“What’s going on?” He was furious. “Are there people inside?”

“Of course,” the other answered. He climbed into the van and opened the two caskets. A woman was laid in the one on the right, a man on the left.

Phelps remembered the story he had read in the paper a few hours earlier. “English Couple Murdered in Amsterdam.” This was no coincidence. He couldn’t say for sure this was the same couple, but it was highly probable, confirmed by the holes in their foreheads. This is not okay, he thought. He noticed the agonizing pain in his left leg had returned. He touched the spot in the middle of his thigh. These were the signs of age in his body, attacking by chance without compassion or pity. In health and sickness we are all the same; no matter what treatments we receive, no matter how healthy we are, time and chance will put an end to everything and everyone. The pain made him almost double over and moan, but he managed to control himself. A few more moments and the pain went away completely.

“You ought to go and have that leg looked at,” Rafael advised without displaying any kind of compassion. A neutral tone completely out of place in someone watching someone suffer like Phelps.

“It’s nothing,” the other replied. “Who are they?” he asked in a weak voice, looking at the cadavers. The pallor of the corpses extended to his own face. He used a handkerchief to wipe away the drops of cold sweat that pearled his face.

“They are the bait,” Rafael answered, looking at him seriously.

Nights were the worst part of the day, when he was on a high state of alert, like today. The sky was filled with stars, though, a scene he had rarely enjoyed, having been born and raised in a big city, with high buildings, many cars, people, competition, and little time to admire the sky day or night. This would be a magnificent view if he were susceptible to the majesty of the universe. He was preoccupied with the pain in his left leg that acted up on dry nights. The pain didn’t bring climatologic or esoteric foresight, it just hurt… nothing more. But someone had to make the rounds, watch over the property, although it was highly improbable their enemies knew where they were, and, even if they knew, it wouldn’t be easy to find them on that mountain in the middle of nowhere. Beja in Alentejo, the heart of the Portuguese plains, a little more than forty miles from the Spanish border. His Prada shoes were full of dust. Not the right shoes for this terrain. His Armani suit wasn’t right, either, but if it had been raining, it would be much worse. The sound of rain would make it impossible to hear someone approaching, to say nothing of mud getting in his shoes. The dust was better.

It was three hours before dawn. Everything was calm. He had established a surveillance perimeter of fifteen hundred yards that he covered personally every two hours. In other times he would have had several men distributed at key points, chosen by him, prepared to give the alarm and neutralize the menace. All of a sudden Kabul, Budapest, Sofia, Ramallah came to mind. Today he was alone, hindered by a bad leg, but no less lethal for all that. He got off the seat of the tractor where he had rested for a few minutes after the fourth round and covered the distance from the barn to the house.

On top of the table were three plates with leftovers from the meal, half a ham, stuck on the carving board, several glasses, some with wine, others empty but with the reddish bottoms, remnants of an apparent banquet.

Raul Brandão Monteiro rested on the sofa, covered with a light blanket. He had prepared one of the three bedrooms for the old man, JC, but refused to sleep in his own. His military background didn’t permit comfort at times of crisis. That, and his wife, Elizabeth, had given him a dirty look when she arrived home and learned the identities and intentions of the illustrious visitors. She blamed Raul for what was going on and she was right, in so far as his past was the reason for this situation. His initiation as a rebellious youth into a Masonic lodge was the cause. The effect: JC was the present Grand Master of that order and had interests that interfered with their lives and their daughter’s… for the second time. She was in danger, and he could do nothing. They were all in danger. This time Elizabeth was not going to forgive him.

The cripple sat down on a chair next to the wall with the wagon wheel on it surrounded by Alentejan handicrafts. He would rest for an hour, with one eye always open. He wouldn’t let the devil catch him napping, in a manner of speaking, of course, since the saying assumes the devil exists.

“There’s another bedroom available. You can rest there,” the captain suggested, stretched out on the sofa without opening his eyes. “I’ll keep watch.”

“I’m used to this. There’s no need,” the cripple answered, leaning back on the recliner and shutting his eyes, as well.

“As you like,” the captain replied. “Any news?”

“Not yet,” he said, nothing more. He forced his knee to flex. It seemed to ache more and more. Some days the pain interfered with his thinking. At least today was not one of them. He’d had to live with this pressing, permanent, implacable problem for almost a year.

“I’m worried,” the captain confessed with his eyes still closed. It was evident he couldn’t sleep. His daughter never left his thoughts, his daughter and his wife.

“You’re not helping anything with that,” the other said harshly. “You can only hope.”

“She should have spoken with my contact.” He opened his eyes and sat up with the blanket covering his legs.

“Don’t start talking about that,” the cripple interrupted. Raul’s mere mention of the contact provoked so much anger he forgot the pain that punished his leg.

“I understand your anger. Believe me, I understand, but this time we’re on the same side,” Raul tried to explain.

“Don’t talk nonsense. We’ll never be on the same side,” the cripple shot back.

“There is only one side,” they heard a voice say, “mine.”

They both looked in the direction of the voice and saw JC in a bathrobe, next to the door of the bedroom. He was leaning on his cane and walking toward the sofa, where Raul made room for him at his side.

“Can’t you sleep?” he asked Raul.

“I’m not the only one.” The military man looked at the cripple.

“Him? He seems awake, but he’s sleeping,” JC said, leaning on the cane.

The cripple made no response. He continued with eyes closed, stretched on the recliner, aware of the inside and outside. His capacity for keeping watch was amazing.

“Your wife hasn’t reacted well.”

“How could she?” Raul sighed. “If someone told you your daughter’s in danger, how would you feel?”

“I don’t have children. Family is a weakness,” he said coldly.

“You believe that?” Raul looked at him, horrified. Without descendants, without family, there was no humanity.

“Has it never crossed your mind that without us this world would be paradise?”

Raul didn’t answer. Now he understood why JC had no respect for human life. He considered it dispensable, unless it had some momentary utility. Only his side mattered.

“Who’s shown the courage to make the terrible JC, assassin of John Paul the First, flee?”

“Oh, my friend. Don’t attribute crimes to me that history doesn’t consider such.”

“We all know history is made by daring.” Raul returned to the attack.

“It’s what we have and what we respect,” he deliberated calmly. Raul’s words hadn’t upset him, if that was their intention. “In regard to your question, we are dealing with an unfavorable strategic combination, nothing more.”

“When you put it like that, it seems simple.”

“And it is. Consider, yesterday’s allies are today’s enemies. That’s the way the world works. There are thousands of examples in history to illustrate this, and you don’t have to look back far.”