Stealing God (28 page)

He was almost there now. She was enjoying herself, showing him how clever she'd been. All he had to do was wait for her to get sloppy.

‘When the secretary came back from renting the car I told her to put it in my parking space which would be empty and bring the keys to me. I had already arranged for someone from the Instituto de Technica to pick up the car, plant something that would produce suspiciously high levels of radioactivity, and bring it back when I needed it to go to Florence airport. I don't know what he used. He said it would show up clearly but wouldn't be at all dangerous when the car was used again.'

‘Didn't he ask why you wanted him to do it?'

‘Of course. I told him to mind his own business.'

‘That's it? You just told him to mind his own business?'

‘More or less. I told him that if he wanted to know he should enquire from the minister direct. Naturally he chose to leave it alone.' She allowed herself a smile as she went on. ‘I see now, of course, that I should have told the secretary that Anna needed a station wagon or something like that. But you can't think of everything, can you, and we were so close to the end.'

‘Who told you the bomb was coming?'

‘The Chinese.'

‘The Chinese!'

‘Chinese Intelligence. I'm afraid I don't know what their official name is. Two years ago a government scientist was approached to sell a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium. He was probably approached because he had already sold bits and pieces of know-how. Chinese Intelligence were on to him and had him under surveillance so when he was approached they quietly picked him up and told him they wanted the sale to go through.'

‘Go through?'

‘Yes. If an organisation was looking to build a bomb they assumed it had to be terrorist-related. With the way things are today if they didn't get what they wanted in China they might very well get it elsewhere. A decision was made to sell the plutonium and then track what happened to it, where it went, who was involved, and what was the probable target. It was not an ideal situation but the alternative was to arrest their man which would make the organisation who wanted the material look elsewhere and perhaps succeed. A small nuclear device set off in a major Western city has been a prime aim of terrorist groups for some time. One day it would happen: the materials and expertise were becoming increasingly available. This way the Chinese stood a fair chance of preventing such an attack and if they failed, well, the target wouldn't be a Chinese city, would it?'

‘It's still a big risk. Why take it?'

‘The Chinese economy was booming, they were about make it into the very top grade of economic nations, they didn't want all the economic tables to be kicked over at the moment of their greatest opportunity.' She could see Jimmy wasn't convinced. ‘Let me put it this way, Mr Costello, that we are having this conversation and not dead should be confirmation enough that they made the right choice.' When she put it like that, thought Jimmy, you could see she had a point. ‘Once they'd decided on their course of action they needed to alert someone in Europe to deal with this end of things.'

‘This end?'

‘They were sure the target city was going to be European.'

‘Why certain?'

‘They were certain, that's all.'

‘All you know or all you'll tell?'

‘It works out the same for you either way.'

Jimmy decided not to press the point. He had his own ideas about it anyway.

‘OK, so who did they contact?'

‘People here within the Catholic Church.'

‘The Church? Why the Church?'

‘They were enabling someone to build a nuclear device aimed at a European target. They were prepared to take the risk but how many European governments do you think would have agreed with them?' She didn't wait for an answer. ‘They needed someone who would have a significant presence already on the ground wherever the bomb turned up. Someone who could support their agents, who would be already there in sufficient numbers to get information and move freely. They needed to be absolutely sure that once the bomb arrived they could keep close to it and get hold of it before it was delivered to whoever was going to set it off. The Catholic Church is the only organisation which fits the bill. We have personnel, a great many personnel, in every European country that would be on the bombers' list. We have the communication infrastructure. We could provide transport and all the non-specialist resources they would need. They would have the specialists, the people who knew how to handle the bomb when they got it, and the intelligence resources to make sure they could track it while it was on the move from wherever it was made. They needed our resources so they came to us.'

‘How? How did they come to you?' She was about to answer when it dawned on Jimmy. ‘Wait, I know. They sent Cheng. He was their messenger.'

‘He was being rehabilitated, he was available. They were prepared to trust him and they knew we would trust him. He was ideal. Also, who would notice another archbishop coming to Rome, even a Chinese one. He delivered his message but then died.'

‘From natural causes?'

‘Quite natural. Fortunately contact had been made and an agreement was eventually reached ‘

‘Did he get his red hat?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘And the funeral?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘That was just something to keep us going.'

‘As you say, something to keep you going.'

‘And the cardinals, the dead ones.'

‘That was a nuisance. I didn't expect such an odd request so I did what I thought best and gave you what you wanted.'

‘Another story.'

‘Not quite. The three cardinals named all died unexpectedly though not suspiciously.'

‘And the conclave.'

‘All cardinals influence a conclave so not really a story, just selective truth. You asked for a connection so I gave you one. I needed to keep you involved until I was ready to move you.'

‘What did they ask for, the Chinese?'

‘That as soon as they knew the destination we should help in making sure the bomb could be intercepted without involving the local police until it was absolutely necessary. We agreed, the necessary communications were set up, then we waited. They tracked the plutonium to Pakistan where the bomb was to be assembled by a government nuclear scientist who was willing to sell his services. From Pakistan it was sent by lorry to Lebanon in a packing case marked as machine parts. In Beirut it was delivered to a man who had been recruited to arrange for the shipment of the case by sea.'

‘A terrorist?'

‘Perhaps. He was a shady character, part gangster, part fighter, part middle-man. A man who was paid by many groups to do anything from arms smuggling to car bombing. He had the experience to handle a job like shipping the goods and not get caught. The crate was held in Beirut for some months, obviously they were waiting for something, but finally it was loaded onto a ship bound for Italy. Then man then flew to Italy where he thought he would take delivery of the packing case and get it to the handover.'

‘Thought he would?'

‘The Chinese knew which port and the arrival date, so they waited until the boat was due to dock. They let him pick up the crate and then moved in and took it off him. They interrogated him, got the details of where the bomb was to go and how the handover would be made and what the final target was.'

‘He just volunteered that information, I suppose?'

‘We never asked. It was something we were prepared to leave to the Chinese. Whatever methods they used they were able to give us all the information we needed. With their information we knew how to finish what they had started. We told the Chinese how we thought it could be dealt with. They agreed, so we put our plan into action. We arranged for everything to be in place.'

‘And everything included me and Ricci?'

‘Yes.'

‘And Anna's stuff? That was all part of it?'

‘Yes. We had you and Inspector Ricci ready to move when we needed you by arranging for you to be looking into Cardinal Cheng's death. That meant we could feed you information as and when we wanted. When we were ready we arranged for it to appear as if a known terrorist was in Rome which brought in the police. After that I was going to provide you with the information about the high radioactive traces. It was to have been a piece of last-minute information that had suddenly come from an intelligence source. You, however, beat me to it. You put the last pieces together and alerted the police to the fact that there might be high levels of radioactivity which of course there were. Once you had done that the police could take over and arrest the men who thought they were carrying the bomb. All very simple, very straightforward. It was just a matter of bringing everything together at the right time.'

‘It was all your plan?'

‘The matter was entrusted to me. I had help of course but basically, yes, it was my plan.'

‘Did the Chinese know who the bombers would be?'

‘No. The Lebanese go-between had been given an airport and flight number and was told to wait at Arrivals holding a card with a name on it.'

‘What name?'

‘Does it matter? It would certainly have been false. It was merely to allow the bombers to make the correct contact. Our job was to provide a replacement for the Lebanese who would use his papers to make the handover at Florence airport. We had the police already mobilised looking for Anna, you and Inspector Ricci were our trigger to move them in. It was a pity the car chosen by the secretary was too small to have carried the bomb but its only purpose was to provide the evidence of a nuclear device, which it did, so no real harm was done. I doubt the police will spot the mistake in a hurry. They'll be too busy congratulating themselves on the arrest. When they find out that the radioactive traces are the wrong sort it won't matter, everything will be over.'

‘So it was all a set-up from beginning to end?' McBride had the good grace to give an apologetic smile. It was an excellent plan and she was right to be proud of it. ‘Even getting me here so I could supposedly train for the priesthood?'

The smile went.

‘No, as I have already told you, your application was processed by the selection panel in the normal way. My interest was, shall we say, parallel to theirs.'

‘So why me?'

‘We needed a detective but not one on active service. My attention was drawn to Inspector Ricci. He had just been put on sick leave. However, we needed someone else, another trained mind to help him. He wasn't a well man and he might not have stayed the course. I looked around and found you.'

‘And the state of my mind? What brought on that little episode?'

‘Having met with you several times I was worried that you might see through the whole thing. You struck me as rather astute in a plodding sort of way. You must have been a good detective. I decided to try and divert your attention somewhat, not hamper you mind too much, but sow enough doubt to slow you down. As a matter of interest all I told you I believed could be true but, as I said at the time, I have no formal training in that field. I tried never to lie to you, to always base what I said on the truth.'

‘Are you telling me you tried to be honest with me?'

‘Oh no, not honest, but to stay as close to the truth as possible so that you could never be sure what was true and what was false. I must say I was pleased with the way things went, except for that business of you being put in hospital. I hadn't anticipated that.'

‘Ricci got caught looking into my record.'

‘Yes, I was told.'

‘So you arranged for his mate to get invited to America?'

‘Yes. It wasn't difficult; art crime is an interesting subject. I understand his talks were very well received and he will probably be invited back. Just as a matter of interest what was the attack on you about? I presume it was related in some way to what you were doing?'

‘You weren't the only one who got told Ricci had been looking. Some old acquaintances of mine got some hooligans to throw a petrol bomb into his uncle's factory in Glasgow to warn him off. He asked me to go and check it out.'

‘But if your friends in London were protecting you why the attack when you returned?'

‘Putting me in hospital was someone else's way of warning me off, saying I shouldn't think about coming back to Scotland, ever.'

‘Well, thank goodness no lasting harm was done.'

Jimmy had been listening but as he listened his brain had been working and he was finally beginning to understand. There were no outright lies, that was the key. She was telling him facts, but she was still at her old game, she was muddying his mind so he wouldn't see the joins in her story where she'd left the truth and slipped into storyland.

‘The Anna thing was clever, I liked that. She was never here, was she?'

‘No.'

‘But you did it neatly. It was real enough to get your police team up and running. Where is she?'

‘Does she have to be somewhere?'

‘Oh, yes. You may be good but not even you could just reach out and lay your hands on her fingerprints and DNA.'

‘At this moment she is about to take her initial vows in an enclosed convent. She is, and has been for some time, in Bavaria.'

‘So what was the story there?'

‘There is no story. No story for you, that is.'

Jimmy paused for a second. He wanted to stand up and shout out. He had her. She had finally made her mistake. She had told him a fact she couldn't spin. Now he knew he could get it all, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

‘So, Anna Bruck, real name Anna Schwarz, a known terrorist wanted by several governments, is in a convent in Bavaria. That's interesting.' A look of concern flitted across Professor McBride's face. ‘I would guess there are plenty of people who would think it worth the time and effort to check which convent.'