by Scott Baker
‘I know it was created to send people back through time to record interviews with historical figures,’ David spat out. Saying it out loud would have sounded ridiculous in any other situation, but Giovanni didn’t laugh.
‘Good. Yes, that is correct. Do you know why?’
‘Why?’ David baulked. He had not really thought about why. ‘I didn’t think that sort of question needed an answer. Money? Who wouldn’t want to see an interview with Da Vinci, or Mozart, or Hitler or … Jesus?’
‘Perhaps,’ the Italian sat back. ‘I used to think it was money, but you are right, an interview with Jesus is not something you could sell, you could not keep it quiet. I think it’s some other reason.’ Giovanni paused and took a long sip of his coffee.
‘The late Holy Father, Nicholas II, commissioned me to be his chief liaison officer with an organisation we knew as The Society for World Historical Accuracy. I reported to the Holy Father directly and no one, I mean no one, knew about this commission. A person in my position is not questioned about their use of funds and resources and so for several years I facilitated many of the Vatican’s dealings with The Society.’
‘Facilitated?’ Shaun cut in. ‘Past tense? You don’t do that anymore?’
‘I don’t do that anymore,’ he echoed. ‘When I say no one knew, I mean it. Cardinal Joseph Müller, the current Pope, was one of Nicholas’s closest aides, but even he had no idea. When the Holy Father passed away in 2005, I was cut off. Müller found some files relating to the project and commissioned an inquiry. The cardinal in charge of this inquiry is a Frenchman named Le Clerque.’ Giovanni took another sip of his coffee before he continued. ‘This man followed the trail and uncovered some of what was happening. Ultimately this led him to me. I spoke with him and, well …’ He trailed off.
‘What?’ David pressed.
‘Le Clerque is a fanatic who dishonours our faith. He has – other agendas. He has deceived the Holy Father; he told Müller that The Society was nothing more than a sermon the late Holy Father had been working on.’
‘So, why didn’t you tell Müller what was going on?’
‘Why didn’t I? Our Holy Father Müller, Pope Pius as you know him, is a great man of unshakable faith and passionate conviction. But Pius is not the same person Nicholas was; he is a scholar. If I were to go against his official inquiry, saying that Le Clerque is a liar, that he is plotting to misuse Vatican resources for his own political gain, and that for years I had been working on building a time machine to interview Christ on the behest of our dead Pope … If I were to say all these things, bring these accusations, all without proof? Without infallible, undeniable proof, proof that would shake the Pope of his convictions? Well, I would be …’ again, the priest let the sentence trail off.
David and Shaun both slowly began to get the picture. Even with the diary, combined with the run of strange events and the disc from France, they both still doubted. If they told anyone, people would think them mad. If Giovanni had told anyone this absurd story, especially in the Vatican, he would not only lose credibility, but he would offend many powerful people to their core. Shaun could almost hear the echoing cries of ‘blasphemy’ being shouted down the halls.
‘And if you’d pursued your allegations,’ Shaun speculated, ‘you would have had to prove them, which would mean revealing all the secret work you’d been doing, which would mean defeating the purpose of keeping it secret, which would mean revealing the technology …’
‘Which would lead to time-travel chaos,’ David finished.
Giovanni sat back again, impressed. ‘So, you at least understand a little of where I am coming from.’ He finished his coffee and waved the waiter down for another.
‘Now, as I was saying. I find myself in a delicate situation. I no longer speak on behalf of the Vatican in this matter, and have lost access to my liaison at The Society, although I’m working on that. I still control a Vatican intelligence team, but none of the contacts I dealt with regarding the work for The Society knows who I am. They knew me only by my code name, a code name and identity assumed now by Le Clerque.
‘He has changed all the passwords and access codes that I established. I was a fool for not doing so the instant the Holy Father passed on from us.’
Shaun and David both absorbed what they were hearing as the incredible truth finally hit home. The Vatican. The Vatican knew about, and for all they knew, had instigated, The Journalist Project. And now, they had lost control. With the death of Pope Nicholas II in 2005, control had been wrested from its master’s grasp.
‘Okay,’ David said slowly. ‘What do I have to do with this?’
‘Tell me, Mr Black,’ Giovanni said with an amused smile, ‘how did you get involved in this in the first place?’
‘You want the player,’ Shaun said matter-of-factly. ‘You want the player to take to the Pope to prove your allegations without revealing your sources.’
‘Very good, Mr …?’
‘Strickland,’ Shaun said, not seeing any point in lying. Giovanni paused for a moment as if he had heard the name before. ‘My name is Shaun Strickland.’
‘Mr Strickland, you are very astute. I need to convince the Holy Father not only that The Journalist Project exists, but also that Le Clerque has plans to control it for his own gain. I have intelligence that suggests he has planted at least two agents into the program, although we don’t know who yet.’
‘Delissio and Barishnikov,’ Shaun said flatly. David winced, uncomfortable about giving away all their cards, but Shaun was simply amazed as the pieces fit into place.
Giovanni’s bushy eyebrows shot up. He fixed Shaun with a look that didn’t falter even as he thanked the waiter for his fourth coffee that morning.
When they were again alone he said, ‘Well, Mr Strickland. It seems you have some knowledge about our situation. I don’t suppose you would care to share where you got the names of Journalist Project agents?’
‘No, not really,’ Shaun replied.
‘Mr Strickland, I have to admit, I don’t know anything about you. I do not know where you have come from, or what your role in this is, but for you to have such information means that you have access to something that we do not. What is it that you want, Mr Strickland? What is your part in this?’
‘What do I want?’ Shaun asked, leaning forward. ‘I’ll tell you what I want: I want my wife back. I want to catch the assholes responsible for her death and squeeze their nuts in a vice, then I want to tie them to a stump in the desert, tear their eyelids off and watch the sun boil their eyeballs.’
Giovanni raised his hand. David cowered at Shaun’s apparent lack of respect for a man of the cloth. When the old Italian priest spoke, however, it was not with malice.
‘I am sorry for your loss. May her soul rest with God.’
‘Don’t talk to me about God,’ Shaun spat.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’m afraid it’s what I do. I talk about God. What I am interested in, however, is how you knew the names of two of the agents.’
Shaun said nothing, again a little heated from his outburst, his emotions at breaking point. The priest changed tact.
‘What about you, Mr Black? What is it that you want? You travelled here on the promise of information about another disc. Why is it that you want one of these discs?’
David thought for a moment. ‘I was commissioned to crack an encryption. Something so advanced it was like finding a television in the middle of a caveman’s house,’ he said, getting proud of his analogies. ‘The minute I cracked the algorithm, I was fired. They fired me just like that and tried to kill me. I guess I want two things. I want to stop fearing for my life, to stop running and hiding; and I want to meet the person who invented that encryption. I want to meet the genius who makes me feel like I’m in kindergarten. If you have another disc, I thought you might know something about where that algorithm came from.’
‘Aliens,’ Giovanni said with a stern face. For a long moment no one spoke. Th
en, like a balloon bursting, he exploded with laughter.
‘Ha! My friends, I jest!’ The priest’s mouth sprang wide as his eyes wrinkled. ‘Aliens! Ha! You should see your faces! Ha haaa!’ His hysterics began to infect Shaun as he started to chuckle. Giovanni continued to laugh as David stared ahead with a look of confusion and horror. He turned to stare as Shaun who had now fully opened the floodgates joined in with Giovanni’s boisterous howls.
‘That’s not funny,’ David said as he realised he was the brunt of the joke. ‘That’s not funny!’ he repeated. ‘How can that be funny!??’
‘Aliens!’ was all Shaun could say as he laughed uncontrollably slapping David on the back. People began to stare, but they could not stop. Before long, he too was beginning to chuckle and then broke out into an embarrassing snort-laugh that made the other two laugh even harder.
PART 2
SAILING UPWIND
‘Brother can you spare me food, and give me a drink of wine?
I’ve been travelling on this road, for such a long, long time.
I have seen the wonders, but most amazing of them all,
I believe I’ve seen the face of the risen Lord.’
‘The Risen Lord’, Christopher Davison
CHAPTER 41
For the first time in minutes it seemed, he breathed. When he did, it was only short, sharp intakes as each new moment amazed him more than the last. Vincenso Giovanni removed the 3-D optical glasses in silence. He had not realised he was holding his breath. He folded the glasses and placed them on the table, then looked around. He was still in the hotel room. The two men who were staying here sat around the circular wooden table, watching him expectantly.
When Giovanni spoke, it wasn’t what either of the Americans had expected to hear.
‘I will give you five million dollars for this device,’ the priest said, as if making an announcement.
Shaun and David didn’t know how to respond.
‘Five million,’ the priest repeated. ‘American, of course.’
Shaun and David paused a moment to make sure they had heard correctly. Then Shaun spoke up.
‘The player is not for sale.’
There was a long pause.
‘Ten million,’ the Italian said, then sat back, waiting. After another lengthy silence, he smiled. ‘Gentlemen, I jest!’ he said, letting out a short laugh. The two other men in the room released a collective sigh.
‘Fifteen,’ he said then, with a deadly serious face.
Shaun and David looked at each other in confusion.
‘Ah, you’re still joking, right?’
The Italian waited a moment, then laughed again. To break the uncomfortably long silence that followed, Shaun got to the point.
‘So, what do you make of it?’ he asked as the Italian got up and helped himself to the room’s mini-bar.
‘What do I make of it? Ha! What do I make of it?’ The priest sat back down and took a long pull on the cocktail of brandy, whisky and Baileys he had poured into a single glass. Then, without warning, he began to cry.
Shaun’s head didn’t move as his eyes slid sideways to David. The cardinal was visibly shaken, but Shaun soon realised that the tears were not those of someone who was upset.
‘What do I make of it?’ Giovanni repeated again. ‘You say you invented this?’ he turned to David.
‘I … ah, did,’ he stammered. All at once Giovanni leaped out of his seat and threw his arms around the software engineer, embracing him in a joyful bear hug that took David completely off guard. It was all David could do to return an awkward squeeze. With tears streaming down his face, Giovanni kissed David on the cheek.
‘Okay! That’s about enough of that!’ David said.
‘My dear boy,’ Giovanni spoke through sniffles, ‘do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you know what you have created?’ The priest released his hold and sat back, gripping David by both shoulders. ‘You have completed the path. You have made it possible. They told me it would come, but to be honest, I didn’t believe it. I have had the best scientists in the world working on that encryption for the better part of nine years, and no one has even come close. Almost all of them said there was no data on the disc. I knew that couldn’t be true, not with what The Society has helped us achieve. You have given us a chance.’
‘You’ve got a disc?’ Shaun asked, suddenly realising that there was a very real possibility the whole thing was a trap.
‘Got a disc?’ Vincenso Giovanni echoed, turning to face him. ‘Mr Strickland, I am the man responsible for their manufacture.’
Shaun’s pupils dilated to let in more light. It was the only response his body could give while he tried to take in what he had just heard. Before he could ask his first question, however, David launched into a stream of his own.
‘You make them? How can you make them and not know what’s on them? Where do you make them? Who knows about this? Who’s the man in charge? Who invented them?’
Giovanni, still beaming with delight, held up his hand. ‘One at a time, my boy. One at a time. The how is not important, because what you have given us here today is the ability to see the why!’ Giovanni sat back in his chair and took a deep breath.
‘As I have told you, I had much responsibility over the organisation and facilitation of this project on behalf of the Holy Father, may God rest his soul. I designated tasks, many seemingly random to those involved, and brought the components of the operation together – well, from the Vatican’s end anyway.
‘The manufacture of the discs was outsourced to a company in Syria, a small group of men who were able to access the materials needed without arousing suspicion. I told them that we were trying to develop a new type of hard drive; an optical medium to be used in mobile phones. They did an excellent job and didn’t ask questions, which is why they were paid so well and have all since retired.’
‘Okay, but how did they know how to build these things?’ asked David. ‘I mean, the data is encrypted on these discs in a completely new way. It’s nothing that could have been stored in any other compound, nothing save this exact molecular structure. Where did you get the spec?’
‘The “spec”?’ the intelligence officer asked, not quite understanding.
‘The specifications? The requirements?’
‘Oh, yes, well … all the technology was provided by The Society. They sent the plans to me and I passed them on to these men. It was all, how you say? Gobbled-gook? Yes, it was all gobbled-gook to me. They were very secretive in how they released the information, making sure no one had enough to understand the whole picture.’
It was Shaun’s turn to break in with the question he had been burning to ask for the entire afternoon.
‘The Society? Who exactly are The Society?’ he asked, staring straight into Giovanni’s eyes.
‘Who are they? Yes. That is something I would like to know myself. “The Society for World Historical Accuracy.” It is nothing more than a name to me. All I know is that The Society … well, they are the ones who seem to have the controlling hand in all this. Limitless funds, unparalleled technology. They started all this, although why they did so I do not know, save that perhaps they really wanted an accurate historical record.’
‘I thought it was Nicholas II who commissioned all of this?’ Shaun put in.
‘Ah, yes, well …’ the Italian waved his hand. ‘It depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? It was the Holy Father, may God rest his soul, who approached me personally, but through my liaison I have come to understand that it is The Society who pulls the strings. It is they who provide the instructions; I simply use the resources at my disposal to make things happen. No one can pull more favours than the Pope, and I believe that The Society somehow convinced him to become involved. He was their “Angel investor”, as you Americans put it.’
‘Then, where are they? Where is this Society? How do I contact them?’
‘How indeed!’ Giovanni laughed his full belly laugh. ‘Until my dealin
gs with The Society, I would have said that the Vatican had perhaps the most professional, resourceful and secretive intelligence operation in the world. But now … well … I still don’t know anything about The Society. All I could ever find was a phone number that diverts to an answering machine for a video store. It is a cover, of course, but when The Society wishes to make contact, they do. I have only ever met one of their junior agents, who does nothing more than silently deliver messages to me. I have tried to trace him but have never been successful. This Society seems to possess a technology greater than our own. Indeed, it was a blueprint handed to me one day that allowed the construction of The Facility.’
Shaun and David both pricked up at the mention of the word, recognising the reference from the diary. Shaun’s eyes reflectively darted to his stomach, where he had the diary tucked into his belt, adding the look of a few extra pounds to his stature.
‘Then it is The Society that is responsible for Lauren’s death?’ Shaun asked, again fixing Giovanni’s gaze. The old Italian man drew a deep breath and sighed.
‘I … I do not know. If I am honest with you, I do not know, although I think not, but I could not rule it out. There is nothing in my experience to suggest that The Society would kill an innocent. I think that perhaps these people you say chased you and your wife were from somewhere else.’
‘How do I know that you didn’t send them?’ Shaun said, accusation creeping into his tone.
‘You do not. You do not know this. All you have is my word, and the fact is that if I had wanted to kill you, I could have done so one hundred times over by now. Mr Strickland, in my world, trust is a very important thing. It is the ultimate accolade to attain someone’s trust. It is the one thing that you can never be certain of, but very often you have no choice but to give it. It is a little something that my life revolves around, a little something called faith. You have to trust me when I say that I did not kill your wife, and that I do not know who did.’
Shaun held his gaze a moment longer, then looked away. ‘Fine.’
