The eye of the lion

The young Indian entered the vestibule of the “Claudius” hotel, in Rome, and walked quickly towards the reception desk. His face showed the signs of the sleeplessness and stress that he had surrendered to for several months now. He was wearing a long grey coat which felt strange to him and made him seem as though he were looking for someone.

He arrived at the counter and a plump pale man with a kind face and very little hair recognized him.

“Doctor! How nice to see you again. It’s been so many days that I thought something must have happened to you. Seeing you haven’t returned to your room, well... Not because of the account, of course, seeing as you pay six months in advance and everything, but because...”

“Excuse me,” Vajpayee interrupted him impatiently, trying to smile. “I’m in rather a hurry. I came to see if a packet had arrived for me.”

The fat employee smiled as he cleared his throat and searched beneath the counter.

“Yes, of course doctor, let me check. Ah yes... here it is, they brought this envelope yesterday.”

He brought out a Fed-Ex envelope from beneath the counter and held it out. Vajpayee took it nervously and put it inside his coat.

“Thank you.”

He turned and walked away. The fat man barely managed to ask him before he left,

“We’re here to serve you Doctor, and uh... Can I send someone to clean your room? Doctor?... Doctor?”

But the Indian didn’t hear him.

He left the hotel and walked down the wide avenue to a beautiful illuminated fountain which was deserted at that hour. The night was cold and the moon was shining like a huge silver coin in the firmament.

He sat down on a bench and opened the envelope. He took a new cell-phone out of it and looked at it for a moment. He checked his watch and waited. One minute later, the cell-phone rang and the young man answered it. The voice on the other end spoke confidently into his ear.

“Beautiful night, don’t you think, Doctor?”

Vajpayee started a little.

“How do you know?” He looked around discreetly. “Are you

in Rome?”

“Sadly no, as I adore that city, but let’s say I have eyes very near you, my brilliant friend. I have to protect my interests.”

Vajpayee stood up.

“We urgently have to talk!”

“How are things going with Monsignor?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about!” said the Indian, worked-up. “I want to know what’s going on! You didn’t tell me that...”

“My young friend...” the voice on the telephone interrupted him. “If you had known everything from the start, your performance with Monsignor Voquessi would not have been genuine, and the old fox might have suspected something. But everything’s turned out fine. Not only are you a genius, but also a magnificent actor.”

“What the devil are you talking about?!” asked the young man, gesturing wildly and pacing around the fountain. “Performance? I’m shocked! Where the hell did you get those samples?! Do you know the implications of the analysis?”

“My young friend...” the voice cut in. “All that will seem like nothing to you compared to what you will see in our next

interview. For a start, check your bank balance tonight. You will see that there’s a new deposit of five hundred thousand dollars. Your work with the Vatican is finished.”

“Finished? What are you talking about?! I still have a lot of work to do, analyses, tests, a complete report to draw up, and...”

“Write your report and present it to Voquessi as soon as possible. That’s all the man needs, a document signed by a reputable scientist that endorses his sacred relic and his arguments. As soon as he has it in his hands, he will no longer need you. That could be bad.”

Vajpayee took a few restless paces and sat down on the bench again. He rubbed his face with his hand and sighed.

“But the samples... I won’t be able to continue examining them, I won’t be able to take any of them out of the laboratory...” he lamented.

The voice on the telephone laughed.

“My brilliant friend! Don’t cry over a handful of hair. Trust me. Write that report and be done with it. I have something for you that’s a thousand times bigger than a few strands of hair.”

The Indian fell silent for a moment. He had a hundred

things spinning in his mind and he wanted to know more, but before he could speak the voice cut in.

“Now, dial 666 on your telephone, toss it, and go to sleep. Tomorrow your mind will be clear enough to write that report. We’ll be in touch.”

Immediately, the dial tone purred.

The Nobel prize winner in biology took the phone away from his ear and hung up. He stayed there, sitting on the bench for several minutes, pensive. Then he stood up, dialed 666 on the phone, and threw it into some bushes close to the fountain.

While he walked away, he pondered the mysterious, almost impossible qualities of that hair which defied his vast knowledge on the tiniest particles of life; which challenged his incredible IQ and his prodigious intuition, and even his instinct, arousing in him that feeling of profound frustration at not being able to even scratch the surface of the enigma.

He also thought of the money, while he got into a taxi. That money which would do so much good in that humble, distant town of his where many of his brothers and sisters, friends and relatives were dying of hunger in terrible misery. How much good he could do now with that small fortune!

And so, while the taxi drove off into the foggy cold night, Shailesh Vajpayee closed his eyes, deep in thought, unable to

hear from that distance the sizzling of the cell-phone melting in the bushes behind the fountain.

Thousands of miles away, Waiss was smiling as he looked at the phone he’d just hung up. He swivelled his leather chair towards the window and looked at the far-off lights and torches of the refinery. That grey metal monster which in its eternal working-day of 24 hours refined the country’s life-blood, and whose arteries and veins ran beneath Netgen itself, nourishing it on its way.

But he wasn’t thinking about those details just then. He was thinking about Marina, about the child, about what he would soon set in motion with the help of the Indian genius and about the glorious days which would follow.

He was also thinking about the poor naïve old man at the Vatican, that miserable egomaniac who without realizing it had financed his most marvelous dream, and who at that moment was shaking the world with incredible news which would get him nowhere.

He suddenly looked at his watch, and remembered the dinner that night with the Colombian. But there was still time. He shifted in his comfortable chair and relaxed, closing his eyes. His fingers touched a button on the arm-rest of the chair and some soft jazz music started up in his office, relaxing him.

Waiss began to think of tomorrow.