatsu roll toward the driver’s side. Ivanovsky started to shout, along with Rafael, who grabbed the seat to avoid falling over Sarah, as he pressed down on Phelps with all his strength so that his dead weight wouldn’t crush her.

“Damn,” Rafael swore.

“What’s going on?” Sarah cried.

Ivanovsky, leaning on the front panel, pulled two guns.

“They killed Vladimir,” he warned. “Bastards.”

Given the slow speed of the van, it stopped after a few yards and rolled over onto the side of the dead driver.

“What’s going on?” Phelps’s weak voice asked.

“Stay quiet. We’re going to get you out of here,” Rafael ordered, red from the effort of supporting him.

“Let’s lower him slowly,” Sarah suggested, drawing back to leave room. She noticed the glass in the sliding door was broken, and she was standing on the asphalt of the street.

Rafael put Phelps down carefully. He now had some control over his body, although he still had a hand on Phelps’s chest. A few seconds later the Englishman was on the ground next to Sarah.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“We’re being attacked,” Sarah informed him, realizing for the first time the seriousness of the situation.

Rafael turned to Ivanovsky. “Give me one of those pieces.”

The Russian hesitated, but finally tossed him one of the guns. He opened the door and looked around. Rafael broke the glass in the window that had been at the side before but now was the roof and stuck his head outside. This model had only one sliding door, on Sarah’s side, now the floor of the van after it turned over. A shot pierced the frame a few inches from his face. The same happened to Ivanovsky. Both ducked back inside the van.

“Snipers,” Rafael explained.

“That’s right,” the barber agreed.

“Russian mafia?” Phelps asked, still suffering.

“No,” Ivanovsky contradicted him. “Americans. They can only be Americans. I can smell them,” he lamented.

“Barnes,” Sarah whispered.

“We have to do something,” Rafael declared. The shots came from two places in front and behind the van.

He tried to get to the back where the window was intact. He watched for a long time.

“Give them a little taste, Ivanovsky.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re there and I’m here. If you want, we can switch.”

The two men looked at each other. Ivanovsky was in the front of the van, standing up, holding on to a seat, Rafael in back next to the rear window, Phelps and Sarah between them, also standing. The seats served as corners.