They thrashed it out with Conte and then found a nearby hotel with spare rooms saved for the Vatican. They slept and then met for breakfast. When he woke, Mason found he was thinking of today as the day of judgement, zero hour. It was the day that Marduk would attack the Vatican.
When would it happen?
They ate and drank coffee and then made their way across the road to St Peter’s Square. It was early, and the rain had let up, though the dark hanging clouds promised much more to come. They splashed through puddles across the square towards the barracks, where Conte appeared to have set himself up. He’d told them it was far enough away from his main office to let him breathe and to keep the jackals who demanded his time at bay. Today, he couldn’t spare a second for them.
It was eight a.m. Mason and the others spent a little time watching Conte work. They were ready to act, ready to seek Marduk at a moment’s notice, a force on hand to track the enemy down at the slightest hint of a clue. Mason tried to shake off the failures that had beset them so far; they’d almost captured Marduk, only to be beaten by circumstance and luck.
Hours passed. Mason got sick of the cramped space, the endless noise, and wandered out of the barracks, back through the colonnades and into St Peter’s Square. It was around ten a.m. and the place was already buzzing with tourists. A light drizzle filled the air.
The sky was dark, threatening, as if sensing Mason’s mood.
As was the entire atmosphere that hung over the Vatican City and Rome itself.
He went back inside. More time passed. Lunch was a pre-packed sandwich whilst they stood and listened to fresh intel. None of it led to Marduk. Their police liaison was next to useless, offering no information. Still nothing happened. The atmosphere inside the barracks was laden, heavy with anticipation. Everyone in there expected something to happen and every minute that passed increased that expectation and added to the sense of time slipping away.
In the middle of the afternoon, seeing a break in the rain, Mason again slipped outside, desperate for some fresh air and a few lighter moments to allay the feeling of unbearable tension. It had been raining until recently but, for now, a shaft of sunlight had broken through the cloud cover and was blessing the square with its radiance.
This time, Mason had taken Sally with him.
‘I don’t think we’re doing any good here,’ she fretted. ‘We’re standing about, waiting for something to happen.’
It felt like they were on the back foot. Mason said, ‘What else can we do? We’ve exhausted our investigative limits. Sometimes, you just don’t get what you want.’
‘My father would never have understood that, but I do,’ Sally said, referencing the wealthy late Professor Rusk. ‘I saw it every day.’ Sally’s was such an odd story, Mason reflected. Born into privilege, rejecting it, running away and then reconnecting with her father only to see him murdered. But he was glad that she’d stood up for what she believed in.
‘Do you regret any of it?’ he asked, thinking of his own story, losing friends in Iraq, the failed marriage that resulted, the long years drenched in guilt.
‘Sometimes,’ Sally said honestly. ‘The regret comes and goes.’
‘That’s a direct and truthful description of what most of us feel,’ Mason said. ‘Me included.’
Sally opened her mouth to say more, but, as she did so, an explosion rang out across the city. Mason was checking his watch at the time, so the exact hour was emblazoned into his brain.
15.05.
And then a second explosion filled the air.