Island of the Assassin

By Joseph Roccasalvo

Island of the Assassin is about two kinds of silence in conflict. A covert killer, Kai Landrie, contracted by the CIA to target Islamic terrorists, develops moral scruples. He shares his doubts in confession with Peter Quince, a priest, who gets renditioned for receiving classified information. The result: two unconditional secreciessacred and profanetragically collide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514470930

Joseph Roccasalvo

A native New Yorker, Joseph Roccasalvo followed his graduate degrees in philosophy, English literature, and theology with a Harvard PhD in comparative religion and a specialty in Buddhism. He has lived and taught in Boston, Bangkok, and Chicago. For over ten years in New York City, he was a professor of religious studies at Fordham University´s Bronx and Lincoln Center campuses. He was also a visiting professor of Buddhism at Columbia University in New York City and Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland. Now engaged in graduate school mentoring, he is also a fiction writer. He has published five novels: Fire in a Windless Place, Chartreuse, Portrait of a Woman, The Odor of Sanctity, and The Devil’s Interval. Two novellas, The Powers That Be and Beyond the Pale were printed as Double Entendre. There followed three books of short stories: Outward Signs, The Mansions of Limbo, and Triple Sec. Two solo performances, Waging Waugh and Gospel Limericks, appeared as Two for One and were followed by a memoir, As It Were. Two further novellas have been published: Island of the Assassin and Alina in Ecstasy. These novellas were followed by a book of poetry, Poems for Two Violins, and the collected short stories, Twists of Faith. He has guided students in journalism and international studies at The New School for Social Research and has contributed essays to the New School’s newspaper in his online column, A Word to the Wise.

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Copyright © 2016 by Joseph Roccasalvo.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2016903354

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-7095-4

      Softcover      978-1-5144-7094-7

      eBook   978-1-5144-7093-0

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Rev. date: 03/01/2016

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Contents

Acknowledgments

i

ii

iii

iv

v

For

Peter Gilmour

Acknowledgments

T his novel would not have been possible without the help of Trevor Ulbrick and Paul Hidalgo. Their knowledge of U.S. foreign policy freed the plot from improbability.

Peter Quince, Titus Rede, Selena Bharati, and Kai Landrie are all fictional. No other character is drawn from any person, living or dead.

Our interest lies on the dangerous edge of things:

The honest thief, the tender murderer,

The superstitious atheist …

We watch while these in equilibrium keep

The giddy line midway.

Bishop Blougram’s Apology

i

I ’m hired to kill, but I never murder.

You still decide who dies.

But also who lives. I trample down death by death.

Kai’s words came from the Easter hymn of the Orthodox Church. There was no reason why the tranquil sea reminded Peter of them as he sat in Aldo’s villa. It was not what you might call an ordinary conversation, speaking to an assassin. But it was one of many that allowed him entry into Kai’s complex mind: a labyrinth of corridors opening out on rooms leading to other corridors and other rooms. He searched for a pattern and found none—the contrasts were too violent. How could Peter reconcile a mystic with a killer’s instinct?

That conversation with Kai Landrie resulted from one a year earlier while vacationing at Villa d’Este on Lake Como. Peter had vowed not to start anything new unless he was driven by an irresistible premise, a what-if that left him in hot pursuit. For now he was resting his imagination lakeside from its feverish pitch. His reasoning was clear. He had finished a thriller called The Thirteenth Floor and edited hundreds of galleys before leaving New York. The cover design was approved; the confirmation, mailed. Two weeks remained before the hardback arrived—two weeks before the readings, signings, and overheated reviews. Meanwhile, he had fourteen days to float in an infinity pool of leisure and do nothing in five languages.

Then Peter met Aldo Bandini. Aldo was a childless widower in his seventies whose family was rich in Renaissance history. He was alone at the villa, but his meals with Peter were uncannily timed. Noting the overlap in schedule, he approached Peter at breakfast and introduced himself. There began a shared holiday. Peter handed him a business card, which Aldo studied like a philatelist a rare stamp. The name was letterpressed against indigo blue.

Peter Quince? Aldo said, his voice rising with curiosity. Isn’t he a character in Shakespeare? He also appears in a poem by Wallace Stevens.

You’re right on both counts. Wrong in thinking the name’s mine. My family name is Alvárez. My father’s name was Pedro. He was the last child of my paternal grandmother. In fifteen pregnancies, she miscarried several times. My father was fifteenth and survived. His nickname was Pedro Quince. I anglicized it to Peter Quince. My last name is the fruit, not the number. And yours, Aldo? Does Bandini have any quirks?

I’m baptized Lorenzo Aldobandini. But everybody calls me Aldo. My name is too long for non-Italians. Aldo Bandini glides off the tongue.

What do you do? Peter asked.

I’m a retired watchmaker. I started with pocket watches and then moved to wristwatches. Both had what are called complications. I handmade each part to the last blue screw until my eyesight grew bad. And yourself, Peter?

I’m a priest helping out in the local parish. I’m also a fiction writer. My sermons and novels are known for twists and turns. I keep the surprise till the end.

I’m happy you work with complications. Priest and novelist meet the demand. I view you as a protégé in another direction.

At breakfast the following week, Aldo pressed Peter on his double role.

Don’t you find it difficult to move from priest to writer? You’re always changing hats. One is religious. The other, worldly.

Not any more than going from a pocket- to a wristwatch. They both have something in common. They’re timepieces with extra functions. The same mechanical skills are involved. It’s like that for me.

How does priesthood help your writing?

In both cases, I work with parables. You’ll find them in the great religions as teaching tools. They’re short, snappy stories about real life meant to express universal truths. My novels have this in common. Characters face a moral dilemma, make questionable choices, and suffer the consequences till they get it right. I try to amuse, but the intent is serious. I like to think my books are about how to live. They guide as they entertain. I call them thrillers not because the spiritual life is thrilling—which it is. They keep you on edge with twists in the plots. You’re unsure what happens next. Come to think of it, it’s the way I view life—living at the edge.

Is there a truth you return to so they say about you what they say about me, ‘Aldo Bandini made this. It has the mark of his workmanship’? My watchcase gives me away.

Providence is my watchcase. It’s the context in which things happen. There’s an exquisite timing to events. What looks like coincidence is providence acting anonymously. My characters grasp it late, but some never do. They die ignorant.

I’d like to read one of your books. Which do you suggest?

"You might like The Thirteenth Floor."

Does it have a plot?

Yes. Some architects come together to form the Thirteen Club. They want to debunk the superstition that just as death results with thirteen people at table, so living on the thirteenth floor prompts the same outcome. The architects refuse to skip from twelve to fourteen to be commercially viable.

Do they act on their belief?

Yes. After their first building goes up and tenants move in to the thirteenth floor, tragedy strikes.

Like what?

You see, Aldo? You’re hooked. You want to turn the page. It proves my point. Curiosity is everything. It makes watches and novels. The more complications, the greater the appeal.

You haven’t said what happens.

I’ll send you a copy.

One morning at Villa d’Este, Peter noticed a brochure on the desk rack. It was lost in a litter of spa offerings, bus tours, and lunch menus. What caught his eye was the embossed shield of Villa La Massa, a Medici residence a stone’s throw from Florence. He lifted the brochure and flipped through the photos: frescoes and stone, wood and terracotta, coffered ceilings and sumptuous marble. By the time he reached the terrace overlooking the Arno, he was smitten. He was Romeo watching Juliet move through a crowd of admirers. Wherever she went, he craned his eyes to follow. How astonishing, Peter thought, to fall in love with a villa. The next day at breakfast, Peter shared his reaction with Aldo.

You can’t be serious.

But I am, Aldo. I plan to test this attraction. I won’t know if it’s real till I see the villa in person.

What do you mean ‘in person’? It’s not a woman. It’s a deluxe hotel. Italy is filled with them.

This one’s unique. Something more is going on.

Like what?

If you knew the villa’s story, Aldo, you’d realize the family is still in possession.

What family?

The Medicis.

I know who they are. I trace my lineage back to Pellegrina, the daughter of Grand Duchess Bianca. Both were assassinated. The daughter was stabbed and strangled. The mother, poisoned. Her husband too. The Medicis died out three centuries later.

Not in my imagination.

Throughout his stay, Peter returned to the villa’s brochure. He was enthralled despite the dubious history. Something literary had gestated and was ready to be born. He resembled a man who, weeks into a friendship, realizes he’s fallen in love. Sensual attraction and admiration were directed toward the villa as to a beloved woman. He felt the range of romantic engagement: the joy of her company, the eagerness to please, the interest in her words, the hope of a shared future. Together he imagined it, him and the villa, when he found they cherished each other. I’ve played out every domestic bliss: the laughter that’s become more frequent, the joys more intense, and the compromises more sweet till they’ve nurtured an awareness that it’s not I but the villa that prompts this devotion. In her hospitality, I catch the attentive voice and listen for it joyously. In her servants, I see the gaze spilling over to the corner of their eyes. I’ve discovered the villa as one discovers a woman one has lived with week out and week in: her refinement, her generosity of spirit, and the spontaneity of her charm. Villa La Massa is clothed in enchantment now, and I know her as the companion to whom I’ve joined myself in a moment of wisdom.

Peter’s connection was so intense that one afternoon while napping he heard himself speaking in a woman’s voice. She was narrating a Grimm’s fairy tale. Once upon a time, I dreamt I