Vatican Assassin (23 page)

“Thank you, Campion.”

BC feels like the meeting is over, and gets up to leave.

I guess the Cardinal heard what he needed to hear
...
but how the hell did he know all that?

He had to know someone either on the station or somehow affiliated with them.

“Campion?”

BC stops, answers the Cardinal. “Yes?”

“Will things get back to, well, more ‘normal’ now?” He looks up at BC with pain in his eyes. BC

feels the need to reassure him.

“Depending on how you define normal, Cardinal, yeah, I think so. It’s really up to the UIN, when you think about it.”

“Warmongers! They hate us, you know that don’t you, Campion? It’s them you should be

‘fixing’!” The Cardinal spits out.

“Of course.”

Didn’t mean to set him off…

“I’ll check back with you later, Cardinal. I’ve got to go see the governor.”

“Very well, then, Campion.“ The Cardinal looks back down at his desk, again as if studying something BC cannot see.

“Thank you, sir,” BC says, and turns to go. He leaves the Cardinal’s study and heads back towards his rooms.

Glad that’s over with! How could I know The Light and The Cardinal were old buds? And
how did he know what I was up to? Maybe my cover
is
blown...
BC turns the corner onto the corridor leading down to his rooms and groans. The Reverend Sharlena Swan is standing directly in front of the doorway to his quarters. He tries to turn around before she spots him, but she’s sees him all the same.

She shouts after him, “Father Campion!”

As he casually walks away, she runs up after him.

“Oh no, Father, you’re not getting away from me again! I know who you are now!”

She passes him and stands directly in front of him. A tall woman, she glares at him eye to eye.

“You know, it’s not nice to lie to a fellow priest, Father Bernard Campion!”

“Sorry about that. I try to travel incognito, part of the job. You should’ve known that.” BC

keeps up a brave face.

“Mysterious BS from BC, how apropos. How OPO!” Swan laughs at her own wordplay.

“Do you mind?!” BC says in a loud whisper, giving Swan a sharp look.
We’re in a fucking public corridor, shut up about the OPO...

“Sorry, secret agent man,” she says, undeterred. “I’ve been assigned to you by the Pope himself, and I have the Cardinal’s blessing to take up your time for training,
and
you’ve already lied to me and avoided me. You haven’t returned any of my messages...”

“I’ve been out of it for the last couple days. Literally. Blacked out for four days straight, you can check the medical records if you want.”

“Those headaches, like on the shuttle? That was no act, I could tell. You were in pain. I felt bad for you... until I found out who you were and how you’d lied to me!”

“Jeesh, all right, already. Yeah, I’m a little worse for wear after my last assignment. I needed some down time to recuperate. But I’ll work with you. The Pope told me I had to.”

“Yeah, he told me to make you, ‘more priest, less PR man’,” she laughs.
Did he now? The Bastard!

“Look, Father. I’m not a hard person to get along with. This doesn’t have to be a painful process. I teach priests and seminarians all the time, and no one has been killed or even maimed,” she looks down her nose at him, “up until now. So let’s get started!”

“What, started maiming?” BC shakes his head when she just glares back at him. “A joke?

C’mon! Fine, we’ll get started. Only not right now.”

“You sound like Augustine.” She shakes her head, “Why not right now? No time like the present!”

“Sure. Right. But, look, I’ve got an appointment with the governor
right now
, okay? I’ve got important business, church business, to attend to.”

“I’m talking about important church business of yours, too.

Persistent.

“Yes, you are. Fine. Later on, we’ll start. For now, you’ll have to excuse me.”

BC turns and walks back to the door to his quarters. Swan follows behind him.

“Don’t think you’ve escaped me, Father,” she says. “I have it on the highest authority. Your holy ass is mine, at least three hours a day!”

Damn, is that smoke coming out of her ears?

“
I’ll see you this afternoon at three!” she tells him. She turns and storms off down the corridor.
Oh, I can see this is gonna be fun.

BC opens the doors to his quarters, ducks inside and closes and locks them behind him.
Free at last...

He walks without stopping through his living room to his bedroom. He sits down on the bed and rubs his face with both hands. A lingering flicker of a headache is lurking just beyond his attention, glimmering like mirrors on the periphery of his sight, and somehow behind his eyes at the same time.
Trying not to pay it any attention. Hoping it goes away. Swan didn’t help it any, that’s for
sure.
It’s almost a little like vertigo. Or the remains of a bad hangover. It could be. A bad drug
hangover, from the psychedelic cocktails they fed me on Fortune Station. It could be. Even a
month later, though? I don’t know.
Well, gotta call Marc.

“
Get me Governor Edwards,” BC calls out to the com. After a short pause, the com dings him back to let him know Edwards is on the line.

“Edwards here.”

“Hey Marc. It’s BC. Still want to do some lunch?”

“Had we scheduled lunch?” Edwards is confused.

“You were my excuse to get out of a couple meetings, so I was hoping...”

Edwards laughs, “That’s fine, it can be my excuse to get out of a couple things here, too. You wanna meet me here in about a half hour?”

“Sure, that sounds good. Half an hour.”

“See you then.”

The com clicks off and BC sits in the silence, rubbing his eyes, his temples, thinking.
Silence is bliss. Damn Peter for sicking Swan on me. She’s a piece of fucking work. Can’t
stand her already. She seems more like the Cardinal’s type of priest than Pope Peter’s. I’m
tempted to call and complain, but it’d do no good. No good at all.
I’d like to believe that maybe it’s just massive stress causing these headaches. But deep
down I know it’s not ‘just stress’. It’s not like a concussion or a hangover, it’s more... what?

Echoey, I guess. Things echo. And things shine, too, like the flicker and glimmer of mirrors in the
corners of my eyes. The echo and the shine, just all too much all at once. And all I want to do is
make it stop. Make it stop!

BC feels the shimmering ease. The echoing stops.
He drops his hands
,
opens his eyes again. He blinks.

There. I think I’m okay. For now. Wish that worked every time.

An hour and a half later, BC and Marc Edwards are finishing lunch at one of the burger joints off the main dome. BC feels really good for the first time in months.

Happy, almost.
Don’t want to think that too hard, might jinx it.

“You were right about the California Burger. The guacamole was really rich.”

“We just had a good avocado harvest from hydro. Report crossed my desk yesterday. Sometimes being the governor can be an asset in ways you’d never imagine,” Edwards says with a little chuckle. He finishes his own burger off with a final bite and a smile as he chews. BC feels someone approach from behind.

“Hello! Father Campion! What a coincidence!”

Swan! So much for happiness. Maybe I did jinx myself...

She walks around and smiles down at the governor and BC as she stands between them tableside.

“Reverend Swan, how good to see you again. I’m having lunch.”

“Looks like you
had
lunch, Father. Was it good?”

Edwards clears his throat, “BC – you going to introduce me?”

BC grudgingly remembers his manners, “Sorry, Marc. Governor Marc Edwards, may I introduce the Reverend Sharlena Swan.”

Edwards stands and shakes her hand, “Reverend.”

“Governor. Nice to meet you. You have a nice city here.”

“Thank you.”

“I love this dome! I’m checking out the stores and restaurants. I have some time to kill before I meet with the Father here at three
.”

BC groans. Edwards and Swan both look at him.

BC laughs a nervous laugh, “Did I say that out loud?”

Swan shakes her head. “Well, as I was saying before I was, um, interrupted, I’m enjoying exploring your city, governor. I’ll be on my way, now.” She looks at BC, “It’s good to see everything here is just as I was told it would be,” She turns back to Edwards, “I was told Lunar Prime’s main dome is beautiful, and it is.” She nods, “Governor Edwards. Father. See you shortly.” She turns and walks away.

“She seems nice,” Edwards says. “I don’t see why you don’t like her. You know,” he lowers his voice, “you could have been nicer.”

BC explodes, “Nicer! She was checking up on me!”

“What?”

“She was checking up on me! Checking up to see that I was actually having lunch with you, with the governor! You heard her,” BC imitates her voice, adding some bitchiness, “’just making sure everything here is just as I was told it would be!’ ”

“She was complementing the dome! And, anyway, why would she be checking up on you in the first place? Is she your new boss?” Marc asks him.

“Ha! Far from it! But she was assigned by the Pope to train me in some of my ‘priestly shortcomings’, so she has something on me. I have to spend three hours a day with her for the next couple months, learning what I’m supposed to already know. She’s supposed to teach me to be a better priest.”

“So why check up on you?”

“Like I told you when I called you for lunch, you were my excuse.”

“To get away from her?”

“Her and the Cardinal.”

Edwards smiles. “You’re funny sometime, BC. Why wouldn’t she believe you were having lunch with the governor? Is it that farfetched?”

“No. I don’t think so. But I lied to her before.”

“When was that?”

“When I first met her. On the shuttle trip back here. She sat next to me. She asked me if I was Father Bernard Campion. I said I wasn’t so she’d leave me alone.”

“So... you got off to a real good start with her, huh?” Edwards says sarcastically.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Still, she seems okay, BC.” Edwards says sympathetically.

“You just don’t know her yet,” BC insists, shaking his head.

“What do you call a female priest, anyway?” Edwards asks innocently. BC jumps at the opening, “’Reverend’
is acceptable, but I prefer ‘pain in the ass’.”

“So, ‘Reverend’ Swan is going to teach you to be a priest, huh?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“You sound like a kid trying to ditch school, BC,” Edwards laughs. “How many ‘lessons’ have you had so far?”

“None yet. I’ve been out cold the last four days, you know that. But I don’t think she believes that entirely, either. Whoa...”

There’s the head thing again... sharp pain. Almost a noise...

“BC? You all right, BC?” Marc asks.

“Man, I don’t know. I’ve been getting these headaches. Like I told you over lunch, they drugged me up pretty good a few times on that station. I think these headaches may be like the aftershock, the aftereffects of the drugs. This really sucks.” BC pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to think the pain away again.

“Your eyes just rolled back in your head. Like you were possessed or something. Not a pretty sight.”

“So sorry.” BC winces. “But I think I’m going to have to excuse myself, Marc, and go lie down for a little while.”

“Another headache coming on, huh? You should go to the infirmary, get checked up on.”

“The doctors down at the Vatican poked and prodded me pretty thoroughly and found absolutely nothing wrong with me. I’m really not that thrilled at the thought of going through it all over again.”

“Our doctors might find something they missed,” Edwards offers.

“Maybe,” BC says as he stands, a little wobbly.

Just not right...

“I’ll see you later, Marc. I gotta go.”

BC walks off, trying hard not to stumble as he goes.

Feel like I might throw up.

He manages to keep it together and keep his California burger down all the way back to his quarters. The headache keeps trying to come on, insistent, refusing to yield.
When he finally sits down on his bed, his stomach calms. The throbbing in his head eases somewhat.
Hope I didn’t look drunk walking back here. Swan would love to hear that, probably go
right into one of her reports to Pope Peter. Damn, I’m tired. I can’t believe after sleeping for four
days that I’m tired again already. What the fuck is wrong with me? What did they do to me?

BC lies down on his bed. He sees the message light blinking, but ignores it and drifts off into dreamless sleep.

BC wakes up with his door alarm ringing repeatedly
.

RINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRING...

My headache is gone but now there’s a whole new one starting. Who the hell is so
annoying? I swear, if it’s Swan I’m gonna kill her!

“Who is it!” BC calls out to the com.

A woman’s voice comes back over the com, “BC, it’s a blast from the past, man, it’s me, Fiza!

Let me in!”

Fiza?

“C’mon BC, you gotta remember me! It’s Fiza!” she whines.

Fiza! What the... Where the fuck did she come from? What rock...

“Let me in, man, c’mon!”
She’s getting loud.

“Fiza? Is that really you? After all these years?”

God save me from old girlfriends... especially her!

“Surprised? Yeah, it’s me! Hey, c’mon, fucking let me in already, you shit!”

Forgot about the mouth. Good thing it’s as lovely as it is foul... least it used to be. And she
was quite skilled with it as I recall, too. Might as well let her in before the whole embassy hears
her.

“Come in, Fiza, come in and have a seat. I’ll be right out.”