“Where did you see her?” Michael asked as he pulled up a map of Heathrow.
“She was about to board a plane, exactly opposite the gate where I arrived, but I didn’t look at what the sign said.”
“Which gate did you arrive at, and when?”
“Gate 53, at pretty much exactly two o’clock.”
After a couple of key strokes and mouse clicks, Michael said, “Opposite gate 53 we have … gate 65. You said she was about to board?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now all we have to do is check which flight left from gate 65 shortly after 2 p.m.” Michael punched more keys. “And here we go. BA flight 556 left from gate 65 at Terminal 5 at 2:21 p.m.”
“So where did it go?” Ginger asked.
Michael stared at the screen for a moment. Then he looked at us.
“Rome.”
* * *
It was a revelation that made us all scratch our heads. What the hell was Julian doing in Rome? And why had he been taken there? We needed more pieces to put the puzzle together. After half an hour of hacking into the Italian mobile grid, Michael managed to locate Julian’s phone in Rome. Not just anywhere in Rome but in Vatican City. And not just anywhere in Vatican City but at St Peter’s Basilica.
Very slowly, a picture began to emerge. When Julian had returned to England, someone from MMC had started following him, and when his coach crashed on the M1, they took their chance. They grabbed him, put him on a plane and took him to the Vatican, the new residency of MMC’s former CEO, the new Pope, Pius XIII. There could be little doubt that Julian had been taken to the Vatican against his will. That made a lot of sense to me, because whenever me mum had taken us to the Vatican, it had always been against me will, too. The Pope had effectively had Julian kidnapped, and none of us thought that this could have meant anything good; not after Julian’s recent crusade against religion in general and Christianity in particular. Our only glimpse of hope stemmed from the fact that Mrs Monk had travelled to Rome, which probably meant that Maddock’s people had told her where Julian was, which meant that they were probably not planning to kill him. At least not right away.
Michael the amazing kid hacker couldn’t only track Julian’s phone. Now that he had located it, he could also switch it on and off, so we could have just given him a ring and asked him, ‘Oi, Jules, what the hell is going on?’ but Michael didn’t want to do that. He said it was too dangerous as long as we didn’t know exactly what was going on.
“We don’t even know if Julian is still carrying his mobile around with him. They might have taken it away from him. I really don’t want to call his mobile and have a member of the Swiss Guard answer it, because it would blow our only advantage: they don’t know that we know where Julian is.”
“So what are we going to do then?” I asked.
Michael didn’t answer. But after a long while of staring at his computer monitor with one finger on his lips, he suddenly started punching his keyboard like a madman, as if he’d just come up with an ingenious idea. It turned out he had.
“What are you doing, Michael?” Ginger asked.
“Ordering pizza,” he said. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday. You guys want anything?”
Now that’s a question nobody ever had to ask me twice, and after a week of raw fish Ginger felt that she could do with some real food as well. So Michael ordered pizza and fizzy drinks for us all.
While we were waiting for the pizza man to arrive, Michael kept hacking into Julian’s phone, and he finally managed to access the microphone. The sound it picked up was very distant, very faint. It almost sounded as if Julian was carrying his mobile in his pocket, which quite frankly is a perfectly reasonable place to carry one’s mobile. Michael tweaked the microphone settings a bit, but as long as Julian—or whoever had his phone—didn’t do any talking, it was difficult to say whether the audio was getting better or worse. All we could hear was some unidentifiable background noise.
The pizza man came and went, we ate our pizzas and drank our fizzy drinks, and then Michael went to have a shower after Ginger had told him that he smelled funny. Michael had been upstairs for a few minutes, and Ginger was telling me about her trip to Tokyo, when suddenly, very faintly, we heard music and voices singing. Ginger jumped up from her seat, walked over to the computer and turned up the volume. The audio quality still wasn’t very good, so we couldn’t really hear what they were singing, but it sounded like a church choir.
“Michael!” Ginger shouted. “We need you down here!”
A few moments later Michael came running down the stairs wearing only pants, no shoes, no socks, no shirt, and his hair was still dripping wet. He heard the choir singing from the loudspeakers, and without saying a word he sat down, and after a few mouse clicks and punching a couple of keys, the singing became a lot clearer, but it still sounded rather far away. After more mouse clicks and key punching, Michael pulled up a map of St Peter’s.
“It’s six o’clock in Rome,” he said. “Evening mass at St Peter’s. But wherever Julian is, he’s not in the same room as the choir.”
“If he’s still alive.”
Michael shot me a look. He clearly didn’t appreciate me reminding us of a worst case scenario that, for all I knew, was still possible.
He kept pulling up more maps of Vatican City and St Peter’s, trying to find detailed floor maps in order to come up with a more sophisticated theory as to where Julian might be. And then, all of a sudden we heard a noise that seemed to be all the more closer to Julian’s mobile than the choir was. It started as a faint moaning sound, and then somebody coughed and finally spoke.
“Hello?”
It was Julian.
“Is somebody there?”
I couldn’t hold back my excitement. I leaned towards the computer. “Oi, Julian! It’s us!”
Michael looked at me. “He can’t hear you, Tummy. This phone bug is a one way street.”
“Oh.”
“Pshhhh!” Ginger hissed. “Somebody’s coming.”
We heard a door open and close, and steps approaching.
“Why hello, young man,” an unfamiliar voice with an American accent said. “How are we feeling today?”
“Where am I?” Julian asked.
“You’re at the Vatican.”
“Why?”
“You’ve had an accident. Your coach crashed, don’t you remember? Would you like anything to eat or drink?”
“No, I would like to know why I’m here.”
“Don’t worry, Julian. Everything will be explained to you shortly. I shall now notify your mother that you’re awake, I’m sure you’ll want to see her.”
“My mum is here?”
“Why of course she is. She was worried about you. She’ll be very relieved to hear that you’re awake. She’s having dinner with your manager at the moment.”
“Peter is here?”
“Of course he is.”
“And who are you?” Julian asked.
“My name is Edward Pickle. You can call me Ed. I shall leave you alone now. You need to rest.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ed.”
There was a brief pause before Mr. Ed replied with a whiff of annoyance in his voice. “Just Ed.”
The door opened and closed again, and then there was silence.
“Holy shit,” Michael said. “No pun intended.”
Ginger looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Once again Michael punched some keys on his computer and pulled up a file on the man whose voice we’d just heard.
“Edward Pickle,” he said. “Former PR consultant and spokesperson for Robert Maddock. He took over as CEO of MMC when Maddock was elected Pope, although I’m inclined to think that Pickle is really just a straw man, and that Maddock is still calling the shots.”
“So what are we gonna do? We need to get him out of there, don’t we? I mean, he’s been kidnapped and being held against his will while the whole world still thinks he’s dead! We have to tell them. Shouldn’t we just get on
Inside Momoko
and tell people what happened?”
Michael raised his hand. “Hang on a second, something’s happening.”
There was a noise coming from Julian’s mobile. It sounded as if Julian was getting out of his bed and walking across the room, with bare feet on a wooden floor, approaching his mobile and picking it up. A few moments later Michael’s phone rang.
“You’d think he’d call his mum first,” he said and lowered the volume of the loudspeakers to avoid audio feedback. Then he answered the phone. “Jules! Talk to me.”
“What’s going on?” Julian asked.
“Well, you tell us. Tummy and Ginger are here with me. You’re on speakerphone.”
“Hi, Tummy and Ginger.”
“Hi, Julian.”
“Hey, Jules.”
“Listen, Julian,” Michael said, “we just overheard your conversation with Mr Ed. Do you know who he is?”
“I have no idea.”
“He used to be Robert Maddock’s right hand at MMC, and he took over the company when Maddock turned all popey.”
“What do they want from me?” Julian asked.
“I don’t know, but you’ve been pissing off a lot of religious folks recently, so don’t expect them to give you a medal. Now listen to me, Jules. I need you to stay calm and just play along with whatever is going to happen. Your mum is nearby so you’re probably not in any immediate danger.”
“Have you talked to my mum?”
“No, but Ginger saw her board a plane to Rome yesterday, so Mr Ed probably wasn’t lying when he said she’s there.”
“Right, okay.”
“Listen, Jules,” Michael continued. “Something really fishy is going on here. We’re on our way to get you out of there, okay? Just stay put and keep your eyes and ears open for now. Oh, and make sure to keep your mobile with you at all times so I know where you are, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good man! I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Hang on,” Julian said. “How are our downloads going? Are we still making money?”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me! Is that really what’s on your mind right now?”
“Actually it’s the only reason I called.”
Michael shook his head, trying not to smile. “Don’t worry, Jules. You’re a millionaire. We all are. I have to go now. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
Michael put down his phone and looked at Ginger and me. “That boy is driving me insane.”
Ginger shrugged. “What else is new?”
“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.
“You, Tummy, are going to call your girlfriend and offer her an exclusive news story. Tell her we need her. Cameraron and Audiomike as well. They’re going to Rome with us first thing tomorrow morning. I’m going to book our tickets, and then I’m off to bed. I haven’t slept in 40 hours.”
The Gospel According to Michael – 17
We arrived in Rome at around noon the next day. At the airport we rented a truck, because Cameraron and Audiomike had brought a ton of video and audio equipment that we needed for our top secret undercover mission. We checked into a hotel not far away from Vatican City and settled in.
In the evening we were sitting in our hotel room, having pizza and red wine, and we were looking at Julian on the screen of my laptop. He had joined us via Skype, because technically he was still missing—and presumed dead by many—so we didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to walk around the streets of Rome, a city where he was even better known than at most other places around the world. Not to mention the fact that the Swiss Guard probably wouldn’t have let him out of St Peter’s anyway.
After MINDY had checked Julian’s room for radio frequencies and found no bugs, and I had made sure that we were on a secure connection, Julian told us what had happened.
“We left Liverpool late at night. There were people of all ages on our coach, children, pensioners, and everything in between. Tholen and I took our seats near the back of the bus. Next to us, on the other side of the aisle, there was a couple in their late sixties. They recognized me right away. The woman asked me if I was Julian Monk. Tholen immediately tried to shield me from them. ‘No autographs,’ he said. He had picked up that nasty habit in America where people had been pestering me left, right and centre all the time. I pushed him back into his seat and told him to shut up. They didn’t want my autograph. They just wanted to tell me that they were Christian but they hadn’t been to church in over twenty years. But if I were to open a church, the woman told me, they’d come to mass every Sunday. Now I wonder if they made it out alive.”
“I think they did,” I said. “There was this old lady on TV. They interviewed her in hospital after the accident. She told the exact same story. She and her husband got away with three broken limbs between them. But they’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Julian’s face lighted up with a smile. “That’s so good to know.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, our trip down the M1 was uneventful. It was the middle of the night, and most people were sleeping. I had been looking out of the window at cars passing us in the pouring rain for the first hundred miles until I dozed off as well. And then we veered off the road, apparently. It was horrendous. Just imagine it. You’re sitting there sound asleep, and then you suddenly wake up because something’s wrong. The people around you notice it too. You’re falling. You’re tumbling towards death, and the last thing that you will ever experience in your life is the screaming of other people. Do you guys have any idea what that felt like?”