by Alex Thomas
55
Catherine had hardly slept all night. The dreams had barely given her two hours of peace. It appeared that the recollections in Benelli’s mind that had somehow passed on to her through their energy transmission were fighting their way through her subconscious. She had once again had fragmented dreams about the anointed and his twelve disciples, mostly in a wakeful state. Whatever the dead cardinal had done to her to ensure she could strengthen the Pope, it now made her see things that she couldn’t understand and utterly confused her. The disciples in her visions were other powers than those she knew from the Bible. What did this red book in the cabinet that Benelli had already shown her three times have to do with her mission?
In the wee morning hours she had met Sister Thea, dressed in a black hooded robe, in the Vatican gardens. When she began her duties in the papal household, she learned, thanks to one of her nun colleagues, about a sudden meeting between Pope Leo and several of the Cardinals of the Curia in the papal dining room. Several of the nuns had prepared a rich French meal in the morning and arranged for the respective drink selection at the table. Just as Catherine had finished her duties and wanted to leave, Leo asked her to be present at the meeting, disguised as one of the serving nuns that brought the food and saw to it that the light and somewhat stronger drinks didn’t run out. The Pope was certain her presence would help at the pending meeting. He was still suffering from shock after his last collapse. As the head of the Church he couldn’t afford to show the slightest sign of weakness.
Cardinal Ricardo, the head of the Vatican bank, was the first to appear in the papal living area. Then came Cardinals Gasperetti and Monti whom Catherine had met during the reception at the Benelli villa. Right before the meal was served, Cardinal Ciban arrived. He gave Catherine a brief, inconspicuous look filled with a slight surprise, then took a seat with the other cardinals and Leo at the table.
It was the first – and most likely the last – time that Catherine was witness to such a secret consistory. She would most likely get to hear things that no outsider ever would. The situation must have made Ciban most unsettled. The other cardinals paid no attention to either her or the other serving nuns. No one seemed to recognise her in the heavy clothing and thick glasses.
After praying, the cardinals ate together with the Pope. Catherine noticed that the group had known each other a long time. During their conversation about top Vatican politics, no one felt the need to play games. Gasperetti and Monti in particular laid their political views as a counterweight to Leo’s perspective politely, yet firmly on the table. From the outside, it appeared the group had no animosities toward one another, even if Catherine could sense a certain level of tension.
"In the interests of the Church, we should be careful with such claims," said Gasperetti, turning to Ciban with a slightly scornful tone: "You haven’t said much today, Marc. Or have we already risked our necks with careless talk in your eyes?"
"We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, Steffano. I am quite familiar with the list of evils against which our Church has to struggle, including old and many new tyrannies."
"Do I sense a mutiny?" asked Cardinal Ricardo with a roguish grin. "That isn’t like you."
"In what way, Leonardo?"
"In every way, if you ask me."
Ciban laughed. He had an extraordinarily pleasant laugh. "One to zero. Your point. Is there any way for me to escape your judgement?"
"Well then I have no doubt that you already see this possibility."
Catherine went around the table, pouring more wine. When she refilled Monti’s glass, he suddenly asked her: "What do you think of all this, Sister?"
She was just able to catch herself before spilling wine all over the cardinal’s robe. Even at the reception she had found his presence to be extremely unpleasant. Bringing her voice down an octave, she replied: "I beg your pardon, Eminence, but I know nothing about politics. It is a completely foreign world to me."
Monti accepted her response with a generous smile, but he wouldn’t let her go so fast. "You must be new here, Sister. I don’t remember having ever seen you in the papal household before. Where are you from?"
"From Maine," said Catherine, moving on to Gasperetti’s wine glass. She had spent some time with relatives in Maine as a child because her mother had needed to stay in hospital after a difficult operation. Back then she had known nothing about Darius or the Institute’s existence.
Gasperetti said: "I spent my last holiday in Maine. A beautiful area."
"Oh yes, it most definitely is, Eminence." Although Gasperetti seemed relaxed and friendly, his presence made Catherine feel extremely ill at ease. Or was this uneasy feeling simply coming from the fact that he had unexpectedly responded to her comment? "Especially in the fall."
Gasperetti nodded. "That’s true. The Indian summer in New England is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. And believe me when I say I’ve seen quite of few of them in my lifetime."
Catherine shifted her weight from one foot to the other. It could very well be that Gasperetti didn’t buy her story about Maine. On the other hand, what could make him doubt it? "If you would excuse me. The buffet…"
"But of course, Sister," replied the cardinal calmly. "We wouldn’t want to embarrass you. Please excuse our curiosity."
Catherine accepted the apology with a silent nod and hurried back to the buffet with her heart racing. She acted as if she was helping one of the nuns by cleaning up and seeing that everything was in order. In reality she had to fight off an inexplicably strong feeling of anxiety just like the encounter with Monsignor deRossi in front of the chapel in Benelli’s villa.
After she had completed her work at the buffet and turned back to the large dining table, she played with the idea of applying her gift to see the group’s aura. But at the present moment it would have taken her too much energy afterwards to protect herself from their radiance. To let the mental shield fall was quite easy. It was like dropping water from a tall mountaintop. But to build the protective shield back up took enormous strength. Catherine hadn’t let the shield fall since she had turned her back on Lux. And she had never regretted it for a single moment.
But perhaps she would be able to risk taking a quick, inconspicuous look through the shield?
She carefully felt her way through an entire series of protective veils surrounding her, step-by-step. With every veil she left behind, she came one step closer to the mental reality. Sometimes it seemed to her to be an inferno of both hot and cold, or no, more like a swirl of smoke made of darkness and light. Halfway through she took pause. She could go here and no further if she didn’t want to lose control. From this distance she couldn’t see very well because there were still quite a few veils between her and the auras, but it was better than nothing.
She looked at the table at which the Pope sat with his cardinals. Everything appeared to be dipped in an oddly exaggerated atmosphere as if looking through night vision goggles. Even the furniture looked as if it were exuding slightly crackling radiation. Catherine was reminded of the bizarre photo gallery of the "Corona" project at the Institute that she had seen as a child. Only this obscure exploration wasn’t nearly as colourful.
Leo’s aura was a mild blue and white as far as Catherine could tell. Monti’s body was covered in a red light with a bit of yellow and orange-coloured bits. It was a very selfish, strong aura. A smaller, flamboyant light storm containing all ranges of colour raged around Ricardo while Gasperetti’s aura looked like that of a tiger, ready to pounce at any given moment. She wondered why the cardinal sat ready to ambush. But perhaps that was what had made her so fearful and she had thought it was all about her.
She looked over to Ciban’s chair, only to discover to her dismay that it was empty.
"Retreat slowly, Sister, before Cardinal Gasperetti notices your exploration." Ciban’s voice was barely a whisper in her ear, but its powerful tone commanded respect. He had come up next to her to serve himself at the buffe
t without her even noticing. "For him life is about fighting. He is one of the Lux leaders. He knows every detail of your file, not to mention your mental powers."
Catherine held her breath for a moment. Had Ciban been able to register her careful exploration? Did he have psychic powers too? It seemed more and more likely that he too had been a product of the Lux institutes.
Protected by the prefect, she retreated from her exploration veil for veil. When she had halfway collected herself and had the situation back under control, Ciban asked rather loudly and lively which type of fruit she might advise for dessert. She suggested the fruits from one of the Roman plantations as they had been freshly picked and tasted delicious. Ciban thanked her, gave her a warning, yet calming look and returned to his place at the Pope’s table.
It was only later when Catherine was back in her room that she realised the cardinal had not only wanted to save her the embarrassment of being exposed, but that he too in his elegant manner wanted to evade her exploration. There was no doubt about it. He too was a psychic.
She realised something else in that moment too: Ciban knew virtually everything about her and she knew next to nothing about him. She couldn’t say she liked it. Of course a lot of stories about the prefect shot through her mind, but they were only stories circulating all around Rome and the Vatican. You had to take what the media said with a grain of salt anyway.
All she knew for certain was that His Holiness trusted Ciban. But what was now more important to her was whether Benelli had trusted the prefect. What had the white-haired cardinal meant during the reception when he had told her and Ciban: "After all, it isn’t the mind, but rather the heart that connects equals, right?"
She sighed because she had no idea anyway what she should think. She somehow had the feeling that fate was more than challenging her through Benelli’s invention and that she hadn’t stood a chance to do anything about it in the first place.
Catherine got up, went to her desk and grabbed her mobile phone to check if she had any messages.
To her delight she discovered a text message from Ben in her inbox.
56
DeRossi left the computer on, running out of his sick colleague’s office into the hallway and back into his own around the corner. At the same time a troupe of Vigilanza appeared from the lift on the other side, storming the tiny room on the first floor of the Apostolic Palace.
The Monsignor immediately sat back down at his desk that was piled with so many files that it appeared as if he had been working hard the entire time and had not moved.
That was a close call. Too close. He hadn’t even been able to find out anything anonymously that he had wanted to from his sick colleague’s computer. What was behind this darn LUKE? Why had that wimp Hawlett asked the young priest to search for the term in the Lux database? Because the young priest had come across it during his investigations, LUKE must have something to do with deRossi’s jobs. With the master’s mission.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in!" he said without allowing his inner turmoil to shine through.
"Pardon the interruption, Father," said one of the Vatican policemen as he entered the room. "Have you noticed anything suspicious in the past few minutes?"
DeRossi looked up from his files with tired eyes. "Pardon? Why would you think I could have noticed anything suspicious here?"
"Did someone just run down the hallway?"
DeRossi shook his head. "I haven’t left the room all morning."
"Who usually works in the office on the other side of the hallway next to the lift?"
"Monsignor Bloch. Why?"
"Have you already seen the Monsignor today?"
"No." DeRossi pointed to the mountain of papers in front of him. "If you would excuse me, please. I really have a lot of work to do. If you’d like, I can give Monsignor Bloch a message as soon as I see him."
"Thank you, Father. That won’t be necessary."
The Vatican policemen left the Monsignor's office, closing the door behind him. DeRossi blew out the air in his lungs and leaned back in his chair. The Vigilanza had gotten there faster than he had anticipated. Lux obviously had very solid connections. Or the Vatican police had been alerted to Abel’s breaking into the Lux database. He relaxed his expression. Now it would be Bloch’s problem and then the spy’s trail would dead end. Alright then. His attempt to find something out about LUKE had failed, but he ultimately had better things to do.
He fished out one of the files from the chaos on his desk that no one would ever have expected to be there if he hadn’t know of its existence. The binder contained everything he needed to know about Sister Thea and her habits. The director of the Vatican’s Internet office had a rather impressive résumé for a woman. Through his research deRossi had discovered she had an unusual hobby that she practiced under a pseudonym. Sister Thea loved to draw caricatures with ironic commentaries. She stopped at nothing even with the cardinals such as Gasperetti and Monti. Even Pope Innocence had come under fire in one of her most brilliant pieces of artwork. The caricature showed a heroic Pope standing on one of the seven hills of Rome, swinging an enormous banner with his papal coat of arms and screaming at the top of his lungs: "Follow me!" In truth only a handful of prelates followed him while the rest of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith walked in the opposite direction toward the future.
As predicted, deRossi had seen Sister Thea in the Vatican gardens this morning with that unholy rebel Sister Catherine over whom the Congregation sat in judgement. Both women remained in front of the Grotta di Lourdes as if they had seen a ghost. Well then, both Sister Thea and Sister Catherine had quite an imagination.
DeRossi looked at the clock. Half of his time was up and his plan to eliminate the Internet office director was still not fully in place. If only he had already discovered what LUKE meant.
57
Ben entered St. Peter’s Basilica through one of the side gates. Tourists and pilgrims were milling around, impressed by the architectonic and spiritual splendour in the gigantic church. The apse and chapel of the Cattedra were blocked off for Mass. Some of the confessionals in which the usual languages were spoken were occupied by confessors.
Ben paid no attention to either the apse or the enormous papal tombstones. He knelt down briefly at the main altar. He stopped in front of the grottos’ entrance somewhat away from the papal altar. He hadn’t seen Cardinal Ciban for the rest of the day. Instead he had handed in his report for the prefect in a sealed envelope to the Secretariat and had made his way to meet Catherine.
Ben continued to look around the large church. No trace of Catherine. Just as he was about to give up the search, even though he could hardly believe she would ever blow him off, he noticed a chubby nun with horn-rimmed glasses near the confessionals. Holding a bouquet of flowers, she waddled toward him.
"Are you looking for Sister Catherine, Father?"
"Yes, Sister. Could you tell me where she is?"
The chubby nun scrunched her nose. Ben noticed the horrific wart on her face. Were there two hairs sprouting from it? It took all his strength to pull his attention away from it.
"I should tell you that Sister Catherine is already here."
"And where might that be?" He looked around discreetly.
"Right in front of you," replied Catherine quietly in her own voice.
"What?" He gave the disfigured nun the once over. "You?"
Catherine laughed softly. "Cardinal Ciban arranged for the costume so that my presence in the papal household wouldn’t cause a stir." She threw a telling look through the cathedral hall. "Interesting meeting place."
"It’s about to get even more interesting." Ben opened the door to the grottos. "There is an entrance to the tomb of St. Peter that is not open to the public. We can talk privately in the underground chapel without being disturbed."
The young woman knew that St. Peter’s Basilica would never have existed without the tomb of St. Peter. The cathedral’s dome a
nd the high altar with Bernini’s canopy towered directly over the necropolis with the tomb of St. Peter.
They descended many tight, stony and badly lit stairs into the depths until they entered a low tunnel with raw brick walls. Catherine carefully followed Ben past several heavy iron gates that secured corridors off the right and left. Most likely most of the side tunnels led to an old Roman cemetery that lay beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Ben finally stopped in front of one of the unofficial entrances, opened one of the iron doors and led his companion to a surprisingly large, cave-like room that looked like an underground chapel. A hidden light bathed the room in a surreal twilight-like atmosphere. Catherine could see two church pews at the edge of the semi-darkness.
"We are very close to the tomb of St. Peter," explained Ben as he pointed to one of the naked, whitewashed walls. He placed the bag that he had brought with him onto the back pew.
"How’s it going between you and the Pope?"
"It is going well. His Holiness is a very amiable human being. Only with every day that passes, I keep losing more and more of Benelli’s energy and I’m not certain as to whether my own is enough to protect the Pope. What did you find out in Calcutta?"
"You know about it?"
Catherine nodded. "His Holiness suffered a collapse when Sister Silvia died. I felt it directly. Then I asked Cardinal Ciban about it."
"Of course." He understood. "The connection that Benelli created between you and His Holiness – What about your dreams? Are they still so…abstruse?"
"They couldn’t be any crazier. Even your boss caught me daydreaming." She told him about her visions, the encounter with Judas Iscariot on the Mount of Olives, her participation in the Last Supper, the betrayal of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion and resurrection and the fact that Sylvester, Isabella, Darius and Silvia had appeared to her in the form of the apostles in Jerusalem and Galilee. Up until now she had kept everything to herself, but now the words just spouted out of her as if a dam had been broken. After she was finished, Ben remained very quiet, so much so that she had to ask herself if he might question her sanity after all. She knew herself how crazy it all sounded, but she had truly experienced all of these visions and religious appearances as if they had been the most authentic of present realities.
