The Babylon Idol

Chapter 29

Not many dead men lived in such comfort as Massimiliano Usberti. What his new home lacked in scale and opulence compared to his Lake Como estate, it more than made up for in seclusion and privacy. The balcony of his top-floor living room commanded a sweeping view like that from the bridge of a ship, from which you could gaze westwards across five miles of the Ionian Sea towards the distant medieval Sicilian coastal town of Taormina, with the shadow of Mount Etna looming behind; while to the north, on a clear day you could just make out the southernmost tip of Calabria, the toe of Italy.

Very little boat traffic came within pistol shot of Usberti’s island even in summer, mainly because there was nothing there except a couple of acres of trees, a rocky cove and a single three-storey house perched on its highest point, surrounded by a few stone outbuildings. Now that winter had come, the fishing ports were quiet and the leisure boating season was over, nobody ventured out this way at all and the only living souls Usberti saw were the members of his retinue. Silvano Bellini, his personal assistant, lived in a basic but comfortable converted cottage adjoining the main house that he shared with his colleague Pierangelo Volpicelli. The remainder of the entourage were content to occupy the rougher outbuildings, as befitted their status as soldiers of the down-but-not-out Gladius Domini.

On a day like today, with gusts buffeting the windows, it was too cold to go outside, and Massimiliano Usberti stood instead at the broad balcony window gazing thoughtfully at the grey sea with his hands clasped behind his back. The ‘Agnus Dei’ from Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 played softly in the background, filling the large room with beatific sounds of reverence that elevated his soul.

Usberti was a far more contented man these days. He was looking and feeling better, stronger and sharper. He’d regained some of the weight he’d lost through the dark times, and felt fired up with a renewed and invigorating sense of purpose. In fact, as he liked to joke to himself, he’d never before felt as fit and healthy as he had since his death.

Hearing the door open, he turned to see Silvano Bellini enter the room. The younger priest had nobody to whom to preach God’s word these days, but he still wore the long black vestments and the silver crucifix. He was a slim, tall man, dark-haired and intense, with sharp pallid features that made him look like an alabaster hawk. Unfortunately for Bellini, the deity he venerated hadn’t blessed him in the genetics department. He wore spectacles as thick as bottle bottoms to correct his terrible astigmatism, and he walked with a permanent lurch in his step as a result of severe scoliosis, which got worse when he was nervous. His had never been a relaxed personality, but at this moment he seemed more agitated than usual as he limped about the room, looking anxiously at his watch.

‘What are you worried about, Silvano?’ Usberti asked him.

‘Scorceletti, Zenatello and Casini should have reported back from Olympia long before now,’ Bellini replied anxiously. ‘The other two are on their way back here as we speak, and should arrive any minute. But not a word from the rest. Where are they? What’s happened to them?’

‘Do not fret, Silvano. If we have heard nothing, it is because the idiots have failed in their mission to capture the Manzini woman, and all three are dead. I cannot say I am entirely surprised. In fact, I had foreseen it. They are not coming back.’ He smiled. ‘All the better for them. Had any of them survived to return to me empty-handed, I would have had them impaled on spikes by way of punishment for their incompetence.’

Bellini stopped limping and stared at him, turning even paler behind his thick glasses. ‘Dead? How can you be so sure, Your Excellency?’ Despite the fact that his master had been defrocked before they’d even met, Bellini still addressed him by his former ecclesiastical title. Usberti would have preferred ‘Your Holiness’, but you couldn’t have everything.

‘I told you, Silvano. You have not had dealings with this Ben Hope, as I have. He is as difficult to eradicate as a spreading tumour, and he has long been in the habit of eliminating even the most proficient men I have sent to deal with him. The truth is that Scorceletti and his associates would have been lucky indeed to get the better of Hope. But finding men suited to the task is not an easy prospect.’

‘Then it’s a disaster. What are we going to do?’ Bellini hesitated, watching his employer. ‘Forgive me for saying so, Excellency, but you don’t seem unduly perturbed by this development.’

Usberti smiled again. He walked over to the rococo cabinet by the window and opened its ornate doors to reveal a row of crystalware. Taking out a decanter and a glass, he said, ‘Would you care for a small cognac, Silvano? It might settle your nerves.’

‘No, thank you, Excellency. It’s bad for my ulcer.’

‘Shame,’ Usberti said without much trace of sympathy. He poured himself a drink and relished a sip. On top of the cabinet rested an oblong object wrapped in damask silk. Setting down his glass, he picked up the heavy item, slipped the silk covering away and held up the glinting gold bar to gaze at it in the pale sunlight from the window. He caressed its smooth length, his fingers lingering over the tiny eagle and swastika stamped on its surface. At one time, he’d been the proud owner of a number of genuine Nazi gold bars just like it, but this was the last one remaining in his collection. He often admired it, reminiscing about the period in his life when he’d aspired to master the ancient alchemical secrets learned by Rudolf Hess in Paris in the 1920s and passed to Hitler’s inner circle. Usberti believed to this day that he’d come very close to attaining that incredible wisdom for himself, which would have enabled him to produce an infinite quantity of pure gold bars bearing not the Nazi emblem but the cruciform sword symbol of Gladius Domini.

Now, he no longer needed to dream about a mountain of gold. It would soon be within his reach once again, only this time in a different and unexpected form. The fabled golden idol of Babylon would be his.

Not for the first time, Usberti reflected that if that hulking imbecile Ennio Scorceletti had ever done one worthwhile thing in his life it was to have extracted from Manzini’s assistant the truth about what the bitch was up to. Usberti had read her books, followed her work, and for all he wanted her dead he had to concede she was a scholar of the first quality. If anyone could trace the whereabouts of such an unbelievable lost treasure, it was her.

Oh, he would possess it, all right. Whatever it took to get it. And now, he had just the man to help him.

Usberti replaced the gold bar in its silk wrapping on the cabinet and turned to Bellini. ‘You are right, Silvano. The loss of a few insignificant goons like Scorceletti, Casini and Zenatello does not bother me in the least. Forget such small fry. We are ready to move to the next phase.’

‘What do you mean, Excellency?’

‘I would like you to meet someone.’

Usberti went over to a desk and pressed the button on a small intercom console that connected him with the office on the lower floor. ‘Pierangelo, you may show our new recruit upstairs.’

Bellini raised his eyebrows. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of a new recruit.’

‘He arrived this morning, while you were at prayer. If I did not mention him to you before now, it is because of the great difficulty I have had in locating and contacting him. Now I have found him, he will be a decisive new asset to our cause.’

‘Who is he?’

Before Usberti could reply, there were footsteps outside the room, followed by a knock. The door opened. Pierangelo Volpicelli, Usberti’s chief administrator and gofer, stood there with another man who was dressed all in black.

‘Thank you, Pierangelo. You may leave now,’ Usberti said. Volpicelli walked off without a word. Usberti ushered the man in black inside the room. There was no greeting.

Silvano Bellini cautiously eyed the newcomer. Had the priest’s vocabulary included such vernacular expressions, he might have described the man as a ‘badass’. He wasn’t tall, and he wasn’t obviously muscular, and yet everything about him exuded a quiet menace. His shaven head gleamed from the razor. A black goatee adorned a jaw as thick and heavy as a Rottweiler’s. He stood relaxed with his hands loosely curled at his sides, but Bellini sensed that the man could explode into violence in the twitch of a heartbeat.

He didn’t like him. More to the point, he was immediately and intensely afraid of him.

Usberti smiled at his assistant’s obvious trepidation. ‘Silvano, allow me to introduce our new friend. His name is Bozza.’

Bellini frowned at the name. ‘But… I thought Bozza was dead.’

‘He is,’ Usberti said. ‘And he is not. Franco Bozza, my loyal aide for many years, the man they called “The Inquisitor”, is indeed no longer with us. He was brutally executed some years ago in the south of France, while working for me. Murdered, by Benedict Hope. A piece of information that I have now shared with our new friend here.’

He stepped to the man in black and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, beaming. The man in black didn’t flinch. His eyes were like dark, empty pools that betrayed nothing. Usberti said, ‘Meet Ugo Bozza, Franco’s younger brother.

‘Ugo grew up revering his elder brother,’ Usberti explained. ‘But he followed a different path. While Franco was rising up to become one of the most feared professional killers in Europe, Ugo struck out on his own. Aged seventeen, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion, the only elite military regiment in the world that does not care what a man’s background is, or his experience. They care only about his toughness and his devotion, two qualities that young Ugo possessed in such impressive measure that he swiftly became one of the most formidable fighting men the Legion has ever produced. He spent ten years there, perfecting the art of death beyond even the level that his elder sibling achieved, which is saying a great deal. His services are much in demand all over the world. He has recently returned from Bangkok, where he spent a year hunting and eliminating drug dealers — an occupation of which I strongly approve.’

As Usberti spoke, Bozza stood utterly still and seemed barely to be breathing. This isn’t a man, Bellini thought. It’s some kind of machine.

‘He shares many things in common with Franco,’ Usberti went on. ‘His religious zeal, and his commitment to the same goals as Gladius Domini holds dear. He is as motivated to punish the impure of heart, the debased, and all those who scorn God’s word, as his brother was. But in some other respects, he differs. While Franco’s primary weapon of choice was the blade, Ugo is more versatile. He is expert with firearms, explosives and his bare hands, his unarmed combat form of choice being Muay Thai, in which he has reached the highest rank of proficiency. He does not drink, or smoke, or seek personal wealth. He is a master of destruction in its purest form, a younger, leaner, more lethal version of his brother.’

Bellini glanced at Bozza. ‘Why doesn’t he speak?’

Usberti replied, ‘Ugo has taken a personal vow of silence until his brother’s death is avenged. Now that I have informed him of the murderer’s identity, it means he will not speak until Ben Hope is dead. To kill Hope is the only reward Ugo seeks in return for working with us.’

Bellini was about to reply when a movement from the window distracted him and he turned to squint through his lenses at the motor launch that was mooring up at the jetty down below. ‘They’re back,’ he said.

Moments later, Groppione and Iacono presented themselves to their master on the top floor. They were the two Gladius Domini agents whose job it had been to locate the Manzini woman’s base in Greece, in case the others missed her at the Olympia site. By working local rental agencies they’d found the property a few kilometres from the ruins, but — as Usberti had anticipated — she hadn’t been there.

‘We found this,’ Iacono said, holding up a bag from which he produced a small Dell laptop. ‘She had stuff encrypted on it. Probably thought it was safely protected, the stupid puttana.’

‘But not from a professional like you, Luca,’ Usberti said. ‘I assume you had no great difficulty in breaking the passcode?’

Iacono grinned. ‘Took me a whole minute. Piece of cake. You’re going to love this, boss.’

‘Show me,’ Usberti said. Groppione placed the laptop on the desk, powered it up and tinkled a few keys, and moments later he had a pair of windows opened up side by side on the screen. One was a digital diary, filled with carefully organised notes. The other was an address book displaying a list of contacts with all the necessary details. He stepped aside to let Usberti look at them.

Usberti studied the screen, scrolled up and down to drink in the information, and his eyes glittered with satisfaction. ‘This is excellent, men. Excellent. It confirms, and expands most usefully upon, what we had already learned from her assistant Garrone. Now that we know her exact destination, we need only ensure that we get there ahead of her. The spider will spin its web and wait for the fly to stumble straight into the trap.’

‘Thought you’d be pleased, boss.’

‘You will be handsomely rewarded for your efforts, men. There is food and wine awaiting you downstairs.’

Once the foot soldiers had filed out of the room looking forward to getting happily drunk, Usberti went over to the framed world map that covered much of one wall. He pointed his right forefinger at their present location in Sicily, then slid his fingertip to the right, squeaking against the glass, until it landed on Turkey. The capital city of Ankara was marked by a red blob. He tapped his finger against it three times and turned with a flourish towards Silvano Bellini and Ugo Bozza.

‘Ugo, you are going on a journey. Silvano, instruct Volpicelli to arrange the flight, and to contact our good Catholic allies in Istanbul who will arrange everything Ugo and an additional four-man team require on arrival. No expense is to be spared. We cannot afford to fail this time.’

‘Yes, Excellency.’

‘And now everything is falling into place,’ Usberti said, almost rubbing his hands in glee as he walked to the window and gazed out at the Ionian Sea. ‘Before long the idol will be ours, Ben Hope will be dead, and Gladius Domini will be on its way to being restored to its former power, and more. Our time is coming, gentlemen. It is coming sooner than I ever dared to dream.’